Improvisation & Innovation

Tomorrow night I'm headed over to my buddy's roof deck for special birthday grilling. In preparation for this I did some homework on Bobby Flay's grilling show and whipped up 3 quick veggie/marinade combinations:

1.) raspberry balsamic marinade (raspberries, balsamic vinegar, white pepper, splash of evoo) and shitake mushrooms

2.) spicy mango marinade (mango, sherry vinegar - couldn't find my cider vinegar until after I'd finished of course, garlic, ginger, Tabasco, maple syrup) and baby bello mushrooms

3.) soy-lime marinade (GF soy sauce, garlic, ginger, lime juice, agave nectar, splash of evoo) and tempeh

I half-looked up recipes for these creations but mostly just based the ingredients off of what I like. Obviously after this I had to make for-now food so threw a few cans of beans (pinto, garbanzo, red kidney) in with onion, shallot, garlic, ginger, and dashes of lime juice, GF soy sauce, agave nectar, and a smokey hot sauce (GF & vegan) I keep around. Viola! I'll get a few meals out of this.

Today's culinary adventure was brought to you by my Oncology observation this morning which let me go at 9.45 (instead of 12!) Thank you, Nicole, for being awesome. The rest of today includes cadaver lab review (2-5pm), a sammich for dinner (spicy hummus, red pepper, and oh what the hell I'll throw some scallions on there), studying at the library, and possible karaoke in preparation for the cadaver memorial service next week (I volunteered to sing with a few other classmates, should be perfectly awful.)

web 3.14159

I made a video of myself making breakfast this morning, and it only took me 20 minutes to figure out how the camera in my netbook worked!

Next step: piecing it together and posting it here. Wonder how long this will take ...

Twice in One Week?

Yes sir!

1) the GF bread I've been raving about is Udi's

2) I just made some tempeh marinated in GF peanut sauce (San-J) with broccoli & a mix of mushrooms (baby bella, shitake, oyster.) I'm talking some serious nom here, people.

And after my half hour break I'm off to study anatomy some more! (This exclamation point was brought to you by caffeine.)

What month is it?

No, really. May is halfway over? Who knew ...

I made some poor eating choices this week. I blame stress.

Though I have fallen in love with a cereal. I'm switching out my eggs for this to save 15 minutes in the morning. And by "save" I obviously mean "get more sleep." This decision has come about because I can't deny the perfection that is my new GF bread (which I swear, I will get the name of the next time I buy it (aka tomorrow)) whose recipe includes eggs. And I really shouldn't be consuming all that much cholesterol.

I'm keeping up with running 5 mornings a week, which is nice. This includes a very pleasant 6 mile jaunt around Central Park this morn, courtesy of my gym not opening until 8 on the weekends (boo.) And I do believe that I will finally make it to free yoga tomorrow.

Mmm, just enjoyed my dinner of leftover corn & beans (pinto, kidney, & garbanzo) with garlic, ginger, red onion, a dash of GF soy sauce, a squirt of agave nectar, in a few corn tortillas with some perfectly mouth wateringly spicy salsa. Dessert = a handful or two of cold green grapes. Yummers.

And of course, it being Saturday in Manhattan, I'm going out ... to study at Starbucks till midnight. Golly, I'm so hip it hurts!

Death Grip

I am trying to hold onto some semblance of a life as tight as I possibly can.

My daily cooking has been nothing exciting lately. Though I did treat myself to chocolate chip pancakes for dinner tonight. It was a long week, don't judge me. The extent of my culinarity (yes, that's a word) this week involved adding sauteed garlic and shallot to my jar of tomato sauce that I put on my Tinkyada veggie & brown rice pasta. Oh PS I took my buddy Tony to Caracas on Monday night. Yikes, cheese hangover.

Last night, however, I finally caved and jumped on the grilling train at my buddy Seth's roof deck. His grill is straight from Brazil and his master griller is roommate Henrique, a Brazilian. It's safe to say they know what they're doing.

I brought eggplant, zucchini, some portobellos I marinated in minced garlic, fresh rosemary, and evoo, and a pineapple. Yes. Yes, it was amazing. All of it. I love being surrounded by people who love to cook for others as much as I do. Oh, right, and evoo, salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of parm on the sliced veggies. The pineapple got cinnamon'd. Mmmm ...

I look forward to tomorrow morning - after my run (I'm doing 4 miles in 34 minutes now, still every morning of the week ... though I skipped today due to the aftermath of last night's grilling ...) I'm making my favorite breakfast: eggs in the hole. Yum! Just dash some Tabasco on there with some parsley flakes and parfait. Wash it down with some almond milk.

Hope your gastronomic adventures are infinitely more exciting than mine!