Bread is the “staff of life,” or so says my husband, Paul. For breakfast he adds cheese along with raspberry jalapeno jam and for lunch and supper he adds a little ham/sausage/jerky/hot links to the mix topped off with wine. I think he could live on this diet for the rest of his life and, lucky for him, he doesn’t have any health or weight issues plaguing him. I, on the other hand, eat a lot of plain yogurt, fruit, veggies and limited lean protein. Not sure what good it does as I still have health and weight challenges. There is no junk food in our house and my recent late night splurge has been a handful of chocolate chips along with 2 tablespoons of peanut butter. Not good but not all bad either. Oh, and I have been freezing sliced bananas that head off sweet food cravings that haunt me in the night. I know this all sounds pretty boring but I have come to really enjoy healthy eating which is also necessary given all the gastronomic sins committed during our travels.
I absolutely love the late summer “farm to table” season where our meals revolve around food that comes from area gardens and farms. A recent meal including my cousin’s homemade cinnamon raisin bread, scrambled eggs from a friend’s chickens and tomatoes grown in my garden made me particularly happy. We also love to make homemade pizza using our canned tomato sauce and home grown veggies. I am looking forward to many more such meals, especially now that my freezer is chock full of garden vegetables and my pantry filled with this season’s canned goods. Paul keeps saying he needs more meat in his diet but given he just headed out for another international junket, I can stay on my healthy eating plan for the month. Having the time to cook and try new healthy dishes is something I am really enjoying in retirement.
Now that the tomato season is over the gardens and trees are delivering squash and apples in abundance this year. We canned lots of applesauce again but even with a better peeling/slicing method the sliced apples get overcooked so I am going to try to find a variety that holds up better to the canning process next year. There are lots of apple dessert recipes I would love to try but don’t dare as Paul doesn’t eat them and they just talk to me in the night until I answer. I did make apple crisp one night this week when we had dinner guests and guess whose is eating the leftovers?
The weather has turned and we had a frost watch last night so I am going to make curry squash soup with apples this weekend. With the furnace on and the fireplace going, I think I will also curl up with a good book in my clean house and enjoy my solitude. Ah….”coming home!” 2018