Menu for June 29-July 3

Oops. I missed last week - it was pretty uninspired cooking wise - I wanted to bulk up majorly on vegetables and dial down my grain intake - especially rice and rice pasta. I only eat whole grains except for occasionally at restaurants, but i do eat a lot of short grain brown rice and brown rice pasta. When I'm pressed for time and in a rush it's easy to build every meal around that and edge out some veggies. So last week I steamed tons of mixed veggies, in a menu reminiscent of something that I used to get at my fave veggie hippie restaurant in Toronto, Annapurna - cauliflower, greens, carrots, steamed to tender and drizzled with tahini sauce (sesame butter thinned with water, with a little herbal salt.) Delish, and I feel much better. Gonna repeat the experiment this week, and add some moong dahl, which has cooling and damp draining properties, perfect for the suddenly warmer weather and to help me deal with the water retention I always get in hot water.

The farmers market is really where it's at these days, as the full flush of summer is here in socal and every stand looks like something from a postcard. As we walked away with bags groaning this morning, I said 'I didn't get figs!!' Something to look forward to for next week!

M: L: Oven roasted chicken thighs, green beans with aburaage, kabocha squash.
D: I'm going out to a friend's talk - I will bring some food though, enough to share with her: moong dal, steamed gui lan with tahini

T: L: moong dal, gui lan with tahini
D: chicken thigh, green beans aburaage, squash
(make some curried tofu, (I just cube and stirfry tofu with patak's curry paste) cucumber salad)

W: L: gui lan (we really bought a lot!) with chicken
D: curried tofu and cukes

Th: L: whatever's left! probably tofu

Fri: holiday!

Snacks on deck are carrot sticks, heirloom cherry tomatoes, jicama, and lots of beautiful fruit from the market: pluots, strawberries, melon, nectarines.

Have a great week!