Broken Fridge!! (and some good Thai food)

This morning when I opened up the refrigerator in our apartment, it was completely warm!! Absolutely no cold air coming out at all! I braved using a 1/3 cup of milk to make my oatmeal this morning, and I have no signs of food poisoning yet…..But for lunch I decided to play it safe and buy my lunch downtown. What a good excuse to eat out! I decided to go to my favorite Thai restaurant in Athens to take advantage of their lunch special

Lunch started out with hot and sour soup.

Their hot and sour soup is seriously the best I’ve ever had!! It has great flavor, and it is full of mushrooms, zucchini, green onions, carrots, cilantro, and tofu.

Check out this spoonful:

YUM!

Also a spring roll with duck sauce:

For the main entree, I chose garlic ginger shrimp with veggies! I love fresh ginger!

I had exactly an hour and fifteen minutes to make it downtown, eat, and get back to campus before my next class. Thank goodness for my bike! I never would have had time to do this if I took the bus!

I barely made it to the restaurant 30 minutes before they closed, so I was the only customer in the restaurant. The super sweet Thai ladies who worked there looked at me curiously as I snapped pictures of all the food they brought out to me. Then they asked me if I was in advertising. I tried to explain to them my food blog, but I’m not sure they understood…Do any of get interesting reactions from people when you take pictures of food? 

On another note, today is my last day of undergrad classes ever!! A few of you have asked what I am doing after I graduate next week…I have no idea!!! I change my mind every hour about what I want to do, so I will let you all know when I have a more solid plan!

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Teriyaki Ginger Baked Tofu

Last night, I decided to try using a new method to cook my tofu. I usually cook my tofu in a pan. Last night’s method = baking in the oven.

The ingredients:

• Organic extra firm tofu
• Teriyaki sauce
• Annie’s Gingerly Vinaigrette

I cut the tofu into about 1/4 inch thick strips, pressed out some of the water with paper towels, placed on a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and brushed with a mixture of the teriyaki sauce and Anne’s Gingerly Vinaigrette.

before baking

Then I baked the tofu in the over at 375, flipped them over after 15 minutes and then cooked for another 15 minutes.

Turned out slightly crispy on the edges but soft in the middle. Perfect! However, the teriyaki ginger flavor was very subtle, so next time I would marinate the tofu for a while instead of just brushing it on right before baking.

The tofu was awesome in my sandwich today for lunch.

sorry for the bites taken out of it...I forgot to take a pic before I started eating

I made a tofu, almond butter, red pepper, and spinach sandwich. These flavors actually went really well together. Yum!

Check out this nut butter galore we have in our fridge right now:

HUGE tubs of cashew butter and almond butter!!!! My roomie got them at the Dekalb Farmer’s Market when she went to Atlanta this weekend. I started jumping up and down when she brought them back .

Also, today I got a surprise package in the mail from Megan (Healthy on the Run).

She sent me a white chocolate macadamia nut Clif bar and Luna bar! The WCMN Clif bar is one of my favorites, but I had never tried the Luna version before. I was very curious, so I ripped the Luna bar open immediately after taking this picture. It was delicious!! Definitely superior to most Luna bars I’ve tried.

She also gave me this sweet note:

Thanks Megan!!

 

A Note on Spelt Flour:

A commenter pointed out to me today that my raspberry spelt scones are actually not gluten free because spelt flour has just as much gluten as wheat flour does. Because of this, spelt flour is not a good wheat substitute for those with Celiacs disease (gluten intolerance). However, I just looked up spelt flour and Celiacs disease, and I found that while spelt flour does contain gluten, some people with Celiacs may tolerate spelt better than wheat. 

For those without gluten sensitivity, spelt flour is a healthy flour you can use in baking instead of wheat flour. Spelt flour is a good source of B vitamins and fiber, and it actually has 25% more protein than wheat! Sounds good to me .

This is my last Monday of classes in my undergrad career!! The countdown: 13 days until graduation. I’m excited for summer, but scared about whatever comes next…

Adventurous Snack + My fav chicken salad

Yesterday afternoon I went with one of my good friends to go get certified to climb the rock wall at our school gym! This was way scarier than I thought it would be…I barely went up half the wall, and then I was ready to be safe on the ground again! We are going back on Sunday to climb, and my goal is to make it to the top!

After I got back from my rock climbing, I was hungry! In the spirit of being adventurous, I tried a wrap similar to the one Heather made on her blog once with banana, spinach, and avocado. She noted that she should have added almond butter, so that’s what I did!

Wrap with almond butter, avocado, banana, and spinach.

This was sooo good! Please, everyone try this sometime!

Other recent good eats include a trip to one of my favorite restaurants in Athens — Big City bread. I got my chicken salad sandwich with a greek salad that I order 90% of the time when I eat there. It’s really that good. I can’t believe I’ve never featured it on my blog before!

This is no ordinary chicken salad — it has blue cheese and orange zest in it and is served on walnut wheat bread with baby spinach. The greek salad has spinach with chickpeas, artichokes, feta, and a lemon tahini dressing. This dressing seriously rocks…I like to dip the little piece of homemade focaccia in it when I’m done with the salad . Any chicken salad fans out there?? What’s your favorite kind?

Hope you all are having an amazing weekend!

New Food Discoveries

I am currently obsessed with the Ezekiel english muffins I bought this week! My very first Ezekiel english muffin is documented in this post when I made a sandwich with it. They are dense and chewy and taste like homemade bread to me.

I love them so much that this morning when I woke up, I was craving an english muffin more than my usual bowl of oats! This is really saying something as I have become slightly addicted to my oatmeal breakfast. 

So for breakfast this morning, I made an toasted Ezekiel english muffin with almond butter, a banana, and cinnamon!

Another new food discovery I made recently is a tangelo. My roommate found them a Costco . A tangelo is a mix between a tangerine and a grapefruit. I don’t think I’ve ever tried a tangerine, but I’ve never really liked oranges that much (I know, I’m weird…) or grapefruits. However, I love these tangelos! Especially with cinnamon

I told one of my nutrition class friends today about my tangelo discovery, and she said that she eats them all the time! I had never heard of them until a few days ago! Has anyone else ever heard of tangelos and/or tried them before?

My tangelo loving friend thought that my addition of cinnamon was pretty weird. I do like cinnamon more than normal people, but I don’t think cinnamon + orange/tangelo/tangerine etc. is too weird of a flavor combo. In fact, when I was studying in Austria, all the bars served tequila shots with cinnamon and orange instead of salt and lime! Anyway, I highly recommend adding cinnamon to ANY fruit

Trying new foods is so much fun, and I am a reformed picky eater, so I think there is still a lot out there for me to try .

Have any of you made any recent and exciting food discoveries??

Raspberry Spelt Scones

Yesterday, I hinted about a baking experiment with spelt flour. Now, here it is: Raspberry Spelt Scones!

Raspberry Spelt Scones (adapted from Food and Wine)

• 2 cups spelt flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 1 cup raspberries

Whisk together flour baking powder and salt. Then stir in oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Stir in hot water, then raspberries.

Cook on baking sheet with wax paper at 375 for 20 minutes. Makes 12 scones.

The original recipe called for agave nectar instead of maple syrup, but I didn’t have any and I thought the maple would add a nice flavor . I also used frozen raspberries because they are much cheaper than fresh, and they worked great!

These were awesome! They are also vegan :). However, I de-veganized them by eating them with a little lemon curd I bought at Trader Joe’s:

YUM!

According to Food and Wine, each scone has 168 calories, 7 grams of fat, 23 grams of carbs, and 3 grams of fiber. I approve!

Also, I wanted to share a really great quote from Runner’s World. I had a really stressful day today, and finding this quote made me feel better:

“Running is a gift I give myself almost every day. Even on those days when things haven’t gone great, I can come home and give myself the accomplishment of a 30- or 40-minute run.”

ARTHUR BLANK

My fitness is something that is really important to me. Regardless of what’s going on in my life, it feels empowering to go run five miles, bike some hills, or anything activity that makes me feel strong and healthy. Tonight, I’m going to go swim my heart out at swim practice and leave my worries in the water. And then come home and eat another scone . What is your favorite thing to do to de-stress?

Runaway Dietician

Waiting for the results of the dietetic internship matching program, I felt like a bride walking down the aisle having doubts. The wedding is perfectly planned, the guests are here, the flower arrangements are gorgeous, but all of a sudden it just doesn’t feel right.

I’ll spare you all the details of my indecisiveness (I could ramble forever). Basically, I suddenly realized that getting my RD may not be the best way for me to reach my career goals. I started looking into getting a masters in Health Promotion Management. 

A couple hours before the matching, I called my sister (who is a much more rational thinker than I am) asking if I would be completely crazy to reject a match to an internship based on a spontaneous decision to take a different career path. She said that I wasn’t really changing my mind about what I wanted to do, I had just figured out a better way to get there. She is so smart.

Anyway, I didn’t get matched with an internship. My parents are disappointed and are struggling with understanding the change in my career plan. I’m doing great! I feel liberated, excited, scared, nervous, happy, and anxious all at the same time.

On to some good food:

For lunch I had a sandwich on an Ezekiel english muffin with BBQ deli sliced chicken, baby spinach, tomatoes, and avocado. Red pepper strips on the side.

My Ezekiel english muffins came from an unplanned shopping spree at Earthfare. I went to go get some unsalted cashews from their bulk bins (cashew butter making experiment coming soon!) and some spelt flour (balking experiment coming soon!), and I ended up doing a full blown grocery trip. I can never go grocery shopping for just a few things .

This Ezekiel english muffin was incredible!!!! It had lots of little seeds, great flavor, and a doughy texture in the middle. It was totally worth being twice as expensive as normal english muffins. 

Ok, I think I’m going to go get some free ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. I love free cone day!!!

Random, random, random

I apologize in advance for the discontinuity of this post. Here are the topics I’m about to cover:

1. The best oatmeal yet
2. New tab alert
3. I won a gift certificate!
4. My future lies in the hands of a computer matching system

 

First off, I have a new favorite bowl of oatmeal!

Raspberry Oats with an Almond Butter Swirl. Sorry about the quality of the photo…my camera was out of batteries, so I used Mac Photo Booth.

In my bowl:

• 1/3 cup oats, water, milk
• cinnamon
• ground flax
• a banana
• raspberries!!! 
• almond butter 

 

New Tab Alert!

My blogging philosophy is to celebrate good food and fitness. I put up the “Celebrating Fitness” tab up a while ago, but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to be on the food page. Today, I finally created the “Celebrating Food” page. It’s nothing too spectacular, but it does have some pretty good food porn pics, so check it out, and let me know what you think!

 

Free Organic Food!!

 I won One Frugal Foodie’s Navan Foods gift certificate for $25! Here are the wonderful goodies I decided to order:

• Mary’s Gone Crackers Sea Salt Sticks and Twigs -I saw this featured on Foods That Fit once and was intrigued
• Ancient Harvest Red Quinoa- Red quinoa??!!!! I’m super excited about this one!
• Bob’s Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour- Can’t wait to do some baking with this! Anyone have recipe suggestions???
• Bare Fruit Pineapple and Mango To Go- Just a single serving of yummy tropical dried fruit for $0.99 to max out my gift certificate .
• My grand total: $24.76. Only 24 cents unused…not bad!

 

The fate of my future:

I’m not even sure if I want to post about this before I know the outcome, but I actually find out tonight if I got a dietetic internship for next year!!! The whole application process for dietetic internships is super stressful. While some programs are more competitive than others, its not like applying for college where you always have those “safety schools” you apply to. There are more applicants than there are spots for interns, and only about 60% of people who apply nationally get matched with an internship.

How it works: You rank the programs you apply to online, and the programs rank all their applicants. Then on April 20th at 1 AM, you are either matched with a program (they tell what internship you are doing), or you are mismatched (you did not get an internship). It’s like sorority rush. I took a huge risk by putting extremely competitive programs as my top 2 choices. This means that if I don’t get one of those 2, I may not get the any of other ones I applied to (even if I’m qualified) just because I ranked them too low.

I will be ridiculously excited if I get any of the internships I applied for, but I’m also strangely excited about the possibility of having absolutely no responsibilities and no obligations after graduation….How often does that happen in your life?? There are sooo many things in this world to do and see, and they don’t have to include getting a traditional job (or internship) immediately after graduation. I could work at a ski resort, teach English abroad, do the Peace Corps, work on an organic farm, etc. I’ve been doing a lot of research on this, and there are plenty of ways to delay real adult life! 

What would you do if you had a whole year with no obligations?

Tofu Tacos

Today’s lunch features CCV’s Mad Tofu Scramble in taco form!! I am currently obsessed with these tofu scrambles…they are so easy, delicious, and satisfying! 

Squash, zucchini, LOTS of spinach, silken tofu, and Emeril’s Southwest seasoning.

Served with salsa and corn tortillas.

YUM!!

Cooking for one: I realize that the ingredients today’s lunch are strikingly similar to the ones in yesterday’s post — spinach, squash, salsa, corn tortillas, and I probably would have added black beans if I hadn’t eaten them all!  It’s hard to keep a variety of foods stocked in the kitchen when you usually just cook for one, but it’s fun to try to creatively use up your food . I don’t feel like I’m eating the same food all the time, but it does look really redundant when I blog about it… 

Another food highlight of the day was a trip to Ben and Jerry’s. I was too nice outside to stay in the apartment, so I went for a walk downtown with one of my roommates, and we went shopping (aka: drooled over lots of really cute dresses we couldn’t afford…), and we got ice cream:

The Imagine Whirled Peace flavor is my FAVORITE! Caramel and sweet cream ice creams with fudge peace signs and toffee cookie pieces.

Speaking of Ben and Jerry’s, Tuesday April 21st is free cone day!!! Mark your calendars .

Huevos Rancheros + The BEST Sweet Potato Ever! (I promise…)

Last night after spin class, I went to the store, got some corn tortillas, black beans, and salsa to make some Huevos Rancheros Smitten Kitchen style.

The Smitten Kitchen recipe was very simple, and what intrigued about it the most was her method of cracking the egg on the tortilla in the pan and then flipping it over! (Check out this link for her picture tutorial.) This looked really fun and easy and I had to try it out!

For the black beans I took a shortcut by using the perfectly pre-seasoned Goya Black Bean Soup (per Smitten Kitchen recommendation), but I also cheated further by buying pre-made salsa (I used Publix Greenwise Mild Organic Salsa) instead of chopping my own tomatoes, onions, and jalepenoes.

The egg I used was from my carton of eggs I bought locally a few weeks ago:

I also decided to sauteed some spinach and squash to go along with it. I love veggies, and my roomie and I are trying to use up this massive box of spinach!!

That’s 1 pound of organic baby spinach!! We’ve had it for less than I week, and we are over half way done, so I think we are doing well . Anyway, here is the final result of my huevos rancheros:

Very delicious!! But my picture is not nearly as pretty as Smitten Kitchen’s, so I highly recommend you check out her version .

This morning, me and the roomie got up early to go swimming before class! (Pre-workout fuel= half a WCMN Clif Bar + a spoonful of cashew butter, in case anyone is curious…). I ended up getting in a good 2000 meter workout:

• 500 meter warm up
• 2 x 200 (swim, kick, pull, swim — change every 50)
• 200 meter tempo
• 6 x 100 80-85% effort with 15 second rests
• 300 cool down (alternating kick and swim each 50)

This was a great way to start the day!! While swimming, I started dreaming up my lunch, which ended up being the best sweet potato ever!

Baked sweet potato topped with 1/2 cup of Goya Black Bean Soup, sauteed squash and spinach, and salsa. The addition of salsa was inspired by Veggie Girl, and I loved the flavor it added! I also had a spoonful of cashew butter on the side…I wasn’t completely confident that this would go well with the rest of the dish, but oh man it was awesome!! 

I also made a pot of this coffee:

I love TJ's coffee

 

Interesting News: Today I found this inspiring article from Runner’s World about Kara Goucher, an Olympic runner who is training for Boston. On page 4 of the article, it shows one of her daily meal plans, which includes oatmeal, salmon risotto, and a pumpkin scone! I think this girl should start a food blog! 

Also, Megan (Healthy on the Run) is trying to raise money for Relay for Life in honor of her friend who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Megan is really sweet and a new blogger, and I highly encourage everyone to help out her fundraiser!

Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope you all are enjoying gorgeous weather like we are having in Georgia right now! (70 degrees and sunny…yay for Spring arriving!)

Hummus Chicken Salad

Mmmm….lunch was so good today! I had to stay after class to work on a group project, so by the time I got back to my apartment (3PM ish), I was craving a big, fresh, filling sandwich! I fantasized about what I wanted to eat while biking home, and put this together when I finally made it to the kitchen:

Hummus Chicken Salad!

In my chicken salad:

• TJ’s premium white chunck chicken (1/3-1/2 cup?)
• Hummus (big, heaping spoonful)
• Raw zucchini (about 4 thin slices, diced)
• A tiny squirt of Dijon mustard
• Paprika

Baby spinach and tomatoes on one half, and my chicken salad on the other. Really fresh tomatoes make all sandwiches 1000xs better, in my opinion. I’ve been boycotting winter tomatoes because they are such terrible quality, but these Campari tomatoes are reminiscent of summer tomatoes!

oh yes!

Yesterday, after my first incorporation of raspberries in oatmeal, which was long overdue, Sarah suggested that I should do a series on raspberries in foods where you least expect them. I LOVE this idea, and I am currently brainstorming….creative raspberry recipes coming soon