What I Eat - Day Seventy-Four

Breakfast - Sweet Potato Fries

This is the best breakfast (or lunch or dinner)!   I find that vegetables brown better on a cooking surface other than metal.   Good options include a big Pyrex lasagna pan or ceramic baking sheet, but be careful because quick temperature changes can easily crack either one.   Cut up the sweet potatoes, coat them in oil in the pan (I use avocado oil), and then bake at about 375 degrees for about 40 minutes, turning them approximately 30 minutes in.  

Lunch - Mushroom Pasta

Ingredients
-red onions, sliced into strips
-mushrooms, rinsed and sliced
-Daiya mozzarella style shreds
-parsley, rinsed and loosely chopped
-brown rice noodles
-salt
-pepper
-olive oil

Directions
I put the onions in a cast iron frying pan and started the process of caramelizing them.  (To caramelize in cast iron I cook them at a fairly high temperature until they start to brown, and then I immediately turn the heat down to low and leave them to cook for at least ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until they have caramelized). 

I added the mushrooms about halfway through this process.   Right about when the mushrooms were done I added the parsley.   

I cooked the brown rice noodles, and then mixed all the ingredients together.   The trick to cooking rice noodles is to stir them frequently in the first few minutes after you add them to boiling water, and then infrequently after that (because the noodles fall apart easily).  Rice noodles make terrible leftovers.  

Dinner - Beef Stew

I just love using my slow cooker in the winter!  There's nothing easier than throwing a bunch of ingredients into the cooker, and then coming home to a hot meal.  I'm going to give general instructions for this dish, though the photo above is a good representation of how I usually make it.

Ingredients (any of the following)
-onions, peeled and sliced into sixths
-root vegetables (carrot, parsnip, sweet potato, potato, etc), cut into chunks
-garlic, whole peeled cloves (I will often use a whole head)
-dried oregano (at least 2 tsp.)
-water or wine (enough to cover the bottom inch or two of the slow cooker)
-stewing beef, which I prefer to sear in a cast iron pan before I put it into the crock pot (I understand this may either seal in flavour or keep the meat more tender. I'm not really sure if it works, but I do it anyway.)

Directions
Dump everything into a slow cooker and cook it!    Ideally, you would cook if for a couple of hours on high, and then at least four hours on low.  You'll know it's done when the vegetables are soft.