There have been times I've worked diligently to use those "food-tracker things", like FitDay, but I think they really don't work well for people who actually cook stuff. I mean, if you want to say "I had a Lean Cuisine Lasagna Meal for lunch," it's basically one click. If you need to instead enter "I had a salad of 1 cup mixed baby greens, 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 T balsamic vinegar, 8 grape tomatoes, 1/4 cucumber, 3 thin slices red onion, 2 T crumbled feta cheese, 4 shrimp sauteed in 1 t butter..." Well,then, it's a giant pain in the ass.

The other night I needed to make dinner, but discovered I was missing a lot of staples. So I softened a red onion (there were no other onions! how does this happen!) in some oil, added cumin, turmeric, coriander, chili, garlic, grated ginger (and yet I had a fresh knob of ginger root! how does this happen?), a can of fire roasted tomatoes (with juice) and a can of chick peas. Served over rice (jasmine) Guy liked it!

While I am a reasonably good cook, I rarely improv anything any more because I do not have the mental capacity to spare. Thus, our menus are planned every week so I don't have to actually think in the kitchen. Sad but true.

I usually use whatever is in the fridge. Chopped up leftover steak w/bleu cheese and salad mix? Great! Grilled turkey and cheese with chipotle tabasco, onions and mayo? Awesome. BLT+peanut butter? Sounds weird, but tastes soo good.

The other night there was very little fresh food in the fridge except for a bag of shrimp and some eggplant. I also had a tub of miso that I really wanted to use. So I decided to make simply sauteed shrimp with garlic, red chilli flakes and butter and on the side miso eggplant. Except in my urge to amp up the umami flavor, I added soy sauce, miso, a bit of Better than Bouillon beef and salt. I'm sure it's no surprise that this was really salty. So I boiled up some rotini and made the eggplant into a sort of pasta sauce. It all tasted good, I swear!

Sometimes when I am out of veggies I make "every dried green herb on the shelf" pasta. I sautee the herbs in butter or oil while the pasta cooks, with garlic or onion if I have it, and then add the pasta to it in the end.
It's always a surprise because I forget what I've put in it, so when I eat it I'm like "OMG rosemary! or hello, chives!"

One standby I use all the time: canned white beans (cannellini, garbanzos, great Northern, whatever), drained and rinsed, marinated in lemon, oil, and whatever seasoning. If we have nothing much in the house, I start these marinating in a jar while I rummage around for other ingredients. They're good in a cold pasta or rice salad, in a hot pasta dish with any kind of greens, tossed with hot or cold vegetables (broccoli or grape tomatoes or shredded lettuce or a spinach salad or hot cooked spinach with red onion or whatever), smashed up in a quesadilla or a grilled sandwich, or just as a cold bean salad.

Lately, it's been frittata time chez Elsa. My sister's been giving me lots of eggs from her hens, or I can always grab a dozen at the corner store; add an onion and some leftover bits of whatever vegetable is kicking around the fridge and suddenly it looks like dinner! (I think that's what we'll have tonight, with a mound of brown rice and something green on the side.)

When I'm making a desperation dinner like this, I often make some easy garnish to make the whole thing look and taste more... intentional, more pulled-together. A handful of paprika-glazed nuts strewn over a pile of rice or a drizzle of aged balsamic over roasted vegetables makes it look like a fancy, well-planned meal, even if I dreamed it up out of nothing.

I have two favorites lately. One is I've been keeping bacon around more than usual and I'm baking it in the oven to keep the mess minimal and then adding it to everything but mostly sandwiches, especially sandwiches of bacon, guac and tomato. Om nom nom.

The other thing I started doing a couple weeks ago to keep us in quick lunches is grilling chicken breasts, making a big pot of penne and then reheating the penne with baby spinach and a couple pats of butter in the microwave and putting cut up pieces of the cold grilled chicken on top. I ate so much more greens than I normally do because it's such an easy spinach wilting method and tasty spinach delivery system.

One is I've been keeping bacon around more than usual and I'm baking it in the oven to keep the mess minimal and then adding it to everything but mostly sandwiches, especially sandwiches of bacon, guac and tomato. Om nom nom.

This is what ate, either lunch or dinner, for most of last week... but with basil tucked into the sandwich. It was AWESOME.

Had a toasted half bagel, on which I put some garlic cream cheese (roasted garlic cuisinarted with the cream cheese), a romaine leaf, and some sliced tomato and cucumber. Very satisfying.

Honestly, my go-to sammich is the easiest ever.
Step 1: Slice of bread. in the US I'll use a nice rye or perhaps a thick slice of sourdough. In Sweden anything goes, and "polar bröd" is always in my house.
Step 2: with fork pile cottage cheese all over bread.
Step 3: With cheese slicer, pile thin-thin-thin slices of cucumber on top
Step 4: Herbal salt (if there's any in the house - there is no salt in herbal salt btw)
Optional Step 5: Thin slice of ham on top.

Eat with fork and knife. Optional stuff that play nice with this; green salad at the bottom, a slice of smoked turkey, cherry tomatoes. Fills you right up, takes no time at all.

the open-faced sammich is so very Swedish. It's not a sammich unless you can grab it with two hands! Agh!

That does however, sound super-duper delish.