I Ate It Before I Could Get a Picture

Blog, I feel like we've become friends; that I can tell you things, and that you understand and are sympathetic. It's nice spending time with you. That's why I don't mind telling you that this afternoon I became nauseous after lunch. I don't think it was the ingredients of my lunch that made me sick, but rather it was an unclean container that I tried to re-use to store my carrots. STUPID IDEA. What else did I have? An apple. I used sanitizer before lunch. Had to have been the container for the carrots. I also had a few peanuts, but I never touched them. So I remained nauseous long after I arrived home this evening, and I did not feel like eating. Eventually I felt hungry, so into the kitchen I went scratching my head because I had no idea what I was going to eat. I am still giving up bread and pasta for a while, so throwing together something to eat is not as simple as it has been. Last week, a nice and easy pasta dish would have been my meal. Tonight my meal was based on Romaine lettuce.

I have several cans of tuna in the pantry, and so I thought what the hey? Tuna salad. Romaine leaves in the fridge have been storing nicely, but they need to be eaten. So far so good. Whereas I usually use a decent quality bottled dressing for my salads, KB inspired me to make my own dressing for the tuna salad this evening. It contained: apple cider vinegar, olive oil, about a tablespoon of Duke's mayonnaise, fresh lemon juice, a little bit of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, Salt and Pepper, and some of that dill that I had in the fridge. I whisked all of that together and then I added a few capers. I had to add a little bit of water to the dressing, but it absolutely needed it. I wondered if the dressing would be too thin after adding the water, but it was still thick enough to adhere to the Romaine lettuce, and that pleased me immensely.

So I spread the leaves around a plate, placed a bit of tuna on top of the lettuce, and drizzled some of that dressing all over it. As I finished plating my salad, I intended to get a picture, but the camera was in the other room and that salad looked so appetizing that I had to eat it straight away. But KB has me onto something new and improved now, blog. New and improved.

Eat Your Veggies

It's getting ridiculous with the cream around here. I realize this, and I also realize my lack of vegetable and fruit intake these last few days. I have not eaten an apple for three days. I did eat a perfectly sweet and ripe cantaloupe, though, and for breakfast I ate a carrot. I will have another salad later, since Indian Butter Chicken is on the menu, and I am compelled to find some type of balance for its richness.

The wife likes Indian Butter Chicken, so I make it for her occasionally. As the name indicates, it contains those two ingredients. Indian food is some of my favorite victuals, as I like the spice combinations used, and I like spicy, but this dish has very little heat. The wife cannot tolerate too much hot spice.

When I was going to UNCG a few years ago, I stopped for the lunch-buffet special at the India Palace occasionally. All of the dishes were cooked perfectly and tasted just right. Then they sold the joint to return to India and it kind of went downhill for me. The last time I went there, they were serving bread pakoras. Come on, now. But as I was saying, one day right after I had lunched at the Palace, I was sitting in a small group in one of my ridiculous classes at UNCG. That curry, among other things, started oozing from my pores. The girl next to me was like, “What is that smell?” as she wrinkled her nose. I think she was somewhat offended, never having eaten Indian cuisine. I knew it was me, and that is another reason why I love Indian food.

The recipe calls for thighs, and I use thighs which bake in the oven while the sauce is built, but first I cut all excess skin from thighs with my scissors. This leaves a patch of skin atop the meat that crisps nicely while keeping the meat underneath succulent. I Salt and Pepper the skin, then I pull the skin back from the thigh and salt underneath it, replacing the skin after.

The sauce begins with sauted onions. I added mushrooms today because I like them, and I had a carton of sliced portabellos in the fridge. These two ingredients I allowed to cook slowly. Then I made a little paste of chopped and mashed garlic to which I added powdered ginger. I thought I had fresh ginger in the fridge, but I did not. Ginger is a nice flavorful ingredient that gives a bit of punch to the dish. It is very strong, so I have to be careful with it.

To that mixture, I added at least a tablespoon of garam masala, cumin, curry, and chili powder; S & P, and about two cups of crushed tomatoes. A bit of sour cream, a turn of fresh cream, and two tablespoons of butter later, I was ready to pull the chicken from those thighs and add them to the pan. Now a bit of heat, if you please. I love the click of the igniter and the accompanying “whoosh” as the blue flame ignites. It makes me happy. On the old cooktop, two burners out of four functioned, and barely. You had to start the fire just right by turning the knob to ignite, then turning it off and repeating that about three or four times. But I cooked the sauce for a few more minutes, and Butter Chicken was done.

I have a bag of short-grain rice (purchased on sale) that I want to use, so that is what I am eating with the chicken. Also, a slab of naan bread that I will toast a little. A green lettuce salad with tomato and beet completes the feast, and then it's off to spend a little time with my old friend, the treadmill.

Eggy Weggs

Tonight, my plan was to eat a salad for my dinner, and everything was going according to plan when I had the idea to boil some eggs. On a low-cholesterol diet, a person is allowed one egg per week, and that's yolk and white. Well, I boiled five tonight since five eggs remained in the carton, and I plan on eating one per day until they're gone.

Hard-boiled eggs are not foolproof. The last time I made them, the yolks ran like the Youghiogheny. This time, I placed them in a pan and allowed the water to boil rollingly for several minutes before taking them off of the heat. Overboiled eggs will turn green and sulfurous. Yuck. Cook them right and the yolk will be creamy and delicious. My yolks were just a bit dry since I forgot about them for a couple minutes while I was looking at the INTERNET>>. I like the tiniest bit of salt on them, also.

Before I cooked the eggs, I finally cleaned the remaining vegetables I bought a couple days ago. I had two cucumbers, Romaine lettuce, and celery. Usually I clean the vegetables very shortly after I buy them so I can store them for the best longevity. When they're cleaned, it also makes them more attractive as a food choice in the evenings when I am notorious for snizacks.

I like to use a gigantic plate when I make my salad because I like to hand-coat the dressing equally on all ingredients and this requires a lot of space so that the ingredients do not fall off the plate or out of the bowl. I filled my plate with Romaine hearts, cucumber that I just cleaned and quartered, cherry tomatoes, a good tablespoon of capers, canned beats, S & P, and a bit of Paul Newman Caesar low-calorie salad dressing that needs eaten before the end of the month, so says the date on the bottle.

I ate the salad, and it was good. First I had one of those hard-boiled eggs, though. My intention was to put it on the salad, but it did not make it that far. The remaining eggs I placed into a container with the beets and the beet juice. I like to add apple-cider vinegar and salt, and a little fresh black pepper to canned beats for some flavor. The eggs are pickling now, and they will be good tomorrow and Thursday, Friday and Saturday.