Things I've eaten recently

5 minute meals and snacks

Author

Haley Boyd
May 01, 2024

Last time I shared about what I ate, I did so with a weekly shopping list and things you could make it with it. This week, I’m trying a different format. Each dish is accompanied by a visual list of ingredients, so you can see at a glance what went into it listed in the order I added them from left to right.

These are meals and snacks that I made up over the past couple of weeks that you can throw together in 5 minutes or less. They are not recipes, but rather ideas for easy dishes. If you don’t have an ingredient, you can leave it out, make a substitution, or come up with your own version entirely. There aren’t any specialty spices or ingredients. I rely on lemon juice, good quality olive oil, and generous high quality salt.

Twenty or thirty minutes before I’m ready to eat, I peruse the fridge and pantry to decide what to make and pull out refrigerated ingredients that need to come to room temp (fish/meat that will be cooked, lentil salad, leftover cooked veggies, etc.). The temperature of ingredients makes a big difference to me, especially with such simple meals.

HERB GRAIN BOWL

~15 chives, 1/3 bunch parsley, ½ bunch mint, ¼ cup cooked barley (or omit barley and add more potatoes), a few new potatoes, handful tomatoes, avocado, lemon, olive oil, salt

I finely chop Parsley stems and do a looser chop on the leaves. I pick the mint leaves off the stem and roll them up (nothing too precious) and chop them up. If you have kitchen scissors, that is a great method for cutting chives.

Room temp or warm barley, freshly boiled new potatoes lightly smashed… drizzle olive oil (extra on potatoes), generously salt, and add lemon. Carbs need a lot more seasoning than the produce, add enough salt and lemon and oil so that the barley and potatoes taste good on their own.

Toss with olive oil, lemon, generous salt, pepper

AFTERNOON SNACK

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