salads

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Three Things Thursday

I am incapable of launching into bullets without some sort of preamble.

New Summer Salad

I made a new-to-me summer salad to take to a friend’s dinner party the other day. A+, delicious, automatic new fave. Of course, because I am incapable of following a recipe as stated, I added blueberries as well. The other slight variations I made, based on recipe comments: I used nectarines instead of peaches, walnuts instead of pinenuts (walnuts are $5.99 at my grocery store; pinenuts are $8.99) (I forgot that I could use pinenuts to make pesto, so maybe I should have shelled out the $8.99), and I added a half teaspoon of honey to the dressing.

Oh! Since I was taking this salad on the road, I had to experiment a little with the best way to keep the nectarines and basil from browning. For the basil, I coated the leaves in a tiny bit of olive oil and gave them a quick chiffonade with a pizza cutter. Then I threw them in a salad bowl with the dry arugula.

For the nectarines, I mixed together two tablespoons of honey and two cups of water, then added the cut nectarines to the mixture for five minutes. After the timer went off, I drained them in a colander, rinsed them with cool water, and laid out them out between two dish towels to dry. Then I popped them into a Tupperware container with the blueberries.

(I found both the honey water and oil coat strategies via multiple sources online, and I was very grateful they worked.)

About five minutes before dinner, I added the dressing to the arugula and basil and tossed everything together until the greens were lightly coated. Then I added half the fruit, nuts, and goat cheese, added a bit more dressing, tossed, and topped with the rest of the fruit, nuts, and goat cheese. It was very tasty and summery and light. I will say that the basil flavor didn’t really pop out at me. I wonder if it all fell to the bottom of the salad bowl? Next time I will do a better job of dispersing the basil throughout.

I was super pleased with how well the nectarines lasted. Here is a photo of them the next morning.  The honey/water combo did not alter their flavor or texture at all.

Hmm. This isn’t the most persuasive photo. I will have to try a before and after at some point. In the meantime, just trust me that they looked and tasted as fresh as the instant I cut them.

Plant Problems

I am feeling some botanical despair. I love plants, and I have accumulated quite a few over the years. But they are not loving their lives, and I feel responsible. I am responsible. They remind me of Heidi, wasting away in Klara Sesemann’s urban mansion, longing for the sun and sky and trees of her grandfather’s alpine cottage. (Why yes, I am reading Heidi to Carla right now.)

Our house is full of windows, and yet it is not particularly sunny. Worse, possibly, is that the areas available for plants are on the north side of the house and get the least light.

I have tried to do my research and buy only plants that supposedly enjoy low light. And yet… they are leggy and/or dead. Even the African violet I bought – which is supposed to thrive in very little light! – is just barely living.

While part of me aches for these poor living things that are trying so valiantly to hang on under my poor care, and wants to nurse them back to health, I have TRIED. I have googled, I have bought special plant food, I have moved them around to different parts of the house, I have repotted several of them. I have babied them, I have left them alone. Nothing is working. Perhaps it is time to replace them? That feels so harsh!!! And also kind of fruitless, because I fear that the replacements will just die anyway.

You know what IS thriving? This mystery plant in my backyard. We had some landscaping work done last fall, moving things around, thinning things out. This space used to hold an enormous hydrangea that was completely overgrown and so old only the very tips were green. We moved some hydrangeas from the front of the house and they seem to be adjusting well to their new home. We also planted a vibirnum in the place where the old hydrangea used to be. Then, this guy showed up.

Wow, two for two on really unhelpful photos today. This plant is approximately four feet tall (so far), has no scent or milky sap, a round stem, multiple stalks coming from the same base, has very gentle fuzz on the leaves and stem, and, from above, has non-serrated leaves with a very pronounced whorled leaf pattern. There are no buds as yet.

I have NO IDEA what it is. It’s acting like a perennial that belongs there, but I have never seen it before. It’s possible that the previous homeowners planted it a long time ago, but then the old hydrangea took over and bullied this guy into submission. Now that the old hydrangea is gone, this little guy can finally shine. This little imaginary scenario, plus some extensive googling, has me thinking it’s a plant and not a weed. My current very non-expert guess is that’s something called an “obedient plant” or some kind of phlox or maybe some kind of aster. I guess we just wait and see if it produces flowers. Unless… do you know what it is?

Physical Therapy Update

I have been seeing a physical therapist twice a week for six weeks for tennis elbow, and just this week I moved to one time a week for the next four weeks. The reduction in pain and the improvement in mobility has been tremendous, and I am so pleased with the experience. Physical therapy is MAGICAL. I mean, it’s also expensive and hard work, but MAGICAL.

It is not, however, a cure. My physical therapist said his goal was for me to see an 80% improvement in pain/mobility. I have zero idea how a person is supposed to quantify such a thing; I still have no idea how to answer the “what is your pain on a scale of 1 to the worst pain you’ve ever experienced” question. But I will say that my arm is greatly improved, to the point that sometimes I don’t even think about it. Sure, I still have some soreness in my elbow. Sometimes I wake up and my arm aches for a while. I definitely still experience pain if I grip something wrong or lift something too heavy or don’t consider the best way to pick something up. But it’s SO MUCH BETTER.

Despite the improvements, it has occurred to me that I may not be able to resume lifting weights for a long time. I miss lifting weights, but I am also not eager to reinjure myself. So I have been dithering a long time about getting some of the same strength training equipment I use at my PT’s office. Two products are currently in my cart: a set of resistance bands with handles and a set of superlong resistance bands. In the office, when I do the exercises the PT prescribes, my arms get pleasantly tired and my muscles feel like they are being challenged. Working with resistance bands really does feel like a workout, even if I’m not sweating buckets or, like, grunting with effort. I am sure I could find some more intense routines online that I could adapt at home.

I’m not really sure why I haven’t just ordered them already. Maybe today.

Obligatory feline
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Grocery Report and Dinners This Week

Something happened today that has never happened before: Carla got a ride home from school with a neighbor. 

(I will pause here to note that I have extreme anxiety about my child traveling in cars with anyone besides a few specific people. Outside of school bus drivers – shudder [and now I feel like I need an aside inside my aside to clarify that I think school bus drivers are saints, and my shudder is not toward them but towards the idea of complete strangers driving a seatbelt-free vehicle full of children on a freeway] – and the occasional hotel shuttle driver, Carla has ridden with a literal handful of drivers. So this was A Big Deal in many ways.) 

I took this glorious opportunity to avoid the school pickup drive and… went to the grocery store. I do know how to live it up, don’t I? It was one of those times when I just needed Two Things For Tonight’s Dinner. I wanted to use up the leftover goat cheese from yesterday’s frittata (which was easy and delicious; the only thing I might change going forward is either choosing a more flavorful sausage or omitting the sausage entirely, because it was undetectable) and the only thing I could think of was a salad. But I wanted blueberries for the salad and also we had no lettuce. So! I figured I could breeze in and get those two things and then breeze out. 

It never works out that way, does it? Have you ever gone into the grocery store, intending to buy only X items, and left with only X items? If so, HOW????? Once I was inside the grocery store, I decided this was IT. I was not going to go to the store again. I went twice last week, plus I went to Costco, and that was too much. So I figured I better on-the-fly come up with a meal plan for the week. 

Let’s see. We have all the ingredients for the meal I planned to make for Mother’s Day dinner, and then decided against in favor of takeout Mexican food. My husband recently expressed a desire for Southwest Salad, and I’m plenty happy doing two salads in a week. I could go for a stir fry. And… something else vegetable-y. 

Here’s what I ended up with.

Dinners for the Week of May 12-18

  • Slow Cooker Shredded Beef Ragu: All the ingredients are in my fridge right now (Well. The pappardelle is in the cupboard. You know what I mean.) because I was hung ho about making this for Mother’s Day and then when it came time to make it… I did not want to cook dinner.
  • Southwest Salad: I make this with chicken for my husband, salmon for myself.
  • Sheet Pan Veggie Shawarma: I have some cilantro from something last week just languishing in the fridge. Hopefully it will survive long enough for me to make it into this sauce.
  • Szechuan Stir Fry: I got zucchini and bell peppers for this stir fry, and I have some broccoli in the fridge I can throw in as well.

Wow. All of my meals start with S this week. That’s fun. (Is it?)

Okay, back to my riveting grocery store experience.

I was really fortunate in that a) I had a lot of the non-perishable ingredients for these meals already and b) I didn’t need a ton in the way of “staples.” But I still bought two bags worth of groceries, for a total of $85.60. That’s probably about half of what I typically spend – maybe even less than half – but it feels like an impossibly small haul of food for that amount, doesn’t it???

The single most expensive item in my cart today was a bag of frozen Italian meatballs for $9.49. This is one of the items of questionable nutrition my child will eat, and we were out. Chicken was next most expensive at $8.09 for three boneless skinless breasts, approximately 1/3 of a pound each. 

The third most expensive item, at $7.99, was the pint of blueberries I bought. I cannot help it; I am addicted to these blueberries. They are enormous and so sweet. I just cannot get enough of them. Of course, they last about five minutes in my home. But it is WORTH IT. 

The dairy stuff we get is super expensive, and we go through it so fast. We drink Fairlife milk ($5.49 for 52 oz) because it supposedly is kinder on some people’s digestive systems, and some of those people live in my house. We eat Fage yogurt ($6.99 for 32 oz) like it’s the fountain of youth because it is so versatile and so high in protein. 

I also got three individual Siggi’s yogurts ($1.00 apiece, on sale) and a package of honey roasted pecans for tonight’s salad ($3.99, yeesh), but the entire rest of my shopping cart was produce. I feel pretty good about that. Which is not to say that I feel BAD when my cart is full of canned beans and pasta and cereal and other packaged food. I just felt like I really overshot my “Two Things” plan, and at least I impulse bought a bunch of veggies, right???

Of course, there was no corn on the cob for the Southwest Salad, and who knows if the two heads of lettuce I got for tonight’s salad will leave enough lettuce for the second salad. So clearly I need to return to the grocery store despite my promises to myself. 

How much do you want to bet I leave with just the corn and the lettuce????

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Cherries, Spectacular Summer Salad, Dinners This Week

First things first: I use frozen cherries in my cherry smoothies. Listen, I love fresh cherries as much as the next gal, but no way am I pitting cherries every morning to feed my raging smoothie habit. Also, have y’all seen how expensive cherries are?! Right now, they are $8.59 a pound at my local grocery store. Frozen, already-pitted cherries, however, are $7.99 for two pounds. I usually turn to Costco for my cherry needs, though, because you can get a five-pound bag for under $15. 

Am I enjoying a luscious cherry smoothie as I write this? Yes, indeed I am. 

Okay! It is Monday and we are already speaking of food, so I will go ahead and ask that you please do me a favor and make my favorite honey chipotle summer salad this week. It is my favorite salad of all time. At least, my favorite SUMMER salad of all time (wouldn’t want to make my favorite fall salad jealous). When I make it for myself and my husband, I make a double portion so I can feast on leftovers for lunch all week.

So many veggies!!!!

And vegetarians! Please do not look away just because this recipe includes chicken! The chicken is incidental to the spectacularity of the salad. What you need is anything that can be marinated and cooked, so that you can bask in the spicy sweet richness of the sauce, which I use as a second dressing.  

This salad is an amalgam of things, so please bear with me. First, I marinate my chicken (or WHATEVER) in the marinade from this recipe. Then I throw it in the oven at 450 until the chicken is cooked and/or the sauce is bubbly and caramelized. 

At some point in the preparation process, I make crispy quinoa, black beans, and a dressing. Sometimes I make the chili lime dressing from this recipe, which is simple and slightly sweet. More recently, I am enamored of this cilantro vinaigrette, which is such a fabulous creamy contrast to the chipotle sauce. I also wash copious amounts of lettuce (I store it in my salad spinner in the fridge with a paper towel on top; it keeps for a few days) and prepare other veggies (usually bell peppers, red onion, avocado, corn, and tomatoes for people who like that kind of thing). (I wrap shucked, washed ears of corn in damp towels and microwave them for three minutes. Then I scrape off the kernels into a bowl and put them in the fridge so they cool off before I put them on the salad.) Then I throw everything together and drizzle with some of the caramelized chipotle sauce. It is a rich, garlicky, spicy-sweet addition that I imagine is similar in some ways to chili crisp (which I have never tried), and it takes the salad to a whole other level.

Well, it doesn’t look like much. But it is SPECTACULAR.

Now that I have fully salad badgered you, let us turn to dinners. 

Hmm. I need some simple and flexible things for this week’s meal plan because it is a call week. 

Dinners for the Week of June 10-June 17

  • Some Sort of Chicken and Asparagus: Depending on the weather, we could grill this or roast it in the oven.
  • Ground Beef Tacos: Easy, plus I have been making the taco meat in the crockpot lately, so it’s very hands-off and can be prepped in advance.
  • Oven Baked Pork Chops with Broccoli: I can prep everything ahead of time and throw the pork chops in the oven when my husband leaves the hospital.
  • Panang Curry: My husband LOVED this the last time I made it, so maybe I will make it for him on Sunday? (It was highly successful on the stovetop, by the way. I used an entire tin of curry paste and added in about two cups of chicken stock, which wasn’t part of the original recipe.)
  • Chickpea Bowls: It’s been awhile since this has been on the docket, and it’s always a good option. As usual, I will probably make a chicken breast for my husband to slice into his bowl, and I will add tons of sliced bell peppers to the sauce to amp up the veggie factor.

That seems like enough options to keep me busy! What are you planning to eat this week? (Please say honey chipotle summer salad.)