Rosemary Sweet Potato & Spinach Grilled Cheese

Last week was all about family. It started with a trip down the peninsula on Monday to visit my Oma at Stanford Hospital recovering in post-op. (She's feeling better!) Thursday night in Oakland celebrating my sister's birthday with Sophie and my mom. Then Saturday night was girls night out in the city with Sophie before she heads off to South America for 2 months (!) 

And then before I knew it, it was Monday again. It was one of those Monday mornings when you just can't get out of bed. Turn on the coffee pot. Jump back in bed. Muster the courage to get up for the coffee. Get back in bed with coffee. Finish all of the coffee, and only then get out of bed to stand in the shower for an unnecessary amount of time. You know the kind. 

Gratitude Journal Entry: I'm forever grateful for coffee. You've been part of my daily ritual for over 15 years now. I wouldn't be where I am today without you. 

19,000 steps later, I walk back through my door and treat myself to one of my favorite sandwiches. (I actually had it for the second night in a row, but I was no less excited for it tonight). I made a side of balsamic roasted brussels sprouts and chopped persimmons #becausefall

*This sandwich was originally designed to be made with kale instead of spinach, but this substitute worked out just fine. 

Rosemary Sweet Potato & Spinach Grilled Cheese

*Makes 2-3 sandwiches

1 sweet potato, sliced into thin rounds

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

salt and pepper

1 sprig fresh rosemary, chopped

1 red onion, thinly sliced

2 handfuls spinach (or kale), roughly chopped

3 slices Havarti cheese

drizzle balsamic vinegar 

4 slices cracked wheat sourdough bread

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a sheet pan, cover with tin foil and arrange sweet potato slices. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary, salt and pepper. Roast for 12-15 minutes, until tender. 

In a skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and sauté red onion for 10-15 minutes, until almost caramelized. Add in spinach and quickly toss around until just wilted. 

Arrange half of the cheese on bread, top with greens and onions, drizzle balsamic and sweet potato slices. Top with remaining cheese and bread. Grill in same skillet until golden on each side and cheese is melted. 

Skirt Steak Sandwiches with Horseradish Yogurt Sauce & Chopped Summer Vegetable Salad

When I was sitting in my hot (!) little African room for hours on end, waiting for my dinner of plain rice and a hard boiled egg, I would make lists of all of the things I was excited to do when I got home. Since I’ve been back, literally a dream of mine comes true every hour. From sitting on my back porch with this fresh blended mango margarita:

To my fruit and veggie-packed lunch with homemade dill potato salad:

And this sandwich. I was inappropriately excited when biting into the soft bread, juicy tomato, charcoal grilled steak and tangy horseradish sauce… I don’t think I’m over it.

We also went a little nuts at the farmer’s market and splurged on a ton of vegetables to throw into our chopped vegetable salad. You could substitute or leave out any vegetable in this, then add feta and toss in the mint, cayenne and lime dressing. Brilliant. The next dream-come-true is that there are enough leftovers for lunch!

Skirt Steak Sandwiches with Horseradish Yogurt Sauce

(makes 4 sandwiches)
1.5 lbs skirt steak
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1-2 teaspoon prepared horseradish, or to taste
ground black pepper

tomato, sliced
red onion, thinly sliced
avocado, sliced
Dijon or honey mustard
fresh ciabatta bread, sliced

Rub steak with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Grill until desired doneness. Let rest, then slice thinly. Spread bread with sauce and top with remaining ingredients.

Chopped Summer Vegetable Salad

carrots, julienned
china peas, diced
cucumber, diced
fennel bulb, shaved
bell pepper, diced
radishes, diced
sweet corn, sliced off cobb
celery, diced
green onions, chopped

2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/3 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
fresh ground pepper, to taste
1-2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh mint

Combine all chopped vegetables into large bowl. Mix lime, olive oil, salt, and cayenne, then toss with vegetables. Add in crumbled feta, mint and pumpkin seeds. Serve immediately or chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.

Salmon Salad Open’wich

How does one go about moving across the country? I can tell you because I've done it a time or two. You throw sh*t out. Why don't my parents have those crappy, but promising, pieces of my artwork from kindergarten? Why do I doubt I have a copy of my high school or college diplomas? Why do all of the clothes I own fit in one small closet? You have to make some hard decisions when you move. Live light. I think it has instilled good anti-hoarder habits that I have carried through life (maybe this is why I struggle to grasp the importance of filing papers?) As I prepare to move out of DC, I have liberally started the paring down process. I'm pretty sure by the time Fall rolls around, I'll be lucky to have a toothbrush. 

Tonight's dinner needed to be light to accommodate for Ina Garten's coconut cupcakes that Kat made for our Bach viewing party. Canned fish and sandwich thins in a pinch! 

Salmon Salad Open’wich

1 can salmon, packed in water
2 tablespoons Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
sriracha to taste
salt and pepper
diced cucumber
diced avocado
sandwich thin
sliced tomato
shaved Parmesan

Strain water from salmon and place in medium size bowl. Add yogurt, mustard, sriracha, salt and pepper to the bowl and mix until combined. Stir in diced cucumber and top toasted sandwich thin or bread. Pile high with tomato, avocado, cheese – or whatever you’ve got.

A Day in the Life

These types of posts have been popping up on various food blogs I follow, so I thought I’d give my version. It is amazing how boring consistent my days can be, food-wise. However, this will all be changing next week as I complete my final day of work and head off to worlds unknown. But for now, this is about accurate. First, meet my long-term BFF:

After my 6:30 a.m. wake up call, I used to immediately start pounding coffee before my drive to work. After I ran out of coffee a couple times, I noticed I had a lot less road rage on my drive to work (perhaps because I am in a zombie-sleeplike state) so I decided I’d now try to hold off before work. However, upon arrival I make a beeline to the Kurig. No stopping and chatting, no checking email, just coffee NOW.

Some exciting emailing, filing, databasing (and food blog perusing) ensues for about an hour until I make my oatmeal.

A mixture of old fashioned oats, ground flaxseed and cinnamon is topped with thawed frozen berries, half a banana and a teaspoon of peanut butter. It never gets old.

I may complain about work like the rest of the world, but I am spoiled rotten. Yes I get done at 4 p.m. everyday and I get to attend super cute 3rd grade bake sales, but above all, I get free lunch. A lunch that’s piled high with spinach, vegetables, cheese, fruit… fo’ free. Our salads can get almost obnoxiously large.

Midday snack: Omega-3 trail mix and some carrots.

When I get home, I immediately throw on work out clothes and get myself out the door or onto my yoga mat before I have time to talk myself out of it and get lazy. It may sound cheesy, but for those painful first few minutes of a run, I replay trite motivational work out quotes in my head to keep going: "Do you want to feel sore tomorrow or do you want to feel sorry?" "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." Sweat is fat crying!" ... Thank you Pinterest. 

These days my dinners have been based on a few parameters: super healthy and vegetable packed (as I hear vegetables are rare in Africa), inexpensive (since moving isn't cheap), and quick. A lot of sandwich thins have been employed in this process. Tonight was a sandwich thin, smeared with olive goat cheese and topped with sliced tomato, avocado and egg whites. On the side, a couple handfuls of spinach topped with cucumber, tomato, black beans and my new favorite dressing: plain yogurt, lemon juice and sriracha. 

By this time it’s close to 8 and I’m close to getting in bed. My roommate and I have made our bedtime progressively earlier each week. The working world just beats you down after a while!

B.E.L.T.

When you bake two loaves of bread in a day, your hands are pretty much tied when it comes to making dinner. You’re going to make a sandwich. My other options were French toast, bread pudding or bread crumbs, and none of those seemed appropriate.
So a BLT it was. And who doesn’t love fried eggs in strange places?

To make this sandwich extra special – and sort of reminiscent of my new favorite sandwich, Summer House, at Jetties – I spread basil pesto mixed with Greek yogurt onto one slice of bread and Grey Poupon on the other.
After dinner, I settled into to watch some trashy TV. The Bachelorette? Real Housewives of OC? Perfect. They’re so bad, they’re good. Judge my television choices if you must, but you know you have embarrassing tv addictions too…

Homemade Hummus Melt

I drove over 800 miles this weekend, but it was definitely worth it. I headed down to Charlotte NC for the 1st annual Quail Party hosted in part by my good friend Anna’s boyfriend. They did a phenomenal job and it benefit under privileged kids golf lessons. What could be more crucial?

After the super fun, less than healthy time I had in Charlotte last weekend, this healthy and economical dinner was perfect.

Easy and delicious hummus recipe:

1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained

1 fresh jalapeno pepper, minced

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, minced

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Spread hummus on wheat toast. Top with roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts and mozzarella cheese and melt in the oven.

And a seaweed salad to boot! Could this be any healthier? However, a piece of my roommate’s Oreo ice cream cake should even the score a little bit…Happy birthday Caroline!

Red Pepper Jelly Creations

It's Sunday, so you know what that means...Farmers Market! 

This was Evan's maiden voyage and he was not left disappointed. In addition to the numerous samples, we bought a pear spice muffin (which was divine) along with this gorgeous wheat sourdough round. That, and some brussel spouts, a crazy looking sweet potato and red pepper jelly. Love, love this stuff. 

I wasted no time and made myself a sourdough toast with goat cheese and red pepper jelly for breakfast. 

In the spirit to try new things, Evan suggested we rent bicycles and ride them up the C&O Canal. So that is what we did - after I bought nifty (extremely embarrassing) head band. I fussed a bit, only because my bike had gear issues, it was freezing, I was hungry and those bike seats are none too comfortable, BUT it was fun and had gorgeous views. I SO wish I had brought my camera but I had trouble even keeping up with my debit card. We traveled about 8 miles round trip. It was definitely a work out, but it beats running in my book.


After the ride, I was about to keel over from starvation, so we ducked into Tackle Box for lunch. 

When I got home, I went into a small coma of exhaustion, then continued work on my painting (which is coming along nicely), then started dinner. Naturally, I used my red pepper jelly again and made a cucumber, cream cheese and red pepper jelly sandwich on sourdough. With this, some brussel spouts adapted from my friend Blair's special recipe: steam the brussels, then put them in a skillet with oil or butter, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, garlic (I used garlic salt), balsamic and brown sugar. 

Lastly, I microwaved the odd looking sweet potato and mashed it up with half a banana, cinnamon, nutmeg, a tiny bit of butter, pineapple juice and brown sugar. Sprinkled raisins and a little more brown sugar on top and baked it for about 20 minutes at 400. 

 Now it's Hulu time.

Pork Loin Sammies

For how much I love cooking, its weird to think I really only started cooking seriously about a year ago with Sunday dinners. I even remember my first meal, goat cheese and basil stuffed chicken courtesy of Ina Garten. The year leading up to that I became glued to the Food Network. So eventually my super-suggestible personality thought I want to do that! I've been hooked ever since. 

 I see now, after attempting to cook a homemade meal most nights of the week, that it takes a lot of work and time. No wonder my mother would act exasperated on nights when I would complain about the menu. It's hard to come up with creative, fresh dishes every night! Personally, I love the process (I know, ask me in 15 years) but it feels like a tasty puzzle I get to come up with and put together with a very rewarding result. 

The reward tonight was that I had put in all the effort yesterday and just needed a couple things to throw this meal together immediately after work. 

Most likely there will be 2 to 3 more mini-meals to follow tonight, but this was a yummy way to finish up the pork loin. It was simply fresh (still warm in the bag!) French bread, Dijon mustard, tomato slices and sliced pork loin. 
D-lish!
Shifting into lazy-gear for the rest of the night...my favorite kind of Friday :D