
Breakfast: made 2 fried eggs on buttered toast for myself and my husband, with small banana and half a pear each. We are both home during today's epic blizzard.
Lunch: Lots of leftover tidbits, again shared with husband. Shrimp balls, thin-sliced ribeye, chicken, yu choy, white rice, fava beans, tofu-- just a little of each. That's all the leftovers, jointly demolished (except the cookies).
Dinner: Madhur Jaffrey's Green Beans with Cumin and Fennel; black beans cooked with tomato puree, green onion, and spices; white rice; Guatemalan queso fresco. The green beans, despite having quite a few ingredients (mainly spices) were simple to make and especially delicious. They had enough cayenne pepper in them to give them a kick, as well. As usual, I ignored Jaffrey's instructions re: quantity of salt (1 1/4 t.??), and used my own judgment (about half that). This is crucial if you are going to follow her recipes.
My black beans were so old and hard that they really didn't want to cook up soft, but after about 2 1/2 hours we gave up and ate them. They turned out to be pretty good after all. I was surprised that, having dumped in approximately 20 oz of tomato puree that had been sitting in the refrigerator for a week or two, I found the results pleasant and not at all bland. What was necessary to counteract the too-much-tomato was a larger-than-normal quantity of ground ancho chile, providing a little bit of bite and making my husband comment that "the house smells like chili." We ate the beans and rice topped with a locally-produced Guatemalan-style queso fresco that was absolutely sweet, fresh, and creamy. I couldn't get enough of that cheese.
Snacks: 4 cups of coffee with half and half, 2 regular, 2 decaf. Half a glass of sherry (all that remained) while making dinner. 2 chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Breakfast: made Sunday brunch for myself and my husband with leftover black beans and queso fresco, scrambled eggs, oven-fried potatoes with bulb onions, and a fruit salad of papaya, mango, dragonfruit, and banana. The fruit was so bland and wintry that I had to add sugar and lemon juice to make it palatable, like a midwestern housewife. I've never had a mealy mango before. Ick.

Snacks: 4 cups of coffee, 2 regular, 2 decaf, with half and half. 2 chocolate chip cookies, one in the evening and one at 4:30 a.m. The rest are in a container in the freezer to take to work. Unfortunately, work is closed due to snow. We'll see.