feed your cravings

I’m a firm believer that if you’re craving something healthy, your body deserves your best efforts to deliver it! (this is, sadly, less true with some of my ooooother cravings, like um brownie sundaes)

Oh cravings [if any of you readers are Little Britain fans, I will love you more than I already do].

So after class and gym and gloomy weather, my brain went TUNA MELT.

I obliged, atop a TJ’s whole wheat British muffin (there is just something about warm sandwiches on English muffins that makes me feel like I am six years old)

Yummy melty cheese!

I was a little wary of cheese in the “trying to lose weight” phase, but now that I’m in the “seriously girl, quit accidentally losing more weight” phase, the more the better! It has calcium, too! Madness!

My accompaniments were summer squash n potatoes sauteed in olive oil and apple slices with cinnamon. Loverly lunch.

nutty crunch

I am a creature of habit on breakfasts. I’m either having peanut butter and banana oats or this:

Grape nuts flakes (so yummy! Bought ‘em cause they were on sale. If you hate mushy cereal you’ll hate these, cause they don’t stay crispy, but I am a fan), banana (generally a whole one; in this morning’s case it was one of those crazy mutant foot long Trader Joe’s bananas, so I used half), and slivered almonds. DELISH!

The funny thing is, this and my peanut butter and banana are virtually nutritionally identical: whole grain+ banana+ nut. Basically it’s just whether I feel like hot or cold.

fruit “crisp”

Ah, the pleasant September evening when one has beautiful ripe stone fruits but no motivation to mix up a topping and figure out what to bake it in.

The solution? Melt yourself some butter (medium low heat), get yourself some caramelization!

 

Top with a drizzle of honey and Grape Nuts Flakes or your crunchy cereal of choice.

burger twist

Last night’s dinner featured a new purchase, bought on sale as an experiment (an entirely successful one!):

Salmon burgers! Trying to mix it up a little :D

I have class from 6 to 8 on Wednesdays, at the School of Public Health (Intro to Epidemiology! It’s so cool! It’s so nice that they let undergrads try out classes!) which is a bus ride across town.

So I didn’t get home til 8:30 and I wanted to plan something EASY and FAST.

This was a “throw everybody in the skillet” event.

My home kitchen is in general vastly superior to my school one. The one exception is that at school I have a seriously bangin’ cast iron skillet. I swear, everything that I cook in it tastes better. I’ve been eating summer squash like it’s my job, and this was the best batch yet.

The final meal:

The burger, atop a TJ’s British muffin (I’d forgotten how much I looooove those! And they freeze and thaw beautifully!) along with lettuce and heirloom tomato and SRIRACHA!

The salmon burger was SO GOOD! I was worried about the breading on it, but it was light and flavorful and really enhanced the salmon. It was just a great, albeit nontraditional burger: I love that with a burger you get your slab of meat, your crunchy lettuce, your juicy tomato, in this case your kicky hot sauce. It’s marvy.

With rockin’ summer squash, sautéed in olive oil with just a bit of salt and pepper. SO GORGE!

I’m proud of myself for an unusual indulgence I made. At school I’m usually a cheap bum and spend very very little and sort of feel noble. But at the farmer’s market there were beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful raspberries, and even though they were $3 (which is not even that much! And they are local, no less!) I bought ‘em. And I’ve been loving them! Sometimes I have to allow myself to indulge!

straight from the farm

I have been going NUTSO at the farmer’s market :D It is so wonderful and beautiful and perfect.

I’ve had a lot of fabulous meals, heavy on the fresh produce.

One case in point, today’s lunch:

On the left, yummy salad of mixed greens; quick roasted veggies (carrots, peppers, and tomatoes, sliced thin and cooked at 500*); and homemade vinaigrette of dijon, salt and pepper, red wine vin, and olive oil. On the right, another half a free bagel from the roomie’s stash of bounty, and a plain Chobani with peaches (must say, waaaaaaaay better than peach chobani- loves me some farmer’s market peach!) and almonds.

I’ve also had some of particular appeal to food bloggers, which I’ll call “bloggerlicious”.

Bloggerlicious produce-heavy meal #1:

Beautiful salad with micro-steamed peppers and carrots; turkey; and pumpkin seeds (like Tina!).

Also bloggerlicious because, in the great spirit of bloggers, it incorporated FREE SAMPLES! Clif Mojo bar (absolutely delicious! Got it at the gym), fudge dipped Keebler cookie (yummy and nostalgic tasting! Got it from the grocery store); and 1/4 of a sausage and potato breakfast souffle (totally decadent! Got it from Panera).

I get way fewer free samples than other bloggers, though. If any people reading this want to remedy that, I’d be happy to review any and all products :D

Bloggerlicious produce-heavy meal #2:

Sauteed peppers, onions, and my new FAVE, Trader Joe’s andouille chicken sausage. Bloggerlicious because Christina made the exact same thing! Except she had hers with fancy freekeh and I had mine with peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerfect summer corn. I am having a love affair like no other with corn this summer.

In general,

There’s been a lot of this action:

 

Oh sweet sauté pan.

roomie bonding

I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

And really by “I’m back” I mean “my camera cord is back”. I’m actually delighted to’ve had a little bit of a break in blogging, because now I’m remembering how much I lurve it! Get excited for this post- it features ludicrously easy recipes for ghetto student apartments.

I’ve broken up the past few days into themes.

Number one: I HAVE A ROOMMATE WHO LIKES FOOD! OH THE JOY! She is awesome. She is awesome for several food related reasons (and for other non-food related ones, but, yknow, food blog).

#1: They always have free food at the business school library where she works.

Then she brings it home. Thus, the roughly dozen bagels currently in our freezer. I had one with REAL cream cheese (! the roomie is one of those naturally skinny intuitive eater chicks, so she has REAL cream cheese, mayo, etc. in our fridge so I’ve been eating them too!) and lox. Luuuuuuuuuuuscious. As you can see, I dug right in before photographing :D

 

#2: Her Mom sends her awesome recipes, and we have family dinner. Presh!

 

Mama’s Mac n Cheese

16 oz. rigatoni

8 oz shredded cheese (we used a reduced fat Cheddar-Monterey preshredded blend)

milk of your choosing

Directions: Preheat oven to 350*. Cook the pasta in salted water just shy of al dente. Put the pasta in a casserole dish with half the cheese. Stir to combine. Pour in milk until it reaches roughly halfway up the pasta. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Bake for one hour.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Comfort food! I made fabbity fab farmers market green beans on the side, with garlic and tomato. The roomie had her pasta with ketchup, I had mine with Sriracha. All were delighted.

#3: She appreciates my cooking.

To reciprocate for Roomie Dinner #1, I made Roomie Dinner #2.

Easy Peasy Pork Tenderloin

8 oz pork tenderloin (pork tenderloin was on sale, so I froze half and took the rest)

1 apple

little shmears of honey and mustard

salt and pepper

Cut your tenderloin half into four medallions. Working with one medallion at a time, put it between pieces of plastic wrap and pound it thinly (you could use a mallet, or, as I did, just a heavy pot).

Slice your apple into thin slices (I did it into quarters, then cored it, then cut each quarter into quarters.

Put your apple slices on a broiler pan with tenderloins on top (as displayed above) and add salt and pepper and then smear the pork with honey and mustard to taste.

Broil for 4-6 minutes per side to your desired degree of tenderness.

SO SIMPLE. SO TASTY!

With beautiful sweet corn, MMMM!

Finally, one last piece of roommate bonding:

following a great and noble tradition of I’m sure countless other young women, our first night in the place, we had no cooking implements, and I’d been sitting on a train for 8 hours after waking up at 6 am.

Thank you Beijing Cafe :D

That’d be a #10 combo of the chicken with broccoli, with the accompanying hot and sour soup and MOUNTAIN of fried rice (which I turned into rice pudding!)

great meals in history

I left my camera cord at home AGAIN. Seriously, my brain? Not so much. Not good at the beginning of the semester, eesh. Hopefully my brain will return in time for my first class at 10 a.m.- “Post-Revolutionary China”. SO STOKED!

Since I’m a little bit addicted to blogging, I’m going to post a meal I ate before I had a blog, but was way memorable.

Last March, my lil sister came to visit me in Boston. My roommate, a vegetarian, had gotten a gift certificate to McCormick and Schmick’s, and gave it to me! So I took my sister out for a classy lunch.

Here she is posing with our order:

 

Since the meal was shortly after Valentine’s Day, they still had a deal in effect where two people could share a surf and turf (4 oz. sirloin and stuffed lobster) plus chocolate mousse, for $30. My $20 gift card meant my sister and I ate lobster and steak for the price of McDonalds.

Thumbs up indeed!

The meal came with luscious sourdough, and beautiful vegetables on the side- the asparagus was PERFECTLY cooked, and my sister went to town on the frighteningly buttery mashed potatoes.

And, I have to say, while I love hole-in-the-wall Korean, there is something to be said for M+S and getting waited on hand.and.foot. Our waiter was so cute, even though we really didn’t spend a lot of money. Fancily presenting our dishes, scraping off the table before dessert- cute, thoughtful personal touches. Also, interesting trivia- the display tray with their desserts? My sister and I had a debate over what was standing in for ice cream. The waiter confirmed that my sister was correct- CRISCO!