Wed, April 30, 2008

8.07 am - fresh squeezed OJ, from oranges home grown in Nadya's garden, at home, with Ritesh8.15am - oat bran w/ vanilla hemp milk, strawberry sauce, walnuts and black sesame seeds, at home, with Ritesh

11.03am - pumpkin seeds and an apple (NOT a fuji, but a Pink Lady or something), at work

1.54pm - Brazilian grilled salmon (w/ that tasty Brazilian mustard sauce), fried plantains, salsa, rice, and black beans w/ farofa (fried yucca flour), from Bossa Nova, at work

Tues, April 29, 2008

8.2am - fresh squeezed orange juice, from the oranges from Nadya's garden, at home8.28am - chocolate hemp milk with sprouted grain cereal, at home

11am - almonds and dried cranberries, courtesy of Cecy, at work

1.22pm - avocado chocolate smoothie at Simpang Asia

1.25pm - Indonesian Gado Gado salad w/ shrimp crackers, at Simpang Asia

4.32pm - free cone day at Ben & Jerry's - this is the coconut-almond flavor, outside work, with Cecy

7.03pm - tuna salad made w/ leftover lemon aioli and apples, at home, with Ritesh

Monday, April 28, 2008 - one lucky day!

8.22am - blueberry flaxseed smoothie, at home9.15am - cherry fruit and nut bar, at work

12.32pm - the Asian lunch club (i.e. Nadya and I) were planning to converge on Tara's Himalayan Restaurant today, but they turned out to be closed. So instead we got Satsouka's famous Salt Ramen, at Mitsuwa

1.18pm - Giant Japanese ice cream cone, courtesy of Nadya (thanks, Nads!)

1.30pm - Japanese grape gummies, also courtesy of Nadya (danke auch!)

7.23pm - almond horn, at home, shared w/ Ritesh ( a case of dessert before dinner, at least for me - he of course managed to keep his half for later...)

7.34pm - Nadya not only bought me dessert, she also regaled us with this amazing-looking, huge artichoke and all these beautiful lemons from her garden - all organic, freshly picked, and as flavorful as they come - did I mention it was one lucky day? I could barely carry all this stuff home! (citrus fruit is heavy!)

8.55pm - here's Nadya's stunning red artichoke simmering in garlic/olive oil/vinegar/salt water, next to a plain old store-bought artichoke that we put in there for company. There is a third one being steamed in a steamer right next to these guys - but somehow I failed to take a picture ...

9.33pm - and here's dinner - literally, this is the full meal: artichokes, with lemon butter (top left) and my first ever home-made lemon aioli (top right), raw egg and all, which I was very pleased with. And Nads, you could quit your job and get yourself a stand on the farmer's market! your artichoke is so much better than the ones from Whole Foods! Juicier, meatier, and the color is great, it stains your fingers as you eat, which just adds to the experience... Loved it. Did I say it was one lucky day?

Ritesh is back!

Ok, so here's what he wanted:

20.08pm - vietnamese eggrolls, at Pho 9920.09pm - veggie pho with tofu and noodles, at Pho99

Sun, April 27, 2008

7.52am - fuji w/ peanut butter, at home. Another glorious, sunny Southern California morning...8.13am - we've had a bit of a heat wave these past few days, so it occurred to me to mix that hyper-sweet Calamansi lime juice with some iced Oolong tea - not half bad, and certainly refreshing. Took it along to the beach...

9.41am - after working out near the beach - I know these Larabars that I keep eating look just like those nasty processed ones I had the other day, but they're not! I swear! They're actually explicitly raw, unprocessed, non-GMO (as well as gluten free, dairy free, soy free, vegan and kosher, to top it off). Only ingredients are: dates, cashews, almonds, unsweetened coconut and in this specific one lime juice concentrate (normally I get the chocolate ones, but this key lime one is my new favorite).

9.4am - ok, this is the SAME bar. But since it was so lovely out and everything so lush and green, I just kept taking pictures and then I couldn't decide which one to post.

9.42am - and here's my usual lookout, with a bit of beach and Pacific Ocean - not even 10am yet, but the heat is incredible...

12.15pm - for lunch I couldn't decide (it's been an indecisive day you might say) whether I wanted grilled zucchini/tomato/feta salad or just plain raw, chopped zucchini/tomato/feta salad. So I made both, with some rosemary crostini. Regular raw on the left, grilled on the right. Grilled wins, in spite of the heat, just in case you were wondering...

So Ritesh is finally coming back tonight, after eleven days in Europe. I wonder what food he was missing most in London, Prague and Budapest and will most want to eat... Indian? Vietnamese? Mexican? Whatever it is, it'll be worth an extra post...

Sat, April 26, 2008 - Thanks, Laura!

11am - blueberry-flaxseed smoothie, at home2.49pm - stir-fried kale, fried egg w/ cayenne and black pepper, open-faced radish sandwich on buttered whole grain bread, at home

3.41 - So this is the chocolate pasta! Thanks for your comments, Laura - as you can see, I went with a combination of your suggestions... the strawberries were beginning to go bad, so I cooked them up in a nice, chunky sauce (with some lemon juice, to preserve the color). The nuts were a great idea - I used pistachios just for the color contrast. Then added some dollops of whipped cream just because. So I was very happy with sauce and toppings. The pasta itself, however, is another story... I really wanted to like it, and I really like the idea of it, but truth be told, it is really not that good. Sadly. It's just kind of ... bland. No deep, rich, chocolaty flavor. No sauce in the world can make up for this much blah. Makes me want to try a flourless chocolate cake next, for some of that real, serious, intense chocolate flavor...

Well, and this was it for the day. It's been too hot to eat, really, for one. Plus I fell asleep somewhat early, ahem, and slept right through dinner time, and all I can say in my defense is that it's been a rough week and I haven't been getting much sleep, what with the craziness at work and all the major turn-the-house-upside-down spring cleaning I've been doing at home. I was up to the wee hours every night this week, going through every cabinet, every drawer, every shelf and every single box in every closet and sorting and tossing out and donating and recycling and re-organizing and cleaning and dusting and washing and... you get the picture. Add to that Ritesh being gone and now this heat, all of a sudden - what else is a girl supposed to do on a Saturday night? I'll take some beauty sleep anytime, thank you very much...

Chocolate Pasta

So we have this chocolate pasta that we brought from Italy last year and have yet to figure out what to actually do with... It seems like such a great idea, combining the two, only that we can't seem to think of a good sauce to go with it. So the lovely soffietti al cioccolato have been sitting on a shelf behind the dried porcini mushrooms that we don't really use either, destined to be forgotten.
But now that I have all these strawberries, life has changed. I'm thinking I should somehow combine the two, so I dug around in the pantry and liberated them from premature oblivion:
Now I can't stop thinking about the possibilities for sauce... I could just make a strawberry sauce, but I'm more inclined towards some creamy, custardy kind of white sauce, with fresh berries on top... any thoughts/ suggestions anyone?

Fri, April 25, 2008

8.27am - bought a somewhat excessive amount of strawberries at the farmers market yesterday (3 little tubs for $5, so of course I had to get 3), so here goes: fresh strawberries with some raw halvah (ground sesame seeds mixed with honey) and some coffee soy milk, at home10.28pm - raspberry soy yogurt w/ fresh strawberries, walnuts, sprouted cereal AND a pistachio nut bar. Stressed out at work.
2.09pm - a fuji break at work. Discovered that Michael Pollan, he of the quote in my blog's header, just had a great new article in the NYT. This was the high point of my day, and not just because he seems to have borrowed the title of my welcome message. It's all downhill from here...

2.33pm - some microwaveable Indian chickpea cholay thing from Trader Joe's that I found in my desk drawer at work. What can I say. Bad day when you can't even get out for a bite. I will say this though: Time for Ritesh to come home and cook up some of the real stuff!

3.39pm - hyper-processed protein bar that tasted like styrofoam. Can't believe I fell for this one. This is the kind of pseudo-food they sell at the convenience store in our building, at work.

6.56pm - leftover ginger-turmeric soup from yesterday, at home. Phew.

Thurs, April 24, 2008

10.07am - greek-style fig yogurt w/ sprouted raw cereal, at work10.52am - Kashi supposedly natural Whole Grain bar = I wish I'd looked at the ingredient list before I ate it. What was I thinking? Evidently nothing much.

1.57pm - Argentinian empanadas (spicy chicken, eggplant) at the farmers market, down the street from work

3.40pm - blueberry cornbread from Whole Foods, at work. The cornbread was good, but the picture effortlessly qualifies for the list of 10 most uninspired pictures on this blog.

8.54pm - I stocked up on some veggies at the farmers market, so here's my ginger-turmeric soup with fresh kale, zuchini and butternut squash, some fresh lemon juice (thanks, Nadya!) and miso. At home.

Wed, April 23, 2008

7.48am - watermelon, at home8.28am - oat bran w/ chocolate hemp milk, banana and walnuts, at home

11.15am - and another chocolate-nut-fruit bar, at work

12.27pm - chicken breast, grilled veggies and saffron rice, at the Hollywood Society of Radio and Television Luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, with many, many industry colleagues

12.28pm - a lemon-moussy type of dessert cake, at above named luncheon

7.30pm - and back to a modest dinner at home: mache with turkey bacon, and a grilled pita sandwich w/ mozzarella and bruschetta. Doesn't work so well on the grill, but I'm trying to use up leftovers before Ritesh comes home...

Tues, April 22, 2008

8.11pm - oat bran w/ vanilla almond milk, banana, walnuts and black sesame seeds, at home12.35pm - Es Teler, an Indonesian "drink" (more like a dessert if you ask me) consisting of coconut meat, jackfruit, avocado, shaved ice and sweetened condensed milk, at Simpang Asia, with Nadya

12.35pm - Nadya's tasty Indonesian noodles (Mie Tek Tek), at Simpang Asia

12.35pm - and my not very photogenic but very tasty soup (Mie Duk Duk, I think), at Simpang Asia, with Nadya

8.01pm - fried chicken, rice, asparagus, at Laura's, with Richard, Laura and little Jasper

8.42pm - Laura's great spinach salad with goat cheese and apples, at Richard's and Laura's

8.50pm - and the perennial classic, Trader Joe's French apple tart, at Laura's