Excited

Hi friends! Long lost, dear, neglected friends. I’m back! For real this time…

I wanted to take my first post back in, like, forever, to share some things that I am way, way too excited about:

My ThermoMix. I cannot emphasize the ridiculous awesomeness of this machine.Upon receiving it, I felt like a five-year-old girl with a remote control pink Barbie Jeep at Christmas. Seriously, I just want to grind, mince, dice, chop, sauté, etc. EVERYTHING. It’s rather dangerous actually.

My attempt at GF naan bread. Tasted good, but was definitely not naan bread...

Brussels sroupts with meatballs and mushroom sauce made in the TM.

Spinach and feta muffins

Green smoothies. Using the above mentioned TM, I have been making some delicious green smoothies, combining almost any plant material in the kitchen to create these fantastic monstrosities.

I know you with you could drink this...

 Creamy soups. In case you haven’t noticed, I love soup. I mean LOVE. I could eat it all day eerr day. The TM has made that possible.

Curried carrot soup

Potato and leek soup

My new haircut. So this information is a little bit late, but I got my hair cut! I really love it, and so does everyone else (phew).

 The possibility that I might be getting a job sometime soon. This seems like a no-big-deal kind of thing, but I am so ready to work on something! There are a few things in the works, and hopefully one of them will pan out. Fingers crossed!

The fact that we now know where we will be living (*big smile*). We won’t be in until October, and possibly November, but it’s a nice place. I’m stoked. Buying furniture, appliances, and décor is making me way too excited.

And finally…

IT’S GETTING WARMER!!! Despite popular, narrow-minded belief, not all of Africa is hot all the time. I hate to break it to you, but it gets cold here in SA. Like, snow cold. Also, because Africans are much “closer to nature” (translation: don’t have central heating), I’ve been spending my days wrapped up in a robe while snuggled in blanket only getting up to munch some comforting carb or creamy soup. I like to think of myself as a caterpillar- snuggled up, cozy, and looking a little too plump, just waiting for spring to emerge and be beautiful (again). Ha. All jokes aside though, today was the first day that I didn’t feel like eating everything in the pantry, which I attribute to the 75 degree weather. Ye-yah! Spring is almost here. Me likey.

I have to say, now that everything is settling down and falling into place, I’m really starting to miss The Land of the Free. And my fam, of course. Love you guys. Every day has been a learning experience here. It’s different being in a new place, and a new home, with a new family, but we’re working on building our life together… and I’m so excited to see where it’s going to take us.

Simply Creative

In keeping with the “change it up” trend I mentioned in “Routine Adjustment,” I opted out of eating some normal foods and got simply creative on Wednesday. I say simple, because it was, well, simple! I am notorious for making meals out of whatever happens to be in the refrigerator. Luckily, it’s springtime, which means we are getting mounds of greens from the local organic garden. Healthy and delicious. I went to bed thinking about hot liquid thanks to my Biff and a mutual friend, and decided that for lunch, I was craving some sort of soup concoction. 

Voila!

Kitchen Sink Soup

This soup contains:

• 1/2 cup beef broth
• 1 ½ cups water
• 1 cup cooked butternut squash
• ¼ cup leeks, chopped
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 handfuls curly kale
• 5 large Swiss chard leaves
• 1 carrot
• 1 cup precooked macaroni noodles
• Italian seasoning
• Pepper
• Garlic salt

This soup was super easy. Blend ½ of the squash with the broth, water, and seasoning. Bring to a boil. Add the leaks and celery and cook at a slow boil for 3 minutes. If you like the stems of the greens, add them now and cook for 3 more minutes. Add carrots and cook until tender. Finally, add greens and cooked noodles and simmer until the leaves are wilted and tender. Enjoy!! I know I did.

About an hour after I ate this phenomenally tasty and healthy soup, I was feeling charitable. So I concocted another understated masterpiece for Mons’ lunch.

Partially demolished Easy Mac

  Easy Mac

• 2 cups cooked macaroni noodles
• 1 tbsp Italian dressing
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Italian seasoning
• Garlic salt
• ¼-½ cup shredded cheese of your choice

Seriously, this is so quick and so easy, a five yr old cold make it. But please, don't let your small children near hot kitchen appliances...

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat up the noodles in a sauce pan with Italian dressing, olive oil, and seasoning. Once its sizzling, add ½ of the cheese and stir it all up. Transfer the mixture to a small baking dish. Top with remaining and sprinkle a little more Italian seasoning on top. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Devour and enjoy.

Making delicious foods do not have to be hard to make, expensive, or unhealthy. All you have to do is get a little creative, but remember to keep it simple. 

More Soup and Sleigh Rides

Heeellooo everybodaaay! Sup.So,  I’ve come to accept Mondays and Wednesdays as boring homework days. I began this fine Monday with a breakfast of banana pancakes and apples.

After my morning eats, I did my strength training routine. My heart wasn’t in it. I suppose I did it, and that’s all that counts right? After my work out, I set out for a faux sleigh ride. Ignore the annoying sawing sounds in the background.

This was so fun I didn’t know what to do with myself. Lucy has already learned “STOP” and “GO”, which is super important, considering I was near death several times.

 In keeping with the recent culinary trend in my household, I had soup and a sandwich for lunch.

Sandwich, tomato basil soup, and carrots.

I had the sandwich on Ener-G’s Light Tapioca Loaf. It basically tasted like, well, nothing. Ok, to give it a little more credit, imagine a cross between Styrofoam and cardboard. It pretty much disintegrated in my mouth and was completely flavorless. In the words of one of the best movies of all time (Bambi, duh), “If you don’t have nothin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all.” This marks the end of my “product review”… At least the fillings were good. 

I spent the next few hours slaving away at pointless work. Have I ever told you how much I hate school? I have trouble working on homework for more than a few minutes. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, I completed a few assignments and did some reading... and had a snack.

Cornflakes and raisins

On one of my time procrastination trips to the kitchen, I got sucked into Elizabeth: the Golden Age. What a woman power movie! I really loved it. 

For dinner, I had soup again alongside grilled cheese. I couldn't help myself.

2 tbsp of cottage cheese in the soup. Delicioso!

If you are drooling over this amazing-looking soup, wipe the drool  off your face and get to cooking! 

Tomato Basil Soup

• 2 onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Olive oil or coconut oil (for sautéing)
• 4 Roma tomatoes, chopped
• 2 32 oz. boxes of chicken broth
• 2 cups tomato juice
• 3 cans diced tomatoes
• Trocomare to taste
• 1 bunch basil
• 1 tsp sugar or agave

Saute onions and garlic until translucent. Add Roma tomatoes and sauté until soft. Add broth, diced tomatoes, tomato juice, and ½ bunch of basil.

 Bring to a slow boil and immediately reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes. Blend soup with blending wand (you will have to separate it if you are using a blender) and add sugar or agave.

 Simmer for another 30 minutes. Add the rest of the basil.

 Simmer for a final 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Ordinary Weekends are the Best Kind

Howdy folks! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Mine was splendid. Here are the highlights:

1. Tried Ener-G Wylde GF Pretzels 

Pretzels are one of those foods that I have not eaten since I gave up gluten three years ago. When I received these beauties in the mail, I got super excited. Because Ener-G was kind enough to send me about a million products for review, it’s taken me a little while to get to munching on them. Friday, I was craving something crunchy and salty and I remembered the bag of pretz’ in my pantry. I have no idea how Ener-G has manage to create a dairy-free, egg-free, lactose-free, gluten-free pretzel that tastes just like Rold Gold’s. I have yet to try them with peanut butter (my favorite way to eat pretzels), but I am very pleased with the taste. I would describe it, but there really is nothing to say other than, “It tastes like a good pretzel.” In my opinion, saying that something gluten-free tastes exactly like something that isn’t gluten-free is the best compliment any product can get. Two thumbs up, Ener-G!

2. Got a new computer!!!!! FINE-AH-LEE.

Putting him right to work

3. Ate some Ener-G Pound cake

I am a big fan of cakes sans icing, so pound cake is obviously top five in the list of Best Cakes. It smelled sweet and was very moist right out of the package. Taste-wise, let me start by saying that Ener-G’s pound cake was delicious. However, it tasted less like pound cake and more like extremely moist and sweet corn bread. I love corn bread so that was quite alright with me. Like I said, it was sweet, but not overly sweet. The top layer of the cake was almost creamy, like it was drizzled with juice or something to soften it toward the end of the baking process.  Overall, I really liked the cake. The only problem I saw was the fact that it didn’t quite taste like pound cake. When I buy something, I expect to eat what the label says. If the “Pound Cake” had been labeled, “Sweet Corn Bread,” I would have had no qualms. 

4. Made some awesome, Magical Root Veggie and Greens Soup for my sick mommy. She called it magical because she felt better the next morning. I am going with it…

Magical Root Veggie and Greens Soup

The way I see it, soup is just an amalgam of goodies that all go together in a broth/cream/etc. Mama was sick, so I looked in the pantry and the fridge for some soup-worthy items. This is what I came up with. As always, these are ROUGH measurements. Don’t be afraid to use less of or add more.

• 2 cups Chicken broth (or any broth of your choice)
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup white wine
• ½ cup Tomato juice
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1-2 tsp cumin
• 2 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp Pepper
• 1 tsp ground bay leaf or 2 whole dried bay leaves
• 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
• 6 red potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 whole rutabaga, peeled and chopped (chop these a little smaller than the potatoes because they take a little longer to cook)
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 ½ cup cooked quinoa
• 4 cups greens, roughly chopped (I used Toscana kale, Swiss chard, and broccoli leaves.)
• Salt to taste (or seasoned salt like Trocomare)
• Sour cream for topping

Add first 14 ingredients to pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium high, cover, and cook until the rutabaga is tender. At this point, you can remove 1 ½ cups of the potatoes and rutabaga and blend to add a thicker texture to the soup. Add quinoa and greens and stir. Let simmer for 15-30 minutes so that all of the flavors can blend. Add salt to taste. Serve with a dollop of sour cream on top. Enjoy!

Superfood City

5. Got a harness for Lucy to pull me on rollerblades. OMG fun. I have my own sled dog. Photos coming soon...

Tired girl

6. Accomplished some homework taskies (I know you wish you were me right now).

7. Got a haircut

Love it. Much needed.

8. Watched the Packers DEMOLISH the Bears. Thoroughly enjoyed watching B.J Raji dance in the end zone.

I should haveve taken a video of our celebration. Picture my stepdad (the Giant), my mom, and I in the living room dancing around and screaming. Now imagine 6 dogs joining in the screaming/howling activity. Or you could just having a look at Mon’s blog and you can see them in action.

9. Painted my nails. Not sure how I feel about this color… Kind looks like nail fungus, but I'm too lazy to change it.

Philosophy in the background. Almost as horrible as this nail color.

10. Devoured a long awaited a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I have not eaten one in quite some time.

Match made in Heaven

I had a really great weekend, even though it was rather uneventful. Sometimes, ordinary weekends are the best kind.

Mama's Warming Lentil Soup

This is my mom’s lentil soup. It’s really easy, but incredibly delicious and a great thing dish to have on a cold day. It warms me right up! Let me reiterate my usual lack of measure in this recipe. All of the measurements are guesses. Don't be afraid to change them depending on your tastes. Just go with it!

• 1 ½ cup lentils
• ½ lb. ground beef (this can be substituted with firm tofu for a vegetarian version)
• 1 tomato, chopped
• ½ yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 4-6 red potatoes (depending on size), cubed
• 1 tbsp cumin
• garlic salt and pepper to taste

 Combine tomatoes, onions, garlic, cumin and ground beef in large frying pan and brown. Once brown, combine lentils and ground beef mixture in a large pot. Add enough water to cover the lentils and meat (There should be about an inch of water about the lentils). Bring to a boil. Turn down to medium heat and cover for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 40 minutes, add red potatoes and cover for another 20 minutes, or until potatoes are fully cooked. Add garlic salt and pepper to taste. For even more texture, have this soup on top of quinoa. Enjoy!