Yellow Tomato and Parsley Sauce over Cous Cous

Tomatoes are not as good this year as last, but the "fresh from the farmers market" kind are still wonderful. So is farmer's market parsley which to my mind has far more taste than supermarket produce.

I sliced up a bunch of yellow plum tomatoes and a huge yellow heirloom tomato that really had no taste and was kind of watery. No matter. It still is fresh and we do add olive oil.

Yellow Tomato and Parsley Sauce over Cous Cous
6 plum tomatoes -yellow
a big heirloom tomato -also yellow
1 onion chopped into small pieces.
1/4 cup olive oil
3 smashed garlic cloves
1 teaspoon of sugar...not too much.
two or three tablespoons of fresh fresh Italian flat leaf parsley. (The curly parsley will not work for this dish)
a little salt, a little pepper

2 cups of cous cous
2 cups of boiling water.

Chop up the tomatoes into bite sized pieces. For instance the plum tomato would be cut into sixths.
Chop up the onion.
Heat the oil in a pan and add the smashed garlic but do not brown.
Add the onion and lower heat to medium. Saute until translucent.
Add the tomato and cook for 10 minutes or more.
Add the parsley. Add some whole leaves to make it look pretty.

Boil up two cups of water and when boiled, turn off the heat. Add the cous cous, stir and cover.

In five minutes the yellow sauce will be done and the cous cous will be soaked.

Fluff up the cous cous with a fork.
Spoon it on a plate and add the sauce mixture.

This was really good and my first husband devoured it. So did my second offspring.

Vegan For A Day

It went very well. Blueberries for breakfast. Snacking on baby carrots, apples, nectarine. Cherry tomatoes and a teeny bag of peanuts for lunch. I made a sauce from farmers market tomatoes for dinner which I put over cous cous. I did a vegan day and it was all fresh and most of it was raw.

Also one thing I want to make clear about my rudeness to the nurse at the hospital yesterday. I did make nice. I confessed to her that I realize I am the patient from hell and then tried to be friendly.

We will see how tomorrow goes. As long as food is fresh and good, it is so easy being a vegan. But come the fall and winter when there is little local fresh food, there is not much incentive.

The Ol' Ticker

From 5 PM on August 18th to 6PM on August 19th, I was in a local emergency room with chest pains. The bottom line is that whatever caused the pain, was not related to my heart.
Good to know. But it got me thinking.

Actually, my vegan offspring got me thinking. Let us get one thing clear here, I will not become a vegan and have no desire to become a vegan. However I am thinking that on certain days, I can become vegan-ish. Or vegan-like.

When I returned home from the hospital, I did not eat the Locatelli cheese that usually accompanies my pasta. I did not put milk on my blueberries. I am thinking that maybe I should not have coffee today. I love my Dunkin Donuts with lots of skim milk, but maybe I will not drink it today. Maybe today, I will boil a potato and a zucchini and eat a tomato for lunch and have a nice salad with olive oil and balsamic for dinner. Maybe that will be good. I do not know what I will eat tomorrow, but that is what I will eat today. Or something like it.

So let me tell you what they offered me in the "Rapid Diagnostic Unit" (kind of like a hospital ward - where they give you a real bed, will feed you and attend to you and be right there for you, but is not officially a "room".) Would it shock you to learn that the patient with a suspected cardiac event gets the following for breakfast: two muffins, coffee, apple juice, cornflakes with whole milk? I called the nurse in. I pushed that buzzer and when she came I said, "I do not eat muffins." ( I neglected to say that I devour cake, but it is true, I do not eat muffins, especially muffins wrapped in celophane.) I handed her the muffins and she took them away. I didn't touch the other stuff either. I just starved.

I may be the patient from hell, but would you not also be angry that this is what they give to people who are sick? This stuff will make them sicker.

So, for the day - today only - I will see what I can do to make sure that food made wholly from plant material enters my body. And this does not include Oreo cookies or coke.

If I get stuck for a recipe, I can always come back to this blog. I will let you know how TODAY goes.