no more chances for the zucchini

I give up. Why does the darn thing continue to produce fruit when it just dies and falls off 2 days later. grr... that's it zucchini! you're not messing with me anymore.

restaurant crawl - the final chapter

We're both sated at this point and are resolved to the fact that my car is going to remain on 14th Street and we'll be walking home. A nice walk down Washington Street past lots of fabulous restaurants. We decided to stop, at quite possibly, the best restaurant in Hoboken, Amanda's.

Amanda's is a quaint and cozy French restaurant, with a vast wine list and lots of rich French cuisine. The offer prix fixe menus and wine tasting nights as well, so there is always something going on at Amandas. Sure, it's a fancy sit-down restaurant and we were two drunks dressed in shorts and flip flops looking for a top off to our restaurant crawl at the end of dining hour. They welcomed us with open arms (or was that empty glasses awaiting a fill of wine). We both had a Pinot Noir, typically my favorite varietal because we thought that would go well with the cake we were going to have. I had carrot cake because I can't resist working vegetables into every meal.

From there we had a nice leisurely walk home, after a fun adventure that started with the question "What's for dinner?"

I hope you enjoyed the restaurant crawl and maybe even try one or a few of them.

*k*

restaurant crawl - part 3

yep, we were still going strong. You can read about previous adventures here and here. We walked out of Lua and and half stumbled over to Sushi House Uptown (not sure if they have a website, so this will have to do). Sushi House is one of my favorite restaurants in Hoboken, but since Rob lives downtown, we have never tried their new uptown location. Boy were we missing out! Now mind you, when we started out on this trek, Rob was trying to persuade me to go to Sushi House but I didn't want to go because I just wasn't feeling like sushi that night. Little did I know that he was going to get me there at some point.

So we ordered a Tropicana Roll (in honor of our upcoming trip to Atlantic City, which was on July 2-3) and shrimp tempura. For the wine, I ordered a Chilean Savignon Blanc but honestly I don't remember it much at all (sorry! by that point I was three sheets to the wind). The atmosphere was cool and casual and there was a live jazz band playing in the background. It was completely desolate, which I can only figure that it was 4th of July weekend and Hoboken in general was light on activity.

The food came with quick and friendly service, and tasted amazing (as usual!). I have never had a bad experience at Sushi House and that day was no exception. Check back for the last round of the Hoboken Restaurant Crawl!

Thank you Sushi House!

restaurant crawl - part 2

in continuation of the restaurant crawl... after we left the City Bistro, we took a walk around the corner to Lua, my next restaurant review. This is an interesting place, settled along the northern corner of Sinatra Drive and 14th Street with beautiful views of the Manhattan skyline. The decor, while hip and chic for the millennium bar and restaurant scene, will certainly be dated and out of fashion 10-years from now the same way that 1980's style came and went. There is lots of frosted glass and colorful, yet dim lighting to which the pretentious clientele sip expensive martinis and lounge about.

Lua has an extensive wine list with lots to choose from in all price ranges so I ordered a Voigner. It had a nice aroma of grapefruit (again, similar to the City Bistro wine), and a mild acidity. It was a nice accompaniment to our appetizer. The menu is a hodge-podge of southwestern, with lots of Asian influence in some of the dishes as well as a Spanish influence in the Tapas section. I'm not really sure what they are trying to be in terms of their food. We ordered the vegetable quesadilla, which was filled with corn, mushrooms, pico de gallo and jalapeno jack cheese. It was good, but I probably wouldn't order it if I was going to order an entree as well, as it was a little heavy (ha! quesadillas usually are, we knew what we were getting into).

So, after Lua we walked sideways to the next restaurant. Stay tuned :)

what a scorcher

yesterday, it was 95 degrees at the beach and I decided it would be a lovely day to play a volleyball tournament. Brilliant. While it is a lot of fun, and we did much better than expected (me and my partner made it to the play-offs - woo!), the heavy heat was definitely a factor in our performance. I'm not sure if it's a matter of training your body to be able to react to heats like that or what. But a few tips for strenuous activity on hot days:

- be mindful of the temperature, the sun, and the humidity before you undertake heavy strenuous activity on a hot day.

- when you think you have had enough water, drink some more. I mean it. I drank at least 2 gallons of water yesterday but it was so hot and luckily it was dry, but the sweat just evaporated in seconds, so you don't feel like your sweating.

- notice the color of your pee. I'm not trying to be gross. If it's dark or if you haven't gone in a while, you're dehydrated. Drink more water.

- Drink Gatorade or something similar also on hot days where you're sweating a lot and not getting replenishment of salts.

- know the signs and symptoms of heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. These are very common ailments and very preventable.

- heat cramps: muscle spasms, usually in the arms, legs or stomach. Usually caused by not replenishing with potassium or other salts. Drink water and Gatorade or eat bananas. You can research other symptoms, causes and remedies. I'm not a doctor and so this is not a doctor's opinion.

- heat exhaustion: your internal air conditioner breaks and I don't mean the one in your house. I mean the one in your body. Symptoms are heavy sweating, headache, intense thirst, dizziness, fatigue, loss of coordination, nausea, loss of appetite, anxiety, tingling in extremities. Not fun stuff. I had it this weekend and got myself under control by immersing in the ocean, keeping my head cool, drinking Gatorade along with gallons of water. If you can, get into some air conditioning, or shade, relax, try not to do physical activity until fully hydrated again. Again, you can research other symptoms, causes and remedies. I'm not a doctor and so this is not a doctor's opinion.

- heat stroke: by far the most serious, and life threatening. Symptoms include high body temperature, lack of sweating, red skin, all the signs of heat exhaustion but more severe, rapid pulse, difficulty breathing. Can also result in convulsions, collapse, loss of consciousness. If someone has these symptoms, you need to cool them down immediately! Pour cold water on them, fan them, apply cold packs, call 911. Again, you can research other symptoms, causes and remedies. I'm not a doctor and so this is not a doctor's opinion.

Just please keep this in mind as we get to the dog days of summer when people are outside running, biking and playing outdoor sports. It's a lot more serious than people realize. Keep cool, stay safe, drink water.

:)

restaurant crawl

It sounds funny, a "restaurant crawl" but that's exactly what it was. Ok, so you have heard of a bar crawl, right? You walk from bar to bar having a drink or two at each and by the end you're hammered. Well this is similar, except you go from restaurant to restaurant trying wine and food and by the end you're stuffed and hammered. It was Rob's brainchild the other night when we were tooling around Hoboken. Of course, if it had wine and food in the description I immediately accepted. Here's how it went....

Around 7 o'clock on Saturday, we decided it would be a good idea to go out for dinner but we weren't quite sure where. We start heading out the door and I let him know I'm just going to move my car to a legal parking spot. We hop in the car and before I know it, we have decided to go uptown to 14th Street since we *never* go out up there.

We start out at City Bistro (if it had a website, I would have linked it here). City Bistro has a very nice atmosphere; however, I don't go there much because the crowd is a little snooty for my laid back pace. They have a wall of doors that opens up to the street, and on the day that we went, there was a very nice breeze throughout the bar area. There are three levels, with a bar on each and the top floor is a roof deck. I'm tempted to describe it as "casually upscale" if you know what I mean. We had a lobster spring roll and I had the house Savignon Blanc wine from a winery called Nimbus Estate. The lobster spring roll was very good, but I felt like there were too many flavors going on. Along with it being fried, it could have been crab and I'm not sure I would know the difference. But it was good and it came with a mango chutney (for anyone who knows me, if it has mango in it, I usually love it). The wine was fabulous!!! It was extremely crisp, and had a grapefruit bouquet with a very light feel. Perfect for a warm day.

Thank you City Bistro for having such an awesome house wine :)

The restaurant crawl will be continued...

*k*

zany zucchini part 2

I'm totally bummed about this zucchini business. I started with two plants. One completely shriveled up and died (turned yellow first) and then the second one started to get yellowing leaves. I started cutting them off and I stopped watering as much. But still my zucchini continue to turn yellow at the ends like the photo that I took today. So I did some research about it and it turns out that since I'm growing in containers, that my veggies may not be getting all the nutrients that they need. I made a mixture of miracle grow and tried it out. Stay tuned....

recipe doctor

I was watching the food network yesterday and saw a great looking salad from my favorite - Paula Deen. I know what you're thinking, that there has to be a cup of mayo and a cup of cream and a cup of sugar in it.... nope. It's an Asian Chicken Salad Recipe and here's what I did to it:

First - on the salad part, I used tofu instead of chicken. I cut up some extra firm tofu into 1/2" pieces and roasted it in a dry cast iron pan until it was browned on all sides. Then I added it to the salad.

On the dressing part, I decided to make a wasabi ginger dressing - here it is:


Wasabi Ginger Dressing Recipe
1 tsp wasabi powder
1 tbsp water
3 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 tsp minced garlic

I think this would also be great in a pita - nice and crunchy :)

thank you Paula!

*k*

positively fine changs

that is my interpretation of the P.F. in P.F. Chang's. We went to the china bistro while we were in Atlantic City and staying in the Tropicana. It was a fairly busy weekend down at the casinos so we made a reservation. When we got there, something happened with the reservation, but it wasn't the restaurant's fault. The concierge told us 8, but in fact they made the reservation for 8:30. So the hostess said that she didn't have anything for us immediately but there was room at the bar so we sat there while we waited for the reservation.

After a few minutes of cozy-ing up to the bartender, we decided that the bar was the place for us as the downstairs dining area seemed a little louder than we cared to enjoy at that moment. This worked out just fine. Somehow in this entire evening, I was able to talk my carnivore boyfriend to go totally vegetarian for this meal (not like he's never done that, but it's just a little unusual especially when dining out).

We started off with some tofu lettuce wraps. It is a tofu and soy sauce mixture and some other vegetables like red onion and water chestnuts. The idea is to wrap them up in some iceberg lettuce leaves and eat them like a taco. This was pretty good, a little heavy on the sauce but overall very tasty. My lettuce wrap fell apart at one point and that didn't make me too happy - some handi-wipes for the messy eaters (ahem, me) would have been useful. :)

Next we ordered 4 entree's / sides - sauteed spinach, asparagus, coconut curry vegetables and garlic noodles. Now, I'm looking at this stuff on line right now and I'm seeing that all of the calories, fat, and other food information is provided on line (YIKES!!). Well it was vacation after all but oh my gosh did we eat a ton of calories. I'm glad that we were too full for dessert - ha! So, of the entree dishes that we got, everything was mostly good. The asparagus dish was a little salty; however the spinach dish was particularly bland. My favorites were the coconut curry vegetables and the garlic noodles.

On the plus side, the price was extremely reasonable compared to the amount of food and quality of food provided. Overall, I would say it was a successful outing, but don't expect magnificance.

bbq dips

no, I'm not talking about that flakey friend that always seems to show up at every bbq, babbling away about her psychic. When you want something to munch on before the veggies (or for you carnivores, the burgers) are done grilling, try these little goodies that I whipped up this morning:

Chipotle Corn Salsa Recipe
1/4 cup frozen corn
1 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes
2 plum tomatoes, diced
1/4 medium vidalia onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, diced
3 chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, diced
juice from one fresh lime
2 tbsp fresh chopped cilantro + some cilantro leaves for garnish
salt and pepper to taste

put all this in a bowl, and chill for at least an hour to let the flavors marry. This has essentially no fat and is all veggies - if you pair it with some healthy alternatives you can have you dip and eat it too. This can be made up to one day in advance. You can serve this with tortilla chips, or you can use it as a relish for the burgers, or you can brown some french bread on the grill and use this as a bruschetta. The opportunities are endless. :)

Now, if you have some folks who aren't into spicy food, here's a nice one that tastes so rich and yet it is so healthy and again, nearly fat free:

White Bean Dip Recipe
1 15 oz can of cannellini beans (white kidney beans)
4 oz plain fat free yogurt
1/4 tsp white truffle oil
1/2 vidalia onion
2 tsp herbs de provence
4 to 5 mint leaves

Put the beans, truffle oil and yogurt in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add in roughly cut onion, herbs and mint and pulse until onions are finely diced. Chill for at least 1 hour. Serve with veggies.

Enjoy your bbq!
*k*