amuhlou

We’re Moving

amuhlou — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:59:34 +0000

As if the holiday season wasn’t bustling enough on its own, we’ve decided to add a layer of complexity by moving to a new home. We’re starting a new chapter of our life – one where we own, rather than rent.

A little over a year ago I wrote about why renting isn’t so bad. I still agree with my points in the article (and our choice of a condominium where some of those points still apply is no accident), however there are also some intangibles to consider.

A major reason we began to look into owning a place was that we have wanted to get a dog for quite some time. Not a necessity, but something that can certainly improve one’s quality of life. Our current apartment is not dog-friendly, and as we began the search, we realized how difficult it was to find a rental that included all the things important to us (read: kitchen & dog). Pets also incur additional rent charges and fees. We’re excited to search for our new pet once we’re all settled in.

We are equally thrilled to be moving to downtown East Lansing, MI. As they say in Real Estate, it’s all about ‘location, location, location.’ Our location is very walkable and we can’t wait to explore it more.

Now to hope that the weather holds out until we’re finished moving Saturday.

Comment Moderation

amuhlou — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:54:28 +0000

Just wanted to drop in and mention that I’ve enabled comment moderation on my blog for the time being. My site was getting overrun with spammy comments and I haven’t had a ton of time to keep up with it. I dislike moderation because I think it discourages discussion, but for now it’s the best option.

I’ve also changed my site to de-emphasize the blog a bit and made my portfolio the home page.

Where Am I?

amuhlou — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 18:44:05 +0000

I feel pretty guilty about letting the blog languish so I thought I’d take a minute to check in and say what I’ve been up to.

Honeymoon

Back in April Jason and I went to Hawaii for our long awaited honeymoon (we had been married for almost a year by the time of the trip). It was wonderful and we feel like we have some unfinished business there. We’ll definitely have to return someday! I took millions of pictures and if you’re interested, you can view my collection on Flickr.

Health & Fitness

Jason and I had achieved our goal weights prior to the honeymoon, so that was quite an accomplishment! Surprisingly, the trip didn’t undo all of our hard work either. We’re still working out as much as possible. Zumba is my absolute favorite workout, and Jason is working on his 5k time. I’m not as strict with the calorie counting, but I feel a lot more in control of my diet.

I also tried out acupuncture for my allergies, but it didn’t really seem to have long term results for me.

Food

I haven’t stopped cooking and taking pictures, but I have moved food posts over to Tumblr. I like how quickly I can publish posts there – for some reason I feel compelled to write more substantial posts here than I do on Tumblr. I’d like to find a way to pull tumblr posts into this blog.

We’ve also been trying out making our own soda syrups to use with the Sodastream we got as an anniversary present. Jason made a delicious cream soda. It has really been a treat to drink homemade soda with no weird ingredients!

Work

We have some exciting things on the horizon for our side business, hopefully I’ll be able to announce them soon! At our day jobs, we’re getting deep into Drupal development for websites, so that is promising to be a challenging experience.

I can’t believe how fast the summer has gone, but hopefully with the coming of fall I’ll have a bit more time to blog.

Meat-Free Week – Day 6 – Butternut Squash Risotto

amuhlou — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 04:11:29 +0000

For our last meal of the week we say farewell (or perhaps ‘good riddance’?) to winter with a winter vegetable risotto. I got the urge to make this dish after having an amazingly delicious butternut squash risotto at Markethouse Restaurant in Chicago. I put it on our menu for this week as our “experimental” dish and was pretty pleased with the results.

Butternut Squash Risotto

I read through many recipes before deciding on this one on marthastewart.com. I liked that the squash was cooked throughout and it used only 1 tablespoon of butter for the whole recipe. Somehow in my calculations, this dish came in at about 300 calories per serving assuming the recipe makes enough for 4 – I was expecting it to be a lot more.

Preparing the Meal

Risottos are not hard to make – they are more an exercise in patience than anything else. You simply can’t speed it up and still have good results. It’s definitely a dish where you feel like you’re truly putting your heart and soul into it.

The most difficult part was working with the fresh squash. They are very hard to peel, seed, and cut. It’s a pretty curvaceous gourd, so I would recommend a high quality, sharp “Y” Peeler. I do not own one and was really regretting it.

Impressions

Risottos are very rich by nature and this one is no exception. Any more Parmesan cheese and it would have been over the top. The fresh sage really brought the whole thing together, so I definitely would not recommend omitting it. I would make this dish again, but probably not until fall comes around.

Conclusions

Since I’m resting on Day 7, that wraps up our meat free week. It was a fun challenge to go meatless and I feel like it has acted as a sort of detox which my body can certainly appreciate. Hope you’ve enjoyed my little experiment!

Follow the Rest of Our Meat-Free Week

Meat-Free Week – Day 5 – Gnocchi in Marinara

amuhlou — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:01:58 +0000

Every week we plan for one very quick and easy meal. Often it’s a salad, but for this week, it was gnocchi. It’s not a glamorous dish by any means – I struggled to get a nice looking photo of it. Thankfully, it tastes a lot better than it looks.

Gnocchi in Marinara

Now, when I say we made gnocchi, I don’t mean I made those little potato dumplings by hand. Rather, we bought them from our local farmer’s market, boiled them, tossed them with sauce, and ate.

Preparing the Meal

I boiled the gnocchi according to package directions, which was 3-5 minutes for ours. I’m not positive, but I think when they float, they’re done.

I had some half-used cartons of broth in my refrigerator, so I boiled the gnocchi in that rather than water to give it some extra flavor (and to use up the broth). Meanwhile, I heated up some marinara as well as some frozen green beans as a side dish. I tossed the gnocchi in marinara and we were ready to eat.

Impressions

Though not something we crave, gnocchi is a nice change from the usual pasta and marinara combination. Our biggest problem is remembering to put it on the meal plan once in a while! It’s a nice, quick meal for those busy weeknights when you want dinner done fast. Beware of the “eyes bigger than your stomach” syndrome! Gnocchi may not look like a lot on your plate but I guarantee it’s filling.

Follow the Rest of Our Meat-Free Week

Meat-Free Week – Day 4 – Everyday Red Lentils

amuhlou — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:00:17 +0000

Happy St. Patty’s Day! Jason and I were pretty spaced out when we were planning our meals for the week, otherwise we probably would have had something more special for Day 4 of our meat-free week. Instead we’re going to India, with a lentil stew that’s unbelievably comforting and delicious.

Everyday Red Lentils

I saw Aarti Sequeira make this recipe for her mum’s red lentils on one of the first episodes of her Food Network show and I just had to try it. It was terribly delicious and I’ve become obsessed with these little legumes ever since. This recipe makes 4 generous servings at only about 160 calories each.

Preparing the Meal

I take some shortcuts when making this recipe and so far, I’ve had no complaints. Instead of dicing the tomato and onion by hand, I cut them in large chunks and throw them in my food processor. Everything just cooks down, so it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the final texture. I also use pre-minced ginger from a tube and pre-minced garlic from a jar which both tend to keep longer than their fresh counterparts. We skip the cilantro (because we’d have to buy an entire bunch just for this dish) and garnish it with a squirt of Sriracha instead.

Impressions

This is another tried and true recipe in our home. We absolutely love it but are afraid to cook it more often on the chance that we’d get sick of it! Neither of us had eaten lentils before this recipe and now I am on a mission to find tons of lentil recipes for our rotation (another great one is the Indian Dal Nirvana over at Steamy Kitchen). Their high fiber and protein content really fills you up for a very low calorie count – I’d consider them a super food!

Got any great lentil recipes for me? Leave them in the comments, or send me a message :)

Follow the Rest of Our Meat-Free Week

Meat-Free Week – Day 3 – Roasted Pepper and Goat Cheese Sandwiches

amuhlou — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:15:56 +0000

If you weren’t already aware, I’m a huge fan of Ina Garten, so Day 3 features one of her recipes.

Roasted Pepper and Goat Cheese Sandwiches

We don’t make these sandwiches very often, but they are a nice change from the norm. Goat cheese, balsamic vinegar, and basil – how can you go wrong (or should I say, ‘how bad can that be’)? I calculated this recipe serving 4 at about 350 calories each. It will vary wildly depending on your bread however.

Preparation

While this recipe is essentially an “assembly” style one, Ina has you roast the peppers on your own. I did that…Once. It was a huge pain and so now I use pre-roasted peppers from a jar. The peppers also are supposed to marinate for a few hours, so it takes a bit of advance planning if you want to eat at a reasonable hour.

Impressions

Being a huge fan of basil and balsamic vinegar, I really like these sandwiches. The idea of a roasted vegetable sandwich is a great one to build upon. Someday I may swap out the peppers for roasted or sun-dried tomatoes and the goat cheese for fresh mozzarella. Absolute heaven!

Follow the Rest of Our Meat-Free Week

Meat-Free Week – Day 2 – Fattoush Salad

amuhlou — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:24:00 +0000

I’m not going to lie, Day 2 of our meatless week was pretty much phoning it in. I originally made this salad to go with Chicken Schawarma, but we liked it so much that we eat it now as an entree. We have it at least twice a month, possibly more.

Fattoush Salad

I found the recipe on the Food Network website, nestled in a page of Lebanese side dishes. It’s light, refreshing, and very unique. I calculated it at about 6 servings of 206 calories each (the calories are mostly from the olive oil in the dressing). Aside from the dressing, I rarely measure the ingredients for this salad – I just chop up what I have and it always turns out great.

Preparing the Salad

Like the vegetable stew, this dish requires a lot of chopping. We actually prepped it the day before while we were already in the kitchen chopping up a storm for the vegetable stew. I combined the lettuce, mint, parsley, scallions, and Sumac in a container and stored it separately from the tomatoes and cucumbers. We use grape or cherry tomatoes because they’re usually more convenient and quicker to chop. The day we had the salad for dinner, all that was left to do was make the dressing.

Impressions

This salad has really become something we crave. It has a freshness that screams summer, and I’m hoping to grow mountains of mint and parsley this year so we can use them in our cooking. The herbs at the grocery store are pretty puny right now, but dried ones just won’t cut it for this salad. The dressing is very simple, so I’d also recommend using fresh squeezed lemon juice if possible (1/2 cup should be the juice of two lemons).

A note about the ingredient Sumac – I don’t consider it crucial to the dish. I was only able to find it at an Asian grocery store, in a huge container, and I’m not sure how much it really adds to the salad aside from an interesting visual. It resembles chili powder, but smells sort of like tobacco.

Follow the Rest of Our Meat-Free Week

Meat-Free Week – Day 1 – Vegetable Stew with Moroccan Couscous

amuhlou — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 01:12:25 +0000

The final push to the honeymoon is here and we’re kicking it off with a week (well, 6 days) of meat-free recipes. Jason has been prescribed the DASH diet (read: lots of vegetables) and I am always supposed to be eating vegetables for my allergies, so it’s a win-win. After a week in Chicago for a business trip, our bodies will appreciate a little break. Our lunches are dinner leftovers so they’ll be meatless too by default.

I thought it would be interesting to use my blog to keep track of what we’ve had for dinner and how we’ve liked it. First up, a vegetable stew for Sunday Dinner.

Roasted Vegetable Stew with Moroccan Couscous

For Day 1 I used Robin Miller’s roasted vegetable stew recipe. You serve the stew atop flavored couscous, which was my favorite part of the recipe. I calculated it at about 5 servings of 325 calories each.

Preparing the Meal

There was lots of chopping involved (Jason helped so we zipped through it) but otherwise it was very easy. I cooked the vegetables in the broth for longer than the recipe said in order to thicken it up a bit. I used all the roasted vegetables for the stew, rather than reserving some for use in other recipes.

Impressions

Jason enjoyed it but we both felt like it was missing something, possibly sweetness, possibly acidity, possibly butter
Not as good as leftovers for lunch the next day
Probably won’t make this recipe again, but it was a good way to fill up on vegetables and the roasted vegetable concept can easily be reused in a variety of different recipes with different flavors

Follow the Rest of Our Meat-Free Week

Melty Delicious Reuben Sandwiches

amuhlou — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:04:53 +0000

Rather than start my post off with a list of excuses as to why I’ve been so bad about posting, I’ll spare you and get down to business. For many, many months, Jason and I reserved one night a week to try out a new recipe for dinner. We ended up building quite a repertoire of go-to meals that formed the basis of our weekly meal plans.

Then, we started counting calories and exercising almost daily. The experimental dinners became less regular because it simply was easier to plan and prepare meals you already know.

Then came this week. Nothing really special about it but we’re suddenly in experimental recipe overdrive. Four of our six meals planned are new recipes, the first of which we made for Sunday dinner–Reuben Sandwiches. I must say, we totally knocked it out of the park with this one. Jason had never had more than a bite of a Reuben before but bravely tried it anyway. And he loved it. The only problem, as Jason said, is “now I can never order this anywhere,” because it probably wouldn’t be as good.

There’s nothing terribly complex about the sandwich itself. Just assemble, cook like a grilled cheese, and serve–but I had never made one before, so I was still unsure of myself. Turns out they’re pretty hard to mess up unless you walk away from the frying pan and let them burn.

Classic Reuben Sandwich

Ingredients

8 Slices Rye Bread (Swirl Rye is pictured above)
4 slices Swiss cheese
1/2 pound corned beef (best from a deli)
2 cups Sauerkraut, rinsed and squeezed of excess liquid (don’t rinse if you like a more pungent kraut)
Thousand Island dressing
Butter or margarine (we use Olivio Light margarine)

Directions

Heat a griddle or frying pan over medium heat, as you would for a grilled cheese sandwich.

Butter one side of the bread and place it buttered side down on a cutting board. Spread a very thin layer of the dressing on the bread. Cut a cheese slice in half and arrange both pieces on the slice of bread. Place 1/4 of the beef on top of the cheese, and then place 1/4 of the sauerkraut on top of that. Drizzle some dressing on top of the sauerkraut and spread a thin layer on the second piece of bread. Top the sandwich with the second slice of bread, dressing side down. Butter the bread slice facing up. Repeat for 3 more sandwiches (or put them all together at once, assembly line style).

Place the sandwiches in the pan and cook on one side until it becomes golden brown. Carefully flip the sandwiches and cook for a few minutes more until golden. Serves 4.