Rutabaga, Winnebago, Studebaker

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and, in the spirit, I figured I had to post my favorite recipe. Long before we learned how to lighten up mashed potatoes by mixing in puréed cauliflower, my mom was making this root vegetable mash in lieu of mashed potatoes at the thanksgiving table.

The original recipe calls for butter and chicken stock, but I made this vegan for a friendsgiving dinner the other night by using veggie stock and margarine. Needless to say, it was a hit (and no one knew it was vegan). Growing up this was always me and my older brother’s favorite dish on the table. There’s something so homey and comforting about this dish…it feels stick to your ribs and tastes the way thanksgiving is supposed to taste.

The best part about this dish is that it’s lighter than your average mashed potatoes and just as delicious You can sub in olive oil for butter in the onions and stock for at least some of the butter when mixing the root vegetables if you so choose. I always use low sodium stock and add some salt back in to taste at the very end. Happy thanksgiving from my family to yours!

Mashed Root Vegetables
adopted from a very old edition of Bon Appetit
1 1/2 pounds rutabagas, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/4 pounds parsnips, peeled, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
7-8 cups low sodium chicken broth
8 large garlic clove, peeled and smashed
1 bay leaf
3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tsp. dried thyme
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) of butter
3 large onions, thinly sliced

Combine first 7 ingredients in large pit and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover partially and simmer until vegetables are very tender, about 30 minutes. Drain. Discard bay leaf.

Transfer vegetables to a large bowl. Add 1/2 cup butter. Using an electric mixer, mash until vegetables are almost smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to large glass baking dish.

Melt remaining 1/4 cup butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced onions and sauté until beginning to brown, about 5 mutes. Reduce heat to low and sauté until onions are tender and golden brown, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Spread onions over mashed vegetables and serve. You can also make this in advance, store in the fridge and bake it until warm before serving.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin Everywhere…

I would like to say it’s that time of year again – that crisp, crunchy weather that makes you want to snuggle up in a flannel and some boots – but it’s not. Well, at least it doesn’t feel like it is in New Orleans…I’m still wearing tee-shirts and shorts on the regular over here. That being said, daylight savings has finally descended upon us and it’s already November!

November, which brings to mind those aforementioned flannels (of which I am deprived), Thanksgiving, all pumpkin everything, and maybe even #movember #noshavenovember or whatever it is they’re calling it these day. Though pumpkin has been on overload the past few weeks, yes…I made pumpkin bars. Here they are:
Thinking to yourself that pumpkin is just soooooo passé and how could you possibly be eating more pumpkin with your pumpkin spice latte (shudderingly referred to as a PSL apparently), pumpkin pie chobani, etc. etc.? Yeah, I feel you. Luckily these aren’t super pumpkin-heavy and are healthy enough to count as a breakfast bar.

Healthy, Whole Grain Pumpkin Bar

2 C rolled oats
¼ C. agave (can use Swerve/Truvia/Splenda if you want it to be fewer calories)
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
¾ C. pumpkin puree
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ C. almond milk (or milk of choice)
¼ C. pumpkin or sunflower seeds
¼ C. mixture of chia, flax and hemp seeds or as desired
2 scoops vanilla muscle milk (optional)
Cooking spray to grease the pan

Preheat oven to 350°F and combine all dry ingredients. Dig a well and pour wet ingredients into the dry. Mix together, being careful not to over mix. Spread mixture into greased 9×13 pan lined with parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes.

The protein powder is optional because it definitely improves the nutritional value on these but adds a lot of chemicals and ingredients you can’t pronounce. I would rather have a bar with a plain greek yogurt to be honest. Also, I made these with Swerve, which is a calorie-free sugar substitute but will probably make them with agave nectar or brown sugar next time. Sugar alcohols make my stomach do weird things……

The recipe makes about 16 bars as pictured above. Don’t forget to refrigerate these! These kept for a week when in the fridge, but only a day or so when stored at room temp.

It’s Busy in the Big Easy

I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post! Between half marathon training, the roadtrip down here and beginning my internship, life has been totally and completely hectic. Starting from the beginning…
I decided a few months ago to train for a half marathon. Training was going really well in the beginning; I built my pace, trained 4 days a week and was doing really well when…I moved down south and realized how HOT it is all the time always. I thought New York got hot and humid. Let’s just say I’m still wearing shorts and a tank top (when I’m not at work), blasting AC because it’s still 90+ degrees! Not to mention how hot the month of August was. Basically, I will be lucky if I live through this half marathon because I still plan on running it. Well, walking, jogging and limping it.
The biggest change in my life has been the start of my Dietetic Internship at Tulane! It’s going quite well and I got a great review from my first preceptor. I began my internship with a rotation at St. Bernard Parish Food Service Administration. I was lucky enough to evaluate meals for the lower, middle and high schools, teach classes at the high school, do one-on-one counseling at the high school and work in a kitchen prepping and serving food to elementary school students. It was a lot of fun to develop lesson plans and teach students again, definitely something I’m passionate about.
Enough with my boring life, I promise the blog will become more food-centered asap! Stay tuned for another post (food related) later this week!

Home, Sweet Home

After many weeks of traveling (3 week hiatus from my normal life), it’s safe to say that I’m finally home. For a month or so just until I pick up and move to New Orleans full time. After getting back from Tour de Europe last Thursday, I picked up and headed down to New Orleans Saturday morning to see some friends, sign my lease, etc. etc.

Well, considering last time I visited I didn’t have any beignets, I think it was only fitting that this time around I had beignets twice. Once, the morning that Zubin picked me up from the airport, and once at the famous Cafe du Monde. Beignets are French doughnuts – like an Italian zeppole or funnel cake, it’s basically fried dough topped with powdered sugar. I personally preferred the first batch of beignets from Morning Call (in city park by the New Orleans Museum of Art) because they were lighter and bigger than the ones from Cafe du Monde and the coffee was somehow better too. Maybe it was just being on a plane for 3 hours and the anticipation of visiting but they were absolutely delicious. What a great splurge treat.

After NOMA and wandering around the sculpture garden at city park, we headed back to Zubin’s to drop my bags and went out wandering around the city. He and his roommate are in the process of moving to a new apartment (sounds oddly similar to everyone I know in NYC and Ithaca, everyone seems to be living out of two places at once and not in a good way) so I got to see the mancave they’re moving into full time in a few weeks. After taking a (too long) nap, we walked back to the old apartment and cooked dinner using this service called Plated. Even though the company said it would take 30 minutes to make the meals….they took an hour and a half, easily. The food was good, nice to have all the ingredients on hand, but I much prefer inventing dishes based on what I have not buying ingredients to follow a recipe.

Fast forward through the weekend, which involved a lot of walking, an amazing brunch at this place called Atchafalaya (which involved a Bloody Mary bar…..my dream come true), a sushi and white wine picnic date with Edie and this great outdoor wine bar called Bacchanal, where we ate bacon wrapped dates and grilled octopus and listened to some live music. I say it was smooth jazz (bourgeois elevator music…), Zubin begged to differ. Regardless, we managed to watch some guy jam out on a melodica, sax and flute (not at the same time) which was pretty amusing.

Overall a great trip and can’t wait to move there in a month! I’m over New York right now, need a change of pace, new restaurants, lots of live music and good wine. Not that I can’t find that in New York, just…..ready for the next chapter of things to begin.

There’s No Place Like Home

After 2 long weeks, I have finally returned home! Amsterdam was beautiful despite the relatively crappy weather. I spent most of the trip in my raincoat and trying not to get my shoes wet (which failed). A word of advice to anyone traveling to Amsterdam in the summer: buy your museum tickets ahead of time! I can safely say I waited for 2 hours to get into the Anne Frank house which is not an experience I wish on anyone. So that and the Stedelijk (modern art museum) was day one. I love contemporary and modern art and really love manageable museums that are curated well and relatively sparsely so the Stedelijk was right up my alley.

The next day I wandered around the Jordaan area because the galleries I wanted to see were closed the day before (duh, everything in the art world is closed on Monday how dumb of me) and met up with Talia and Chris (two friends from Cornell) at Centraal Station. We took the tram to my hotel which was perfectly located in Museumplein and then got a bite to eat after seeing the lines for the Rijksmuseum (popular museum for Dutch art). Their hostel was relatively far from mine but we all went out that night with people from their hostel which was fun but interesting. We went to the Red Light District, which I wasn’t thrilled about because it was weird and just kind of skeevy.

We were supposed to meet up at 9:30 on the third day to go to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum but Talia and Chris overslept so I went to the Rijksmuseum alone and we met up later that day in the hopes of doing a walking tour but ended up not being able to find it so we just went straight to the Van Gogh museum and then the Bols tour. Bols is this liquor that has been made in Amsterdam since the late 16th C., kind of tastes like gin and is totally delicious. The tour is super interesting and hands-on, AND includes a drink at the end. Come on. Best tour ever. That night I tried rijsttafel (literally translates to rice table), an Indonesian delicacy that’s pretty much only found in Amsterdam. I found it to be a little salty for my taste but overall delicious. Look, here is the dish:

And now, I’ve returned home. Today was errand filled…appointments, got my car inspected, went on a long run, bought new trainers, etc. etc. Dad’s bag was returned home (yay go dad!) and mine was not because luck simply is never on my side. Leaving tomorrow for New Orleans until Wednesday, when it’s back to the real, working world after my 3 week hiatus.

Tallinn Tales

I wasn’t expecting much from Estonia. I mean honestly who even goes to Estonia? Tallinn, the capital (I just had to fact check myself on that one) is beautiful though. Maybe it’s just that the sun has finally (finally!!!!) come out, but wandering around the old town today was really wonderful.

After a 2 hour ferry from Helsinki (finished book #3, it was a little weird) we docked in Tallinn and headed to our hotel. Thank god for apple products and CityMaps2Go app (which is seriously a godsend if you don’t have it. It allows you to map without wifi or using data, I’ve been using it since I went to London in 2012 and have navigated 6 countries thanks to its help!) otherwise we would have been helplessly lost. Turns out our hotel was overbooked so we were shipped off to another hotel, which ended up being closer to the upper town so it’s closer to most of the sites anyway.

We took a bus and walking tour of the old town, which was really interesting. This is the oldest walled city in Europe and most of the buildings date back to the early 14th C. I mean I saw a pharmacy (still in use) that was opened in 1411. That is before Columbus even discovered America! Kind of hard to wrap your brain around.

I would like to take a moment and reflect on how absurd I find souvenirs to be. I collect postcards and tote bags from cities I’ve been to for a few reasons:
1. They are lightweight and small, meaning they do not add much bulk to my already existing stuff.
2. They are useful. I use my tote bags daily at home so they’re little reminders of places I’ve been when I’m buying groceries, packing picnics, etc.
3. They are not expensive (usually). I rarely end up spending more than $10 on postcards and tote bags from each city I go to. That’s pretty epic in terms of managing cost.

But here’s the thing. I don’t understand the concept of buying other people souvenirs from places I’ve been to. It’s like “yeah, hey I went on this great trip and you didn’t!” Or, “here’s a reminder of a place you’ve never been to!” Again, just not getting it. I appreciate the kind gesture, but I’d rather just mail a postcard that reminds me of a friend to let them know I’m thinking of him/her. That being said I bought myself a postcard today that has a carrot on it. Go figure. Maybe it’s just that I hate clutter in my room so trivial things and stuff that serve no purpose irritate me (postcards, photos and greeting cards all get put on my cork wall) but I really am not a fan of buying souvenirs for my friends. Maybe that makes me a miser, misanthrope. Whatever.

In news of food, tonight for dinner we started with pigs ear (……..no words necessary, it was weird but dad enjoyed it) then I had wild boar with pickled mushrooms and dad had pigs knuckles (I think it was a pig’s knee….again, no words) with sauerkraut and potatoes. Probably the strangest, meat-filled meal I’ve eaten in a while and I doubt I’ll ride that meat horse again. Fun fact: potatoes didn’t really exist in Tallinn until the 1800’s so true “Estonian food” shouldn’t have potatoes involved in any way. I guess stick to just the meat and veggies? Carb free here we come….

Hejjhejj, Helsinki!

Wow it feels like forever. A whirlwind of ferries rides to/from St. Petersburg kinda messes with the days. Alright so after Peterhof’s palace, which was decadent and beautiful in a way I’ve never seen before (literally everything was decked in gold leaf…), we checked out the Hermitage, which is the world’s largest art museum. Oof. What a struggle.

We managed to score tickets before actually going to the museum which saved a ton of time rather than buying tickets at the machine or waiting on the queue. Once inside we only had 4 hours (4 hours!) to attack the biggest, most confusing museum I’ve ever been inside. It’s essentially a series of palaces. Not even one building, whole PALACES.

Luckily all the art (Matisse, Picasso, etc.) I wanted to see was on the third floor. After trudging through the period rooms (which were beautiful but a little overwhelming and old by that point, I mean how much gold leaf can a girl take?) and Dutch art (sup Hals), we made it upstairs. I didn’t realize how late it got until I looked at my phone and was like shit we need to go!

The ferry last night was fine. I’m not a fan of large boat cruises and still believe that Russians smell bad so it was not an ideal situation. Whatever. We got on the boat, ate dinner and pretty much passed out in our room. Landed in Helsinki this morning and got settled in, I took a shower and we headed to the design museum, which is a little gem. Stopped along the way to check out a Saluhall (food hall) and then at the market, where we ate some delicious lightly fried fish. After the design museum, we had a fika and then walked over to Kiasma, the contemporary art museum here. After wandering through the design district, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up here for a year or two at some point. It’s such a beautiful place and everyone is just wonderful. There’s great art, lots of outdoor things to do, and I doubt it could get any colder than Ithaca in the winter. I mean, there is a limit to the cold.

We’re back at the hotel enjoying a drink and snack before wandering about. It’s amazing how much you can do when the sun doesn’t go down until 11pm….and here’s a pic of me and dad from today’s adventures!

Hats in Helsinki and Long Voyages to Russia

To be fair I’ve never read Russian literature. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, you name it I have not read it. All I know about Russian literature is that it is very long, dragged out and set in situations that are bleak and cold. None of that is particularly appealing to me. However, after a 30 hour ferry and many unpleasant (not to mention kind of smelly) people, I finally understand how and why Russian literature is the way it is. Sitting on that boat for 30 hours with no wifi and only a book to read there is not much to do and you genuinely feel like you’re losing your mind. Thank god for vodka.

Helsinki was a short adventure in which we checked with the hotel in the event that our luggage had arrived (it had not) and from there we set out to purchase gear for the inclement weather coming our way. We headed to Stockmann’s, the northern equivalent of Harrod’s (though in my opinion nothing can top the cheese counter at Harrod’s). Dad picked up a few shirts, I, determined to only buy things that will be useful in New Orleans, snagged a light raincoat and the fjallraven backpack I’ve been coveting. Apparently they’re cheaper in Finland, who knew.

After stopping for a light lunch (in an M Night Shamalan plot twist no herring was harmed in the making of this lunch) we headed back to the hotel and then straight to the ferry. Again, we were the lightest traveled passengers on this trip. Dad promptly passed out and I went to explore this cold, boring ship. Dinner was a long affair that involved lots of vodka, champagne and caviar. I have to give the Scandinavians one thing: they know how to spoil a girl.

I spent the whole evening starting and completing a new book (The Matchmaker, an easy summer read on the NYTimes best seller list but I have expressed doubts as to who invents this list after getting stuck with a pornographic trilogy that I assumed was a decent series after being on that list) while dad napped and then slept. This morning we began our day in St Petersburg with more caviar and champagne. Not complaining, seriously.

Since the Hermitage and the Palace are closed today, we are doing a walking tour to see the 4 big churches and maybe the National Museum. We already saw the amazing Church of the Saviour on Blood (kind of a gory name if you ask me) which was as beautiful inside as it was out and now we’re stopped for a fika, complete with some strange beet cake and fish patty. See the pic below for a taste of life at seas and in Russia.

Herring and Helsinki

I’m pretty sure if I eat another piece of herring I will puke. Okay a bit of an exaggeration but still I ate herring twice today — once for lunch and once at dinner. Granted, both herring meals were delicious I just genuinely don’t know how I feel about picked fish right now.

Today was a rather lazy day. We set it aside to do a boat tour of Stockholm, which never happened because we slept late by accident and had other more pressing matters to attend to…read: consuming herring. Instead, we went on a hunt for a fjallraven backpack for me in the hopes that it would be on rea (sale) as they retail for about $135 USD in Stockholm despite being made here and selling at $75 USD at their flagship US store in SoHo. I figured that I might need an additional piece of luggage for the trip given that everything I own currently fits in my large Longchamp bag but I refused to spend that money on something I know I can get for less in the states (The States? I give up). So, after browsing in NK Stockholm (a famous department store that has been around since 1902) briefly, we gave up and headed to the Ostermalm Saluhall, a famous food market in the Ostermalm area. Everything was delicious and we quickly headed back to the hotel to retrieve our belongings before heading to the ship. See below for a picture of me and dad on the ship, I’ve decided to spare everyone from pictures of herring.

Now my dad is great at planning but not so great at executing. Our boat left from Stockholm at 4pm. At 1pm we left the hotel to catch a bus to make it to the boat by 2pm. We got there long before 2pm and waited for a long time before even being able to check in. Needless to say, I read a lot of my book.

The boat ride has been beautiful, albeit a little cold so I’ve been bundled up trying to watch the archipelagos go by without being too cranky about the cold. For dinner, more herring. Honestly though looking at these houses on the remote islands 3, 4, 5 hours off the coast of Stockholm what else can they even eat? Truly a diet of pickled, preserved fish and potatoes. Oh, and strawberries because when strawberries are in season you better bet that they are in everything the Swedes make. God I can’t imagine coming here as a vegan. Lots of strawberries and vitamin C I guess…

Still no news on the lost luggage and lord help me I hope it gets to Helsinki before we do. The thought of having to do more shopping in Russia is not a pleasant one but I have succumbed to the idea of buying a dress or two when I make it to Amsterdam provided the luggage is still lost in the airportsphere. For now I’ll lament my woes by struggling to get Orange is the New Black on my iPad, eating biscuits and hunting for tea.

Stockholm, Day 2

After a long night (at 3am I woke up thinking it was 6am based on how light it was outside) we were up and out of the hotel by 9am, which wasn’t particularly useful because nothing is open until 10am here. We walked from our hotel to Gamla Stan, in the old city, and checked out the cathedral and the royal palace. Sweden actually has a cool history because it’s such a young country — lots of throne abdication, French and German influence, etc.

After many hours at the royal palace we stopped at the Hairy Pig for a lunch of charcuterie and beer. Did I mention that last night we had herring and reindeer?! Pictured below is papa enjoying lunch, my favorite was the truffle salumi (you can’t go wrong with black truffles in my opinion).

After that we meandered around Söderhalm (SoFo specifically), which was a fun, trendy little area. We stopped for a fika (coffee and chat, a concept that I love) and slice of princess cake which we were told to get and it was delicious. Wandered some more and now back to the hotel, it’s crazy that it’s still light out and already 9pm! Hoping to hear more about the lost baggage soon…