photos from the weekend

despite there still being tons of snow on the ground, eric and i wanted to make the best of the weekend and get out and do some things.

we started off saturday morning with brunch at cantino dos segundos.




we eat here quite often, and one of the reasons is they have amazing chips and salsa.


i always say i am going to order the french toast, and never do, but saturday i was craving it.
this is the best french toast i have ever had, hands down. it was so delicious that it was dangerous. it tasted similar to a funnel cake, which i did not mind.



eric went with a burrito that included tempeh bacon, rice, beans, tofu and avocado.



his burrito was gigantic. it was the size of my head.



no seriously.



after brunch we walked a few blocks to check out a farmer's market they just started in our area. but we were only greeted by snow. i guess they canceled it?



later in the afternoon we rounded up some friends to head to yard's, a local brewery that is a few blocks away from our place.

we started off by tasting a few of their brews.



eric and i had gone on the tour before, but it was still fun to go again.









saturday evening we met up with more people and went by an art show in our neighborhood.





but i got side-tracked when i found out i could get a free beer at PYT, next door.



after hanging out at the art show we all went to dinner at cantino dos segundos! yep, we ate there twice in one day.









we woke up sunday morning not feeling our best, but i eventually got up to make heart-shaped pancakes in honor of valentine's day.



and for lunch we were feeling lazy and just made fried rice and spring rolls.



spring rolls are our way of cleaning out random veggies in the fridge.



after being lazy most of the day we decided to get our lives together and figure out something to make for dinner.
we pulled out some old favorites and some new ones.



we ended up relying heavily on the conscious cook, which has some great recipes!
i decided to make the focaccia.





while the dough was rising we headed out to get a few last minute details.
there is a great tiny grocery in our neighborhood. it's pricey, and only has a few things, but everything is fairly high quality.





and then we got to cooking!

we started off our meal with a new brew by bell's brewery called cherry stout.





this beer was very nice. it was dark, but not too dark.



and we had arugula salads. eric made a blueberry vinaigrette that he adapted from the conscious cook.



and we had our salads with some focaccia, which turned out really declicious.



our second beer of the evening was a st. feullien cuvee de noel. eric enjoyed this beer but i was not as big a fan.



we also had asparagus, artichokes and quinoa pasta with arugula pesto that eric made.



and on the side we had twice baked potatoes with cashew cream on top. we got the idea for this from the conscious cook. eric and i sliced the potatoes very thinly and cooked them in the oven till they were almost done. then we topped them with cashew cream (which is simply cashews that have been soaked then placed in the food processor until you reach a creamy consistency). we then seasoned the cream, some had salt and pepper, some cumin, some cayenne pepper and a few rosemary and salt. we then broiled the potatoes until the cream started to brown.



they were delicious and gave me a bunch of ideas for other ways to use the cream.

all in all a very delicious valentine's day dinner without the cost or crowds of a restaurant.

another snow day & the abbaye!

thursday we had another snow day but eric and i were starting to get a little stir crazy staying in our apartment. we decided to go to out to lunch at the abbaye, which is about a block away from our apartment. for some reason we don't go there often, although it's really close, and we had never eaten there.



i was really happy to see they had a salad for one of their specials and it sounded delicious. my salad had blood oranges, grapefruit, radicchio, and toasted hazelnuts.



i also ordered an order of fries. i wish i had tried their sweet potato fries, but their regular fries did not disappoint.



unfortunately eric wasn't as happy with his food.



he ordered the bbq sietan dish that included coleslaw, fries, and asparagus. the room temperature sietan was in tofu like blocks that were fairly soft, not what you would expect. they were topped with a good amount of mediocre bbq sauce. the coleslaw was a Carolina type of slaw with bland mix of cabbage and vinegar dressing. there was also some asparagus thrown on top almost like an after thought. the fries were good though, thin, hand-cut, and crisp. not worth the $12 by any means though.

on the menu they also have a few other salads, a sietan cheesestake that can be made vegan with the exclusion of cheese, and a lentil sandwich as a rotating special.

overall the abbeye has a good beer list, tasty salad and fries but the plates are nothing special. the service was not bad could have been better seeing that it was so slow. since we live a block away i'm sure we will be back for beers/fries some time in the future.

snow day!

i felt like a little kid yesterday morning! waking up really early, checking outside to see if it really did snow a lot, and then checking my email to see if work was canceled. ok i didn't check my email when i was a kid, or have work, but you know!
needless to say work was closed. sort of, i have a laptop so i am still expected to work from home, but it was a nice change of pace.

i started off the day with one of my favorite breakfast combination, chocolate chips, almond butter and flax seed on top of a bagel.


once eric woke up he decided to make pancakes. i was sort of bummed i had already eaten breakfast.




the snow yesterday was weird. it snowed overnight, then rained in the morning, then got really crazy the rest of the day. we had blizzard conditions and most of the roads were shutdown. we ended up not leaving the house at all during the day.
but we did eat a lot!

our local Asian supermarket has a number of fresh pastas to choose from. it's really nice having fresh pasta without the hassle of making it sometimes.



most of the pastas have egg, but a few of the plain noodle varieties don't. they utilize very basic, yet semi-healthy ingredients such as wheat flour to replace durum and/or white flours.


eric had made lasagna the other day and wanted to try a new alfredo type of cheese sauce. He had never used silken tofu for a cheese sauce base so he gave it a try. it turned out pretty well for the first go around. but he mentioned that next time he wasn't going to use as much/any tofu and replace it with more soaked cashews. since we are working on posting more recipes and keeping track of them heres the recipe for the alfredo sauce:

- 1/2 block silken tofu
- 1/2 cup soaked cashews (try to soak them in water for 3+ hours until soft)
- 1/8 cup of hemp milk (soy, rice, almond, ect. will be fine)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley
- 2 cloves of baked garlic (to bake, wrap in foil with some olive oil, salt, and pepper until soft. Usually about 35-45 minutes in the oven at 350F. you could also substitute 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of granulated garlic, or to taste if you don't like garlic as much as me)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- pinch of black pepper
take the soaked cashews, hemp milk, lemon juice and blend. add the rest of the ingredients until they are thoroughly blended.

since he had made lasagna last week and wanted to try a new recipe, he used the fresh pasta in its place and topped it with the alfredo sauce, a few spoonfuls of his marinara that he had made the week before, and garnished it with a few parsley leave. it turned out pretty well.




i went for a simple hummus sandwich. it was delicious!


with some veggie bootie on the side. um i'm obsessed with this. and can't stop eating it.


we really did not leave. and it was nice. we finished season 3 of dexter, did some laundry and worked out. but don't worry we were all staying warm.


i really like cliff bars and luna bars, but they tend to get pricey and i've been meaning to bake my own bars for a while. yesterday was the perfect opportunity. these were really easy to bake.


recipe
2 tsp ground flax seed
6 Tbsp water

2 cups quick cooking oats
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup granular sweeter
1/2 cup chocolate chips, coconut, really whatever you want to add (fruit? raisins?)
1/2 cup nut butter
1/4 cup maple syrup


preheat oven to 375 degrees
combine flax and water in a bowl and set aside.
in a separate bowl combine all dry ingredients and mix together. add in your chocolate chips, coconut, whatever combination.
in another bowl mix together the nut butter and maple syrup. add the flax mixture and stir.
then add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix it all together.

pour the mixture into an 8x8 pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. you are going to have to press the mixture into the pan.
bake for 15 minutes.
once you take it out of the oven let it cool some and then but into bars. let the bars cool some more then place on a cooling rack.

back to what we did...later on we decided to meet up with some friends to hang out/drink beer. we picked up some more beer at the foodery and walked around northern liberties.








the roads and the snow were still pretty bad. i was really hoping i wouldn't have to drive to work today (it takes me about 45 minutes on a good day to get to work). luckily i woke up this morning and had the option to work from home and eric has another snow day! unfortunately i think most of the day will be spent digging out my car.