Tomato soup and grilled cheese. It took me too long to try out this super fast, barely cooked miracle soup. It lived up to all claims of deliciousness and is vegan. I made 1.5x the recipe for 8 servings and future me is going to be very happy to have them in the freezer. While we were grocery shopping it was Will’s job to pick out the bread and cheese for grilled cheese. He found a wheat sandwich bread and smoked gouda with bacon, and there were no complaints in the house.

Stuffed and sauced sweet potatoes. These are really all about the sauce. I found a whole sweet potato plus the chickpeas to be too big for a single portion. 3/4 of a sweet potato was more like it. Next time I think I would make 1/2 a sweet potato per person and sometime green to go alongside. The dish as is was sweet to me, but extra chili garlic sauce evened everything out.

Pizza with asparagus, leeks, feta, and lemon zest (inspired by Shutterbean and Dinner: A Love Story). I sauteed the leeks in some olive oil and roasted the asparagus for 5 minutes while the oven was heating up. Besides the feta I put some cream cheese on the pizza because it needed to be used and it didn’t seem like the worst idea ever. It didn’t really melt at all and I think would have been too sweet if there wasn’t salty feta to balance it, but it was fine (and not wasted!).

Stir-fried lo mein with charred cabbage, shiitake, and chives. This lo mein is cabbage’s highest calling. It is a bit charred but still sweet with a vegetal crunch. I used dry noodles instead of fresh and I think that may have thrown off the proportions a bit because there wasn’t enough sauce. The sauce ingredients were all pantry staples though so it was an easy remedy. I came home seriously considering collapsing into bed instead of making dinner, but this came together mercifully fast and the flavor far surpassed the effort required.

Buttermilk pancakes with strawberries. When berry season comes around I find myself craving a sweet breakfast more often (also, I fell behind on my bread making so there was no toast to be had). I subbed half the flour for whole wheat and they were great as always.

Pimentón fried eggs. These were much fancier than our usual fried eggs for just a modicum more effort. The flavor of the paprika didn’t come through that strongly, but maybe mine is on it’s way out or it was overshadowed by the avocado. Next time I am going to try them with chili powder.