Sunday Funday. Monday Stir-on-day.

I’m here eating some leftover quinoa from Satty and it is sooooo good.  I think the flavors came together even more with time – which is, in a lot of ways, like a good basketball team.  Therefore the stuffed acorn dish will heretofore be known as “The Lakers 2009-2010”.  The quinoa is Kobe, and the nutty flavor is Ron “Ron Ron” Artest.  Zaaainnnnnggg!!!  

Sunday night, after an awesome day of driving on the coast, shopping at the Farmers’ Market, biking at Pantoja park, and flying kites in the bay, we were down for a hearty meal.  So we cracked open a Giada cookbook and came across a recipe for Italian stew that we figured would hit the spot.  We walked to Trader Joes to grab some essentials and then “CJed” the dish (“CJ” – verb.  To healthify a dish and/or make more palatable to C and J’s tastes.  “We CJed the fried chicken by not frying it and not using chicken”.  Not to be confused with "CJ" the noun which refers to an entity of two awesome peeps) by replacing the chicken with Tofurky’s Italian Sausage, and added veggies we picked up that morning at the Hillcrest Farmers’ Market (beets, broc, yellow carrots, celery, Italian parsley) to an otherwise light-on-the-veggie dish.   C took the chopping role and pre-tay much whipped up the stew herself.  Fear not, J did some work by blending some cannellini beans with Italian parsley and garlic for a bomb-dot-com hummus which we ate with broc and celery. 

The hummus. 

Also peep the flowers C picked up at the Farmers' Market to replace some fake ones.   *In Seinfeld/Teri Hatcher voice* They're real and they're magnificent. 

Our vegan Italian Spezzatino.  Filed under “did you know”: Did you know that Italian stews are called spezzatini because everything is cut up and spezzare means “to cut up”?  Well now you do!

Dessert?  Uh, yeah.  CJ always answer “yeah”.  Peaches from the Farmers’ Market.  Green figs from Trader Joe’s.  C cut them up, put the dish together, and snapped the pic.  In J’s defense, he was lazy.  See? There’s always a good reason. 

Peaches tasted like honey – soooooo good, though C didn’t care for the skin.  Eating green figs were a first for the both of us and certainly won’t be the last.  We’s digs the figs, ooohhhhh yeeeaaahhhhh…

Yesterday, after a bike ride and unsuccessful but not un-fun (you know we’re serious when we use double negatives) trip get mosquito repellent from Ralph’s, we came back and whipped up a spiced veggie stirfry.  We pretty much took every veggie in the fridge (zucchini, celery, tomato, cauliflower, kale, and spinach) and sautéed it with garlic and one slizzo of Tofurky Italian sausage.  This was steamed with some veggie broth and balsamic vinaigrette.  J was gonna add Maggi soy sauce but C informed J that the sauce contains MSG.  J quickly put it away and wondered how much MSG he’s inadvertently consumed over his childhood.  J guessed 10 lbs worth and today did more sprints that usual to overcompensate for it.  It did not work. :/  This is how the dish looked.  

 

Annnnnnnnndddddddd… FIN. 

-J