Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

The potatoes are hiding. The chard in my garden has grown like crazy this summer. Previously my only chard recipe was  this pizza , which is delicious, but it was time to branch out. After some Pinterest searching, I came across  this recipe from Food.com  for saag using chard. This kills two birds with one stone - it uses up some chard, and it also continues my quest for a good saag recipe.  And it succeeded! This will be my go-to saag recipe for now, and I hope it works just as well with spinach when I don't have chard sitting around. In addition to the fresh chard, I used potatoes that I grew, garlic that I grew, and onion that I got at a farm stand. With all of this freshness abounding, I felt a little weird using curry paste from a jar. But the flavor turned out to be really delicious. Some of my Indian recipes fail from either my unwillingness to measure spices or from not having fresh enough spices, so I might start using  this curry paste ...

There would be more nori if the 2-year-old nori monster hadn't eaten most of it. Pre-parenthood, I used to make sushi a lot. Now I just throw a bunch of sushi ingredients in a bowl and call it good. It tastes almost the same. I vary the ingredients a lot based on what I have available. But with the  Oregon Lox Company  down the street, I almost always use their ridiculously delicious garlic-pepper smoked salmon as the protein. The Recipe: cooked rice (sushi rice and/or black rice), mixed with a splash of rice vinegar protein (smoked salmon or other) vegetables (I like avocado, cucumber, and green onions) sesame seeds or rice seasoning toasted nori soy sauce or sesame ginger dressing (below) Dump everything into a bowl and eat. Sesame Ginger Dressing: (adapted from  Spend With Pennies ): 2 tb soy sauce 1.5 tb avocado oil 3 tb rice vinegar 1.5 tb sesame oil 1 tb lime juice 1 clove garlic, minced 3 tb honey 1 tb ginger, grated 1 ...

If you put the feta under the veggies, it hits your tongue when you bite into the sandwich This is one of those meals I turn to after a stretch of eating poorly. It's light and healthy and has lots of veggies, but if also has bread and cheese, so I don't feel deprived. It's perfect on a hot day, too. I have varied ingredients depending on what I have and what's in season. This time, I had good lettuce in the garden, so I went with pretty typical salad ingredients. Other times, I've roasted vegetables and used that as the base of the salad. I would have added banana peppers if I'd had any, and I imagine that other people would enjoy olives in this. It's worth home-making the  hummus , especially if you have fresh parsley in the garden that can be blended into it. (See the green specks? So good.) And I recommend buying whole feta and cutting it into slices. It's less messy than crumbled feta, it tastes stronger, and it's usually ch...