#31

I'm going to call this Bean Margherita Rotini. I found the recipe from Fitness Magazine's weekly emails I receive and tweaked it a bit. I used whole wheat Rotini instead of penne b/c I didn't have any. I cooked the pasta and using my fresh basil and one tomato from my windowsill garden- chopped them up and added 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 4 crushed cloves of garlic and drained/rinsed white beans to a bowl. When the pasta was done, I drained and added some pasta to the bowl, mixing the ingredients and letting it sit for a few minutes for the flavors to soak into the pasta and the hot pasta to warm the ingredients. I served with Parmesan cheese and enjoyed an Argentine red blend glass of wine. Delicious!

#30

L's Green Drink

Last weekend I was up way late, like past 2am when there is nothing on the telly except infomercials. I got sucked into watching one for the NutriBullet which is similar to the Magic Bullet that I own, only they claim with the NutriBullet it "completely breaks down ingredients in to there most nutritious, absorptive stage" something blenders and juicers do not do. I can understand that juicers leave out the healthy part of the fruits and vegetables as all the fibrous parts go into the discard canister. I listened to the infomercial and thought "Now wait a minute! I have the Magic Bullet. Instead of paying over $100 for this NutriBullet, I'm going to see if mine will do what the NutriBullet does."


So, tonight I tried it. I added 4 baby carrots, a frozen banana, a handful of kale, half an apple with about a cup of water and used my Magic Bullet. Low and behold, I had a nice smooth green drink that had all the nutritional value of the fruits and veggies as if I ate them in their raw form. Only 186 calories! [Of course, the banana was 105 of those calories, so next time I'll use only a half.] Now, I just made this recipe up, the NutriBullet website lists some recipes like "Toxin Cleansing Blast", "The Immune Booster", "Life Boost Blast" that I may try in the future now that I know what I have will do practically the same thing.

#29

Baked Kale

I bought a bag of kale to make a healthy protein smoothie but because I haven't bought some bananas and apples, the bag just sat in the fridge. So, after talking to Suz a few days ago, she told me about making kale chips. I decided to give it a try. The only time I've ever had kale was in a juicer with carrots so I was a little hesitant to try them. For 10 minutes I baked the kale at 300°. I didn't use oil or salt and OMG, it was delicious! I ate the entire bowl. I'll be making some more and probably cook a little bit longer so everything is crunchy. No need to season either, I like it just as it is.

Walk somewhere new

I've lived in Brookline for nearly 3 full years and usually travel along the same path either via the bus, the T or my own two feet. Yesterday after the storm passed and cool weather blew in, I decideed to go for a 45 minute walk in search for the Brookling High School and public pool. It was a little nerve wrecking walking alone in a new area. 3/4 of mile from my house, through some nice neighborhoods with old bricked houses where trees created a nice, lushious canopy, I found the high school. It's gorgeous from the outside, nothing like my ghetto high school in Vista. It didn't take me long to get to the school and it felt like I was walking in a forest on some streets. Who would have thought I could escape the city feel by walking 8 minutes SW? I plan on exploring my own area nightly, with or without a walking partner.

#28

A twist to my favorite Italian dish, garlic and olive oil spaghetti. I used a half a bulb of garlic for this as I sauteed the garlic, zucchini and broccoli with a few tablespoons of olive oil. I tossed in the cooked spaghetti and mixed it with the deliciousness in the pan. I of course topped it with Parmesan cheese. Easy, tasty and new. I think next time I might throw in some sweet potatoes and/or green beans.

# 25, 26 and 27

I was bored today so after church I went to some grocery stores to gather items so I could spend the hot day in the kitchen. I don't know why I always feel like cooking when it's over 80° out, but I do. So, first up, I made eggless cookie dough. Now, I love cookie dough and my little sis would always get mad at me at Christmas time or whenever she was making cookies b/c I would eat the dough. Now, I cant eat eggs b/c they make me vomit, but when they are in things, I have no problem. I have never gotten sick from eating raw cookie dough (and my eggs are like 3 months old). Anyway, I decided to make eggless cookie dough for ice cream (and to eat straight from the freezer whenever the sweet tooth calls).


Eggless cookie dough: brown sugar, white sugar, butter, soy milk, flour, salt, vanilla extract and chocolate chips. I then froze it while I made vanilla ice cream in my ice cream maker.

Now, I've only made L's minty mint & chip ice cream, so me making vanilla ice cream counts as #26. I pretty much followed the minty mint & chip ice cream recipe but used vanilla extract instead of mint. Half and Half, whipping cream, sugar, dash of salt and vanilla extract. I was a little worried b/c other recipes for vanilla ice cream included other ingredients like lemon juice. After the ice cream maker machine worked it's magic, I had tasty vanilla ice cream that reminded me of In-n-Out's vanilla milk shakes. Oh so yummy. I then removed the canister from the machine and poured the vanilla ice cream into my freezing canister and cut in the frozen cookie dough and stirred before putting the ice cream container into the freezer for the hardening phase.

finished product...oh so yummy!

Since I was already in the kitchen, I decided to make Moroccan Sweet Potato Stew from a Good Housekeeping recipe.

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/moroccan-sweet-potato-stew


Of course, I didn't have curry powder, so I mixed some Chili powder w/ ground cardamon and garam masala as a substitute. I was able to pick some mint leaves from my garden! I also made quinoa instead of couscous simply b/c I don't have couscous and I'm not really a fan of it.

#24

Living by yourself sucks! I hate cooking for one and sometimes hate coming home having to fix myself something to eat. It would be nice if a) I had others to cook for and/or b) had someone cook my meals for me. Anyway, I made lasagna for the first time tonight. I have been meaning to make butternut squash lasagna for a year so yesterday I cooked the noodles, heated the squash and made lasagna. I cheated a bit as I used a jar of pasta sauce instead of slaving over the stove in 85° weather. Since I waited until I was starving to start making it, I decided to stick it in the fridge and cook it today. Of course, that plan backfired b/c I went to the gym and didn't get home until 8ish and lasagna takes over an hour to cook. So here I am at 9:30pm, drinking wine while waiting for the lasagna to cool so I don't burn my mouth.


-cook lasagna noodles (I cooked half the box since I wanted a smaller serving)
-heated the frozen butternut squash in the microwave and mushed it with my fingers
-drained the noodles
-sprayed my corning ware
-layer some sauce, noodles, butternut squash, ricotta cheese, cheddar cheese and monterey jack cheese, sauce and repeated.

It was good, not all that flavorful, but that's what I get for not making my own sauce. The squash didn't add too much flavor so the next time I make lasagna, I'll probably make a veggie one with carrots and broccoli. It was filling though.