Eating at home vs. eating out

The title of this post comes from the fact that the Thursday after the ALA conference, we went back to Chicago for a day trip to see a play and my lunch that day is below. The restaurant calls it “Wild Mushroom Teriyaki Bowl”, green vegetable & sticky rice stir-fry, citrus ponzu, cashew, garden herb salad.

The overleaf picture is driving home that day, raggy clouds over Janesville, but no rain on us.

My thinking was that I’d surround pics of the meals out with pics of dishes cooked at home. Here’s a crunchy cabbage salad I’d made at home, that was actually similar to another menu item at the same lunch place, Ginger Chicken Crunch Salad. My version is based on Hetty McKinnon, and didn’t have any chicken, although there are some slices of baked tofu in there. I also didn’t have celery so I used more cabbage.

Around the same time, I made this tofu and noodle dish that I had written up for CSA. I put a few things together, for this recipe too – the dan dan prepared tofu is adapted from a recipe in Bon Appetit. I added greens because that’s what we were getting in our CSA boxes at the time.

Then I started finding a whole bunch of pictures I had uploaded to this blog, then not used in any post. Here’s a set of vegetarian, low cholesterol, sandwiches, and a King Arthur Whole Wheat Cinnamon Scone recipe that I tried.

Peashoot, red pepper, and yellow tomato sandwich on home made sourdough toast that I had for lunch one day when I had Jasper. It does have a little mayo spread on the toast as you can tell from the knife. He said, my mommy would eat that sandwich. Emma said she acts like she absolutely loves vegetables to try to encourage Jasper to eat them.

Another version of the peashoot sandwich with a banana and a scone.

A tray of the scones. I made the glaze with water instead of milk because I noted that the glaze on this vegan pistachio bread, made with lemon juice stayed nice & hard, didn;t melt after a few days like glaze made with dairy. I still need to make the bread again to try to get a better rise.

Cucumber and tahini and tahini and honey on another batch of home made bread.

Blueberries and yogurt with a drizzle of honey – that’s what’s giving the yogurt that crinkled look. Peanut butter toast and cherries in the background.

Strawberry rhubarb handpies that are really part of this post, but I never added them.

And then I found jasper pictures I forgot to use, too. Here he is with the big spider tree trunk structure at Aldo Leopold.

And relaxing watching Bat Wheels on a really hot day when we went to the zoo, and I gave in and bought him a spider monkey stuffie. Ethan hawke voices Batman. 

A potato and black bean and little bit of cheese breakfast quesadilla, with home made roasted vegetable salsa. Not even sure how long ago I ate that, but it was good. The beans and potatoes were very comforting. I do remember that I had to throw out the  last of the salsa because it got moldy. I think the throwing out was during the fridge purge after ALA, so the quesadilla must’ve been in early June. My phone says the picture was taken June 18. Only a month ago. 

And now I have lots more pics of eating out and in, after a trip to Chicago to meet up with the Denver kids, that turned out to be the start of the bad air. Next post.