A Heathers Moment

I just snapped “What is your damage?” at my dog for scaring the crap our of me with his piercing little yappy barks (some offending leaf or ray of sun in the backyard menaced our safety) and had to laugh at the anachronism.  Am I 80s or what? Speaking of our dim little poodle, Husband looked out the window yesterday in time to foil another attack on him — this time by a huge, skulking orange cat.  Come on guy!  Pull it together!  You want your ass handed to you by a cat?

(For any of you readers who were like, born, when that movie came out (grrr!) and don’t remember it, Heathers was in 1988 what Mean Girls was to your as-yet unwrinkled generation.)

Setting aside the fascinating topics of 80s movies and my dumb dog, here’s a handy tip I’ve just put into practice recently at the Granite Casa.  One of the major downsides to eating a veggie-rich diet, or any diet that moves away from packaged, processed, pre-prepared foods, is the amount of time it takes to wash the veggies (if you’re using a pesticide removing veggie wash, which I hope you are), chop, cook and then clean up!  Even if you’re not cooking them and just making them into a salad, you’ll still have a cutting board, knives, and the salad bowl to clean as well as the countertops and, if you’re a sloppy cook like me, the floor.

What has worked for me is to wash a whole mess o’ veggies at once.  Cleaned leafy vegs can keep in the fridge for a few days provided they are DRY when they go in.  Wash them in veggie wash, dry them in a salad spinner, and place them in a large bowl lined with paper towels to absorb any moisture you missed.  It takes me 20-30 minutes a day to wash and dry salad vegs and it gets BORING and I get HOSTILE because I am at the sink three times a day completing the exact same sisyphusian tasks. But if I do a bunch at once, it doesn’t add that much time to the washing procedure and it gives me a break for a few days.

Pre-preparing cooked veggies is an even more versatile way to save time and have quick meal options available.  Check out mine from last night:

• Cooked toppings for raw salads
• Fillings for wraps.  Add some hummus and salsa (and cheese if you’re a cheese eater) to a tortilla with the veggies.  Eat cold, nuked or grilled on the stove.  Add some beans and make a veggie burrito!
• Side dishes to quick meals like canned soups.
• Toppings for make at home pizza.  Or add them to the pizza you buy to improve the nutrition!

I'm so cute! I don't need to be smart!