the sister

The sister has a certain amount of derision for what she calls my “health food obsession” (me? Really?). I thought I’d share her post-dinner snack. Here she is posing with what she “cooked” (her words).

Step one: pop popcorn.

Step two: add marshmallows, chocolate chips, and chopped pecans.

Step three: toss.

Step four: Eat. A lot. Dear God, this was tasty:

Not gonna lie, I had a few handfuls! That blur in the corner of the picture  is my sister’s spoon ascending out of the bowl. It’s a little trippy looking, I know, but I kind of like it.

Going back to the earlier, more healthful part of the day:

We have VERY ripe bananas. This means BREAKFAST HEAVEN! I already had breakfast heaven yesterday with my banana stovetop oats.

This morning, breakfast heaven was actually Sunday Brunch, my favorite meal, and took the form of banana buckwheat pancakes.

 

Simply buckwheat pancake mix, made with water as per instructions, with mashed banana thrown in. The banana made these warm melty chunks in the pancakes- they were soooooooo sweet and delicious!

I had my pancakes with some turkey bacon slices (someone sliced up all the bacon and put it back in the fridge… no idea why)

I also had some GRILLED TOMATO! This was an inspired touch…  I was waiting for the bacon to finish and threw some tomato slices on the griddle. They were GREAT! We used to have them with our breakfast when we went to Paris, and I forgot how great grilled tomatoes taste, especially with breakfast! Expect more of these bad boys.

I decided two pancakes was not enough. I went ahead and had another.

My topping today was homemade raspberry syrup, made by diluting a little bit of raspberry preserves with water, then zapping it in the micro. YUM! Don’t zap for too long, though, or it melts TOO much and kind of liquifies and has to cool in the fridge.

Dinner was also inspired. We had chicken breasts, and I wanted to use up some canned tomatoes, so I made seriously ghetto tomato sauce:

Those are canned and ripe (we didn’t have quite enough canned) tomatoes. I sauteed the ripe tomato in a little olive oil, then added canned tomatoes and juice and cooked it down, then stirred in some tapenade (about 1 tbsp) and harissa (which is Middle Eastern chili paste and DELICIOUS! about a tsp of that)

Then I griddled me some chicken in a bit of veggie oil (my griddle was rockin’ my world today)

 

Once they had a nice sear on them but weren’t quite finished cooking, I poured more canned tomato liquid into my sauce pan and nestled in the chicken to finish cooking and soak up tomato flavah.

 

Here is the final plate:

Crazy tasty!

For sides we had the last of the peas tossed with more of my uncle’s heavenly home grown green beans:

More heavenly farm stand corn:

My sister also donated her leftover potatoes to the cause. She and her fella went out to dinner last night and she got these crazy delicious parmesan potato things. They tasted like they involved a LOT of butter, cream cheese, parmesan… goodness! They were SO RICH! I had like two bites and was satisfied. I should note that it was a small portion- look at the cereal spoon dunked into it for scale.

And here’s my plate o’ goodness:

density

So since discovering, thanks to food blogs, what a “volume eater” is, I decided I pretty much am one. I like long, drawn out, leisurely meals with lots of variety of colors/flavors/textures, and in order to accomplish that, I use lower calorie density foods (lots of plants!)

However, on our zoo field trip at camp on Thursday, I ate what the kids ate: a turkey and cheese (agh, those plastic wrap singles that I hadn’t had since I was like 8!) sandwich and a juice box (again, hadn’t had since I was 8- thought they were grossish then, still do). The calories were definitely the same as my typical lunch, but it took me like 5 minutes to eat (which is about the time I have when I’m with the kids).

Not an open faced sandwich, so no visual appeal. All the ingredients packed in, fatty cheese, juice which is liquid calories. And yet it totally satisfied me! And it gave me time to get done what I needed to get done! I like having the long-drawn out experience, but there is definitely something to be said for the jet-packed rocket fuel type lunches.

To that end, I got a fun new product for free in the mail (it takes so long to ship these free samples I’ve always forgotten that I ordered them by the time I get them. Such fun surprises!) 

Sunflower seed butter! Along with a coupon, I got a nice lil 200 calorie pack of the butter:

 

Nutritionally, I was SUPER impressed. I put it head to head with my TJ’s peanut butter. Calories were the same- 200 for 2 tablespoons- as was protein- 7 grams. However, in terms of fat, sunbutter had one fewer gram, AND one fewer gram of the saturated kind. In terms of ingredients, TJ’s peanut butter did have the edge, as peanuts are the only ingredient, whereas the sun butter listed sunflower seeds, dehydrated cane juice, salt and natural mixed tocopherols to preserve freshness (I should note that this sample was sunbutter NATURAL, which meant all natural ingredients and thus it is likely more expensive in the store. Original sunbutter has a few more ingredients). However, still all natural ingredients!

Plus, no peanuts and no trace thereof!

Now for the flavah. To be honest, I had my first taste of it straight on my finger :D But I had most of it on this sammich.

SO DELICIOUS!  I looooooove sunflower seeds but tend not to buy them because they make my mouth so dry. However, turning them into butter is kind of perfect!  The flavor of the sunflower seeds is almost smoky- and there’s some sweetness from the cane sugar, which is nice but not overwhelming. It’s a tangier alternative to peanut butter, and one that I really enjoyed!

This was another example of me picking the calorie dense- usually I use smaller quantities of nut butter so I can have a bigger meal with yogurt or something, but this time I used the full 2 tablespoons (minus the taste I had when I was packing lunch :D). That on bread plus some of the kids’ carrots was my full lunch (again, I had about five minutes to eat). And it was perfect! It’s nice to know that I can mix it up and still be satisfied.

Speaking of nut butter, I explained the concept of a “peanut butter spoon” for oats to my mom, and she was quite intrigued.

Hers and hers:

Hahaha, aww! That is just banana stovetop oats, made with 1/2 milk and 1/2 water. The bananas are PERFECT for oats right now- super ripe!

I also had a SUPER RIPE peach, so I made a fun colorful fruit salad of just peach, kiwi (nice color, right?!) and the last coupla pieces of cantaloupe. I split this with my mom, although I ended up eating most of it.

Then I had what I consider to be the perfect summer Saturday morning- a nice long workout (50 minutes elliptical on cross training, then a bit of arm weights) followed by a refreshing dip at our pool! Ahhh.

To use up the last of our buttermilk, I made a recipe I’ve had my eye on for awhile now:

 

Homemade ranch dressing! I used it to make a biiiiiiiiig salad:

Going clockwise, that’s carrots, my uncle’s homegrown green beans which were AWESOME! just lightly blanched, the last of the roast chicken, celery, and a wee bit of avocado. On a top of greens, drizzled with the ranch dressing.

Since I started my internship, I haven’t gotten to have lunch on the deck. I was delighted to get to today!

Volume eater’s delight. The salad, H2O to rehydrate myself after my workout, yogurt (can I just say how impressed with Safeway brand fat free yogurt I am? It tastes really good- this exotic flavor was Bartlett pear mangosteen- and has no high fructose corn syrup and a very reasonable sugar content), and the last (*sob*) biscuit. God those biscuits were good.

charming chania

Time for another Greece post!

Chania, pronounced han-YAH, is an old Venetian port city on Crete. It is BEAUTIFUL!

We took another of our public bus trips (taking mass transit in Greece is such a fun, hilarious experience and I highly recommend it). Hopping off, our first stop was LUNCH! We made our way to the central market, which was DAZZLING!

Gorgeous bakeries…

Butcher with awesome to-go kebabs, which I would be ALL OVER if I lived in Greece

And, of course, dead animals on display.

There were also dead rabbits… with their FURRY FEET STILL ATTACHED! It was gruesome and horrifying and I decided not to photograph it for my dear readers.

Olives of every shape and size…

CHEESE! There is so much good cheese on Crete, I really could’ve eaten exclusively cheese while we were there and been perfectly content.

Every herb and spice imaginable, including premade mixes (tzaziki mix, moussaka mix, etc.)

A fish market with a VERY HAPPY CAT nearby:

SNAILS! The snails in Crete are famously delicious. They are the one Cretan specialty that I ended up NOT tasting :( Oh well, something to look forward to for next time.

  

Thyme honey (also famous):

And finally, what I think is the appropriate quantity of coffee for an average home:

Man I miss Greek coffee.

So we had worked up a healthy appetite wandering through this delicious market. There were a coupla little take out places built into the market, and this front display on this one took my fancy:

The inside was cute and minimal:

 

This was one of those great authentic places where we were the only people not speaking Greek. There were a bunch of old men arguing loudly. It was great!

Lunch began with, of course, heavenly psomi.

Ma and I split a kind of sampler plate of vegetables, which was the perfect amount of food and ohhh soooooo deliiiiiicious.

That is stuffed tomato; stuffed eggplant; and artichoke hearts, carrots, and peas in a lemon-dill sauce.

The eggplant was seriously droolworthy, filled with the delicious creamy Cretan notfeta cheese.

The surprise hit of the artichoke dish were the FRESH PEAS! I feel like in stew-type dishes frozen peas are often used to stretch a buck, but these were FRESH and PERFECT and really contributed to the dish.

Check out the beautiful interior of the tomato!

While eating, we had SO MUCH FUN watching the woman who worked at the restaurant BUTCHERING really really MASSIVE lamb chops on a cutting block at the front of the restaurant:

Alas, this is only the tenderizing process. I was too slow with the camera to get her with the CLEAVER!

Anyway, it was a really fun lunch and a really great cultural experience!

Then we walked around Chania. Crikey it is a beautiful place.

LAUNDRY! That is where some lucky person gets to hang their ugly clothes. Good grief.

Beautiful harbor and boat

Beautiful old buildings

The harbor itself:

Many many pretty doors:

Old Venetian ruins, surrounded by palm trees…

It was a beautiful, scenic, but HOT walk. Imagine our delight when we saw this,  in the stream of restaurants along the harbor with vendors AGGRESSIVELY hawking their foodstuffs:

It was ice cream weather indeed. We got comfy in the adorable orange chairs:

We had an ongoing love affair with sour cherry preserves in Greece, so imagine our delight upon seeing this:

And then they went ahead and brought us this (we shared, and it was MORE than enough!):

Yum yum yum! The menu referred to “authentic” kaimaki ice cream, but then none of the waitstaff knew what it actually was, hahaha. After some research, we learned that the ice cream is made not, as they guessed, with goats milk, but with mastiha (sometimes called masticha), which is made from the resin of the the Chia variety of Pitacia lentiscus, an evergreen tree. Fascinating!

It was delicious and just a little tangy, which was wonderful with the sour cherry preserve which was sweet and also tangy. The temperature action was also great- hot weather, cold ice cream, room temperature cherry preserves. Fab!

gringa guacamole

We had ripe avocados, chicken in need of using, and very little desire to cook.

So, obvs, taco night.

 

The star of the meal was definitely the eponymous guacamole:

Straight up, I know my guacamole isn’t as authentic as it could be. However, it is I think nonetheless in the spirit of Mexican cooking, which is utilizing the freshest ingredients possible. I took 3/4 of an avocado I took a bit of for a sammich earlier in the week, plus 1/2 of a new avocado. I mashed the avocado with a whole bunch of lime juice, some jarred salsa, some hot sauce, garlic salt, and crushed red pepper flakes. Then I stirred in freshly diced onion and tomato. It was FAB!

There were additional taco fixin’s:

Tortillas (corn, my preferred tortilla material), queso, tomatoes, and sour cream

   

and leftover roasted chicken.

To accompany, I made  a rather inspired also leftovers-utilizing salad.

  

Sliced apples, chopped fennel, chopped bok choy. Dressed with orange juice, seasoned rice wine vinegar, and parsley. ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!

Here is my final plate (multiply this times 2):

Seriously, I cannot say enough good things about leftovers. They make for kind of a fun Iron-Chef type challenge to use them up, and often result in a delicious meal with a fraction of the work and cost of making something new.

good things about summer

One good thing about summer: peaches!

My oats this morning involved half a banana, half a peach, some slivered almonds, and much happiness.   I made it, as usual, with half milk, and it had a great peaches n cream thing going!

I supplemented today’s lunch with salad at work. It’s awesome- the kids get food bank food, but we have beautiful community garden produce, so they get fresh and delicious vegetables.

Another awesome thing about summer: nice weather and biking! I worked late today to do our Teen Program (usually I work at the summer camp for the younger kids, but I had to make up some hours this week for complicated reasons). It’s awesome what they do! They’re trying to get the kids into good physical fitness habits at an early age. So we biked to the pool, and they got to swim, and then biked back. It was a really great, pretty trip, and the kids got some exercise, and they were just a hilarious group. I can appreciate 14 year old boy humor in a way that I did NOT when I was 14.

The final awesome thing about summer: BEETS!

I am having a LOVE AFFAIR with beets at the moment! I made this recipe (check out the awesomely short ingredient list!), and it was a great and DELICIOUS way to use our farmer’s market beets and H Mart fennel. I decided to top it with a hard boiled egg, because I could use the protein (I did have a balance bar post-camp and pre-biking, but I held off on real dinner til I got home at 9 or so- I was hungry!) and it’s a traditional borscht topper, and this is in that family. It was FABULOUS!