Food thoughts

Since watching Julie & Julia this weekend I have really had food on the brain.

Of course, it is better to think about food than needle biopsies, which is what I'm trying so desperately to avoid thinking about.

But back to the food....

I don't think I have any desire to become a Julie/Julia style cook. I think that there were 100 pounds of butter in the film, and while I do enjoy butter, I don't think of it as my best friend. A little here, a little there - yes. A pound per plate? No thank you. And I do enjoy cooking, but not for hours at a time every single day.

But maybe I can challenge myself in some other way. What if I simply challenged myself to make a home cooked meal, with no processed ingredients, every night for a month? I cook frequently, but I'm not deluding myself into believing that I've ever gone thirty straight days with all home cooked food. We get take-out, or go out, or do store bought ravioli or something.

Tonight, for example, I didn't feel like cooking. But alas, there is the money issue (still haven't found it growing on trees), and in addition, I had some boneless skinless chicken thighs that needed cooking. I rummaged through the fridge and pantry and found the usual suspects: rice,onion, carrot, potato, spinach, garlic, fresh tomatoes from the garden. I decided that this was the basis for a curry....and I used the bottled Trader Joe's curry sauce. Ironically, we're about to sit down to dinner, and I regret my decision to fake it part way through. I make a good curry, and this one is comparably a bit bland. I chopped all the veggies (including finely chopping a couple good handfuls of spinach - shhh, don't tell my family, they won't think they're eating greens), sauteed the onion and garlic, chopped the chicken and seasoned it with a bit of salt, and added that to the onion. I poured the sauce on top, and added chopped carrot and potato, and simmered until they were nearly soft. Then I added the chopped spinach, which sort of absorbs into the sauce. At the very end I'll add some fresh chopped tomatoes. It would have been nearly as easy to measure my own curry spices, maybe some tomato sauce, some coconut milk. Ah well, live and learn.

But I'm inspired to go on some kind of foodie adventure of my own, for its own sake...not for the blogging of it, but because it might be a good lifestyle experiment. And maybe blogging would keep me on track.

I think the rice is ready - dinnertime!