Summer Produce

Summer food! I'm so glad that my joy of cooking developed in the summer - it makes meals so easy with all of the in-season fruits and veggies. You can make delicious meals without much effort! I made some spinach edamame hummus yesterday - a bit more than anticipated - so I'm trying to think of creative ways to eat it. Any ideas? Please let me know if you have any ideas (or WANT some of it) because I have a giant tupperware full of it! Below is my first meal made with it - a sandwich flat toasted with the hummus and some cheese and topped with tomatoes. Eaten with a side of (more) spinach and some watermelon (I can't get enough watermelon)!

One of my favorite summer combos is this little dish of sauteed zucchini, summer squash, onions, garlic, and tomatoes.

It's delicious roasted as well. You can do so much with it - eat it with poached eggs and toast in the morning, as the insides of an omelette, on its own, over pasta with a little parmesan, a topping for pizza... the combos are endless! Yum.

Food, Glorious Food

I have found a new hobby. 

In the past week and a half I have cooked: 

• Zucchini turkey burgers with caramelized onions, tomato, and spinach;
• Brussels sprouts with turkey bacon and garlic; 
• Arugula salad with watermelon and feta (pictured); 
• Mini quiches with caramelized onions, zucchini, tomatoes, cheese, and turkey bacon;
• Mini quiches with spinach, cheese, and turkey bacon; 
• Brown fried rice with onions, scallions, carrots, edamame, and egg;
• Spicy mayo shrimp;
• Garlic lime shrimp;
• Roasted summer veggies: yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, onion, and garlic;
• Stuffed mushrooms with turkey bacon, spinach, and cheese (pictured); and
• Coconut chicken salad.

And I have baked:

• An oatmeal bake with bananas and blueberries;
• Oatmeal cookies - chocolate chip, cranberry, and blueberry varieties (pictured);
• Blueberry scones (some with chocolate chips);
• Banana muffins (some with chocolate chips) - these are dangerously delicious... I might have eaten three in one day...; and
• Chocolate banana souffles.

Jason made banana chocolate chip waffles for me one morning this past weekend too. I had plans for other meals but two people can only eat so much. I started cooking to make healthier meals for us both and despite the fact that a lot of it doesn't sound all that healthy, it all is - at least when you give yourself the right serving size. I think the most fun part was finding ways to make every one of these things healthy (turkey alternatives to beef, wheat flour instead of white, less butter and more alternatives, etc). A lot of these were recipes that I found online, but I made my own twist on most of them.

If you had told me two months ago that I would love to cook and bake if I had free time, I would have laughed at you. But now that my schedule has changed and I have free time during the day, I'm loving it! Now if only I had space to entertain (and someone to clean the rest of the apartment I've neglected) so I could feed more people!

P.S. How do people cook with online recipes? This is the first time I can understand the usefulness of an iPad because my MacBook takes up half of our counter space (I wish I was exaggerating). But I still won't buy an iPad if that is the only use I get out of it. Maybe I could try my Kindle's awful "experimental" browser? Anyone have any other ideas?

P.P.S. I have another post lined up for Friday, so come back now, ya hear? I hope to be updating a bit more soon... and doing a bit of catching up!

S'mores Celebration

Our s'mores day/sixth-ish anniversary last night.

Happy Weekend!

Fall Chili

Jason makes a really delicious chili that we eat all throughout the year - even in the summer. But eating it today makes it feel like a true fall day. Sweet husband he is, he makes a batch for me (with peppers, onions, corn, and chunks of tomatoes), and a separate plain batch for himself. I think next time we're going to try to make some crock-pot chili to change things up a bit!

Zola Dinner

Every once in a while we like to go out and get a nice meal. Last week, we met after work in DC to go to Zola. I think they're a better bar than restaurant, but we were happy enough with the food. I mean, I got a plate of mushrooms and onions - can't go wrong with that! Jason got some fish (the photo didn't turn out) and we got delicious desserts! It was a very nice date night that we ended at home with our pup and with the windows open. Loving this nice fall weather!

I've been fighting a sore throat all week and woke up full-blown sick early this morning so we're being lazy for the weekend while I try to recover. Jason already ran to the grocery store to get me some cold meds, chicken noodle soup, OJ, soy milk, and even some vitamin water and nutella! Sweet husband, I love you!

Misadventures of me in the kitchen

I want and need to learn to cook... and actually be good at it. Jason went to the grocery store to get ingredients for a salmon dish with breadcrumbs and a side of horseradish mashed potatoes. We decided I should cook it. I had to shoo Jason out of the kitchen quite a few times because I decided I wanted to do this one without help. He heard me cuss and yelp but I never told him what was going on until we finished eating. Once the meal was done, I shared my tweeted chronicles with him while he laughed. Laugh all you want, people. It was a delicious dinner. I'm proud of it and am ready for more misadventures in the kitchen!

Here are my tweets over the course of an hour in the kitchen:

Cooking a relatively difficult salmon dish J picked out. Let's track the misadventures of this.

Didn't print recipe out. Have to track up and down on blackberry between ingredients and directions.

Dropped potato on floor.

Dropped wet lemon into bread crumbs.

Forgot to start timer on potatoes.

Forgot to spread dijon on fish before putting bread crumbs on it. Good thing J doesn't like dijon. Too bad I do... Sad.

Put oven on 50 degrees too high. Realized it very shortly after fish went in, thankfully. I don't make this stuff up, guys.

Cooked a potato too long... It broke apart in the pot when I tried to take it out...

Burned some of the green beans in the microwave.

And done! Not too shabby!

That was actually a really good dinner!

The July Surprise!

The surprise of July was ERIN!!!

My dearest Erin came into town this weekend to surprise her fiance, Ryan, who is working in the DC area this summer (for NASA of all places - can we say awesome?). He was very surprised so the trip was a success! Here they are. Aww, aren't they cute? We can't wait for their upcoming nuptials NEXT July!

So, lucky me, I got to hang out with her while she was in town. Yay! We drove all around in Arlington, Georgetown, and DC. Some of the highlights include:

• Splitting a peach cupcake (next time we'll try the lemon blueberry one we really wanted that another lady stole right out from under us),
• Cooling off with some gelato (for her) and sorbet (for me),
• Wedding dresses! She tried on wedding dresses and found her perfect dress (it's SO pretty).

Jason also met us for an unsuccessful lunch trip to Good Stuff, which I've been wanting to try for a while now.  While lunch was unsuccessful, dinner was a success! We all made it there for dinner... but not all together. Jason and I stopped to eat to miss some of the traffic back into VA and Erin and crew went later.

Eventually I'll get a burger and a marshmallow shake but I stuck with a chicken breast sandwich, a bite of Jason's burger, and a strawberry milkshake and fries to share. We were STUFFED afterward!

Today, we got to meet Erin, Ryan, and Ryan's sister, brother-in-law, and cute little nephew for lunch today before she flew back to sunny LA. Was so good seeing you, Okie dearest!

I Love Breakfast

Especially when it comes to me in bed. Jason surprised me this morning with a french toast breakfast! He played Jack Johnson's "Banana Pancakes" (the song we cut our wedding cake to) as he carried the tray (aka cookie sheet - sad, I know - someday we'll buy a real one) to me on this rainy Saturday morning. What a great way to start the day! He bought challah bread and peaches from the farmer's market. I even got two different kinds of french toast - one plain and one with cornflakes crushed up on it. YUM.



It was a lot of food so Jason helped me finish it... and Rufus waited patiently hoping for a bite too. Kindly ignore my bedhead.





He's the best (and so darn cute)!

Mmm... Burger.

Quickly, before I get into a giant July 4th picture post, I want to talk about burgers and how excited I am to eat them. Every once in a while I crave a burger. I used to eat them all the time. Before Allison set me straight, I ate them nearly every night for dinner. I loved them. Now I get turkey burgers and while they're good, I know that beef is better. Veggie burgers can be delicious but I digress.

It was delicious. Jason couldn't stop laughing at me because he wasn't expecting my "YUM, that is SO good" reaction. I am very excited now because I know Wendy's does not make the best burgers and it tasted delicious to me. I can't wait to get to the point where I can eat a whole one and not just a bite (or two - as was taken from Jason's burger in this picture).

I can't wait for this.
And this.
And this.
And Obama's favorite.

I'd also like to consume a milkshake with each one, please. That's how you're supposed eat hamburgers, right? Right? Of course.

Peanut butter ice cream, please!

Yesterday I asked Jason to get ice cream on his way home. It was taking him a while to actually get home and I was missing him so this convo went down on gchat:

me: Dear Hubby, Please come home.
Jason: Dear Wifey, Not without the perfect ice cream.

He came home with the perfect ice cream that I asked for and then, when it came time to eat it, I decided I wanted his instead. And he shared.

I love him.

We Love Thunderstorms

We just got a crazy summer thunderstorm.  Tons of loud, loud thunder, lightening, wind, and sheets of rain. Rufus and I sat at the door and watched it all fall down.  Once it stopped we took a little walk to examine the damage.  We found a taped off street and cops blocking traffic because this was down:

Needless to say, our power was out for a few hours. It just came back on, thank goodness.  We were sweatin'!  I was kind of looking forward to a candlelit night, but now we can eat a proper dinner rather than large glasses of milk, guacamole, salsa, pina colada mix (we were going to mash ice up), and hot dogs - the things we were going to try to eat before they went bad in the fridge.  Now we're cookin' Indian!  Yum!  And by "cook" I mean we went to Trader Joe's last night and we're putting Indian in the oven.  And by "we're" I mean Jason.  Although, to my credit, I did turn the oven on and take the naan out of the package before he insisted on taking over.  I love my husband.

P.S. Sorry to our RSS feed readers. I know you got a bit of an overload of old posts this weekend when I imported the old blog into this one!

Red Meat

There have been questions about the last post, so here's the answer. The reason I didn't eat (red) meat is simple: I hate pork chops. I had a love of steak, honey roasted ham, hamburgers, and bacon and yet I hated pork chops enough to stop eating all of them. Hate is a strong emotion. When it comes to pork chops it can take over the emotion of love for a steak.

"Eat what you're served" was the rule in our house. I had to eat things whether I liked it or not, which I'm thankful for now because it made me grow to like a lot of things I didn't like as a kid (most veggies, many of which I love now). I figured if I stopped eating meat it would be a valid reason not to eat pork chops. Well, it worked. It was the dumbest reason ever but I was in middle school. I also thought riding down the steep attic stairs in a cardboard box would be fun in middle school. (It wasn't.)

I feel like a snob when I ask for vegetarian meals or people feel that they need to cook something additional for me. I've never been a picky eater - I always try everything and eat most food (I refuse to eat olives or any questionable canned/packaged product like Spam but that's about it). I hate that not eating red meat makes me picky to an extent and keeps me from trying everything at least once. The only piece of red meat I've eaten since middle school (before the other day) was kangaroo which I figured I had to try while I was in Australia. I wasn't impressed by it but that might have had something to do with the fact that my college-aged American friends grilled it and didn't know what they were doing.  Anyway, I LOVE food and I'd like to add a little more variety into my diet. I probably won't eat a ton of red meat and will still prefer veggie or turkey alternatives, but every once in a while it might be nice to eat a burger. Even my vegetarian grandma eats a burger every now and then. That has to mean something!

The funny ending to the story is that Allison doesn't like pork chops either and doesn't remember cooking them very often - if at all.

OMG!

Making a guest appearance in my wonderful other half's world, I just had to make a post after such a shocking event!

We went out for our favorite type of dinner...breakfast! IHOP ran a pancake club which gave out a free meal, so we cashed in. Chocolate chip pancakes for the lady, rooty tooty fresh and fruity (minus the fruit topping) for myself. Reaching the last bite of my bacon there was a request from the other side of the table.

Recently on a trip to the lake she held my burger for a minute or two and talked about taking a bite, she backed out of that one but has been talking more about it ever since. Tonight was was a different story....

Behold a bite of salty delicious PORK, yes PORK bacon! Covered in eggs but still, bacon flavor conquers all.

Why stop at bacon when there is still a bit of egg and a few sausage links on the plate? Not one, but two bites of sausage! So proud of her! I declined to make her open her mouth for a proof positive picture but I assure you she ate it to no ill effects!

In no time I'll be cooking her a filet mignon to savor while our dog drools and stares at us.

Another picture from our recent weekend, she decided to make a frappaccino and ended up with one extra large venti, I handed her a straw joking that it was big enough not to fit in any of our cups, lo and behold she thought it was a great idea.

I bid all her thousands, yes I have high expectations, of viewers adieu, back to the home search, the trust world, and our small little apartment with our small little pup...

Jason

Radios and Refrigerators

I've grown an appreciation for the radio once again. For a long time I didn't listen to it at all, partially because I didn't have a car (and that's the only place I listen to it) and partially because they kept taking the "good" stations away in DC. Well, new ones are slowly popping up and I've stopped being a music snob enough to the point where I can now enjoy the crappy/catchy music on the radio. I think this is a good thing. Certain songs remind me a lot about certain points in my life and the emotions I was feeling at the time that they were new and overplayed on the radio. I want to be able to hear songs from today (even if they're crap) and remember these days I'm having now. My newlywed days! We have had quite a few warmer days lately and it's been so much fun to drive with the windows down and the radio playing! It makes me feel like I'm 16 and carefree again.

We had my family over for brunch last weekend. It was about time - this is the first time we've had them over to our apartment and we've been living here since August! It's shameful, really. So we had a mega waffle brunch.

Jakob, who was once afraid of dogs thanks to one biting his face as a toddler, let Rufus lay next to him and petted him for quite a long time.

We also celebrated Passover last weekend at my parents' house. Jason tried to take some pictures of me and the Sammy-Man, my littlest cousin. He was only a month old at our wedding... he's getting to be so big now! Look at his cute little smile! He loves his tongue just like his granddaddy - he even smiles with his tongue!

We've been getting a few really pretty days lately. I've broken out the spring and summer dresses and skirts and I'm loving it. I even convinced Jason to eat outside with me on our "porch" one night. It was so nice!

I love this time of year because we start getting yummy produce. I'm so excited for summer fruit and veggies. YUM! Here's something you might not know about me: I love to look in people's refrigerators. I don't know why, but I find it fascinating. So, here is what our fridge and fruit bowl looked like last week, before we cleared it out to go to the lake.

Spinach, wheat tortillas, strawberries, yogurt, cheeses, turkey, chicken, chili, hummus, blackberries, deli bread, flourless chocolate cake (yummmm), Simply orange/mango juice and limeaide, grapefruits, cucumber, asparagus, avocados, in the mystery containers: refried beans, waffles, and Jason's homemade chicken and dumplings.

So colorful!

We just got back from the lake a couple of hours ago. What a gorgeous weekend we had! I don't think we had been to the lake since before our wedding. It was so nice to get back there. On Saturday, Jason and I took a nice long walk. We walked across the dike to say that we had done it and also to look at a house I love on the other side. After about an hour walking out in the sun, we both got a bit of a sunburn. It's not cute, but it makes me happy that the sun is out once again! I relaxed more than anything and slacked off a little bit on pictures. Here are a couple of Esme - one with Uncle Jason. They're pointing to "Aunt Ki-Ki"!!!