Dinner Tonight!

I think I need to make this for dinner tonight - yum! So many veggies are finally in season, making a trip to the farmer's market this weekend keeps sounding like a better idea!

Via The Seattle Times





What the heck?!

I've been seeing some pretty interesting products at the grocery store lately... how exactly do you cook 'beef liver sliced' or a whole goose?!  

Safeway on 75th



QFC on Roosevelt



Funny!

Hilarious! I haven't learned how to do a snatch yet, though I'm not sure I'd want to wear this shirt out in public even if I knew what I was doing.  Wikipedia's definition of a snatch if you're curious!

via Manimal Wear





Mama Melina's Tropicale Salad

A couple of weeks ago I went to Mama Melina's for lunch with the girls. I wouldn't recommend going here if you're trying to avoid gluten and cheese, it took all of the will power I could muster to stop myself from ordering a heaping plate of pasta. I was pleasantly suprised at how good a Hawaiian inspired dish could be at an Italian restaurant.  Funny.  This salad was very easy to recreate at home, I combined romaine lettuce, hearts of palm, pineapple, corn and chicken and made a quick dressing using olive oil and lime juice.  Perfect for the sunny weather we're starting to see in Seattle!

Curried Cauliflower

Sometimes after a long day at work, a tough workout or any other excuse I can think of I don't feel like making myself dinner. This inevitably leads me straight to prepared food section at Whole Foods. Last week I dished myself up a generous portion of their curried cauliflower and though delicious, it was dripping with oil. Yuck.  Nom Nom Paleo had a easy sounding Roasted Curried Cauliflower recipe, I tried it out this week with astounding success.  Yum!

Right before going in the oven

This is actually really good for breakfast!

Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower, cut into bite sized florets
• Melted coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons curry powder (I used Penzey's Maharajah Curry Powder)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Half a lemon or several tablespoons of lemon juice

Directions: Preheat over to 450 degrees.  In a large bowl toss the cauliflower, coconut oil, curry powder, salt and pepper.  Place the cauliflower on a foil lined baking sheet and cover tightly with another piece of foil.  Roast for 15 minutes, remove the top piece of foil and continue roasting for an additional 20 minutes.  If you have time I would suggest flipping the florets every so often.    Plate and serve with lemon juice. Enjoy!

Dessert!



Not eating refined sugar presents a bit of a problem when you're craving dessert.  I found these two recipes on The Kitchn and am dying to try them!





Chocolate Avocado Mousse via The Kitchn





Banana Ice Cream via The Kitchn



Sleep Like an All Star

The Kid sent this to me yesterday - pretty interesting!  There's a few fun facts and a graph of much sleep famous athletes get every night.  I wish I could get 9 or 10 hours! Someone's bringing down the average, I'll give you hint, it's a guy.  This made me laugh, I wonder what he's doing at night instead of sleeping?! HA!

Sleep Like an All Star

Giada's Asparagus and Zucchini Crudi

I was channel surfing last weekend and starting watching Giada's Everyday Italian on the Food Network.   She made a very simple asparagus and zucchini crudi.  I've been trying to eat more raw vegetables and this was perfect! 

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch asparagus, trimmed
• 2 zucchini, trimmed
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Salt & pepper to taste

Directions: Using a vegetable peeler, shave the zucchini into long thin strips.  Thinly slice the asparagus on a diagonal. Combine the zucchini and aspargus in a large bowl and toss with the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Enjoy!

Doesn't This Food Look Amazing?!

So I'm back on my paleo kick for the month of May.  I'm only 6 days in but so far it's going really well!  Paleo is essentially eating only animal protein, veggies, healthy fats and some fruits and nuts.  No bread, dairy, rice, refined sugar, etc etc.  The first thing people usually ask when I tell them about eating paleo is some form of 'what do you actually eat?!' The Kitchn had a great post today - A Peek Into the Paleo Diet: Dinner with Philip & Lenora.  Doesn't the food look amazing?! This is the type of stuff you get to enjoy when you eat paleo. Yum!!


via The Kitchn



Egg Cups

Finally got around to making those egg cups from a couple weeks back.  So incredibly easy!  I didn't use a recipe - just greased up a muffin tin, cut some turkey deli meat slices in half and laid them in the bottom of the cups.  Added one egg in each tin and sprinkled some black pepper, garlic and dried basil on the top.  I baked them for about a half an hour on 350 degrees.   Maybe next time I'll add some tomatoes, pesto or some other fun ingredient.  Enjoy!



Penzey's!

I went on a little field trip yesterday to Penzeys Spices in downtown Seattle.  If you have 20 minutes to kill I highly recommend it! I smelled just about every single spice and extract in the store, it was a little bit of a sensory overload.  I originally went in looking for a southwest/taco/fajita seasoning without salt (I need to get ready for Cinco de Mayo!) but wasn't very successful. They did have a lot of delicious smelling curry blends - I picked up the Maharajah Style Curry Powder. I hope it tastes as good as it smells!

Bought some garlic powder too!

Roasted Mushrooms

I tried out the roasted mushroom recipe from The Kitchen and they turned out great! Much easier then sauteing in a pan.   I enjoyed these with some bacon wrapped chicken (healthy I know).

Right before they went in the oven

They look a little gross but they were delicious!

A Few Ideas

I haven't tried out any new recipes in the last week or so, I'm starting to get back logged! Here are some of the options I've been eyeing, you should probably try them out and let me know if they're work making!

Roasted Mushrooms with Herbs - this looks amazing! I'm thinking these mushrooms would be excellent with some honey-balsamic marinated flank steak.

via The Kitchn

Make Your Own Curry Recipe Maker - I found a link to this site while browsing through The Kitchn.  I've made curry quite a few times without any sort of recipe, I love all the ideas this gives you!  I also saw a awesome looking recipe for curry yesterday on Everyday Paleo, I need to try this one too!

Red or Green Thai Curry via Everyday Paleo

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas - I'm not gluten free but I love reading the Gluten Free Goddess for inspiration and the pretty pictures. I saw sweet potatoes and enchiladas in the same sentence and was sold on the idea of making these. Maybe for Cinco de Mayo?!

via Gluten Free Goddess

Another NY Times Article

You need to read this! What's the Best Exercise via The New York Times.

Pretty interesting though some of this seems like common sense.   We actually do A LOT of squats and burpees at crossfit, can't really say that they're my favorite.  

Via CrossFit Santa Cruz

Wing Dome

The Kid and I went out to the Wing Dome in Kirkland last night to cheer on Matt while he undertook the 7 Deadly Wings Challenge.  He ate them like a champ and licked the last bits of sauce off his fingers just before the time ran out. I wonder how he's feeling today?!

I didn't eat any 7 alarm wings (extreme spicy is not my thing) but I did try out 4 of the other flavors AND some pickle chips. As usual it's go big or go home if you're going to eat a bunch of unhealthy crap.  The hands-down favorite between The Kid and I was the Sambal Peanut Sauce wings, who knew peanuts and chicken would be such an amazing combination?! I'll have to try to find a recipe for these online...

Channeling our inner Snooki

I didn't get to eat these all myself, I had to share. LAME!

Sweet Potato Latkes

The Kid made me sweet potato latkes last weekend!  Is there anything better than a fried sweet potato?! I've been wanting to try these for awhile now and they were just as good as I thought they'd be.  Enjoy with a little (or a lot of) sour cream.  There are tons of recipes for these online, All Recipes and Epicurious had decent offerings.  Next up - zucchini latkes?!

Delish!



Latkes taste even better if made while wearing this shirt!



Copy Cat

Last week I met Sara at the Cheesecake Factory in Bellevue, and as usual, deciding what to order took forever.  Their menu is extremely overwhelming! Are the multiple pages really necessary?!  I got the avocado egg rolls and just about died they were so good! I HAD to make them at home.  There are a lot of recipes for these online, the one from Food.com seemed the most legit. Instead of making the actual deep fried egg rolls I decided to put all of the ingredients on a bed of crunchy romaine lettuce and use the dipping sauce as a salad dressing. You should stop what you're doing and make this right NOW! I followed the recipe pretty closely but didn't add the tamarind pulp because I couldn't find any at Whole Foods.  The dipping sauce ended up being fairly thick, when I make this next time I'll add a little more olive oil. Yum!

Cheesecake Factory Avacado Salad


Ingredients:


Dressing

• 3 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 pinch powdered saffron
• 1/2 cup cashews
• 2/3 cup fresh cilantro
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 cup olive oil (needs more)

Salad

• 4 cups of romaine lettuce
• 1 avacado, peeled, pitted and diced
• 3 tablespoons sundried tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon minced red onion
• 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro

Directions:  Combine all the ingredients for the dressing in a food processor and blend until creamy.  Combine the salad ingredients in a large bowl and top with the dressing. You'll probably end up with extra dressing but that's a good thing! Enjoy!

Cooking fail

Cooking an egg in a tomato seemed so simple until the tomato burst....at least it was delicious! Maybe next time I'll try cooking the tomato in a mini muffin tin?  The options are pretty much endless for what you could add into the tomato, I put some pesto into the bottom before cracking the egg.  Yum!

For some reason this makes me laugh

Pesto makes anything better



Weekend Project

I try to eat breakfast at home on weekdays as there aren't very many healthy options in downtown Seattle.  If I don't eat before I reach the office I usually fall prey to the delicious baked goods from Specialty's... bad news bears. 

Recently my favorite lunch buffet place started serving breakfast. Yup, I took a picture.  See that cute little ham and egg cup in the upper left hand corner?  I hadn't seen anything like it before but apparently there are a lot of recipes online for variations of ham and eggs cooked in a muffin tin.  Who knew?  This recipe from Epicurious got really good ratings, I'm considering making it this weekend.  Maybe sub turkey for the ham?

I'm also thinking about making the tomato egg cups I saw at the kitchn.  They look delicious!



Cute little ham and egg cup!



Tomato Egg Cups at At La Casita Inspirada



Ick!

Guess what I found in my Trader Joe's baby spinach AFTER I'd finished most of the bag?!  Yuck.  I know that people eat grasshoppers in some parts of the world but this really isn't saying very much about TJ's quality control.   On the bright side I'm sure there is A LOT worse things to find mixed in with your veggies.