Baseline Fridge and a Meal Plan...

As I mentioned, I'm trying to empty the fridge in prep for my leaving, and have little things to use up. Avocado, cream cheese, mayonnaise (I've evolved the recipe since that post), Gruyere, blue cheese, and bell peppers, cabbage, eggplants... Ok, so to make sure I'm not hungry and don't have leftovers, I've got a to plan out how to use it all up at just the right time. Additionally, having two slices of Non-Bread left, I decided that I could make one mean pimento cheese. Today's lunch will be a real pimento cheese sandwich (though, with the hardboiled eggs I added, its more of a cheesy-kine egg-salad...) and dinner will be cabbage stir-fry with Salmon. Cabbage stir-fry used up odds and ends (like onions, celery, cocktail sausages chopped, more bell pepper) and I made lomi-lomi Salmon with the other part of this piece of salmon-- therefore using up more onion, avocado, tomato, and romaine. I'll grill some eggplant (I had planned on making eggplants lasagna, but seriously, heating up the kitchen? Nah) and a few salads later I should be set. Except for this brick of cream cheese.

So, this all got me pondering... when coming home to an empty fridge, what would I hope to find? What will I jump to get at the grocery store? I imagine the following would do quite nicely:

1 pound ground grass-fed beef
Some Fish
A skosh of bacon
1 dozen eggs
1 salad-spinner full of spinach
Raw Salad Veggies
Cruciferous Veggies (My favorite vegetables are of this family. To be cooked!)
Avocado
A small amount of good cheese
Berries (Blue??)
Maranatha Sunflower-Seed Butter (...addiction???)
Homemade Mayo
Olives
Twinlabs Cod Liver Oil

Non-fridge things that need replenishing include:

Red Wine Vinegar and White Wine Vinegar
Tomatoes
Onions
Unsweetened chocolate <3
Coconut Butter/Manna

Empty?

I have my butter frozen and I'll be putting my kombucha, nuts, and oils in the fridge while I'm gone (to be removed when I return).

So, its empty for now.

All that is left are pickled things, film, condiments, and a few bites for the next couple days.

My salad spinner is empty. Sweating Eggplants and the little bundles on the bottom are for today. There are two eggs and a half of a giant heirloom tomato. Pickles, pickles, and pickles.

What would you put in your fridge, starting fresh?

Airplane Food

Airplanes are tricky beasts. First of all, something that large and made of metal just shouldn't be able to fly. Its beautiful, but I suspect it is more magic than science. Ahem.

Secondly, airplane food sucks really bad. To be fair enough to the airline I'm using, I've never flown Swiss Air, and I'll withhold judgement until I have--- they were even accommodating on the phone. But usually, especially with domestic flights, "meals" are bags of crackers with bags of pretzels with boxes of cookies.

So, the quest for travel food begins. Not just things you can bring with you camping, but things you can bring with you in close quarters, and things with severe restrictions on size and type. So, my rules for Airplane Foods will be:

1. Shelf Stable.
2. Non-liquid and Portable.
3. Non-Offensive.

1: These things should be shelf stable at least to a degree. It should last up to a day or two, safely, without refrigeration. I don't want to have an ice pack or worry if I crash in a hotel room and leave something in my bag. 2: Of course, dainty and crushable things (like kale-chips) would just turn to dust and saucy, soupy, and salady things would just be a pain. Also, there are 2oz liquid restrictions on the plane, which cuts out some people's beloved smoothies (which I'm not big on anyhow). And last but not least, number 3: Non-offensive. By this I mean odor, sound, and sight-- what you wouldn't want to eat while touching elbows with someone on a plane. If you live in an arrogant, self-serving vein of people, you'll scoff at this. However, I believe that something that sets us primals away from other people is the general (this is both assumptive and observant of me) observation in my eyes that we are a more considerate, self-content bunch than many other people from many other lifestyles. Especially other ''special-diets.'' I'll break no specific bones about it, but for sake of argument lets agree that we're simply less ''in-your face'' about how we eat. Anyhow, rule 3 cuts out things like anchovies, whole dried sardines, carrots, ice, etc. They're too loud or visually bibzzare or smelly. These change once you leave the plane (thankfully)

So the way that I'll do this is to list the foods, and then list the rules that they possibly skirt-- ie: I'll include carrots, but list '3' because they're loud. You can cast them aside as you desire!

Food	Notes or Drawbacks	On the cusp of:
Hard Cheese		1
Nuts & Seeds	Caloric, High Omega-6
Hard Salami	(and Summer Sausage)	1
Hard-boiled egg		1 (3?)
Dried Meat
Dried Fish
Dried Fruit or Veg
Coconut Flakes
Radish Chips	(and other Root Chips)
Kale Chips		2,3*
Chicharrones		2
Primal Crackers	Caloric, High Omega-6
Nut Butters	Portable packets.
Olives	Esp dry, like beldi!	1
Veggies and Fruits		3
Tinned fish		3

*3 Not that kale chips are offensive, but they're really freaking ''health-foody.'' I have no bones about that, but I imagine Pvt. McNormal running home and telling everyone about that hippie he sat next to on the plane eating Kale-Chips dipped in Coconut-butter... Hahaha!

This all being said, I'm simply pondering travel. I'm thinking with a primal-muffin from mom and some nut-crackers, my trail mix, couple radish chips and some Unikaas Reserve, I'll be more than prepared. It may be less-than ideal food for every-day consumption-- but you're about to travel and your airplane food certainly should not be your biggest concern!

Using Up: The makings of an all-American BBQ dinner.

I'm preparing to leave the country. I'm Israel bound! I'll be gone for a while-- just about 15 days. Its a little bit interesting, to think of being away for that long-- simply leaving your things behind can be uncomfortable, or at least mildly thought-provoking. I'm eating perishables out of the fridge. I'm getting someone to water all of my plants and beloved succulents, but I plan on turning off the A/C the entire time. In Texas heat, things begin to happen. Frightening things.

Any-how, I'd like to run out of fridge food at the exact time that I leave, having no leftovers and no shortage at all. I'm doing pretty well, but this takes a large slice of creativity and a fair amount of meal-planning.

Here is what I had, among other things, to work with:
1 Egg Per day, exactly
Leftover canned tomato sauce
Lots of onions, red bell peppers, and a big round zuccinni from market
Heaps of cut Jicama from Jeff
1 black radish
A whole lot of celery
A wee bit of homemade mayonnaise
"Black and White" Vinegar (Blackberry and White Vinegar) from Texas Olive Ranch
Homemade beef bone stock, a few ounces
Maille Mustard (I want to use it up, it has sugar.)
1/2 smoked sweet potato
Brisket
A few TB leftover devilled-egg filling from a BBQ

So, the culinary shadow-puppets formed a obvious, beautiful possibility: A true BBQ dinner. I made BBQ sauce, and it was STELLAR. Best primal BBQ sauce ever!

I made a single devilled egg, and STILL had too much yolk-stuff, so I decided to use that in a 'root salad,' in which I steamed a bunch of zucchini and radish with garlic cloves, then combined them with mustard, dill, spices, onions (lots), and the smoked sweet potato and chopped jicama and celery! AAAAh, simply put, chilling this bowl in the fridge was a true test of will-power. I didn't add any mayonnaise*, but used up the last of a bottle of white wine vinegar and olive oil to give it moisture. Silky, moist, fork-tender brisket from dad's smoker, topped with tangy and glossy-smooth bbq sauce? Yes. Flanked by a cold root salad? Of course. All cozied up beside two perfect little devilled eggs? Oh, man, my Texas is showing. And all that was left to have was a big stein of iced tea. Happy summer, ya'll.

*The rest of my homemade mayo will star in part of this week's planned meal number #3.