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Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Toasted Corn and Sweet Red Pepper Rice

I ended up staying at my parents for much longer than anticipated this week.  I left on Monday afternoon, planned to come home Wednesday afternoon.  Well, its Thursday, I'm still here, and we're going to the movies tonight.  So, I don't think I'll be getting back until tomorrow.  Don't worry, I brought Zoe with me, and she is quite happy watching the birds and chipmunks again.

It took awhile, but I realized my mom has the same camera as me, so I can just borrow her camera cord.  Hellooo!  

When I was living at home I usually made dinner once a week.  I am not the type to make the same recipe twice.  There's just so much out there, why keep making the same thing?  My mom, does not agree.  If she ever gets asked, she always wants the same thing, which has come to be known as "that rice stuff I like".  

I figured since it is mom's favorite, and she's been asking me to actually write down some kind of recipe for it, I would make it for her, and share!  I gave it fancier name, but you can still call it "that rice stuff Gina's mom likes" if you want.  

Toasted Corn and Sweet Red Pepper Rice


    3 cups of COOKED Brown Rice (about 1.5 cups raw)
    10oz box frozen corn (about 2 cups)
    2/3 cup salsa
    1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
    2 tbsp lime juice
    1 large red pepper, thinly sliced
    1/2 cup chopped scallions
    1 block extra-firm tofu

Put two pans on to medium heat. Liberally cover both with non-stick cooking spray. 

While the pans heat up, remove the tofu from the water. Slice it as thick or thin as you want (probably into about as many pieces as can fill your pan), and press with a towel on both sides. You don't need to be crazy about removing the water, just dry it a little. Salt and pepper both side and place in one of the pans. Just let it sit in the pan. Don't move it around, don't pick it up. It will form a golden crust on that side. Peek at the corner of one piece until it is somewhat hard and golden brown. Then flip and wait for the other side. When its all done, cut it into cubes. 

The corn goes in the other pan. It'll thaw first, but it needs to be in long enough to toast. You'll want to stir, periodically under it starts get brown flecks and look toasty and caramelized.

You can do the rest before or while everything is cooking. While this stuff is cooking, slice the pepper, chop the scallion and make the dressing. For the dressing, mix the salsa, lime juice, and canola oil. 

When everything is done mix it all together in a big bowl. 

That's it! Its easy, its fast, its healthy and it is soooo good. We usually have it as the main dish with a side of broccoli. It can serve anywhere from 4-6, depends on how hungry you are.

Serves 6
Nutritional Information:  271.5 Calories;  8.2g Total Fat;  0.9g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  40.0g Carbohydrates;  4.8g Fiber;  11.3g Protein 

You could also use garbanzo beans if you are intolerant to soy, or you could just leave the protein out altogether.

We went to the Kutztown Folk Festival yesterday, my mom, brother and I.  Its in the middle of Pennsylvania Dutch country.  

I always think this view looks like that default Windows background

I guess the food is supposed to be good, but its not really our kind of stuff, so I found a place that would make us all happy to stop for lunch.  If you ever find yourself in Kutztown, Betty's is a cool place.  Cute little place, kind of wants to be funky and earthy when it grows up, and the food was great!  Its casual, and cheap, mostly wraps, salads, soups, and you can easily eat for about $5.  Oh, and it caters to both omnivores and vegetarians/vegans.

We saw some cute baby ducks at the fair.  I love birds, but I especially love ducks, and everyone knows that babies get even more love, so I had to take a picture.  

There were really cute baby bunnies too, but my attention was taken away from picture taking then because we were allowed to pet, hehe.  

We stopped at the Clinton Station Diner for dinner.  Its right on the side of the highway and its got a train car attached to it, so we always notice it.  We actually got to eat in the train.  

Me and my brother

Also, my brother recently became a vegetarian, which I believe I have yet to mention on here, so that's pretty awesome!  There was plenty of stuff I could have eaten at this diner, but I thought we were getting fast food for dinner so I had brought my own, and already had eaten it, so I just had some fruit salad.   

Because I am at my parents', I have already seen a bunch of movies.  I don't know why, Nick and I haven't really been at all.  I saw My Sister's Keeper with my mom, and saw Public Enemy with my brother and his friend last night.  My Sister's Keeper was so sad, but really good.  No, I didn't read the book, but apparently some important things (I won't say what, but if you want to know, email me) were very different.  I kind of like it that way because I feel like I can go read the book now if I want.  Public Enemy was good.  The acting was good, it was engaging, but I'm not running around raving about it, its just not my kind of movie.  Tonight we are going to see Away We Go, which I am really excited for!  

As much as I like being home, I definitely woke up this morning wanting my own bed (which is weird because this bed was "my bed" for two years).  I think its my pillow that I miss.  Anyway, we should be back home on Friday!  

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Want to see Food Inc?

If you're in the NY area and are free on Saturday around 3PM and want to see Food Inc, send me an email (not a comment, I won't be able to get to the computer to check the blog, but I'll check my email on my phone).  

Long story short, my brother, Nick, and I are going to see it tomorrow.  I bought the tickets for the wrong day.  So, you should be able to take two friends.  I need to talk to the box office, and they haven't been answering their phones, but I'm assuming it'll be okay if I just give you the confirmation number.  It'd be even better if you contact me before I get there tomorrow around 3PM, so I can give them your name in case there are any problems with the tickets being purchased in my name.  

Also, its first come first serve, but if you are only one person, then I'd hope you'd be open to me giving the other tickets to other people and meeting up to go in together (you don't have to sit together, but you could make new friends!).  

Anyway, if you want to see it, again, email me asap!  

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Seven Pound Vegan

Christmas is in less than a week!  Incredible!  I am going down to my in-laws tomorrow and had to finish that shopping today.  Shopping is exhausting.  

Anyway, I ended up with a lot of food today.  I made some bread, then made dinner for my family, then made lunch/dinner for my travels.  I usually take prepackaged sandwiches on the road but I haven't been eating that well, and I know everything will be screwed up this weekend while I am gone, so I wanted to make sure I had something hearty at least.  

Without further ado, I first present dinner.  It was from the January 2009 issue of Vegetarian Times; the Spicy Tofu Lettuce Wraps.  It was good.  It did not look appetizing though, I cooked it much longer than the recipe said to, letting it brown so that it got a nice color.  Anyway, sorry but these are the best pictures I could get! 

Toppings (Bell Pepper, Peanuts, Carrots)

Lettuce Wraps
(Nutrition Info is given in the magazine, which I don't have with me, oops!)

We had some rice with it, brown rice with grapefruit and scallions.  

I made the White Gingerbread from the current VegNews, which I believe was one of Hannah's features?  I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but..umm..her byline was on it.  I made it gluten free by using spelt and brown rice flour.  It smelled like French Toast when it was baking, and I agree with Shelby that it has a chai taste, which makes sense given the spice combo.  Nevertheless it is delicious, and it went perfectly with my pear butter (which was why I made it)! 

I used Smart Balance Light, and some kind of artificially-maple syrup that my family had.  I think it was a light version.  Ugh, okay, ::checking::...okay, it is Aunt Jemima Light.  So it definitely affected the calorie count.  But with those two things, this is how it worked out...

Serves 12  
Nutrition Information:  157.8 Calories;  4.3g Total Fat;  1.2g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  27.6g Carbohydrates;  2.1g Fiber;  2.6g Protein.  
Because I would have preferred to use real maple syrup, I calculated it with that also:  
Nutrition Information:  175.4 Calories;  4.3g Total Fat;  1.2g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  32.1g Carbohydrates;  1.9g Fiber;  2.6g Protein

My lunch for the road is the Chipotle Chili with Sweet Potato and Brussels Sprouts from the PPK blog.  
I told you the pictures were bad today. 

I halved the recipe, eliminated the oil, and calorie-wise, it made two servings.  However, I was definitely full before I finished it.  
So, if you serve 2 (or 4 if you make the whole recipe)
Nutrition Information:  337.0 Calories;  2.1g Total Fat;  0.3g Saturated Fat;  0.0mg Cholesterol;  70.6g Carbohydrates;  18.5g Fiber;  20.0g Protein

I have to tell you, I wasn't thrilled with this.  I cooked it for longer than it said to, and I still don't think it was cooked enough.  The flavor was good, but nothing spectacular (sorry Isa).  

Anyway...I don't know when this will post, because I started it yesterday and finished it today, and that always confuses me, but I'm at my in-laws now.  I discovered Clif Bars today.  Yeah, I know not an incredible discovery, but I thought they had less protein or something.  I dunno, I had a reason for not buying them before.  I got the carrot cake flavor, it was delicious!  

I hope everyone has a good weekend.  Anyone get snow?  My family got a lot of snow (New York).  I left at 5AM to drive down here (Maryland), to avoid it.  There was just lots of rain here, gross.  

We saw Seven Pound today, the current Will Smith movie.  It was very cool, I thought, how often veganiam/vegetarianism showed up in the movie.  One of the main characters was a vegetarian, one of the supplementary characters was a vegan, and when Will Smith was sitting in the hospital waiting area, at one point, in front of a white board, and right over his left shoulder was VEGAN in big letters.  Besides veganism being featured, the movie was also really really good, but definitely emotional.