Paleo Lessons: Week 8

Week 8? How on earth is this week 8 already? It seems like much longer and much less than that at the same time.

Here's what I've learned in the past seven days:

You will on occasion buy too much food. It's somewhat inevitable. It'll happen. And some of it will go bad before you get a chance to use it (like an entire package of butternut squash did over last weekend when I was away grr...). The upside is, when you make your food, you'll have options. Abbs, my newest cooking buddy, and I didn't coordinate as well as we could have, and we ended up with an extra zucchini and some panchetta that we didn't quite have plans for. So Wednesday night when I made cauliflower pizza, we ended up throwing the panchetta on top (a very good idea). Thursday, when she made green beans with coconut chips, it turned into a stir-fry and in went the zucchini!

Read up on spices before you use them. I used to think I had 8 year old taste buds when it came to spicey food. It's something I have to remind Super A of on a quasi-regular basis. I made slow cooker chili this week and it called for a variety of spices I didn't own and didn't know how to use. So I followed the recipe, and it ended up a bit hotter than I normally would like (cue runny nose). It was good though, and not too hot for me to enjoy. Then Abbs made soup. I don't know what kind of soup it was or what she put in it, but it was spicy! I let it sit for a while, thinking that if the temperature cooled down I'd be able to eat it without feeling like my throat was on fire. Oh nay nay. She and I figured out later that the spiciness actually got stronger the longer it sat. I gave up halfway through my bowl and went back to the chili. Now I've decided I have 6 year old taste buds, and that I really need to know what the spices are going to do to the dish before I add them.

It is easier to cook with a buddy. I already knew this from cooking with Super A, but it's that valuable of a lesson. If you're already making x-amount of food, double (or triple) it, and you get multiple meals for the same amount of work. By sharing those meals with a buddy, it means you don't have to do the clean up (at least in my kitchen) for that meal, and your friend will probably make dinner the next night. It's twice the food for half the work. (Eh, don't do the math on that, I'm not entirely sure myself). It also means you might find yourself eating foods you wouldn't normally choose. With Super A, I eat tomatoes and avocado on my salad. With Abbs, I eat (as previously mentioned) spicier food than normal. Whatever you make probably tastes better, too, if you're trying to impress someone (be it friend or more-than-a friend). It also might mean a night of leftovers - the already cooked kind of leftovers, not the "what the heck can I make out of an eggplant and three sausages" kind of leftovers.

I think that's about it for this week (that's it? That's a lot!), so I hope you have a good weekend! I know I plan to!