YEEEEEE!!!

Big news.  Huge.  Quickly.  C got her first job offer today!!  YEEEEEE!!! We are sooooooooooooooooo happy since the company is known to have a great culture, the work is nearby in a safe area, and most importantly, C just feels right about joining the team.  It also happened on the 12th - 12 is our lucky number - and that has got to be a good harbinger if there ever was one!  I just got off the phone with C and could feel the excitement from her voice.  I know this is a food blog but just a quick shout out to C: I am sooooooo proud of you!!!!!!  :{)

So let's get to this week's eats:

Satty morning, we woke up and made a farmer's market frittata.  We always have loads of veggies in the fridge and this was easy to whip up.  C had never made a frittata before either - now she can check that off her life list.  =)  

 

We paired that up with some green tea made with unsweetened almond milk and agave.  We enjoyed it in C's new tea set.  Well, I enjoyed it. . .C doesn't like tea made with anything other than water.  Noted.

Satty night we watched the UFC fights (C loves fighting.  She is so blood-thirsty.) and C made us order some buffalo wings.  They were NOT good.  No photo of them either which is a good thing, believe you me.  Anyhow, Sunday was a new day so we woke up and made some french toast.  We healthified it by using Julian Bakery's Smart Carb #2 bread (cinnamon-raisin), organic omega-3 eggs, and a drizzle of organic agave instead of maple syrup.  We topped it off with some peach-flambe.  It was our last peach from the previous week's farmer's market and was insanely sweet.  Half of the peach went in the flambe, the other half went on our plate.  The results were favorable.

The peach was amazing.  Sweet enough to cause cavities, I'll tell you what.  NOH.  Fear not for us that it was our last peach since right outside was the weekly farmer's market. The weather was "eh".  And the company was alright, I suppose. 

Sunday had categorically been both C and I's least favorite day of the week.  But now, it's one of our favorite days.  Life is good to us.  So we picked up some flowers for the leaky pot.  $5 for the flowers.  What a steal!

Sunday night, C made beet with goat cheese ravioli from Sarma's book that her awesome friends got her for her last bday.  We cheated on the raw dish though since we used real goat cheese - pine nuts, which the recipe calls for, are priced in the bulk bin at Henry's at $32/lb!  What a steal!...from the grocery's side.  :-/  We also boiled the beets since we do not have a mandolin and slicing our fingers from cutting up raw beets is frowned upon.  The result of C's awesome creation.   It was incredible!

As a side dish, we enjoyed some organic ketchup!  Oh, paired with acorn squash fries that is. 

Moving to Monday, we were both down for a light dinner so we concocted a modified caprese.  Instead of mozzarella, we alternated goat cheese (herbed ourselves), brie, and avocado slices.  We used the heirlooms we got at the farmer's market (C's first taste of heirlooms!) and sprinkled oregano and italian parsley in lieu of basil.  We topped it off with squash blossoms.

We call it "caprese a la P.P.WM".  Qui qui.

It was served with kale chips rubbed down with nutritional yeast.

Tuesday night, I had to tend to a board meeting.  While I was out, C decided to make some mac n' cheese, healthified with quinoa macaroni and homemade "cheese" made with tofu, Bragg's liquid aminos, paprika, and some other stuff that C was listing off that I forgot since I was busy grabbing seconds.  :@)  Ok, this is my new favorite dish.  If I were to die tomorrow and had one last meal, then I'd choose C's mac n' cheese.  I'd also eat the whole pan and not limit myself to two plates since I wouldn't need to worry about gas in the after-life.  Of course, we had some greenage on the side (spinach sally) but alas, it took a back seat to the mac n'cheese.  Behold!

Yesterday C got the call back from her job.  We celebrated with cupcakes from Cups in La Jolla.  We got the fig cupcake topped with goat cheese frosting and the lemon ricotta.  I dug the lemon ricotta since the cake tasted like cornbread.  :)

Then we came back and ate a low-carb meal: almond crusted mahi mahi on top of a garlic cauliflower mash.  I added too much almond milk to the mash and it came out with a more liquid texture than I wanted.  C said it was good, and recommended we not be as prolific with adding garlic to the mash next time.  And by "we not being as prolific", she meant "you shouldn't be using that much garlic.  Idiot."  Thank you. 

Tonight we are off to get C new sneakers for her J-O-B, and then off to krav maga for some self-defense techniques.  Catch ya lata!  :)

-J

Simple Tuesday. Creative Thursday.

Sorry about the lack of daily posts, internet use is scarce in our active life.  I'm sitting here in Filter, a 24/7 coffee shop in San Diego.  What a fun week this has been.  It's my first down time week, getting use to San Diego, finding my way around.  Anyhow, let's get to the eats.  On Tuesday we were feeling like a simple dinner.  J whipped out some already thawed Mahi Mahi (purchased frozen from Costco), grabbed some foil, and I chopped some veggies.  Wrapped a bunch of veggies and the fish into the foil and let it broil in the oven for about 30 minutes.   It turned out beautifully.  

 

It took J about 5 minutes to prepare and tasted amazing.  I on the other hand made us some "Relax" iced tea (we had to watch Shutter Island after, scary stuff, ya know ;) ).  

Wednesday night we were feeling like we needed a night out, so we walked ourselves down a few blocks and dined at India Palace.  A cute little place in a strip mall, dim lighting and small booths.  We ordered two dishes to share.  J ordered the Fish Tikka Masala and I ordered the Baighan Bartha both 8's on a scale of 12 on spicy-ness.  Both were delicious with a side of rice and garlic naan.  It was my first go with Indian food and I was definitely pleased.  Many trips are going to be in my future. 

Yesterday night we had scheduled to go to a Hip-Hop dance class then go listen to some slam poetry.  Both of those plans fell through and we ended up walking around in Northpark.  Still a blasty blast, because we always have a wonderful time together!  We came home around 9 and were feeling quite creative.  J decided to make some zucchini pasta and I made us some sally to have in our lives.   One whole zucchini was spiraled (thanks to Joyce Chen's spiralizer).  J then cooked the last of Tofurky’s Italian Sausage, added some kalamata olives, some spice, one artichoke heart, tomato sauce, and garlic.  The end product was soooooooo good!  I on the other hand made the salad (baby spinach, carrot, tomato, avocado, cauliflower, artichoke hearts).  The dressing was made with EVOO, agave, lemon juice, black pepper, and sea salt.  Tossed around and it tasted amazing also if I don't say so myself ;) 

 

I would highly recommend this recipe,  I am craving some right now!  

Have a fabulous Friday, everyone! 

-C

Sunday Funday. Monday Stir-on-day.

I’m here eating some leftover quinoa from Satty and it is sooooo good.  I think the flavors came together even more with time – which is, in a lot of ways, like a good basketball team.  Therefore the stuffed acorn dish will heretofore be known as “The Lakers 2009-2010”.  The quinoa is Kobe, and the nutty flavor is Ron “Ron Ron” Artest.  Zaaainnnnnggg!!!  

Sunday night, after an awesome day of driving on the coast, shopping at the Farmers’ Market, biking at Pantoja park, and flying kites in the bay, we were down for a hearty meal.  So we cracked open a Giada cookbook and came across a recipe for Italian stew that we figured would hit the spot.  We walked to Trader Joes to grab some essentials and then “CJed” the dish (“CJ” – verb.  To healthify a dish and/or make more palatable to C and J’s tastes.  “We CJed the fried chicken by not frying it and not using chicken”.  Not to be confused with "CJ" the noun which refers to an entity of two awesome peeps) by replacing the chicken with Tofurky’s Italian Sausage, and added veggies we picked up that morning at the Hillcrest Farmers’ Market (beets, broc, yellow carrots, celery, Italian parsley) to an otherwise light-on-the-veggie dish.   C took the chopping role and pre-tay much whipped up the stew herself.  Fear not, J did some work by blending some cannellini beans with Italian parsley and garlic for a bomb-dot-com hummus which we ate with broc and celery. 

The hummus. 

Also peep the flowers C picked up at the Farmers' Market to replace some fake ones.   *In Seinfeld/Teri Hatcher voice* They're real and they're magnificent. 

Our vegan Italian Spezzatino.  Filed under “did you know”: Did you know that Italian stews are called spezzatini because everything is cut up and spezzare means “to cut up”?  Well now you do!

Dessert?  Uh, yeah.  CJ always answer “yeah”.  Peaches from the Farmers’ Market.  Green figs from Trader Joe’s.  C cut them up, put the dish together, and snapped the pic.  In J’s defense, he was lazy.  See? There’s always a good reason. 

Peaches tasted like honey – soooooo good, though C didn’t care for the skin.  Eating green figs were a first for the both of us and certainly won’t be the last.  We’s digs the figs, ooohhhhh yeeeaaahhhhh…

Yesterday, after a bike ride and unsuccessful but not un-fun (you know we’re serious when we use double negatives) trip get mosquito repellent from Ralph’s, we came back and whipped up a spiced veggie stirfry.  We pretty much took every veggie in the fridge (zucchini, celery, tomato, cauliflower, kale, and spinach) and sautéed it with garlic and one slizzo of Tofurky Italian sausage.  This was steamed with some veggie broth and balsamic vinaigrette.  J was gonna add Maggi soy sauce but C informed J that the sauce contains MSG.  J quickly put it away and wondered how much MSG he’s inadvertently consumed over his childhood.  J guessed 10 lbs worth and today did more sprints that usual to overcompensate for it.  It did not work. :/  This is how the dish looked.  

 

Annnnnnnnndddddddd… FIN. 

-J