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.