Author Archives: Emily

Eat, Live, Garnish

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Bleck.  I’ve been in a crummy mood all day.  My retainer fitting properly finally means it’s actually working, which means my mouth is hurting.  Additionally I’m irritated with myself for not starting Biochem work.  I know the longer I put it off the worse it’s going to be but I’m a week in and it’s feeling a little daunting.  Plus I was so excited about these filled Mini-Wheats, but when I ate a small bowl this afternoon they hurt my mouth. 

Bleck.

I know something guaranteed to put a smile on my face was a blogger-approved dinner.

Caramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes from Emily at The Daily Garnish,

and Mom’s Sweet and Spicy Barbeque Baked Beans from Jenna at Eat, Live, Run.

The guacamole gravy?  That was all me!

It ended up being a very tasty meal.

A time intensive(ish) one as well, the potatoes required a good hour of hands-on time while the beans were baking in the oven.  As I was removing the caramelized onions from the pan genius struck, and guacamole gravy was born.  I kept a few onions in the pan over medium heat and added a chopped avocado and a bit of evoo.  Once everything was warmed through I deglazed the pan with some mushroom broth.  A bit more broth and some mashing, and the best potato topped ever was born!

It was great to get back into the kitchen and make my husband a nice hearty (vegan!) meal.  Sidenote – that’s not to say the husband didn’t help cook this meal, mashing potatoes is hard!

What is your favorite kind of gravy?

Make Yourself a Dang Quesadilla

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Vegan month is off to an auspicious start with this winner of a lunch.

The only way this meal could have been more enjoyable is if there was a new “House” episode for me to watch!

I used to assume that quesadilla had to mean cheese, but recently I’ve figured out that peanut butter can be a mighty fine substitute.

I steamed some matchstick carrots and piled them onto a tortilla with 2Tbsp each chunky peanut butter and raisins, and a sprinkle of sweet curry.  Then I sandwiched and gave a quick spin in a hot skillet with a bit of evoo.

Not cheesy, but still melty and delicious and good!

Alongside I had two clementines.

Both of these guys were a bit dry, I’m terrified that the crate in our fridge is getting old.

I didn’t eat breakfast this morning – not because vegan food is hard, but – because I quickly got swept up in errands.  I had an 8:15 orthodontist visit where, thankfully, they agreed that my top retainer was sitting wrong and gave it a quick adjustment.  That thing was driving me crazy!

I also went to the grocery store.

Um, yeah.  I spent practically double our normal weekly bill!  Adam is planning on attempting the vegan challenge with me, for at least the first two weeks, and I wanted to make sure he had lots of options.

Of course, when I get our biggest load of groceries ever I have to forget our reusable bags.  Forget bad for the planet (and we reuse all the plastic ones anyway), our reusable ones fit over my shoulder and are 10x easier to carry.  I honestly don’t know how I managed to get those all up three flights of stairs by myself!

Do you use reusable bags for the grocery?  Otherwise, paper or plastic?

February Vegan Month Challenge

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Welcome to February, the month of slushy snow and Hallmark holidays!  Around these parts it’s also the month of a vegan challenge.

I’ve done the vegan challenge before, two weeks last February and a month with Allison last June.  While I never plan on going vegan long-term, the short stints were a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to the challenge.  Here’s some relevant background information about my beliefs –

~ I do not believe that a vegan diet is healthy for everyone HOWEVER I do believe that most modern Americans would be healthier if they adopted more vegan meals into their diet.

~ I do not have a moral issue with the consumption of animals (although I personally chose not to consume mammals) HOWEVER I have a major bone to pick, pardon the pun, with modern practices within the meat and dairy industries.  Since we can’t afford to buy a lot of ethically sourced dairy and meat we chose to lower our consumption.

The main impetus for this challenge this that fact that recently we’ve been relying a lot on take out and I’ve been spending less and less time preparing healthy food.  I love to cook, and I know I just need a push to get back into it.  While there are some fabulous vegan restaurants, they aren’t many in Buffalo; hopefully this challenge will get me back into the kitchen.

So the challenge is pretty simple, here’s what it entails –

  • 1 month
  • no meat (turkey, chicken, tuna, salmon…)
  • no dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream…)
  • no eggs
  • no honey
  • no processed items containing meat, dairy, eggs, or honey

How do you define your eating style?  If you are an omnivore, have you ever done a vegan challenge?

A Double Serving of Entendre

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I liked the cock.

Adam thought the cock was ok, but found it a little salty.

I’m speaking, of course, of this soup package we had for dinner this evening.

We spotted it at Wegman’s a few months ago and had to buy it, because we’re six.  Sorry, Mom and Nana, you know I can’t resist a good (dirty) pun!

We decided to finally use the package tonight, incorporating it into a nice Caribbean dinner.

Cock soup.

No, I have no idea why it’s called that, and yes, it was a little too salty.

Rice and beans.

Minute brown rice mixed with a can of reduced sodium black beans.

And fried plantains.

We bought some frozen from Goya, and revived them with a quick saute.

Adam and I also split a cheddar cheese bialey.

Sooooooooo doughy and chewy!  We picked up the bialey while we were at Wegman’s buying cookie dough.  Cookies are in the oven (Adam’s request) and all is right with the world.  You can assume I’ll eat two, but since we are moving from the blogging portion of the evening to the watching X-Files portion, no pictures are occurring.

Does it seem like we are eating down the fridge slash searching for all the dairy we can get our mouths on?  Well we are!  You’ll see why tomorrow 😀

How To: Order a Salad at the Cheesecake Factory

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The Cheesecake Factory is the husband’s and my favorite chain restaurant.  CF is the food of the Gods, but the portions are also God-like.  I know that no matter what I order there, including a salad, my meal will end up being at least two servings.

If you have the control not to devour the whole plate, two meals in one are great – instant lunch!  But what if you like to order salads, invariably soggy by the next day?  Here’s what I do –

  1. Order your salad with dressing on the side.
  2. Request a take-out box as soon as your meal comes.
  3. Portion half of your salad into the take-out box, set aside.
  4. Top remaining salad with desired amount of dressing and dig in.
  5. Enjoy a delicious, crisp salad at tomorrow’s lunch.

I added a little Newman’s Own Asian Sesame dressing from home for lunch today.

Extra-credit?

– No matter what salad I order at CF, the dressing I request on the side is always spicy peanut cilantro vinaigrette.  It is ridiculous good, I would lick it off the floor.

– My favorite salad is the Fresh Vegetable Salad (from the appetizer menu but still a solid two servings).  The toppings are all fun, but not in a bacon-ranch-crouton-I-just-gained-20pounds-from-a-salad kind of way.  Asparagus, Green Beans, Tomato, Cucumber, Roasted Beets, Apple, Edamame, Radicchio, Romaine and White Cheddar.

Cracked Up

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My breakfast this morning wasn’t all it was cracked up to be; when I opened the carton, both of our last two eggs were cracked!

I forged ahead and heated up this package of Allergaroo Spyglass Noodles instead.

Topped with the 50% reduced white cheddar and chives that we supposed to go in my scrambled eggs.

It ended up being pretty tasty, if not all that breakfast-y.

My glass of skim milk with a chocolate milk straw helped.

I went to the gym this morning, so after classes (and my first big quiz!) the day is mine!  Adam dropped me off at the gym around 8, and I took my notecards on the elliptical for 30minutes at random, level 6.

What is your back-up plan if your breakfast falls through?

Matching Meals

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There was no Saturday post because I just couldn’t figure out the logistics of it.  Two things were happening yesterday – I was starving and my teeth were killing me.  This meant I started 80 different food items, then gummed at them pathetically before moving on.  I just didn’t know how to blog it without saying “I ate two bites of this, and three bites of that..” a million times.

But today, today was definitely worth blogging.  The husband and I ate matching meals all day!  That’s not to say he didn’t eat several things that I didn’t (or that he was particularly excited about this) but for the most part our meals were twins.

We started our day with hot chocolate.

Made stove-top style with skim milk, sugar, and Green and Black cocoa powder.

I’ve been loving the cocoa lately, and this homemade version might have been my best cup yet.

We also had yogurts.

I ate the Liberte, 0% Strawberry.

The Liberte yogurts are sooooo rich and creamy but they generally have a lot of saturated fat so I was thrilled to find this 0% one.

Then we had matching lunch plates.

Leftover mini cheesy meatloafs with roasted sweet potato fries.

This meatloaf was good the first day, but it definitely got better after sitting in the fridge.

We watched some “X-Files” while we ate, then headed to my campus to get some schoolwork done.  I hit up the gym while we were there. A quick treadmill work out – warm up + run 1mile (9.10) + incline walking – 2.5miles and 35minutes. Followed by a quick stretch and a few planks.

For dinner we went to Cheesecake Factory to use up the last of our Christmas gift certificates.

We shared an order of avocado egg rolls.

If by shared you mean split 1-5 and include Adam growling at me while I ate my one.

Our dinner plates weren’t exactly identical, but we did share many bites.  I ordered my favorite, the fresh vegetable appetizer salad,

and Adam got the spicy cashew chicken.

We had a lot of fun sharing, and we’ve both got lunch leftovers for tomorrow!

Plus we split a cookie dough cheesecake for dessert!

Would you ever be interested in seeing a day of Adam’s meals?

I Hate Eggs Almost As Much As I Love Them

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It’s Friday, Friday, Friday!  The completion of my first week back at school means that weekends mean something once again.

Typical Friday lazies be damned though, I banged out a ton of work after class this afternoon.  That’s what going to the gym in the morning will do…  A classmate and I sat at a coffee shop and studied from 12 until almost 4.

I had to go to Talking Leaves (a local, independent book store) to buy my music textbook, so we sat at the attached cafe and had lunch.

Chicken pesto panini.

This bad boy – I ate 3/4 – wasn’t even the whole sandwich, I shared the other half with Janessa!

Plus a coffee with skim milk.

Adam picked me up and I came home and kept the productivity ball rolling; all of my (many!) assignments for the semester have been entered into Todoist.

Plus I made another gourmet dinner.

Walnut-Breadcrumb Pasta with a Soft Egg, from Cooking Light.  We only made two servings so we basically eyeballed all of the measurements, and we used panko breadcrumbs, but other than that we followed the recipe for a change.  The end results were worth a little obedience.

The soft eggs were perfectly thick and drippy.  They were also a pain in the butt.  We had an impossible time getting them peeled, and all I can say is that it’s a good thing we made a few extra!  We “buy” (I won a year’s worth of free eggs) Eggland’s Best vegetarian-fed eggs and my mother-in-law says the chicken’s low protein diet is what makes our egg shells so hard to peel.

With two perfect clementines for dessert.

These are just so dang good!  (thanks Katie)

Have you found the secret to easy peel eggs?  Please share!