Habit Forming

Tara Parker Pope's recent post called, "A Recipe for Simplifying Life:  Ditch All Recipes" really changed the way I prepare food.  She cites Tamar Adler, author of An Everlasting Meal: 

"One of her most important lessons is that we need to spend less time thinking about food and more time just enjoying it. Her suggestions about how to prepare vegetables contradict much of what we have been taught, or think we have.

For instance, while most of us stock our crispers with fresh vegetables and then spend the rest of the week racing to eat them before they turn brown, Ms. Adler buys up basketfuls of whatever vegetables are in season, and as soon as she gets home she scrubs off the dirt, trims the leaves, chops and peels, and then cooks and prepares all the vegetables at once — washing and separating lettuce leaves; drizzling cauliflower, beets and carrots with olive oil and roasting them in separate pans. Beet greens are sautéed, and chopped stems and leaves are transformed into pesto.

Many people, myself included, have long believed that vegetables are best if they are cooked just before they are served. But cooking vegetables as soon as you buy them essentially turns them into a convenience food, allowing them to keep longer and creating a starting point for a week’s worth of meals.

“We’re told that things need to be fresh,” Ms. Adler said, but too often “we all end up watching our food go bad, and then it doesn’t matter if it was fresh, because we didn’t get to eat it.”

Watching Ms. Adler cook vegetables is inspiring. (You can see her routine in two videos titled “How to Stride Ahead” on her Web site, tamareadler.com.) Roasted vegetables can be enjoyed immediately, but most will be refrigerated in jars for later in the week. Warmed to room temperature and drizzled with vinaigrette, they make a savory, earthy salad; or blended with broth and a splash of cream, they can be a hearty soup.

For another meal, the cooked vegetables might be used in a frittata or a warm sandwich. Cooked greens can be turned into a bubbling gratin, roasted vegetables are added to risotto, and everything left over can become an end-of-the-week vegetable curry."

Watch the video - it really is inspiring and not of the pie in the sky variety as the following well attests:

Do try roasting kabocha squash.  It is delicious and provides for a hearty addition to any meal.

 I eat these like chips!

The best part about prepping and roasting these vegetables on a Saturday afternoon was how enjoyable and relaxing the whole process was.  A whole week's worth all done and ready in the fridge.

Then as if I needed a sign, I saw this recipe on Food52:

Delicious!  Nutritious!  What more can you ask for?  I am real fan of the Genius Recipe series on Food52.  You should really check them out.