Back after a little hiatus! There's been some action here and there but mostly I haven't had a lot of time to cook and even worse, have cooked a few things here and there that haven't turned out so well. THIS dinner, though, was fantastic! It was a dining a la deux experience and both diners were quite health conscious. So, this is all real food and all healthy!
The bean dip is my standard: Roasted Red Pepper "Hummus" and never fails to impress =)

The fish is a panko and black sesame crusted cod (caught by my dad, so talk about fresh, wild caught fish!!). Click here for technique!

I have to admit, I really love this and it adds a lot of texture/flavor to white fishes!
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The quinoa dish is my only new dish of the night, but even still, pretty simple.
Ahead of time, I rehydrated about 6-8 big shitake mushrooms in boiling water. After an hour or two, I removed the stems (woody but fun to chew on!), reserved the liquid and diced up the caps. I sauteed the mushroom caps with about half a giant zucchini (or just 1 small one would do!) and some diced onion until all veggies were tender.

Then, 1 cup of quinoa cooked in 2 cups liquid (I used the mushroom rehydrating liquid and reduced-sodium chicken stock to make 2 cups) as directed. About 4-5 minutes before it was done, I tossed in the veggies and stirred them through. In the end, once the quinoa was already done, I added a few tbsp (this was a big pot) of Fage 0% greek yogurt to give it a creamy "risotto" like texture. Served with some yummy red vino, this made for a fantastic weekend dinner for 2!! For seasoning I added a bunch of salt, garlic powder, itlian seasoning and onion powder. All to taste.

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Several things are important to note for this week. #1 is that I saw Sleep No More earlier, which is something really special. It is set in a warehouse with 100 rooms (each impreccably decorated with each of 4 floors representing a hunting lodge, a hotel, an asylum and what I assume is some sort of small shopping area all set in the 1920s). The audience is given masks and actors (not wearing masks) silently perform scenes from Macbeth in various rooms. The audience members are given free reign to go room to room as they will. You can follow around the actors, explore the scenery or find various scenes that interest you. Without really going into details, let me just say this was amaing! #2 is that I went to see 7 psychopaths, the new movie by Martin McDonough, who is my absolute favorite amazing playwright. The movie was exactly what I had hoped it would be. A dark, macabre comedy with lots of dry humor and also Christopher Walken. He is also responsible for In Bruges and his brother (a similar writing style) made THe Guard. Sleep No More is an expensive luxury, but these movies are cheap and wonderful. I would highly reccomend!   

Also notable is this brussel sprout salad I've created. I'm sure none of this is terribly inventive, but man is this simple dish amazing, delicious and super healthy (I think?). It's definitely not pretty.
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This is as simple as it gets once you get past the PAIN of shredding the brussel sprounds. Ack! I think maybe these were even bought pre-shredded. But still, I've shredded them myself plenty of times before!

So, this was a bunch of sprouts (you know, use however many you want for as many servings as you like!) shredded and thrown in a pan along with about 6-8 pieces of turkey bacon (chopped) and a can of diced fire roasted jalapeno tomatoes. How simple is that? In the end I added some balsamic vinegar, which is what made it particularly unfortunate looking. But still. Amazeballs in terms of health, convinience and importantly, how long it takes to eat =) Especially with chop sticks! =) I think what always suckers me into this salad is that it's 1 pan, probably at least 3 big servings and essentially no more than $10 for the whole thing. Depending on, of course, where you live and how many sprouts you buy! I live in the most expensive city in the US, so probably my brussels sprouts are pretty pricey! 

Finally, on the exercise front, I have mysteriously hurt my ankle and can't run. This is insanely bad, especially since we've just done thanksgiving....ack! I'm doing a lot of elliptical, getting back into hot yoga and trying my very very best to avoid eating too much! Wish  me luck!

Next post, hopefully without a hiatus, will be thanksgiving recap! I hope everyone (anyone?) who reads this had a wonderful thanksgiving filled with lots of food and family love!

 
I was very fortunate with this hurricane. I didn't get stuck in the Bronx hospital in which I was working (my specialty of medicine is not essential to emergent patient care) and my apartment didn't get hit with the storm at all. This was not the case for my neighbors only 1 block east of me. Many of those buildings are older and they got flooded. This left quite a few east siders without power or hot water. That was nothing compared to the huge area of Manhattan below ~30th street that spent almost a week without power of any sort! My heart went out to everyone I knew who had to go without power for so long! I wish there was more I could have done to help but my apartment is small, but at least I was able to give one neighbor access to my power and hot water for a few days. The day after the hurricane we made a little family dinner out of things that I had on hand and some stuff he was able to pick up at the super market. Even more incredibly, he made me go on a run and I got to see some of the more major damage on the East side. Unfortunately last night was incredibly cold and my friend had no heat, so I also shared my apartment for the night.

I also want to give my sympathy to Staten Islanders, who got hit really badly. My parents only recently got their power back and unfortunately many people in their neighborhood were left homeless or with extreme amounts of property damage. There are huge gas shortages and I've heard that looting has begun. I wish there was something I could have done but there was no transportation below 42nd street until today! And by now, my parents tell me it's almost dangerous =( =( =(

I am truly hoping that the city will pull together and help out everyone in need during this time.
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Buuutt....this is a food blog. So I will at least share some of the things I whipped up during this time.

One of the things I had was that zucchini and eggplant I bought from the Bronx. Boy were they delicious!

I cubed up the zucchini and the eggplant (as evenly as possible with mixed results) and sauteed them with S+P, Italian Seasoning, garlic powder and finished with some balsamic vinegar. Well I made about 4 batches of this and it went into everything from omelets, to just plain in a bowl, to a base for dinner and lunch! Below are the dishes from the hurricane dinner. Hers: bed of steamed bok choy (steamed for ~5-6 minutes?), topped with the balsamic veggies and finished off with the pasta/tomato sauce/sausage mixture we made. I used minimal pasta (all you see is all I have) and had probably one of the chicken sausages of the 3 we made. His: bed of pasta/sauce/sausage, topped with balsamic veggies =) He went back for a nice big second portion! I went back for a tiny one. Eek. Anyway, this was hearty and delicious and we shared a nice bottle of white wine, chilled with a few frozen berries plopped in.

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Also, I know I've sort of posted this last time, but I'd just like to do it again. This was "salsa-jar salad" which was amazing. Basically I had about 2-3tbsp of salsa left in a jar AND 2 tbsp plain greek yogurt left in my fridge. So I plopped the yogurt into the salsa jar, poured in a bunch of super finely-chopped white-meat chicken and gave it a big ol' mix. The next day, I took it to work, bought this giant container of spinach (I'm sure it was supposed to be 3 servings, but who ever heard of having too much spinach??). It was so easy and perfectly portable.

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But really what I wanted to share was that I'm obsessed with eating my chicken/tuna salad with spinach in a deconstructed fashion!

Dip with the fork into the jar, poke up a few leaves of spinach and eat. It doesn't taste any better than just mixing it, but it doesn't require a big bowl and...I don't know, I like interactive food!



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But...probably owing to a smaller than normal breakfast (less breakfast=more sleep time under warm blankets??), this salad and apple didn't hold me over. So I added these Special K cracker chips that were cheap at the hospital store.

Meh.

PopChips are significantly superior.

The end for now.

<3
Jules

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    Author

    I'm a recent graduate from medical school and a pathology resident living in New York City. Like most girls living in the city, I've found that a lot of my social life revolves around the regular consumption of high-calorie food and alcoholic beverages. I've decided to start a blog about how I am trying to beat the bulge by eating and cooking defensively between social engagements and how even a busy girl can fit exercise into a busy life.

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    All recipes are on Petitchef

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