Oven cooking for (hopefully) the last time

Saturday promised a day at the arts and crafts festival a few blocks down from me. The weather was wet and cold-ish, and only two artisans showed up for the fest. Two. Quite a disappointment, so my friend and I went to a bookstore to check out the used selection. Before leaving, however, we munched on this: some salad greens topped with white rice and wild rice with onions, garlic, dill seed, basil, peas, a few black beans, lemon juice, and olive oil. That was then topped with tomatoes and cucumbers. It was a sort of "what the heck do I even have in my fridge?" meal. With little bits of a lot of things, that was the result. Above friend brought along some salsa and tasty chips. Then off to a wine tasting on the corner where the wine was hideous. We just left there and picked up some wine at Trader Joes instead, where I also picked up some GF pasta and bread. With pasta that's half the price of Tinkyada, I can deal with the slight inferiority for most of my daily meals. This was followed by some bar time...because when don't I go to a bar? I'm just helping my immune system along with it's ability to build up resistance is all.


Sunday was my trip to Whole Foods, which was put off since I was first distracted by "Nigella Bites" on The Food Network, because I am secretly in love with Nigella. In fact, most women I know are in love with her. She's gorgeous and always cooks yummy, unhealthy food. She was cooking up an "after coming home from the pub" dish on this one and I loved her even more. While that was on, I realized I was too hungry to go shopping anyway, so I made this: pasta mixed with chicken, spinach (frozen), garlic, onions, tomatoes, and a whole lot of basil. And olive oil, again. My basic ingredients don't change a whole lot. Quite a tasty meal...would have been even better if I could've added some cheese. Crumbled walnuts on there would also have been great for texture and nuttiness. That was followed by the movie "Igby Goes Down" on regular TV (I was shocked that they'd show it on basic channels)...and I watched most of that. Love that movie. At any rate, I did fit in my Whole Foods trip, finally. It was gorgeous out, so I attempted to get a bit lost and wandered down a street I've never walked down before...only to come out at Whole Foods. Figures that when I try to get lost, I can't. I didn't buy a lot at Whole Foods as everything seemed really expensive, but I did get some more pasta, arugula, tomatoes, potatoes, and a few other equally uninteresting things. I broke down and bought some of their gluten-free bakery peanut butter cookies. Peanut butter cookies are my favorite cookie, so when I saw them, I couldn't pass them up. It's been awhile since I've had some good unhealthy dessert:

They're super thick and giant, and they taste amazing. One of them served as breakfast this morning (Mom, pretend you didn't read that...). Also, note my cute new tablecloth...which I got on sale, at Macy's, because it's meant for outdoor patios. I think my apartment is "outdoor" solely for the fact that I noticed a plant growing through my hardwood floorboards the other day. Mmm, nature.


Anyway, I got home from the store and wanted to cook some things to grab for quick work lunches and dinners during the week, so I roasted some broccoli (with garlic, olive oil, and green beans) and baked potatoes. Hopefully the weather will warm enough soon to make oven cooking and any super hot, long term baking sound awful. I'd like to have some typical June weather, please.


Tonite, I had a remix of those things:

Here's to the Weekend

Yeah, this is how my week went...books, tissues, dark chocolate covered espresso beans, wine, more books, TV, and more tissues. I had a cold/sinus infection/allergy attack this week that just wiped me out. I should've had the Nyquil on the trunk, too, but it didn't really last long enough to be promoted to the primo spot. Needless to say, not much cooking happened.

On Saturday, I made this:

Turkey breasts were on sale at Shaws, so I picked this up, and some bacon in an attempt to keep the turkey juicy, since it had to last through the week. I wrapped the bacon around the turkey breast, after removing its skin, and threw a couple of twigs of rosemary in with it. It was pretty tasty for the first couple of days, Rupie was exceedingly happy. But a turkey breast is HUGE, I mean, why not just cook the whole damn bird? It's still in my fridge because there's no way I can eat the rest as I'm sick of it and it's pretty dry now. The cat still likes it.

The rest of the week required very low-key food. I cooked up some ground beef and seasoned it for chips and salsa useage. I also made this to top it off: Diced avocado, tomatoes, cumin, onion, black beans, chili oil, cilantro, and lime juice. Not bad, not so pretty, but not bad:

We'll see what's in store for the day, the plans I had may have changed as the weather is pretty hideous. More updates soon...

Ouch

Today is my recovery day. I had a great time last night out on the town with a friend of mine and her buddy who's in town for the weekend. I had a very good time, and have been paying for it all day today. With that in mind, I decided to create a restorative mix of food, which began with probably 6 red skin potatoes to absorb any remaining alcohol. Then I made a strawberry smoothie with just some Lactaid milk, ice, frozen strawberries, honey, and a couple of drops of vanilla. Pretty tasty. I felt a wee bit better after a few glasses of that...as did Rupert, my cat:

Rupie is big into smoothies.

Then I made some stirfry, thinking I needed protein, veggies, and some actual solid food. I haven't made stirfry in ages because I can't use soy sauce anymore, and that's always been a main element in my stirfrys...(stirfries?). I decided to use peanut butter as the base sauce, since it has enough flavor to make foregoing soy sauce feasible. So I sauteed up some onions and garlic in peanut butter (and a little vegetable oil). Then I added some cubed chicken breast and let that cook. I picked up some frozen veggies from Trader Joes yesterday that were meant to be stirfried (a mix of baby corn, pea pods, broccoli, water chestnuts, carrots, mushrooms, and red peppers), so those went in, along with some frozen green beans. After finishing it off with a few drops of hot chili oil and sesame oil and a handful of peanuts, I was ready to chow down. As expected, the picture isn't so great, but you get the idea...restorative and easy for my headache-ridden, idiotic self. But, hey, this is a gluten-free blog for the lazy, single people of the world so hangover food seems appropriate. You know us lazy singles...can't trust us for a minute.

As for the mahi mahi that I posted about last time; It wasn't bad. The fish itself was great...meaty, flavorful, fresh. I just sauteed it in a bit of olive oil. I paired it with brown rice, which was oddly mushy and kind of stale tasting. After the fish was nearly finished, I added some Chardonnay, the juice from half of a lemon, a bit of butter and parmesan cheese. That sauce came out great...but something just wasn't flooring me about the whole dish. And it was also really ugly...very beige, and didn't warrant taking a picture. Yesterday I heated up the leftovers and added a few drops of that hot chili oil and that helped immensely. I think if the fish was grilled, it would've made a big difference. I also think some other grain, or non stale, mushy rice would've saved it.

The rest of the evening holds more recovery time and laziness...reading or movie watching. I'm watching one of the worst movies of all time (with the exception of any movie the Mystery Science Theater guys were able to find)...Xanadu. Wow, what a horror! Gene Kelly, you disappoint me. I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day tomorrow...enjoy your barbecues and brews...or cider, or wine if you're lucky like me. In moderation, of course. :)

Slacking

I haven't posted in a while. I acknowledge this openly and don't feel bad about it, frankly. I've been not feeling so great this week...mostly early in the week. I went home from work early on Monday and have been working late all week to make up for it. My food, therefore, has been simple and fairly bland lately so that my stomach can mellow itself out.

Tonite I plan to cook up some Mahi Mahi in white wine sauce and then we'll see what else I find in the way of veggies at the store after work. Though since I'll be working late AGAIN today, I may just cook whatever veggies I find in my freezer. I'll post some pics, recipes, etc., after I make dinner tonight. Cross your fingers it turns out okay, I've never cooked Mahi Mahi before...I'm relying on the wine to fix whatever I may screw up. It usually does. :)

A Year Older

May 8th was my birthday and my lovely boss and coworkers found a baker who makes delicious gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free cakes. Mmmm, chocolate. It's so special to be able to partake of normal birthday things, so I was really grateful to get this gorgeous chocolate cake! The frosting was phenomenal and didn't overpower the dark chocolatey cake. Just an all-around wonderful birthday gift! So thanks to the Marketing Department! And thanks to Vita Cohen, baker of this magnificent feast. We all enjoyed it immensely, as can be seen below:

We couldn't even wait to take a picture before cutting into its deliciousness. (You'll also notice a nice Lara Bar wrapper to the left of the cake...Apple Pie flavor, to be specific.)

As for my birthday dinner, however, much was left to be improved upon:

Yeah, this was a mediocre gluten-free "French Roll" purchased at Trader Joes with a hard-boiled egg on one half and avocado on the other. I was too lazy to cook as I was out late the night before doing a concert review and band interview with Melee: http://theywillrockyou.com/interviews/

It was still a good day...I got some fun stuff from my parents and some hilarious cards. I also got some cool jewelry from my old roommate, Shanna. Shout out to Shanna!

Tomorrow is another concert review and interview, only with Down the Line this time. Friday night I spent with Connie, who has her own blog, which I posted last post. Definitely check it out, she updates more often than I do and is way more creative with her posts.

I had nothing impressive tonite, just some Tinkyada pasta with basil, olive oil, diced tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and a bit of parmesan (hard cheese in small amounts are acceptable according to my nutritionist, and I plan to take full advantage of that!)

Whole Foods Spree

Mmmmm, strawberries. Whole Foods was having a sale on these, and I'm a sucker for strawberries. So instead of buying a GF cake or mix to make my own, I bought some super sweet berries and three pears. I'd totally forgotten about the existence of pears until recently, and I sort of miss them. I'm planning our reacquaintance soon, as soon as they soften up a bit.

Here's dinner:

Best food in the world. Steak. On top of rocket, aka arugula. With olive oil and toasted rosemary. *shiver* I ate a lot of this in Italy, the best dish being one in this little place in Florence. So part of my love of this dinner is that it reminds me of being in Italy. Though I was sick in Italy quite a bit, so feeling decent today and eating this sort of evened the two events out. You don't need a recipe for this one...I normally wouldn't cook the steak as long, because I prefer some pink in the middle, but I thought it might be tough as it was on sale. So I smashed it up with a tenderizer. It ended up being super-tender and I could've probably cooked it less. At any rate, sear the steak on both sides, with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary...quite a bit of rosemary, about two twigs worth (that's the technical amount). And, um, plop it on top of some rocket and you're good to go. Drizzle some of the leftover oil, juice, and rosemary on top for extra fat and tastiness.

Weekend Eats

Mmmm, cake. My friend Connie (who has her own, very classy and artsy blog) and I vegged out and watched a movie at her apartment on Friday night. Connie is a vegetarian, so the two of us struggle a bit with what to cook when we get together, but since we both love cooking, we keep trying to come up with new ideas. Connie bought this lovely GF angel food cake mix from Glutino and added a bit of cocoa powder to the batter to make it chocolatey. She also made a chocolate sauce with chocolate and coconut milk because she's awesome like that. The cake was far from spongy. It was very dense and a bit odd, but tasted great and contained chocolate, so we ate it up pretty quickly. And...isn't it pretty?

We also had some nice white wine from South Africa (who knew they had good wine?...they do!), some corn chips and salsa and bean dip made from lentils. I'm not sure about her recipe for that, but it had the texture of hummus. The movie, "A Very Good Year," was odd and I'm not sure what I thought of it, but it ended up being a good night despite the weird Russell Crowe movie.

On Saturday I made a batch of crispy polenta that GlutenFreeGirl posted a while ago. I made it once with her recipe, which was very tasty, but this time I used basil and oregano as my herbs, and a bit of chili powder. Yum! I was thinking that next time I make this, I might make a southwestern/Texan version with bell peppers, cumin, cayenne, and chili powder. Of course the garlic and onions would remain the same. Throwing some cheese into the polenta before the cutting, frying, and baking would be very tasty, too. There's some turkey kielbasa that I reheated in the polenta pan and green beans.

All in all, some tasty cuisine this weekend, and I need to figure out what I'm cooking tonite. I think I'll run to Whole Foods and buy some GF cake mix (my birthday is Tuesday), some GF pasta, and a few other things. Maybe a chicken to roast so I have something for the week. I'm reviewing a concert and interviewing the band on Monday night, so I need a quick meal to heat up before heading out again after work. Enjoy your Sunday afternoon!