What Is Left To Eat? -- a Food Journal by Laura Bracken

For breakfast, I wanted sweet potato toast with hummus, but I didn't feel like hauling out the big food processor so I decided to experiment and see if I could make a small batch of hummus using my mini food processor . Here's what I threw into the food processor: 1 cup cooked (or canned) chickpeas ¼ cup tahini 3 garlic cloves, smashed Juice of one lemon 1/8 cup apple cider vinegar 1/8 cup water Salt  It came out great! For lunch, then, I wanted to use up the rest of my chickpeas so I made a salad with stuff I had in the fridge (red leaf lettuce, cucumber, carrot, celery, and the chickpeas).  Then I decided to make a hummus salad dressing. ¼ cup hummus 1 tablespoon honey (you can use maple syrup for vegan option) 1½ teaspoons dijon mustard 1½ sesame oil (you can try without for oil-free version) 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1/8 cup water I put all the ingredients into one of my awesome plastic containers and shake the heck out of it. Then I drizzled a little over the prepa...

In keeping with my meal plan ( see previous post ) I started work on the Moroccan Shepherd’s Pie because I was having company for dinner.  I am a huge fan of shepherd’s pie… traditional sheperd’s pie… MY homemade shepherd’s pie.  I had to go into this knowing it was going to be nothing like my shepherd’s pie, so I dismissed those expectations immediately.  I decided to think of it in terms of the fact that “sheperd’s pie” traditionally represents peasant food… a mash-up, so to speak, of simple maybe even leftover, inexpensive ingredients.  So I was going to make and serve Moroccan flavored peasant food (in the end I ended up referring to it as “casserole”). This recipe is adapted from a  Forks of Knives cookbook  (which I highly recommend… they also have a lot of  great recipes on their website ). So here’s how *I* ended up doing the recipe: Moroccan Flavors Lentil, Spinach, and Sweet Potato Casserole Click here fo...

I have been NOT taking care of my health and hit another one of those “I have to do this!” marks.   So… here we go again.   I know full well that aside from craving fat, sugar, and salt… my biggest problem areas are in not planning. You see, when I have a day filled to the brim with projects that must get done, it’s hard for me to think about what is involved in healthy eating… because usually for me it would be: do dishes, go grocery shopping, do food prep, then cook.   That’s just WAY too much work when I can instead just slather some peanut butter and honey on top of a banana or toast and be done with a “meal” in 10 minutes flat, from creating to eating. Cleaning, prepping, and cooking can take hours if not all day.   Been there, done that.   So how do I resolve this?   A plan.   I have to have a plan and I have to plan ahead. Step 1: Meal plan. Pick 2 or 3 basic meals that I can mix and match for 3-4 days. Step 2: Use Instacar...