My thoughts on food, fitness and life in Houston, TX
This week’s ingredient challenge with a group of bloggers if featuring quinoa. I made tabouleh using quinoa instead of bulgur, which helps add protein instead of just a wheat-y starch. This dish was very simple, can be served with hot or cold quinoa, and easily cooked ahead of time. It’s also colorful and great to be paired with chicken, fish or chickpeas to beef it up as a main course. Check the jump for the recipe. [Read more...]
I am happy to say that I have been cooking at home a lot this week, it seems even more than usual since our dishwasher is running often. Or maybe it’s just better than usual, from the Kale Salad to the Chili and Cornbread to the Asian Stir Fry. That’s a lot of real dinners in a row for us, plus breakfast and lunch which are made or eaten at home too.
I also haven’t been baking. Since it’s January and all, I have made an effort to cook dinner at home this week and not bake treats. It also helps to know that yesterday through Sunday will be full of birthday eats and treats, so I better start the week right!
I haven’t posted a whole day of meals in a long time, so here are a breakfast, lunch and dinner that I am really enjoying on repeat.
P.S. Thanks for the birthday wishes yesterday! I had a great birthday. Now it’s on with starting my #27 year.
Starbucks has their version, I have perfected mine. I have been in the mood for thicker oatmeal, and I also found that it cooks much faster. Here’s the mix:
Instructions:
In a small pot, bring the water to a simmer. Add the oats and flax and whisk. Wait a minute and add the milk. Then banana and everything else. Whisk well until it thickens and bubbles. I turned the heat to low so it wouldn’t cook so fast and burn.
Served in a cup so it looks cuter and more fun to eat. The peanut butter makes it stick-to-your-ribs good. The coconut is a really nice addition of sweet. And the texture with less liquid to more oats is much better for me. I still love cooking the raisins in the pot so they really pop. It all just works together so well. Mmm. This is really, really good.
In the salad mix: Lettuce, tomato, carrots, hummus, guacamole, 1 hard boiled egg white
On the side is Pumpkin Ginger Bread with a little pumpkin butter. Mmm hmm. I think I made the salad just so I could eat the pumpkin bread. This is my favorite creation of the last few months.
I am really proud about this dish. I don’t know why, but making use of things in the pantry and refrigerator without having to buy more seemed like I was making use of what I have.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
I ate this as dinner with some leftover tofu on top. The apple juice was key! It added a really nice but not too sweet flavor to the quinoa since it had no seasoning. And don’t leave out the dates! I don’t like dates plain, but I love to add them to things. It’s like a raisin but more chewy and sticky. It was a perfect addition to this dish.
This would also be a great side dish to serve more people. It made a lot! I’ll have a lot leftover for a few days. I think it would also be great for lunch over lettuce.
And I thought that dinner was just too healthy, so for dessert, I had one piece Ezekiel Raisin Bread with Orange jam and chocolate chips. This is a favorite dessert. I have seen it a lot with peanut butter, but I lightened up the calories and did a light jam.
Even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, we sure enjoy observing the quiet day off. Sometimes we take wonderful family trips to Paris, sometimes we go to Las Vegas and ignore the holiday because Vegas never sleeps (2008), and sometimes we chill out at the beach.
Jeffrey and I went to the panhandle of Florida with white sandy beaches, although too chilly to get in the water. It was so nice to have nothing to do, nothing to sightsee, and no where to go. And yes, it was nice to not have a puppy bark in the 6 a.m. hour to go outside. Lily went to Dallas to bother my parents and sister.
I have been here twice since I started the blog, once in June, and once in September. It’s funny to look at the same place in the summer, and also compare the quality of pictures with the new camera.
This time, we cooked, shopped a little (3rd largest outlet mall in the country!), read books, walked, and watched movies.
We are thankful for Santa’s holiday too.
We are lucky to have a full kitchen, so we go to the grocery (Publix is the best grocery in the country!) and stock up to eat at home. I bought a box of Irish Steel Cut Oats packets, which I haven’t had before. The packets are pre-spiced, which was helpful so I didn’t have to buy cinnamon, honey, vanilla, etc. I combined one packet with 1/3 C water and 1/3 C milk. Then topped it with blueberries and a teaspoon of peanut butter. It wasn’t the most filling packet of oatmeal, which is probably why I don’t like packets. But it was tasty, and the peanut butter helped with staying power.
Another breakfast was one I have at least 4 days a week, but it looks prettier with the ocean in the back. And layered in a wine glass.
Fiber One, Kashi Heart to Heart, Blueberries, and Vanilla Oikos. This is my favorite breakfast.
My favorite wraps that I can’t find in Houston anymore are called Flat Out Wraps, Light. They are 90 calories, gigantic and very soft. So good! For lunch one day, I stuffed one with Boar’s Head turkey, Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese, lettuce and hummus. I had an apple and carrots on the side with peanut butter. PB is so good with carrots if you haven’t tried that.
And for dinner one night, we cooked a simple but elegant dinner. When we’re at the beach, I don’t really want to spend too much time in the kitchen, and I don’t want to buy a lot of ingredients that we can’t use up. We bought grouper, potatoes, corn on the cob and snap peas. We cooked them up to look like this.
For the grouper, we seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked it stovetop for about four minutes per side.
The potatoes were sliced thin but not all the way down, then rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper too.
And the corn boiled away until tender, and I added the snap peas near the end to get soft.
Besides food, we played around outside too. The beach looked so eerie without hundreds of people on beach chairs like the summer. But the water was so calm and clean.
Merry Christmas Eve. I’m in sunny Florida, where are you?
Here is a preview of a recipe I have coming next week. It’s a new flavor of Banana “Ice Cream.” I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.
Look at those raspberries! This was my pumpkin loaf with scrambled eggs and fresh berries. But the berries were the highlight of this picture.
And this was a little baking goof. I baked this Blueberry Cinnamon Loaf in an aluminum loaf pan for easier traveling to take on our vacation. I also wanted some better pictures than the ones I took the first time. But the loaf pan is a little bit smaller than a normal hard loaf pan, and it flooded over the sides. I was glad I put a baking sheet underneath or I would have had an even bigger mess to clean up.
It just made some extra crispy parts for easier snacking.
After all that, I forgot the loaf in the freezer! I kept reminding myself all day to grab it when we left, but I forgot. Fail!
The title of this post is also the name of Ina Garten’s latest book. We are a little in love with The Barefoot Contessa in this house, and have started making more of her recipes, especially ones that have a short ingredient list.
The second recipe here is from her new book, and the muffin one is from Simply Recipes.
I had some leftover bananas last week and also wanted to make some muffins to get me out of a breakfast rut of a lot of cereal and yogurt. Bananas + nuts always in the freezer + want fresh muffins + an easy recipe without a mixer = let’s make Banana Nut Muffins.
I went to some of my favorite sites and also Googled the term for recipes, and found the best one at Simply Recipes. I used this site for my gingerbread cookies, which were so cute and perfect. It also had a short list and no need for a mixer, so I wanted to try.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Makes 12 muffins.
These muffins were delicious. They make the house smell like banana in a good way, they had chunks of little banana in the muffin, and the nuts gave a perfect sized crunch for texture.
They aren’t the healthiest banana muffin, with butter and sugar, but they’re good! Approved by Jeffrey, and he doesn’t really even like bananas.
On Sunday, Jeffrey and I spent our afternoon volunteering with the Jewish Federation of Houston for Mitzvah Day.
Before I get to that, I created the best oats–so thick with perfect flavor and few ingredients.
This bowl was different than previous ones by using less water and a lot of cinnamon. The cinnamon was kind of an accident, but it was really good. It turned the bowl a beautiful brown color. You can see the specks in the picture.
Ingredients:
I cook all the bowls the same way:
I also wanted to show you this pretty combo of colors. It is 2 slices of Ezekiel cinnamon raisin bread, toasted. One side has Crofter’s Four Fruit jam, and one has Stonemill Kitchen Pumpkin Butter. I really like pumpkin butter–it has calories similar to jam, but is kind of thicker like peanut butter.
And then a 3-ingredient green monster. I loved how all the colors looked and tasted.
On Sunday, we volunteered at a place called Aishel House in Houston. The name is a Hebrew acronym for Food, Drink, Lodging. This is a place for people who come to one of the nearby hospitals for their own treatments like chemotherapy or radiation, or to care for someone else in the hospital. They aren’t from Houston (some are international visitors) and need a long-term place to stay that is affordable and close. The Aishel House has 18 apartments, and they also help with meals, transportation and counseling.
We volunteered to cook a kosher meal for the people staying in the apartments and for others in the hospital. Our group made Garlic Knots (picture above), Minestrone Soup (below, adapted from my recipe), and Libby’s Pumpkin Pie (I forgot a picture, but it was classic pumpkin pie!).
I suggested the soup and contributed my recipe (link above), but I have never multiplied a recipe to make so much soup. We way overestimated, but that is better than under. The soup had carrots, onions, celery, zucchini and noodles. The broth was water, tomato sauce, and stock seasoning. My original recipe uses chicken or vegetable stock.
It takes a very long time to boil three gigantic pots of water.
It’s really nice to spend some time helping others by doing something you enjoy. Cooking is fun and always appreciated, and also nice to give back on Thanksgiving week.
Do you volunteer on Thanksgiving week?
Happy birthday to my sister, Shelley! She is in her second year of her Master’s in Hospital Administration program at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and just found out that she’s moving to Atlanta in June for a two year fellowship at Emory. Way to go, Shelley. A fun added birthday celebration. Now we know who gets the bragging attention next week at Thanksgiving.
(Lily has since had her bangs trimmed)
There are only eight days until Thanksgiving! Then the madness of holiday shopping, continuous cool weather (we hope) and busy weekends of travel commence. And the looming half marathon that I’m not thinking about until my poor IT band heals…
Until then, let’s eat clean before the temptations start.
The blog world loves their green monsters, and if you haven’t tried it, you should to see what the hype is about. I have tried various additions and quantities, I’ve tried freezing them to defrost later, and played with lots of colored monsters. But in my opinion, the best tasting and prettiest monster is the original.
Basic Green Monster:
Blend, add ice, blend again, enjoy.
Other monsters:
If you’re interested in more green monsters, check out the Green Monster Movement. I like to drink my monsters with a PB&J Sandwich for lunch or a light dinner. The monsters are quite filling and refreshing.
When I was in San Francisco for Foodbuzz Fest, one of the vendors at the Tasting Pavilion was Annie the Baker who made cookie dough balls of different flavors. They were all the rage, so of course, someone was going to replicate them at home. Mama Pea was the first at it, and then everyone made them within a day. Here are mine, and they are really really good. Approval by Jeffrey too! Click here for full recipe on her site.
Here are the changes I made: I un-veganized them because I don’t have vegan ingredients. So I used real butter (well, a stick of Fleischman’s margarine), regular chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. When I went to scoop out the balls to bake, the dough was very crumbly, so I put it back under the mixer and added 1/4 C water. It worked perfect, and the crumbles became dough.
This is not really a recipe, but it was a healthful, colorful, and fast way to eat at home. We recently found Wolfgang Puck organic canned soups, and they are really tasty! We like the Country Tomato with Basil that has little chunks of tomatoes and tastes good as homemade.
I heated up the soup, and at the same time, I boiled water for Buitoni 3-cheese whole wheat tortellini. And at the same time, I microwaved fresh broccoli to steam it. When everything was cooked, I added it to the soup pot to stir together and heat for a minute.
Voila, a one bowl 3 ingredient soup.
On Saturday, I did one of the coolest things I’ve gotten to do as a food blogger/writer. Food Network chef and super cute cookbook author Tyler Florence came to Houston to do a cooking demo and cookbook signing, and I got to do a short interview with him for CultureMap. I asked one question and he talked for five minutes about how to cook a turkey, and then time was up, so that is what my story was about.
My story on him is linked here. I’m really proud of it! It was fun to research, interivew, and write in a very short period of time.
This morning, I went out for 10 miles, my new longest distance! The Dallas White Rock Half Marathon is three weeks away, and I decided to do my longest run today. Before this one, my longest was 9.3 two weeks ago. The goal was 10 miles, the A+ goal if I was feeling great was 10.5 or 11.
First, I started with a usual breakfast of toast with peanut butter and banana. I forgot I had these cute plates, they’re fun, huh?
The morning was chilly and cloudy. I was happy about that because I need some practice in cold weather. I wore leggings on the bottom, and a tank top with long sleeved shirt over it, and a hat. At mile 3, I circled back to my car to drop off the hat and long sleeved shirt. It was still chilly without the long sleeved shirt, but I just didn’t want it anymore.
I also wore my SpiBelt which is very handy, but still dorky, in my opinion. I had 3 Shot Bloks in it, $5 and Kleenex. I also wore my Garmin gear and iPod.
None of the miles felt easy, my legs felt heavy, but not painful…until Mile 9.
Other than the last mile, my pace was actually a tad faster than previous long runs. I was trying to stay faster than 12 min/mile, and besides mile 9, I only slowed below it once. So that’s good. And I’m very happy for going 10.1 miles! It was really hard, but I did it.
Now to the really bad last mile…my outer left knee started hurting, and it was a familiar pain from six months ago. When I felt it before, it was during the Bagel Run 10K and it stayed with me the whole race, but I ran through it. After, I realized it was the bottom of my IT Band where it hits the knee. I started foam rolling more, running outside more (because I trained for that race mostly inside), and the pain stayed away until today. I don’t know why it came back, and I don’t know if it will go away.
That is my sad mile 9 story, but the pace wasn’t too slow for a mix of run, walk, and stretch. Right now I’m icing, foam rolling, and will not run for a few days. I guess I’ll see what happens when I start up again and if it comes back. Say a little prayer that it was a one-time flare up and it will go away.
Here are my splits:
Mile 1: 11:29 Mile 2: 11:48 Mile 3: 11:47 Mile 4: 11:50 Mile 5: 12:07 Mile 6: 11:50 Mile 7: 11:52 Mile 8: 11:45 Mile 9: 11:53 Mile 10:12:19 Mile 10-10.11: 01:21
Total time: 2 hrs, Average heart rate 152, Burned 1060 calories
On Saturday, I had a crazy fun day. It was crazy because I ran a new personal distance record (15K/9.3 miles), and fun because the weather was great and we ate lunch outside and shopped around outside.
Let’s start at the beginning…
I had a goal of about 9 miles for the day, and I went to a new route for me to keep things fresh. I started with breakfast of two pieces Ezekiel Cinnamon Raisin toast with peanut butter, blueberries, coffee and water. A never fail win. For the run, I realized that having different routes for long runs is really helpful to not get bored. I drove to Rice University and did a little under one loop around the campus (under 3 miles), and then went into the West University neighborhoods for about 3.5 miles, and then ended up back at the Rice loop and did another 3 mile loop. It ended up around 9 miles and I kept going to make it 9.3. It was also smart to run around restaurants and not only residential so I could refill my water bottle around mile 5.
Here are my stats:
Mile 1--11:26 Mile 2--11:36 Mile 3--11:46 Mile 4--12:24 (traffic crossing streets) Mile 5--12:01 Mile 6--12:24 (water stop, more traffic) Mile 7--11:56 Mile 8--11:47 Mile 9--11:45 Mile 9-.3--03:32 Summary,01:50:42, 978 calories burned, average heart rate: 84
Where did my heart go?
Now here is the strange part–my average heart rate was 84, and it dipped as low as 55. I thought my heart was slowly stopping while running my distance record! When I ran 8.6 miles, it was 153 beats per minute (bpm), and when I ran 8 miles, it was 157 bpm. I noticed the heart rate around Mile 2.5, and started to worry about why my heart rate was dropping and if the monitor was picking up an accurate reading. It never rose about 110 the whole time. I’ll have to see what happens next time, but it was the lowest I have ever seen it during any workout, even my boring spinning class.
Other than that, it was a great run with an average pace of 11:53/mile. It is definitely slower than I have hoped I would be, but I really just want to increase the distance steadily, not hurt my legs, and have a good steady pace the whole time. I took 3 shot bloks with me and had one at miles 5.5, 7, 8.5 and drank about 40 ounces of water and then more when I finished.
Ready for the big times:
After 3 long runs into distances I haven’t attempted before, I definitely feel prepared for increasing distance, proper ways for me to fuel while running, I know better about how much water I need, and I definitely feel more ready for December 5. I am planning one more longer run at 10.5 miles, and then two weeks shorter at 9 and 7 maybe, and then the race.
(after the run, but Jeffrey for the life of him cannot take a steady picture with iPhone. 4 tries)
When I got home, I was really shocked that I ran 9.3 miles. I really can’t believe that I am increasing my distances week after week with little hip pains but no really painful shin pains. I have never been able to do this before! It really amazes me and I’m still crossing my fingers that nothing comes up.
Anyway, after plugging in my Garmin to see how I did and letting my puppy lick sweat off of my face, it was time for lunch! Post run lunch is the best part of a long run. We went to Tiny Boxwoods for a great outdoor lunch of people watching and delicious food. It’s a favorite of ours.
Tiny Boxwoods is the cafe that is part of a gardening store called Thompson Hanson. It is a small space with great outdoor space on a beautifully manicured lawn. I had the Beet It Burger with fruit and we shared a Banana Nutella Scone. It was amaazzing.
Just look at the pictures:
The patio at Tiny Boxwoods
View of the gardening shop
Most amazing Banana Nutella Scone. Crispy outside, chewy and soft inside. Bits of banana like Banana bread. So delicious.
The Beet It Burger with beets, black beans, oats, and I don’t know what else! Served with jalapenos (yuck), pickles and lettuce. Wanted more lettuce or added tomatoes, thought the burger was perfect, bun was good, sauce was spicy. Jalapenos not necessary! And berries are seasonal. In the summer they serve watermelon.
Then it was time to watch The Rangers (a win!), and The Longhorns (stinkers this year!), and go to a Halloween party.
We went as Night and Day. It was a handmade Halloween this year. See Jeffrey’s sleepshade and pillow? I liked that part.
And on that note, the day ended and it was exhausting!
The temperatures have creeped back up in the 90s, and that is just too hot for hot oatmeal. I also happen to have some peanut butter jars nearing their end, so that means it’s time for Bottom of the Jar recipes.
There are a few versions of Bottom of the Jar recipes on the Recipes page, but they are hard to photograph and still look pretty.
Here’s what I did today. It’s really delicious, but doesn’t look it.
With about 1-2 tablespoons of peanut butter left, your jar is ready for a BOTJ (bottom of the jar) recipe. You see, not that pretty.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Best part–easy cleanup! Toss the jar, or rinse it out if you save them for storing things.
This breakfast is so good, creamy, sweet, crunchy, and very filling. Peanut butter always keeps me full longer than any other food. And eating out of a peanut butter jar is fun.
Lately, I have been changing up my lunch and really like the “sampler plate” idea. I rarely have deli meat at lunch anymore, so it’s been interesting to try different stars on the plate. On this sampler, I started with a bed of lettuce, then had sides of tomato, avocado, carrots, orange bell pepper, and pickles. In the center I had store-bought taboulleh and hummus.
And a side of homemade crackers, recipe below.
I do realize that “sampler plate” is another name for “salad.”
I don’t think that I ever thought about making crackers from scratch, but I was tempted by an easy recipe I saw on How Sweet It Is. This is the same blog that yesterday’s Crispy Chicken Tenders came from, and she is a great baker.
Here are the instructions, and then read below for what I would do next time:
Ingredients:
Instructions:
(before cutting and baking)
(just out of the oven, the parmesan turned yellow like cheddar)
For the next time, I would use either more cheese or more flavors, like extra salt and pepper or maybe chopped rosemary. I liked the parmesan, but thought it needed more flavor. It was a little wheat-y. I also think that these weren’t crispy enough, so I would bake longer or roll out thinner.
After I made this recipe, I remembered this recipe for crackers with different baking ratios. I think I would try this way next time, which seems like a more scientific way of baking breads.
Have you ever made crackers? It’s nice to bake savory things as a break from the sweet!
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