This Is The New Year!

The first week of Spring 2013 has been busy and fun around here!!

The sun has been shining, wedding bells have been ringing, and the sound of laughter has been all around. Spring is such a wonderful time to review the past year, set new goals for the coming year, and to start everything fresh! I could not be more excited about the year ahead.

Other than cleaning up the house last week, I have also been cleaning up some other matters. For one, I had a dental cleaning this morning and boy does my mouth feel extra awesome right now. Friends, I highly recommend that you go to a dental cleaning at least once a year (ideally, twice a year). You will save a lot of time, pain, and money in the long run by taking the time to have your teeth checked and cleaned annually. K, enough of the dental hygiene pitch ;)

Another think I've been trying to clean up here is Dr. Love and my diet. We are, generally, pretty healthy people, but, in my opinion, there is always room for improvement. Lately, I have been making sure to take my daily vitamins (Super B-Complex, D3, and Multivitamin), I have almost entirely switched over from coffee to green tea (antioxidants are awwwweeesome!), and I have been hitting up my fitness boot camp 2-3 times a week (which still hasn't stopped the boot camp instructor from teasing me for "taking a bunch of days off in the middle," sigh....). Another big change that I'm working very hard on implementing is switching from outside meals to homemade ones. As my legal practice has gotten busier and busier, I have gotten lazier about preparing homemade meals. That being said, recently, I started taking shortcuts that make preparing homemade meals a whole lot easier. For one, I buy my veggies washed, pre-cut, and prepped for cooking. While the pre-prepped options are pricier than their uncut/unprepared counterparts, they take a lot less time to prepare. As a result, I find that I am more willing to cook a meal at home than to buy something from outside. I also have been buying 4-6 chicken breast fillets and marinating them all on the same day then grilling them as the week goes on. The result is that my prep time is cut down by a lot and by day 3, the chicken is absolutely delicious because it has been marinating for days.

One final way that I have been welcoming Spring is by playing really uplifting music whenever I am in the car or relaxing. Here's a new favorite:

Oh, and here are some recent pics:

 Wore this to a friend's wedding. Dress code was "modern hipster cool."  This is about as "hipster" as I get...which is basically not hipster at all...I guess I just went with the "modern cool" :)

 Recent hair and makeup for meeting...you can almost never go wrong with a chignon.

 The bro and me grabbing brunch at Pelican Hills Resort with Dr. Love and a few friends this past weekend.

Cracking the bro's back while enjoying the Laguna Beach sun...Do NOT try this (the backcracking part...the enjoying the sun part is recommended to all) at home. :)

That's it for this week, friends! Does Spring kick your butt into action, as it does mine? If so, what are some ways that you like to freshen up your life when Spring rolls around?

x

Yum Diddles!!!

Happy Friday, friends!!!

Today's post will be super short, as I have some legal research that I need to get started.

As you know, I had friends/family over last weekend and we served bbq for Saturday late lunch/dinner. Dr. Love handled the grilling, while I whipped together potato salad and macaroni and cheese. I tweaked the potato salad recipe slightly by keeping in five of the ten egg yolks. Let's face it friends, egg yolks are yum diddly-ocious. I also did half curly parsley and half Italian parsley because the recipe did not specify which one to use. I liked the slight variation in the flavors so decided to include some of both. As for the macaroni and cheese, I used store bought bread crumbs, and put the (turkey) bacon on the side. Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe.

 Sorry about the crappy pic...this was one or two day old potato salad/mac 'n cheese (with a Subway sandwich). I forgot to take pics of the fresh products on the day of the bbq. You get the point though...

Hope you guys enjoy these recipes as much as we all did.

Have a great weekend!

x

Slimmer Stuffed Mushrooms

Happy Friday the Thirteenth, friends!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been making leaner, higher protein meals for Dr. Love and myself lately in an effort to make our lives healthier and our waistlines slimmer.

A childhood friend of mine visited last year and made us the most delicious stuffed mushrooms I have ever had. They were soooo yummy, but not really super healthy. In an effort to experience that level of stuffed mushroom euphoria again, I searched the web for healthy stuffed mushroom recipes. I found this recipe, and boy is it yummy. I highly recommend that you try it out...it was great!

Unfortunately, I didn't have all the necessary ingredients to make those stuffed mushrooms last week, nor did I feel like having something filled with bacon and bread crumbs. So I got creative and came up with two types of stuffed mushrooms with ingredients that most of us already have at home. Even better, these recipes can be made leaner by reducing the amount of cheese or by opting for a skimmer/lower-fat cheese.

So, without further ado, here are my original stuffed mushroom recipes!!!

Goat cheese, garlic, parsley stuffed mushrooms on left; Parmesan cheese, pizza sauce, red pepper, basil stuffed mushrooms on right.

For Both Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

Eight medium sized portobello mushrooms (rinsed and dried off, stems gently removed and finely chopped). 

Cooking Time and Temp:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Once mushrooms have been filled (mix recipes below), place both types of stuffed mushrooms on a greased cookie sheet, then lightly spray some cooking oil over them.

3. Place in oven and bake for about 20 minutes (check oven periodically to make sure mushrooms are not overcooked).

Goat Cheese, Garlic, Parsley Stuffed Mushrooms

Instructions:

1. In a bowl, mix together half of chopped mushrooms stems, about 3/4 cup of goat cheese, garlic powder/garlic salt/a clove of fresh garlic, about half a teaspoon of dried parsley flakes (or more if desired), and black pepper, and a dash of salt.

2. Stuff half of your mushroom caps with goat cheese mix and top with sprinkles of parsley. 

3. Place on greased cookie sheet. 

Parmesan Cheese, Pizza Sauce, Red Pepper, Basil Stuffed Mushrooms

Instructions:

1. In a different bowl, mix together the remaining half of chopped mushroom steps, about 1/4 -1/2 a cup of grated parmesan cheese, pizza sauce (I used a jar of Trader Joe's Pizza Sauce that I had in my pantry...it was a little more bitter than I generally prefer, but still good), half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes (less for those that don't like too much spice), about half a teaspoon of dried basil flakes, and salt and pepper to taste. 

2. Stuff the remaining half of your mushroom caps with pizza sauce mix and top with sprinkles of parmesan cheese.

3. Place on greased cookie sheet along side goat cheese stuffed mushrooms and cook as instructed above.

These stuffed mushrooms were very easy to make, on the healthier side of the stuffed mushroom spectrum, and absolutely delicious!!! Dr. Love and I loved both recipes, but he preferred the pizza sauce ones, while I fell in love with the goat cheese version.

Hope you enjoy these stuffed mushrooms as much as we did and that you have a great Friday and weekend!

x

Pro-Teeny Bikini Beany Goodness

Hi friends!

In an effort to eat healthy, slim down for the summer, and feel energized, I have been cooking a lot of lean meals recently.  While my lunches are homemade sandwiches, I try to make higher-protein dinners. One such dinner that I tried (SUCCESSFULLY!) to make this week is my all-time-favorite pink bean stew recipe ("mashta-shorba," as we call it in our family) that my grandmother, mom, and aunt all mastered!  Their versions were so good that I was always too scared to try it out myself...I mean, what is worse then making one of your favorite family dishes and ruining it? Okay, there are a lot worse things than that, but it would still be pretty sad...

Well, as I am in a rather "ballsy" mood this month, I called my aunt, got the recipe from her, and bravely forged ahead. And thank goodness I did! The stew came out great, it's packed with a ton of protein, and it has been lunch/dinner for Dr. Love and I for days now! So good, so healthy, so inexpensive to make, so easy to make, but this recipe is time-consuming!!! I mean a whole 5-6 hours of cooking with stirring every 30 or so minutes. It is worth it though, and I hope you enjoy the recipe as much as I do!

 Pink beans...soaked overnight and rinsed thoroughly.

 Large yellow onion...sliced.

 Onion slices...sauteed.

 Onion, bean, bulgar, turmeric, black pepper, red pepper, and water...slowly simmering.

 Potatoes and jalapenos added.

Ingredients

• One Pack of Uncooked Pink Beans (If you can't find these at your grocery store, you can swap in pinto beans)
• One Ladle full of Bulgar (AKA: cracked wheat grain) 
• Two Russet Potatoes 
• One Large Yellow Onion
• Two Jalapeno Peppers
• Turmeric (I think I put in a little less than a teaspoons worth)
• Salt (to taste)
• Black Pepper (About half a teaspoon)
• A pinch of Red Cayenne Pepper (I use this red pepper mix that my grandmother made a loooooong time ago...it's the best...)

Recipe
1.  Soak pink beans in a bowl filled with water overnight;
2. In the morning, rinse beans several times with fresh water;
3. Cut onion into slices and sauté in a large pot with canola oil (on Medium works best on my stove) until onions are soft/caramelized (I added a dash of brown sugar to my onions to bring out their sweetness);
4. Once the onions have softened and started to lightly brown, lower heat from Medium to Low, pour pink beans, turmeric, black pepper, red pepper, and bulgar in pot;
5. Then pour enough filtered water over the contents of the pot so that you have 2 inches of water on top of it all. This part was tricky for me, as a lot of the stuff floats/rises as soon as you pour the water over it, so it's hard to tell how high the water is. I would say, err in the direction of less water, and just watch it as it cooks. You can always add more water during the cooking process (although, that will slow down the cooking, unless you pre-heat the water you're adding), but it's really annoying to have to take a bunch of tasty/spice-filled water out at the end when you realize you added way too much (happened to this girl here).
6. Now you just give it all a mix, and let the contents of the pot cook (You'll see small bubbles, anything more means your heat is too high. That is bad, because you could end up burning the beans at the bottom of the pot, so you want to make sure the heat is just right), for the next 5 hours.
7. During that time, you will need to stir the stew every 30 or so minutes...this part is a pain, but it is worth it!
8. After 5 hours, peel your potatoes, chop them in half, and toss them and your jalapenos into the pot. Once the potatoes and jalapenos are in the pot, there should be enough liquid remaining in the pot to cover the top of the potatoes.
9. At this point, you can add salt to taste...I added less than I really though was necessary at first (just to be safe), and added more once the stew was done and I could give it a taste test.
10. Let beans cook for another hour after you add potatoes, jalapenos, and salt.
11. At 6 hours, you are done and ready to eat!!!

 Final product on left. I made a tomato, avocado, red onion, lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper, and salt salad on side.

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do, and that it kick starts your protein-powered, bikini-ready, summertime fun!

In the meantime, have a great weekend!!!

x

Greekin' Out

Lately, more so than usual, I have been looking for healthy and fresh recipes and ingredients to fill Dr. Love and my diets with. There's something about the sunny, warmer weather that kicks me into work-out/eat-right mode.

In the past few weeks, I have seriously been geek-ing out on the world wide web looking for new ideas in the kitchen. One commonality on almost every health blog I visited, was the far stretching love and uses for Greek yogurt. I mean, I have seen it used in desserts, dressings, as a snack. You name it, and it has been tried, loved, and blogged about.

Coincidentally, my sister-in-law LeRobins (who also happens to be my sister in law...get it?...she's a lawyer like me....one of my best friends from law school, actually!) was just raving this past weekend about how good and healthy Greek yogurt is. After all of the blog/online recommendations and a super reliable one from LeRobins, I had no choice but to try it out. So, I decided to Greek-out Persian style...and what better way is there to do that than with "Joojeh Kabob?"  Joojeh Kabob refers to the Persian style marinading and grilling of chicken breasts. The Greek twist is that I marinated my chicken breast pieces in Greek Yogurt.

Here's how I went from geek to Persian-Greek:

1. I used chicken breast fillets because they are thick enough to dice up...

2. The chicken pack consisted of four fillets, but I only used two, as I was only cooking for Dr. Love and myself. Even with two, we ended up with leftovers for tomorrow's lunch.

3. I diced the two chicken fillets into one inch cubes. (Tip: Consistency in size will result in consistency in cooking time.)

4. I then marinated my chicken breast cubes with the following ingredients: one tablespoon of Greek yogurt (woot woot!), black pepper, chicken seasoning (the one I use is by Weber and called Kick'N Chicken...I love it), garlic sea salt seasoning (mine is McCormick brand), turmeric, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, salt (from my fatty puffer fish salt shaker), and dried parsley flakes (not pictured).

5. I mixed it all together...

6. I marinated the extra two breasts for tomorrow's dinner, but substituted out the Greek yogurt for extra virgin olive oil, mostly because I'm not sure how the yogurt and chicken combo will do overnight. 

7. After marinating the chicken, I covered both the cubed chicken and tomorrow's leftovers, placed them in the fridge, and turned my attention to my wooden skewers. The only way to barbecue with these babies and not have them catch on fire is to soak them for a while before you're ready to barbecue (I've read that a minimum of 30 minutes will suffice, but in my experience, it's best to soak them for at least 45 minutes to an hour.)

8. I placed a heavy object (butter-knife in my case) on the skewers to keep them from floating up. 

9. Once the skewers soaked for long enough, I pulled the chicken cubes out of the fridge and slid them onto the skewers.

10. I popped those babies on the bbq...

11. And less than ten minutes later, they were ready to go...in my belly!!!

12. I also made a salad with spring mix and spinach (not pictured). 

 

I clipped my spring mix bag with one of my many Ikea clips...these things are amazing and come in various sizes (below). I'm pretty sure buying them was the best $2/$3 I have ever spent.

13. I added crumbled feta cheese...

14. I threw in some sliced peperoncini and Kalamata olives...

15. Diced up and threw in some red onion. (This onion saver is another super cheap, but great, find. Keeps my onions fresh for a super long time and also prevents them from stinking up the entire fridge.)

16. I also threw in some halved cherry tomatoes, seasoned the salad with salt and black pepper, and topped the whole thing with red wine vinaigrette dressing (I was out of balsamic vinaigrette).

And...drum roll please...........................

.............................the result was nothing short of Persian-Greek awesomeness! Dr. Love really enjoyed all of the flavors and especially loved that I finally made him something Persian-ish, while my favorite thing about the meal was that it was not only delicious, but also light and healthy. Try it and you will love it...noosheh jaan*!!!

*"bon appétit" in Farsi.

A Salsa Story

Earlier this week, Dr. Love notified me that he had signed me up for a contest at his work.  Well not me, exactly...he had signed my salsa up for a homemade salsa contest in celebration of the Cinco de Mayo holiday. The problem with this, my friends, is that I have never made salsa before. Sure, I have enjoyed hundreds upon hundreds of different kinds during my life, and sure I love to cook...but I have had no clue how to make a homemade salsa. After asking Dr. Love a few follow-up questions and doing some brief Google research to make sure that I was not getting myself into some crazy complicated thing, I confirmed my participation. Being the graceful lady that I am, I high-fived Dr. Love and yelled out, "In it to win it!! Let's do this, baby!"

I was all fired up with the excitement of learning how to make something new (and something that I like), but had no idea where to start. So, I spent about thirty minutes Google-ing until I found a recipe (here) that seemed manageable to me and had a good list of preparation instructions with pictures. I then brainstormed about things I wanted to change or add to the recipe based on flavors that Dr. Love and I enjoy.

The following is my salsa story:

First, I grabbed my main ingredients from the fridge...

Orange, Red, Green Bell Peppers; Globe Tomatoes; Nature Sweet "Cherubs"/Cherry Tomatoes (not pictured); Red and Green Jalapeno Peppers (not pictured); Serrano Peppers (not pictured); White Onions; Cilantro; Garlic; and Lime.

 And rinsed the items that required rinsing...

I then peeled one onion (recipe called for two, but I decided to go with one), halved it, sliced it, and diced it...

Here's how I diced the onions...The first step after halving the onion is to make cuts all the way across the onion (I go right to left), but without slicing all the way through with the tip of my knife. That way, even after the slices are made, the onion half remains intact...

I'm pretty sure I learned this method of dicing onions years ago from watching Giada de Laurentiis's "Everyday Italian."

I then rotated the onion 90 degrees so that the uncut side faces my hand and the sliced side faces the knife and is perpendicular to it. I then slice all the way across the onion going from right to left...

 Easiest way to dice onions, in my opinion. Thanks Giada!

Once my onion was diced, I turned my attention to my three-ish cloves of garlic. While I used three cloves, two were very small (as seen below), so it's more like I used two. If I remember correctly, the original recipe called for three cloves, but that just seemed like too much to me. 

I then removed the skin from my cloves by lining them up, holding my knife down flat on them, and then smashing down on the knife with my other hand.Two things to note with this maneuver: (1) be very careful to not smash your hand down on the sharp edge, and (2) I'm pretty sure I owe Giada a shout-out for this idea too.  By smashing down on your garlic cloves, you cause the garlic skin to crush making it easier to remove. It basically falls right off...

After peeling my garlic, I cut the ends off each clove (I'm pretty sure you only have to cut off the rough end, but I do both out of habit), sliced the cloves, and then minced them. 

 

 For me, the easiest way to mince garlic is to first slice it, then gather all the slices up in a pile and run my knife over them in an up-and-down motion with my right hand, while I use my left palm to hold the tip of the knife in place.

I then gathered all of my tomatoes, removed the stem of each of my globe tomatoes and sliced them in half...

I left the cherry tomatoes intact. 

Once my tomatoes were prepped, I placed all my tomatoes in a sauce pan with about 1/4 inch of water in it (I started with the amount the original recipe called for, but reduced the amount to about 1/4 inches after deciding that the suggested amount looked like too much). I first placed the globe tomatoes in (cut part face up) and then scattered the smaller cherry tomatoes in the available crevices...

I then turned the heat up to medium/medium-high and allowed the water to boil and evaporate. This process took about 10 minutes and allowed the tomatoes to soften up enough so that the skin just fell right off with a little tug of my fingers. While the tomatoes were still boiling,  I prepared my bell peppers for roasting...

 Greased my cookie sheet...

Sliced and seasoned my bell peppers. 

The bell peppers were my own addition and not part of the original recipe. I'm a big fan of roasted bell peppers, especially when they're all spiced up (spices: salt, pepper, turmeric, and paprika) and have oil drizzled on them, like above. I used a little bit of extra virgin olive oil and then added some vegetable oil (I was concerned about the smoke point of EVOO given that the peppers would be set directly under the broiler. I highly recommend that you do some online research about different oils and their smoking points if you cook...really interesting stuff).  

So once the bell peppers were in the oven (broil at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes, checking frequently to make sure they aren't burning), I turned my attention to the tomatoes again...

Once I had them peeled, I placed them in my Magic Bullet (love that thing...big thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law)...

...chopped up my cilantro (I used about one cup) and jalapeno and serrano peppers (I used a lot...maybe about 2.5 jalapenos and about 2.5 serranos... because I like my salsa spicy. However, I didn't dump it all in at once. Instead, I built up the spice level slowly by adding the chopped peppers little by little and tasting in between each addition), and threw those in the blender too.

I blended the tomatoes, cilantro, and spicy peppers for about 15 seconds, until everything was evenly sliced and combined, but not yet liquefied. 

By this point, our whole house was smelling amazingly delicious.

I then heated my chopped onion and minced garlic together in a saucepan over medium heat (with about a table spoon of vegetable oil) for no more than 15 seconds. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step...)

Next, I poured the contents of the blender onto the onions and garlic in the saucepan and turned the heat to low/medium-low and allowed the mixture to simmer slowly.  

It was only at this point that I realized that my tomato to onions/garlic ratio seemed off...so I sliced and threw in two more globe tomatoes. As soon as they softened up a bit (a few minutes), I pulled them out of the mix and threw them in the blender. I then also added a piece of roasted red bell pepper, roasted green bell pepper, roasted orange bell pepper, and another 1/2 serrano pepper to the blender. I blended the contents for about 5 seconds, with the hopes that this round of blended tomatoes would be a bit thicker and less liquefied then the first. 

I then added the roasted bell pepper/additional tomatoes/additional serrano peppers blend to the simmering mix in the saucepan and let it continue to simmer. At this point, I added some salt, black pepper, and cumin. I built up the amount of spices the same way I had done with the spicy peppers, again tasting between each additional pinch. 

About 15 total minutes of simmering (and occasional stirring) later, I had my salsa. I let it sit for a little to cool and then packed most of it up in preparation for its big day tomorrow...

...the little bit that was left over was devoured by Dr. Love, our friend "Nimers" who was over, and me. Friends, simply put, my salsa is the bomb diggity...plus some.  I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I'm feeling pretty confident that this salsa story is going to end in a victory!!! I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, Happy Friday and have a great Cinco de Mayo!


UPDATE:  Dr. Love: "They couldn't handle the heat. A non-spicy won. You won in my heart (and in my taste-buds opinion)!" I may not have won the salsa contest (this time), but I definitely won the husband contest ;)