Lunch « Flatiron Flavor

Jake, meet Chataqua and the Farmer’s Market!

October 9, 2010 at 2:22 pm | Posted in Farmers Market, Lunch | Leave a comment
Tags: Flax, Squash

This little puppers name is Jake. Jake was a rock star today. He found this huge stick at the very beginning of the hike and did not put it down until we were back down the Flatirons. Everyone loved seeing Jake with his big stick. He had his picture taken several times by the puperazzi! He’s famous.

After our hike, we went straight to the Farmer’s Market to pick up a few things for dinner tonight. All the fall vegetables are now out….kale, apples, pumpkins, winter squash, and the late late season corn and tomatoes.

We had a taste test when we got home. The two tomatoes to the left are from the market and were 10000 X better than the plastic tomato on the right. The small red tomato in the center was by far the best of the group. Not as good as the tomatoes I had this summer in California, but still delcious.

This here is a massive massive loaf of bread from Udis. It was made with wheat flour, spelt flour and had whole flax seeds in the mix. We turned a few slices into dippers for olive oil.

You can see the flax seeds here…dipped in the olive oil (pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, oregano, garlic powder, onion salt, and olive oil).

Apples = Jonagold. One of the 15000 varieties available in the states! (Learned that last week.)

I was just checking out some of the other things on the table when I heard one of the workers describe how to cook delicata squash (pictured below). He said it’s good baked with cinnamon, cayenne, and a bit of butter. It sounded so good that I had to buy one!

Officially exhausted. Time to cheer on Michigan State’s football team!

3 Game Sunday

October 4, 2010 at 1:17 am | Posted in Lunch, Workouts | Leave a comment

Hello!

Finally unpacked from my week away. Just had my lunch. A marbled rye bagel with veggie cream cheese and slices of cucumbers. Love the marbled rye! Hopefully this will help me stay full through my games today. I packed up a banana, an apple, and a baggie of baby carrots for snacks after soccer. First up is indoor, then outdoor, (snacks), then driving down to Broomfield for kitten ball. Kitten ball is like softball with a bigger softer ball and no gloves are needed.

Be back after all my games!

Conference Time

September 27, 2010 at 6:29 pm | Posted in Dinner, Eating Out, Lunch | Leave a comment
Tags: Spinach

Hello from Fredericksburg, Virginia!

Before leaving I had lunch with my dad. I made us plates of sliced tomatoes from the local stand, organic baby carrots and a bowl of cottage cheese with fruit cocktail of some sort. for some reason there are two pictures that are the same and I’m not sure how to get rid of them! I’m on my new iPad toy and using the WordPress app and I have a lot to learn! I also do not know how to edit photos yet so Please bear with me here!

Dinner was at Firebirds, a steakhouse that had several Coloracdo named dishes! I chose the spinach salad and a loaded baked potato. I used some of each of the toppings- sour cream, cheddar, scallions, and bacon! YUM! The spinach salad came out a bit differently than I had expected. It was chopped with tomatoes, bacon, and sauteed mushrooms and tossed in balsamic vinaigrette with hard boiled egg slices on the side. A great salad! Aaannnddd it took a lot of me to say no to the bread basket, buuuuutttt somehow I managed.

The past week or so I’ve been struggling with trying to balance all of my work, team sports, maintaining my house ( my part at least), and working out….or lack there of. That’s probably one of the reasons I ended up getting sick! Too little sleep and exercise and too much of everything else!

To try and combat my lack of time management I made sure to get in a long walk around my favorite lake at home with a much needed social update with one of my best friends. Today I did lunges, squats, push ups and crunches as soon as I got to the hotel before the conference started and hit the gym for a bit of card after dinner. Hope the rest of the week goes as well.

Time to get some reading in. Night~

Just another day in Boulder

September 25, 2010 at 5:40 pm | Posted in Lunch | Leave a comment
Tags: Cabbage

(Finally a little better from some cold I got this week. Poor Kev is now sick with whatever I had.) Today we took a nice easy little hike/walk through Hessie Trailhead. We are so lucky to be able to drive a short 45 minutes to incredible hiking trails! There are so many different trails that it would take years to cover them all! This trail was very popular and quite easy to get to the top. It was an easy 800 ft gain. Compared to the 2- 14′ers we did a few weeks ago, this was a piece of cake!

The aspen trees are just about at their peak. We were surrounded by beautiful bright yellow leaves for our walk.

The 4 of us stopped in Nederland for lunch at Black Forest, a German-American restaurant.

We each had an Oktober Fest brew!

My entree was Hungarian Goulash. The noodles were homemade and the beef was deliciously tender. On the side is red cabbage which was very good…I think it was almost pickled?? Perfect fall meal after our walk.

New State!

August 26, 2010 at 2:20 pm | Posted in Breakfast, Eating Out, Lunch, Snack | Leave a comment

Hello from Minneapolis, Minnesota! We are here for Adam and Kim’s wedding this weekend. The rehearsal dinner is tonight so everyone can go to the state fair tomorrow. I can’t tell you how excited I am for a mid-west state fair. We changed our flight to take off a bit later in the morning. The past year I have taken more flights taking off at 6-7 am than I’d like to admit. It’s really rough having to wake up at 3 and 4 in the morning to drive to the airport.

This time we did it right and had a relaxing morning. Here is the breafkast.

In the bowl:

1/3 cup organic oats
1/3 cup organic skim milk
1/3 cup water
1 tsp organic brown sugar
1/2 tsp Savory’s Cinnamon
1 T Adam’s organic peanut butter

Coffee on the plane:

Flying is NOT my favorite thing to do. I get anxious and antsy whenever I have to fly. I would rather drive somewhere than have to take a plane to be honest. Over the past year, flying back and forth to Maryland and to go on vacations, I have earned a free flight with Southwest! Wooo! With the free flight you also get drink coupons! This morning, because we are on vacation, Kevin and I had Bloody Marys on the plane.

Our Southwest loot:

Instead of eating the peanut and pretzel snacks, we played poker with the guy next to us. I lost. Very quickly.

When we landed, we hit Old Chicago for lunch. I had a side salad a long with the Original 7 pizza. So excited to visit a new state!

Super healthy and definitely low cal.

Time to relax. Rehearsal dinner in a few hours!

Scrambled Legs

August 22, 2010 at 4:51 pm | Posted in Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Workouts | Leave a comment

Mt. Bierstadt and Mt. Evans. Done.

Schedule:

5:00 AM- Alarm goes off
6:00 AM- Meet and load cars to head to Big Daddy Bagels.
7:30 AM- Arrive at the bottom of Mt. Evans. Take 2nd car to top of Mt. Evans. Start hiking to Mt. Bierstadt.
11:00 AM- Mt. Bierstadt, DONE.
11:30 AM- Panic because we have to cross over Sawtooth to get to Mt. Evans.
2:30 PM- Mt. Evans, DONE.
3:30 PM- Tommy Knocker Brewery for a bite of food.
7:00 PM- HOME!!! Collapse and fall asleep a few hours later.

It’s about 50 degrees out so it’s quite chilly!

When we read about these hikes, it says to scramble. Not hike, but scramble. Scrambling is sort of like climbing/hanging onto rocks for dear life.

Yup, we scrambled over these.

A kid was holding the sign saying ‘My First 14′er Mt. Bierstadt’ and was nice enough to share. At the summit, we had lunch. I had an apple and lots of trail mix. This Monkey Business mix was dried cranberries, peanuts, chocolate pieces, and banana chips. A spin off the traditional, GORP (Good ‘ol raisins and peanuts).

This is the traverse over Sawtooth. Probably the scariest thing I have EVER done. I don’t have pictures of this part because I was fearing for my life.

Do you see a trail? I sure don’t. There are cairns that you have to follow (I thought they were just little rock castles until I found out those were the trail markers! Kevin re-named them ‘Kevins’).

I might have added a top rock to multiple Kevins.

I need hiking boots STAT.

Chad monster in the background.

Top of Mt. Evans. Woooo! 2nd 14′er in ONE day! (We were pretty much just like these goats by the end of the scramble.)

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Sunday’s eats + 1 outdoor game + 1 indoor game = tired Ahn Ei!

After all the soccer I had a huge plate of pasta salad and a delicious heirloom tomato. So good!

Mac Salad!

August 22, 2010 at 4:17 pm | Posted in Lunch | Leave a comment

This macaroni salad was made for the celebratory lunch after my 1st and 2nd 14,000 ft mountain hike. What you need to make an incredibly tasty macaroni salad thats practically a complete meal in itself.

Ingredients:

1 Purple Bell Pepper
1/3 red onion
1 bag of carrots
5 stalks celery
1 cucumber
2 lb pasta
1 can gabanzo beans
1 can tuna packed in water
Italian dressing
Mayo
Dried basil, oregano, and parsley

First, chop all of your vegetables.

Cook pasta. Add 1/2 the Italian dressing while the noodles are still warm. This will force the noodles to absorb some of the flavor.

Chill all ingredients. Add dressing, mayo, and herbs when cool.

Chill some more. Eat after hiking for 5.5 hours.

August 15, 2010 at 9:08 pm | Posted in Dinner, Lunch | Leave a comment
Tags: Asparagus, Avocado

Today was soccer day! I had my women’s game at 9 am and then Kevin had his coed game at 11 am. After all that running around we were both starved. (I’m def not used to sprinting around for 90 minutes anymore! It’ll probably take a few weeks to get back up to par. )We decided to stop by Snarf’s sub shop. We’ve both heard good things about the place, but never actually tried it ourselves. I got the veggie sub and Kevin got the roast beef and provolone. My veggie sub had avocado, sprouts, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, hot peppers, onions, provolone cheese, and mayonnaise. It was toasty goodness. Kevin went off to kayak and I relaxed at home.

For dinner tonight I baked some bbq chicken, asparagus, and corn. It was a super summery meal! For dessert we had watermelon from the farmer’s market. It’s probably been a few years since I had watermelon with big black seeds in it! All the watermelon you find at the store now has been modified to be seedless. Oh man, was this watermelon good!

Finished!

August 8, 2010 at 8:04 pm | Posted in Dinner, Lunch | Leave a comment
Tags: Avocado

Last Wednesday after soccer, I went out and bought the 7th HP book. Just finished it again! There was so much I had forgotten! Can’t wait for the movie…only 3 more months!

It feels soo much better having groceries in the house. My body was going through good food withdrawal, especially after last week. Lunch was a tomato sandwich, which reminded me of eating those at the beach this summer. Right before soccer, I had an orange too.

I also made a batch of Tabouleh for the week:

I promise all of the tomatoes, parsley, and onion are in there somewhere!

I sauteed 1/4 of a white onion and two zucchinis in some olive oil. After a few minutes I added some organic chicken broth and cooked until everything was soft. I’m thinking I should have had something more for dinner because my stomach is now rumbling a few hours later. I might go sneak a bowl of cereal.

Wine Country

July 28, 2010 at 8:24 am | Posted in Dinner, Farmers Market, Lunch, Odds n Ends | Leave a comment
Tags: Avocado, Wine

Wine country! Its impossible not to love! As stated in my previous post, I had a double breakfast to fuel me through a day of tasting wines. The first was a Europen style breakfast with cheese, bread, olives and juice. Bfast number two was toast with tomato and a Ken poached egg!

My parents have been to wine country on several occasions but have not been on a tour in a million years so I thought it would be best to try and tour a larger winery first. Kendall Jackson it was. We arrived just minutes before a garden tour started! Perfect timing!

KJ has a massive massive sensory garden by the way. There are multiple sections of the garden. Each section grows all of the vegetables and fruits you would eat with that type of wine AND grows all of the flavors commonly detected in the wine. Genius! Its truly was a full sensory garden! The garden was divided into: red, white, Italian, French, South American, and Asian wines. There was also an edible flower garden, one totally dedicated to herbs, one for tomatoes (150+ types of heirloom tomatoes!!!!!), and tons of veggies. I’m sure there are wonerful things I’m missing, but our tour guide just kept on pouring out tons of information!

Pictures of the KJ Garden…

You learn something new every day sooo one thing I leared was about walnut trees! Black walnut trees have strong roots and so-so flesh, while English walnuts have poor roots but a superior flesh. KJ has grown a black walnut tree for the roots but chopped it off at the base and planed an English tree on top! Here’s a pic of a green walnut shell. I guess the brown wrinkly shell is on the inside?? Or will eventually dry out??

150+ Varieties of Heriloom tomatoes…

Strawberries, the most fragrant strawberries ever!

The tour guide said that most grapes like to grow trellis style except for one grape… can’t remember, but I think he said the zinfandel grape. We also learned that most of the grapes will be ready for harvest in just a few weeks.

My parents waiting for me because went back through the garden a second time.

It was just after lunch when the tour ended and it was a no brainer to do the food and wine pairing to test out all of the goodies from the garden!! I had the food and wine pairing and my parents both did a cheese and wine pairing.

These are just my first 5 wines…..

and then the desserts…

The box of caramel corn was in the cutest darn box, ever! It had the KJ sticker on it and everything!

My parent’s wine and cheese pairing…

On the walk out, these rose bushes reminded me of Alice in Wonderland…painting the roses red…these were not done yet.

Full, but still thirsty, we headed north to he small town of Healdsburg. How cute is this town?!? The urge to shop came quickly and I ended up walking with a marble-ish salt box (a salt pig!!!), a mini spoon to go with, a new bamboo cutting board, beautiful wooden spoons from Kenya, and a secret pencil box from India. The last two items were bought at a store called One World, Fair-Trade. If I had more room in my suitcase I would have gone even more wild!!

Oh we also hit up Murphy-Goode wines! What a goode time it was! Tasty too! The person serving our wine happens to be the neighbor of one of my favorite food bloggers!

We headed back home to have dinner with K+C. A Burmese fusion?!? A sampler platter with samosas, bean curd, spring rolls, and 5-spice grilled chicken makes me a happy girl. I also had a pot of chrysanthemum licorice tea. Interesting to drink flower water. Entrees were noodles galore!!! Delicious and stuffed.

Great great eating day!!

Sunday was centered around food again!!! Surprised?! We hit the Berkeley market after breakfast for fresh produce. The bright vibrant colors from the market blew my mind. Boulder’s market is good, bit Co can’t grow squat compared to California! Sorry Colorado!

Pops buying extra cucumbers and a red onion. He had plans to make my mom’s favorite cucumber salad. It’s made with cucumbers, red pepper, and red onion, all marinated in a vinaigrette. Two chocolate bars, an avocado, heirloom tomato, peach, and a bean salad later, we were ready to head back. That’s only my shopping list. K+C and my pops each had a full bag as well!

Lunch was perfect in all ways.