More Mussels Please

Hey ya’ll! Hope everyone is having an awesome Monday. I am having a great day since I don’t have to go to class. Sucks to be all those other people who go back to school today. The perks of going to grad school at Columbia. I love still having a week and a half off. I’m living the life. Today I got to go see Hunger Games, for a second time, with my mom, and I got frozen yogurt (OMG how I miss you so much). For today’s post, I’m going to share more about my trip to DC with ya’ll. I swear it is not the only thing I talk about. When we woke up on our third day in DC, we ended up going back to the zoo in the morning because the zoo keeper told us that they let the animals out in the mornings when it is cold and let them go back inside later.

I was excited since I love animals and we missed a lot of the ones the day before due to the bad weather. However OMG I can’t believe the animals were out because it was freezing. This was the start of the polar vortex and man was it already getting chilly. I did get a lot of steps in though, which was awesome. I’m pretty obsessed with my fitbit. We averaged about 20,000 steps a day while in Washington. It is a great walking city! After we went to the zoo, we decided it was time for lunch since we didn’t have breakfast. The night before we had debated about a lot of places, but settled on Brasserie Beck. They were known for their mussels, so obviously it was the right choice for us.

If it wasn’t obvious to ya’ll, we started with a half lb of mussels. Oh god I died. These were amazing. No joke. They were in a mushroom cream sauce with smoked bacon and fresh wild mushrooms. This sauce was something that you would typically find on a classic hearty Italian pasta dish, but instead our mussels were soaked in it. Plus it was served in a hot skillet, which kept the mussels and sauce hot the entire time we were eating. My brother and I pretty much drank this sauce through bread. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ate an entire bread basket while dipping it in and soaking up the sauce. I wish we would have gotten more of these because they were just that good.

My little brother ended up getting a sandwich because he wanted to have a small break from eating so much seafood. He was debating back and forth between a few good looking choices, but decided to get the pork shoulder sandwich. It looked pretty good. He let me have a bite, so I can definitely vouch for it. The meat was incredibly tender and the bun was toasted slightly. I thought it was simple yet delicious. I thought it was a good choice, but he decided he should have gotten something else. It came with a side of fries and these three dipping sauces. I thought that was cool that the restaurant gave three different sauces, although one was a bit weird. The odd one out was a curry mustard. It was a little too spicy with odd flavors mixed in it. The other two were white cream sauces.

My dad of course stuck to one of his favorite seafood items and what the restaurant was known for: mussels. The picture is a bit blurry because at this point I was already focused on my own food and I wanted to chow down. He ended up getting Thai style mussels. These were also crazy good. Not as good as the mushroom ones, but different. I like that throughout the trip we never had the same style of mussels. Each kind was prepared differently, which was really nice. That made it seem like we were trying out different foods. These had a ton of Thai spices in the sauce, which soaked into the mussels. Overall it was a really tasty dish.

I ended up going for a healthier and lighter option. I chose the diver scallops salad, which contained scallops, arugula, red onion, oranges, and avocado. There was a light vinaigrette that was lightly tossed on top of the salad. It was a nice change to all the heavy food we had been eating over the past few days. I have such a weakness for scallops. I find them to be incredibly tasty and meaty for such a small amount. The salad gave me a really fresh feeling and for once I wasn’t full after a meal.

Just look at that bad boy hiding in a bed of leaves. I probably would have been happy with just a plate of scallops, but I feel as if I needed a serving or two of just straight vegetables. Sometimes when I go on vacation I don’t exactly stick to my morals and eat my daily servings of fruit and vegetables, so I always feel better when I have a salad or some type of vegetable at a meal. Anyways Brasserie Beck lived up to its fame with the mussels and the non-mussel dishes were also delicious, so it was definitely a hit. After we paid the bill and the guys used the bathroom, we headed on our way to that day’s activities. Thank god we ended up going on the metro because it was starting to get colder and I thought I would die in my nonexistent outfit (JK I was wearing clothes, but my pants were so thin that my legs were freezing).

This was the day of museums. We pretty much just walked down streets going into every museum possible. Thank god that everything was free. Otherwise that would have been one huge museum bill. This was taken at the Hirshhorn museum, which was definitely an interesting place. It was a modern art museum with some hilarious things inside. My brother and I had a great time exploring it, but my dad not so much. I think with modern art you just kind of have to let your mind free. The building was kind of like a doughnut, which I really enjoyed. We went to a few other art museums that day, which were much smaller galleries.

We also ended up at the airspace and science museum, which was pretty fun. My brother and I got to do the simulators, which I definitely recommend. It is only 7-8$ depending on which one you do and you don’t pay to visit the museum, so I just think of it as paying for a ticket to the whole museum (which is MASSIVE btw). I’ve actually been here before, so I wasn’t that excited. The simulation was great though and I thought I was going to vomit afterwards. Fun times obviously. My dad enjoyed the museum a lot though. He spent some quality time with the exhibits. I was slowly dying at this point, needing a break before dinner. Thankfully after the museum, we went to rest for an hour before our dinner. I’m going to share the epic dinner with ya’ll tomorrow. You won’t be disappointed. It is droolworthy with quality food porn.

What is the best museum you have ever been to?
Do you have a favorite piece of artwork?

Homemade Dolsot Bibimbap

Hey ya’ll! I have an awesome post for you today. Remember that picture of bibimbap that I shared with ya’ll for last WIAW? Well Carrianne and I decided that we were going to learn to make our own, so we didn’t have to pay 14-20$ every time we wanted dolsot bibimbap. We adventured to Koreatown on Saturday to look for our very own stone bowls. We ended up going to H-mart, which sold bowls for about 9$. That included the lid, bowl, and a plate. We got a few food items at the market to add to the our bibimbap too. On Sunday, we started our Asian food adventure.

Stone Dolsot Bibimbap

1/2 c of cooked brown rice
bean sprouts
matchstick carrots
sauteed zuchinni
sauteed mushrooms (we used a mix of shiitake, crimini, and regular)
1/4 c of cooked meat (we used ground beef with 1 tbsp of sugar and 2 tbsp of soy sauce)
1 egg
1-2 tsp of sesame oil
Gochugang (red paste)

1. First you place your stone bowl on the burner with medium-low heat. Let bowl get extremely hot. Once hot, add in the sesame oil to the bottom of the bowl.

2. Once you add in the oil, you want to layer in the rice. Try to get the rice coated all along the bottom and the sides.

3. Then you add in the vegetables one at a time, making a fan like organization throughout the bowl.

4. Make sure you have cooked everything before placing it on the bowl. A good tip to getting all the vegetables on the bowl in a nice manner and not making a mess is by using tongs to pick up all the things and place them in your stone bowl.

5. Place the fried egg on the top and in the middle of the bowl. Keep heating until you hear a strong sizzling/crackling noise, which will be the rice cooking with the sesame oil. If you want the rice crunchier, you should leave it on the heat for a longer period of time.

6. Remove the bowl from the heat with two oven mitts because the bowl will be extremely hot. Place on your dolsot plate that came along with the bowl.

7. Top with the red paste (be cautious because it can be very spicy depending on the type that you buy), and mix well. You can stir it up and mix all of the things in with the rice.

This was amazing. Seriously tasted just as good as the time we went to the restaurant in Koreatown with our guy friends. We somehow bought the super spicy red paste, so we were about to explode. However I love sweating and cleaning out my sinuses. The rice was perfectly crispy from cooking in the sesame oil in the bottom of the bowl. We had a great amount of vegetables too. You could definitely make a vegetarian bowl by using only vegetables and tofu or vegetables only. I can’t wait to try out more combinations in this bowl because I think there are some good meat options that you can stick in this. Things such as pork belly or real bulgogi beef. Yes, we made a knock off bulgogi with ground beef. It was really delicious though, which was a nice surprise. I am so happy that we ended up buying dolsot stone bowls because this dish ended up being very cheap to prepare.

Also cooking with two is great because you also can clean together, which makes the whole process go by quicker. Anyways Carrianne and I have decided that we are going to be cooking all kinds of Asian recipes, so we can save money and enjoy the food that we love. I hope ya’ll enjoyed this recipe as much as I did. I definitely recommend going out to buy your own stone bowl because this is a really easy and healthy recipe to make. It was like a luxury too. I felt like I was enjoying takeout without having to pick it up or pay for it. Overall this was a success.

Have you ever had bibimbap?
Have you ever tried to make something from a restaurant at home?

 

WIAW the Art of the Party

Hey ya’ll! We are halfway through the week. Exciting. Today is the first day I woke up and was not sore. Success. I’m on my 4th day of Insanity and 2nd day of Hip Hop Abs. Shaun T does both of these workouts and it is quite funny to see the difference between him in both of them. In Hip Hop Abs he is super cheesy and hilarious while in Insanity he is super intense and motivating. I gotta love those workout videos. I think I like them because I can do them on my time and get an intense workout. I really hate the whole idea of driving to the gym, etc etc. Anyways today is my favorite day of the week, What I ate Wednesday. Thanks Jenn for hosting such a fantastic day every single week! Today mine has a special theme, ART. I love art and Austin is surrounded by art as you will see throughout my post.

In Austin there is this really cool place called Hope Garden (although the name may have been changed) where graffiti artists can come and express themselves on the walls of this place. There is this huge castle behind all the walls too, so I think the name may have something to do with a castle. This was one of my favorite pieces at the place. I took my best friend when she was in town from Boston and it was cool seeing so much artwork in one space. I love graffiti to be honest. I really don’t think it should be illegal if it is like this or Banksy style.

For breakfast I had chocolate blueberry flourless pancakes. These were delicious. I made a blueberry compote for the topping. Such a good idea. I will definitely be sharing this recipe with you tomorrow. I ended up making two servings of it. That was probably because I used egg whites this time instead of just a regular egg. I probably would have had even more if I used a 1/4 c to scoop out the batter, but last minute I was like why not use a 1/3 cup. I made 8 pancakes total. I know what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow!

Healthy snack alert! I made kale chips. I am obsessed with kale chips. Usually my roommate makes them and they are so crispy and delicious, so I thought why not create my own. I think I put too much kale on one pan, but they still came out crispy. I topped mine with nutritional yeast, Parmesan, and olive oil. Such a winning combination. Kale is really good for you, so I definitely recommend making these or making a salad of kale in order to get a large amount of nutrients.

I was walking town lake in Austin when I saw this one. We were just about to go across a bridge to walk the other side of the lake when I noticed this. I love shoes, so obviously I had to snap a picture of this. I love that small little things like this are just hidden all around the city waiting for someone to discover it. I think it just makes us more unique. Keeping Austin weird.

You know I had to throw a salad into the mix. This one has spinach leaves, veggie patch falafel, and slices of mushrooms that I stole from my brother. He wasn’t using them anymore, so I thought why not throw them in my salad. These falafel balls are amazing. They are from the same company that made the meatballs I used in my meatball sub recipe, so you should definitely check out all the products they have to offer. I swear vegetarians get the best frozen food products. Noms.

My favorite banana truck has been open for a little while now for the new season, so I obviously had to go get me one of these bad boys. I just got a plain one. It had dark chocolate and was rolled in sprinkles. I follow them on instagram and they have specials occasionally, which I’ve been really wanting. One of them was called an Almond Joy. It had chocolate, caramel, coconut, and chopped almonds. It looked like a banana heaven on a stick. I can’t wait to check out what this week’s special is.

This is what I am probably obsessed with most in life. Cauliflower crust pizza. Ever since I made it for the blog, I have been eating it non-stop. This has honey bbq sauce, sliced ham, pineapple, and low moisture mozzarella. It is so good. I think I cooked the crust perfectly this time. It was crisp and browned just the way it should be. The honey bbq may be the best sauce to put on the pizza. It is sweet yet tangy. It goes well with the citrus flavor of the pineapple and the saltiness of the sliced ham. This recipe is my best friend.

This is an iconic graffiti in Austin besides the I love you sign. It says never give up and has pacman next to it. This is on town lake too. I think it is super cute and motivational especially for the runners and bikers that always go past it on the trail.

Since summer is upon us, my mom and I decided to get some fresh fish. Halibut is our favorite and it was on sale at Central Market, so we were like why not? We also ended up buying a spicy soy glaze for the fish. It wasn’t spicy at all and had just the right amount of flavor. The halibut was meaty and cooked perfectly. The meat just flaked off as you dug your fork into it. I made a side of green beans for it. Yep, canned green beans. Can’t live without them.

I hope you all have a fantastic WIAW!

What do you think of graffiti? Is there a lot around you?
What is your favorite kind of art?

A Birthday Dinner

Hey ya’ll! I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. My Sunday was pretty great. I had volleyball practice with my girls, which was super fun, and then we went to help raise money for the maccabi organization at a wing bar in Austin. Only a few of the girls went after practice, but it was fun to spend time outside volleyball with them. Anyways for today I have a restaurant review of a trendy place in Austin known as Paggi House. We ended up going for my grandfather’s birthday this year, and in years past. My uncle deals wine to the restaurant, so it is always extremely great service when we go.

This looks interesting. It was cast iron wild mushrooms topped with panko crusted cheese and garden fresh herbs. The cheese melted in your mouth and provided a nice crunch from the panko breading. It went along great with the mushrooms. The mushrooms were perfectly cooked and sauteed in the cast iron pan. I wish we would have had more of this dish because it was that delicious. I really enjoyed the appetizers throughout the night. The mushrooms tasted like butter and when paired with the cheese it was like tasty explosions in your mouth.

Sorry about the dark images, the restaurant was dark and only lit with candles at our table and the light from outside. This was a sweet potato soup topped panko crusted chevre, red curry and fennel. Paggi house must really love fried cheese balls. Not that I’m complaining because they are the most amazing thing to ever exist. Cheese is definitely one of the greatest foods in the world, so a fried ball of it is great. This soup was creamy and rich. The sweet potato flavor was not overwhelming, and the cheese melted in the soup so it made it sweeter and creamier. The herbs provided a certain flavor to the dish, which was very enjoyable.

If my entree wasn’t so mind blowing, I would say this was the best dish of the night. It was the special small plate of the evening. It was pork belly topped with apples, foam, and a sweet aoili sauce. It was the amazing. The pork belly was so tender and packed with a ton of flavor. While the apples provided a nice crunch to the soft meat. The sauce was creamy and rich, which just added to the variety of flavors that was packed into this small plate. We ended up ordering three of these for the table, and I totally kept snatching bites of it.

This picture is the worst, but the dish was so delicious. It was grilled tuna tataki. It had pickled ginger, avocado, basil, and orange gastrique. The tuna was extremely fresh. It was a light appetizer that provided a ton of flavor in such as small dish. My grandma loves raw tuna appetizers, so we of course ordered two of these. In my opinion, I’ve had better tuna tataki. However if you don’t consume a lot of raw tuna then you will probably think this dish is amazing.

Hello to the star of the night. This may have been one of the best pieces of fish I have ever had. This was the special of the night. It was gulf red snapper with crab meat and avocado. The fish was extremely fresh. The crab meat was such a great addition to the dish. I can’t remember the sauce on it, but it was extremely light and had a hint of lemon in it. The meat just flaked off the snapper with every single bite.

It was perfectly pan-fried. The fish was crispy in just the right amount. This may have been the best dinner I have had at Paggi House. We have been there three times for my grandpa’s birthday, but this definitely was the shining moment of the restaurant. In my opinion, they should make this special a regular on the menu since it is so delicious. I think that it would sell a lot. My mom and I both ordered the dish, so obviously it will be popular. Who doesn’t like crab meat on top of a perfectly cooked fish? A sick person that is who.

For dessert, they had made an Italian cream cake. I am definitely not a fan of this cake. It tasted more like a weird version of banana bread. I’m a simple girl when it comes to birthday cake. I like buttercream icing and white cake. To be honest, someone could just buy me a container of delicious buttercream icing and I would just eat that with a candle in it. I love it that much.

 

I hope you have a fantastic Monday!
What is your favorite type of birthday cake?
Where do you like to go eat on your birthday?

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Hey ya’ll! It is Friday, which I couldn’t be happier about. I feel like weekends are still magical even when I’m not in school. Funny story about last night though. I had a major panic attack at 11 pm last night and emailed my adviser at school about 4 times. When I transferred back from Boston, I had to get approval for all of these hours since Texas is weird and requires all of these dumb credits (like Texas History – will not use that class ever), so I needed to make sure that I was still under the minimum hours of transfer credit allowed. However I convinced myself that I had way too many transfer hours and that I wasn’t going to be able to graduate and go to grad school. Luckily my adviser told me I was crazy (no he didn’t, but I bet he was thinking I was) and that I was fine. Thank god. I was going to go cry to someone at the university or something to make it better. Since that was so stressful, I have an awesome and delicious recipe to share with ya’ll! Cauliflower pizza crust. Sounds kind of gross, but oh my buhjeezus is this stuff good!

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

2 cups of grated cauliflower
1/2 c of finely chopped basil
1/3 c of liquid egg whites
1 egg
2 c of fat free shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 450. Then you  need to cook the cauliflower. I used frozen cauliflower, so I just boiled some water, threw in the cauliflower, covered, and let cook in boiling water for 4 minutes. Once it was done cooking, I removed it from the water by draining it in the sink. Then I placed it in a food processor to chop into small bits. I then placed two cups into a mixing bowl.

2. The first time I made this recipe, I finely chopped all the basil by hand. That took forever. New and smarter plan is to throw the amount of basil you want into the food processor and chop it until you have fine pieces. Throw the basil into the mixing bowl with the cauliflower.

3. Then add the liquid egg whites, cheese, and 1 egg into the mixing bowl. Stir well until it is a thick clump.

4. Get a cookie sheet and place a piece of parchment paper over it. Spray the paper with non-stick cooking spray.

5. Grab clumps of the “dough” to make 4 mini pizzas. You keep adding to each pile until they are about the same. Then place the pizzas into the oven for 20 minutes. If the pizzas are not as crispy as you would like, add another 5 minutes to the time. However be careful of burning them.

6. Once you remove from the oven, add on toppings that you would like. I made one pizza with tomato paste, fat free slices of ham, and pineapple. The other pizza had mushrooms, onions, and sliced tomatoes on top of it. Both pizzas were topped with fat free mozzarella and a sprinkle of low moisture mozzarella. My mom topped her pizzas with a larger amount of cheese. It just depends on how many calories you want to consume from cheese.

7. You then place the pizza back into the oven until the cheese has completely melted. This could either be very quick or slow, depending on the type of cheese you have topped your pizza with.

Hello to cheesy goodness. You seriously can’t even tell that the crust is made from cauliflower. The basil and cheese masks that pungent cauliflower flavor, and provides a nice savory flavor to the dish. The crust wasn’t extremely crispy, so I recommend going light on the sauce. I learned my lesson from the first time we attempted this recipe. I was in charge of putting on the sauce, which I overloaded on and it soaked through the crust and all over the pan. It was still delicious though. You can cut the pizza into four little slices too. However it will not be like a perfectly cooked slice of pizza from Italy where it just flops. It takes some napkins to eat these. It is also really good as left overs.

The Hawaiian pizza was definitely my favorite. Later on when we made more, I decided to use a honey BBQ sauce for my base instead of tomato sauce. Best decision ever. It was amazing. This is now my go to healthy recipe. It provides you with tons of fiber, it is low calorie, and it is a tasty option when eating healthy. I can’t wait to try all different kinds of toppings. Mexican pizza? Pesto pizza? You bet I have all kinds of crazy ideas swirling around in my head right now. My mom and I are such fans of this recipe that we have already made it three times and she just bought more cauliflower today, so we could eat it again. Noms. Go out and make these immediately! You definitely won’t regret it.

Have you ever made a healthy alternative pizza crust?
What is your favorite pizza toppings?

Bubble Up Pizza

You hear the word bubble up pizza, and you may be a little scared about what that really means. Bubble up pizza is a funny thing for my family because it brings up a lot of memories. My mom and I love this dish, but it does scare my brother because one time when he was home alone it exploded on top of the stove. Trust me, the dish is really good and you will want to make this all the time once you taste the deliciousness it has to offer.

Bubble Up Pizza

1 roll of low fat biscuits (10 rolls)
1 c of chopped onion
1 15 oz can of tomato sauce (15 cal for 1/4 c)
1 1/4 c cheese (used 1/2 fat free mozzarella and 1/2 reduced fat)
1/2 c chopped green bell pepper
1 c chopped mushrooms
1 package (20 oz) ultra lean ground turkey
a few dashes of garlic powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Brown ground turkey and drain if needed.

3. Stir in onion, tomato sauce, garlic, pepper, and mushrooms. Cook until thoroughly mixed and peppers begin to soften.

4. Cut each biscuit into four pieces and then add into the meat mixture (make sure pan is removed from heat).

5. Make sure that the biscuits are thoroughly covered with sauce.

6. Pour into a 9×13 baking pan that has been sprayed with pam.

7. Place in the oven for 25 minutes.

8. Remove from oven to add the cheese evenly over the top of the casserole and place back into the oven for 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

And now you have a bite of delicious food. You can cut the casserole into 8 servings. This is definitely one of the best healthy dishes I’ve had in a long time. That is probably because I haven’t really cooked that much besides my normal staples in a long time, but that is about to change. I’m ready to share more recipes and try out some of my crazy experiments. This recipe was actually different from my family’s old recipe, but I liked to added touches of the green peppers, onions, and mushrooms. I think I am going to have to mess around and add some more vegetables in the mixture next time.

I hope you enjoyed the recipe and try it out as soon as possible. You definitely won’t regret it and it is super simple to make. Have an awesome Friday! I hope everyone is out having fun right now and not stuck inside like me working on some biochemical nutrition. The things I do in order to graduate with the highest honors. Go me! Nerding out. Tomorrow I am going to have a food trailer review and I’m going to out to celebrate my grandpa’s birthday. I’m excited for a good meal!

Belated Birthday

Hey ya’ll! This week is sort of crazy for me. I’m taking the GRE on Thursday night, so I’ve been devoting my life to studying for it. I am praying that I do good, so I don’t have to take it again. That thing is freaking expensive. To be honest, I don’t really think you need to be skilled in geometry or have a high vocab to get your masters in nutrition and exercise physiology. Anyways this past weekend it was my mom’s birthday! I seriously love my mom to death, she is pretty awesome.

Funny story actually. So on Friday we went to this place called Hey Cupcake to get my cousin a few cupcakes for her birthday (yeah, all of my relatives are born at the same time – weird), and my mom decided to get one for herself for her birthday. The guy working there was like well how old are you and she was like guess how old my daughter is, so he looks at me and goes 16. REALLY DUDE? Like really? I’m 23, but sure 7 years off isn’t bad. He then proceeds to flirt with me and talk about how tall women are beautiful. Umm okay, you just thought I was 16 about 5 seconds ago.

For my mom’s actual birthday, we ended up going to the Whole Foods in downtown Austin to pick up lunch and about 5 million desserts. Okay, I exaggerated a bit. Only like 6 desserts because there was a surprise waiting for my mom at home. We first went to go get my mom a chocolate covered caramel apple at the chocolate bar in the Whole Foods, and that is where I saw some pretty cool stained glass chocolate. I love that chocolate is an art form. I also love the way it tastes. You are probably a deeply disturbed person if you don’t like chocolate.

For my lunch I had a salad from the hot and cold food bars. I piled it on with delicious goodness. It had spinach leaves and romaine lettuce, eggplant with miso glaze, roasted zucchini, grilled mushrooms, pesto roasted tofu, edamame, and some roasted tomatoes. Healthy and delicious. That is my style. My brother and mom split a sandwich called the Mopac. I know ya’ll are telling me to shut up about the food and just get to the desserts, so lets do this.

That is beautiful. I have a weakness for cherries. Oh and if you didn’t already know chocolate too. I love chocolate. This was a black forest cake in a cup. I love when Whole Foods smashes up a dessert and puts it in a cup to go. This dessert was probably my favorite of all the ones we picked out to have. It was so rich from the chocolate and it was moist. Thank god because I hate when cakes or brownies are like crispy instead of squishy.

That cloud of fluffy icing looks like a nice pillow that I just want to lay on and eat it up. Maybe not exactly, but I definitely want to gobble it up. This is the tres leches cake at Whole Foods. If you haven’t had it, you seriously need to get in your car and go pick one up immediately. This is probably the moistest cake I have ever had, and also the best tres leches cake I’ve probably had too. Whole Foods does a perfect job of incorporating the classic flavors of this traditional Mexican dessert.

The surprise that was awaiting my mother. A Banana Fosters birthday cake. Yes, I know. This actually exists in reality. Thank you Whole Foods for being the greatest place in the world. Okay I wouldn’t go that far, but I do love the Whole Foods. Really just the one in Austin because it is the headquarters and far superior to any other one in the world.

This cake was heaven. It had a thin layer of caramel for every icing layer within the cake. The bottom of the cake was surrounded in dehydrated bananas, I was a fan and no one else was. The icing was fluffy and delicious, while the cake was not dry and had so many flavors packed into it. It was sort of overwhelming, but in a good way.

I ended up having some fruit salad, so I could pretend that I didn’t eat all of that dessert. I’m not that much of a fatty. I only had one or two bites of every dessert that we actually got. I liked the fruit salad though. It was only filled berries and pineapple. I was glad because I’m not a fan of honeydew and I hate when people put it in fruit salad. Gross.

I just thought this was really neat. We obviously didn’t buy a huge thing of chocolate, but I love how they do all these cool artsy pieces in the display case at the chocolate bar in the Whole Foods. I do wonder if someone actually buys these things. I wouldn’t mind if a guy bought me that key in dark chocolate.

We know I love cupcakes. My weakness in life. Whole Foods does such a good job at making the cupcakes look crazy adorable, so people will buy them. This one was my favorite one that day. It was an icecream sunday on top of a plain vanilla cupcake. I’ve had their cupcakes before, so I didn’t want to get one. I love the icing, but the cake is just sort of a cake. Whole Foods is obviously somewhere you don’t go to get the cupcakes, but still most of their desserts are pretty mind blowing.

What is your favorite dessert?
How often do you go to Whole Foods?

WIAW (I’m Back)

Hey ya’ll! Sorry I’ve been MIA from the blogging world. Lets just say I have a knack of misplacing things in my room and stuff. For the past week and a half, I haven’t been able to find my camera charger. Uh oh. That means no new photos for the blog since they have all been hanging out on my camera. Thankfully when I was home this past weekend, I found my charger in my backpack that I took to Boston. My bad. So now I’m back and just in time for my favorite day of the week: What I Ate Wednesday. Thanks to Jenn for hosting my favorite day of the week!

Hello to a breakfast of champions. Sometimes when I go grocery shopping I eyeball certain things, like these Vans lite waffles, and debate if I really need them. I then come up with amazing breakfasts like this one to justify why I really need to buy these. Heck plus they were on sale, so it was calling to my Jewish nature.

This lovely creation was two Vans lite waffles, a sliced banana, strawberry slices, fat free vanilla yogurt, and a sprinkle of chocolate chips.The only thing I thought was missing was some dark chocolate sauce. Oh well, I definitely will be putting that on top next time. This was the perfect breakfast and it held me over through the morning until I ate my lunch after back to back classes.

Smoothies are one of the best snacks out there. You can totally customize them to your preferences and they are very filling if you put lots of fiber, like I do, in them. Mine was a chocolate pineapple smoothie topped with some fat free whip cream and dark chocolate sauce (I love my dark chocolate – who doesn’t).

My mom and I went on a little shopping spree the other weekend, and ended up at godiva because a couple of new flavors were out. We ended up getting an 8 piece box of chocolates – total score in my mind. The flavors are birthday cake, chocolate chip cookie dough, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin spice, walnut brownie, and pineapple hummingbird. So far the birthday cake is my favorite. I pretty much love anything birthday cake flavored, so throw it in a chocolate and I’m yours.

Since I have class literally all day pretty much, I have been needing to pack lunches that fit into my backpack and are easy to eat throughout the day. This means tons of salads. For this day in particular, I had a hamburger salad. I did meatless crumbles, shredded lettuce, sliced red onion, sliced pickles, mushrooms, and it was topped with mustard. Oh man. This was actually really good. I was impressed. Especially because I threw this right together before I had to go to class. Skills.

My mom and I are obsessed with Halibut. When we were at Central Market we saw some fresh fillets of halibut that were really thick, so we decided to get it and make fish tacos with. We were originally going to marinate it in some hatch chile soy sauce, but my mom realized that she had thrown it away. We ended up just tossing some olive oil, salt, and pepper on them.

The fish turned out amazing. It was flaky to perfection. We just ended up throwing them on some corn tortillas that we also got at Central Market, and topped them with diced onions and tomatoes. This was the perfect dinner.

Froyo is always the best night cap in my mind. You can’t get anything better than some low calorie frozen yogurt with amazing toppings. Definitely will have to do a review of the local froyo places in San Marcos sometime soon – I won’t complain about that!

Hope everyone has an amazing Wednesday! I’m dying because I just had my intermediate volleyball class, and I swear all we do is run instead of actually play volleyball. I’m ready to play!

Bahhston Day 2

Hey ya’ll! Hope everyone has been having a great Friday. Mine has been pretty relaxing. I’ve been reading books, watching some movies, and I’m going out with my younger brother tonight to the UT volleyball game and to dinner (which has yet to be determined). Anyways, let me get back to my trip to Boston.

Friday morning I woke up, and decided to go on a little adventure while Carrianne was at work doing her thing at the Children’s Hospital. I wondered over to Newbury street, which has some of the greatest shopping and has a cute Boston feel to it with the brick buildings alongside both sides of the street.

As I was walking around looking at the shops, I stumbled upon Georgetown Cupcakes. The shop has been made famous by the TV show on TLC following the two sisters that own the company. My stomach was growling, and I wanted to see if the hype about the cupcakes was actually true.

They had tons of cupcakes on display and for sale inside the store. I got to see all this once I waited in line OUTSIDE for about 10 minutes. Apparently the shop was too crowded for people to go in, but really there were just a bunch of annoying girls standing in the way. When I finally got in, I had a hard time choosing what to eat, but I decided to have a gluten free cupcake since I wanted to be nice on my stomach. It was a gluten free lava fudge cupcake (picture will come later when I do a Boston Cupcake review post), and let me tell you it was actually pretty delicious. I went on my merry way with my cupcake and cup of fat free milk.

I was trying to hold off on buying anything because I had promised Carrianne that we would go shopping over the weekend since we both had come into some money. However, I stepped in the Steve Madden store and couldn’t resist (I have a problem with SM because their shoes are amazing). I ended up having to order a pair of boots to be shipped because they had run out of 10. If these shoes go on sale, I’m definitely going to get the tan ones too. They are that fabulous.

After a few more hours of strolling around Boston, Carrianne had texted me that she was walking home from work and wanted to meet at Dunkin Donuts. However, I was going at tortoise pace, so I just met her back at the apartment. Then it was time for dinner.

We went to Fish Market. It is seriously probably one of the best sushi places in Boston. It was quite a trek from Carrianne’s, and I wore uncomfortable shoes. Bad decision. I guess I forgot that we don’t live down the street anymore (oh how I miss that). We were supposed to meet one of our old roommates there, but she ended up not being able to come. Her loss because the food was AMAZING.

For an appetizer, I had Agi Dashi Tofu. It is a fried tofu served in a light shoyu broth with scallions. Oh man. This was a great way to start off the meal. The tofu was perfectly fried, and it was silken tofu so it fell apart when you bit into it. The broth was light, and the dish wasn’t filling at all, so I had room for a ton of sushi rolls.

For my first round, I had a Shiitake Mushroom Tempura Maki roll. There were only 4 pieces, which I was sad about, but the fried mushrooms in the roll were so good that I forgot about how small it was. The brown thing on the right is a fried tofu wrapper and the one of the top left is sweet egg omelet. My mind was blown with the tofu wrapper sushi. I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought I would try it since it is vegetarian friendly. Oh god I could have probably eaten like ten more of those, but I didn’t have time to stay at the restaurant all night.

My last roll was the Salmon Skin roll. It is salmon skin, bonito flakes, cream cheese, and cucumber. This is one of my favorite rolls at Fish Market because it tastes like bacon. Now that I don’t eat meat, except fish, this is the closest thing I will get to eating actual meat. Oh man. The crispiness of the salmon skin meshes perfectly with the smooth texture of the cream cheese. Definitely order this if you ever go here!

After dinner, we had to hurry back to the apartment because I needed to change because I was going out to a concert. My friend, David, had texted me asking me if I wanted to go with him and a few of his friends to some electronic show, so I decided why not. The artist we were going to see was Viceroy, so I put on my best raging outfit: high wasted white shorts, a see through lace black top, and a black bandeau.

This is David, and this photo is actually pretty old. The only photo I took of us this weekend is for another post much later on. He is pretty great. Anyways I met him and his friends at his old frat house over in Cambridge (Yeah, he went to MIT), and we headed over to the concert. One of the other groups was still performing when we got there, so we waited until the real party started. After the concert, we went back to his place and played Mario Kart for a while. Apparently I now suck at Mario Kart. Oh well, it was still really fun and I did get 1st once. Go me.

Hope everyone has a great Friday night! I’ll be back tomorrow with some more Boston fun.

Do you like Electronic Music?
If so, what is your favorite artist?

 

 

 

MISO Hungry

Hey ya’ll! I’m having a fantastic time in Boston. I’ve been shopping, eating out at delicious places, and have been enjoying the company of some of my closest friends. It also really makes me miss living in Boston. This city is amazing. Anyways, I’m not blogging about Boston today. Instead I’m sharing a delicious recipe with ya’ll for a Tofu Miso Soup.

Tofu Miso Soup
1 1/2 c vegetable broth
2 tsp Miso paste (I used organic)
1 c of diced mushrooms
3 oz of cubed tofu
1 tsp olive oil
vegetables of your choice

1. Pour tsp of oil into a pan and let heat.
2. Add in mushrooms and cook until brown and softened.
3. Then pour in vegetable broth and miso paste.
4. Let it boil for one minute, then turn down to low-medium heat.
5. Add in tofu (if you want it crispy, cook ahead of time with mushrooms).
6. Let cook in soup for 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
7. If adding in other vegetables, such as bok choy, place in soup to cook for the 4 minutes.
8. Before finishing, make sure the miso paste has dissolved into the broth. Then serve.

This soup is amazing. The recipe is only for one, but if you want to make it for two just double everything in the recipe and cook it in a large pan. I used a large fry pan, but if you make it for two or more you should use a pot to cook the soup in. One of the other great things about this soup is that it is really low calorie and miso is good for your health. With Soy Miso, there are very good cardiovascular benefits, anti-cancer benefits, and digestive system benefits. Even Dr. Oz supports miso in the diet, not that I particularly care on his opinion since he isn’t a nutritionist or registered dietitian.

The other great thing about the soup is that it is really filling. You are really getting a bang for you buck with this soup. I am a big fan of Asian flavors, which is why this soup calls to me. I literally have been making this almost every day because it is just that good. Also I didn’t want the rest of the ingredients to go bad, so I had to eat it every day anyways.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. I know I have. I’ll let ya’ll know about that later on. I’m going to Harvard Square today for some fun adventures and good food (obviously ya’ll will get the details later and some mouth watering pictures too).

Have you ever been to Boston?
What is your favorite place to visit there?