Mango & Tomato

4/11/09

Vegas: Cafe Baba Reeba

Here's a quick recap of our first meal in Vegas: Happy Hour at Cafe Baba Reeba.

My plane landed early, but then we were made to sit on the ground (ok, we were inside the plane, but the plane was on the ground) for almost an hour. By the time I finally got my bags, took a shuttle to the hotel and met up with Lera and Anna we were starving! Luckily, Cafe Baba Reeba was within five minutes of our hotel and had Happy Hour specials!

We started with sangria, which came in at least 5 different flavors, and then followed up with a bunch of tapas. I thought the food was good, but my super food-picky-friends thought it was rather mediocre. But we agreed on the merits of the sangria. By the way, you can see Lera in the first photo :)

We started with complimentary bread and olive oil followed by stuffed figs wrapped in bacon. I think that was one of our favorite choices!

We then had fried calamari (yum!) and chicken skewers. I must say the portions were rather on a tiny side!

I feel that we also might have ordered a few other small plates, but my memory is not exact now.

Would I recommend this place? Sure, but don't go in with really high expectations. What are your favorite tapas?

4/10/09

Updated Greek Salad

You might have noticed I haven't done too much cooking in a while...or at least nothing special to blog about. I thought I'd share this salad with you though, because it's a fun play on the traditional Greek Salad.

I am not going to bother with putting exact amounts for the ingredients: it all depends on how much of each you want to include.

Updated Greek Salad

Ingredients
cherry tomatoes, halved
English cucumber, halved and sliced thinly
hearts of Palm, sliced
black olives, halved
green pepper, cubed
red onion, sliced thinly
feta, crumbled
olive oil
salt & pepper
red wine vinegar

Directions
1. Mix all vegetables together in a bowl.
2. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar. Add feta. Season with salt and pepper. Mix again.
3. Serve on its own or with grilled chicken or fish.

4/9/09

Vegas: Dim Sum

Here's another long-awaited write up of where I dined while in Las Vegas.

Most of the places we ate at were directly on the strip. One of Anna's friends, however, recommended we go off the beaten path to Chang's Hong Kong Cuisine for dim sum. We took a cab there and walked on the way back (we needed the walk to work off some of the calories from our brunch!).

I love dim sum and have had great dim sum in Seattle, San Francisco, New York and DC. I was curious to see what Las Vegas had to offer. Anna's friend Jen happened to be in Vegas at the same times and joined us! There were 4 hungry girls ready to eat!

First we tried the typical shrimp and pork dumplings. Delicious!

We then ordered meat balls and greens! I love the greens they serve at dim sum, and eating them makes me feel like I'm doing something healthy :)

I've never had eggplant at dim sum restaurants, but absolutely loved it! The scallion balls were just okay.

BBQ pork buns are some of my favorite things to order while at dim sum restaurant, and these did not disappoint. Lera saved one of the buns and carried it all the way back to the hotel, where it sat in the refrigerator till the next day :) Lera also encouraged us to order taro dim sum. I was a bit skeptical, but absolutely loved it: it's like a starchier version of potato, and I love potatoes!

The meal was only $10 each! If you are in Vegas, definitely visit this restaurant.

4/8/09

Nutella versus peanut butter

If there was a competition between Nutella and Peanut Butter, who do you think would win? When it comes to taste, I would definitely choose Nutella: chocolate and hazelnut combination is just too hard to beat. However, I try not to buy it too often because I have little self control when it comes to this luscious spread.

Last week during my 16 mile training walk for Avon Breast Cancer walk in May, Sarah informed me that Nutella is actually pretty comparable when it comes to calories to peanut butter. Now, I've known Sarah for only a few weeks and have no reason not to believe her, but I wanted to be absolutely sure! So I went to the store and bought a jar of Nutella: strictly for research purposes.

The label below is for peanut butter, the last two photos are for Nutella. OMG, Sarah was right! Turns out that the same serving size has the same amount of calories for both Nutella and PB. Nutella even has fewer calories from fat! (It does, however, have more sugar).

And so, now I will not feel as bad about eating Nutella. In fact, I had some of it last night with apple slices. It's also great on white bread with Granny Smith apple and toasted nuts as a sandwich. Or simply on a spoon!

Turkey and black bean enchiladas

Turkey and black bean enchiladas are something you can make even when you are sick and think the effort of getting out of bed is not worth it.

That's exactly how I felt yesterday. In fact, I've been home for two days with a cold (oh craps, my mom doesn't know that! Well, she'll figure it out now) or maybe it's just allergies.

Anyhow, I had to go to the store to buy some food and decided to make enchiladas because they are easy to make, relatively nutritious and are great for leftovers.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 red onion, chopped
16 ounces ground turkey
1 tablespoon white vinegar
chili powder
garlic powder
salt & pepper
4 ounce can diced green chiles
14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
1.5 cups cooked brown rice
15.5 ounce can black refried beans
14 once can enchilada sauce
9 corn tortillas
2 cups shredded cheese of your choice
toppings: sour cream, avocado, green onions

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 375. Heat oil in a pan. Add onions and cook till tender. Add ground turkey, seasonings and vinegar and cook till the turkey is done.
2. Add diced tomatoes, green chiles and rice and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Pour a bit of enchilada sauce into 9x13 baking dish: enough to cover the bottom.
4. Spread refried beans onto a tortilla, top with a few tablespoons of filling and a bit of cheese. Roll the tortilla and put it in the baking pan with the rolled side on the bottom. Repeat with the rest of the tortillas (I could only fit 9 tortillas in the pan and had some filling and beans leftover).
5. Pour the enchilada sauce on top of the tortillas, cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.
6. Uncover the baking dish, top the enchiladas with the remaining cheese and bake an additional 15 minutes.
7. Serve with sour cream, avocado and green onions.

You can make these same enchiladas with ground beef or pork, shredded chicken, or even seafood! The possibilities are endless.

What is your favorite way to make enchiladas?

4/6/09

Brownies with Lime Frosting

Before I go home for the day, I thought I'd share an idea with you: how to glamorize a boxed brownie mix. What happened was that I was going to Cindy's baby shower on Sunday and did not have much time to bake (16 mile training walk, salsa dancing, and all that fun stuff).

I know most people like chocolate. So I thought I'd bring brownies, but I wanted to make them a bit more special. I usually add either orange zest, chocolate chips, or nuts into the mix before baking it, but this time decided to do something different.

Lime Frosting
Ingredients
2 cups confectioner's sugar
zest and juice of one lime (Note: first zest the lime, then juice it)
1 tablespoon water

Directions
1. In a bowl combine all the ingredients and whisk till smooth. Add a bit more water if necessary.
2. Spread the glaze on prepared and cooled brownies and let it set.

The lime made the brownies a bit less sweet and added an element of surprise. You could do the same with lemon too!

What are some ways you have spruced up a boxed brownie mix? (I hope not all of you make yours from scratch!)

News!!!

Hi, All.

Hope you had a great weekend.

Before posting any recipes or restaurant reviews, I wanted to share two pieces of news with you.

1) I'm the new DC Cooking Examiner! How did this happen? A while ago I received an email from Alicia, DC Dining Examiner, asking if she could add my blog to her list of links. I was thrilled. Then, Anna emailed me and said that DC Examiner had a few freelancing positions opened and I should apply. I filled out an online application describing why I would be the perfect choice for the DC Cooking examiner (I love to cook, I have a cooking blog, etc.), and was chosen! I'm really excited. Now I'll get to share my recipes, inspirations and cooking advice with a wider audience.

2) The winner of the Save BOOBS, Win a Cookbook contest is Heather! She will receive The Complete Whole Grains Cookbook: 150 Recipes for Healthy Living. With the help of my family, friends and food bloggers like Heather, I have been able to reach and surpass my goal of $1,800! I'm now only 4 weeks away from the Avon Breast Cancer Walk.

4/3/09

Vegas: Strip Burger

Hi! Have you missed me? I've missed you! I'm back from Vegas, older, smarter and wiser (if only). Instead of posting my food reviews in a chronological order, I decided to do it randomly.

Thus, first on the list is dinner at Strip Burger, recommended by my friend Stephanie. The restaurant was 5 minutes away from our hotel, which was a real plus. Lera did not feel like eating, so it was just Anna and I (and me?) for dinner. The menu was very reasonable, and since we were planning on going salsa dancing at 11pm and it was already 9 pm, we quickly decided what to order.

[Side note: Anna and I are twins. But that doesn't mean we have the same taste. Well, in most things we do, but not in soda: Anna likes Diet Coke, I like Diet Pepsi. This time Anna was the lucky girl because the restaurant served Coke products.]

In honor of Jenny, I ordered mushroom cheddar burger - melted Wisconsin cheddar & sautéed mushrooms and a side of fried pickles. Anna ordered green chili cheeseburger - roasted green chilies, pepper jack cheese and a side of sweet potato fries.

I thought our orders would never come. But eventually the food was delivered to our table. It looked and smelled amazing! And of course we shared the food 50/50.

The burgers were perfectly cooked, juicy, and the toppings were just right! The pickles were a bit thinner than I would have preferred, but they were fried, so I did not care! The fries (in my opinion) were good, but Anna thought they lacked spice.

Overall this was a great meal! We even brought some leftover fries and pickles for Lera. And I'm sure we've burned at least 1/100th of the calories at the salsa club! :)

4/2/09

Girls who Lunch: Nando's

Last week I was a lucky girl: first I went out for dim sum with my girls to celebrate my upcoming birthday, then I went to lunch, and then last Wednesday Ashley took me out to lunch at Nando's and Jenn took me out for Thai food! [This was all in the preparation for a food-filled Las Vegas vacation...more on that later.]

The only photos I have, however, are from the lunch at Nando's. I've been wanting to try this restaurant at Gallery Place in Washington DC for quite some time now. All I knew about it was that they sold chicken and that my friend Adrienne wasn't too impressed with them. But I wanted to judge for myself.

The atmosphere inside was spiffy, but a bit hectic. Turns out they don't have waiters (not sure if it was just on that specific Wednesday or always). Ashley and I were given a yellow chicken (or rooster?) indicating our table number. We waited in line to order our food, which was then brought to our table.

The prices were pretty reasonable, but I was sad that the olives and nuts weren't complimentary. The Diet Coke, however, was free-flowing (always a plus in my book, especially if it was Diet Pepsi). And there was a bar with different types of sauces to go with your fries and sandwiches.

I ordered a chicken sandwich with fries; Ashley had a chicken platter with garlic bread and mashed potatoes. The food looked and smelled great. The bread in my sandwich, however, was a bit overwhelming...and who needed all those onions!? The fries were right on point: the only thing missing was Ranch dressing :)

Will I come back again? Not any time soon. I prefer hole-in-the-wall Peruvian restaurants in VA or the relatively newly opened chicken place in Crystal City (the name of it escapes me, but it's right on the 23rd street by the pizza place: you can't miss it, and they have home made mashed potatoes and fried plantains!).

Come back to check out the eating adventures I had in Las Vegas with Anna and Lera. Yes, some people go to Vegas to gamble, we went to chill out and eat ;)

4/1/09

Blue Chips

I don't often write about different products, but sometimes I just have to share my finds with you.

Last week I was coming home from shopping and just wanted something quick and delicious for dinner. What to get?

I stopped at the store, bought a tuna steak, some hummus, salsa and these blue chips with flax seeds.

I simply seared the tuna on both sides so that it was still nice and pink on the inside. And then used the blue chips for my dips.

These chips are awesome! "Are" because I still have some left :) Yes, I'm quite impressed with myself for not eating all of them in one sitting.

Somehow they are not as hard as the other corn chips, and the flax seeds add a nice little touch. Please give these a try! (I'm not associated with the company, honest!).

These would be good with any kind of a dip: I'm thinking about the chicken dip my friend Jenny makes often...hmm, maybe this calls for some chicken dip?

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