Use It or Lose It Mode

With a slew of produce from Fresh Direct panting in their plastic bags in my refrigerator, tonight I was in “use it or lose it” mode. This mode refers specifically to my disgust of food waste, my want for efficiency and my need to make lunch for the week. With the weather crappy and the roommates gone, the kitchen was mine. Here’s what I made:

Roasted tomatoes. I can live off roasted tomatoes. This is my favorite form of the tomato. I slice some plum tomatoes thick and long and roast them slow at 300, swimming in olive oil and the rotating seasonings of my fancy. This time it was the standard salt and pepper along with rosemary and some parsley for some complementary color.

Roasted zucchini. My second favorite vegetable to roast. Zucchini is quite unstunning in its natural form. But roasted, its texture is like a tender fleshy eggplant. It also sucks up flavor real well. Topped on warm thick bread and you got the beginnings of an amazing sandwich.

Almond and kale pesto. Absolute deliciousness. I processed a huge bunch of blanched kale with some olive oil, nutritional yeast, tons of garlic and ample nutritional yeast for a big tub of the stuff. Pesto is one of my favorite things to whip up because it dresses up so many foods so nicely. Paired with Vegenaise, it is an absolutely perfect sandwich spread. With that in mind, I thought I’d put the pesto not just on the bread but in it!

Yes, polishing off my first bag of bread flour, it was time the week’s bread selection: Kale pesto bread! Besides the beautiful specklings of green throughout, this loaf marks big progress in my breadmaking experiences thus far. Last week’s olive French bread was far from finished so I have to slice ‘er up for croutons. My breadmaker is spoiling me.

Last but not least, beet greens. Trimming these leaves in preparation for my roasted beet sandwiches later in the week, I sauteed up these lovelies to up the greens intake for the week.