sense of accomplishment

Two awesome things in the past 12 hours:

1. I got gas last night. I’m driving along, after driving, oh, two miles, and went “…. did not put the gas cap back on”, gasped, and pulled over. When I did, IT WAS STILL ON THE BACK OF THE CAR, RESTING GENTLY WHERE I LEFT IT. Such a miracle!

2. I had a morning workout before work! My job starts late enough in the day (11) that theoretically I have time to hit up the gym beforehand if I get up early enough, am organized, etc… definitely hasn’t happened in the first 7 1/2 weeks of my internship, but it happened today!

I got up, and thought hey! I feel like working out! (I think eating SEVERAL chocolate chip oatmeal bars, made by my devious sister, last night had something to do with my energy level). So I thought, “do I eat first?” and then thought “Nah, the other bloggers have a little snack and have proper breakfast after!” Which is exactly what I did!

  

Gorgey farmstand yellow plum!

After 40 minutes elliptical and a quick stretch, I came home to this (I actually made it before I left, but then decided I wasn’t super hungry and to go for the plum)

PB and B oats. Yum yum yum yum yum.

Extra PB to refuel after the workout. Oh melty peanut butter goodness.

Lunch is the same as yesterday, cause it was soooooooo tasty, minus the risotto, plus a CHOBS!

Hope everyone has a good day!

“If you ask me, there isn’t enough blue food.”

… Bridget Jones’ Diary? Anyone?

My breakfast was exceptionally beautiful today.

Mmm mmm mm. That’s organic flax plus cereal with milk; half a banana; a handful of GORGEOUS blueberries, of which we have MANY MORE because we got a MASSIVE box at Costco; and chopped up almonds.

A perfect mixture of crunchy and soft, sweet and tangy and milky. And nice and cool, as it is already 86 degrees here, not counting the humidity. I think it’s going to be kind of an INDOOR day.

Lunch is gorgeous leftovers:

Szechuan green beans (leftover Chinese), grilled salmon, and barley risotto. Admittedly the combination is a little weird (although all the individual elements are DELICIOUS). I’m hoping the salmon bridges the gap between Italy and China, as both those cultures are fond of fish.

Hope everyone has a good day! This is my last week of work, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m itchin’ to be done.

clouds of eggs

Julia would be proud! I made souffle!

To rewind, first I made gazpacho. Mmmmm. Same general idea as last time, except I used a mix of red and yellow tomatoes. In my mind they made a beautiful soup with red and yellow flecks… not so much.

But you have to trust me when I say it tasted killllllllllllllller!

For this batch, I used fresh parsley AND mint, and I highly recommend it! Oh, and also different from last time, we are out of V8, so it’s a little less smooth than usual. But kee-razy tasty!

Okay so right back to the souffle.

I’d been eyeing this recipe ever since Tina made it. And I did it!

Look at that fluffy cloud of loveliness! Since Tina did such a beautiful job documenting hers, I felt no need to show the step-by-step process, but I did basically the same steps. The only change I made was using red onion instead of green (all we had) and using one big dish instead of two medium (or individual ramekins, like the recipe suggested) and then baking for, say, 45 minutes, then left in the hot oven another 5 minutes or so, because it had browned on top. It produced lovely fluffiness!

Hah, just realized I used “lovely fluffiness” and “fluffy loveliness” in the same paragraph. NOT CHANGING IT!

The interior. Messilicious!

the quest

Here’s the story: after Julie and Julia, I wanted to bake. Badly. Wanted is probably not the word so much as needed. So I pulled out our Julia Child cookbook…

…

The woman was amazing, but in terms of both ambition and, shall we say, “nutrition density”, her recipes are ones you want marking a special occasion and being shared with many many many people.

So instead I got thinking about another recipe, that stands out VERY sharply in my mind. My sort of friend (she’s a huge flake) has these amaaaaaaaaaazing mocha bars that she makes and she refuses to give anyone the recipe. Mean, right? I’ve been trying to hunt it down on the internet, and though I haven’t been able to find the exact thing, I found  this one, which looked promising enough to try and modify. So first I made the shortbread layer, omitting the chocolate chips (hers is just mocha/butter layer on the bottom, chocolate on top). Baked, as instructed:

Then I put the chocolate chips on top and, since they seemed a little reluctant to spread, put the whole thing back in the oven for 1 minute, after which they spread beautifully:

A note on the recipe: I like to be able to taste the coffee layer, so I used only 3/4 cup chocolate chips on top. It was still PLENTY. Oh, flowing chocolate.

I let the chocolate cool while I was grilling everything, then went upstairs to blog, then went downstairs to THIS:

Wtf! Only TWO OTHER PEOPLE live in my house! Jeez!

Then I struggled in vain to get a decent shot of my (modest!) piece:

But then, um… I ate it. And it was THE BEST THING I’VE EVER TASTED. Seriously, so much better than the original (so there, flaky friend, I don’t need you for your recipe, go ahead and blow me off). The coffee layer was rich and dense and oh-so-buttery, and the coffee flavor was perfectly balanced. The chocolate ratio was perfect, and sweet and rich and flavorful. HEAVEN!

evolution food!

There was a great article in last week’s New York Times. It was sort of a state of the union, except it was about food. It made several points, first of all that cooking has become a spectator sport (think watching Iron Chef while simultaneously microwaving a frozen dinner). The thing I found really interesting, though, was the only cooking that hasn’t diminished and has actually increased in recent years is grilling.

And THAT went into a discussion how it’s possible that early cooking (which consisted of, yknow, meat on an open fire, aka GRILLING), actually led to us evolving to human society as we now know it- we started scheduling meals, coming together, exchanging food, etc. etc. And in addition, the fact that cooked meat had such nutrient density allowed us to take in more energy that could go to our brains, allowing them to grow! Fascinating stuff. Anyway, I went back to my cavewoman days and grilled tonight!

Here’s the spread:

Eggplant, of which we continue to have a glut, which I grilled and saved for sammiches later in the week. Corn, in the husk and wrapped in foil per the suggestion of the blog world. Finally, gorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgeous wild sockeye salmon from this morning’s Costco trip, which I grilled atop the orange slices and fennel branches on the little plate, just simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

Here’s the finished product:

Droolity drool. It tasted even better than it looked. Wild salmon is, first of all, infinitely better than farmed, and the smoky flavor of the grill did amazing things for the fish. And it cooked perfectly! Gorgeously flaky, but moisty moist!

 

The orange slices and fennel were supposed to be just garnishes but then we started eating them… holy char! The grilled fennel tasted like tender smoky grilled licorice… except that doesn’t sound good. But, er, it was. Really good.

And the finished corn, which steamed beautifully in the foil and husk and smelled amazing while it cooked:

Finally, a simple salad of spinach, tomato, and little pickled eggplant (so cute!) with my mom’s homemade dressing with fresh oregano from the deck.

My (friggin unbelievable) plate:

I can just FEEL my brain growing and evolving. I’ll be superhuman if I keep up with this grilling!

bloggerific

I saw Julie and Julia last night. It made me really happy :D How could it not? It combines my favorites- food, comedy, and Meryl! Well, and blogging, too, I spose.

The next pictures are pretty bloggerific for two reasons:

1. They have computer wires and office paraphernalia in the background.

2. They are of frozen banana soft-serve, invader of the food blog world!

 

I was wary of “soft serve” made entirely of healthy fruit. Banana and chocolate is one of my favorite combinations. Thus, this happy bowl:

I made Lazy Girl Who Doesn’t Want To Wash Multiple Dishes chocolate sauce (coupla squares of dark chocolate in a bowl, splash of milk, microwave for 20 seconds, stir), topped with Frozen Banana Soft Serve (the original recipe, for those who’ve been living in a cave, found here). Yumzo!

In less happy ice cream imitator news:

For some reason, my little sister ended up doing the grocery shopping. Aside from lots of revolting purchases ending in “A-Roni” (seriously, how are we related?!) she “wasn’t paying attention” and bought fat. free. ice cream. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. I don’t want to waste food, but would welcome suggestions how to cut the gross, cloying, fake sweetness. One thought I had was mixing in instant coffee. Any other ideas?

In happier dairy news (most awkward sentence transition EVER, go me!), lookit what we got at Costco!

We’ve been on the lookout for these for forevs. I knew they existed cause Michelle found them. At long last!

Randoms:

Here’s a great lunch I had yesterday:

From the top: hard boiled egg; fava bean puree (it’s almost gone now, *sob*); cucs; cherry tomatoes my sister’s godmother grew, both yellow and red, that were un. real.; and red onion for crunch and zest. On a bed of baby spinach and dark red yummy lettuce. I had it with a yogurt and it fueled me through a day of madness at work (kids and Fridays… yikes).

Finally, since I’m kind of trying to gain weight? I’ve been allowing myself juice, something I kind of love but realize is basically only for people trying to ingest empty calories. But this stuff is friggin’ delicious:

 

Trader Joe’s lemon ginger echinacea. Mmmmmmm. It’s actually the kind of beverage that makes you WISH you were sick, because it feels SO FREAKING GOOD and spicy and soothing and sweet and peppy in your throat. If you love ginger beer (the real, tart stuff) and lemonade, you will love this:

 

It’s mainly water and fruit juice, so it’s a lot better than a lot of packaged drinks. Again, won’t do a lot for satiety, and 8 ounces will set you back 140 calories. But I adooooooore it!

stress cooking

So my life has had some rather sucky events in the past… oh… year, but yesterday’s was TOTALLY PREVENTABLE and I’m pissed at myself. Basically… the hood of my car… not so much anymore. Ugh ugh ugh. The person I want to be is competent and doesn’t cause other people stress, but apparently that is just impossible for me. So yes, last night’s dinner post would’ve been of Chinese food eaten in an angry daze.

Coincidentally I also had Chinese after my car accident (this time not my fault!) in November (incidentally, Pottsville, Pennsylvania, in the middle of nowhere, has a surprisingly not-bad Chinese place by the Ramada).

I understand that this is not the most normal reaction to stress, but I deal with it by making homemade vegetable stock, thus enabling me to make homemade risotto.

 

A peek into the process- in the morning, before work, I put water and veggie trimmings (this batch included asparagus, mushroom, and artichoke stems, fennel cores, and carrot and onion tops) on to boil. I left them on a low simmer, and had my unemployed sister turn off the stove at noon and put the pot in the fridge (on top of an oven mitt, for meltage prevention). Then I reheated the broth for risotto (same technique as last time). Look at the GORGEOUS COLOR it attained:

Even I was surprised. Veggie stock is usually kind of wan compared to chicken stock, but not this beaut.

Here’s my risotto prep station:

Left to right, mushrooms, spinach, fresh parsley, parm, and garlic. On top would be my ice pack (I have a stiff neck cause I was wearing my seatbelt- but still, wear your seatbelt!)

Here’s the veggies, in process. They were just so pretty I had to document.

And the final thing, in the bowl. Straight up, this recipe takes awhile. Make it if you’re feeling like stirring contemplatively.

The results are well worth the effort, though. Sooo comforting, yet it’s made with vegetables and a whole grain (go barley!) I knew I was in need of comfort food, and since last night that meant eating “shrimp toast” (which is, by the way, DELICIOUS- it’s hard to go wrong when you deep fry shrimp, cream cheese, and sesame seeds- ew God I can’t believe I ate that) I wanted to make some HEALTHY comfort food.

Closeup:

On the side, from a slightly different part of Europe, but delicious and takes me back to a place where I was happy:

Khoriatiki salata. Without lettuce! No lettuce in Greek salad! However, I sat down to eat and realized I forgot the olives. Which we totally have. But at that point I didn’t care enough to get them.

Here it is dressed:

Salt, pepper, fresh oregano (in Greece they used dried, but their dried oregano is CRAZY delicious and way better than here, so I went with my fresh and local- aka deck-grown), and oil and vinegar. An important note: the oil to vinegar ratio in Greek salad is 2:1. It’s healthy fat. Suck it up. That’s how you make it taste good.

My plate:

Plus a bit more of each.

So yes, that’s that. I’m feeling low, and therefore pretty stoked that Julie and Julia, a movie I’ve been excited about since I heard it existed, comes out tomorrow.