Sneaky Snake Chili and Other Experiments

No... there's no snake in the chili... it's just an expression.  Whew right?  :)  You know how you have to be super sneaky and hide veggies from your kids when they are little?  I did anyway.  They will still roll their eyes as they name off all the dishes they found zucchini in :)  Well... as it turns out Dave does not seem to like spaghetti squash.  And remember that 8.5 lb spaghetti squash I pulled out of the garden the other day?  And remember the mother of all pots of chili?  Very fortunately spaghetti squash is extremely mildly flavored so it occurred to me that I could possibly "hide" it in the chili.  Really I was doing it for myself.  I do like spaghetti squash but dang!  Enough is enough!  I hate to throw things out though so today I did a little experiment.  I just chopped it up and presto!  Just like magic!  Now you see it - now you don't.  Twice as much chili... half the calories more or less.  The only trouble is... now I have even more chili :)  But that's not a bad problem to have.

For dinner... I was highly irritated to find that Dave had to work late again!  I had salmon fillets in the fridge marinating that needed to be cooked.  I hate eating late but if I'm making Dave's favorite dinner which is salmon it needs to be fresh not warmed up.  Almost every night I call to find out what time he is coming home.  That's one of the "benefits" of working for the rail road... he never knows when he's getting off work.  I had been thinking ahead about what I wanted to do about sides.  I had an acorn squash from the garden that I thought I would bake.  And don't forget about the never ending zucchini in the garden... what to do???  I decided on a two squash dinner.  Sounds strange I know but I thought I'd go with a sweet and savory theme,.  For starters I marinated the salmon in teriyaki sauce then cooked in a grill pan on top of the stove.  For the zucchini dish I chopped up a large zucchini into a roughly 3/4 inch dice.  I chopped up an onion and one garlic clove and sauteed them in a little olive oil and seasoned with curry powder and turmeric.  I cooked 1.5 cups of one of the fancy pastas I bought at the Pike Place Market (lemon parsley-it was a pretty yellow/green color) and tossed it into the zucchini with some pine nuts, crumbled feta cheese and at the last minute stirred in some some fresh herbs from the garden, basil, lemon thyme and fennel fronds.  I don't have any idea what to call it.  I'm sure something will occur to me.  It was definitely worth repeating.  The acorn squash became "dessert".  I cut it in half and scooped the seeds out then filled the well with a small sliced apple (skin on - why throw away the fiber?).  I sprinkled a little cinnamon on top and dotted with half a teaspoon of butter in each half and baked it until tender.  Once it was cooked through I drizzled a touch of honey on top and because Dave loves this I topped it with marshmallows and browned them.  All this was totally made up on the fly.  Fortunately each dish was quite tasty :) and worked well together.  This is what it looked like:

I used two marshmallows on Dave's half and cut up one marshmallow into pieces for mine.  If this looks like a whole plate full of food - it is!  I only ate half so I know what I'm having for lunch :)   The stats this morning are 149.4 and glucose 96 so yay!  The bit of pasta and smidge of honey and one marshmallow didn't derail the blood glucose deal. :)

I invited my neighbor Sharon over for lunch on Friday.  Today I began thinking about what to make that I could mostly prepare ahead since it is a work day.  She works from home too and since she lives next door so we thought we would just take a lunch break together.  I immediately began thinking about what I needed to go to the store to get and then thought I would challenge myself to see what I could come up with without making that trip to the store.  I have a couple of ideas but noting solid.  I'll let you know how it comes together.  Many times these surprise meals turn out ok but - no guarantees :)  No worries though... sneaky snake chili will NOT be on the menu!

Ciao!