I Love Celeriac

Today I'm making a simple lentil soup - some sauteed chopped onion, garlic, carrot and celeriac, with some thyme, a bay leaf, the lentils and some vegetable stock. I made some tabouli yesterday with a lot of parsley, lemon, good olive oil and chopped scallion, and will have that as a side salad, and there's fresh pineapple for dessert.

I've only recently discovered celeriac, thanks to our weekly vegetable box from the organic farm. Although it's sometimes difficult to find, I've decided I like it much better than the usual stalk celery for any cooked dish - it's easy to dice, has a wonderful subtle celery flavor, and there are none of those blasted strings! It just goes to prove that sometimes very good things come in ugly packages!

Snap Peas, Lemonade and a Dinner Plate

This morning I planted my first set of Sugar Snap Peas! - they're about my favorite vegetable and the season is short. I'll be looking every day to see if they've sprouted. I'll plant some more seed in about a week to 10 days.

Tonight's dinner turned out well - it was simple and easy which suits me fine. I baked a couple of sweet potatoes this morning, and then this evening I reheated them in slices with some maple syrup, steamed some beautiful red kale (the steaming water turns the most amazing bluish-purple) and topped it with vinaigrette, and made a simple bean salad with canned cannellini beans, chopped shallot and Kalamata olives, some pinches of dried oregano and thyme, a heaping spoonful of Dijon mustard and some oil and vinegar dressing. It turned out to be very tasty and satisfying:

I eat some form of legumes - beans, peas, lentils - almost every day, sometimes several times a day. My lifestyle is very active, and those fill me up and keep me full of energy.

And I made some wonderful homemade lemonade - I had an excess of lemons. I combined three cups of water with one cup of lemon juice - it took a lot of lemons - and then added sugar syrup (one cup water and one cup sugar warmed gently until the sugar dissolved) to taste. I have some leftover sugar syrup and unsweetened lemon water in the refrigerator - I'll bet they don't last long!