Meatless Monday!

My Meatless Monday Dinner: Butternut squash soup - delicious!

My sister recommended a book to me a while ago called the Everlasting Meal. The basic premise is that our generation has lost touch of what home-cooking really means. What we see on TV on the Food Network shows for example, are not what our parents and grandparents know as home cooking.

The Food Network has tricked all of us in to thinking that cooking is for the elite (not of money but of natural cooking talent), it is difficult, and every meal needs to be fantastic. The Everlasting Meal tries to bring back the sense that cooking starts by boiling a pot of water and just going from there. Add some salt, add some meat, add some vegetables and you have a chicken and vegetable vegetable soup. A month ago when I interviewed Don Reinhardt about the soups at the Sewickley Cafe, that’s exactly what he said he makes - “refrigerator soups”. Getting rid of recipes and cooking what you have makes for great cooking and keeps you on your budget.

A lot of healthy eating can sometimes seem like it’s really expensive, but in the past month since I’ve been eating at home for most meals (for the first time in college) and eating mostly vegetables (including leftovers) I’ve spent significantly less than I’ve ever spent before. Using this technique of simply roasting or boiling vegetables rather than picking out a specific recipe is a great way to stop being afraid of preparing veggies and save time, money, and stress.

Sometimes buying a lot of vegetables can seem daunting because vegetables have a short expiration time, but the author of the book suggests buying vegetables in seasons and then as soon and you get home preparing the vegetables in simple methods so they are ready when you want them. This also goes along with Michelle Obama's campaign-- One of the actions she asks parents to take is to have fresh fruit or veggies available for their kids when they want a snack. Having food ready when you want it is a huge determining factor in what you'll eat as a quick snack.

For this meatless Monday, I did exactly that. I roasted carrots for 30 minutes and then poured a sauce of 2tsp ginger, 2 tsp rosemary, 2 tbsp soy sauce, orange juice from one orange, and 1 tbsp corn oil over top. I had made this recipe before and I they were fantastic fresh, and my roommate had the leftovers for a snack the next day and raved about them and asked me to make them again. (the sauce is enough for 1 lb for carrots and 4 servings of salmon so you may want to cut the recipe in half)

Here are the carrots from the last time I made the recipe!

I made plenty this time so we’ll be eating carrots for quite some time - things could be worse.. :)