i love snacks

do you keep snacks at work? 

i always have. if i have things at my desk, it prevents me from going out to eat as much and let's be honest, it just helps to have something to munch on sometimes.

my office is right in between a safeway and a whole foods. i've been to the chip aisle. i've purchased some dogs and some winners over the years. if you find yourself craving something salty at 3 pm, here's my picks for not-so-bad-for-you snacks.

starting from the top, the quinoa chips are great and light and come in a few different flavors. cheddar is the best.

i was skeptical about the beanitos, but they are so freaking addictive. i swear you could blindfold someone and they'd think it was a dorito.

there's a lot of black bean chips out there, but these black bean tortillas have just the right amount of crunch and salt to make them stand out.

the chia crisps are an at-work staple for me. they come in a few flavors, but i think the jalapeno white cheddar is my favorite. it's spicy!

the skinny sticks are my most recent discovery and i'm sad we only just met. these are so so good. it's like a sunchip, tortilla chip and grown-up funyun all in one. addicting. 

_ _ _

any snacks i should know about?

make this now

i hate doing dishes. 

i'll seriously clean bathrooms before i do dishes. least favorite household chore.

that's why one-pan meals are so awesome.

this delicious, satisfying healthy meal is perfect for chilly fall evenings. and it's foolproof.

first things first: mise en place aka get your shit together. chop up one onion, peel and dice one sweet potato and prepare the kale. that means rinsing, removing the tough middle rib piece and chopping. 

next, cook about a pound of ground meat. i love turkey thigh because it's flavorful without being fatty. but this recipe is so versatile, so forgiving, that you could use anything: beef, chicken, even seitan or another meat-free alternative.

back to the recipe. when i cook ground meat, i turn the heat up to medium-high/high for about two minutes to get the pan nice and hot. then i add just a dribble of olive oil, and dump the meat in the non-stick pan. THEN DON'T TOUCH IT. 

just let it cook for a few minutes WITHOUT MOVING IT and it'll caramelize nicely and get some of that delicious golden brown color on it. at this stage, you should add about a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of pepper. 

once the meat is cooked, drain off the fat if you need to and set aside in a bowl.

now it's time to cook the prepared veggies. 

add a bit more olive oil to the pan, let it heat up for a second and then add ONLY the onion and sweet potato. season with another teaspoon of salt and half teaspoon of pepper. cook until the onions are translucent and the potato softens, about five minutes.

once they're cooked, add the meat back and season the entire dish with two teaspoons of curry powder. any curry powder works. if the curry you're using is mild, you may want to add a few small dashes of cayenne.

once everything is back in the pan, toss in the kale. i used one large bunch here. it will look like a lot, but it wilt.

and that's it! give it a taste for seasoning and you're done! dinner is served. you could even throw a poached egg on top, but that's another dish to wash. your call.

this is one of those feel-good dinners. it's filling, inexpensive, warm and super good for you. make this and you can check dinner off the list for tonight. 

spring five

three cheers for friday.

i do one of these lists every season because there's just always something fun happening in the district. we're lucky to live in a city that constantly has new restaurant openings and cool things to get excited about. 

here's what's on my list this spring.

img source: one | two, pic by me | three | four | five

1. menu. located in penn quarter, this market/bar/full-service restaurant is right up my alley. if you follow them on twitter, you'll know they have housemade bacon jam for sale. that's pretty much all the info i need to get me through the doors.  it's run by the same guy who operates table, which, if you've been reading here regularly, you might remember me saying it was the best meal i've had in dc in the decade i've lived here. no bs. 

2. eating outside. basically i'm sick of eating at my desk. i miss the days of taking my lunch outside and enjoying the sunshine. and even though it happens every spring, i'm dying to see some of the pretty trees begin to blossom. 

3. maketto. this h street spot will bring together an asian-influenced restaurant and market. i don't know of anything like this in dc so i'm excited for the addition.

4. gcdc. love the concept. love their logo. freaking grilled cheese and tater tots man. and a sandwich with one of my personal faves on it: kimchi. what's better than that?

5. mad men. the premiere is april 13. i'm definitely a little over don draper's moody self, but i've watched all the other seasons so i'm excited to see how it all ends. 

_ _ _

want more? see my past reasons to get excited here, here, here and here.

thigh school

i'll admit it.

i was a boneless, skinless chicken eater for most of my life. that's what i'd buy every time i'd go to the store. and most of the time, i'd do something pretty boring: bake it, fry it, grill it.

i don't remember exactly when i got turned on to the wonderfulness that is chicken thighs but it's truly one of my favorite things to have for dinner. there's a lot to love, really: they're super cheap (for real you guys. check the price next time you're at the store), delicious and can stand up to lots of different flavors and cooking techniques.

here's three of my favorite ways to cook them. these are recipes i've made at least five times so i know the recipes are legit and you're likely to have a successful time making these dishes.

ginger lime | white bean + tomato | fried

as tends to happen when you cook a recipe a lot, i do have some tips for you though:

for the ginger lime recipe, unless you're actually using the recommended 8 pieces of chicken (we usually cook four or five at a time), USE HALF THE AMOUNT OF SALT FOR THE RUB OR YOU WILL DIE. ok. you won't die. but it's crazy salty otherwise.

for the white bean recipe, i find that i like the taste of dried oregano better than fresh.

and for the fried, the recipe actually refers to these as "pan roasted" and i suppose that's kind of what you're doing here. but the result is a lot more in the fried category. you just use way less oil than your typical fried chicken recipe and get the same crispy results.

_ _ _

i hope you'll give thighs a try sometime. i actually don't love chicken skin (except for the super crispy fried kind) but i love using bone-in, skin-on thighs. the skin keeps the chicken from drying out and the bone adds a lot of extra flavor. 

gotta be fresh

if you're someone who buys a lot of fresh produce, one of the worst things is when something goes bad before you get a chance to eat it. 

i love a good mushroom, but they go bad so quickly. so i did a little research and found a few different methods that promise to increase the shelf life of fungi, and this is by far the best.

throwing them in a brown paper bag and then putting that bag in the fridge keeps them fresh and ready to go. these mushrooms pictured below are more than a week old, and they look just as good as the day i brought them home from the store. 

so here's to tripling your shelf life and fully enjoying your creminis and shiitakes!

_ _ _

for more kitchen tips, see this post on tortillas, lemons and salad.

stems

update: so i took a bit of an unplanned/unannounced break from blogging after my son was born. i had planned to write and then schedule all these fun posts to go up after he arrived, but somehow i lost my camera's memory card that had pictures to go along with those posts. bleh.

i didn't feel like going back and re-shooting everything i'd done, so i decided to give myself a little break from blogging. but i'm back!

i still haven't found my memory card though.

_ _ _

today i wanted to talk about using the part of broccoli that usually gets thrown away: the stems.

we eat broccoli a lot in our house--in salads, roasted, sauteed--but it always bothered me that we were wasting the stems (stalks?).

so i found a super easy and delicious way to turn that would-be trash into a great side dish. 

there's not much to it: just peel the stems to remove the rough outer part, cut into bite-sized pieces and pan fry with a little bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes if you want heat.

add a dusting of fresh parm and you're ready to eat.

these would also be tasty with a little garlic or some toasted pine nuts and a bit of lemon zest.

enjoy!

going rogue

i'm a recipe follower. 

i like to know that i'm making something exactly right. usually when i decide i want to try a new dish, i google or search pinterest to find a recipe that works for me. but last weekend, i went out on a limb and i winged it with this soup.

i had some stuff in the fridge i wanted to use before it expired and a butternut squash we hadn't cooked yet. i've watched enough food network over the years to know that soup isn't all that difficult to make. it also helped that butternut squash is in season. we got ours from the columbia heights market and it was such a pretty shade of orange.

i didn't make my own stock or anything like that, but this turned out to be delicious. so i wanted to share. in recipe format. just in case there's any faithful recipe followers out there like me.

p.s. if you wanna know how to peel and break down a squash, i did a step-by-step post with photos on that last year.

we ate this with some gruyere grilled cheese sandwiches and it felt like fall exploded.

_ _ _

if you're looking for other seasonal dishes, check out the archives here.

dinner time

even though i have grocery shopping down to a science, planning meals for the week still feels like a task. i hate sitting there, trying to remember what our go-to meals are and hoping to use up any odds and ends left in the fridge. i hate throwing out food.

to help jog my memory, i bought an spiral-bound index card packet from cvs and started writing down meals we make at home frequently. it has 100 cards and i only came up with about 40 meals, so there's room to keep adding to it as new recipes become regulars.

on the flip side of each card, i wrote the ingredients. that way, we can easily check our pantry/fridge situation to see whether we already have stuff and don't go buying duplicates at the store. i didn't include things like salt, pepper and parmesan since i almost always have those things on hand.

so here's what mine looks like. 

i can easily flip through this when we're about to make a grocery store run and get meal ideas for the week. i find that it helps me avoid getting stuck in a rut and making the same meals all the time.

oh and if you want that carbonara recipe, here it is. so fast and so easy. healthy? not so much.

mistakes

breakfast sandwich action from here

lucy giving some serious side eye

proud kitchen moment for me

so on sunday morning, i was on h street by 9 am, ready to sink my teeth into one of frenchie's croissants. turns out, the market is open on saturday mornings, not sunday. we ended up getting some pretty tasty breakfast sandwiches instead, but so much for another year wiser.

doh!

speaking of dough (see what i did there?), i got a pasta roller for my birthday and to my surprise, successfully pulled off some fresh fettuccine on sunday night. i was surprised mostly because doughs of any kind -- especially when kneading is involved -- tend to scare the shit out of me. i don't know what it is but making my own rolls, breads, etc. has always been something i've avoided. it just seems so daunting i guess. 

but this was a happy success for me and i'll definitely be making them again. i tried to make lasagna noodles before i had my handy pasta roller and trying to get the dough thin enough with a rolling pan and elbow grease. just.. no. 

hope your week is off to a fun start.

pump up the flavor

yummy quinoa. 

i promise it's not an oxymoron.

it exists. if you've ever tried it and wondered why someone boiled up some cardboard for you, i'm going to share a few tricks for making it flavorful and delicious.

1. toast it. before you cook it, dump the quinoa into a dry pot and toast it over low heat, stirring often, for about five minutes. toasting quinoa, like nuts, really gives the final product a deeper flavor.

2. rinse it. after you've toasted it, empty it into a fine mesh strainer and run cool water over it until the water runs clear.

3. boil it. but not in plain water. use chicken (or vegetable) stock and it'll be so much tastier. just follow the directions on the package for cooking times, etc.

_ _ _

that's it! 

you can also add a bit of salt if needed, but i usually don't since the broth is salted.

and here's two really yummy recipes i've tried and enjoyed where quinoa has a starring role:

warm quinoa, spinach  and shiitake salad

and 

quinoa fried "rice"

_ _ _

enjoy!

pinterest wins

i've found that finding recipes through pinterest is pretty hit or miss.

there have been a few dishes i've tried that haven't ended up as favorites, but today i wanted to focus on the winners.

below are three categories: super easy, super yummy, and super desserts.

the first three can be prepared so quickly, they're perfect for nights when you don't feel like doing much of anything. these second (duh), are just really delicious meals. they take a bit more effort, but i've had great success with all of them. the last group are some of the best desserts i've found through pinterest. the sugar cookie bars (middle) are my new favorites. they're ridiculous.

above all else, these are all incredibly satisfying meals. they'll leave you with a smile on your face every time. and i wanted to pass on some of those good vibes to you today.

easy: 1 | 2 | 3
yummy: 1 | 2 | 3
desserts: 1 | 2 | 3

enjoy! and have fun in the kitchen. 

scrambled

 if we have them in the house, eggs are usually on the menu for a weekend breakfast.

when i was a kid, i was somewhat loyal to scrambled eggs when asked how i'd liked mine cooked. whenever i'd go visit my grandparents, they'd make these fried eggs with the runny yolks and i started liking those also. as an adult, i tried my hand at poaching and that became my favorite method for a while.

scrambled eggs were still good (and definitely the quickest), but they were always a little blah to me. not bad, but not the star of the plate by any measure.

then, i discovered tyler florence's method for cooking eggs (also endorsed by ruth reichl although hers are a little too buttery for me) and it's become my favorite once again. the eggs are neither runny nor well cooked. they almost take on a mousse-like texture that's perfect for spreading on buttered toast.

here's what you need to do.

just remember to cook on your stove's absolute lowest setting. i've eaten these plain a lot, but lately, i've been adding spinach and dusting with parmesan and a lot of red pepper for a take on eggs florentine.

try this method out sometime. it's a unique texture that's just delicious.

_ _ _

p.s. if i can pause for a vanity break, the hand pictured is my husband's not mine. ;)

get excited

in the summer, probably more than any other season, i like to try new places to eat in the city. which isn't hard considering the crazy pace that places seem to be opening these days.

i've done these five-item lists for the winter and spring. here's my summer one.

img sources: one | two | three | four | five

1. arcuri. i work in glover park and i get pretty tired of the same old options for lunch and happy hour. i'm excited about a nearby pizza place, especially a restaurant that's open for lunch. so many things on wisconsin don't open until five. it also doesn't hurt that they specialize in limoncello.

2. red hen. whenever i go to boundary stone, i end up walking by this place. i've heard great reviews of the food and service so i'll have to check it out soon. 

3. cream cycle. these guys get bonus points for the clever name and for being among the first to hop on the gourmet ice cream sandwich trend.

4. beuchert's saloon. a restaurant with a farm-to-table concept is always something i'm excited about. plus, i hear they make nearly everything in house, from the charcuterie to the pasta and breads. that's almost always a sign of a winning meal.

5. mockingbird hill. a place specializing in sherry and ham? if nothing else, my curiosity is piqued. 

_ _ _

have you been to any of these spots? any other places you're dying to try? 

success and adios

cooking sausage gravy and biscuits from scratch is something that's long been on my cooking bucket list. it's one of my favorite breakfasts to order when dining out, and i've had it range from insanely good to a pile of glue.

this is the recipe i used for the biscuits and here's what i followed for the gravy (although i used a combination of half and half and skim milk).* i have to say that they turned out awesome. and although anything even slightly resembling a roux has usually terrified me in the kitchen, this one was really easy.

_ _ _

that was a definite success, but we also tried to grill calzones this weekend and...let's just say that we need to refine that technique before i'd call it a success. or edible.

so there were some hits and misses for sure in recent days. 

_ _ _

in other news, i'm off to asheville today to visit my best friend from college and her husband and two little girls. i can't wait!

hope you all have a great fourth!

*the link doesn't seem to be working at the moment, but it was a pound of breakfast sausage (we used pork), two tablespoons of flour and two cups of milk.

san francisco vacation, part II

 here's the rest of the san francisco pics. 

we really had an awesome time. 

links to the places in these pics:

crissy field

sea salt cookie, biscuits + jam

state bird provisions

san francisco: the food

i wanted to share the places we ate at and enjoyed while in san francisco.

this is only the very tip of a gigantic iceberg. there were (no lie) at least ten other places i wanted to check out but we were only there for five days. luckily, we didn't have strike out once, which is nice when you're basing your restaurant picks (in a city known for good food!) on a combination of yelp reviews, local magazine articles, blog posts and newspaper write-ups.

i'm not going to go into too much detail about each one; you can see peruse the menus yourself if you'd like. but here are some highlights:

1. hog & rocks. this was the only non-planned place we tried. while we were walking to another restaurant, we passed this one, checked out the menu and decided to check it out while we were in town. you guys. they had egg yolk fries. incredible. the pimento cheese/pretzel was aslo very good.

2. reveille coffee co. the coffee and breakfast items we got here were good. but my favorite thing was the chocolate chip/sea salt cookie that we took with us to the beach.

3. beast & the hare. this was a repeat performance for us. we went here last time we were in town and loved it. we swore we'd go back if we were ever in town again and a year-and-a-half later, it didn't disappoint. the handmade pasta was perfect and they even sent over a complimentary plate of pickled vegetables since we had to wait a little bit for our reservation. completely unnecessary since we were in vacation mode and not on any time crunch, but i thought it was a classy touch.

4. craftsman & wolves. i had a savory tart with ricotta here that blew my mind. we also got a bag of shoyu chocolate caramels that we ate during the trip. so good and a fun twist on my beloved salted caramel.

5. state bird provisions. stop the presses. i did something i never ever (ever) do with this one: i waited in line an hour before the restaurant opened to see if we could get a seat without a reservation. we did. we were here for our anniversary dinner, and without gushing too much, it's safe to say it's probably the best meal i've had in my life. their menu changes constantly, but here are some great images of some of their offerings.

5. 4505 meats. these guys had a stand set up at the market on sunday. their breakfast sandwich was incredible.

6. spikes. this was a few steps from the place where we stayed. this was my favorite coffee we had the whole trip and their breakfast pastries were also top notch.

7. mission chinese food. i'd been hearing about this place for a long time, and since my husband really likes chinese food, we gave it a shot. unique, inventive and low key. i recommend it for sure.

8. the station. another breakfast/coffee place we tried. i ended up liking my husband's breakfast sandwich more than the one i got, but both were really good and i'd go back again.

_ _ _

any places in the bay area you tried and loved?

i see you, pea

i'm not a picky eater. when i go out to eat, i always have trouble with the menu because i want everything on it. there's not a lot of foods i won't try and very few i dislike.

peas happen to be one of those rare foods that just aren't my favorite.

but since they're in season now, and they're such a pretty shade of green (my favorite color!), i thought i'd give them another shot by making them into a spread.

here's what to do:

1. remove the peas from their shells

2. boil the peas for a minute or two until they're more vibrantly green (not pictured) and then dump them into an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

3. dump the peas into a food processor and add approximately 1/3 cup of cream cheese (or goat or feta),  a sprinkle of salt, pepper, red pepper and garlic powder and a few squeezes of lemon juice. you may need to add a touch of olive oil to help move things along. blend until smooth.

4. empty into a serving bowl and serve with baguette slices, tortilla chips, pita. your call.

i have to say that i really enjoyed this. adding the cream cheese made it, um, creamier (duh) and took away some of that pea taste that isn't my favorite. and the lemon and red pepper added a brightness and kick that i found delicious.

oh. and i used the leftover pea shells for a side dish at dinner. just chopped them up a bit and sautéed them with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and red pepper.

_ _ _

enjoy the produce this time of year. check out what's available at your local market and see what looks good. you might even surprise yourself like i did. 

_ _ _

looking for more seasonal eating recipes? check out the archives here.