A Few of My Favorite Things: UberFood San Diego

There was a point a few weeks ago where I Instgrammed out a picture of the current state of my refrigerator:

I believe my comment on the image was something to the effect of "I feel like a college student. All I have in my fridge is a little milk and some beer left over from a party." I didn't do it for any sympathy, more because I actually found it a little funny. 

A few days later, I Instagrammed out a picture of my dinner... a toasty bowl of Top Ramen.

I believe my comment on this image was something to the effect of "Continuing with the college-esque food theme going on in my house... being a working single mom is a lot like being in college at times..." Once again, I was just looking for the irony in my situation. Alas, someone was paying attention. Not being able to stand my lack of available, pre-made, good tasting and good for me food, the nice people at uberfood offered to deliver dinner the next week. 

uberfood is a new, farm to table food delivery service in San Diego. They bring healthy meals to families like mine and they do a great job at finding the sweet spot between sophisticated and kid-friendly meals. They delivered a free-range roasted chicken with grilled vegetables, aged cheddar mac and cheese, and an organic salad to my office so I could take it home with me. It was a substantial amount of food and the quality actually blew my expectations. It was the best food I’ve ever had from a recycled plastic container. 

Also, I think they were much happier with the next food pic I Instagrammed. :)

You can find their menu at www.uberfoodSD.com. They deliver to La Jolla, Carmel Valley, and Del Mar Monday through Thursday.

*Disclosure: uberfood delivered this yummy meal free of charge. Opinions and pictures are my own. 

Experiments in Happiness: "Meatless In San Diego"

Last week I talked a bit about my vision board, Happiness Bootcamp, and finding my theme for the year. Today, I'm going to tell you about a pretty substantial life change that I made around one of my theme words, ENERGY.

While for me, "energy" has a few different meanings (surrounding myself in the positive, not being tired all the time, having the mindset to be able to be a good parent and wife, etc) I realized the first step is to make a change to impact the physical part of this theme. Basically, I need to not always be exhausted. Since physical energy levels affect so much of your happiness, I decided to tackle that first. And since energy comes from our food sources, that's where I started. And?

I stopped eating meat.

I know that current diet fads are more about more meat and no grains, and that cutting out meat is not very vogue at the moment, but that is the direction I took. I don't really have a gluten allergy but I do have other health issues, mainly high blood-pressure and a history of heart disease and diverticulitis in my family, that made me weary of eating a high meat diet. After talking with my Doctor, she suggested going to more of a vegan platform, but we both felt that to be a bit extreme for me to launch into. So she challenged me to eat less meat and cut back my dairy intake. We had a follow-up appointment in four weeks, so I gave myself a month to see if I could do it, and if it made a difference in how I felt. 

That was six weeks ago. Six bacon, steak, chicken and pork-free weeks ago.

Additionally, it was also 12lbs ago. 

It became a challenge to me to see how long I could go, and I just did it. While there have been moments (of PMS) that I have wanted to swing through the Carl's Jr drive-thru and shove a bacon cheese burger in my mouth, for the most part it hasn't been that hard. Since it's a diet thing and not an "animal" thing, I am still eating fish and having the occasional egg.

But contrary to popular belief, I'm not just sitting around eating pasta and grilled cheese sandwhiches. In fact, since I'm limiting dairy, I haven't had a stand alone piece of cheese in 6 weeks either. Yes, I've had cheese sprinkled on things or lightly added into a dish, but I have not sat down and gotten personal with a wedge of brie or a loaf of cheddar in over a month. 

So, how do I FEEL? 

Actually, I feel good. I'm not bloated anymore and no longer have that "too full" feeling after eating dinner. While I'm still tired a lot, I know it's not from what I'm consuming. What I am consuming is a lot of greens and "clean food"; Kale, arugula, beans and fruit have become a go-to for me. I'm having raw almonds and avocado and some whole grains like brown rice, quinoa and farrow. I've been so bored of food that it's actually been a nice change-up for me. Having to go outside my comfort zone for food, I've discovered a few things that I really like that I hadn't thought of eating before. 

I'm not sure this is a permanent change for me, but the funny thing is that I don't think I'll go back to chicken.. I do miss a good steak, and I'm sure this summer I will need to break down and eat carnitas at some point. But right now I'm almost afraid to. My digestive system has adjusted, and I fear what a burger may do to it. 

An interesting side note is that it's caused me to start cooking more and experimenting in the kitchen. Tonight I made a toasted quinoa and kale salad, the other day I used "hemp hearts" on a salad (que college drug paraphernalia joke). I've never paid attention to the vegetarian area of restaurants menus before, and I'm kinda digging this change up in my diet. 

Experiment Outcome: So far, so good. But I can't guarantee I won't be swayed by a good 'ole Santa Maria tri-tip sandwich in the future. 

Get Ready For Valentine's Day! How to Make the Perfect Cosmo from Jo-Lynne Shane

If you are going out or staying in, single or celebrating your 25th Valentine's together, this cosmo is the perfect pinktastic Valentine's day drink. My girl Jo-Lynne, from Musings of a Housewife, shares her PERFECT cosmo recipe!

ingredients:

• 3 ounces (2 jiggers) citron vodka (Don't skimp. Get the good stuff.)
• 1.5 ounce (1 jigger) triple sec (or cointreau, if you don't mind spending a few extra pennies)
• 1.5 ounce (1 jigger) cranberry juice
• juice of 1 lime (or about 3/4 ounce)
• ice

instructions:

1. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.
2. Add the ingredients.
3. Shake and pour!

Download the recipe and check out the rest of Jo-Lynne's pretty pictures here. 

And if you are looking for a yummy dinner idea to go along with it, check out her Herb Chicken Rose. 

*Big THANKS to Jo-Lynne for sharing her recipes with me!

Delicious Dish - Pasta Heaven

I think we can all say that we are looking a little closer at the things we eat these days. Not just from a dieting calorie counting stand-point, but from a healthy lifestyle view. Movies like Food, Inc and shows like Jaime Oliver's food revolution have really brought to the forefront the idea behind trying to eat simpler, healthier and not so processed food. 

I struggle with this daily. I love food and love to eat good food. I'm not happy replacing items that I love with things that are just over-processed and lower in fat/calories. Earlier this year, I started seeing a naturopathic doctor regarding some recurring issues. Since I've been seeing her, I've learned a lot about treating the underlying issue, and not just treating the symptom. An idea so simple that I'm working on approaching my diet the same way.

Over the past week I was introduced to two similar fresh and easy pasta recipes from two very cool bloggers - ModChick's Lindsey and PureMama's Juli. Both were simple, fresh, easy and OH SO DELISH. 

Over at ModChick, Lindsay made her family a summer pappardelle with tomatoes and arugula. Go check out her pictures and tell me your mouth is not watering. I dare you! While I'm not not a fan of tomatoes (that's actually putting it nicely), I know that Jason loves them and that he would so dig this dish. And arugula ON your pasta?! I had never thought of that, but lemme tell you.. I may never eat pasta without it again. 

Then last Saturday night my friend Juli from Pure Mama's had us over for dinner. She told me she was just whipping up some simple pasta, but I will say that nothing about this pasta was simple tasting. Juli sautéed some green beans, asparagus and garlic and in a separate pan mushrooms. She made some Angel Hair noodles, tossed in some olive oil - then served the pasta, the veggies with fresh parsley, toasted pine nuts, some parmesan cheese and a squeeze of lemon. Simple, easy, fresh and heavenly!

With these thoughts in mind as I ran to Trader Joe's at 5:00 yesterday (obviously, I'm insane), I did a bit of a mash-up between the two pastas. Jason's had the tomatoes, while the rest of us had the peas and asparagus mix. 

The arugula, cheese and lemon made the dish for me, with the added hint of bacon crumbs rounding out the flavor with that touch of salt. 

The kids liked it, Jason liked it - and I actually COOKED something which made everyone happy...  we were in Pasta Heaven. 

iPhood

The other day I was going through the photos on my iPhone to show someone a picture of how big the kids have gotten. Scrolling through the stream of images I noticed that I had a bunch of blurry, out-of-focus shots of the kids, but nestled in between these soon-to-be-deleted memory wasters were tons of pictures of, well... food.

Food from various restaurants. Delicious food. Beautiful food. Food I tweeted about. Food I posted pictures of on FB. Interesting, lovely dishes and pieces of items I've consumed. I think I may have a problem. Or, at the very least, a new blog feature.

Join me - as I give you a tour of my iPhood.

 YU ME YA Sake House

The first stop on HipMamaB's iPhood Fest (HMBiPF) is Yu Me Ya Sake House. A local Leucadia GEM of a restaurant, this is a tiny little place right on HWY 101 which boasts one of the LARGEST Sake collections I've ever seen. 

Did you know in Japan, sake is served cold? And did you know that much like wine variations, all sakes have a distinct taste to them based on region and water? All things you will learn at this amazing little place.

And little it is. Unless you make a reservation (which they only take Tues-Thursday) or get there as they open at 5:30, there is a good chance you wont get in. I think they can seat about 40 people at a time, and with the tapas style menu, people tend to hang out, savor the food and sip sake and take their sweet time. No matter how hard you glare at them from the waiting bench. 

If you are one of the lucky ones to get in - you MUST MUST MUST order the spicy tuna tartare (pictured to the left), the BBQ Beef salad and fried yams. And just a warning, while the serving of the Spicy Tuna tartare includes 2 wantons filled with YUM, order one serving per person...or you will just get mad and want to throw your chopstick at your partner. 

Ono Sushi at Eat.Drink.Read

A few months ago Jason was tapped to help out the San Diego Council on Literacy for its annual fund raiser, this year called Eat.Drink.Read. This culinary event for literacy was a perfect fit for us as it involved 3 of our favorite things - good food, good wine/beer, and raising money for Literacy (if you've ever seen our bookshelves, you are nodding your head in agreement). 

Many of San Diego's top restaurants were in attendance, offering up some mouth watering bites. One that particularly impressed me were these yellowtail sushi rolls on a stick from Ono Sushi. 

Honestly, I have no idea what it was. But it was crunchy in the middle and had a hint of truffle/truffle oil and I ate about 10 of them. 

Another winner from the night was Urban Solace's watermelon mint salad and duck on a cracker amuse bouche (yes, I learned that from Top Chef). 

The event was a great success and lots of money, and awareness of what the council does for San Diego, was raised. 

Counter Burger, Carlsbad

A few weeks ago Jason and I managed to escape for lunch on a day when Zoe is at her sitter and Lucas is at school. Wanting a GOOD BURGER, we headed up to Counter Burger.. or "The Counter. Custom Built Burgers" our new fave burger joint. I pull out my iPhone and "checked-in" on Foursquare and up pops a message:

"CONGRATS! You are the new mayor of Counter Burger, Carlsbad!"

I duck under the table horrified while cursing the stupid app that really has no good reason to exist. Other than, of course, the competition between a few of us trying to oust Rock on Mommy as mayor of Target Encinitas. Alas, my reign was short lived (THANK THE GOD OF Embarrassment and me having to admit that I eat wayyy too many hamburgers) and now I solely rule over Paper-Source. 

Since we know the menu at Counter Burger like the back of our hands, we kinda just order the same thing each time - and on the side the 50/50 fries and sweet potato fries. We really don't deviate much. Then something caught our eye: "Parmesan French Fries".. do we break tradition? We went for it and OHMALORD were they divine.

Needless to say, I really need to stay away from that place. 

Flippin' Pizza 

When Jason and I went to NYC a few months ago, we were prepared to be blown away by the pizza. I mean really, IT'S NEW YORK CITY! Unfortunately for the Big Apple, but lucky for us, we did not think anything we had there was as good as our local NYC-style pizza place up the street - Flippin' Pizza. 

Our friends from NYC turned us onto this place when the La Costa branch opened last year. It's a small place, but super kid-friendly, serves beer and wine and you can order pizza by the slice. This means we no longer have to fight with Lucas over his wanting "cheese, no sauce". Also, for the past 6 or so months they have $1 slices on Tuesday nights. Since it's across the street from where Lucas and Jason do karate on Tuesday nights - it's become a no-brainer dinner option. Until word got out. See, while I love to see my local faves be successful, the line OUT THE DOOR the other night forced us to have to chose another option. And now things are really going to get bad...

Last week Jason and I went to an event where they officially introduced their new item - the Pinwheel - to the public. With a choice of a meat pinwheel or a veggie one packed with spinach, these are pretty much rolled-up pizzas minus the sauce. Wanna know how good they were? Lucas, age 6, ate FOUR of them. He wanted a 5th, but the rest of us had finished eating 30 minutes prior so we put the kabosh on that request. These Pinwheels are ridiculously delish. And that's a good thing because they are going to be replacing the $1 slice night with $1 pinwheel nights...but it may also be a bad thing since now we may NEVER get in again. 

***

And yes, there are more to come...This weekend I took part in Chevy's Best of Tours where we roamed the streets of San Diego looking for the BEST fish taco (and driving snazzy cars!). And since proclaiming myself a "wanna-be foodie" I think I'm going to have to make this a regular blog feature.

Although, maybe I should really start thinking about reviewing various work-outs around town to counteract all this yumminess.