Weekend Menu Feb 12-13

Saturday
b: grapefruit with yogurt + granola
l: mini Reese's cups and popcorn while watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on the big screen at St. Charles Cinema (that's right.)
d: "Melbourne" pizza with mozzarella, tomato sauce, brie, sweet roasted butternut squash and balsamic roasted red onions, topped with toasted pumpkin seeds. from Fire & Stone pizza place + a greek salad

Sunday
b/l: (Slept in) granola with orange and peach juice instead of milk
d: Leftovers from Feb 10. Still just as good.
...and Jaime made chocolate chip cookies, with oats from the granola.

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Menu Feb 11

I'm getting behind in these posts, which I'm SURE captivate you. But I started and it seems dumb to stop now. So here's Friday's veggie Feb food:

Breakfast: same ol'
Lunch: pictured here, Vietnamese noodles and spring rolls
Dinner: tasty pizza by the slice specials from a place by work (after working late) and a goat cheese, sweet potatoes, spinach and garlic pie Jaime picked up at "Pie Minister" at Borough Market, waiting for me in the fridge while she was at her Harry Potter tour of London.

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Menu Feb 10 - Roasted Bell Pepper Stuffed with Awesome.

Jaime collects cookbooks. She's not much one for wingin' it in the kitchen and she has a great love of good recipes. She definitely gives them her own touch, but suffice it to say she appreciates a good recipe, and she has many. Many, many.

She's been sitting on this recipe from her brother, Brad for Roasted Bell Pepper Stuffed with Bulgar and Spinach and made it for the first time tonight. It has currants (sweet black raisins), cashews, bell peppers and feta in it (from Jaime - actually I don't know what kind of cheese it was. I went to the cheese and bread store around the corner and they said this particular cheese was very good and crumbly like feta, but tastes more like goat cheese. It had mold growing all over it that I had to cut that off: "really nice, from France," said the worker.), among other things and the obvious ingredients mentioned in the name of the dish.

It was like candy. So good. And there's a lot of leftovers of the stuffing. Thank you, Brad.

I'm going backwards today, starting with dinner. Lunch and breakfast were good too.

Lunch: Waitrose tomato and fresh basil soup that pretty much tastes and eats like chunky pasta sauce. Complimented with cheese tortellini in cheese sauce.

Breakfast: Some awesome yogurt mixed with apples and cinnamon. I always have blueberries when i get into the office in the morning too. It's nice that Kalai, our office manager always has fresh blueberries in the office.

And I just polished off my palette with Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream. America the Beautiful.

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Menu Feb 9

I don't remember what I ate yesterday, but it was kosher for Vegie-Feb. I do remember dinner, since I found a blurry picture on my phone:

Minestrone Soup from Waitrose (decent grocery store here in London), Asparagus and good bread from The Food Hall, a cool little fresh market/eatery around the corner from our apartment near Hoxton Square.

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Menu Feb 8: Potent odors and eating cookies for breakfast

Good day of digesting:

Belvita breakfast biscuits, blue berries and grapes
Vegetable pasta for lunch
And I went with some co-workers to a very popular, authentic Pakistani restaurant near Brick Lane. Three of us were only eating vegetarian, so I had good support and it was delicious. But I came home smelling like a very crowded and authentic Pakastani restaurant. I had to throw all my clothes in the wash and take a shower just so Jaime could handle it.

A note about Belvita breakfast biscuits: Remember, "biscuit" in the UK = "cookie" in the US. These things are pretty much if Keebler elves went granola and marketed them for breakfast. Right. Up. My. Alley. They are made with whole grains and slow baked, which supposedly ensures the carbohydrates are regularly released over 4 hours...until lunch. And they are delicious. I blame Jaime for ever providing me opportunity to grow accustomed to eating cookies for breakfast (they're just sitting there on the counter from her baking the day before - what am i supposed to do when i'm running out the door in the morning - NOT eat them?), but I thank Belvita for helping to redeem me in my habit.

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Menu Feb 7 + the creeping entrance of cravings

It's been a week. And for the most part it's been easy. But it started getting a little harder late last night, while i watched a bit of the Super Bowl with horrible British commentary and sans US commercials. I craved buffalo wings. Maybe I hoped the buffalo wings would somehow make up for the lack of Super Bowl commercials.

Today at lunch, i bypassed all the delicious variations of chicken paninis (and there are a lot of them) for a vegetarian melt with eggplant, peppers and cheese. It was good, but it wasn't amazing. I'm staying strong. So far. But dinner better be amazing. I think I might make a killer omelet.

I've also noticed that I'm eating more chocolate that I find laying around, and its probably more than I'd be eating if I didn't feel like I was going through some sort of withdrawals. There's always chocolate at work and usually small amounts of it at home that Jaime bought. I never buy it myself, but I find myself reaching for it a lot more than before.

I think I have to go do something manly to keep up my testosterone levels. In Boulder this would be easy, go climb a mountain with my dog or something. Here, it's like...i don't know. What do you do to feel masculine in London? You eat meat, like the British so proudly and regularly do. I'll just have to listen to harder rock and ROLL and push through this.

UPDATE - 9:16pm:

Jaime made quessadillas with tomatoes and avacado and mexican rice. I slapped a fried egg and hot sauce on top and called it Huevo Rancheros Londonos. And I bought hot sauce on the way home to make sure it wasn't lacking. Here's the last of it.

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Menu Feb 6 (Fast Sunday)

Some of my friends and coworkers may be surprised to learn this, but once a month (the first Sunday of each month), Jaime and I fast for about 24 hours, or two meals. There's a few reasons we (and a bunch of other Mormons you may know and just don't know they are LDS) do this:

1. It's a tangible way to invoke and express gratitude for the things we have, i.e. easy access to good food and clean water as well as a million other blessings we're lucky to have. I've found that gratitude and daily happiness are directly proportional.
   
2. A real-life application of self-mastery. It may be symbolic or it may be literal, but either way it's a simple and regular practice of overcoming the "natural man," or any carnal desires that may be natural, but shouldn't be abused. Mormons are somewhat big on becoming better ("stronger, faster!"), more awesome and simply good versions of themselves, whether that's a bus driver, an accountant, a musician, a husband or student. We're all neighbors, brothers, sisters and humans, so in the very least we could keep in mind how we could be better at those roles, and thus make the world a bit of a better place.
3. Fasting two meals saves a couple pennies. One of the reasons I really like being a part of my church, even in this secular age where being active in any church is pretty outlandish (and usually pegs you as a close-minded right-wing evangelist, which I'm not) is that it's a place that actually provides me real-life opportunities to actually act Christian, not just believe Christianity (they are not the same thing). That is to say, there are simple and powerful programs in place that allow me to actually serve people both in and out of the organization, even when my lazier instincts would be to not bother. One of those ways is "Fast Offerings." Jaime and I take the money we save from skipping a couple meals (and then add some extra for good karma when we can) and put it in a fund that's set aside specially to help those that really need it (think like: The Salvation Army). It's a small token for those that are not as fortunate as we are. We've been doing this ever since we had any sort of income and roof over our heads. It's simple charity born through simple sacrifice that happens to be good for us anyway. When you think of it that way, and now that we're in the habit, it almost seems silly not to take part.
   

Not to mention a small fast once a month is physically healthy for most people (not everyone), so why not?

Anyway, that's just to serve as an explanation for why my menu today didn't start until after 5pm and was just a red pepper and carrot soup with bread and home made salad (with avocado, mmmm). And Then Jaime made chocolate chip cookies, which I've decided is my favorite vegetarian food. (Yes, that's a joke, but no, I'm not kidding. And yes, that last sentence does make sense).

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Menu + Tate Modern Feb 5

I was nourished by art on Saturday and nothing else.

Okay's that's a lie, although art is technically vegetarian, I got hungry and nommed:

Yogurt and granola
German pretzel bread from a German deli near Borough Market
My favorite toasted cheese sandwich with onions, garlic and leeks from Kappacasien at Borough Market (pictured below and at the link)
Salad leftovers from my fridge and seasoned fries from the American Diner down the street from our apartment.

Below are also some pictures I snapped at Borough Market and the Tate Modern museum. Good times.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Menu Feb 4

Some Swiss berry yogurt parfait thing
Giant Turkish/Lebanese salad box veggie-couscous-grapeleaf-bean-goat cheese thing from an open air market near work. I got it for the reusable tupperware, just as much as the salad. (pictured here)
Homemade salad with farm fresh hard-boiled egg + bread (pictured)

And I feel some nutella/pb coming on.

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Band of Horses show at the Academy Brixton, London

Front row, cool theater, great show. And the imagery they projected behind the band during songs made me proud to be a Western American. Beautiful photos from pretty much every national park and similar area from the Northwest to the Grand Canyon. At a show in London.

Sent from my Windows Phone

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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