Veggie-Ful Day

I have to admit something to you all: I’ve been a veggie slacker lately. Seriously, it’s become a problem. Dinners will have a handful of veggies a serving, and lunch will usually have the same. It’s no wonder I’ve had such little energy! I started today with my first in a while green monster, and you’ll all be happy to know that the Cuisinart Blender crushes ice like a champ! Hopefully it’ll be in my OpenSky shop soon!

In any case, I followed up my breakfast of champions with… pizza. Yup, there was free pizza from my favorite local place at work, and I just couldn’t turn it down! No worries though, Adam had a wonderful suggestion! We’ve been desperately looking for a new coffee table for our living room for months now, and he’d been doing some shopping on his own during the day. There were none that really caught our eye that fit our measurements, so we decided to go to the “Mother Ship”… IKEA! We talked about just eating dinner at IKEA, but opted instead for Sweet Tomatoes, which is about 30 seconds away.

First and foremost, when we go to Sweet Tomatoes, I do my best to fill up on a complex and colorful salad, and have a couple spoons of the special side dishes they have on the salad bar.

Tonight’s mix was romaine lettuce, spinach, jicama, egg, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, a few blue cheese crumbles, a tablespoon of sunflower seeds, and a sample of the whole grain “fiesta” couscous and the curry wheatberry salad. I had a small cup of blue cheese dressing for dipping. QUITE delicious, and very veggie-ful!

Next, I had a bowl of the low-fat turkey and 3 bean chili with a little cheese and sour cream. Sorry, this doesn’t look terribly appetizing:

Along with that I had a few slivers of the sauteed vegetable focaccia with mushrooms, onions, and parmesan cheese:

Then, I had to have dessert. I always get dessert at Sweet Tomatoes! BUT rather than going with the chocolate muffin/nonfat fro-yo and chocolate syrup, I went with a small (literally, it was like, 3/4 c.) bowl half full of oatmeal-crumb topped apples with a little non-fat no sugar fro-yo:

We left satisfied, and headed to IKEA where the scents of cinnamon rolls and Swedish meatballs filled the air, and laminated furniture called to us… we ended up with this lovely $20 table

We got home and Adam put it together, and we promptly put the beautiful woven metal basket we got for our wedding from my mom’s friend and Cubs coasters on it! It’s really starting to look like actual real grown-ups live here… I like it!

Don’t forget to enter the iHerb giveaway, and check out my OpenSky Shop!

Happy Hump Day!

Technorati Tags: date night, dessert, dinner out, fun, salad

9 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, January 26th 2010 | Tags: date night, dessert, dinner out, fun, salad
Posted in dinner out

Honeymoon, Take 1 or Why US Airways Spent Our Honeymoon Money

Some of you may be confused as to exactly why I’m posting when I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon, while some of you have been eagerly awaiting details since Saturday morning. This is a VERY LONG POST. Don’t expect a lot of food/recipes/cooking type information in this post, nor should you expect your normal “bubbly happy in-a-good-mood” Mara. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my entire life, including when I lost my last teaching job due to budget cuts.

Let me rewind. Our flight for our honeymoon to Jamaica via Philadelphia was scheduled to leave O’Hare airport at 7:25 a.m. CDT on Saturday, December 19. On Friday night, upon checking the weather and seeing this:

Adam and I decided to check the status of our flight. It was still “on time” but with a “travel advisory” in Philly, which meant that we could a) move our entire itinerary up to 7 days, b) reroute through a city that didn’t have a travel advisory, or c) be refunded for our tickets. Since A and C weren’t options, we got on the phone with US Airways and were going to request a reroute. After sitting on hold for over 2 hours, we decided to “risk it” and still leave the following morning.

Saturday morning, we got in our taxi on the way to O’Hare expecting the documented 25 minute delay in our flight to Philadelphia, and we were prepared to possibly miss out on one day in Jamaica due to the snowstorm on the east coast. On a whim, Adam requested at the ticket desk to be rerouted through Charlotte where there wasn’t snow yet, and he was REFUSED. We boarded on time, then had to sit for an extra half hour while the plane was de-iced. The flight was choppy, full of crying babies, and had so much turbulence I thought I’d be sick. The pilot announced we were about 75 miles outside of Philadelphia and would be landing shortly. Then 2 minutes later he announced we’d be in a holding pattern for at least 20 minutes because Philly only had one runway plowed. Then 20 minutes later, he said it would be another 30 minutes.

We finally touched down and walked as fast as we could to get to the gate for our connecting flight (on which at least 20 people on our flight were trying to catch) only to find out it had left not 5 minutes before we got there. Why they couldn’t hold the plane for 20 people, I’ll never know. Once we found out we’d missed the plane, we were greeted with the first of many lines we’d stand in over the course of the next two days. We took a risk and went to a ticketing desk to attempt to get onto the next flight to Jamaica (at 6:15 p.m.) We managed to get on standby, and watched as the terrible snow storm got worse, yet our flight was still listed as on-time. No one at any other desks would help us get ACTUAL tickets because “they can’t control the weather” and we’d “just have to wait.”

We did get the first of many meals out, authentic Philly Cheesesteaks and Yuengling

Then the waiting started. We waited in the terminal for any information about the flight… we had a gut feeling we wouldn’t actually get to take off, but they continued to say it was an on-time flight. We were scheduled to board at 5:30 p.m. and found out at 5:15 that we had gotten seats on the flight! There were 6 available and we were the first 2 on the standby list. And at 5:20, it was announced that the airport was closing and all flights were cancelled. Oh, and by the way, since they “can’t control the weather” there would be no concessions made for hotel rooms. We made a reservation at the cheapest hotel we could find ($87) and were instructed to go to baggage claim to wait for our luggage to come off the plane.

And wait we did. We watched luggage from canceled flight after canceled flight come into the carousels, and heard announcement after announcement that “bags would not be pulled” and to “be patient and wait for your flight’s luggage”. FIVE HOURS LATER an announcement came on that said “If you were scheduled to be on an international flight, and Philly was not your final destination, you will not be receiving your bags tonight.” We were told that they didn’t have the authorization to get the bags off the plane yet. So now, Adam and I were left with our “emergency” pajamas and underwear in my carry on to last us the night, and we got in line to get a taxi to our overpriced hotel. While we waited, I called US Airways to try to get on a flight to Jamaica by Monday.

See, not all the customer service people we dealt with were apathetic and rude. The people at the Sandals resort we were going to were wonderful. We filled them in on what was happening, and they happily moved our stay from its original date up days without a complaint, fee, or problem.

Back to the story. I was on hold with US Airways to try to get to Jamaica for three hours. I dialed their number as we got in line for a taxi. Someone finally came on the phone after we were already in the taxi… which means yes, we waited for a taxi for three hours. Something we noticed while we were waiting was that the airport did nothing for those people that were stranded. There were no cots, no bottled water, and the soda machines promptly sold out of water. O’Hare always sets up cots and hands out water and snacks if/when the airport closes and people are stranded.

Once we drove through the horrendously plowed Philadelphia streets to get to our hotel one mile from the airport, the cabbie pulled into the side street that led to the hotel. It was one of those complexes with about 5 hotels, and ours was the farthest from the street. Which meant, of course, that the taxi got stuck and we had to walk 2 blocks in a blizzard up to the hotel. Cue up clumsy Mara. I fell. In the snow. Hard. I have a lovely bruise which I won’t show you…

This whole time, Adam was on the phone with the “customer service” representative at US Airways trying to get out to Jamaica. Upon telling her that we had missed our connecting flight to Jamaica in the first place, and we’d been refused a reroute she said “Why is that my problem?” and Adam promptly requested a supervisor. Finally we came to a conclusion:

Since the earliest flight out to Jamaica is Thursday, December 24, we’d fly home for a couple days.
The earliest flight to Chicago was Monday, December 21.
We’d move our Sandals stay from Thursday to Thursday
We’d move our return flight to Thursday, Dec. 31

So we were stuck in Philadelphia until Monday, but at least (so we thought) had a resolution. It then hit us that we were hungry, so we went out in search of dinner. Unfortunately, there was no restaurant or grocery store within walking distance, so our dinner on the first night of our honeymoon was:

I had Combos and Twix

Adam had pretzels and M&Ms, and that’s a shared bottle of water.

And we crashed.

**Are you still with me? We’re only halfway there. Stretch, get some water, and sit back down. The story gets better!**

When we woke up Sunday morning, we checked out of our one hotel and walked over to the Embassy Suites about a block away. We were greeted by pleasant faces, free coffee, and an early check-in. We promptly ordered pizza, Adam took a nap, and I watched some TV and attempted to make the best of the situation. I got on the phone with US AIrways again to try and track down our luggage and get confirmation that we wouldn’t be charged any more money for our changed flights. I was reassured that we wouldn’t, and I got the number for the Philly airport’s baggage claim office.

I was told by the baggage claim guy I talked to that, in order to get our bags, we’d need to file a claim and indicate where we wanted them to go. We had a few choices: we could have them put on our flight to Chicago (but they might not make it), we could have them shipped to us at home (but we might miss them with our flight out Thursday) or we could have them put on our flight to Jamaica and we could get them when we get there. Either way, we’d have to come in and sign a claim. So we went. And we waited for three hours only to be told by a different guy that our bags were already on their way to Jamaica and we’d just claim them when we got there.

We returned to the hotel, went swimming (see, I packed our swimsuits in my carry on in case our luggage got lost on its way to Jamaica), and ordered room service for dinner. It was some lovely food: chicken nachos to share, I got a Cobb salad, and Adam got a delicious “California sandwich” on brioche:

And, when in Philly, one must eat cream cheese… or cheesecake

When we awoke the following morning at 5 to catch our flight home, we were reassured by the fact that there was no precipitation in either Philly or Chicago (or anywhere in between) and thought we’d make it home. I had a ride all set up in Chicago, and plans for brunch with a friend. We got to the airport and found that our flight was cancelled “due to weather.” WHAT WEATHER?!?!?!?

Again, I got on the phone with US Airways while standing in line to try to get another flight out. Once I was connected (an hour later), I was told that not only was there no other flight to Chicago from Philly yesterday, the next available flight was Tuesday at 1:55 p.m. with a layover in Pittsburgh. And that because they “can’t control the weather” there would be no concessions made for a hotel stay. I asked for a supervisor, hoping that maybe they’d have access to flights that the regular reps couldn’t access (like they did Saturday night with our Jamaica flights.) I had Adam talk to the supervisor who 1) laughed at him when he asked for compensation for a hotel and 2) “messed up” when telling us that the first available flight was Tuesday. It really was Wednesday. After much discussion back and forth, we got seats on the Wednesday flight.

Then we started calculating.

Lunch at the airport Saturday – $20
Blankets for waiting in the airport – $20
Taxi Saturday night – $20
Saturday hotel – $87
Lunch Sunday – $24
Hotel Sunday night – $130
Dinner Sunday night – $50 (room service, ya know)

At that point, we had spent an extra $327 that was supposed to be spending money in Jamaica. Since we were supposed to be at an all-inclusive resort, we hadn’t anticipated spending anything after our second flight Saturday. Could we spend another $300 on hotels for another two nights to fly back to Chicago for ONE day, and another two days of meals out? Sure, we could. Should we have to? Absolutely not. Rather than waiting around and spending more money, we decided to do the truly crazy. We rented a car and drove from Philadelphia to Chicago. A car, actually, just like this:

Yes, we drove 12 hours (rather, Adam drove. I offered, but he wanted the “badge of honor” of driving that long). Rather than spending more of our hard-earned and hard-saved money for hotel rooms and food, we spent HALF of what we would’ve and made it home. We did add:

$180 for the car rental
$60 for 2 tanks of gas
$35 (or so) for food
GRAND TOTAL: $615

Was it crazy? Yes, absolutely. However, since we needed to not be dealing with the extremely-poorly-run Philadelphia airport anymore, and needed some real rest and relaxation, it was worth it. Not one of our meals on the road cost more than $8 total, gas was fairly affordable, and we were OUT OF PHILLY! You can see my photos from the road in this album.

The kicker of the whole situation? If that one US Airways employee hadn’t refused to reroute us on Saturday, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. We’d be on the beach drinking fruity drinks out of coconuts right now. I don’t ever expect to see any sort of compensation from US Airways, as they have some of the most apathetic, careless, and rude employees I’ve ever encountered, and they truly didn’t care about anyone’s situation. Not to mention the fact that they refused to give us our luggage and sent it on without us. We were told that FAA regulations state that luggage can be on a different flight FOLLOWING its owners, but not ahead of it. So right now, our luggage is in Montego Bay getting a heck of a tan, while we’re back in Chicago for 2 days.

So please, keep your fingers, toes, and whatever else you can, crossed… knock on wood… find a lucky penny… our flight leaves from Chicago to Charlotte to Jamaica on Thursday morning at 6 a.m. CDT. There needs to be no weather, no snow, no NOTHING to keep us from getting to Jamaica. We need this trip, now more than ever.

Thank you for reading my rant. I may add to this after Adam reads it and reminds me of things I left out. I fully intend on sending this to US Airways as well. If anyone has any suggestions for us on how to proceed with them, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: beef, Philadelphia, salad, sandwich, stress, travel

52 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, December 22nd 2009 | Tags: beef, Philadelphia, salad, sandwich, stress, travel
Posted in Uncategorized, beef

I Heart Whole Foods

After work today, I had to drive out to my mom’s office for some wedding related stuff. My mom’s office is in a suburb which is right near the day camp that I work at all summer. This suburb has all sorts of wonderful things in it that we don’t yet have out here in chain-restaurant-ville… but most importantly, it has a HUGE and GORGEOUS Whole Foods!

This specific whole foods has not one, not two, but THREE enormous salad and hot bars, everything is constantly refreshed and it has, by far, the BEST selection of different foods I’ve ever seen at any Whole Foods. I haven’t had Whole Foods hot bar in months, and when I realized that my route home from my mom’s office would take me RIGHT past this mecca of food goodness, I knew what dinner was going to be.

I noticed immediately that the store had been rearranged because just to the left of the door was a wall of bars. Every single kind of bar I’ve ever wanted to try was sitting there, beckoning… I managed to restrain myself:

Snacks for the rest of the week!

Then I perused the hot and cold bars for a while. I thought and thought, and eventually decided on what dinner would be. I didn’t want a ridiculous conglomeration of odd foods, but I wanted some variety.

I decided on a spicy tuna roll from the sushi bar, which I thought was brown rice, but alas, it was not. Still delicious!

I love Whole Foods’ spicy sauce. It’s not too mayo-y.

I also, of course, got a container of some salad randomness:

Romaine, spinach, topped with hummus, cucumbers, marinated mushrooms, baked tofu, and a small spoonful of the best macaroni and cheese

I’m quite satisfied. There’s a little bit of hummus and mushrooms left, and I’m trying to decide whether or not to save it for later or eat it now! there’s some pumpkin ice cream in the freezer calling my name…

You tell me, what’s your biggest Whole Foods/Health food store weakness?

Technorati Tags: dinner out, food, out, salad, seafood, sushi, tofu, tuna, vegetables, vegetarian

16 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, November 16th 2009 | Tags: dinner out, food, out, salad, seafood, sushi, tofu, tuna, vegetables, vegetarian
Posted in dinner out, fish or seafood, tofu, vegetarian

Bachelorette Party Recap!

Only a food blogger… I swear, only a food blogger would do what I did at her bachelorette party.

There was much drinking (as was expected) and a great time was had by all… There were quite a few embarrassing pictures taken of me, mostly involving odd facial expressions and looks of shock while opening gifts. There was one photo, actually, that one Meghan said she’d give me $100 if I put it on the blog. I deleted it. I guess I can share one goofy one with you…

I should rewind a bit. My sister Leigh(my Maid of Honor) did a fantastic job planning a very “Mara” night out. Thanks to some cool chef people my sister knows, she was able to get reservations at The Bristol, a restaurant that does not take reservations. It’s a very cool restaurant with interesting food and a focus on sustainable ingredients.

Lizz and I got there early (a RARE occurrence for us) and went up to the upstairs bar while we waited for the rest of the party to arrive.

While we waited, we ordered drinks. Little did I know that the drinks we ordered would be some of the best I’ve ever had, EVER.

This was called a Dardanian Cocktail. It contained gin, muddled pear, elderflower and sour. It was un-freaking-believable. I drank oh… 4 of these.

This was called a Cu-Cui, which had pear vodka, cucumber puree, and something else I don’t remember. Lizz kept saying it was like someone took a salad and put it in a drink. It was also amazing.

Before we sat down at the table, I made it a point to get a picture with Leigh and Lizz

The rest of the party finally arrived, and we headed downstairs to the table

We perused the menus and decided to share a bunch of appetizers and each get our own entrees. Now, you all knew that I’d take pictures of my food. I actually debated blogging about the night, but then Lizz reminded me that if I didn’t, I’d probably regret it… so, here goes (some of the pics are blurry…I did my best!):

I ordered another pear cocktail, and my friend Erin proceeded to order me drinks.

Another pear cocktail as well as a cocktail with Patrón silver tequila and citrus

Then the appetizers came… duck fat fries (the BEST I’ve ever had, hands down)

These came with homemade ketchup and horseradish cream sauce… SO AMAZING!

And, there was savory monkey bread with dill butter… which luckily, Leigh remembered to take a picture of with one piece remaining while I scolded myself… bad food blogger!

There was an apple and manchengo cheese salad

And Leigh and I split fresh radishes with butter and salt. An amazing combo if you’ve never tried it!

Then the entrees came out. Not only did I take pictures of MY food, but I passed my camera around and made everyone else take pictures of THEIR food. I’m really not positive of what all this stuff was… I’ll label the ones I’m sure of.

Half chicken with mustard spaetzle and apple salad (there were about 5 of these at the table)

Goat meat ravioli type things. Thanks for the great picture Meghan!

Raviolo. A HUGE ravioli filled with fresh ricotta cheese and egg yolk. Still smacking myself for not ordering this myself!

Fresh noodles with something called mojama. It’s a Spanish delicacy of cured tuna, grated over the top

Organic grass-fed beef with sweet potatoes (they’re in the background!)

No idea… greens of some sort?

Leigh and I split this whole roasted Pompano fish. I’ve never had more buttery fish, ever!

There were also desserts that were devoured before a picture could be taken, but I assure you, they were FANTASTIC!

After dinner, the group split up and a bunch of us headed north to a quasi-improv show called Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. I say quasi-improv because while true improv isn’t rehearsed, this is… it’s 30 plays in 60 minutes, the cost of admission is $9 plus whatever is rolled on a 6-sided die, and if they sell out, they order pizza. We’ve been going to this show for the better part of the last 15 years, and it was the PERFECT thing for us to do. The doors didn’t open for another 45 minutes when we got there, so we went around the corner to a favorite bar, Hopleaf, for another drink. I got a raspberry Lambic.

[source]

We then went back, got in line, and took a final group picture.

From Left: Me, Lizz, Leigh, Leah, Mom, Anna, and Kristin

It was an amazingly fun and perfect night out! Thank you SO MUCH to Leigh,, all who came, and everyone who helped make it a night I’ll never forget! I love you all!

I spent the night at Lizz’s house, and we had the luxury of going to IHOP for brunch… there’s something about breakfast food cooked by someone else that’s just so great! Dinner has yet to be decided…

Technorati Tags: beef, Bristol, cheese, Chicago dining, dinner, dinner out, family, food, friends, fun, noodles, out, red meat, restaurant, salad, seafood, thank you, wedding

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, November 15th 2009 | Tags: beef, Bristol, cheese, Chicago dining, dinner, dinner out, family, food, friends, fun, noodles, out, red meat, restaurant, salad, seafood, thank you, wedding
Posted in beef, dinner out, family, friends

Showered With Love

**Blogiversary Giveaway Winner is announced at the end of this post**

After much anticipation, today was my bridal shower!! I was beyond excited to see the people who were going to be there, since it had been quite some time since I’d seen a few of them. People came from near and far, and I felt very truly loved today. It was wonderful having most of my best friends and family in one room to celebrate our upcoming wedding!

Of course, there was excellent food:

Smoked salmon on mini pumpernickel; The whole spread

Unbelievably delicious pastries made by my sister

Another view of the whole spread, including shrimp salad, beef tenderloin sandwiches, and mini caprese sandwiches

My sister spent the last week baking for today, and the best part besides the delicious tiny pastries, was the fact that she made 2 of my grandma’s recipes as well.

We played a couple of shower games, and I got to open our gifts, which were beyond generous! I’ll have quite the stocked kitchen! I’m so beyond grateful to everyone who helped plan and throw the shower, as well as all my friends, family, and future in-laws that came to celebrate. Eo really outdid herself with the amazing food, the generous use of her house, as well as this incredible towel wedding cake:

How cute is that??

I was thrilled to have all four of my bridesmaids in one place at one time, along with our adorable flower girl:

From left: Meghan, Leigh, Me, Lizz, Kristin, and Skylar in front

I really cannot express my gratitude to everyone enough! I’m truly overwhelmed…

Once our kitchen is all set up with the amazing new things, I’ll make sure to share with all of you, but right now, I need to decompress, take off my makeup, and oh… announce the blogiversary prize winner!

I used random.org to come up with a number between 1 and 151 (can’t believe there were 151 entries!) and it came up with ***drumroll please***

which is Laura of Hey, What’s For Dinner Mom’s comment:

CONGRATULATIONS LAURA!!!! Send me an email with your snail mail address, and I’ll get your prize out to you as soon as all the components come in!

Have a wonderful evening! Make sure you come back tomorrow for the kickoff of another giveaway!

Technorati Tags: beef, dessert, family, friends, giveaway, red meat, salad, thank you, wedding

22 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, October 25th 2009 | Tags: beef, dessert, family, friends, giveaway, red meat, salad, thank you, wedding
Posted in Baking, beef, contest/giveaway, family, friends, giveaway

YOU Decide!

How was everyone’s Monday?

I had every intent of sleeping in and taking advantage of the free time. Alas, my sleep schedule is significantly different than it used to be!

First year teaching day-off schedule:

2:00 a.m. Go to bed

12:00 p.m. Wake up, roll over, go back to sleep

1:30 p.m. Wake up, get out of bed

2:30 (or so): Brunch out with my other teacher friends who had the random holiday off

4:00 p.m. Begin shopping trip for random unneeded items (pink shearling purse? Check!)

7:00 p.m. Order pizza dinner with other teacher friends

9:00 p.m. grade small stack of papers

10:30 p.m. head to bed to watch a movie

12:00 a.m. finally get to sleep

7th year of teaching day-off schedule

7:00 a.m. Wake up to cat sitting on my head

7:15 a.m. get out of bed

7:30 a.m. brew cup of coffee #1

7:45 a.m. Choose On-Demand movie, read blogs

10:00 a.m. Watch pilot episode of 90210 while eating breakfast

11:30 a.m. shower

11:45 a.m. Go with fiance to pick out new glasses

2:00 p.m Eat lunch out while waiting for glasses

3:00 p.m. pick up glasses

3:30 arrive back home, nap

5:30 p.m. wake up, head out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner

6:00 p.m. Eat big salad

6:25 p.m. eat small bowl of soup (ok, half a bowl of soup) with crackers and 2 pieces focaccia

6:40 p.m. eat half a “Caramel Delight Sundae” (my name, not theirs. Chocolate fro-yo with toasted coconut and caramel.

6:50 p.m. Eat 2 bites of warm carrot cake

6:55 p.m. Leave Sweet Tomatoes, head towards GameStop for video game trades

7:15 p.m. Arrive home, take out contacts, commence veg-out

9:00 p.m. Head to bed

Quite a different schedule, huh? Definitely better eats now!!

Speaking of eats… you may notice over there ——–> that there’s a poll in the sidebar. I’m at a loss as to what to cook next, so I’d like for YOU ALL to help me out! By choosing your favorite option from the poll on the right, What should I make next?

Whatever option gets the most votes will be dinner tomorrow night! Thanks for helping out!

Technorati Tags: Chicago dining, dinner, dinner out, food, friends, fun, out, poll, salad, vegetables

21 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, October 12th 2009 | Tags: Chicago dining, dinner, dinner out, food, friends, fun, out, poll, salad, vegetables
Posted in dinner out, friends

Heirloom Tuna

Today was not an easy day for me.

Yes, I was off of work, and yes, I slept an extra hour… but I woke up with the realization that, 3 years ago, I was off on this same Jewish holiday and took my grandma and her friend to Yom Kippur services. That following January, she passed away. While Yom Kippur is a day for atonement, as long as I can remember, it was a sad day. There’s an entire service dedicated to those who have died, and for the last two years, it was very difficult to add my grandma to that list.

I didn’t fast completely, as I “should’ve” done according to Jewish law. Rather, I ate small meals, just enough to keep me from killing the people around me. It apparently wasn’t enough to stave off the migraine I’m now nursing, but it was enough to keep my mood a bit lighter. I didn’t end up going to services at synagogue, but I did sit in my bedroom and read the entire memorial service from my prayer book.

Back to grandma… for as long as I can remember, we “broke the fast” at my grandma’s house, and there were a few dishes that were always on the menu: grandma’s special tuna salad, tabbouleh, egg salad, bialys, and banana-chocolate cake. Oh, and Canfield’s Chocolate Fudge Soda. I decided this year, I would be making grandma’s tuna to break my “fast.” It took me many years to truly like it because of the complex flavors, but now? Now I love the stuff.

I ate it with a toasted English muffin since bialys are nowhere to be found anywhere in my neighborhood, and I had the soda too:

The recipe, for each LARGE can of tuna:

1 large can white tuna in water, drained
1/4 red onion, finely diced
1 rib celery, chopped small
3-4 sprigs fresh dill, chopped
1/2 c. fat free cottage cheese
1 Tbsp. mayo (I used Smart Balance)
1 Tbsp. capers, drained
1 Tbsp. dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and allow to chill for a couple hours before serving to allow flavors to meld.

Just the smell of the red onion and dill brought tears to my eyes, and once I served myself and ate, I was oddly comforted. I’ll be enjoying this tuna for lunches for the rest of the week, and smile, knowing that grandma, somewhere, is proud of me. I know she’s around… a mysterious flower popped up in my mom’s garden today, a cat in the neighborhood showed back up after not showing her face for 2 years… she’s around…

The screen is swimming as I keep tearing up, so I’m going to call this a night… have a great Tuesday all!

P.S. Is anyone out there interested in being a Guest for Dinner? I’d love to start a weekly Guest Post! Check out the page for examples of what I’m looking for, and send an email to mara@imadedinner.net if you’re interested!

Technorati Tags: family, family recipe, food, holiday, recipe, salad, simple recipe, tuna

31 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, September 28th 2009 | Tags: family, family recipe, food, holiday, recipe, salad, simple recipe, tuna
Posted in family, family recipe, simple recipe

Tofu and Guisantamole

How was everyone’s Monday? It was cold and dreary here, yet again, but the weather people are promising sunshine and warmth by the end of the week! I’ll believe it when I see it. Chicago in the Spring is kind of crazy… one day its 35 and cloudy, and the next: 65 and sunny. Makes no sense!

I mentioned yesterday that my mom had made a fantastic dip for Easter dinner at her friend’s house aptly named “Green Pea Guacamole.” Being the Spanish teacher that I am, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I had an interesting thought process on the way home (does anyone else do this?):

Guacamole comes from the word “aguacate” for avocado and “mole” for sauce.
Man I really want an avocado
I just bought peas for mom’s green pea guacamole
The word in Spanish for green pea is “guisante”
I still really want an avocado… no wait, I don’t have the Points®
I could call the green pea guacamole something creative…
What would look good on the blog?
GUISANTAMOLE!

Yup. That’s how my brain works. Series of random thoughts that somehow wind up back at the original point seems to be the trend lately… anyway, thats where I got the title for this post! Mom, what do you think about the name for the dip?

Originally, this “guisantamole” was my grandma’s recipe. She’d make it in her Cuisinart, and every time she’d make it, she’d remind us “this is made of PEAS!” The following recipe makes 6 HEFTY dip servings.

106 calories, 2 g. fat, 5 g. fiber per serving!

Guisantamole

Grandma’s Green Pea Guacamole

Ingredients

4 c. thawed frozen green peas

1 large red onion, cut into chunks

1 large bunch cilantro

juice of 2 limes

1 jalapeño, cut into pieces

salt, pepper, and cumin to taste

Directions

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor (or large bowl if using a hand blender) and pulse to combine, and then blend until smooth. Enjoy with tortilla chips or veggies, or even as a spread on a sandwich!

Again, a simple recipe that is much more than the sum of its parts. It really gets better the longer it sits, so I’m excited to have some tomorrow.

Forget chicken on a salad, gimme baked tofu!

Tonight’s dinner was really simple and delicious. I made some standard baked tofu (using the fantastic GC Tofu Recipe) but I did something a bit different. I cut my tofu into cubes instead of slabs, and cooked it in a super-hot skillet instead of in the oven. I don’t think I’ll bake tofu again! This was half the time and twice the taste! I think Krista was the first one to tell me about doing that, and its AWESOME! Thanks Krista! I put my crispy tofu cubes on top of a salad with some TJs fat free Asian sesame vinaigrette, and all was good in the hood.

Without even realizing it, I did really well today with Coco’s salad challenge! I had a chicken Caesar at lunch today, and then this huge salad for dinner! I feel so much better when I eat lots of vegetables over lots of junk… and I’m so relieved to be eating/cooking my own food this week!

Rose had a post today where she talked about dreading a certain day of the week… and I realized while reading (and commenting) that I really dread Tuesdays. It’s my longest day of the week, and Friday just seems SO FAR AWAY! I’m going to enjoy my Monday night before the Terrible Tuesdays sink in… sigh…

Technorati Tags: family recipe, salad, simple recipe, tofu

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, April 13th 2009 | Tags: family recipe, salad, simple recipe, tofu
Posted in family recipe, simple recipe

Mmmmm…. Chocolate….

What IS this??

Well, it’s the “end of the day Friday” which marks the end of my chocolate giveaway contest!

After a lovely dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, that very closely imitated my meal at Sweet Tomatoes about 2 weeks ago, I came home and went through the comments on the contest post. I eliminated all double posts, pingbacks, and my replies, and had a grand total of 119 comments. I went to random.org, and came up with

DRUMROLL PLEASE

#63! Niki F from the wonderful blog, I’m Losing It!”

Congratulations!

Send me an email with your information and I’ll get you your SweetRiot cacao nibs and your Chicago chocolate treat ASAP!

In other blogger news:

Angela at Oh She Glows is giving away Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred video Here!

Michelle at Lucky Taste Buds is giving away Barney Butter here!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

xoxo,

Technorati Tags: chocolate, giveaway, salad

3 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, February 27th 2009 | Tags: chocolate, giveaway, salad
Posted in contest/giveaway

“Kid Food” on a Cold Day

It was even colder today than yesterday…so cold, in fact, that THERE WAS NO SCHOOL!!! I got a phone call at 4 a.m. telling me that school had been canceled!

Adam made dinner tonight, but despite my asking, he didn’t want to write the blog… so I’ll write about it!
We had a very “kid” friendly (despite our ages) dinner of:

See? Kid friendly!

hot dogs and beans
bbq baked potato chips
salad with baby tomatoes and low fat Caesar dressing
Whole grain crust frozen pizza (the Archer Farms brand from Super Target, by far the BEST frozen pizza I’ve had! Thanks Beadie!

Complete with diet orange soda!

After a few requests from various readers, I decided to post pictures of the smaller, furrier members of our household… our 3 amazingly cute pets!

First, there’s Raven. Raven is a 9-year-old Rottweiler, and quite possibly one of the sweetest, most loving dogs I’ve ever known! She “smiles” on command, but apparently not for the camera. She sleeps at our feet every night, and is a fantastic companion!

Raven, the sweetest Rottweiler EVER

Next, we have Ozzy… Adam swears that one day, Ozzy will try to take over the world! He’s very smart, probably too smart for his own good. He likes playing with string, like any other cat, but he also will not eat from his bowl if the quantity left is less than 3 crunchies deep. He will meow at the door when Adam gets home.

Can anyone think of a LOL Catz caption for this?

Last, but not least, we have Big. Big was adopted by my stepdad, David about in 2003 or so. She’s always been a super-loving cat, and we’ve always joked that if she could snuggle UNDER our skin, she would! When David and my mom got married, Big and one of our older cats, Timmy, didn’t get along. That’s how Big came to live with James. She lived with James for 2 years until I got my own apartment, and then she came to live with me. She sleeps on my head every night. Literally, on my head. She has definitely lived up to her name…she’s BIG!

She's cute, huh??

Wow, long post…sorry ’bout that…

One last thing! One of my friends started a food blog, and its seriously fantastic! Check it out at Bran Appetit!

Technorati Tags: animals, family, pizza, salad, simple recipe

13 Comments

Mara @ What's For Dinner?, January 15th 2009 | Tags: animals, family, pizza, salad, simple recipe
Posted in simple recipe

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Mmmmm…. Chocolate….

DRUMROLL PLEASE

#63! Niki F from the wonderful blog, I’m Losing It!”

Congratulations!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

3 Comments

“Kid Food” on a Cold Day

13 Comments

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Guisantamole

***DRUMROLL PLEASE***

#63! Niki F from the wonderful blog, I’m Losing It!”

Congratulations!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Donate to What’s For Dinner

Search What’s For Dinner

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DRUMROLL PLEASE