Miles Apart

Happiness

2009-09-14T23:48:00.001-07:00

This is how happy we are when we get to eat food together.
Taken at Woodstock's Pizza in Davis, CA. Summer 2009.

Comida de Espana

2009-09-13T18:18:00.000-07:00

Croquettes - Fried Cheese (Best Food in Spain)

Rock Fish with Potatoes in Green Sauce

Iberian Meat Skewer with a sauce that was both tangy and spicy

Appetizer

The stop in Spain was over two months ago, so I don't exactly remember the name of the restaurant or of the dishes (lo siento). Anyways, Spanish food isn't known for being the most amazing. I would have to say I agree with the generalization for the most part; these photos are from the best meal I had during my stay in Cadiz.

Product Review: Synergy Kombucha

2009-04-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

I've read about the health benefits of kombucha on other blogs and was interested in trying it. It's a sweetened tea that has been fermented. I bought it at Berkeley Bowl for $2.99

The flavor I tried was Raspberry Rush. I like raspberry flavored things, so I thought it would be a good place to start.

All it contains is the fermented tea and raspberry juice.

As you can (kind of) see, it supposedly supports digestion, metabolism, immune system, appetite control, weight control, liver function, body alkalinity, anti-aging, cell integrity, and healthy skin and hair.

My thoughts? It tastes kind of like beer with raspberry flavor. It's bubbly and lightly sweet. I felt good after drinking it, but I can't say if it was because of the drink. Would I buy it again? Yes, I already have. It's refreshing and I hope to get some health benefits from it.

Healthier Oatmeal Cookies

2009-04-03T11:50:00.001-07:00

I made these cookies for one of my classes, Education 190. The class is amazing and I love the people in it, so I decided to make cookies for them. I'm always trying to make healthy and delicious foods, and this recipe has never failed me. I doubled the recipe so there would be enough for the 50 people in my class.

Healthier Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients (makes 24 cookies)

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (I used more, but I love cinnamon!)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp table salt
4 tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg white
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preparation

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk oats, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter, egg, vanilla, and sugars until creamy (about 1-2 minutes). Stir in oat mixture and chocolate chips until thoroughly combined.
Working with 1 tbsp of dough at a time, roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place dough balls on prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 1/2 inches apart.
Bake cookies 1 sheet at a time, until edges are light golden and centers are just set, 11 to 13 minutes, rotating baking sheet front to back halfway through baking (do not over bake).
Cool cookies on baking sheet 5 minutes, then serve warm, or transfer to wire rack and cool completely.

There are delicious and everyone loved them. The dough is pretty tasty too. :)

2009-02-22T19:24:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back I saw a commercial for a free sample from EAS and I had to investigate. After completing the registration I had a 8 x 11.5 envelope in my mailbox (https://eas.com/Registration). Somewhat ridiculous that they sent such a large envelope with nothing in it except a coupon for the bar. The coupon is good until 2010, which is nice because the bars were not available at the first two stores I went searching (Trader Joe's and Ralphs). I had luck at CVS, which was selling them for $2.69. But how good was it? For an energy bar, not bad. I still stand by Snicker's Marathon Bars (the chocolate-peanut is divine) for first choice energy bar, but the Myoplex Deluxe was a treat. The manufacturers recommend taking in within 30 minutes of your workout and claim results will be evident. I don't buy into the bs and think that the 30 grams of protein is not really necessary for anyone on the North American diet. The most impressive feature of the bar: the size. Regrettably I did not take a picture that shows the thickness of the bar. It took me about ten minutes to eat with the chewy caramel in it. At any rate, the registration was worth filling out. Taste wise it wasn't a candy bar, but it wasn't as bad as some other bars I've sampled.

Banana Walnut Oatmeal

2009-02-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

I have recently started to LOVE oatmeal, especially how creative I can be with it. This was the best bowl I've ever had.

It contained:

1/3 cup of regular oats
2/3 cup water
1 whole banana: half mixed in while cooking, half sliced on top
TONS of cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
A sprinkle of vanilla cinnamon coated walnuts from Berkeley Bowl...which they don't have anymore :(

Warm, filling, creamy, and delicious! Way better than any packet of instant stuff.

Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T11:12:00.000-08:00

Like I said in my previous post, Eric and I went out to dinner on Friday to avoid the crowded restaurants on Valentine's Day. Instead, I cooked a delicious dinner for the both of us. I made Grilled Spicy Lime Chicken with Black Bean Salad. I got the recipe from this website, but with a few modifications.

Makes 2 large portions (4 servings if you eat like I do)

1/6 cup lime juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/8 cup olive oil
1 chipotle chile, roughly chopped, plus 2 tablespoons adobo sauce
1/2 tablespoon honey
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoons ground cumin
Salt and pepper
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts with rib meat
1 (16-ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup chopped scallions
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 ripe avocado, chopped
Lime wedges for serving

Directions
1. Light grill, or heat grill pan to medium (I used the George Foreman grill). Whisk lime juice, cilantro, oil, chiles and sauce, honey, garlic, cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper together in small bowl.
2. Toss chicken with 1/8 cup lime juice mixture in separate large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Marinate chicken in refrigerator while grill (or grill pan) continues to preheat.
3. Toss beans, scallions, red pepper, and avocado with 1/8 cup lime juice mixture in serving bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Grill chicken over very hot fire (or in grill pan) until well-browned on both sides and cooked through, 8 to 13 minutes. Transfer chicken to serving platter and drizzle with remaining lime juice mixture. Serve immediately with black bean and avocado salad. Top with sliced avocado and sour cream if you like.

I seved this with Alton Brown's Chipotle Smashed Sweet Potatoes.

Makes 4 servings

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 whole canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, chopped
1 teaspoon adobo sauce from can of peppers
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions
Put cubed potatoes into steamer basket and place steamer into a large pot of simmering water that is no closer than 2 inches from the bottom of basket. Allow to steam for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender. Add butter to potatoes and mash with potato masher. Add peppers, sauce, and salt and continue mashing to combine. Serve immediately.

I don't have a steamer basket, sadly, so I just boiled them for 15 minutes. I also did not read the directions carefully enough, and I used almost a whole CAN of the peppers, instead of just ONE pepper from the can. The result: SPICY SPICY sweet potatoes. Eric loved them, I had to top it with sour cream to cool them off. But they were still too spicy and I couldn't finish my portion. Next time I won't add the whole can.

Eric's plate:

I served the chicken on top of the black bean salad, then topped it with sliced avocado and sour cream. We also had pico de gallo chips from Berkeley Bowl on the side. That orange mound is the sweet potato mash. This is half of a chicken breast -- these things were HUGE!

This dish was everything I want in a meal: flavorful, spicy, healthy, and easy to make. Eric helped with the preparation and he did all the clean up. I couldn't ask for a better Valentine. :)

I also made sugar cookies for us, using the heart-shaped cookie cutters his mom gave me for Christmas. This made quite a few cookies, so I gave some to two of my favorite girls at work on Valentine's Day. :) The rest are for Eric and I to eat, yum!

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (I used Earth Balance 50/50 blend sticks)
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
2 large eggs (I used 2 egg whites)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 minutes). Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have a smooth dough.
Divide the dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about one hour or until firm enough to roll.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove one half of the chilled dough from the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch (1 cm). (Keep turning the dough as you roll, making sure the dough does not stick to the counter.)
Cut out desired shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to the prepared baking sheet. Place the baking sheets with the unbaked cookies in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes to chill the dough which prevents the cookies from spreading and losing their shape while baking.
Bake cookies for about 10 minutes (depending on size) or until they are brown around the edges. (This did not work for me. Baking them until the edges are golden resulted in a crisp cookie. Baking for 10 minutes resulted in a doughy cookie. 14 minutes worked best for me)
Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. Frosted cookies will keep several days in an airtight container. Store between layers of parchment paper or wax paper.

Makes about 36 - 4 inch (10 cm) cookies.

Icing

2 large egg whites
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
3 cups confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

Directions

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice. Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use.

Delicious!

We spent Valentine's Day watching two movies, Revolutionary Road and The International. In the evening we cuddled on the couch watching SNL and eating frozen yogurt. Overall, it was a wonderful day.

Chow in SF

2009-02-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Eric and I went into San Francisco to celebrate Valentine's Day a little early. We wanted to eat on Friday to beat the crowds on Saturday. We went to Chow, located on 215 Church St in SF.

Eric got the slow pot-roasted Beef Short Ribs, with mushroom-herb gravy, and mashed potatoes. His verdict: delicious, but the portion was not large enough.

I got the daily sandwich special, wild Petrale Sole, spicy-avo-mango salsa, and chipotle-lime crema (on the side). I did not like that the bun was buttered, but overall the dish was flavorful and I enjoyed it. It came with a side of fries, garden salad, or soup. I chose the Minestrone soup, because it was cold and rainy out. I could tell the soup was made fresh there, because it was chunky and full of vegetables. Delicious. I ate 1/2 the sandwich and all the soup. Eric ate the other half.

For dessert, we got their famous ginger cake, served with pumpkin ice cream, caramel sauce, and a sprinkle of powdered sugar. We didn't get a picture because we dug in right away.

Overall we liked the experience at Chow. The food was tasty and the service was great.

Berkeley Eats

2009-01-29T17:09:00.001-08:00

Since this is my last semester at Berkeley, I decided to try a new food place that is special to Berkeley at least once a week. Last week, I bought cheese and a scone from Cheeseboard. I've had their yummy thin crust pizza before, but I had never ventured into the cheese/coffee shop next door.

I bought creamy havarti cheese because I love havarti. This cheese was smooth, flavorful, and delicious. When warmed up, the flavor gets sort of lost, so I recommend eating it cold or room temperature.

I enjoyed the cheese with some apple slices.

I also bought a raspberry blueberry scone. This was also delicious. It's fairly large, so I ate one half at a time. The top is sprinkled with sugar and slightly crunchy, while the insides are soft and moist.

Cheeseboard is located at 1504 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley, CA.

Spaghetti Squash

2009-01-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

Tonight for dinner, I cooked spaghetti squash. This makes a great pasta substitute. The texture is not exactly the same, but the little strands of squash taste great and are surprisingly filling. First I cut the squash in half lengthwise. Then I put about an inch of water into a 13" x 9" baking pan. I put the squash halves, cut side down, into the water. I baked this for 40 minutes at 375 degrees. I pulled it out, let it cool off a little, then scraped the squash with a fork. The strands come off very easily.

I topped this with a tomato sauce. I sauteed some onion in a pan with a little garlic olive oil. Then I added 3/4 pound of lean ground turkey (99% fat free). I added red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper to this. When the meat was just about cooked, I added a jarred tomato sauce (tomato, basil, garlic flavor). I let this simmer for about 30 minutes while the squash finished cooking. Here is the end result:

This made 3 servings for me. I am now VERY full, but it was delicious. Warm, filling, with a little bit of a kick from the red pepper flakes. If only Eric were here to eat the other 2 servings.

Meals for One

2009-01-25T21:21:00.000-08:00

When I'm in Berkeley, I only cook for myself. I try to cook healthy and flavorful meals that won't leave me with a bunch of leftovers. Most lunches are sandwiches or salads, like this one:

This very green salad included spinach, celery, zucchini, avocado, and soft Havarti cheese in a balsamic vinagrette.

99% fat free ground turkey was on sale at Safeway a week ago, so I bought some and made turkey burgers. I put some grill seasoning and oats into the mixture and formed 3 patties out of 1/2 of a package of turkey (about 3/4 of a pound). I cooked them in a pan coated with cooking spray, and served them on a bed of spinach topped with cheese. You can see my ketchup and mustard on the side as well as my celery with laughing cow cheese. I ate three meals just like this one last week.

On Saturday I made lunch using my Nintendo DS game again. This time I made Chicken Chilindron. It was supposed to make two servings. The serving sizes are very generous, so I ended up getting three meals out of this.

Ingredients:

2 whole chicken legs (I used 4 breast tenderloins, I don't like dark meat)
2 oz. ham
1 small tomato
2/3 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1/2 medium red bell pepper
1/2 medium yellow bell pepper
1 tbsp. flour
3 1/3 tbsp. white wine (I used 4 tbsp.)
1 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp olive oil (I just eyeballed this, I probably used less)
salt, pepper, parsley

1. Chop all the veggies, ham, and chicken:

2. Season the chicken, then sautee it in olive oil until brown on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. Sautee the onion and garlic until brown.
4. Add the flour and cook briefly.
5. Add the white wine and cook until alcohol evaporates.
6. Add the stock, bring briefly to a boil.
7. Add the veggies and ham.
8. Add the chicken.
9. Simmer until liquid reduces by half. (I added about 1/2 tsp. of cornstarch to thicken it up)

10. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
11. Top with parsley and enjoy! (I also topped mine with red pepper flakes and served it over 1/3 cup of pasta)

This dish was flavorful, healthy, and easy to make. Next time I would add the peppers in the last 5 minutes of cooking so they don't get so soft.

I am going to try to cook 1 recipe from the Personal Trainer: Cooking game every week. That is, until I run out of recipes that look good.

Disneyland and San Diego

2009-01-24T16:48:00.000-08:00

I hadn't been to the magical world of Disneyland since 4th grade, so Eric and I went January 9th and 10th. This was our Christmas gifts to each other, which made it extra special.

Here we are at California Adventure:

We dined at the Blue Bayou, which is the restaurant located inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. They have New Orleans style food.

My dish was portobello mushrooms marinated in balsamic vinegar and grilled, served on top of couscous and topped with grilled corn, red peppers, and sauteed spinach. It was pretty good, I love anything with balsamic.

Eric had the Monte Cristo, which is basically a ham, turkey, and Swiss sandwich battered and deep fried. It was sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with a side of blackberry jam. Eric chose sauteed spinach and Blue Bayou potatoes for his sides. The potatoes were scalloped and served in a creamy and cheesy sauce.

I made another batch of cookies while in San Diego. This time it was peanut butter chip cookies. I took a chocolate chip cookie recipe and added peanut butter chips instead of chocolate (Eric doesn't like chocolate). I don't like the recipe I used, the cookies were gooey in the middle (even when I cooked them for longer). The recipe can be found here. They still tasted good.

Eric made most of our lunches while I was in San Diego. This is the only one I got a picture of. He made a panini with multi-grain sourdough bread, avocado, spinach, mustard, tuna, and pepperoncinis. I ate mine with a spinach salad topped with light Caesar dressing.

Now I'm back in Berkeley and cooking for one. :(

Banana Waffles

2009-01-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

Amie use to claim she wasn't big on breakfast foods. That all changed when she awoke to the combination of bananas, cinnamon, cashew, and macadamia. The recipe is from the the Bisquick Light box, but a few additions make it worthy of the effort it requires in the morning: I add a browning banana, as well as bit of organic cinnamon to the batter. After a few minutes on the iron, an application of cashew macadamia butter melts away into a gooey good morning. I like adding a drizzle of honey for moisture.

Chicken Curry

2009-01-04T21:40:00.000-08:00

For Christmas I got a Nintendo DS from my parents. I think they got it for me because I was excited when I saw a commercial for this game, Personal Trainer: Cooking. I really like it so far, it has 245 recipes from around the world and it tells you step by step how to create the dishes. The first recipe I used was for Beef Curry Stew, with a few substitutions. I didn't have beef, so I used chicken, and we didn't have potato starch so I used corn starch. I also added carrots because we didn't have a green bell pepper. I made this for my dad and Eric, and we thought it turned out pretty delicious. It has chicken, red bell peppers, onion, curry powder, garlic, chicken stock in the curry, and I served it over brown rice.

This is my portion:

Here's Eric serving himself:

I caught him by surprise:

We're in La Jolla now, and Eric made some delicious chili and cornbread that we forgot to take pictures of. I made some cookies as well, peanut butter blossoms. We'll be eating some good food over the next week, so I will try to take pictures.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T14:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Eric and I had a great day yesterday in Berkeley, eating delicious food and watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which is very good). Then we rang in the new year in Davis with our friends.

The first place we ate in Berkeley was lunch at Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers, located at 1600 Shattuck Ave # 112 Berkeley, CA. I remembered to take pictures AFTER we started to dig in, so sorry that they aren't the best.

We started with a half order of steak-cut fries. They were steaming hot and perfectly cooked. Eric ate most of them, but I had about 1/4 of the basket.

Eric had a Caribbean Turkey Burger: "Topped with sauteed julienne vegetable "zucchini, red pepper and carrots" in the finest Caribbean jerk sauce 'HOT'" It was spicy and full of fresh veggies. Eric ate the whole thing.

I had Barney’s Portobello Burger: "Flame broiled whole Portobello mushroom served on a sesame bun with tender baby spinach, red peppers, aromatic tomato pesto sauce and melted Swiss cheese." It was very good, they didn't skimp on the veggies and I could tell all the ingredients were good quality and fresh.

For dinner, we went to one of our favorite places in Berkeley, Thai Delight. It is at 1700 Shattuck Ave. Everyone I take here loves it, and Eric wants to go here almost every time we're in Berkeley together.

We ordered a Thai iced tea to share. These are smooth, creamy, and delicious. The tea is perfect when paired with spicy food.

We ordered an appetizer, Chicken Sate. It is described as grilled chicken on sticks, served with peanut sauce and cucumber salad. This was very good, I had 1 skewer and most of the salad and Eric had 2 skewers.

Every time I go here, without fail, I get the Pumpkin Curry. It's spicy, flavorful, and full of chicken and a variety of vegetables, including pumpkin, zucchini, red bell peppers, green beans, and bamboo shoots. If you go to Thai Delight, you HAVE to get this. Everyone who tries it loves it, and this includes my dad, sister, Eric, and my grandparents. We ate it over a single order of brown rice.

After dinner, we went to Davis where we drank red wine, danced, spent time with friends, and drank champagne to ring in the new year. We had a great day together.

First Post!

2008-12-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

I am super excited to get this food blog going! Eric will hopefully buy a camera soon and contribute. For now I will be the photographer at our meals, since we are together for 2 more weeks. :) Here are some goodies from Christmas:

Candy Cane Coffee Cake:

Recipe can be found here.

The coffee cake was difficult to make (my mom and dad helped me). But it was delicious and worth the effort. The filling is raspberry with a vanilla glaze on top.

Pumpkin Roll:

Slice (sorry it's blurry):

The pumpkin roll recipe came from the back of the label on Libby's Canned Pumpkin, which can also be found here.

And here is the castle Eric and I made out of graham crackers:

Tomorrow we are going to Berkeley to check my mail, pick up my paycheck, and eat some good food. Then if I am not feeling sick, we are going to Davis for a New Year's Eve party. Should be fun!