Closing Out Week One

The first week is drawing to a close and I am suffering no ill effects. In fact the Mysterious Chinese Woman says I am eating healthier now than I usually do. I know I certainly haven't been going hungry.

I decided I would make a variation of my spinach omelet today, a quick and dirty version.

Similar ingredients, but just one egg.

Breakfast Ingredients


Step one is just a little chop chop.

Preparation Is Everything


Then I simply saute the onions and garlic in a bit of olive oil. The trick is to keep the heat really low and just get them to turn translucent. You especially don't want to burn the garlic.

Just About Perfect


After I had the onions and garlic just the way I wanted them I threw in the cheese and spinach.

Just Tossed It In


After the cheese started to soften I cracked the egg on top.

Everything Is In The Pan


Then it was just a matter of scrambling everything up together.

Not Really An Omelet


And voila, a healthy and hearty breakfast.

A Great Way To Start The Day


I popped into Trader Joe's to pick up some more bananas. They still had them for 19 cents each, which is a pretty good deal. Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of Trader Joe's, and frankly do not understand why so many people are such fanatical supporters. I think their selection is limited and the prices, other than for the bananas, aren't that good either. I do like their peanut butter, though. But for most of my shopping I will stick with Key Food.

My Bananas


As you can probably surmise, I had my favorite banana and peanut butter sandwich for lunch with a carrot thrown in for good measure.

Meet Mister Sandwich


I figured on making a bean stew of some kind for dinner and had to figure out a way to do it with somewhat limited ingredients.

Not A Whole Lot To Work With


I trimmed off most of the meat from the pork shoulder and set that aside for later. Then I chopped up the carrot, onions and garlic.

Ready To Go


I just threw everything into a small pot of water along with some salt and pepper, brought it to a boil, and then let it simmer for about an hour.

Ready To Simmer Away


When I judged it to be done I strained the stock and tossed everything else. I suppose you could eat it, but it would be pretty flavorless. All the flavor goes into the stock.

The Leavings


And The Stock


You may recall that way back on day one I had rice and beans with chicken and broccoli. When I soaked the beans I had way more than I could use so I just put some of them in the refrigerator. I broke them out and threw them into the stock to cook.

Cooking The Beans


After cooking the beans for about half an hour I threw in the carrots. I wanted the carrots to be cooked, but not mushy.

Carrots Into The Mix


When the carrots and beans were done I added the pork that I had cut into fairly good sized chunks. I wanted this to be a hearty stew.

Hmm, Not Quite Right


I was looking for something thicker, more like a porridge. Luckily, I had watched Tony Bourdain last night. He was visiting Azores and they had an interesting custom. The community builds a house and then hold dinners for the poor people. Azores is doing fairly well these days so now the house is used more for just family or community gatherings.

Okay, to the point. The primary dish they made was kind of a stew where everyone brings something to throw in. Something a bit unique though is that they add bread as kind of a thickener. So there it was.

My Thickening Agent


Just Threw It In


Suprisingly, after letting it cook a bit the bread absorbed all of the excess liquid and then kind of browned up a bit.

Now This Is More Like It


It actually turned out much better than I had expected. The bread added a bit of sweetness, but it was a pungent sweetness because it had absorbed the flavorful stock. I had a big bowl of it and it was very satisfying. I will have to remember that bread trick.

Fit For A King


I was plenty full when I finished my bowl and still had plenty for another meal in a day or so.

Looking Forward To My Leftovers


I have a chicken leg and thigh thawing out in the refrigerator for tomorrow night so I will have to figure out what I am going to do with it. Probably nothing too fancy, though. You can get a lot more flavor than you might think out of just onions and garlic and just salt and pepper, but I am accustomed to a wider variety of spices. I will probably find out that I had enough money to buy more, but I don't want to come up short. Ginger is pretty cheap though, so maybe I will pick up some of that tomorrow.