Houston, who knew?

My weekend in Houston was surprising. It was not only fun, but also veggie-filled. I had no problems getting my morning veggies in before a day on the town. Staying at the Hilton may have eased my search: Friday and Saturday mornings, I feasted on their buffet with a made-to-order omelet with red onions, green peppers, tomatoes, and fresh spinach along with some V8, yogurt, grits, and fresh fruit. I couldn't have asked for a more filling, nutritious breakfast.

Sunday morning, we went to Island Grill, where I had another omelet, but washed it down with a nice cup of freshly juiced vegetables called the Emerald Isle Cooler.

I also fell in love with Ruggles Green, where I ordered fish tacos piled high with cabbage. And Taco Milagro, where I had what is possibly the best guacamole ever to pass my lips.

But the highlight of my visit was, believe it or not, a grocery store. I spent at least as much time in Central Market as I did in the museums, and I wandered around in probably more awe of their goods, though it's tough to compare lemon infused salts to Magritte paintings. This place, however, never stopped revealing new wonders: from Buddha's hands (citrus fruit) to Perfect Food bars, green supplements to gourmet chocolate caramel peanut butter bars, cast iron tea pots to bulk red quinoa and gluten-free flours, I never considered grocery shopping a true cultural experience. I felt sorry for Whole Foods, though the Houston Whole Foods I checked out did offer an impressive raw foods bar.

Add to the surprisingly healthy scene an amazing district of museums complete with Picassos, Magrittes, and the like, some sculpture gardens, an entire museum dedicated to crafts and in particular "extreme tea," and a decent tea house, and I'm as nourished -body and soul- as could be.

Veggies to go

This weekend will be a big test to my veggie breakfast eating habit I've cultivated over the past few weeks as I will spend it out of town. Traveling with dietary restrictions is difficult at best, next to impossible at worst, as I've learned over the years of vegetarianism and almost-year of gluten-free eating. Being away from home makes me nervous -- I don't know exactly what I am getting in all my food, and sometimes good food is hard to come by.

Fortunately, it seems like Houston is rather gluten-free friendly, at least for the south. Look at all the places that offer gluten-free fare! I'm really excited to try out as many as possible in my short stay and on my limited budget.

Now, on to my next challenge: vegetables for breakfast. I'm bringing along a can of soup just in case veggies in the am proves to be harder to find than I'm anticipating. Fortunately, I found this place called "Island Grill" that offers juices, including vegetable juices. I figure a nice healthy serving of Emerald Isle Cooler or The Green Wave should get my day off to a vitamin-packed start.

There's also a couple of tea houses I really want to check out: House of Tea and Organic Tea House on top of several museums, exhibits, and maybe even a little shopping. I'm impressed already, Houston, and I'm not even there yet. Here's to a good, veggie-filled weekend away.

Spring semester startup

The beginning of the semester is always filled with ambivalency. Not ambiguity, mind you, but ambivalency, a simultaneous desire to say or do-or simultaneous feelings of-two opposite or conflicting things. I start off a semester sad to be leaving six weeks of unstructured time. I start feeling relieved to have some order to my days. I look forward to taking better care of myself. I miss the freedom of indulging, though not the accompanying gastrointestinal distress. It's all in the balance between the two opposing pulls.

I'm still struggling to balance structure and freedom, self-care and regimen. But if no other meal of the day is quite right, my breakfasts so far have still been. Yesterday and today have started off with some sautéed Cajun Grain and frozen spinach, topped with coconut oil, cracked black pepper, and red Hawaiian salt. This meal has required a few cups of bright green Umegashima sencha to get me out of bed and at the desk on time.

I'm still coming to terms with the fact that a good solid start to my day results in a fair number of dishes. But, just as I'm learning to take pleasure in the fact that a truly great cup of tea takes quite a bit of finesse and results in a fair bit of clutter and haphazard green-tea rings on my counter, I can sometimes find pleasure in the simple task of cleaning up after a good meal. Besides, it's almost meditative to assist in the transformation from chaos to order and somewhat aesthetically pleasing to see all the dishes lined up after their wash. And that second brew of sencha feels all the more deserved.

saturday breakfasts

I've been hearing that my blog is inspiring a few of you to eat veggies. Some have said they've eaten veggies for breakfast, others have just been inspired to eat more in general. But it doesn't seem to be the blogging as much as the photos. I'm excited at the chance to work on my photography skills, but let me say this: I won't be posting photos of my breakfast again today.

I had meant to start my day with a rice bowl of sorts consisting of Cajun Grain rice (if you've never tried this stuff you're really missing out) and some sautéed spinach. But I went to the farmer's market first and came home so hungry after looking at all those fresh vegetables, fruits, grains, and cheeses that I slapped a couple farm fresh eggs in my cast-iron skillet and devoured them. Eggs aren't overly photogenic anyway. I then sautéed up some frozen spinach and mixed it with a bit of coconut oil and am now sipping some Organic Temple Chai with coconut milk and honey. (And a bit of dark chocolate to go with it).

After such a nutritious breakfast, I felt compelled to bring out the camera and organize a photo shoot for my newly acquired vegetables. My whole haul included a dozen eggs, fresh garlic, broccoli, carrots, and new potatoes. Enjoy the visual feast.

unlikely breakfast

When I was in the first grade, I refused any breakfast except cinnamon-sugar toast. That's to say, to start my day, I needed two pieces of whiter than white wonder bread slathered in butter and generous helpings of cinnamon and sugar my mom mixed together and put into an old salt jar. Sometimes, I'd get impatient, dumping the cinnamon-sugar on the toast instead of sprinkling it delicately.

I've gone through other breakfast phases as well: for awhile in high school, I preferred a huge bowl of dark bitter espresso and grapefruit (and I wonder why I never felt well); in my twenties, I went through an oatmeal phase. I loved mixing different things into my oatmeal and cooking a pan of it every day. I even considered opening up an oatmeal only all day long breakfast restaurant, but the logistics of owning and maintaining a restaurant made my dream fodder for idle thoughts.

Thursday morning found me short on ideas for a quick breakfast before I headed to New Orleans for an overnight visit. So I boiled up some frozen broccoli and mixed it with pan-fried quinoa and a bit of coconut oil, sea salt, and pepper for a nourishing start to my day.

This morning, I nearly forgot about vegetables (a hard thing to find at all in New Orleans, especially before noon), but managed to order some potatoes with my eggs over easy. Close call!

Hopefully there's some good stuff at the Farmer's Market tomorrow!

Today I want to talk about soup. I have been eating my veggies for breakfast every day, but it's starting to feel a bit....stale. I think I had too many steamed swiss chard mornings in a row. Today I opted for sauteed spinach over some Cajun Grain with coconut oil. Yesterday, I had leftover Bob's Red Mill gluten-free cereal pan fried with sweet potato.

Soup is one of my favorite, quite possibly my favorite, thing to cook. It's just so down to earth. When I was a kid, I used to imagine myself a peasant whenever my mom ladled out rich, cream of potato soup, which I'd devour with some sharp cheddar cheese and homemade bread. I was surprised that, excepting maybe a small side salad, I didn't need anything more substantial. Soup, though liquid, is hearty enough for a meal in and of itself.

Soup can tease out the subtle sweetness of an onion, the rustic wholesomeness of a potato, the medicinal properties of herbs. I never tire of marrying flavors and spice concoctions. I've even ventured into the realm of making my own stock lately.

I've made a lentil coconut milk soup twice in the past couple weeks, each time tweaking the recipe template I used just a bit. I love the butteriness of the soup, the way the sweetness blends with the spice which blends with the earthy thyme and lentils.

I want to make at least two soups for the upcoming dreaded first week back to school. The first is a potato garlic soup. I'm trying to avoid dairy as much as possible, and I already can't eat gluten, so I get to experiment with spices and herbs and staples: onions, garlic. The possibilities are endless.

Filled with vegetables, easy to store, quick to re-heat, soups will be featuring heavily each day as I break my fast with some veggies. Photographic evidence may surface as well....

I love weekends. Even on vacation, weekends feel special. I started my weekend out right with delicious Cajun Grain and some sauteed rainbow chard, coconut oil stirred in.

And the rest of the day has slipped on by at its leisure.

Eating my veggies still. This morning, it's taking two space heaters and an oven set to 250 and cracked open to make my apartment register 63 degrees. Although it seems my sinus infection is getting better, I'm starting a wicked sore throat. I'm hoping the anti-biotics knock that away too.

Anyway, not much to report. This morning's breakfast is another huge bowl of rainbow chard (my current favorite) with a bit of local Smith's Creamery butter and, of course, a couple dollops coconut oil and some kosher salt. I'll follow this with a bowl of lentil soup with coconut milk once my coconut reconstitutes itself. And, if I'm still hungry, I'll have a slice of my homemade gluten-free bread, toasted with butter and my mom's homemade raspberry jam.

I'll keep sipping my gyrokuro, hoping that the tea will wash down the blossoming sore throat.

The weather in Baton Rouge has been atrocious. Sharply cold and now raining and wintry mixy. It's very unusual. I also spent the majority of the day yesterday in bed or on the couch with an eye-closing, stomach-heaving migraine.

So, it was important that I start this morning with some bright cheerful rainbow chard dressed in butter, coconut oil, and a pinch of sea salt, after the obligatory cup of miso. I followed these courses with a nice cup of itoen's organic temple chai with honey and coconut milk and then gobbled up some pan-fried homemade polenta with garlic, onions, and cheddar, courtesy of Penelope. All in all, it was a tasty start to a grey day.

Morning's here, and I'm eating my vegetables in the form of leftover avgolemono soup. (See first entry). It's not overly photogenic today, and my shiny new pear-green Kitchen Aid is demanding the camera's attention, so the shots will go out to it today.

This morning got off to a slow start. I'm going to blame yesterday's early wake up with the antibiotics and Mucinex I'm not plus the fact that my space heater told me it was 43 at around 4:30am, when I finally decided to turn it on. I didn't sleep well, and I had a series of uncomfortable dreams, waking with a pounding headache that I may just have to medicate into silence.

I am, however, planning on baking a nice fat loaf of gluten-free bread today. Since bread's a rare treat for me, I'm looking forward to the next few days when I can slap lots of butter and homemade raspberry jam on thick toasted slices. I'll leave you with a few more glamour shots.

Today is one of those mornings, rare in Baton Rouge, where I set my alarm a full half hour before I wanted to get up to turn on my space heaters. Racing across the chilled floor (it was below 50 in my apartment) in bare feet, I aimed for the heating pad warmed flannel sheets, down comforter, and 2 quilts that kept me warm if not hot all night. My first action upon actually rising was to crank my apartment-sized gas oven to 300 and crack the door a bit. These old apartments are cold and drafty.

The chill in the air doesn't quite provide enough motivation for me to crawl out of my warm nest. But, since I have places to be this morning, I had prepared for this last night, when I laid out the fixings for a nice hot bowl of matcha (powdered green tea leaves. Shown here: Kama Matcha from matchasource). The steaming slightly sweet, slightly bitter green tea was just the elixir I needed to fry my way through an egg plus an extra yolk, toast up some leftover millet, and simmer last night's carrot ginger soup with coconut milk and - you guessed it - a dollop of coconut oil.

I hope this is enough nourishment to get me through my morning, which begins with a test for a part-time library job I think I want for some extra income. (I'm feeling a bit of guilt for Christmas gifting myself a shiny new Kitchen Aid stand mixer, which is due to arrive today).

Hello!

With minimal planning, I managed a nice, vegetable filled breakfast again. I again started my morning with a cup of hot miso broth. (Maybe I should call this blog Miso for breafast...)

As I sipped the rich, hot nourishment, I sauteed some frozen spinach and fresh flash boiled kale left over from last night's dinner in butter. Meanwhile, I heated up leftover lentil soup with coconut milk from dinner. (That soup is amazing. I should post the recipe). At any rate, I ladled the soup into my trusty green bowl, piled the spinach/kale combo on topped, and topped the whole thing with a dollop of coconut oil. Then I sat down, sipped my miso, ate my soup, and felt grateful and nourished.

A good start to today: I began my (late), lazy Sunday morning with a cup of steaming Sweet White Miso, followed by a bowl of fried Cajun Grain rice and another bowl of steamed rainbow chard with some coconut oil.

I'll make some tea (and possibly some breakfast dessert -- should I finish the caramel bar, the gluten-free brownies, or just have some chocolate?) later. I think this morning calls for some genmaicha.

Day 2:

And I've already almost forgotten to have my veggies for breakfast. But, I managed to get some in the form of a nice soup made from homemade broth, rice, broccoli, and onions. Yum!

This may be a bit harder than I thought -- I need to plan my breakfasts more carefully!

Happy 2010!

Welcome to the new decade!

And so, my veggies for breakfast project begins. I begin the new year with quite a cold, but after an easy night in with my girlfriend, I'm feeling loved and excited to begin the year. I started my morning with some of the most amazing miso ever, brought back from Massachusetts: South River Dandelion Leek, and I suggest you do too. It was a perfect way to ring in the new year, and I'd love to ring in every morning with it. I sipped it with delight, loving the rich, salty flavor, and loving the way it loosened the gunk in my head.



After the miso, I slowly made preparations for leftover (gluten-free) pizza from last night, piled high with red onions, broccoli, raw garlic, and piles of collard greens I sauteed especially for my breakfast. A very tasty way to get my veggies in this morning, indeed. Yes, folks, that is pizza!




I finished my indulgent breakfast with something I never would have thought I would eat: sugared bacon. We got some cured bacon from Whole Foods, and let it sit in the oven with some of my parents' homemade maple sugar (and just a pink of cinnamon) for an hour or so. The results were...salty and sweet and crispy.






And, so, my journey begins. With miso, pizza, and bacon. I think I can do this.