San Diego Photo Post 1

Back in July, Matt and I went to San Diego and I have yet to post about the trip but thought I’d share some photos until I can get around to writing a recap post.

{Gaslamp Quarter}

{Flatbreads at barley mash. Our favorite spot of the trip}

{View of Petco Park from our hotel’s roofdeck}

{Iron Fries: “The Far East Side” pork belly, grilled chicken, teriyaki sauce, green onions, celery, house made kimchi!, wasabi cream and toasted cashews… in other words, YES YES YES!}

{Harborside sunset}

{Granola waffle = lovely all day foodbaby}

{Tim Burton’s Electrifying Graden (temporary exhibit for Comic-Con 2012}

Sweet Potato Pancakes

Life. is. so. crazy.

Eat pancakes, for dinner.

With chocolate chunks.

And coconut butter.

And then get back to your crazy life.

Why is life crazy? Oh, let me count the ways…

I had 7 days, yes 7, off between grad school semesters. And I still had to work, all-day, every day.

Then my (rented) house went on the market, and in the midst of starting up with classes again (3 more credits than past semesters – what.am.i.thinking?) I have to temporarily relocate every few hours, every day.

Including today (I took a “vacation” day to get things done around the house which is now a bust since I can’t).

So I relocated, to the beach… (to read my neuro text, of course.)

And then to the gym.

And then made these before forced to relocate again.

Sweet Potato Pancakes (vegan)

Ingredients:

1/2 c coconut flour

1/2 c unbleached ap flour

1 scoop vanilla protein powder (optional—I used a sample of a vegan protein)

2 T turbinado sugar (this is a raw sugar—you can use brown sugar if you wish)

1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

1 1/2 t cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice if you wish)

1 1/2 c almond coconut milk (I accidentally bought sweetened, if yours is unsweetened you may want to increase sugar by a tablespoon or 2)

1 heaping cup of shredded sweet potato (I shredded mine in the food processor, did you know you could do that? I didn’t. No more hand grating for me!)

oil for pan

coconut butter, for topping (optional—but really not)

vegan chocolate chunks, for topping

maple syrup, for topping

Instructions:

Mix all listed ingredients through the almond milk, create “well” and add sweet potato. Mix thoroughly but don’t over mix (I don’t know why but that’s what the pancake pros say). Batter will be thick. Add additional almond milk by the tablespoon if you prefer working with a thinner batter but it’s not necessary.

Heat oil in your skillet (or whatever you use to cook pancakes) to med-high.

Drop batter by 1/4 c onto heated surface. You may want to use the back of your spoon to flatten a bit as the batter is thick and doesn’t spread on the pan. Cook pancakes until done, not sticking to pan and can be flipped. I usually “eyeball” the doneness of my pancakes but usually a few minutes on each side.

Top with a drizzle of coconut butter, sprinkle of dark chocolate chunks and syrup.

Serves 4.

Foodler

Though not a stranger to foodler.com, I wasted no time responding when Rachel of Boston Food Bloggers put a message up on facebook asking if anyone was interested in receiving a $15 credit at foodler to use in return for a review post. Two things I never turn down: free money and an excuse to order-in.

If you’ve never used foodler, it’s pretty straight forward. You enter in your address or a city and it returns a list of places that you can order from using the site.

Some of them are close by and others are not-so-much. You can narrow it down by distance… although some of those not-so-close-by will deliver for $10 or so. There are quite a few places in Quincy that use foodler so we’ve never had a hard time picking a place to order from. Another cool feature of foodler? It stores what you’ve ordered so you can look back (great feature because sometimes I can’t remember what I’ve tried… or if there was something I really liked, I don’t always remember what it was.)

As you can see by the star ratings, you can rate not only the restaurant itself, but each individual dish you ordered. I love this feature – I definitely use it as a reference when ordering something I’m unfamiliar with and to review what I ordered for other users. Yet another perk of using foodler? There are always coupons (for free items when you spend a certain dollar amount) or rebate offers (at least on your first order from a particular place – it’s usually between 10 and 20% and gets “refunded” back into your foodler account for a future order.)

On Friday night we decided to order from Sher-A-Punjab, a newer Indian restaurant in Quincy. This was our first time ordering from there but they had great reviews, for our entrees we went with:

And no Indian meal is complete without some naan, to mix it up we went with:

This was delicious… it is described as a tandoor cooked naan with pistacio and coconut. And of course, the “chips and salsa” of Indian food:

with a trio of sauces:

Everything truly was delicious and arrived via delivery faster than promised! You can pay using any major credit card and store different addresses – it remembers where you’ve had food delivered to so you don’t have to type everything in every time you order. You can also add any tip to the delivery driver right into your credit card transaction… or pay in cash upon arrival if you wish. Credit or not, we will definitely be using foodler.com again and again.

*Disclaimer, a $15 credit for use at foodler.com was given to me in exchange for this review. However, my opinions are completely mine and truthful.

Chicken Mango Curry

Look friends, a recipe post! I actually made this dish a few weeks ago but couldn’t find the card reader for my memory card – no memory card = no pictures = no post (because look how beautiful this dish is!)

Chicken Mango Curry

adapted with few changes from simply recipes

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 T grapeseed Oil (or vegetable oil)
• 1 c chopped peppers (I used a frozen medley of red, yellow and green, thawed)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 T curry powder
• 1 T ginger (or use 2 T fresh minced ginger)
• 1/2 t cumin
• 1 c chopped mango (I used frozen, thawed)
• 2 T apple cider vinegar
• 1 can light coconut milk (or regular if you prefer)
• 1 lb chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
• salt and pepper
• cilantro, for garnish

Directions:

Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Add  curry powder and cumin, cook for a few more minutes. The spices will absorb most of the oil, so add up to an additional tablespoon of oil to the pan if needed to prevent sticking.

Add vinegar, coconut milk, and a 1/2 cup of the chopped mangoes to the pan. Increase heat and bring to a boil, then lower it to maintain a low simmer for about 15 minutes, stir occasionally. Remove pan from heat. Scoop the sauce into a blender or food processor. Purée the sauce until it’s smooth. Return the sauce to the pan.

Add chicken pieces to the pan. Return to a low simmer. Cover the pan and let cook for 8-10 minutes. Chicken should be just cooked through. Check the thickest piece of chicken for doneness.

Add the rest of the chopped mango to the pan. Let cook at a very low temperature for another minute or two, uncovered. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over a bed of basmati rice, garnish with freshly chopped cilantro.

Enjoy!

Since you’ve been gone away

I had the month of April off from grad school. My intentions were to go to the gym (almost every day, I was being reasonable), blog more and clean my apartment from top to bottom. I was unsuccessful at all of those things. And what bothered me the most? The blogging one. I miss blogging, I really do. And I honestly don’t know how all of you who have jobs, go to school, have families, etc. have time for it. Maybe it’s just that I don’t make the time for it, I don’t know. But then I got to thinking. Do I blog so I can put content out there to inspire others or did blogging inspire me in ways I never expected? In the end I realized that before blogging my spice collection consisted of dried oregano and garlic powder. Now I have spices in there I cannot pronounce but I’m proud to say I use on the regular. Before blogging I never made my own pizza dough, cinnamon rolls or any ethnic inspired dish other than enchiladas. I’d love to say that I’m making a comeback, really I would. But I can’t promise it.

Tonight marks the first night of classes for my 3rd grad school term. Like a nerd in a bookstore (read: me), I’m half excited to listen to my professor go over the syllabus and half anxious about the time the work will take away from catching up on Mad Men on netflix. Or tackling my never ending, always growing laundry pile. And dishes? I can’t even find my sink anymore. See? My priorities are skewed at best but in the end, I know that reading another chapter from my Aural Rehabilitation textbook is probably more important at this juncture than writing a half-hearted blog post about the out-of-this-world fried ice cream I made on Cinco de Mayo. (Though I WILL tell you about that some day – it’s too late for you to make it for Cinco de Mayo anyway).

To sum up this rambling, I just want you to know (5 readers – if there are still 5 of you) that this blog is not done. That is the one promise I can make.

Tell me, regular bloggers, how do you make time to blog? Or just tell me that I’m terribly lazy and have poor time-management skills. Or tell me anything, really.

Copycat Recipe: Avocado Margarita

Remember when I told you about the Avocado Margarita I couldn’t get enough of at La Cava del Tequila in the Mexico Pavilion at Disney’s Epcot? Well, I’ve been meaning to recreate it for awhile now but never got my act together and bought all the ingredients. My parents, visiting from Maine this weekend, generously made a stop at the New Hampshire State Liquor store for me and so it became my mission to recreate the drink this weekend.

Avocado Margarita

(serves 1)

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Midori Melon Liquer
• 2 oz Silver Tequila (I used Sauza)
• 2 oz fresh lime juice (from 2 limes)
• 1/2 ripe avocado
• 8-10 ice cubes
• 1 oz light agave syrup
• coarse salt for the rim of your glass (optional)

Put all ingredients in a blender (I used my food processor because I don’t have a blender and I do NOT recommend it). Blend until smooth. Wet rim of glass and roll in coarse salt. Pour your margarita into your glass and enjoy!

Coconut and Crispy Kale Millet Bowl

I’ve had Heidi Swanson's Supernatural Every Day on my reserve list at the library for months. Unfortunately, the one time it became available I didn’t make it in the allotted 7 days to pick it up and haven’t gotten a second chance yet.

I was thrilled back in January when Joy posted the recipe from Heidi’s book for the crunchy kale and coconut bowl. (I call mine ‘crispy’ because it seems more appropriate for my rendition.) Back in January when she posted the recipe, I immediately made it twice in the same week. And though I’ve thought about this dish every single time I’ve had kale in the house since, I’ve only just made it again, for you loyal readers. Since that day was today, I can say with authority that it is definitely worth turning my oven on for (even on crazy March days when the temperature reaches 80 degrees outside).

 

Coconut and Crispy Kale Millet Bowl

serves 2 as a main, from here and here

Ingredients:

• 2 T tamari or soy sauce
• 1 t rice vinegar
• 1 t sriracha
• 1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
• 5 c lacinato kale, ripped into bite size pieces
• 1/2 c shredded coconut
• 1/2 c millet, uncooked
• 1 1/2 c vegetable broth (or water – for cooking millet)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare baking sheet with parchment or tin foil. Begin cooking your millet (or other grain). Lightly toast millet in saucepan over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and allow to cook (without stirring) for 15 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed. Don’t stir the millet, it will get mushy if you do (I know this from experience!) When it’s done, lightly fluff it with a fork.

In a small jar, or bowl, mix tamari, rice vinegar, and sriracha. If using a jar with a lid, add olive oil and shake vigorously until mixed. If using a bowl, pour in olive oil and whisk to emulsify. Put aside.

Tear clean kale off stems and rip into bite size pieces. Add coconut and about 1/2 of dressing. Toss and then spread onto prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes (check every few minutes after 10 to prevent burning – it happens fast!) Kale is done when it is crispy to the touch, if still soft, keep it in the over for 2 minute intervals until crispy.

Serve kale atop prepared millet and top each portion with 1/2 of the remaining dressing. Enjoy!