The good thing about posting a recipe every weekend is that it forces me to cook. I’ve gotten rather lax about making my own meals lately. I use a lot of energy fighting my chronic headache, which hasn’t left me much strength to do normal things like cook or do the dishes or floss every night. Instead, I’ve been eating pricier instant dinners or buying wraps and salads from Whole Paycheck. But here’s a recipe that wasn’t too taxing, didn’t take too long to cook and mixed up my protein and veggies into one tasty, filling meal.

Southwest Chicken Stir-Fry

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch strips

1 small zucchini

1 small yellow summer squash

2 Tablespoons canola oil

1/3 cup salsa

2 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Mix lemon juice and chili powder in bowl. Stir in chicken. Cover and refrigerate 15 minutes. Cut zucchini and yellow squash into thin slices.

Coat 12-inch skillet with 1 Tablespoon of oil and put on high heat. Add chicken and marinade. Stir-fry until chicken is no [...]

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Woah, did you know pumpkins could grow warts?

I walked into the Fresh Market yesterday and saw a pile of these ugly creatures in the corner past the sliding doors. I thought they must be the victims of a pernicious pumpkin disease, but according to this site they bred these knucklehead pumpkins on purpose. “In fact, it has taken over 10 generations of breeding to obtain the size and consistency of warting for these varieties.”

Now, I LOVE pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin bread and canned pumpkin mixed with instant pudding mix. Pumpkin is my favorite squash. I love that it’s pumpkin season again. These pumpkins are probably just as tasty as their clear-skinned cousins. So, I know it’s looks-ist of me, but I want to take a knife or a bottle of liquid nitrogen and freeze the warts off that orange skin. It looks so gross.

But to each her own. I suppose someone must think these pumpkins look cool if they spent 10 years of their time on it. I won’t be buying any, [...]

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I have continued my exploration of the produce section in the past weeks, inappropriately fondling vegetables that I do not know the names of as if they were strippers. There’s no dancing pole in the vegetable aisle, which would make shopping more fun. But I didn’t have to tip the stock boy a twenty in his apron string either, so I guess it balances out.

Spaghetti squash

I had never heard of spaghetti squash before, but I’ve evidently been walking past it on my way to the cheese section for years. I cooked it in the oven for about 45 minutes after splitting it in half and placing it face down in a pan of water. Then I pulled it out to scrape out the insides. Those last two sentences sound like excerpts from The Happy Torturer’s Guidebook, but I swear that’s what All Recipes told me to do. The squash comes apart like strands of noodles, hence the name “spaghetti squash.” I ate it with some tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese and it was pretty good. [...]

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