This past week involved quite a number of exciting drink adventures! In addition to the jasmine iced tea with fresh coconut water and watermelon ice cubes, I also worked my way through the Amazing Meal drink packets from Amazing Grass.

After having successfully imbibed all of the lighter “green superfood” drink powders as snacks, I knew I liked the flavor of these and decided to take the plunge with these more substantial “meal” powders. I had a lot of last-minute food prep for class and work trainings this past week, so these packets served me well on my long days with limited refrigeration options and increased portability needs!

Each of these drinks corresponded pretty closely in flavor to its superfood counterpart, so nothing surprised me in terms of taste or color. I forged right ahead with the straight powder + water mixture.

Here’s the original:

The chocolate (my favorite of the bunch!):

And the pomegranate-mango (my least favorite but still enjoyable):

While we’re on the subject of Amazing Grass, I also had a chance to try the green superfood bars:

They both did their job in a pinch, and I approved of the taste and texture of both. Somehow, these bars tasted sort of like wine to me. I don’t like wine, but I like wine-flavored things, so I was happy!

The only real difference between the two seemed to be the chocolate coating on the chocolate bar, and that made me happy, too:

My mornings saw quite a bit of tapioca ball action, thanks to Elisabeth‘s shipment:

These instant green tea tapioca balls were so easy — five minutes in boiling water produced the ideal level of chew:

I’m obviously clairvoyant because I swiped some extra thick straws last time I was at the bubble tea place just in case a need arose …

Lo and behold, my very own personal thick straw came in quite handy with my jasmine iced tea and green tea balls. Who needs to spend $5 for the tapioca ball experience in a restaurant when it can be re-created so seamlessly at home?!

I also gave the balls a shot with some of the green tea powder that Elisabeth sent in the package:

Of course, I had to compare it with my own homemade green tea powder:

Can you tell which is which?

The powder and the balls complemented each other effortlessly … and I felt energized by the thought of the high antioxidant concentration entering my bloodstream.

The balls also made their way into a watermelon shake that consisted of two immersion-blended watermelon ice cubes and two cups of water:

I am definitely going to be repeating this one!

Finally, I needed some serious assistance via caffeine on Tuesday when I was stuck in an alllll day training followed by an alllll night class. In addition to my jasmine tea in the morning and two venti unsweetened black teas from Starbucks (yes, I know, I’m really doing my part to support the little guys), I also broke down for a tall light java chip frappuccino.

What kind of drinking have you done this week?

Breakfast and dessert are obviously the two most important meals of the day. Without them, how would we know when a new day has begun or an old day is ready to end? 😛

Speaking of endings, I made myself a very exciting dessert this week that started with a pile of frozen coconut chunks and a pile of frozen mango chunks:

After a little immersion blend, I found myself drooling over a perfect bowl of coconut-mango sorbet …

… and decided to incorporate it into a Sarah-style neapolitan cup:

Left to right: coconut-mango sorbet, chocolate frosting, and froyo’d yogurt with blueberries and cherries.

With a little sprinkle of hemp on top for fun:

The majority of the week’s breakfasts involved brilliantly farm-fresh CSA eggs!

Poached on half of a rescued bagel from the freezer bag:

With green tea yogurt, mango, and blueberries:

My usual poached egg eating system involves pre-slicing so I can ensure that every bite of bread has a piece of egg to go with it:

Scrambled with CSA parsley and homemade parmesan:

With nutmeg-topped pineapple and coconut chunks:

And green tea yogurt with mango and cardamom:

And a crepe egg with CSA parsley, balcony basil, and pine nut hummus:

Speaking of hummus …

… check out what Diana delivered to me at our Brooklyn blogger dinner on Monday!

She’s been keeping some of her hummus overflow in the freezer for me for weeks, and I was thrilled to finally collect it 😀

Nothing like the beauty of hummus ice cream …

I was especially excited for the hummus because I know how perfectly it would complement my fresh and crunchy CSA cucumbers! It did not let me down:

Finally, just because it is so cute, I thoroughly enjoyed snacking on my CSA baby golden plums this week:

How do you bookend your days?

To keep you busy while I’m swamped with work and school and losing my mind in general (my last summer session class/paper is next Thursday, yay!), I’ve put together the first installment of a little series of food and expansion around the world because expansion knows no geographic limits 😀

I’ve mentioned a few times before that I spent August of 2008 volunteering in a Peruvian orphanage with infants through the program Mosoq Allyu. In fact, I departed JFK for Lima exactly one year ago on this very Friday morning. The three and a half weeks I spent in Peru were some of the best days of my life, and I honestly wish I could have stayed forever!

The trip, however, was not all baby baby baby. I made sure to include my other great love: food.

I stayed with a family in the “city” of Huancayo, and it certainly helped that Aurora, the mom, was an amazing cook and whipped up a completely new traditional Peruvian dish for lunch every single day! Sadly, I did not have the blog yet — or even a digital camera! — but I captured what I could of the food amazingness I saw everywhere.

On my very first day in Huancayo, I actually thought the trip was going to be a food bust. All I had eaten since arriving were approximately seven white rolls with jam (bread and jam, of all things, turned out to be the standard Peruvian breakfast). I stepped outside to go for a little exploratory walk, and this sign greeted me.

Translation: National Congress of the Potato — International Year of the Potato, 2008

Have I mentioned that I hate potatoes?

Apparently, potatoes (along with wheat and quinoa) are one of the few sustainable crops in the super high Huancayan altitude. A later trip to the market brought the point home:

Things started looking up for me quickly after that initial shock wore off.

Exciting new produce:

Displaying my new finds, pepino and granadilla, on the roof of my family’s house:

Did you know that the most delicious bananas in the world are grown in the Peruvian jungle?

Grocery store loot: best sandwich cookies ever, red banana (best banana ever), membrillo (aka quince), baby oranges, candy bar, quinoa (!!), and mate de coca (aka cocaine leaf tea).

I was so excited to get this quinoa in the store. Even though it is one of the few things that could actually grow up in the mountains, quinoa isn’t a staple of the Peruvian diet where I was because of its bitter (though I don’t think so) taste. After white bread, white rice, white pasta, and white potatoes at every meal, I was thrilled to purchase my own personal stash of whole grains to use for my dinners in.

Rice is such a staple of the Peruvian diet, in fact, that there is a children’s song and dance called “Arroz con Leche” which actually refers to a delicious delicious rice pudding-esque dessert.

More Peruvian delicacies …

A meal of tamal de pollo, pastel de carne, and torta de gelatina from nearby Cafe Exquisitez:

Crepes at Casa de Alan with my co-volunteers:

Closer:

Ceviche!

Closer:

I accidentally ate the spicy pepper that came on top of the ceviche that I was not supposed to eat. I thought it was a tomato. As the tears were streaming down my face, the directors of the volunteer program warned me that I would feel the burn twice … and I did …

The crunchy corn that was served at restaurants instead of chips:

Drinking coconut water in the jungle:

Recognize this one of me eating the Peruvian specialty of cuy picante … aka spicy guinea pig?!

Chewing coca leaves while hiking a glacier to minimize altitude sickness:

Jugo de cana (pure sugar cane juice … cures bronchitis, asthma, anemia, arthritis, kidney, prostate):

Pisco sour (pisco brandy, lime juice, sugar, egg whites):

Zoom on the raw egg white deliciousness:

I wish I had pictures of everything I ate because everything really was blog-worthy. Whenever I travel to new places with regional cuisine, I throw caution to the wind nutrition-wise in favor of trying as much authentic food as possible. This plan worked out beautifully in Peru, as I was literally a bottomless pit due to my persistent case of “traveler’s sickness,” as they call it. I always had room for more 😀

What is your favorite regional cuisine?

Monday night, the prestigious food bloggers of Brooklyn (minus one) took to the ‘hood for dinner at Organic Heights, a newish (what do you mean it’s been here for over a year?!) vegan cafe in the slope.

In addition to being a cafe, Organic Heights is also a vitamin and herbal remedy supplier. See the bottles?

I loved the scenery (as usual) because it made me feel like I was out in the real wilderness instead of this overly humid cement forest of a city.

Our dinner was in honor of Emily, who is leaving our perfect little neighborhood for Buffalo tomorrow! The menu looked brilliant … but they were out of almost everything:

Maybe the lack of options was because “all food is made here in in our kitchen DAILY.” I won’t complain because I am a fan of fresh food, but it would have been a good idea to inform us of the menu’s limitations before handing us the menus and giving us time to look them over!

At least there were cookie samples to keep us occupied while we waited 🙂

I ordered the balsamic roasted portabella sandwich with caramelized onions, roasted red pepper, romaine lettuce, and homemade tofu basil pesto on grilled French sourdough:

This sandwich was SO good. I rarely order sandwiches in restaurants because they make me bored, but this one was incredible — the pesto and the bread really made it!

Mid-meal, Diana pointed out a mystery glass shaker thinking that it might contain some sort of seed to sprinkle on her salad. Nope!

It was unrefined cane sugar, so we had to taste some of course. It was chewy and crunchy at the same time and tasted just like molasses. It looked like no sugar I had seen before. No shiny-ness at all!

For dessert, Diana brought along her homemade two-layer brownie-cookie squares!

They were delicious and I’m going to pretend I did not eat three of them.

Before leaving, we all fell quite easily into our standard around-the-table pose 😛 (Left to right: Vani, me, Diana, Emily)

Emily, we will miss you! Come back and visit often 😀

How do you celebrate/farewell when someone is moving away?

Each week of the CSA is more exciting than the last! I suppose that is the nature of summer 😀

The produce this week included cherries, blueberries, golden plums, zucchini, yellow squash, kohlrabi, cucumber, romaine, parsley, kale, corn on the cob, eggs, and red basil (!!!):

Before this pickup, I didn’t even know that basil came in red! There was no mistaking this bunch — the aroma was quite pungent.

I immediately set to work processing the bounty. I roasted the zucchini, squash (plus some I still had from last week), and kohlrabi with the rest of last week’s garlic, mom’s herb-infused olive oil, sea salt, and balsamic vinegar until crispy:

I mixed in last week’s parsley and ended up with an excellent salad topper:

Joining the roasted veggies on top of the salad were a massaged CSA kale salad (raw kale leaves, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, herb infused olive oil, sea salt, coriander, and mashed avocado), steamed kale stems, CSA romaine, balcony garden arugula, sunflower seeds, and garlic croutons left from my coworkers’ lunches last week.

And because soup is salad’s best friend, I also got some chilled corn and avocado soup going using this recipe. I shucked my five little CSA cobs and arranged them on a rack that I placed over the burner on my stove to simulate a grill:

I had a bite of this corn raw and could have eaten them all right then. It was so sweet!

I openly flamed the corn cobs …

… until the kernels got crispy …

… all the way around:

Then I sliced the kernels from their cobs:

I boiled four cups of water in a large pot and added the kernels, the bare cobs, and this crazy-spicy chile salsa (in place of the chile in the recipe):

I also tossed in the woody stems from the red basil for good measure and boiled/simmered until the broth had reduced by about a cup:

In the meantime, I prepared the garnish. The recipe involved cilantro oil, but I switched it to basil oil for obvious reasons. I chopped all of my red basil (about a cup) and immersion-blended it with sea salt and my mom’s herb-infused olive oil until it was as combined as it was going to get without an actual food processor.

When the broth was ready, I removed the empty cobs and the basil stems and added in a chopped avocado:

I used the immersion blender to puree the avocado and the corn soup until, again, it was as smooth as I could get it without a food processor. I mixed in another avocado’s worth of chunks for texture and then topped a serving with plain yogurt, the basil oil, garlic croutons, and a little sprig of balcony garden basil:

Mmmmmm, this meal was so gourmet yet satisfying and easy to prepare, and you know I made enough to last through my lunches all week long!

Which produce item at its seasonal peak right now makes you most excited?