I am such a dork. I nearly waited until Monday to eat this breakfast just so I could fill this post with references to “Blue Monday.” You know, that song by New Order (and Orgy, which I must confess I liked better.) At least I didn’t wait until January.

That glistening blue blob on the banana (wow that sounds gross, but it’s so aliterative!) is a scoop of blueberry Noosa yogurt. I made the mistake of going to “the big Whole Foods” in my area and came home with a bunch of novelty products I’ve never seen before at “the little Whole Foods.” This yogurt was one of them.

I could not resist those plump little berries!

The yogurt part itself has a great cheesy flavor and texture that I really like. The blueberry stuff didn’t taste too much like blueberries, but it was a nice fruity and sweet contrast to the yogurt.

In other blue news…

I bought nail polish on an impulse yesterday. I am not an impulse shopper. But my blue nails make me happy every time I look at them.

What color always makes you happy?

June 30, 2011 Alayna Discussion 7 comments

Well, I did manage to use up the last 5 apples that were still chilling out in my crisper drawer. Nothing as fancy as the cinnamon apple cake squares I made the other day, but still a yummy use for apples.

I cut the rest of them up and baked them with ground cinnamon, ginger, clove, nutmeg, and a little sprinkle of sugar. I’ve been using them over the weekend to top my breakfasts with.

Shown here: Apple crumble flavored Voskos yogurt topped with baked apples and toasted buckwheat crunchees.

I’ve eaten something appley like this every day for a week now and I’m still not tiring of it!

Here’s how easy it is to make baked apples:

Easy baked apples

A simple method for baking apples to use on top of oatmeal, yogurt, ice cream, anything!

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

• Any number of apples you need to use up
• as much cinnamon as desired
• pinch of clove, ground ginger, and nutmeg
• sprinkle of sugar
• squeeze of lemon juice

Cooking Directions

1. Peel, core, and dice apples.
2. Add to a baking dish where they will be piled upon each other (to encourage steaming)
3. Add spices to taste and squeeze over lemon juice. Sprinkle on sugar.
4. Mix with a spoon and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, stirring once or twice throughout.

Washed down with Jeff and I’s twin teas…

And another example of using up what’s in the crisper…pizza! I had 2 lonely button mushrooms and a tomato that was getting squishy and needed to be used up. So, mushroom and fresh tomato pizza!

I always by whole wheat pizza dough from our local farmer’s market and roll it out myself. The first time I bought it I was a little bit intimidated, but now I make pizza like an old pro!

My favorite trick to getting it tasting like a brick oven pizza is to use a pizza stone and put it under the broiler. The edges get that slight charred flavor and the cheese goes all brown and bubbly.

Also this past weekend…a double rainbow!

Decatur experienced a light sunshower on Saturday that produced a vibrant rainbow arching completely across the sky. And if you looked closely you could see another fainter rainbow gleaming above it. Everyone in town just stopped in their tracks to gape at it and snap photos.

We saw it on the way to Leon’s for dinner with some friends. Leon’s has recently changed their menu a bit and several of the things that Jeff and I order regularly are gone.  It was ok though, we got to try some new and interesting things because of it.

Here, the lamb rillettes we all shared as an appetizer…

It was so good slathered on fresh bread studded with the tiny grains of mustard and a glazing of orange marmalade on top. Lamby!

I got a really cool new cocktail called The Wasp. It’s rye whiskey and peach honey and some other stuff I don’t remember, but man it was delicious!

I ordered the new side wedge salad with crispy bacon, hard boiled egg, radish slices, and creamy caper dressing. Pretty good, a nice take on the classic.

And the zucchini casserole with onion jam and salted lemony arugula. I get one of these almost every time we go because it’s just so good.

It wasn’t quite enough food so I ate about half of Jeff’s fries with garlic aioli.

Do you have a dish at a local restaurant you order every single time?

June 28, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 5 comments

Lots to do today. I have a couple of blog changes planned, I hope I can finish some of them so I can actually make the updates today. Very excited.

Breakfast was a gargantuan banana topped with maple Wallaby yogurt and Lovegrown apple walnut granola.

I made a really tasty dinner last night. Normally I suck at making pastas but this one turned out pretty great. Whole wheat tagliatelle with roast turkey, burst tomatoes, and peas.

Yesterday afternoon I roasted two turkey breasts with the skin on to retain juiciness. I just rubbed them with olive oil and salt and put them in the oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 40 minutes at 400 degrees. When they’d had time to cool, I removed the skin and pulled the turkey apart into shreds with my hands.

To make the sauce, I sauteed 6 large cherry tomatoes and a few cloves of chopped garlic in olive oil. I pricked the tomatoes with a knife so they wouldn’t explode and added about a half cup of prepared tomato sauce and a small dollop of cream cheese. When the tomatoes were blistered and splitting, I crushed them with the back of a spoon and grated over some parmesan. I just tossed in some of the shredded turkey and added boiled pasta and peas for an easy dish.

First task of the day: Photo shoot for a new blog header image! Gotta get it while the lighting’s good.

June 21, 2011 Alayna Discussion 2 comments