In praise of really great simple meals

sweetbreads with peans and mint

Homemade mashed potatoes are almost laughably simple to me. I made them up tonight along with some broiled pork chops and sauteed green beans and they went over swimmingly. Total time in kitchen, from prep to eating to washing to clean-up -- a little under two hours, which if you know how hot I need that soapy water to be and how much I scrub those dishes is a really short period of time.

But the simplest meal I adore is this: take two of those biscuits you can warm up one at a time, bake them, and when they're right in the middle of baking, begin to scramble some eggs. Butter the biscuits when they come out and top the biscuits with the eggs. I like to eat them with a fork. I could also live off this meal and a few select others.

baked beans on hot buttered toast

steamed pile of spinach and sweetcorn, lots of salt and a little curry powder.

Chicken Rice...

Rice cooked in chicken broth then topped with slices of chicken garnished with cilantro and maybe a tomato.

lately I've been doing this meal-in-a-bowl served w/bread & wine

5 cups baby spinach
handful cilantro leaves chopped
4 scallions sliced into rings
1 avocado sliced
boneless chicken breast grilled or broiled (leftover roast c works 2)

combine & dress w/juice of 1 lime and 2 tbsp olive oil, salt to taste

anything that contains avocada is hard: i can never know when it's ripe. :-(((

i mean *tell*

Somehow anything you eat while camping tastes ridiculously good. Yesterday lunch: peanut butter & jelly sandwich and apple. So good! Dinner: pita bread pizzas (sauce, cheese, veggies, pepperoni). Also spectacularly good. Breakfast: bagel with peanut butter. Heavenly.

I've tried eating pb & j indoors and it is just never as satisfying.