Stand-by supper

I'm one of those people who think pasta is one of the four food groups -- a group all its own. I found a tube of pre-ground (almost said pre-chewed) basil, so used to create a pesto for some tortellini from the pantry. No pine nuts, not even my usual substitute of walnuts -- but lucky us, we had ground-up pecans in our 'pesto' for the night.

The green bowl is filled with a big spinach salad, something to round out another supper in The Rattler.

Three...eggy omelet

As year end (and blog-end) approaches, I'm doing my best to use things up. A small bunch of green onions is still in the fridge, unused and hanging about from the Christmas Eve meatball fest. To my eye, they're the start of an omelet.

Along with three eggs (I'm hungry!) and a bit of cheese, supper is ready in no time. Salad on the side makes it perfect.

Five...quick and spicy

After being out for much of the afternoon, I came home cold and hungry.

What could be easier than rolling a couple of tortillas around some refried beans? The last of some jalapeno sauce went in with a bit of water, just so there'd be some liquid to keep the tortillas from going crisp. The hardest part was waiting for my supper to heat through in the oven.

Sure, I could have nuked the dish, but I like the way oven makes things hotter than the microwave seems to, and the way the food holds its heat longer. Or is this just something I imagine?

Whatever, while the two little roll-ups baked, I had time to throw together a bit of a salad, grate some cheese for melting over top of the burritos, and select the hot sauce that would work the best at finishing off the job of spicing things up.

Six...garlic and green

I'm on my own, so I'm having an easy supper with just about my favourite food group, pasta. I got out a package of pre-made ravioli, a 'gourmet' version, stuffed with spinach and cheese. For topping, my starting point is one of the little containersof pesto base I made in early September when the herbs were at their peak. The pesto base needs the addition of more olive oil, Parmesan cheese and nuts. Too lazy to get out the hand-held blender, I just mooshed the oil and pesto together in the pot, then sprinkled the cheese and nuts over top.

The high cost of lettuce this last week means I won't waste any of the spiny bits, so one of my pseudo-Caesar salads gives me an excuse to use the whole piece of lettuce. Besides, there was a half a lemon that needed to be used.

Lots of Parmesan on the salad and the pasta and I am a happy camper, even if I am reeking of garlic. Maybe it's a good thing I'm on my own for a few days!

Plain and good

For stay-at-home Saturday night comfort food, it's hard to beat macaroni and cheese, especially when it's complete with tomatoes and onions. The mixed colours of the pasta almost make it look festive.

With broccoli and a green salad, I'm set for a relaxing night.

Hurry-up lazy

Last night's squash was easy enough to turn into a curryish soup. While that cooked a bit to blend the flavours, some pre-formed (pre-chewed? I hope not) broccoli patty-unit-bites baked in the oven.

Although I restocked supplies of produce, etc. today, there was no time for a salad. Instead, a chunked-up tomato and some cottage cheese.

Onward!

A green and white meal

Maybe I've had too many colourful suppers lately. More likely, it was the ingredients on hand. Whatever the reason, tonight's supper seems limited to foods that are green or white.

A colleague had Brussels sprouts galore, so brought some to work for sharing. And then there were those two avocados in the fruit basket, soft enough that I knew they needed to be used. I'd considered using them for something Mexican, but the arrival of the sprouts made me shift gears to pasta.

Yep, once again it's the old stand-by: linguini with basically a guacamole stirred into the pasta, along with butter and oil and onions and garlic and lots of Parmesan cheese.

Because there was a nub of cauliflower that still looked good, I cooked that in with the sprouts, adding to the green-and-white theme.

Thinking about yet another birthday

The date was actually last Tuesday, but today’s the day I’m honouring Betty, the person whose butter tart recipe I still use every Christmas.

Besides sharing that secret formula, she also taught me how to make the best macaroni and cheese. In fact, she sometimes signs her cards “Mac ‘n Cheese Betty”.

Because I didn’t have any green onions, I used some finely chopped purple onion and chives from the garden. The ingredient that makes this recipe so delicious is lots of chunked-up fresh tomatoes. Luckily, I had three beautifully red and juicy ones.

Sometimese I add onions and tomatoes to the dish everyone knows (and secretly loves), the brand-name boxed version. Yep, it takes it up quite a few notches!

Even if she lives too far away to join us, broccoli and a salad make this a supper worthy of a wonderful birthday gal.


For the record, we even had the last of the traditional birthday-celebrating cake (made by another person named B) for dessert.

Short order supper

If my mother were alive, she'd attest that when I was little I liked doing things for myself. An example of this was placing my own order when we went out to eat. Apparently my standard choice was a grilled cheese 'sammich' and a glass of chocolate milk.

Tonight sees me hosting an event where four writers will be doing short readings of their work. To ensure I get out of here early enough, supper's a short order affair.

It's the same order as long ago, grilled cheese, though I'll admit the 'sammich' is a slightly more grown-up version -- on multigrain bread. There's even a sliced up tomato tucked inside.

But yep, I still like a glass of chocolate milk to go with it!

From nuts to nuts

No soup in the equation, just pasta, slathered in pesto -- and the pesto's full of nuts, another of the about-to-become-forbidden fruits.

The basil out back is nearly bursting out of its pots, so I picked a lot of leaves today and even made a few 'base' batches for over the winter (oil and garlic and basil leaves only). When the time comes, I'll add cheese and some kind of nuts, as I've found that neither of those freeze very well.

There are nuts in the salad, and even in some brownies we snagged at an art show we dropped in on. Totally nuts, eh.

Good 'n grainy

I hadn't really meant for the photo to be so grainy, but I guess that's one of the things that can happen when you're in a hurry. All a result of the fact that I’m needing to go out to a community event tonight.

Because I only have one more day before I need to take a break from grains, I decided to have a rich abundance of them tonight.

The vegie stir-fry is served over top of seasoned bulghur, with sides of corn and tomatoes (both about-to-become-forbidden foods).

For dessert later, I’m planning on a big bowl of blackberries – ones I picked out back earlier this afternoon. I figure, for as long as I'm allowed, I'll indulge in all the seedy delights I can!

Hallelujah, I'm a bum

Don't ask me why, but that song's been in my head for most of the day. It may have arrived in a dream last night, I don't know.

But because I'm on my own for supper, the 100-year-old tune must have played out some influence on me, as I decided on a tin of beans.

I didn't cook 'em in the tin over a campfire, the way a hobo might have, I poured them into a pot on the stove and added a whack of molasses. With toast, and a tomato plucked from the garden, they made a supper fit for a queen -- or at least a meal that was plenty good for me.

Using what's around

How lucky to have such great ingredients lying around, waiting to be used. Last night's supper left half an avocado. Plus -- because they'd been on sale -- there was another one in the fruit basket.

Three different kinds of pasta were lolling about in mostly-empty boxes, so those were the candidates who rose to the occasion.

Because two limes had already been cut, I used those instead of the usual lemon in the standby 'guacamole pasta' dish.

Sadly, the dish wasn't up to its usual standard, so the limes are about all I can blame. Still, neither of us seems hungry, so the food must've done its job.

The 100-Foot Diet

Since the Dear Man is out tonight, it seemed like a good time to experiment. I've wanted to see what kind of meal I could make with only the ingredients on our property -- a vaguely 60 x 100 foot suburban lot. Though since the kitchen's pretty much in the centre of the house, I might be more accurate calling it the 50-foot diet. Whatever.

I cooked some freshly-dug potatoes and in a separate pan, stir-fried two little zucchinis (one green, one golden) with fresh oregano and lots of chopped dill. Oh yes, there was some cheating, I allowed myself the use of both olive oil and salt. Once the potatoes were cooked, I mixed them up with the stir-fry into a surprisingly tasty (and filling!) dish.

Salad was wild lettuce, tomatoes, lots of basil and parsley (along with the cheater products over top).

My drink may have been the most interesting part of the meal: iced tea made from mint, sweetened with the last two of this year's golden plums, with a couple of blackberries tossed in for colour.

There's even dessert for later, a bowl of today's blackberries. Though I must say, it sounded tempting when I heard the ding-a-ling song of the ice cream man going past. I was tempted, not only because the berries usually like some sort of topping, but also because his truck was just at the edge of the walk. So really, wasn't he within the boundaries of this evening's meal?

The simplicity of summer

On Sunday, I set aside one ear of corn for just such an evening as this. With the rice salad from Sunday and a bright red tomato from the neighbour's garden, what could taste better? The topper is the fact that I get to sit outside in the still air and enjoy a meal with the Dear Man himself.

Thursday night bonus

What an easy week of cooking it's been -- leftovers, restaurant food, and tonight, an invitation out.

Today was cool again, so I'd been dreaming about chili, but what we got was even better. A layered casserole of white corn tortillas, alternated with a combination of beans and corn and refried beans and topped with Monterey Jack cheese. Fresh local corn was juicy and sweet. The green salad was full of surprises -- bits of broccoli and a special vinaigrette.

We had to rest before we were ready for the dessert, a spectacular berry pie. The layer of pastry was filled with custard, then topped with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. Really, how much better can summer treats be.

After-event treat

I still tend to think of summer as a time for being lazy. Not.

This morning saw us up with an alarm, then off to the berry farm to pick another round of blueberries. Then, this evening was a fundraising reading, so by the time that was over, it was a reeeally late supper.

Still, the wait was worth it, as we went out to one of our favourite restaurants (again). Tonight's menu was (clockwise, from left) Bombay style garlic fish, chili paneer, and tofu with mushrooms. Pretty spectacular end to a nicely full day.

Pasta Galore

No, that is not a character from James Bond, though this dish is embellished with enough varying tidbits, it could almost spin its own plot.

I topped the basil plants, as they're starting to bolt to flowers. Using flower tops as well as leaves, I made a pesto sauce. I did a stir-fry of garlic stems and zucchini, and cooked some mushrooms in with the pasta, then mooshed it all together for a summery comfort dish.

For sides, there was asparagus (lots of green in this meal!), the Dear Man's famous eggplant spread and, of course, a salad.

Mexi-Solstice

The first day of summer proved to be one of the coolest days in a while, and called for a supper in the oven.

I'm used to having family suppers being 'bi-lingual' (serving vegetarian and more omnivorish tastes), so tonight was no different.

Most of the foods were fine for the veg-types; only one dish required a double-take. The chicken (with spinach and cream cheese) enchiladas had a counterpart using tofu 'chicken breast' product as their base. Where the chicken one was baked in chicken broth, the tofu one was baked in a vegetarian broth.

The refried beans didn't contain lard or chorizo, just beans and onions and garlic and seasonings and oil.

Invited out

A last-minute invitation can be a lot of fun. Luckily, when the phone call came, I hadn’t even started cooking.

And the meal is something we haven’t had in quite a long time (probably not all of 2009), crunchy tacos.

The protein part of the fillings was deliciously seasoned tofu (shredded) along with refried beans. As for the toppings, there was guacamole, tomatoes, cheese, olives, salsa, lettuce -- even green onions. Si, si!