Instagram Recap

It's been a busy couple of months - after our Iceland trip I headed to Hawaii for a work conference, made a trip up to Washington to see my family and friends for a long weekend, and then was approved for a last minute work trip to Dublin. I also started my masters program this week which is a bit of an adjustment - I can't say I missed homework terribly, but I am excited about it nonetheless!

I finally signed up for an Instagram account, and I have some serious mixed feelings about it. I like the filters and effects it has better than Hipstamatic but I hate that I have to be connected to the network to finish taking a photo (doesn't work great for international travel) and I don't like that I can't save the raw photo and apply multiple affects to it. Regardless - here are a few photos from the recent weeks!

Grafton Street - Dublin

 

 Morning Coffee

 Vegetarian Breakfast @ Cornucopia Dublin

Flowers on Grafton Street

 Cathedral

 Dublin Doorway

 Rain from the hotel window

 Dinner on our day trip to Hood River

 Strawberry Cheesecake - My first creation for the "Dessert a Month" package donated on behalf of Heartland Humane Society

That's all for now - likely to have some exciting news to share within the next week or so, but keeping my mouth shut for now!

Iceland

 Yikes - I started writing this when we actually got back from our trip, which was over a month ago now! I've been traveling quite a bit lately, and between that, work, working out, and getting ready for grad school (eeee!) I haven't had much time to focus here. Regardless - here's the recap of our amazing Iceland trip!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know it's only February, but the potential highlight of my year was our recent trip to Iceland. I've been wanting to visit for years, mainly inspired by the beautiful scenery in a documentary by one of my favorite bands - Sigur Ros. You can see the trailer here  - I highly suggest you watch it, if you don't care for the music just watch it on mute and enjoy the footage. I bet you want to go to Iceland now too.

We got this great deal through Icelandair that included airfare (direct from Seattle), accommodations at the Hilton, and a guided glacier hike/northern lights tour. Iceland doesn't get many tourists this time of year so Icelandair has been making a big push to get people to travel there - it must be working because our guide said usually they're running hardly any tours this time of year but they've been working full time this year. Oh, and when we checked out of the hotel on Saturday there was a huge crowd - the hotel was overbooked and they were trying to find new accommodations for everyone. So glad that didn't happen when we checked in.

It was an easy 8 hours flight from Seattle (granted we did have to drive all the way to Seattle, but oh well) - the down side is that this put us arriving in Iceland just before 7am. With very little sleep. I had intended to spend the first day doing most of our exploring of Reykjavik and I hadn't really planned on serious jet lag. We were so relieved that there was a room ready for us when we arrived at the hotel since check in time wasn't really supposed to be until 2pm. I don't know what we would have done otherwise - I think we would have had to sleep in the lobby because we definitely weren't functioning! We ended up sleeping until about 2:30pm before we bundled up and headed out to see Reykjavik. 

It was about a 1.5 mile walk from our hotel to the city center - but the city was very easy to navigate and to make it even easier we could basically just walk straight down the same road the whole way. We weren't very productive the first day, but we did manage to find some food and go see a documentary called The Volcano Show. The film maker was there to give us some background - his father started filming volcano eruptions in the 1940's and he picked it up after him so there was a ton of great footage. To me, volcanoes just spew ash, so to see footage of the ground opening and a wall of lava shooting out is pretty crazy. I'm glad we went to this though - it was a nice easy way to learn a lot about the geography in Iceland. By the time we left to catch the shuttle back to the hotel it has started snowing. Normally I am more inclined to walk, but let me tell you - after the sun sets in Iceland it is absolutely freezing out! I was so happy that we made it to the shuttle where it was warm
  
Our second day was filled with the tour that was included in our package - we were picked up at the hotel along with a few other guests (I think there ended up being about 10 or so of us in the group) and headed out of Reykjavik. We stopped briefly to see Eyjafjallajökull - the volcano whose 2010 eruption caused huge air traffic delays in Europe (I remember this clearly because I was waiting on some shipments for work from Italy and there were a bunch of delays!).

Then we stopped to see Skógarfoss - a beautiful waterfall. Legend has it that there is a chest of treasure somewhere underneath it.

Next stop was Sólheimajökull Glacier where we were going to do our hike. When we arrived the weather was bitterly cold - the wind was blowing like crazy and it was dumping snow on us as we stopped to put on our crampons. This continued as we walked up the glacier but luckily the wind was blowing at our backs. As soon as we reached the highest point the weather had turned, the wind died down and the sun even came out! The "hike" was more of a walk really, which Jonathan and I were a little disappointed with but I guess it has to be accessible to a wide range of people (including those in our group wearing just jeans and a jacket! I can't even imagine how cold they must have been).

We explored the glacier a bit, and even got to climb inside of an ice tube! The ice axes we had weren't ever really necessary, but they did look kind of cool!

The sun was starting to set by the time we made it off the glacier, and it had started snowing again. We made one quick stop at another waterfall before heading to a nice little restaurant for dinner. Most of the group had lobster soup, but they did have a vegetarian soup option which was very nice. We had a chance to try some Icelandic beer - Skjálfti (if I remember right, pronounced something like ski-OW-fTEE) which was really good, they also had some of the most delicious bread which I'm pretty sure I ate my fair share of.

Since the clouds had rolled in at this time, our chances of seeing the northern lights were pretty slim - we did drive for a bit looking for a clearing with no success. I was a bit disappointed, but to be honest it was SO cold by that time that I didn't feel much like standing outside and looking at the sky anyway!

We took time to continue exploring Reykjavik on our last full day - we went to the National Museum and spent a good amount of the afternoon there, we then took a cab over to a place called the Perlan which is where the Saga Museum is as well as a nice restaurant and great lookout point. We didn't make it in time to go to the Saga Museum, but we did get some gorgeous views of Reykjavik before the sunset.

We then hurried back downtown to make a stop at the liquor store (which is the only place you can buy any kind of alcohol) to try to pick up some of the Icelandic beer we liked to bring home. Unfortunately they did not have any Skjálfti - must be popular because every time we ordered it anywhere they commented that they would have to check and see if they had it still. Instead we picked up a couple of other random beers in hopes that they would be just as good.

Since this trip fell over both Valentine's Day and our anniversary we took the opportunity to go out to a nice dinner on our last night - we found a cute little Icelandic restaurant  (Lækjarbrekka) that was an old house-turned-restaurant. Their vegetarian option was quite delicious (I was not quite sure what to expect since Icelandic food is not particularly vegetarian friendly) - I had the Icelandic organic barley with wild mushrooms, angelica, root vegetables and herbs and Jonathan had a chance to enjoy some real Icelandic food (although he did go for lamb and not the rotten shark meet, neither sound great to me but it was probably a wise choice).

To get back to the airport we booked a shuttle that made a stop at the Blue Lagoon - a touristy geothermal spa. However touristy it might have been, it was definitely worth the stop. The pools are a gorgeous milky blue - filled with silica mud and minerals and plenty warm to hang out in even though it was hovering right around freezing outside. The downside to all of those minerals though? My hair felt like a tangley mess for at LEAST a week afterwards - no matter how many times I washed and conditioned it it still felt terrible!

All in all, a fantastic trip - I wish it could have been longer, but I'm glad we have something to go back for now! Can't wait to start planning an awesome summer trip even if it may be a few years away!

 

Vegan Superbowl Snacking

Life has been crazy since the new year started. Like so crazy that I haven't even been browsing foodgawker! I know, I can't hardly believe it either. I don't have nearly as much time to cook so that's probably a big part of it. To be honest, I don't remember much of what I've been cooking lately.

My current favorite post-workout meal has been stir fry. I prep the veggies on the weekend and keep them in the fridge, I've made a jar of stir fry sauce as well so that's ready to go. We can start the rice before the workout then afterwards through the veggies in a skillet for a few minutes and we're ready to eat. Seriously, what could be easier? My favorite recipe for stir fry is still this one from PPK - the avocado and basil additions are amazing.

The most cooking I've done in a long time was last weekend - Jonathan invited a few of our friends over to watch the Superbowl and we decided we would try to make some "healthier" snacks. I have serious issues with only picking one or two things to make and we ended up making no less than six different dishes.

Vegan Ranch Dip (I didn't even know how much I missed creamy dips until I made this!)

 Baked Sweet Potato Fries

 Black Bean Dip (with some added kick from chipotle powder)

 Crunchy Coleslaw Salad

 Sweet & Spicy Chipotle Tempeh Bites (ok these photograph terribly but they taste super good!)

 Chipotle Potato & Spinach Quesadillas

 Gardein Buffalo Chikn Wings (these are kind of cheating because all I did to make them was heat them up and pour the sauce over them)

There seemed to be a spicy theme - I think I ended up putting chipotle in just about everything, but I can't help it - it's just so delicious! It was also unintentional that everything ended up being vegan... although that may have had something to do with most of the recipes coming from my new cookbook Party Vegan that my cousin gave me for Christmas! This was the first time I'd used it and I was pretty happy with all of the recipes (coleslaw, tempeh, quesadillas, ranch dip).

There is much more I want to share from the last month, but we just returned from a weekend of skiing and tubing at Mt. Bachelor and I'm exhausted so it will have to be another time!

-C

Fifteen Days Down!

I sure hope one of my goals for the year wasn't to blog more! We may be only 15 days into the new year, but so far I have been sticking to my goal of working out more and doing P90X. That's 15 straight days of working out for at least an hour. That's insane (for me anyway). Now technically you are allowed one "rest" day per week, but it's either rest or do the stretching dvd - and trust me, after 6 days of the other workouts I need the stretching. Even still, that's an hours worth of stretching to still make time for.

I printed out a calendar for us (same one I used last year - you can find it here) and wrote in all of our workouts so we can mark them off each day. I know neither of us wants to see a day without a cross through it so it's working pretty well so far! There was a brief moment eariler this week when I couldn't take the lack of being able to come home and cook dinner and really wanted to just skip it - instead we rearranged slightly and did the stretching routine that day and I was able to make a (pretty) healthy pizza!

Speaking of cooking - it's been tough not being able to do that as much. I really enjoy thinking of new meals and putting together a nice dinner. There really isn't time to cook after coming home from work and doing these workouts though. The freezing meals thing is going ok so far - I've made several batches of soup and yesterday I made an enchilada pie with roasted butternut squash, onions, black beans, corn, and tomatoes. We had the regular enchiladas for dinner and had enough leftover for the pie so hopefully that's at least one dinner and one lunch!

In an effort to have different dinner options I tried a new soup recipe today (if it were up to Jonathan I think we'd only ever eat that Italian Sausage Soup but I need a little more variety). I searched Allrecipes for their top rated soups and found this one for a Brazilian Black Bean Stew. It was well rated and I liked a lot of the ingredients so I decided to give it a shot, and of course make it vegetarian. I use Gimme Lean veggie sausage in place of the chorizo and added some cayenne to it for spice. I also used a little liquid smoke to replicate the ham flavor - not sure that really worked, but who doesn't like a little extra smokiness? There aren't any seasonings listed on the recipe - I threw in some cumin, red pepper flakes, and of course salt and pepper.

The soup was pretty good - maybe not quite as good as that Italian Sausage Soup, but at least there is something to strive for!  ;)

Hope everyone else is doing well with their New Year's resolutions or goals! It's not easy, but I guess if it was we'd have been doing it all along!

-C

Wrapping up 2011 - on to 2012!

It's 9:30am - Jonathan is still asleep and I'm sitting on the couch drinking coffee, Pixel is curled up with me, and we've just been looking out at the gray skies and the crows flying around. It feels like the perfect Sunday morning, except it's actually Monday but since it's the last day I have off before returning to work it definitely feels like a Sunday!

The holidays have been crazy busy, and although I'm glad for the quiet and relaxation that this morning brings, the holidays were also great. We spent a lot of time with friends in the weeks leading up to Christmas - the time between Thanksgiving and then just flew by! Jonathan and I have both had work off for the past week and a half which has been fantastic - it's great not being at work and also not missing out on meetings/emails/etc. because everyone else is also gone! I stopped in Portland on my way home to Seattle for a vegan cooking class (more on that later) - Portland still takes my breath away, I just love that city. I was able to see my two best friends and spend a lot of time with my family while I was in Washington for a couple of days, and then on Christmas day I headed out to Michigan to visit Jonathan and his family.

As you can see, there was a fair amount of travel involved this holiday season - luckily all of the driving and all of the flights went well! Michigan was great - it was so much fun to see where Jonathan grew up and hear all of his stories that the places reminded him of. We spent a lot of time wandering around Kalamazoo and exploring the city, we also drove over to Ann Arbor one day and he showed me the Michigan campus. Both cities were super cute and we had a great time. I loved that I was able to split Christmas time this year with my family and his - unfortunately I can't be in two places at once, but this was a nice solution!

We made it home on New Year's Eve morning after staying in a somewhat dumpy hotel off of I-5. After traveling for about 15 hours it's tough to make the hour and a half drive back from the airport, especially when it's midnight here and you've been on east coast time. We had the quietest NYE that I have had in a very long time, but it was fantastic. We rented movies, ate appetizers, drank wine and were in bed by about 10pm. We celebrated with the east coast by drinking sparkling wine at 9pm - attempted to watch the ball drop, only to find out that they delay the broadcast here so it drops at midnight. LAME. I swear I remember watching that as a kid, and definitely at 9pm and not midnight.

Speaking of New Year's, I thought I'd share a few of my goals - I prefer goals to resolutions, I'm not exactly sure why. But here we go:
- Complete the P90X workout series (we're on Day 2!)
- Continue to work on meal planning, especially with these lengthy workouts I want to have meals prepared and ready to go ahead of time. I'm going to work on "freezer meals" - soups and other things that can be made ahead of time and freeze easily.
- 365 photo challenge... there will likely be far less food photos in the beginning though since I don't think I'll be cooking as often.

We'll see how it goes! The P90X workouts are super tough, we've been prepping for the past month or so doing the bonus workouts 3 days a week, but now to move up to 7 days a week is definitely going to be a challenge. We've been really bad about working out for the past year though, so hopefully this is a good jumpstart for us. I'm really aiming to be in better shape before this Mediterranean cruise at the end of May!

We've also been doing some New Year's cleaning - organizing and getting rid of a bunch of things we don't need (why did we still have two toasters, two hand beaters, and two Foreman grills!?). It's nice to start off the year with a little less junk around.

Hope you all had a great start to 2012 as well - I think it's going to be a great year!


-C

Cookies & Cocktails Plus Catching Up

It's been awhile again. I haven't been in much of a writing mood lately I guess. It's an overwhelming time of year - work is busy wrapping up for our holiday shutdown, busy trying to think of presents for everyone (and realizing Christmas is in less than two weeks!!), busy cooking, and busy spending time with friends. Those aren't bad things it's just sometimes it all gets piled on at once and stresses me out a little.

But enough of that - there are a few exciting recipes I have been wanting to share from the past few weeks! The first is for this salad - it pretty much has everything that is great in it: kale, pineapple, avocado, black beans, and peanuts. You can find the recipe here. I more or less just followed it.

I made the salad to go along with a West African Peanut Stew. My coworker sent me the recipe for this one and I'm not sure where they got it from, so I will share it with you here!

West African Peanut Stew
2 c. onion, chopped
1 T. vegetable oil
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
1 t. powdered ginger
1 c. carrots, chopped
2 c. winter squash or sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
5 c. vegetable stock
3/4 c. smooth peanut butter (I used chunky and omitted the chopped peanuts)
1 T. sugar
1/2 c. diced green onion
1 T. chopped peanuts

Sauté the onions over medium heat for 3 minutes.  Add the cayenne and ginger.  Add the carrots and squash.  Add the stock, cover and simmer about 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender.  Puree with a hand blender if desired - I did only slightly, not until it was anywhere near smooth.  Add the peanut butter and sugar.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir until blended.  Serve topped with green onions and chopped peanuts.

The next recipe doesn't have a great photo to go along with it - sorry, I was hungry after this pre-P90X workout! More on that later. I had some leftover pumpkin from making cookies that I needed to use up, and I'd been curious about these pumpkin and squash mac and "cheese" recipes I'd been seeing lately. I loosely followed this recipe here, except I cheated a little and added ~1/2 cup of smoked Gouda since I had it leftover. I didn't have any sage (or at least I didn't want to go out in the dark and rain to pick some) so I used some thyme to season it. The sauce was a bit thick so I thinned it a little with some pasta water - I think I could have actually used a little more since it was still pretty thick. I thought this was delicious though - super creamy and flavorful and a bit healthier alternative to regular mac & cheese with all of the comfort.

I've been doing a lot of holiday baking and candy making recently too. Here's a few things I've tried out so far:

Spritz cookies (fun with the cookie press!)

 Homemade Peppermint Patties (first time I attempted tempering my own chocolate - mixed results but better than I feared!)

 Caramel Pecan Bars (I have about a million of these since I used the recipe from the large batch cookbook!)

 This past weekend we had out annual Cookies & Cocktails party - I love entertaining and this party is pretty simple since you're asking people to all contribute a holiday treat. We always have a ton of food and end up with not enough table space to even display everything! It's a nice chance to get all of our friends together to hang out and surprisingly I think almost everyone actually likes the dressing up part - it certainly makes it more festive! Check out how nice everyone looked! I think the guys win this year - they all looked very fancy.

We had a smaller turnout this year - December is a tough time to schedule events! It was great fun though and luckily my coworkers willingly ate every single leftover that I brought in today!

Hope you're all getting ready for the holidays without too much stress - if so, let me know how you're doing it please!

-C