Since B has been gone, I have had the most ridiculous dinners. Night one, I made cheesy poofs as a snack and ate so many of them I felt sick and didn't have dinner. Hot, I know.

Night two, I made a batch of flourless peanut butter cookies. They were super easy and used only 3 ingredients: brown sugar, pb, and an egg. amazing!

Then last night, after I had 2 tacos from the taco truck near my buddy's house (one pollo, one carne asada - delicious and only $1 each), I came home and decided to whip up a batch of biscuits and gravy. Delicious, but I can't just keep eating sugar and flour.
Here's me & Taz having a cookie break. He's got a pb dog cookie & I have a pb human cookie - precious.

Ok, I officially quit

Finally went grocery shopping, which was awesome! I think we managed to go about 3 weeks, but things were getting dire there towards the end. And I kind of feel like I might be a better grocery shopper now. I try to stick to buying stuff I'm going to use in the immediate future, rather than getting things that look interesting but have no practical use.

To celebrate, we made a big breakfast, with bacon & eggs & toast. Pretty sure we ran out of bread (and end pieces, even) about 2 weeks ago, so the toast was a nice touch.

Then our neighbors had a bbq that evening. We had t 2 types of chicken: one with bbq sauce (on the right) and one with lemon, rosemary & garlic (left); french bread & mashed potatoes with gruyere and bacon (I was amazed by this concept).

Veggie Remix

Inspired by a week of modesty and countless efforts to spice up the same boring thing over and over (combined with the fact that we officially have no meat, fish, or tofu), I turned the carrots and squash into a different meal: potatoes au gratin with stir fried garlic.

Potatoes Au Gratin

Ingredients: potatoes

cheese (shredded)

butter

milk (or cream)

onion

Directions:

1. Slice all the potatoes. Make sure they are an even thickness. Chop up the onion (doesn't need to be particularly thin slices).

2. Put a layer of potatoes in a casserole dish. Sprinkle some onions on top, then a layer of cheese. Continue making these layers until you run out of potatoes.

3. Pour some milk over top of the potato mix (enough to almost cover the potatoes), then place pats of butter over the potatoes.

4. Cover and bake at 350 for about an hour.

5. Stir the potatoes after the hour, then return to the oven uncovered until the cream thickens up.

Potato recipe from here.

I cheated!

... and bought some veggies. But made a point to only buy those veggies I've been so deprived of lately. Took my newly acquired squash, onion, and cilatro, mixed it with some carrots I got for free in Santa Cruz, and fried it up with rice. Then I made some hummus with the last can of garbanzo beans, opened up the tin of black olives & called it a feast! Trust me, compared to plain starch, it was.

Project Eat Everything: Day 10?

Got back from Santa Cruz and was faced with an even bare-er cupboard. Managed to eke out one more day's worth of meals though. For breakfast/lunch I had Khao Thom (a soup they eat for breakfast in Thailand. It usually has some form of protein and rice), then B made Asian-style stir fry veggies on pasta for dinner.

Project Eat Everything: Day 7

Today I had black beans and white rice with cheese melted on top. Pretty damn good, but that may have been the cheese. Then B bought me a sandwich from Mickey's Deli in Hermosa Beach, which was AMAZING!! I ate half for lunch, and saved the rest for my drive to Santa Cruz.

The trip to Santa Cruz fully derailed my experiment. My friends took me out to a sushi dinner for my bday (thanks guys - I'm still dreaming of it), made a fat breakfast with homegrown eggs, and cooked a big fish dinner too. Delish!

Project Eat Everything: Day 6

I know I fell off the wagon with writing up my project, but I wanted to let you know that I did make it further than 5 days, and here is the proof: Today's meals included a veggie soup (made with a can of V8, some frozen veggies, and a bunch of creativity) and Trader Joe's Shrimp & Veggie stir fry over pasta (pretty good with parmesan cheese on top).