Yum!

I'm really trying to embrace the "Life should be awesome" philosophy of The Foodist and only eat incredibly wonderful food, the best of which only comes from cooking at home with incredibly wonderful ingredients.  I'm really really trying, but it's really really hard.  So far, I seem to have convinced myself really wonderful food is totally worth it, and that is helping me pass up much less-than-wonderful food.  But getting fresh wonderful ingredients and finding time to cook from them is hard. But very rewarding, I have to say.  And I couldn't have picked a better time of year to try this.  I am making medium sized batches of everything, because prepared vegetables and meat stay awesomely good longer than their untreated forms.

I had a farm-delivery perfectly ripe small cantalope for breakfast, with a "parmesan cracker" I made last night after dinner. For lunch, I had the last of last week's airy cabbage cole slaw (which was still good, though losing its luster) and a left over magnificent crab cake from Sunday's epic three hour lunch out.  For dinner, I was on my own but knew I had a house full of vegetables that really needed attending to.

I made this tonight! Mine looked almost as good and was YUM!

Imagine my surprise to sit down to read the NY Times tonight after work to find a recipe for corn, squash, and tomatoes. OK, maybe not so surprising given the season. But, I was planning to cook my corn, squash and tomatoes I just happened to have sitting around. And this was Thai influenced, not yet another olive oil and basil thing. Cooked in coconut oil, with cilantro and (yes) basil, and garlic and ginger.  And I had every single ingredient (except vidalia rather than red onions).  So of course I had to make it.

I sat down to eat an hour and fifteen minutes after I started cooking. But, I also made chicken (with bottled Thai green curry sauce) and roasted a couple of eggplants that also needed cooking, which I plan to use a different night. My word, the eggplant is good - I ate a couple of pieces after my dinner, standing up in the kitchen, and had to consciously stop myself from making a whole second dinner!

Dinner was - very good. The chicken was what I expected - it is organic and from Whole Foods - and the sauce was good and meshed well with the vegetables. I'm really focusing on the vegetables, trying to put the time and effort into them, and making them the centerpiece of my plate.  Very good, even though the corn and squash were past their prime, still very summery.

Now I have leftovers for several more days of lunches and solitary dinners, while my girl is off visiting family in Ohio. No more 75 minute meals. 

So I'm sitting here all virtuous about all this lovely deliciousness I've created, when there comes a knock at the door. It's the UPS guy, who dropped off a small box I wasn't expecting. I finally figured out it was a sweet food gift from the company that replaced my roof at great expense a couple of months ago. "Oh no" I'm thinking, "here I've just stuffed myself on vegetables and someone walks right up and hands me dessert!!!"  But the good news is it's very resistable, even though good. It is a tin of pretzels enrobed in some airy sugary white confection - nary a scrap of chocolate to be seen, thank goodness. I had a couple (just to be polite to the imaginary person from the roofing company who ordered them, you understand). They are tasty - but they also pretty much embody everything I'm trying to avoid - white flour and sugar and not much else!  Off to work they go tomorrow.

But still, today was totally YUM!  And I think I'm well poised to make tomorrow similar, but with a lot less work.