One can, and no doubt many people — such as yourself — do. I am what might be called a seasonal eater. I generally don’t care for heavy, hearty, carb-heavy meals in the summer heat. I mostly subsist on salads, grilled meats & fish, with the occasional curry thrown in.
That’s why I regrettably didn’t have a single bowl of phô during our fall semester in Philly. Temps were in the 80s well into November.
Also, I embrace the 4 seasons… well, what’s left of them.
Tonight I made black bean burgers from Real Simple on toasted Dave’s Killer multigrain buns with provolone cheese, light mayo, avocado, tomatoes, and dill pickle chips. They were actually a great sub for ground beef once all the trimmings were added. I mostly followed the recipe except one of my cans of black beans was seasoned and I subbed salt-free adobo blend for the chili powder, reduced the scallion, added 1/4 c panko with a splash of milk and 2 Tbsp egg whites, and folded in crispy shallots right before frying.
With Boomer’s cider from Appalachian Ridge Artisan Cidery. Might have some salad a bit later.
Uh-oh! New side effect of Ozempic? 
Yup, but I’m cool with that. Portion size was one of my biggest problems.
It was a pun on your use of ‘literally.’
Dinner was supposed to be the NYT recipe for Madhur Jaffrey’s shrimp curry as per @Amandarama’s recent recommendation. I had everything for it in the house except the turmeric, and when I noticed the recipe didn’t call for any veg I picked up a bag of yu choy to steam & serve with oyster sauce.
But then I didn’t feel like making two dishes, and I still had that gorgeous Thai basil & lemongrass from my friend that needed to be used up, and so we pivoted to a Thai green curry with black tiger shrimp, peas, red pepper, and Chinese eggplant.
I added TPSTO fresh ginger, garlic, lemongrass, and only 4 of dangerously big Thai bird peppers to the curry paste & shallots that were getting toasty in the peanut oil. I didn’t have enough shrimp shells collected to make it worthwhile steeping them, so I made do with a little bit of chicken broth besides the coconut milk.
Shrimp, heat, curry, and lotsa veg — what’s not to love? Ms. Jaffrey will have to wait another day.
It was the perfect heat level. I realized today I prefer red curry over green curry.
Ah, right over my head. maybe another side effect? 
Who can say at this point in time?
I’m so mad I made a dumb online pasta recipe (I was desperate to use some of my glut of cherry tomatoes.) It was a bust.
This recipe looks impossible to mess up, but:
Like, my bad. Ugh.
Our first garden-grown BLT of the “season”…(yeah, yeah…PNW here, folks).
Bread was a freshly baked French in a round tin, with thanks to @Nannybakes for the inspo.
Since last night’s bean salad was so delicious, more of same tonight.
Leftover pork tenderloin, apples, and onion in the form of a panino with the addition of mayo, mustard, and cheese.
Pork tenderloin mole tacos, red onion, radish, avocado, cilantro and a squeeze of lime salsa, cotija cheese. Tomatoes because I have too many.
Pollo guisado, with shredded chicken, homemade chicken stock, potatoes, carrots, onions, shallot, scallions, garlic, (had a lot of allium odds and ends!), jalapeno, spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, tomato paste, cilantro, Sazon seasoning, s&p, oregano, and bay leaves. Over rice. Good and homey.
I found this pack of ham for $.50 at Dollar Tree. I have no idea why it was marked down, but I grabbed it. I figure I better use it quickly, so I made up some bread dough and batch cooked a bunch Ham and Cheese pinwheels. These pinwheels will pair well with some tomato soup.
Red Lentil & Pumpkin Dal from “Simple” by Diana Henry - made with pan-seared butternut squash, caramelized onions, red lentils, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, cumin, turmeric, chili flakes and cilantro. Served with yoghurt
I stopped by Dollar Tree yesterday to pick up a few things. What use to be $1.25 are now $1.50 & $1.75. Clerk said he had six full pages of price changes come in over night and they were scurrying around to get it done. They need to change the name of that store.
Yes, I agree. Most of the items in my Dollar Tree are $1.50 with many items costing $1.75.
It seems my Dollar Tree has a few items marked “Clearance” every time I go in. Some of the items I can use – most I cannot. (Hit or Miss).
Luck was with me, yesterday!! Cheese was on sale last week, so Ham and Cheese seemed like a good match for the pinwheels.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the pinwheels last night, as I made up tomato soup using milk vs. water. It made for a nicer meal.
