September 6, 2021

by drplasticpicker

Wow. Dinner was a complete and utter and delightful and healthy surprise. We had gone out to dinner on Saturday and had felt very, for the lack of a better word, heavy. We had gone to a nice family style high-end American-fare restaurant and we all had sandwhiches and various burgers and salad. The first bites were good, but afterwards all my daughter could mention was how much butter and oil there was on everything.

When our family moved toward a more plant-based diet and especially when I stopped drinking coffee with all that cream and sugar, my palate fundamentally changed. Without all the processed sugar that comes in pre-packaged foods, real food made at home and in general life became more real and flavorful and sweet.

Last night, my daughter and I went for a walk along the beach and it ended up turning a kind of off day into a wonderful day. She got to dip her toes and get her feet wet in the Pacific Ocean, and I gathered in total yesterday 3 bags of ocean plastic pollution from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Ocean Cleanup part deux is having success with their system so I’m hopeful. And as we walked home, we adopted two aloe plants that a neighbor had left in front of their house underneath their community library.

But what I wanted to remember was the surprise dinner I was able to put together quickly last night. It was really amazing how well I can cook now compared to two years ago. It just goes to show that everything is just practice and imagination. I don’t have a picture of last night’s dinner but I’ll definitely make it again and I’ll post the picture later. But before I forget the recipe I made up, I wanted to put it on the blog. Because this blog has really become my sustainable life journal and this is a large part of a sustainable life which is eating at home and mostly plant-based and yesterday had so many plants.

Lemon & Pepper Sauteed shrimp with onion and zuchinni

Heated up a wok like skillet with canola oil. Put in some garlic seasoning, maybe 2 teaspoons. Heated everything in. Threw up 1/2 cup of chopped onions. We had it frozen and prechopped from scratch, so I threw that in first. Threw it one chopped zuchinni. Cooked for a few minutes maybe 3 or so. Then threw in half of bag of large deshelled shrimp, that I had get in half. We buy our shrimp right now at Sprouts in the frozen food section. Only used half a bag because we are trying to do the “protein flip” where we eat less protein and more vegetables. Use the lemon and pepper seasoning generously to taste. Cook everything by stirring until shrimp and vegetables are done.

That’s it. It was delicious. We served with 3/4 cup of brown rice and a salad of mixed salad greens with croutons and balsalmic vinagrette dressing. Everyone was amazed. Not a bit left. This was enough for probably two adults. My children had so many vegetables yesterday. I think they became zuchinnis yesterday. And it was all food that I already had in what seemed an empty fridge. Goes to show that the idea of food insecurity is a state of mind. When there is too much processed food in the food supply, one looks at a zuchinni and doesn’t realize that a zuchinni is a pretty remarkable food.

And my daughter and I watched La La Land and supposedly we didn’t have any popcorn. But we did have popcorn. We have slowly been going through this beautiful upcycled glass jar of bulk multicolored popcorn I bought over a year ago. We just made popcorn on the stove, and for the first time I was able to make it without burning it. It was the perfect serving size of the two of us. The key was to put plenty of oil on the bottom of the pan and just toss the popcorn well when it’s popping to give each kernal a chance to pop. We seasoned the plain popcorn with nutritional yeast and truffle seasoning. How’s that for a fancy and sustainable life?

Okay. Lots fo do today since it’s the end of the holiday weekend.