I'll be back!

So after a modest dinner of spaghetti with gravy ("sauce" to you, non-Italians) last night...we had to spend the rest of our evening making travel RE-arraignments after the reports of the new Noreaster comin through NJ. So we figured we'll just start our adventure a little early...and we're headin out for Puerto Rico TONIGHT. Phewww...I think I'm gonna kiss the ground once we finally make it there! It's been a crazy 24 hours!!!

BUT, have no fear, as I was already up at 4am this morning researching "San Juan Food Finds," so hopefully I'll have even MORE stuff for you when I come back, on top of all the island and cruise eats! Although I must say, I could just kill for a simple cheeseburger and a pina colada right now;)

See you when I get back!!!

Fage x's 2...

Well, this is the second week in a row I'm posting our 'boring Monday (Rice Chex Chicken) salad.' But I thought I would since I had some leftover Fage yogurt and I decided to take a crack at Ellie Krieger De-lightful ranch dressing. I'm certainly not scoffing the 'bottle dressing,' but if you have an extra (literally) 5 minutes, you just can NOT beat fresh dressing! Yum!
And FYI...if a recipe ever calls for buttermilk, but you don't feel like buying a quart here's a simple trick: Mix regualr milk with a little white vinegar and let it sit for a few minutes and it makes an easy buttermilk swap! For this recipe, I filled my 1/3 measering cup almost full with milk and then filled the rest with white vinegar...2 minutes later: Buttermilk!! :)

And what else to do with leftover yogurt? Well, here's my breakfast for today...complete with Farmer's Market fresh Jersey honey;) Awesome;)

Can not WAITTTTTTTTTT to get back to the Farmer's Markets!!! I've NEVER been a spring/summer person, but I am READY for fresh fruits and vegetables!!

Who am I??? About 6 years ago, if you told me I ever would have uttered those words, I would have said you were CRAZY! :) hahahahahhahaaha.....oh well, I'm super psyched now! ;)

Chocolate Pretzel Bar

Please pardon the bad picture...but you MUST look past that, because as soon as I took a bite of this I knew I had to post about it!!!! Introducing the 90 calorie Special K Chocolatey Pretzel bars....
WOW!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!! I thought it was going to taste "airy" like most of their bars...but this packs some PUNCH for 90 calories! The bar has a layer of chocolate on the bottom, but then you get a HUGE SALT KICK at the end...so it REALLY does taste like a chocolate covered pretzel!!! Score 1 for Special K! These babies are awesome!

Meatloaf Pie

Little fact: Ever since Scott & I moved in together, I've always referred to any 'meat & potato' dinner on a Sunday night as our "family dinner." No clue why...but it's always stuck. So here's another 'family dinner' option:) We've been on a major roasted red pepper kick in our house lately, so as soon as I saw the recipe for this Tex-Mex Meatloaf-Cheddar Pie I was sold!!

Here's the red pepper "crust":
And the finished pie! :) DELICIOUS!!!!
And to make it an official 'family dinner,' we had this with a baked sweet potato and corn....I think this might just be one of Scott's favorite meatloaves of all time now...he LOVED it!But my heart still lies with this Cheeseburger meatloaf :) You just can't beat the pickles ;)

"Chinese New Years" Sushi ;)

Kenji Fusion in Hamilton, NJ has some of the best best BEST sushi EVER. The place has a great NYC vibe, they have an amazing selection of "signature" rolls and everything always tastes so fresh! So I was pretty darn happy when our "Chinese New Years" celebration was tweaked and shifted to a bit of a Japanese celebration:) And how excited was I when I was greeted with this pretty plate when we went to pick up dinner:I have absolutely no clue which one is which, but a few on this plate were:

• Godzilla Roll: Tempura salmon topped with mango & shrimp with mango sauce
• Two Thumbs Up Roll: Soft shell crab, spicy tuna & avocado rolled with soy paper with eel sauce
• Spicy Girl Roll: Shrimp tempura with lobster salad on top
• Kenji Roll: Spicy tuna top with eel and avocado

There was also one with pineapple which was DELICIOUS! All of them were delicious...I should know: I tried all of them;) Sharing is caring, right?? :)

Pasta & AMAZING CHOCOLATE...

OK...so now I have a FEW days to make up for;) hahahahahahahaha...although our menu this week isn't going to be that exciting considering we're in a "clean out the fridge" phase since we're leaving for vacation on Saturday:) But I'll try my best to keep the posts interesting:)

So anyway...here was dinner from Thursday night: Saffron Farfalle with Crab & ShrimpYou really can't beat the taste of saffron....I'm going to need to stock up in my travels next week!! And the sauce was soooo creamy, even though it was only 1% milk!

But here was the BEST part...after dinner we broke into the vday box of chocolates I "made" for Scott...and decided to test out Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate with Hazelnuts bar and Vosges BACON CHOCOLATE BAR...yes, you heard me correctly...

Now I've had a few of these Vosges bars and they always contain 'fancy' ingredients. They've all been great but never amazing...UNTIL THIS ONE! If you are a sweet & salty person..RUN, DO NOT WALK, TO GO GET THIS (I found it at Wegman's)....SOOOO GOOD...you could taste the bacon perfectly! If your a bacon fan...well, you may just die and go to heaven with this one;)

And they weren't messing around with the 'whole hazelnuts' claim on this one...

I can't wait to sample a plain ole chocolate bar from TJ's, cause the chocolate itself was really tasty! But that bacon bar was the clear winner of the evening;)

My Travel/Food Blog: Costa Rica, Part 2...

So I didn't get a chance to upload my dinner pictures from last night (damn you, Survivor & Olympics!!)....but I figured in the meantime, I'll finish up my Costa Rica post:) This was from the 2nd half of our trip that we spent at the Paradisus Resort...the food was good, but nowhere near as AWESOME as the first half. But I thought you still might enjoy them anyway...so here goes:

On the (6 hour) drive to Paradisus, our tour guide stopped at a food stand in the middle of nowhere:) I started with Horchata...it's a drink made with rice flour, milk and cinnamon. Kinda like a blended rice pudding!...

Before we left for Costa Rica, I told Scott about this and he didn't believe it existed...so here I am with my "Victory drink" ;)

They DO NOT FEAR THEIR CARBS!! Let me tell you!! Here was some AWESOME Arroz Con Pollo with FRENCH FRIES!! (and cole slaw...which I didn't eat...it was too vinegar-y)

And for dessert...(finally a good picture) of more Tre Leche Cake!!!! This one was perfect...not too sweet...

Here was our "welcome to Paradisus" mimosa (with a cool towel;) hahahahhahaha....

Dinner our first night was at Agave Azul (of course we hit up the Mexican restaurant first:)

Here was our chips & dip appetizer...

This was Scott's guapa salad...I can't judge, I didn't have any;)

Here's my chicken and lime soup...

And right about now was when I started getting embarrassed about taking pictures of my food with the FLASH in the middle of the "mood lit dining room"...so I made do without;)
Here's the non-flash version of my tuna steak with orange and pepper sauce, Mexican rice and a zucchini blossom..

And here was a random mix from the breakfast buffet the next morning....and yes, those are chicken quesadillas on my dish (and this was at like, 8:30am;)

My 2 favorites were the fresh fruit smoothies and those little cinnamon rolls on the bottom right...I seriously think I had about 47 of those in the 5 days we were there;) They kept them under a heat lamp so the brown sugar was all gooey...(do you think they would ship well??)

I failed to take a picture the night we ate at the buffet...but let's just say it involved "cheese tacos" (like, mozzarella sticks wrapped in a tortilla and deep fried...insane)...and the length of a buffet table covered in COCONUT desserts: Coconut cream pie "bars", marble coconut cake, coconut flan, coconut cream puffs. I went to bed sick that night!!! So bad (but so good;)

The next day was actually Valentines day, so we had dinner in the "adults only/fancy restaurant"....Scott had eggplant ravioli to start, and I had pumpkin soup (SO GOOD!)...and I forget what the salad and cheese thing was. I know I only ate the fancy beets on top!

For dinner, I had a seafood casserole...

Dessert that night was chocolate cake....that was OK, but the resort made AWESOME ICE CREAM!!! I don't know why it was so good, but it was! The vanilla tasted just like cake frosting!! So good:)

And see...here's where I start to get VERY weary of the 'resort' thing...Granted it, this dinner was excellent...but I don't need to eat Italian food in Costa Rica. I'm from Jersey, for goodness sake! We have plenty here!!!!! Again, very good...but just....outta place, is all I'm saying;)

Anyway, for appetizer we had a tomato bread soup...which was good...

And for dinner, I had spinach and gorgonzola risotto with almonds...

The last morning we had breakfast at the 'fancy buffet'....I took this picture because they actually offered CONDENSED MILK as a topping...so I had some on waffles;)

And this was what I called the "last hurrah"...It actually wasn't as good as it looks...not even remotely comparable to those hot lamp cinnamon rolls;) hahahahhahahaa....

So all and all, a tasty trip to say the least:) The resort was not our favorite...but we got to do some really amazing things while we were in the area:

And here's one last one...me and some real coconut juice aka. aqua pipa;) True Love:)As Scott says: "The only way Costa Rica can be topped...is Costa Rica again"...and I'm starting to truly believe he is right;)

Breakfast & Lunch...

Well, since my dinner post from last night was pretty lame, I thought I'd post my breakfast and lunch today since they were a little different from my norm...but please excuse my phone camera, because it is NOT taking nice pictures at the moment:(

Breakfast was oatmeal with milk, cinnamon, vanilla powder, a small amount of maple syrup, 2 tablespoons of toasted honey wheat germ and a sprinkle of toasted coconut (since I found my 12 bag stash;) This kept me full for HOURS!!!!!!!!!
And lunch was an apple, toasted walnuts and blue cheese salad. I cooked the apples in a small skillet with just enough apple cider to cover the bottom of the pan. Then I added a little rice vinegar and brown sugar and boiled it until the apples were soft. I put the apples in my salad container, cleaned out the skillet and toasted up some walnuts. Then this morning I just added the lettuce and blue cheese to the container and I was good to go! This was great!!!

Nope, those aren't tomatoes! They're apples:)

My only downfall was I was totally "that girl" today with my 40 Tupperware containers and even my mini bottle of maple syrup;)

Oh well, all in the name of health and yummy lunch...I'll deal;)

Let's talk Almond Butter...

Well, since Scott ate the last of the Boeuf last night...I kept my dinner super simple:) A Green Monster and a slice of Ezekiel bread with Almond Butter....
Now this is worth noting because it was the first time I've tried the much-talked-about Almond Butter from Trader Joe's, and may I say: O.M.G...it was fantastic! And the ingredients were: Almonds, Salt....that's it!!!!!!!! I soooooooooooooooooooooooo LOVE that and I LOVE this "butter"! Delicious!!!!

Ok, that was a boring post....I'll try to have something more exciting for later;)

Breakin Down Boeuf Bourguignon....

So ok, reading the Julia Child recipe for the first time is ubber intimidating. A LOT of steps...but after you break it down, it's really not too bad. So I thought I'd give you the recipe with some pictures to maybe take the edge off...and before you know it, you'll have your own Boeuf! :)

Boeuf Bourguignon

by Julia Child

• 6 ounces bacon
• 1 Tbsp. olive or cooking oil
• 3 pounds lean stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes (don't skimp, you'll want leftovers!)
• 1 sliced carrot
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 3 cups full-bodied, young red wine, such as Chianti
• 2 to 3 cups brown beef stock or canned beef bouillon
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp. thyme
• Crumbled bay leaf
• Blanched bacon rind
• 18 to 24 small white onions, brown-braised in stock
• 1 pound quartered fresh mushrooms, sauteed in butter
• Parsley springs

Remove rind from bacon, and cut bacon into lardons (sticks, 1/4 inch thick and 1 1/2 inches long). Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in 1 1/2 quarts of water. Drain and dry. (No pictures...it wasn't too pretty:)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Saute the bacon in the oil over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Set casserole aside. Reheat until fat is almost smoking before you saute the beef.

Dry the stewing beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Saute it, a few pieces at a time, in the hot oil and bacon fat until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the bacon.In the same fat, brown the sliced vegetables. Pour out the sauteing fatReturn the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in middle position of the preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to over for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and covers the meat with a light crust.) Remove casserole, and turn oven down to 325 degrees.

Stir in the wine, and enough stock or bouillon so that the meat is barely covered. (Careful not to open the wine and spill it all over your kitchen...oh wait, that was just me...)

Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs and bacon rind. Bring to simmer on top of the stove. Then cover the casserole and set in lower third of preheated oven. Regulate heat so liquid simmers very slowly for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily. (and it tastes heavenly!)

While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms. Set them aside until needed.

(We don't eat mushrooms, so we skipped them. And I didn't know what 'brown braised' meant...so I took it as to boil the onions down in beef stock until it was evaporated. Worked for me!)

When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms over the meat.

Skim fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two, skimming the additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons of stock or canned bouillon. Taste carefully for seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables. Recipe may be completed in advance to this point.

For immediate serving: Cover the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times. Serve in its casserole, or arrange the stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles or rice and decorated with parsley.

For later serving: When cold, cover and refrigerate. About 15 to 20 minutes before serving, bring to simmer, cover and simmer very slowly for 10 minutes, occasionally basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce.

And you get:

That's as attractive as I can get after 4 hours in the kitchen;) And let me tell you: That casserole pan came clean with a wipe of the sponge! It was amazing:) And so was the dinner...try it out for the ultimate indulgent comfort food!! My only change is I might use a little less beef stock next time and a little sugar. I just remember the one I had in France being a touch sweeter.

Enjoy!!!

Buffalo Chicken Salad & Coffee Creamer:)

Ok, those 2 things don't go together...but for the sake of this post, they will :)

So I normally don't post our boring salad dinners on here, but this one was quite tasty:) Scott marinated the chicken in buffalo wing sauce and then coated them with crushed corn chex (his favorite:) hahahhahahaha....and then baked them for 40 minutes. I also made some Ellie Krieger Blue Cheese Dressing to go with it....

Cool & spicy...this is definitely getting added to our weekly rotation:) Want to know what a "mental eater" I am?? I got sooooooooooooo incredibly tired of chopped up chicken in salads....and now that I have the chicken 'on the side', it's like a whole new world of wonderfulness. Weird, right?? I know...but whatever works:)

And in decadent news: Look what I found at the grocery store last night!! :)

I also found a "Honey Vanilla" coffemate...but I figured I'd save that for spring:) Old man winter is still calling for some creme brulee:)

Curry & Clean Cabinets...

Well, Mondays detox ended with a Chickpea and Cauliflower Curry from "Food Network" magazine. I'm SO THANKFUL I chose to make this on a day when we had off, because it ended up being a little too involved for a quick weeknight dinner:)

We swapped asparagus for the okra....look how pretty and "detoxing" everything looked before it went in:
And then not so pretty when we it was all done:) I was bummed because it looked absolutely nothing like the picture in the magazine:( ...
And I was also bummed because I thought this was going to be BURSTING with flavor between the cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, cardamon, turmeric, ginger, garlic, cumin and lemon juice....and yet, SOMEHOW it was almost BLAND! :( I might have added too much water to cook all the vegetables at the end...but I thought it was going to be flavor overload...oh well:( We just added a little salt and it tasted just fine.

And since we had off from work, we also made it our one project of the day to clean out our cabinets. Someone recently asked me if I keep a lot of ingredients on hand to be able to randomly cook different recipes...here's your answer....

And I seriously might need a program:

Thought you'd enjoy that ridiculousness!!!

Boef Bourguignon "how to" later on today...stay tuned:)

Monday "Detox" :)

I firmly believe in the 80/20 rule...(80% of the time of eating 'clean', and 20% of indulgence)...so since I might have maxed out to 30% this weekend (and had a wonderful time doing so:), I was ready for a "good eating" day!!! I started with my normal VitaTop...Deep Chocolate this time...

And for lunch...my favorite!! :) I COULD NOT WAIT for the Green Monster today;) And just to give you an idea...here's how I pack that bad bear with spinach....Before:

And After: I used a cup of Soy Slender Vanilla soymilk, 1/4 cup dry oats, a frozen banana, 4 ice cubes, a tablespoon of peanut butter and of course, that beautiful nutrient powerhouse: SPINACH...yum! AND I WAS STUFFED!!! :) I can not WAIT until summer to really go crazy with all the fresh fruit in these things!!! (And I will reiterate again...you can not taste that spianch AT ALL!)

And what's a good detox without exercise, right?? So I went for some advanced pilates at the gym this morning that felt wonderful...SO TOUGH!!!! And last night I did this....
Every time I break out this game, I think "Oh Ha. Ha. Ha....video game workout with mechanical Bob & Jillian"...and then it proceeds to KICK. MY. ASS!!! I did the 30 minute Full Body intermediate workout last night and I was a HOT MESS (check the "Penny dinner" pictures if you need proof;) A GREAT WORKOUT though! Try it out!

We're off to take Miss Penny for a walk in the park and then since we have off today, we're bumping salads to tomorrow night. Tonight we have something new and interesting in the works...I have chickpeas soaking on my counter as I type... ;) Stay Tuned...