A pineapple + the weekly meal plan

Pineapple Time

Today I bought a pineapple, mostly because I like how they look. It was a toss up between daffodils or the pineapple, and the pineapple won out. At some point I’ll get to eating it, but for a few days at least it’ll be decorative – they are just such cheerful looking fruit. (On a side note, I’ve always been a fan of that Williams-Sonoma golden pineapple emblem. I’ve considered stealing it and making it my own, but I don’t really have any connection to the pineapple other than a passion for its spiky top, patterned body, and golden flesh.)

This afternoon, we experienced a minor kitchen tragedy: our microwave bit the dust. The control panel turns on, but the microwaving doesn’t actually happen. I suspect a fuse has blown, or something has burnt out, but you can’t really go and tinker with a microwave, lest you’d like to risk going back in time or exploding into a million small particles. (So I’m telling myself.) I suspect we’ll be living microwave free for quite a while. I’ve gone years at a time without one, and while they are very useful for steaming vegetables and reheating coffee, I find that I eat better when I don’t have immediate magical cooking rays at my disposal – mostly I end up snacking on things that I’d probably be better off not. I’ll have to figure out this coffee re-heating business though. If you have any brilliant suggestions, do let me know.

Week of Sunday, March 30th

Last week I tried out Cook Smarts, and enjoyed the relief of not having to make any meal planning decisions, but this week I was eager to mix it up a little bit and get inspiration from some of my cookbooks as well. Instead of the menu of the week, I wanted to try some of the Cook Smarts “favorite” week recipes, or at least use them as a starting point for my own meals.

Sunday: Maple-dijon salmon with asparagus. The maple dijon salmon was a Cook Smarts “favorite” pick that caught my eye – users rate the dishes they cook, and write short reviews – so I decided to try it out. For some reason Whole Foods had king salmon (I’m assuming it was frozen), and I decided to splurge in anticipation of salmon season starting at the end of spring. King salmon is hands down my favorite salmon.

Monday: Pork chops with balsamic brussels sprouts and orzo. Another Cook Smarts “favorite”, although I’m skipping out on the red onions because we’re ambivalent about them in this household.

Tuesday: Cumin-spiced lamb meatballs with shepherd’s salad + hummus. One of our favorites around here, I’ll be making Turkish köfte. I also picked up some roasted red pepper hummus, and will serve it all as one big salad.

Wednesday: Chicken thighs roasted with grape tomatoes. I try to operate under a meat and veg or two veg or three veg policy, but sometimes I just want a big bowl of slow roasted tomatoes with chicken. Does this make me weird?

Thursday: Salad plus fixins’. The truth is, I went to the store and the last few meals on my list weren’t sounding so good anymore. So I bought extra romaine lettuce, and I’ll crack open the pantry and the freezer and round out a good salad with all the fixins’.

Friday: Out!

What’s on your table this week?

–– Sam

After the rain.

This morning after CrossFit, I made myself a big breakfast of banana and nut butter, eggs with zucchini and pancetta, and a steaming mug of gingerbread coffee. And I sat down to read my gorgeous copy of Nigel Slater’s new Kitchen Diaries II. I’m in love!

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, let’s talk about morning workouts.

After blowing off yesterday’s workout because of the weather, this morning my mission was to head out to CrossFit whether I wanted to or not. And when I woke up to yet another wet dreary day, I sure didn’t want to. But I went anyway. 

Today’s workout was “Kelly” 5 rounds for time: 400 meter run, 30 Box Jumps (literally just jumping on a box), and 30 Wall Balls (squatting and then throwing a weighted ball many feet above you into the air to hit a line on the wall). The prescribed workout for women was using a 20 inch box for box jumps, and a 14 pound ball for wall balls. I came to class today exhausted, so I decided to scale things. I did step-ups on an 18 inch box, and used a 10 pound wall ball. There was a 35 minute time cap, it was raining, and people were miserable.  I made it through three rounds, a run and step ups.

My favorite moment of the workout was when I passed a fellow gym-mate in the rain as I was dying, and he yelled out, “This is terrible! Great job!!” Nothing like a little bit of commiseration to get through a hard workout. Although I didn’t get to five rounds, at the end, I managed to finish up my final set of wall balls after the clock finished, making it 4 rounds, done.

In the late afternoon, I had a snack of roasted carrots and parsnips, and headed out for a walk.

I’ve been taking many different routes in the past few months trying to explore new places. Today’s walk took me down to the Charles, walking through puddles in the street waiting for the sun to peek out at me. It was beautiful. Here are some of my favorite shots of the afternoon.

Puddle jumping.

New paint jobs.

Preparing for winter.

And this gorgeous pathway.

When I came home, I put together a quick dinner: pork stir fry with pineapple and cashews. I seasoned the pork with salt and pepper, added some chopped ginger, a stir fry sauce of five spice powder, chile flakes, coconut aminos, fish sauce, and some vinegar. Then I added a few cups of pineapple until they were warm, and tossed in some raw cashews. Simple and sweet!

I had mine over a big bowl of cauliflower. No dessert tonight, but we’ve been watching backlogged episodes of Doctor Who because I apparently missed the fact that the *new season* has been airing. Thank goodness for BBC America and On Demand.