What We Are Eating

Several months ago I stopped listing what we were eating each day as I thought I was well on my way to becoming a one-woman cure for insomnia, but I thought some highlights might be of interest--especially for those who are playing along at home and DON'T have the luxury of not working. So, some of the new summer "stand-bys:"

1. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Believe it or not, this has become a breakfast food here at Chateau Sutton-Goar. Of course, we have to make our own bread, buy or make peanut butter without any additives, and we use only homemade jellys or jams, but it's still a peanut butter sandwich at the end. The peanut butter has to be kept in the refrigerator as there is nothing to keep the oil from separating and floating to the top, and that can be difficult to spread on bread, but it still beats the daylights out of eggs.

2. Smoothies. I have become Queen of the Blender. As you might have guessed, plain nonfat yogurt is good for you (like anything that tastes that bad would be sold if it wasn't), so I mix it in with some of the frozen cherries from the June cherry-picking outing, throw in a frozen banana, a little sugar & pure vanilla or real maple syrup for variety, and maybe a sprinkling of freshly-grated nutmeg. I have been known to sneak in wheat germ or ground flax meal as well, or occasionally a few almonds. They're perfect for the really hot days.

3. Grilled chicken sausages. Costco--bless their little retail hearts--has a line of legal chicken sausages, so when my need for something with homemade mustard & smothered with homemade pickles gets too great, we grill sausages, serve them on homemade bread, slather them with my latest mustard, and plow through half a jar of pickles. Hey, not like we're going to run out of them or anything.

4. "Frittatas." The recipes you'll find for frittatas in most cookbooks probably allow a great deal more egg than I do. Personally, it needs to be there for the protein, but if it can be easily identified there aren't enough vegetables. I saute a lot of vegetables, and then add two beaten eggs and mix them in. I used to try to get them to come out as a true frittata (able to be served as a wedge) but that required too much egg. I am learning to tolerate eggs this year....liking them just isn't going to happen.

5. Hot cereal with nuts or peanut butter added for protein. Sometimes it's about nutrition, not taste.

6. Potato stir fry. Did I mention we planted potatoes in the garden? I chop them up and stir fry them in a nonstick pan (so they don't need any oil), and throw in whatever vegetables are available. Toss in a little feta cheese or monterey jack cheese at the very end if desired.

7. Salads.

8. Meusli: yogurt, fruit, nuts, dried fruit, grains all mixed together and often chilled in the refrigerator overnight. I'm still a bit hit-or-miss on this as I seem incapable of remembering what I've done before, so a few of these have gone down the garbage disposal.

9. Grilled vegetables

10. Salmon with fresh dill sauce (until the dill died) and now with lemon-sage mustard.

11. And for serious desperation: a scoop of natural peanut butter all by itself. As I said, that's for the "hungry right now" moments.

I still cook quite a bit, and this is not an exhaustive list by any means, but when I'm out of creativity, these are my stand-bys. When I'm more creative, we tend to eat better. This weekend I made a surprisingly good pizza with our first buttercup squash, and a wonderful squash-Gorgonzola soup during our little cold snap. The peppers are really getting going in the garden, so the next few weeks should involve a spurt of stuffed pepper variations.

And hopefully a few tomatoes!!!