Scene: Living Room Couch
Players: The Lovely Couple
Time: 5:30 p.m., 10/20/2015
The Mood: Encroaching Hangriness
Me (while playing Solitaire on my phone): We really need to go grocery shopping.
Mr. J (while watching Isle of Man racing videos on his phone): It’s silly to go now. You’ll just get swamped by the post-work crowds.
Me: But I’m starving and we have nothing to eat!
{15 minutes later}
I finally get up off the couch and try to scrounge up whatever I can find from the fridge. I’ll deal with grocery shopping another day. Fiddle-dee-dee.
Leftover rice salad? One egg? Frozen solid chicken thighs? No. No. No.
Dig a little deeper. Oh wait—we have some bacon! Oops, only two pieces. If I were single, it’d be perfect, but it’s not nearly enough for two starving adults.
Wait, what’s that in the back of the crisper? A package of Aidells Andouille sausage, leftover from Sunday’s overly salty gumbo. (Sidenote: The Food & Wine recipe for the gumbo was probably delicious, but I made the fatal error of using “Better Than Bouillon” in place of fish broth. Sooooo very salty!)
Oh, and look at all these veggies. Cauliflower, carrots, garlic, red onion, mushrooms.
Are mushrooms really considered a veg? Whatever, in they go!
Mr. J gets in on the action and “discovers” eggplant and banana pepper, which have been sitting in big silver bowls on our counter so long, after being harvested from our garden, that I don’t even see them anymore.
Mr. J: Should we throw in some Brussels sprouts?
Me: Nah, this is plenty. [If I can get that bacon to make it until tomorrow night, I will fry it up with those sprouts for a tasty side dish … perhaps for those frozen chicken thighs … which I should probably take out to start defrosting now.]
Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a pan with parchment for easier clean-up and spray it with coconut oil. Chop up all the veggies … and the ’shrooms. Toss them with some olive oil, fleur de sel (imported by moi from France, mais oui), throw on some Creole seasoning (also leftover from gumbo night), and throw it in the oven.
Let it roast while I play with the dog, clean up the dog poop, admire the canna lilies, scrub my hands three times over (just in case), do some dishes.
When it starts smelling good, check it all out. Sizzling and getting golden.
Time to sear up those sausages!
Serve it all with the last bits of leftover rice salad, some Mr. Mustard (sent as a Christmas gift every year from Mom), and a bit of our own local winery’s (Cinder’s) Laissez-Faire white.
Another day of grocery shopping successfully averted!
p.s. Next up is to learn to be a better photographer, as there is nothing more unappetizing than bad food photos. So for now, I’m using related but unrelated images that at least look pretty.
barecupboards 