Saturday, February 2, 2008

"Use What You Have" Cooking

One of my favorite books on interior design, when that was my main hobby, was titled "Use What You Have Decorating", it's pretty self explanatory, the idea was to not have to go and buy new and/or more, just use the things you already own, except in different ways. This also describes the way I love to cook! I love using up ingredients that I already have, sometimes in different ways, like the pot of chili I made this morning (4:30am!).



red onion (I didn't have yellow)
carrot
2 red bells
3 jalapeno, 1 pablano
beet stems
diced tomato
red and black beans
chili powder, chipotle powder, cumin, oregano


I pureed 1/2 roasted buttenut squash (I had in the fridge) in the blender with 1/2 cooked chili before mixing it back with the rest. I had a ton of cooked chicken thigh and leg meat from a batch of chicken stock I made in the pressure cooker yesterday (a different blog post!), so that was the protein I used.



All Day "get rid of muffin top" Lunch


coffee/cream 80 cal
chicken/veg soup 350 cal.
Use What You Have Chili w/
beet greens and chicken 500 cal.
fruit salad 300 cal.
ginger tea w/honey 25 cal.


Total 1255



Use what I had Fruit Salad!

Fuji apple
3 sm kiwi
grapefruit (sectioned)
drizzle of honey

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tracy--I love that you can do this, and think out of the frig box when making dinner. So often I fall into the habit of making things and if I don't have a certain ingredient, I think I can't make it.

Tracy Reifkind said...

Jenn, Let's cook this Thursday....you've got to start somewhere!

Seriously, Friday afternoon would work also.

Maybe we can shop on Thurs., (Whole Foods) and cook on Friday!

Or....there's a Farmers Market Downtown, near me, on Friday mornings, San Perdro Square, I've never been to...let's go!