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    • vegetarian: an update

      Posted at 8:08 am by jasminedesirees, on March 28, 2016

      caprese salad

      I will have been vegetarian for two years as of this summer, and I get asked all the time how it’s going, so I decided to do an update on what I usually eat, some of my favourite recipes, and things I want to try.

      Breakfast:

      I make my own granola (loosely based on this recipe) and it’s my favourite thing. I literally wake up in the morning and work out almost every day because if I do I am rewarded with the best breakfast ever, which is fresh berries (I usually do raspberries and blackberries, but strawberries are good too, and blueberries are also a choice someone else might make) with granola and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. SO GOOD.

      If Derek is cooking, he usually makes me an egg, mushroom and onion omelet, cooked dry to the point of being almost burnt. YES.

      Snacks:

      I always have raw almonds and cuties in rotation for snacks, and I keep cans of sweet peas in my cupboard. 60 seconds in the microwave and they are good to go.

      I also love hummus with cucumbers or mini sweet peppers.

      Lunch:

      I eat a lot of salads for lunch, and I usually add nuts or beans to add protein. I’m a pretty terrible vegetarian actually, I hate Tofu or “fake” meat products and I won’t eat eggplant or sweet potato. Want to have me over for supper? I’m really not picky, it’s just that those things are gross.

      Caprese salads are pretty much my jam, and I also eat a ton of soup. I still make this all the time, I almost always have a tupperware of it in my fridge, (sans hamburger) because it’s so delicious and so filling. Derek will eat it all if I’m not paying attention.

      Every once in awhile I’ll have a veggie burger, there are quinoa and garlic ones that I like on the BBQ. I’ve tried making my own black bean burgers and it was a fantastic failure every time.

      Supper:

      Luckily we live someplace where so we can BBQ all year round, otherwise I might actually starve to death. More often than not I chop up veggies (cauliflower, mushrooms, onions, peppers, brussels sprouts) in a piece of tinfoil with olive oil and salt and pepper and roast them on the grill. It’s one of my most favourite things and I never get sick of it.

      Cauliflower Alfredo– I’ve made this a couple of times and it’s seriously so good. I like to add sun-dried tomatoes to the blender as well to give it a little extra flavour, or pesto would work great as well.

      Lentil tacos- Instead of tacos with hamburger, just cook lentils with taco seasoning. I usually make them with lettuce cup taco shells, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, salsa and greek yogurt. Derek likes them too.

      Caprese Portobellos– Sooo good on the BBQ. I soak tomato slices in balsamic, olive oil and salt and pepper, clean and de-gill a portobello mushroom cap, then put the mushrooms and fresh mozzarella into the mushroom caps with a squiggle (it’s a technical cooking term) of balsamic glaze, then BBQ them for about 25 minutes. You have to wait until the mushrooms dry out and deflate a bit, but so worth it.

      Pasta Primavera with Feta- No recipe for this, I just roast veggies (tomatoes, carrots, onion, mushrooms, peppers) in the oven with olive oil, and cook quinoa pasta. When it’s done I toss it all together with extra olive oil, salt and pepper and feta. I had this dish for the first time at Kafe in Ubud, Bali, and I went back and ate there almost every day the whole week because of how amazing it was. I do not grow tired of you (with heart eyes).

      Roasted Veggies with Feta- The same concept as above, but with no noodles. Only slightly less good.

      Things I will try if I’m ever home for more than 5 minutes:

      Butternut Squash Linguine– I actually tried to make this once, but I couldn’t find any butternut squash? But this will happen sooner or later.

      Also, I bought myself this cookbook in a frenzy of New Year’s self betterment, and I have yet to make anything out of it. I’ve been traveling a LOT but I will get my life organized and get cooking this month. Just in time for it to be too hot to turn on the oven.

      Perfect.

      I always try to have as many veggies on hand in the house as possible, because it’s SO easy to eat terribly as a vegetarian. Actually the first time I tried it I lived for a week on chocolate, chips and cheese and wondered why I didn’t feel well and concluded that I must need meat to survive.

      The only things I miss about eating meat:

      Crab cakes: Because yum. If I ever gave up vegetarianism I would probably only eat fish which I never actually ate before, but I would become pescatarian to just eat veggies and crap cakes for every meal.

      Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings): If you haven’t had these, stop what you are doing and go find them. Actually the only time I’ve been sad that something is off the menu. I went to Yank Sing in SF for Dim Sum for the first time in a long time, and I remembered that these existed and almost cried. I tried to find out if there is a vegetarian version, but they need actual bones to make them, so that’s probably a no.

       

      Posted in food, life, other things | 0 Comments | Tagged food, meals, recipes, supper, vegetarian
    • vegetarian

      Posted at 1:05 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 3, 2015

      I’ve been waiting to post about this for awhile, to make sure that it was really something I could stick with, but it’s been almost 6 months, and I don’t have any plans to stop, so I guess it’s probably safe to share.

      One of the changes I made while we were gone on our trip was that I became fully vegetarian, and completely stopped eating any meat or seafood (not that I ate a lot of seafood before).

      I’ve always been super picky and weirded out by meat, and that always made me feel hypocritical. Like, if you can’t bear to think about what it is without feeling sick, should you really be eating it? So I think it was really kind of inevitable, and it was just the right time.

      Most people when I tell them I stopped eating meat when we were in Indonesia say “Oh I can’t blame you, I wouldn’t eat meat over there either”, but it really wasn’t that I thought it was so much worse than meat we have over here.

      I was almost completely vegetarian by then, but I would still eat chicken once in awhile, until one day when we were sitting in a small home kitchen for lunch. D ordered chicken fried noodles, and a little boy from the family that owned the restaurant ran out to the backyard to bring in one of the chickens so they could kill it and cook it for us.

      And that really freaked me out, but not for the reasons that you might think. I just felt like if I was that uncomfortable eating a chicken that I knew was chicken, and knew exactly how it was going to be killed and cooked, right in front of me, then why would I be OK with eating meat that I don’t know where it came from, and I have no idea (actually I do kind of have an idea, and that’s even worse) how it’s treated and prepared?

      When we were in Australia, I was listening to the radio on our road trip, and a local cattle farmer was being interviewed, and she said that people always came up to her and asked her how she could stand raising animals from babies, and then slaughtering them and eating them? Like how could she eat something if she knew it’s name?

      And her point was, how can you eat something if you don’t know it’s name or where it came from? Which kind of hit home for me.

      So I stopped eating meat, and I honestly really don’t miss it, and I feel great. I actually tried vegetarianism almost two years ago, but when I stopped eating meat I just started eating chips and junk food (because technically that’s vegetarian right?) and I felt awful all the time.

      I decided it must be because I wasn’t eating meat, so I went back to it. This time, I’m actually eating vegetables (what a novel idea), and trying to eat as many different ones every day as I can.

      A few months after I stopped eating meat completely, we were in the Philippines, diving off the island of Coron, sitting in the boat waiting for our divemaster, when a small canoe-type boat pulled up next to us.

      It was a boat from Palawan, bringing live pigs over to sell in the marketplace. There were about 6 of them, enormous full grown pigs, tied to stakes, and tied to each other, and kept that way for the entire 8 hour boat ride. It was very hot that day, and they had no shade.

      The worst part was the sound they were making. I’m not even sure if pigs are biologically equipped to scream, but that’s what it was. They were screaming. It was horrible, I was almost in tears, but I asked D to take a picture so I could share it.

      DSC_5453

      I’ve done enough research to know that compared to treatment animals in some slaughterhouses in America, that probably wasn’t even that bad.

      So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m having fun experimenting with different recipes and trying new foods, and I’m almost feeling up to the daunting task of trying to make my own veggie burgers, but not quite.

      Posted in food, life, nutrition | 4 Comments | Tagged animal cruelty, diet, eating meat, food, nutrition, recipes, travel, vegetarianism
    • flourless chocolate

      Posted at 9:16 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 8, 2014

      I’ve been lusting after this Tartine flourless chocolate cake since I first moved to California, almost 3 years ago. When I bought myself the Tartine cookbook for Christmas this year, the only reason I got it was so that I could make myself this cake for my birthday.

      Since I was traveling for almost 2 weeks around my birthday, I didn’t get the chance, but luckily I had four friends with birthdays in the same week and we had a huge joint party for them last weekend, so I was able to make it after all.

      It was definitely a bit of work, it’s a souffle cake so it took ages to beat all of the eggs, and I was basically camped out in front of the oven making sure it didn’t stay in too long since apparently over-baking for even one minute immediately renders it inedible, but it came out great, and it was moist and delicious.

      The cake itself is chocolatey and delightful, and then you cover it with a chocolate ganache to make it even more tantalizing. I also added some edible glitter since I still have a ton left over from my wedding cupcakes, and it’s so lovely.

      I pretty much put it on everything. If you’ve never made glittery fettucine alfredo you’re really missing an opportunity for wonderfulness and joy.

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      Posted in chocolate, recipes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged birthday, cake, chocolate, chocolate ganache, flourless chocolate cake, recipes, tartine
    • chef

      Posted at 12:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 12, 2014

      Last week we had an onsite work training that our whole team flew out for from all over the country. At the end of the second day, we did a cooking class as a group for something fun to do together.

      It was at Jordan’s Kitchen in San Francisco, and it was amazing. It is a full scale commercial kitchen, but they only do group cooking classes, so we had the place to ourselves. The staff were super friendly, and really knowledgeable.

      We arrived, and they had trays of cheeses and smoked meats for us to snack on, and they were handing out wine before we even got our jackets off.  We made mushroom risotto, flank steak with fingerling potato salad and chocolate mousse with sea salt for dessert.

      Our group got to do everything, they taught us how to chop vegetables, season everything, and prepare, plate and garnish each dish. The food was delicious, mushroom risotto is one of my favourite things in the world. I may have gotten a little too deep into the wine because before I knew it I had nominated myself as the grill master of the group, and was picking up the flank steaks with my bare hands, and expertly (ish) maneuvering them around the flaming grill.

      The chocolate mousse was delish, and we had a post-dessert mini-booze bottle pinata, which is not something I’ve done before but may well become a part of my supper routine every night. It was a really fun activity,  and we got a copy of all of the recipes we made so we can re-create them at home. Not promising I will, because even though it was delicious it was a lot more work than boxed mac and cheese, but still it’s nice to have the option.

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      Posted in food, recipes, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged cheese, chocolate mousse, cooking class, flank steak, food, friends, Jordan's Kitchen, mushroom risotto, recipes, risotto, San Francisco, wine, work
    • baked brie

      Posted at 9:13 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 5, 2014

      The first time I ever tried baked brie was about 5 years ago, my mom made a savoury one with onions and bell peppers and cooked it on the BBQ. It was life changing in the way that things sometimes are when they are completely foreign, but immediately make perfect sense the moment you are exposed to them.

      Of course melty delicious cheese should be paired with thousands of different toppings and served on bits of crispy baguette. The world made sense again. Since then, it’s become kind of a go-to dish in our family, but we are always mixing it up and trying new recipes. This one was really delicious, and pretty easy, I substituted figs for pears since that’s what I had on hand.

      After toasting the almonds, and sauteing the pears in the brown sugar and vanilla, place the fruit and nut mixture on top of a peeled wheel of brie, wrap in Pillsbury Crescent roll dough, and bake for about 45 minutes. You can serve it with baguette, apples, crackers, or just get right in there and eat it with a spoon. There is no judgement here.

      Posted in recipes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged baked brie, cheese, pears, recipes
    • tartine

      Posted at 10:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 23, 2014

      Every year for Christmas my grandpa gives all of us grandkids some money to buy whatever we’d like. I usually save most of it, and buy myself something that I’ve been wanting, or a few things if they are small.

      Last year I bought myself a new camera, but there wasn’t anything big that I wanted this year, so I bought myself a couple of things I’d had my eye on for awhile,  including this gorgeous cookbook from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco.

      It came in the mail two days ago, and I’ve pretty much been carrying it with me and drooling over it ever since. The pastries and cakes are so beautiful they are edible works of art, and the pictures are so lovely that I want to frame them and hang them in my kitchen. Or not, because I don’t think mine will look the same and I wouldn’t want anybody to be able to compare.

      I will absolutely be making their flourless chocolate souffle cake for my birthday this year, but I’ll probably have to make two in case anyone else decides they would like dessert as well.

      They also have a bread cookbook that a friend of mine has, and when I read through it I basically wanted to renounce my entire life so far and move to an Italian monastery on top of a mountain (which I’m assuming is where they learned to make bread?) and do nothing but bake glorious crusty loaves.

      I guess the moral of that story is, I like carbs. You can buy both Tartine and Tartine Bread on Amazon.

      Posted in books, chocolate, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged baking, chocolate, recipes, tartine
    • macarons

      Posted at 12:57 am by jasminedesirees, on January 10, 2014

      Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone in the world is obsessed with macarons? I’ve been hearing about these dainty little cookies and seeing pictures of them for years, but I’d never tried one until I received a box for my birthday last year.

      I had heard a lot about them though, that they are very difficult to make, and as a baker, I’d always wanted to try so I could showcase my skillz (with a z). I decided to give it a try. I found this recipe from CHOW, gathered all the ingredients (almond flour better be secretly made of gold because it is super expensive) and set to work.

      It was kind of a long process, just in that it’s a lot of waiting to do things, but other than that it wasn’t bad. I can see how it would be hard to get all of the cookies to the exact uniform roundness, but I have to say mine were pretty good for a first timer (NBD).

      They may have been a teensy bit crooked but they were delicious, although truthfully I bet you could put chocolate ganache in between two pieces of cardboard and it would still be pretty good.

      The next thing on my baking to do list is chocolate souffle, I’ve wanted to make that for as long as I can remember, which I realized this morning was probably a strange thing for a kid to think about? But then I thought about it a little more and had a flashback to watching Beauty and the Beast with all of the dancing pies and souffles, and my life made a little more sense.

      I wonder how many other things in my life I’ve wanted to do solely because of childhood influence by a beloved cartoon character? I realized a few years ago that the likely reason for my choosing Journalism as a university major was because of my undying obsession with April (and her saucy yellow jumpsuit) from the Ninja Turtles.

       

      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, chocolate, macarons, recipes
    • joie de vivre

      Posted at 1:07 am by jasminedesirees, on December 24, 2013

      I recently bought a book on Amazon called Joie de Vivre. It’s written by author and chef Robert Arbor who grew up in France. In the book he describes the simple joys of life in rural France, and how to emulate the attitude of simplicity and find happiness in the mundane tasks of everyday life.

      He describes visits to the market, the butcher, and the patisserie, and the small garden plots that many people in rural France use to grow flowers and small amounts of veggies and fruits for everyday use. He depicts traditional meals, idyllic dinner parties, and simple, delicious ingredients.

      He also provides simple, delicious recipes, like this one for simple strawberry jam. It’s only fruit and sugar, with a little bit of water added, simmered for a few hours to break down the berries.

      I almost never eat jam, I find that it tastes strangely artificial, but this is delicious. It’s a bit more liquid than most jams, but scooping it with a spoon onto a toasted baguette with a cup of fresh coffee, a very traditional French breakfast, was delicious.

      I am excited to try this with other fruits, I think nectarine jam will be amazing.

      Lovely, lazy day breakfast
      Posted in recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, cookbook, cooking, France, jam, Joie de vivre, recipes
    • brittle

      Posted at 12:50 am by jasminedesirees, on November 26, 2013

      My love for pomegranate is both legendary all encompassing, during pomegranate season you can find me eating one almost every day. I was recently the recipient of a gift of the best kind, a box full of huge, juicy pomegranates.

      After gorging myself every day for a week, I still had a few left and decided to do an experiment combining my two favourite things. I melted two bars of good dark chocolate, and stirred in half the seeds from a pomegranate.

      I spread the mixture onto wax paper, then sprinkled the remaining seeds on top, and threw it in the fridge for about an hour, and at the end I had pomegranate chocolate brittle.

      It was delicious, ridiculously easy, and it looks beautiful with the bright red seeds against the dark chocolate. I’d like to try it again with milk chocolate, since pomegranates can be a bit tart and the extra sweetness might be a good contrast.

       
      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, brittle, chocolate, pomegranate, recipes
    • chocolat

      Posted at 11:21 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 13, 2013

      Probably since the first time I watched Chocolat I’ve harboured a secret belief that I was the main character in a previous life and that given the right set of circumstances,  the inate talent that I possessed would emerge and all my dreams of being a master chocolatier, dating Johnny Depp, and wearing my hair in a sassy bob would come true.

      Nobody likes chocolate more than I do, and I firmly believe that (I am eating some even as I write this), but a couple of weeks ago I signed up for a chocolate making class with Rachel Dunn chocolates in Concord, and let me tell you, if anyone likes chocolate more than I do, it is Rachel.

      Rachel has been making chocolate since she was 17, her chocolates are world famous, and she owns her own company that does nothing but make chocolate every single day. They say if you want to be successful in business, you need to do what you’re passionate about, and Rachel is passionate about chocolate.

      She stood up in front of the class and introduced herself, and you could tell that she was thrilled, absolutely elated, to be sharing the art of chocolate making with a new group of people.

      She could barely contain herself as she lamented the lost art of candy making, shared every single thing she knew about chocolate and candy making, and expressed the fervent belief that we would leave the workshop and share what we had learned with all of our friends and family. She truly loves chocolate, and wants other people to get the same joy from it that she does.

      The class itself was great, it was 2 hours long and we made about 15 different kinds of candy, including truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries, English toffee, peanut butter cups, and a ganache tart.

      It was really fun and informative, and the candy we made was delicious. The best part is that she sends everyone home with recipes for all of the things we made in class, so you can make them at home for your friends and family. Or eat them all yourself when your husband is gone to Mexico for a week. There is no judgement here.

      World famous candied applies
      I may have gotten slightly carried away with the peanut butter in my peanut butter cups
      I am practically a professional strawberry tuxedo applier. That’s probably a real job.
      Posted in chocolate, food | 0 Comments | Tagged candy, chocolate, food, learning, Rachel Dunne, recipes
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