Juicing for Beginners: Green Lemonade

A couple of months ago I watched the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead", which changed my whole outlook on what I eat. The guy in the film drank only juice for 60 days and completely cured himself of of his auto-immune disease! Now, I'm not advocating that everyone drink only juice and water for the next 2 months; I simply want to be a bit more conscious daily with what I eat. The best way I've found to do that is to drink green juice every morning for breakfast. 

Now, this juice is actually not my usual morning green juice (I will post that later), but my first "beginner" green juice. This juice is extremely refreshing and a great way to get yourself psyched up to try the more "green tasting" juices. First, you'll need to buy a juicer. I bought mine (a Breville) off of Craigslist for under $50, which is a great way to try out juicing. 

Next, the produce:

• 1/2 head of romaine lettuce (approximately 10 leaves)
• 1/2 large cucumber (or one small/medium one)
• 1/2 lemon, with most of the peel cut off and the pith (white part) remaining
• 2 medium apples

This is what I use, but the thing about juicing is that it's all about taste! If you like a bigger lemon taste, juice the whole lemon; if you want it sweeter, add another apple; cucumber bulks the juice up and refreshes the body. I use granny smith apples since they are also green, which makes the juice a bright green color and not brown, which happens when you add in red apples.

To make the juice simply use your juicer to juice all of these ingredients, and enjoy! I actually like to add a little filtered water and ice to this juice so that it is more refreshing and not a strong lemonade.  Still, like I said before, it is completely up to your taste-buds so experiment!

TJ's Chocolate filled with Cookie Spread

This...is my new(est) Trader Joe's obsession...

You know how much I LOVE Trader Joe's Products, but this is just crazy good. They take their new cookie spread (which is like Nutella, but with cookies instead of chocolate/hazelnut) and put it inside of creamy dark chocolate. This combination together makes for a very happy tummy! Plus this is the perfect thing to fix those Monday blues.

Happy Monday Everyone!

Chocolate-Banana-Almond Smoothie

When I was home taking care of my mom in November, there were only a few things she would eat. However, she usually wouldn't turn away smoothies or anything with chocolate. So to bulk up her nutrition intake, I put the two together and "created" this smoothie! 

At first I thought I was soooo original, but I have since seen similar smoothies on other websites. Alas, I am not as original as I first thought, but I love how easy it is to be creative with smoothies.

What you need:

1 frozen banana (peeled & chopped into large pieces before frozen)

3/4 to 1 cup almond or regular milk 

1 heaping T Nutella(c) or chocolate almond spread (I got mine at Trader Joe's)

1/4 t vanilla extract (optional)

1/2 mug of chopped ice

chocolate chips & walnuts for topping (optional)

Put all of the ingredients but the ice & toppings into the blender. The reason I put the a range for the milk amount is because you never know how thick "1 banana" will make the smoothie. So I feel it out more so than measure. Once everything is blended, add chopped ice to your liking to thicken the smoothie up a bit. This also makes it taste more like a milkshake than a smoothie.

Top it with your favorite toppings and your done! Mmmm, is this breakfast or dessert? I say both!

Want to make it even healthier? Use 1 tablespoon cocoa powder and 1 heaping tablespoon almond butter instead. Adjust the sweetness to taste with a touch of honey.

Restaurant Week, Meal 1: Taberna del Alabardero

So you know how much I LOVE restaurant week. It's a chance for me to completely destroy my budget for the month with just a few meals...and to have some great food. Sadly, my first meal was not near as tasty as it looked, nor was it worth the restaurant week price. 

My dining companion was gracious enough to let me try her food as well...so you get two tastings in this review! The picture on the top was their salad with a fried-hard-boiled egg, and on the bottom was the mussels & shrimp. The salad was probably the best thing we ate all night. It was lightly dressed and the fried egg was an interesting component. Would I go back just for the salad? No. But was it an interesting dish? Definitely.

The broth in the mussels was amazing (I couldn't stop dipping my bread in it). However, out of my three mussels, one had grit that was audible as I chewed, one tasted old (like it should have been thrown out) and the third was just ok. The rest of the dish (aside from the sauce) was simply underwhelming.

For the second course, I had the sea bream (top) and my friend the chicken (bottom). The sea bream had a strong fishy taste, which I know a lot of people gawk at when I say that, but fish should not taste super "fishy". A "fishy" fish is an old fish.

The chicken was chopped into bit size pieces before it was sauteed, which led to a very dry bite of chicken. The whole time I ate it I longed for a little sauce to help moisten my mouth ("why did they take my mussel sauce away?!"), but sadly there was none. I think the chicken would have been ok if it had not been chopped before cooking, but still, the dish needed more flavor to be considered for a restaurant week menu.

Finally, desert was rice putting and a bread pudding. Both looked lovely, and were not terrible, but at the same time they were not anything to write home about. I think we both only ate about half of our desserts.

So meal number one was a let down. I probably will not go back to this restaurant as there are TONS of Spanish restaurants in the city. Luckily, however, meal 2 was awesome! 

Stay tuned...

In Memory of My Mom

Tea at the Willard, Feb. 2011

I would like to dedicate this post to my mother who died on November 19th, 2011 after a second battle with breast cancer. You may (or may not) have been wondering why I have not posted in quite some time. Well, I was home the entire month of November and have not felt motivated to write during/after that time. However, in honor and memory of her, I thought that it was only appropriate that my first post in the new year be about the woman who inspired my love of food, my mom.

My mom taught me to cook at a very young age. When I was 7 or 8, I remember making chocolate chip cookies and talking to the wall as if I was on a cooking show like the Frugal Gourmet or Julia Child. No matter how much I begged, my mom would never buy me an easy bake oven; she told me that if I wanted to bake or cook, we should use the "big girl" oven. I am so glad she pushed me that direction, because if it wasn't for the use of that "big oven" experience I may have never caught the cooking bug.

My mom is also the one who bought my first stand mixer for me when I was 15 (yes, that's the number one gift I wanted for my birthday that year) and a bread machine when I was 16. We thought about starting a cookie flower bouquet business, but that quickly became too much for my high-school-self to handle. However, every year we baked cookies for my aunts/uncles as Christmas gifts, and it became a ritual that I now share with my younger cousins.

Escargot in Paris 2007; picture taken at mom's request (for proof).

Besides baking, my mom pushed me to try new foods and create new dishes. She is the reason I take pictures of my food at restaurants while traveling. She said that she wanted to experience all the foods I was eating, and could do so by seeing pictures of what I ate at every meal. When I came back from Paris, she did not ask "Did you see the Eiffel Tower?" but "What new food did you try?" and "Where's the proof that you ate snails?"

Just a few of my mom's side of the family around 1989

Mom gave me the food bug; the desire to not only make good food, but to create community around food. It always astounds people when I tell them that we have 40-50 people over for Thanksgiving. If you knew my mom (and her two sisters that cook with her), you would know that the size of our Thanksgivings wasn't just contributed to the amazing the food they prepared...but the bond of family. Mom was the glue that really held our family together.

Sweet tea and Paula Deen's, 2008

After her first battle with cancer ended almost 5 years ago, we went on a road trip to Savannah, GA to do what? You guessed it, eat. We planned out every meal (including of course a stop at Paula Deen's) then found interesting places to visit in between. When I travel for work, my co-workers joke that all I want to know is where we'll be eating! This habit definitely stems from our food-based vacations.

Thanksgiving 2008

All of this is not to say that my mom's only legacy was my love of food. She instilled in me a passion for building community, family ties, friendships, compassion toward others and acceptance among many other lessons. I miss my mother terribly, but I know her memory will live on in the traditions I will keep from baking cookies with my cousins at Christmas, to our big Thanksgiving family meals, and finally the recipes and lessons I will teach my kids some day.

I love you mom. Rest in peace.

2012 Restaurant Week: Winter Edition

You know me....I love eating out during Restaurant Week here in DC. I just received an email from my favorite booking website, Opentable.com, that the winter restaurant week is January 9-15!! Remember to book early since times fill up quickly.

Spencer's Coffee House - Bowling Green, KY

Today we take a journey a bit south to my homeland...Kentucky.  I'm currently living at home for a month to help take care of a sick family member.  I spend most of my day making pretty bland food for picky taste buds, but every so often I am able to take a break and get out of the house. The past two times that I left the house I ended up at the same place:  Spencer's Coffee House in Bowling Green, KY.

I love local coffee places. They feel so much more genuine than a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. Plus, there's nothing like drinking coffee or tea out of a real, ceramic mug.  The first time I visited this establishment I had their drip coffee of the day. I WISH I had photographed what kind of coffee it was because it was really delicious. The coffee was perfectly brewed and didn't feel like it had sat in a container all day (we drank the coffee at 9:00 at night...and you never know how long it's been there!).  The coffee was rich and not bitter, high in (excuse the snobby term) tannin which filled my whole mouth with balanced flavor notes. Basically, this was a darn good cup of joe!

Hooded Sweatshirt Latte

The second time we went, I had to try their hooded sweatshirt latte. Why? Well, first of all, with a name like "hooded sweatshirt" I was intrigued. Secondly, how can a drink be like a sweatshirt? I took my first sip and understood why. The flavors were similar to a "pumpkin spice" but surprisingly different at the same time. When I took a sip, I felt like I was enveloped in fall; warm, creamy and spicy. It's like I was...wrapping up in a hooded sweatshirt! Seriously, I wish I could take this mug of warmth home with me so that I could experience my favorite season, fall, in a cup every day.

The atmosphere at Spencer's is typical coffee shop, but the place had a nice homey feel to it as well. It could be the exposed brick, 10 foot high ceilings, or the hardwood tables and chairs...and yes, you can tell that this is where the KY hipsters go...but everyone was very friendly (I expect nothing less in the South!) and you can tell they are dedicated to their coffee. If you're ever driving through KY, you should totally take a little detour off the interstate to try this place!