August | 2015 | real food. home made.

I love dinners that are practically all vegetables, yet have enough different colours, textures and tastes where you might not even notice. You might even say: “it has meal appeal out the wazoo!” And did I mention it’s quick? I got off work at 4:30 and have already swung by the post office and bank, stopped at the grocery store for my ingredients, made dinner, did the dishes AND wrote this blog entry and it is only 7:00pm.

Easy Acorn Squash with Mushrooms & Roasted Onions

Ingredients:

1 acorn squash, halved, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 red onion, cut into 1/2 inch wedges
10 oz baby bella mushrooms, cut into bite sized pieces
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 T fresh thyme
1 T fresh parsley
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
splash of balsamic vinegar

Method:

Preheat oven to 475º
Toss squash and onion pieces with EVOO and season with salt and pepper.
Roast on an even layer for 15-18 minutes, until squash is tender.
Meanwhile, heat a skillet on medium heat, add EVOO, your chopped mushrooms, garlic and thyme, and season with salt and pepper.
Cook until mushrooms are tender (adding a splash of balsamic vinegar halfway through cooking), then turn heat to warm and add parmesan and parsley.
Arrange squash and onion pieces in a radial manner, add mushroom/parmesan mixture on top, and serve immediately!

Lunchtime at work regularly tends to bring up various discussions about food. I find these conversations very insightful, as I regard my coworkers as “Average Americans”, and I like to analyze their perspectives. I also like to help them see food in a new way, which unfortunately tends to fall on deaf ears.

During one memorable lunchtime discussion, a coworker said that he feeds his dog this expensive dog food because his veterinarian said it’s better for him. But while he is saying this, he is feeding himself $1 Campbell’s soup! Probably because his doctor doesn’t recommend anything different. Isn’t that strange?

Lunchtime at Work: Discussions About Food with Average Americans | real food. home made.

So many humans think we are not animals and therefore we have different rules to live by, which is not true.

On a different day, another coworker made a reference to the few of us in the lunchroom who were eating “rabbit food” (referring to fruits and vegetables) and I wanted to say “This is just called food. We are animals just like rabbits.” Or something like that, but I couldn’t find the right words.

On my Dad’s birthday, I brought in my Black Bean & Avocado Brownies. I received 2 positive comments, and the rest were a varying degree of negative, including: “I took one bite and then slam dunked it into the garbage”, and “I ate the whole thing, I’ll eat anything”, etc.

This was by far my favourite remark:

“I wish all desserts tasted like this, because then I wouldn’t want to eat as many.”

How insightful! Desserts ARE supposed to taste like this! And we AREN’T wired to want to eat them in excess! What a revelation.

By the way, this month I am celebrating the 1 year anniversary of my blog. I would love to post more often, so please tell me, what kinds of things do you wish to see? Recipes? Musings? Anything in particular?

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