I meant to do a detailed wrap up post from our vacation to California, but have been averse to writing for the last couple of wees. I think that has worn off, but I don’t really feel like doing a blow by blow write up anymore. You’ll just have top look at the pictures.

What I want to write about today does have something to do with vacation, though. See, on vacation, we ate out. A lot. We also spent way too much money- though, it being our first vacation in 4 years, that was OK. The hard part about coming back from vacation, though is that we have to adjust to eating at home and not spending money all at the same time. It’s a little depressing. Add to that the fact that I miss California produce quite a bit (strawberries and peaches in particular).

So I have been on a mission to figure out new ways of making good food at home- and more than that, establishing out some good food habits. The ability to take some ingredients and make it into something yummy is really a very small part of being a good- or even sufficient- cook. The rest of it has to do with figuring out what you’ll buy, planning a weeks worth of menus, and using the leftover stuff that didn’t quite make it into the recipe. This requires a good deal of flexibility, so I find I very rarely follow recipes anymore. I still look through cookbooks occasionally to get ideas, and I still look up recipes online to figure out how long to cook things, but for the most part I take the “throw some stuff into a pot and cross my fingers” cooking plan. It usually works out OK.

It always takes me about halfway through the summer to get used to the abundance of summer foods. In the winter, I eat a lot more canned and frozen foods, and it’s somewhat hard to let go of that when summer hits. This week was the first week that I reveled in summer produce goodness. I bought tomatoes, basil, zucchini, cucumber, and onion, as well as some ciabatta bread at the local farmer’s market, and lettuce, fruit, and other goodies at the grocery store. My main goal is to process the food when it comes into the house or soon thereafter, instead of throwing it in the refrigerator and forgetting about it (my usual approach.) So Sunday night I chopped up a bunch of veggies, roasted nuts, and basically prepared things as much as possible so I can throw together a good salad very quickly. I also reorganized the fridge a bit- I put a couple of bins in there, one for fruits and veggies, another for cheese, nuts and meats. This way I can just take out the whole thing when making lunches.

My first meal was tomatoes, onion, basil and gorgonzola on ciabatta bread. I’ve also made pesto, pasta (with  the pesto) and a caprise salad. I think I’m doing pretty well so far, but we’ll see how it goes as the week goes on and things get more hectic. The main habits I am hoping to establish is the food prep time and visiting the farmer’s market every single week, since I tend to end up with more produce I actually want to eat that way.

If I am feeling especially ambitious later on, I may go on a kitchen wide cleaning spree, in which I really take stock of what is in our cupboards. I know some stuff in there has been there since we moved in 4 years ago. I’m definately past due for a major clean out.