Category Archives: Food and Drink

All hail the smoothie.

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I have a slight obsession with making smoothies.

At first, they were just a matter of convenience. For the few months of Ethan’s life, I relied on my blender and my slow cooker to provide my meals. It’s just easier to toss a bunch of ingredients into a thing that does most of the work for you than it is to really sit down and prepare, cook, and clean up from a “real” meal. First thing in the morning, I’d throw some fruit and juice into the blender and sip up, just to make sure I had something in my system. It’s all too easy to forget to eat or to end up short on time when you have a newborn. Even better, all you need is one hand to drink a smoothie!

Now I have gotten into the habit of making a smoothie for breakfast almost every day. I can’t recommend them strongly enough – they’re such an easy way to make sure you’re getting a nutritious breakfast with minimal effort. I thought I’d share a few of my personal favorites in case anyone would like to give them a try!

MY FAVORITE SMOOTHIE
This is a pretty basic green smoothie. The honey is always optional in these recipes, but I usually add it because I have such a sweet tooth!

1 banana
1/3 cup Greek yogurt
Large handful fresh kale
7-8 frozen green grapes
1 cup green tea
Small spoonful of honey

SPA SMOOTHIE
This is a refreshing smoothie that I love in the hotter months.

1 cup frozen red berries
1 banana
1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
1 cup green tea
Spoonful of honey

AVOCADO MARGARITA SMOOTHIE
Tequila not included.

1/2 avocado, diced
1 cup limeade
1/2 cup frozen peach slices
Handful of fresh spinach
Spoonful of honey

MOOD INDIGO SMOOTHIE
Lovely and calming. I’ll occasionally make this as a dessert since it’s sweet and relaxing before bedtime.

1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup frozen cherries
1 cup lavender tea
1/3 cup Greek yogurt
Splash of pineapple juice or a few pieces of frozen pineapple

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Five ways to fancy up brownie mix

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Okay, you caught me: I’m not a baker. I’m a decent cook and a semi-competent bartender, but when it comes to baking, I rely on mixes. As much as I’d like to be better at baking, my heart just isn’t in it. I prefer the experimental nature of cooking and mixing drinks to the exact science of baking. When I bake from scratch, my concoctions always turn out nice. That’s it, just nice. They’re not bad, but there’s not spectacular. They’re just good enough to make it look like I sort of know what I’m doing. This is why I generally prefer to use boxed mixes and add my own little flair to them – while it personalizes the recipe, it still protects me from expecting to be a sweet genius and failing spectacularly.

If you’re like me and prefer to let Duncan Hines do most of the heavy lifting, here are a few easy ways to dress up your basic boxed brownie mix!

1. Fruit brownies
This is one of my favorite ways to prepare boxed brownies. Not only does it taste great and allow you to pretend like you’re getting a serving of fruit with your dessert, it cuts out all the oil! This saves a lot of fat and calories while still maintaining the great flavor. All you need is the brownie mix (I prefer dark chocolate mix for this), a can of fruit (I use sweet pitted cherries), and an egg. DO NOT DRAIN the can of fruit – add it into the mix as it is. Add the egg, stir it up, and bake as directed. It may take a little longer than the traditional recipe, so keep an eye on them! These tend to come out very gooey, so some people prefer to use two eggs for better “hold”. My favorite way to serve these is warm with a little ice cream.

2. Starry Night brownies
I don’t remember the first time I made these, but I do remember the first time someone told me they were going to hold me hostage until I gave them the recipe. I’m not sure if they were happy or disappointed to find out that they weren’t getting some super-secret family recipe! For these, you need is brownie mix, dark chocolate chips, and white chocolate chips. Simply prepare the brownies as directed, then mix in the chips to taste and bake as directed. These are so decadent, and the white chocolate chips make them look a little more festive!

3. Grand Marnier brownies
I have a great love for Grand Marnier, as do my mother and mother-in-law, so these brownies are a real treat for us. While I do have a scratch recipe that I use, if I’m in a pinch, these work just as well. They end up tasting a lot like those chocolate oranges you have to whack on a table to open, only a lot less hassle! Start with dark chocolate brownie mix, prepared as directed, then add some dark chocolate chips and the zest of about half an orange. Mix in about a teaspoon of Grand Marnier. Bake the brownies as directed, and when they have cooled, brush them with a very thin layer of Grand Marnier.

4. Espresso brownies
I’ve never really cared for the espresso brownies from Starbucks, finding them to be a bit on the dry side. They also just taste too processed for me. I love the flavor of coffee and chocolate together, though, so I wanted to figure out the best way to make that happen without overspending for a brownie that doesn’t really do it for me when all is said and done. I found that substituting espresso for the water in your brownie mix adds a light coffee flavor. If you really want to give it a punch, adding a tablespoon or so of very finely ground coffee or espresso will wake you up!

5. Andes Mint brownies
This is the recipe that is requested most often. As with my Grand Marnier brownies, I do have a scratch recipe that I usually use, but using the mix makes these such a ridiculously easy treat that it seems silly to bother making them from scratch. For these, just prepare your favorite brownies from the mix. The second (and I do mean the second) they are out of the oven, place Andes Mints on top so that they melt. Swirl and spread them to make a frosting, then allow them to cool (you may need to use the fridge) before cutting. These are a perfect wintertime dessert!

Cranberry sauce recipe

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For the past few years, the task of making cranberry sauce (for Thanksgiving or just at the request of those who love it) has fallen to me. I have made several variations – adding apples, plums, jalapenos, and strawberries – but the most popular is my traditional cranberry and orange sauce. It’s about the easiest thing you can make, and it’s a nice thing to have on hand. It tastes great on baked brie, as a sandwich topping, with ice cream – the list goes on. So, without further ado, here is my recipe for cranberry-orange sauce! This is a BIG recipe, so there will be plenty to share!

INGREDIENTS:
About 5 cups cranberries
2 oranges
Water
Sugar
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Allspice

DIRECTIONS:
1. Rinse the cranberries if you are using fresh, picking through for any stems.

2. Remove the zest from one orange, both if you want a stronger flavor.

3. Put the cranberries into a pot, adding the juice of both oranges. Add 2 cups of water.

4. Warm on medium-low heat until the cranberries begin to burst. Keep an eye on the amount of water, adding a little more if necessary. Stir as the cranberries burst.

5. Add sugar and spices to taste.

6. Continue to cook, using a potato masher as the berries soften. Keep in mind that the sauce will thicken when removed from the heat.

7. When berries are soft and at about the desired consistency, remove the pot from the heat and allow to set. Stir well, adding more sugar and spices if necessary.

Ta-da! It’s incredibly simple, looks beautiful (my camera is not great for food photography, so just trust me on that one), and tastes absolutely lovely. The smell alone makes this worth cooking! I know this isn’t the most exact recipe in the world, but the great thing about cranberry sauce is that it is really easy to play it by ear and still churn out a gorgeous result. Play around with it, experiment, and by all means, let me know if you discover something I haven’t tried yet!

Another silly project. Just cuz.

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I think one of the easiest ways for us to save money is for us to eat on a tighter budget.

Boom. Depression Diet gone.

While that’s kind of a bummer (because I enjoyed being crunchy for a while), I have been feeling a lot better lately. And I mean a lot. I’m still having issues with patience and not beating myself up over minor things, but I’m not feeling nearly as anxious as I did before. So I think it will be okay to deviate at least a bit as long as I stay reasonably healthy and continue exercising.

I went to the grocery store yesterday and went insane. I bought so much food. So. Much. Food. But all of it was on sale! I’m going to see if, by being careful (and making one additional run for fresh produce), I can get us through the end of the month on that particular haul. I’m hoping that a combination of creative crockpottery (shut up, it’s totally a word) and budgeting our groceries wisely will make this a possibility. And if it works, then I’ll know that I can definitely make this a regular thing.

Groceries have always been my weakness. I love to cook. I love to go to a grocery store and buy anything that looks pretty and tasty…but it’s expensive. And I need to stop pretending like we can just burn money whenever I feel like it! I’m going to spend the rest of this month figuring out a strategy to get our groceries down to between $100-$150 a month, maximum. I’m sure we can do it as long as I am serious about shopping sales. Hell, add in some smart couponing and I could possibly come in under budget.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The Depression Diet Shopping List

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I was asked to share my shopping list for my Depression Diet, so here it is! Of course, it may vary from time-to-time depending on what is available, prices, etc. A few things that may be staples for other kitchens, like red meat, cheese, and other fruits and veggies, are missing from the list. That’s just because I don’t happen to eat red meat very often, I’m trying to cut down on the cheese (I have a mild obsession), and I tend to switch up my fruits and veggies anyway depending on what I find at the farmer’s market. These are just what I want to have on hand most often.

THE DEPRESSION DIET SHOPPING LIST:

Whole wheat bread
Tortilla wraps
Rice
Couscous
Pasta
Oatmeal
Almond milk
Coffee
Cranberry juice
Green tea
Almonds or walnuts
Eggs
Dark chocolate
Potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Beans
Spinach
Jalapenos
Broccoli
Avocados
Tomatoes
Garlic
Kale
Onions
Mushrooms
Cucumbers
Lettuce
Sprouts
Beets
Limes
Lemons
Grapefruit
Bananas
Apples
Smoked salmon
Deli turkey
Frozen chicken breasts
Greek yogurt
Half and half
Mint leaves
Cilantro

It may not look like too much, but when you have spices, condiments, and other herbs already on hand at home, there are a lot of options. In my freezer, I already had some frozen fruits and veggies (which I generally use for smoothies), as well as the chicken breasts (which I buy in bulk at Sam’s), and I have various other healthy items (like granola, local honey, dried lentils, etc) in my pantry. With all of these things on hand, I have been able to create some really tasty meals without having to work or think too hard to come up with them!

I highly recommend shopping this way. It is much faster and easier to come up with a grocery list that you simply “refill” rather than starting from scratch each week. It helps cut down on temptation in the first place, but then even when you give in to temptation, you are far less likely to splurge and wind up with a cart full of unnecessary items! You’ll have a cart full of items that pair well together…and maybe a few fun extras. Like I say, this is just my “base” list. Sometimes I might substitute certain items if I feel like mixing it up, or I may add a few extra things in order to create certain recipes.

If you try shopping like this, let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear your suggestions and if this works well for you, too!

The Depression Diet

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Well, that’s a depressing name for a diet. Appropriately enough. Actually, when I thought of it, it sounded funny in my head, but written out…well, it sounds like a real bummer.

It’s not, though! Actually, this is something that I think is going to really help me. So far, I already feel miles better…and it has only been a few days. I have always believed that the first line of defense against illness and malaise is the physical body. If your body doesn’t feel good, the rest of you won’t feel good either, and my body has (of course) been feeling wonky since Ethan was born. When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that the percentage of women who have postpartum issues isn’t higher, simply because of what our bodies go through during pregnancy and childbirth. I was lucky enough to have a pretty low-key experience, but some women go through some really traumatic things. Even with my dumb luck, I still went through the same thing every woman deals with – pain, aching, sleep deprivation, nausea, you name it. It’s a rough nine months, and then it’s a rough however-long-it-takes to recover…and all the while, you feel like a stranger in your body. It’s heavier, it has a new shape, and there are all sorts of surprises to deal with (scars, stretch marks, etc). On top of all that, most new moms find themselves eating whatever they can quickly stuff into their mouths – often foods that aren’t terribly healthy and are about convenience and filling rather than nutrition.

I looked at my diet for a few days and it was pretty bad. On average, I was eating next to nothing and definitely nothing good for me. Pretty much just coffee until late afternoon, when I’d shovel down a microwaveable meal, and then I’d eat whatever I had thrown into the crock pot for dinner. Now, it’s not impossible to make a healthy crock pot meal – it’s easy. But I was being lazy, and the result was a lot of very fatty meals with a lot of processed food. And I wondered why I wasn’t losing the baby weight? My poor metabolism probably wanted to throatpunch me.

So I sat down and did some research, looking for information about eating well on a tight budget. I made lists of the healthiest foods that also provided a lot of variety and were easier on the budget. Then it was off to the grocery store. A heart-stopping $100 later, I had a completely full fridge and pantry, filled to the brims with nutritious, easy-to-prepare food. It was terrifyingly expensive, but a lot of those items were bulk/nonperishable, so I won’t have to buy them every week. I’m pretty sure that the next time I shop, the cost will be significantly less. I plan to pretty much stick to this list, occasionally swapping an item or two or adding something “extra” to create a new recipe – it will be easier to  just “restock” rather than shop from scratch or from a random list of wants.

I’m forcing myself to eat three meals a day and no food that is processed, at least for a little while. I’m not a huge believer in the trendy detox diets, but I think it’s important to jump into this headlong and just get all the junk out as fast as I can. I’m doing my best to get all of my fruits and veggies, cut down on the bread, consume as little additional sugar as possible, and make sure I’m getting enough protein. Three days into this diet and I’m already feeling a huge difference. I have a lot more energy and I feel far less weighed down.

I am also making sure I am exercising every day, at least a little bit. If nothing else, I do the Bodyrock beginner’s fitness test (3 rounds of squats, push-ups, tricep dips, and crunches, totaling a 12-minute workout). I think once my body feels a little more like it’s actually mine, it will do wonders for my psyche.

I know I’m repeating myself a lot in this post, and I apologize – I tend to talk myself in circles and say the same things over and over again even in real life. Bad habit that I made absolutely no effort to break or even curb before I wrote this entry. Anyway, I’m going to keep a close eye on myself, get creative with the cooking, and hope that I can find a natural way to ease my anxiety. If this doesn’t work, I’ll go to the doctor, of course,  but I want to at least try this out before considering other methods. If I can eat my way back to mental health, I’d much prefer to do that!

I put olives in my chili tonight.

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And it was a good decision.

I found a recipe called “Belly Burner Chili” that intrigued me. While I tweaked the recipe a bit (just one pound of sausage and about a pound of potatoes, one can of tomato sauce, a little bit of diced fresh tomato, and I left the soy sauce out entirely), the end result is absolutely delicious. I know olives are kind of a polarizing foodstuff, so I’m sure a lot of people will be turning up their noses at the very idea of putting green and black (I used kalamata) olives in chili, but it’s actually really great. The olives don’t taste so olive-y along with all the other flavors and it creates a nice saltiness to go along with the spice and savoriness of the rest of the dish. I’m happy.

The thing that’s great about chili is that it can be a very healthy food, plus it’s cheap and very easy to make. We’ve been making chili almost every week since Ethan was born and I have never been happier to own a crock pot. It’s nice to just toss some ingredients into the slow cooker and just ignore it for eight hours or so. Insurance should cover them for new parents – we’d all be eating a lot better if that were the case!

Wow. This is riveting stuff, isn’t it? I think you can tell it has been an otherwise uneventful day. I didn’t actually accomplish any of the things I had planned – none of the laundry, the sheets still aren’t on the bed after being washed, the place is generally a mess – but I at least got in a ten-minute workout. Well, sort of. I had to keep stopping so that I could give Ethan his pacifier. I swear, that kid just does not get the concept of “keep pacifier in mouth” yet. He spits it out, waits a beat, and then freaks out. I know he’s a genius and all so we can’t expect him to be able to keep track of everything, but still.

In other news, I’ve continued exercising and though it has only been a few days, I’m feeling pretty confident that I can keep this up. I am only exercising between 10-20 minutes per day, mainly because that’s all I can spare the energy for right now and because Ethan’s schedule is still a little lopsided. I think once I feel a little stronger, I’ll take Ethan with me to our apartment complex’s workout room. He can nap and I can jog! I’m hoping to do the Color Run in September, which is a 5K. I have never run when it wasn’t required by public school, so this is quite an unusual endeavor for me. I figure if anything could convince me to run in a legitimate race, it’s the prospect of being covered in multi-colored powder by the end of it.

Setting a goal like that, silly though it may sound, has made me feel a little better in the face of my anxiety. I think it’s because looking forward to something helps me remember that right now is just that – it’s right now, and it will pass. I know that sounds cliche, but it’s true, and it does help. We’re also planning to go to visit my dad in about a month, which I’m really excited about…a few days at the beach should put me right. Especially if I manage to squeeze into the two-piece I bought last year!

Jam session

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Now that I am recovered enough to be able to lean over the stove for extended periods of time without feeling like I’m about to break in half – always a good sign – I am anxious to start cooking again. Today, I started slow and made a simple favorite: strawberry-cava jam!

There are only three ingredients in this jam: strawberries, cava, and sugar. One pound of sliced strawberries, a mini bottle of cava or champagne, and two cups of sugar. Simply combine the sugar and cava and cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves (about 10 minutes), then add the strawberries and cook until the juice gels on a cold plate (stick one in the freezer), about 20-30 minutes.

You may need to drain off some of the excess juice, depending on how thick you want the jam to be, but save it – that syrup makes a wonderful cocktail flavoring. Put a little in a glass and top with champagne, add it to a mixture of tonic water and fresh, muddled mint leaves, or mix some in lemonade and add vodka. Delicious!

If you need/want to, use a potato masher to squish up the strawberries once they get mushy. Turn off the heat and let the jam stand for about 10-15 minutes, so that it thickens and cools.

Normally I’d say “transfer to jars” at this point, but this never lasts long enough for jars to be necessary. I just use Tupperware.

This makes a wonderful jam for toast or pastries, but it also tastes great as an ice cream topping!

Now that I’ve actually gotten off my butt and cooked something, I’m dying to whip up a few more dishes…quick, someone hold the baby so I can see what I can make out of frozen peas, apple juice, and caramel sauce (pretty much all that’s in our fridge right now)!

Oh, the drinks you can drink…

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…when you aren’t pregnant anymore.

I’m not an alcoholic. I promise. I’m really not*. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy drinking. A pint of frosty beer, a glass of wine, a cocktail here and there…I love it all. I especially love making drinks. I guess it has something to do with how much I love to cook – mixing drinks is sort of like cooking with liquid. It’s fun to see what combinations of liquors, mixers, and add-ins I can come up with.

Stupidly, I was indulging my interest by clicking around on Foodgawker and checking for some new recipes to try once Ethan is here. Dumb idea. I’m going to have to really keep myself in check so I don’t go and BUY ALL THE LIQUOR! and get creative right away. It’s kind of funny – I usually go for a gin and tonic and don’t generally get much fancier than that unless it’s a special occasion. I guess this desire to create some more complicated drinks is similar to how I felt about cooking once my morning sickness finally subsided. After three months of not even attempting to cook, I suddenly wanted to make the fanciest dishes I could manage to create on my square foot of counter space.

Here are a few of the drinks I know I’ll want to try as soon as I can…they sound divine:

Cantaloupe Martinis – Ooh La La!

Cantaloupe Martini. I haven’t had much melon at all during this pregnancy – was totally turned off from it during my first trimester and just haven’t bothered since then – so this sounds nice and refreshing.

John Daly Cocktail

This one is for Adam as much as it is for me: it’s an Arnold Palmer. EXCEPT WITH BOOZE.

This one is just plain pretty and it reminds me of a drink I had on our honeymoon. It’s a Rosemary-Infused Vodka Martini. I can borrow some rosemary from my mom’s garden!

Any other creative and delicious cocktail recipes you’d like to share? I’d love to add some more to my “To Drink” list.

*Okay, maybe a little bit during tech week.