Wading through life

Some people say it grows on you… but I’m not yet convinced. It’s hard for me to believe it could ever be much fun chugging a can of vegetable juice.

Spinach Chicken Salad

Those of you who know me better than others know that I’m not much for following a recipe to make a meal. I’m pretty much a wing-it type. I think through stuff in my cabinets and refrigerator and figure out a way to put it together—usually to decent results.

This tendency of mine was the incubator for one of my more famous comments to Scott and Clark while living with them at the Park Rd. house. “You need to be more creative!” I blurted out when they complained we had no food and wanted to go to the store. I could think of plenty of options! Clark still brings it up now and then.

So, I currently have this big bin of baby spinach that I’m not getting through as fast as normal, along with some pitas I wanted to eat. For a few days, I’d been planning on doing something about those lingering refrigerator items. And tonight I finally did. Turned out de-lish! So, I’m going to guesstimate a recipe for you; “~” means “my best guess.”

Ingredients

• ~4 cups chopped organic baby spinach
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 9.75 oz can chicken breast in water
• 1 tomato (not sure which type… but certainly not a cherry or grape tomato)
• 1/4 cup crumbled basil and tomato feta cheese
• ~1/2 cup light salad dressing
• ~3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• ~1 tbsp mustard
• whole peppercorn
• whole chicken seasoning (whatever that means)
• pita bread

Directions

Chop the celery. Dice the tomato. Drain the chicken. Put spinach, celery and tomato in a bowl. Crumble the chicken and put in bowl as well. Add the crumbled feta cheese. Mix in salad dressing, olive oil and mustard. Grind peppercorn and chicken seasoning over mixture to taste. Cut pita bread in half and open. Stuff with salad. Potentially serves two. But I ate over half of it after my workout tonight.

Enjoy!

Kiwano. That’s what it’s called. Shoppers are lured in by it’s exotic skin:

And immediately repulsed by it’s slimy guts.

Believe me, it’s not as elegant in there as it looks.

Sherry bought me a collection of fruit for my upcoming birthday, thus supporting my 40-day meat and refined foods fast. At the center of the tray was this bizarro kiwano. How could you not be excited about something that looks as unique as a kiwano?

Well, with the parents as witnesses, we can all testify that the kiwano ranks right up there with the most un-edible foods on the planet. The green-slim guts and riddled with more seeds per cubic inch than anything else I know. And they aren’t like watermelon’s white seeds, which go down unnoticed. No, these seeds are more like a hybrid of the white and black seeds in watermelon. Containing each seed is a small packet of gel, which makes up the “fruit”. The minute I cut into the thing, watery juice gushed out. It’s really just a slim-pit inside.

It doesn’t taste bad. At least mine didn’t. I’ve read otherwise online, but I thought the flavor was okay. Very light, but okay. Realizing I couldn’t do much with it as-was and not wanting it to go to waste, I did what any people named Joel Maust would do: I blended it. I spooned the slime out of the shell, threw in some strawberries, a peach, a banana, yogurt, cottage cheese and some orange juice.

The kiwano seeds persisted through the blend, so there was some light seed-crunching that went along with the smoothie. Oh well. I’m sure it increased the fiber value.

So, google kiwano and see what others have to say if you’re interested. But in summary, it sounds like your best bet is to use them for decoration.

For a while (actually, for all the years of my life), I’ve been curious how the tradition of eating grapefruit with a spoon vs. peeling it emerged. Is it because they’re so big, and most people wouldn’t eat a whole one, like an orange? Is it because people like to sprinkle sugar on the surface to combat their tartness? Is it something people have just always done it that way because their parents did it…but no one knows why?

Well…I accidentially peeled open a small grapefruit, mistaking it for an un-orange orange until I was part way through the peeling process, and decided to give it a shot. A few observations that support the halve-’n-spoon method…

• they peel rather hard…at least the one I have. Skins are tough but thin…and cling pretty hard to the fruit
• the sections also come apart hard. I had to eat a group of three sections together since I didn’t feel like fighting with the thing and getting sticky fingers that would lead to a sticky keyboard
• just not as enjoyable to eat as oranges. This one was quite tart. I ended up pouring a plate of sugar to roll each piece in. Much less mess to top a halved grapefruit with sugar and eat it out of a bowl.

And not in favor of the halving method:

• you don’t run the risk of popping your eye–or the eye of a neighbor–with acidic citrus juice when peeling and sectioning a grapefuit. With membranes intact, it’s a pretty safe snack.

In summary…I’ll probably just stick to oranges…peel them. They’re better.

Ok. Usually coffee doesn’t do ANYTHING to me. But today, something a little funky is going on. Maybe it’s my lack of anything-else-of-substance in my system (besides the last of Mom’s zucchini bread). After taking in a full stainless steel travel mug of java at staff meeting, I have the jitters. Not necessarily a bad feeling…but a strange feeling. I suppose most of you coffee vets know what I’m talking about…or at least remember a time when you could relate.