Friday five.

We have a pretty sweet kitchen at our current farmstay and I've been going a bit nuts with the homemade meals. Last night I accidentally recreated the Whole Bowl's Bowl:

Or something like it, anyway. Their version has brown rice, red and black beans, fresh avocado, salsa, black olives, sour cream, Tillamook cheddar, cilantro, Tali Sauce and "trace amounts of attitude."

Mine had local ingredients (parsley from the garden, local Hawaiian onion and sea salt, kale and a jalapeno pepper from the U-Pick garden up the road) and not quite local ingredients (1.5 cans diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, 2 cans black beans, 3 cloves garlic and 4 chopped carrots from California, dried oregano from Australia, generic black pepper, brown rice from somewhere, frozen corn from I-don't-want-to-know-where).

I had a bad day yesterday so there were definitely "trace amounts of attitude" in my version as well.

Here's what I did, in five easy steps:

1. Saute carrots and onion until the aroma permeates the kitchen.
2. Add garlic, jalapeno pepper, kale, salt, pepper, oregano, and everything canned and frozen.  
3. Bring to a boil, then simmer 20 minutes or until you can't wait any longer.  Throw parsley in during the last 5 minutes or so.
4. Serve over brown rice with a blob of shredded cheese on top, along with a simple side salad of local greens and palmelo from the backyard.
5. Top bowl and salad with this amazing dressing (backyard avocados and lemons, of course!) and crushed tortilla chips.

My main goal was to use up all the veggie bits and pieces in the fridge and all the canned food we'd bought when we got here 10 days ago and hadn't touched.  My secondary goal was to make something that would last as long as possible so that we could prolong the 5-mile-return walk to the supermarket until next week.

Pretty sure I succeeded on both those fronts - we'll get four meals each out of this "bowl," which works out to roughly $1/person/meal, which by Hawaiian cost standards is pretty remarkable.

I totally winged the recipe.  It's just chili, so it wasn't rocket science, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.  I also think mine was better than Whole Bowl's.

See?  Attitude!  (But just a trace...)

Soup, week thirteen: Moroccan spiced chickpea and lentil.

Really?  Thirteen weeks in a quarter?  Really? 

Not that I'm not loving all these soups... I've just got other shit to do right now.

Anyway, file this one under "Whole Foods - Who Knew?"  I was on a quest to use up some lentils.  We had almost everything handy and just had to purchase the fresh onion, fennel and jalapeno. 

it. was. delicious.

And it continues to be delicious - the recipe made enough for dinner Sunday and three days of leftovers for two people.  I think that works out to about $0.38 per serving or something ridiculous like that.  Definitely a recipe to take on the road!

File under: Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow.

really, you would think
i'd remember that french fries
are not a good thing

Soup, week twelve: Smitten Kitchen's chana masala.

I ran across this lovely recipe on Wannabe Chef's blog the other day.  It looked so simple and delicious, and the best part was that we already had all the spices on hand except the amchoor powder - but even she didn't have that and substituted lemon instead.  So we did the same.

let the record show 

that we also used powdered ginger 

and didn't toast the cumin seeds before grinding them 

The verdict?  Hearty.  Healthy.  Uber spicy, bordering on too-spicy-but-not-quite.  In other words, absolutely perfect.  I suspect that after two days the flavors will meld in amazing harmony and when we heat it up for lunch I will be able to eat it with rice (which I couldn't do tonight due to a late afternoon cheese snack).

Next week marks the end of this quarterly goal.  As is usually the case with my recipe goals, part of me is happy - these goals are fairly time-intensive and often require more money than I would usually spend at the grocery store. 

The other part of me is going to miss these experiments.  But we now have an arsenal of soup recipes to take with us on the road and share with hosts along the way.  And that can't be a bad thing...

Soup, week eleven: minestrone with collard greens and white beans.

This week's goals: easy, cheap and delicious. Martha came through as usual with this quick, wonderful bowl of goodness.  Added bonuses (boni?): we used most of the frozen beans that have been taking up space all winter, and our favorite quinoa corn muffins were the perfect addition.

his had cheese

mine did not

so that I could eat quinoa corn muffins

Soup, week ten: African chickpea and spinach soup.

I had to work all weekend so my soup duty consisted of finding a recipe.  He did the real work of making the soup... which means that the proportions of peanut butter and spices were a bit elevated.

It turned out wonderfully, and the crisped chickpeas from Smitten Kitchen were a nice addition.

I did at least take this photo

Next time we are tripling the recipe!

Soup, week eight and nine: GF corn chowder and butternut squash, carrot and ginger.

I was out of town last weekend, so yesterday we made two soups to make up for it.  Both recipes were found that morning in about 5 minutes, as opposed to my usual hours of scouring the interwebs for THE PERFECT SOUP.  I think I've finally realized that life is too short for that nonsense.

Soup #8 was based off a question posed to him - "what's one ingredient and/or one type of soup you'd like to try?"  The answer was "chowder", and the caveat was that he'd tried to find a good chowder recipe last weekend but they all contained potato.  So this roasted corn chowder with lime, for which we could easily substitute butternut squash in place of sweet potato, seemed to fit the bill quite nicely. 

I must confess that the note at the end of the recipe about using a crock pot for this soup could have been the driver.  There has been a crock pot in my kitchen since cohabitation over a year ago and I've never used it.  And that just seemed WRONG.

making it right

The photo above was taken before we added the tofu and coconut milk.  It was a squeeze, but it all fit.  Barely.  We tasted it last night but didn't actually enjoy a bowl until this afternoon.  It was lovely - not very creamy, very hearty, very spicy.  And pretty healthy.

Soup #9 was a play off Soup #8 - since we'd have to substitute a little bit of butternut squash for sweet potatoes in that soup, why not just try a nice butternut squash (, carrot, ginger) soup as well, to use up the rest of the butternut squash?  They really had me at the name of the blog - um, "with style and grace"?  Yeah, I am so there.  The soup was delicious.

with style, grace and quinoa corn muffins

Yes, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last quinoa corn muffin, and that also seemed WRONG. We were out of yellow cornmeal so I substituted blue corn meal. I usually find this to be grittier, but in this recipe it somehow worked out. I'm totally sure the lime butter had nothing to do with that.

and so pretty!

I'll almost be sad to see this quarter end.

I won't miss all the dishes though.

Soup, week seven: homemade pho.

Always wanted to try pho, but thought it would be too difficult. This recipe looked easy enough.  So easy, in fact, that we didn't really follow it at all.  We used our homemade vegetable stock, no fish sauce, no soy sauce, more spinach and mushrooms than was called for, regular basil, and rice noodles instead of soba.

(Otherwise, we followed the recipe exactly.  Haha.)

So I'm not sure that what we ended up with technically qualifies as pho, but it was tasty, healthy and lasted all week.  That's all that really matters in the end, right?

it was really pretty, too

Soup, week six: continuing the carrot theme.

With the newfound discovery of lime butter, I decided to go simple and healthy with this week's soup.  That way, when I lopped a big blob of lime butter on the quinoa corn muffins accompanying  the soup, I wouldn't feel so guilty.

So I found this recipe.  It was simple and healthy and delicious.  We had leftovers for lunch most of the week and we were happy to eat them.  My only regrets were not thinking ahead to thaw out our homemade vegetable stock, and running out of cumin during the soup-making (it could've used more cumin).

not as boring as it looks

As an aside, faithful readers may know that we've been making homemade peanut butter, almond milk and almond butter, blue cheese and goddess salad dressing, and various other staples for a while now (in addition to all the other generally healthy recipes we've found that avoid potatoes and wheat). 

So I'm amazed that it took us this long to start making our own vegetable stock.  Pre-food intolerance, I always resisted it because $2.50 seemed a bit excessive for what seemed to be salty brown water.  Post-food intolerance, I couldn't find one without a list of ingredients I was supposed to avoid.  Homemade, it's a great pre-compost reuse and I'm really amazed at what a difference it makes for flavor. 

It also makes your house smell AMAZING.

There are many recipes out there but our approach has simply been to toss carrot and celery ends, onion peels, mushroom stems and any other non-cabbage-like vegetable leftovers into a freezer bag until we have several cups' worth, and then boil them with some salt, pepper and a bay leaf for a few hours.  Strain, freeze, and there you have it...  Just don't forget to thaw it the day before you need it. 

And I can eat them with cheese!

homemade almond milk
equals lots of wasted pulp...
finally! a cure

Soup, week four and five: carrot, quinoa and curried lentil. (And brilliant cornbread.)

We were out of town last weekend.  We ate a lot of delicious food, but we did not make or eat any soup.  So today to make up for it, we made a total mess of the kitchen... and two beautiful soups in the process.

One was a carrot soup I saw a few weeks ago and had been dying to try.  Smitten Kitchen, carrots, tahini, crisped chickpeas... there could not possibly be anything wrong with any of that.  Right?

there wasn't... not one single thing

The soup was like butter... like healthy, vitamin-C-filled, delicious butter you would eat with a spoon... and then go back for seconds... and possibly thirds if you didn't have another amazing soup in front of you.  The crisped chickpeas were a nice touch, and they are officially going to become a staple around here (on salads, in soups, in my hand about to be popped into my mouth, that sort of thing).

The other was a lentil and quinoa soup recipe I found at our lovely hostess's house last weekend. She's big on backpacking with tasty food, and we like to camp and hike with tasty food, so I perused her cookbook collection just looking for easy, me-friendly energy bars and that sort of thing.

I quickly realized I needed to own this cookbook at some point.  It features lots of gluten-free recipes and some really interesting soup ideas - many of which call for a bunch of dehydration and re-hydration (this is a backpacker cookbook, after all) but which also look like they would be just as wonderful without all that nonsense.  This was one of those recipes so I scribbled it down on the back of an envelope and recreated it tonight.

OK, he recreated it tonight.  Whatever.

mine = sans yogurt because of the quinoa
*SIGH*

Spicy and hearty and wholesome and amazing.

We both agreed that these two soups are our favorites so far, this quarter and also out of any other soups we have made this winter.  And we have made some wonderful soups.  Especially after two days this week of leftover aforementioned pumpkin corn soup that had been frozen and defrosted and reheated and still wowed me, all I can say is... that's saying a lot.

To round out the kitchen-mess-extravaganza I also made these amazing black quinoa corn muffins.  (Only I used regular quinoa because that's what we had.)  And OH. MY. they are good. 

I am never eating again

Soup, week three: African peanut quinoa soup.

This one was a no-brainer.  Let's face it, African = spicy, quinoa = protein and peanut butter = awesome.

The recipe called for sweet potatoes but leftover butternut squash from last week's roasted vegetable soup made a nice substitute (when supplemented with a pre-cut half from Whole Foods, roasted while the bacon cooked Sunday morning).

before

after

It needed a little more salt than called for, but I think that's because we made our own peanut butter and didn't add a lot of salt.  Otherwise I am pretty pleased with this one.  And thankful that he got jury duty so that I can enjoy leftovers all week...

Soup, week two: roasted vegetable and kale soup.

I wanted to love this soup.  It was alright, and it made for great leftovers, and it was most definitely healthy... but it didn't wow me. 

not the prettiest soup, either

Totally worth the experiment for the smell of roasted vegetables in our kitchen that day though.

Soup, week one: curry lentil.

I bought a bag of dried lentils a bazillion years ago and never did anything with them, so when this completely easy and delicious recipe caught my eye, we totally went for it during a halftime of football.

And it was awesome.

Our only recommended deviations from the original recipe: go with at least 2 tbsp of curry from the start (we skimped at her recommendation and added a tbsp more or so near the end), and add a few dollops of whole fat yogurt along with the lemon and onion before serving. 

just say yes

I am so excited about the next 11 weeks.

We survived! Hooray.

Now that the world hasn't ended and the holiday madness is starting to subdue, it's time to recap the last 3 months... 

Find free fun - other than teaching English once a week, which is still really fun: check, sort of.  Walks around town are fun.  Photo walks, always fun. 

with my ragtop down so my hair can blow

Not entirely free but most definitely fun: Laurelthirst free music (free if you don't buy a drink or tip the band, but not supporting the pub or the band is lame).  Game night sponsored by Goodwill (chess and 1987's National Geographic are our recent faves, approximately $3 each). 

so, it is down to you

and it is down to me

 also a fave

(but only when I win)

Those are not "free" per se.  Free is nerdy and/or wanderlust and/or local historical DVDs from the library, and OPB - none of which involve getting out and about, or any interaction whatsoever, really.  So, yeah... more to explore in this "free fun" arena.

Branch out on gluten free baking: ehhh.  I made none of the aforementioned recipes, but I did make these (with peppermint extract and candy cane topping, probably should've left both out), and some things from this (transformed into GF goodness when needed), and the aforementioned maple almond butter sandwich cookies.  But rest assured.  I am going to make this soon.  And these.  Maybe.

and we did make this delicious ginormous 

gluten free peppermint ho ho

Finish Wildwood: check!  I SAID, CHECK!!  Yes, I am quite excited about this accomplishment.  After several hundred pages of PhD-level vocabulary, enough references to 12-year-olds doing yoga/meditation to last a lifetime, and constantly getting "Bandit Queen" stuck in my head, I was ready to call it quits. But all of the sudden there was a rabbit using a colander as a helmet which was AWESOME so I plowed onward. I can see how others might love it, and it did make me want to listen to all the albums again.  But I think I'll skip Volume II for now.

Anything on The List. Nothing this quarter but something is coming soon.  A new transmission means that selling my car and therefore, #12, likely looms in my 2013 future.

Speaking of...here's what is in store for January:

• New soup recipe every week:  I love soup.  Really, really love soup.  Soup like this, and this.  Looking forward to three months of delicious soup.  And a lot of lentils, apparently.  

the first "this"

(with fritos)

• Spring cleaning: time to pare down.  Significantly.
• Shamrock Run 2013... Q: what's 9 miles after 13.1?  A: cake.
• And yeah, learn how to drive a stick shift well.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And here... we... go!

Belated Friday five.

Five recipes I've tried and enjoyed recently, in no particular order:

• I used to love Annie's Goddess salad dressing.  LOVE IT.  It was the only salad dressing I used for years, and I would also use it instead of vegenaise on sandwiches, as a dip for grilled cheeses, with pita and falafel...  (I would only buy it on sale, though, because really, $4.50 for a tiny bottle of salad dressing?)  But then came the food intolerance which meant that in addition to soy sauce, xanthum gum and therefore all store-bought salad dressings were out.  Last week we had some leftover tahini after making hummus and I ran across this simple version (with tamari instead of soy sauce) which was pretty close, although I think this one might be better. 
• I'm not a big cauliflower fan, but this roasted cauliflower soup was amazing.  We used cream instead of milk and surprisingly, it wasn't overly rich or heavy.  Roast the onions with the cauliflower and add crumbled bacon to take it over the top.
• Ran across this carrot and leek frittata recipe while looking for something that contained no gluten, potato, dairy, or soy to make for some friends last weekend.  I left the milk out, obviously, but it was really lovely and even looked almost exactly like the picture!
  

  

• Cashew garlic sauce on... something. I can't remember what we put it on, but I remember the cashew sauce I had on the walnut pesto "pizza" at Blossoming Lotus and this was very similar. So easy, so tasty!  It would probably be delicious with the broccoli I'll be steaming to go with the recipe's Wild Mushroom, Lentil and Olive Burgers. Yunno, whenever I get around to that.
• To my surprise and delight, I learned by accident a while back that corn+dairy apparently doesn't have the same gastronomic ill-effects as other grains+dairy (thank you, Fritos, cheese and September road trip).  Have I not posted this cornbread yet?  How is that possible? I think we're on batch #3.  We just keep making it and it just keeps getting better and better.  This last time, we used bacon grease instead of butter, half-and-half yellow and blue corn meal, and muffin tins instead of an 8x8 pan.  The muffins went really well with the aforementioned cauliflower soup and will be going really well with the Mexican corn soup on the menu for later today.

When I got my "diagnosis" this summer, I told my naturopath that I was excited about the challenge ahead of me.  Apparently, I was the only patient she'd had who'd ever had THAT reaction.  I have my weak moments for sure (hello, crappy pizza I had after that show two weeks ago) and I will continue to taste things even if I can't eat/drink them.  But despite all that, the diet continues to be challenging but fun, worth it for the physical/mental health benefits, and oh so delicious at every turn. 

"Where's the turkey, Chuck? Don't you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners?"

It's hard to get excited about Thanksgiving when you can't eat mashed potatoes or gravy.  Just sayin'.

Regardless, we were headed a few hours south for dinner Thursday so I wanted a couple of simple recipes we could make the night before or that morning, that would travel well and not require precious oven space upon arrival. 

I found two from my new hero, The Wannabe Chef, whose motto ("love the ingredients, not the food") and totally simple, mostly gluten-free, handful-of-ingredients recipes won me over a few months ago. 

First came the maple roasted brussel sprouts.  Apparently this maple-syrup-brussel-sprouts business is really common, but it was news to me earlier this week.  Good news, it turns out.  They were a bit overdone but still delicious, and they traveled well. 

not pictured: the brussel sprouts we actually used to make the dish

Next up: maple almond butter sandwich cookies.  I am all for homemade nut butter but I bought pre-made almond butter just for convenience this time.  We used the whole jar for a double batch of the cookies (which took about 3 seconds to whip up, by the way) so I had to improvise for the filling.  After a 10 minute showdown between my As Seen On TV Faboo Quad Pro food processor and the filling ingredients, I decided to settle for chunky almond creme, and I actually think it made for a more interesting texture and tastier filling.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm lazy.

The kids tore into the cookies as soon as we put them out after dinner, probably because they looked like peanut butter cookies and tasted like gingersnaps and had creamy sugary buttery mapley goodness in the middle.  The adults got a few as well.  We set aside a few cookies while packing food that morning (which will go fast) and a few spoonfuls of filling (which will go wonderfully on... something yet to be determined...  pancakes, perhaps?  who am I kidding?  I suspect it will go wonderfully on a spoon on the way to my mouth).

no spoon necessary

Finally we threw together a quinoa pecan salad with parsley, mint and lemon.  I overcooked the quinoa just a bit the night before but in the end it didn't really matter.  So easy, so tasty, so protein-packed! 

 note to self: make more

Couple all of this with turkey, ham, fresh veggies and homemade wine (and maybe some ill-advised cheesecake sans crust too close to the quinoa salad, but only mildly ill-advised) and I'd call my first healthy Thanksgiving a success.

I think that calls for some sausage.

Holy cow, it's almost November.

A little late on the recap.  Hmm... a lot late.  Patience patience patience. 

• practice patience - check... mostly
• get healthy - check... mostly (I looked back through food pictures and many of them prominently feature bacon or sausage, and I'm not doing nearly as much yoga as I'd like, but the gluten-free potato-free diet continues rather successfully and I did start training for a half marathon)
• be crafty - this in June, not so much during 3Q, but 4Q is shaping up nicely (thank you, holiday cards!)
• anything on The List - nothing done but numerous things are in progress (hey 6, 12, 20, 24, 29 - I'm talking to you)

I struggled with the patience goal.  I'm just not a very patient person, especially when it comes to myself and the very high bar I set for everything I do...  Or the lack of time in the day...  Or people in general...  Or work.  Especially not work.  I found that smiling helped a lot at work.  I smiled extra big during a meeting a few weeks ago when I explained that 3Q was up and my patience goal had officially expired.  However, I would like to informally continue this goal.  To help with that, in late September I started a volunteer gig in which I teach English once a week.  I've found this to be a good patience test with the added bonus of it being in a positive and constructive environment. And it's also just terribly fun!

So now the next 3 months:

• find free fun - other than teaching English once a week
• branch out on gluten free baking - it's winter, which means rainy Sundays, which means lots of time in the kitchen with a warm oven and recipes like these
• finish Wildwood
• anything on The List

Why free fun, you ask?  Why not?  Spending money does not guarantee fun or enjoyment, and I'm tired of watching my hard earned cash slip away for an experience I don't remember fondly.  Last weekend we went to the apple tasting festival at the local nursery - a few hours, a full belly of apples, and zero dollars.  (Well, except for the $6 we spent on apples.)  Last night we spent $40 on happy hour and entertainment, and it was alright but not worth $40.

(I just re-read that last paragraph and I think it's safe to say that I'm officially old.  Now ask me about my senior discount, and then get off my lawn!)

The tricky part about the baking goal is that I can't eat dairy and grain together, which eliminates 95% of the recipes I find online.  A while back I said I would still bake with real flour and just not eat the result...  Well, after making apple brownies last weekend and having to see them in the refrigerator every day, that resolution has been thrown out the window.  Perhaps a side effect of this goal will be to find a website actually dedicated to people with my exact food intolerance?  (Or to start one?)

And about Wildwood.  I bought it a year ago.  I even went to the reading and got a signed copy.  I was very excited about it.  Since then I've started it about six times and just can't get into it.  I get tripped up on the expected audience.  Twelve year olds won't know a lot of the words he uses, and 37 year olds don't have patience to look them up.  This makes me sad (faithful readers will know how much I celebrate Mr. Maloy's entire collection) so I will keep trying, and maybe by New Year's Eve I can label it as "read" and move on with my life.

And here... we...  go!

Fun with camping/road trip food. (Really!)

The eight-day road trip was pretty successful, food-wise and overall.  Who knew that gluten, potato, and grain/cheese intolerance on the road could be so easy?  (Of course, it helped that we packed two full grocery bags and a cooler before heading out.)  Here's a quick summary of how we did it...

We started and ended with coffee, bacon and eggs at local diners.  The starting breakfast was much more satisfying than the end.

Cricket Cafe - Day One

Drift Inn (Yachats) - Day Eight

(Although my four-cheese omelette was disappointing, with just a clump of cheese slapped between an egg tortilla of sorts, and the service there is absolutely terrible, I will give it to the Drift Inn - Patrick's spinach/feta frittata was pretty good, dinner the night before was delicious, their food is fresh, and I got to choose polenta over toast/biscuits at breakfast.  This reminder has inspired several polenta dishes recently and I can't wait to explore more of this wonderful food-I-can-eat.  Polenta croutons are next on the list.  As with any breakfast I handed those potatoes over as soon as she set the plate down though.)

And OH MY GOD if you are ever in Yachats go to the Green Salmon and get a cup of their Melitta filtered house coffee.  I don't care if you don't like coffee - just do it. 

Otherwise, camp breakfast was coffee, oatmeal, and whatever additions we felt like that morning: dried cranberries, honey, peanut butter, dried bananas, fresh peaches, slivered almonds, flax and chia seeds were all viable options.  Honey and peanut butter were always chosen.  Good to know that a container of quick cook steel cut oats from Trader Joe's and a bag of Peet's were just the right amount for the week.  Note to self: next time bring cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice!

about 3 minutes before I spilled my coffee the last morning

Road snacks and lunch consisted mostly of rice cakes/peanut butter, Whole Foods Spanish mix, Trader Joe's plantain chips/cheese, and lots of dried and fresh fruit.  However! One simple peanut and safflower oil treat Patrick found in Crescent City inspired me to check Fritos (my road trip weakness) to see if they were safe - AND THEY ARE!  And Trader Joe's has a Frito imitation chip that's way less greasy than the name brand!  All of this information made me very happy.  These peanut poofs made me happy too.

 thank you, Israel!

Dinner was just delicious.  Every single bite, every single night.  And so easy (thanks in part to heavy duty aluminum foil - sorry environment, I make up for it every other day of the year).  The night before we left I made a big batch of quinoa for me and couscous for Patrick, with just a little olive oil and salt and pepper, and this lasted us four days in the cooler and served as the base for the first several dinners.

I also brought along a freezer bag full of spice jars (the basics like rosemary, parsley, oregano, red pepper flakes, plus a few surprises), and we tried to vary the produce with each meal (except for corn, which we ate at every opportunity).  Protein at each meal included either salami, soy curls or fresh fish we picked up that day. 

corn, brussel sprouts, salami, quinoa/couscous

corn, asparagus, snapper, quinoa/couscous

zucchini, carrots, snapper/cod

 fresh oysters - four each gave us a week's worth of iron!
or something ridiculous like that

 precooked brown rice, canned black beans, farmer's market tomatoes, salami

 eggplant, mushrooms, bean threads, soy curls, garam masala

We only ate out a few times...  Once in Brookings when we were really craving a burger but the "best burger joint on the coast" was closed, so we agreed to hit Dick's Kitchen when we were back in Portland and settled on the DoLittle Cafe for a Cobb salad w/oil and vinegar for me, BLAT for him.

Once in Bandon to try the infamous Tony's Crab Shack fish tacos...

pretty good, but not *the best* I've ever had

And dinner and the aforementioned breakfast at the Drift Inn in Yachats.

dungeness crab salad for me

dungeness crab and artichoke bake for him

Dessert was usually peanut butter with dark chocolate (Trader Joe's to the rescue again, with their dark chocolate peanut butter cups).  Except when it was peanut butter fudge, dark chocolate fudge, or some combination of the two.

And yes, there was wine and whiskey involved.  Back in the day Franzia {shudder barf} used to be the only wine-in-a-box option.  Recently I've definitely seen an upswing in the variety of boxed wine at the grocery stores, and since we got back we've leaned toward that because they do seem more eco-friendly.  (And we're not super picky about wine.)  (And we are cheap... er, frugal.)

Bandit and Bota Box wines are surprisingly good.  Black Box, on the other hand, not so good.  And the box is shiny so we couldn't burn it in the campfire.  I didn't stoop to Columbia Crest or any of the other crap I wouldn't buy bottled either, so I have no opinion on those.

You do have to be careful with these boxes though.  There's no way to monitor how much you're drinking unless you count refills, and after a few refills who counts refills?  Not that I learned this from experience or anything.  Really, I didn't.  I'm just supposing.

neither Bandit nor Bota Box -

I had two glasses

So...  After all this, I had only one minor issue, and I think that was the cole slaw from Tony's Crab Shack.  (Not that it was bad - but I think there was some vegetable gum in the dressing or something.)  And even that was fairly painless.  Pretty amazing, and a really good reinforcement of what fresh food can do for you.

Well, fresh food charred with carcinogens and paired with wine in a box, I suppose.

File under: owwwww.

oh stomach issues
how i have soooo not missed you
let me count the ways