Greek Salad

I've been going heavy on the Greek-ish salad this week. I say "Greek-ish" because I don't really know how authentic these recipes are, but they are good.

Part of the reason is that it is summer.  We're getting the right ingredients from the CSA and the garden.

I cooked up a big pot of chickpeas in the pressure cooker last weekend, then made myself a little salad with cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, goat cheese, and kalamatas.

Then yesterday, I made a  HUGE salad.  We headed to the annual Greek Festival for lunch (gyros! spanakopita!)  Turns out my kid loves gyros too.  We chowed.  The canned lemonade was overpriced.  Live and learn, I should have packed water.  Man, with a baby you end up packing a ton of stuff.  And on the way back to the car, we found a kid on his front stoop selling lemonade and water, way cheaper than at the festival. 

I skipped the Greek salad at the festival (4 gyros were $28 and the lemonade/spanakopita were $16, I was feeling poor).  I was pretty impressed with my 6 year old.  He really wanted to play on the jumpers.  They aren't free at these festivals (like they are at birthday parties).  When he realized that they were $4 for 5 minutes, he decided to go play in the playground instead.  That gives me some ideas for August.  I will be keeping him home in August.  My MIL will be here for 2 weeks, but my spouse will be gone for one of those weeks.  This particular park also has a wading pool (18") for the kids that I think he will like.  I am looking for other things to do during the month.

Sorry about the digression there.  Anyway, I had three tiny tomatoes from last year's tomato plants.  (I think I'm not going to get any from this year's.)  I had peppers, cucumbers, avocado, feta, and kalamatas.  And yummy leafy greens.

So I googled "Greek Salad Dressing recipes" and found THIS ONE.  I wanted one with lemon juice.  This was very good.  I made it in the blender.

Other than this, there's been not a huge amount of cooking.  I made pasta with marinara and chickpeas this week, and another good friend brought over dinner (pasta with sausage).  We've been eating leftovers and salad mostly.  I'm trying to plan for the time when my MIL is here, but it's going to be rough.  Little baby boy here is fussy from 9 pm to midnight, and that's not my calmest, best time.  When my hubby is gone, I'm going to have a hard time.  We did just try out the pacifier yesterday for the first time, and he took it for a few minutes.  I wanted to wait another week until he was 4 weeks old, but the crying was getting to us.

I did make another batch of banana muffins (and now I only have TWO frozen bananas in the freezer!) and another batch of green tomato relish (ended up with 5 pints this time) because we got green tomatoes from the CSA.

Banana bread muffins

I love banana bread.  I have worked on perfecting a healthy banana bread.  I like it, my husband likes it, my kid - not so much.

I buy bananas every week, and then at least one or two end up mushy and in the freezer.  But then the next thing you know, you have 15 bananas in the freezer.  I wish I were exaggerating.  I decided to look for a new muffin recipe that maybe my kid would like, and I found this recipe.

So, when I adjust recipes to healthify them, I do a few things:
1.  cut the sugar
2.  substitute some whole wheat flour for regular
3.  cut the fat by subbing applesauce

On this recipe, I decided to only cut the sugar in the main recipe from 3/4 c to 1/3 c.  I mean, really, the recipe says that it makes 10 muffins.  I got 12.  But 3/4 c sugar is 12 Tbsp (not even counting the streusel topping), so that's 1 Tbsp sugar per muffin, which is a lot.  And bananas are sweet.

In any event, these were awesome.  I have to say that using the full amount of butter and using all regular flour made them moist and fluffy compared to my usual muffins.  Maybe next time I'll try a teeny bit of whole wheat flour.  I also added 1/2 cup of peanut butter chips.  And the topping - I didn't pack my brown sugar, just loosely scooped.

Now if I could only get rid of the fruit flies that seem to love my bananas.

Learning to let go

Not a food related post today people.  Today I'm going to write about learning to let go.  Of your control.

I don't know about you, but I'm a bit of a type-A control freak.  I do best when insanely busy, and I like schedules.  I've got my gym days, my spouse has his.  When I train for my events (running/triathlons), I like keeping a schedule.  I plan out my meals in advance.  And the same thing happens at work too.

But having a baby changes ALL of that.  And it's good for you (and me).  When you are at home nursing a baby, you are completely on someone else's schedule.  Sure, you can wake the baby up with a diaper change if you want to get a feeding in early, or go for a ride in the car to put them to sleep.  But otherwise, your time is not your own.

So you learn to go with it.  Feeding, diapering, cooking, showering - all of this flows organically from one day to the next.  In order to be happy, effective, and efficient - don't fight it.

Baby sleeping extra long?  Eat breakfast before nursing and pumping.

Running late to go somewhere?  Brush your hair and shower later.

In the kitchen making lunch?  Consider doing prep work for dinner.

Baby falls asleep on you after nursing?  Lay your head back and get a 10 min snooze.

I really think that learning to go with the flow has really helped me be more efficient at work.  At work, like at home, I have several things going at once.  If I hit a stumbling block on one project, then I set it aside and work on the next.  I get more done that way.

Potatoes and Fennel

I'm going to fess up: I don't like fennel.  I've never really liked it.  My family feels even more strongly than I do about it.  But the last 2 weeks at the CSA, we've gotten 3 bulbs of fennel.  And the only thing in the trade basket?  More fennel.

So I brought it home.  This week we also got 1 lb of new potatoes (yellow and purple).  We also got an email on how to make great fennel.  And an email on what to do with purslane.  Which is still in the fridge, staring at me when I open the door.  I think the answer to that may be: put into compost.

Anyway, I mixed together the fennel recipe with my roasted onion and potatoes, then threw in some chard because...I never know what to do with chard.  It was delicious!

Roasted potatoes, fennel and onion with steamed chard:
1 lb potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
3 bulbs fennel, sliced 1/8 inch thick and heart removed
1/2 onion, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, sliced
one sprig rosemary, chopped
salt, pepper, olive oil

1 bunch steamed chard
3-4 Tbsp grated parmesan

Prepare the vegetables, garlic, and rosemary and put in a parchment lined pan (if you hate cleaning) and toss with salt, pepper, and olive oil.  Roast at 400F for 30-40 minutes, or until they look right to you, stirring at least once.  Mine looked like this half way through:

Meanwhile, steam the chard, cool it, and chop fine.  When the roasted vegetables are done, stir in the chard and toss with parmesan cheese.

If you forget the garlic and rosemary, like I did, you can add it half way through the cooking time.

Eggs, rice, veggie lunch - baby took a nap!

You never know when your baby's nap is going to be 20 minutes or 2 hours.  Yesterday, he napped long enough that I could make lunch (which took 45 minutes), AND eat it.  I keep Trader Joe's frozen meals on hand for the short nap days.

I shredded 2 zucchinis and a half an onion.  Sauteed them until cooked through and crispy.  Tossed over reheated white rice.  I added some sesame oil and soy sauce to the veggies and rice, then topped with fried eggs.  And sriracha, of course.

The big challenge for me at home in the summer with the baby is the CSA veggies.  Getting through all of them is difficult, and I'm not into planning meals like I was last time around.

Green Tomato Relish

I had a couple of green tomatoes from the CSA, and this recipe came to my inbox.  So I decided to try it.

Now, I didn't have enough to make a big batch.  And I didn't feel like it anyway.  And I learned you should never really work on something that needs to be simmered for an hour when you are nursing a baby, as it's all too easy to lose track of time and burn the crap out of everything.

But I digress.  I scooped out the top and my husband cleaned the burned bits out of the pan.  It's very tasty.

I cut the recipe in 1/4.  I still didn't have enough tomatoes, so I added zucchini.  I cut the hot peppers in half (used only one).  I could have used two.  I'm the only one eating the stuff anyway.  I got about 1 pint. 

Yesterday, I made a ham panini on my George Foreman and slathered it with this tasty stuff.  Yum!

Pesto Potato Salad

I made Joanne's pesto potato salad, and it was delish!

I made adjustments based on what we had.  I used new potatoes (purple and yellow).  No pine nuts (didn't have them), no scallions (ditto), a teeny bit of red onion, and I used tarragon vinegar instead of white balsamic.

My garlic is STRONG though - holy cow.

I think my mother in law would be aghast at using new potatoes...those are to be boiled and served with dill and butter.  Period.  Still good though!