When People Stop Being Nice, and Start Being Real

I could sit here and tell you that things have been sooooo crazy lately, and it wouldn't necessarily be a lie, but I've certainly had time to blog...I've just been lazy. Regardless, there's much to discuss in the world of food and the world of Brianne.

[image courtesy of streetsblog.org]

We left off on the 10 mile run that wasn't, and I can safely say I more than made up for it the next day. Two Sundays ago I discovered Prospect Park, and I think I'm in love. Seriously, this park is beautiful. I like it better than Central Park. Yes, I really do. It's a challenging park for running, but it doesn't rub salt in your wounds like my park in Queens.

I did two 3-mile loops around the park, then headed out and up Prospect Park West, then went out on Union up to Boerum Hill. The weather was perfect and I felt awesome. I then tried to repeat this same route this past Saturday, and because I didn't eat breakfast (I know, me skipping a meal is unheard of), I failed miserably and cut it short at 6 miles. You live and learn.

Going back to the good run day, I triumphantly rode the subway back to my apartment covered in sweat and salt and probably some dirt, not really caring what others thought of me, but taking enough care not to get too close to anyone, then took a long nap with my cat laying on my legs. I woke up about an hour later then prepped for my first trip to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Little did I know I was stepping into another world.

I wasn't getting ready to take a bus anywhere (my MegaBus days are OVER), but instead was waiting for one of my dearest college friends to arrive for a few days of fun! Poor Katie was stuck on the bus a good hour and a half longer than she expected, and I conducted an observational study of a night in the bus terminal.

Any time I heard someone talk about the Port Authority Bus Terminal, it was always, "whatever you do, don't let anyone convince you to stay the night there." Not a problem, I never have any intention of doing so. As I checked in there on foursquare, I read through the tips and none of them were wrong or exaggerated. There were plenty of homeless people offering to give people directions to their buses hoping for money in return, more screaming children than I could ever hope to encounter, and this overall feeling of dread and misery. That, my friends, is the bus terminal in a nutshell. It makes Penn Station look like paradise.

Katie got in late Sunday night and I took her to the diner for dinner because I take everyone there and it's awesome. I took Monday and Tuesday off so we set out the next morning for bagels and adventure. We took to train to Brooklyn hoping to get in some day drinking at the Brooklyn Brewery, and when we arrived we quickly learned that the tasting room is not open during the day Monday-Thursday. Huge bummer, particularly because I built up hype around the brewery cat, Monster.

Instead, we accidentally walked to the L at Bedford and went to Chelsea Market where we obtained gelato and proceeded to the highline. I've been on the highline a couple times now, and I still think it's one of the coolest things in the city.

We then headed back into Brooklyn where we caught a bus to Ikea. I had been to Ikea in Canada, but never one in my own country, and I have a fondness for cheap home furnishing. We had entirely too much fun and didn't buy anything. We explored each set up, tested chairs and couches, attempted to read Swedish, and saw that Statue of Liberty. Not bad for a Monday afternoon.

The bus ride back took us through Red Hook which reminded me of one of our favorite pastimes living in the dorms at college, and that was scheduling our night to watch Real World: Brooklyn - the greatest season of the Real World that was ever filmed. The house that the crew lived in was in Red Hook, and I was immediately struck with nostalgia and a need to own the season on DVD.

After dinner in Forest Hills at the wonderful Mint's Thai Kitchen (where I tried amazing Thai Iced Tea, calamari, and my standard chicken pad Thai), we walked back to my neighborhood and dug through Netflix and MTV.com. We totally found full episodes of Real World: Brooklyn...and watched a bunch of them.

[image courtesy of Wikipedia]

It still rocks.

The next day we met Katie's aunt in Bryant Park where we dined at the Bryant Par Grill, then came back for more Real World before I said goodbye. It was a lovely time with a lovely person who I missed very much!

Since then, I've cooked here and there, but haven't made anything mind-blowing. But can we talk about buying raw chicken fingers? Because this is a big issue.

For starters, I didn't realize I had bought chicken fingers rather than chicken breasts and the store, and considering I've worked with them rather miserably numerous times, I think this will be my last time. Looking at the package, you have no idea how many of them are in there. There are more than you think. And most are connected by this horrible thick, tough white....stringy thing that doesn't seem edible and that will destroy the chicken fingers when you try to pull it out of them. What the hell is this? Seriously! What is it! And why is it only in chicken fingers?

Anyhow, I made these recently, shook them in hot sauce, and realized I didn't have any ranch or bleu cheese to cool off my mouth. So I made my own...kind of. I mixed sour cream with an assortment of fresh herbs, added fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, then whisked in some softened goat cheese to thicken it up. If I had had dill, it would've been tops.

This past weekend was a good one for food. Ryan visited and we went to Forest Hills again and tried Bareburger. Everything there is organic, and they try to keep most products local, plus they have a pretty cool assortment of patties.

I got The Western, which included pepperjack cheese, maple bacon, fried onions, coleslaw, and steak sauce. I wanted to go with bison for the patty (and if you haven't had bison meat, I highly recommend it. It's like beef 2.0), but didn't want to pay extra and opted for the grass-fed beef. Ryan got The Ruby which included havarti, pastrami, maple bacon, fried pickles, apple smoked onions, and horseradish mayo. He got it with the wild boar patty. Yes, wild boar.

We split an order of fries (they don't come with the burger) which came with three different sauces. One was curry ketchup (quickly becoming one of my favorite things), one was a "special sauce" that reminded me a lot of In-N-Out's sauce, and the third definitely had horseradish...and I didn't like it. But hey, two outta three ain't bad!

Last night included an hunger-induced trip to Trader Joe's, meaning we got tons of food. Most of it was stuff I actually needed, like milk, cereal, and dark chocolate bars filled with speculoos. And then we got beer. And Trader Joe's strawberry licorice (good god it's amazing). And tortilla chips. And popcorn. We actually didn't eat most of that last night though, instead we made the frozen orange chicken and biryani that we bought. Sometimes, it's fun to just throw things on a tray, pop them in the oven, and have dinner.

I think that pretty much covers my exploits from the last two weeks. More good things coming your way in the next few days!

The Weather Forecast is a Liar

Today is Saturday, meaning that it's long run day, and my long run was scheduled to be 10 miles. I had gone to bed early, set my alarm for 5 am, and had planned to be at the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge at 7 am to take advantage of Summer Streets before most people would. Instead I woke up at 5 am to the sound of thunder and pouring rain. I gave it another hour, and it was more of the same. I realized the storm wouldn't let up for awhile and by the time it did, EVERYONE would be at Summer Streets (defeating the purpose of the street being open).

So yeah, I didn't run today, and the forecast predicted more thunderstorms later in the day. I figured that traveling to Brooklyn to run today (since 10 miles in my neighborhood isn't gonna happen) would be pointless if I was just going to get cut off by more storms. Well the forecast lied. It's beautiful outside.

The plus side is that I carbed up last night and had plenty of energy to clean my apartment all morning. It pretty much sparkles now.

And now onto the food. I had my ropa vieja for lunch for two days, and it seriously got better each time. That recipe is a keeper!

I never ended up making fish tacos because I never ended up buying tortillas...or any other taco supplies...so I made some roasted veggie pasta.

This is still one of my go-tos when I don't want to do any heavy cooking or cleaning (thank you aluminum foil-lined baking sheet), and it's always a crowd pleaser. Plus it's been far too long since I had roasted Brussels sprouts. That should be a crime.

What I really want to talk about is my night-before-a-long-run-carb-up-meal that I made last night...

The first time I made this was maybe a week ago. I was being lazy and flopping around my couch after my post-work run, and did NOT want to clean at all. Because I'm against buying microwave meals and canned soups (sodium, y'all), I didn't have any quick fixes. I peeled myself off the couch and explored the cupboards.

In situations such as this, I pretty much know that whatever I cook will involve pasta, so I pulled down some penne, then turned to the fridge where I found some tomatoes and zucchini. This was a good start. I boiled some water then heated some olive oil in a pan and added some halved grape tomatoes. I didn't really know what I intended to do with this yet. I added some diced zucchini to this and just let it go while adding the pasta to the water. Next came some minced garlic, and once that cooked down I deglazed with some white wine.

I'm pretty sure you can't really gone wrong in combining white wine and garlic. My apartment smelled amazing.

I couldn't just leave the sauce/mixture/thing just like that, so i added chunks of goat cheese that melted into the wine and created a creamy but light sauce. I finished it off with some lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parsley.

Honestly, I had no idea how this would all come together, but it's fantastic. It's so tangy, and if you crush the tomatoes into the sauce you get this great sweetness. My only word of advice would be to limit the amount of zucchini you put in it, because it will soak up moisture like crazy, leaving you with some dry pasta. I used yellow squash last night (picture above) and probably chopped up too much, because I didn't have much sauce. It was delicious regardless.

I made food today too, but it was a simple pan-seared tilapia with roasted veggies on the side, no big deal. I will mention however that my boss supplied me with tons of fresh herbs from her garden on Friday, so I am definitely looking forward to using those. I have fresh basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, and a Japanese one that I can't remember, and some mint! Yup, I'm set.

Until next time...

Ropa Vieja en el Garden de Kew

Hello friends!

Confession: I watched Julie & Julia last night and found new inspiration in blogging. We'll see how long it lasts, but let's embrace it while we can. With this new inspiration, I've decided to call it quits on finishing my way through Everyday Italian, not because I'm sick of Italian food or Giada (because let's be real, that will NEVER happen), but mainly because I need to start broadening my cuisine horizons.

This started a couple weeks back when I applied to be on an amateur episode of Chopped (odds of me actually getting on: very low). Part of the application asked what some of my specialties are, and when I listed marinara sauce, verdure al forno, chicken marsala, and chocolate chip cookies...I felt pretty lame. Don't get me wrong, all of these things are awesome. Super awesome, and also very comforting for me to make, but it made me realize that my culinary skills are stuck in Italia.

So being the closet housewife that I am, I busted open my binders of recipes and cookbooks yesterday and planned out a week of meals (with plenty of leftovers for lunch. SCORE). I then went to Trader Joe's - my new favorite place, though it's no Wegman's - and put on my patience pants as I avoided colliding with the crazed New York shopping cart drivers. I managed to get out of there in one piece....with three giant bags of groceries that were only going to be carried by two arms. Thank god for public transportation (and that's the only time you'll hear me say that).

For tonight's meal, allow me to take you to Cuba...

What you see above is a bad iPhone photo of the Ropa Vieja I had tonight. "Ropa Vieja" means "old clothes," which doesn't literally translate to "delicious," but I assure you this was amazing....and the easiest thing in the world to make. Crock pots are the greatest creation of all time.

What I made was Food Network's Slow Cooker Ropa Vieja, and I got it started this morning before I went to work. I heated up the crock pot, then added a can of diced tomatoes (chile style), a bit of ketchup, apple cider vinegar, two cloves of garlic, cumin, and some adobo sauce. The recipe called for jalapenos, but I couldn't find just one of those in Trader Joe's, I would've had to buy a whole bag, and I rarely cook with jalapenos.

Adobo sauce can be really intense, so I was pretty cautious in adding it, and I thought maybe I went a little overboard. Thankfully, that was not the case.

Next I diced up two bell peppers and thinly sliced and onion, adding them both to the crock pot bath, then added in a strip steak and some salt. I was supposed to use either a skirt steak or flank steak, but you have to use what you have, right?

I made sure the beef was completely covered with all this awesome-ness before heading out to work, then let time work its magic.

When I got home, I had a four mile run scheduled as part of my half marathon training, and I also had some rice that needed to cook (and didn't want to wait an hour for it once I got home). After asking my mother the stupid question of whether or not I could lave rice simmering on the stove while I ran (hey, it's Monday, my brain isn't really in the right place), she recommended bringing it to a boil before I left, covering it with a lid, and turning off the stove while the rice absorbed the water. This is exactly what I did.

I got back from my run where I raced a guy through the park (and beat him, HA!) to find some soupy rice. Turns out brown JASMINE rice cooks a little differently than regular brown rice. Basically, it just requires less water...about half a cup less than I used. I tried simmering it a bit to get rid of the excess water, but ended up just straining it, no big deal.

The rice went down on the plate first, topped with the ropa vieja and the most tender beef I've ever made. Seriously, if you ate like a heathen and didn't chew anything, it wouldn't have mattered because this stuff seriously melts in your mouth. The spice was not overwhelming at all (thank god, because I had sour cream on hand just in case), and works with the tomatoes and vinegar for this mouth-watering tang. It wasn't greasy at all, and the onions had absorbed every flavor in the pot, and also fell apart. These are the type of meals I love coming home to.

The best part? I have two days of leftovers ready for lunch. You have no idea how much I love leftovers for lunch, mainly because even though I know how to control the A/C directly behind my desk now, I'm always freezing at work and love a hot lunch. I'm difficult like that.

In other news, I ran the best eight miles of my life this past Saturday, keeping an ungodly 8.5 min. pace. I blame it on the Olympics, and the crazy hills I've been running. NYC has this awesome thing on Saturdays in August called Summer Streets where they close Lafayette to Park Ave from the Brooklyn Bridge to 72nd St to cars so people can run, bike, walk, cartwheel through the streets and enjoy the fun and entertainment along the way at various pit stops. I treated it like a race.

It was awesome because I got to run through a tunnel in Grand Central Station AND I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to get there, where I saw the Statue of Liberty, Governor's Island, the Bayonne Bridge, and other lovely views.

Later that night I saw Sondheim in Central Park where they performed Into The Woods with Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams as the Baker's Wife. It was a musical I've been wanting to see and I wasn't disappointed at all...except that there wasn't much leg room and it's not the greatest idea to cramp up your legs the same day that you ran eight miles. And the girl next to me's long hair was touching me, which totally skeeves me out.

Tomorrow night I'm supposed to cook fish tacos, but I couldn't find tortillas at Trader Joe's so I guess we'll just have the improvise! See you in a couple days :)