Because immediately after that, I had dental appointment number two (out of the needed three, all in the matter of one tooth). For which I allocated an hour. It took three hours. Three hours! For no good reason, except that things moved rather slowly in that office today. Very slowly.
After, it was a gallop to get to work on time and then of course I was terribly behind with everything and it was in that frenzied set of hours that I thought -- what the hell. It'll be about breakfast.
I came home as the sun disappeared to the west. Ed was winding down his engineering project and he was ready for a break. Want to make ginger ale from scratch?
Make it -- okay. Drink it -- no.
Why?
Too much sugar! I say as he reads off the ingredients.
We can cut the sugar in half. Or more...
Then it becomes ginger, water and lemon.
It's not a big undertaking. I grate some ginger, twist out a bit of lemon juice and Ed throws it together with yeast and (a decreased amount of) sugar and water.
Outcome? Ask me in 24 hours. I cannot imagine it to be anything but strange and yet it is very calming to be finishing the day with making something so inconsequential as ginger ale.
Dinner is not a worry: we have plenty of leftovers. Leftover chicken soup. Leftover beans and shrimp. And a fresh salad and then a freshly roasted whole head of cauliflower because sometimes, you just crave cauliflower. And of course, you crave it all the more when you read in the paper that this very diet of foods, foods that you love more than nearly any other foods on the planet are what the world calls the Mediterranean diet and BTW it's good for you!
So, our supper of leftovers...
... on this otherwise tedious and only in rare flashes delightfully playful day.
Looks like a perfect dinner - a little bit of everything. Good luck with the ginger ale!
ReplyDeleteI want your recipe for "beans and shrimp" or "shrimp and beans" - whatever... I am putting frozen shrimp on my food list this week - do you use canned baked beans or cook them from scratch?
ReplyDeleteEmilie -- the ginger ale was... interesting. Ed claims it's a thumbs up. I still think making drinks with sugar, even small amounts of sugar, is not a good use of cooking time, but this was relatively painless.
ReplyDeleteBex -- go to Epicurious.com and type into the search "garlic shrimp and white beans." It's a recipe from this past October's Bon Appetit.
The short of it -- briefly sautee in olive oil garlic, a few chilies (I used dried flakes), add chopped tomatoes (I used more than they suggested, and I used canned Italian this time, and I pick ones that haven't extra junk, like salt, added) and a little tomato paste, cook for a few minutes, add cans of rinsed white beans (I used cannellini) and a little chicken broth (I used less than they suggested). Meantime, mix your defrosted, peeled deveined shrimp with some olive oil, more chopped garlic and paprika. Then -- and this is the part I like -- scatter the shrimp over the beans and stick it under the broiler for several minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and eat. Yum!
great Nina...thanks for the recipe.
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