Couscous with lentils, tomato and cucumber salad, and yogurt sauce. Speed and ease were the goals with this meal. When we got back from a weekend away I threw on the fastest cooking grain and legume in the house on the stovetop. I picked up hothouse cucumbers and tomatoes at a farm on the way home, and chopped them up for a salad. I mixed the cooked couscous and lentils together with some olive oil and lemon juice, and the salad with some olive oil, salt and pepper. To top it all off I mixed some yogurt, tahini, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Cold noodles with peanut sauce, collards, and cucumbers. These were the first collards to come out of the garden this year!! I sauteed the collards, cooked some lo mein noodles and tossed them in some sesame oil, and when they both cooled tossed them together with some sliced cucumbers. I had some peanut sauce in the freezer (adapted from this recipe) to serve it all with, along with a big squirt of sriracha. I actually put this together after I made the couscous for Monday night’s dinner, and it was equally speedy and made for awesome picnic fare on Monday night.

Burritos with black beans and tofu chorizo.  I finally gave this tofu chorizo recipe a try, and was a bit disappointed. It was too dry, so next time I think I will add some diced tomatoes. The burritos altogether were good, with black beans, the tofu chorizo, sauteed collards, rice, salsa, and hot sauce, but I felt they needed some kind of sauce to bring it all together (I should have made green sauce).

Fried rice with collards. In theory, this meal was a great idea. I made double the rice for the burritos so I could have leftovers for this dinner. Where I went wrong was in the rice storage. I should have let it cool completely before putting it away, and maybe left the container cracked in the fridge so it could dry out even further. A day later it was not dried out nearly enough, so my fried rice was a little soggier than it should be. Lesson learned.

Chorizo breakfast tostadas with hash browns (photo by Jesse). This was my dream breakfast. We were visiting friends in Philly and on Friday their boss dropped off fresh tortillas and chorizo from his “chorizo guy” (New life goal: find a local chorizo and tortilla guy). Saturday morning we hit up a farmer’s market for potatoes, tomatoes, scallions, cilantro, and black raspberries (to fuel us while we cooked). I cooked the chorizo, parcooked the potatoes in water, and then crisped the potatoes in the pan so they could soak up all the chorizo fat (though next time to speed things up I think I will just toss them in the fat and roast them). My sous chef made a quick salsa with the cherry tomatoes, scallions, cilantro, jalapeno, salt, and pepper. Then I heated the tortillas in the pan, topped them each with an egg, flipped, and then topped with a little cheese when they came off the pan (similar to this recipe). Eaten outside, with beermosas, for an epic brunch.