A favorite meal revisited

When people ask me what I eat,  I always tell them that I don't like things pretending to be meat, that I just don't miss meat that much. That is true - I really do not miss meat that much after over 6 years of not eating it. My husband, however, really does miss meat. He is wonderful about eating whatever I eat and trying to eat vegan foods so we can both be healthier. Because he is so good about it, I was eager to try the recipe for meatloaf in the Engine 2 Diet Cookbook by Rip Esselstyn, professional triathalon athlete, who is now an Austin Texas firefighter . The diet is based on whole foods, including whole grains, fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds.

I prepared J for disappointment, even to having leftover pizza on hand just in case we were left without something to have for dinner if the meatloaf failed. No disappointment tonight. I have to say that this is one  of the best recipes I have tried for something pretending to be meat. I served J his favorite meal: meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, and lima beans. I added a salad of the heirloom tomatoes from the CSA, a few French breakfast radishes, thinly sliced sweet onion dressed with a teaspoon of olive oil and an excellent Italian red wine vinegar.

I searched in vain for a long time to find this recipe online and at last it has been posted on the Engine 2 Diet website.

35 new salads to make

Now that your garden and your local farmers' market are overflowing with with fruits and vegetables, you have a perfect way to eat the bounty in salads. Mark Bittman, in his New York Times Minimalist column, has written 101 "recipes" of just 2 or 3 lines describing inventive combinations of ingredients and dressings. Many of them are vegan and most are vegetarian.

The first one combines cubed watermelon with tomato chunks with basil and vinaigrette. The second features wedges of tomatoes, peaches, slivers of red onion, crushed red pepper, and cilantro with an oil and citrus dressing.

There are 33 that I want to make! This could be half of my menu planning for the rest of the summer and beyond.

What is your favorite?

A week's menus

Possibly the best cornbread I ever made

Ingredients for my traditional chili

As promised yesterday, I am going to list what I had to eat during the past week beginning with today's dinner: chili made with beans and lots of chopped red and green peppers and cornbread made from a recipe in Real Food Daily Cookbook: Really Fresh, Really Good, Really Vegetarian by Ann Gentry and Anthony Head (link to Amazon, but the copy I used was borrowed from the public library). Lunch was leftover pizza with grilled vegetables and breakfast was a bowl of blueberries and sliced strawberries and a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and walnuts. Do you wake up as hungry as I do?

Another day the menus included
Breakfast: bowl of blueberries and sliced peaches and a bowl of oatmeal with raisins
Lunch: tostadas as posted yesterday
Dinner: Pizza with grilled vegetables and a salad

Dinner: quorn roast, baked potato with onion and mushroom gravy, corn on the cob, and spinach salad

Dinner: gazpacho, fakin' bacon club sandwich

Dinner: potato salad, coleslaw with rice vinegar, leftover gazpacho, salad with vegan ceasar dressing

Other meals were leftovers of the above and we ate out one night at a meet the artist reception for the opening of a show of photographs taken by the daughter of friends.

Avocado and mango tostada

No, sorry, but that is not chocolate! But these tostadas were so delicious I just have to share them with you even though it is not the most photogenic food. There is a more appealing photo of a tostada on Wikipedia.

At about noon every day I get hungry, really, really hungry. I don't want take the time to cook in the middle of the day, but I admit to being a picky eater. That means I have to at the very least prepare some food. I can't just grab a piece of bread with a smear of something and be satisfied. I like to reheat leftovers whenever they are available. If there are no leftovers in the refrigerator, I try to have a sandwich and fruit or sometimes a fruit sandwich. This might be called a Mexican fruit sandwich. Not by a Mexican of course, but that is the way I thought of it.

I often toast corn tortillas made by La Banderita and sold at Publix stores where I live and at Wegmans where I often visit. Even though the tortillas contain those chemicals that I can't even begin to pronounce, they are the only grocery store corn tortillas I like the taste of.

In the refrigerator I found the tortillas, left-over refried black beans, spicy tomato salsa, a few leaves of Boston lettuce, half an avocado and a mango. The avocados and mangoes available right now are outstanding so as soon as I saw them I knew I had lunch. I put the cut up fruit and lettuce in a small bowl and splashed on some seasoned rice wine vinegar. In the microwave, I reheated the refried beans while the corn tortillas were toasting and assembled my Mexican open-face sandwiches.

It has taken me longer to write this than it took to prepare lunch!