Lazy Spring Day

It is a lazy day today, a beautiful, yet lazy day. Called in sick from work to work on my drawings, and got hungry, but not really feeling like putting much effort into making a meal. So, I opened my fridge and started pulling vegetables out, you just wash them, chop them, and you make yourself a salad.


There were some apples on the counter and since the day is nice, I got the impulse of making a salad with some fruit in it. Problem is, I don't quite have any idea what to do with apples, so I dug into my fruit basket and pulled out some mandarins. I started craving a taste, so I went with them.

I made a quick badly made dressing with two mandarins, a bit of lime juice, some orange juice, and olive oil. Salt, pepper, and a bit of ground ginger. I tasted it, and yup, it hit the spot. So then I proceeded to chop my veggies:

-Romaine Lettuce

-Spinach

-Cucumber

-Cabbage

-Red Bell Pepper

-Cilantro

and a fruit: 

-The Third Mandarin that survived the squeezing. 

I stared at the radishes in the fridge, they stared back at me, I closed the door on them. I regret it, a little, but, like I said, lazy day.

I did open the fridge again to pull out some dried cranberries. But still ignored the radishes. Next time!

And then, I just put everything together and made myself a nice little meal. It was actually quite... perfect. It went well with the climate, and with my mood. And now I can go back to doing some drawings, possibly painting.

Mmmmm.

Coming Back Soon

Haven't had time to do anything serious in my cooking other than quick stuff, but I will try to get back at doing something I want to talk about here once a week, in the mean time, I leave you with a wonderful page of The Joy of Cooking from the 60s:

You never know when you'll need to skin a squirrel!

Queso Fresco Tacos

The fridge was full with veggies, Queso Fresco, and brand new Tortillas, so it only made sense to make a taco out of it, well make that two. Super simple, super fast, very delicious, and Queso Fresco doesn't have that much fat, so somewhat healthy. I accompanied with, yes, you guessed, a bowl of lentil soup.

Ingredients:

-Queso Fresco

-Pico de Gallo

-Anaheim Pepper

-Radishes

-Avocado

-Cabbage

There's not much more to say about it, other than, it was very tasty.

What Can I Call This?

Today has been a busy, active, day between working on projects, working out, watching animated films(?) ... Busy day! It would have been very easy to eat the delicious Costco Pizza that my brother brought home, because there's so much to do today, but, what's the fun in Pizza a day before the Super Bowl?

Not to mention, it's way too greasy.

So, I went on and made my own... actually, also greasy meal! The irony! It's somewhat, kind of, remotely inspired by a similar Paula Dean recipe that I made quite some years ago. I don't really remember what her recipe had other than Mayo and Potatoes and Broccoli. It probably had a ton of sugar as well. But, what it practically is, is a potato salad - Or is it a coleslaw? I've got no idea!

It pretty much chopped every veggie I had in the fridge (that would go together, of course):

-Cabbage
-Broccoli
-Red Onion
-Yellow Onion
-Tomato
-Celery
-Romaine Lettuce
-Carrot

I also cooked:

-A Potato
-An Egg
-A Poblano Pepper

And then I thinly cut:
-CHEDDAR CHEESE! MMMM! (when making the salad, put it on top of the veggies, then, when your potatoes are done, chop them into tiny squares, and while still hot, drop them on top of the cheese. Paula Dean taught me this!)

The Dressing was a mixture of that Rooster hot sauce, Mayo, rice vinegar, and white vinegar, salt and pepper. I still don't know why the two vinegars, don't ask me. But it was a spicy dressing, very very good.

The end result was very very yummy, very filling. I don't know if in the end it was healthier than Pizza, but, I don't really care. All I care is that I made it, I had fun, and my stomach thanked me.

Now I can go back to finishing my projects, hopefully before it is time to go out!

Comfort in Butter

Some days just feel blue, and lazy. Even though you are beginning something exciting, like going to a new school, you just want to lounge and think. Especially when the sky outside throws a light, yet wet, tantrum. It makes you feel like reheating previously made foods, to be eaten as you sit in your couch and watch television shows. The way a sloth would if they had televisions, and microwaves. They just don't seem like the cooking kind, not with those kind of hooked shaped hands, anyway.

But then, you realize, that a certain pleasure, a certain ray of hope sparkles out of turning on a stove and making something, anything. It doesn't have to be nutritious, it doesn't have to be complex, or even healthy. And so I did, I got off my seat, went into the kitchen, took some popcorn kernels out of the pantry, pulled out a pan, drizzled some oil inside of it, covered the bottom, uniformly, half a kernel deep, put it on the stove and set the flame up. Dropped a few kernels in, five to be precise, I like five, so I always drop five. And as I waited for them to pop (once the five pop, I drop a handful, search it up online and you will find what is going on), I thought:

"Butter. Yes, you health freak, you. You will eat them without even a pinch of salt. Open the fridge, take out the butter stick, and a root beer while you are at it. It is that kind of day." This, of course, being a novelization of the actual thought, which was shorter and more of a quick electric impulse than an actual sentence. But if it had been a spoken thought, it would have sounded like that.

So I did, grabbed the soda and the butter. I figured, it's a rainy lazy blue day. Perfect time to seek comfort in the things we actually have power over. Like food. Once the popcorn popped, they got a yellow golden creamy bath of butter, they got salted with sea salt, and were accompanied with a sugary fizzy carbonated drink.

A recipe that sounds tailored made for obtaining diabetes, but also made for temporary happiness and faux warmth.

Why do drugs to lighten your day when you can just do butter and salt? 

They should perhaps use that for marketing.

Scrambled Egg Breakfast Tacos

Today was a rushed lazy morning, yet I was not in the mood of cereal or oatmeal, so I decided to quickly make something a bit more spicy, a bit more filling. I had tortillas, eggs, California chilies, onions, avocados, home made hot sauce,  and cilantro in the fridge. The answer was easy, breakfast tacos!


Easy, delicious, filling. On one pan I fried some onions, and on the other (the cast iron one) I heated my tortillas, and then proceeded to fry my scrambled eggs. Then it was just a matter of tossing everything inside the warm tortillas, and bite away. The California chilies especially gave them a  very nice flavor. It was, in the end, a very yummy breakfast.

I would suggest maybe adding sour cream, and some chopped tomatoes. But, as simple as they were, they were great. So, there's a quick, simple, breakfast idea to try when your tummy gets hungry for something a bit different and you don't have a ton of time to do something fancy.

Lentils and Quesadillas

It's a rainy day today in San Diego, of the few ones we have had this year, and as usual it translated into lazy day. Yet, a day where warm foods were craved. So, I decided to feed my cravings with simple stuff, Lentils and Quesadillas. Can't get simpler than that, while still managing to experience nutritious feel good flavors. 

For the quesadillas I had something special in mind, California chilies! Paired with Monterrey Jack they form one of the most holy unions imaginable. And stuffed inside a corn tortilla? What else can you wish for on a rainy day? 

Well, a warm bowl of lentils of course!

 Since it is a lazy day there was nothing special about the lentils, just chopped some tomatoes, garlic, onion, and serrano chilies. And chopped some cilantro to be added at the very end. 

If I only had had tequila it would have been the most perfect meal for a weather like today. 

Very easy to make, very fulfilling and very delicious. And not expensive at all! Though, I know that we are often times are used to big meals with a lot of different elements, it doesn't have to be. Two quesadillas and a bowl of lentils is unbelievably satisfying. Followed with some fruit and you are set to continue on with your day.

I've been wondering what to do with this blog, what direction do I want it to take, and I have come to the conclusion that it is not a cooking blog, my cooking skills are not worth showing off so I won't tell you how to cook, it'd be like pretentious. So, it will just be an idea blog, because I've found that sometimes people struggle to figure out what to eat, so we make bad choices. That's not to say everything presented here will be healthy, it will just be a good doable alternative to what you can find on the street.

However, occasionally, I may make posts about delicious findings from the streets! However, until money stops being tight, mostly everything will be home made stuff that I think are worthy of sharing!