Category Archives: Eating a Rainbow

I welcome my new overlord

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For my birthday, the guys gave me a Garmin watch; it has been four days and already it has taken over my life. I’m full-on David Sedaris. I welcome my new watch overlord.

I used to figuratively roll my eyes when I would hear various friends complain that their fitness tracker didn’t properly count steps or heart rates, or that they forgot to enter their workout into their app. I would think, Does it matter? You still DID the exercise, does it MATTER if it’s not recorded on your device? Well. Just like everything I’ve ever silently judged in my life, it has come back to haunt me. I am now completely obsessed and also have turned into one of Today’s Children who get all sorts of accolades and praise for participation. Yesterday I went for a run and, while I consider myself to be a very self-motivated person, I couldn’t help but be thrilled every time my watch buzzed when I unlocked a new achievement. Step counts? More than 5km run? Elevation gains? Heart rate intensity minutes? Every time I got a new Badge, I felt like I did when I was a Brownie and my mom sewed a physical badge to my sash. Check THIS out. 

The Watch is pretty bossy, though. I said this to my husband and he replied that it was just like its owner, which, well. I’m sure there is some way to change this setting, but it seems like being stationary for fifteen minutes at a time triggers it into a bossy frenzy; it doesn’t even gently or politely suggest movement, it buzzes and in all capitals and punctuated with an exclamation mark says MOVE! on the screen. I was at the hair salon yesterday when this happened; my colour was processing and I had, obviously, been seated for this procedure.

Me, silently: Don’t boss me!

Also me: *gets up and pretends to use the washroom just to clear the move bar*

It doesn’t seem to take any other activity into account before virtually shouting at me to MOVE!, as proven last night. Yesterday I had a) practiced yoga, gone for a run and a dog walk, AND grocery shopped at Superstore, with all its accompanying steps and stairs to put the groceries away, b) doubled my step goal AND my stair-flight-climbing goal, and c) got in half of the week’s worth of “intensity minutes.” And yet, I curled up in my chair after dinner to read, and the Watch began buzzing at me.

Me: You’re not the boss of me!

Also me: *waits five minutes before getting up to use the bathroom*

The book I’m reading is The Rosie Effect. I read and enjoyed The Rosie Project years ago, and I am enjoying this book just as much, if not more. However, it was a little unsettling to realize that Don Tillman’s Standardised Meal System is not dissimilar to my own Weekly Meal Plan, as far as efficiency, ingredient inventory, shopping, and zero food wastage goes. It’s always a little startling to see aspects of one’s own personality in a fictional character, particularly when that fictional character is Don Tillman.

Speaking of the Weekly Meal Plan, while I was making Thai curry on Tuessday, I realized something: the Watch has changed my household behaviour. I have become extremely inefficient when it comes to moving between floors of the house. The kitchen is on the main floor, but the pantry is downstairs, and normally I am extremely efficient at Bringing Stuff Upstairs – except, of course, when I forget what I went down to the pantry for. In Life Before The Watch, I would bring up broccoli from the basement fridge, snip some cilantro, and bring up the peanuts all in one trip. Tuesday, however, I took three trips to do this, plus a fourth to bring up the laundry, as the dryer finished while I was prepping dinner. My morning ritual, in Life Before The Watch, involves putting in a load of laundry at the same time I do my hair, my hair products and appliances being housed in the bathroom adjacent to the laundry room. In Life Before The Watch I would carry a laundry basket – with bathroom cleaner and gloves perched on top – on one hip and a coffee cup and hair accessories in the other hand, in order to minimize the number of times I would go up and down the stairs. Now, Post-Watch, I’m going downstairs to put the laundry in, going back upstairs for hair accessories, and after that, going up and down the stairs to get the cleaning products with which to tidy the bathroom.

Frankly, it’s probably safer this way, if slightly more insane. It was only a matter of time before I Emily Starr-ed and tumbled down the stairs while carrying all those items.

Slight digression for those of you who spent years of your childhood obsessed by the Emily books: did you ever feel sorry for Dean Priest? I sure did, even though he was possessive and a little bit creepy. I always thought Teddy was too smarmy. But then, I guess this is what happened back then when one lived in a small community: if you were a woman, and there was a man in your general age bracket, then it was likely that you would get married. It would only be a matter of time. Ah, romance.

But back to the Watch: memories of life before it are becoming faded and distant. It’s like trying to remember what you did before you had a smart phone. How did we interact with people? Did I call them? Email them? I have no idea. And now I have no idea what I did without counting my steps like a crazy person. This way lies madness.

To quote from David Sedaris: Why is it some people can manage a thing like a Fitbit, while others go off the rails and allow it to rule, and perhaps even ruin, their lives? Well, we all knew in which category I would fall. It’s not like I didn’t know this would happen. Give me any kind of goal – number of books to read in a year, number of kilometers to run in an hour, number of steps in a day – and I immediately want to crush it. Add in there a spreadsheet or an app and suddenly I become a monster. The saddest thing is that the only person I am competing with is myself. I thought briefly about joining one of those friendly competition groups, and instantly quashed that idea. I don’t need to be marching in place while reading at night just to get a first-place badge. Or do I?

Eating a Rainbow: Greek Salad and Pita Night, a.k.a. the best night of the week

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On Barkley’s last eye check – he has a propensity for eye infections and is now, sadly, on drops for life – the veterinarian said that in all her time in veterinary medicine, she has never encountered a dog like him. Now, this has to be taken with a grain of salt as she is a young woman – her name, for example, is Madison, a name that conjures up images of youth – but it turns out that he is the most cooperative dog she has dealt with when it comes to people jabbing his eye with a handheld pressure machine, putting weird little litmus-like papers in his eye, and, of course, giving eye drops.

The reason is that Barkley is literally a Pavlov’s dog. From the first time I gave him eye drops, I would also give him a treat, and now he one hundred percent associates food with eye drops. He is part Labrador, after all, which makes him extremely food-motivated. He licks his lips the second I bring out the drops; he also has an internal clock that is so accurate, he begins to nudge me with his nose at 7:00 am and pm, when he is due for his drops. “Eye drops” is right up there with “walk” for words we cannot say without consequences.

Speaking of walks, I am looking very much forward to the day that it doesn’t take me five minutes to get dressed to go out for twenty-five minutes. Barkley has also associated my legwarmers with walking; from the moment I go to my bedroom to pull on my thickest, woolliest legwarmers, he follows me from room to room, staring at me until I get the leash.

So I’m looking forward to the weekend even more than normal, because – ALLEGEDLY – this extreme cold is going to break and we may even have plus temperatures. PLUS TEMPERATURES. I don’t even want to get my hopes up too high, but PLUS.

I always look forward to the weekend; I do make an effort to enjoy each day, each day is a gift, blah blah blah, but I love the flexibility and family time that the weekends bring. I especially enjoy the food. Fridays are my favourite weeknights because a) they involve wine, and usually lots of it, and b) it’s Greek salad and pita night!

You know those quizzes that say if you could have only one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? This would be my meal: Greek salad, pita, and hummus. When I was pregnant with my youngest I ate it every other day. It’s just so good! So full of nutritious vitamins, protein, iron, and deliciousness. Most people associate onion with Greek salad but mine is onion-less, due to my dislike of raw onion. And cooked onion. And any onion that is not disguised by being pureed into a dish. It’s not the flavour I abhor, it’s the texture. And so, I give you my Greek salad and hummus recipe.

Greek Salad and Hummus, The Best Dinner of the Week

Chop up a whole bunch of cherry tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers (I like baby cucumbers but will use regular ones in a pinch). How much? Let’s say two peppers, five baby cucumbers (or most of one Long English), and a LOT of cherry tomatoes. I don’t know how to measure them; a couple of cups, maybe? Add black olives – the pitted Kalamata ones from Costco are the bomb – and some feta cheese. If you’re a non-dairy person, you could make some almond feta. For the dressing I use 1/3 cup olive oil, and then almost 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar and 2-3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. I like my dressing ZESTY. Add some garlic powder, basil, and oregano in indiscriminate amounts. Just shake it in there until it looks good. Pour over top and toss.

For the hummus I use a big can of rinsed and drained chickpeas, 1/5 of a pound block of tofu (bear with me here, explanation to follow), 1/4 cup each of lemon juice and olive oil, 2-3 cloves of garlic, a heaping tablespoon of tahini, a teaspoon of cumin, and some salt and pepper. I have no idea how much. Then I blend it all in my food processor until it’s nice and smooth. The tofu makes it super creamy. Usually I buy a block of tofu and freeze it in 1/5ths, individually, and thaw when the need for hummus is imminent. Occasionally I’ve pulsed in roasted red peppers or pitted Kalamata olives, but usually I prefer my plain-Jane version.

I warm up those cute little mini “party” pitas in the oven, and the guys get sauteed chicken breast as well, which I prepare while drinking large glasses of Cabernet Franc.

Photos from my old YMC posts, back when I used to stage my food. Let’s drop some feta artistically on the placemat! And allow the peppers to hover around their chopped up friend!

Who needs a filter when you can crop out your forehead? Yes, that glass does say Queen of Everything; my parents gave it to me for my birthday and I love it!

Eating a Rainbow: Pita Pizzas, Wraps, and Tacos

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God bless the junior high teachers. Yesterday the boys brought home their gym clothes to be washed, and they were much more toxic than normal, thanks to a random kid spraying Axe body spray all over the boys’ locker room and in the tote boxes. My house is now a hazardous waste site. I thought back to my years in junior high and realized that the poor teachers must have put up with all the fumes from our Salon Selectives hairspray, which we would use between classes to keep our vertical bangs at an appropriate stiffness, plus all of our cheap drugstore perfumes, like Love’s Baby Soft and Exclamation. It takes a very special type of person to deal with that age group.

Happy March, everyone! Although it is minus 28 with windchill this morning, at least it isn’t minus 30. This is my new bar. The bar, it is low.

But who wants to talk about the weather? It’s boring and depressing and there is nothing we can do about it anyway, except perhaps sell everything and move to Maui which, frankly, isn’t really all that practical. Bundle up, buttercup. I’m considering a post that would contrast my normal weight with my weight when wearing all my winter gear. It would be an interesting, yet depressing, experiment. Maybe I could take a poll – how much does all my winter gear actually weigh? Well. This is a sad topic.

Let’s talk about food instead! As you know from my weekly meal plan, Wednesdays are generally pita pizza night, and Thursdays are for wraps or tacos. You may notice that as the week goes on my zest for cooking evaporates, so that by the time Thursday comes around, dinner is a very simple affair. Taco Thursday happens about once a month; the rest of the time it’s all about the wrap, which is the simplest dinner to make – literally we can go from zero prep to dinner on the table in about 25 minutes.

Pita Pizzas

No one needs a recipe for this. It is literally the easiest thing to make: buy pitas, put toppings on them, bake. Everyone can have whatever they want on their pizza, making this a very easy way to cater to vegetarians and meat-eaters. I always make extras so that the boys can take them cold in their lunches the next day. Do you know what makes a kid the lunchtime envy of all his friends? PIZZA FOR LUNCH. And these pizzas are way healthier than takeout, as well as being way cheaper. The only person who does not love pita pizza night is my husband, but we can’t have everything we love for dinner all the time. Well, we can, but only if we are making the dinner, and the only person making dinner is ME, which is why all the dinners are things that I personally enjoy. I am a Kitchen Dictator.

Because pita pizzas aren’t veggie-heavy on their own, I serve them with a giant – GIANT – plate of vegetables with dip. We are talking 1 pepper, 3 carrots, A FULL POUND of mushrooms, and broccoli.

I start dinner prep when the boys get home after school. They hang out in the kitchen and eat – as they are walking bottomless pits these days – and tell me about their day. Something about me being occupied with knives and vegetables allows them to open up and chat before they scatter to parts of the house that I am not in. If I could give one piece of parenting teen advice, it would be to figure out WHEN they are willing to chat, and then BE THERE at that time.

Back to the pizza. My own pizza is less of a pizza and more of a pita smothered with as many veggies as I can pile onto it, plus Daiya mozzarella shreds. Most vegan cheese tastes like sadness, but Daiya is…pretty okay. At least it kind of melts. It’s decent and serves the purpose, is what I’m saying. I also put sundried tomatoes on my pizza, which you can’t see, but which elevate the whole thing.

Wow, that does NOT photograph well. This picture reminds me of my Norwegian grandpa; he was, shall we say, not interested in consuming ethnic foods such as pizza. He was noted for saying, when viewing a pizza, “Who threw up on the lefse?” Oh, Grandpa. It’s not like all Norwegian cuisine is something to write home about; let’s not forget such atrocities as lutefisk. Whose idea was it to soak fish in lye and then EAT IT? Between my Norwegian and Scottish roots (HELLO HAGGIS) I’ve really covered all the Gross Food Bases here.

Wraps

Truly the easiest meal in the week; slice up vegetables and saute some chicken in olive oil for the guys. Serve with cheese and salsa for those who like it. I even buy shredded cheese which I never used to do but which ironically is less expensive in the long run as there is no waste, since only 2/4 of us actually eat cheese. I do not use Daiya on these because unmelted cold Daiya is pretty gross. Warm up tortillas and everyone serves themselves. Mine consist of a whole lot of avocado, pepper, and tomato, with heaping spoonfuls of salsa.

Will you look at that avocado? Is there anything better than a perfectly ripe avocado? Is there? Sex, I guess, but not too much else.

Taco Thursday

Not quite as simple as wraps, but almost, Taco Thursday is pretty popular. I use ground chicken for the guys, with just your standard package of taco seasoning. For me, I sprinkle black beans with completely unmeasured amounts of cumin, onion flakes, garlic powder, coriander, and chili powder. I just sprinkle until it looks good to me, and then I squirt some lime on top. Delicious and full of iron, protein, and all those good things that people ask about when you say you don’t eat meat. Where do you get your protein? Those questions always make me want to make ribald and scandalous jokes, but I generally try to refrain.

Today is Friday, which is my favourite meal of the week, and which also includes wine! Hooray! I’ll chat about that next time, and until then, stay warm, my friends! xo

Eating a Rainbow: Stir Fry Night!

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Thank you EVERYONE who reached out to me after my disastrous week. Friday at 4:45 I was pouring myself a very generous glass of red, and after three (large) glasses I ended up going to sleep at 8:30 pm. My husband looked at me nodding off on the couch as we watched a documentary on travel in Ireland, and gently suggested that maybe I would be more comfortable in bed. Maybe! Maybe I would be. Zzzzz.

After a nice solid ten hours of sleep, I felt like a new woman. After all, everything was okay. The new orthodontist fixed my son’s broken bracket, and mentioned that of all the patients he has seen from the scandalous fallout of having a criminally unethical bankrupt orthodontist, we are the luckiest ones, the ones who are the least-worst-off. I am breathing a sigh of relief that I had rescheduled my son’s appointment due to his snowboard day at school; if I hadn’t done that, we would have been much worse off. As it was, I called the office manager of the interim orthodontist, the woman who had been so helpful to me during all this, and told her that she had behaved ethically and with integrity, and I was very appreciative of her. She said I was the only person who had said that, and that mostly she was dealing with, well, a mess and some very angry and distraught parents. As well you might imagine, but it wasn’t her fault.

You never know when a little kindness will help lift a person up. In the midst of all this, I baked my usual heart-shaped cookies on Wednesday; no matter what else, I felt that Valentine’s Day must not go unmarked by the baking of thematic cookies. I took some in to the new orthodontist office for the staff, and I’m not saying that THAT is the reason I was able to get my son in get his bracket fixed on the Teacher’s Convention Friday before a long weekend, but I’m not NOT saying that either. I’m just saying, being kind helps.

It’s been a short week – I can’t believe it’s already Thursday! – and it has been a good one. We had some Very Good News from a medical standpoint, which decimated my Very Big Stressor. We had two days of not-terrible temperatures, and although we are back in the thick of it, cold-wise, just having a two day respite was enough to buoy me up. Then, yesterday I was pushing my very heavy grocery cart through the not-yet-plowed parking lot at Superstore. The snow was thick and very soft, and my torso was literally horizontal as I pushed through. Effort-wise, this is the CrossFit of grocery shopping. Finally the cart got stuck and I could not budge it, not at all. It was only three cars away from my car so I abandoned it and started to take my bags and bins, one by one, to the car. A man who was in the midst of plowing the parking lot, but was in another row, noticed. He stopped his plow and RAN over to help me, dragging the cart backwards to my car. It was such an unexpected act of kindness; there are many good people in the world, let’s remember that.

Speaking of groceries, it’s time once again for Eating a Rainbow! As I mentioned in my meal plan, I make some kind of stir-fry once a week. There are three types I cycle through: Pad Thai, Thai Coconut Curry, and what is known in this house as Noodly Stir-Fry. There are two common threads in these meals: a) I use about 10 cups of vegetables for each – if you want to eat more veggies, you need to cook more veggies, is my motto, and b) the guys get sauteed chicken breast that is splashed with soy sauce after cooking. As for vegetables, I use a combination of carrots, mushrooms, peppers, and, with the exception of Noodly, broccoli.

Pad Thai

I wrote about this long ago at YMC, but it has evolved quite a bit from then. Start with the veggies, as above, and chicken, if you’ve got meat-eaters. Or “carnies” as I will forever call them.

Make the sauce: mix together 1/4 cup each seasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce. Whisk in 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. Add 3 tablespoons each sesame oil and lime juice. I also use a tablespoon of brown sugar, but I realized that I forgot the sugar this past Tuesday and no one, including me, noticed. So possibly omit. Then stir in a heaping teaspoon or maybe two of chili garlic sauce. In a large wok, pour 2/3 of the sauce over the vegetables and cook until tender-crisp – this usually takes me 10 minutes, no more. Don’t overcook unless you like soft veggies. Then add cooked rice stick noodles – I use a 250 gram package, but I think I need to up that with growing kids who love this meal and leave almost no noodles for my husband and I. I drizzle sriracha sauce over mine, and add 1/4 cup cashews and some fresh cilantro from my little downstairs grow-op. I’m using the old YMC photo because hey, I never stage my food anymore and it looks really pretty.

Don’t forget to artistically drop cashews around.

Thai Coconut Curry

To make the sauce for this, I copied from my friend Melody (HI MELODY) years ago, and have made it my own. Take a veggie stock cube – I use one of those squishy ones from Knorr – and add about 1/4 cup of water. Then I put a few squirts of Bragg’s Soy Seasoning in; how much is a mystery. Maybe a tablespoon or two? I don’t know. Then I add a tablespoon of brown sugar, a couple of pressed garlic cloves, and a whole bunch of grated ginger. I essentially grate ginger until it looks like an insane amount of ginger, then I grate some more. You might want to dial that back, if you’re not a fan of ginger. Mix in a heaping teaspoon or more of Thai red curry paste, and about 1/2 cup (full fat!) coconut milk. After that’s done, I throw in the mushrooms and about a cup of frozen edamame, and cook for a couple of minutes. Then I add the rest of the veggies and cook for 8-10 minutes, being sure nothing is getting gross or mushy. I serve this over rice, again with 1/4 cup cashews for me and some fresh cilantro.

See, I really don’t stage things anymore. There IS rice underneath there, you just can’t really see it.

Noodly Stir-Fry

This one is probably my favourite, and it is not so much a recipe as a “recipe.” I pour some sesame oil – maybe a tablespoon – into the wok and add 2-3 cloves of pressed garlic and, once again, a ton of grated ginger. Like, a ton. Like a six-inch piece of ginger root. Again, this may or may not be appropriate for you, but it works in the ginger-loving Boyhouse. Then I put all the veggies in and douse generously with seasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce. How much? I have no idea. Maybe a 1/4 cup each, but I really don’t know. I never measure this recipe, I just pour. As I said before, measure with your heart, people, measure with your heart. Cook for ten minutes or so and then add in cooked noodles. I use the ones that are labelled “Chinese Style Steam Fried Noodles” and they take about 1 minute in boiling water to cook. I do a quick taste test and sometimes add a bit more sesame oil, rice vinegar, or soy sauce, and then I sprinkle my plate with cilantro and cashews, because I cannot get enough of either. Peanuts would be nice here too but I rarely use them. My older son uses a lot of sriracha on this dish, but no one else does. I guess he’s living the spicy life.

So there you have it! Stir-fry night, a very popular night in this house. Lot of veggies, lots of flavour, and very easy to put together. There is quite a bit of vegetable chopping involved, but I time this so it’s early in the week, when I have more dinner-making energy.

Eating a Rainbow: The Meal Plan and Pasta Night!

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Yesterday the temperature made it all the way up to minus 12, and honestly, it felt like a huge respite. I took the dog for a long walk and didn’t feel like dying. All of which is to say we are still in the deep freeze, which is really to be expected as it is winter. It is, frankly, terrible this morning, although not as bad as Monday, when there was a windchill factor of “around minus 40,” the meteorologist said vaguely. When we are talking minus 40, there is no need to be too exact. It was cold enough that I actually picked the boys up from school, which I never do, and as I waited for them I noticed their classmates coming out with unzipped jackets, no gloves, and, in the case of one girl, only a pair of capri-length leggings, canvas running shoes, and a hoodie. Oh, the inner fires of youth. Teenage bravado notwithstanding, there’s nothing to do about this weather but dress in layers and wait it out, and perhaps spend some time baking delicious things or cooking warming meals. I have a couple of zucchinis that will become a chocolate zucchini loaf this weekend, and I have plans to make my dairy-free version of my mom’s classic eclair recipe, which I haven’t made for several years.

As you know, or should know if you have read more than one post on this blog, I am an Organized Person, and that extends – to a degree that is probably extreme – to meal planning. I also am a person who likes routine and predictability, and I have passed those qualities along to my family. All of which is to say, when it comes to weekly meal plans, I a) write things down and never ever deviate from the Plan, and b) do not employ a whole lot of variability. I am a person who has had the exact same smoothie every single day for lunch for…I don’t even know how long. Years? Kitchen creativity and experimentation is, in this house, reserved for Weekends Only. Weeknights are for the Tried and True, for things that are relatively quick and easy and do not require a lot of thinking on my part.

That said, here is my typical Weeknight Meal Plan:

Monday: Pasta with roasted vegetables

Tuesday: Some kind of stir-fry; there are three main kinds

Wednesday: Pita pizza with veggie plate

Thursday: Wraps or tacos

Friday: Greek salad with pitas and hummus; My Favourite Meal

There is some room for flexibility here; for example, if I am subbing an evening class or have a meeting at the school, then I can swap things around a little. Generally, this is how our week shakes out. A friend asked me recently if I sometimes don’t feel like making what’s on the plan, and honestly, that never happens. I think it’s a Pavlovian thing; if it’s Friday, I start looking forward excitedly to Greek salad. If it’s Monday, I’m excited about pasta.

In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing all the “recipes,” such as they are, with the huge caveat that since I stopped food blogging, I don’t really measure things much anymore. Today I’ll share my “recipe” for pasta, along with my method of incorporating more vegetables and placating the meat-eaters.

The “Recipe” For My Favourite Pasta Sauce

My favourite pasta sauce is a mash-up of an old pasta salad recipe and Grandma Fern’s trick for cutting acidity in tomato-based soups and sauces; this particular recipe makes enough for three meals for my family, and it freezes perfectly. Take two 600 mL bottles of strained tomatoes (passata) and pour into a large-ish saucepan over low-medium heat. Add one teaspoon of baking soda and stir really well. As it warms, it will foam up like crazy; keep stirring.

Take two cups of oil-packed sundried tomatoes, drained somewhat. Leave some of the oil in, but not too much. How much is too much? I have no idea. I drain most of it off but I don’t get obsessive about it. Oil is yummy. Put the tomatoes in a food processor and add some red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar, maybe 3 tablespoons to a third of a cup each? I don’t really know, I just pour. Measure with your heart, people. You can always add more but you can’t take it out. Then shake in some garlic powder; you could use actual garlic cloves but for some reason I always use powder. Shake it in until you think, yes. Yes, that’ll do, Donkey, that’ll do. Then process it until it’s all nice and chunky and even.

Add that mixture into your foamed-up strained tomatoes. It’ll foam again, because that’s science, bitches. Vinegar plus baking soda equals a fun chemical reaction, as we all know from school or from making volcanoes with our children to amuse them for a while when they are small. Then add cracked black pepper to taste; stir and let simmer for a while.

Eating a Rainbow

I love pasta, but what I love best about pasta isn’t the actual pasta, it’s the sauce. I also find that I could eat massive amounts of pasta and not feel satisfied, just bloated. This is why pasta night is accompanied by one of my favourite things, roasted vegetables, which I smother in sauce. Almost always, I make roasted cauliflower, but for that one or two times a year when cauliflower is $10 for a tiny head, I use zucchini or broccoli. Have you ever roasted broccoli? It’s delicious.

I have a rule about portion control: when it comes to vegetables, the rules do not apply. The rule is there is no rule! I, like Sally Allbright, do not like to eat between meals so by the time dinner rolls around, I’m pretty much a rabid wolf. Therefore, I eat a MASSIVE amount of vegetables. On pasta night, I cut up two large or three small heads of cauliflower, toss them in olive oil, and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. At least one of those heads is for me and me alone. I spread the cauliflower (or zucchini or broccoli) on two pans; since I like my roasted veggies kind of crispy, I put “my” pan in the oven for over an hour at 325 convection. The other one goes in for around 35 minutes. If this sounds like a low temperature/ long time, there is a reason for that.

Catering to the Carnies

Ha! I just referred to my guys as “carnies,” like they are working the midway with their greasy hair and moustaches and copping a feel when they check young girls’ safety belts. Ew. Sorry. Anyway, on pasta night the guys get turkey meatballs, which is why I use a 325 convection temperature. The meatballs go in around the same time as the second pan of cauliflower. If you’re interested, I use a pound of ground turkey and mix with the following: one beaten egg, 1/3 cup bread crumbs, a handful of Parmesan, several shakes each of Worcestershire, soy sauce, dehydrated minced onion, sea salt, and cracked black pepper. That recipe makes enough for three meals and also freezes well.

This is a huge favourite in my house; everyone loves it. It’s nutritious and pretty easy, and it gives me something to look forward to on Mondays.

The ingredients

Foaming.

Adding pepper.

A nice moderate amount of cauliflower.