Here’s a few more snippets of the foods I’ve been enjoying lately…

Last night was spicy basil beef. It is absolutely outrageous and tastes great with tofu too.

I’ll share the recipe another time, it is one of my top 5 favorite dishes that I make regularly, so it’s bound to come up again soon.

I did end up making that apple crumble I was threatening to whip up last night…

…and promptly dug into it while it was still piping hot!

Then I followed it up with a donut…

I enjoyed this donut on the couch, my favorite place to nibble chocolate donuts.

Breakfast this morning was the last piece of kabocha pecan bread absolutely smothered in maple cinnamon flavored quark.

Holy mother of pearl. I’m gonna have to bake another loaf just so I can have this again! It tasted like dense and rich carrot cake, for breakfast!

And lastly, I am currently munching on this salad creation…

The salad I had the other day was so good that I whipped up something similar using a piece of roasted pepper and changing the dressing a bit.

I made a quick dressing with a bit of whole grain mustard, honey, and olive oil all mixed up together. It was simple and really married the peppers and pears together well.

That’s all for now, time to start figuring out what I’m gonna make for dinner.

December 13, 2010 Alayna Discussion 1 comment

8am is one of my favorite parts of the day. Jeff gets up and gets ready at 7:30 then wakes me up so we can have breakfast together, and as warm and comforting as that bed is, I really do want to get up for our morning ritual.

He’ll fill up the teapot and put it on the hot eye, we’ll both arrange our tea necessities, he’ll start mixing up his instant oats while I pet the cats who are starving for love after a night alone. I’ll make a remark about how fricken freezin it is in our apartment and then we’ll take our things to the desk and check our email and favorite sites and blogs and whatnot.

I don’t always make breakfast right away while Jeff is making his, and I didn’t today because I knew that I didn’t want oats again but I didn’t know what I did want.

Maybe I could do something with this?…

Picked up this container of quark at the market yesterday, not really knowing what to expect. I just thought it’d be an interesting departure from yogurt.

I plopped some on top of a chopped apple with cinnamon, granola, and honey.

It had the consistency of greek yogurt with the smell of sour cream and the taste of cream cheese. The flavor was really strong in this big dollop so I mixed it all in to distribute it better.

I ended up pouring a bit of maple syrup on top as well to try and cut through the rich cheese flavor. I thought I didn’t like it at first bite, but as my palate got used to it I really started to enjoy it. The whole mixture tasted like a deconstructed apple cream cheese danish.

All in all, I really like it. I don’t think I would eat it straight like yogurt but it was really good mixed in with other flavors.

Ever had quark?

Something else you can think of that I should try?

December 8, 2010 Alayna Discussion, Taste Test 3 comments

I can cook a lot of things very well, but I sure do suck at making pancakes.

These were made from a package of Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain pancake mix, and for the record, they were delicious despite their rather bedraggled appearance.

This is inevitably what happens every time I try to make pancakes: First batch, put too much batter in and everything melds together…

Second try: teensy blini-sized cakes that fit in the pan and come out quite nice…

Third: We have enough pancakes ready to be eaten but there’s still batter leftover and I don’t want to wait around flipping pancakes when I could be eating….so I just make one giant one with what’s left…

Some day, I will remember to use two pans and make smaller cakes from the start. Until then, ragged cakes for Jeff and teeny blinis for me! (It’s fun to say teeny blini over and over, try it!)

We’re headed out in a few minutes to go get sushi with some friends, see ya later!

December 4, 2010 Alayna Discussion 5 comments