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Tony Rice and More Pineapple Fun

Ω March 21st, 2010 Ω Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , Ω 25 Comments

Thanks so much for all of your sweet comments about the wedding pictures in my last post! It was fun taking a trip down memory lane on Friday. My strongest memories of the wedding are of the gorgeous weather and the awesome husb :)

Last night, Peter and I went to a Tony Rice concert. His group, the Tony Rice Unit, is a bluegrass group composed of two guitars, a fiddle, a mandolin, and a bass.

The group was far away, and my hand was unsteady.

The man himself (Tony Rice):

This man can play.

Watching a really good group of musicians play is fantastic. When I used to play in chamber groups, the group wouldn’t have a conductor; instead, the first violinist would be responsible for setting the tempo and leading the ensemble. My group would literally breathe together as we played – if we were good. And if we were comfortable with each other. The Tony Rice Unit was GOOD good. And they were extremely comfortable with each other. Watching a group like that is like watching a dance – beautiful.

On to today! I spent most of yesterday and today catching up on work and studying for tomorrow Counseling and Teaching exam. I broke for eats:

I never get tired of breakfast pictures (although you might!). Looking forward to a warm bowl of oatmeal is enough to get me out of bed (almost) every morning.

Since I’m still working on finishing up the pineapple from this day, I decided to whip up a tropical salad:

Pineapple, Annie’s Goddess, and a few pistachios for crunch, over lettuce. This combination was just as superb as the peanut butter and pineapple oatmeal topper I ate this day. The nutty tahini in the dressing was a delicious contrast to the tart, sweet pineapple. I’ll be eating this again. I’m not joking – I’ve got a whole other can of pineapple in the pantry.

Haven’t we had gorgeous weather in the Northeast this weekend? We went for a walk with the doggies to enjoy it, where I promptly continued my jumping streak:

Dinner was more of the wonderful eggrolls from a few days ago – just as good the third time!

In honor of Sophia, I put the largest dab of the spiciest thing I could find in the kitchen (wasabi) on my eggroll:

People aren’t supposed to cry from spicy mouth pain at dinner, right? Sophia, I will never match your iron mouth.

Before I go study my bottom off, a few notes:

(1) Check out my guest post on Travel Eat Love! Now is the perfect time to whip out that peanut butter for something OTHER than sandwiches or oatmeal ;)

(2) Have you been hankering for a new yoga mat? Check out Em’s “I hope you love yoga” Aurorae yoga mat giveaway on HomecookedEm!

(3) Samantha had a great question about sous-vide cooking (from this post):

I’m curious about sous-vide. I’ve always been told not to microwave food in plastic containers or plastic wrap because chemicals can be released into the food. Do you know if it is safer to boil food in a plastic bag?

Samantha, the truth is I don’t know. Some plastics were deemed unsafe in the last few years because of evidence of BPA leaching out when heated. Food grade containers in food service are free of BPA, but for bags … I don’t know what they use. And truthfully, often we may never be sure about the safety of things we use every day. All we can do is to take responsibility to keep ourselves educated. (As a side note: The more prevalent danger in sous-vide cooking is the danger of botulism, since the cooking is done under vacuum. Because of this, restaurants need to be licensed to cook sous-vide.)

(4) What is this, you ask?

It may or may not be the beginnings of my entry into Mae‘s Cook’s Mission competition! Ho ho, what could it be?? ;)

(5) I have a workshop at school tomorrow evening, so I’m not getting home until late (I’m not looking forward to my 45 minute drive home in the dark … ). I probably won’t post tomorrow. If not, I’ll have lots of fun pictures to share with you on Tuesday!

Whew! That addendum was as long as the post! I’m off to study, so have a nice evening!

Q: Do you like pineapple? What’s your favorite way to have it?

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» Filed under Life » 25 Comments

Fruits, Veggies, and Eggrolls

Ω March 16th, 2010 Ω Tagged , , , , , , , , , Ω 15 Comments

Hi everyone! I’ve gotten so used to posting every day that the last week has felt very strange posting only every other day. Life gets so busy that I find it hard to take time out to do something that I really enjoy – but, it’s good to make time when I can!

Yesterday and today were very FULL days, so let’s run over the highlights. This morning, I tried out a new jam I picked up in Utah at the suggestion of these ladies a while back:

I was looking for a jam with minimal ingredients but rich, tart taste. This Crofter’s conserve definitely fits the bill! The ingredients are raspberries, sugar, pectin , vitamin C, and citric acid. The appearance and taste? Well, take a look:

Look at that gorgeous red. Trust me, it tastes as good as it looks.

I think I spent about 2.5 hours on my bottom in the car today. In the morning, I drove for an hour to set up a National Nutrition Month table with some of the other girls in the program at a DSS. Sadly, there were hardly any people around to talk with about healthy eating, easy recipes, and why the carrots and hummus we brought with us for them to sample are so darn tasty and good for you. No pics because, well, I forgot.

The afternoon was fun! We drove to another town about an hour away to teach a lesson on fruits and vegetables to a class of sixth graders. I was a little nervous about my first real teaching experience, but these kids were WONDERFUL! They were so nice and very sharp – when I was in sixth grade, I sure didn’t know the word “antioxidant”!

Teaching it up:

Yummy fruit & veggie cups for the kids:

Kaylan and I preparing the fruits and veggies:

Fun! I know that not all teaching experiences will be as easy or fulfilling, but this experience was a great introduction to the world of community teaching.

Since I’ve been so busy the past couple of days, Peter has been taking over the cooking. You know what he made today, master chef that he is? EGGROLLS. Yep.

Bowing to my need for veggies and my lack of need for anything deep-fried, he made a healthy version based on this recipe. The filling contains beef, chicken, ginger, scallions, and lots of cabbage.

Pressing the liquid out of the filling:

Filling the wrappers (Edited to add: 1/3 of the eggrolls had peanut butter in them, 1/3 had hoisin sauce, and 1/3 had extremely hot hot sauce in them.):

Ready to go in the oven:

The eggrolls came out of the oven crispy and flavorful (although they were not as crispy as deep-fried versions). The hot sauce eggrolls were a little much for me, but the PB and hoisin sauce eggrolls were delicious!

Served with a side of grapes (that may or may not be leftover from the teaching session today):

I’m so lucky to have a Peter to keep me awash in good food :)

Time to study for my Food Service midterm tomorrow … fun fact: did you know that the word “restaurant” originated in the 16th century to mean a food that “restores” and refers to a rich, highly-flavored meat-based soup thought capable of restoring lost strength? Me neither!

Have a nice evening!

Q: Here’s one we asked the kids today: what’s your favorite fruit and your favorite veggie?

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» Filed under School » 15 Comments