Wrap it up, part 2

Like I said a few posts ago, I feel limited in the cafeteria at work, and I often get a wrap. Here is another variation on my veggie burger wrap. In part 1 of Wrap it up, I had steamed veggies stuffed into the wrap with my chopped up veggie burger, which melted the cheese. Here is my cold variation. :)

I get the same ingredients, except that I have fresh cucumbers and red onions put into the wrap instead of cooked vegetables. And I don't put cheese in this one either, since it wouldn't get melted. The cucumber adds a satisfying crunch and is very refreshing.


As my side, I often grab a piece of fresh fruit- a nectarine in this case.

Do you like veggie burgers? What brands can you recommend? How do you eat them? What kinds of fresh fruit do you regularly?

The lovely eggplant

Can anyone guess what these are? Slices of eggplant with a mix of onions, garlic, miso and honey on top. I got the recipe here. It was absolutely delicious. Even the husband raved about them!



We served the eggplant with some leftover spinach couscous, in order to use it up. But the recipe suggests serving over brown rice and a fried egg with the yolk still runny. We exchanged the brown rice for the couscous but did take the advice of serving with the fried egg. So good, in a very unexpected way.

Now you know how I feel about fried eggs (or zuppa zuppa eggs. Or dippy eggs.) They demand toast in order to dip in the egg, right? Well, Chris had brought home some of Panera's amazing Three Cheese Bread. To die for.



I had leftover eggplant and couscous at work the next day. Love food that works as leftovers, don't you?

Let's wrap it up

The food at the work cafeteria leaves a lot to be desired, to say the least. As I have said before, I often get salads, but lately I am all salad-ed out. So, instead I have been getting this nifty little number...

I ask the sandwich guy for a whole wheat wrap, and then ask him to stuff it with a chopped-up veggie burger, some steamed veggies, and if I am being "rebellious," s sprinkling of shredded chedder cheese.

The veggie burger is actually made of vegetables, it seems. Not some processed soy masquerading as beef. Nice for a change, right? He warms it up before chopping and placing on the wrap. The steamed veggies are also warm, so all that warmth melts the cheese just a bit.

So good, and much better than the damage I could do on an everyday basis, no?

Do you like wraps? What do you put in them?

I scream you scream... well you know how it goes

Chris and I don't smoke. We barely drink any alcohol. We don't do drugs. But our one real, true vice- one that is just unavoidable- is ice cream.

We try to buy healthier, more natural kinds. The fewer ingredients, the better. We don't buy low-fat or non-fat kinds- they just don't satisfy the craving, you know? And we figure if we don't do it often, buying full fat ice cream is ok. We have found some really good ice cream made from soy and rice milk that we really loved, but nothing beats Haagan Dazs or Ben and Jerry's.

Except maybe making your own. Above are two ice creams we made ourselves. The first is called Aphrodisiac Ice cream, I guess because the ingredients could be considered to have that effect. Aside from the cream part, it contains figs (mmmm, fresh figs), honey, and toasted almonds. I don't think the original recipe called for the honey, but it just compliments figs so well!

The second flavor you see above is Green Tea Ice cream. It came out just... ok. The recipe calls for six (six!) eggs. Since I had never made the recipe before, I followed it exactly, and the end result was very.... eggy. It is still ice cream and not green tea scrambled eggs, as some reviewers found, but next time around I will definitely cut back the eggs to three, maybe four.

Neither one of these treats is anywhere near lowfat, and eating too much of it could result in thighs that do resemble scrambled eggs in texture. But, we don't make ice cream often, just as we don't buy it often. But when I get the urge, I sure am glad I have my Cuisinart Ice Cream maker!

Have you ever made ice cream? What is your food vice? Do you have a hard time indulging only once in a while?

Drunken fish

I know, I know. You are sick of seeing fish. I probably should have just named this blog "Fish, fish, and more fish." Or maybe "A WHOLE lot of fish" would have been more apropos. But bear with me here.

This is tuna, once again.

Chris wanted to try something he remembered from when he worked at the Mediterranean restaurant Ayhan's on Long Island. They sauteed onions until soft, and tossed in red grapes cut in half (so they don't burst open, haha.) There was some more to the seasoning, but we season to taste, and it is usually on a whim. Once the onions and grapes are cooked a bit, he added a splash of red wine.

At the restaurant, this sauce would have been for chicken, but as we do not keep chicken in the house anymore, Chris had to improvise with seafood, so he used tuna steaks. We served the fish on a bed of spinach couscous with some pignoli nuts.

Normally I think white wine is better suited to seafood than red, but this came out pretty good- very tasty! Plus, it made for a very colorful meal.

What is the most interesting thing you have cooked/eaten lately?

Frittata is so hot- ah...

When we are in the mood for eggs, we usually go with over easy ones, where the yolk is still dip-able. But we feel there is no point to making this kind of egg when you have no bread/toast- you know? So, when we want something quick and easy, like eggs, and we have no bread in the house we sometimes make an omelet (or frittata.) These are great because they are tasty both hot and cold, you can use up excess vegetables in them, and you can put a slice between pieces of bread for a quick and filling sandwich.

This one was made by sauteing onions, garlic, and zucchini in olive oil until soft. Whisk eggs (we used 6 eggs for this one) in a bowl with salt and fresh ground pepper, then pour the eggs over the vegetables. Let the eggs cook and firm up around the vegetables (we put a cover on the pan to speed up cooking and make sure the top got cooked as well), then turn the pan over onto a big plate. We sprinkled pignoli nuts on top (since we love them so much, haha).

How do you cook your eggs?

P.S. I call sunny-side up and over-easy eggs "zuppa zuppa" while Chris calls them "dippy eggs." Do you have a funny name for them?

Grocery list- a glimpse

Grapes, cherries, bananas, watermelon, figs and rainier cherries. Just a few of the things we got last time we really grocery-shopped (last weekend). This is all the fruit we got, and then in the middle of the week I picked up some more bananas and one of those huge cartons of blueberries from Trader Joe's.

What kind of fruit do you keep in the house? Do you decide depending on what is in season?