Toast Tuesday: Lunch

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

Tags

#cook90, Bon Appetit, delicata squash, Epicurious, farro, lunch, salad

If you’ve haven’t heard, Epicurious does a January challenge called #cook90. The challenge is to cook three meals a day for 30 days in January. Since we know there’s 31 days in the month you get three passes. I am not doing #cook90, but I am inspired by it.

I regularly listen to the Bon Appétit foodcast and two of the Podcasts this month have been talking to Epicurious editor David Tamarkin. In one episode they focus on lunch al desko and how to take good, healthy lunches to work. Last night I made farro for the first time and roasted a delicata squash the first time. I intended to use both of these on a simple bed of mixed greens.

Having never made farro before, but having heard nothing but good stuff, I was pretty excited to try it. The fact that 1/4 cup has 7 grams of fiber was another big win. It is so nutty in flavor and has a great texture.

I sliced the delicata squash, drizzled with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkled with an assortment of herbs and spices and tossed on a baking sheet. 425 for 20 minutes got a nice caramelization. It took some effort not to nibble the entire pan and save them for my salad.

To accompany the farro and delicata, I sautéed some shallots and mixed up a lemon Dijon vinaigrette. My salad was the envy of qhite a few in the breakroom today. Rightfully so. It was awesome. Taking a good, healthy lunch doesn’t have to be difficult. Nice to have reminders of that. Thanks Bon Appétit & Epicurious.

Quality time w Mom

03 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Lula Harp in family

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

lunch, mother, Porcellino's, vacation

Quality time w Mom, a photo by Lula Harp on Flickr.

summer eating

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by Lula Harp in recipes

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breakfast, broccoli, feta, kalamata olives, lunch, pasta salad, summer, whole wheat pasta

Isn’t it amazing how our bodies tell us really important things when we take time to listen. My body talks to me in my dreams and my gut is quite vocal, especially when I don’t listen to it. And my gut check left me for awhile and it took me some time to get it back. Now that I have my gut check back, I listen to it!

The easiest thing to listen to our bodies about is what we eat. Even though this is the easiest thing, this is the thing we most often ignore. Which is why we have a society rampant with obesity and diabetes, but that’s a rant for another day. Ultimately, we need to eat when we are hungry, stop when we are full, and don’t eat things that make us feel bad. For me, I need to nibble all day. I don’t generally eat one big meal. I have a snack about every 2 hours and in the winter it’s easier for me to graze than in the summer. In the summer, I often forget to eat.

I rotate through my egg cups and frittatas, my morning glory muffins, and I usually have a yogurt cup with granola. These are nibbled on through out the day, padded with a banana and an apple. Now that summer has finally made it to Oregon, I’m feeling I need to eat lighter and cooler.

When I went shopping for the week, I had the windows rolled down, enjoying the wind in my hair and the sun on my skin. I was hot and what sounded good was a fruit smoothie. and cool pasta salad. So guess what my breakfast and lunch for the week are. O-M-G, did you guess smoothie and pasta salad?! you were paying attention!

whole wheat noodles (1 bag)
broccoli (a couple of cups, chopped)
1 small bag shredded carrot… I threw the broccoli and carrots in the pasta water for the last minute or 2
1 small jar of kalamata olives, chopped
1/2 of small walla walla onion, diced fine
1 8z block of feta, crumbled
1/4 cup olive oil brine from olives
balsamic vinegar (a lot)
sprinkle of kosher salt
several generous sprinkles of mixed herb blend
toss, taste, tweak as needed… If I had started cooking earlier, I may have added some grilled chicken.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. This may just be around for another week. I’ll tell you about the smoothie another day.

What do you enjoy eating when it’s hot out?

What I ate Wednesday

29 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by Lula Harp in dining

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

bacon, breakfast, Koi Fusion, Laurelhurst Market, lunch, muffin, nutella, OMSI

I usually do wordless Wednesday with some thoughtful image. But this morning’s breakfast has lead me to this. That and I am certain I haven’t talked about food enough in the last few weeks. I’m having withdrawals from spending so little time in my kitchen.

I am not a picky eater. The only thing that I vehemently will not eat are mushrooms. I appreciate fine dining and good cooking and also can see the value of an occasional fast food hamburger (best for a good hang over cure).

What irked/baffled me today was the Hippy Muffin I got this morning at the Freshii cafe in my office building. A pretty little muffin topped with an assortment of seeds. What it ended up being was a glorified yellow cupcake with a few seeds tossed in for good measure. I didn’t want cake for breakfast but I ate it since I had just plonked down $2.50.

Lunch though, was another thing all together. I was delighted to find on one of my lunch walks a few weeks ago Koi Fusion has a stand near my office. A little nook has 4 or 5 food vendors. Last week’s lunch treat out was Gandhi’s. You walk in and they fill a dish so full it’s really 3 meals. But today I indulged in the Koi Fusion bowl with short ribs and pork. I splurged the extra 25 cents on kimchi, well worth it. While it isn’t Gandhi’s 3 meals size portion I was able to nibble on it all afternoon.

Dinner was grazing at OMSI After Dark Bacon and Bridges. Bacon was a plenty but bridges were few. There was a creepy bridge made out of bacon and a suspension bridge we got to jump on. We sampled Bakon Vodka, waffle sandwiches with bacon and peanut butter or nutella (my pick) from Flavour Spot, bacon toffee cookies, and the most delectable pâté with bacon (bite size open face banh mi) from Laurelhurst Market. We nibbled and sampled so much I lost track.

The thing that almost topped the bacon-ness was the incredible gymnastic stylings of Brittany Walsh’s amazing, indescribable feats. I took a video, this is beyond words. It goes super quick, so watch carefully. and you’ll probably have to watch a couple times to really get it. We also saw the AWOL Dance Collective, both were with William Batty from the Wanderlust Circus.