What a day was today! There was a 21-home Yard Sale in our neighborhood today. It was on 5 streets, advertised all over the place – and a huge success! I’m beat. We were up at the crack of dawn to get set up – and the early-birds were already out in force. (And I’m sorry, but some of those early-birds are obnoxious as hell!) The sale officially started at 9am, we were busy at 8am, and sold-out by 10:30am. I was pretty flabbergasted! Only a couple of things didn’t sell, and by 11am, we had a “free” table that was empty by 11:05. A huge success, indeed.
It was fun seeing so many folks I know from work. (And even more fun getting the “you live here?!?” comments!)
While it really was a fun day, it was also quite tiring. It’s exhausting dealing with people going through your stuff. I’m really glad we did it – we cleaned out a lot of stuff that really needed cleaning out and we got some vacation-cash for Seattle and Portland – but dayum, I’m all tuckered out!
When it came time for thinking about dinner, I was looking for something to do with a big ol’ zucchini. Our neighbor up the street has been keeping us supplied. (I will ALWAYS take fresh produce from a neighbor – always. I will figure out what to do with it!) She had dropped of a single gigantic zucchini a day or so ago and I wanted to use it while it was still garden-fresh. I figured long thin strips cut on the mandoline would be the way to go with this one – and then onto the grill. I sprayed them with olive oil and sprinkled on quatre épices (literally, four spices).
I picked up a turkey breast london broil and marinated it in a great summer marinade:
Lemon Garlic Marinade
- Juice of 2 lemons
- zest of 2 lemons
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed and minced
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 cup minced parsley
- 1/4 cup minced assorted fresh herbs (basil, cilantro, dill, whatever)
- 1/2 cup olive oil.
Mix it all together. That’s it.
This would work on anything – beef, chicken, pork, shrimp, fish, vegetables…
It went into a pyrex plate with the turkey breast. And then onto the grill it went.
The rice was another fun creation. I was looking for something to pop up the plate a bit and definitely bfound it with this:
Chimi Churi Japonica Rice
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 plum tomato, diced
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp chimi-churi spice blend (I get it from Cost Plus when I’m out west)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 3/4 cup whole-grain japonica rice
- 1 1/2 cups beef broth
Saute onion, mushrooms, and garlic in a small pan. remaining ingredients and bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook for 45 minutes (or however long according to the rice you use).
The anount of rice tonight was determined by the fact that I had a cup and a half of beef broth opened in the ‘fridge. It could have easily have been chicken broth, vegetable broth, or plain water.
And I’m really starting to look for whole grain rices. I want that nutty, chewy texture. Most of the brown rice on the market today looks like a browner version of white rice.
So dinner tonight was pretty good on the health-and-calorie-o-meter. The turkey ran probably 250 calories – it was a generous portion and the rice probably hit 200 calories. The zucchini was practically a giveaway. Maybe 50 calories. I bought a loaf of Italian bread (1/8 of a huge loaf is 200 calories and I know I ate less than that) so even adding another 200 calories, the huge dinner I didn’t finish would have totaled 700 calories had I cleaned my plate.
I believe I have enough calories left over from today for a bit of dessert later on…..