NYC Trip!

Here are the photos gathered from my latest trip to NYC. There were some really, really good dishes.

 Venezuelan sandwich at Cocotera. Filled with this wonderful "farmer's cheese" that was quite mild tasting, like a mozzarella, as well as some assorted vegetables. The bread was pressed after the sandwich was made, which gave it a nice crispy texture and was quite yummy. 

This is the Peruvian lemonade from Cocotera as well. It was very very yummy! Tasted like tamarind, not really like lemonade. So refreshing! Too bad it was the middle of winter....

Wine served at Pates et Traditions

This is my favorite food. Ever. I know, its a crepe. But it uncanny blend of my favorite things, all while being eating in the cutest restaurant in the world, make it wonderful: Buckwheat crepe with goat cheese, rosemary, caramelized onions, figs, and honey. How could that not be wonderful? Please, if you go to NYC anytime soon, go to Pates et Traditions. 

easy college lunches

Hi so I know many people at school wonder where I find the time to make lunch for my boyfriend and I every day. Well, the secret is that I make pretty easy stuff that travels well and that I can make the night before. Qualification number three is that it is healthy as well, of course. For example, here is what I made today:

Easy vegetarian breakfast burritos (for lunch): this is one burrito

• 1 egg or 1/4 to 1/2 cup egg substitute 
• 1 large whole wheat tortilla
• 2 soy veggies sausage links
• salsa
• cumin, garlic, chili pepper
• salt

What I do:
First, add a little olive oil or Pam to your small saute pan. Cook the egg, adding some salsa into the pan as well, usually 1 to 2 tablespoons and stirring it around some. If you are using a regular egg, I would scramble it first before putting it into the pan. Then I add some cumin, salt to taste, and some mexican chili powder to the egg, just a dash of each, and stir it around. Once its all scrambled up and cooked, I put it on the tortilla. Usually I use whole wheat tortillas, I found these ones at Costco that have 12 grams of fiber! Crazy. While I am cooking the egg I defrost the sausage links in the microwave, depending on the links that is like 1 minute basically. Anyways, then I chop up the veggie sausage links and put in the same pan. I cook them until they are crispy, around three minutes, if that. They seem to cook up very quickly in the little pieces. Then, I add that to the burrito and put it in a little to-go container, and voila. Do that three times and you have lunch for you and your boyfriend in under 15 minutes. Next day I just heat them up at the microwave at school, and maybe bring a little salsa for extra yumminess.

Of course, you can easily make this a much better recipe. If I had had onions last night at 11pm, I would have sauteed those as well to add. If I had my spinach as well I probably would have added that too. Maybe a little lettuce? Well that's not really in breakfast burrito style, so probably not. But they do make soy chorizo, which is delicious. so maybe I will use that next time in the burrito.

okay so I hope next time you are tired of paying way too much for Panda Express on camups, you think of my healthier alternative!

Give Me Cream?!

No, not that kind...

So after Four Loco went out the window, and off the shelves, (lest we forget), the market was wide open for another product that young people will get drunk off of, but also get really, really energetic. I'm not sure exactly which jitters inducing ingredients were in Four Loco, but in "CREAM", I think its sugar, plus some really frightening chemicals. Let me explain...

Rules for dealing with Cream:
1. NEVER put it in the fridge
2. If you put it in the fridge, take it back the next day to Total Wine and More at 9am, have them laugh at you, and then have them give you a new can, for free, in pity.
3. try it on brownies!

So it doesn't work if you put it in the fridge...like normal whipped cream...which is frightening, because of the chemicals that must allow this to happen. But the new can worked great! Trying it out, my friend and I decided it was good, but you could definitely taste the alcohol, this is in the caramel flavor. They also had at Total Wine the vanilla and chocolate flavors. They also have raspberry and cherry online, but those seem gross to me, after tasting this. It also has kinda an oily aftertaste, but all in all they did a pretty good job.

So stock up now, before it banned!

Food 2011 Predictions?

I was standing in line at the grocery store and I saw that Food and Wine did their 2011 food trends to watch for. Much to my happiness, they showed my all time favorite food: the breakfast sandwich. Of course, it was on a biscuit-y type thing, which is not really my style, but I'm glad that my favorite food is now acceptable as mainstream restaurant fare. Perhaps even trendy, as it has evolved from the fried egg sandwiches that my mom used to make on Sundays?

The kind I make usually include: sourdough english muffins, fresh eggs, tomato, sometimes avocado, sauteed onions, salt, pepper, and my favorite, sprouts. I love love sprouts. Anyways, I make it for me with the yolk on the egg really runny, so that it dribbles out all over the plate and is really messy. For my boyfriend, I usually cook the egg just a little bit more, maybe flip it over, even, so that its pretty cooked. He's not into that whole semi-raw egg thing I suppose. I usually top the sandwich with mustard, by favorite is spicy dijon, or some ketchup. Since I figured out how to make my own ketchup, its been quite nice!

I suppose next time I make some, I will have to post pictures here!

which companies are you feeding?

A lot of the time I try to buy products that come from smaller, independent companies. This is usually pretty easy to do, being a vegetarian and all usually means that I go to weird, hippie grocery stores that sell fun, hippie products. But recently, I found out that there are some veggie brands that are owned by large gigantasaurous companies. Here is a really good, GOOD chart that they created on the companies that own some brands you might buy. Did you know, for example, that Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola, and that Kraft, the largest food processor, owns Boca Burgers? Interesting stuff. 

 

paleo diet follow up

the paleo-diet, now dead, has not been missed. 


In its last, final days, it was really a struggle between me, lack of salt/carbs, and muscle soreness. 
When i talk to the others about the muscle soreness that I had, they said that they had experienced the same feeling as well. Interesting, I wonder why this happened? I heard that if you stay on the paleo diet longer that you just get more energy, so maybe that was the part where you have to struggle through the detox and  then reap the rewards later. However, the lack of caffeine also was completely awful. My BF and other friends don't seem to have the same level of addiction as me, but then again, they don't have to go to work at 5:45 in the morning and then have a full busy day as well. During the diet, I felt so very tired all the time that I had trouble running around school doing all the fun (not fun) stuff I do everyday. 


Here is what I realized about carbs after the paleo diet: they are the building blocks of modern society. not only do they taste great and make a good pizza, but you really do feel better when you eat them. I noticed after I stopped the diet, as I was walking to work early in the morning, that my legs didn't seem as sore as they had in the days before, as well as the fact that I was not as groggy and starving even though I had not eaten yet that day. The carbs just formed this little energy ball that I had reserved in me, and I didn't feel awful and tired that morning. It was great. I had been wondering, during paleo-fest, how I did all the things that I normally do each day without feeling so tired. I realized that it truly was carbs and everything else modern that I take for granted. 


I would also like to point out at this moment, that there was a yahoo news article on 30,000 year old bread: during the paleo era they had bread. Bread. Bread is a wonderful thing that we don't appreciate enough. 


All was not wasted on the diet, though. Here are a few things I think I will keep with me:

• ketchup is delicious and I love it, but it does not need to go on all foods, and can be used in moderation
• dairy products, though I love my ice cream and fro-yo's, are not really good for me, personally. Most of the time I now realize that they make my stomach feel weird/hurt somewhat, therefore i should enjoy them, in moderation/infrequently
• Larabars are delicious! They are the only "paleo-approved" granola-y type bars, and the one I had today only has 3 ingredients, which is cool/way better for you than eating a granola bar with 3000 ingredients, 5 of which you can say. Plus the flavors are tasty, and having something good for you, that I can just grab when I'm in a rush is better than not eating/eating something I have to pay 2x as much for on campus. 
• it is very hard to find things without salt. Why? because salt is miraculous and makes everything taste way better. But you don't need much of it. 

That's my summation of the paleo diet. It really is good to do it, for a little while, so that you like the things you can't eat during it more after the diet is over. That first margarita? Divine! Sandwiches? Awesome! But I think I knew those things already... 

paleo diet day 3,4

well, these two days of the paleo plan were pretty hard.

it was taco night, everything a taco is is forbidden on the paleo plan, including the irresistible chips and salsa. But alas, I resisted them. BF and I ordered shrimp salads, while everyone else had yummy dollar tacos. Not to say that the plain shrimp salad was bad, it was just not a dollar taco, dripping in grease and salty salsa, washed down by a cool salty margarita. Yes, I love margaritas and they are so very banned from the paleo diet.

The next night, we went to a sustainability mixer, meet and greet type deal, and I was starving. So starving, in fact, that I was willing to eat ANYTHING that this restaurant would serve. Plus, it was at The Farm of Beverly Hills. Which is a great place. Eating anything they serve, would be, of course, breaking paleo, but I was starving! And as one of my friends noted, if a caveman saw a buffet, he would not avoid the carbs.
Luckily for me, there was a small selection of some paleo-friendly foods. Picking at the cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, and strawberries, I was depressed. There was a whole f-ing cheese platter! Waiters were running around with truffled mac and cheese, it was obscene. Carbs and dairy products were laughing in my face. Really.
I succumbed to the free wine. The Paleo Diet book says that you can have wine in moderate amounts. As a college student at an OPEN BAR, it would have been wrong of me not to have any wine. WRONG, paleo diet or no. Therefore, as my civic duty I had wine. It was terrific. I loved every calorie of it. Every moderate ounce. I regret nothing.