I have been having trouble eating much of anything. Not a lot of appetite, nothing sounds good, running out of room. A bunch of reasons why the kitchen has not been my favorite place. Now with a few fresher ingredients at my fingertips I’m trying to get in there more. I spent a day getting back into the groove. Tuesday and I cooked all morning and were in our jammies until one. Oops!

First up granola. My mom gifted me Power Foods a while ago and it has a granola recipe in it that I happened to have all the ingredients for on hand. Tuesday went from not wanting granola to suddenly loving it since she made this (and got to do some serious nut smashing). Extra bonus? It only takes egg whites… so I guess I’ll have to make some ice cream up with my yolks. Oh darn.

It made quite a bit and the cook book said I could keep it on hand for two weeks or freeze it for three months, so I did a bit of both. I made up a second batch late at night after picking up some pistachios and dried cherries. I froze that whole batch. I’m obsessed with filling up my freezer right now.

Next up Tuesday and I made coconut popsicles from Perfect Pops. I have quite a few cold treat type books and I’m on the fence about this one. This pop was not my favorite, though Tuesday did like it (Creamy Coconut Pop). I think it might have to do with the kind of canned coconut milk I used. But I don’t care because the other thing I’m obsessed with is using up the random stuff in my cupboard/freezer/fridge. Coconut milk used up, check!

Bj and I finished off this “applesauce ice cream”. I served it to him and he looked at me like, “dude this isn’t ice cream.” I know, I know. It’s just frozen peach applesauce from before I got up the nerve to can it. Tuesday wouldn’t eat it, so I started calling it applesauce ice cream. Boom, gone!

I even made dinner (what? who am I?!?!). My mom has a great recipe for pasta salad. That I said I didn’t like and wouldn’t try. So she made me some and I ate all of it and begged her for the recipe. I’ll write it out to you as she told me.
The Easy Anything Pasta Salad
Use penne pasta, cook al dente
While you are cooking the pasta clean and chop veggies (any). Try green beans, tomatoes, pesto, basil, olives, etc.
Toss with olive oil and white wine vinegar or lime juice. Or maybe some mustard and honey. Add salt and pepper.
You can use chicken.
For the cold salads we like pepperoncinis (with navy beans). But you can also serve hot.
Keeps for three or four days.
Ya, she’s a wing it type of chef. I think she might do this to keep herself on my speed dial… This is actually the second batch (well a stretched first batch). The first bit that we ate for dinner had more tomatoes. Tuesday and I had a little freak out moment at the farmer’s market when we saw tomatoes. There as a little basket of tiny tomatoes in all those perfect colors and Tuesday goes, “Ohhh!!!!” Oh indeed, a while since we’ve had yummy fresh tomatoes! Of course I had to get them. And the bunch of basil.
After cleaning up the second batch of granola and another pop experiment (results pending, must wait for them to freeze) I made myself a little treat with some of the left overs sitting around.

 
Greek yogurt (the nice yummy full fat kind), plus raspberries and blueberries. And some of my cherry pistachio granola mixed in. I ate this while finishing up my meal plan for the week. I might share that with you, if you want.