{City Girl Eats} A Food Wishlist

Around New Year's, I started seeing food wishlists from people.  They ranged from vegan food wishlists to greener eating wishlists to coffee flavors wishlists.  The magic of google is not allowing me to find any, but you get the idea. I know it's practically Spring now, but I wanted to share my food wishlist:

1. More non-dairy milk options beyond the grocery store - Don't get me wrong, I love that even Safeway now carries almond milk. And I love that coffeeshops offer soy milk, but I would especially love more variety for soy-avoiders and soy-allergics, like almond, rice or coconut milk.  And I really wish non-dairy milks were in general an easier option, especially with things like oatmeal or granola at brunch places, for example.  

 

2. Brown rice at Chipotle - Chipotle is pretty much the only fast food I eat, and my usual order these days is black beans with the fajita veggies, guacamole and salsa. It is delicious, but I would be all over the brown rice if they had any. I know Chipotle has only added two things to their menu until this year (the bowl concept and then the salad dressing concept), so I know they think about it for a long while. But they are also willing to make changes, like their Gardein bowl above, available at a few select locations, including one in Washington, DC.  Gardein is lovely, but it is stuffed with gluten, so gluten-intolerants do not get to benefit, and I know many vegans, aka Gardein's target market, that do not like meat substitutes. Also, total tangent, but isn't it amazing how Gardein is not meat, but totally looks like meat (see above). Anyways, I bet everyone would appreciate brown rice as an option at Chipotle. That said, go Chipotle for the Gardein.  I hope they roll it out nationally, along with brown rice. And while we are on the subject, vegan gluten-free tortillas and vegan whole-wheat tortillas would be lovely too.

3.  More brown rice in general - I really really wish that brown rice was always an alternative to white rice, whether for sushi, Indian food, Thai food - anywhere really. 

4. Greener restaurant-in- By this I refer to both restaurant practices (recycling, composting, see above for a picture I took at Sweet Greens) and suppliers. I cannot expect 100% percent local sourcing of ingredients (I am buying my greens trucked from California these days, because otherwise I would not be getting to eat any greens) but a concerted efforts towards local sourcing would be lovely.  Sweet Greens and Mixt Greens (see below) are good examples, but I wish I would see that more:

 5. More vegan gluten-free goods - I know from baking gluten-free that skipping eggs and butter makes it more challenging. But it can  be done. And there are so many gluten-free foods that would be vegan but-for egg whites (I am looking at you, Udi, because I keep hearing Udi makes the most amazing gluten-free pizza crusts and breads).  Surely, there must be a substitute suitable for commercial use.  In the meantime, I am going to keep baking my own vegan gluten-free items.

6. More balance - There seems to be this belief right now that unless things are doused in butter, wrapped in bacon and braised in cream, they are not rich and decadent.  I see it on restaurant menus, on cooking shows, and in magazines.  Bunny Bites has touched on this a bit in the context that plant-based foods can be delicious and haute cuisine, and she is right.   I also wish that tofu was not automatically deep-fried in so many restaurants, as it often is. 

5. No more brands swapping ingredients and compromising quality - an unnamed hummus brand, which used to be my very favorite hummus before I figured out how to make my own, seems to have swapped one of its core ingredients, olive oil.  Recently I picked up a container and noticed it had soybean and/or canola oil as the ingredients, and no olive oil to be found.  I would have been pretty annoyed to discover the switch if I was still purchasing this as often as I used to.

6. Sugar free decaf chai lattes - Chai lattes used  to be my absolute favorite beverage until I had to cut out refined sugars and caffeine.  Le Pain Quotidien rocks though, as they do have a decaf sugar-free chai. I wish that could be available at Starbucks and, well, everywhere.

7. Better food labeling at restaurants - Eating out when you have food allergies can be a leap of faith.  I love that many restaurants have specific menus showing what items are gluten-free, dairy-free and so forth, but ideally, you want the menu to be allergy friendly and the staff to be knowledgeable.

8. Vegan options - I have mentioned before that I often default to vegan options when eating out, since I avoid non grass-fed meat.  As such, I wish there were better labeled vegan options, not to mention more of them.

9. Vegan macarons - Macarons are small enough that their refined sugar content is less of an issue for me,  but I wish they were vegan.  Plus, I am a sucker for how pretty macarons are, so being able to eat them again and more frequently would be lovely.  

What about you? What is on your food wishlist?

Good Karma Gift Swap

I was so happy to participate in Kaileen Elise's good karma gift swap.  Kaileen organized it round-robin style such that I sent my end to someone other than I received from.  I sent my end to Jozen of Lola's Girl (I hope she receives it soon!) and received goodies from Laura of Butterfly Collector.  Laura sent me some lovely goodies:

I immediately fell in love with the planter set, especially when I read the note that Laura included:

The magnet immediately went up on my fridge. I can use all the pearls of wisdom I can get:

And I can't wait to read the book and use my lip balm and candles.  Thank you so much Laura, for a lovely swap.And thank you Kaileen for organizing this.

Macarons at Ladurée in Geneva

Back in 2008, when I was sampling macarons all over New York and musing that macarons were the next cupcake, (I called it an invasion of the macarons) I could not wait to go to Ladurée.

What a difference 18 months makes - now, I can't seem to turn around without hearing that macarons are the new cupcakes, but when I was in Geneva last month, my visit to Laduree was not quite as joyful as I would have hoped.   The whole no-refined sugar, no-dairy, no-eggs things really does not make dessert easy, though, from everything I had read, macarons should be naturally gluten-free. So yay for that, though that day I was more focused on how a near-vegan diet can be le sad at times. Most of the time, I revel in how much I can still eat on said diet and derive much enjoyment from the resulting good health.  Still, as you saw from the posts, we had a lovely day in Geneva, and, as for the macarons - husband had the date-fig, the blackcurrant and the pistachio.  He said that the date-fig was all date, so I renamed that macaron the Lara Bar macaron. Now I am just going to keep my fingers crossed for vegan macarons for our next visit.

 

{City Girl Eats} Sunergia Vegan Feta

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One of my favorite discoveries at Pangea Vegan Store was Sunergia Feta.  It is tofu-based and denser than actual feta, but has the same salty briny flavor. My favorite is the Mediterranean Feta, but I have also bought the Tomato Basil flavor.  I love that both are very low-fat and have a short ingredient list.  Initially I was using Sunergia Feta to top salads, but one night I decided to throw it on pizza, just to see.  While compared to Daiya cheese, it is not melty, Sunergia does hold its own in flavor.  Below, you can see Tomato Basil Sunergia feta on the left, and Daiya on the right - while the Tomato Basil did not melt like the Daiya, it got warm and a little gooey, giving the pizza a nice feta flavor.  While you can easily make tofu-based feta, it is nice to have the option to buy Sunergia's - I especially like the fact it is manufactured in Virginia, making it almost a local product for me. 

{City Girl Eats} A Few Time-Saving Tips in the Kitchen

Both Corporette and You and Me and Lucy had posts with great time-saving tips this week, and both included lots of tips in the kitchen.  I thought I would add my own tips, but focus specifically on the kitchen side of things, mainly because I get asked some version of the following question very frequently: How do you work long hours and yet cook most of your meals and bring lunch every day? I used to get this question before going on a very restricted diet last year, and I still get it now.  I think being organized is really the answer. It does not necessarily mean doing a lot of work either, I promise. Here are some things that I do that have consistently worked:

*Strategically prep on weekends - I think this is different for everyone and I really encourage you to find what works for you.  For example, the whole concept of washing and cutting up your vegetables for the week SO does not work for me.  I like my veggies freshly chopped too much to sacrifice that.  I used to "cook-ahead" majorly on weekends and freeze everything, but now I only freeze dishes when there are more leftovers than for a couple of days.  I still "cook-ahead" now, but it's either a quick dish (like a quinoa salad or dip) to bring for lunch at work, or components like tomato sauce or vegetable broth or dried beans that require soaking, cooking and freezing for future uses. 

*Rotate weekend prep activities - Some weekends we make meals that generate leftovers that take us well into the middle of the week, but some weekends we don't and generally keep cooking quick and easy.  Those as the weekends I will make a batch of tomato sauce or tackle dried beans or bake some crackers (I love this recipe).    

*Find your under-5-minutes meals - Baby spinach is my fast food. Seriously, I love this stuff - it can be turned into a tasty salad, made into a quesadilla, steamed in 3 minutes in the rice cooker, or used to scoop up hummus.  Speaking of hummus, that is another fast food for me - I use either canned or pre-cooked and frozen chickpeas (I just run those under water in a colander) and use this recipe. 

*Be flexible -  while husband and I do a weekly meal plan, we have stopped assigning specific days to specific meals.  We just make a list of meals for the weekend, shop for them, and slot them in according to our schedules as the week unfolds.

*Find the appliances that work for you - For me those are a rice cooker (similar to this one), a blender (which I will eventually upgrade to a Vita-mix. I would still love your opinions), a very old Foreman grill (which also needs replacing, any suggestions?), a coffee grinder that I use for spices and flax-seeds, and a 3-bowl food processor and a mini-prep.  I use the rice cooker maybe once a week for rice, but more like 3-5 times a week for steaming vegetables.  While you can absolutely survive with just a mini-prep or a normal 1-bowl food processor, I find that the 3 bowl set-up makes things go faster when I am making several things.  Your appliances should reflect how you eat, not the time savings tips they promise.  For example, a slow cooker is useless for me - I eat meat no more than once a week, generally less, and only very lean cuts that do not benefit from a slow cooker.  I also do not eat enough beans to justify a slow cooker and, should I feel like making a dish that could benefit from a slow cooker, I can just use the rice cooker.

*Make a master grocery list - I actually have three lists - spring, summer and fall/winter.  The contain the staples, so I just circle what I need and add items that I buy less frequently.

I Can't Wait for Spring

 

I cannot remember another winter where I could not wait for spring the way I am this winter.  I am always one who thinks the time goes by too fast, but these days, I am ok with it. Every day means another day closer to spring.  Last night, there was still daylight around 5pm, which delighted me. 

I was looking back at my last few blog posts, and it might seem that all I have done is sample vegan cheese and go to Switzerland (talk about an oxymoron, though if you are curious about how I survived not eating cheese there, click here).  Still, I am due for a listmania update type of thing, so here we go:

*Worked every day of January, up until I left for Switzerland.
*Visited my family in Switzerland (see here for various posts and pictures on my time there).
*Missed one big snowstorm in Washington, DC.
*Our flight was cancelled because of the second big snowstorm in Washington, DC.
*Managed to fly out before third big snowstorm in Washington, DC.
*Arrived in Washington, DC to witness probably the worst chaos I have ever seen at Dulles Airport - 4 hours went by between landing at the airport and departing the airport.
*The two days after going involved work and going to the grocery store to get ready for, yes, you guessed it, the third big snowstorm in this area. 
*Worked from home during third big snowstorm.
*The snowstorm them was beyond old at that point.
*Did I mention it barely snowed while I was in Switzerland, and it definitely was not snow that stuck
*On the cooking front, my new obsessions steamed spinach with tamari and sesame seeds and this buckwheat pizza crust (which I tweaked by adding quinoa flour). I have made both several time in the last few weeks. I also want to try to make this quinoa-chickpea flour flatbread.
*I bought dulse for the first time recently - while I was not in love with the recipe that required the dulse, I am loving dulse itself, particularly with avocado slices wrapped in nori.  Yum! 

And that's most of my news these days.  Between work and travel, it has been hard to indulge in collaging and just general being, though I am working on that. I have gotten in a couple of yoga classes at least. Thank you all for your lovely comments.  They make me so very happy. 

Are you hoping Spring arrives soon too?

A Day in Geneva, When the Sun Came Out

At some point around lunchtime during our day in Geneva, the sun truly came out. I was so happy to see it, and it was the perfect time to walk alongside the Lake. We saw the Jet de Genève fountain (it had not been on earlier in the day) which is one of the landmarks of Geneva.

This shot of the hotels on the Quai de de Genève is actually the landmark I associate with Lake Geneva even more than the fountain above.

 

And here are a couple of shots of the Lake: 

 

It was a lovely day - I rediscovered a city I had always liked (and lived close to for most of my childhood and teenage years) and husband got to newly discover it. As I remembered, Geneva feels much more French than Lausanne (which is where I lived for several years).