thoughtful consumption

This week’s highlights

Here’s our first salad of the season. Two types of wonderful lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and thinly sliced radishes from my bag plus pepper, oil, and vinegar.

One trick I like is making the salad then adding canned tuna. (I like tuna in oil, so I hold the oil in the salad dressing.) Toss it all up and put it on plates and then put the plates in the fridge for 10 minutes or so. Chilling it all together makes it really nice.

Unfortunately, I forgot to allow time to chill it for this meal. But the sweet potatoes were delicious. Not a bit tough or stringy like they sometimes are from the grocery store.

I tried sliced radishes in salads and then roasted marinated radishes. Everyone liked the radishes in the salad better. You have to slice them really thin, though. Then they add just the right amount of crunch and peppery zing.

My stepson pronounced our baked white potatoes as the best baked potato he’s ever had. And loaded baked potatoes are on our regular meal rotation, so he’s had some experience in the area. These potatoes were really creamy and delicious. I’m glad we let them stand on their own instead of adding them to soup or something. (By “on their own” I mean underneath layers of butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon, and chives.)

Those pretty little apples were a kind of disappointing. They were very fresh and crisp but not as flavorful as I’d hoped. Still, they made a nice, crunchy afternoon snack.

I made syrup from the lemon verbena as threatened. It turned out pretty well. It’s a nice change of pace from honey in my tea.