roasted beets and carrots

Well, I really haven't been cooking much, as evidenced by the dearth of pictures on my camera and phone. But a couple weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went to the farmer's market that is in the Triangle on Wednesday afternoons. We got some carrots and beets, and I roasted them with some olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and herbes de provence. Because I chopped them so small, it really only took about 25 minutes to roast them at about 400 degrees, turning them once. I made a simple risotto to eat with it, which is always delicious and filling.

I haven't eaten beets much and wouldn't say I'm crazy about them, but my boyfriend is a pretty big fan, so he gets them fairly often. I really liked the colors of the roasted beets and carrots, and they were nice and tender and flavorful after roasting. If beets are at least this good every time I have them, I'll be a fan soon enough.

egads!

It's April 19, and I haven't posted in about a month. What has happened? Well, I have been cooking less.

First of all, the past few months I have been working part-time at Galaxy Cafe, a locally owned restaurant in Austin. One of my best friends from home (or really, our shared forced church experiences growing up) is the GM of one of the locations, and she offered to let me work there for a while until I found myself a full-time job. It isn't, of course, amazing pay, but I will say that I get to spend my time there with pretty great people. Everyone is really nice and fun, so it makes me hours there pleasant, and the customers are pretty friendly as well. Also, I like the food. This (and my employee discount) is partly why I have been cooking less - I work and spend more time away from home, and I often just eat after a shift. But I have a couple other jobs on the table, so cross your fingers for me that one of them works out and I can keep moving on up! :)

Second of all, I have been teaching more! A couple nights a week, I teach my GRE classes with Kaplan just off UT Campus, so that has prevented me from really cooking dinners because those nights I'm away from home from about 5-9 pm. I really enjoy it, so other than putting a strain on my evening and dinner calendar, it's a good thing to have on my schedule.

Third of all, I've been in and out of town a bit or had visitors. A friend from college came to visit for about a week (it was glorious!), I went back to Fort Worth for a weekend to go to a wedding with my boyfriend and then we went to San Antonio for a couple days because he had a conference, and then my parents came in town, so of course I got treated to several delicious meals out. But it has limited my cooking and grocery experiences as well.

I've baked cookies a couple of times and have gotten into the habit of making some very delicious salads for lunches (right now, I'm eating Central Market mixed baby greens + herbs, cucumber, campari tomatos, avocado, strawberry, and feta salad with lemon juice). Believe that I'm not a big time salad girl most of the time because I really don't love peppers, carrots, onions, and other typical salad ingredients. But I do love fruit and cheese and nuts and herbs and salads that are a little more fun and exciting like that, so when I have the ingredients to make my own, I love them! Also I sort of chow down pretty hard on food, and I like that salad takes a lot of time to eat because it keeps me occupied and feel more full than when I pound back a sandwich in 5 minutes. Yup.

I think I have a couple sets of pictures on my camera of some food that I have managed to make in the past month, so I'll get those uploaded and post soon. I need to get back in my habit with this thing! My cookbooks are lonely, I'm itching to mix and measure and enjoy delicious homemade food, and my camera hasn't been put to use in a while (really, it's a bit sad that I don't use it to take pictures of other things after its illustrious time spent photographing amazing sights abroad. sigh).

Anyway, I've missed you! And if you're there at all still, maybe you've missed me, and I'm sorry for not being around. Be back soon with food pictures!