Auntie Helen’s Weight Loss Soup!
February 6, 2010 at 11:21 am | In Dinner | 8 CommentsTwo Sunday’s ago I met Auntie Helen to give her something for her birthday! Last year I made her these, but this year I wanted to do something non-edible! Remember?? We gots to drop some pounds! So she’s going to get her nails done at About Faces at some point and from that conversation we had that day I decided to make this soup! It’s comprised of chicken, chicken stock, black beans, celery, tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, red cabbage, cilantro, low fat sour cream, peppers and chiles in adobo. So in my quest to keep losing weight I decided to make this for a whole week’s dinner for Ned, Laurita and myself! Well I would have to say that it worked, because I lost two pounds last week! But of course, the snowstorm and being cooped up all weekend led to a bunch of pointless snacking and we’ll see how this week turns out… And I lost two pounds again somehow! My weird body sure surprises me sometimes- and 10 pounds in 5 weeks?! I’m a weight loss professional now! ahhahaha….
This soup is very tasty and very satisfying, and makes a ton! Wonder if it would work for freezing and reheating when needed?!? The chiles in adobo give it really good deep flavor, the red cabbage (added right before you eat it) gives a nice texture contrast, and the tons of vegetables and lean proteins make it uber healthy! God I love Mexican flavors! Can’t wait for this Saturday when I am hosting cookbook club and we are cooking Diana Kennedy’s food! Tamales here we come! Well cookbook club did not happen today, but a lot of other tasty things are being made in the kitchen during the snowpocalypse II! Hope everyone has something nice and warm like this soup to chow on today. 
A Winter Irish Feast
February 1, 2010 at 8:50 pm | In Cookbooks, Dessert, Dinner | 4 CommentsWhen my friend Erica from Alexandria, VA told me that one of her favorite Irish bands was playing at Mick Oshea’s in Baltimore, I instantly decided that we had to have a little dinner party before seeing them play! Last year my girls came over at we ate this and then headed down to Federal Hill for some dancing! Because of the proximity of the bar to my buddy Jesica’s apartment, she agreed to host the dinner party at her abode! We had a lovely jaunt to Wegman’s in the morning and then cooked all afternoon. The results were great!
Here is our Company Pot Roast stewing on the stovetop and getting ready to go into the oven! We used Ina’s recipe and it was pretty good. We also had some caramelized onion toasts, a nice salad with blue cheese, pears, and walnuts, and finished it off with the nanaimo bars + some Breyer’s vanilla with reduced sugared Guinness!
Continue reading A Winter Irish Feast…
Charm City Cookbooking January 2009: A Platter of Figs
January 29, 2010 at 12:00 am | In Cookbooks, Dessert, Dinner | 2 CommentsAlayne hosted this month and what a good choice she made! David Tanis has some real good simple recipes in this cookbook and its very nice how he arranges them into menus. He picked up that habit working at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and it was great to see how he uses simple local ingredients to make amazing food. I read a biography of Chez Panisse two summers ago and I just loved that book. Alice Waters is a genius and we all have her to thank for starting the eat local and organic movement!
Here is a shot of one of the mocktails that we made for our evening. Since I am trying to lose weight and two other ladies can’t drink for health reasons- going alcohol free was a welcome change to our cookbook club evening. Alayne’s creative drink used these dried hibiscus flowers! They were so creepy/awesome looking! Now go over to the Cookbook club blog and check out some pictures and a recipe!
Daring Baker’s Challenge January: Nanaimo Bars
January 27, 2010 at 12:00 am | In Daring Bakers, Dessert | 13 CommentsWell when I read the name of these babies, I had no idea what that corresponded to! But actually, they are a hot mess of chocolate, graham cracker and sugar! Laurita loved them and everyone seem to enjoy their serving when I doled it out on Saturday to some of my buddies. But I really thought the middle layer was too sweet. It was really cool making my own graham crackers- I didn’t do it gluten free though because the cost of buying those different flours swayed me away and I have two sacks of whole wheat flour in my pantry that I had yet to touch- so whole wheat it was!!!
Laurita took that lovely picture of the bar. I was being lazy and didn’t feel like getting up from the dinner table and wow shes such a good photographer! She is starting her student teaching this week so I hope that this dessert will help calm her after her new long days. Welcome to the real world sister bear!!
I love making layered desserts- seems so much fancier and interesting to me! I substituted more almonds and marshmallow bits for the coconut part of the bottom layer since I detest it so much! And I thought that was a good substitution.
The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca. Check out some more pictures below and the recipe!
Continue reading Daring Baker’s Challenge January: Nanaimo Bars…
Snacking on Apple Chips
January 22, 2010 at 9:00 am | In Dessert | 10 CommentsApple chips. YUMMM. I have loved apple chips for as long as I can remember! You know- these kind. I distinctly remember asking for those right after I got my braces off when I was 14 or so. They are just so sweet and crunchy and so satisfying. So now on to my cooking attempts to make those babies… You might have read that I am currently on a drastic healthy lifestyle change. I am trying to work out for at least an hour every day and trying to incorporate as many fruits and vegetables into my diet as possible. Trying to stay away from carbs for the most part and definitely trying to stop snacking after I eat dinner. This motivation has come from the fact that I am in my cousin’s wedding in June and am sick of not fitting into half of my pairs of pants! And I would really like to get back to running, and to do that I need to improve the strength of my post ACL surgery quadricep muscle. I can’t wait until I get to my goal weight ( watch out! my pre college weight!) because then I can go anywhere and get whatever I feel like and it won’t pack on the pounds because I am going to keep up this exercise (and maybe then I’ll be ready to be a buff bride myself! (no pressure Neddy, no pressure at all 
)!
In an attempt to make treats for myself I went thinking about different fruits and how to make them into an interesting dessert. Because I have this awesome mandoline (thank you Ned!) that I received for my birthday last year, it is incredibly easier to accomplish these apple chips! They turned out very crispy and pretty flavorful due to the spices I laid up on them. They aren’t as sweet as the Seneca version, but that’s okay. Here’s to being 20% of the way there and to having delicious low calorie things to snack on! Go check out the recipe below…
Beneficent Birches
January 20, 2010 at 10:00 am | In Dinner, Entertainment | 8 CommentsOn Saturday night before the very depressing Ravens football game, we (meaning I) decided that Ned and the crew would chow down at Birches before we headed to the Canton square! This idea came from positive recommendations from Bobby my cousin! He loves this place because of the great beer selection (read – Resurrection!), the great crab dip and awesome burger menu. I liked the relaxed atmosphere and sweet tunes (Decemberists and Counting Crows!), the bartender was relatively friendly and the food was just very good.
Victor, Megan and Luke got the burger choice, Ned got a buffalo chicken sandwich and I got the huge ceasar salad! Everyone chose different awesome beers and I stuck to agua, but surprisingly got some tea at the end of our visit! Who gets tea at a bar?? Well me. Check out some pictures and our grub below!
Going Ad-hoc at Home for the First Time
January 18, 2010 at 8:57 pm | In Dinner | 15 CommentsNed was uuuuuber excited to receive this cookbook for Christmas. It is so popular I think it still may be on backorder! Thomas Keller is a genius and this is a really good cookbook to have around. So this dish consisted of chicken thighs, green olives and fennel and a really nice broth/sauce! The chicken thigh is such an underutilized part of the bird in my opinion. Ned went to Whole Foods to get a pack of them with skin on. We are going to try to get a significant percentage of the meat we buy from Whole Foods from now on, because we really want to do our part in supporting the ethical and classically natural way of raising meat. But we’ll still be sticking to Wegmans for everything else!
So this chicken broth/sauce made in this recipe was just exquisite! TK really knows how to develop solid flavor in such a short amount of time and this recipe was the perfect way to use my new Le Creuset that I purchased with gift cards (Thank you Auntie Martha and Mrs.W!!!) After recopying the recipe below I am delighted to see how simple TK’s language is in the recipes. It really speaks to the true nature of ad-hoc: relaxed and at home for your loved ones. Now go check out this recipe!
Hungrily Hunting the Hill….
January 14, 2010 at 12:00 am | In Dinner | 2 CommentsHi Food Blogger World, This is Laura (Elizabeth’s sis) guest blogging for the first time. I went downtown Saturday with some art school friends to Federal Hill. We were planning on going to go to Dangerously Delicious Pie’s … But they are closed til the 15th. We kept walking and I called my foodie sister who advised me to go to Spoons on Cross St and they said the kitchen was closed, it was only 4:00! Anyhow, we got advice from the guys in the shop who told us to head down the block to a place called Metropolitan. We started down the street but were stopped cold in our tracks. CREPES! Who doesn’t love a crepe? This was a very good find.
The name of the place is Ruben’s Crepe’s. His crepe shop was unique and had a large array of fillings for his crepes. My friend Kat enjoyed a nutella, strawberries and bananas crepe. Kris had a egg, apple, swiss, cracked pepper and bacon crepe. Pio had an ham, apple, spinach, meunster cheese crepe. I had the NEW one Salsa-Verde, Beans, cheese, chorizo. This was tasty but very hot. For the time of day (between lunch and dinner) I should have got something sweeter. Overall a good bite to eat in the cold weather. This was a small and cozy space and is reasonably priced- $1.00 for coffee and $6.00 – $ 9.00 for the crepes. The fillings are generous and the shop has only been open for a WEEK but he had nice tables and a relaxed atmosphere. Go for the jump to see the menu!
Getting chilly in DC!
January 12, 2010 at 12:00 am | In Dinner | 9 CommentsSo indeed we were verrrrry chilly in DC on Friday night. Probably 20 and windy! Very difficult to walk happily around town! So in addition to being chilly on Friday, we ate chili!! Perfect for the cold and it was definitely a fun highlight to our evening. One of our favorite One World Cafe bartenders is Chris and he happens to be in a band called the Fishnet Stalkers. He was opening for the Upper Crust at the Black Cat. We needed to get some grub before we went to the concert, so I went searching on google maps and what did I spot only three blocks away?? Ben’s Chili Bowl!! I recognized this place from Tony Bourdain’s visit and hearing about President Obama’s love for this establishment
This place was hustling and bustling around 7pm on Friday night, slightly less crazy than when we walked by again on our way home from the concert! About 15 people in line and the booths and counter seats were full. They only take cash, so I was glad to have some moola leftover from Christmas presents! Ned knew he wanted the Half smokey dog and I had my sights on vegetarian chili (from my early perusing on the web..). When I saw those delicious hot dogs roasting on the griddle I knew I had to have one, but just one! The half smokey is a half pork/ half beef smoked sausage, homemade on site! They top it with onions, mustard and their famous chili. Check out my blurry iphone pictures below!
My new lunch and appetizer go to: Hummus!
January 10, 2010 at 6:30 pm | In Appetizer, Dinner | 6 CommentsAt the snowpocalypse party 2009 one of Ned’s labmates brought a nice tray of cucumbers, carrots, snowpeas and broccoli and paired it with her homemade hummus! I tried this hummus and was so wowed! Typically, I love buying the sabra pine nut hummus, but for five bucks for a nice sized tub, I realized there had to be a cheaper way! And a way to exercise my culinary creativity!
I went searching in Elise’s site and found her basic recipe. She uses alot of tahini (which I reasoned to be pretty high in calories for my purposes…) so I halved it and replaced that with water!
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