thoughtful consumption

Two meals

One was a bit of a disappointment considering how much thought and work went into it. The menu was

• Salad (lettuce, carrots, radishes, goat cheese, and toasted pecans with raspberry vinaigrette dressing)
• Garlic scape pesto and shrimp pasta (I cooked the shrimp to almost done in a little olive oil and then turned the heat to low, added the pesto, and let it simmer for ten minutes or so.)

The salad didn’t mix up right. The leaf lettuce didn’t go as well with the goat cheese and toasted pecans as I imagined; I should have saved those for some of our romaine or field greens and just served the leaf lettuce with carrots and radishes.

And I wish I had served the salad separately and early rather than on the same plate as the pasta. The flavors weren’t well-matched, and the pesto cooled down too quickly. It’s not nearly as good when it’s not hot. It would have been better to eat the salad and leave the pasta on the stove. I’ve shied away from doing serving courses in the past because it seemed too fancy (and my husband would grumble about extra dishes). But I guess some things are really better eaten in succession rather than on one plate.

Yesterday’s much simpler – but still delicious – lunch finished off most of our produce. We had yummy sweet potatoes baked in the microwave, steamed pea pods from our garden topped with goat cheese and dill, carrot sticks, leftover coleslaw, and some dried apples for dessert.

Leftovers

• Napa cabbage: will use in fried rice dishes and also as a cooked cabbage side dish.
• Dill: combine it with goat cheese on vegetables. I ordered beets from the online store this week just for this purpose.
• Dried apples: continue to eat as a snack. Mmmm….

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