Sorry! Just wanted to start off with that to anyone reading this blog. I took a few months hiatus – it turns out moving cross-country was quite the feat. Seriously. Having lived in Ohio my entire life – moving across the country was hard – seriously hard – both physically and mentally….more mentally if I am being honest.
4 weeks in and I am feeling much better – I am feeling like I know what I am doing at work, like I have my bearings and know where to go and how to get to the grocery store. We are living near the city in a cute neighborhood — it has a lot of life – and traffic noise. Another thing I am trying to get used to. Oh, and little tid-bit of information about the oddities of Seattle — it’s rare for houses here to have air-conditioning! How weird is that! Yesterday was a record breaking temperature – it got up to 87 here. And guess what? That’s hot! So our home was hot as he** — but no A/C. Ah, just the little idiosyncrasies of Seattle!
![IMG_1122[1]](https://i0.wp.com/bookishtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/img_11221.jpg?resize=247%2C373)
So onto the good stuff. Here are some pics of food we’ve eaten & some scenic pictures. I haven’t been good about taking pictures of my food here – but so far it’s been fun to explore. I was talking to a friend of mine from Columbus today – and she asked “how’s the food” and my response was “we have barely scratched the surface!”. The truth is — there are restaurants EVERYWHERE here. Like – everywhere. So the hard part is trying to know what’s good versus just ok. Some have been serious hits: like this pho. It is good. Like – really good. And some awesome sushi and a delicious mango salad with grilled tofu.
Other than the food – the scenery here is pretty beautiful. Everything is just so…lush.
And green. And vibrant.
And now – finally onto a recipe. I am attempting to be more health-conscious as of lately — trying to be more aware of eating high nutrient dense foods versus foods without any nutritional value. So – what does that mean? Lot and lots of vegetables. Thank goodness I like veggies. This recipe is pretty fantastic – easy and healthy – a very good combination. I found this recipe on pinterest — the original is from Martha Stewart: http://www.marthastewart.com/341884/roasted-red-saffron-peppers – I’ve modified the recipe to make it easier and eliminated the oil.
What you’ll need: red peppers, an onion, garlic, saffron, kalamata olives, fresh mint leaves, apple cider vinegar, and pepper.
What to do: slice the peppers and onions into thin ¼” slices – length-wise. Slice the onion into half-moon size slices as well. Peel 6 garlic cloves and slice into thin slices. Arrange the pepper, onion, and garlic slices in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven.
Note: I am using no oil in this recipe. If you want to add some extra oil to this recipe – feel free. It would add some extra richness to the dish.
While the peppers and onions are cooking – julienne 20 mint leaves & prepare the kalamata olives. The olives from Trader Joe’s that I bought are relatively small – so I didn’t slice them in half. If they were large I would probably slice. In a large bowl, add 3 T. apple cider vinegar (I like a lot of vinegar – so if you want less, add less), 1 t. saffron and allow the saffron to dissolve into the vinegar. Mix together with the olives and mint leaves. Once the pepper, onion, garlic mixture has cooled to room temperature – add to the bowl and mix to coat with the saffron vinegar mixture.
This is a great side dish to make — it would be great with grilled meat on the side or if you’re keeping it veggie-conscious – then a black bean burger. Yum yum.
Saffron Red Pepper Salad
Click here for recipe
Ingredients:
4 red peppers
1 sweet onion
6 garlic cloves
1/4 t. saffron threads
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 cup kalamata olives
20 fresh mint leaves
Directions:
- Slice the peppers and onions into 1/4″ slices. Peel and slice the garlic cloves into thin slices. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line large sheet pan with foil. Spread peppers, onions, and garlic slices onto sheet pan in one layer. Bake for 20 minutes – until soft and slightly charred in places.
- While peppers are cooking, mix 3 T. apple-cider vinegar with the saffron in a large bowl. Julianne (or mince) the mint leaves and add to the vinegar. Add the kalamata olives. If the olives are large, slice in half. Add the pepper and mix to incorporate all ingredients.
- Once vegetables have cooked – allow to cool for 10 minutes. Add pepper/onion/garlic mixture to the bowl and mix to incorporate. Enjoy!
I’m the friend from Columbus! I feel famous. I love the photos, I’ve been waiting for your first blog from Seattle! You didn’t tell me about the no a/c, good thing we’re visiting in October…
I’m going to try this maybe this weekend. tomorrow (my day off) I’m making the three bean chili for my weekly soup (lunch) and I went to that vegan site and for dinner tomorrow I’m making eggplant chickpea indian curry with fire roasted tomatoes, will update you on that. The name of the parmesan supplament is Go Veggie, In the past I would dump a ton of parmesan cheese on any thing Italian but with this a little goes a long way. Also the cheese i used in my lasagna was rice shreds by galaxy nutritional foods. lastly,(a word?) I’m hooked on vidalia onion and summer tomato dressing by Braswell 40 cal, 0 fat per 2 tbl and waldons russian dsg. 0 cal 0 fat, also tomorrow my lunch salad is shredded cabage (red and savoy) and carrots and raison with a new cole slaw dressing I found from Gia Russa 0 fat/15 cal per 2 tbl, will update you on that. Love writing to you on your blog, I feel like one of the girls, (scary creepy old man) DAD
I have to get that Parmesan substitute you’re talking about – sounds really good!! And now I also need to buy that Vidalia onion dressing ASAP!!! Love that you and Missy both responded to my post – so fun!!
forgot to comment on your great pics, can’t wait to visit. made the vegan eggplant chickpea curry with fire roasted tomatoes, totatlly awesome and very quick and easy to eat over oil free brown basmati rice. ( the directions say to add a teaspoon of oil to the rice while cooking) the chili is still cooking and the coleslaw dressing is suppose to sit at room temp for two hours before eating so I’ll keep you posted on that. I have 4 out of 5 burners going right now because I’m steaming kale for a side dish, I’m a regular machine with this cooking business, I think I missed my calling. love and miss you DAD
got all the ingrediants for the salad will make tomorrow with my eggplant chickpea dish. The cole slaw dressing I had to dr up with splenda, not a keeper. Just sprayed myself and the entire kitchen with eat your greens smoothie, got to get a new blender,I’m finding purple green stuff in the most unusal places.Made my yummy bars with with reduced suger craisians for breakfast in am, and my last project for the night is double garlic humus. lost two more pounds but still shy of my original goal by 1 lousy lb. Alyse and I got tickets for the detroit game next week, 4 th row behind the dugout we are both excited but I wanted to see seattle so I could brag to you when the indians beat them but it didnt work out. Had to take a quick break to put on a hoodie because our A/C is so cold. I need something different to fix for dinners that is not to complicated and filling to cook this weekend, any good ideas? Tell Naaman to quit stalking bill gates and take you exploring someplace cool this weekend. love DAD
Amelia you sound just like me when we moved to Cambridge! Lol! Emotionally crazzzyyyy, getting use to the traffice, noise, and people everywhere, and NO AC!! Haha! Glad you are settling in! 🙂
OMG Dad – you are too funny with your posts! Naaman said he will try to take your advice!!!
@Jennifer — I don’t know how you guys made it look so seamless – it’s hard! haha! I am trying to get used to everything – hopefully another month and I will be more normal! Talk to you soon!
ok first let me take the gloves off so i can type better, that darn A/C. alright, ready, I made the saffon red pepper salad and it was great , but I used a little packet of saffon and it was less than a teaspoon so I don’t think I got the full affect of the flavor. I also doubled the olives because more is always better,(the older I get I’m finding thats not always true), so the olive flavor kind of took over the salad, which was not really a bad thing. I think I.m going to invest in a larger container of saffon as I enter the scary new world of indian cooking so not having the right amount for recipes in the future won’t be a issue. Two things I want to bring up, first the way you discribe a recipe and the way you present it is wonderful. Also how you suport your writing with visual props is great. It makes it so easy for me (a total rookie) to follow the directions and to be able to compare my results with your pics, great job. I see a bright future in writing instruction manuels ahead for you. Number 2, indian food involves a lot of oil, if you come across a another recipe like that eggplant chickpea curry without a lot of oil or if you are able to modify a existing recipe post it. Lastly, we killed seattle in four games, I know you could care less about baseball but it make me feel good to brag about it. I,ve been really good on the diet so I’m looking forward to my weight in wednesday. good or bad results I’m having a dog and a beer at the ball game that Alyse and I are going to weds. Oops, almost forgot the peanuts, Ah the simple joys of life. Love and miss you DAD
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Dad – you crack me up! Seriously – every time you post I read it to myself and laugh out loud. I am glad you can see me having a future career in writing instruction manuals. Seriously hilarious!!! I am so proud of you doing this diet so well – you are much stronger at it than I am – but baby steps…..I slip up a lot – but overall I am sticking to it and feeling better.
Greetings from clevburg:
after stalling in the wt dept for several weeks I finally lost a couple more lbs and hit my magic number i was aiming for. But I didn’t do it by sticking to the plan, After my flying experience in that little two seater plane, ( hope mom sent pics) we ate at the Melt. This place is known for making cheese sandwiches out of everything.After living thru that plane ride I felt the need to celebrate terra cotta, Mom got a roast beef, garlic mash potato cheese sandwich and I got a smoked turkey reuben with a ton of melted cheese plus a ton of salty french fries. About 1 am my body let me know in no uncertain terms that it did not appreciate my indulgence, without going into details thats how I lost my couple of lbs. To top it off last night Alyse and I went to the Indians game, best seats ever and alyse almost got killed by a foul ball, ( I purchased a life insurance policy for her and bought more tickets for next week) , while we were there though I ate a couple of brats and a beer and had some fried dough thing that was to die for, today I continued my wild slide into caloric hell eating a cucumber, tomato, onion grass sprout avocado sandwich (bread), a piece of NY style cheese pizzia and a gianormous piece of carrot cake. ( its got carrots its got to be healthy right?) So after wallowing in sugar induced guilt most of the day I pulled myself up from the depths of cellulite despair and made Asparagus shitake salad with creamy sesame dressing for dinner, even your mom loved it. with renewed determination I then cooked that eggplant chickpea curry dish for tomorrow and with the left over water chestnuts and beansprouts I made my salad with asian dressing for lunch and my anticancer soup.For breakfast tomorrow I made that Quick banana breakfast to go and now I’ll be back on track to nutritional nirvana !00 more lbs and I,m buying a corvette and taking more flying lessions, how do you like that for motivation. So the moral of the story is everyone slips, the trick is getting back on track . Say hi to Naanman for me and do’nt get discouraged, love always DAD
LOVE these comments – they crack me up! I’m excited to get to see you guys this weekend!
I don’t know how I can ever follow up your dad’s hilarious posts, but I wanted to let you know that you’ve got a friend in NY who is totally feeling your no AC pain! We actually have 2 window units, but they certainly don’t cut the mustard in our railroad style apartment, long and skinny doesn’t do well with AC units on each end! I was elated last night when the weather broke and we had a thunderstorm 🙂
I still didn’t get any rain boots so I had a nice soggy walk to and from the train today, but at least I have a sweet umbrella and rain coat now! Some day I’ll get the full ensemble 🙂
AND, I hear you loud and clear on the mentally draining crazy times of moving. I am loving everything but it’s equally sad to think about what isn’t here…like the awesome cooking club you started in Cbus! I miss the comforts of having lots of friends and knowing what I’m doing too 🙂 I’ve been here a solid month and things are settling in, work is getting (slightly) better and I’m starting to see people more than once a week, like the guy I buy oatmeal from in the morning or the bagel dude at my new fav “Bagel World”!
Thanks so much for the post, I love your blog and want to try some of the recipes. Jason and I make dinner about 5 nights a week and I’m starting to pack more lunches. I really need some new things to try so thanks for sharing all the tips and tricks and great photos!
Haha @gilbrimm — He is hilarious – isn’t he?!