Eating out

I hardly ever go out to dinner. I love making my own meals (sometimes) and I often can't justify the cost of an entree when I can create the same at home for much less. Call me cheap, if you will. Or maybe just poor. Anyway, last night I went to Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana.

I looked at the menu online and was happy that they had a wide variety of choices. What would I choose? I had a lot of chicken and pork in the past week and thought I'd go with seafood. However, when I got to the restaurant, I saw that they had oxtail and suddenly I was unsure. Yes, I am very indecisive, why? Right before the waitress took our order, I decided to go with the braised lamb shanks.

Others in my party ordered whole fried snapper, fish filet, barbequed chicken and a seafood creole. Everybody enjoyed their meals. My lamb wasn't necessarily amazing though. It was good but needed a little extra something. However, overall, it was still a good meal. And a good night out with friends. I would definitely return to Versailles to try something else on their menu. Maybe this time, I will get fish.

Restaurant.com

Over the holidays, I entered a giveaway on Hysterical Randomness and won a $25 gift card from Restaurant.com. The night when I entered, I was craving Japanese and looked on Restaurant.com and saw that Umami Asian Cuisine was listed and thought I'd go there.

I got the gift card and was asked if I'd like to do a guest post. Awesome! No problem! Would love to! Now I just have to decide on a restaurant and a date. Well,no, I already know the restaurant. I ran over to restaurant.com, typed in my zip code and hit search. Whoa! Where did all those restaurants come from?! They weren't there the night I first looked at this.

Now I'm overwhelmed. Do I narrow my search by location? By cuisine? By cost? Decisions. Decisions. I thought I'd veto Cuban cuisine. Hey, I live in Miami. Cuban cuisine is always a foot away. Do I stick with Asian? Go Italian? The steak house a few blocks away? Oh look! There's Jamaican!! Oxtail! What I wouldn't do for some oxtail right now. Oh man, this is going to be hard.

Stay tuned folks (all zero of you reading this right now)!

This blogging thing is hard

I am making myself blog every single day. If only, 2 sentences each day.

Here goes!

P90X

First, I really need to get back into a blogging routine.I think if I get into the habit of writing something everyday, then I may also start writing more in general. But what to write about? I ran out of steam trying to chronicle my brain surgery journey. (If you have any questions about that, please, please, please ask!) Nothing fun really happens in my life. I could write about teaching but I don't want to reveal too much about my students. So what else?

And then it hit me.

P90X.

I started P90X 4 weeks ago. And it has been quite a journey. Let me give some background. I am not fat. In fact, most persons might look at me and say that I am skinny. However, I have trouble spots. Well, it is one spot. My tummy. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. I gained about 15 pounds last year and it all went to my waistline. I was disgusted. I just did not look good. It was time to do something about it. I have always had trouble with my belly. Always. However, I have just never been motivated enough to exercise more than 3 times and then just give up.

But when I looked in the mirror and thought of how tight my clothes were fitting, I knew I was tired of having this tummy. It was time to do something different. I had tried to do P90X just after surgery when I started gaining weight but I did it about 3 times and then gave up. It was time to do it again.

I stared with the Core Synergistic workout and about 10 minutes in, I just could not do it. I realised that I was just not physically ready. I decided to develop a plan for myself. I would start with Pilates for a week - getting my body ready for exercise and then move to P90X. And that's what I did. Pilates everyday plus walking at least 2 miles and then P90X.

So here I am at the beginning of Week 5 of P90X and Week 6 of exercising.

Vegan Carrot Cake

Let's pretend that I mentioned the whole bit about me doing the vegan thing for a month but it turned into vegetarian instead because I had a lot of dairy and didn't want to throw it out.

One night I started craving carrot cake. I usually use Gigi's Carrot Cake by Emeril Lagasse and I absolutely LOVE it. I started thinking about the fact that I could use banana or flax for the eggs. But what about the butter? Hmm. How could I combine another favorite - banana bread - that didn't need butter with this carrot cake recipe. I started making notes and jottings and then I saw the Ginger Carrot Cake recipe from the February 1995 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. No butter. It used oil. Sweeeet.

So this is what I did.

Ginger Carrot Cake - Better Home and Gardens, February 1995

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

2 tsps baking powder – Added a little extra baking powder as recommended by Fat Free Vegan

½ teaspoon baking soda

4 eggs - I halved the recipe. I used ½ banana mashed and 1 Tbsp flax + 3 Tbsp of water

3 cups finely shredded carrot

¾ cup cooking oil

¾ cup mixed dried fruit bits – Soaked raisins in coconut rum overnight – longer would be better

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger or ¾ teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 9 x 1½ inch round cake pans. Set aside

2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, beat eggs (or replacement) ; stir in carrot, oil, dried fruit bits, cinnamon and ginger. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture. Pour batter into prepared pans

4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the centers comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove from pans. Cool completely on wire racks.

5. Frost

This was so flavourful and delicious. I would have eaten the entire batter before baking it. I just loved the ginger, the subtle banana... mmmmmmm

Tt

I keep meaning to ..

I keep meaning to post more. I keep meaning to post about my vegetarian experiment (one month of no meat!!). I keep meaning to do a lot of things. In fact, I am noticing that I stopped my surgery description after Day 2. Oops. I honestly thought that I documented my bout with Bell's Palsy. I need to check my drafts. Maybe it's there.

I must post recipes for Vegan Carrot Cake and Pasta Primavera. Soon.

Yummy macaroni and cheese

Today I decided to do some baking. I figured that since I was using the oven, I'd put dinner in too. I decided on macaroni and cheese and bbq pork.

Let's just cut to the chase. I made the yummiest mac & cheese ever. I rarely make it because I don't ever have milk on hand (don't drink it). If I do decide to make it, I usually make this chocolate cake and other things that require milk so I can use it up.

But I didn't buy milk today. Instead, I used a can of cream of chicken soup, grated some mild and white cheddar cheese, grated a tiny bit of onions and added some chives flavoured cream cheese. I heated the soup as per instructions with a can of water. When that was ready I added the cheese, mixed it around for a bit until the cheese was melted. I then poured it over cooked macaroni elbows. Added more grated cheese and parmesan cheese to the top. ( I forgot to add bread crumbs too). That went into a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

The end result? Yummy macaroni & cheese!

I also baked a devils food cake and some brownies. The devil's food cake is going to be turned into chocolate balls. I'll post more on that later!