Supper Saturday Evening

'Nuff said.

Moxie in Freeport

Our Saturday in Maine was mostly spent letterboxing with high school friend Keisha... the crazy girl who drove all the way to Maine from North Carolina! We found 5 of the 8 boxes in the Postal Heaven series. I'm not too sure why the series is named Postal Heaven because the underlying theme seems to be more about cemeteries. Oh wait, I get it now... the letterboxes are mostly planted next to or in cemeteries... it's like they're dead and gone off to letterbox heaven. Heh.

Ohyah so anyway, after finding as many of the boxes we could, the three of us continued up the Maine Turnpike and hit Freeport, where we happened to find some Moxie. My friend Robor (his name's not really Robor, he just goes by that on the intarwebs) had a conversation about Moxie about six months ago, and I'd mentioned that the one time I tried it when I was a kid, I thought it was disgustingly vile and tasted like drinking medicine. I also said I was willing to give it another try as an adult to see if my opinion had changed. Well I didn't think it disgustingly vile, but it still had a bit of a funky aftertaste that I didn't really enjoy. I'm not a big soda drinker anyway but I managed to make it through an entire can and still had a smile on my face. But that doesn't mean I'll buy another can ever again.

More Yummy Pulverized Fruit

Today's concoction:

• Orange
• Plum
• Grapes
• Pear
• Blueberries
• Banana
  
• Ginger

Yesterday's was pretty much the same, except I think there were also strawberries. No photo this time because it looks pretty much the same as the ones in my previous post, except just a big deeper purple color.

With yesterday's smoothie, I used the leftovers to make smoothie pops. They are just as yummy, but frozen. If I remember to take a picture of one of the smoothie pops tonight, I will add it to this post. Oh, gee, there it is!

Smoothies of the Day

Yep, today's smoothie came out yummy too. Kenji was home when I made it, so he asked for a small one. Hence the big smoothie and the little smoothie. Inside:

• 6-8 strawberries
• 1 pear
• 1 nectarine
• 1 orange
  
• 1/4 inch ginger root
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup blueberries
  

Smoothie of the Day

On every day since Monday I have been making a fruit smoothie for myself. The first one was super yummy so I blogged about it. I thought perhaps I would blog about any new ones I make that actually taste good. The ones I made on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I didn't think were all that special so I didn't blog about them. One I tried putting oranges in with a little bit of orange zest; that came out too bitter. Yesterday's had too much ginger in it. Another one I experimented with adding some spices, but decided I was a little heavy-handed with them. But today I think I got my smoothie just right:

• 1 carrot, peeled
  
• 1 nectarine, peeled & seeded
  
• 1 orange, peeled & seeded (no zest!)
• 1/4 inch of ginger root, peeled, minced and pounded to death
• 1/2 cup blueberries

Yep. Stuck everything in the food processor (thanks again MomM) and pulverized it all. Yummy. Perhaps next time I'll remember to take a picture before it's gone!

Yummy Smoothie

Last Thursday I stayed over in NYC visiting my friend Vivan, who is in town for the summer visiting her parents. On Friday morning Viv made a fruit smoothie for us, made from random fruits and berries they happened to have around the kitchen, and some soy milk.

Anyway that inspired me this afternoon to play with the food processor sent to Kenji and me by Mom M for our anniversary this year. Here's what went into today's (will be the first of many) smoothie:

• 1 pear
• 1 nectarine
• couple handsful of blueberries
• about an inch of ginger root, peeled, chopped and smashed with a mortar and pestle
• 6oz vanilla yogurt

It came out super-yummy! I especially liked the ginger. Yumm yummmm yummmm!

... and Breakfast

Aloha,

Marsha

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Chili-Mojito Quinoa Salad

For some reason I came across a recipe last week for Chili-Mojito Quinoa Salad on the Boston Globe's web site. I don't often visit that site so who knows how I ended up there but anyway I decided that I would try it sans the onions.

The first cute thing about this was when I went the store today, I almost couldn't find any quinoa. But then I happened to spot the very last bag of it. Just as I was about to wheel my cart away, another lady came down the aisle, scanning all the different grains. Before I took half a step, she asked me if I knew what quinoa was. I told her yes, and that she was out of luck as I had the last bag in the store. I guess her daughter recently gave her some recipe for a quinoa salad... looks like she'll have to wait a little longer before trying it.

The second cute thing was that Kenji didn't know what quinoa was. So he was eating it very gingerly. As soon as I told him that quinoa is a grain that dates back to the Inca civilization he decided that he liked the salad a lot. Prior to that he wasn't sure he liked it because he thought it was some kind of vegetable or something. Maybe next time I make something new for him I'll just say it's a kind of meat. :)

This is also the first thing I've made with the spanky new Cuisinart food processor that Kenji's folks sent us for our anniversary. Not only is it our Tupperware anniversary, but we leanred from Mom and Dad that it's also our appliance anniversary. It made quick and easy work of the mint and hot peppers. Thanks! :)

Tupperware Anniversary :)

We decided this year is our Tupperware Anniversary, because a couple weeks ago we decided we needed some more tupperware-like containers. Since this year we have better things to spend our money on, we decided to go have a modest dinner at Houlihan's and then visit Target to pick up some Snapware or Lock-n-Lock.

On our way home from Target we stopped for dessert at a place called Gimmee Jimmy's Cookie Bar. They have a lot more there than cookies - really tall cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes, bread pudding, tarts. Kenji had a red velvet cupcake and I had a slice of Heath Bar milkshake cheesecake. They were ok, but nothing to write home about. But still, I think I might like to go back and try one of their cookies or tarts sometime. :)

Veggie Pizza

This is my favorite pizza I made so far. Even Kenji really likes it even though it doesn't have any meat on it.
It's got garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, carrots, raisins, snap peas, almonds, hot peppers, pears and mozzarella cheese.

Makedas

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Lex's parents' house helping her stuff wedding invitations and for some lunch. By the time I got home, Kenji had already left for work since he had to do an evening shift. So I was in the middle of taking a nap when our friend Gretchen called and said let's go meet our friend Andy for Ethiopian food. The last time I had Ethiopian was five years ago in Boston, so I was in.

We went to a place called Makedas in New Brunswick. The three of us shared a shrimp dish for an appetizer (I don't see it in their online menu and I can't remember the name of it) and the meat sampler for our entrée, which consisted of chicken goo, beef goo, I think some lamb goo, and also veggie goo, corn goo and Gomen Wat (collard green goo). With the exception of the Gomen Wat, I don't remember the names of the other selections because I just sat back and let Gretchen do the ordering, trusting that it would all be good, and it was. The thing I love about Ethiopian food is eating the flavorfully seasoned food with Injera (the spongy flat bread) instead of utensils.

After our delicious dinner, Gretchen, Andy and I tried going to Cydz for martinis. They had some yummy-looking martinis, but we didn't end up trying any. Just before our waitress was about to come take our order we decided that really we were more in the mood for coffee, so we left and went to Starbucks instead. Starbucks had an old Cranium game hanging out. The game was missing its pen and paper, and the play-dough was dried up solid. Still we had fun acting out words and phrases and songs for each other to guess. :)

Mashy Mashes More

Great for mashing egg salad. Also great for mashing apples and pears!

Mashy Mashing

Well what do you know... the egg mashy is perfect for making egg salad...

Shirokiya Day

Wednesday was a pretty rainy day so we spent most of our time shopping at Hilo Hattie and visiting Ala Moana. We think it's cool that you can now drive through the mall (between the old part of the mall and the new Nordstrom's wing), but the new stuff really isn't all that exciting. However, Shirokiya is still fun. :) I like their pretty new mochi ice cream display.

Before we found the new mochi ice cream display, we had a little bit of eats from the Shirokiya cafeteria upstairs. Kenji was feeling a bit under the weather and got a little boost of energy from a chicken teriyaki musubi. I of course had some peanut butter-filled mochi.


I found a cute egg with chicken legs-shape masher. Of course I had to get it because it says "Mashy" on the package. Plus the package says it's perfect for mashing eggs and potatoes too (little do they know I will also use it for mashing apple and pear sauce).

Zippy's!

So we were telling Tiffknee and other NJ friends about Hawaii plate lunches and how they come with one scoop mac salad and two scoops rice. Today Kenji and I went to Zippy's for chili and rice, and he got his plate lunch style with a hot dog.

Anyway here's the before...

And here's about a minute and a half later...

The End. :)

Banana Burger!

After bowling we planned to go to Van Gogh's Ear for dinner, but it turns out they were closed for a private party. So instead we went a few doors down the street to a little Brazillian cafe called Banana Burger.

Yes, they have a burger with bananas on it, and that's the one I had. If you look closely, you can see the bananas underneath the lettuce. There were also potato sticks and corn on this burger. It was quite yummy. And by the time we were finished with burgers, the party at Van Gogh's Ear was over and we went there for dessert. The End.

No soup for you!

Tiffknee's birthday is next week so last night we went out to dinner at Spanish Tavern with her and her folks and some of their friends. It was quite yummy, but the best part was when the power went out, and we had to eat our soup by backup lighting. Well, the rest of us had soup, just not Tiffknee. I don't know what Tiffknee has against soup, but whatever it is she obviously insulted the soup gods because they turned out the lights on us!

Crazy Purple Pizza!

Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the pizza before we cut into it. It was half gone before I remembered to grab my camera.

The crust on this pizza came out waaaayyyy better than on my last pizza. I used this recipe. I like it because it has honey in it. Here's the recipe I used on Wednesday.

Tonight's pizza featured the following toppings:

• mozzarella cheese
• little tomatoes
• almonds
• raisins
• snap peas
• Peruvian purple potatoes
• garlic, olive oil & salt
• little bit of paprika & parsley flakes
  

Crazy Pizza!

I made pizza tonight. And because Kenji is out of town this week, I got to put all crazy stuff on it.

Here's what I put on my pizza:

• garlic
• olive oil
  
• hot peppers
• snap peas
• cilantro
• zucchini
  
• mushrooms
• tomatoes
• mango
• mozzarella cheese

I think the only thing I wouldn't put on the next time was the zucchini. I might have baked it too long too - the crust was a bit hard around the edges. But the center pieces were good.