Monthly Archives: May 2011

Words of Wisdom

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I was totally off the blogger grid on Mother’s Day but I did manage to see some fantastic posts from Jenna and Tina about the 10 things they learned from their moms. LCCMom likes being anonymous but she has taught me many awesome lessons that I feel need to be shared with the general public in honor of Mother’s Day.

Mom sponsored eating excursion in England. Yes, I ate scones before the age of 2, don’t act surprised.

1) Fit is everything. Don’t buy clothing that doesn’t fit. It doesn’t matter how expensive or inexpensive it is if it fits well. If it doesn’t fit then get it tailored to make it fit. If it doesn’t fit then don’t wear it, don’t buy it, it doesn’t matter what it is or how trendy it is or who makes it. Don’t get me wrong though, we have different ideas about what ‘fit’ actually is. Style rules by Mom.

2) Indulge in small, fancy things. Yes, $4 cupcakes are an “affordable indulgence” that one deserves every once in a while.

3) Don’t waste time on the pity pot. Dwelling on the bad will not get you anywhere.

4) How to make the best brownies ever.

5) A clean house helps you work better. In theory, I follow this.

6) If its 15 degrees and snowing but you really want an iced tea then get the iced tea.

7) Accept the things you can and cannot change. You cannot change the action of another person but you can always shift your attitude and your reactions.

8 ) Independence is a good thing.

9) How to remove a thick layer of burned sugar from a pan. You don’t want to know.

10) There really is no good substitute for butter. Sorry vegans. It’s just how we feel.

Thanks LCCMom for all the great life lessons!

What did your Mom or Dad teach you?

Pretend it’s Summer Oats

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Two years ago almost to the day, I was accepted to UCLA Law. The acceptance was both a huge honor and totally threw a wrench in my plans. I’d already committed to a school in Boston (and paid for a year’s worth of yoga <- don’t question what was important to me) but UCLA was my dream school with a program which was the reason I was interested in law school so I figured I at least needed to visit and give UCLA a shot. Once at the school I got the full court press from various staff members. One of the big selling points, outside of the strength of the school, was the weather. “It doesn’t rain between March and December” I was enthusiastically told. It was music to this Midwest to New England girl’s ears.

Well, I am here to tell you…

VICIOUS LIES!

Its 52 degrees and rainy right now. No bueno southern California. No bueno!

To compensate for this terrible weather I made summer style oats. Like yesterday, close your eyes and pretend.

In the mix:

  • Brown sugar
  • Cherries
  • Coconut
  • Granola

Coconut makes everything taste more like summer in my opinion and I just could resist adding these amazing cherries to the mix.

Its killing me that it was 90 and sunny the first week of finals and now it’s raining but the rain is actually coming at a decent time. I really need a running break. After 8 miles yesterday, my knees want a vacation from my vacation. I have an EPIC dinner planned tonight. Dinner will be SO epic my foodie friend and I have a countdown going. Stay tuned!

Roasted Shrimp and Orzo Salad

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Don’t call it a comeback. I finally took to my kitchen today for the first time in longer than I would like to admit. My eating habits during finals were pretty terrible. There were endless trips to the hot bar at Whole Foods and random snacking. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t get proper nourishment for two weeks with the exception of a few meals and truthfully, I wasn’t that hungry. My appetite came roaring back during yoga last night (a 3 min head stand will do that to you) and today I took back my kitchen with this lovely summer dish.

Today felt like January in LA. It was cool (60 degrees, and yes I realize that there was a WIND CHILL in Chicago today so I won’t complain too loudly but I did see a women in a parka today so we’re going to count it as a ‘cool’ day). I think this dish would be great at a picnic, as a bbq side dish or, you know, whenever you want to feel like it’s 4th of July weekend. This recipe is a Barefoot original so feel free to pretend you’re in the Hamptons drinking a pitcher of mojitos with Jeffery as you eat it.

Ingredients:

Serves 3

3 servings of orzo pasta

1 lemon

10 shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 minced scallions

Generous chopping of fresh dill (I used a lot because 1) I love dill and 2) I bought an obscenely large stalk at the FM this week)

1 small hot house cucumber, unpeeled, seeded and diced

1/4 small red onion, diced

Generous sprinkling of Feta Cheese

Salt

Pepper

EVO

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take 3 servings of orzo (as directed by packaging) and cook until al dente. Once the orzo is done, drain and set aside in a large bowl. Then in a small bowl, combine juice from 1 lemon (make sure to remove any lemon seeds that escape in the process of juicing), a 1/8 cup dollop of EVO, plus salt and pepper to taste. Whisk together.

Combine with the orzo in a large bowl. Make sure to stir in thoroughly.

Next, chop the dill, onion, scallion, and cucumber. Set aside.

See, the dill I bought was SO freakishly large that it didn’t fit in the camera frame!

Get your shrimp out!

Put the shrimp in a baking pan, sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper and EVO. Make sure the shrimps are covered in salt, pepper, and EVO and roast in the oven. This should only like about 7 mins at the MOST. Make sure the check on them so they don’t get overdone. If leftover shrimp freaks you out like it freaks ME out you could, in theory, wait to do this step until you are going to serve. The orzo stores well and you could just cook the shrimp right before you want to consume it.

Toss the shrimp in with the orzo. Then add the chopped ingredients (dill, scallions, red onions, and cucumbers). Top with the feta cheese and toss.

At this point, you can refrigerate the salad or let it sit at room temp for an hour like Ina instructs. But, if you’re like me, you photograph and eat as quickly as humanly possible because it is so tasty!

This pasta salad is delicious. The lemon and dill together felt like summer and the crispness of the onion, scallions, and cucumber was amazing. Can you promise me that if you make this you will only use the freshest of the fresh farmer’s market ingredients? Because using anything less or subbing out an ingredient just wouldn’t do the flavors justice. Roasting is by far my favorite way to cook shrimp (ok, I lie, I also have a special place in my heart for grilled shrimp) and it puts a great extra-special touch on this dish. This is the kind of thing I can see myself making on a Sunday and then bringing to work for lunch throughout the week. Oh yes, I see jealous co-workers in my future.

What meal just reminds you of summer? I could use the upper- another overcast day that requires boots might put me over the edge.

Vay-cay!

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Fact: everything is better when you’re on vacation.

After having two majorly lazy days (and when I say lazy I mean literally not leaving the couch until 1 pm) I woke up today ready for action. I decided to indulge in some of my favorite things: the farmers market, running, coffee, and the Sunday paper.

In my opinion, there is only one paper on Sundays:

Cover to cover, this is my favorite thing ever. I have a method: I always start with the Style section, move to the front page, and then read Week in Review before reading anything that is especially interesting. Then I wrap up with everything else. And I when I say I read everything, I mean everything. I might not closely read the whole thing but I make sure the scan every page. You never know what you’re going to find.

Today this was interesting and in a section of the paper I generally barely touch:

An article about food products claiming health benefits and, legally, what they can claim or not claim. It bothers me when products claim to be very healthy when really it’s just more processed crap. Unprocessed food all the way! It made me think I should take food law.

In that spirit I hit the farmers market. I didn’t go last week and in the week since I last went it seems like the market has totally blossomed!

Beans and peas are in season.

Beets are still around, at a great price.

Here is something new: Apriums! That would be an apricot and a plum hybrid. I hadn’t had them before so the stand owner gave me one for free. The one I got was a bit too ripe (if that is possible). I loved the flavor but the consistency wasn’t my thing. If you live in So Cal snap these up fast, they’re only going to be in season for a few weeks.

The strawberries were amazing today! I didn’t buy any but I indulged in a liberal number of samples. Cherries are also in season finally and I did end up buying some. I even broke my own rule and bought something because the sheer size was impressive. Let’s just say I’ll be putting fresh dill into everything I make this week. I had a long list because I have a ton of awesome meals planned for this week. I cleaned out my fridge yesterday and went on an epic shopping trip to Whole Foods. Vacation means that I’m going to get back into blogging with a vengeance. Let’s just say the Flour Cookbook is going to be making repeat appearances this week! Chocolate Chip macaroons: it’s happening.

Now that I’m getting back into my blogging groove are there any special requests for what you’d like to see on the blog? I’m open to suggestions for restaurants, recipes etc. You name it, I’ll try it!

The Griddle

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Here is the thing about law school finals: they last for over 2 weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I need all that time to study but after a week of working in near isolation I needed a breakfast/vent session with a good friend. Danielle and I decided to hit The Griddle in West Hollywood for giant pancakes and a catch up sesh (which included statements such as “that was HARDLY discussed in the class so why did he test us on it?!”, “8:15 AM for a 4.5 hour final?! That is a violation of my Civil Rights!”).

I’ve been to The Griddle once before, pre-blog when I had only been in LA for about two weeks, and I’ve wanted to go back ever since so I was excited when Danielle suggested it.

Thing that is awesome about The Griddle?

You get your own personal French press!

The Griddle is known for their HUGE and super sweet pancakes. I’m sure there is other stuff on the menu besides pancakes but seriously, why bother? The fact that the pancakes are so large and sweet informed my choices. I only ordered one pancake and I chose one of the “less sweet” types.

Danielle went for the Nutella French Toast:

See what I mean about large and sweet? I didn’t save room for a bite of her French toast but she said it was delicious.

I opted for the Honey, Cinnamon and Rolled Oats pancake.

In the words of Danielle, “even when we go to The Griddle you order something healthy”. HA! Only healthy because of the rolled oats and I love rolled oats. I only ate about half of this pancake. Can you blame me? The pancake is literally bigger than the plate! The oats cut the sweetness a little bit and the honey was just the right amount of sweetness. Oh, and obviously we added maple syrup.

We also ordered bacon, you know, to chase the sweet pancakes with.

It was so good that Danielle couldn’t wait until after I took a picture to dig in.

Overall, I still love The Griddle. Perhaps because I went for the first time a week or so after arriving in LA it feels like quintessential LA to me. I need to go more frequently and remember that it’s a great place to bring out of town visitors. The lines on Saturday and Sunday are insane but we didn’t have to wait early on a Thursday so check it out on a weekend if you can because otherwise you might have to wait for an hour for service.

What is your favorite breakfast dish? I don’t really like eggs all that much, so for me breakfast is all about pancakes and bacon!

Coffee recap

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April 27th – III (3)



April 28 – IIIII (5)






April 29 – III (3)




April 30 (II) 2


Can of Diet Coke while taking an exam.

May 1 II (2)



May 2 (IIII) 4





May 3 (IIIII) 5






May 4 (IIII) 4





May 5 (IIII) 4


French Press (3 cups)


May 6 (II) 2

+ 1 Latte during my exam

May 7 (IIIII) 5






May 8 (III) 3

Medium Latte, Coffee in the library (illegal, don’t tell anyone), Large latte

May 9 (II) 2

Ice Tea +


May 10 (II) 2



May 11 (II) 2

Medium Latte, diet coke all consumed during exam

May 12 (II) 2

Large latte, cup of coffee all consumed during exam

GRAND TOTAL: 50!

Congrats to Whitney! Email me at leftcoastcontessa@gmail.com to collect your prize!

Finals ended yesterday with a 4.5 hour exam that started at 8:15. So evil to have an exam that long start that early. Yesterday was a pretty epic day. There was Arrogant Bastard day drinking, Ethiopian food for dinner with friends, and dancing at the end of the semester party.
It was an awesome celebration of the fact that we only have one year left! This summer hold some fun adventures including plenty of event with blogger friends, a half marathon in San Diego, a trip to Boston, moving to a new apartment (hopefully), one of my best friends weddings, countless happy hours, epic meals and fun times ahead. I want to get back to blogging recipes and regular blogging (sorry for the random hiatus, finals owned my life last week).

She Runs LA: The After Party

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Last Thursday after completing my 10k I took a quick shower and headed downtown to the Nokia Theater for the After Party!

I was excited to attend this event for a number of reasons. I loved the idea of an all woman race and Nike is a great company. But the best part of the event? I got to attend as media, complete with a media pass. Seriously, I felt so VIP.

I quickly found Amanda, her sister Sarah, Lea, and Kaitlin! Events are always better with friends.

Amanda and I also mugged with our media passes.

On our way into the party we were able to take pictures on the pink carpet. They were so profesh!

Inside the event there were sections set up by sponsors including Bliss Spa, Pop Chips, Paul Mitchell (I use his product on my hair, in case you were wondering -> I know that was keeping you up at night), Zico, Coke, and Luna.

The party was really crowded!

I have an, umm talent, for pushing through crowds. That’s what 4 years in Boston will do to a girl. I was able to get to the front of the Bliss stand and get a perfume sample and a body butter sample but it was so crowded we didn’t really get to try any of the other stands. I understand that there was some hair styling over at the Paul Mitchell station and there were dancing games on another level.

I wanted a zico so badly after my hot run but I wasn’t able to get one because it was too crowded and they ran out. I grabbed a coke instead.

Add it to the tally 😉

We also found Kelley and proceeded to look at Nike products like shoes…

WANT.

And running watches…

I am currently a zen runner, meaning I don’t run with a watch. I feel like it would lead to obsession over times etc and running is really my mellow time to unwind. But with the marathon coming up I feel like there would probably be a benefit in running with a watch. It’s cool to know that there are options outside of a Garmin and Nike Plus (Nike Plus isn’t compatible with my ipod).

After staring lustfully at the products we made our way into the theater. The show was We Are Heroes, the all women dance team from America’s Best Dance Crew and Mike Posner.

I still love the graphic.

Sadly, we realized after getting into the theater that there was still over an hour before the show even started. We were really tired and hungry because there was no food at the event so we made an executive decision to leave early.

We took more photos on the way out… but this time with Kelley!

And one more!

We love the Pink Carpet!

The group headed over the Yard House for dinner and some drinks. The drink choice was easy, there was a Red Rocket similar to one Amanda and Kaitlin loved at the CoLAboration beer garden.

I trust these girls with the beer recs. They know what they’re talking about. It tasted so good and was so refreshing. Just what I needed!

For dinner I ordered two “snack” size items (a size smaller than appetizer). My choice as to what to order was easy.

Ahi Tuna with avocado. I love me some ahi tuna!

The dip had bacon in it. Can you blame me? Literally I opened the menu and I immediately locked eyes on the sweet potato fries. Amanda actually said, “Oh, did you see the sweet potato fries?” Um yes. Duh.

Overall, it was great to hang out with some awesome people and I enjoyed the event. I wish it was easier to get to the vendors. We also got to take home goody bags. The bags had Luna Bars, and Pop Chips! I love pop chips and they were consumed the next day, obviously. I also loved the goody bag! It was super colorful reusable grocery bag. I actually got compliments on it at Trader Joes this weekend. A great time was had by all!

In it to win it

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Hey blog peeps! Sorry it’s been a while since I posted but as you can imagine it has been a bit of a whirlwind around here since Tuesday. Thanks for the predictions on my coffee consumption. LCCMOM has the highest guess, which I suppose is telling since I can pretty much give her credit for my addiction habit. I owe you a post about the She Run’s LA after party and I was going to do it yesterday. Let’s just say I went into yoga with a plan for the night, as I was getting into my meditation there was chanting of “USA” outside the window of the studio on the Promenade and when I emerged from yoga the world was a different place. I had intended to post but I went home and was glued to the news. She Runs LA after party post will be happening, eventually.

Saturday I took a final (I kinda rocked it, no biggie) and I’ve been spending most of my time since then studying, tempered with some nice breaks. Like today! I spent 6 hours in the library so I took a study break for a walk on the beach. This probably the best study break I’ve taken in the past 2 years. In all I covered 2.5 miles in the sand which counted as my workout today.


Another achievement? I ran 24 miles last week which is a high for me and also the first time I’ve run more miles than my age! I capped the week off with a 10 miler on Saturday and boy did my legs feel it yesterday. I also went pretty hard in yoga last night. I kinda rocked my back bend which was awesome! My body was tired today so I let myself rest up a little bit. I’ve also done a good job of not rewarding myself at Susie Cakes and/or Tavern and/or Huckleberry every day for being focused while studying. This is good for me. I can reward myself with healthy things like time on the beach, rather than the intoxicating smell of Susie Cakes.

However, the trifecta of winning really happened when I came home and made an EPIC dinner totally on the fly: Seared Salmon with Garlic, Lemon, Dill Aioli, sautéed Summer Squash, and Wheat Bulger with Scallions. Oh yes, it was epic! I promise, it was ridiculously quick and easy to make too!

I started with 1 tbsp. of EVO in a pot with ¾ cup wheat Bulger (which is like a cousin of couscous and quinoa). I put the heat on low and made sure the Bulger was coated in the oil. Then I added 1 and 1/8 cup of water, raised the heat to a boil and then reduced the heat and let it cook for 15 mins.

Next, I heated 1 tbsp of EVO in a pan with med/high heat. While it heated up I patted the salmon dry and salted and peppered each side. Then I placed the salmon in the hot pan and seared it on each side for about 3 mins, or until the inside of the salmon was light and flakey.

Once the salmon is done keep everything in the pan and sauté the summer squash for about 5 mins, until cooked through. I used two mini summer squashes which made their first appearance at the FM this week!

Check on the bulger. Once it is done cooking (it will be like couscous or quinoa) fluff and add one sliced scallion.

Finally, make the aioli. For the aioli I used a spoonful of veganaise (because I like it better than mayo, true story), squeezed lemon, chopped fresh dill and a little bit of garlic spread. I didn’t measure it out; I just eyeballed it because that’s how I roll.

For something I made totally on the fly, this was pretty tasty. I got the seared salmon and bulger idea from a random back issue of Everyday Food but I came up with the aioli on my own! This meal was very filling and I am glad I added the baby squash. It was their first week at the farmers market and they were so tiny and adorable I knew I had to buy some! The best part of this dish was that, besides being filling and healthy, it only took about 20 mins to throw together. If you start with the bulger and then do the salmon while the bulger cooks you can do it in 20 mins. Also, minimal chopping was involved with the meal.

Let’s just say that between my first final, my running mileage and this insane meal, I’m in it to win it 🙂

What are you winning right now? It’s important to recognize our achievements, right!?