Beachy keen

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Ack, today has gotten away from me — it’s just been action-packed with laziness 😛

Before I get onto today’s food, though, look at what I found last night hidden in a cabinet behind some dishes!

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This was perfect since we were all pretty stuffed from the big grilled dinner but still in the mood for something sweet. I split the Hershey’s truffle and the Newman’s bar into three pieces so that mom, John, and I could all take part:

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To be honest, though, that chocolate bar was weirdly sweet. I like my dark chocolate to be somewhat bitter — the extra sweetness kind of gave it a fake chocolate taste.

For breakfast this morning, I made us all carrot cake oatmeal:

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For the three of us, I used 3/4 cup dry steel-cut oats, 2 cups water, 1 egg, 2 shredded carrots, 1 shredded apple, 2/3 cup fork-crushed fresh pineapple, and lots of cinnamon. (I put a giant spoonful of freshly ground almond butter on top of mine, too, in case you missed it.) I also made about 1/2 cup each of healthy cream cheese icing for the side to be added on at the last minute possible — I wasn’t trying to have any more chemical reaction disasters taking place in my food!

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Cascading icing:

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After breakfast, we pushed off toward Wareham, a little town near the Cape where my mom bought a marsh-shack (though she calls it the “little house”) a few years ago. It’s just a few teeny rooms, but mom and John are working on completely gutting it and making it liveable — it will be a nice renovation project to keep them busy for, ohhhh, the next 25 years or so. While John did something with tools and ladders and some cementy compound in the “bathroom” (which now boasts a toilet that flushes — yayyyyyy!!) mom and I went for a walk on the “beach.” Here she is looking for pretty rocks:

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More scenery:

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My dad was nearby on the Cape with my stepmom at my step-grandma’s house, so he came over for a visit post-walk. We had brought some goodies from home for entertaining purposes, so alongside our afternoon tea (unpictured), we each had a slice of random rhubarb pie that my mom made yesterday (with my assistance, of course).

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I’m not going to give a recipe for the pie since it was SO random (part of the fridge clean-out mission), but it included all of the following and more: part-skim ricotta, verrrrrrry iffy fat free ricotta (it was gone enough that I wouldn’t eat it straight, but mom was convinced that it would be fine for cooking), eggs, garden-fresh rhubard, dried Asian dates, a way beyond ripe avocado, 1/2 banana, erythritol (my mom is diabetic-ish, and this is her sweetener of choice because it doesn’t have a wretched aftertaste like splenda), and a crust made of pre-cooked whole grains (a blend of every grain under the sun that mom made last week in hopes of using them for a batch or seven of kitchen sink muffins).

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I wasn’t sure how this pie would be given all of the iffy ingredients (my doubt says a lot because you know how lenient I usually am with food iffiness!), and the taste didn’t knock my socks off when I tried it right out of the oven yesterday. I have to admit, though, that it was pretty tasty today after a night in the fridge! I guess mom knows what she’s doing after all.

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After pie, we also shared a package of Anna’s ginger thins and rye crackers with seed butter I made yesterday:

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The seed butter came about because, during fridge clean-out yesterday, I came across a ramekin full of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and sea salt that my mom had been saving since we made everything bagels together when I was home in March of 2008. Yes, she’d been saving these seeds for 14 months. I just could not handle the thought of them taking up space in the fridge for another 14 (or 28 or 42 or 56, etc.). We soaked the seeds in warm water to dissolve and eliminate the salt and then toasted them, along with some pepitas that mom had around, to dry them out. All grinding took place in the coffee bean grinder, but I think I over-toasted because the finished product was pretty bland. I immersion-blended it with a couple tsp of miso paste and about 3 tbsp of almond butter to add “depth,” and that helped quite a bit. Mom has plans to doctor it further with Ghirardelli cocoa powder — no complaints here!

After tea-time, dad headed back to step grandma’s house, John returned to compounding the bathroom with ladders and tools, mom pretended to do some work paperwork, and I took a nap. When I awoke, it was nearly time for dinner! We droveout to Turk’s Seafood in Mattapoisett. My mom has been raving about this place to me on the phone for months, so I was excited to have the chance to experience it first-hand!

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I love beachy seafood restaurants, and this one fit right into that category. The atmosphere inside was very casual (though, sushi is also available if one feels the need to class it up) and boisterous. The food even came on paper plates! We started with edamame to share:

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I ordered the broiled haddock and crabcake with roasted vegetables:

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It was delicious (even though “thawed in the oven” may have been a better description for the veggies than “roasted”). I chopped the fish and crab cake and mixed it all up with the veggies and that mango salsa (back right) and quite enjoyed every single bite.

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After dinner, dessert was on the agenda, of course. We backtracked slightly to hit up Kool Kone, another fun beachy establishment, for ice cream (and we turned on the heat in the car to get in the mood!).

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I had a small cup with a scoop of black raspberry chocolate chip frozen yogurt on top and a scoop of chocolate peanut butter cup on the bottom.

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Some blurry pb cup chunks:

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Phew, that brings us to the end of this marathon post! It’s been a very exciting food day that somehow involved a lot of doing nothing. Not a bad combination if you ask me 😛

What is your favorite beach food?

Chop ‘n’ char

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Wellllll, I spent the afternoon cleaning and organizing the fridge with/for my mom. The process resulted in turning up a bunch of wrinkly, old, dried, spotted vegetables that absolutely needed to find their way into our lunch. Some also had to go straight to the compost, unfortunately! What I could save included red pepper, yellow squash, garden asparagus, garden green onions, and the inside of a white onion:

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I really should have taken a pre-chop picture because you can’t tell the sorry state of the veggies in this one. Just imagine lots of wrinkles.

Obviously, this plate needed to turn into a pizza. The onions went into a pan with olive oil and a sprinkle (teeny) of sugar in the raw for caramelization; the veggies roasted at 450 for 25 minutes with olive oil, balsamic, salt, and pepper. For the pizza base, I toasted two stale Damascus Bakeries “Roll-Ups” on a cookie sheet at 450 for about 10 minutes until they were crispy. When we were finally ready for lunch, I spread a thin layer of tomato paste on the roll-ups and topped them with the roasted veggies, caramelized onions, and feta cheese. I put the topped pizzas in the oven for 10 minutes at 450 until the cheese got lightly browned and they were heated through. Here’s one of the finished pizzas:

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I still wasn’t that hungry after my huge breakfast, but mom and John were ready to eat! I trimmed a little bit off the end of each pizza for me and sliced the rest up for them:

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Here are my end pieces (topped with extra feta, of course):

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The rest of the afternoon involved more cooking and some napping. Somehow, every time I come home to visit, I never leave the kitchen. I wrapped parsnips, carrots, and a golden beet in foil for John to grill (with steak!) in the outdoor stone grill. Using this grill always makes it feel like summer! Here’s the view from inside:

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I wish NYC apartments came with that sort of green!

While John was cooking, I whipped up a big ol’ bowl of kale chips for the table:

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Here’s my electric plate with charred veggies and super super super well-done steak, the way I like it:

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It was the perfect, perfect, perfect summer meal, even though it was cool and rainy outside. Plus, you know how much satisfaction I get from saving food that is on its way out (and this isn’t half of what we did!). However, I’m also exhausted — I’ve been on my feet peeling and chopping all day long. Takes a lot out of a girl!

To char or not to char?

Going local

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Before I left for the party last night, I engaged my mom and John in a little bit of product reviewing. I had brought my packages of Newman’s Own Organics Champion Chip cookies in orange chocolate chip and double chocolate mint chip to my last class celebration on Thursday. Due to the high quantity of fresh Italian cookies, my little Newman’s Owns got lost in the shuffle. I felt confident, however, that they would not survive two nights in my mom’s house, and I was right!

Here’s a little slide show of mom in action.

Contemplation:

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Meditating on the deliciousness:

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The cookies were totally demolished within 10 minutes — and I’m pretty sure both bags were at least halfway full when I brought them out! John loved the crunch, and both preferred the orange chocolate chip cookies (the chocolate mint were the first to disappear, though). Success! (And thank goodness I’m off the hook from eating them. They were just too too too good to have lying around.)

This morning, Steph and Dan picked me up again on their way out of town so that we could go for a quick breakfast. We went to the hot spot of all hot spots in downtown NA: the Town Restaurant. I used to go there for breakfast with my dad when I was little for their amaaaaaazing grilled muffins. Today, I went wild and ordered the special omelet — spinach, tomato, and mushroom — with egg whites.

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It came with sweet potato fries and toast, but I skipped the toast and got extra fries instead. (Actually, I asked for fruit instead of toast, but the waitress told me that there was no fruit on the premises.) I don’t like regular potatoes, so the chance for sweet potato fries is rare, and I had to take advantage!

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Steph got the cinnamon bun French Toast. It was literally an iced cinnamon bun sliced into thirds and French Toasted. Yummmmmm:

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While there, the town Memorial Day Parade went by outside. All the brownies and cub scouts and high school bands and policemen with antique rifles went marching by. It was verrrry exciting because some family members of parade participants happened to be in the restaurant at the same time. We felt like we got in on some prime behind-the-scenes action. (Sort of.) Too bad I did not get a picture! We did, however, get free baby American flags that someone from the downtown association came around to hand out. I think I lost mine in the excitement? Hmmmm …

Back to breakfast, Steph tried to save her frosted bites for last, but she got too full. I had to finish them. It’s important to take one for the team.

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I’ve done cinnamon bun oatmeal, but now I think I may need to start including cinnamon bun french toast in the rotation!

Is there a breakfast hot spot in your hometown?

Raw! (sort of)

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Before my mom and I headed out for our walk this afternoon, I had the rest of this morning’s fruit salad as an inter-meal snack:

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Along with this carrot “core” dipped in fresh WF almond butter:

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Mom and I set off on a lovely walk for an hour or so, winding our way through the arboretum that leads to a nieghborhood park, chatting with each other, and chatting with neighbors.

Back home, we finally ate “lunch” around 7pm! I’d been working on preparing the various components of Gena’s raw zucchini alfredo over the course of the afternoon, with just a few adjustments.

To make the “noodles,” I used a vegetable peeler on carrots, zucchini, and yellow squash:

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I made a smaller portion of the sauce — 3/4 cup cashews instead of 1.25 cups — than the recipe because this house does not need any more leftovers! We also added some toasted sesame oil (I know that un-raws it, but it tasted good!) and soy sauce:

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My mom was a little bit hesitant about the highly caloric nature of this nut-based sauce, but I reminded her that the nuts were serving as the protein/fat part of the meal. The calories were definitely warranted and necessary!

For the final (and again un-raw) addition, I lightly steamed some broccoli and mixed in a few crushed dried garlic flakes, and that got mixed with the “pasta”:

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Here it is all mixed together with the sauce (and twilight porch-seating — you can see the grass in the background!):

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I honestly wasn’t sure how I would feel about this raw “pasta” — I was thinking it would just be like a refreshing summer salad, but it was delicious! I LOVED the sauce. It tasted like cold sesame noodles. Mom and John cleaned their plates, too. You must try this!

For dessert, I had a couple slices of sweet potato that I found in the fridge (they got treated to some cinnamon post-photo):

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Oh, right, I had more dessert after that, too 😛 My friend Steph (we’ve known each other since we were probably six months old!) and her husband Dan (who also went to high school with us) picked me up, and we headed over to a law school graduation party for Liz, also from high school, at her parents’ house (Congrats, Liz!). I got to chat with a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years — so fun! I had loads of chips and guac, and then the cake came out:

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I had a small piece of each and then stopped there. I was too busy socializing 🙂

And now it’s time for bed! I’m getting myself psyched for the bird chorus to wake me up at 4:45 am again. I know I complain about morning birds all the time in Brooklyn, but I’ve gotten spoiled. It’s exponentially louder here in MA! I think I will go home next week with a greater appreciation for Brooklyn’s more moderate tweeting. Does leaving town make you appreciate things more at home?

Where the food began

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My mom knows how to stock a kitchen.

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She’s been eating healthy and delicious foods that sound scary to most people since before I can remember. Sure I was horrified as a teenager when friends were over and I’d open the freezer only to have about 80 pounds of frozen herbs come cascading out, but I quite appreciate it now!

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With my mom’s kitchen-stocking abilities, I didn’t have to look very far for breakfast fixings this morning. I started by mixing up some yogurt-chia pudding with 3 tbsp 0% Fage (too pricy for me to buy, but mom knows how to splurge for quality), 2 tbsp regular plain nonfat yogurt, 2 tbsp part-skim ricotta, 1/2 tbsp chia seeds, 1/4 cup water, cinnamon, and vanilla. While the chia seeds worked their absorbant magic, I set to work on component #2: fruit!

I chopped a banana, an apple, grapes, kiwi, and pomegranate:

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For mom, I topped about 1.5 cups of the fruit salad with half of the chia-yogurt pudding, Artisana cacao bliss that I brought for her to try, and a bit more cinnamon:

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I only gave myself about 3/4 cup of fruit (I wasn’t overly hungry after last night) with the other half of the chia-yogurt pudding, freshly ground Whole Foods almond butter (again, mom knows how to splurge where it’s worth it!), more cinnamon, and a bit of ground flax:

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I feel healthy and revived 🙂

Mom’s in with clients now (she’s a psychotherapist and sees them in her home office), but we’re planning on a walk once she’s done. It’s already 85 degrees out!

In whose kitchen, other than your own, do you feel most comfortable helping yourself?

Mara has been crafting up a storm! Go check this post to see the cutest thing ever and how you can win it!