Category Archives: Cooking

Late For Dinner

I’ve been doing pretty well keeping up with Heather’s Meatless Monday’s A-Z.  I mean, granted we’re only on the third week, but I did make Creamy Cilantro Avocado Dressing for A and Blueberry Coconut Muffins for B.  The C ingredient was cabbage and I found a recipe that sounded perfect but then on Sunday, I let some frozen fish thaw in the fridge.

And on Monday, when I wanted to make the cabbage recipe that I found, I felt like I had to make the fish instead or it would go bad.  So I did.  And you saw it.  But for some dumb reason, I made four servings.  Note to self: don’t make four servings of something that doesn’t keep that well, especially when it’s something that your husband doesn’t like.  Long story short, I’ve been eating leftover salmon for the past couple of days and missed the Meatless Monday link up.

BUT… I finally made what I intended to make.  Meatless Wednesdays will have to do.

BWV Round2 April Cabbage1

I decided to make Pad Thai Salad with my cabbage.  My photo is not nearly as pretty as the original recipe and I left out a bunch of things because I forgot to buy them (bean sprouts, cashews and chili peppers, to be exact), but it still tasted good.  I added a tiny bit of stevia to the dressing (the dressing that I used peanut butter and coconut milk instead of almond butter and almond milk but same difference, right?).

Pad thai salad

All in all, a flavorful light meal.  I bet this would be good with some tofu or even some shrimp.  Though I suppose shrimp would defeat the whole Meatless Monday…errr… Wednesday thing.

Cinco y Seis

Is it totally cliche to go out for Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo?  Because we definitely did.  Our weather was horrible all weekend – cold and rainy, but there was a small break on Sunday afternoon so Mexican food was had.

We went to Raging Burrito in Decatur.  Since it was Sunday, it was more laid back than it would have been had Cinco been on Sabado.  We went back and forth deciding on whether or not to get chips and guacamole but when our server said they were having a guacamole special, our minds were quickly made up.

Raging burrito guacamole

While the guac was good, I wouldn’t say it’s the best.  It’s too creamy.  I like when guacamole has big pieces of avocado in it.  That didn’t stop me from shoveling it my face though.  And it’s not Cinco de Mayo without a margarita.

Raging burrito margarita

Honestly, I don’t really like margaritas, but I felt like it was right to order one, so I did.  I had the Skinny Margarita which was made with agave and lime juice instead of sour mix.  I don’t know that it really has less calories, but I don’t like the taste of sour mix so it worked for me.

For my meal, I had the two taco plate with one Fajita Veggie Taco with mushrooms and one Tofu Taco.

Raging burrito taco plate

They were both good, but I liked the fajita veggie one more.  That margarita really did me in though and I was sort of a waste of space for the rest of the day.  This is why I don’t drink during the day.  Lesson never learned.  Really all that happened was that I fell asleep on the couch for a while.  Honestly, that probably would have happened regardless, but I felt lazy and unmotivated the rest of the day.

So we watched a movie – Celeste & Jesse Forever.  While I thought it was good (I love Rashida Jones), I also thought it was extremely depressing and sobbed through the entire thing.

And now here it is Seis de Mayo and it’s still freaking cold out.  See how I’m wearing a sweatshirt?!  Can I remind you that I live in Georgia?  HOTlanta?

Lee murphy

Murphy is clearly over my incessant instagram picture taking.

Since my food yesterday was on the heavy side, I went with something lighter for dinner tonight.

Mustard salmon

Cooking salmon at home is always sort of hit or miss for me, but this Roast Salmon with Whole Grain Mustard Crust was a hit. Salmon and brussels sprouts definitely cancels out chips and margaritas, right?

 

How to Be Happier

I’m kind of feeling some frustration in some areas of my life lately.  So what did I do? I went on to Pinterest and found some pretty words of inspiration to make me feel better.  How 2013 of me, right?

And now I can’t figure out how to embed a pin into my post. I swear I’ve done this before.  So, you don’t get the pretty images, I guess, but you can still see some of my favorite quotes that I found about five minutes ago.  I just didn’t know they were my favorites until then.

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted the sails.”  - Elizabeth Edwards

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”  - Leo Buscaglia

I promise there’s nothing going on, I’m just being weird.  But I have been thinking about how I need to do more things that make me happy and what those things are.  Maybe re-reading The Happiness Project should be one of them, actually.

• Keeping the house cleaner.  This is a huge, huge struggle for me.  I’m messy by nature and Jason’s worse than I am and even though we actually sprung for a monthly cleaning service, our house is still oftentimes a wreck and it really, really stresses me out.

• Read more.  When I was a kid and teenager, you know, before I spent all my time online, I used to be a pretty big reader.  I really enjoy reading, I just need to do it more.

• Support the local farmers market.  I often complain about the suburb that I live in.  It’s not walkable, it’s not trendy, there’s nothing here, etc.  But last year we got a pretty decent farmers market on Thursday evenings which is exactly the type of thing that I want for my community, so I was thinking that I really needed to show my support.

•  Cook more.  I think I’m pretty good about this, actually.  I would like to get into a better weekend prep routine though, so I don’t find myself scrambling for frozen meals when it comes to taking lunch to work, or find myself starving by the time I get home from dinner.  But I do cook and there was proof on my camera.

Roasted green beans mushrooms

This recipe for Green Beans with Mushrooms, Balsamic and Parmesan was absolutely wonderful.  So simple but yet so tasty.  It serves six and yet I had to refrain myself from eating the entire thing.  A repeat side-dish for sure.

Balsamic tomatoes mozzarella

If it would ever stay warm here, this would be a really good summer salad. I  know that some of you north of me are probably rolling your eyes, but the high is only supposed to be 57 on Saturday.  So, this was basically this Candied Balsamic Tomatoes and Mozzarella dish, only I didn’t use any sugar, so they weren’t candied.  And apparently I’m having a love affair with balsamic vinegar lately.

Quiona stuffed pepper

This was Pizza-Style Tomato Basil Quinoa Stuffed Peppers. While I really like the stuffing (which I was able to make in my rice cooker, score!), I went overboard and used a whole pepper and wished that I had only used half, like the recipe called for.  Or really that I didn’t stuff it at all and just ate the quinoa.  I don’t like whole roasted peppers.

Miso grilled veggies

Here we are getting to the end of the week where I got lazy.  I intended to make these Miso Roasted Veggie Tacos but didn’t have any tortillas, so I just ended up scrapping the rice altogether and making Miso Roasted Veggies.   I had this idea that if it put them on a flatbread, they’d be like a pizza, but it was like roasted veggies on a flatbread.  Still, the veggies were good.  Next time I’ll taco-fy them.  (Omg, taco-fy is a word?  It’s not underlining it!)

Massage kale egg

This was something that I came up with.  I probably saw it somewhere at some point, so if I stole your recipe, you can yell at me.

Massaged Kale Salad with Tomatoes and Fried Egg
Serves 2-3

1 bag chopped kale
1  avocado
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes 
salt to taste
eggs (however many you’d like)

1.  Put the kale in a large bowl and chop up the avocado into small pieces.
2.  With your hands (that hopefully you washed), massage the avocado into the kale for about a minute.
3.  Add nutritional yeast, red pepper and salt and massage for another minute.
4.  Add tomatoes.
5.  Refrigerate overnight.  (I’m not sure if this makes a difference, but I did it and I think maybe it’d make the kale more mild tasting.)
6.  Top with fried egg.  I wanted a runny egg ideally, but my yolk broke in the pan and it cooked.

I did find out that my new boss drinks smoothies with kale in them, so that’s always a good thing and has nothing to do with anything except that I posted a kale recipe.

/random  post

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