Sickness and Health...and Salad

First of all, I just want to make something clear: Tony is perfectly capable of cooking. He's even good at cooking. His spaghetti sauce is incredibly delicious. When I was pregnant, he actually did the majority of the cooking because I was practically always sleeping.

That said, I do the majority of the cooking now. The reason for that is because I enjoy cooking. I like losing the stress of my day in the mundanity of chopping and sauteeing and the focus that comes with meal preparation. So, when I'm down for the count, the cooking either stops or shifts to convenience cooking. This is, once again, not because Tony is not capable. It's because when one of us is sick, the other takes over for childcare and meal prep, and since keeping the kid alive is the priority over meal prep, the kid wins.

For the last week or so, I've had a weird stomach bug going on. I had a fever and chills, and I was really nauseated. I spent a lot of time in bed, drinking mint and ginger teas. So our meals have either been repeats of stuff I've talked about in the past (tacos, for example) or they've been desperation meals since I've been sick--like canned soup. Don't judge us.

Tacos repeated! Plus the guacamole I made for myself.

Last night was probably the first I've really cooked in a while, and it was nice to get back to it. I made a mushroom, lentil, lemon and arugula salad. I found a recipe for it Pinterest--I do that a lot--and it was pretty good. I say pretty good because it was alright, but I don't think it was great. The recipe as it was written just wasn't there for me. I'm not going to link to the recipe because I think I want to try to change this one up myself and then post my recipe for it when I really feel like I have it where I want it.

Here's what I'll say in favor of this dish: mushrooms are probably my favorite thing on planet Earth, and the combination of mushrooms and garlic will always be a win for me. The arugula also pairs incredibly well with mushrooms and lentils. Tony doesn't feel particularly fond of arugula, but he commented last night that he liked it with this dish.

I just feel like the whole time I was eating this I was thinking about what I could have done differently and trying to figure out what was missing from the flavor. There are also things that I would omit next time, like the chili flakes the recipe called for. I will say, though, that this mixture was really good when I spooned it on top of the naan we had with dinner. In the future, no matter what else we decide on to change it, it will definitely be served with naan.

I feel like last night's dinner was disappointing to me. It was decent enough in flavor to eat, but it was just not that satisfying. The best meals are the ones that are satisfying in flavor and in effort. I feel like last night was neither. I put in a fair amount of effort for very little return in flavor, which makes me feel like the effort was somewhat wasted. This does not please me at all.

The good news is that today is a new day, and I can try again. We were between a few options tonight for dinner, so I'm not exactly sure what I'll be making for later. At any rate, I know it will be better than yesterday. It has to be. Otherwise I'll just have to quit cooking and become one of those people that subsists only on coffee and my disdain for others.

Satisfying a Kale Craving

Ok, so I had every intention of holding off on more blog posts for a few days just to ensure that I had something of actual value to write about, but then something weird happened to me today: I had a craving for kale chips. I know that probably doesn't seem that weird, but it was weird for me. I don't usually crave kale. I crave things that are obscure. I crave sweet. When I was pregnant, I craved crunchy. In the past I have craved, and this is a direct quote from my grasping-at-straws struggle to vocalize my desires, "something cold and sweet, but not ice cream...but also soft..." Yeah, I know. It's weird. I'm weird.

Surprising, then, that I should crave something so definite. I also know how fake it sounds when people say things like this when we live in the junk food era, and believe me, no one is more surprised about my new-found love of kale than I am. I used to hear people say that they loved things like kale and glare at them skeptically. My mom, on the other hand, would tell you that she's not surprised by this behavior from me. She tells a story of how, as a two-year-old child, to the disbelief of our waitress, I ordered a salad. When it came, the waitress set it in front of my mother, I snatched it from her, and exclaimed, "Salad!" in an excited and adorable way. Maybe you can detox from all the crap food and actually start to crave healthy foods again. 

The good news is that I had kale at home! In fact, I had two different kinds of kale at home, red and green kale. I bought them for the kale chips that I made here and for a lemony white bean and kale soup that I found here. I hadn't made the soup yet, but I figured that it was as good a time as any since the baby is still getting over being sick and Tony got sick too.

The recipe was really good, but it was not vegan the way that we made it. We had leftover chicken stock that needed to be used, and it also called for a tablespoon of butter. But two small tweaks, and this soup would easily be vegan. I just had at least two and a half cartons of chicken stock that we had bought in bulk at Costco that I didn't want to waste. The butter could easily be omitted. It didn't really contribute to the flavor of the soup in too meaningful a way, and it make the surface a bit oily. That or it could be replaced by another tablespoon of olive oil.

The lemon in this soup is the thing that really makes it extraordinary. The burst of freshness that it contributes is the real star here. It pairs so well with the rosemary, thyme, and oregano that it makes you wonder why you never thought to put lemon in a soup before--or it did for me because I've never put lemon in a soup before! The only thing I wish I had done differently with this is tear the kale into smaller pieces so they were a little easier to get in a bite. The kale stands up really well to the heat of the soup, so it's an ideal green for this sort of application. The recipe suggested that spinach or chard can be used instead, but I feel those would be far inferior in both mouth-feel and flavor. The kale and lemon go so well together that I cannot conceive of replacing the kale here.

Each night that we try a new recipe, Tony and I have a discussion about it. The discussion always ends with me posing a question to him: is this a do-over? Because if he doesn't like it, then there's no point in me making an entire meal that he won't eat. Tonight, I didn't ask that question. Tonight, I said, "Oh yes. OH YES. This is a keeper." There was no debate. I'm definitely making this one again. It was also really filling. We each had one bowl and that was enough to satisfy us both.

The other good news is that this soup only called for about a cup and a half of kale. Since I had a whole bunch of kale, I had plenty of extra kale to use to make some kale chips. Overall, I would say today was a culinary win. I satisfied a craving, and I found something new that was really awesome, cheap to produce, and quick to make. Not a bad way to spend an evening.