When I feel under the weather, I pretty much always cook some sort of spicy thing with lentils. Today is no exception.

Abuelita always said that when people are sick it’s a good idea to feed them something spicy, both hot and flavorful, so they can taste their food and want to eat, but also to raise their body temperature a few degrees so they can run a low fever and sweat it out. She claims that cinnamon, nutmeg, and hot peppers do this best.

I’m not much of a recipe person as I just rummage around the refri for ingredients, grab fistfuls and pinches of things, and throw them into pots, but here’s a post of what today’s cooking produced.

Ingredients and preparation

• Grape seed oil
• 1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 ripe acorn squash, guts scraped out, peeled, and cut into big chunks
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 2 or 3 big handfuls of frozen yellow and white sweet corn
• dry spices to taste: cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne, ginger, mustard, sweet basil, black pepper
• 1 14.5 oz (411g) can of diced tomatoes
• 1 28 oz (794g) can of diced tomatoes
• Enough water to cover what’s in pot
• 2 or 3 cups dry lentils, rinsed
• 2 or 3 tablespoons pumpkin seed oil
• 1 big handful of raisins

What goes in the pot and when

• Put chopped yellow onion with some grape seed oil in pot and cook until soft.
• Throw in the acorn squash and mix until squash starts to turn a brighter orange.
• Add carrots, frozen corn, and spices. Stir until everything starts to steam, soften a bit, and smell delicious.
• Mix in diced tomatoes and add enough water to cover what’s in the pot.
• Add lentils, pumpkin seed oil, and raisins.
• Cover and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes or until lentils are desired tenderness.

Some home style Japanese cooking for dinner: roasted squash and potatoes, soba, tamagoyaki, cucumber and ginger, and avocado. Yum yum.

Two very hungry people spent the evening eating while cooking and eating again.

Guess who made delicious roasted aubergine and garlic frittata for Sunday breakfast with some tasty tea…

To be honest, I did not cook all of this just now. The roast is leftover from Thursday’s dinner reserved specifically for this purpose.

Ingredients/recipe of sorts: roughly one cup roast veg, three whole eggs, two or three tablespoons water. Oven at 350F, 5 minutes in bottom rack, 5 minutes top rack under broiler, 5 minutes bottom rack back at 350F until or until center is almost set, since it will continue cooking through while it cools.

I take that back.

My lunch was the best thing that happened since Monday: a bunch of stir-fried veg that I poured a quickie sour and spicy broth on.

Aubergine, spinach, peas, onions, eight spices, ground flax seed, and kisses of honey and pumpkin seed oil tucked into rice wrappers.

Hoping chips and home-made salsa will cure a raging post-concussion headache. I am banking on the magical properties of avocados.