Under the weather.

My body obviously can't keep up with the endless amount of energy my brain thinks I have. [See this video for proof. And this one. And maybe even this one.] Unfortunately, the energy stores have been depleted completely. It's so hard for my brain to cope with the fact that my body has to take a rest day or two. Or three. Or maybe for the entire week.

Enough of the sadness. Let's talk food.

Sunday at the farmer's market, I bought some huge leeks. Naturally, the first thing I thought to make with the leeks was potato leek soup.

Too bad I didn't have any potatoes.

What I did have were carrots. So...I made carrot leek soup. But not just any carrot leek soup!

Roasted Carrot, Garlic, and Leek Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 leek
• ~3 large carrots
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• black pepper
• olive oil

Chop the leeks and carrots. 

Place them on a baking dish along with unpeeled garlic cloves, drizzle olive oil, and bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes. Use your judgement here! I checked on it every so often to make sure the veggies weren't becoming too crisp. 

While roasting the veggies, prepare a large pot with the vegetable broth and spices (I used nutritional yeast and pepper). Bring to a boil. 

When the veggies are done roasting, add them to the pot.

Side note: the roasted garlic looked really good--slightly browned but still really soft. And it tasted great! Not that I took a bite out of it or anything...

Cover the pot and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Take out the immersion blender (or dump all of the contents into a regular blender) and blend away! I love my immersion blender. It makes blending so much easier and cleaning it takes 10 seconds.

So creamy. And so flavorful! Who knew that simple ol' garlic and leeks had this much flavor?

Cilantro garnish!

And this makes two servings. Even better!

Check out yesterday's fancypants afternoon snack.

Whole grain toast topped with goat cheese and spicy fruit salsa.

Crazy idea right?! But SO GOOD! If you're curious about the fruit salsa, the ingredients are: peaches, pineapples, mangoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and eight chilis. It's the perfect amount of spicy and not as sweet as you'd imagine it to be!

Have I convinced you to go to your local farmer's market yet? :)

Fancy schmancy.

[The new workouts page is complete! Check it out here or find it up on the link bar!]

Disclaimer: this post is an inaccurate representation of my social life as of late.

Last night, TFG restaurant week came to a close. But an exciting close, nonetheless! Deepa and I were joined by three of our friends: Chris, Gihan, and Greg for dinner at Maynard's Kitchen.

I was completely unaware that this restaurant was so fancy. (And hence I was very under-dressed...woops). Anyway, we decided to sit outside, and the ambiance was so classy!

I was trying not to cause a scene by taking a picture so I turned the flash off.

We got some complimentary bread and butter to start.

I don't know what kind of butter it was, but it was really flavorful!

Deepa and I split two dishes as usual (which in this case, really worked out to our advantage because this place is pricey).

Roasted beets salad:

Beets, fennel, pears, oranges, walnuts, goat cheese, dressed in raspberry vinegar.

When we ordered the salad, we didn't look closely enough at the menu to know exactly what was on the salad. So when we were eating this, it was actually really difficult to figure out what each fruit/veggie was! (The dark atmosphere didn't help the situation, either). But, I must say I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out that there were pears in there! The cheese was SO creamy. And of course, beets are my fav veggie. Yum.

Butternut Squash Gnocchi:

Gnocchi accompanied by rapini, hazelnuts, figs, a cheese called Grana Padano, in an orange brown butter sauce.

I can't even begin to describe how tasty this was. And how amazing the texture of the gnocchi was. My descriptions wouldn't even do justice to the dish.  So we'll just leave it at that. Also, after ordering this dish, I learned that rapini is a type of broccoli. Also, I'm pretty sure there were other ingredients in the dish, but I really don't know what they were. Highly recommend if you feel like splurging on a meal! Seriously.

That was fun. Hopefully we'll have some more T-town restaurant adventures in the next two months.

In other news, I went to the farmer's market again this morning! This time, Sheila and I went together.

We shamelessly sampled a lot of foods (and tried interesting things like a pomelo!). And I shamelessly took pictures.

Locally grown, organic produce

Live music [and people dancing!]

This was the best stand! I got two types of kale, swiss chard,  and cilantro--all in a huge bag for only $3!

Just picking up some pretty looking tomatoes!

We also found out that there is so much to eat while there, lunch-wise! And it's all from local businesses and healthy! So cool.

My stash:

Tomatoes, leeks, huge bag of greens, fruit salsa, and fresh cheese.

I've never cooked with leeks before, so I decided that would be my experiment for the week.

I immediately dug into my bag of greens and huge cilantro bunch for lunch today.

I'd like to think this was a pretty fancy 5-minute lunch.

1 egg atop sauteed collard greens with a side of fruit salsa, topped with cilantro.

I really like eggs sunny side up. Unfortunately eggs don't really sit well with my stomach, and runny yolks really don't sit well. So I made some super cooked sunny side up eggs. Sigh.

This was a LONG post. Thanks for reading. :)

Eating in the neighborhood.

By neighborhood, I mean sunshine.

I recently realized that if I move out of this crazy hot state, I probably won't see this much sun again. So I decided to sit outside today.

And then went inside before I could get a tan. Heh.

Some recent meals...

Breakfast buckwheat bake with strawberries and blueberries, topped with coconut almond butter.

Garbanzo bean flat bread, swiss chard chips, carrots and jalapeno hummus.

Swiss chard chips = swiss chard + olive oil + bake at 400F for 5 minutes.

Garbanzo bean flat bread = equal parts garbanzo bean flour and water + spices of choice + cooked on skillet.

A super loaded quesadilla.

Interested in the quesadilla? Well you're in luck!

Steps:

Mash an avocado, mix with lemon juice and salt/pepper.

Saute garlic, greens of choice (I used swiss chard) and any other veggie (I used a tomato) with olive oil.

Spread veggie mixture on one tortilla and avocado mixture on another. Add cheese.

Heat on a pan.

And repeat with remaining mixture.

Side note: I love corn tortillas. But wheat is definitely the healthier option, obviously.

Also, I have uploaded a couple of new kickboxing videos. Check them out if you get a chance! This time, unlike my Zumba videos, I included some cues, so if you want to follow along it will be a lot easier.

Click here and here to see the videos. The first one is a short, intense section that includes burpees! (Remember those?) The second one is a more cardio friendly workout. Enjoy!!

Sweet teeth.

Warning: reading this post will make you feel like brushing your teeth.

My restaurant week partner-in-crime and I headed to the B Line last night for dessert. We like dessert, and the desserts at B Line are well known, so we decided to give it a shot.

As usual, we were overwhelmed by the options. But this time, I think it was quite warranted. Check this out.

So. Much. Dessert.

We had almost immediately decided on the salted caramel tart, but had some problems deciding on another item. (We really like mixing and matching--more to taste!)

And then one of the waitresses brought out this gigantic cake to put in the rotating display. That cake was calling our names.

So we sat down to conquer our desserts. (Apologies for the horrible lighting in the pictures).

Let's take a closer look.

The salted caramel tart looked like it had this hard chocolate shell. I was surprised to find that as soon as I stuck my fork in it, it was actually really soft and the caramel starting gushing out!! The crust was pretty incredible-- like a very light and airy cookie that crumbled easily.

I wish I remembered the name of this cake. I expected this cake to be rich and heavy, but actually it was lighter than the caramel tart. The layers were chocolate cake and a white chocolate/whipped cream/strawberry mixture. We couldn't figure out what the top/outer layer was!

We had an interesting view out the window while enjoying our sweets.

And next thing we knew...

Heh.

Needless to say, I think I need a break from desserts for awhile. However, this afternoon, I made a "dessert" which actually was healthy.

Can anyone guess what the magic ingredient is?

Greens 'n' thangs.

What better day to eat greens than St. Paddy's Day?!

But first! A restaurant update.

Deepa (who is officially my TFG Restaurant Week partner-in-crime) and I went to a cute, small restaurant called Eclectic Cafe.

...I don't think the name of the restaurant is subtle enough.

Anyway, the menu was pretty insane. It included everything from soups and salads to burgers to omelettes to enchiladas and burritos. At first glance, I was completely overwhelmed.

We eventually decided on a spicy black bean Cuban salad and the ultimate vegetarian bean burro.

Mixed greens, sunflower sprouts, avocado, radishes, mushrooms, and lots of other veggies topped with a black bean patty.

A huge burrito filled with refried beans, tomato, avocado, and green chilis, topped with cheese and sour cream. And an olive.

That meal was enormous. But tasty nonetheless!

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I made a green dinner today. (And this sort of counts as a salad... maybe a salad in wrap form?)

Mushroom-Stuffed Swiss Chard

Ingredients:

• whole swiss chard leaves
• mushrooms, chopped
• garlic
• onions
• olive oil
• cheese of choice
• black pepper 
• paprika

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Prepare the swiss chard by placing one leaf at a time in the boiling water for 20-30 seconds.

So bright green!

Keep the chard aside. Chop the garlic/onions/mushroom and saute in olive oil. Season with black pepper.

Add the cheese to the mixture. Then scoop some of the mixture into a chard leaf.

Wrap and repeat! But...I thought they looked a little bare.

So I drizzled some olive oil on them as well as a sprinkle of paprika.

Place in the oven (400F) for 10-15 minutes.

Beware: mushrooms release a lot of water! Need a little spice? Add some salsa to the side. Or inside! (I should have thought of that beforehand).

Fun fact: greens contain the most nutrients per calorie of all vegetables!