busy busy busy

Well, the restaurant opened! I've been so busy but I definitely am still eating. ;) My work days consist usually of a nice breakfast at home that is pretty norm, and I usually shove whatever chicken, eggs, fruit or veggie I can find at the restaurant during prep, or service when I get a chance to eat. It is hard to resist the cayenne and sugar spiced pecans when there are so many of them on hand! Ah. Fun stuff.

We have a true Mexican cooking lady on kitchen staff who makes us treats when available. Today she brought in sopes, a masa based fried tortilla type thing, and I ate it for lunch with two poached eggs and a little black beans. YUM!


For dinner last night I grilled myself a citrus marinated chicken breast and had it on top a bed of spinach, cabbage, cucumber, blueberries and oranges in a balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette.

usual breakfast. ph & h.

some lunches...



oatmeal has to be at least 3 or 4 times a week. and there's the final potter!
oatmeal, coffee and harry= perfect morning.


i'll try and blog more. but more simple stuff.

xo, B

a few highlights from tucson and july 4th

My last night in TX was the 4th and we had a little BBQ. I grilled chicken, made homemade coleslaw and we also had grilled corn, in the husk. Yummm. And local watermelon that was icy cold.

This is a salad i made while in Tucson with celery, blueberries, romaine, and leftover chicken mole from Little Cafe Poca Cosa.

I made ground turkey lettuce wraps with sauteed peppers and onions.

One of my first lunches, chicken curry in half a pita from Time Market, with carrot date slaw and celery and carrot sticks.

One of my favorite breakfastes, egg white omelets with some sort of sweet thing. I made the healthy muffins from Bethenny Frankel's Naturally Thin book, but subbed pumpkin puree for the apple sauce.. and yuummmy. It was a chocolately pumpkiney muffin/cookie.

friday 7/3 breakfast & lunch

This morning I had oatmeal, which I love. There is something about the ritual of a steaming hot cup of coffee and hot oatmeal, that just adds to the breakfast experience. I could eat breakfast 3 times a day, so why not start it off with something hot?

I added water, cinnamon, milk, diced apple, raisins and honey and it was very good.

For lunch I made a shredded chicken salad with dill, miracle whip, spicy mustard, a little chicken stock to thing it out, sliced almonds, celery and raisins. I ate it with carrots, celery, tomatoes and a pickle!

I had another Fuji apple today for a snack; and lately I've been making a full pot (8-9 cups) of coffee in the morning (somehow, I believe it shrinks, because I've only been getting 4 mugs full, but I'm not quite sure how big the mug is either. :/) Naturally, I have some leftover by mid afternoon, so what do Ido with it? Iced Coffee! In this case, I added a tablespoon or two of chocolate protein powder, and oooh yum, slightly bitter mocha iced coffee yumminess.

For dinner we went out to this place, a chain restaurant called Posado's Cafe, very texmex, if you will. I ate 2 or 3 chips with jalepeno and greens with fajita chicken and salsa. It was not bad. I had a few bites of sopapilla, which surprisingly I had never had before. Honey, cinnamon deliciousness. Happy 4th of July tomorrow!

Thursday 7-2-09 Lunch & Dinner

I ate an early breakfast of yogurt, Kashi and berries and was pretty hungry when lunch rolled around. I had egg salad as usual with my carrots, celery, tomatoes, pickle and rice cake. Later on I had an apple. Because I knew I might not be eating dinner when I would be hungry, I had a handful of almonds before we left for dinner.

We were supposed to go to Jen's aunt's house for dinner and set off fireworks, and they warned me that dinner at Aunt's house usually was a disaster. And it was. I ended up cooking half the meal, in order to get it on the table before 10 PM. Yes, that's right. We showed up at 7. Texans do not have any concept of time management around here, because well let's face it: there is no need for time management. This is a place where people pass you on the double yellow line on the highway, where you can bring your own alcohol into any restaurant and set off fireworks in your backyard. Let's just say, the country life, is not my cup of tea. However, the chicken we grilled was not bad, and we had alongside it organic peas, which were simply blanched, sliced tomatoes and fresh cabbage, both from a neighbor's garden which were extrememly flavorful. Baked potatoes microwaved were also available; I passed. I will say this, the fireworks were so, so, so much fun.

I only had a few bites of chicken, because by this time, it was passed my bedtime, and it wasn't settling very well. I did have a few bites of BlueBell ice cream though, which I enjoyed.

Microwaving?!

Who knew I could have so much fun with a microwave?
I guess with the added equipment of a VitaMix commercial blender, panini grill and Cuisinart coffee machine, I'm bound to find something to cook up, but surprisingly the microwave has been my bestie these days.
For breakfast I microwaved my egg whites (4 of them! They did not all fit onto the muffin, so I ate them on the side) and had them on top of a scooped out (Bethenny Frankel tip) whole wheat english muffin. I had sliced tomatoes on the side.

For lunch I had the norm, of egg salad and carrot/celery combo with a pickle. I was able to boil some eggs at the kitchen yesterday to have on hand. Later on I had a snack of one of those 100 calorie mini bags of popcorn, (Kettle corn, flavored. Yum.) and a sliced Fugi apple while I watched "The Closer". Great show.

Tonight I got very inventive and creative and decided to micro the last of the zucchini, squash and broccoli in some chicken broth, and I added oats, chick peas and frozen corn to thicken it a little. I blended it all up and seasoned it with my *secret* blend of spices and flavorings, and it actually turned out SO GOOD! Okay, so the picture looks a little bit like vomit, but I didn't add any cream either, and usually the cream makes it look prettier (but fattier). I did top it with one slice of crumpled bacon though, and that worked perfectly with the soup. I say *secret* because, who knows this soup might go in my future cookbook or something! Hmmm... I will say there was a hint of cinnamon and maple syrup added to the mix, other than that I made it quite spicy.

Last night for dinner I had some salad with romaine, fresh raw corn, tomatoes, almonds, chicken, peach and carrot and a dill cucumber salad on the side. Actually the veggies in the salad all came from Bruce's yard, so that was fun to eat.

we'll have to see what its store for tomorrow! =)