Shore Thing

I’m so happy to be back! Vacation was lovely, but it’s always good to come back to familiar surroundings and to wonderful blog readers. I hope you guys enjoyed the running tips – I enjoyed your comments!

Food on the beach was rough. I was trying to be frugal and I was there with friends who aren’t so into healthy eating, so there were lots of hot dogs and bar food and beer and soft serve and other crap. I definitely could have done a better job making healthy choices, but c’est la vie. I’m so happy to be back to normal! I had steel cut oats for breakfast, an AMAZING salad at the most wonderful veggie restaurant in my area for lunch, and then the seemingly unhealthy but actually pretty nutritionally packed combo pictured below:

boiled CSA potato topped with an over-medium egg and lots of delicious ketchup. Potassium from the potato, sodium from the ketchup, and protein from the egg = perfect post-run dinner. I’m currently eating frozen peaches. Delish!

Veggie CSA pickup is tomorrow, so I should have some good eats to share in the next few days. Yay vegetables!!

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Baking With Almond Meal

I haven’t made any great meals in the past few days, but I have been playing in the kitchen. Last night I remembered that we have a bag of CSA potatoes hiding out in storage, so I made myself some oven-roasted beauties.

Potatoes aren’t potatoes without copious amounts of ketchup.

Then I got the baking bug and tried out two recipes with the almond meal I bought at Trader Joe’s. Note: almond meal is NOT the same as almond flour. It’s coarser are more suited for dense fare like breads than for cakes or lighter baked goods. There’s a good explanation of the differences here.

First up were the Savory Grain-Free Crackers from Karina’s Kitchen. I subbed in 1 cup of regular flour just because I wanted to ease into the whole nut meal/flour thing, and I used sage and tarragon instead of the Italian herbs since I didn’t have any. I also used paprika rather than turmeric for the splash of color.

These are SO GOOD! The parmesan really comes through, so they taste quite rich. I would make one small adjustment next time, however. The recipe tells you to just flatten the dough with your hand directly onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. This technique left the dough far too thick – most of these are more like flatbread rather than like crackers, which is what I wanted. Next time I’ll roll out the dough first.

Next up: Comfy Belly‘s banana bread, made into muffins.

I had one for breakfast this morning and they’re also delicious. Very dense and nutty and satisfying. I subbed 1 cup of all-purpose flour here too (so I used 1.5 cups almond meal and 1 cup regular flour total). This recipe made 12 muffins that clock in around 300 calories each.

The verdict on baking with almond meal:

If you’re craving a light, fluffy, airy baked good, steer clear of nut meal. But if you want to pack some extra nutritional punch into your baked goods, almond meal gives you all kinds of vitamins, minerals, fats, phytonutrients, and antioxidants that you just can’t find in all-purpose flour. If you go in knowing that your muffins are going to be a dense, nutty affair, they’re absolutely scrumptious.

I have plans to try my hand at macaroons and lemon curd later today. Sometimes I just get into a domestic groove and want to keep going. 🙂

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Hugh Jass with a side of Banana Poop

T and I rarely do lunch together, but we both happened to be home at the same time today. Our veggie CSA partners are out of town, so we have a whole box of produce to polish off by ourselves. A daunting task, but I think we’re up to it.

We did our level best to make a dent by having Hugh Jass salads.

Mine had beautiful purple kale, spring mix, lettuce, and grated white carrot (!) from our CSA share, plus half an avocado and a big ol dollop of my garlicky bean spread.

These white carrots are crazy! They look like this:

but they taste like orange carrots. Intriguing.

Actually, I don’t remember where I acquired this knowledge, but I remember hearing that the orange strain of carrots was popularized to honor a Dutch king and it’s been the dominant variety ever since. History: it’s crazy! (I heart you, Kate Beaton.)

Yesterday I threw some bananas in the freezer in preparation to test out the famous banana soft serve. In a moment of insanity, I thought “why peel the bananas first? I’ll just peel them right before I blend them.”

Folks, this does not work. Of course, you’re probably much smarter than I am and hence you could have told me that, but I had to learn for myself. I left them out for a bit to thaw enough so that I could peel them. T was intrigued by the weird, frosty, brownish lumps on our kitchen table, so he had to watch while I peeled them.

Let’s just say that they did not look appetizing oozing out of their skins. In T’s words, “Ew ew ew, they move exactly like feces!”

And they did.

So if you need a laugh (and have the sense of humor of a 5 year old), I recommend including the “banana poop” stage in your raw soft serve making adventure. If not, skip straight to the “blend and enjoy” stage.

I added cocoa powder to mine, because, as Katie knows, everything is better with chocolate. 😉

T also added some of the Pacharan we picked up in Madrid to his:

Both versions were out of this world. The texture really is identical to soft serve – heaven!

Supper was burgers and warm German potato salad (the recipe’s from the trusty Joy of Cooking). CSA potatoes, scrubbed with the help of a blue man and ready to be boiled:

Hastily snapped photo of unphotogenic but delicious food: it was getting cold fast! This potato salad recipe is one of our favs because it includes bacon. This gave us a chance to use up the last of our CSA bacon, and also an excuse to top our burgers with it. Nothing like an all veggie lunch followed by an all meat dinner. 😉

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