What's In Your Fridge?

Planning ahead has never been my forte.  Some people prepare menu calendars for the week or the month.  The Lord bless them!  I have tried this, but have never had the stick-to-it aptitude that is necessary to make it work.  So I try to stay prepared in other ways.

For example, today I came home at midday, and had nothing prepared in advance.  So I came up with a meal based on what I pulled out of the fridge.  I had some thawed dark meat chicken, so I knew this would be an S meal.  I also had some little beef kielbasa sausages that needed to get used.  I then pulled out hot peppers, roasted red peppers, olives, salsa, and cheddar cheese and proceeded to have a chop-and-shred fest in my kitchen.  (It really helps that I find chopping food to be therapeutic.  I have a friend who feels this way about pulling weeds... which makes me shudder!)

A meal waiting to materialize!

After my chop fest (which took about 8-10 minutes), I threw everything into a bowl and mixed well.

A meal in the making

All of this got thrown into a casserole pan.

Looks messy but stick with me...

That chopped mess went into a 350 degree oven until I could smell it.  It came out all melty and delicious!  I could have spooned this into a low carb tortilla, but I had some romaine to use up.  I garnished it with Frank's hot sauce and a squeeze of fresh lime, and voila!  It became a yummy salad.  

From fridge to plate in about 30 minutes.

This would not have been possible without just a little planning ahead.  It is a good idea to always keep proteins thawed and ready in your fridge.  In this case, I had pre-cooked chicken and little sausages that were ready to go.   I used those up in preparing this dish, so I went to my freezer to grab a frozen chuck roast and a package of frozen ground turkey so they could begin thawing for later use.

You always want to be conscious of what proteins are in your fridge and how soon they should be used.  Proteins tend to be the most expensive part of the meal, and it is a shame to throw away food that has gone bad.  "Waste not, want not," my frugal mother always said.  Don't thaw (or buy) too much at once. 

And even when pulling meat from the freezer, it is good to be conscious of how long something has been there.  Try to use the older items first.  Freezer burn also wastes food.

Also, sometimes life just gets busy and I forget to thaw meat.  This is why I always keep eggs, cheese, and vegetables in the fridge for a quick omelet.  And when we leave home for vacation, fried eggs are my go-to for a quick meal upon our return. 

Summertime Salads and Berries

Ahh, summertime!  I eat salads all year, but the ingredients that are available in the summer are just so fresh-tasting!  I have a small garden right outside my house, so I take advantage of that as much as possible.  I am also a member of a CSA and get fresh veggies every other week.  And I also have a neighbor who is more than generous with her sizable garden.

Salads are easy to throw together.  Today, I want to share with you a few of my recent inspirations.  (For more salad and salad dressing ideas, you can view a previous post here.)

First up:  BLT salad with Caesar dressing.  This S salad consists of mixed greens, tomatoes, turkey bacon, parmesan, and homemade Caesar dressing (recipe in the above link).

BLT Salad

Here is another quick salad I came up with when I was particularly hungry - an S Greek salad.  It contains chopped romaine, cucumbers, yellow peppers, roasted red peppers, green olives, pepperoncini, sun-dried tomatoes, chicken breast, and then sprinkled with feta.  My Greek salad dressing contains red wine vinegar, olive oil, black olive tapenade (because I had some in my fridge), fresh minced garlic, a smidgen of Dijon, and cracked black pepper.

Hearty Greek Salad

Right now, strawberries are in season near me. Berries can brighten up many a salad!!  The following salad luncheon (S) contains some of that leftover Greek salad, along with a sweet and sour spinach, strawberry, and cashew salad. For the dressing, I simply combined lime juice, stevia, and olive oil.  (Keep reading for information on that smoothie in the photo).

Colorful Salad Lunch

This next yummy salad came about last night, when I arrived home at 9:20 pm after an evening of Uber driving.  I know it was late, but I was hungry.  So I dug through my fridge and came up with this S salad/late night snack:  Chopped hard boiled eggs, yellow and red peppers, olives, feta cheese, pepperoncini, sprinkled all over with fresh lime juice.  (Boiled egg time-and-sanity-saving hint:  I buy the ready-cooked two-packs of organic hard boiled eggs from Costco. So convenient!)

Late-night salad/hearty snack

Before I go, I want to share about an ingredient I discovered this week:  honeyberries (also called haskaps).  My generous neighbor has bushes that are full of them, and she let me come and pick.  The name is somewhat ironic, because they are quite tart.  I blended some of them with the limeade that I keep in my fridge (in my adorable new lemon/limeade bottle that I brought home from Israel) for a refreshing beverage that you can drink with E, S, or FP meals.  If you don't happen to have access to honeyberries, you can substitute any berry of your choice.

For the lemon or limeade, squeeze 4-5 lemons and/or limes into a bottle (I think my bottle is about a liter).  Add 4-5 doonks of stevia, fill with water, and store in the fridge.  Add fresh mint if desired. 

Honeyberries, and a smoothie made with limeade from my fridge.

THM Traveling: Israel

Eating in Israel is an experience!  Everything in the produce section of the grocery store is fresh and in season, because it comes from right here - this tiny little country that can fit inside Lake Michigan.

Is there anyplace else on earth like Israel?  A tiny little country - and yet it grows both apples and bananas, which require different climates!

Anyway, I digress.

I just spent two weeks in an apartment with four other ladies, and we were located just steps from a grocery store, where we were frequent visitors.

Meat, chicken, and fish are expensive here, which is partly why Israel has the highest number of vegetarians per capita behind India.  The other part has to do with the rules of kashrut (kosher food).

Meat and dairy do not mix here, so we would either choose to have a meat meal or a dairy meal.  Our kitchen had separate dishes, utensils, and sinks for each.

We pooled our money and enjoyed several meat meals, but I have to say that dairy was queen when it came to protein.  Israel makes the most delicious cottage cheese I have ever tasted.  And I found Triple Zero yogurt in that nearby store!  O joy!  Cheese has been another big ingredient, and I confess that I brought two bricks of Costco cheese with me, because deciphering the Hebrew in the cheese section has always perplexed me.

Eggs are reasonably priced and are considered pareve (neutral) and can pair with either meat or dairy.  I made a dish called shakshuka at least three or four times.  Basically, it is eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce, which doesn't really sound very exciting, but let me tell you... it is delicious!!! Here, let me give you a quick recipe (which can be widely varied):

Shakshuka
1 medium onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1/2 hot pepper, chopped (more or less or none depending on your desired heat level)
Butter or olive oil
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 little smidgen of stevia (cuts the acidity of the tomatoes)
Salt and pepper to taste
Eggs
Shredded cheddar

In a frying pan, sautee onions and peppers in butter or oil until lightly browned.  Add tomatoes and spices.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  Crack eggs (as many as you need or whatever will fit - I usually did 6-9 for our group). onto the top of the tomato sauce, season with salt and pepper.  Cover and simmer until the eggs reach your desired done-ness.  Turn off heat, top with cheese, and cover pan again so the cheese melts.

Variation:
One day, I added a can of black beans and a little BBQ sauce to the basic tomato sauce and eliminated the cumin.  I also added a little Trader Joe's 21 spice blend.  I skipped the cheese on this version.

Every time I made shakshuka, I asked myself why I never make this at home.  The answer is that I don't think about it.  Well, I'm thinking about it now, and plan to make this regularly!

Wonderful shakshuka

Ahh, the veggies!  Berries from the shuk.  Eggplant. Peppers. Cabbage.  Sweet potatoes. Not to mention tomatoes and cucumbers for classic Israeli salad.  There was never a shortage of salads at our house.  I buy fresh lemons for dressing, and I travel with a small olive oil.  Those lemons also got squeezed into my water bottle, along with a little stevia for a refreshing beverage on these hot Israeli days.

This billboard from Ben Yehuda Street pretty much says it all.

When I stay at apartments while traveling and do my own cooking, I bring my own culinary kit - because you never know what the place will have.  One year, before I started doing this, all I found in that apartment were salt, pepper, and rosemary.  I got so tired of flavoring everything with rosemary that I went to the Arab market and got ripped off buying spices.  I have learned a lot since then.

My current culinary travel kit contains the following:
1 small bottle olive oil
1 small container Now brand pure stevia
1 bottle pepper and Celtic sea salt mixed together (I used to carry each separately, but since I always use them together, it made sense to combine them)

1 bottle Trader Joe's 21 Spice Salute
Cinnamon in a baggie (not needed this time because the apartment had it)
1 knife with a sheath and a sharpener

I used to carry many little jars of different spices until I discovered the Trader Joe's 21 blend, which I absolutely love (introduced to me by my friend Lynne).  I try to bring as little as possible in my culinary kit for the sake of efficiency.

I am considering adding a small bottle of red wine vinegar to the mix if I can make room for it.  We bought a huge bottle, the only size available, and barely used an eighth of it.

My Mount Hagen organic coffee sticks travel with me in a separate little bag, along with  individual THM packets of sweet blend.  Then I grab half and half and almond milk from the store.

And now I must make a confession:  bread.  There is nothing like Israeli bread.  The pitas are so soft and delicious. they are like eating a baby seal.  (Note:  I do not actually eat baby seals.  I am being facetious).  The bagels, covered with sesame seeds and zaatar spice, are heavenly.  Challah bread on Shabbat.  Yes, I have indulged in much bread.  I believe they treat their wheat differently here, because one of my friends who cannot eat the wheat from the US has no problem here.

With all these crossovers, I have been careful to pair them with exercise.  This is not difficult to do here.  Jerusalem is a city of many hills, and walking is one of my main forms of transportation (along with a bus card for when I am just too weary, too hot, or need to be somewhere quickly). 

Last night was a fun night out with some good friends of mine who live here in Israel. We went out for sushi. It was delicious, and they brought their one-year-old baby who got to taste sushi for the first time. He enjoyed himself tremendously, and had a sticky rice spa treatment in his hair.  Isn't he just adorable?

Israeli sushi - so good!

I probably could have kept this sushi meal in E mode, except for those delicious tempura ones that pushed me into crossover territory.

This post has been a work in progress for several days now, and this morning I had the courage to step onto the scale at my apartment, (since today marks one month away from home in my current travels). I was pleasantly surprised! I am up only about a pound since the last time I weighed, which was about six weeks ago.  Traveling and THM really can work together!

I am wrapping up this rather long post from my favorite coffee shop in Jerusalem - Etz Café (my daughter had her first official date with her husband here). I'm enjoying a late-morning E+ smoothie with strawberries, blueberries, spinach, almond milk, and honey. (I just made that up... E+ due to the honey).

In two days, I'll be on a flight back home so that I can catch my breath before my next journey to visit my kids.

Shabbat shalom and blessed Shavuot (Pentecost) from Jerusalem!