Traveling in the Kitchen

Oh gosh! There’s so much catching up to do! I’ve been back in Florida for a couple of weeks, but I have some things that I want to share with you from before I even left for Toronto. So get ready!

And hold on tight

Let’s see… how have I been enjoying the summer’s endless heat?

By making water a more refreshing beverage.

Slicing up lemons, limes, cucumbers, and a handful of mint leaves, and letting it all sit for a couple hours in a jug of water is all it takes.

One of my mom’s friends gave us mangoes from her backyard!

You can tell how delicious these were just by looking at them.

I’ve also been making smoothies.

 I made this particular one with Greek yogurt, honey, almond milk, peaches, and cinnamon.

Taste testing… not quite there yet.

Passed the test.

Yowza that was good!

I’ve also been loving strawberries in the mix.

Sadly, coconut butter is too shy to mix and mingle.

Of course I’ve been keeping up with my weekly batch of raw vegan treats.

I’ve recently made Averie’s No-Bake Coconut and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites and Kelsey’s Cocoa Coconut Energy Balls. Both should be under your bookmarks if they aren’t already.

I’m serious.

This may not be a typical cool summer meal.

I sautéed some yellow squash, crumbled tofu, and diced sweet potato with Bragg’s flavorful Organic Seasoning. Drizzle some coconut butter, and I sealed the deal. By the way that sprinkle has 24 herbs and spices that add lots of flavor. Even if I don’t know what to cook I just use some of this and I instantly have a tasty dish. Thanks to my old roommate introducing me to this it’s now one of my secret weapons.

Taken out by the poolside while the weather was hopefully cooling down (not by much).

With a nice cold glass of refreshing water.

Ahh yes… the morning is another part of the day I can enjoy outside without melting into a puddle of sweat…

And drool.

I’ve also made up a recipe recently.

Can you guess what it is? Himalayan Zucchini Bread! This is an eclectic loaf of zucchini bread inspired by the Eastern world and 101 Cookbook’s Special Zucchini Bread. Check it.

Himalayan Zucchini Bread

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

3/4 cup almonds, chopped

2 1/2 tbl poppy seeds or even chia seeds

2 tsp lemon zest

4 peanut ginger chews, finely chopped

1/4 cup goji berries

3 tbl shredded coconut, unsweetened

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup coconut sugar, or brown sugar

1 large egg, or egg replacer

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 zucchinis, grated

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour or gluten-free flour mix

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tbl curry powder

*Don’t be daunted by the long ingredient list*

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a loaf pan, and dust it with a bit of flour then set aside.
2. In a bowl combine the almonds, poppy seeds, lemon zest, shredded coconut, goji berries, and ginger. Set aside.

3. In another bowl mix the coconut oil with the honey, and then add the coconut sugar. Add the egg and mix well. Stir in the vanilla and then the zucchini.

4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and curry powder.

5. Add these dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

6. Fold in the almonds, poppy seed, lemon zest, goji berries, shredded coconut, and crystalized ginger mixture by hand. Set a bit aside so you can sprinkle on the the zucchini loaf before baking to add a little crunch. Avoid over mixing the batter, it should be thick and moist.

7. Pour the batter into the loaf pan, and bake for about 40-45 minutes. Don’t over bake it though to keep it moist. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan for about ten minutes. Then let it finish cooling on wire rack. It’ll get moist and sweaty if you leave them in the pan.

Each ingredient is special in this recipe

That’s not all.

Wolfberries, also known as goji berries.

And somehow by the time this loaf was done baking I had flown to Asia and back.

So now that I’ve shared this recipe with you, here are some tips to go along with it. I soaked the almonds beforehand to add to the bread’s dense bite. I also thought of the recipes I’ve made where zucchini and almonds held hands in the most delicious way. I love coming up with kitchen experiments, being inspired by  places I want to travel to and let my mind go.

Check it out!

Now take a bite into a slice of this and you’ve got a spiced and moist bread, with some crunch and the most unique flavor.

Enjoy it for breakfast with coconut butter.

Recently, I’ve been letting a bag of green tea steep in a glass of cold water overnight.

And beautiful fresh mission figs, medjool dates, bee pollen, and honey over some Greek yogurt.

I hope you all have a relaxing weekend… 

Or one packed with adventures!

When Something Ancient is New to Me

First off, I want to thank you for voting for me for the first challenge of Project Food Blog! I was able to advance to the next round, and let me tell you… waiting for the results felt like how someone might feel while waiting next to the phone hoping that someone special would call! Also, congratulations to all of the other bloggers who made it to this challenge! The entries were such a great reminder as to why I love doing this. With that let’s jump right to it, shall we?

The next challenge called for tackling a classic dish from another culture. Now which cuisine would I choose was the question. I knew that I wanted to make something totally new to me, but that I’d still enjoy of course. That’s when my curiosity about Indonesian food arose. I have never had Indonesian food, but while reading up about it I found out some very interesting things! Like most countries, its history has had a great influence on its cuisine. “Indonesia’s indigenous techniques and ingredients merge with influences from India, the Middle East, China and Europe. And then there are the New World products brought by Spanish and Portuguese traders long before the Dutch colonized the islands.” All of the other cuisines I already enjoy! I knew I had made a good choice.

With this challenge I decided to stick to the traditions of Indonesia, by using the protein components as condiments for rice. A lot of westerners find Asian foods to be very spicy because they don’t use the meats, poultry, or seafood in the traditional way. Moreover, since I’m a vegetarian I wanted to use an ingredient that was still true to the culture: tempeh. Many people know that ingredients like tofu or tempeh are hard to flavor. I also got to use some ingredients that I had never cooked with before like lemongrass and galanggal.

I knew that tackling the condiment dishes would be a challenge especially since I was using tempeh, but I just went ahead and made a meal out of it. So what’s on the menu?

Urap – cooked vegetables with grated coconut

Ayam Panggang Kecap – barbecued chicken in sweet soy sauce (I made my own sweet soy sauce using this simple recipe)

Ayam Panggang Klaten – chicken in aromatic nut sauce

Nasi Ayam Nanas – pineapple chicken rice

Nasi Uduk – rice cooked in coconut milk

*For all of the recipes that called for chicken I substituted in tempeh instead.

First step: go to the Asian market to find exotic ingredients!

Hanging out with one of my best friends and her niece officially made it an adventure.

Into the cart they go.

The trick to getting flavorful tempeh is to let it marinate.

I let mine marinate overnight, and I also decided to prep the seasonings the night before. Make sure you’ve got a mortar and pestle, or food processor on hand for making the seasonings.

Rice is a staple in Indonesian cuisine, and cooked in coconut milk makes it extra special.

Next up, the veggies for the salad.

Found some of the funkiest carrots I've ever seen.

Mustn't forget the bamboo shoots.

New to me: an actual stalk of lemongrass.

The pineapple chicken rice recipe called for a bruised stalk of lemongrass. All that means is that you want to smash it with the flat blade of a cleaver or heavy knife to release the aromatic oils.

Also used galanggal (laos) for the first time as well.

Galanggal looks like a combination of ginger root and a turmeric finger. After some hours of prepping and cooking, my special guest arrived. That’s one of the great things about these challenges is that I can’t imagine not sharing these things with someone else; be it my words, pictures, or food!

The beautiful and very aromatic spread, and little Matilda peeking in the top corner.

He had an interview right after so we dubbed this his "good luck lunch".

Rice cooked in coconut milk served with these condiments: tempeh in aromatic nut sauce and barbecued tempeh in a sweet soy sauce

Cooked vegetables with grated coconut.

All together now + the pineapple tempeh rice.

I don’t have anything to compare this to since this was my first time trying Indonesian food, but I definitely want to explore more! There was such an array of flavors, yet everything went wonderfully well together. There were those aspects of things tasting very fresh, and there was also that smoky and dry quality to some dishes as well. More importantly, the tempeh was a success! My favorite dish was the “chicken” in aromatic nut sauce.

So what were my thoughts on this challenge? It really made me think of the process of doing things. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of a recipe’s name. In each of the dishes there was the step of making the seasonings out of scratch, which truly brought out the incredible qualities of freshly ground spices. While I was actually cooking I couldn’t help but feel relaxed; despite the nervousness I may have felt with the thought of having a special guest come over, “oh my gosh, the challenge”, and trying a completely foreign cuisine (that could end up tasting bad, goodness forbid). That sentence alone makes me feel anxious. But I’d like to think that it was all of the wonderful aromas floating about in the kitchen that were therapeutic for me.

With that, I leave you all with a successful adventure in my culinary endeavors! Don’t forget to vote for me here, starting 6 AM Pacific Time September 27th (tomorrow!) through 6 PM Pacific Time September 30th.

The Art of Savoring

Thank you all for the compliments on my outfit! And I wish I could’ve shared the view with you guys. Pictures are kind of like sharing, right? Now here’s something for you to feast your eyes on:

I wanted to make something special with the little treasures I found the other day. I decided to start my day with a delicious bowl of overnight oats with the figs. I wanted to share the goodness so I made a bowl for my mom too! Aren’t they beautiful? Almost as beautiful as Eliza and Maya (thanks for the idea, girls). Now I can vouch for the brilliance of fresh figs in oatmeal. I was also inspired by the recipe for those yummy Sicilian fig cookies! Which meant that in this bowl I put in some golden raisins, lemon zest, vanilla extract, cinnamon, cloves, fresh figs, and honey. Since we didn’t have almonds on hand I thought, “hmm that just means I’ll have to use almond butter.” No complaints here! So refreshing and delightful to eat. In the middle of breakfast I decided to cut up a banana and mash it into my bowl. Bananas are never a bad choice in my book.

Grinding my own garam masala.

I find that when you grind your own spices the aroma comes out even more when you’re cooking. Freshly ground cinnamon wafting through the air is such a comforting smell. Everyone will keep asking you with eagerness “when’s dinner ready?”

I was inspired by my favorite dish at my favorite Indian restaurant, India K'raja.

The inspiration is a creamy mango sauce with homemade paneer and cooked with nuts and raisins. My take on it included paneer, pineapple, mango, freshly ground garam masala, and almond bits sprinkled on top. I wish I could’ve made more, but we were short on time and had to make due with what was in the house. Since we’re headed on our vacation today we didn’t want to overload on groceries for the week.

Butternut squash and vanilla risotto

I followed this recipe, and I must say – WOW! Every ingredient in this recipe made this dish perfection in my mouth. I realized I had forgotten the salt, thankfully the saltiness from vegetable stock was enough.

Colorful pasta!

I followed Katie’s alfredo sauce recipe but I added a bit of nutmeg to give it a little oomph. I also chose to make it with tofu rather than agar agar, since that’s what I had on hand. Katie, once again, two thumbs up! I love your creative recipes.

I had some leftover sauce so I figured I could mix it with the beets I roasted last night. This was my first attempt at roasting beets. It wasn’t hard, but it was messy! My fingers temporarily turned pink.

It looks funky! I also threw in some rosemary and a drizzle of honey.

Beets can't help but paint everything pink!

Everytime I eat or drink anything with beets I check my cheeks to see if they’re rosy. I swear if you include beets in your life (a lot of them), they are nature’s blush! It sounds like such an old wives tale, but I’d like to believe it.

What’s your favorite old wives tale?

So what’s with the title of this post? A lot of things have happened in my life that have made me take a step back and realize how precious it really is. Usually I don’t discuss my past (sounds like I’m a member of the mafia), but it seems somewhat appropriate right now. During my last week of high school, my boyfriend at the time, Chip, was killed by a fellow classmate. It was a terrible loss on so many people’s parts. Not just for the people who lost Chip, but also for the family and friends of the boy who took his life away. I’m a firm believer in the idea that things happen for a reason, even if it just straight up sucks. Anyway, that moment in my life led me to reevaluate a lot of things – reevaluating is something I think I do constantly, so it wasn’t a first. But I’ve never had someone that close to me pass away. I became very spiritual because I didn’t want to lose that connection I had with him. He was the first person I fell in love with, so it was hard to let go. Plus it’s too depressing to think that this life is it and there’s nothing afterwards. I’m not sure what the afterlife is all about, but I think there is one. I just remember the last time I saw him I was driving home and we happened to be driving next to each other. It was such a nice surprise. He was going to a meeting so we each went out separate ways. I would’ve never thought that waving him goodbye as he was making that left turn would be the last time I would see him. It just shows how life can be so fleeting. Rather than taking this as a “why me” experience in my life, I took it as more of a reason to appreciate life. It’s hard not to step outside and take a big deep breath, look up at the sky and smile at what’s around me. It’s hard to hush my laughter when I just want to burst! If I feel like dancing, I’ll dance. If I “just don’t feel like it”, I honor that feeling as well. So I guess where I’m getting at is that an important part of life for me is to savor the moment. Life should be good, but sometimes things happen, and these things are a part the journey too. Live and learn, and make the best of it.

He was the kind of person who could do something ordinary in a million different ways. I noticed the patches of grass made a smiley face!

On a lighter note, I know I’ll be making the best of it while I’m away on vacation. I’m excited to give up daily responsibilities, but I’m going to miss Matilda. This is the first time me and the family will all be separated from her. Thankfully, a family friend of ours offered to take care of her while we’re gone. It’s reassuring to me because it’s hard for me to trust people to take care of her. She’s like my little baby.

What are some of the precious things you all savor?