Featuring Feta (there are cookies too)

These past couple of days involved a lot of feta because it makes so many things so much better.

On 5/30 I woke up early enough to make myself an omelet before I had to run off to work. First came chopping, then sauteing in olive oil and with salt…

Post-sauteing

And then two eggs were beaten and poured into the pan. The sauteed red bell pepper pieces and crumbled feta were added.

And then everything was rolled up and photographed and eaten. I’m so proud of myself for having thought of sauteing the bell pepper first; it was a lot juicier and sweeter and more flavorful than it would have been if I had just tossed it onto the omelet shell raw.

Later that day I threw together an arugula salad, topped it with feta, and drizzled olive oil and balsamic vinegar over everything.

This morning I didn’t have enough eggs for an omelet. I also realized I ate way too many eggs yesterday. And so I sliced up some gold potatoes, rubbed them in olive oil, and put them in the 400-degree-F oven until I heard the oil popping and saw that the slices had slightly browned. I added feta after I took this photo.

Part of lunch consisted of these beauties…

… sliced and roasted for 25 minutes at around 400 degrees F (although for a while at 450 degrees plus, likely because I had accidentally hit the dial with a pot), and then topped with feta. Of course.

Here are the cookies, made by one of my housemates. I just helped eat. These were deliciously buttery and soft chocolate chip cookies. This was actually a few days before all this feta happened, but I promised, and I delivered.

Salmon, Arugula, Goat Cheese

5-28-12

Smoked sockeye salmon, sliced into little bits. Baby arugula leaves, washed then patted dry. Crumbled goat cheese, scattered all around. Extra virgin olive oil, lightly drizzled over everything. And then everything, tossed and savored.

An Epic Food Day

5-27-12

8:45 a.m.: Leftover gingerbread from the previous night, with creamy vanilla yogurt. I had taken the gingerbread out of the oven too soon, so it was softer and squishier than I wanted it to be, but it still had the flavor and scent, so… I wasn’t too upset.

1:53 p.m.: A 14” Coliseum pizza at Pete’s Pizza in Columbia Heights. This beauty was topped with breaded and crisped eggplant slices; caramelized onion slices; sliced olives; and tender, roasted garlic cloves. My half had regular cheese. But the garlic! I agree with the Restaurant Girl in her belief that one should embrace garlic.

4:20 p.m.: After the amount of furniture/necessities/post-moving shopping we did, we hopped over to Sticky Fingers to refuel; I had a sweet-and-salty cookie (generously dotted with chocolate chips and oats, and possibly containing peanut butter too) and a berry smoothie. The cookie was so soft and bursting with sweetly salty goodness; it had a slight chewiness that offered just enough resistance and texture during the savoring process. So. Good.

8:38 p.m.: I spontaneously decided to stay over at K’s place because SLUMBER PARTIES ARE FUN. We made vegan mac-n-cheese; it came out of a box, but we added the soy milk and vegan butter and black pepper and steamed kale. Yum yum.

It was followed by juicy red watermelon, and then eventually dairy-free chocolate sorbet.

Good food, company, and weather. Life is good.

A Melange of Eats

That’s what the past one-and-a-half, two weeks have been with regard to food.

Because I needed to move, I did not go serious grocery shopping. Because the kitchen unit on my floor was dismantled for cleaning purposes and never fully put back together, it was inconvenient for me to cook. Thankfully I have now finished moving and have a kitchen unit that works. Next up: legit grocery shopping, beyond just the basics. (Although you know me - I can still whip up amazingness with just the basics. ;))

Yesterday (5/25), to celebrate my having moved, I finally cooked something legit again: baked potato slices with olive oil and ground rosemary. I also made myself some barley with green beans and brown sugar. This was the most food I had in a while, it felt like. Good food. I was happy.

A foodventure of sorts (but to a restaurant I’ve already been to a couple times before, Eat and Joy) happened on 5/20. I ordered a Kofte, which consisted of ground lamb patties atop basmati rice, with a salad and phyllo bread and cacik to the side. If I remember correctly the meat had a smokey flavor to it. The salad was meh. The bread was delicious. And because of my bias towards just about anything dairy, I loved the cacik and was elated it was there.

K and I shared a Coban salad, which consisted of mostly tomatoes and red onion.

And then since it was blazingly hot today, and because I had been wanting froyo for a while, I dragged a friend to Pinkberry, where I ordered this peanut butter amazingness with brownie bites and mochi to the side.

The peanut butter part reminded me of those peanut butter popsicles I used to be able to buy back home. I MISS THOSE.

When I returned home I remembered the 沙茶醬, translated as “barbecue sauce,” I bought at a Chinese supermarket a long time ago. “Satay” is another translation of it, I believe. At any rate, it is made of ground-up fish and shrimp and combined with garlic and a bunch of oils. It’s fragrant and perfect for cooking and dipping.

It put some life into an otherwise (by this point) plain scrambled-egg fried rice. The oils were so fragrant and the spices added a nice piquancy to every spoonful.

Summer (the season and the vacation) is upon us. Time to make and discover more good eats!

Caprese, Again but Better

5-11-12

What do I love about free time? The freedom, and the time, to create things.

Remember this? This was my first attempt at making a caprese salad - that easiest of dishes, one would think - almost a year ago. It wasn’t exactly the most appetizing dish. If I remember correctly, I didn’t drain the greens enough, olive oil just wasn’t enough dressing, and there was too much basil.

When I went grocery shopping today, I hadn’t planned on purchasing the ingredients for a caprese salad. But I saw the mozzarella on sale, and things just took off from there.

Baby arugula leaves…

Two ripe but firm tomatoes, coated in a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cane sugar, and salt, loosely following this recipe, and then roasted in the oven (as it was preheating, 100 degrees F to 400 degrees F) for 20 minutes.

The layers: arugula, tomatoes, mozzarella, and pesto (pesto powder with olive oil - don’t have a blender, plus I needed to use it before it expired!).

And then tossed. Yes, I tossed my caprese salad. So much good flavor - the nuttiness of the arugula (and of the pesto I presume), the sweetness of the tomatoes, the fragrance of the pesto and olive oil combined, the smoothness of the cheese. Chaotic beauty and simple-yet-complex scrumptiousness on a plate.

Little Acts of (Food) Love

Sometimes you just gotta take it slow.

There’s so much rushing in my life, always off to the next task, the next place. When I take time to stop and breathe and have fun, I feel awesome while relaxing, but then miserable and wracked with guilt afterwards.

But we’re only human, and we have to take it slow.

Take it slow. Take it easy every now and then. Stop. Breathe deeply. Look around you. Feel the sun tickle your skin, listen to the little chubby birds as they chirp and bounce all over the place.

Things are a little cray right now. But gotta take it easy every now and then.

(4-25-12. BBC, this time cooked for around 15 minutes, popped in the oven as it was preheating from 100 degrees F to 350 degrees F.)

(4-26-12. Sesame chicken with red chili peppers and spring onions. I’m not sure if my tutee made it or if her mom did, but regardless, this was delicious, very flavorful and with quite a spicy kick.)

(4-27-12. Gooey chocolate cake that I just up and decided to make, on a whim. This isn’t the first time I’ve made a gooey chocolate cake. This is the second time I’ve succeeded with a gooey center. Could’ve been sweeter, but I was just happy that I had cake.)

(5-1-12. Oranges [bad peeling skills, I apologize] with vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt. I thought I had this for breakfast, but checked the date stamp, and it turns out this was an evening snack. At least I can tell myself I snack relatively healthily.)

(5-4-12. I needed to treat myself, so went and got Harmony Cafe for dinner. This time, I tried the [breaded] salmon in a tomato sauce. I didn’t know the fish was going to be breaded. People bread salmon? I wasn’t exactly awed, but I’m still glad I ordered myself Chinese take-out. Comfort food was necessary that day.)

(5-7-12. A sort of fried rice that I threw together: eggs, brown rice, sesame seeds, vegetables from a veggie wrap from the cafeteria’s to-go section. The vegetables were already seasoned with black pepper and were partially covered in hummus. The dish was a little bland, but some soy sauce paste took care of that.)

Breathe. Go for a run. Come home. Eat. Breathe. Appreciate.

pancake success

4-29-12

When you keep messing up something as simple as pancakes, you just want to smack your own face with the pan.

Probably has something to do with the fact that I’m not very good at following recipes. I always want to tweak things when I shouldn’t be.

I am glad to say that after mistake after mistake (e.g. too much baking soda, too watery a batter…) I struck the right balance again. 1 cup all-purpose flour, a little less than 1 cup milk, 1 tbsp granulated sugar, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tbsp butter.

I used a LOT of butter when cooking the first two. The latter two (which you see here) were less buttery and more regular-pancake-y. They were all also slightly egg-y, much to my liking.

A LITTLE VICTORY. Next challenge (when I actually have time): Cornmeal pancakes, maybe without the pine nuts.

Pizzeria Paradiso and Shake Shack

April has been a sporadic food month. Where did all the time go?

4-13-12

Went with K and her friend to the Pizzeria Paradiso on M Street. We ordered an appetizer of fresh bread (apparently drenched in olive oil) and roasted elephant garlic.

I ordered a Genovese pizza (with pesto, Parmesan, and potatoes). So greasy (in a good way - and I think it was mostly olive oil anyway), but sooooo delicious. So much flavor. This was an 8” pizza. Of course I finished it, apart from some of the crust.

4-22-12

I was so bummed that weekend that C decided we (I?) needed a foodventure. And so we ventured to the Shake Shack in Dupont Circle.

‘Shroom burger, cheesy fries, chocolate milkshake. C and I shared the latter two. The burger patty consisted of a jumbo slice of portobello mushroom and lots of melted cheese, fried into a patty. And then I think there were onions in addition to the lettuce and tomatoes. The patty was amazingly delicious. So. much. cheese. I was in food (foodie?) heaven.

The other two components of this meal were good too. The milkshake wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet and was just creamy enough. The fries were done all right and the cheese made them something pretty awesome. BUT OH MY GOODNESS THAT BURGER PATTY.

4-27-12

Because sometimes, you just need some molten-chocolate-centered chocolate cake in your life. Recipe followed: this one. 30 minutes at 350 degrees F, a bit during preheating. Chocolate chunks added about 5 minutes into baking.

In case of a cold

This semester my immune system has been testing me. Constantly, it feels like. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t been grateful enough when I’ve been in good health, and that’s why I’ve felt so miserable and overwhelmed by those times when I’ve been sick. Le sigh. Must be more grateful, then!

Last semester I prescribed myself this as a feel-good meal during a cold. Now, I’m sipping on a cup of milk mixed with organic honey, slightly diluted with water because the mixture got too sweet. I’ve been keeping the Powerade close, as well as the soup. Trying to squeeze in time for exercise because that’s when I feel the happiest (apart from when I’m cooking/eating, working with the kids and their tutors, and chilling with my most beloved friends, of course!).

And then of course, taking the time to appreciate the little things in life. Totally helps to put my chaos in perspective! :)