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Food Diary

Eater’s Digest: Life after tacos

July 27, 2010 · By Monica Shaw

Breakfast tacos

When one of my many entrepreneurial endeavours finally makes me rich, I may finally have plenty of time to write painfully detailed posts about my daily meals. But until then, I’ll have to settle for occasional updates. So I bring you a new series I call Eater’s Digest, highlights from favourite meals that I’ve recently, well, digested (you can see the unabridged photo gallery in my Flickr Food Diary photoset).

The hallmark of recent days have been flour tortillas, made possible by this recipe on the Homesick Texan, a wonderful blog that I always turn to whenever I feel nostalgic for Austin. These tortillas are just like the ones I remember buying from the HEB – soft, bubbly, and with the slightest scent of pancake.

Homemade tortillas

The impetus for making flour tortillas was a sudden hankering for breakfast tacos. We had these for lunch (breakfast for lunch is the best) on Monday with sauteed onion, pepper and potato, plus homemade salsa and avocado. (Got to love working from home.)

Breakfast tacos

In case you’re wondering why my half-eaten taco is black, what can I say? I like my tortilla a little charred. That goes for dinner, too. Tonight, I needed to eat fajita tacos. I don’t know why, I just did. With all the fixins: pico, guacamole, black beans, shredded iceberg lettuce. Somewhere, there were even fajitas in the mix: sauteed onion, peppers, zucchini and mushroom. Love.

Fajita tacos

In addition to tortillas, other recent experiments include fresh goats curd, which was surprisingly easy following this recipe: how to make cheese at home easily. In a nutshell: boil milk, add lemon juice, let it curdle, then strain the curd from the liquid whey through a muslin cloth. The result is a lot like ricotta – do I sense lasagna in my future?

Homemade goats curd

Of course, woman cannot live on tacos and cheese curd alone. I’ve been embarking on an effort to “get strong” over the last few months and have recently added protein shakes to my repertoire. I do it with a certain amount of resistance because I don’t really like to drink my calories. And furthermore, I like to eat food, not supplements. And yet, since hitting the weights, I’ve been kind of alarmed at how long it takes me to recover. So I’m trying the protein as an experiment. If this is the way to a pull-up, so be it. I mean, what if I have to scramble up the side of a cliff someday? It could happen. I need that pull-up!

Turns out, smoothies are a good way to use up the leftover whey from making goats curd. A combination I like is protein powder, frozen mango, frozen melon, and that glorious whey, whizzed to a silky smooth puree in the Vitamix.

Melon and mango smoothie

Other meals have been a bit more ordinary, at least for us, anyway. This shorabat addas (red lentil soup) is one of our favorite quick and easy lunches.

Red lentil soup

What’s a vegetarian without her occasional dose of tofu stir fry?

Stir Fry

And finally, a bit of good news: I’ve been commissioned as a restaurant reviewer for Food Magazine and went out last week on my first assignment to Ronnie’s Restaurant in Thornbury. Shocker: they had TWO veggie mains on the menu, one of which was this delightful Moroccan-spiced nut roast.

Nut roast

As the weeks go on, I’m looking forward to seeing more food from my own garden land on my plate. The tortilla binge has me devouring my cilantro plant, and waiting impatiently for the jalapenos to come in. I’m determined to get my Tex Mex fix, even if I have to grow all the ingredients myself.

Cilantro from the garden

About Monica Shaw

Veg lover, dog owner, hill walker, wild camper, avocado addict, nerd. I write about how to be awesome through a "smarter fitter" approach to eating, drinking, living and working.
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  1. Manda Borealis says

    July 28, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    I love that you make your own tortillas. Have you tried to cut them up and bake them for tortilla chips?! mmmmm….. sounds delightful. As always- your photos are gorgeous. Oh, and thanks for the reminder, I adore red lentil soup but never seem to remember how quick and easy it is to make. I see it in my near future though…

    Reply
  2. Monica says

    July 28, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    I make tortilla chips with corn tortillas semi frequently, but never tried to do it with flour tortillas. I bet flour tortillas would also make a good enchilada.

    I also thought I could make big giant tortillas for wraps, burritos, etc. But I think I’m going to have to buy a bigger pan first. =)

    Enjoy the lentil soup!

    Reply
  3. Lexie says

    July 28, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    I think being a restaurant reviewer would be the most perfect job. Food + writing about food + getting paid to write about food = love. I also love how you made your own tortillas and ricotta. It doesn’t take much to impress me. :-p

    Reply
  4. Monica says

    July 31, 2010 at 6:10 am

    Thanks, Lexie. It is a pretty sweet gig!

    Reply
  5. Jennifer June says

    August 1, 2010 at 1:15 am

    It all looks so delicious. I never would have imagined myself finding a tortilla beautiful but there you have it. Very inspiring.

    Reply
  6. Katharina says

    August 2, 2010 at 9:01 pm

    Hello!!! I haven’t commented on here in awhile 😀 Your food is looking gorgeous as always. And it all sounds delicious–seriously delicious. And congrats on your new endeavors! You will shine, no doubt.

    XOXO

    Reply
  7. mangocheeks says

    August 7, 2010 at 7:09 pm

    So pleased that you have been commissioned as a Food Reviewer. Wonderful. I am assuming correctly that you will be reviewing vegetarian food. Even excellent!

    The spicy Morrocon Nutroast looks fab.

    Reply
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