Tuesday's (awesome) meals.

Um wow. 

Today was a good food day. 

Breakfast was just smoothies- papaya, banana, mango, strawberries (the same ones I found a few days ago), mango juice and yogurt. I made a gigantic batch and froze a bunch in jars so we could have easy smoothies for the next few days. 

But then. I had a craving. I wanted a hot, creamy, rich, buttery vegetable casserole, topped with fluffy, hearty biscuit. 

I googled, and to my dismay, the first dozen hits called for canned mushroom soup, frozen vegetables, and canned biscuit dough (the kind that pops open once you un-twist the package). Um, no. Not going to work. Are people really so busy that that's all they can handle? 

I finally found this recipe, for Tarragon and Mustard Chicken pot pie with biscuit topping. But we don't have any chicken, or bacon. And the biscuits called for 1 1/2 cups of cream, which a) sounds too rich and b) doesn't exist in Kenya. But I liked the tarragon and mustard idea, and I found this recipe for fluffy whole wheat biscuits. I vaguely followed the first recipe- mostly just using the mustard/tarragon/wine idea. 

Perfect. I rounded up all of our veggies (green beans, carrots, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, potatoes and a bell pepper) and diced them. 

Then I caramelized an onion, figuring it'd replace the bacon in the recipe (yes, I know, there's really no substitute for bacon). 

I sauteed the veggies with garlic, tarragon and pepper, then created a roux with butter and flour, added water, organic chicken bouillon paste, a teaspoon or so of mustard, and a generous kersplash of white wine, plus the caramelized onions. It smelled SO GOOD. I made Nathan get up and smell it twice. 

Finally, I mixed the biscuit batter, but substituted honey for the sugar- I figured it'd go well with the mustard in the sauce. 

I put the veggies in the casserole dish and poured the sauce on top, then blobbed the biscuit dough on top. It baked for around 20 minutes at somewhere around 425 (our oven reads in Celsius so I tend to invent my own temperature). 

Gorgeous!!

How was it? 

Oh my gosh. Amazing. Hot, savory, unique, hearty. I loved it. Nathan loved it (though he would have liked less mustard flavor.) 

Next time I'd reduce the salt in the biscuits and up the honey a little. It would actually be great with chicken, so maybe we'll sacrifice one of our birds someday. I'd cut down on the mustard level too (for Nathan's mustard-averse palate). But overall? Wonderful. Totally satisfied my craving. 

Geemi came over later in the afternoon and he ate half of the casserole- seriously. So I think he liked it too. 

After such a rich lunch, I wanted to make something light and easy for dinner. Cold noodle salad sounded good and we had just enough vegetables to use up.

We also had a giant avocado to use, which was perfect on top of the salad. 

I whipped together garlic, ginger, soy sauce, lime juice, sesame seeds, sesame oil and chili flakes, then diced cucumber, sliced carrots and sugar snap peas, and flung those in a bowl with udon noodles and drizzled the sauce on top. Then I sauteed a half-bag of sukuma in lime juice and threw that in as well. After a half-hour in the fridge, it was ready to eat. 

Yum! Not sure what I'll do tomorrow- today was a big food day!