Eggplant and Red Pepper Salad/ Gruber Farm CSA Week 2

Hi friends!

I have a funny story for you. On Sunday when I went to Rosh Hashanah at Sean’s house, I made a funny oopsies. One of the guests and I were discussing our love of local produce and the CSAs we were signed up with. I was telling her how much I loved Gruber Farm and blurted out, “I love picking up my box each week. It’s like Christmas every Tuesday!”

I made a Christmas reference at a Jewish event. Derrrrrrrrrr.

As soon as I said it I thought “REALLY? Of all the cool things to compare something to you chose that? Tonight?” The woman probably thought nothing of it, but I laughed in my head thinking how typical that was for me.

Thank heavens my teddy bear challah came out well or else I would have just had to excuse myself from the festivities. After telling the story to another Jewish friend later, he remarked “You should have said it was like Hanukah every week.” Oh, really? Thanks for the tip.

CSA Week 2:

• cantaloupe
• zucchini
• eggplant
• beets (!!)
• red potatoes
• Muscadine grapes
• green beans
• red pepper
• cucumbers
• onion

That cantaloupe was the largest I’ve ever seen. Annabel, who is also signed up with Gruber Farm, asked me, “Do you have a size DDDDD cantaloupe in yours too?” Yep. I did.

Back to business. Before ultimately deciding on the pumpkin challah for Rosh Hashanah, I borrowed a Jewish cookbook from the library called The Hadassah Everyday Cookbook.

This book has so many recipes I’d love to make that I might actually buy it. I’m not kidding, there are recipes for pumpkin bread, asparagus avocado salad, white bean hummus, muhammara, greens and orzo soup, grated beets with toasted hazelnuts, and more. Get excited for lots of these being featured on the blog. The first recipe I made was…

Eggplant and Red Pepper Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 medium eggplants
• 1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 scallion, sliced
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 tbsp. tahini
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Turn stovetop gas burner to high and place eggplants, one at a time, directly over burner grate, turning occasionally with tongs until all sides are charred and eggplant is soft, about 5 minutes per side. Remove to a baking sheet and let cool completely. Drain juices, remove skin, and place eggplant pulp in the bowl of a food processor. *If you do not have a gas burner at home, you can broil the eggplants (turning them just as you would on the flame) until their skin is blistered and the inside is creamy and soft.
2. Pulse eggplant 10-15 times until well chopped but with a few remaining chunks. Add red pepper, garlic, scallion, oil, tahini, lemon juice, cayenne and salt, pulsing to incorporate all ingredients. Transfer to a bowl, cover and refrigerate until serving.

Two things to note: 1. I omitted the olive oil because I thought it was unnecessary. 2. I pulsed mine a bit more and it turned out like a spread. Regardless, it was very tasty and made for a great veggie burger topping. It would also be so good in a pita with veggies, black beans, and feta. Heck, it’d be good with chips too!

What’s your favorite dip or spread? Hummus? Olive tapenade? Roasted red pepper dip? Black bean dip? Baba ghanoush?

Do you find yourself sticking your foot in your mouth like I did? Shoot, sometimes it’s my whole leg.

What I’m Loving Wednesday

1. Last night, Boding and I went to Crave for happy hour/dinner. We both had the veggie wrap that I’m obsessed with. I always ask for fresh veggies on the side so Chef Landen made a really mix of roasted corn, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and avocado. Must make this colorful dish at home!

2. For the past month or so, Dane and I have been doing pushups every hour at work. It’s a great way to keep moving throughout the day, burn some calories, and build muscle. I started doing 15 in a row every hour, but now I’m up to 30+. It really does get easier!

Rachel started doing crunches with us too! We’ve got to balance out the snack cabinet somehow…

By the end of the day we’re pooped.

3. Though I generally avoid fruit juices/sugary beverages, I found a Gatorade G2 flavor I can’t resist. Have you tried the Raspberry Melon?

4. Amanda and I went on a 5.5 mile bridge walk last week. Can anyone in Charleston honestly say they don’t love this sight?

5. My hair is finally long enough that I can wear a hat without looking like a boy. So, I bought one during Vineyard Vines’ Whale of a Sale.

6. I made a new playlist on Spotify. It’s called Hipstina. Ha! I’m really proud of it though. If you use Spotify, check it out here!

Memorial Day Weekend Continued…

After too much fun on Friday and Saturday, Boding and I agreed that we wanted to start the week off on the right note. A healthy note. I tweeted the head chef at Crave, Landen Ganstrom, asking him if he could whip up something healthy for us. Although he wasn’t working, he dialed up his sous chef and told him we were coming in.

Like always, we started off brunch at Crave with their delicious cornbread muffins. These things are incredible. I rarely, if ever, butter my bread, but this is where I make an exception. They’re melt-in-your-mouth tender, sweet muffins.

Back on the healthy track, the sous chef served us an entrée that did not disappoint. We each had Coriander dusted salmon with a peach reduction served atop pulled zucchini, squash, and red pepper “fettuccini” in a light tomato sauce.

After brunch, we went shopping. Boding bought some of his favorite wine, Jam Jar…

…and I picked up a pair of (cheap!) wedges from Payless. I can’t remember the last time I went in that store, but I’m glad I did. Twenty bucks (yup!) later, I walked out with these.

All the shopping worked up an appetite, so we went to Tutti Frutti for some sorbet. I had pineapple and orange creamsicle topped with mango, blueberries, and cookie dough. I kid you not, this is the best froyo/sorbet in Charleston. Their soy yogurt is  even better than the regular froyo.

Side note: The girls at work and I decided not to give up sweets until Monday. It just didn’t seem right to start over MDW. :)

We then spent an hour or so at Barnes & Noble, doing “research.”

On Monday, the weather wasn’t so lovely in my area. I woke up, visited Brandy at Starbucks for a skinny caramel latte, and then hit the gym. Continuing on with my typical Monday, I ended up at Chick-fil-A for lunch.  Shocker.

I had a kid’s meal with grilled chicken nuggets and one of those cute applesauce packets.

I’m a sucker for cute packaging, especially when it contains fruit!

Monday afternoon, Amanda and I met some friends at Vickery’s to enjoy the sun, after it decided to come out from the clouds. When the boys told our server they wanted one more beer, Amanda and I couldn’t decide if we wanted another. Our server suggested we “share one more beer.” Initially we thought “how bizarre” but went with it. Two girls one straw.

What was the highlight of your Memorial Day Weekend?

The Friday Five–Manly Style

Hello friends! I am off for a little vaca and have a guest post (of sorts) for you.

Meet my friend Eric. Eric works at Blackbaud with me and is also food critic for the Charleston City Paper. We met through our mutual friend Rachel and bonded over a love for all things related to food and cooking. The food bond is pretty strong as we both have a slight obsession with beets and pickles. Oh, and did I mention he’s a Chick-fil-A fan too? Now you know why we are friends.

I enjoy cooking and learning about different foods, but this is where Eric and I differ. He LOVES cooking. And is really good at it. In preparation for a catering gig he was doing, he offered to let me sample some of the veggie burgers he was going to be serving.

As a new(ish) vegetarian, I was really excited to try homemade veggie burgers! Morning Star and Trader Joe’s veggie and black bean burgers have already been incorporated into my diet, but I knew it was only time before a homemade one made its way to my mouth.

While Eric played in the kitchen, I played with his pup, Copper. Look at this cutie!

Though I don’t have an exact recipe, the burgers are essentially a mix of the following:

• edamame
• red pepper
• red onion
• corn
• carrot
• spinach
• cayenne
• lime juice
• garlic
• egg
• bread crumbs
• edamame pureed with water, lemon juice, and oil

The veggies and seasonings were chopped in tiny bits, then bound together with the egg, bread crumbs, and edamame puree. So colorful!

He formed the patties,

and pan fried them.

For serving, Eric placed each burger on a mini Hawaiian sweet roll, topped them with tzatziki sauce, and garnished them with cilantro radish.

How adorable is this! Be jealous. They were flipping fantastic.

I thought to myself, “How am I going to go another day without these?” My prayers were answered when Eric offered to let me take home the leftover mix so I could make some at home.

Hash tag awesome.

Now here’s where the guest post comes in. We have the usual Friday Five post, but written by the cook himself. Enjoy!

What I'm Reading: Charcuterie: The craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman. Who doesn't love cured meats?  I'm seriously considering turning my spare walk-in closet into a meat  and beer locker. Sausages, hams, salumis, and aged beers.  Can you imagine staying in my spare room and smelling bacon?

What I'm Watching: American Idol. Don't judge me. I've never been into the show until this season. The only reason I'm watching is to support a someone I know from Charleston, Elise Testone. She's killing it right now and everyone should vote for her on Wednesday nights!

What I'm listening to: Atlas Genius – Trojans. I heard this song for the first time on Alt Nation and I'm hooked.

What I'm Bookmarking: http://www.moleculargastronomynetwork.com/ 

I've been on a molecular gastronomy kick. Making balsamic caviar, foams, basil spaghetti, mojito spheres, bloody mary candies, and more.It's cool what you can do with food and chemistry.

What I'm Drinking: Bell's Hopslam. Hops, citrus, and honey - three of my favorite things all in one beer. This stuff doesn't sit on the shelf long so I get as much as I can as soon as it's released.

Hope you enjoyed the guest post. I will tell you where I am soon..

Spicy Thai Chicken...and I'm Busted

Friday night I abstained from drinking going out and cooked instead. My inner-Asian wanted rice (so typical) so I attempted to re-do a recipe that Brandon and I made a few times last year. This dish is HOT! Spicy girls love spicy dishes but shoot, 5 serranos is 5 serranos too many! My mouth was on fire.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of chicken, bite-sized pieces
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper
• 1 stalk of lemongrass 
• 5 deadly serrano peppers
• fresh basil leaves
• sweet chile sauce
• soy sauce
• honey

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the sweet chile sauce, the soy sauce, and honey. I didn't measure this at all - just kept adding some here and there. The majority of the sauce should be sweet chile sauce, with a little bit of honey, and just a tad bit of soy sauce.

2. Cut up all the peppers, lemongrass, and the garlic. Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces.

3. Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the garlic and serrano peppers.

4. After a couple of minutes when the steam from the serranos is making your eyes bleed, stir in the chicken, bell peppers, lemongrass, and slowly add your sauce mixture.Cook until the chicken is no longer pink. Unless you like salmonella poisoning. 

5. Once cooked through, throw in as many basil leaves as you'd like and heat until wilted. Serve over hot jasmine rice.

If you don't like it spicy you a) are crazy and b) shouldn't add so many serranos. Two to three is enough to give it some kick, but 5 is uncalled for. This left me weeping over my plate and no, it was not because I wasn't hanging out with my nugget.

On Saturday, I made up for my night in and went on some man's boat all day. Some man = a friend of Julius whose name I no longer remember, but did have a nice boat if I may say so myself. Note to self: when it's going to be a long day, put down the vodka and pick up the beer. The definition of Xtina might be lightweight because after just a few happy drinks, I took a 2-hour nap. On the boat. They were nice enough to wrap me up in a towel with my sunglasses and check on me occassionally as they went OUT TO EAT! Funny, yes...but what isn't funny is when we were walking back home after getting off the boat, my ego took over. I decided it would be a great idea to RACE MY TRAINER. Not only is Julius a man, but he ran track in high school and his leg muscles are probably the size of my whole body. Why, why, whyyyyyy would I want to race him in a gravel parking lot? The "race" went a little something like "1, 2, SPLASH" according to Julius. I wiped out and have the most amazing busted knee. 

OF COURSE I have pics...

Immediately after the incident:

Post Clean Up:

Lesson of the weekend: Keep drinking, just don't try to race someone who is a bajillion times faster than you.

Spicy Chicken & Peppers with Avocado Butter and Pineapple Greek Yogurt

For the last week I've been craving Mexican food. Although you can get Mexican food for pennies, I'd rather not calorie waste on the greasy restaurant stuff. My friend Nick sent me a recipe for what his family calls "Avocado Butter."

The Avocado Butter essentials are among the world's healthiest foods:

• Avocado - good for cholesterol, good source of potassium which helps regulate blood pressure, good source of folate which is important for heart health.
• Garlic - an excellent source of manganese, a very good source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C and a good source of selenium. Good for blood pressure, platelet aggregation, and cholesterol levels.
• Honey - a natural sweetener, anti-bacterial, cough suppressant, helpful for cholesterol levels.
• Olive Oil - helpful for cholesterol levels, an anti-inflammatory, prevents bone loss.

Talk about making your heart happy!

 

Nick's Recipe:

• 1 large avocado
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 olive oil
• s&p to taste

Remove the avocado from its peel and pit. Mash with the back of a large fork. Add garlic, honey, and olive oil and stir until smooth. Add salt & pepper to your liking. Nick recommended using a blender but the fork worked just fine because my avocado had fully ripened.  The first time I made this I used all the ingredients, but this time I omitted the olive oil for a chunkier effect. Omitting the olive oil made it a much sweeter dip as the honey stood out more.

This took about 5 minutes from start to finish. I popped it in the refrigerator to let the flavors set in and headed to the gym. Once there, I did a 10 minute walking warm-up, 35-minute run, and spent about 15 minutes on abs. It's really hard to do more than that when you have Avocado Butter waiting for you!

For dinner, I cut up 8 oz chicken tenderloins, 1/2 red pepper, 1/2 yellow pepper, 2 gloves of garlic, and sauteed them with cumin, cayenne pepper, and balsamic vinegar. (Makes two servings.)

 

I decided to turn this into a wrap (fajitas?) and added the avocado butter and this key ingredient as a sour cream replacement:

Mmm! The pineapple flavor really cooled down the spiciness of the chicken. All the flavors combined so well that cheese wasn't necessary! I nibbled on some carrots as my side:

It tasted really good as a wrap and was quick to make!

I'm currently snacking on a Luna Bar: Peanut Butter Cookie. 

 

This bar definitely tastes like your typical peanut butter bar. It was a tasty treat with a perfect amount of crunch from the organic peanuts and sea salt.

The bottom layer adds delicious creaminess:

Question 1: 
Do you guys ever wake up starving? Lately, I have been waking up and running to the fridge. I'm trying to figure out if I'm not eating the night before or if it's because I'm going to the gym at night and my body requires more fuel. This doesn't happen on Mondays though - I guess I do a good job pigging out all weekend. 

Question 2:
It seems like the days I go to the gym looking extra-rough, hair a mess, wrinkled shirt, sweating 5 minutes in, are the days w/ tons of hotties and/or people I know. Not fair! It's only happened a couple times but stilllllll whyyyyyy? In the middle of abs I got some weird knot in my stomach and while I was laying on the floor pouring sweat, my friend suddenly stands over me saying "HI!!" Not even kidding, my response was "HI! I'm disgusting right now." Ohhhhh the gym look is HOT.

Christina's Jerk Shrimp, Light & Fluffy Banana Bread

There is a major difference between Brandon and me in the way we find and decide on recipes. I use multiple sites, pour over a ridiculous amount of recipes, obsess over the different ingredients, and maybe decide on one by the end of the day. I'm out of control.

Brandon has a general idea of what he wants for dinner, goes to Food Network online, and finds a recipe in a matter of minutes.

THIS IS NOT FAIR!!!

Last night he wanted stir-fry, and like I said, he went online and instantly found a recipe: Christina's Jerk Chicken...That's really the name!

Earlier this morning, I was looking for a better banana bread recipe. It only took me a few minutes (woah) to find this Cooking Light recipe. I kept all of the ingredients the same, except I omitted the chocolate. As much as I love chocolate, I thought it would take away from the banana flavor. I thought this recipe was interesting because it didn't call for vanilla or cinnamon: two ingredients I want to add to eveeerrryyything.

The bread had a perfectly browned crust. At first I thought it appeared too dark, but it was perfect.

It was very light and fluffy, with just the perfect amount of crumble.

The addition of the yogurt really helped create a moist bread. Typical banana breads use a lot of oil - ick - which, in my opinion, weighs it down. I also used very ripe bananas that hadn't been frozen - I think this made a huge difference in the flavor. If you're looking for a light, fluffy, and delicious banana bread, I definitely suggest this one! :)