So it's been a while...

I've gone to restaurants galore in the past months and am embarrassed to say that I haven't been writing about them. And we all know how it goes, after a few missed posts it just gets too difficult to catch up on all of them. So let's just forget about those wonderful restaurants I visited (like Blue Star Cafe, Blue Dahlia, Taverna, Asti Trattoria, and many many more...).

As of late I've been cooking a lot at home, saving money as it were. Plus my new apartment has a wonderful kitchen and roommates to eat my food so, heck, we all cook. It's a house full of lots of eating and joy.

I made cheesecake the other day, a recipe off of allrecipes.com

It was an extremely simple and easy recipe to follow. I used full fat sour cream but 1/3 fat cream cheese. I had made cheesecake once before and have learned that probably the most important thing to do with cheesecake is to have all the ingredients at room temperature (eggs, milk included). This is difficult because when we say "hey, I want cheesecake" it's not the kind of thing that you can just whip up quickly, like, for example, brownies. No no, cheesecake takes patience. It takes waiting for the ingredients to come to room temperature, it takes baking, slowly, sitting in the oven with it switched off (another very important step!!!) and finally, although I did try the cheesecake out of the oven, it was just all wrong, you must wait for it to refrigerate! It makes all the difference with the flavor and the texture especially!

I'm not the biggest cheesecake fan but I have to say that this recipe turned out deliciously. It makes a big cheesecake, be forewarned. Yum! Must eat last (unfrozen) piece later. Yes, my friends, I freeze batches of everything I make. Someone like me who could eat an entire pan of brownies must take that precaution! Plus it leaves more for later when you want a quick dessert. I baked the cheesecake in muffin pans for two reasons, firstly, and mainly, I don't have a spring form pan (blasphemy!) and secondly because it's more figure-friendly - in the long run custom of "i'll just straighten out this slice... and here... and here". It made 24 mini cheesecakes and I still had plenty of filling left over which I just poured into a random pan and baked :P

Sigh... anyway. The point is to say that I will try to update this as I actually do go out to eat and cook dinners. If only I had pictures of our recent wine and cheese party... oh wait, I do!

















Random dinner I made some weeks ago - rainbow trout, my favorite, with lemon and butter and dill. Broccoli in balsamic vinaigrette. Zucchini au gratin in the oven.

Galaxy Cafe, NWNW, Sullivan's

Galaxy Cafe - Seared Tuna Salad

This is not really a dinner place, I don't think. At least not one for ambiance or atmosphere. Seems like the perfect lunch place, rather, with a menu full of salads and wraps and sandwiches. Amy had the fried fish wrap - it was rather spicy but not that flavorful. My tuna salad was very simple, the tuna was deliciously seasoned and seared perfectly but other than that the salad itself was nothing to write home about. After we shared an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie which was chewy and gooey and melt-in-your-mouth delish! I'd like to come back here for lunch one day to try one of their many scrumptious sounding sandwiches!

NXNW - Sirloin Salad

Bed of spinach with red onions, not sliced thinly enough, a few slices of tomato and cucumber and a very tangy balsamic vinaigrette. The sirloin was cooked perfectly, medium well, and was extremely tender although it was quite fatty and needed trimming, for my tastes. The atmosphere of the place is really inviting and fun, it'd be a great place to go just for the bar. Amanda's chicken penne pasta in a tomato cream sauce was delicious and Amy had the rotisserie chicken plate which had kind of a balsamic vinaigrette reduction on it - it was amazing. It came with green beans, perfectly crisp and deliciously seasoned. And some caramelized onion mashed potatoes - yum!

I definitely need to go back here once I turn 21 - this place has an incredible drinks menu, cocktails and wine!

The other day I went to Sullivan's for dinner with some people from work. I shared their signature martini with my coworker - they soak pineapple in orange vodka and then squeeze it through a cheese cloth for an incredibly delicious, sweet, smooth drink which can get you in trouble because it's so easy to drink. They call it the knock out! For dinner I had their cobb salad which was one of the best salads I've ever had. Chicken, avocado, eggs, bacon, cheese - it was perfection. I could eat that many times over. It's right up there with two other of my favorite salads in this here town - the Asian Chicken Salad from Hyde Park Bar & Grill and the Mango Steak Salad from Z Tejas!

Baking for the office...

Strawberries and cream cake with almonds (adapted from Stonyfield muffin recipe)

1 C all-purpose flour
1 C whole wheat flour
1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 t baking soda
2 eggs
1 1/4 C plain yogurt
1/4 C butter, melted
1 t vanilla
1/4 C half and half
2 C chopped strawberries (I used frozen)
1/2 C sliced almonds

Bake at 350F for 60 minutes or until done. I think because I used a little more yogurt than the original recipe called for (I wanted to finish my tub) and because I used frozen strawberries that released a lot of moisture, it took a long time to cook. Came out not at all sweet and extremely moist, a perfect breakfast bread, or so I was told. From what I tried of it I thought it was too moist, but that could easily be fixed by reducing the yogurt and using fresh strawberries. I changed the recipe quite a bit from the original which tells me it's the kind of recipe that is very flexible. Next time, if I wanted something sweeter, I might reduce the yogurt or eliminate the half and half and reduce the amount of strawberries slightly and swirl in some strawberry jam!

Vanilla cupcakes with dulce de leche frosting (adapted from Kittencal's recipe from recipezaar.com)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup oil or melted butter
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 large eggs

I used dulce de leche from the can as the frosting, I thought it'd be too sweet but it actually was a perfect complement. I think the cake would've been lighter and more flavorful had it been made with butter but I used oil which made it slightly denser than I liked. They were very strong on the vanilla which I liked because I was aiming for vanilla cupcakes!

Lemon cake, from Ina Garten's recipe

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 extra-large eggs (I used 4 large)
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (2 lemons) - I think 2 lemons ends up yiedling more than 2 tsp of zest but I use it all anyway
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil

For the syrup:

1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

For the glaze:

1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice nocoupons(I needed a lot more than 2 tblsp)

350F until done

This cake, which I actually made as muffins, is extremely lemony but I loved it! It's sweet and with the full fat yogurt you don't really need all of the sugar syrup - that actually makes the cake a little too moist. But the glaze is a delicious tangy topping. I'm not the biggest fan of lemon desserts but this one really hit the spot. Really for the lemon lovers out there it's perfect. I've made it before cutting the sugar in the cake in half and it still came out perfectly. I think this recipe is flawless as is if what you want is something sweet enough and super lemony.

Next up... cookies? brownies? apple cake maybe?

Iron Works, Portabla, weekend

So lunch on Wednesday at Iron Works was amazing. I had said that I was going to get the salad bar but when we walked into the place the salad bar consisted of a bowl of lettuce and that's about it... so instead I went for the next best thing. I got the smoked turkey sandwich. Now, this place is definitely simple to the core. The sandwich is on a white sesame bun with sliced smoked turkey (not deli meat) with sliced pickles and raw white onions. That's it. Very plain. But amazing. I took off the pickles, some of the onions, removed the bottom half of the bun and ate it like an open faced sandwich. And then I doused, literally doused it in barbecue sauce. It was awesome! And really well priced. Way better than Lamberts, for sure

Lunch on Thursday ended up being at Portabla on west 6th. Sandella's had really bad reviews on Yelp so I got kind of scared and changed plans at the last moment. Portabla had been on our list of places to go for a while so it all kind of fell into place. It's a really cute salad/soup/sandwich kind of place with more upscale sandwiches that your regular sandwich shop. It reminded me a lot of Panera but on a smaller scaler, which is good because I asbolutely love Panera!

I got the 1/2 sandwich and 1/2 soup. The soup of the day was Tomato Fennel. It was flavorful but extremely salty - too salty! I got the Aubergine sandwich and it was absolutely amazing. A hot panino on ciabatta bread with eggplant, goat cheese, mayo and some other roasted vegetables. Apparently our waiter told us he didn't have enough soup left for two bowls so would it be okay if he just each gave us a cup and we could get another side? We ended up getting green beans but then he brough us each a bowl of soup anyway? I'm not sure what happened but... the green beans were deliciously green and crisp. I'd definitely go here again to try another sandwich! Their other soups sound good too - when we were leaving they were just finishing up a batch of baked potato soup! Even though ours was way too salty the place is worth revisiting.

This weekend I went to Houston, it was bliss.

Thursday night my mom made pan fried chicken with oven baked sweet potato, pinto beans and a spinach and tomoto salad.

Friday for lunch I made sandwiches which we cut into four and shared! One had cream cheese, smoked salmon and capers. One had sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and avocade. And another had provolone cheese, ham, avocado, tomatoes and mustard. For dinner we made coconut shrimp! And served it with a salad of spinach, arugula, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, chopped pecans and vinaigrette.

On Saturday lunch was more sandwiches, like the ones I made on Friday. For dinner we went to a friends house, a Brazilian. And her husband made crepes the way we eat them in Brazil. I had mine stuffed with shrimp, tomatoes, garlic, spinach and mushrooms. I also made a cake to take with me from one of Ina Garten's cookbooks, I think Barfoot at Home but I'm not sure! It was the Lemon Yogurt Cake and it was divine! I don't really even like lemony things very much but this was delicious! A lemon-zest flavored yogurt cake with a lemon juice syrup soaked into it topped with a lemony-sugary icing. It was scrumptious! Earlier on Saturday I had made a Banana, Pecan, Coconut coffee cake from my Coffee Cakes cookbook. It was lightly spiced and so moist and flavorful! This cookbook is the same cookbook out of which came the Spice cake I made for Christmas... I'm really falling in love with it!

On Sunday I made french toast for breakfast. One of my mother's students brought us a fresh loaf of challah bread from the school my mom teaches at and the moment we got it I said -ding- french toast! Usually I just make french toast from my head throwing together some milk and eggs but on Sunday I followed the french toast recipe from my Williams Sonoma breakfast cookbook to a T. It called for orange zest and vanilla, some Cointreau, milk, eggs and sugar. I let the challah soak for about 10 minutes and then cooked it on a flat griddle. It. Was. To. Die. For. The flavor of the orange with the sweet challah. Topped with sliced strawberries and cinnamon and a drizzle of maple syrup... it was amazing. The day on Sunday was beautiful so for lunch we sat outside with a nice assorted spread of meats and cheeses and condiments and bread. That's my favorite way to eat lunch with my parents. Sure I end up eating way more than if I have just a sandwich on my plate but it's so fun to just sit around for two hours making your own little assorted sandwiches.

My parents returned from their trip to London and Paris and my mom brough me some awesome Darjeeling and Chai teas! She also visited various chocolatiers in Paris and brough back a box of truffles from Pierre Marcolini for us to try. Over the weekend we tasted various truffles and I have to say that they were okay, but my mother's chocolates are a million times better!

Enoteca Vespaio; Halcyon

So dinner last night with girlfriends went down at Enoteca Vespaio on South Congress. It's the more casual bistro version (and cheaper version) of its next door neighbor, Vespaio. One of my friends had another friend in town and so four of us headed down to SoCo around 6:45. Even though it was a Tuesday it was emptier than I though it'd be. We got seated immediately and the restaurant only started to fill up when we were headed out around 8. It was a hard menu choice for us since everything sounded so delicious but we finally narrowed it down. My plan had been to order the spinach salad but I was kind of craving some nice hot pasta so my plans changed at the last minute. To begin I ordered a Caprese salad which was... heavenly. Everyone else commented that it was very simple and tasted kind of bland. But that's the beauty of it. The creamy, milky fresh mozzarella and the vine ripe red tomato slices and the beautiful green basil chiffonade only dressed with salt, good ground cracked pepper and extra virgin olive oil. Bliss.

Following that the four of us each ordered our own entrees. Amy and I planned on sharing both of ours since we couldn't decide on what we wanted. She ordered pasta with fontina-stuffed veal meatballs in a tomato sauce and I ordered a pizza with pancetta and caramelized onions.

The pasta was... it was just perfect. Very thin spaghetti perfectly al dente with a very hot thick tomato sauce with big chunks of tomato. It was so comforting and satisfying. The veal meatballs were juicy and tender, very well seasoned and the fontina cheese inside was gooey and delicious (one of my favorite cheeses, which is why I pushed for this dish, how can I turn away veal and fontina?). The dish came with a piece of garlic bread which I absolutely loved. It was crispy and buttery and super garlicky. Yum-o! After my salad, the garlic bread and some pasta I only ate one slice of my pizza (which ended up not being such a bad thing...)

The pizza, unlike the pasta, was disappointing. The caramelized onions were sweet and delicious but the good kind of stopped there. The crust under the pizza was very thin which I usually love but here it was soggy instead of slightly crispy (can't be too crispy either, that's bad also!). The pancetta and cheese made the pizza extremely oily. The flavor was good but the greasiness and the sogginess were just too bad to overlook. I wouldn't give up on the pizza here though because the crust around the edges was delicious and so perhaps it was just this pizza with it's high level of grease made the pizza soggy?

The place itself is very cute inside, quite small and intimate but very cute and comforting at the same time. If you want a great comforting pasta dish with a nice atmosphere, I definitely recommend this place.

After a little digestion we headed over to Halcyon. I had been there once before I really wanted to take the other girls there because I love the atmosphere and vibe of the place. We got there around 9 and, again, it was a Tuesday night so it wasn't exactly as happening as say on a Thursday of Friday night a little later, but there were quite a few people, all on the laptops for some reason? The real reason I wanted to take them there was for their s'mores! They bring you a little candle-fire thing (like what you would put under fondue kind of) along with chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers and you make your own s'mores! For four of us they brough us 8 graham cracker sheets, 2 bars of Hershey's milk chocolate and maybe 10 marshmallows? Our flame went out right at the end and so she took our tray away to relight it and came back with another bar of chocolate, more graham crackers and more marshmallows! Apparently a co-worker didn't know she was just relighting our flame so she set up a new tray. S'more for for costs $9.

It's so fun to sit and do this with your friends (and of course it's delicious, you can't go wrong with s'mores). It makes for a really nice dessert and end to a great night. I also had some kahlua on the rocks... I had never tried Kahlua before, only Bailey's... I think I like Bailey's more, it's surprisingly less sweet, I thought Kahlua would be less sweet but alas it isn't. :)

Lunch today will be at Iron Works. And tomorrow before I head home Amy and I are going to eat lunch at Sandella's. I just got a coupon from them in the mail and it looks good so we're going to give it a try! That's a lot of eating out, huh? Oh well...

Upcoming

Tomorrow: Enoteca Vespaio (finally!!) on SoCo. I'm thinking of ordering one of the following salads (yes I'm an avid read-the-menu-before-I-go-to-the-restaurant kind of person):

SPINACH: baby spinach, radicchio, candied walnuts, mushrooms, gorgonzola dolce, fire roasted peppers w/ pancetta vinaigrette sm $7/ lg $9

NICOISE: big eye tuna confit, arugula, radicchio, hard boiled egg, tomato, haricots verts, new potatoes, kalamata olives w/ lemon citronette $13

Wednesday: Iron Works BBQ on Congress and Red River

I'm thinking of either getting the All-you-can-eat salad bar. But I mean, come on, it's a BBQ place and I really need to compare it to Lambert's, right? So, being a little more realistic I'll probably get either the order of sliced beef or smoked turkey. The plates all come with a side of potato salad, beans, bread, pickle, onion, barbecue sauce. I'm going to replace the potato salad with a green salad and avoid the bread (as best I can, it is my weakness after all).

Tonight I had my first run at making tofu at home... it didn't go so well. I didn't really follow a recipe either so maybe I should do that next time. I bought extra firm tofu, cubed it and then planned on "searing" it on each side so that it would be browned but that didn't really work out. Either way, I stir fried it with bok choy, bean sprouts, mushrooms, carrot, onions, garlic, gingner, miso paste, soy sauce, red curry paste. Although the tofu was kind of mushy the flavor was delicious and all the veggies were crunchy. It ended up making a lot and so I have lots of leftover. The nice thing is that it was a much greater veggie to tofu ratio, which makes it nice and healthy but still interesting because there was so much going on! I guess it would have been good served on rice or with with some Asian-type noodles but I liked it just as it was, veggies and protein. Yum!

As for the raw food detox, I decided against it, for this week anyway. I'm going home on Thursday to visit my family and I want to be able to enjoy all of my mother's cooking. I hear the transition back to cooked food from raw food can be quite unpleasant so I don't see the need to put myself through that. Maybe when I have a full 7 days to myself I'll try again! Having said that, I have been incorporating a lot more raw fruits and vegetables into my diet. Today alone I ate a mango, pear, orange, strawberries and baby carrots. I also had low fat yogurt and cottage cheese. Low sodium butternut squash soup and then my veggie tofu stir fry (made with virtually no added fat). Not bad, huh?

Okay okay I had some dark chocolate (60%) too but, hey, I'm only human, and I let myself consider it a health food! Antioxidants! Yum!

Raw food detox & Yogurt

My 24 hour water fast starts in one hour and I am, to say the least, nervous. I'm not one of those people, unlike some I know, who can eat one meal a day and be fine. Those that claim to forget to eat. No no, I am definitely not one of those. I wake up hungry. Hunger is the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.

So 24 hours of just water seems unthinkable. Of course, people all over the world do it, not out of choice but rather out of necessity all the time and so the fact that not eating for 24 hours is a choice I can make is quite a luxury. I'm thinking I'll probably feel very unwell at moments but after those hunger pangs pass you kind of forget about it... right? I'm going from 6pm-6pm! No food.

Why? Well... it's all to kick start a raw food detox that I will then be doing from Monday-Thursday. It's technically supposed to be a 7 day detox but I'm going home this weekend to Houston and I have a feeling that sustaining a raw food diet will be very highly unlikely, although I'll definitely do my best, just with no guarantees. I'm thinking I can eat mostly fruits, vegetables, salads, maybe yogurt? And definitely still no meat (it's been 6 days!).

So apparently this water detox can make you feel very clean and can give your digestive system a relief. I've already stopped eating meat since Monday and have desperately tried to cut back on bread, although it's been difficult. I've also cut back on caffeine.

Why am I doing this? Well... it all started when I wanted to see if I could not eat meat for a week. And then I found this raw food detox online and thought, hmm, that sounds interesting, how bad could a detox be for my body? Sounds like a good idea. I mean, as all raw foodists argue, we are the only animals in the world who eat cooked food. All other animals eat raw seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables. Makes sense, right? So I guess I can give it a try!

Now, I could never go 100% raw, I would never want to, for many many reasons. Firstly, it'd be too difficult to go out with friends and eat out. I'd miss out on things like bread and cheese and chocolate and pizza and burgers (not that I eat that very often, but when I want it, I want it). Some things are just too good to not eat. But I think that eating raw makes a lot of sense so I really think that I could incorporate more raw fruits and vegetables in to my diet. And I could definitely stay away from meat from here on out, especially chicken, for health and humanitarian reasons.

Okay, okay - I'm getting ahead of myself! First things first - 24 hours of no eating, only water. Let's see how it goes...

As a side note, I just wanted to review two types of yogurt that I've tried recently (another reason I could never go raw!):

-Cultural revolution, vanilla: This yogurt is interesting. As it says on it's packaging it has a cream top. I bought the 2% vanilla flavor. It is lower in sugar than most regular yogurt which I really like, that's the primary reason I bought it. When you open it and stir it together it is not very thick and it is lumpy, like traditional yogurt is. This texture might bother some people but it didn't bother me. The sweetness was pleasant, not too overbearing but not as subtle as in the Siggi's. I liked it a lot, I like being able to eat vanilla yogurt for less sugar than plain yogurt from other brands!
-Siggi's Icelandic style Skyr, pomegranate and passion fruit: Because it's strained it's extremely thick even thought it's non-fat and also very high in protein, 16g in 6 oz.! It's sweetened with agave nectar but is very delicately flavored, not extremely sweet like most yogurts on the market. The predominant flavor is the tangy natural flavor of yogurt with a delicate, faint flavor of sweetness and fruit. It's delicious! 100% natural. Made from cows allowed to roam free and eat grass, not treated with rBGH! It's expensive but worth it. With 120 calories and 11g of sugar per 6 ounces, it's a treat! Thick, creamy, non-fat, high protein, all natural. I can't wait to try the orange and ginger flavor, I hear it's the best!

A reason to consider vegetarianism...

Zoot at Bee Cave

So last night my boss took me and two other interns out to dinner at a restaurant I had never head of named Zoot. It's on Bee Cave pretty far out past Resaca at a little shopping center named La Hacienda. It just recently moved there from another location and when we got there it was pretty obvious, the place is very underdeveloped, looks like Zoot is one of the first restaurants to move out there. They don't have their liquor license yet so they only offer beer and wine, for now. Their wine list is extensive but they said they only had a few beers to offer.

The menu was very fancy fare - foie gras, duck and the like. The front side of the menu includes appetizers, salads, soups and entrees a la carte. The second side of the menu has two preset menus, a Chef's tasting menu and a Farmer's market menu which was vegetarian. They each include 5 smaller courses for $67 or for $97 you can have a wine paired with each course. My boss decided that the latter would be the best choice (I had no problem arguing with her!).

This week I'm trying not to eat meat. It's been actually... not difficult per se, but it definitely requires me to be aware. Meat is not something that I crave, unlike bread and chocolate, but it is something that I take for granted in all my meals. When I think of dinner or lunch, my planning usually revolves around a particular protein, and so when I cut out meat (including fish) it's hard! So far I've stuck to... well let's see. Monday I had a salad for lunch and then an english muffin with pb for dinner. Yesterday I also had a salad for lunch and then Zoot for dinner (I chose the Farmer's market menu, I'll get back to that soon!) and today for lunch I had some tabbouleh that I had purchased at Whole Foods brought in from Tom's Tabooley on Guadalupe. And for dinner I had some cottage cheese with yogurt with strawberries and then a little later I had a big salad. It's been interesting, and I feel like it's good to give my digestive system a little bit of a break (after the weekend I had of eating!). I'm trying to go easy on eating bread also. But I can't cut everything out at once! I'm already drinking no coffee, again. I went through a period of not drinking coffee, a few months, but I recently started drinking it again. Then this weekend I drank way too much and thought I'd give my body a bit of a break with no coffee and no meat!

Anyway, back to Zoot. I ordered the Farmer's market menu which was difficult for me because I absolutely love meat! And the Chef's tasting menu included scallops, marlin, NY strip steak... oh, it was difficult. But, I'm glad I stuck to my plan! And it was still delicious! (And it better have been for that price!). I'm not much of a wine drinker, to be honest. I find it very harsh on the tongue, and I definitely felt that last night, with some more than others, but I'll get to that!

To start - warm mini baguettes served with butter. I ate one, without butter, it tasted just as a well made baguette should taste - I tell you, sometimes there's nothing better than just simple bread. And it reminds me why I forgo pasta, rice and potatoes for bread any day.

They also served us each an amouse bouche, very cutely on a spoon for each of us. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but let me tell you. One spoonful of A LOT of flavor. We were all in pure shock at how much flavor they managed to get into that one tiny spoonful. It was absolutely, incredibly delicious.

First course: Cracked wheat and fava beans with dressed spinach. The fava beans were the best part of this dish. I love beans and these were so creamy and well seasoned. The cracked wheat, seasoned, was interesting. Similar to the cracked wheat in tabbouleh, very textured. It was a very healthful, vegetarian way to start the night off. They paired it with a sweet white wine, I think it was my favorite wine of the night.
Second course: Root vegetable soup with candied ginger! This was by far the best course. The soup was so flavorful, it was incredible. The flavor was superb. They paired it with a white wine which was quite smooth and went perfectly with the soup. It was just amazing... I could have just had a whole big bowl of that and it would have been a wonderful night!
Third course: Sweet potato gnocchi served with marinate beets! This was the coures that I was most excited about but which was the biggest disappointment! I absolutely love sweet potatoes, and I love gnocci. But they were very dense and pasty. Thick on the tongue, like it would stick to the roof of your mouth. The flavor was great but the texture, heaviness of it was too much. Gnocchi is tranditionally quite a heavy dish but this was just too much. The red wine they served with it was a Malbec blend from Argentina, still too strong for my tastes.
Fourth course: Ravioli with roasted artichoke hearts! The artichoke hearts were very strongly marinated. Flavorful but intense. The ravioli was simple, straight forward. Delicious but nothing exceptional. The filling was a ricotta or mascarpone mixture, I think. It was creamy, white and mild. It was pleasant, especially with such an intense side. The red wine that they served with it was extremely spicy and strong, too much for my tatstest!
Fifth course: Dessert! A very dense, dark chocolate pie with dried rose petals on top, a sprinkling of salt, and three roasted hazelnuts! Served with a scoop of... pomegranate (that would be my best guess) sorbet. It was delectable. The perfect combination of intense and light, bitter and sweet. The perfect ending. And they served it with a 20 year old Port wine which was... oh it was just intensely sweet and absolutely heavenly.

Apparently they change the tasting menus every so often and the sommelier chooses the wines each night depending on what he wants to serve.

So, obviously it's extremely expensive (and their tables were really wobbly, that's the only real complaint that I have!) but if you're looking for an indulgence, a peaceful escape from the city, this place was really wonderful. The food, the wine. The waitstaff are extremely polite and really know what they're talking about, which is always a really nice thing to have at a restaurant (and something not found often enough!)

All in all it was a wonderfully enjoyable meal. (And I still think the non-vegetarian menu would have been better! :P)

Siena

So last night for Austin Restaurant Week Amy and I chose one restaurant to go to and we finally decided on Siena. We chose it for the price, which was markedly lower than what we would have paid for each dish separately any other night, and because the menu sounded delicious. And it was.

I had the salad to begin. Quite small, mixed greens in a light sweet vinaigrette with a generous portion of perfectly crisp bacon, walnuts, gorgonzola cheese and a few slices of apple. It was the perfect size to begin the meal with. We also each got a roll with olive oil to dip into. The bread was night, almost the texture of a traditional baguette but more ciabatta-y? The crust was seasoned and yummy.

For dinner we both decided on the trout. Initially we each wanted to get something different but neither of us wanted chicken. They had a pork dish but I've eaten pork recently so I didn't want pork and Amy ordered the fennel sausage and cannelini bean soup so she didn't want pork either. The third dish was a handmade ravioli, which wasn't really calling to either one of us. So the trout it was, and can we just say wow?

A huge fillet of trout delicately crusted with walnuts, topped with a very rich lemon butter sauce and four sauteed shrimp. With a side of sauteed spinach with garlic. Wow. It was incredible. The butter sauce was almost too rich, and we definitely took our time getting through the whole thing! We didn't want to rush and we didn't want to leave leftovers so we sat and waited til we fit it all in! With dinner I had a glass of Riesling, which was heaven, Amy had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

After we had taken at least an hour and a half with our entree and waited at least another half hour just chatting and letting our food settle, we finally ordered dessert. We decided to share the panna cotta and tiramisu -- initially we both wanted the chocolate torte but upon seeing it it looked so small and run of the mill that we decided to get the less than common desserts. We also each got decaf lattes with Bailey's.

They brought the Bailey's in a separate small apperitif glass -- is it wrong if I say that that might have been the best part of the evening? The frothy latte was served in a big mug with a biscotti on the side, it was absolutely indulgent and delicious. The desserts were a nice sweet ending to the night but nothing amazing. The panna cotta, which I've never had before so I don't know what to compare it to, had a lovely texture and a tangy flavor, a result of being made from yogurt. It was served with a port wine reduction with figs which was heavenly, the figs may have been my favorite part. I'm a fan of all things custard, pudding, flan, creme brulee so I really enjoyed the panna cotta.

I've never been a big fan of tiramisu, I always just think it's okay, and this was no different. The genoise, isntead of lady fingers, were very moist, soaked, alledgedly in espresso and liqeuer and rum, although I couldn't taste any semblance of alcohol. The menu said it used mascarpone cheese, which I've also never had before so I couldn't tell you if it was the real thing, but whatever it was it was delicious. The entire dessert was very delicately flavored and really enjoyable. It was nice, especially with the latte. Amy really din't like the texture, but I enjoyed it. Like I said, nothing incredible, not a dessert that I would say "Oh I looove tiramisu!" but of all th ones I've had, this one is up there, and it was worth every bite (and every dollar!).

All in all the ambiance was wonderful, the location was beautiful, the restaurant was beautiful, our waiter was super patient with us (we were there for FOUR hours!). We really took our time to enjoy each little morsel, and we did. It wasn't the best meal I've ever had, by far, but it was the most enjoyable, by a long shot. If every restaurant would let me have a three course meal over the course of four hours, I would be a happy woman (I just need to work out and make a lot more money first!).

Pot roast -- SUCCESS!

So here's how it all went down... I bought a slow cooker! I didn't grow up in a household that used things like slow cookers or rice cookers - my mother's a chef who grew up in a very traditional Brasilian household where everything was handmade from scratch and time to make things like gnocchi was in abundance.

Unfortunately, I no longer live in a world where I have that time, so I finally gave into my long time desire to own a slow cooker. And my first experiment? A pot roast! It was so exciting, I couldn't wait! I had read a couple of recipes but I really just threw into the pot what I had.

1 onion chopped
2 carrots chopped
4 cloves of garlic, whole
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 lb lean beef top round roast
about 1/4 cup barbecue sauce
scant 1/4 cup ketchup
scant 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
Mustard powder... maybe a teaspoon or 2?
Plenty of salt
Dried parsley
A couple of shakes of salt-free all purpose seasoning


Throw all of that in the slow cooker pot and set on low! I switched it on around 9 am and switched it off at around 7 pm when I ate. At the last minute I added 2 zucchini, chopped.

And can I just say... it was amazing. I was scared it'd be too... salty? Not too salty enough? Not flavorful?

Firstly let me say that when I walked into my house it smelled... unbelievable. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I took the whole piece of meat out of the slow cooker and it just fell apart. I pulled it all apart into smaller pieces and returned it to the pot and mixed it in with the sauce and vegetables. It was so flavorful and moist. Not too sweet, which I was also worried about because of the barbecue sauce and ketchup.


I just couldn't believe how easy and delicious it was! And so many leftovers! (I'm sending some home with my sister tomorrow because my mother is salivating to try it!) Now I can't wait to try every other recipe from Cooking Light - there's a paprika braised chicken that looks amazing, and chili of course. And there's a recipe for over night oatmeal from The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook. I can't wait!

I went to Target today and FINALLY got my hands on the new copy of Eating Well, time to go read and sticky note all the recipes I must try.

Oh, and for Austin Restaurant Week Amy and I have decided to go to Siena on Sunday. I can't wait! I just don't know how I'll eat an appetizer, entree and dessert without feeling sick! I'll need to pace myself!

Quesadillas

From Cooking Light I got the recipe for goat cheese and corn quesadillas.

I bought extra thin corn tortillas and used them. They were quite small but ended up really being the perfect size for lunch paired with half a cup of refried beans and some slices of tomato.

2 corn quesadillas
1 oz. goat cheese
1 oz. corn kernels
A few pieces of caramelized red onion
1 tablespoon tomatillo sauce (I bought a mild fire roasted green sauce from Arriba, all natural ingredients, and it is DELICIOUS!)

Just spread the goat cheese on one of the tortillas, scatter the onions and corn, top it with tomatillo sauce and the other tortilla. Heat the griddle pan to medium-high heat and toast each side. I think I started with my pan on too low heat because the tortillas didn't really crisp up like I wanted them to. But regardless of the slightly too soft tortillas (which made it hard to eat like a quesadilla) the flavor was amazing! I also added about 2 tablespoons of the tomatillo sauce to the refried beans. It was all heavenly.

Lambert's

So yesterday for lunch I went to Lambert's with some work colleagues. We all ordered the one meat two sides lunch plate for $12 and then proceeded to share a coconut creme pie for $8 (which they described as individually sized but after lunch the three of us ate it up and it was more than enough!).

We went for a late lunch, around 1:45, so the restaurant was virtually empty so service was fast and our waiter was super nice and helpful, recommending the pie and greens (he was right on both counts).

I ordered the brisket (supposedly rubbed with brown sugar and coffee), the bacon braised collard greens and the carrot and jicama slaw.

When you first arrive they bring you little miniature cornbread muffins, the two bite kind, served with butter. They were moist and flavorful with little bits of jalapeno here and there.

The entree came and it wasn't as big as I had heard it described. The servings of the sides were each maybe 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup and the meat itself was maybe 5-6 oz. The collard greens were hands down the best part, perfectly wilted, perfectly seasoned, so delicious. I ate those right up! The slaw was really nice too, super crunchy because of the carrot, jicama and cabbage. The dressing was super light, nothing drenched in a creamy sauce. It was almost citrusy and minty, really refreshing complement to the spicy bbq.

Now onto the bbq. They serve house and hot bbq sauce at the table for you to use at your leisure. I went for the house and it was a nice blend of sweet and hot although a little too tomatoey for me. The meat itself tasted nothing of coffee, I'm not sure it was meant to, and although it was flavorful it was... dry. And that is unforgivable. Brisket is a meat which because of it's high fat content should never be dry, it should be juicy. And although the pieces I got were quite lean with just a little fat around the edges it still shouldn't have been as dry as it was! I doused it in house bbq sauce which made it absolutely delicious, though.

The coconut creme pie came not as a slice but as a mini whole pie. The crust was quite thick and had a layer of caramel and a layer of chocolate before the coconut pudding filling which made it extremely difficult to cut through - the three of us were grappling with our forks and spoons drying to get through it! The pie had a generous dollop of whipped cream on top. Overall it was delicious. The crust was flavorful, not too sweet, not the best I've had since it wasn't flaky or buttery or melt in your mouth amazing, but it was nice. The caramel and chocolate layer added a delicate flavor, not overpowering. The coconut custard was amazing. The pieces of coconut in it were to die for (I'm a coconut lover!) and it wasn't too sweet which I appreciate. The whipped cream on top was simple and delicious.

Overall, from reading this post one would assume that I'd give this place a raving review, and I would, except that... the brisket was dry. Now, yes the sides were phenomenal and the dessert was good but... it's a bbq joint. It's star should be it's meat. You can go elsewhere for delicious collards, good slaw and you can definitely go to a million other places with as good as and better coconut creme pie. So for a bbq place... it failed me. I am still on the search for perfect brisket. Next stop one of these days: Salt Lick, I think.

Next up? Goat cheese ad corn quesadillas for lunch, Pot roast (in my slow cooker as we, or I rather, um, type) for dinner, Tabbouleh sometime tomorrow or Saturday. And then in the spirit of Austin Restaurant week either Friday night or Saturday night Amy and I will be going to one of the restaurants offering a special menu. We've got it narrowed down to Judge's Hill, Zax, Siena and Chez Zee. I narrowed it down from the long list by first eliminating anywhere we had already been or places that were very mainstream and we'd probably end up going to one day (Perry's, Truluck's). Then I went through the menus and eliminated anywhere with a boring sounding menu and without a chocolate dessert! Right now I'm leaning towards Judge's Hill or Siena, we'll see!

Cooking Light, inspired!

So my new copy of Cooking Light has a section of simple dinner, using 5 ingredients or less. So Monday night Amy and I decided to make the almond stuffed chicken. And can I just say, it was absolutely divine. And literally took me maybe 10 minutes to prep.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half (butterflied). Salt, pepper generously. Add a wedge of laughing cow light garlic and herb cheese and sliced almonds. Close it up, pop it in the oven. 350F for... 30 minutes? I added a little water in the baking dish to keep it super moist (and it did). Of course I missed one big step that my parents would both have killed me for doing -- I didn't sear before finishing cooking in the oven. I know, I know the caramelization adds such flavor and color but... I couldn't be bothered. :-/ So just think it could have been even better than it was, which is surprising! As a side I just boiled some haricots verts, added a little salt and balsamic vinegar and voila. Easy, nutritious and seriously seriously delicious!

I bought ingredients to make two other recipes from Cooking Light tomorrow: Goat cheese and corn quesadillas and Pot roast (I finally bought a slow cooker so I'm super excited to see how that turns out...). I also bought ingredients to make Tabbouleh so I may do that on Saturday!

Today I'm going to Lambert's for lunch with the girls from my work. I'm thinking I'm going to get the one meat plate with two sides -- brown sugar and coffee rubbed natural brisket, carrot and jicama slaw and collard greens. And plenty of bbq sauce, of course. Yum! I read that the fried green tomato salad is one of the best things on their menu and I really do love salads so it's really hard to pass up (especially since it has crab!) but I've been craving bbq for a while so I really feel like to review this place properly I need to eat their bbq. I'll go back and try the salad another day maybe!

Tino's Greek Cafe

This place is incredible. The food was absolutely delicious!

I had the build you own lunch plate with a combination of gyro meat and chicken. You can choose either a soup or salad and then three sides. I chose the salad, it was quite small but Greek style and delicious. They give you a pretty sizable portion of meat and then a piece of pita bread. There are several sides to choose from. I chose hummus, tabbouleh and spanakopita. Everything was incredible. The meats were well seasoned and juicy. The pita bread was soft and thick and flavorful. The tabbouleh was delicious, the hummus was nice and creamy, the spanakopita were all flaky and baked to perfection. The olives on the Greek salad had pits! That's so rare now a days!

I would recommend it to anyone any day. Take note that it is a lot of food, I ate my whole plate but I probably should have taken some home with me, it left me quite full. Over all I would love to go back here anyday. Next time though I think I'll try either just the chicken wrap or the Greek salad with chicken, or maybe split a lunch plate with someone? Yum!

Pancakes: Yum yum!

Today as I made my pancakes I wanted to try something a little new... but I didn't have much to work with, but this is what I ended up doing, and they were delicious!

2 cups Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat Buttermilk pancake mix
1/3 cup sweetened applesauce
1 1/2 cups unsweetened soymilk
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1 packet instant oatmeal
2 eggs
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

According to the recipe analyzer on Calorie Count each pancake (this made 11 pancakes for me) has 112 calories... that seems low, I think. But maybe not. Either way, they have 6 g of protein each and 2 g of fiber! They were delicious. That Hodgson Mill pancake mix is the best I've ever found. No added sugar, whole wheat, light and fluffy but super healthy and hearty. I've tried their buckwheat pancake mix also which I really liked but some people I made them for thought they were too heavy.

Is this really what people eat?

A can of classic coke
Goldfish
A sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise (about a tablespoon of it), a few leaves of iceberg lettuce and two pieces of processed ham (with most of the lettuce picked out and the crust not eaten!)

Really? Is it because it's cheaper? Easier? Or because things like whole grain bread and fruit are... boring? Unfamiliar? Strange flavors?

And she's stick thin... how?

Recommendation for Vietnamese vs. Greek

Tam Deli & Cafe vs. Tino's Greek Cafe

We're going to go to one of them for lunch on Saturday, we'll see what we're craving.

They were both recommended to me by people I work with. I've never really eaten Vietnamese food but I have had really good Greek food so I'm curious to try both!

Dinner, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner-- a lot of eating out

Dinner 2/13
The Woodland on South Congress

• The place has a really nice vibe, it does have a full bar and the side with the bar on it is extremely loud, which is where we got seated. When we left we saw there was seating on the other side of the restaurant which was probably much quieter. The menu isn't too extensive, it's your classic American with a modern twist kind of food. They served warm rolls with butter before out food came. I ordered the Woodland salad with chicken added (for $6). It was small for a dinner salad. It had cooked beets, ricotta salata, mixed greens, sunflower sprouts and seeds. All over it was nothing special. The chicken was just plain grilled with no flavor of it's own. I wouldn't go back there for the food, maybe for the bar and atmosphere. Amy had the reuben, it was better than the one from 34th Street Cafe and even gave the one from New World Deli a run for its money but I didn't like the bread, had a licorice flavor to it which I think is due to... fennel seed? Not 100% sure but if it weren't for the bread it would've been amazing. Amy loved it. It came with a side of really delicious potato salad. She also ordered a drink call the Eudora. It tasted very strongly of bourbon which I don't like so just the smell of it made me cringe. The cocktail menu is very different with flavors like cucumber, elderflower and grapefruit. But like I said they have a full bar so I'm sure they can make any drink upon request.
  

Big Top Candy Shop on South Congress

• This place seems like a dream come true. An old fashioned candy and soda shop. I tried my first piece of salt water taffy, nothing special. Amy had a piece of chocolate covered bacon which she loved, I thought it was okay. But what I HAVE to hate on are the truffles. We were really excited to have a small truffle. I got the Black Forest and she got a Dark Chocoalte Macadamia Nut truffle. They were TERRIBLE! The Black Forest wreaked of artificial cherry flavoring and it was SO sweet it was nauseating. Amy's also tasted artificial and ridiculously sweet. It was so disappointing and just downright inedible, and that's say a lot for chocolate! Why is it so hard to find people who use real ingredients instead of just artificially flavored extracts? Who don't make everything sickeningly sweet?
  

Breakfast 2/14
Austin Bakehouse on Manchaca and Stassney

• This place is a little gem of a restaurant which I found on austin.citysearch.com when looking for breakfast places. We took forever to order because we couldn't decide on what to get! We finally ended up sharing the eggs benedict, one pancake, a slice of french toast and a side of refried beans and home fries. It sounds like a lot, and it was a lot of variation, but each part wasn't overly sized. This was my first taste of eggs benedict so I had nothing to compare it to, I thought it was okay. My egg was cooked perfectly and the canadian bacon was delicious but there was hardly any hollandaise on it and that was disappointing. Amy was disappointed by it and said she wouldn't order it again. The french toast wasn't very good either, we thought it needed some cinnamon or some other seasoning. The bread is made in house which is nice but the french toast itself didn't taste like much of anything. The refried beans were delcious, clearly seasoned or cooked with bacon or bacon fat, you can taste it, which makes it even more delicious. Definitely worth ordering again. The home fries had sauteed onions mixed in which added so much flavor and with an extra sprinkling of salt they were perfect. But the piece de resistance of the meal was the pancake. We got the apple cinnamon pecan pancake and, hold your breath, it was better than Kerbey Lane's pancakes! There were literally real pieces of apples and pecans in the pancake. You could tast the cinnamon and they are made with half whole wheat flour. They were flavorful and light and absolutely perfect. Over all it's a really cute place where it's obvious that most of the customers are regulars familiar with the waiters. It's a really chill, relaxed environment. And pretty cheap too, all that food came to about $12 each with tip (and we had some french toast left over)! For pancakes, I'll definitely be going back!
  

Lunch 2/14
FoodHeads on 34th Street

• Wow. I ordered the half Chicken and Eggplant sandwich with half Greek salad. And wow. Firstly, the greek salad was the best I've ever had. Greens, cucumber, olives, crutons, feta cheese, tomatoes, red onion, delicious dressing, not too tangy, not too much -- just perfect. It was incredible. The sandwich though was the best part. Grilled chicken, eggplant, basil pesto, blackberry balsamic vinaigrette and goat cheese (enough to put me into goat cheese heaven!) all on multigrain bread. It was absolutely incredible. Not only was the food amazing but the place is SO adorable. They brew Republic of Tea, they have fresh flowers all over the place, it's so homey and cosy and adorable. I also shared an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie (my favorite kind!), the flavor was delicious but it was crunchy instead of chewy, I prefer them chewy. They're baked fresh from scratch with all real ingredients - butter, sugar, eggs - yum! All their other ingredients are fresh also. No frozen meat, no frozen egg patties. Real eggs used all around. Their bread is delivered fresh daily from Mandolo's (at the Triangle on 45th and Guadalupe). In sum, go here, try it, it's delicious! Adorable and all real, natural food. Ditch the food chains and go to Food Heads!
  

Dinner 2/14
Bess on West 6th

• Wow. This place was incredible! West 6th street, super swanky. The place has a great upscale but down to earth vibe. My friends and I went there Valentine's night and all the tables were booked but we walked in hoping for luck and, what do you know, we sat immediately at the bar and got served! Even better than sitting at a table! Our bartender/waitress Summer was awesome. Knowledgeable, super sweet. Amy and I began by sharing the cheese plate which came with wine soaked goat cheese, two types of blue cheese, manchego, and brie, crackers, grapes and prosciutto wrapped almond stuffed dates (oh my god!). It was an incredible beginning to the evening. Superseded only by our main entree: Steak Frites. I hadn't had steak frites in a long time (essentially a tenderloin and fries). And this one brought back all the right memories. The tenderloin was cooked medium, it was absolute perfection. The fries were thin cut, not greasy at all. It all came with a demi-glace which we poured over the fries... we were basically licking the plate. I cannot even put into words here how incredible everything was. The service, the ambiance, the food, the quality. The food was absolutely incredible. Flavorful... just perfection. I would without a doubt recommend this place and go back here in a heartbeat to try their other dishes. Yes, it is Sandra Bullock's restaurant and, yes, she was sitting in the corner eating dinner. She is there regularly, down to earth, just minding her own business. It was awesome. What an incredible evening!
• Cocktails: Made with real fruit? What an idea! (I didn't drink all these myself!)
  
• Vespa - Kind of sweet and mellow, really nice. Made with pear vodka, gin, peach juice...
  
• Lagniappe - Needed to add a bit more raspberry puree to it because it was too strong for my tastes, but then it was delicious. At the bottom of my glass were all my crushed raspberries! Yum yum! Made with raspberries, lime, basil... vodka? or gin I think?
  
• Rockstar Martini
  
• Redlight Martini - Think this was the one which was just pomegranate juice and vodka, it was surprisingly delicious, the best cocktail of the night!
  
• Something with mango? Literally had mango puree coming up the straw, which was awesome, but it was made with bourbon, which I don't like.
  

Smoothie yum-yum!

So I've been reading/hearing about how grapefruit and grapefruit juice when eaten/drunk before a meal can speed up your metabolism and aid in weight loss? I'm not sure if that's true, but hey, it can't hurt, right? And I love grapefruit already so I don't even have to go out of my way! Yesterday at the grocery store, to use in my smoothies, I bought Simply Grapefruit juice. Interestingly, it has 90 calories per serving and 19g of sugar versus the other shelf stable types which have about 130 calories and 29-32g of sugar per serving. Both claim to have 100% fruit juice so I'm not sure where that difference comes from...

Anyway, this morning I made a surprisingly delicious smoothie (I was scared the grapefruit juice would be very harsh and sour):

2/3 cup grapefruit juice
1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk
4 large frozen unsweetened strawberries
1/2 medium banana frozen
2 teaspoons vanilla whey protein powder

Blend it all in the blender, the longer you blend the more air it will incorporate and the greater it will be in volume. Gives the illusion of more juice and makes you fuller! Some books I have recommend that you blend for 10 minutes. I think that's a bit much, maybe if I walked away from it I could do it but I'd probably push the sound out of my head and forget about it! Today I blended it for about 3 minutes. It was already substantially thickened and greater in volume.

About 200 calories!

Egg bake lunch

So last night to eat along with cod I made a vegetable medley just by cooking on the stove top

1 onion sliced
1 red bell pepper sliced
A little less than 8 oz mushrooms sliced
2 zucchini sliced

Some salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar until everything was nice and soft (add the zucchini last to make sure it doesn't over cook!)

Anyway, there was plenty left over so today for lunch I decided to use it in a nice egg bake type of thing. I'd say this is about 4 good sized servings

6 eggs
about 1 cup of the mix above
about 1/2 cup loosely packed spinach, roughly chopped
2 roma tomatoes diced
about 2 ounces deli turkey (or any kind of meat/bean you want to add) roughly chopped
Salt and pepper
2% reduced fat shredded cheese

Whisk the eggs and then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Pour it all into a casserole dish and put it in the over at 350F for about 45 minutes. Sprinkle about 1/2 cup cheese on top and leave it in the oven just until melted and slightly browned.

We ate it with refried pinto beans, sliced avocado and half a slice of rosemary sourdough bread from Whole Foods.

For the refried pinto beans just drain and rinse 2 cans of pinto beans to reduce the sodium. Add about 2 cups fresh water and the beans into the food processor and pulse just until the beans have broken up. Add to a pot on the stove top over high heat and when it comes to a boil reduce to low heat and let simmer, stirring, until thickened substantially, about 20-30 minutes. You don't need to constantly stir, just stir every once in a while to ensure the bottom is not sticking. If you'd like, to add more flavor, you can saute some onion and garlic before adding the bean mixture to the pan.

Donut pizza chocolate -- a "bad" day

So before coming to work this morning Amy and I went to have breakfast. We were going to go to Kerbey Lane but I had heard about this place on Rio Grande and 29th called Texas French Bread so we decided to try it out. The breakfast menu online sounded yummy so we were excited.

Unfortunately, it was a big disappointment. They open at 7 am, we got there are 7:20 and their cook was running late so we couldn't order any of the plates we wanted (eggs with toast, etc.) instead I got a currant scone and Amy got a chocolate croissant. The scone looked a little dry so I drizzled some honey on it. I also got some tea.

First of all, the texture of the scone was delicious. Slightly crumbly but moist. But the batter itself was quite sweet and with the honey it was too much. Also, the service was terrible. The lady at the front seemed like this was the last thing in the world she wanted to be doing, like she had such more important things to do than to serve us. Plus, the atmosphere of the place was just kind of drab, not warm and inviting to make you want to sit there for hours and have a conversation, maybe that's the point. We might give it another try when we can get there and have breakfast off the menu instead of just a pastry.

At work on Fridays they always have breakfast which up until now I have easily been able to escape, but today I gave in to a donut. A cake donut with white frosting and coconut. It was... I don't know why I ate it. I'm not even that big of a donut fan, with all their sugar and white flour. And oh my god was it sugary. I have like a headache now from the sweet scone and the honey and the sugary donut.

Donuts just don't taste good, they just taste like fat and sugar. Gross.

For lunch we went to Home Slice on South Congress. Shared the Greek Salad and got a medium margherita pizza -- it was all absolutely delicious. Pretty thin crust, a little greasy, but the fresh mozzarella and basil were incredible. Yum! Definitely some of the best pizza I've had.

Clearly (ironically) I broke my 28 day breakthrough today. Like, pretty badly too. Tomorrow is a new day and as a fitness instructor once said very wisely, "When you're thinking of giving in, recommit!" And so I will.

28 days of...

February has 28 days, the perfect length of time to commit yourself to something which will make you a better person. Something you've always wanted to do? Flossing everyday? Praying? Cooking?

Mine is eating no added sugar for 28 days. Honey and maple syrup allowed only rarely.

5 days down, so far so good.

You should try it, even if it's during another month. What if you picked something to do each month? Force yourself to do something for you. A month of sex? A month of reading before bed? The possibilities are endless.

A day in the life of (my) food

8:00 AM: 1/2 cup 1 % cottage cheese with about 1/4 cup blueberries and a sprinkling of stevia. A whole wheat english muffin with all natural crunchy peanut butter. Cup darjeeling tea with one tablespoon half and half. -- about 400 calories

12:30 PM: Sandwich made with 2 slices Alvarado Bakery essential flaxseed bread, slice reduced fat jarlsberg cheese, two slices deli ham, one slice tomato, some mixed greens. About 10 baby carrots. One tangelo. -- about 330 calories

4:15 PM: Slice Alvarado Bakery essential flaxseed bread with 1 tablespoon all natural smooth peanut butter. Smoothie made with 1 cup unsweetened soymilk, 1 frozen banana, 2 teaspoons vanilla whey protein powder, 1 tablespoon cocoa powder, half packet stevia. -- about 350 calories

7:30 PM: Home baked chicken breast spiced with curry, paprika; 3/4 cup black-eyed peas (canned, drained, rinsed) slightly mashed and mixed in with the chicken, a little bit of water, sliced olives and about 1 clove of minced garlic; about 1 cup broccoli florets. -- about 400 calories

8:30 PM: Two squares of 85% Lindt chocolate. -- about 120 calories

10:30 PM: Mott's Healthy Harvest Blueberry Delight: no sugar added blueberry applesauce -- 50 calories

About 1650 calories total for the day. Usually I try to stick to 1500 calories, that's my aim, but I worked out twice today so, no harm done.

Tomorrow I'm having breakfast at Kerbey Lane! Oh, and chicken with coleslaw tonight ended up not happening because something else came up but it's been pushed to Tuesday night!

34th Street Cafe

Saturday Amy and I went to lunch at 34th Street Cafe. If you've never been, what are you waiting for?! GO!

I had their salad of the day which had field greens, spinach, chicken, tomatoes, cheese, red onion, avocado... and a poblano ranch dressing. Served with freshly baked bread.

We also tried their tomato basil soup - it was the best I've ever had, much better than La Madeleine's.

Amy got the Reuben, I thought it was too strong on the Dijon mustard, I'm not a mustard fan though, she liked it. But New World Deli's is better.

I also finally tried Kyoto on Congress and 2nd. The Godzilla roll was my favorite but the longhorn was amazing too. Their nigiri was amazing. But their calamari was really bad, unfortunately.

One place we recently discovered on Lavaca and 4th is called Saba they have a happy hour Monday through Friday from 4-7. Most of their appetizers are $5 and their specialty drinks are half price. This is one place I will go to again and again and again. The food is incredible, from their calamari to ceviche to quesadillas to fried shrimp to mu shu pork to spinach artichoke dip... the list goes on. Not to mention their drinks, like the Rum Runner I had. Great food, great prices and a wonderful atmosphere. Awesome.

And last but not least, I finally tried my first oyster the other day. We went to McCormick and Shmicks for dinner (before deciding it was too crowded and going to Saba instead). While we were waiting around for a table, the man behind the oyster counter offered us an oyster for free. I was kind of nervous and creeped out but I took the oyster, with lemon squeezed on it and kind of sucked it into my mouth with the help of my teeth. And I bit into it. It was super salty and just kind of fresh like the sea. Not as slimey as I thought it'd be. It was good, not amazing, but surprisingly good. Maybe they'll grown on me. :) So exciting!

Lasagna

Sunday night I got the craziest craving for lasagna. Unfortunately I left it in the oven just a touch too long and it was a tad dry, but the flavor was amazing.

I used an 8 in x 8 in baking dish.

About 1/2 a package of whole wheat lasagna pasta
Part skim ricotta cheese
91% lean organic ground beef
Part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
3 carrots, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
8 ounce package sliced mushrooms
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 package spinach
Wine
Worcestershire sauce
Salt/pepper
Organic tomato basil pasta sauce

As far as I can remember those were the ingredients I used. I should really start writing things down as I go.

First you need to boil the pasta because they don't make whole wheat pasta the kind you can just put in the oven.

Saute, over medium-high heat the onion, garlic, red bell pepper, carrot. Add the meat and brown. Add salt, pepper. Add mushrooms and spinach and saute until the spinach is wilted. Add the pasta sauce (homemade if you have it, I didn't.). Add some wine and Worcestershire sauce to taste.

Prepare the ricotta cheese by adding some salt and pepper to it.

And then you layer!

Meat sauce, pasta, ricotta cheese, repeat! And top it off with a nice layer of mozzarella cheese.

Oven at 350F for... 30 minutes? I left it in for 45 minutes and I think 30 would have been perfect.

Yum.

I left all the vegetables pretty big to make a chunky, textured meat sauce. If you don't like it that way, just chop everything up really small so that you just get the flavor.

Thursday night: Oven-fried chicken with coleslaw!

Vegetarian Chili

Wow. I had never made chili before, had never even been a big chili eater. To be quite honest, the only chili I had every tried was in 7th grade when I would get a Frito Pie on Fridays (looking back now just the thought of it gives me heartburn!) needless to say it was the canned kind which was anything but delicious.

And so when I came across a recipe for vegetarian chili in my new Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook it wasn't the word chili that aroused my appeal, rather it was the FOUR different kinds of beans in the recipe. I'm a bean fanatic, I love them all, they're delicious. And so I though, four kinds of beans, this has to be good! And it was.

I tweaked the recipe only very slightly around what I had in the pantry and so my recipe looked something like this (I ended up only using 3 kinds of beans, but it came out amazing!):

1 medium yellow onion, chopped
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 carrot, chopped

3 teaspoons salt, or to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons ground cumin
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon oregano

Juice of one lime

1 can crushed tomato
1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can corn kernels

1 box low sodium chicken broth (or vegetable broth) 32 fl oz

4 squares dark chocolate (at least 75%)

Saute all the vegetables in a little olive oil until soft, add the seasonings. Then add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer at least 20 minutes and longer if you want it to thicken. Seriously, it's that simple.

Make sure you rinse the beans and corn before adding it to the pot since that will seriously lessen the amount of sodium (by at least 50%!) in the final recipe.

Moroccan Chicken, with lentils, corn bread and glazed carrots

I randomly decided to make cornbread:

Recipe (I halved this, you can easily double it to make a regular yielding recipe):

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt

Carrots glazed with butter and sugar!

1 lb carrots sliced any way you like
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter and sugar over medium heat, add the carrots and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add enough water to cover the carrots just half way (Make sure you don't add too much water otherwise the carrots will cook before all the water can evaporate!). The goal is to cook the carrots and have the water evaporate so that the sugar-butter glaze concentrates and covers the carrots. Takes maybe 5-10 minutes.


Moroccan chicken! Three chicken breasts, bone in.

2 tsp. cumin seed
1 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
3 tsp. salt
1 tsp. mustard powder




Lentils:

Saute 1 onion, chopped, and 3 cloves of garlic, minced. Add the lentils and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add enough water to cover the lentils 2 inches. Salt to taste. Keep adding water depending on the consistency you're looking for. I wanted a thick consistency because it was being used as a base for the chicken. You can easily make it thinner to eat with rice. Or add some celery, carrots and make a lentil soup! You can definitely add some cumin or other spices, I added a little chipotle powder to add a pop.

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies -- the best?

Firstly, this clearly does not fall into my healthy eating, no white flour, no white sugar, get away from added sugar life style that I'm aiming for. BUT... my sister is pulling her hair out searching the house for cookies, so I offered to make her some. I figure she can take them back to Austin with her and maybe I'll take some in to work with me on Monday.

I found this recipe on a fellow food blog:
(makes 4 dozen):

1 cup butter - unsalted
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups all purpose flour (I use Eagle Mills All Purpose Unbleached Flour with Ultragrain OR Whole Wheat Pastry Flour)
2 1/2 cups oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
2 tblsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat over to 350F

Cream butter with sugars.





Add eggs and vanilla, milk.

Stir in flour, baking soda, baking powder, oats and chocolate chips.

Drop by spoonfuls on baking sheets (I use small ice cream scoops).



Bake for 10-13 minutes.

But are they the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I've ever had?...

The flavor is delicious, nothing beats a butter cookie. They're extremely sweet, which after straying away from regularly eating sugary foods I think they're too sweet (of course I could still eat the whole batch!). Something weird happened which also happened the last time I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies -- they deflated after coming out of the oven in a really weird way. The only theory that I can come up to for an explanation is either old baking soda or old baking powder. I'll have to play around with that. The flavor is still great though. Oatmeal chocolate chips, no matter from where, are the best cookie, hands down. YUM!

Smoothie revolution

So after reading and hearing absolutely everywhere that smoothies are the ultimate health/diet/weight loss tool (I already knew this, it just took a few more books, magazines and news reports to hammer it into my head), I'm making a smoothie for lunch (I ate a HUGE breakfast). I'll also be bringing my blender with me back to Austin so I can make smoothies for breakfast before work.

What's in the smoothie for today? Well, I'm just kind of rummaging through my fruit basket and refrigerator and so far this is what I have:

2 pears, cored and cubed
1 medium banana
2 cups cantaloupe, seeded, peeled and cubed
1 15-oz. can sliced peaches in their natural juice, no sugar added
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup no salt added 1% fat cottage cheese
ice cubes



According to Nutrition Data this entire recipe has 1160 calories, 24g of fat with only 4g being saturated, 203 g of carbs including 39g of fiber and 124g of sugar, 60g of protein, 235% vitamin A, 269% vitamin C!

To eat in place of lunch my guess is this yields 3-4 servings. However, if you're planning on drinking this along with something else it could yield 5-6 servings.

I've never made this recipe before, but I'll let you know how it comes out, hopefully deliciously since it'll be my lunch for the day!

If you're making the recipe for 4 servings, each serving has

290 calories
6g fat, 1g saturated
51g carbs, 10g fiber, 31g sugar
15g protein

62% calories from carbohydrates
18% from fat
20% from protein



I like the look at that break down, nicely balanced. Usually I like to add soy milk to my smoothies and protein powder, however, here at my parent's house they don't have protein powder. That made me think what I could use to boost the protein since otherwise I'd have a carb-packed smoothie which would spike my blood sugar too quickly. Cottage cheese has a higher protein content than soy milk or yogurt per cup serving so I thought - bingo! The wheat germ and flaxseed add nice amounts of healthy fats, extra protein, fiber, not to mention countless other great things such as folic acid, vitamin E, omega-3s and more!

Much of that fiber comes from the fruit itself, the skin of the pears, the banana, the cantaloupe. They all have a nice amount of fiber in them. Sure, the sugar content is high, but it's all natural sugars from fruit and you get SO many benefits from all the other nutrients in the fruit that it's not like eating a piece of cake with 31g of sugar in it where you get absolutely no benefits.

So enjoy!

The verdict?

I think next time I'd definitely put only 1/2 a banana. Bananas have a way of overpowering every other flavor. You can't even taste the pear or cantaloupe and you can barely taste the peaches. Also, the flavor of cottage cheese is quite potent. If that bothers you I'd use 1/2 cup cottage cheese and 1/2 cup milk, that not only will lessen the flavor of cottage cheese but also make the smoothie less thick. After a lot of ice cubes the consistency was thin enough for me and the cottage cheese flavor was pretty much gone. It was nicely sweet, but the banana was still the dominant flavor.

It's been a while...

I've been re-inspired by all the food blogs I've been browsing. I especially like Smitten Kitchen (www.smittenkitchen.com). The pictures are beautiful. And so I'm going to try start blogging again. I'm posting pictures of the cakes I made for Christmas, even though it was ages ago. One is a Buche de Noel. A simple sponge cake soaked in a rum sugar simple rolled in bittersweet ganache and covered in ganache. Decorated with meringue mushrooms. And the second is Sachertorte (my first attempt at one). The first recipe is from the Williams Sonoma Desserts book. The second... I can't remember! I think I just browsed through my mother's books and found one which looked reasonable.





More recently I tried making some refried black beans! There's a place here called Trudy's at which I had my first tast of refried black beans. They were amazing! So I figured I could probably do it at home, so I looked up a recipe online and tried it for myself.

Two cans of black beans, rinsed and drain
Half an onion chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic minced
2 cups of water
A few bay leaves
Cumin to taste

Process the beans and water. Saute the onion and garlic and add the beans. Add the cumin, salt and pepper to taste and the bay leaves. Stir constantly over medium heat until it has thickened to your desired consistency! When I made it I didn't have cumin and I think that's what was missing! The original recipe I found had cumin though.

Also two days ago I tried the Chicken Miso Soup from a new recipe book I bought The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook. Monday I'm going to try the Vegetarian Chili.

I'll try keep up!