Days when it's worth it
May. 12th, 2009 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenmamaOkay, some days I think I'm being an idiot and wondering what the hell I'm up to with this whole footprint pseudo-green-suburban-mama thing, feeling very self-consciously chi-chi and precious like I'm trying to be something I'm not.
And then today, when I had 2 or 3 minutes to make lunch before running in for a noon staff meeting (which doesn't actually start until 12:30, I now discover, which is why I have time to blog), I am able with incredible ease and efficiency to do the following:
1. get a piece of whole wheat naan, the stuff from Trader Joe's we subsist on instead of regular bread, since it takes much longer to mold and is palatable to our kids,
2. place on half of it a few slices of lunchmeat (okay, it was roast beef, which is the most EVIL un-green meat one can consume, requiring immense resources to produce, but that's a rant for another day and we haven't eliminated beef entirely from our diets yet because my husband is of the Beef It's What's For Dinner mindset despite the fact that we've had beef for dinner maybe a total of, oh, a dozen times in the past 7 years of marriage, not counting when he stops at Scatchell's and buys Italian Beef sandwiches on the way home from his folks...)
3. on the other half, spread some of the yogurt cheese I made a couple of weeks ago, still perfectly good and fresh. (I don't do mayo; too fatty and the jarred stuff is too processed. Yogurt or yogurt cheese gives the creaminess and tang without the fat content.)
4. grab the kitchen shears and head out to the patio, where I snip off 4 small lettuce leaves and a sprig of fresh tarragon, all of which I give a quick rinse and dry-pat to
5. put the lettuce on the meat side, quickly use the shears to chop-trim the tarragon over the yogurt cheese.
6. put the halves together and start munching
And realized it was quicker to cut and rinse the herb and lettuce than it would have been to open the tarragon jar and/or get a thing of lettuce out of the fridge. And this is just May, less than 2 weeks after everything's planted--it'll grow and grow, and there'll be more all spring and summer. And if I can keep the tarragon from flowering, it'll just keep bushing out and I can dry the herb for the winter, since I use it all the time...
This was an AMAZING sandwich. Truly yummy. Could only have been better if I'd cut the tarragon into the yogurt cheese several days ago and let it sit and steep (which I might to tonight with some of it; need to eat that yogurt cheese before it goes off!). And if I had veggies, I'd've skipped the meat all together and just done tomato and zuke slices, maybe the yogurt cheese on one side and hummus on the other or something. But it was GOOD.
Good fresh food, quick and easy, cheap (aside from initial startup costs, which admittedly this first year in a new home are considerable), gourmet-ish even, that I made/grew myself, and from which I didn't generate any more stupid plastic containers.
A good day.
--J
And then today, when I had 2 or 3 minutes to make lunch before running in for a noon staff meeting (which doesn't actually start until 12:30, I now discover, which is why I have time to blog), I am able with incredible ease and efficiency to do the following:
1. get a piece of whole wheat naan, the stuff from Trader Joe's we subsist on instead of regular bread, since it takes much longer to mold and is palatable to our kids,
2. place on half of it a few slices of lunchmeat (okay, it was roast beef, which is the most EVIL un-green meat one can consume, requiring immense resources to produce, but that's a rant for another day and we haven't eliminated beef entirely from our diets yet because my husband is of the Beef It's What's For Dinner mindset despite the fact that we've had beef for dinner maybe a total of, oh, a dozen times in the past 7 years of marriage, not counting when he stops at Scatchell's and buys Italian Beef sandwiches on the way home from his folks...)
3. on the other half, spread some of the yogurt cheese I made a couple of weeks ago, still perfectly good and fresh. (I don't do mayo; too fatty and the jarred stuff is too processed. Yogurt or yogurt cheese gives the creaminess and tang without the fat content.)
4. grab the kitchen shears and head out to the patio, where I snip off 4 small lettuce leaves and a sprig of fresh tarragon, all of which I give a quick rinse and dry-pat to
5. put the lettuce on the meat side, quickly use the shears to chop-trim the tarragon over the yogurt cheese.
6. put the halves together and start munching
And realized it was quicker to cut and rinse the herb and lettuce than it would have been to open the tarragon jar and/or get a thing of lettuce out of the fridge. And this is just May, less than 2 weeks after everything's planted--it'll grow and grow, and there'll be more all spring and summer. And if I can keep the tarragon from flowering, it'll just keep bushing out and I can dry the herb for the winter, since I use it all the time...
This was an AMAZING sandwich. Truly yummy. Could only have been better if I'd cut the tarragon into the yogurt cheese several days ago and let it sit and steep (which I might to tonight with some of it; need to eat that yogurt cheese before it goes off!). And if I had veggies, I'd've skipped the meat all together and just done tomato and zuke slices, maybe the yogurt cheese on one side and hummus on the other or something. But it was GOOD.
Good fresh food, quick and easy, cheap (aside from initial startup costs, which admittedly this first year in a new home are considerable), gourmet-ish even, that I made/grew myself, and from which I didn't generate any more stupid plastic containers.
A good day.
--J
