A day of recipes

So as promised earlier for what's to come in 2010, I've begun the bloggie facelift.  Cuter design now, and an adorable one in the making! 

Onto today...
I had a delicious green monster for breakfast.
When I do manage to venture into the kitchen, I'm usually the "toss it in and hope for the best" type of cook.  Despite my love-hate relationship with cooking, I generally do a pretty good job with it. While I can't give exact amounts of each, I believe I remember all the ingredients of the monster:

• Loose handful of spinach • ~5 baby carrots • a handful of broccoli • a banana • a pear • a handful of blueberries • 6-8 oz of soymilk • a scoop of protein powder • 2 tsp of flax seeds • a few frozen strawberries • a large pinch of cinnamon • a small pinch of nutmeg • and a dash of ginger and clove.
• Makes 2 servings.
  

See, even the simplest item becomes involved for me when I do hit the kitchen!

Lunch was a great salad pita with a juicy hydroponically grown on-the-vine tomato.  It's probably one of my most favorite lunch items, but beware: it's a full attention meal.  In other words, it gets messy if you do it right, so you can't multitask as you eat it.

• Loose handful of baby spinach
• Loose handful of baby mixed greens
• ~5 baby carrots, cut into small slices
• Fistful of broccoli, cut into small pieces
• Whole wheat pita
• Balsamic vinaigrette
  

•  Stuff pita with spinach and greens, then carrots and broccoli on top.  Drizzle with vinaigrette and proceed to stuff your face with a little piece of heaven!!

I promise I'll try to create a recipe for my homemade balsamic vinaigrette the next time I make it.  It is my must-have the same as Averie has her slaw dressing.  Irish and I both love to throw spices at things when we cook, so everything tends to be heavy on the spice contents.  Roughly here are the ingredients:

• 6-8 oz of extra virgin olive oil
• 5 Tbsp of balsamic vinegar
• Any spices you want to toss in.  I add some cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika, greek oregano, salt-free all-purpose, dry minced onion, garlic, garlic pepper, thyme, parsley, basil, dark chile powder, cumin, turmeric, italian spice mix, curry, vindaloo masala, cayenne pepper... possibly even more!  Most of them are just a few good shakes, but all that mixing together is so delish!
• I whisk everything together so I make sure it tastes right as I make it, then I store it in a covered jar because you have to shake well each time!  Keeps well on the counter since none of the ingredients require refrigeration.  Lasts only as long as it takes you to slurp it all up!
  

Then came dinner.  Ohhhhh, dinner.  Dinner was eaten out with friends and some of their relatives.  You know, an intimate get-together with 25 people in a busy restaurant.  No biggie.  This place has become a tradition among the guys and now us girls.  The last time everyone could get together was a couple years ago, though, so I couldn't exactly remember what the menu held.

Turns out, that it's the most vegetarian unfriendly restaurant ever.  And is heavy on the fryer.  The only 2 items on the menu that did not involve meat were fried pickles and fried green beans.  Even the "sides" menu, which was a stunning selection of 3 different rices, had meat in each of them.  I ate a seafood dish and drowned my sorrows in this baby with 3 of our closest friends.

I figure since we didn't drink anything for New Years, this pretty much made up for it.  Now I'm oddly sleepy and ready to slip off to dreamland!  Ni'night!