Flavored Green Tea, Dinner Out and Self-Esteem

Today I had a different variation of green tea. This one was inspired by Emily and here is what I did. In a one quart jar I placed 5 matcha green tea bags, about 5 dried hibiscus flowers and approximately 28 ounces of cold filtered water and put this in the refrigerator overnight, but two hours is long enough. This morning I added the juice on one fresh orange and strained the tea and served it over ice. By making this tea using a cold brewing method I am maximizing the amount of vitamin C that remains from the hibiscus. The tea was a beautiful pink color and a nice flavor and also had the health benefits from the green tea. I really enjoyed this and hope you will give it a try when you are looking for something other than plain green tea.

Dan is swamped at work and needed to go downtown today to work. *boo hiss* However to soften the blow a little he suggested we go out to dinner. I know you might be thinking, dinner out again? Yep, I am definitely one soiled wife that is for certain.

Dinner out for us is more than just the food or my not needing to cook. Of course we love the food but we also love everyone at the restaurant both in the front and back of the house. Going out to dinner for us is relaxing and a chance to chat with everyone. We are very fortunate to have a wonderful neighborhood place to hang out and relax.

When we walked in Amy told us that our table was ready and that she had a surprise waiting for us and had to go into the kitchen to get it. The surprise was that our Aimee was working tonight. We were surprised but were also very happy to see her. Aimee has finals coming up next week so we didn’t expect her to be working this evening. However Corey was short staffed so she worked a double. Don’t you love nice surprises like this?

I started the evening in the kitchen like always chatting with Ian. Will was making a sauce and had a flaming pan which it turned out was our first dish. He was burning the alcohol off the tequila and infusing it with heat from fresh Thai chilies (with the seeds). As you probably know but now since Will was working tonight it meant that I didn’t have to think about what to order since he had things planned out for us.

The first dish was a tequila and Thai chilie flamed watermelon salad with radishes, cucumbers and red onions. This salad was spicy and delicious. I loved the aroma of tequila that this salad had as well as the heat from the chilies.

The second course was a whole wheat noodle sauce with red bell peppers, snow peas, shitakes, and green onions with a spicy tahini sauce on the side that was so good Dan asked Will what was in it and he never does that.

Our third course was a warm black bean and corn salad with crispy tortilla chips.

The fourth and final course was an arugula salad topped with fruit, balsamic glaze and sliced almonds. This was something we asked for to end the meal on a sweet note.

Other than the hard rain that had started before we left the restaurant it was a fabulous evening. I had a slight problem with Facebook thinking that I wasn’t me and locking me out of my account. At least that was partially resolved when I got home. Facebook is still a little wonky but hopefully I will figure it tomorrow once I have gotten some sleep. *fingers crossed*

Self-Esteem:

Today I was thinking about one of my dear friends and their self-deprecating sense of humor and that led me to contemplate self-esteem. I get very upset when this friend says unkind things about themselves but I also know that my friend isn’t the only person that does this. When any of us are self-critical I believe that we are poisoning ourselves. How you value and treat yourself is telling the world how you want to be treated in my opinion. Conversely when you love and respect yourself others will treat you better as well.

Women seem to have more difficulty being kind to themselves than men. I think that is because we all tend to put everyone ahead of ourselves. Why do we all do that? Also why do so many of us have difficulty thinking positive things about ourselves? Most of the people I know have a tough time finding nice things about themselves. I will be the first to admit that I am a perfectionist and find it easier to identify my flaws than my strengths. However I also know that focusing on what we like about ourselves is always better.

I thought it would be good for all of us to think of (and list) the things we love about ourselves. Most of the people I know find it very difficult to say anything nice about themselves so I thought it would help for me to go first. Here is what I love about myself:

• I love my courage
• I love that I am a survivor
• I love that I am determined
• I love my generosity
• I love that I am compassionate and caring
• I love my long hair and my cheekbones ;-)
• I love that I have time to share my healthy journey which I feel might be making a small difference in the world.

Okay so now it is your turn. Please try to think of at least three things that you love about yourself. If you are inclined to share what you love about yourself please let us all know in a comment to this post. Better yet can you find one thing each day to like/love about yourself?  When I am having a particularly tough week I feel better when I focus on what I like about myself.  I hope the same things works for you.

Happy Thoughts:

• We had a lovely evening out this tonight. Dinner was delicious and the company was excellent as always. It was great to see Aimee this evening which we didn’t expect.  It as also nice to see Amy back at work and looking fabulous after her major surgery. When we talked to Will this evening we heard his presentation earleir this week got an A. It is always nice to get good news isn’t it?

• I had a nice day today catching up on a few things at home. I wasn’t thrilled that Dan had to work today but it was good to have time get a few things accomplished here.  I am enjoying working on my vision board, and it is long overdue.

• I am very excited to be picking up a tray of organic wheat grass from Pam at our CSA Sunday morning. It is going to be fantastic to juice fresh wheat grass tomorrow.  *woo hoo*

• Tomorrow is the first day of our CSA pickup and that is going to be great. I am looking forward to getting back to the market in the morning. Being up so late Saturday night may mean a nap will be in order by that is a small price to pay for fresh local organic produce. *happy dance*

• I finished “The 21-Day Conscious Cleanse” today and really enjoyed that book. With a little luck I will get the review up tomorrow.

• Guess who will be taking off work next week for my birthday? Isn’t my husband sweet to do that for me? I don’t think the weather is supposed to be good but that doesn’t matter since we will be spending my birthday together.

Signing Out:

Since 6am is going to come early tomorrow morning we should have been asleep a while ago. Sorry for such a quick post but I need to turn in soon so that we can make it to the farmers’ market early tomorrow morning. I am looking forward to picking up a tray of wheat grass juice tomorrow morning. *woo hoo*

Talk to you again tomorrow. I hope you are having a great weekend too.

Eating Out and Making Changes

Technology is wonderful until it doesn’t work and then it isn’t so great. Blogger has been acting up since Thursday. For those of you whose comments got lost I apologize. I did see them by email but can’t post them now since they have somehow disappeared. Like I said I love technology, when it works. It seems to be back up now and that is good thing. Let’s hope it stays that way for a while. I shouldn’t complain since Blogger is fairly stable.  Since it has been a little while since I could get a post up I am abbreviating this one to leave out the dull stuff. ;-)

Thursday we ended up going out to dinner, and you all know who cooked by now. Yes, of course it was Ian. We made it to the restaurant late, after 8pm, and even had to wait for a table. The weather was gorgeous so everyone was out on the patio. Since Will wasn’t working I did my usual routine of scanning the menu and then heading into the kitchen for a hug from Ian and to chat about what he could make vegan for us.

As soon as I walked into the kitchen he handed me a package of “feuille de brick” which is the pastry he uses to make his version of samosas. Apparently he and Dan were talking about it Wednesday night (while I was in cooking class Dan was hanging out with Ian and the gang) so Ian thought I would want to play with some at home. Seriously isn’t Ian just the nicest guy? He is always doing things like that for us. Is it any wonder that we adore him so? ;-)

After we talked about the items Ian had on the special’s menu we settled on the following options:

We started with the tomato, chickpea and spinach soup which was vegan and very nice. I love that there is almost always a vegan soup on the menu these days. Go Ian!

Next we had the sesame noodle appetizer that was simple to modify to make vegan for us. This version was served cold and was spicy (undoubtedly from sriracha), had pickled watermelon rind, shitakes, and chunks of avocado. Seriously, this stuff was delicious. How did he think of pickled watermelon rind in here? I love to see the combinations that he comes up with.

Our entrée was tofu in romesco sauce with couscous and wilted spinach. The sauce on this was amazing because Ian makes the best sauces. They are always complex and flavorful. I would happily eat his sauces with a spoon like soup. ;-) I have said for years that eating Ian’s food has made me a better cook and I hope my describing his dishes is helping you to think of new ways to combine foods.

There was an interesting table sitting next to us that was a group of men, between my age and Dan’s that seemed like they were either FBI or CIA. They had very big personalities and voices and you couldn’t help but overhear their conversations. There weren’t enough details that you could figure out specifics but let’s just say the world is not a pretty place from what little I could make out. *shivers* Over hearing atrocities does have a way of making me appreciate the relative calm of my life.  It is very sad that the world is such a scary place.

Changing Your Perspective:

While reading a book today it asked me to list the three situations that were the most difficult in my life and then to see them from various perspectives: mine, the perpetrator and what lesson it taught me. There are times in life when situations seem all bad until you step back and reflect on them. I wanted to share the details with you so that you can think of these things for yourself. This isn’t easy for me but I think it might help someone else so I wanted to put myself out there.

Many years ago, over 30 to be specific, I was the victim of a violent rape at knife point. It was a very difficult time in my life because I was young (just turned 18) and had never experienced violence. This situation forced me to grow up quickly and deal with something that I never thought would happen to me. However it did prove to me that I was stronger than I thought and capable of handling things that I never imagined. Additionally it had the impact of making me more cautious of other human beings going forward which may have saved me from a more serious situation later on.

If you had asked me what good came out of this before today I would have thought that question was irrational. However when I sat back and thought about it I realized there actually was a silver lining. Before the attack I was a very trusting person to a fault. This situation made me much more cautious but in a protective way.

I can say the same thing about cancer being a learning experience. If it hadn’t been for the cancer we would still be abusing our bodies with unhealthy lifestyles and indulging ourselves. However after the cancer I feel like I was put here to share my lifestyle with anyone that wants to get healthy so that they can possibly avoid chronic disease. You have no idea how much it means to me that I get so many hits here on the blog, Twitter and Facebook. As I have said many times if only one of you modifies your lifestyle I feel that I have made a difference in the world.

So why am I telling you this and what do I hope you will take out of it. I think most of us get into a rut and tend to see ourselves in various roles. Some of the roles I tend to see are: victim, martyr, hero, dumb pretty one, smart ugly one, the fat friend, the nice one who never gets a guy/girl, etc. Why do we tell ourselves stories like this? If I had taken the rape and cancer and turned myself into “a victim” how do you think I would behave now? Would I go out alone for long walks or would I stay safely at home? Would I be reading everything on cancer to try to try to help the situation or would we just be letting medical science take control? Do you see where this is going?

The problem with putting yourself into a role is that you get stuck. Victims can’t help themselves since they are powerless, martyrs can’t be happy since they have to suffer for others, fat friends will never lose weight, the nice one will never find love, etc. When we tell ourselves stories we are shutting ourselves off to possibilities. Many people let their histories dictate who they are now and more importantly what they can/will become in the future. However if you see each new moment as a chance to do something differently, see the world differently, then you can change.

I will give you another example that may make more sense. Let’s say you want to lose weight or get healthier but you tell yourself that you can’t give up your favorite foods. When you do that you are putting up a roadblock to making real change. If you know you want to be healthier then ask yourself how you can expect to continue your old habits but still somehow change your health. Does that actually make sense?

If your whole life you ate meat, dairy, sugar and flour and you want to be healthier why do you think that if you continue to eat those things your health will improve? I can imagine what many of you are thinking now. But if I change the quantity of what I consume that will make a change. Really? Haven’t you tried that in the past? Did it work long term? Before you say yes if it did work then you wouldn’t still need to make a change now would you? Could it be that you are telling yourself a story? We have all heard that phrase about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing and expecting different results. At the very least it is something to think about. For any of you that want to be healthier I would only suggest that you ask yourself some tough questions to see if there are any changes you are willing to make. You can always return to your old habits if it doesn’t work. However if you never try, you will never know what could happen if you did change.

In summation if you want to change your life, or your outcome you can do it but you have to be willing to change how you see yourself. You also have to be willing to change how you do things. If you stay stuck in the vision or yourself, and/or your habits, things are not going to change. Please give this concept some thought before you dismiss it as new age psycho babble.

Happy thoughts:

• This week has been extremely busy but also fairly good. Dan and I had a nice dinner out on Thursday. Whenever we go out to eat I am reminded how fortunate we are to have Ian around the corner. We are very spoiled to have somewhere that is a short drive or walk away where we can get gourmet vegan food. Not to mention that Ian always gives me ideas just from looking at the menu.

• Our weather has been fantastic this week. There really is nothing like spring weather. Fortunately there has been little rain this week which has allowed me to air out the house and I love that.

• Today I was able to actually put on my running shoes on and get in a little walk. My toe still hurts however it has vastly improved. Tomorrow I have a long walk planned if the weather holds up. *happy dance* I am very much looking forward to hitting the pavement again.

• Friday I ran some errands and checked on my parents who are both holding up well. It is nice to be able to help them out in their advancing years. I am fortunate to have the time and ability to be able to do that.

• With my birthday coming up next week I have been reflecting on what I want to be when I grow up. Since it is time that I figure this out I decided to work on a vision board for myself. To get that moving today I started painting a cork board to hang in the family room. I hope to have my vision board finished by the end of next week and when I do I will share it with you. After all if you don’t know where you are going then you probably aren’t going to end up where you want to be right?

• Big news today from Pam at our CSA. We got an email that she will be bringing us a tray of wheat grass to the market on Sunday. *yay* I am very excited that we will be juicing wheat grass on Sunday. *happy dance*

Signing out:

I hope that you had a great week. Mine was good even though it was busy. It is wonderful that today is Friday *woo hoo* as you all know I love the weekends. I have a few fun things planned for the weekend that I will tell you about soon.

Ottmar Liebert and Cooking Class

My week has been one big blur. I am not complaining though because it has also been a good week, just a crazy busy one.

Ottmar Liebert at Ram’s Head On Stage:

Tuesday night Dan and I went to Annapolis with Walid and Jackie to hear Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra play at Ram’s Head On Stage. It was a good show and I still loved the music as much as ever. I can’t believe Ottmar recorded his first album in 1990. Darn I am getting old.

Fortunately for us they had a veggie sandwich (no cheese) on the menu as well as roasted red pepper hummus. They only had black tea (no green or white) but still the food options were better than I expected. The last time we were at Ram’s Head I don’t remember a veggie sandwich. Next time I would have them hold the aioli which was too much. They also had a black bean soup but with the weather getting warmer I wasn’t really in a soup mood.

It won’t surprise you to hear that I had packed some homemade trail mix in my purse just in case we needed a little something more to eat. Dan had a little bit of the trail mix but only because it was there I think.

Wednesday:

How is it Wednesday already? This week has just been flying by. The good part is that means that the weekend will be here sooner that I expect to.

Breakfast for me this morning was savory oatmeal. I haven’t had that in at least a week so it was definitely time to for a little oatmeal this morning. This version included: oats, water, nutritional yeast, no-salt seasoning, cumin, black pepper, freshly ground flaxseeds, wheat germ, broccoli, salsa and marinated mushrooms. I omitted the raw pumpkin seeds this morning because I know that the dinner we had last night contained far more fat than I am accustomed to eating.

After breakfast I had a few things to get finished at home. My week has been so busy that I am not as organized as usual which makes me a little nervous. I also needed to get some prepared food in the refrigerator to make my quick grab and go meals. That meant pressure cooking beans and making a few veggie sides that can be used on salads or to top whole grains.

I also had to spend a little time cleaning (the bane of my existence). Have I said recently that I don’t like to clean? Really I don’t enjoy it and rather view it is as a necessary evil. There are many other things that I would prefer to be doing other than cleaning. As I said to my friend Jackie last night, “Martha Stewart does not live at my house”.

The weather is absolutely incredible now in Baltimore. All day the skies were blue, there was a very gentle breeze and the temperatures reached the mid 70’s. I don’t think the weather could be more perfect now.

My lunch today was a huge salad (in a serving bowl like usual) of: organic baby spinach, white bean cheeze (made thinner with extra liquid), salsa, marinated mushrooms and a small white potato (for extra calories because I was hungry at lunch time). As you can see in the picture above my fur children love the smell of nutrition yeast. I need to remember to ask the vet if they can have that because they are all attracted to it.

Next it was time for me to run to Home Goods before cooking class. I have been buying items to set up a little meditation space at home and have been looking for additional things to add to that area. As soon as I get it set up I will post pictures and explain more about what I am doing.

Cooking Class:

Since class tonight was seafood pasta I was curious to see how the teacher was going to change the recipes for me (which I still feel bad about since I don't like to be a bother).  Here is what was made tonight, the omni and vegan versions. I hope this gives those of you with omni family members some ideas on how to make one meal that can be easily tweaked to add animal products for those that aren’t ready to change their diet yet. ;-)

The first seafood pasta was whole wheat pasta with clams. It also contained garlic, fennel, wine, lemon, capers, and fresh diced tomato.

My pasta was just the veg and a little bread crumbs and was delicious. I thought my vegan version of this was fine without the clams and did not require any additional modifications. Since the clams were cooked in the veg and wine broth the vegan version had to be made separately. However since the veg was all the same you only need to use a second pan for the vegan version.

The second seafood pasta was shrimp, feta and pasta with pesto. The pesto was made with arugula and the pasta also included broccoli, red bell pepper, olives and whole pine nuts for texture.

My version was only pasta and veg and had plenty of flavor from the arugula pesto and lemon. You could have topped this dish with nut cheese and added either cooked beans or chunks of tofu. This was another dish that needed a separate pan and to pull out some of the pesto before adding the cheese.

The final seafood pasta dish was a roasted salmon with lemon and herbs on top of spring vegetable orzo with tarragon and lemon.

My pasta was the veggies and pasta only. The vegan version had plenty of flavor from the vegetables, Dijon, and fresh herbs. This dish was the easiest to modify since the salmon was baked. Alternately you could have baked a piece of lemon marinated tofu that you topped with herbed bread crumbs.  The braised baby artichokes in white wine and lemon really made this dish.

I think this is a great example of how you can take one set of raw materials and make two different meals, one omni and one vegan. After you have been doing this for a while it becomes second nature. In fact many of you ask where my recipe ideas come from and in the beginning they were omni dishes that I made vegan because the vast majority of my cooking experience is still omni. Now I don’t really think about the missing elements it is more a matter of combining food/flavor combinations that I know will work based on my experience. I hope that gives you some ideas of how to take your favorite flavors and make them into vegan dishes.

Happy thoughts:

• Our weather is nothing short of amazing right now. I love it when the temperatures are in the mid-70’s and there is little humidity. Too bad Baltimore weather can’t be like this more often. We have had the windows open for days and both the humas and felines have been soaking up the fresh air.

• All of us had a great time at Ottmar last night. It is always nice to spend time with Walid and Jackie.

• I found more items for my altar/meditation space which made me happy. With a little luck I will only need a couple more shopping trips and that will ready to go.

• My friend Louis sent me a birthday present which arrived a little early. He will be out of town for my birthday so I am sure he didn’t want his present to be late. I will tell you more about that on my birthday. Thank you Louis, you are best! Hugs!

• It was very nice to spend some time today with the regulars at cooking class. Dennis was entertaining as always. He is quite the character, in a good way. You have to be there to understand.  He is a joy to be around because he always makes me laugh and we all known that laughter is good medicine.

Signing out:

That is going to be it for me tonight. Tomorrow my schedule is fairly light and I am really looking forward to that. I need a day to hang out at home and recharge. Sadly I think there will also be cleaning on my schedule but that is nothing compared to the running around I have been doing lately. I am sure you all know how much I dislike driving so I am thrilled to not be in the car tomorrow.

I hope your week is going well and I will talk to you tomorrow.

Tips for Making Healthy Fast Food

As you have probably already guessed Monday is a complete blur to me by now. Sadly Tuesday feels very similar but at least it is in a good way.

Healthy Food Fast:

My week is a tad overscheduled which means I have been rushing from place to place and just trying to keep my head above water. When my schedule is out of control like this I rely on very fast food for our sustenance. Since many of you say you don’t have time I wanted to tell you what I do when I only have a few minutes to devote to any particular meal.
First, smoothies are always an option. You can toss any number of things into your blender and come up with something that this both delicious and nutritious. Never underestimate the power of your blender.

Second, dinner leftovers are great on salad. This one was baby spinach dressed with a little sherry vinegar and then the fruited quinoa, Brussels sprouts and bell peppers from Sunday. I have been known to put almost any leftover sauté on top of salad and they always work for me.

Third, fruit and nuts always work. Bananas make great portable food since you don’t even need a bag. Little snack containers are great to hold nuts. I also like to keep washed oranges and apples in bags in the refrigerator along with a few nuts. That way I can grab the bag and toss it in my purse and run out the door.

Fourth, soup in the Vitamix is also a great quick meal. If you want something creamy add a few raw cashews to the soup. This is one of my favorite uses for the Vitamix. A simple “cream” soup has come to my rescue many times. All you need to add is salad and you have a meal. If you have leftover cooked whole grains in the refrigerator they are great to stir into the soup for texture.

Fifth, use your refrigerator as part of your pantry. Leftover soup came in very handy the last two days for me. The same thing applies to keeping cooked beans on hand in your refrigerator. You can turn them into a salad, use them to top a green salad, add them to soups or sautés. The options for beans are almost endless. I also like to keep cooked whole grains on hand like: barley, farro, and brown rice.

Sixth, the microwave is great for cooking a fast white or sweet potato that you can top with salsa, marinated mushrooms, or leftover beans. You could also add the potato to your salad or soup if you like.

Seventh, quinoa only takes 15 minutes to cook. While the quinoa is cooking you can make a quick vegetable sauté for on top of the quinoa. Add a few nuts and you have a healthy and nutritious meal.

Eight, black-eyed peas only need to cook 6 minutes under high pressure in the pressure cooker. I can turn them into soup in well under 30 minutes even allowing 10 minutes for the onions to sit after I have chopped them.

Ninth, if you have stashed some leftovers in the freezer days when you have not time is the perfect time to pull those out. Tofu lasagna, mushroom ragu, all soups and stews and seitan all freezer extremely well.

Tenth, savory oatmeal is very quick and probably feels more like dinner than breakfast to most of you. Add any veggies you have in the refrigerator or freezer and you have a complete meal in well under 10 minutes.

Eleventh, keep your freezer stocked with vegetables. I use this often to make simple salads, add to grains, put in soups or on top of savory oatmeal.

Twelfth, if you have nut butter in the house you can make sandwiches or fill in into celery. I like to have celery and nut butter with my salad. This was celery stuffed with homemade cashew and macadamia nut butter that I had in the refrigerator. The nice thing about homemade nut butter is that it keeps a long time under refrigeration.

Thirteenth, when you really don’t feel like cooking anything you can always hit the salad bar at your local grocery store. This isn’t terribly cost effective but it is better a lot of options.

Fourteenth, if you don’t even feel like going to the store find a local Asian carry out place that has brown rice. You can order the steamed veggies with the sauce on the side. Dan likes to have them add cashews rather than tofu (he claims to only like my tofu) to his meals. Seriously, steamed veggies over brown rice with a little drizzle of sauce and you are good to go. If you are really lucky they may also have some veggie sushi or a vegetarian miso soup that you can pick up. Just a quick note on miso soup, traditionally it is made with dashi (that included dried fish) but many of our local Asian restaurants also have vegetarian versions (which are actually vegan though they call them vegetarian).

I hope that gives you some ideas of how to make food quickly when you don’t have a lot of time. Since many of you ask me that quick I wanted to share a few tips that have been relevant for me the last couple of days.

Did you notice that my felines have not gotten the memo that they are carnivores? I didn’t have time to scoot them out of the photos the last few days. But as you can tell my babies like their mommy’s cooking a bit too much. LOL

Monday:

I spend most of my Monday sleep deprived because a certain little fuzzy angel didn’t want his mommy to sleep Sunday night/Monday morning. All I can say is it a good thing that I love my little children otherwise somebody would have been in a lot of trouble yesterday for keeping me up for hours.  However it is hard to get upset with them when they are being cute and wanting to cuddle. I do wish they would not require two hours of cuddling though.  *rolls eyes*

Tuesday:

I went to see Will give his presentation on theatre and food in the afternoon. Knowing nothing about theatre I had no idea what to expect. The food part I understood but the theatre aspect when over my head. Even so I thought he did a nice job and the professor seemed to agree from what I saw and heard.

Dan, Walid, Jackie and I are going to see Ottmar Liebert tonight in Annapolis. After I bought two tickets I also won two and you have guessed the rest. As luck would have it Jackie actually was also a fan of Ottmar so I am sure we will have blast. I have my camera in my purse and will try to get a few shots for you tonight.

Happy thoughts:

• It has been a beautiful few days weather wise here in Baltimore. We have had sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 70’s. I love that spring is finally here.

• I am really looking forward to the concert tonight. Being a fan of Ottmar for over 20 years I am sure this is going to be great. I will tell you all about it tomorrow.

• I really enjoyed watching Will give his presentation this afternoon. It was very nice of him to let me tag along. Although I am sure the other students were wondering if I was him mom. *sigh* Nothing like spending time on a college campus to remind you that you aren’t a kid anymore. ;-)

• Monday I had a little time to do some weeding in my herb garden. Seriously I really needed to spend more time out in the garden but I had too much to do to lose more than an hour out there. How did I ever get things accomplished at home when I also had a job? That still boggles my mind. All I can say is that my standards had to have been lower then.

• My toe is finally starting to show noticeable improvement. Though it still hurts at least I can touch it now. I think tomorrow I am going to try putting on my running shoes to see how that works.

Signing out:

I need to start getting ready for the concert tonight. I have no idea where my Tuesday went. Tomorrow will be another busy one for me but Thursday should bring a little down time. *fingers crossed*

I will talk to you again tomorrow with the concert update. Here is hoping that you are having good week too.

Happy Mother’s Day

What a great day to be alive! The skies were blue, there was a little nip in the air and I felt completely rested this morning. This was one of those days where I actually enjoyed the morning and being a night owl those don’t happen too often. ;-)

We started our morning with a big mug of tea. Today we are having my latest favorite combination of: white tea, tulsi tea and rose buds. The new Bodum glasses that I picked up at Marshall’s happen to have the same size top as the Bodum tea cups with the tea insert which makes it easier to start our day with a double green tea.

This morning Dan asked for a green smoothie. It makes me smile that Dan likes green smoothies enough that he requests them for breakfast.

My breakfast today was fresh veg and fruit juice. When I make juice I never use a “recipe” but rather just start cutting up things that I have on hand and send it through the juicer. After you have made juice for a while you get a feel from what works. Additionally you can do the same thing I do and taste the juice as you go along and add things to make the taste suit you. Typically I use both green and sweet things in the juice. I also like to add lemon and/or fresh ginger to the juice when I have them on hand. Today’s juice contained: 4 kale leaves, 2 stalks celery, 1 large beet, 1 small apple, and 2 carrots. I pour this into a frozen glass, stir in chia seeds and add ice. I shared this juice with Dan to increase his natural vitamin and mineral content at breakfast. After you start making fresh juice I think you will find that your body starts to crave it as mine does.

Dan bought us both 7” tablets last week. He liked the small size since they fit easily in a jacket pocket (and my purse). I have been playing around with mine too and so far I like it. After I have had more time using it I will let you know what I think. One thing I know that I like so far is how portable it is. I love that is small enough to fit easily in any of my purses and I have some small bags. ;-)

The later afternoon meal with my parents was very simple. For appetizers we had two simple dishes. The first was roasted red peppers and onions dressed with sherry vinegar, smoked paprika, parsley and almonds. The second dish was marinated mushrooms and peppers finished with parsley.

The main dish was a fruited quinoa topped with lightly wilted Brussels sprouts, garlic, cumin, apple, dried apricot, golden raisins and grapes that I finished with lemon zest, lemon juice and sliced almonds.

After the meal we rushed to get to MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) for the showing of “Cafeteria Man”. It was the story of chef that took over the food program for the Baltimore City school system and his fight to make the cafeteria food both local and fresh. Talk about a thought provoking and touching story, wow! If the documentary is shown near you and you have an interest in school nutrition this is good film.

We then went home so that I could whip up a batch of nut cheese to take with me to the restaurant. I know that sounds odd but let me explain. David (at the restaurant) is also vegan and hadn’t had nut cheese so I wanted to take him some to try. Corey isn’t a vegan but he is trying to give up dairy so I had to take him some. Will does a wonderful job coming up with vegan dishes for us and loves to try new things which meant I wanted him to taste it too. Me taking nut cheese to the restaurant makes more sense now right? ;-) This batch was raw cashew and macadamia that I flavored with fresh garlic, sherry vinegar and nutritional yeast. I served it a spread on top of the tomato and raisin pesto/chutney and finished it with black pepper and fresh minced parsley. (FYI Will liked the nut cheese as did Jonathon. Corey has had it before so I know he likes it. David took his home so we will have to see what he thinks.)

We got to the restaurant late because it was Mother’s Day and they were packed from brunch on. When we arrived at 8pm things were definitely starting to slow down and I am sure everyone was happy to have a break. Even though we hadn’t given him any notice Will quickly made a three course menu for us when he heard we were there. Seriously, we didn’t expect that but it was extremely nice of him to do that with zero notice. Are you starting to see how we could get pulled into going out to eat every night? These guys make it way too easy for me to take the night off from cooking. Darn them, LOL! ;-)

Our first course was a Greek orzo dish with zucchini, tomato, garlic, lemon, olives and oregano. Fortunately for me Dan doesn’t love olives, which means I got most of them. I do love olives even though I know that aren’t the best for me with all the salt they contain. Of well, I can’t be perfect all the time because that just wouldn’t be any fun. Okay so maybe I should say I am not going to be perfect all the time.

The second course was AMAZING! Can you tell I liked it? This dish was sriracha and soy marinated tofu topped with radish, green apple, celery and carrot salad. Seriously this recipe hit all my buttons, spicy, salty, crunchy, soft…..definitely good stuff.

The final course was a whole wheat pizza topped with mashed sweet potato, golden raisins, curry powder, and almonds topped with lemon dressed arugula. I have never used mashed sweet potato as a pizza base before and after tasting this I have no idea why that never occurred to me before. This is why it is so great to go out to eat. Every time I eat out I get more great recipe ideas.

I also had to post this picture of Stephanie being silly. In case the picture doesn’t say it all Steph is quite a lot of fun. LOL

Happy Thoughts:

• I love hearing the Westminster chimes in the morning. We live near an old clock tower with chimes and when we have the windows open you can hear them every 15 minutes. This is another one of those things that I take for granted that I shouldn’t. The chimes remind me of my childhood and my grandmother which is a great thing to think about on Mother’s day.

• It was great to start the morning with the windows open. I love having fresh air in the house. I also love that on a very high pollen day like today (I only know this from the weather channel) I have no sign of my seasonal allergies. While I didn’t change my diet because of allergies it was a very welcome side effect. ;-)

• Every time Dan asks me to make something nutritious I smile. He enjoys having green smoothies for breakfast and that makes me very happy. I get a lot of email from you that ask how I get Dan to eat as healthy as I do which reminds me how much progress I have made with his diet. The only thing that I do is that I share all the new health information as I learn it with Dan. I think that knowledge is power and when you understand the true impact of the choices you make on your health it results in better decisions.

• The fur children bought me a present for Mother’s Day. Wasn’t that incredibly sweet of them and Dan? When he gave me the earrings he said they were from “the kittens” (that is what we call the fur kids since they still act like kittens) since I am their mom. Awwww, too cute. ;-)

• Lunch today turned out very well. My father commented how good the roasted red pepper salad was. Will miracles never cease? ;-) I enjoyed the Brussels sprouts dish which was my variation of something that we had at Jaleo (one of Jose’s restaurants in DC). Who could possible ever get bored eating vegan when there are so many possible combinations of vegetables, fruit and seasonings?

• I really enjoyed the movie today and highly recommend it. As much as I study nutrition and health there is always an angle to explore that had not occurred to me. I walked out the movie saying that I need to get involved in childhood nutrition somehow. Only time will tell what that means for me.

• When we walked in the door at the restaurant Kristin said happy Mother’s Day to me and wanted to know how my day was. Of course I said thank you and told her that the kitchen bought me earrings. It is little moments like this that remind me that there are many nice people in the world though the bad ones seem to make much more noise.

• Dinner out was lovely as always. Yes, I will admit that we have been out to eat 4 days in a row and that is probably excessive. I will need to make up for slacking on my kitchen responsibilities this coming week. LOL, I wonder if I can do it.

Signing out:

It was another wild week for me. I didn’t really expect last week to be busy but somehow it was. How does this keep happening? This coming week is supposed to be hectic. Let’s hope I can pull it together enough to make a few meals in my own kitchen. If I can’t do it I am sure the gang will be happy to make something for us. Can I be much more spoiled? Okay, don’t answer that. LOL

I hope your weekend was a good as ours. I will chat with you again tomorrow.

Guess Who Managed to Cook Today? ;-)

We left the restaurant very late last night and then were up late while I wrote my Friday post. Needless to say that meant we also slept late this morning. Will we ever get back on our early morning schedule? It is looking iffy isn’t it?

Since we hadn’t seen Aimee in a while we went out to lunch because we knew she would be working. Finals will be behind her in two weeks and she will have more time. We still need to make plans to go to DC together and hit the museums.

When we got to the restaurant Aimee had our green tea waiting for us. That is one of the benefits of texting people to let them know you are coming in. See why I keep saying you need to find a restaurant where you can be a regular too?

Aimee also had some marinated mushrooms ready because she knows that we love them. We nibbled on those while we contemplated what to order.

Our first course was a whole wheat pizza topped with asparagus, spicy pineapple salsa, balsamic glaze and finished with baby arugula.  While this is not a conventional pizza it was amazing.  As I often say who needs cheese on pizza when they can have something like this?  ;-)

While we were chatting to everyone we also had time to look around and notice the beautiful spring green on the trees as well as the pretty spring pansies on the deck. It was a gorgeous day for lunch on the patio.

Next we ordered two cups of split pea soup that was vegan. I am loving the fact that there seems to always be a vegan soup on the menu these days.  :-)

We finished our meal with a roasted vegetable salad finished with balsamic glaze and walnuts.

We had difficulty deciding what to do next. Should we run errands and go back to the restaurant for dinner or do something else?  David was asking us if we were going to pull a double (i.e. be there for lunch and dinner shift). We really are at the restaurant way too much LOL. I commented to Ian today that I have spent more time in his restaurant kitchen this week than my own and that wasn't far from true. Dan decided we would go home and relax. Ian’s comment was “wasn’t that what you were doing here, relaxing?” I responded that Dan wanted to sit in a different chair. ;-)

Next we ran to Whole Foods to pick up some veggies for dinner tomorrow. I love having Whole Foods two miles from our house. I always forget how interesting the old architecture is around here until I have my camera with me. Our Whole Foods is in a very old mill down by a stream. I took a couple of pictures to share with you. It is cute isn’t it?

After Whole Foods we headed downtown to pick up tickets to the Maryland Film Fest tomorrow. Emily had told us about a film “Cafeteria Man” that she thought we would enjoy. We grabbed tickets today to make certain we would get a seat. It is about a man who thought you couldn’t feed bad food (processed garbage) to kids and expect them to thrive. The film takes you on his quest to change things. Sounds right up my alley doesn’t it? I will let you know tomorrow what we think of it.

While I was writing this post, tweeting and facebooking (is that a word yet?) while Dan was catching up on the sci fi he had recorded. When I realized it was 7:30 and that I hadn’t started dinner we almost let Ian do the cooking again but even I acknowledge our going out to eat is getting a bit out of hand.  Darn it! 

The answer was pressure cooking to the rescue. I made a quick soup of black eyed peas (1 ½ cups pressure cooked in 6 cups water), 1 quart tomatoes, and 3 cups dried mushrooms (rehydrated in 4 cups water) that I flavored with 1 large red onion, 6 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon oregano 1 tablespoon hot crushed peppers (wet hots). I made this creamy by adding ½ cup raw cashews that I pureed in the Vitamix with some of the soup. I finished the soup with fresh cilantro. I chose black eyed peas because they are tender after only 6 minutes under pressure and I needed food fast. Thank goodness for the pressure cooker tonight.

We also had a simple salad for dinner tonight. This one was equal parts finely shredded kale and mesclun greens. I dressed them with my favorite dressing of Dijon, wine vinegar and stevia. I also added shredded carrot and thinly sliced apple and topped the salad with sliced almonds.

Overall not too shabby for dinner in well under 30 minutes.  Ian's would have been more tasty but my meal was certainly healthy.

Winner of “The 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart” signed by Dr. Barnard is:

Chosen by an online random number generator was entry number 55 Alissa… Congratulations!

Please email me your mailing address so that I can get the book headed your way.

Happy Thoughts:

We are having the best week and weekend. It is hard to know where to start with my happy thoughts but I will give it a go:

• Dan doesn’t have to work this weekend which I am very happy about. We don’t get too many weekends that aren’t interrupted by work so this is a treat. We are enjoying our weekend together.

• Saturday we had a very relaxing lunch on the patio, which you saw above. Overall it has been a very laid back day. This was exactly what we needed since things have been a little hectic here recently.

• Tomorrow is all planned out, which is a rarity, and should also be a good day. We have a nice meal planned with my parents and then a movie as well as some relaxing in addition to enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

• Next week we have more fun planned which we are both looking forward to. I think we can all use more fun in our lives.

• Our three little fuzzy angels have been staying very close to us today. I think that is their way of telling us that they have missed us this week since we weren’t home much. It is nice that the babies love us that much. Whoever said cats are standoffish never met our little precious fur children.

Signing Out:

That is going to be it for me tonight. I hope you are having a good weekend too. I will talk to you again tomorrow.  Happy Mother's Day to all of you that are celebrating. 

Friday Equals Shopping and Dinner Out … Again

As you know we were up late last night and that meant we were rushed this morning. Dan had his favorite green smoothie for breakfast that contained all the usual items: raw kale, frozen banana, wheat germ, freshly ground flaxseeds, cinnamon, powdered ginger a pinch of stevia and a little water.

I had no idea what I wanted for breakfast because we had a big dinner last night, since we eat out. In the end I made myself a salad that consisted of: mesclun, carrots, celery, salsa, white bean cheeze and raw pumpkin seeds. When I made the white bean cheeze most recently I intentionally made it thinner (but adding more of the bean cooking liquid) because I wanted to use it as salad dressing and that worked our very well. You can expect to see that again in the future since I eat so many salads and I liked the way it worked out today.

I mentioned yesterday that Dan was going try to work a half day today and he actually did it. However before he came home he met Dan Jr. for lunch in Hunt Valley at Jesse Wong's. It will come as no surprise that Dan ordered the faux duck since that is something that we both love. He also got some extra veggies with the duck but forgot to ask for brown rice until lunch came. However he does better when ordering than most husband’s so I am not going to complain about his choices.

My lunch was quinoa, more of the bean cheeze, salsa, cucumbers with pickled onions and dill. As you can you probably noticed I really wasn’t in the mood to eat for some unknown reason. I also grabbed an orange and two Brazil nuts but forgot to photograph it.

Once Dan came home we decided to run out for a little while and run some errands. Since we were already out I thought a quick trip by Marshall’s was a good idea because you never know what you are going to find. As luck would have it I found organic dried fruit (mangoes, bananas, apples, apricots) with nothing else added. I grabbed 8 bags of that since plain dried fruit is so not easy to come by. They also had organic freeze dried strawberries which were a requirement. Sometimes I stop in and find only clothes and other times there are interesting food items like today.

On the way home we were debating stopping at the restaurant for dinner but of course we hadn’t planned or made reservations so we hesitated since they like advance notice. However I hadn’t made prepped anything for dinner so we opted to run with scissors and make reservations when we were 15 minutes away from the restaurant.

Of course I started the evening in the kitchen because I had to say my hellos, get my hugs and chat. We hadn’t seen Ian yesterday and I wanted to talk before he got too busy. We chatted for a few minutes and I offered to make up my own dishes but Will and Ian said they had everything under control so I let it go. Both Ian and Will commented that they didn’t know we were coming which was code for “why didn’t you warn us?”. They were both good sports about the lack of notice though.

When I came out of the kitchen Dan and Alan (one of the owners) were chatting. Alan had just read the NYT article about sugar so that was topic they were discussing when I arrived. We talked about food, nutrition and health…all my favorite topics. I am not kidding when I say we just fit right in. LOL

Jenn made us our usual green tea and hibiscus blend which we had hot tonight since it was just a bit cool. We started out in the sun on the patio but moved under the roof since rain was coming.

Ian actually brought our first course out of the kitchen. This may not sound like a big deal but Ian is a back office kind of guy so that is not his thing. He must really like us, LOL. ;-) We started with a very thin crispy flatbread with an achiote rub that was topped with a salad of radish, red pepper and cilantro. This was so good that Dan asked for a repeat of this for the forth course. It was reminiscent of a pizza but not which I know probably doesn’t help much. I guess you could say it was similar to a salad topped cracker. However you describe it was light yet flavorful and we both really liked it.

Not long after we were finished with the first course the rain rolled through. The wind picked up and the temperatures dropped and it was almost a little chilly. We sat under the roof and watched the rain fall. I really love the sound of the rain as it hits the pavement. For me the sound of rain is almost meditative.

The second course was inventive and right up our alley since it was a combination of flavors that we both love. The base of the plate was an avocado, miso and mirin puree which was topped with fresh strawberries, avocado and baby arugula.

The third course was spicy chickpea with wilted spinach and crispy whole wheat flat bread finished with my favorite thing (sriracha). You cannot go wrong with this combination.

During the evening we had a chance to chat a little with Alan, Corey, Ian, Will, Michael, David, Jenn, Shah, Ahmed, and Stephanie. Doug and Vaz were also working this evening but there were busy this evening. I did get a chance to say hello and good bye to them but not much else. Everyone at the restaurant is so nice. Corey and Ian have really put together a great group of people.

Book Giveaway:

I will be using a random number generator to pick the book give away winner before tomorrow’s post. If you haven’t entered yet you have a little while since I am turning in as soon as get this post up.

Happy thoughts:

Today was another one of those days when I have too many things to be happy about which means I needed to pare down my list. Really? Not such a bad problem to have is it?

• It was great to spend the afternoon and all evening with Dan. We had a good time goofing off, going shopping and having dinner out. We get along so well that I often forget that not everyone is as happily married as we are. However I know I am very lucky to be married to my best friend.

• It was a stroke of luck that I found the organic dried fruit (nothing added) today at Marshall’s. That type of product is never easy to come by. As soon as I crack into a bag if we like the brand I will let you know what it is.

• The rain held off most of the day and that was a very good day. Somehow rain is less of an annoyance when it happens overnight.

• Driving to the restaurant there was a nice moment when the sun was streaming through clouds. My picture doesn’t really do the view justice but it was very nice. It was a nice reminder that there is always sunshine on the other side of the storm which I thought was telling of life in general.

• Our three precious little fur children must really love their human parents since they all met us at the front door when we came home. Additionally they followed us around like little “cat puppies” for over a half an hour. We are very lucky to have them in our lives.

• Dinner out this evening was nice as always. We had a lovely meal and good company. It was also great to sit outside, listen to rain fall and sip tea. What a lovely way to wind down the day.

• We also have plans Saturday and Sunday that we are looking forward to. Of course I will tell you about that later.

• Tuesday we are going to hear Ottmar Liebert and may get to see Jose Andres. *fingers crossed* We will find out about Jose soon and if that happens hopefully I will be able to speak this time and make up for my complete inability to verbalize the last time. I need to redeem myself otherwise Dan will never let me live it down. ;-)

Signing Out:

See what I mean about having too many happy thoughts? This has been a very good week but also a busy one. I could use a little quiet time to wind down. Next week is also going to be a little busy but I am going to try to work in a little relaxing time if I can.

It is after midnight here which means it is time for me to wind down. I hope your week was as good as mine has been. Talk to you again tomorrow (Saturday).