Category Archives: Meat

New Sensation

Posted on by

0

I have a new favorite lunch this week.

Confession: I’ve had it twice this week already.

Introducing: apple, brie and prosciutto flat top.

Of course all the lovely toppings are sitting on a slice of sesame Ezekiel bread. The apples are organic from the farmers market and are of the honey crisp variety. Honey crisps are by FAR my favorites. So crispy and delicious! I like to toast the bread and then let the brie melt onto the bread. Holy melted goodness!

I don’t post my lunch very often because I tend to latch onto one thing and eat it several times over a week meaning that lunch tends to be a bit boring (unless of course I hit a lunch truck!). I also tend to make double portions of dinner and save half for lunch. Obviously this flat top is the flavor of the week.

In other news: I came home from school and promptly ran a little over 5 miles. For those that are keeping track, that’s a little over 14 miles in three days. I am a running beast this week!

Also, don’t forget to vote on Project Food Blog for me! Tomorrow (9/22 is the last day to vote!)

Advertisement

Get Ready to Run

Posted on by

4

I’m back!

Tomorrow I am running in my first 10k, the Santa Monica 5000. I’m really excited to run the 10k! I think it will be a great opportunity to get more accustom to running long distance races. I hope I can figure out how to negotiate water stations etc. in advance of my half marathon in November. Because this is the first 10k I’ve ever run there is no pressure to set a personal record or anything. I just want to finish and enjoy the experience.

In preparation I made a delicious meal for dinner.

I breaded chicken tenders with panko and baked them at 425 for 35 mins. I also roasted potatoes, both red and purple, as well as my new favorite veggie, Brussels Sprouts.

I also made a honey mustard sauce.

I love me some honey mustard! I used the same recipe that I used for the honey mustard chicken I made a few weeks ago. It was a simple yet delicious dipping sauce for the chicken.

This meal was HUGE! I roasted way more veggies and potatoes than I really needed to but they are so good. I breaded the chicken with panko before I baked it. Panko is by far my favorite ingredient to bread with because it comes out crispy and delicious every time. I ended up saving one of the pieces of chicken.

My meal was so delicious looking, even Izzy wanted a piece of the action.

Now, now… back away from the dinner!

In other exciting news… guess who I get to see this week?

Source

That’s right, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer! He is coming to UCLA to speak. Because there is limited seating there was a lottery to get seats and I got one. I am so excited I cannot even tell you. The Supreme Court is the pinnacle for attorneys and the Justices are kinda like rock stars. I’m even more excited because Breyer is one of the Justices I like (no offense to Scalia and Thomas).

In my google search for an image of Justice Breyer I found this image:

Source

Obviously this had to be shared! I’m hoping that my legal career will be empowered by seeing Justice Breyer and I really hope he reads us “Oh The Places You’ll Go!” Here’s to hoping!

Holy “Fig”gen’ Yum!

Posted on by

5

Yesterday while I was at the farmers market I was able to snag something delicious: figs! Did I use them for lunch today? Abso-“figgen”-lutely. Did I come up with a bunch of fig puns? Fig yeah! Ok, I promise that the fig puns end here.

I decided to make an open face sandwich inspired by crouqe monsieur. I toasted a slice of Ezekiel bread. Then I spread Dijon mustard on the slice and topped it with sliced figs, prosciutto, and Gruyere cheese. I baked it at 400 for another 4 mins and then I turned on the broiler for the last 4 mins.

Sweet and salty with slightly browned cheese. Oh my goodness do I love me some figs. Fan-figgen-tastic! OK, that’s the last one.

Post figs I went on a run. I planned to run for 8 miles but I got a little bit lost on side streets and ended up going for 8.6 miles. I managed to maintain a pretty good pace though out my run. Every time I got tired I thought about my form. Afterward I had a chocolate milk! Great recovery drink! Its going to be my go to in the future. I stretched it out and then parked it on the couch with an ice pack. So far I have kept up with all the long runs I have planned and I haven’t walked once.

Hope everyone is enjoying a great labor day! I’m clearly going to eat more figs.

Honey Mustard Chicken with Corn and Roasted Potatoes

Posted on by

1

If there was one meal that I loved as a child it was chicken with honey mustard sauce. The sweet and tangy honey mustard has continued to be a favorite as I have gotten older. Obviously I am not eating chicken fingers with honey mustard all the time but I decided to try a more “adult” variation on the theme of chicken fingers with honey mustard.

I got my recipe from the Trader Joe’s cook book. It’s a great resource for easy recipes with a limited number of ingredients.

This is where I got my honey mustard chicken recipe from. Then I collected my ingredients.

This is what you need:

First things first: start the potatoes. Like I always do, chop up, add S&P and EVO. Toss and place in an oven heated to 350 degrees. Let it be while you prep the other food.

Then you have to prepare the chicken. In a small bowl take 1/8 a cup of flour and combine with salt and pepper.

Mix it up and coat both sides of the chicken. Make sure the excess is knocked off.

Then take out a pan, place one tablespoon of EVO in the pan, heat it up and brown the chicken on both sides.

And now, while it is browning, it is time to multitask! This is when we make the honey mustard. It’s super easy.

Take a 1/2 cup of mustard, and 1/2 cup of honey and some basil. I’m sure you could increase of decrease as you need to.

Super easy! Taste test and adjust as you need to. Side note: I had leftovers and put it on a turkey sandwich and it was ah-maz-ing.

At this point the chicken should be done browning. Take it off the heat and into a pan that can go in the oven. Spread over the top of the chicken and place in the oven for ten mins. Save some HM to apply to the other side of the chicken later.

While you are waiting for the chicken to cook uncork that bottle of wine.

I tried a petite syrah the other night. It was pretty good. I love red wine and I am quickly becoming an expert on the cheap side of the TJ wine section. If its a vino under $6 and its red, I’ve probably taste tested it!

While I cooked Isala watched and “commented”.

She’s such a character!

OK. Back to work! Take the chicken out and flip it after 15 mins. Apply more HM sauce and put back into the oven for 15 mins. Time to get cracken’ on corn.

As a Midwesterner I am skeptical of CA corn. However, my mother was with me last week at the FM and taught me how to evaluate corn to determine if its good. Mostly you want to see that the kernels are large and in a row. You also want the husk to be damp. At my FM some of the corn was already shucked which I was told is bad and will dry it out. Shucking corn isn’t that hard, don’t buy it pre-shucked.

It should look something like this:

Very good. Bring unsalted water to a boil and put the corn in until it seems done.

At this point, your also going to want to take out the potatoes. I have to say, the potatoes were roasted to perfection! Maybe its because I used a lower heat than I usually do to roast (350 as opposed to 425).

Holy Yum!

At this point the chicken should be done as well as the corn. Literally just take the corn out of the water and plop it on the plate. You, of course, want to make sure your chicken is fully cooked.

Yum. The potatoes were delicious and the chicken was super moist. As stated above, the honey mustard was delicious and simple. Great to use on sandwiches or as a dip! The corn was good. It’s not Midwestern corn but it isn’t half bad. A meal I will be making again and a great adult twist on a classic.

Taylor’s

Posted on by

1

Tonight I met up with my Uncle for dinner at an old school steak house near my work, Taylor’s. Taylor’s is a great place to go if you want to go to an old school steak house. There are no windows so the restaurant is super dark. The booths are red and they made a decent martini:

Yes please! There is no pairing better than a steak and a martini!

For an appetizer we had bacon wrapped scallops and a cream of mushroom soup which was pretty good. Have I ever not appreciated something wrapped in bacon? Forgot to take a picture of the bacon wrapped scallops but they were good. The scallops were cooked to perfection. I never liked scallops until I moved to Boston and they always remind me of my “other” city.

For an entree obviously I had the “Taylor Special” which was a filet with onions:

I chose mashed potatoes on the side, always a good choice. It also came with a side of spinach which was good. I only managed to have three bites. I would totally live off of red meat and potatoes if I could. You just can’t go wrong. The steak was perfectly cooked exactly to the level of rare that I like it.

Unfortch I did not save room for dessert. I couldn’t even finish the steak and potatoes before I was stuffed! That’s what I get for scaling back portions for the past 7 months. I just can’t thrown down like I used to.

Overall I really liked the vibe of Taylor’s. I can always go for a martini and red meat. The atmosphere is very old school and more “Old LA” than most of the places that I frequent. The change of pace was delightful and I always love having dinner with Joe.

In other news: Tomorrow I am going to happy hour at a bar that has a bacon and egg martini. Yep, bacon infused vodka with a quail egg. Should I be adventurous?

Tofu House

Posted on by

0

Lunch today was an adventure! The law clerks wanted to shake it up a bit by going to Belly Time, but it appeared to be closed so we went into Tofu House instead. The sign on Tofu House had tons of writing in Korean and most of the menu was in Korean so we weren’t totally sure what we were getting into and thus I do not have names for the dishes. They were good though, I can tell you that much.

These appetizers were brought to the table after we ordered and came with the meal. We noshed on them while waiting for the entrees. We had no clue what most of them really were but that’s always a fun experience, right? Dan and Diana are more adventurous than I am and actually ate some green jello thing. I was not that brave.

Then we got this rice and soup thing. Again, I don’t know what it is but I know that it was delicious.

And then it was time for the entree… bring on the beef!

I would like to now state that I ate like, 1/3 of the food maybe? It was A LOT! I actually didn’t eat very much and I didn’t eat until I was stuffed. I barely snacked at work today minus 4 salt water taffies. Gotta give love to the treat jar.

The End of June Gloom

Posted on by

3

When I say June Gloom I mean both the LA weather and my bad mood! I got a great nights sleep last night and when I woke up today I was in a much better mood. Thank goodness. Bad moods can be really trying sometimes.

Today at work I did a good job of controlling my candy cravings. At my workplace there are several dishes of candy sitting out. I’ve been eating 5-8 pieces a day. :\ Oh well, can’t win them all! Today I was much better and one had one piece. I need to keep this up! I have a definite propensity to over eat, especially when I’m stressed, in a bad mood or bored.

After my glorious success at work I came home. Today is an off day for workout and I simply put some ice on my knee. I decided to have a “catch as catch can” type of dinner. About a 1/2 portion of leftover mac and cheese and this salad…

What can I say, I was craving a salty meat. The arugula in this salad was super spicy. I bought from a different vendor this week and I think it made all the difference.

For dessert I had a “new invention”

Peanut butter spoon! So so delicious. One tablespoon of peanut butter and a small amount of chocolate chips. Can’t go wrong. Plus the peanut butter is filling so I can’t just snack on chocolate chips all night.

Plus I also had..

Sleepy time tea in my Starbucks double walled Valentine’s day mug makes my night. Especially a cold cool night like this one.

I think the key for me to lose weight is eating super healthy filling snacks and meals. Anyone have any snack suggestions?

Best of the Rest

Posted on by

0

of Saturday!

After brunch I hit the Santa Monica Farmers Market.

The farmers market was awesome! I got all my veggies and fruits for $19! This included: potatoes, kale, avocado, 2 tomatoes, asparagus, broccoli, pepper, green beans, and cherries. Yum!

When I got home I had a salad with some chicken curry salad from Coral Tree Cafe. I gave some to Catie as a house warming present and she said it was really good so I decided to try it for myself! I put the chicken salad on top of an arugula salad, purple carrots, and green pepper (all FM buys!)

I LOVE the contrast of the purple carrots and the curry chicken salad. It was a delicious late lunch.

I went to Whole Foods earlier today (where they have 17 flavors of Larabars!) and stocked up. Before my run I had 1/2 of a Gingersnap flavored larabar.

Then I went on a 4.1 mile run which was good.

I haven’t gone to yoga this week and my hip is angry with me. I should have stretched more. I probably only ran just short of 4 miles. Today I read Runners World and they were talking about the importance of hills. My run is already very hilly so I felt good about that. RW said that you should push to run faster on the downhills and I incorporated that into my run. After my run I finished the larabar.

Then I relaxed until dinner. Dinner was roasted veggies with a multigrain pilaf.

I love Trader Joe’s Multigrain Pilaf because there are only a few ingredients and I know what all of them are and its well spiced. How can you argue with that? While cooking I snacked on this…

Cook the pilaf and combine with veggies.

Dinner! Tons of fiber in this meal so its super filling and everyone knows how I love a roasted veggie.

After dinner I noshed on a Z Bar. These were recommended to me by Carolyn, my fitness foodie friend, who said they tasted just like a cookie and were only 130 calories. Clearly I had to check this out. First, I checked the label to make sure that it was made of ingredients that I knew what they are and the calorie and sugar count. I figured if Carolyn likes them then there probably good for me.I decided to dig in.

It DOES taste just like a cookie! This was wonderful and I will be buying again. It was kinda like raw cookie dough with oats. I love oats, cookies and chocolate. All together was pretty much amazing.

Night readers!

Triple the Happy Hour

Posted on by

0

Lucky for me, Carolyn in a believer in multiple happy hours. First we enjoyed “two buck chuck” pinot grigio while watching this women:

Love barefoot!

After we took our party to Gredel’s Den in Harvard Square. I love Grendel’s because they have awesome happy hour food specials and wonderful drinks, which aren’t that expensive.

As mentioned above, Grendel’s has a superior drink list at low prices. I had a French 75, which I’ve had there before. It consists of gin, lemon, simple syrup and a champagne float! I love an added champagne float!

So light and refreshing! I also was eying a cocktail with lillet but I was glad I opted for the “75”. Its an all time favorite. Carolyn and I decided to split two options on the menu. First we wanted the panini because it contained prosciutto. This was clearly a no brainer because we love our prosciutto. The we split the Santa Fe salad and we added shrimp. Grendel’s has such awesome specials, it was only $1 to add shrimp!!

This was my portion. The panini also had sausage and the salad had cheese and a great dressing (which we obviously got on the side). It was a great deal and the food was only $8 total!!!

Once we completed our drinks we moved on from second happy hour…

And later went to Shay’s in Harvard Square for third happy hour! Shays is a great wine and beer bar. The patio was packed but there wasn’t anyone inside. We sat down and ordered the Hob Nob pinot noir. It was very good. Later I had a glass of the Stump Jump Shiraz. Both were good and the bar was perfect. No frills but good service and not too crowded and not too deserted. A great place to stop in for a glass of wine.

The Hob Nob.

three cheers for happy hour!

Then we headed back to Allston on the bus to Carolyn’s house. I love a Carolyn happy hour and I love it more when it involves three pit stops!

The Riley Dinner

Posted on by

0

So the long awaited Riley dinner occurred last night and I can report that it was everything I wanted it to be and so much more. Her house is beautiful, well decorated, and her daughters are so sweet and adorable. We had red wine to drink and a great spread of cheese, apples, and chips for appetizers. Then we started dinner with an amazing salad that had beets, tomato and avocado. It was a great and very summer appropriate:

For the main course we had grilled salmon (prepared by Riley’s husband who FYI- card counter), roasted chicken, grilled asparagus (um my favorite), and risotto with artichoke (umm probably the only thing I love more than grilled asparagus).

And obviously I had two helpings and a cupcake for dessert. The dinner was awesome and Professor Riley is probably one of my favorite profs. Shes super likable, very personable and I enjoy talking to her because her world view is so well rounded. You can tell that shes is both a CRS affiliate and also that shes experienced so many different things in her life. Very interesting and very likable. Juicy tidbit? Those amazing shoes are a result of online shopping! Anyway, the dinner was awesome and I was so glad that Kelly invited me. Thanks, Kelly!