5
votes
What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
I've been simplifying my kitchen routine lately. Fewer ingredients, straightforward meals, no hassle. The goal is to save time, money, and effort while wasting less.
Limiting my meat intake, especially beef, has been a longtime goal of mine for a mix of environmental, ethical, and health reasons. I'm also trying to limit processed foods where possible. I'd like to reduce the amount of questionably healthy vegetable oil, hydrogenated corn syrup, and sugar in my diet. I'm keeping it realistic rather than being an absolutist—I don't want to be a difficult guest at dinner parties.
So far, my plan is working well! It's definitely keeping me lean. I'm eating dramatically more vegetables and fruit and far less meat. My standard meal has become a plate of broccoli/spinach/green beans, some protein (usually beans, often with rice), and a side of fruit, mostly apples and berries. I save any extravagance for the weekend. I do like to snack, but I'm switching out high-calorie cookies, chips, etc. with plain rice cakes or carrots or whatever. I have some canned soup if I truly can't be bothered to cook.
My biggest problem now is that many ingredients are sold in quantities meant for families. I just can't eat a whole sack of onions before they go bad. I like lettuce and tomato on sandwiches, but I don't eat enough to get through them all. A bulb of garlic is reasonable; maybe not a pack of five (sometimes my only option). I need to get more creative with the highly perishable stuff, which probably means more soups and stews.
My son is starting to get interested in cooking, and there's a delicious and simple dip that my mother-in-law makes that he got the recipe for; we have been making that.
Put it all in a glass pie plate and mix it about. Then cover (we used saran wrap for some reason) and microwave it for 2 min. Serve with some tostitos.