soyrizo, black bean, and corn enchiladas

This was a planned, yet unplanned dinner.  A few weeks ago, I picked up some breakfast burritos at Chronic Taco after running group and then stopped at Trader Joe's to get some soyrizo in case Drew wanted some in his burrito (I got chorizo in mine and didn't want him to feel left out).  He didn't, electing to go with the fake bacon we had at home instead.  Anyway, we also had some leftover enchilada sauce in the refrigerator, so we decided it was time to make enchiladas.  That's the unplanned part of dinner. 

I almost never cook without a recipe, but that's exactly what I did last night.  I sauteed an onion, jalapenos, and garlic, and then added the soyrizo.  I dumped in some black beans, corn, the remaining bottle of enchilada sauce, and cilantro and then let it simmer.  Drew made the enchilada sauce, which is based on a recipe from Simply Recipes and can be found here.  We also roasted red potatoes (usually we make beans and rice, but I wasn't feeling it), which Drew mixed with jalapenos, onions, and chipotle powder, I believe.

Though we make enchiladas a lot, we don't actually make enchiladas.  Instead, we make an enchilada lasagna.  We're ambitious enough to make enchilada sauce and cook black beans (as opposed to using the canned stuff- the bean juice weirds me out), but we can't be bothered with making enchiladas.  It's too much work, so instead, we layer enchilada sauce, corn tortillas, filling, and cheese (cheddar and queso fresco this time).  

After about 30 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees, we have this:      

tofu banh mi

I have a strange fascination with banh mi.  I say "strange" because I really haven't had authentic banh mi.  The only ones I've eaten are the ones at Native Foods and at Lee's sandwiches.  This is embarrassing to admit,  Please don't give me grief, and if you have a recommendation for a place to get good banh mi, please post it in the comments.

Earlier in the week, Drew and I made tofu banh mi, using the recipe from Post Punk Kitchen.    

It was easy to make, and making the pickled veggies earlier in the day really helped.  The pickled veggies were really good, but too salty, even on the sandwich.  I would not hesitate to use this recipe again, but I would cut the salt in half.  Also, I couldn't find star anise in the store last weekend, so I used fennel seed instead.   

Don't be scared off by the tofu; if it's made properly, it can be really good.  (I will note that the recipe calls for scrambled tofu, but we ignored that part.  Basically, the only part of the recipe we used was the part for the pickled veggies.)  Not surprisingly, I think we do a pretty good job, and by "we," I really mean Drew (he is always in charge of the tofu because I'm not good at making marinades without a recipe).  I'm sure there are many ways to make tofu, but there are only two ways that we make it: scrambling it (for breakfast burritos) or baking it.  We first press it for about 30 minutes to expel as much water as possible.  Then Drew makes up some sort of marinade (this time it consisted of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder) and brushes it on the tofu before popping it in the oven.  We never bake the tofu in the marinade; doing so doesn't allow the tofu to firm up and it remains on the mushy side, which we don't care for.  

The sandwich was really good, and the pickled veggies offered a nice crunch to contrast the tofu.  We ate the banh mi with roasted brussel sprouts, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

galumpkis pie

Before I tell you about the dish that inspired the dinner diary project, let me back up and tell you more about my cooking background.  After moving out of the dorms in college, I decided I wanted to learn to cook.  I mean, I knew how to do this more or less, but having lived at home and later in the dorms, I had never been fully responsible for my meals.  So I got started with family recipes (which, being from Minnesota, means they probably involved a lot of condensed soup) and boxed meals like Hamburger Helper.  In the period of time between graduating from college and attending graduate school, I also decided that I wanted to learn to bake.  Convinced that I would never have time to do either of these things as a graduate student (oh how wrong I was about that), I decided that that was the time to learn to cook and bake.  

When I got to grad school, I graduated from cooking with condensed soup and Hamburger Helper to cooking with real food- meaning, not processed.  I went to the farmer's market for the first time.  One of the first recipe source I used was Simply Recipes.  I planned my meals and grocery shopped once a week.  Have you ever gone to the grocery store and seen someone walking through the aisles with a list, checking off items and wondered what sort of people do that?  Well, people like me, that's who.  I continued to bake, plying my friends with cookies and cupcakes.

When Drew and I started dating, we began cooking together almost immediately.  The first meal he made me was an old family favorite: spaghetti and veggie meatballs.  I wish I could say that the first meal I made for him was something that also had great meaning, but I can't.  I think I had a recipe for lasagna rolls with gorgonzola cream sauce (courtesy of Rachael Ray) that I wanted to try, so I made that.  And while we've made veggie meatballs many times since, I can't say the same for Rachael's lasagna rolls.  Sorry Rachael, in case you're reading this.  You're probably not.  

Drew and I continue to share cooking and meal planning responsibilities.  We usually make a main dish and a side dish for each meal (usually the side is less cumbersome than the main one), and we cook 2 or 3 times a week, eating leftovers on the days we don't cook.  Sometimes meal ideas come easily; I might come across recipes while reading food magazines or blogs.  Other times, we each select a meal, so as to not burden one person with all the meal planning.  Eating a variety of good, quality food is important to us, which is why we both cook- it is very, very rare that only one of us cooks any entire dinner for the both of us.  In four years, I can't even count on one hand how many times this has happened.  And even though we keep an emergency box of chicken nuggets and bag of frozen ravioli in the freezer, we steer clear of processed foods.          

The dish that launched this project is Galumpkis Pie, from A Year of Pies by Ashley English, her fifth cookbook.  Her other cookbooks are about canning and preserving, dairy, bees, and chickens, and blogs over at Small Measure.  While I have never looked at her books on keeping chickens or bees, as I have no use or desire for doing either, I have perused her books on canning and dairy.  I checked out A Year of Pies from the Newport Beach Public Library, and immediately fell in love- the text and pictures are captivating, but the recipes- a mix of sweet and savory- are interesting and creative.  

I had never heard of Galumpkis Pie, which is an adaptation of a Polish dish, but I was intrigued.  The dish was easy to make and came together easily.  The bottom layer is a pie crust, and the rest consists of alternate layers of boiled cabbage and a ground beef-tomato filling (we substituted veggie crumbles).  At first, I thought it would be a pain, but it was not.  After rolling out the crust, I let it rest in the refrigerator while I prepared the filling and while the cabbage was cooking.

Advance planning really helped with this dish and made it so easy to make.  The filling contains cooked rice, which I made a few days earlier.  And the pie crust was already prepared too; I made a double crust a few weeks earlier for a quiche and popped half of it in the freezer for a later use.

Usually our dinner rotation contains dishes from a limited number of cuisines- Italian, American, Mexican, and Asian- so this dish was a welcome break from our usual routine.  The filling was really interesting- the cloves, a surprising addition, turned out to be a pleasant one, and one that mellowed over time.

I think Drew made carrots to go with this, but I can't remember how he seasoned them.

I also don't have a picture because I didn't know this would inspire the Dinner Diary project.  

Dinner Diary

As a child, whenever my mom cooked us something that we really enjoyed, my dad would jokingly say that she would probably never make it again.  He was usually right, and I think I may have inherited this habit.  

Drew and I cook about 2 or 3 times a week and I bake about once a week, yet we rarely revisit the things we have made.  Brace yourself, because all that is about to change.  During dinner the other day, in between mouthfuls, Drew said "You know, this is really good, but I'm not sure that I would ever think to make it again."  This is a common refrain, and I just nodded my head like I normally do.  But then he said, "You know, you should blog about everything we cook so we have a record and can return to our favorites."  

Well, I immediately vetoed that idea.  

But not for long.  

I think you can see where this is going.        

Today, I resolved to keep a dinner diary on my blog.  You, lucky reader, will be privy to everything we cook for dinner and brunch (we do this every Sunday), and everything I bake (don't be offended if I don't share).  I won't post every day- we always have leftovers, and you don't need to see those.  I'm not exactly sure what my vision is- I anticipate sharing pictures, reviewing recipes and cookbooks, providing meal ideas- but I do know exactly what my dinner diary will not do:

I will share helpful hints here and there, but I will not teach you how to cook.  I'm just not qualified to teach you how to julienne carrots or chiffonade basil.      

I will always cite my recipe sources, and if a recipe comes from the internet, I will provide the link.  If I make any adjustments, I'll let you know.  But I'm not going to repost a recipe, or worse, make some tweaks and pass it off as my own.  That is my biggest pet peeve, and even when people state that it is adapted from another source and cite that source, I still consider this some sort of plagiarism.  And in my line of work, that is a huge no-no.  

I do not plan to post any recipes, not even original ones.  I am not a recipe developer and I have no time to become one.  I'm just an avid home cook/baker who wants someone else to go to the trouble of figuring how much baking soda to add to a cake or how long to simmer marinara sauce.  I love trying out new recipes, but I don't have the patience to develop my own.  

I'm not sure if I have a mission beyond recording what we cook and bake, but I guess a secondary goal of the dinner diary is to show that vegetarian food is easy, accessible, and most of all, really tasty.  As you may know, Drew is a vegetarian and while I'm not, we always cook vegetarian and keep a vegetarian home.  Sometimes we make meals that are intended to be vegetarian and other times we adapt non-vegetarian recipes.  You will see that a vegetarian diet does not relegate one to nothing but deprivation and salads.  We eat a variety of foods, and I like to think we eat really well.  Stay tuned.

Surf City Half Marathon

I have taken quite the hiatus here, and for that, I apologize.  I also promise to blog about more than just running.  

But in the meantime...let's talk about...running!

Since we last talked, I ran my 1000th mile since taking up the sport in September 2011.  And last weekend, I ran the Surf City Half Marathon in Huntington Beach.  Overall, it was a lackluster experience, but my running group made it a good day.  

The race was flat, which is good, but it was pretty boring.  We ran on the Pacific Coast Highway, save for a few miles through one of the residential neighborhoods.  I know the ocean was right next to me, but it was nowhere in sight.  I was good for the first 10 miles, but then my mind starts playing tricks on me, and no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I have only a 5K (3.1 miles) left to go, I can't forget that I've already run 10 miles.  I also got a foot cramp and side stitches around the 11th mile, which made it difficult to know whether or not I should kick it up a notch in the final 5K (as I'd planned) or go easy so as to not make things worse.  I used to think that race strategy was such a silly concept; when I'd read about runners talking about it in Runner's World, I used to think "Isn't the plan to just run as fast as possible and hope for the best?"  But now I realize that this is a real thing, and so my strategy in the last 5K was to go easy, take walk breaks, and then go all out when I reached the final mile (I figured that any ensuing pain would be bearable for just a mile).

And for the most part, this strategy worked.  I PRed again, finishing in 2:32 down from 2:35 in the Long Beach Half.  Again, my goal was to finish in under 2:30, but I was thwarted by my tiny bladder and the pit stop after only the 2nd mile.      

This was my third consecutive race in the Beach Cities Challenge (OC, Long Beach, Surf City), so I got a fancy, special medal.

Long Beach Half Marathon

Okay, I confess.  Here's the real reason why I'm updating my blog right now: I ran the Long Beach Half Marathon this morning and I'm recovering on the couch.  Normally, my Sunday would involve baking or sewing, but my legs are stiff and I need to stay off my feet.  My Sundays have almost always involved running for at least the past year, but rarely do I run 13.1 miles.  

My friend Andy has been running with a running group every Sunday for the past couple months or so.  She heard about it from her friend, and I heard about it from her, and I've been joining them for the past month.  We meet at a designated place that rotates around the area every Sunday at 7am.  It's early, but since it's long run day, it's nice to get it out of the way in the morning.  Sometimes it's hard to muster the motivation to run on long run days.  Anyway, the group is a lot of fun and the people are very nice.  Running is an individual sport, but at the same time, it's not.  Running with other people makes me feel like part of a community and it's a great motivator.  About half a dozen of us ran the half or full marathon today, and it was great to meet up with everyone before the race and hang out while we waited for race time.

I wanted to break 2 and a half hours today, but I had to revise my goal when it turned out to be warmer than I'd anticipated and when I got a side stitch around mile 9.  I finished in 2:35, which is still a personal record (PR).  Not bad, and I'll take it.  I just checked my stats, and I was pretty much in the middle of the pack among all racers, among just the women, and among my age group.  As someone who still gets self conscious about my pace (I think I'm slow), I was proud to see that I'm actually a middle of the pack runner.  

I love races- the energy, the excitement, the jitters.  Humanity is at its best at races.  Strangers cheer for strangers, strangers high five strangers, and strangers shout out your name in encouragement.  The best sign I saw said "I'm a stranger, but I'm so PROUD of you."  If I could, I would have given that guy a hug, but I was on the side of the road opposite him.  Sometimes it's nice to be reminded that we still rock even though we're a bit slow and have no chance of winning.  It's nice to be reminded that simply just running the race is an accomplishment and what's important.      

The race course was nice and scenic, and flat (which might be of more importance).  I tried my best to take in all the sights, but at around mile 8, I got kind of bored and then tired, and then I had to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other.  Of course, Drew got a photo of me approaching the finish line.     

And post race.

 

I don't know what this says about my adviser or her students, but many of us are distance runners.  I believe that an overwhelming majority of her students have completed marathons, half marathons, or triathlons (perhaps not under her tenure, but at least at some point in their life).  Today, three of us ran the half marathon and one ran the full.  (And of course, I've already emailed her this photo.  She is beyond proud of us and does not hesitate to show her support, which is one of many reasons we love her.)

After completely a half and full marathon in the past year, I wasn't sure what to expect today.  It wasn't nearly as easy as the first half of the OC Marathon, but that makes sense, as I was overtrained for a half and trained for the full.  Today's race was tough; I got bored around mile 8, and the last 3.1 miles were quite a challenge.  In contrast to the past two races, for this one, I was better trained- physically and mentally.  When I ran the half last January, I remember various body parts beginning to hurt around mile 8, and I could barely walk after the race.  When I ran the full, the race was mentally challenging, and the last 10 miles were physically challenging.  This time, even though I'm stiff and a bit sore, I don't feel as bad as I'd felt after the half.  And even though it got tough at the end, I didn't get frustrated or beat down, and I knew I'd finish.  Next up is the Surf City Half in February, and already, I can't wait.   

New York, New York

I've been slacking on the blogging the past few months (or year is probably more precise), but I have some good reasons.  You may not know this, but I've struggled with neck and shoulder pain pretty much throughout all of grad school due to the amount of time I spend on my laptop and my non-ergonomically correct work space.  In an attempt not to make things worse, I try to stay off my laptop as much as possible when I'm at home, which is when I would blog.  In an effort to alleviate the pain, I (along with my friend and officemate) converted my office desk into a standing desk using cinderblocks.  Standing while I work has done wonders for my productivity; I'm certainly not going to waste time on the internet if I'm standing up (not that blogging is wasting time, but you know what I mean).  And finally, Drew and I got a tablet about a month ago, which has also done wonders for my productivity.  Now I associate my laptop with work and the tablet with leisure stuff, like reading blogs and searching for recipes.  What does this have to do with blogging?  Well, I'm certainly not going to tap out a blog post on the tablet.  

A couple weeks ago, Drew and I went to New York to visit his family and attend his niece's wedding.  It was my first time meeting his dad's side of the family and his remaining siblings.  The week was a whirlwind, but a good one.  I ate a lot, paying a visit to the family's favorite bakery just a mile down the street nearly every day.

Drew's family lives in Long Island, but we had to pay a couple visits to the city.  On the day we went to Brooklyn and Queens to see where Drew's parents grew up, we ended the day with Coney Island.        

Of course, Drew and I couldn't not ride the Cylcone, a wooden roller coaster which I believe might be among the oldest in the United States.

  

On another day, Drew and I went in to the city to visit my old stomping grounds.  During the 2001-2002 school year, I thought I wanted to be a photographer and so I enrolled in the School of Visual Arts.  Below, the Flatiron building, which was just a few blocks from where I lived.

Frank's pizza was on the corner below my dorm, and even thought I ate there only a couple times, I was glad to still see it there.  Whenever I walked home, the smells of pizza were simply intoxicating.   

 I lived here, the George Washington (G-Dub for short), on the third floor. 

 SVA's main building.

Pick-A-Bagel was just a couple blocks away, and I probably ate there about once a week.  Usually I would eat an egg and cheese sandwich on an everything bagel.  This was before I drank coffee, so I ate it with a Snapple.  Sometimes I'd mix it up and get an everything bagel with cream cheese, but that was rare (and not really much of a change I realize).  Pick-A-Bagel was my first experience with Black and White cookies, a New York institution.  My friend, who came to visit a couple times, even made up a song about Pick-A-Bagel with one of his friends.  It went something like "Pick a bagel, any bagel.  All the colors, of the rainbow."

Even though Drew and I had just split a slice of cheese pizza from Frank's only minutes before, I dragged him into Pick-A-Bagel for- you guessed it- egg and cheese on an everything bagel.  And coffee instead of Snapple.  

 

After splitting pizza and a bagel sandwich, we had to walk it off.  We headed in the direction of the Empire State Building.

We hopped on the subway and headed to Brooklyn, where I worked in an art gallery.  The Rotunda Gallery was a small gallery in Brooklyn Heights, the first stop in Brooklyn.  I had a lot of fun working in the gallery, and I learned a lot.  We had a quick look around, and as everything we'd done, it brought back a lot of good memories.  We walked around the neighborhood and then to the Brooklyn promenade, which has a great view of Manhattan's skyline.

 And a pretty good view of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The next trip to the city, we went with Chris, Drew's brother.  We went to the 2nd Ave Deli for lunch, which was supposed to be one of the best places to get a pastrami sandwich, a New York specialty.  It did not disappoint. 

Next, we went to Times Square. 

And then to the Marriott.  My friends and I used to go to Times Square just to walk around and have a look about once a week or once every other week.  (this is a bit strange to me now, as Times Square doesn't really change so much that you need to check it out once a week, but it was free and we liked to walk around, so that was probably a big appeal)  Anyway, one of the things we'd do is go to the Marriott and ride the elevator to the top (it's 48 floors, and we were able to get to the 45th) and then look over the edge of the balcony.   

So naturally, I dragged Drew and Chris to the top.  They were good sports.  We went up to the 48th floor to the lounge and had a drink.  The lounge rotates, and it boasts some nice views of the city. 

 

We ended the day with a Yankees game, and Drew's other siblings joined us.  It was a great game, and the  ball park was really nice, naturally.

On our last day in the city, Drew and I headed out to Central Park and walked around.

And then we headed home!