Born For This

These weekends, they just get shorter and shorter!  Luckily, I have a week and a half off starting Thursday.

As I was going through my photos, I realized that I had never posted Friday’s lunch info.  Wonderful boyfriend and I zipped out to pick up wine for the evening’s festivities, then went to Whole Foods for some quick eats.  I was feeling really picky, so I got egg salad and lima bean soup:

…which was about as good of a combination as it sounds like.  I only had a few bites of the egg salad during my lunch break, but I ended up finishing it once I was back at work…it was just a mistake.  A big mistake.  Egg salad is one of those things that seems like such a good idea when I see it, but afterward my stomach is never happy if I have more than a few bites.  This one wasn’t too mayonnaisey at all – sort of dry, mostly like hard boiled eggs with red peppers.

Wonderful boyfriend, of course, made better choices – grilled veggies, rice something, chickpea somethingorother, coconut curry tofu…I am so lucky that he came pre-wired to eat healthy foods (and vegetarian!).  It truly makes life so much easier, and it’s nice to have someone who can share and appreciate all of my healthy treats!

Saturday

After Friday night’s get-together, I thought I’d be feeling a bit…less than.  Surprisingly, I was up before 7 and ready to go!  WB wasn’t quite ready to face the world at that hour, so I finished re-reading Watership Down and caught up on some email.

We hit the farmer’s market – no pictures, since our favorite vendors were absent and it was a hot, cranky, unproductive trip.  We ended up with some basil, arugula, tiny tomatoes, and long crazy eggplant, but no sprouts Come back soon, sprout man!

Then, breakfast at our favorite breakfast place:

His: green eggs and toast!

Mine: huevos rancheros

Lots of memories at this little cafe – we used to go here almost every weekend when we first started dating.

Then I may or may not have taken a huge nap and frittered away the rest of the day. At some point, I made this tasty watermelon-cherry-strawberry drink:

I had been planning to make some sort of frozen watermelon drink for Friday’s party, but it didn’t fit with the final menu very well.  I kept this one simple:

• Frozen watermelon
• Frozen cherries
• Frozen strawberries
• Water
• Splash of agave

2 minutes in the blender = creamy, slushy goodness

Sunday

You’ve probably noted the absence of running and working out…I have, too!  It’s been busy and the stars just haven’t been in alignment for any official workouts the past few days.  But we did play Wii Sports Resort for an hour.

We also purchased truffle salt! I wanted something with real truffles in it, and truffle salt seemed like our best option for now since I’m suspicious of the quality of jarred truffles.  (Also, who would think that this is something I’d be discussing just 5 years out of art school?  How far we climb….)  The cat was interested in sniffing the new salt for quite some time.  I, however, used it on:

…a tomato-basil salad, with a splash of olive oil (and a good sprinkle of truffle salt), accompanied by peas in lemon-artichoke pesto and a sandwich of tempeh (poached in garlic and white wine), arugula, and smoked mozzarella.

WB needed his turn at a big nap, so I read Secrets to Happiness and had some vanilla strawberry rose tea – it doesn’t get much girlier than that.

Our final activity of the day: swing dancing!  I used to swing dance a ton when I was in high school and college, but WB has never done any serious sort of dancing, so we started with the beginner class.  He should be a full-fledged dancer in a few weeks! (Can I say again how great it is that he comes up with these things?  Just amazing.)  No photos, but there may be some incriminating video soon since my co-worker is also involved with the local group.

Monday

Who need Mondays, anyway?   One of my awesome co-workers just brought me info on a yoga teacher I might like, so I can’t complain.  That definitely makes up for the fact that I could barely drag myself to Starbucks and that I ate the leftover remnants of the cereal bars I tried to make a while back that never quite came together. A neighbor in the elevator was really excited to see my little bowl of cereal and exclaimed “I love milk!”

And now, back to the grind.  Lots to put together in a short while.

Another rather small party:

The cheese plate featured Petit Basque, St. André, Rufolo*, and a gentle chunk of Cotswold.  Accompaniments included more bay seasoned peanuts, Mary’s Gone Crackers, spicy plum chutney, and tomato jam.

I always try to balance a cheese plate with something mild, something creamy, something hard and aged, and something mysterious/daring/pungent.  A bit about the cheeses on this plate:

Cotswold is a creamy double gloucester with chives and onions.  It’s a lot like a flavored cheddar, but milder and creamier.  A very quiet cheese, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like it.

Petit Basque (also spellet P’Tit) is an aged sheep’s milk cheese that’s firm, nutty, and light.  It’s far from the sharp manchego or other sheepy cheeses you might have met – in fact, if you didn’t tell anyone, they might never know it came from the same animal as their winter scarves.  The piece I got was nice and fresh, so though it looked like it would be a hard, hard cheese, the texture was perfectly firm without any graininess.

St. André is a rich, creamy butter cheese that rings in at 70% butterfat.  I find it best when it’s been at room temperature for at least 30 minutes – it becomes a perfectly soft, oozy delight.  It’s got a much more approachable flavor than Brie – very fresh, tangy, and nutty.  It was heavenly with the tomato jam.

Rufolo – this one gets a * because I question the name, which may or may not have something to do with the Amalfi coast.  (More likely than not, I think this one was mislabeled at the store – fine by me, since I got to spend some time daydreaming over images from the Amalfi, one of my very favorite places.)  Whatever its true name, this cheese was a soft, smoked cheese with an assertive sharpness – a match made in heaven for the plum chutney.

But no good cheese plate is complete without wine…

I picked up the Evodia (Altovinum Evodia Old Vine Garnacha Calatayud 2007 Spain) on a whim because we drink a lot of Spanish wine*, and it ended up being the perfect companion to our fun evening of girl talk and, eventually, Wii Sports Resort entertainment provided by the wonderful boyfriend.  Fruity, rich, medium-bodied, and slightly peppery, with a clean, bright finish.  Just joyful.  My taste tends to run a bit too dry for my companions, but we were all happy with this bottle.

Then, somehow, it became time to open a second bottle.  Vinho verde (green wine) is like water around here – it’s slightly sparkling, fresh, fruity, and goes with absolutely anything.  I would usually start a party with this, rather than ending with it, but the sparkle seemed right and I was at the point of the evening where I felt magnanimous and wanted to share only our best and favorite things.

I also whipped up some lemon poppy cookies, with a debt to this recipe.  My version (makes 2 dozen):

• 6 T butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 t flax + 1 T water, heated (I microwaved for 30 seconds) (this is an egg substitute because we had no eggs since we’re still in post-vacation mode)
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 1 c + 2 T flour, which I made from 1/4 c tapioca starch, 1/2 c brown rice flour, and 1/4 c + 2 T buckwheat flour
• 1/4 t xanthan gum
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/4 t baking powder
• 2 t lemon juice
• 2 t lemon zest
• sugar and poppy seeds, mixed in a 2:1 ratio, for rolling

Procedure

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350º.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add “egg” and vanilla; mix until thoroughly incorporated.
4. In a separate bowl, blend together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and xanthan gum).  Add these to the egg mixture and blend until just incorporated.
5. Mix in the lemon juice and zest.
6. The dough will be soft and sticky, but still workable.  Form into balls (it won’t hold much of a shape on its own) about 1″ in diameter and roll each in the sugar-poppy seed mixture.
7. Bake 1″ apart, 13-16 minutes (we always bake on a silpat, but the original recipe calls for an ungreased baking sheet).

I think it’s now time for me to finish my mug of tea and get on with my next weekend chore – laundry!  I love vacations, but man does it seem like you always come back with twice as much dirty laundry as you’d have from a “normal” week.

* The Spanish wine thing, or a list of reasons that everyone should drink Spanish wine:

1. It is delicious!  Seriously, there are so many unique flavors to be found in these wines.
2. It will immediately transport you back to the time that you were studying microcinema in San Sebastian, or, you know, whatever you were doing the last time you were in Spain.  If you’ve never been to Spain, just pretend.  Google image search can help set the mood, as can a few chapters of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
3. It’s relatively inexpensive, so it’s much more accessible if you’re a wine newbie (we’ve all made $50 mistakes – they never get any easier).