Some Good Vegetarian Options

We have a vegetarian house guest coming this summer.  I know what she likes (no eggplant, no mushrooms) and over the years I've found these main dishes to be hits with the whole family.

Home made pizza
Black Bean Tacos
Potato Pancakes
Asparagus & Farfalle
Tortilla Soup
Pasta with tomatoes, spinach and cheese
Grilled  zucchini, corn and peppers with black beans
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Spicy Basmati Fried Rice
World's Best Marcaroni and Cheese
Lentil Soup with Homemade Naan
Southwest Potatoes (potato, corn, beans and cheese)
Stuffed Peppers
Spinach Souffle

That's two weeks worth of menus.  We go out for Indian and Italian food, too.   You can "Google" to get the recipes.  We usually "repeat" the pizza and tacos.

Home Made Naan on the Grill

Grapeshot  

Happy Thanksgiving!

We all have blessings to be thankful for.  Don't let tomorrow's shopping frenzy impinge on your holiday.  Take time to be with loved ones and count the things you have to be thankful for:  family, friends, maybe even a job, hobbies, talents, and nature.  We just fed the cows who were waiting (and bawling) for the farmer who loads them up with stale bread and muffins.  We also fed assorted squirrels, birds and the mouse under the front porch.   Share your bounty.  I hope you gave to the homeless.  They deserve a holiday, too. 

I still recall as a  high school girl helping to take baskets to needy families.  One woman cried.  Some of the dwellings didn't smell very good.  It was a real eye opener.  I wore lots of hand-me-downs (including old hockey skates instead of figure skates) but this was a punch in the gut that I really had it good.  Not everyone does. 

Don't overeat.  Small portions, and only scant seconds. Eat plenty of veggies.  You can do it.  Wine in moderation.  Turn off the football while dinner is in progress, for God's sake.  This sage (!) advice comes to you from Grapeshot who is on her way to the garden to pick sage, thyme, parsley and oregano, all that is left, but what a harvest! It all goes under the turkey's skin. 

Northwoods Shrimp and Vegetable Salad

Right.  So it was snowing here in New England (again!) today.  Not exactly salad weather, but diet menus tend to emphasize salad, and I had 3/4 pound of shrimp in the freezer, so I decided to try this salad with looked so pretty and colorful.

First mistake:  got confused between recipes and I had sooo many vegetables on this week's shopping list that I  forgot to get the  snap peas.  I had organic carrots and a zucchini and some frozen Snopeg corn.  I decided to use the leftover green beans instead of the peas, but forgot and ate them for lunch with some leftover kickass dressing.  O.K.  The broccoli will do.  And it did.

The other dumb thing was not to check the spice shelf for the Northwoods seasoning.  Duh!  Would have bet good money I had it, but alas, a  dig through the shelf today revealed NO Northwoods seasoning.  This or something like this is nothing new in my life.  Once I set off to make chili without enough chili powder, or curry without curry powder.  Get the picture.

Ha ha!  I went online to the Penzey's catalog and looked up Northwoods seasoning.  I had all the ingredients.  What you have to know about lists of ingredients is that they are listed in order of quantity used.  No problemo.  I got out my spices and cobbled together the spices for the dressing.  Cooked the shrimp and veggies substituting broccoli for the snap peas.

The salad was so delicious, and we had some leftover garlic bread which I heated up, and the snow had stopped, yea, almost melted and Significant Other spotted two ducks in the slough and all was well with the world.

Oh  yeah.  Here is a link to the recipe:  Northwoods Shrimp and Harvest Vegetable Salad     No harvest in sight.  It was really toothsome and so perky with the orange carrots and the yellow corn. I served it on a bed on lettuce strewn with baby arugula.  Yum!  The garlic bread  made the meal a little heartier and there was something hot.  Yowza!

Photo from Penzey's web site:  Note the snap peas, not broccoli

Penzeys Spices