A fancy tuna lunch

So this is an interesting story actually. I have had a really stressful day, had numerous people to meet with at various times, a newborn to contend with, and a two year old to both take and pick up from school. All before noon. So I didn't have much time for anything really. After school, we still needed to be out of the house for the cleaning ladies, so we had to entertain ourselves a while. We ended up at the grocery store! Kiran had to have a pumpkin, he just wouldn't take no for an answer (he said he wanted to eat it for snacktime..=/) and I was just about starving, so I actually wanted to get stuff to make tabouleh! I have been wanting fish for some time now, and just haven't made it a priority to cook, but when we passed the fish section of the grocery store, and I saw this beautiful, not fishy smelling AT ALL, tuna on sale, I just had to get it to cook for myself during naptime. Here's what I did. I only tell you this because it ended up being absolutely fantastic. Feel free to double the recipe, or quadruple it. This fed me happily for a beautiful lunch.

1 tuna steak, mine was .39 lbs
1 tsp of sesame seeds
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp light mayonnaise
1 dash sriachi vietnamese hot sauce. Rooster sauce, affectionately called.
dash of salt
dash of soy sauce
salad greens of your choice

So I got a skillet heating up with olive oil, a dash of sesame oil, and a small dash of soy sauce as well. It'd be great if you could marinade your tuna in the sesame oil and soy sauce beforehand, but it's okay if you don't. Get the pan nice and hot, then put your salted fish on it. I had mine turned to high to start with, and after a minute, I turned it down to medium. I also put a lid on it to get a little steaming going on in there. I let it do it's thing for 2 minutes, then checked it. It was nice and seared, but it still wasn't done all the way through. This is what you want it to be like. I then salted the other side, pressed a layer of sesame seeds into the top of it, and flipped it over to sear the other side. Make sure your pan has enough oil to keep it from sticking. You don't want it to stick.. =/ Once I had it turned over, I started on my sauce. Get a little bowl and mix 1 tbsp mayo with the sriachi, 1 tsp sesame oil, and a dash of water to loosen it up some. I then put mine into a little sandwich bag and got it all mixed up and ready to go. I probably cooked my fish for 3-4 minutes per side, then I opened it up just a little to see that it was almost well done ( That's how I like fish, can't help myself. If you like it less done, try 3 minutes per side.) On a nice plate, put your salad greens and sprinkle with sesame oil and a little salt. Put your fish on top of it, squeeze the sauce across the top, garnish, and enjoy it! It's even tastier than it looks!

The most important thing to consider here is to NOT overcook your fish. You can always put it back on if it's not done to your liking, but you can't un-cook it. If it gets overcooked, it will taste like the canned stuff. You just don't want to do that to yourself or your beautiful fish.

Tabouleh! or Tabboule or however the heck you spell that..

So I've been in a Mediterranean state of mind lately. I blame the garden and it's super freshness and the ease with which I am able to have such beautiful produce and herbs on demand. Whatever is the reason, I can't complain. I love it when food is done simply and beautifully with no frills. Let the fresh ingredients speak for themselves. They say lovely things. Try this recipe out and see what this simple mediterranean side dish says to you.

It's all quite simple, you start with these ingredients:

1 cup dried bulgar
1 bunch fresh, flatleaf parsley
2 very ripe roma tomatoes, diced
1 large or two small cucumbers, deseeded and diced
5 stalks of celery ( I am obsessed with celery. You can omit if you like. It's not a traditional ingredient anyhow.)
1/3 cup of lemon juice. Fresh preferred
1 bunch of green onions, the whole thing, small chop
1/2 red/yellow/orange bell pepper if desired. And I do!
1/4-1/3 cup good olive oil (I've used plain or lemon infused. Don't waste your lemon infused stuff. There's enough lemon from the juice in there)
salt and pepper to taste

It's really that simple, when you get down to it. Take the time to wash your parsley really good ( I found a little lady bug in there one time. Glad I washed before just chopping into it! ) Pull off all the leaves and chop them finely. It takes some time, sure, but this whole process is guaranteed to help you with your knife skills! You'll be chopping for an hour! Ok, not an hour.. but still. To do the bulgar, you just boil a little over a cup of salted water, put the bulgar in, remove from heat and cover for an hour. Don't open it. Don't touch it. Just let it do it's thing. Once you're done chopping everything else, your bulgar will be ready to use. I'm thinking of trying it with quinoa just to mix it up a bit. Then I'll have to call this dish something else entirely! So you chop everything up, mix it altogether in a big bowl, then put your bulgar in and let it chill out in the fridge a while. It's excellent the day you make it. It's even better the next. And the third day of leftovers is my favorite. Everything has married together and gotten really tasty by then.

So that's all I got for ya. Enjoy it! We like to eat it with sauteed chicken, peppers, and onion stuffed pita with a cumin mayonnaise. I'll let you in on that recipe shortly!

Pasta attack!!!! AAAHHHH!!

Ok, so I'm going to say it. It's what you've been dreaming of hearing. Even on a diet, pasta doesn't have to be off limits. There. I said it. Now with that said, you have a world of tasty and healthy opportunities to make your diet more like a way of life and less like a torture experiment. Tonight we had fresh squash, spinach, a few tiny bell peppers and tomatoes from the garden, about a cup left from a bag of frozen peas, and a box of Dreamfield's Penne pasta. Before doing a little research, I had decided that this pasta was a miracle. It was only supposed to have 5 digestible carbs. They wouldn't tell you how they did it, but that was their claim anyway. Legitimate trials done on the affects of this pasta on your blood sugar have proved otherwise, so I won't be paying an extra buck for it again. I'm going back to whole wheat. I KNOW that's good for you, and I know it's tasty too; with the right sauce anyway. So those were my standard ingredients for this pasta, the base ingredients I'll call them. You can change pretty much anything else. I also happened to have a two lb bag of shrimp in the freezer. Apparently it's my style lately to cook enough to feed an army.. or two people for 3 days.. but I still only went with 1 lb of the shrimp. Uncooked! God help you if you buy them precooked. It will be a disaster.

Another household staple that we will put into this concoction is fat free half and half. Don't knock it until you've tried it. Steve and I were dyed in the wool heavy cream people. Who decided to be healthier and switch to half and half. Then down to fat free half and half. It's healthier but still rich and creamy; an excellent ingredient to have in the kitchen for random cooking tasks. Something else that you'll need for this recipe is fresh herbs. Whichever herbs you have (we happened to have oregano, parsley, and basil) will do fine. If you're in doubt, go ahead and use what I did. I can tell you it was delicious. I also threw in a small handful of chopped walnuts. I like the silkiness and buttery goodness it adds to any dish. But you don't have to add it at all and it'd still be tasty. This is all about cooking with intuition, and it's really easier than you think.

Another staple in your kitchen should be a fresh nutmeg.. nut.. or whatever you want to call it. Use your small grater or if you're fancy a microplane and you're set. It keeps longer than the already ground stuff, and it's just so much more aromatic and delicious. You will use it a lot in italian cooking. Nutmeg's not just for desserts!

So those are your household staples. Of course you'll have olive oil, salt, cracked pepper, onion powder, and garlic/garlic powder, whichever. That's all you'll need. Now, step by step, this is what I did. And you can do it too.

Turn on the grill. It's a good season for grilling anyway, since we don't always like heating up the kitchen with the oven. Take your peppers, I suggest two good sized ones or three to four garden sized peppers. Don't use green unless you're super brave. I am not. Ours were a strange variety of colors; reddish-orange-yellow-purpleish.. they were pretty mild tasting. If you're buying them in the grocery store, get two good sized red ones. your sauce will be much prettier than mine. Roast them over the high flame until they are burned. I mean, straight up burned to a crisp. Black skin. You don't need me to spell it out anymore than that. When they're burned up, put them in a bowl, covered, and into the fridge. Turn the grill down and spread your tinfoil over it. A little olive oil, salt, pepper on the bottom, then put your diced (you can large dice it since it's mostly going to be pureed) tomatoes and squash (or zucchini. I suggest zucchini personally, if you have the choice) keep them somewhat separate on the sheet, close the lid of the grill, and walk away. You should check on them occasionally, and when they look nice and broken down, a little browned, or just generally cooked, pull them off. I actually did mine in the oven, but now that I think of it, the grill is a better idea. But if you're doing oven, do it at 450 for about 20 or so minutes. Just keep a check on it, because I'm totally guessing on the time here.

So now you've got the base done. At this point, I took the peppers out of the oven, deskinned them, taking off all the blackness you can get off the outside, and all the seeds/stem from the inside. It will be slimy and that's okay. Pop it in the blender with a little more salt and pepper, maybe some red pepper flakes (don't go crazy here, just a dash) and probably 1/4 of a cup of fat free half and half. It will be a lovely pinky color, and that's good. Now's a good time to go ahead and add your grilled tomatoes to the blender and get those going too. Maybe a little more salt, pepper, etc. Keep tasting. You'll want to anyway because it's going to be delicious. This is when I went out and got a nice little chunk of basil (probably 1/4 cup, if it were chopped) and a tablespoon of parsley and oregano, each, and added them to the blender. Blend it a bit, then add the walnuts and blend until it's a nice smooth mixture. You might need more liquid, or you might not. If you do, go ahead and add a little of that half and half or some sort of stock, if you have it handy. Mine didn't need any. It should be a little thick, so it will stick to the pasta well! It's still got a lot of spinach to go in there, so don't worry if it's a little thick. Here's where things get nebulous because here's where you'll be salting and seasoning. I put about 1/2 tbsp red chili flakes, 1/2 tsp fresh nutmeg, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 tbsp minced garlic, and then salt and pepper to taste. It was good, so I let it be. I find that veggies have such a lovely taste that I just try to not mess them up when I'm working with simple italian dishes.

Now onto the rest of this meal. If I were you, I'd get a big pot of heavily salted water to boiling right about now, while you work with your veggies. I used frozen chopped spinach, so I just microwaved it to get it thawed, squeezed out the excess water, and put it along with the squash and the blender sauce into a big pot on the stove, probably medium heat. Add the frozen peas without defrosting them. While your pasta is boiling, you can go ahead and add your shrimp (you'll probably have to take the peels and tails off of them in advance) and get that cooking up. You'll know when they're done because they'll be nice and curled up and bright orangy pink. Don't overcook them! It only takes about 10 or so minutes on medium heat in the sauce/veggie mixture before they're perfect.

It just so happened that once my beautiful shrimp were done, so was my pasta, so after draining it really good, I scooped all the pasta and sauce/veggies into a large bowl and mixed it all up. It ended up very pretty and very tasty! Garnish with freshly grated Parmesan reggiano and a small sprig of basil and if you have them, a few sliced grape tomatoes! Voila! Dinner! It's healthy, beautiful, and full of veggies. It didn't take forever to make, and it didn't heat up your house. Can you ask for more? =) Maybe the recipe...

Summer Veggie and Shrimp Pasta:
1 lb uncooked shrimp
1 lb penne pasta
2 medium squash or zucchini
2 large red bell peppers
3 large tomatoes
1 cup frozen peas
1 box frozen chopped spinach
1/4 cup fat free half and half
1 bunch fresh basil, a little fresh oregano (ok, you could use dried!) and flat leaf parsley
1 tbsp dried pepper flakes
1 tsp fresh nutmeg (I'll admit it again, you can use ground already stuff)
6 tbsp fresh grated parmesan reggiano. Go ahead and splurge on a large block of this stuff, you'll use it a lot.
1 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp minced garlic or 1/2 tbsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Grape tomatoes and more basil for garnish

Serves 6 adults pretty good portions of pasta.

Peachy little snack

So here it goes. My food blog. Food inspiration often strikes me at the oddest time. Then again, sometimes it's pretty obvious why I'm inventing a new recipe: I'm hungry. That was the case for this afternoon's snack attack. We had peaches in the house, which I don't generally like very much, but I suddenly felt the ernest desire to make something with peaches that I would actually enjoy. Voila. Roasted peaches with balsamic vinegar, cherries, and a lovely scoop of plain yogurt. Simplicity. Beauty. Health. And that's what it's all about. Well, not *all* about, but you get the drift.

So for starters, I was hungry. Like, lunch was 3 hours ago, it's the middle of the afternoon, I need a snack fast kind of hungry. But That's when my blood sugar has dipped, and I'm thinking cookie. No. No cookie for me. If I preoccupy myself with cooking an elaborate snack, sometimes it will distract me from ridiculous cravings like cookies. This time, it worked. For this whole recipe, including the yogurt scoop, we're looking at right about 100 calories, depending on the size of your peach. (peach-60 calories, yogurt-30 calories, balsamic vinegar- 15 calories, cherry- 4 calories = 109 calories) Not too shabby.

Start by peeling a lovely little peach. Cut it off the stone into four even sized pieces. Big chunks. They'll be a couple bites a piece. You could even really serve two people with this little snack. Or one hungry one.>>>me. Put it onto a cookie sheet lined with greased (my method today was Pam) aluminum foil. Put the peaches on there with a tiny dash of salt on each one. I put stone side up. I preheated the oven to 425, and just tried it out. I baked it for 5 minutes. Not enough. I put it back in and tried 5 more. That's when I realized this might take a while. I took them out, and inspiration struck. Balsamic vinegar. Yes! So I drizzled them with about two tablespoons of it and stuck them back in for 10 more minutes. I checked on them, re drizzled, turned, etc. When they smelled and looked nice and lovely, I pulled them out, stuck them on a plate with one pitted cherry, one scoop (1/4 cup) plain yogurt, and a small twig of basil, which actually added a little interest to the taste of the peaches, admittedly. I know you're thinking this needs a sauce. I was thinking that too. I let it set on the plate for a minute, looking around and thinking about what to do. I was thinking maple syrup.. then, lo and behold, to my surprise, a nice little sauce had formed in the bottom from the juicy peaches! It was lovely, and we needed no sauce! So that's my culinary adventure with the snack today. Maybe you can enjoy a roasted peach for yourself sometime soon. I certainly recommend it. =)

Now.. if I can just figure out how to upload images from my iPhone onto this here blog.. I'll be set! ***Update: SUCCESS!! WOOT!

Another new direction

Maybe it's just in my nature to be inconstant, but I've decided to take this blog, for the time being anyway, towards a food blog. I've been very into simple, healthful cooking lately, and because I make up most, almost all actually, of my own recipes, I figured I'd share my culinary journey with my fellow friends, foodie or not. Maybe if you're not a foodie yet, you will become one from reading my food blog. I can't promise you every recipe will be an absolute gem, but I can promise you it will be beautiful and entertaining to read along with me. I can't even promise you'll get an actual recipe out of me. But you might just get enough to give you the confidence to try cooking (something??) yourself. And you might try to make it healthier than what you know or what you grew up with. Maybe you can also share your culinary adventure with me. I don't know. My life is good and exciting right now, I'm feeling good about my direction, and here's a new and fresh direction for this blog too. If you've just tuned in for the culinary part of my life, that's cool. I hope I'm entertaining enough to keep you coming back for more...

Good days

Maybe it's just because it's summer and the sun hangs around long past it's expected departure, or maybe it's just a sense of serenity (yeah, I used that word. And yeah, all I can think about are old people diapers..) that has come over me lately. Sure there's internal strife and struggle with the things in life that try to bring me down, but overall I'm happy these days- something I haven't quite settled into yet, but I'm eager to learn to love it. Sure, most days follow a very simple pattern, and there's not much therein to be excited about, but sometimes some things just hit me and I feel blessed to be where I am. Like getting to make my own homemade stirfry for lunch. Or going to yoga on a Wednesday morning. Or spinning on a Thursday morning. Life is really a culmination of all these such simple instances in our life. We can interpret them how we like. I choose optimism. Or rather, it chose me. Whichever way you look at it, life is exactly what we make of it everyday. Sure, some things suck. Like chipped toenail polish. But we move on and try to make the best of it. Who really notices anyway? I choose to be content with the simple pleasures of life. For now anyway.

Maybe it's really time

I can still see you
Blurred together with
All the tears
And all the years
Of love hoped for and love lost
And all the years of empty
Regret

You wouldn't have to say much
Don't have to say much
Don't have to say anything at all
To earn forgiveness and I'll forget
But still regret

There will be a place
Inside of me
That will never be whole
Until I see you free
Like the dreams of you
dancing in my memory
Like the clouds in my eyes
Like your eyes

We didn't have to say much
We don't have to say much
We don't have to say anything
At all
To forgive and forget
and regret

Why'd you leave me
Waiting here
Desicated
On the window sill
Waiting here
For you
To come back and say
Anything at all

You didn't have to say much
You don't have to say much
We don't have to say anything
At all
But I don't know
If I can
Forgive and forget
without regret

Back to life...

I thought long and hard about it, and I decided to stop thinking about it. Anything that is lurking in my life that would cause me to write poetry. I'm done struggling with demons for now. I'm too happy in other places in my head to stay there too long anyway. There will be a time in the future when I will face the pain in my life, but that time is not now. For now, I just live. And I go to the gym. But only for an hour a day now. I still love the gym, and I still have a serious desire to always be there, but when it started affecting my life in negative ways, and I realized I was actually addicted to it, I decided to rethink it. I, like most people out there, am striving for balance in life. Feeling guilty for not working out two hours one day is not balance. I am still working out everyday, but just for an hour. I like it for now. I miss my old schedule (creature of habit, if you didn't know that already) and I am sad that I'm having to give up my classes so I have time to train for the triathlons in June and August, but I signed up for them, and I better damn well be able to finish them. So tonight: Swimming. Anyway, that's just my life right now. Status: happy and less busy. Not writing poetry. Not being overly contemplative or pensive. Just being. We'll see how long this can last...

On the flip side, I am actually done planning my mom's trip to Italy. I'm helping my cousin out with a few details of her trip to England in a few weeks, and I should be getting to planning our prospective trip to Spain this October. I've been a beach bum lately, but it's not going to be too long (always around my anniversary) and I'm going to want some mountains. Back to planning...

Avoidance

Letters;
pages of blank
paper
with blank
intention
folding
until
gone

Words written
in dream's hand.
Written
without hope
for any truth
or intention.
Who taught me
such distrust?

Sometimes
it is a curse
to feel
anything at all.

Travel Agent...sort of...

While we sat around our lovely, centrally located Reykjavik apartment one day last month, I decided to breach the subject of my future. I've always been the sort of capricious person who can never seem to find her place in the world, and being that I am now too old to say I'm still "finding myself," I was just thinking that I should be settling into some idea of who/what I want to be in this life. This is a subject that I can't help but think about, generally at least once a day, but it came up then in particular after we met a fellow (never told us his name, that I can remember anyway) who moved from Reykjavik to Florida for several years, became certified in diving, and subsequently moved back to Reykjavik to start a diving tours group. He was really doing what he wanted to do, and anytime I meet someone who is so perfectly fitting into his place in life, I start to wonder about mine. I kick around idea after idea all the time, but I can never seem to find something that I feel like is worth spending my time and potentially money on. My husband, being the great person that he is, zeroed in on a great way for me to take my current interests or possible future careers(passions) and figure out if they're just passing phases (I have lots of these..) or if they're likely to stay around. He suggested doing these things on the side of my regular job right now (since life will just run much more smoothly if I keep a job until Steve gets out of school- then I can take time without worrying, and I can find my calling) So right now, I'm doing travel agent work. I still can't wrap my head around why people would pay other people to do this.. it's mostly just great fun to spend hours trying to find the perfect deals on the perfect places and plan a trip that will be both filled with fun and relaxing at the same time. Apparently it's daunting or just plain no fun for some folks. Not me! I think my favorite thing about planning is when there's a challenge. I myself am a budget, off season traveler. I also don't want to stay in hostels or nasty places and eat granola for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Planning travel requires extreme organization and an understanding of your clientele. Right now I'm planning a trip to Ischia, Rome, and Florence for my mother and Chris, and while it doesn't seem like much of an issue, there is still so much work that goes into it. I don't know that I'll ever plan a trip for someone who doesn't consider some sort of budget, so fitting as much as you can into that budget (which is ALREADY a specialty of mine!) is proving challenging. But this is just for now. If you have travel agent needs, contact me. I'll be finishing up my mom's trip soon, then helping with a few other friends' trips if they want, but otherwise I'm just waiting for someone who wants help. Maybe this is my calling? Who knows... For now, I'm just going to have fun with it.

Next passion: Exercise. Can you make a real, rewarding career of it? I'll be thinking on this one...

Ok, maybe I digress...

But only for the month of April by request of a friend. I will once again delve into the recesses of my mind and pull out some more of that poetry that I know is just waiting to get out. Suppression, you know. On the other side of my life, I have been too busy living to write since my last post, but soon, and maybe even today, I will get back to writing my life adventure blog. I have been having many adventures worth writing about. And since anyone who knows me knows that I am pretty much the worst storyteller in existence, this is the only way I can tell my stories with any sort of cohesion! Anyway, today's poem is entitled "Placebo."

"Placebo"

I never knew you physically
You are nebulous
Grey and still
A folded blanket
In an empty room
Grey and still

But you hold the power to kill me
To heal me
To shape me, ruin me, and start again
As a child at 85

You can tear me to pieces
Without weapons
Make me elated
Without drugs
Make me remember
Or make me forget...

You are all that I am
And yet more than I'll ever know
Beautiful
Horrible
Letters and numbers

You are my unwilling
Master
That I both love
And love to hate

Time for a real blog...

There aren't many who even read this at all. For those of you who do, it's going to take a change. Obviously I've not been inspired to write poetry for a while- a mixed blessing- and I think it's time to turn this blog around. I think I'll follow the trail of the many who have come before me (unlike me, I know..) and begin a blog that's about my life. This is not to say that my life is of much interest. Actually, for the most part, it's not really interesting at all. The fact of the matter is that like most people, my life revolves around me. And I'm not all that interesting. But occasionally I do have interesting adventures or entertaining thoughts and observations. If you are patient, insanely patient, you may be able to glean something worth knowning. This will be a travel blog. This will be an everyday life adventure blog. Stand by..

I want to turn you into stone

A monument to who I have become

I want to watch as time erodes you

And you blow away in the wind

A story

Thin Walls

I wake up early. The mattress is memory foam, so he never even notices when I slip out of bed and begin my morning routine. By the time I'm in the bathroom, I've already shed most of the layers of sleep from my body and mind. In my morning life, I pretend I live alone; the eternal bachelorette with too many quirky habits and too much egoism to ever attract a life mate. I squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom, and I don't think I could live with anyone who didn't do the exact same. I'm pretty sure if I met morning-me during the daytime, we wouldn't be friends. Not for long.

I dampen my unruly hair; a temporary fix for my morning workout. I'm convinced that somebody does care that I fix my hair and apply a little makeup. It's about this time every morning when I hear it- the toilet flushes. Not my toilet, but Regina's toilet. She's an early riser, too. The walls in the duplex must be thin where the bathrooms adjoin, because I hear her every morning. Regina comes home late, when she comes home at all, and she leaves early, but later than me. In fact, it was months after moving in that I finally saw my neighbor for the first time. It was nothing spectacular. She just smiled and waved as I was driving off one day. Her hair is long and plain, and she wears it in a way that frames her less than beautiful face. I don't even know her real name. I call her Regina or Rachel, whichever she seems more like at the time. In the mornings, probably because she wakes up too early for her age, I call her Regina. Such a practical name. Regina.

Her routine, like her duplex, mirrors mine. No, it shadows it. It follows mine like a timid doppleganger. I imagine her listening, head pressed to the bathroom wall, waiting for the water to go off after the sound of brushing subsides. Then and only then can she turn on the water to brush her own teeth. She mimics my routine as if it will, given enough time, transform her into me. Doesn't everybody want that? To be married happily to the man who adores them most in the world. In a secure job where they are appreciated and needed. To be talented and successful in life. See? I told you morning-me was egotistical.

But my day is long, with ups and downs like any other. Another trip to the gym after work before I am finally home. There are things to do, always things to do. The floor needs to be vacuumed or swept, or the pugs need to go outside, or I have to use the bathroom, then I'll have to think about dinner, and I don't know what to cook or if we even have all the ingredients, and if we don't, we'll have to go to the store and it'll be 7:30 before we even start cooking, which means it will be 9 o'clock, as usual, before we actually eat, and by the end of dinner I'm ready to pass out from the exhaustion and frustration of a day that is ultimately like any other- full of ups and downs. Sometimes it's like the day is stuck on repeat and all I want to do is break away and be Rachel. So at night I follow her routine in earnest, with my head pressed to the wall between us, hoping that if I shadow her perfectly, the thin walls that separates us will open, and we can change places whenever we want to not be ourselves.