May 29
Breakfast: lemon water first; then a cup of coffee with half and half. Finally, about 9:45 (it's Sunday), I make smoothies for my husband and I: carrot juice, hemp protein powder, avocado, plain yogurt, a few strawberries, a peach, and farm red leaf lettuce. This tastes like a liquid salad. The farm lettuce has a lot more flavor than the romaine I buy at the store.
About 11:45, we decide to head downtown to get brunch at my restaurant. I have an omelette with crab and spring onions inside, broccoli on the side, and an English muffin with butter and jam. 2 cups of coffee with half and half, first a decaf and then a regular. My husband also chooses with careful restraint.
Then we go to the farmer's market, just across the street, where the holiday weekend has made things quieter than usual. It is nice to be able to wander the stalls without the claustrophobia sometimes inherent in fighting one's way through the happy crowd. I buy one big kohlrabi, a paper bag of shiitake mushrooms, a little basket of sweet potatoes, a basket of strawberries, 4 Gold Rush apples (always the first and best in the early summer here), and a bag of kale. We also taste some local wines, then decide on a bottle of hard cider, as a gift for my stepson's girlfriend next time there is a suitable occasion. She likes hard cider and dislikes beer. Total purchases about $40.
In the afternoon, before a 4:00 yoga class, I have a cup of green tea and prepare the Vegan Chocolate Tart with Salted Oat Crust from October's Bon Appetit magazine. It will need to chill for a while, and we'll have it tonight for dessert. The tart is fairly simple to make; I don't have a tart pan, but it works fine in a springform with the crust pressed a little ways up the sides.
Breakfast: lemon water first; then a cup of coffee with half and half. Finally, about 9:45 (it's Sunday), I make smoothies for my husband and I: carrot juice, hemp protein powder, avocado, plain yogurt, a few strawberries, a peach, and farm red leaf lettuce. This tastes like a liquid salad. The farm lettuce has a lot more flavor than the romaine I buy at the store.
About 11:45, we decide to head downtown to get brunch at my restaurant. I have an omelette with crab and spring onions inside, broccoli on the side, and an English muffin with butter and jam. 2 cups of coffee with half and half, first a decaf and then a regular. My husband also chooses with careful restraint.
Then we go to the farmer's market, just across the street, where the holiday weekend has made things quieter than usual. It is nice to be able to wander the stalls without the claustrophobia sometimes inherent in fighting one's way through the happy crowd. I buy one big kohlrabi, a paper bag of shiitake mushrooms, a little basket of sweet potatoes, a basket of strawberries, 4 Gold Rush apples (always the first and best in the early summer here), and a bag of kale. We also taste some local wines, then decide on a bottle of hard cider, as a gift for my stepson's girlfriend next time there is a suitable occasion. She likes hard cider and dislikes beer. Total purchases about $40.
In the afternoon, before a 4:00 yoga class, I have a cup of green tea and prepare the Vegan Chocolate Tart with Salted Oat Crust from October's Bon Appetit magazine. It will need to chill for a while, and we'll have it tonight for dessert. The tart is fairly simple to make; I don't have a tart pan, but it works fine in a springform with the crust pressed a little ways up the sides.
Dinner, after the yoga class, is the Egg Tartines with Asparagus Pesto, Dijon and Pickled Shallots from Smitten Kitchen, with a small fruit salad on the side made of orange, peach, and strawberry. I am the only one who has pickled shallots on my tartines. They are good, but their salty vinegariness does kind of overwhelm the subtle flavor of the asparagus pesto. I think I might dial down both the salt and the vinegar next time (and/or use a better vinegar). Still. I like the tartines a lot.
For dessert, while we start watching The Force Awakens (my kid has seen this on their own and is really excited to share it with us), we eat small pieces of the chocolate tart. It is incredibly rich and intense, so small pieces are exactly what we want. The chocolate is so, so dark, and the coconut oil with which it is blended is so smooth. Totally decadent. I will save another piece each for tomorrow, then take the remainder to work.
May 30
Memorial Day and another work day for me. An ordinary breakfast: lemon water, coffee with half and half, a smoothie made from carrot juice, hemp protein powder, canned coconut milk, plain yogurt, farmer's market strawberries, and CSA farm red leaf lettuce.
Then I go to work, and work I do, very hard. It is busy from the get-go. I do manage to drink a cup of decaf coffee with half and half, over the course of the day, but it is so busy that I forget to offer my coworkers any of the chocolate tart that I have brought and left in the refrigerator. Tomorrow. I leave a little late, about 2:45.
At home, I make coffee, eat a lunch of leftover pasta with oregano pesto and the other half of my tuna melt from Saturday night. After that, I have a cup of peppermint tea. I am exhausted, more than I realized while I was actually working. And sore, and I have cramps and my whole body hurts. Especially and also feet. Eventually I recover and start working on dinner, which has to be begun early, because the beans need long cooking.
Oh, and when I got home from work, my kid was baking. They were making vegan cookies (their girlfriend is vegan) frosted in the colors of various Pride flags. 4 rainbow, 3 non-binary, 3 trans, 3 pansexual, and maybe one or two other things, I forget. Tomorrow is the end-of-year party for the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at their old middle school, an organization my kid and her girlfriend personally started last year. The club is still going strong, and my kid will be paying a guest visit, with cookies.
May 30
Memorial Day and another work day for me. An ordinary breakfast: lemon water, coffee with half and half, a smoothie made from carrot juice, hemp protein powder, canned coconut milk, plain yogurt, farmer's market strawberries, and CSA farm red leaf lettuce.
Then I go to work, and work I do, very hard. It is busy from the get-go. I do manage to drink a cup of decaf coffee with half and half, over the course of the day, but it is so busy that I forget to offer my coworkers any of the chocolate tart that I have brought and left in the refrigerator. Tomorrow. I leave a little late, about 2:45.
At home, I make coffee, eat a lunch of leftover pasta with oregano pesto and the other half of my tuna melt from Saturday night. After that, I have a cup of peppermint tea. I am exhausted, more than I realized while I was actually working. And sore, and I have cramps and my whole body hurts. Especially and also feet. Eventually I recover and start working on dinner, which has to be begun early, because the beans need long cooking.
Oh, and when I got home from work, my kid was baking. They were making vegan cookies (their girlfriend is vegan) frosted in the colors of various Pride flags. 4 rainbow, 3 non-binary, 3 trans, 3 pansexual, and maybe one or two other things, I forget. Tomorrow is the end-of-year party for the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at their old middle school, an organization my kid and her girlfriend personally started last year. The club is still going strong, and my kid will be paying a guest visit, with cookies.
Dinner is Madhur Jaffrey's Spinach with Tomato (Saag) recipe, some black beans with Indian-ish flavorings, whole wheat pitas, and plain yogurt. The black beans are still a little undercooked by the time we eat; also, I added too much seasoning, I feel. My kid, however, says they especially like them. I'm glad to know they (the beans, not the kid) are not inherently unpleasant. The saag has a good flavor. I've used a couple of the fresh onions from the farm, complete with scapes, instead of yellow onions. I'm always stunned, though, at how much spinach has to be purchased in order to make a substantial spinach dish like this. For the saag, which made about 5 decent side-dish servings, I used some spinach from the CSA farm in addition to 2 full 1 lb. containers from Whole Foods. Those are the big containers. The smaller boxes and bags are typically 5 oz. Over $10 worth of spinach. I guess that is still only $2/serving, less than you would pay in a restaurant... but somehow painful when you are laying down $20 on spinach on a single shopping trip (there is another spinach recipe to come, later in the week).
In the evening after dinner, while watching the rest of The Force Awakens, I eat my second allotted piece of chocolate tart.