More Goals

Reading through all the New Year's posts and articles made me think of a few more things I'm going to try to do this year.

On Lauren Conrad's website* they had a list of 10 resolutions everyone should make. One of them overlaps with a resolution that apparently Pope Francis has for us all. That is to stop wasting food. I am very guilty of this. I'll buy something and use it for one meal, but never find a use for the rest of it. During the Farm Share I was super guilty of wasting fresh veggies! I know. I'm ashamed, but sometimes I just couldn't find a use for a whole head of cabbage when I had a busy week. So I'm going to clean the fridge of all out of date food and focus and using every thing I buy or putting it in the freezer before it goes bad.

Second goal is to keep learning. Last Spring I learned how to screen print, but then I didn't sign up for anything new. I'm going to try to keep something on the calendar. I found some cool online resources yesterday that I'm excited to try out.

General Assembly- https://generalassemb.ly/ has some cool classes and workshops in DC. Focused around web design, business and technology.

Codecademy- http://www.codecademy.com/ teaches coding starting at the simplest level. I already learned to make an animation from my name and start a mini solar system.

Coursera- https://www.coursera.org has college courses from all over, some are free and some are paid. You can take a class or they have specializations that have a series of courses.

*Yes I occasionally read Lauren Conrad's site. I may have a small girl crush on her.

Lately: Around Town

Recently I tried out one new and two new to me places around town. 

On one of the only warmish and dry days we've had this spring I met up with some friends at Dacha Beer Garden in Shaw. Its not much more than some picnic tables on a corner lot, but there was a line when I arrived. They serve a variety of German and Craft beer in a variety of glasses, including das boot. Even though it was crowded it was a friendly crowd and the line for beer and porta potties wasn't too bad. They don't serve food, but allow you to bring it in if you want. All in all its a nice place to enjoy a beer outdoors.

mural at Dacha.

Not too far from my apartment, but tucked away on a side street is TCB aka The Coffee Bar. I went with a friend on a Sunday morning. They have limited food, which included an everything bagel and cream cheese. Along with my bagel I got a latte. I was impressed with the latte art and thought the ingenuity of writing my order on the porcelain cup deserved a photo. It was a busy shop, but there were several seating options and we had no trouble finding a space to enjoy our morning. 

When you bring up pizza in DC (which I do a lot) someone always mentions 2Amy's. And until this week I always had to sadly admit I had never been. Its in Cleveland Park about a mile from the closest metro, so not the most convenient spot, but I took a bus and was there within a half hour. We went early expecting a wait and not wanting to miss the movie we had planned for later, but after getting there super early and getting a drink elsewhere we ended up not putting our name down till 5:20. By 5:20 they had a half hour wait. So just remember to plan wisely. 

when you walk in you are immediately greeted with pizza

For some variety my friend and I swapped half a pie. We got a certified Neapolitan style Margherita and a house specialty meat and peppers pie. The Margherita was amazing. The cheese was just amazingly flavorful. The other pizza was good too, but not crazy good. 

Hey, its pizza!

Farm Share

This fall I signed up with two friends for a Vegetable Farm Share. For seven weeks we get a box full of vegetables straight from farms in the area. We've been dividing the share by three, but I still feel like I have to stuff every meal full of vegetables to finish them by the time the next box arrives.

Catherine and her box of goodness

A few things I have been eating-

Kale, broccoli, radish, carrot, onion salad (I added some leftover spinach and salmon)

Collard greens and onions

Parsley, Leek, and Potato soup

Root vegetable fries- Carrots, Parsnips, Rutabega, turnip, and one golden beet.

Spinach 

Now does anyone have a good Kohlrabi recipe?

Fall has arrived

Hello all! Day 8 of the shutdown and I'm now blogging in real time. Its the small victories. 

Monday and Tuesday night brought beautiful sunsets to DC. Monday night I watched the sun set from an illegal spot on the mall while running a few miles. I rarely run with my phone so I didn't take photos, only to remember after the sun set that I did have my phone on me. So just imagine beautiful colors behind the Lincoln and Washington memorials. 

To help you out, I took these photos out my bedroom window on Tuesday night. The sunsets and view alone made my move worth it.

I'm not sure the order of these photos

see the National Cathedral in the way back?

there's a tree across the street!

After temperatures in the 90s all weekend this week has been in the 60s. So I made chili. I threw in a can of hot green chilies, which really added a delicious punch.

maybe I should have fewer chips with my chili?

Not only is the shutdown impacting my work life, but also my social life. Remember Handi-hour? Well it is put on by the friendly folks of the Smithsonian so it was canceled this week. The theme was book crafts, which I attempted a little on my own, but my fellow Handi-hour enthusiasts decided to throw one of our own. Instead of book crafts we did pumpkin carving, but kept the craft beer element and upped the ante on delicious snacks.

Thank goodness for the shutdown, because I was able to research some fun ideas on pinterest. I also picked up an amazing carving kit at Target, which helped a lot with carving detail without accidentally cutting a big chuck out of my pumpkin. 

my jack-o-lantern family

some of the other creations

Scenes from my Shutdown

I woke up the first day of shutdown determined to make the most of my day. For some crazy reason I thought I might only have the one day to enjoy and I didn't want to waste it. 

I lept out of bed made myself a latte and started mixing up banana bread.  

Then I watched all my favorites on the Today show (looking at you Willy) while blogging my September recap.

Then I went for a three mile run that ended at Whole Foods to purchase eggs and some other essentials for eating all my meals at home.

I mixed the eggs with some pumpkin and chocolate chips for pumpkin bread.

Oh and giant Texas muffins.

A few weeks ago I stopped by a street sale with my friend Jenn. They were cleaning up and there was a free pile. I grabbed this tray from the free pile and decided to paint it up.

First I sanded.

Then I painted with chalkboard paint.

Then on to some flag painting, first the DC flag

Then my interpretation of the US flag.

Then it was noon and time for lunch. Haha... just kidding. That was two days of projects. I also finished hanging my collage photo wall and framed and hung some photos in my bedroom. 

My sister Kristen and niece Gretchen have arrived for fun. Even though tons of things are closed and they canceled the half marathon we were going to run, we are determined to have a good time. 

Yesterday we hit up the playground.

And then enjoyed milkshakes at Ted's Bulletin.

Today the building museum!

Captain Cookie

Today for lunch I had an ice cream cookie sandwich. Well it was for desert, but I should of just had the one sandwich. I headed with a coworker over to Franklin Square to finally track down the  Captain Cookie and the Milkman truck. For $4 you pick two cookies of your choice and an ice cream flavor. I chose a chocolate chip cookie on bottom, a Nutella cookie on top, and black cherry ice cream in the middle. The Nutella cookie really just tasted chocolately, but both cookies were soft and gooey. The black cherry ice cream was my second choice (the daily special blueberry ice cream was sold out), but was full of flavor. The Nutella cookie was much smaller than my chocolate chip cookie, which made for a messy sandwich from the beginning. I had to go back for a spoon to eat most of my ice cream that squished out the sides.

Captain Cookie also sells cookies without the ice cream and about 5 different types of milk.

All and all it was delicious. We both thought that it was pretty sweet and a pretty large undertaking and that next time we might just get a chocolate chip cookie... because they were pretty close to perfect.

And that concludes my longest food review ever... and yes it was based on an ice cream cookie sandwich.

Day 6 & 7: Seville (the food)

Most people think of wine when they think of Spain, but Kendra and I decided to taste of few of the beers they had. A fun thing about most of the bars is they only had one beer. So you just ordered a cerveza and they brought you the one kind they had on tap. In Barcelona it was Estrella. In Granada it was Alhambra. They were both delicious. Then we get to Sevilla and while they still served Alhambra at some places, most of the bars were serving Cruzcampo.  Cruzcampo is not good.

my first Cruzcampo, I wish it was my last

Seville had a lot of gelato places. One night we decided to get some and ended up with the fanciest ever.

delicious too

For dinner each night we would get tapas. By our second night in Seville I thought Kendra should try her hand and ordering. She heads to the bar and does her thing. Later the waitress brings us three plates of meat and a plate of cheese. Luckily thats all I wanted to eat in Spain. In both Granada and Seville the meat and cheeses were always served with crackers. They don't look like much but were delicious. They always gave us more than we could eat and I frequently put the extras in my purse for snacking later. Kendra had more class. Also pictured below is a tinto verano aka a red wine with ice and orange or lime soda.

bacon, chorizo, manchango, panchetta

The morning of my birthday we only had a few hours in Seville before catching a train to Madrid. I got up and ran a few miles then we headed out to find breakfast. Up until this point we had been having pretty simple breakfasts. Usually a coffee and croissant. After the run and with a train ride during lunch time I was looking for a little bit more. 

I saw the menu on the wall said huevos y jamon (aka eggs and bacon) and thought that sounded good. Only when the waiter came over I ordered two coffees and jueves y jamon (aka Thursday and bacon), after he stared at me for a bit I realized my mistake and corrected my order. He asked if we wanted to share and by this point we had realized its best to go with the waiter's recommendations, but just in case I made sure it came with bread. 

Then the most delicious plate full came out. Sliced potatoes covered with fried eggs covered with jamon covered with olive oil with a little green pepper garnish. 

we were members of the clean plate club

The rest of Phoenix

My friend picked up me up at the resort and we cruised down to downtown Scottsdale. I hadn't realized that Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Tempe were all part of the same metro/valley area, but alas they are.

We parked and walked around a bit. There were a lot of jewelry stores and they were all having sales (or fake sales) and they all had jewelry made by Navajos. One store tried to sell Kandyce a seed beaded necklace for $1,200... I did purchase a simple turquoise (Navajo made) necklace from one of the stores, but only spent $30.

The weather was again gorgeous.

Scottsdale

We had a late lunch at In-N-Out burger. It was my first time. The burger and milkshake was delicious. I didn't really care for the fries, but I ate most of them anyway.

dining outside

My tour continued around ASU's campus in Tempe and then downtown Phoenix and then we had a chill evening meeting up with some other friends.

Monday morning we headed back to Tempe to run along lake Tempe. Its a manmade lake with a great multipurpose trail along the side. It was a great way to get 4 miles in and enjoy running in shorts one last time.

Then it was time to head back to the airport. Kandyce suggested I grab lunch at Sauce before I hit security. It was delicious. The crust was very cracker like.

i'm on a fungi kick

pretzel bites

I went to my cousins' to watch the Super Bowl a few weeks ago. They were making snacks so I wanted to make something a little different, but would complement most things. After checking a few blogs and websites I decided I wanted to make pretzel bites. I found a recipe on Two Peas and Their Pod and decided to go for it.

First I mixed and kneaded the dough. I don't have one of those fancy mixing machines so I did it all by hand then I covered the dough to let it rise while I went for a four mile run. When I got back it was GIANT, ok not really but the yeast had done its work. 

I split the dough into countless balls and got to rolling (don't worry the fish mat has never been used for fish).

I used my kitchen scissors the cut the snakes into bites. Then it was time to boil them in a baking soda/water mix for 30 seconds. This step was MESSY. The baking soda steam got all over my kitchen. 

I spread them on a pan, coated them with egg, and salted them with salt.

Baked till golden brown.

And delicious.

Served with German Mustard or Queso.

A little of what I've been up to...

walk the moon show at 9:30 club

new bike racks at Dupont

crafting so I feel better about ruining a pan

chalkboard magnetic wall hanging

nailed to the wall

trying out a new way to cut grapefruit

Hearts for Valentine's Day

Last night I headed over to a friend's house for what she called a "love fest". Just friends gathering together for tacos, gossip, games, and brownies with ice-cream. When she asked me if I would bring a desert I immediately suggested brownies (I don't know why brownies equal love to me). I later decided they would be heart brownies, then while talking with my sister the baker we decided I should ice them. My original idea of writing conversation heart type phrases on them wasn't working (and the Bachelor was on TV) so I just drew more hearts instead. I think they turned out lovely and tasted lovely as well. I made these from scratch, following the recipe on my canister of cocoa.

First I searched through my cookie cutter collection for something appropriate, as you can tell below I had LOTS of options. 

I lined my pan with parchment paper so after they cooled a bit it was easy to pull out the brownies for easy handling. I cut out as many hearts as possible and ate the scraps.

After they were completely cool I mixed powdered sugar with water in a ziploc bag, cut out the corner and used it to pipe icing on my the brownies. Some I just outlined, others I filled in completely.

Now you still have time! Go make heart brownies for everyone you love or just some of your coworkers.