Adventures in Tofu

I found a recipe in Self for a Pecan and Coconut crusted tofu that I really wanted to try. The only thing that made me nervous was, I’d never cooked with tofu before. Ever. In fact, I’ve probably only eaten tofu about five times in my whole life?

So, I consulted with Emily over at Daily Garnish, and when I say consulted, I mean I searched her recipe archives to find out what the hell I do with tofu. I followed her Tofu How To, and made the recipe.

I ate my tofu with mixed wild rice and corn.  I had high hopes for this recipe, but found it to be pretty bland.  Also, baking the tofu didn’t make it very crispy, but, oh well, it was tasty enough to save the leftovers for another day.  It also made me realize the cooking tofu isn’t as scary as I thought.  Next time, I think I’ll follow Emily’s other suggestions to cook the tofu on the stove for extra crispiness.

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Catherine, April 22nd 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in 2011, food, life, recipes

Sleep Anxiety

When Travis travels, I don’t sleep well, mostly it’s the falling asleep that’s the most difficult.  I toss and turn, and listen to every creak and noise that occurs, and play worst case scenarios in my head.  Sometimes I plan the most effective escape route, and how to best wrangle the kittehs should something terrible happen. You know, the usual.

Add to this anxiety the fact that I have been reading the Millenium Series (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,) which has caused me to have really strange, scary dreams involving Swedish spies, lots of Ikea furniture and weaponry.  Needless to say, these dreams do not help my sleep situation, like, at all.

After work today, I decided against working out in favor of stopping at the grocery store so I could come home, make dinner, and get to bed extra early. Now that I’ve finished all my scary books, I’m hoping rest and an early bed time will help me be less sleepy tomorrow.

So, I hit up the grocery store on my way home, and then made this delicious recipe that I found in Shape Magazine.

Chicken With Fresh Tomato Sauce and Balsamic Broccoli. I swear there’s chicken under all those veggies :)

I made a few changes to the recipe, first, I only cooked two small chicken breasts, second I didn’t measure out specific amounts of tomatoes, garlic or olives. Also, I used fresh spinach instead of frozen broccoli. But, basically it’s the same recipe! I swear ;) I also made some Trader Joe’s sweet potato fries.

The original recipe from this month’s Shape

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Cooking Spray

4 4-ounce chicken breasts
1 tsp. paprika
salt & freshly ground pepper
1 12oz bag broccoli florets (microwaveable)
2 tsp. olive oil
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
4 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

- Preheat broiler to high and place an oven rack 8-10 inches from heat. Line a broiler pan with foil and coat with cooking spray. Sprinkle chicken with paprika and season with salt & pepper. Place on pan and cook for 5-7 minutes each side or until meat is no longer pink in center and internal temperature is 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Meanwhile, microwave broccoli according to directions. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add tomatoes, season with salt & pepper, cook for 2 minutes. Add garlic and olives and cook for 2 minutes more or until tomatoes are soft.

- Divide chicken among four places; top with tomato mixture. Place 1/4 of the broccoli on each plate, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, and serve.

I really liked this recipe. It was quick, really easy to make, and tasty. This recipe will definitely be going into the regular rotation. I’m glad I went with fresh spinach instead of frozen broccoli. What are your favorite recipe swaps? It also felt great to eat a plate full of colorful veggies.  Another thing that happens when Travis travels is I get lazy with cooking =X

Off to get ready for bed for me! I’ve got some Z’s to catch ;)

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Catherine, April 4th 2011 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2011, food, Groceries, life, recipes

Dancing Brussel Sprouts

This morning, I woke up early to head out to my first team dance practice. I was nervous, because I haven’t danced in a year.  This time last year, I felt like the weak link on my team. I was out of shape, and I was a lot slower.  With all my half marathon training, today I felt a lot stronger than I did this time last year.  I even felt stronger than when we performed on stage at the competition.  I was able to keep up just as well as the girls who have been training all year.

After my class, I stayed to help with the younger teams, and took a place in one of those.  All in all, I ended up dancing for close to 4 hours.  Even though I stretched well after class, I am still sore now.

On my way home, I drove through McDonald’s because it felt like my stomach was going to eat itself.  I had a peanut butter sandwich before dance, and a packet of gel blasts.  I ordered some chicken nuggets and a small french fries.  They were disgusting, and I was still hungry by the time I got home.  I can’t remember the last time I had McDonald’s but I didn’t really miss it, that’s for sure.

When I got home, we had to do laundry, and go grocery shopping. While I folded my laundry ( I HATE folding laundry,) Travis made dinner.

Travis pan fried pork chops, which were pretty good. The best part, were the brussel sprouts.  The secret, Travis used some bacon grease (we keep a jar in the fridge, yes. I know,) to sear the sprouts, then poured in some chicken broth (Travis said about 1 cup,) and let the sprouts absorb the liquid.  They were delicious! I saved one of the chops and half the sprouts for lunch tomorrow.  I only wish there had been more sprouts.

Dessert:

While our laundry was in the dryer, we went to the grocery store and I picked up that deliciousness.  I felt I deserved it for not murdering anyone in Trader Joe’s or Ralph’s.  Especially the woman in front of us in the check out line at Ralph’s. She was insane. I can’t even talk about it, it was so irritating.  One of my biggest pet peeves, are people who wander aimlessly around the grocery store. Not people who go up and down every aisle, that’s fine, but the people who stop, and stand, blocking whole rows of items, and just stare into space.  People who walk really slowly, until they see you, then cut you off and then slow down. There were so many of those people out tonight.

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Catherine, October 17th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Dance, food, life, recipes, training

Pot Roast!

My mom made pot roast a lot when I was growing up.  It was one of our family meals, and honestly, I wasn’t a big fan.  I much preferred the Shepherd’s Pie.  Don’t tell my mom, but Travis and I have managed to make pot roast yummy.  The secret is definitely in brining the meat the night before.  Sure, it’s an extra step, but, it makes a huge difference.  The only misstep we had with this was the veggies weren’t in long enough.   The meat was in the crock pot all day, and when I got home from work, I chopped up the veggies, and tossed them in.  They were really undercooked, but it’s fine.

The best part of Pot Roast?  Leftovers :)

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Catherine, October 13th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Eating, food, recipes

Grill Night

On tonight’s dinner menu was grilled chicken and pineapple with pineapple salsa and corn on the cobb.  It was a very yellow dinner….on yellow plates no less! I’m pretty sure the yellow plates were unintentional :)

This meal was yet another from the Shape Magazine easy weeknight meals. I’m pretty impressed with the recipes. They aren’t my new all time favorites or anything, but they’ve been easy, cost effective, and pretty tasty.  As I’ve mentioned before there are some tweaks I will make if I repeat any of the recipes, so I would say so far, so good.

I never used to like pineapple, and it’s still not something I go for on a regular basis, but it was nice to get some fruit into our meal tonight.  I’ve also recently totally fallen in love with mango.  I blame Pinkberry. Speaking of yogurt, when we ran to the store to pick up milk and fresh cilantro for tonight, I made convinced Travis to take me to Yogurt-land.  The Yogurt-land next to my office is much nicer, but I was really craving some fro-yo.  I noticed at this particular location that the fruit was not 100% ripe which made some of the strawberries and mango I heaped into my cup not so great.  The yogurt tasted a little different too, but I’m not feeling great, so maybe that was why it tasted off.

I did take a picture, I swear, on my phone, but T-mobile is being a turd and didn’t upload it to my album online.  I think I may have decided that I prefer Pinkberry to Yogurt-land. Maybe. More testing will be required before an ultimate decision is made.

I may have overextended myself money wise this paycheck, next week’s meals might be a little interesting.  Basically, the first paycheck at my new job went almost exclusively to rent, and groceries.  After making half a paycheck stretch for nearly four weeks, I knew that this check would also make things a little tight timing wise.  However, another payday is coming soon, and that one should really even things out a bit more.   For now though, I have to be satisfied with paying the minimum balance on my last credit card (so close!) which makes me sad in my heart.

I am feeling better than this morning, but I still have a lingering headache (of the sinus variety), and a dull ache in my left ear, which is fun…so I’m off to sit in a warm bath and read Gone With the Wind and then get to bed early.

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Catherine, September 2nd 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Eating, food, life, Los Angeles, money, recipes, the internet

Keys Belong Outside of Cars

Old gas station in the living ghost town of Ch...

Image by kevincole via Flickr

After work tonight I decided to push through 2 miles even though I was feeling off kilter all day. I did 2.26 miles in 31 minutes, which includes my cool down. I did a couple of sprint sessions, but was really more focused on getting in two miles. Man, today has been weird.  I seriously think I may have some kind of food allergy or hypoglycemia or something because man, after I eat lately I am exhausted.  Even after oatmeal! I’m not talking “Oh, wow, hey, I’m a little tired.” I’m talkin “I could lie down under this desk and be out for an hour.”  After lunch, I was so tired I felt like I was drunk.  Somewhat confused and fuzzy, and loopy. Not good.

Anyway, after my run, I decide to stop at one of the gas stations on my way home, and I end up not being able to get gas, but I do manage to lock my keys, in my car.  So, there I am, slightly damp from being sweaty, at a gas station in Santa Monica, and the wind starts picking up, and I’m starving, and it takes an hour and fifteen minutes for the people to come and take two seconds to jimmy open my door.  Thank goodness I had my cell phone.

When I got home, Travis had almost finished making the Frittata on our weekly menu, which is again, part of the Shape Magazine easy week night meals series.  It was delicious, and I will certainly be enjoying it for lunch tomorrow.

The recipe can be found here, but note we used fresh tomatoes, not sun dried. Now that I look at this, it looks slightly different than the one featured in Shape, but close enough.  I really liked this recipe and think it would be great with any kind of cheese (I know I’ve been on a goat cheese kick lately, saying I would sub it for everything, but it’s so delicious! I can’t help it!).

My serving, with sliced tomatoes.  I LOVE tomatoes. I could eat them with every meal, every day, all day, all the time.  I snack on cherry tomatoes like they are candy. If I could have an endless supply of tomatoes, I would be the happiest girl on earth.  Travis salted these tomato slices, which was totally unnecessary.  I am kind of a tomato purist, when they’re ripe, they don’t really need any dressing up (not that dressing them up isn’t fun).

Oh, speaking of fun!  My Reebok order came today.  A little over a week ago, I got an email at work saying that our non-profit organization was taking part in a Friends & Family discount with Reebok.  I used the 25% off plus free ground shipping deal to order a pair of capri running pants, and a medium resistance band, all for $30!  I haven’t been able to find capri running pants in my size for an affordable price anywhere.  I tried the pair on briefly, and they seem ok, a little less snug than I was hoping, but I’ll take it!   I may even wear them for the half-marathon on Sunday. We shall see =D

Little Bits really enjoyed the empty box

Ok, I am pooped, so I’m going to sit in a hot bath and read Gone With the Wind.

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Catherine, September 1st 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in books, Calypso, Eating, food, life, Los Angeles, lunch, reading, recipes, the internet, training, work, wtf

Oatmeal, Protomen and Easy Pasta

Yesterday was a rest day as far as training goes, since we are now T-Minus 4 days away from my first half marathon! I had planned on coming home, relaxing in front of the TV for a bit, then writing a nice blog about my rest day and our dinner, and include yesterday morning’s oatmeal.  However, that did not happen.  Travis’ friend from back home (Nashville) is in a band called The Protomen.  They are awesome, seriously, so cool, look them up! They are currently on tour and played a show Monday and Tuesday night not far from us, so Travis went to both shows.  Last night, his friend happened to be a few blocks away from us (they were all at The Price is Right taping) so he came over to hang out and have dinner with us.  This is why I don’t have any pictures from dinner.  We were all so hungry, we simply wolfed it down with hardly any pause.

I can however, share with you the recipe we used! We made the Easy Pasta Bake, which I found in this month’s issue of Shape Magazine, but can also be found online here! We used brown rice pasta from Trader Joe’s instead of whole wheat, because it was all we had in the house.   It was good, but I’d make some slight changes, the addition of goat cheese would be awesome, as would pine nuts.  Also, I would maybe add some onion as it was a teensy bit bland.  I would definitely use mozzarella instead of the cheddar cheese next time.  The cheddar got a little bit greasy. :(

Ok, well I’m dilly dallying and just realized it’s almost 8am! I need to get a move on or I will be late for work. I’m going to have to buy lunch today since we don’t have any leftovers from dinner.  Oh well!


Question: Do you like to alter recipes to better suit your tastes?

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Catherine, September 1st 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in breakfast, Eating, food, friendship, life, Los Angeles, recipes, the internet, training, TV

The Return of Oatmeal

The weather here got really hot in the past couple weeks, so I’d been pretty averse to the idea of oatmeal for breakfast.  However, this weekend, and this week are much more mild. So, this morning, it was OATMEAL!

1/2 cup oats
1 cup water
Trader Joe’s  And the Three Berries granola
chocolate chips =X
slivered almonds
Trader Joe’s almond butter

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts lately about how to save money, especially when grocery shopping.  In the past two years Travis and I have cut our grocery bill in a big way by planning our meals and shopping from a list.  That’s not to say that some extras don’t jump into our cart, but typically we stick to our list.  We also like to use coupons and shop items that are on sale.

This week, we are using recipes from the latest issue of Shape Magazine. Now, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with fitness magazines because I feel they tend to send mixed messages.  They promote healthy living and eating, but on the covers each month are features about “LOSE 8 POUNDS IN THREE WEEKS!” and whatnot.

Anyway, this month they have a feature on easy weeknight meals that use a few ingredients in all of the recipes.  This made our grocery shopping much easier and less expensive.  We ended up getting the makings of 7 meals for about $80.  This actually included a few other things we needed like batteries and a combination lock for the gym.

Tonight’s meal was Tomato and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Roulade.  I typed that into google, and it came up with this, which is actually the exact recipe from the magazine.  It’s listed as Diane Henderiks’ Tomato and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Roulade.

This meal was really good, but like so many of the meals I find in Shape and Self it was a little bit bland.  In the future I would probably swap the cheddar with goat cheese, and add some paprika or some other spices into the breading to add some flavor to the chicken.

After work today, I decided to run 2 miles.  It was rough, I’d had a headache off and on all day, and while I was running I could feel a throbbing in the back of my right eye.  So, it was definitely slow going, but I logged in the 2 miles. Also, my iPod didn’t record the whole workout correctly.  So annoying.  The count down begins for the big race!  T-minus 6 days!

The only picture I took from Saturday night:

Belated Birthday Dinner! Woooo :)


Question: What are your thoughts on fitness magazines?

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Catherine, August 30th 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in breakfast, Eating, food, life, recipes

Hot Hot Hot

I know the rest of the country has been dealing with record temperatures this summer, but here in Southern California we’ve been having a pretty mild season. It was nice! Lots of days that reminded me more of San Francisco than Los Angeles, and it was nice to not be so uncomfortable all day/night. Nice not to come home to a stifling apartment (since we have not central air.)

Sadly, this week, summer decided to rear her ugly head and it has been really uncomfortably hot. Even with the portable air conditioner in the bedroom turned to 66 last night, I woke up several times sweating. Gross.

Breakfast this morning, because of the heat is a Carnation Instant Breakfast with 2% milk. I try not to drink milk because if I drink more than about 8oz it tends to make my stomach feel gross, but just the thought of eating something hot when the apartment is already so warm made me want to throw up. Not really..

Dinner last night I made Four Bean Enchiladas. I actually used just black beans, kidney beans and garbanzo beans because I couldn’t find plain canned pinto or navy beans, and didn’t want to use refried beans. This recipe calls for a can of cheese soup. I had never seen cheese soup in a can before, and let me tell you, I’m pretty sure that can of cheese soup made these enchiladas. I also made some Trader Joe’s brown rice medley, using the rice cooker.  Which took a lot longer than I anticipated.  Also, turning on the oven to cook these enchiladas was a bad idea. It was so hot!!

But the enchiladas were so good!!  Next time I make them I think I’ll try and find a healthier sub for the cheese soup.  Maybe some greek yogurt and melted cheese? I don’t know yet.

Also,  I will now leave you with an adorable picture of my friend Kate with my kittehs from last night.

That’s Peanut snuggling in Kate’s hair, and Little Bits attempting to bat her on the head.  Little bits gets jealous when she’s not the only kitteh getting love.

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Catherine, August 19th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in breakfast, Calypso, Eating, food, friendship, life, Los Angeles, Peanut, recipes, the internet

Shut The Front Door

So, after I posted last night about the Red Velvet Cake Balls I made (finding the recipe on Bakerella), I saw, on her blog,

THESE.

YOU GUYS.

CHEESECAKE BARS!

I’m going to die.

I think I might, maybe make them after I finish my half marathon as a celebratory kind of thing…. What would be really smart would be for me to forget I ever saw this blog post and keep on my merry little way, never knowing about the deliciousness that probably is Cheesecake Bars.

Breakfast this morning was oatmeal, chocolate chips, banana, and granola. Yum!

Last night while watching True Blood, I was g chatting with a friend, and telling her how exhausted I’ve been feeling lately.  She said it might be possible that I have a wheat intolerance, and that her sister had the same thing and once she cut out all wheat she felt so much better.  So, today I did some research on the web about gluten free diets and wheat intolerance and allergies.  I’m not 100% sure that’s what I have, since I don’t really have any of the other symptoms I don’t think?  Well, I do have thyroid issues, and auto immune disease runs in my family, so who knows.  I’m planning on not changing my diet just yet, because when I have insurance again (Oct. 1st!) I want to talk to my doctor about getting tested for Celiac and a wheat sensitivity. We’ll see what happens then, for now I’m just going to keep eating as I normally do and note how I feel.

Obama is in Los Angeles tonight, so it took me an hour and ten minutes to get even close to my apartment tonight, and I still had to stop at the grocery store. Getting home after 7pm when I left work at 4:45 was super lame.

Dinner tonight was an adapted version of The Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Piccata.

The sauce is so delicious, I dream about it.  This time I probably should have followed the recipe a little more closely, it wasn’t as flavorful, but it as very good.  I made sure I cut the chicken breast in half so I would have amazingly delicious leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Now I’m watching my secret shame, The Secret Life of the American Teenager.  This show is kind of terrible, but I get totally sucked into the stories =X


Question: Do you have any guilty pleasures?

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Catherine, August 16th 2010 | Posted in blogs, breakfast, Eating, food, in the news, life, Los Angeles, lunch, recipes, the internet, TV
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