Monthly Archives: March 2011

The Meaningful Ones

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Thinking about the warm weather, and coming back to cold weather has been on my mind lately. I try not to let the weather bring me down, but sometimes it’s hard! Something I thought about the other day is that weather is humbling for me. Weather and mother nature are greater than our expectations of it. Wind can make fun of me when it pushes me forward or gets me eating my own hair. The breeze welcomes me to relax into it. When it rains sometimes I imagine that clouds are just giant sprinklers and I can run through them. Whatever it may be like outside, it’s bigger than me and I’m okay with that.

I loved being able to have the windows open in the morning and breathing in fresh air.

Stepping outside and feeling warmth on my skin.

Brötchen for breakfast.

My parents frequent the several German bakeries in their area and always bring home things that are nostalgic for me.

Hopefully soon I’ll be back over in Germany walking to the bakery and bringing home some freshly baked rolls!
Over the break I also tried some local bee pollen.

This had such a curious taste, and I can’t really explain it but I’m not complaining.

I had to buy another bar because little Matilda ate the entire bar one night!

By some miracle she did not get sick at all! That whole bar is twice the amount that is toxic for her, and I don’t know how she managed to eat something that is almost as long as her. She’s a supa freak! [Supa freak, supa freakayyy! Ow!]

Chilled oatmeal, incognito chopped dates, diced apple, Greek yogurt, honey, bee pollen, and…
Toasted hemp seeds with sea salt-yum.
We went to a place where you could browse through a long list of beers.

I am all about options, and I chose a pear cider. This was so yummy, and tasted like an “older kid’s” version of pear juice in a box.

Followed by the one blurry picture before my camera died.
Threw together a random lunch

Raw red Russian kale with dressing, leftover yellow split pea soup, and…

During the week I made a batch of refried beans and coconut-sesame seed rice.

The coconut-sesame seed rice recipe is from my “Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners” book, and I’ll give you a brief description so maybe you can give it a try! Cook some basmati rice with ghee and salt. Then when the rice is done cooking, heat up some ghee in a small pan and fry equal amounts of shredded coconut and sesame seeds till they’re lightly browned. Mix in with the cooked rice, salt to taste, and garnish with cilantro. I’ve posted about this recipe before. It’s so simple and incredibly flavorful!

Guess who joined us halfway through the week!

Emily was staying a few hours away from us for a few days, and then she decided she was ready for girl time!

Ohh the beach, how I love you!
One of the days after soaking in some sun I wanted to share, in my humble opinion, one of the best ice creams.
Mmm vanilla island coconut ice cream

This is going to sound corny, but this really is coconut bliss.

And they all agreed!

Apparently Coconut Bliss has come out with four new flavors, and one of them is on my radar–ginger cookie caramel!

During my break I wanted to take on a culinary challenge.

I had bookmarked Marni’s White, Red, and Green Italian Braid recipe awhile ago, and I thought this was a good time to finally make it!

Mix it well!
My fillings of choice: homemade pesto, tomato sauce, (all marinated) roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, mozzarella, and goat cheese.
No parchment paper made this step a bit tricky.
But the challenge was completed!
Delicious! You could make this bread on a free night and have slices throughout the week when you’re on-the-go.
We also spent some time strolling along and people watching.
Found charming streets
A hideaway perhaps?
A special dinner was in order–to celebrate my mother’s recent promotion.

She’s such an intelligent woman and is so dedicated to what she does! Hearing her stories from work and her benevolent attitude towards the people that work for her makes me proud.

My mom had fun taking pictures of us girls goofing off, and I’m pretty sure she was being silly behind the camera too.
Coconut curry bursting with tofu, pineapples, and vegetables.

I hadn’t gone out for Thai food in such a long time! I requested that they also add some grated ginger, and much to my delight I saw AND tasted that they actually did. I’m never afraid to make special requests. If you’re polite about it then why not? I was left feeling satisfied and with yummy leftovers.

There was a special dinner the next night as well.

I steamed a bundle of asparagus and sprinkled on sea salt, drizzling of lemon juice, and a pat of butter. For the mushrooms I sautéed onions and garlic, then I turned down the heat and threw in the mushrooms with some salt and herbes de provence. Once the mushrooms softened I turned the heat down to low and mixed in a splash of balsamic, a few spoonfuls of goat cheese and Greek yogurt, and some cracked peppercorns. Let it simmer for a bit so the flavors blend together. Now the mashed potatoes were just a basic recipe but there was a special ingredient: black truffle salt. I served that with a pat of butter as well.

Filled with lots of love…
For my friends and family!
We were sad to leave and so was Lone Duck.
But I hope they come down with me again soon!
I love my friends with all my heart.

Spending the week with them in paradise was wonderful. I live with Emily right now, and we just have such a great understanding and appreciation for each other. I always feel funny just calling her my roommate because she is so much more than that to me. She is someone that I can stand in flamingo stance with while talking about our thoughts on life and the world around us. Sway is also one of the coolest ladies that I’ve ever met. She lives further up north so I don’t get to see her that often, but it’s always really nice when we do. We’ll have the same thoughts or do the same things as each other and it can be really freaky sometimes, but I love it! Actually, there was a week where I was eating lots of roasted beets and grilled goat cheese sandwiches, and when I told her that she told me that she had been making them too! It’s so awesome to be so connected with someone. These ladies are so easy to be around, and I can’t think of a time where we felt like making a fuss towards each other. I bet that the people they encounter in their lives can’t help but feel touched and graced by their presence. Both of them are so special and  thinking about them and that they are in my life brings me peace.

I think we all have those special people in ours lives that seem to complete us.

Sharing the Sun with My Friends

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Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well. It’s been a little while since my last post, and a lot has happened in the world, hasn’t it? Before I jump into my post I just wanted to share some links with you all that help towards the relief efforts over in Japan. When the news kept unfolding during the first couple of days my mind couldn’t help but wonder how the people in Japan were handling the situation. I know that Eastern thought is very different from the western mentality. While some in the west may be frantic, I had a feeling that the people in Japan were trying to be calm and collected about the situation. I think they already have a sense that the world is much bigger than they are, and that catastrophic things in nature are a part of it. Well, that’s just my thinking. Here are some links though that you all may be interested in:

Charity Navigator

American Red Cross

Search Dog Foundation

Direct Relief International

Last week I was in Florida with two close friends of mine for spring break. Oh my goodness, I wish we could all go back, but life doesn’t always work out like that. Atleast we have memories and pictures to look back on though, right?

We were ready to leave the cold weather behind.
A good way to use up the last of some Greek yogurt.
Pit stop for munchies.
Pit stop to escape a major creep that was harassing us on the highway.

We finally made it home after a lot of scary incidents. By the time we got my parents house all we wanted to do was go to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and I knew I wanted something refreshing.
Chilled oatmeal, diced apple, Greek yogurt, mixed nuts, and honey.
Papaya from our tree and an arepa de choclo from the local Colombian bakery
Then I found this gem in the cupboards.
My parents got honey from a local beekeeper.

This was one of the best honeys I’ve ever tasted. It was thick and had such a wonderful unique flavor. Whenever I get honey I try keep it local as it also helps with allergies. Later on we strolled along Mizner Park, an outdoor place for shopping, dining, and entertainment.

We stopped by a heavenly store.

As soon as I saw the words “Spice & Tea Exchange” I knew we had to go in. After oh-ing and ah-ing at all the wonderful blends of herbs and spices we settled on some to take home with us: almond cookie tea, blood orange smoothie tea, berry white tea, and black truffle salt. All of these things smelled deliciously potent, and my imagination started to get carried away.

After dinner we enjoyed some treats my step-dad brought back from the German bakery: cherry quark küchen and rhubarb quark küchen.
The next day involved the beach!
Packed some rye bread, homemade hummus, and some other goodies.
For dinner I made a cous cous, bean, and vegetable salad.

Add some goat cheese for the final ‘pow’.

Dinner was followed by spooky beauty treatments.
That was also the night before Matilda would shrink down to three times this size.

Despite it being warm, I felt like making yellow split pea soup.

You can click over here for the recipe. It’s simple and delicious.

Especially when you've got buttered rye bread for dipping.

One of my favorite parts of this trip was getting to hang out with some of my best friends.

They are the kind of people that are okay with sitting in silence, and don’t mind when I want to vent. Plus, they know how to have fun! Here’s a quote that sums up what I love about these ladies:

“Your friendships should be low maintenance. Life is stressful enough with work, relationships and family. You don’t need someone in your life that you dread contact with.“

-J. Harvey

Speaking of friends, I’d like to give a shout out to the beautiful, Jen! She used to write a food blog, and now she is back with a new blog! She’s also attending culinary school so it’ll be exciting to read about what she’s learning. Check it out here.

Oh and Matilda wanted me to show you guys her new look.

Stay tuned for the next recap!

p.s. my mother nominated me for a contest on Perricone’s site on Facebook, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you click this link and “like” my picture! But first you have to have “like” the Perricone MD page on Facebook. Thank you very much!

Sweet Surprises

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Hello, hello everybody! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Mine was quite an eventful one. Saturday was the Media Sponsor Launch Party for RVA Fashion Week.

So it was time to get fashionable, or should I say… more so than usual hehe.
I love the back of this dress, and it’s made entirely out of merino wool so what it does cover will stay warm, mwahaha!
With my awesome friend, David!

(Photo credit to Erik Fox)

It was a fun night, and I got to spend it with a lot of really great people. Eventually, this little lady had to go to bed because casting for the various fashion shows was the next day. I’ve been trying to avoid puffy eyes for these so sleep and water have been essential! I can’t believe the shows are only a month away.

The other day I got a wonderful surprise in the mail.

My dear Liz knows me very well! Butterfingers are one of my favorite candy bars of all time, and she sent me a package of some variations that I’ve never even seen before.

And there were some more hidden treasures.

Easter came early. I’d never tried a Cadbury creme egg so of course she also sent me some and the mini eggs as well! This made my day, and every other day that I’ve been enjoying my favorite candy bar. I also tried a creme egg and I thought it was so cool that they make the fondant look like an egg complete with yolk. I don’t like eggs, and I’ve got a sensitivity to them but these… oh these will sit well with me.

Another surprise! After months of drinking from this cup, just the other day I noticed the message at the bottom, “take life a little easier.”
My roommate and I decided we’d have artichoke night!
Steaming them wasn’t working out, so we roasted them instead.
With a squeeze of lemon juice we were ready to enjoy and watch a movie.

Taking it easy, you know?

After reviewing Bakery on Main I was inspired to make my own gluten-free granola.

I loved the texture and taste that the cornflakes had in Bakery on Main’s gluten-free granolas, so I tried looking up some recipes on line. I couldn’t really find what I was looking for  so what’d I do? Well, I took ideas from different recipes and made my own!

Bird-of-Paradise Gluten-Free Granola

This reminded me of anywhere it gets hot because of the coconut, dates, and banana chips… hence the title.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup cornflakes, crushed

1 cup puffed millet

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 cup dates, chopped

1/4 cup shredded coconut

1/4 banana chips, chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 coconut oil

a few spoonfuls maple syrup

Mix together the cornflakes, puffed millet, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, dates, banana chips, and coconut in a large bowl. Melt the coconut oil and stir in the maple syrup. Add to other ingredients and stir until coated. Pat into a 9 x 13-inch pan, and bake at 350 F until the flakes have browned a bit. Let it cool and break apart.

Oh beloved cluster!

I assure you this granola is so good that it is addictive!

Enjoyed with some Greek yogurt and caramelized blood oranges.
Moment of silence.
Now eat!

I wanted to bring up the question that I left you all in my last post, “what fear would you most like to conquer?” Some of the answers were things that I could definitely relate to. A lot of them had to with confidence, trust, and choices. I like to believe that we are all good in nature, but sometimes we end up picking up all these layers that make it harder to see our true inner-selves. Even makes it hard to trust ourselves as well! I’ve found that allowing time and giving compassion to myself has helped me grow into a more beautiful and fully-realized me. There are so many things that are beyond our control, but that doesn’t mean we have to have a solemn attitude. Instead, find acceptance in that, and learn to be flexible with the world. I think I’ll leave you guys with a great quote I once shared with you all by Nancy Stark Smith, one of the pioneers of contact improv, “the earth is bigger than you, so you might as well coordinate with it.“

May you have a cheerful start to this upcoming week!

So It May or May Not Seem

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It was so interesting to read all of your takes on energy, and letting yourselves free! I’d love to hear about things maybe some of you have noticed when you opened that bottle. Kelsey brought up something else I’d like to share with you all, “March is a wonderful month to really incorporate the practice of using our own energy to positively impact our lives and the lives of those we come in contact with…since after all, March is a month of birth and change and growth!” Spring is just around the corner so we can come out, come out wherever you are!

Tacos again!

I made Happy Herbivore’s Chickpea tacos topped with Trader Joe’s tomato-less salsa, romaine, cilantro, and scallions. I never thought of having chickpeas and tacos together. Crunch, crunch, munch!

Pita stuffed to the brim.

I finally got around to making the falafel burgers that LB has featured several times. To go with the falafels I made  tzatziki. This tasted like a falafel pita sandwich that you’d get at one of those lunch-carts that always have cheap and tasty food. Sometimes better than anything you’d get at a sit-down restaurant.

A new find from the Indian market.

These easy to chew biscuits are perfect for big babies.

Big babies like me!
Goo goo gaga

These practically dissolved in mouth, and reminded me of those yummy Digestive biscuits.

This other baby is saying “gimme gimme”.
The blue moon must’ve been out because I made the rounds at Whole Food’s hot bar.

I got a tiny bit of the things that interested me. Paying by weight adds up easily! My two favorite things were the a sweet potato dish (can’t remember what it was called) and the beet and goat cheese salad. I roasted some Gardein chipotle lime crispy fingers. They generously sent me some vouchers to try out their new products. These were similar to their seven grain crispy tenders, but had a spicy and tangy flavor. In case you’re interested here’s a $1.00 off coupon you can print off.

Also tried them in a deconstructed taco salad.
This is what you’d be getting.

Protein from a garden!

I also tried their mandarin orange crispy chick’n.

I served it over Chinese egg noodles and a side of cabbage crunch salad. I looked up the recipe for the salad after seeing it at the Whole Foods hot bar, and reading that I had all of the ingredients at home I decided to make it myself.

The sauce had a yummy flavor, and you could probably fool someone into thinking this was chicken.

Or maybe that’s because I haven’t had chicken in almost a decade. I usually don’t buy faux-meat products, but I like Gardein’s concept behind what they make. However, I did feel uneasy eating the mandarin orange chick’n because it had the texture and tasted a lot like, well, chicken. That could be a good thing depending on who’s eating it. I guess that’s the point of faux-meat products though, right? I remember once I tried a faux-chicken product, and I had to read the ingredients list over and over again because it was so similar to chicken.

Something else I thought had fooled me.

I got an orange, but when I saw pink…

I thought “Oh no! It’s a grapefruit.”

Grapefruits have never been up my alley. Then I found out that this was indeed an orange. A pink navel orange! Silly me.

My frown turned upside down, and I was off to the photoshoot!
One of our beautiful models, and the designer’s in our group dress.
Speaking of fashion, the other day I wore a shirt made out of two dish towels sewn together.
I also went to the shoe repair man to pick up my boots!

I fell in love with this place the first time I stepped in. Transporting me back to another time, I couldn’t help but snap a photo. This shoe repair store has been around for 100 years, so I’m not surprised! The man always greets me with the happiest smile and sweetest charm, which is hard to come by these days.

Awhile ago I was contacted by Kookie Karma to try some of their raw and holistic products. When I looked at what they had to offer I became very excited and couldn’t wait to try them!

I loved the packaging!

Like the idea behind the company: sweet and simple, the way life should be.

I love how you can tell these cookies are handmade.

Inspires me to go and make some of my own! They strive to guarantee freshness and the best in their cookies so they actually make everything fresh each week. I don’t know why but something about using simple ingredients from this good earth always leaves me feeling happy. The feeling of being resourceful and partaking in the natural way of life makes me feel connected to my ancestors and everything around me. I get that especially with gardening. Do you guys get that feeling too?

Raw Cherry Cashew : The cashew flavor was prominent taste in this cookie, and the dried cherries added a nice burst of flavor and varied the texture as well. There was a certain satisfaction that I got from eating this cookie as well because of its denseness and chewiness. Not to mention, even with baked cookies ones with a chewy texture are always my favorite.

Raw Lemon Fig : I wasn’t a big fan of this flavor. It didn’t taste much like anything, but it still had that rich texture these cookies have. It mostly tasted like cashews, which isn’t odd since that is the first ingredient. But with the words lemon and fig I was expecting something tart and more reminiscent of these two foods.

Holistic Chocolate Chip : The holistic cookies are not raw, instead they are made using their very own “Holistic Dry Mix” (Almond Meal, Xylitol, Coconut*, Brown Rice*, Psyllium, Rice Protein, Sea Salt). The chocolate chips are non dairy, no soy, and no sugar. This tasted like a chocolate chip cookie, but with a hint of coconut. You all know how much I love coconut, so this just made it even better! I need a whole box of these cookies!

Holistic Choco Lot : I’d like a whole box of these as well! This was the first cookie I tried, and oh my gosh! Boy was it rich, decadent, and full of chocolate love. Imagine the richest brownie you could possibly have… that was this cookie.

Wonderfully chewy and dense

I love how Kookie Karma has taken cookie recipes and redefined what they could be made out of. I imagine lots of experiments going on in their kitchen, and coming up with something new and delicious! All of these cookies are vegan, gluten-free, and high in protein. So if any of those things interest you, or the fact that you may love cookies is enough, then I suggest you check them out. They even have sampler packs you can purchase here. I’d also like to point out that they are truly gluten-free, since no gluten gets processed in their kitchen. Looking at all of the other flavors of their kookies, and other products like granolas and krackers I’d certainly pick them up if I saw them at the store. Not to mention I’m a sucker for packaging and these would catch my eye in an instant. I would definitely get the Holistic Chocolate Chip and Choco Lot kookies to have again. They tasted so good I can’t imagine only eating them once in my life.

Here’s a question for you. What fear would you most like to conquer?