Breakfast

This morning for breakfast I made my new favorite dish: Apple-Cinnamon-Brown Sugar Oatmeal. It's healthy and delicious.

I take 1/2 an apple and "dice" it. (I use dice in quotes because it's a very rough dice. The pieces are not tiny, but not big either.) I microwave it for one minute with some Cinnamon and Splenda brown sugar blend. I then put in a packet of instant oatmeal and just enough hot water for the oatmeal to cook. I'm a big fan of gluey, not soupy, oatmeal.

It's a really fun treat in the morning.

Things have been hectic on my end - between work and school I have had minimal time for life let alone food. This weekend (it seems like so long ago!) The Pedant and I made some great food from 660 Curries. That's the extent of our cooking this week. (We did make a slow cooker risotto which was good in the past but since we've made several stove top risottos it was only fair by comparison.)

Today, the excitement in the food world (in the real work it's that I got a promotion! Hooray!) is this link TP sent me: http://www.nordicstore.net/noa_licorice_bombs_2445_prd1.htm

Icelandic Chocolate Coated Licorice. For sale. In bulk (cheaper!). For real. As Liz Lemon says: I want to go to there. You see, I love licorice. And chocolate. And Iceland. I bought a whole lot of this in Iceland and really enjoyed it. (I brought it to work and everyone turned their noses up, which just meant more for me.)

This weekend TP and I have some catching up to do on life and I really want to make this recipe I saw from a SELF Magazine healthy eating blog. It looks just up my alley since I really enjoy root vegetables.

Pan-Asian Carrots!

As I wait for my dutch oven full of chickpeas, oil, and garlic to turn into deliciousness (at least according to the Post's food section of two weeks ago), I will blog about the "pan-Asian" carrots I just made.

Like so many things we do, this was from Mark Bittman's grimoire of eatings, "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian." I needed to get rid of some of the three pounds of garlic I got at Costco, much to my better half's chagrin, and so the Quick-Glazed Carrot recipe variations caught my eye.

This one involved simmering the carrot slices in sake with a teeny bit of olive oil (and garlic, because I had to get rid of it). Then, at the end of the cooking, I mixed in a solution of white miso and low-sodium soy sauce.

Turned out pretty good, actually. Not knock my socks off, but totally edible.

Okay, time to check the dutch oven.

Simple "Souper" Supper

I've been feeling under the weather all week and by the time I got home last night I was ready for bed at 6. After realizing that might not be the smartest idea, I needed to fill my time. The original plan for dinner was to reheat Minestrone soup we had made and froze a few weeks ago. But even that seemed to be too much effort and not what we wanted. The Pedant came up with a great idea: Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese. The unlimited comfort food. So we opened a can of condensed soup and I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich. TP did two open faced tuna melts which made him really happy.

It's such a quick and easy meal that is both healthy and wonderful. We should make it more when we're out of ideas.

Day for Tea

I'm feeling a little sinus pressure, having spent yesterday out in the cold trying to get people to vote Democratic in Virginia (it wasn't as hard last year). So I am majoring in tea this morning.

First tea of the morning was Bigelow's "Earl Gray Green," which is an Asian green tea with the addition of bergamot oil. I like it better than traditional Earl Gray.

Now I'm on to Harris Teeter's Orange Spice Tea, which is a black tea with orange oil, cloves, and other spices. It's also quite tasty, but more of a souped-up English Breakfast taste than the Earl Gray Green.

Not sure what's next in the rotation. May move away from the caffeinated teas and go for Bigelow's "Ginger Snappish" or the Wissotzky lemongrass, za'atar, and verbena herbal tea.

I'll keep you posted.

A Weekend of Carbo Loading Before (and after) a Race

This was yet another weekend of good food - both cooking and being cooked for. Here's the story:

Friday Night: The Pedant and I had very little food in the house by the end of the week and after a long week decided to treat ourselves to dinner out at our local sushi place before seeing Good Hair (Highly recommended!). The place was really busy, but the sushi was as good as ever. Even though I don't eat fish, I personally enjoy sushi - it's never too much for me and I never come out super stuffed or eat too much. Plus, I do love avocados. It can get pricey but it's worth it to know I'm eating better than cheesy Italian food or fatty Chinese food.
Saturday Dinner: I was running my first 10K Sunday morning and needed to "carbo load" (i.e., make a recipe TP saw on line). We made butternut squash risotto from Cook's Illustrated and it was really tasty. It was very different than the butternut squash risotto that TP made last week but really tasty. We amended the recipe a bit - mostly because we bought cut up squash without seeds or fibers (easier to deal with) so we didn't let the stock simmer with the seeds or fibers. But it was still really, really good. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sunday Brunch: Since I ran the 10K that day (with a pace about 30 seconds better than I did for my 5K and my best time ever! 64 (or 68, depending on the time on the website) minutes!), we had planned to make pancakes. However, both TP and I were tired and felt like treating ourselves (well, me, I ran, TP just cheered me on) so we decided to forgo pancakes (which we better make soon since we stocked up on maple syrup!) and went for brunch instead. We went to a creperie I'd been wanting to try and it was really, really good. I got the Crepe Moroccan which was like spinach pie filling in a crepe with a delicious mint-yogurt sauce. We shared the Just Peachy desert crepe and it was just peachy and super. (I did have PB&J before my race, a granola bar and 1/2 a (white bread but part of my post race food packet) bagel toasted with butter and honey before we went for brunch.)

Sunday Dinner: After a much needed nap we began making some dinner foods. Since we still have a hoard of potatoes we found a soup base recipe in Lidia's Family Table for a savory potato broth. That took a while to make (more time than we realized) but the end result was great. We froze more than half of it and made a garlic and onion soup with the rest of the broth. We poached some garlic in water and chopped up an onion and then let them thicken in the broth before pureeing it. And it was SO GOOD. I think I can't stress how good it was, since it was SO GOOD. SO GOOD. The best part (other than the garlic and onions and broth was the pureed bits of Parmesan cheese rind that was a little present. SO GOOD.

To go along with that soup, we made a crunchy couscous salad from our favorite benedictine. It was pretty good, but I think it had too many cucumbers.

I also prepped our last massive sweet potato and acorn squash for a slow cooker soup recipe for winter squash and sweet potato soup. We'll have that for dinner tonight with pasta in a creamy Gorgonzola sauce. Yum!

Here is Sherbs running her 10K. I'm the one in the red shirt (showing my support for Jody Wagner) and the purple jacket tied around my waist

First Time Making Gnocchi - Epic Win!

Last night I made gnocchi for the first time and it was SO WORTH IT. The Pedant had found a recipe on a food blog and it met the requirements for dinners lately: 1) easy; 2) healthy; 3) uses food we have in the fridge from the CSA; 4) tasty. We had planned to make it Saturday night, but we both took a nap that was longer than expected and didn't wake up until 7. By the time I baked the potatoes, let them cool, mixed the dough, boiled the water, made the gnocchi and the sauce, it would have been 9:30. We tend to eat late, but I was running 6 miles in the morning (since I have my first 10K in 4 days!!) and didn't feel like going to bed very late with a very full stomach and running the next morning. So we put it on hold until Sunday, but as I said, we ate too many snacks and weren't hungry. That left last night. TP boiled the water while I was in a work out class and I made the gnocchi (he doesn't like touching food...I know...). I decided not to follow the recipe (never a great idea) and roll them into a long rope and cut it into bite-sized pieces so I made small ovals instead. Turns out that's much more difficult and they come out kinda lumpy. But, they were AMAZING. Sweet, but not too sweet, and warm and comforting. And, except for the pre-baking of the potatoes, not so hard to make.

TP made the sauce and kind of amended it. He sauteed some garlic in EVOO and then added the chard. I put in some of the gnocchi water to help the greens wilt. We added some white wine in and then some (fake) butter to give it a creamy texture. And it was so good. A real winner!

Now, who's coming over for gnocchi!?