Friday, October 21, 2011

CREAM OF CRAB SOUP

Last night:

CREAM OF CRAB SOUP!

Get stoked.

-1.5 cups chicken stock
-half a carrot
-little bit of diced onion
-a shit ton of butter
-1 quart of cream
-celery seed
-pecorino romano
-two cans of crab
-a shit ton of Old Bay

Saute onion and carrot in butter. Add stock. At the end, add crab and cream. I didn't let t his cook for a long time like a lot of soups call for. What's the point? It was unnecessary with this soup.


Holy God.


I'm not sure there's anything better than a shit ton of butter and Old Bay.

For lunch today:


I have a little bit left at home which I will be stoked to eat before going to dinner tonight at Green Papaya with Scott. Then it's a dance party at the Velvet Lounge!! Halloween/Birthday party tomorrow and Shannon and Wes' wedding on Sunday! For this I took off work on Monday. Such a good weekend ahead of me!

busboys and minus the bear!

The other night Scott and I went to Busboys and Poets. I got a gluten-free (love that it's listed) cornmeal encrusted chicken topped with gravy and served with mashed taters and spinach and mushrooms. I could've done without the cornmeal but whatever. It was really good.


I caved under peer pressure and ordered a pecan pie. So good! I didn't eat the crust. The ice cream was sourced locally from Taharka Bros. Super tasty.


And then we saw Minus the Bear! I love them! The show was super fun.


What a fulfilling blog post I'm sure this has been for anyone who has read it.


Thursday, October 20, 2011

weekend and vegan enchilladas

Over the weekend Scott and I took pictures with Flat Stanley for his niece. First, Flat Stanley hung out with Lincoln.

And lastly, he visited the Cap.


After taking Flat Stanley on several adventures, Scott and I went to dinner at Founding Farmers. I really like that place. I got steak from a local farmer, asparagus and cauliflower. I ordered the steak rare and I liked how it was cooked, it drives me nuts when people overcook meat. At one point our waitress asked, "Is that cooked enough for you?" Clearly, she did not read my blog.


And on Tuesday we made vegan enchiladas! If you've read my blog you know I am the farthest thing from a vegan. But this wasn't so bad. Scott cooked this all by himself with minimal instruction from me. I was so proud. He sauteed onions and peppers in coconut oil. A lot of coconut oil. He thought it might be too much, but coconut oil is so amazing for you (anti-viral, anti-fungal, saturated fat, etc) so there really is no such thing as too much coconut oil. We also added a can of black beans and taco seasoning to the peppers and onions. I brought over semi-demolished brown rice tortillas which we used for my half of the enchiladas while he used organic wheat tortillas that he stole from his roommate/life partner, Friilock. I bought enchilada sauce from Yes! Organic Market so we put that in the bottom, filled the tortillas with the veggies mixture, and then covered it in the rest of the enchilada sauce and an entire bag of Daiya cheese. While I by no means consider this cheese a health food, it's the best vegan cheese option (soy and gluten-free) and I honestly kind of like it.


Also served with pico de gallo. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed this meal. Since I normally don't eat beans or rice it did make me bloated but at least it was gluten free.

Ingredients:
-1 yellow pepper
-1 red pepper
-1 onion
-cilantro, as much as you like
-coconut oil, the more, the better
-taco seasoning
-tortilla of your choice (go gluten-free and do up the brown rice tortilla)
-enchilada sauce
-cheese of your choice
-tomato
- can of black beans

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

occupy philly and sweet freedom

This past Saturday Scott and I went to Philly. Not for anything special, but just because I'd never been to Philly. I've also never had a Philly cheese steak. And since I wasn't about to eat some CAFO raised meat, I searched the interwebs for a grass-fed cheese steak. So I was pretty stoked when I came across Marathon, a restaurant that had grass-fed cheese steaks made with their homemade cheese whiz. So that was our first stop.


On the walk back to the car we heard chanting and saw a ton of people. I was so stoked that we'd stumbled upon Occupy Philly!


I completely support the Occupy movement so we joined in and marched with the 99%. It was pretty tight.


There's also a bakery up there that I've been dying to go to since I heard about them. They're soy free, gluten free, vegan, corn free, refined sugar free, etc. They even use coconut oil!


I was so, so stoked to go here. I got a vanilla cupcake, a pumpkin cupcake with maple frosting and an oatmeal cookie sandwich with frosting in the middle. Scott got a Samoa cupcake and a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with frosting in the middle.


I loved it! The goods were way more dense than regular desserts, but that isn't to say they weren't still delicious. They were just gluten-free. I wish I had more. And I wish that they set up shop in DC. After spending the day in Philly and walking/people watching up and down South Street (umm, I loved this place) we headed home for the Caps game.


Which we also won! Such a good day.


Scott's birthday

Scott's birthday was a little over a week ago. For one of his b-day presents I had ordered him his favorite cake, death by chocolate from Vegan Treats, up in Bethlehem, PA. I've had the cake before, and despite it being vegan, I think it's the best chocolate cake I've ever had. I ordered the cake through Busboys and Poets and went to pick it up on Friday after work. Turns out, they'd forgotten to order it. I seriously wanted to cry. They had a vegan white chocolate raspberry cheesecake so I went with that. At least they gave me half off.


So we had a pizza and beer party on his roof for him, followed by a party bus to Dave & Buster's. It was pretty sweet. His other present was tickets to the Caps opener, which we won.


I love going to Caps games, they're so fun. We headed to Proof in Chinatown after the game. I got organic chicken:


And he got tofu and veggies.


On Sunday I made a bunch of food and we hiked and had a picnic at Great Falls. Great Falls is so amazingly gorgeous and I'm thankful that I live so close to such beautiful scenery.








So even though it wasn't my birthday, I'd say it was a pretty awesome birthday weekend.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

GET SOME!

Seriously. Chocolate mousse. Made out of avocado. I've seen various recipes on a lot of other blogs for this. I didn't look at any of them when I finally decided to make this last night, and it still came out AWESOME. Since avos are kind of pricey and I didn't want to use several in case I effed it up, I only used one. So, ingredients:
-1 avocado
-1.5-2 tablespoons of organic cocoa powder
-2 tablespoons of raw honey
-1-2 tablespoons of the not strong at all vanilla extract from Trader J's (be careful, some v extract is quite potent)
-sprinkle of cinnamon (totally optional, but cinnamon is my jam and I thought it made this taste even better, and a little bit like Fall)

I mixed it all up in the food processor.


And then I cried because I actually made a dessert that didn't suck. Seriously, if you're a sweets person, make this. It didn't taste at all like avocado.

Last night I also made burgers, using my food processor.


-egg
-1 lb ground beef
-1 glove garlic
-splash of worcestirshire


Put under the broiler.


Used half of a sprouted spelt bun.


Topped with smoked gouda.


Smoked gouda is so legit. And now I have cheeseburger salad for lunch today:


Layers of lettuce, tomato, onion topped with the hamburger, and added some cubed gouda and topped with ketchup. Stoked!


mmmm

The other night I made a really good stir fry. I started out with shrooms, asparagus, peppers and tomato.


And added onion, broccoli, garlic, tamari (wheat-free and organic soy sauce), raw honey, raw ginger and rooster sauce.


And  had it again for lunch the next day.


That day, being this past Tuesday, was not a great day. I won't go into detail, but I almost cried. I drove to the ATM in my neighborhood after work only to find that it didn't work. Since my day up to that point was stressing me out a lot, I'm not gonna lie, I totally teared up. Haha. And then I smelled the burgers from Elevation Burger next door. So that happened.


Couldn't resist.


And to relieve some of my stress, I hung out with this bro:


Da cutest,



happiest,


sweetest


puppy in the world.


Sure, he almost tore my fingers off when I walked him (or he walked me?) but whatever. So when Renee texted asking if I wanted to get a drink after work, my answer was a definite yes. We hit up Franklin's, they're now rocking their Octoberfest menu, which is awesome.

They're also rocking their Octoberfest beer, which is delicious. But full of gluten, so I passed and we split a bottle of pinot noir instead.


We also split the fried green tomatoes (one of my favorite appetizers EVER, my grandma used to make 'em)


and the spinach dip, which I've never had and it was delicious.


I only had about two small pieces of bread, I mostly ate the dip by itself. So even though my day started out pretty stressful, it ended pretty awesome.

Monday, October 3, 2011

weekend recap

I started off the weekend by hitting up McGinty's with Jennifer. I ordered a Magners. I like Magners because it's naturally gluten-free and has no added sugars. We split the mussels


and the cabbage rolls.


They were stuffed with mashed potatoes and corned beef.


I ended the night by dancing my face off and taking rounding up my drunken friends and getting them home. I woke up Saturday and hit the dtown SS farmers market! My favorite. I've decided I'm going to go to a farmers market every Saturday like I used to. I scored some of my favorite tomatoes, broccoli, basil and peppers. Then I went to Trader Joe's, and only spent $46. For the things I couldn't get from Trader J's, I went to the Yes! by my house, where I impulse-bought from gluten-free mac and cheese. I cooked it (in the oven, no microwaves!!) and added some broccoli and smoked gouda. I served it with three scallops cooked in coconut oil for protein and fat, and tomatoes topped with basil and olive oil.


Ummm, awesome.


Later in the day I met up with Scott and went to a Halloween store, where I found this awesome baby. I texted it so some friends.


And this is my boyfriend, Barack.


I got the Scout Mob app on my phone which is pretty amazing. It gives you free deals, or 50% off deals at local restaurants. The only drawback is that on most of the 50% off deals, the max discount is $15-$20, which still isn't bad. Anyway, one of the deals was for this Japanese place, Umi in Woodley Park. I started off with raw tuna and avocado in a spicy sauce. Which may be my favorite combination of food.


Scott got snap peas, I really liked them.


And then I got a mushroom and cream cheese roll with a soft shell crab roll. Both were really good.


And we got the banana spring roll dessert, which sucked. But that was the only thing that sucked.


Sunday morning we went to Cafe Green. We started out with the chips and dip. I was under the impression they were kale chips and guac.


These were crackers. And the guac just tasted like a little bit of avocado and a lot of lemon. But there were pretty flowers on the table!


I wanted the raw banana pancakes, but they were out. So I got the gluten-free buckwheat banana pancakes.


I didn't eat very much of it. It was very, very dense. For a while after eating it, my stomach felt like I had just participated in some sort of hot dog eating contest. I was SO uncomfortable and wanted to puke. I think it would have been okay had I eaten some fat with this, to aid in digestion. I mean, I had pizza the night before. But it was covered in cheese. When we got back I ate coconut oil and it really did help. We headed to Tonic to watch the Lions and Skins games, and even though I wasn't hungry, I ordered some eggs because I knew I needed the protein and fat.


Definitely felt better. And both the Lions and Redskins won!! Scott and I went back to my house where I made him vegan, semi-raw, soy-free potato salad. That I forgot to photograph but will try to do something with eventually. And I had tomatoes, basil, olive oil and smoked gouda. So good.


So I'm back on the low-carb train this week. I didn't eat TOO terribly over the weekend, especially considering I just try to stick to the 80/20 rule. Eat well 80% of the time. I got a lot of good groceries so I'm actually pretty stoked to share some recipes this week.