Photo: Butter chicken, panner, rice, Syrian bread, arugula, and cilantro.

We eat everyday… 3 times. When the going is busy, we lean on habits and in this case eat the same thing often. Batch cooking is great and an efficient use of time, but sometimes we need to spice things up! Here’s an example of a couple of grocery items that helped me enjoy cooking and eating.

This week I found this amazing bread at The Root Cellar. It is the longest flatbread I’ve ever seen! It paired well with butter chicken and panner (you can see it in photo 1). We toasted it in the oven, so it was crispy but still tender!

Photo: Scrambled eggs with arugula, purple onions, avocado, babaganoush, and Syrian flatbread.

Here it is again for a 5 minute lunch! We also went to the Thursday night Esquimalt farmers market and picked up some babganoush made by Syriana. Read their story here. Having the arugula and bread on hand made it a quick and easy – and delicious – lunch on my marathon homework weekend!

Photo: Apples, red pepper, broccoli, carrots, and lime with arugula, purple onions, avocado, babaganoush, and Syrian flatbread.

And here it is again!! I love making a quick dish that feels so gourmet and it takes less than 5 minutes. This one has fresh basil and I love it!

So, just a few different ingredients really changed the game this week. So even if you get the same old staples, it’s a fun twist to throw a few game-changers in and it adds some inspiration and deliciousness!