finally

Before I get to the food and the pictures (yes!) shall we discuss the exercise tonight. I was awoken at 0645 by a bored J calling and wanting to talk. He had the day off so we talked for about an hour and a half before I had to get ready for church. Continuing my spiritual journey, today our discussion was about mercy and I am still pondering the scripture and mercy in general. Needless to say, since I was talking with J, my exercise was put on hold. I did get to it this evening, although it was sort of unplanned. I started out and was only able to run 1/2 mile before terrible side stiches set in and I had to walk. I did manage to finish 2 miles. I am going to chalk my stiches up to me having oven potato "chips" and caffeine free diet dr. pepper about 15 minutes before my run. Less unto us all, not a good idea. Like I said, this was unplanned folks. I also wanted to watch the National Memorial Day Concert, and I was able to make it about 1 hour and 10 minutes into it before breaking down and not being able to watch anymore. Some of the images they show are too much for me to handle. Ok, so onto the food!

Lunch -


Those are two sprouted whole wheat bread slices smeared with a mix of organic strawberry preserves and natural chunky PB. I cannot eat the PBJ sandwiches unless I mix the preserves and PB so that it is more plyable. My grandmother would always make my sandwiches that way.

Fresh Pasta Sauce


Yummy. I have never been able to eat pasta sauce from a jar. I always searched for one because it is convenient. However, this sauce is so delicious, but really only works when the tomatoes are in season.

Homemade Pasta Sauce- from Fatfree Vegan
half an onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4-6 large tomatoes, chopped
1/2 tsp salt and pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp dried basil

Saute onion and garlic in good olive oil. Chop tomatoes into cubes. Place tomatoes in with onions and garlic and stir. Add spices and let simmer while pasta is cooking.

Notes Ok, lets see. I used a Vidalia onion and it seemed to work well. I used three large and one small tomato and that made plenty of sauce. Vary the amount of tomatoes based upon how many people you will be feeding. I also did not add any salt or pepper (shocking!) and used dry oregano but fresh basil. I am not a fan of dried basil, but love the fresh stuff. When we move one of the things on my list to do is start an herb garden in pots. I ended up cooking the pasta later and so I let the sauce simmer probably about 8-10 mintues and it was so flavorful! I need to test out my canning abilities and possibly this sauce could be canned? We'll see.






Italian Bread Salad - The photos are sort of the progression of assembling and making the salad. I'm pretty sure this came from "A Lyon in the Kitchen" show.

3c. torn sourdough
1c. chopped tomatoes
1/2 c. diced cucumber
1/2 c. diced red onion
1/4 c. black olives
1/2 c. chopped basil
3 tbsp plus more as needed olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine bread with some olive oil and spread on a baking sheet. Toast until lightly browned. Combine veggies and basil. Whisk vinegar and 3 tbsp oil. Mix bread, veggies and oil/vinegar.

Notes - I used a bakery made multigrain bread instead of sourdough. The bakery sourdough had eggs and milk in it, and since I've never made sourdough before, I'm going to assume all of it is made that way? I probably mixed a tablespoon oil with the bread before toasting it. I also toasted it for 10 minutes and it was good. This is a delicious alternative for people who enjoy salads with croutons. Yum.




The first photo is a close up of the Black Bean Salad. The second and third photos are just some delicious produce that I got today. Tomatoes, bananas (I like getting them still green, because I enjoy them that way, plus it ensures that they will not be bad by the end of the week), jicama, and corn.

Black Bean Salad
2 c. black beans
1 c. cooked corn
1/2 each green and red pepper, chopped
4-6 green onions, chopped
1/3 c. sliced green olives
1/3 c. sliced black olives
lemon juice
olive oil

Mix all ingredients and let flavors combine in refrigerator before serving.

Notes - How can you go wrong with instructions like that? I had not planned on making this but I had some extra ingredients that were on the downhill slope, so I decided to make it. I used canned organic beans that I rinsed and drained. I cooked 2 ears of corn and added it. I only had one orange bell pepper and a Vidalia onion instead of green onions. I also did not have any black olives. I used the juice of one lemon and probably about 1 1/2 tbsp of olive oil. I will see how this is tomorrow but it looks really yummy.

Finally dessert...




Organic dark chocolate with almonds. I have been rationing this out.

Also how can I forget my assistant chefs...



The orange one is Heinz and the smaller one is Bean. Heinz is a golden retriever mix (not sure what he is mixed with but it is something smaller than a golden, because he is a medium sized dog) and we were told that Bean is a Beagle Chihuahua mix. Don't ask. When we got him from the shelter he was very skinny. You can see that he has not had a problem eating since. Bean has seizures and Heinz has allergies and recurring mange. They are both handfuls but I love them very much.