Stories from the last few weeks, Part III- Assorted Food Randomness

This is my first attempt at bread. I wanted to put sun dried tomatoes, olives, and garlic in the loaf. So I did. It looked so darn good, I ignored the part of the recipe that said "let it cool before you cut into it." Then I forgot that instruction altogether and couldn't figure out why my bread never seemed cooked. Turns out the cooling process is important. I'm pleased to report I finally figured it out, more on that later.



I bought lots of avocados the last time I went to the grocery store. In an effort to find something that I could justify serving guacamole on top of, I made a variation on the chickpea cutlets using black beans, lime juice, and taco seasoning. I also had a big pile of root vegetables I wanted to roast.



I guess all this equals out to a pretty weird juxtaposition in a meal, but if all elements are delicious, doesn't that mean the meal is delicious?


The best part was the next day, when I took the leftover patties and guacamole over to my mom's place and made tacos by slicing up the patties and crisping them up a bit with a handful of pepitas. They were heavenly!


Also, wow... how great does natural light make that look? I can't wait until summer!



For my lunches, I made a very basic lentil soup- Black (very dark green?) lentils, Rapunzel broth, a can of tomatoes, onions, garlic, potatoes, chard and black pepper. Topped with pepitas, french onions and avocado, it was delicious and satisfying and great for lunches.



...Which brings us to last night. Mari and I saw a huge, perfect rainbow as we were leaving the grocery store, and the sky was unbelievable on the way home, inspiring me to take pictures of the sky and the beautiful Italian pine right by our house.



Also, I figured out the bread thing, crisped up some whole wheat/sweet potato gnocchi in olive oil, and gave my new cast iron grill a spin for a romaine salad. The salad is topped with crisp shallots and a sweet balsamic reduction, and the gnocchi is tossed in a pesto made from about 2 cups of arugula, a half cup of toasted walnuts, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/4 olive oil, 3 Tbsp capers, 2 Tbsp lemon juice, and black pepper. The addition of capers to my normal pesto was so fantastic... The flavor is sharp and no need to add extra salt given how briny they are.



As always, thanks for reading!