Cooking...again

Gordito a photo by terpkristin on Flickr.

It's been a long time since I posted. Truth to tell, it's been kind of a rough year. As I posted on May 9, 2010, I fell and hurt my back. I ended up with a left-sided herniated disc at the L5-S1 level. After epidural steroid injections, therapy, and anti-inflammatories didn't work, I ended up having surgery on June 2, 2010 (#12 for those playing at home).

Things went well at first, but then I ended up having continued pain down both legs. An MRI revealed that I had re-herniated my disc, and this time it was bilateral. 2 more injections and a lot more therapy later, I found myself scheduling a revision diskectomy. Two days after scheduling it, I fell in the shower and made things worse. I finally ended up having the revision on 1/6/11. So it's been about two months and my recovery hasn't gone nearly as smoothly as it did the first time. It's a bit frustrating. I have a feeling my Ehlers-Danlos is playing a role in this.

Before my surgery, though, I'd made a New Year's resolution to cook more and take more photos. As far as "cooking more," I cook a lot. But I have a lot of old stand-by recipes, and I wanted to move away from those. So I resolved to make at least one recipe from each cookbook I own. So far this year, I've done two. About 3 weeks ago, I made Cuban-style Black Beans from Betty Crocker's Slow Cooker Cookbook. They were OK. They didn't have a lot of flavor, but when served with some green salsa on top, they were pretty tasty.

Today, I made recipe #2, from cookbook #2. This time, I made the Gordito recipe from Quick and Healthy Meals from Trader Joe's, which was a Christmas gift from Wendy. I had no idea what "gordito" meant, and nor was I sure what the texture would be. The cookbook actually has an error in it--the directions call to add marinara sauce, but only tomatoes are on the ingredient list (and it didn't say what to do with the tomatoes). Turns out "gordito" means "sloppy joe." Or, something like that, because that's what this came out looking and tasting like. It's vegetarian, made with the Morningstar Farms Grillers. Full disclosure, I didn't end up actually using anything from Trader Joe's to make this, I picked up ingredients at my local Wegman's.

I served it like you see, on top of some flatbread. I also had mixed vegetables on the side. Turned out pretty tasty, I'd recommend this recipe to others. The recipe makes 4 generous servings, though one serving was too big to be sandwich-able. I think when I eat the leftovers, I'll throw a little cheese on top. Maybe some avocado, if I can find any that look good.

Next week, hopefully another recipe.