catch up

Wow, so much has happened in the last 3 weeks, I haven't had a chance to post.  I have so much to write about but 1) maybe it's not that interesting after all, and 2) it might be hard to remember it all.   So I'll just give a photo tour of the last month, starting from today and going backwards.

Tonight's dinner was leftovers from yesterday's cookout and whatever veggies I could find in the fridge.  The veggies were surprisingly good:  1/2 onion dry fried, to which I added water, then beet greens, zucchini, and at the end, red bell pepper.  I seasoned with date balsamic vinegar.  Wow, was that good.  It was like a really good stir-fry.  It would have been good over brown rice but I wasn't hungry enough for that because I also had an ear of corn and a collard wrap with 1/2 of a veggie burger in it (more on that in a sec):

Today's lunch was also leftovers from yesterday's cookout.  I made Jeff Novick's "burgers and fries" from his Fast Food 2 DVD.  I love these!  The burgers are a bit bland on their own, but when you top then with "pickles", salsa, mustard, tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, and soy yogurt, and wrap them in a parboiled collard, they are quite yummy!  plus they have a smoky flavor from grilling.  The fries are outstanding!  I highly recommend JN's way of making oven fries--best I've ever had, and to me better than french fries.  Here's my lunch with the partially eaten corn on the cob.  The home-fries are topped with the salsa and soy yogurt.

The other excitement for today were the first tomatoes from our garden, and they were good!

Here's the spread from yesterday's cookout.  It was so fun!  Oh, the "pickles" I made were simply cut up cucumbers soaked in d'angou pear vinegar and fresh dill (length of time doesn't matter, 0 minutes to 2 days).   I made home-made salsa with canned tomatoes, onion, cilantro, bell pepper, and the secret ingredient:  chopped grapes.  well, the store-bought salsa (and ketchup) often has sugar in it so the grapes are my substitute.  Of course, you'd want peppers too but our guests don't like peppers.

Here's my JN burger collard wrap.  I learned from this that 1/2 burger fits better than a whole.  Today I made 2 collard wraps from one burger and had one at lunch and one at dinner.  This was much more eatable:

Sweet corn season started this week for us when we got back from the golf tournament.   It is picked daily and is part of our lunch most days.  It is fantastic.  On this day, we also had kale, summer squash and onion on one side of the plate, a little potato salad (potato, soy yogurt, dill) and cucumber tomato salad (similar) on the other side of the plate.

Here was another day this week with kale, onion, potato, green beans, and corn:

Now for a couple of pictures from last week's golf tournament (US Women's open in Kohler WI).  The food at the tournament was all inedible for me (hamburgers, hotdogs, ice cream, chips), and you can't bring in food, so I usually biked in the morning, ate lunch, then joined my friends at the tournament for the afternoon.  We stayed with family so I had a kitchen and could prepare my food the night before: baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, kohlrabi, cooked kale and onions and zucchini, and JN burger collard wraps with soy yogurt.  Worked good.  Breakfast was oats, fruit and soy milk.  One day I rode my bike by the farmer's market downtown.  I love the festive atmosphere of farmer's markets, but I often feel left out because the prepared food is all off limits for me:  pastries, cookies, sausages, fried this and that.  So I was momentarily mopey until I saw the roasted sweet corn!

Then I spotted the watermelon!

So I was quite delighted, and got to eat my yummy food and listen to the music with everyone else.

Before the golf tournament was the Farms to Forks weekend immersion!   This was WONDERFUL.  Rip Esselstyn was a great master of ceremonies (and extremely handsome!).

Caldwell Esselstyn explained how to prevent and reverse heart disease:

 

Ann Esselstyn had great advice about food shopping and prep.  She describes Rip's book (Engine 2 diet) as Plant-strong, and Caldwell's book (Reverse Heart Disease) as Plant-perfect.

 Jeff Novick gave outstanding lectures about why we're fat, calorie density, reading labels, and fast food demos.  He's my hero!

Doug Lisle gave us lots of great advice on psychology.  I am in love with him.

Here we are having dinner on the farm:

No midwest outdoor summer event would be complete without a severe thunderstorm:

There's a funny story there with my friend Gail who spent the storm in a lean-to with a donkey and a lamb.

Here's the farm peacock.  (Gail, what was his name again?)

Finally, going back further in time was our emergency trip to Colorado to ferry a family member home.  That was a fun little unexpected adventure.  I cooked up a bunch of starchy veggies to take with me--potatoes, sweet potatoes, jicama, and carrots:

This was supplemented with large salads.  I should have brought oatmeal for breakfast.

Whew, so that was the last month.  I have some more things to post about--maybe tomorrow.