Walk Widely. Eat Wisely. Live Gratefully.
We were craving something delicious for lunch and there was an avocado that had just reached that moment of perfect ripeness. We diced it into some salmon and mayo, and served it on homemade whole wheat sourdough bread. Delicious with a cold glass of milk!
As the weather cools and many of our garden crops have been harvested, it can be easy to turn our thoughts to root vegetables. Well we should! But it isn’t too late for salad yet, even without cold frames. Yesterday we harvested delicious beets and Swiss chard, an we still have a healthy crop of mizuna. All of this was turned into today’s lunch salad, along with some chopped apple, walnuts, and feta cheese, held together with this vinaigrette (for two):
15ml/1T each of red wine vinegar, tarragon Dijon, and olive oil, whisked together. If you don’t have tarragon Dijon, use regular, and add some chopped herbs of your choice.
Tasty – although we admit if the chill stays in the air, we will turn our thoughts to soup!
We’ve been traveling, attending a couple of family weddings and doing a little business along the way. It didn’t seem realistic to ask them to postpone their special events on account of our vegetable patch, so the consequences when we got home were, well, interesting…
First, beans were just nicely coming into bloom when we left. Which means Jack’s beanstalk had nothing on us when we arrived back. Beets are still growing, and we’ve already harvested potatoes. A few tomatoes were spared the post tropical storm blight that has attacked local crops.
All in all, we had the makings of a lovely salad (and roasted veg are in our future). The eggs, olives, and tuna are not our own, but the rest is absolutely home grown.
For two:
Cook 2 small red potatoes and 1 large golden beet (reserve the greens for the salad). Throw the beans in to blanch, just at the end of cooking.
Hard boil 2 eggs.
Chill all of this (we cooked ours at breakfast time).
Arrange the chopped greens on a plate. Top with the cooked, cooled veggies, some sliced tomato, olives, and good quality water packed tuna.
For the dressing, mix 1T/15ml each of Dijon, olive oil, and vinegar (your choice).
Enjoy!
Earlier this week we roasted a turkey, a ten-pounder purchased for about ten dollars. We’ve made a host of meals of it. Today’s lunch were these tasty wraps…with a half cup of celery and cucumber in with the turkey, and a little light mayo and homemade zucchini relish. Using a large tortilla and accompanying it with a cup of 1% milk, is about 485 calories.
The best healthy eating tip we’ve seen this week? At every meal, ask, where’s the veg? More than once it has helped us make a healthier choice, and hope it will do the same for you.
We’re having a great time figuring out interesting ways to use all the produce from our garden these days…lots of spinach and onion are on the menu. Our self challenge is also to be sure we get some protein in every meal. Today’s lunch consists of these tasty bean and cheese burritos.
On a whole wheat tortilla, layer several spinach leaves, 1/2 cup (125ml) cooked beans (these are Jacob’s Cattle beans, grown in NS and cooked here at home), an ounce (30g) of cheddar. Microwave about 2 minutes to melt and heat (or in the oven, if you prefer…just keep an eye on the cheese until it barely melts). Add a dollop of salsa (ours was canned last fall from our own produce) and plain, nonfat yogurt. Chopped green onions from the garden add extra flavour. Wrap and enjoy!
Yesterday was a hectic day – lots of meetings, running around, and a restaurant lunch. So by the time we returned home we were crangry (hungry and cranky)! We needed food that was healthy, easy, and quick. In less than the time to call for delivery, we made this delicious pizza from scratch. We used our usual crust recipe, but with 100% whole wheat flour, instead of half and half.
The added bonus? It makes enough for dinner for two, and leftovers for today’s lunch. On top, we used homemade zucchini relish, some feta, cheddar, red peppers, mushrooms, olives, and a little prosciutto. Tasty!
Always looking for ways to use what’s on hand…this soup was waiting to be made from ingredients in our fridge. For two:
Bring 750ml/3c homemade stock to boil, and add:
125ml/1/2c sliced red onion
1/3 yellow pepper, diced
1 large cremini mushroom, sliced
2 grilled chicken thighs, diced
100g/3oz cooked chickpeas
5ml/1t curry paste
Simmer until veg are tender. With a glass of 1% milk each, under 500 calories.
Halifax’s Brewery Market was full of fantastic things today – with the benefit of hothouses or a slightly milder microclimate than ours, their lettuce and spinach were way ahead. So after a blueberry muffin we picked up the delicious greens you see here. Then we hurried home to start transplanting, now that we finally are receiving some sun and milder temperatures.
When lunchtime rolled around, we topped the greens with a local apple – these are getting to the end of their useful lives now – some Cendré de Lune cheese, walnuts, and a vinaigrette of Dijon, sherry vinegar, olive oil, and tiny spoonful of maple syrup. By next week our own spinach and lettuce will be starting their picking cycle.
Next: more seeding and some flowers for the boxes…
Happy gardening (or eating). Either way, thank a farmer.
These melts had us grinning like Cheshire cats…probably because of the cheese. We made a tuna salad, substituting Dijon for half the mayo, and dicing in a tomato. All this went on top of toasted flax bread, with a grate of Cheshire cheese to top it off.
Under the broiler, and we were done. Lunch for two in under ten minutes, and delicious, as well!
Yesterday was an absolutely glorious day, and hearing that there was snow in Calgary yesterday, we are grateful for the mild temperature we experienced. It let us get the garden cleaned up, prepped, and some cool weather crops sown for our spring table.
Of course digging and weeding all this (and more) in a locale that is too rocky for a tiller is no mean feat!
This meant our salmon avocado tomato sandwiches were all the more welcome.
For two, mix gently and spread on multigrain bread:
1 diced avocado, sprinkled w 15ml/1T lemon juice
4 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 can wild salmon, drained and mashed
30ml/2T light mayo
Enjoy!