Honda vs. Cadillac...Honda wins!

What a week! Friday, last, Peter and I left for a nice weekend in Washington D.C. to visit his aunt. We are driving and driving and driving. In Maryland about 30 minutes away from our destination we are stuck in very slow going traffic. I decide to relax a bit in the car and am just staring out the window thinking about how this is the perfect weather/traffic condition for a car accident. 30 seconds later I'm screaming "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME" as we are being slammed from behind by a cadillac and being pushed into a mini van!!!! Being pregnant you really don't want this to happen. An ambulance comes because I obviosly need to be checked out. The EMT basically tells me that they are too busy to take me to the hospital. I ask "What does that mean?" She says "the hospital is too busy. so if we take you or if you go alone you are just going to sit in the waiting room for a really long time." So I decide to go on our own because with the ambulance we would get there just as fast anyway. I waited over 5 hours in the waiting room just to go into the emergency room and have them tell me that they can't do anything that i'll have to go upstairs to maternal. We get up to maternal. They were so happy to see me because they had NOTHING TO DO! I could have been in and out of the hospital in 3 hours if they just took me up there to begin with! So after a few more hours in maternal we finally get to D.C. at 4:30 am. Needless to say i've been a hot mess since then. That all changed yesterday (wednesday) when I got my ultrasound and all was good with the baby. No damage from the accident! Horray!!! After the appointment I breathed a big sigh of relief and went to Zen Palette in Union Square and had myself a big ass lunch of fried dumplings and sesame medallions!

By the way. IT'S A GIRL!!! Peter thinks she looks like Charlie Brown.

p.s. our honda civic (the white wolf) destroyed the 2 ton cadillac! that thing had to be towed to a junk yard after hitting us also the guy had no car insurance, that should be fun getting him to pay. oh well.

Thanks, galette's, corn, CB.

First. Thanks to all the congrat's on the post before this! I've decided not to ground the baby for 2 weeks. I'll wait to he/she gets into real trouble to do that. I'll keep everyone updated on what's going on with "the bay" here and there. But now to glorious food:



This is White Bean and Roasted Tomato Galette adapted from the Millenium Cookbook. The original recipe from the book is wonderful (except the dough, i alway's have to add more liquid), but i've made a few changes to make it more wonderful for me. I add more garlic, lemon and some other odds and ends that I can't really remember right now. I served it with a nice red leaf lettuce salad and some garlicky cauliflower which i'm obsessed with. In my world this would make a great dinner when you are having friends or family over because it's super easy, super delicous and everyone can have there own galette! I'm all for a meal where everyone gets there own "mini entree".



The galette's right out of the oven.



When I get hungry and there is no food around I dump some corn kernels in a pot with olive oil and pop em. Then I toss them with the tastiest extra virgin olive oil I have in the apartment and salt. Then I eat the entire bowl and end up with the oilest hands and face around. 30 minutes later i'm dehydrated as all hell and drink a gallon of water.



Now for a cute CB picture. There was a morning dove hanging out on the window sill this Sunday driving CB crazy!!! She was doing all she could to get through the window. The dove just watched her prolly laughing at her in his own dove way. Eventually the dove got bored and flew away. We can't keep our windows wide open in our apartment in nice weather if we aren't home because CB jumps into them with such force that we are afraid she's going to break though the screens(we are on the third floor.) My friend Cheryl has CB's brother and he has fallen out of the window doing the same thing! Luckily he wasn't hurt and didn't run away. I love her ears in this picture.

VwaV week continued..plus one and a 4 month old secret.

A typical tuesday night whole foods shopping meal...grain veggie burger. To make it fit into this special VwaV week I made the sweet potato fries from the book. This is one recipe that I nor all of you prolly need to follow but it was part of my "rules" for the week so I followed it anyway and they were delicious.



Brooklyn Pad Thai..i've been wanting to make this for a long time now. I love Thai food. Peter hates Thai food. I made it anyway. My sister had invited us over to her place for dinner that night but I coerced her to come over by us with the promise of Pad Thai and all the Zelda she wanted to play on our Wii Nintendo. She took the bait and the plans were changed. However I was the only one who liked the Brooklyn Pad Thai. Peter ended up going out and picking up a pizza for him and Nicole to share. I ended up eating the Pad Thai for dinner that night, breakfast the next day and dinner again the next night. It just got better and better.

The only real changes I made were the veggies that I used and I used lemon zest instead of the lemongrass because I forgot to buy some. I would make this again but i'll have to wait until April when Peter goes on a business trip for a week.



This is the plus one meal...I was in a very bad mood one night this week and didn't want to cook..didn't want to go out to eat..didn't want to do anything...but I had to eat..so I cooked up some broccoli rabe, sundried tomatoes and garlic in olive oil. I suddenly became in a better mood after eating this...and now for the reason of my bad mood which i've been keeping a secret for 4 months now.........



Peter impregnated me in November and we will be having a BABY! in August!! I was in a bad mood because over night my belly just popped out like that, my hormones were out of control, i was off balance all day because my belly button has decided to move to a new spot on my belly making my center of gravity all off and I was crying for no reason at all. I declared that night that the baby will be grounded for 2 weeks after his/her birth. This is also the reason I wasn't posting much these past two months..I didn't want to eat anything at all in the begining...I still dont' eat too much but my joy and love for cooking has returned which has made me VERY VERY HAPPY!!!

Vegan with a Vengeance Week

This is officially a Vegan with a Vengeance week in my kitchen. For no real reason except there are alot of recipes that i havn't tried out yet.



On a pretty spring-like sunday I made VwaV Lemon Gem Cupcakes. These cupcakes just scream to be made on such a nice day. They were so delicious and easy to make. I'm thinking about making them for easter and putting an edible flower on top of each one. I brought them to Peter's meat eating anti soy family's for sunday brunch and they gobbled them up, except for his dad who is the most anti soy person around. He didn't ask if there was any soy in it but i'm sure he figured there was. In fact none of his family asked. Strange but I don't really care.



Baking Powder Biscuits with Tempeh Sausage Gravy from VwaV. I never had real sausage and gravy but alway's wanted it. Peter said you couldn't even tell that it was made with tempeh. I was in heaven eating this meal.




Stuffed Shells with Tofu Ricotta from VwaV. I'm not a baked pasta dish type of girl. Come to think of it I never really liked ricotta cheese all that much. So when I picked up a box of jumbo shells at the store a few months ago I had reason to believe I was insane. After seeing the box of shells in my food closet for all these long days I finally felt bad for them and decided tonight was the night that we would put them out of there lonely misery and eat them. I had alot of fun making this recipe. I love sticking my hands in a big bowl of tofu and mushing it all up between my fingers and stuffing the shells was quite relaxing. My only issue with this recipe was the amount of nutritional yeast. I LOVE nutritional yeast, but felt there was just a tad too much in there. Other then that we happily ate them up and have extra in the freezer for another day.

80's tuesday

Peter and I go to Whole Foods every tuesday night to buy our food for the week. It's empty and they play weird 80's music every tuesday. We love it. This tuesday however I was so uninspired. I had no idea's as to what to eat for dinner that night let alone the rest of the week so I just started buying random items. When I got home those random items turned into my new favorite salad! Green leaf lettuce (which i never buy) chopped up, fennel sliced, cucumber sliced and an orange peeled and diced. For the dressing I squeezed the middle of the orange over each of our plates as well as whatever pieces of orange that was still on the peel from when i cut the peel off, extra virgin olive and salt from my new salt grinder that leaves nice chunks of salt all around. It's such a pretty and delicious salad. I would eat it a few times a week if i could.



Chimichanga's!! Oh how i love them..Crispy on the outside soft and chewy of the inside, filled with cumin-licious beans and of course topped of with guacamole.



We are crazy for salads. Mesclun greens, sliced radishes, raw sliced beets, red bell pepper and avocado. Simply topped with lemon, extra virgin olive oil and salt.