Fancy cooking.

Living with someone means rarely getting to wander around the house naked just because you feel like it compromising on many things, and one of the hardest, in my roommate situation, at least, is food.  We like enough of the same things to purchase groceries together and share food, but there are just enough differences to mean we usually try to cook something that can be customized (homemade pizzas, tacos, stirfry, etc.), and we don’t branch out into new and exciting stuff very often

This means that when the roommate is away (like right now) and I get a chance to cook just for myself for a few days then all bets are off (I can also listen to my music as loud as I want in the morning, see the kitchen clean first thing in the morning AND not have to wrangle someone else’s laundry when I want to use the washer and dryer, but this post is not about that).  Generally this is the time when I break out the recipes with ingredients she doesn’t want to eat (cold black beans,  chipotle-spiced anything, basil, dates, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and pretty much any creature that came from the sea).   But I didn’t really feel like cooking today, nor did I feel like going out to eat or even going to the grocery store, which eliminated many of the things I wanted to try sometime when she wasn’t around (side note: apparently the only things I did feel like doing today were roasting vegetables, walking/playing with/snuggling with the dog, napping, reading copious amounts and doing laundry, laundry and more laundry – seriously, how does one person dirty so many clothes?  See, if I could just go naked more often that wouldn’t be as much of an issue!!).

So I turned to the fridge and freezer and cupboards and did the ol’ “smidgeon of this, dash of that” thing, and came up with something that is definitely getting codified into a sort-of actual recipe and added to my spring/summer meal rotation!  It’s still a slap-dash sort of recipe, but somehow it came together into a really, really tasty salad’ish thing that is also easy AND healthy…I’m not sure how that all happened by accident, so it must be kismet or serendipity or something that means random good stuff has to happen to balance out the random crap that hits the fan on a regular (yet random) basis.

• Roasted asparagus – however much you want
• Roasted grape tomatoes – however many you want
• Roasted red peppers – however much…you get the idea
• 1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed (or use chickpeas if you like them better 😉
• small jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained
• vinaigrette – 1/4 c. balsamic vinegar, 1/4 c. olive oil, 1 t-1T Dijon mustard (use however much you like), and a sprinkle each of dried oregano, thyme and basil, plus a dash of salt and freshly ground pepper.

Toss it all together, let it sit in the fridge for an hour or four to meld the flavors together, and serve it with grilled or broiled shrimp and naan from Trader Joe’s, if you are like me and loooooove the carbs.

Oh, gods, I just posted a recipe on a blog…if I start posting crafts next someone please take me out to a music show and get me blindingly drunk because I will have turned into someone I don’t want to be (the good thing is I don’t actually do any crafts, so it should be safe – but feel free to take me to a show and buy me a drink anyway, as a precautionary measure).