Breakdown Saturday

This time of year is bittersweet, as days begin their shortening trend and as the air begins a turn towards cooler temperatures – or, at least, in theory. The day really was not any cooler than any other day, and the only sign that perhaps the belly of this summer has passed is the fact that the humidity has dropped minutely. With the awakening of the morning, I headed off, without much ado, to our local farmers’ market early in the morning to inspect the available wares available. I picked up a batch of what would probably be the last of the apricots for the year, a couple of peppers, a couple of raisin rolls, and a jar of local wildflower honey. My wonderful neighbor with her sweet dog greeted me, upon my departure from the stands – so I stopped to catch up with her and to chat with some of our fellow neighbors.

Some lamentations of the mosquito problems, neighborhood squirrel populations decimating our tomato crops, and expressions of equal amazement at the farmer-squirrel volunteers in setting to plant some corn and pumpkins in various yards around the neighborhood later, we arrived back at our doorstep to end our neighbor-exchange morning. I brought in the trophies of my gathering expedition, and started off my morning at home.

Breakfast wasn’t all too different from normal – thanks to my good friend who brought me some crispy Indian snacks, I’ve been downing our plain yogurt like it’s going out of fashion. I enjoy making a mixture, to which both she and Hubby raise an eyebrow: some plain yogurt, mixed with an equal part of the crispy spicy Indian snacks, for this wonderful sour, salty, spicy, sweet mix. Hey, I like it, and I’m getting calcium – it’s not bad, really! And the prenatal vitamin I tried this morning sat well with me throughout the day, thanks in part to the cover the yogurt gave it – so that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

I brought in our pumpkin from our yard, an early pumpkin, and decided that I would make pumpkin bread. I also partook in one of the raisin rolls – yum! Except… and this is where the day took a down turn. I had other errands to run, and Hubby had some work to do at the office, so off we went. Some bike gear to pick up and return, and some cooking utensils to get, and some groceries to pick up. The trip to the grocery store started out innocently enough, and I even ate an apple beforehand to make sure I didn’t completely take everything off the shelves. I started through the vegetables, as I usually do, worked my way through the meats, and ended up in the dairy case – and typically, from there, I start heading back out. At the end of the dairy case, however, was the frozen food section. I thought to myself, you know, I haven’t gone through and taken a look at this stuff in a while, and hmm, I wonder if we need some ice cream. Before I knew it, I was salivating like some rabid raccoon in the appetizers section of the freezers, darting back and forth between the pierogis, mini cheeseburgers, mini pizza bagels, potato knishes, latkes, and spanakopitas. Someone walking by may have assumed that I was hosting a cocktail party – and all I wanted to do was to down a box of whatever it was that I could get my hands on. In the end, some level of reason did win over my rabid mind, and I picked up a bag of latkes, a box of mini cheeseburgers, and a box of mini soy-cheese pizza bites. And with those treats in hand, I picked up one last item, unsweetened applesauce to enjoy with the latkes, and I made my way to the register and surrendered my credit card to the cashier before I could do more damage.

Upon my return home, while I stashed everything into the fridge and freezer, I had 2 little latkes toasting in the oven, and a plate with applesauce and sour cream all ready to go. The latkes - ach, they were all right, and I have to say, I have made better, with at least some seasoning. But, they did satisfy my snack tooth this afternoon, and the applesauce was phenomenal - no sugar, no high fructose corn syrup, no artificial sweetener. This bite was just enough to carry me over into the dinner portion of the day.

Chicken Thighs w/Swiss Chard
Defrosted 2 chicken thighs, and I sliced up some Swiss chard. I stuffed the Swiss chard under the skin of the thigh, and coated each piece with pre-made Chimichurri sauce (it’s a sour salty sauce). Simple enough… baked for 40 minutes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hubby, not as much to his liking, but he did very much like…

Cheesy Rice Bake with Broccoli
As I was wandering my way through the supermarket this afternoon, I thought up some ideas. One that popped into my head, and you’ll laugh at this, is a dish that I enjoyed via our dining halls back in school. Edible food from the dining halls? Yes, this was one of those few dishes I actually enjoyed. It was a simple casserole bake, probably with left over rice, left over broccoli, and no doubt left over cheese.

My variation – and I apologize for not including specific amounts, but as with most of my cooking, in contrast to baking mind you, I leave measuring cups and measuring spoons in the drawer where they belong. I used some left over brown rice, to which I added some heavy cream and shredded cheddar cheese. I cut up a small head of broccoli for the crowns, and stirred it in. The mixture is pretty dry, but the cream does lightly coat the rice. This mixture, I tossed into the oven for the last 15 minutes of baking, and it really was very good. Left over brown rice now has a new purpose, outside of my usual dirty rice recipe!


So that was my day, a minor breakdown in the freezer aisle of our local supermarket, but otherwise, relatively damage-free. The pumpkin has been split, awaiting baking tomorrow morning before carving out for the bread, and I even have some pumpkin seeds waiting for toasting. I had some fruit cups that we purchased a while ago, and I thought up a great way to enjoy them without as much of the sugar syrup – I made some unflavored gelatin, and poured it into a mold with 2 of the small cups of fruits. Another snack in place, albeit a shorter-living one than those in the freezer, but another snack nonetheless. Now, if I can just keep this up, I’ll have snacks left and right – and hopefully healthy ones – when that ravaging rabid time raises its ugly head again!