I’m a child of the 90s. I grew up listening to Nirvana, Boys to Men, SWV and had Quicksilver t-shirts and wanted to wear Dickies like Gwen Stefani…you know the ones like in No Doubt’s video “I’m Just a Girl,” and of course in the sixth grade my favorite movie was Clueless. I even went so far as to ask my parents for her closet. Which by the way, is still incredible. Can you imagine what you could do nowadays with an iPad. Best. Closet. Ever.
Anyway, so when a friend recommended Alcicia Silverstone’s book, The Kind Diet, I figured I’d give it a go. I sat and read the first few chapters; it was informative, impactful, taught me things I never knew about veganism and the possibilities of it changing your health.
I felt kinda empowered and so for the next twenty minutes I started considering turning vegan. It kinda made sense. I’d been sufffering with allergies for a few months and maybe me eating dairy and meat had something to do with it. I love animals and don’t want to live a life hurting them. So I started to think; going through all the things I’d have to give up.
Chicken? Eh..I mean, I love buttermilk fried chicken, but I don’t eat it all that often and I could maybe live without it.
Steak, hamburgers, short ribs. Uhhh…I started to immediately mourn In-N-Out and the truffle burger from Umami Burger, which really deserves its own category of awesome–it’s life changing, really. BUT I could probably eat less burgers. My thighs would be grateful, though I am doing yoga everyday. Have I told you that? Whatevs. No big deal. I just work out or whatever.
Continue reading 'Zucchini Parmesan'»
Pulling a muscle in your back totally sucks. Especially when you do it on a Saturday morning. Even worse is when your fiancé is sick with a cold at the same time. Yeah, we had a super awesome weekend.
Thanks God for Law & Order SVU marathons.
And take out pho noodle soup.
And easy to make California avocado sandwiches.
I’m not gonna lie, I totally ripped this off from Atlanta Bread Company. And I really wouldn’t’ have had a problem buying one of theirs except there isn’t a single one in Los Angeles. Ironic, considering they’re the ones that named this the California Avocado sandwich. So they left me with no choice, I had to make it on my own.
Continue reading 'California Avocado Sandwich'»
Since I enjoy cooking, I hardly ever Sandra Lee-it. Meaning, I steer clear of store bought ingredients like pie crusts, biscuits, cookie dough, etc. I always find it easier to just make them myself, cheaper even and definitely healthier.
But I have a confession: I totally Sandra Lee-ed it on this pizza. I’ve been working like crazy lately and I wanted to enjoy the day outside rather than being locked inside forced to wait for this pizza dough to take its sweet-ass time rising.
I also didn’t want to slave over the stove for my marinara sauce to come out just right, or spend time shucking ears of corn–so I used the frozen stuff. Yes, at the peak of its season I opted for the frozen stuff in my freezer. It was a pretty day, okay?
So I took Sandra Lee’s route, but only my way. Instead of going to the grocery store to get pizza dough, which is usually loaded with preservatives, I went to a local pizza place that I love and bought pizza dough from them for $3. I didn’t even know you could do this until a few months ago.
Then I bought some good quality, jarred marinara sauce; bought my other ingredients and had my pizza done in twenty-seven minutes flat.
Yes, twenty…seven. (I timed it.)
Continue reading 'Corn Chorizo Pizza with Goat Cheese and Avocado'»
I’m realizing that a lot of my daily life is a simple series of action and reaction. For instance, I recently read, well, more like devoured, the book “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and after reading something that good there are two logical actions that must be taken: 1) watch the movie on Netflix, 2) order the follow-up book immediately on Amazon.
Another instance is when Lindsay Lohan went to jail, and I the immediate action of people unhealthily obsessed with celebrities everyone was to look up her mug shot. I would like to tell you that I don’t often follow celebrity gossip news, but my grandmother would disapprove of me to lying to this many people at once.
Continue reading 'Roasted Red Pepper Risotto Cakes'»
“Millions of peaches, peaches for me, millions of peaches, peaches for free”…(on a sammich!). Umm…do you remember this song? If not, apologies for 90s reference. I love the 90s…and peaches. I love peaches when they’re in season. Heck, I love peaches even when they’re in a can. I love, love them in salads, and on their own. Not while driving, though. I always end up with a sticky steering wheel and a pit that I don’t have a place for. Even though my teachers in school always told me I could throw it on the grass, I feel bad. It’s still technically littering since it’s not going back into the earth for a few weeks, ya know?
Anyway, back to peaches…I especially love them on this sandwich. I’ve eaten this sandwich a bunch of times, but each time using pears, but since peaches are in season right now, I figured I’d put them to good use. And I think it turned out pretty great. Pearhaps you should try it!
Continue reading 'Peach and Tallegio Panini'»
Sometimes things don’t always go as we planned. I had planned to watch “The Wizard of Oz” at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I had even called all my friends, cooked up some recipes, scheduled a time to meet, loaded up the car and driven all the way to Hollywood just to have a picnic in the cemetery. However, when we turned the corner and were preparing to enter, we were met by this:
The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but basically the entire city of Los Angeles had the same thoughts that we had. And unfortunately for us, they had the idea about an hour sooner, and we didn’t make it inside. Yeah, it was a bummer. There are few things sadder than having a picnic meal and nowhere to picnic.
Luckily, I’m blessed to have flexible and endlessly enthusiastic friends. We took our picnic dinner and headed to a teeny tiny park in Universal City. We sat on blankets and drank wine, ate our food and watched the sunset go down. It was good, even without the red slippers or munchkins.
Continue reading 'Walnut Pesto'»
I have to confess that I was once a bit of a pizza purist. To me, pizza meant crust, sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. As a kid I was incredibly stringent on this rule. It was a huge step when I finally began to eat sausage on my pizza, but no one was crazy enough to think I might try green peppers or mushrooms.
Nowadays I tend to be much more adventurous. I like pizzas with different sauces like pesto, or even those that don’t have sauce like a classic Margherita pizza. This however, might be the biggest leap I’ve ever made. There isn’t any sauce, just a drizzle of olive oil. You won’t find mozzarella but instead a mild Fontina cheese. Oh yeah, and there’s also the potato and arugula. I was stunned to learn how amazing arugula could be on a pizza when I went to Pitfire, but potato? On a pizza? My adult self wanted to try this, but I could hear the little kid in me screaming “Gross! I’m not tasting it!” Continue reading 'Potato and Arugula Pizza'»
We’re friends right? I mean, I like you, and if you like me then I guess that means we’re friends. So I can tell you about my guilty pleasures. What exactly is a guilty pleasure? It’s something that you know without a shadow of a doubt is bad for you and has no business being in your life, and you still think it’s wonderful. When it comes to TV shows, I am obsessed with the Real Housewives on Bravo. Notice how I didn’t specify a specific city? That’s cause I love all of them. Regardless of how loudly Chase or my friends tell me that these shows are trash TV and are a dredge on society, I still can’t help but be enthralled with the meaningless drama that consumes these women’s lives. Go ahead and judge me, I’m used to it. (Oh, and for anyone that watches, I’m totally on Team Bethanny)
Now, my food equivalent of a guilty pleasure is fettuccine Alfredo. Maybe you’re wondering why Alfredo is a guilty pleasure and not chocolate cake? Here’s the thing about unhealthy foods, you have your items like cookies and cake, that make no pretense of what they are: sugar and fat, plain and simple. Then you have things like fettuccine Alfredo that tries to convince you that it’s dinner, perhaps even part of a well balanced diet. Don’t be fooled though, this entire meal is two things: starch and heavy cream and I LOVE it. All you health nuts can yell at me all you want, you can tell me how fattening it is, how each bite is clogging my arteries, you can give me your estimates on how long it’s going to take me to exercise off this fat, and I will smile at you over my plate of steaming pasta, complete undeterred from eating the whole thing. Continue reading 'Fettuccine Alfredo'»
When I think of spring, the first thing that comes to mind is that scene in Bambi where all the birds are singing and being really lovey-dovey. You remember that scene, don’t you? And Bambi, Thumper and Flower are all confused as to what’s happening and the owl starts to explain what being twitterpated means, but they totally don’t understand.
Looking back, what surprises me the most was that Thumper didn’t know what it was. If anyone out of the group would’ve known, it should’ve been him. I mean seriously, he’s the kid that grew up waaaay too fast and knew waaay too much about everything. Remember him egging poor, scared Bambi out onto the frozen pond? Remember how smooth of a skater he was with his hands behind his back just skating along? He’s the type of kid that pushes your kid in the closet with a girl/boy, gives your kid their first cigarette, first joint or first sip of alcohol. He’s the kid no parent wants their kid to hang out with. Total bad apple.
Continue reading 'Mascarpone Rosewater Pancakes'»
I secretly LOVE Valentine’s Day. I mean, how can I not? I LOVE love! Here’s a small little list of what I’m loving right now:
I love my family dog, Chuck, mainly because he has weird habits like biting his nails and smelling his ear wax. He’s weird. Like me. Also, his paws smell like chips, particularly Fritos.
I love my family because all of them, in their own way, have taught me how to be a human being.
I love my friends because they can make me laugh ’til I cry.
I love small stuff like sleeping in without having an alarm set, my tempur-pedic pillow, french pressed coffee…and…umm…this blog. I really do love this thing.
Continue reading 'Croque Madame'»
Biscuits rule, period. Sadly, I didn’t always know this. Yeah, it’s true. Even though I was born in the South and was raised by parents who spent most of their youth in the South, biscuits weren’t part of my childhood. This is mainly due to the fact that my mother was not much of a baker and, in general, my parents are not huge fans of Southern food. In fact, my first real introduction to biscuits was a random trip to Kentucky Fried Chicken—and from then on, I was hooked. Yes, I’ll proudly say that KFC has some pretty glorious biscuits. Everyday after tennis practice, on my way home, I’d go through the drive-thru and order two biscuits with honey and butter. It was heaven in a to-go bag.
These biscuits are also heaven, even though they’re nothing like KFC’s biscuits. I’ll even go so far to say that these are better–much better. Don’t believe me? Well, here are a few reasons why my biscuits stomp the KFC competition.
#1 All of the ingredients in my biscuits are pronounceable.
#2 These biscuits aren’t meal-specific. You can have them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even for a random snack, if you like. They’re like um…a unisex shirt, or a shirt that’s ‘size fits all.’ I love when stuff is like that.
#3 They have cheese in them. The end.
Verdict: I win!
Continue reading 'Buttermilk Cheddar Jalapeño Biscuits'»
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