Redemption, Almost.

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I thought for a second I had lost all my baking skills to the meaty Italian gods.  I was wrong.  This past weekend I almost redeemed myself by making the almost perfect cornbread.

It was sweet, perfectly textured and pretty much fantastic.

Almost Perfect Cornbread

adapted from All Recipes Buttery Corn Bread Recipe

1/3 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1/4 cup milk
1 cup + 2 tbsp flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400F (~200C), grease and flour a 9in round baking pan or other baking dish, muffin tin, etc.

Cream together butter and sugar, add the remaining wet ingredients and mix together until just combined.  Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Pour batter into prepared baking dish.  Bake for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.  Poke with a toothpick to make sure it’s cooked through in the center.  Allow to cool and serve.

Even better when served with homemade Lentil/Chana Masala.  We eat cornbread and chili all the time, why not try it with a South Asian flair?

The perfect combination of sweet, spicy and salty.

Like I said, I pretty much redeemed myself. But wait…

I jumped the gun and tried to turn it on to a plate without sufficient cooling time.

Lesson learned: be patient… and keep baking.

Banana Breakfast Polenta

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I’m starting to get desperate.  My life without oatmeal, not just any oatmeal but oatmeal made with big chewy rolled oats, is sad.

Okay, I’m being dramatic, but I do miss oatmeal.  Last night, I was trying to figure out what to do with a very ripe banana.  Normally, when I’m at home, super ripe bananas are exciting because they mean extra sweet oatmeal or smoothies.  Here, without oats or a blender, I was sort of at a loss.

Then I had an idea, it cooked in my brain overnight at this morning I tried it.

Polenta for breakfast, which for me means something sweet.

It’s pretty tasty and pretty easy to make!  Worth a try, right?

Banana Breakfast Polenta for One

1/4 cup cornmeal (aka polenta)
1 cup water
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (or more if you’d like)
1 ripe banana, thinly sliced
garnishes such as fresh or dried fruit, nuts, maple syrup, etc.


In a small sauce pan, combine all the ingredients.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, once it’s boiling lower the heat to low.  Stir constantly for about 5-10 minutes.  Put in a bowl of plate, garnish and serve.

Not the same as oatmeal, but sometimes we all should try something new.  Fun new way to start your day!

Have a good one and Happy Mother’s Day!

My Newest Obsession

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I have a new obsession.  You’ll be surprised to learn that it’s not food related.

All of a sudden it seems wrong to NOT wear lipstick.

It makes me feel sassy and fun!

A few months ago, I avoided lipstick at all costs.

Sister, you were right.  Every time you made me wear lipstick to events, you were right, it makes you look better.  Why did I ever doubt you?

Now, I can go to the store sans eye make up.

But no lipstick?  No dice!

Wonder how long this will last… or maybe I should just work on changing the eye make up situation.

Italy has ruined my baking skills

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Today I decided to bake so I could give cookies away to random people at work tomorrow.

I decided on oatmeal chocolate chip cookies but instead of chocolate chips I cut up a chocolate bar with hazelnuts in it.  Sounds delicious right???

I thought so too until I pulled this out of the oven:

Flat cookies.

Burnt cookies.

Fail.

I blame Italy.

Italy has killed my baking skills and bolstered my meat making skills.

All this because of a strange curiosity about pancetta…

Overrated, I’m ready to be vegetarian again and win back my baking skills.

Gelateria del Teatro

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I like weird food.  I pretty much always want to try new weird combinations of things.  Honestly, I think it sorta frustrates my family around the holidays, maybe not so much my sister but definitely the rest of my family.  The probably spend hours wondering: why can’t we just have normal food for Christmas?  Why are there apples in the potatoes au gratin?

But really, who wants to eat boring things?

The same should be true for gelato.  A few years ago, I went to this ice cream place in Berkeley called Sketch (it’s on 4th street in case you’re in the area and want to visit) and had the most amazing fig balsamic ice cream.  I’ve been obsessed with unusual ice cream flavors ever since.

This weekend some friends and I went to a gelato place, Gelateria del Teatro with the promise of unusual flavors. With less than a month left in Italy, it’s time to eat some delicious gelato.

We take our gelato very seriously!

They delivered!  I got three flavors: White Chocolate Basil, Ricotta Fig with Almonds and Orange Sacher (chocolate apricot?).

Oh my, so good.  Totally worth it!  The white chocolate basil tasted like real basil that had been sweetened, not really like white chocolate.  It was pretty delicious and fresh!

Kyla got some crazy flavors too but sadly I don’t remember which ones.  Even more sadly, the pictures of Lis and Nancy turned out wayyyy to dark.

My parents are visiting next week, I can’t wait to go back because I’m dying to try the Raspberry Sage flavor.  Then again, maybe I should stick to traditional flavors with them…

R.I.P. Ipod

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My nano is a goner.

As a result of my dead ipod, I went to the gym music-less today.  It wasn’t too bad at first because they play loud pop music in there anyway for example this came on:

So that was fine, until a woman decided the music was too loud for her so she turned it off. Boo!

She was polite enough to ask me if it was okay, but sadly my Italian is good enough to understand what she said but too bad to know how to say “can you just turn it down instead of off?”

The next half hour of my workout was in silence. Woh woh… Not as fun, but the 45 minutes went by pretty fast.  Apparently I have a lot on my mind.

On the bright side, there was basically no one there when I got there!  It was lovely since that place is pretty small.

After the sweaty work out and a shower, I made lunch.  This meal was a crazy mish mash of things that probably don’t really go together, but I sorta loved it.

Tuna Salad + Curried Potatoes with Peas (Aloo Mattar, sorta) + Green beans

Delicious!  I’ll be making those potatoes again. Super tasty and went great with the green beans.  Tuna salad (made with a small can of tuna, mustard, lemon juice, capers, onions, salt, pepper and a handful of garbanzo beans) surprisingly wasn’t bad when mixed with the curried potatoes.  But then again I’m generally a fan of mixing everything on my plate together.  I seem to have this idea that it heightens all the flavors.

True or False? Who knows!  Probably all in my head…

Enjoy the weekend!

Moving Myself

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My former (but quited beloved) roommate, Christina, would always say “I’m going to go move myself” before going to the gym.  So in the spirit of missing her… today I moved myself and it was great!

I came home from work, had a snack:

2 egg white and a banana that for some reason look like they’re smiling at me.  Don’t you think?

Then I headed over to Nancy’s, and we walked to the river for a nice jog along the water.  The weather was perfect.  We didn’t go too fast, and I was pretty pleased with life.  After our lovely jog in the perfect 65F Roman sunshine, I headed to the dark dungeon that is my gym.  I’m not sure I mentioned this before, but my gym is in a basement, which is no fun.  It usually sticky and humid down there, probably because there’s no ventilation and tons of people sweating in close quarters.  Not cute.

Per usual, I was a sweaty mess there for a while.  But hey, at least I moved myself a little bit.

Then dinner:

Who says healthy has to be boring?

Certainly not my Palak Chana (Spinach and Garbanzo bean) Masala with Chicken on rice with green beans.  Basically chana masala with spinach and chicken added.

Ready for a recipe?  It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those:

Palak Chana Masala

adapted from Manjula’s Kitchen

1-3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp cumin
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 can of tomato puree
4 tsp coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1/2-1 tsp chili powder
1 cup water
1-2 cans of garbanzo beans, rinsed (I used one since I added chicken)
few handfuls of spinach
1/2 tsp garam masala
3 grilled chicken breasts, sliced (optional, I actually used less)

Heat the oil in a pot.  Once the oil is hot, add cumin and flour and stir and cook for 1 minute.   Add ginger and tomato puree and stir.  Add the remaining spices (except garam masala) and stir.  Add the garbanzo beans, water and spinach (and chicken if you want to use it), cover and simmer on low for about 10 minutes.  Lastly stir in the garam masala!

Serve with rice and/or vegetable of choice and a dollop of greek yogurt!

Serves 4-6.

Vegetabley mess, just how I like it!

Well, I should probably go do some exit project editing, but let’s be honest, I’ll probably watch an episode of my new (to me) obsession… Alias.

Goodnight!

Easter Weekend

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Easter weekend was a four and a half day weekend for me, and it was great.

The weekend started Thursday at noon, when Lis and I left work early and headed to the airport for Ibiza!  This also marked the end of countdown to Ibiza.  Success!  Well, I didn’t gain weight, even lost a kg haha!  Although it didn’t really matter because it was wayyy too cold to be in a bathing suit.

After arriving in Ibiza and spending about an hour looking for our hotel, Lis and I made it!  We had a great 1 bedroom apartment with a view of the sea!

Only 29 Euro per night!  That’s what happens when you go to Ibiza in the low season.  Know what else happens?

It’s cloudy and gross.  But we were still happy!

Know what else happens?  No one is there.  You end up being the only ones at the bar and the only ones on the dance floor.  Good enough for us.

The rest of our time in Ibiza was spent walking around.

Surprisingly, we only ate one meal out:

We shared a hamburger, paella and patatas bravas. We like to mix the Spanish and the American… but really that’s the first time I had seen a burger on a bun since I’ve been in Europe.  Truth be told, I miss veggie burgers.

Sadly, we had to leave Ibiza on Saturday.  Just our luck, the sun decided to visit Ibiza as we were leaving.

On Sunday morning, I woke up bright and early and headed to the Vatican.  I had a ticket for the Papal Mass on Easter Sunday.  Can you really pass that up?

There were tons of people and I really couldn’t see anything.  Luckily they do a good job of projecting sound in St. Peter’s Square.

I had never been to a mass in Latin before.  Kinda nice.

The rest of the weekend I was pretty much a bum.  I think that was needed because Sunday night I fell asleep around 6pm and woke up the next morning at 9:30am.  Let’s just say I was pooped!

Then today I made up for all the chocolate I didn’t eat for Easter when my office mate brought in a huge bag of chocolate eggs.

Definitely needing to hit up that gym I dropped major $$$$ for!

Sunday Dinner

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Sunday Dinner last night was the best.

First, because I didn’t cook.

Second, because it was just damn good.

Third, it was meat free, and I miss that.

Nancy made fruit salad and a spinach salad.

Kyla just got back from Ethiopia and brought spices with her.  So she made shiro and a delicious bean stew.

It was to die for.  I’m obsessed with the shiro that Kyla made.  Sooo good and so easy to make (given that you have the shiro spice mix).  It definitely came at a time when I’ve sorta been going crazy regarding Italian food.  Basically I’ve had enough.  I miss spiced food.  I cannot find cumin or cilantro in stores here!  I’m going to the “ethnic markets” in the immigrant neighborhoods this week to scout out spices.   So this dinner definitely helped with my spice cravings.

Spices, beans, grains, fruit, vegetables, friends!  What could be better?

Picnic at Villa Borghese

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Yesterday was pretty much amazing.

I slept in.  Had oatmeal for breakfast.

I know that sounds silly but I’ve been getting super tired of Italian food.  Anything tastes remotely like home makes me happy.  Although let me tell you, I’ve only been able to find quick cooking oats here.  Not as tasty as rolled oats or multi-grain hot cereal, but I’ll survive.

Then I met up with some friends for a picnic at Villa Borghese, which is a huge park (actually a garden) in Rome. On my way there, I finally got to take one of the little buses!

Most buses in Rome are normal sized buses, but there are a few that are really small and make me smile every time I see them.  So I finally rode one… But anyway, back to yesterday…

Let me just tell you.  The weather was perfect.  I wore a sleeveless dress with sandals. What could be better?

People trickled in throughout the afternoon.  Everyone brought food to share.

My contribution: PB&J.

The Canadian smiled; the Europeans and Africans weren’t that into it.   Basically most of them hated it haha.

We moved our picnic to follow the sun.

After I had had enough sunshine, I walked home which took a little over half an hour.  The street were ridiculously crowded!  I wish I had remembered to take a picture of it.

The rest of the night I proceeded to be a bum.

Sounds like a pretty great day to me!  Hanging out with friends in the sun was wonderful.  Say yes to Vitamin D!