• Motherhood
  • Love & Marriage
  • Roots
  • Writing
  • Best of Lance
  • Pregnancy
  • Photography

While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Dinner Rehab #1: A taste of Spain

May 18, 2010 by heidi 4 Comments

Cookbooks are overrated.

Last week I sent out a culinary S.O.S. to friends, family and fellow bloggers.

Via mass email I asked for meal suggestions to help Joe (a carnivore who detests all fruits and vegetables) and I (a pseudo vegetarian who occasionally eats chicken) break out of our food funk. Now, if you ask Joe whether or not we’re in a food funk, he’ll probably tell you all is well in our kitchen.

But all is boring in our kitchen.

Thank you to all the folks who responded to that email. Can you believe I received 30 replies? Some of you were short and sweet. Pizza. Burgers. Fries. Some of you felt compelled to write lengthy and colorful descriptions of your dietary habits and how they jive (and don’t jive) with your mate’s.

It turns out that many of you are in a similar culinary pickle, making mine and Joe’s opposite palates seem more … palatable. To quote my friend Adam, “SOLUTION: Make separate meals. If you think about it, that’s actually a kind of weird concept; every night, every couple should eat the same thing together AND LIKE IT.”

To help shake up our predictable dinner rotation, I plan to fold these suggestions into our supper stock as well as post them here. You’d be surprised how revealing a dinner menu can be.

As for the actual implementation of these recipes, I’m a struggling and impatient cook. But I’m nothing if not dedicated. I plan to print out every suggestion and create a kind of Dinner Rehab Cookbook.  Wish me potluck.

My first meal plan comes from Gracia, a Lance reader who hails from Spain and who is getting married this summer to her sweetheart, Eric.


♥♥♥

Hi Heidi,

It must be quite hard to find things you can both share, and although I’m lucky because Eric eats almost everything, there are a couple of my favourites that he won’t touch. Luckily, they are very easy to prepare just for me, and that’s what I do.
..
1st – Zucchini Soup (I guess it’s more like pureed zucchini, but I just translated the Spanish name.) You basically cook together a zucchini, potato, carrot, onion and a couple laughing cow cheese wedges with a bit of salt and then puree it. It’s really good cold in summer and hot in winter.
..
2nd – Gazpacho. Take a can of tomato pure (I have no idea what you get in a can of tomato puree over there, but here it’s just raw tomato, pureed. Clever, huh?), add a slice of onion, a strip of green pepper and a bit of cucumber if you like, and puree. Serve very cold (add ice cubes, it’s ok!) with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Sure, you could puree your tomatoes, but don’t waste the pretty things from your garden on this, the canned type is perfectly OK.
..
3rd – Veggie Frittata – Cook any vegetables you want following any method you want. put them in a pan. Cover with beaten eggs, salt and pepper. Love it.
..
I’m not sure if this is what you were looking for, but in the meat department I only know about steaks and chicken breasts. Not an expert, you see. And right now, with the hot weather, I can only think of the three things above, paella and sangria. (Can you tell where I come from?) And a bit of watermelon, but preferably soaked in sangria.
Can’t wait to read your foodie series!
..
Gracia

Filed Under: cooking, dinner rehab, gazpacho, veggie frittata, zucchini soup

Comments

  1. Heather @ Alis Grave Nil says

    May 18, 2010 at 1:07 am

    Thanks to Gracia for the suggestions. I feel painfully mundane with what I sent, but I’m looking forward to reading what everyone else submitted. Here’s to your culinary experimentation!

  2. Wendy says

    May 18, 2010 at 2:08 pm

    I have le cookbook envy!

  3. Jennifer says

    May 18, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    HEIDI!!! I love the idea! After I watched Julie and Julia I wanted to cook my BRAINS out 🙂 I have a vegetarian option that I make quite often for myself, and it’s quick and easy…

    -Take TWO veggie burgers (the regular old Boca burgers work fine!), defrost and break/cut into pieces. Put in a saute pan and heat on medium.
    -Add about a 1/2 tablespoon of taco seasoning (I keep mine in an old spice bottle, since you don’t use the whole packet. Good on oven fries too!)
    -To that add enough water to mix up seasoning (About 1/4 cup)
    -Heat on Med-High until liquid is taco consistency.
    -Place mixture in a FLAT-OUT flat bread. (Original or Light)
    -Use a little cheese to taste, or a lot in your case 🙂
    Salsa, all the veggie fixins’ you like…done.
    10 minutes tops 🙂 And really low cal if you use the fat free cheese slices.

  4. heidi says

    May 18, 2010 at 7:50 pm

    I shall call this vegetarian flat bread tortilla concoction the Jenntaco. Thank you!

    If anyone else has any meal suggestions or kitchen table wisdom, please feel free to share. I’m going to continue to sporadically post my foodie series until I’ve had my full.

    I might even post a few food stories in homage to my mother and grandmothers. None of the men in my family cook. Well, except for Joe and his grandfather and they’re both delightful cooks, so perhaps I’ll post a few food stories about them too.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Why do I even blogger?

If you really want to know why I continue to write here, read this post.

Lance lately

  • Old School Values
  • Land of Hives and Honey
  • The Happy Camper
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 2]
  • Truth Bombs with Henry [No. 1]
  • By now I’d have two kids

Social commentary

  • Crystal on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • heidi on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Roberta Kendall on Land of Hives and Honey
  • Jane on Pug worries, or what to do when your dog starts having seizures
  • reb on The Happy Camper

Back in the day

  • December 2017 (1)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • May 2017 (1)
  • June 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (1)
  • February 2015 (1)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • February 2014 (1)
  • January 2014 (1)
  • December 2013 (6)
  • November 2013 (3)
  • October 2013 (5)
  • September 2013 (7)
  • August 2013 (2)
  • July 2013 (3)
  • June 2013 (2)
  • May 2013 (5)
  • April 2013 (2)
  • March 2013 (6)
  • February 2013 (6)
  • January 2013 (4)
  • December 2012 (1)
  • November 2012 (3)
  • October 2012 (3)
  • September 2012 (3)
  • August 2012 (5)
  • June 2012 (5)
  • May 2012 (1)
  • April 2012 (4)
  • March 2012 (5)
  • February 2012 (6)
  • January 2012 (3)
  • December 2011 (1)
  • November 2011 (2)
  • October 2011 (6)
  • September 2011 (6)
  • August 2011 (5)
  • July 2011 (3)
  • June 2011 (4)
  • May 2011 (7)
  • April 2011 (7)
  • March 2011 (6)
  • February 2011 (6)
  • January 2011 (5)
  • December 2010 (7)
  • November 2010 (4)
  • October 2010 (4)
  • September 2010 (11)
  • August 2010 (6)
  • July 2010 (4)
  • June 2010 (6)
  • May 2010 (7)
  • April 2010 (8)
  • March 2010 (5)
  • February 2010 (6)
  • January 2010 (6)
  • December 2009 (10)
  • November 2009 (6)
  • October 2009 (8)
  • September 2009 (4)
  • August 2009 (4)
  • July 2009 (8)
  • June 2009 (8)
  • May 2009 (11)
  • April 2009 (5)
  • March 2009 (14)
  • February 2009 (7)
  • January 2009 (6)
  • December 2008 (3)
  • November 2008 (3)
  • October 2008 (3)
  • September 2008 (5)
  • August 2008 (11)
  • July 2008 (10)
  • June 2008 (13)
  • May 2008 (9)
  • April 2008 (4)

Oddities

Reading material

Wild by Cheryl Strayed Travels with Charley Home Game bossypants just kids the time travelers wife Boys Life The-Liars-Club My Uncle Oswald Stephen King On Writing

Me.

Heidi K

Joe.

Joe on guitar

Henry.

henry as werewolf

Chip.

Chippy in a cupboard

Buzzy.

Buzzy

Why Lance?

This blog is named after my old friend Sarah's manifestation of a dreamy Wyoming cowboy named Lance, because the word blog sounds like something that comes out of a person's nose.

About me

I'm a journalist who spends my Mondays through Fridays writing other people's stories, a chronic procrastinator who needs structure. I once quit my job to write a book and like most writers, I made up excuses why I couldn't keep at it.

My boyfriend fiancé husband Joe likes to sleep in late on the weekends, but since we have a kid now that happens less than he'd like.

Before Henry and Chip, I used to spend my mornings browsing celebrity tabloid websites while our dog snored under the covers. Now I hide my computer in spots my feral children can't reach because everything I own is now broken, stained or peed on.

I created Lance in an attempt to better spend my free time. I thought it might jump start a second attempt at writing a novel.

It hasn't. And my free time is gone.

But I'm still here writing.

I'm 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 and I've yet to get caught up in something else, which is kind of a big deal for a chronic procrastinator.

How I met Joe

If you're new here and looking for nirvana, read this post.

And if that’s not enough…

heidikurpiela.com

Join the fan club

Subscribe

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in