Monica tries to cook...

Hello! It's been a while. We went on vacation to Atlantis in the Bahamas, with a stop at Universal Studios, FL. It was a lot of fun, but I'm really sick of restaurant food! There were some amazing things I would love to recreate... notably, the coconut french toast I ate for breakfast every day, a "super high fibre" muesli, and Bobby Flay's blue and yellow corn muffins with flecks of red jalapeno from Mesa Grill. But by the end of the trip, I was craving homemade food and dying to cook for myself. So I'm glad to be back home in my own kitchen. Things will be a bit busier now that school has started, but I've whipped up a few easy things so far; everything else has come from the freezer (for which I am very grateful). For one lunch I made Greek Salad Pitas with Feta Spread and Turkey from Ellie Krieger's book So Easy. I don't have a photo or anything, but they were tasty and easy and I'm fairly certain I'll make them again.

The focus of this post, however, is the Mocha Java Smoothie from the same book. As you can see from the photo, it is creamy and delicious and was a fabulous breakfast. As the recipe notes, it's your morning coffee AND a filling breakfast. The banana gives it substance while remaining in the background flavor-wise. The coffee and chocolate are more prominent, but next time I'd love to do a double shot instead. Best of all, this is one of those recipes you can prep for the night before. You can put all the ingredients in the blender, sans frozen banana and ice, and have breakfast in mere minutes. I love to make smoothies and take them in a to-go cup - I have one with a lid where you can fit a straw perfectly through the drinking hole. When I'm done I can toss the straw and close the cup, if need be. My smoothies in the past always focused on the fruit, with little in the way of protein, but I'm really liking Ellie Krieger's smoothies with milk and yogurt. This one is my favorite so far (and probably will be overall), but I look forward to making up a few of my own as well.

I've been sick for the past week. Horribly sick. I haven't cooked ANYTHING all week. We've eaten a lot of random takeout and a few things from the freezer, or simple stuff like pasta. I've been dying to cook something, but still don't have all my energy back. We had a whole bunch of bananas going brown on the counter, so I wanted to bake something with them. It was between these Espresso Banana Muffins from Super Natural Cooking and the Moosewood brownies on the 101 Cookbooks website - both use espresso powder, which I got for Christmas and really wanted to use. The muffins won (obviously).

The flavor profile is genius, but the texture is not for me. That being said, I made some adjustments, so maybe I ruined them. Or maybe they are just like that. I only had sweetened french vanilla yogurt, so I reduced the sugar and vanilla to 1/2 cup and 1/2 tsp. I'd like to try it the right way next time, and maybe add baking soda to see if I can get them to rise more.

See you in 2011! :)

This is my blog, and so I can write about whatever I want. Whether or not anyone reads it, I write it mostly for myself and so I can choose whatever topics I want. Mostly I write about things I have made, but I want to write about some things that inspire me as well.

When I visited France, I was a vegetarian. They don't understand what that means. Most conversations went like this:
"I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat meat."
"So chicken, OK?"
"No, I don't eat meat. Chicken is meat."
"Then fish?"
"No, I don't eat meat. Fish is meat."

Then I ended up eating delicious, but not so nutritious "crepes avec Nutella" literally every day for lunch.

There is a little place in Ocean City called Ma France Creperie that brings that back for me. Even after a week of "crepes avec Nutella" I wasn't sick of them. Sweet crepes... mmm. We've been there a handful of times and I've gotten to try some delicious varieties of dessert crepes. (Savory crepes, and savory breakfasts in general, do not appeal to me at all.) I've had the simply prepared sweet crepes with lemon juice and powdered sugar, the "tatin," with grated apple, the "Melba," with sliced pears and a delectable homemade dark chocolate sauce.


This past weekend Ken wanted to go, which worked out perfectly since I was hungry, and he ordered a classic - La Pomme Figue, which I'm fairly certain is the only thing he's ever ordered there, and if you could taste it you would understand why. Sliced apples, sliced dried figs, brie cheese and almonds folded neatly in a dark, buckwheat crepe. This is what I meant when I said I wanted to write about things that inspire me - I would love to find a way to recreate this at home. I'm not sure it's possible, but I would certainly like to try.



I ordered the crepes with Nutella, fresh fruit and whipped cream. I walked in desperately wanting Nutella and bananas, but that particular combination wasn't on the menu. When my plate arrived in front of me I saw a mound of sliced strawberries - yum. I was fairly satisfied, but as I dug deeper into the dish I found the sliced bananas I had been wanting. It was amazing. The whipped cream was delicious, too - something I can normally do without, but it had a fantastic texture and wasn't too sweet at all.


They have some lovely espresso drinks as well - Ken likes the caffe ligeois, espresso with whipped cream. I had a soy mocha. I love how they serve the lattes in a bowl. :)