WIAW 192 – Finding our Way

Someday we’ll get used to streets that are not laid out on a grid (like Manhattan…) Or following topography (also like Manhattan – I’m used to a winding street following a cliff or river. You know – there’s an obvious reason for it. They do that a lot in Jersey City, too.) And someday when we have directions to turn at a street, I will cleverly look at the map to see whether or not that is the first time that the street we are driving down crosses that street.

The above paragraph brought to you by the twenty minutes we spent driving up and down a road looking for anything at all that resembled the directions we’d been given – let alone the actual store we were looking for! (And when we did find the store – after discovering the second intersection – it turned out to be closed on Monday. Rich accused it of hiding from us!)

But we do start to feel that we are settling in. We got out to a gathering and met some people. I finally feel I have enough of a handle on what I am doing for the household and family that I can plan ahead more. I have found sources for flour and seasoning and such that I often use. I think I understand better what the parents do and do not like to eat… and even what they enjoy but do not think make a Real Meal. (No all-in-one skillet dinners in my near future. It doesn’t seem to feel right for them.)

What I Ate

I’m sticking to the same breakfast… The parents like cereal, which sounds easy, but they want the most complicated bowl of cereal you ever saw! (Well – unless you saw Rich fix his cereal…) By the time I’ve fixed theirs with nuts and seeds, bananas and berries, yogurt and buttermilk, and – oh, yes, cereal… my shake and bowl of grits seems very simple! I will want muffins again, though, and need to figure out how to work them into my morning so I can get my own breakfast in a reasonable time!

Oh – the picture? Rich was amused by my breakfast, all lined up on the pass-through… so I took that picture!

For lunch I made red lentil soup. Some frozen mirepoix, the lentils, chicken broth (also from the freezer) and a bit of chili powder. Started out very simple, but then I decided to add the small butternut squash I got at the farmer’s market, which added both flavor and sweetness. Well, then, Don tried some of the leftover with his lunch the next day, and liked it – I guess I’m going to have to remember how I made it, and make more!

And this time, at dinner, I remembered to take a picture of the salad. So I forgot to take a picture of dinner itself…  I had some of the country sausage from the local supermarket – the one I used to make meatloaf muffins – and a few potatoes, so I made hash. You’ll have to take my word for both that and the sauteed asparagus…

But the salad! Two kinds of lettuce, arugula, celery, scallions, radishes, cucumbers… with oil and vinegar. I have a lovely two-sided cruet which, in fact, the parents gave us when they moved (because they never used it.) It’s presumably intended for oil and vinegar, but cleaning it out after using oil would be a nightmare… so I put balsamic vinegar on one side and a good wine vinegar on the other. And I found a lovely oil cruet in the cabinet here, and filled it with Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the real stuff, not what supermarkets are calling EVOO these days! A beautiful green gold with plenty of flavor.)

So let’s dance over to Laura’s for Jenn’s WIAW party, and see what everyone else is doing!