snacks!

i was sick last weekend, which sucked of course, but i've been so busy lately that it was actually fantastic to have a break. It was also a great excuse to watch trashy movies that turned out to be quite entertaining (valentine's day, cruel intentions, and my new favorite movie, crank, in which jason straithern plays a hit-man named--seriously--chev chelios, who must keep his adrenaline high to slow the poison he's been injected with). i also ate some yummy snacks:cottage cheese with raisins, lots of pumpkin pie spice, and 1/2 a crumbled cinnamon graham cracker.
plain yogurt with pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, annie's cinnamon bunnies, and chocolate chips.
and also way too many chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels (from trader joe's). those things are dangerous.
-Lola

pasta with parsley, edamame, and roasted onions

growing up, i was always very perplexed by the concept of seasons. i remember seeing a commercial for macy's new spring collection or something once, and suddenly having this revelation that somewhere in far away lands, people had completely different wardrobes depending on the time of year. san francisco tends to be foggy most of the time, with the occasional beautiful summer day, or random rainstorm. so moving to new york, with its somewhat extreme weather, has been filled with new discoveries for me. air conditioning! heaters! and, perhaps most exciting, that sunny spring day when you realize that winter is over. it always takes me a few weeks to realize that its not going to snow again for another year. weather doesn't just pop up randomly whenever it feels like it! there's actually a pattern! anyway, the past few weeks have been filled with glorious spring days, appreciated all the more after our long winter. so when my mom emailed me this pasta recipe, rita and i knew it was the perfect spring/summer pasta dish, perhaps something we could bring to a picnic in park (except that i actually ate it in class. oh well).

i forgot to buy garlic, so we left that out, and we added 1/2 an onion, roasted in the oven with olive oil for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees. it was delightfully fresh and springy!
-Lola
p.s. go check out katie's giveaway. because she is awesome and you could win a $50 shopping spree!

quinoa with roasted vegetables and edamame

i made a good lunch for us today. unfortunately, i forgot to take a picture, so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like. oh well, c'est la vie.
last week, i suddenly had an intense craving for both quinoa and edamame. which is weird, because delicious as they are, who craves quinoa and edamame? my own cravings typically involve more chocolate than that. anyway, they were both wise purchases that i turned into this delicious dish.
quinoa with roasted vegetables and edamame
*quinoa (1/4 cup dry per person)
*baby carrots
*brussel sprouts
*chopped onion
*olive oil
*salt and pepper
*shelled edamame (1/4 cup per person)

cook quinoa according to package directions (this takes about 20 min usually).
meanwhile, toss baby carrots, chopped onion in olive oil in a glass baking dish. use how ever many veggies you want--we used 1/2 onion, 6 brussel sprouts, and 14 carrots for 2 people. use 1-2 Tablespoons oil, depending on how many veggies you have. oil should be evenly distributed into a light coating on the veggies.
sprinkle veggies with salt and pepper--we used about 1/2 teaspoon of each.
roast in oven for 30 minutes at 400 degrees, or until veggies are nicely roasted--brown and just starting to get really dark, but not burnt.
mix cooked veggies with quinoa and edamame.
-Lola

100th post! yay!

Black Bean Salad with Feta Cheese and Cilantro, made by my lovely twin, except for the cilantro, which I chopped myself, very confusedly and groggily, as I had just woken up, which made me feel very unaccomplished since Lola had already been up for 4 hours at that point.


Our grandfather loves to send us newspaper clippings, especially recipes. A few weeks ago he sent us a recipe for black bean and feta salad and we decided to make it. This is the first time we've actually made any of the recipes he's sent, but mark my words, it shall not be the last!

Black Bean Salad with Feta Cheese and Cilantro from the Florida Sun Sentinal
Serves 4 as a main dish
*2 cups dried black beans or 4 cups canned black beans, rinsed and drained
*water, optional

*2 ounces pasteurized feta cheese, crumbled

*1 small red onion, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)

*1/4 cup fine-chopped cilantro

*2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

*3-4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
*salt and fresh ground black pepper (personally, we use only the finest black pepper, handpicked from the dining hall condiment station, in our recipes), to taste

Reserve 1 T feta. Combine the beans (cook them and let them cool down first if using dried beans), onions, cilantro, and the remaining cheese in a bowl. Add the olive oil, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, salt and pepper; mix well. Let the beans marinate 10 min and toss again. Correct the seasoning before serving, adding salt and additional lemon juice to taste. Garnish with reserved cheese.
-Rita

P.S. I forgot to mention, in my haste to type the phrase "mark my words", that later I had this mixed with quinoa and it was very good that way too.

black bean and zucchini soup

left to right:spoon, soup, tortillas.

after a week of eating ridiculously good food, laying in the sun with my family, and watching baseball in arizona (me) and taking a road trip to atlanta to volunteer (rita), and another week of massive amounts of homework, we're finally back to the blogging world!
today, i decided to experiment once again with my spiffy immersion blender.
i chopped up 1 smallish zucchini and sauteed it in olive oil with medium sprinkle each of cumin powder and cayenne, and a smaller sprinkle of chipotle powder. once the zucchini was reasonably cooked, i added 1/2 can of drained blackbeans, a tiny bit of fresh cilantro, and about 1/2 cup water and heated it all up in pot. finally, i blended it all together and ate my soup with a corn tortilla.
this turned out pretty good, but it would have been great with some lime juice, and maybe some sour cream on top(which i don't like, actually, but some creaminess would have been nice. maybe yogurt?). oh well, something to try next time.
-Lola

pasta with tomato sauce and egg

we've been trying to get rid of all our perishable food before leaving for spring break (yay! but we won't be posting all next week, sorry), so meals have been somewhat random. tonight, i decided that my usual pasta with tomato sauce and peas needed something extra, and all we had in the fridge was 1 egg (and pb and j of course, but that wouldn't taste so good).
i love pasta carbonara, but obviously didn't have the ingredients for that or really remember how to make it, so i figured pasta with egg would be good. and, lo and behold, it was.
deconstructed/work in progress.

i made my own tomato sauce thusly:
1. chop up one tomato into about bite sized pieces.
2. add to pan with about 1 T olive oil. stir, add sprinkles of garlic powder, italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. stir.
3. let simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring and mashing tomato bits with a fork until mix is sauce-like.
et voila! le tomato sauce! (i have no idea why i'm attempting french in a pasta recipe. just go with it).
then i cooked up my pasta, stirred it with the sauce and about 1/4 cup peas, and topped with a fried egg (about 3 minutes, in olive oil).
-Lola

carmelized pear oats

i get my best ideas in 3 places: while walking through the city, while in the shower, and while lying in bed, unable to go to sleep. a few nights ago, the latter came into play as i attempted to distract myself from thoughts of my 3 impending midterms. so i started thinking about what i wanted in my oatmeal the next morning, and all of the sudden, it came to me--carmelized pears! it was a very good idea indeed. i added many sprinkles of pumpkin pie spice (you can substitute cinnamon if you like. also, you should try it with vanilla if you have some) and a generous scoop of (plain, nonfat) yogurt to my usual steel-cut oats (i think it would be just as good, or even better, without the yogurt), and stirred this all together. then i topped my concoction with 1 pear, sliced and sauteed in a pat of earth balance (ie, butter or your preferred butter substitute) for about 10 minutes, or until nicely browned. i also added a mini-spoonful of peanut butter on top. if i get to eat this every time i study for my psych midterm (this morning's breakfast reading: 50 pages on "Accessibility of Social Constructs: Information-Processing Consequences of Individual and Contextual Variablity"), i might just be ok.
-Lola
p.s. another giveaway! check it out and you could win some maranatha nut butter!
and another one, for krema peanut butter! can you tell i really want some free pb?
eater not a runner also has an awesome giveaway
i'm on a giveaway finding roll, apparently...this one's for goji and me custom cereal