recipe: peanut butter & spinach smoothie

peanut butter and spinach smoothie

I’m still on a breakfast kick. Or rather, I was until I found a new favorite breakfast I love so much that I eat (drink?) it 5 times a week.

Yup, it’s a smoothie.

This smoothie is a twist on mowz bil-laban (banana milk), a drink consisting of just bananas blended with milk that I’d buy at juice stands on the streets of Cairo. Over the years, when making banana milk at home, I’d tweak the recipe here and there. I’d add a mango or handful of strawberries here and there. I’d top off the smoothie with a couple pinches of slivered almonds here and there just before serving. Then I started freezing bananas because I would purchase so many I’d have to freeze them before they went bad. What I then discovered was an accidental miracle, adding a frozen banana to a smoothie suddenly gave the drink a milkshake-like consistency. I haven’t looked back since.

The idea for a breakfast banana milk came when I was standing in line at my favorite work day lunch spot. They have a  banana, kale, almond milk, and almond butter smoothie on the menu that I’ve never tried, but sounds delicious. I made my own adaption at home a couple days later, but with peanut butter. My poor little Oster beehive blender couldn’t quite blend the kale into the consistency I had hoped, so the next time I made the smoothie (and every time since!) I’ve used spinach. As much as I love kale, spinach is a much better candidate for smoothies because you can’t really taste it once it’s blended with fruit and milk. What really makes this smoothie a meal not a drink are the cacao nibs added at the very end. Cacao nibs are raw chocolate, with the crunchy consistency of macadamia nuts and deep bitter chocolate taste. I used to only make banana milk as an evening treat, so every morning I feel like I’m eating dessert and every night I can’t wait for breakfast.

Peanut Butter and Spinach Smoothie

2 handfuls spinach
1 cup milk of your choice (I use almond)
2 teaspoons peanut butter
1 banana, frozen and broken into 2-3 pieces
1 tablespoon cacao nibs

Add the spinach, milk, and peanut butter to your blender and blend until smooth. Once you have a smooth mixture, add the frozen banana. Blend again until completely smooth. Pour the drink into a glass and top it off with cacao nibs. Enjoy!

Serves 1

i got married!

Paper flower bouquet and boutonniere by Floral Loft in San Francisco

On April 2nd, I married the love of my life! We purposefully kept things quiet. We married on a Tuesday, but only told our parents the Saturday before. They were all incredibly excited (and secretly wondering when we’d be getting married anyway!), but my dad was so excited he booked a last minute flight to San Francisco to spend the day with us. Neither of us wanted a big wedding, so we went to the beautiful San Francisco City Hall to make it legal. It was just my dad and two of our friends in attendance. Our friends, Maggie and Josh, were kind enough to spend the day as our paparazzi. They ended up taking 1,700 photos for us and video of the ceremony itself, which our parents will certainly appreciate.

San Francisco City Hall Wedding

San Francisco City Hall Wedding

Ice Cream Bar, San Francisco

After the ceremony at City Hall, we shared champagne and lunch at Cafe Zuni, which was followed by old timey sugar-filled goodness at The Ice Cream Bar. Dinner was devoured at a neighborhood favorite, Nopa. Cory and I then spent the night at Chateau Tivoli, a wonderfully creepy Victorian mansion converted into a bed & breakfast. We stayed in the Luisa Tetrazzini suite, named after the 19th century opera singer who frequented the mansion. The bed we slept on once belonged to Charles de Gaulle. Weird, but cool! We had an absolute blast, and were very thankful that our friends and my dad could share our special day with us.

Chateau Tivoli, Luisa Tetrazzini Suite

I’ve managed to dwindle down the 1,700 photos to 286. That’s still a lot, but feel free to take a look at the album on Flickr. Although our wedding was a very small affair, we still did a fair amount of planning. Here’s a breakdown of many of the details that went into our wedding day. I highly recommend everything, especially the paper flower boutonniere and paper flower bouquet from the Floral Loft and Susie Chhuour’s make up and hair wizardry.

Attire:
Paper flower bouquet – The Floral Loft
Paper boutonniere – The Floral Loft
Suit – Banana Republic
Wedding dress – Dolly Couture
Dinner dress – Anthropologie
Mustard kitten heels – ModCoth
Pearl necklace – Ruche
Gold leaf bobby pins – Etsy
Hair and makeup – Susie Chhuour

Eat:
Zuni Cafe – I love snobby pizzas.
The Ice Cream Bar – everything is good. Bring a camera for excellent photo ops.
Nopa – book reservations at least a week in advance.
Sweet Maple – morning after breakfast. Get the deep fried french toast and millionaire’s bacon.

Sleep:
Chateau Tivoli

recipe: baked eggs with bacon & avocado

baked eggs with bacon and avocado

Lately, I’ve grown tired of my usual breakfast fare: a plain egg, some manner of citrus, yogurt with chia seeds and a dollop of jam on weekdays and oatmeal or fried eggs, bacon, and potatoes on weekends. Weekends are my time to experiment with new breakfasts, and I think I’ve found a new regular. This dish includes a combination of my three favorite ingredients: cheese, bacon, and avocado. Heavenly. And I’m super stoked that I finally have a reason to use those individual pie dishes from Crate&Barrel that I just had to have.

This is the first new recipe I’ve posted here in almost two years. I keep intending to returning to blogging on a regular basis, but something else always seems to pop up. I still cook regularly, not as much as I used to since I joined the 40+ hour a office job world. Perhaps now I that I’ve finally posted a new recipe, I’ll get back into the swing of blogging again. I certainly hope so!

Cheesy Baked Eggs with Bacon and Avocado
(adapted from Use Real Butter)

1 tablespoon olive oil or melted butter
4 eggs
3-4 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup roasted red pepper, chopped
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes
1/3 cup steamed kale or spinach, chopped
a couple pinches of dried thyme
2 strips bacon, crumbled
salt and pepper, to taste

1 medium avocado, sliced

Pre-heat oven to 375F. Butter or oil ramekins or individual pie dishes. Add two eggs each to the ramekins. Season eggs with a few dashes of salt and pepper. Layer the ramekins with shredded mozzarella. Add the red pepper, tomatoes, and steamed kale to the ramekins. Bake for 10-15 mins, take the eggs out around 10 minutes if you prefer runnier eggs.

Once the eggs are done to your liking, set them aside for a few minutes to cool off. While the eggs are cooling off, slice an avocado. Sprinkle crumbled bacon over the eggs and top it off with the avocado. Serve immediately.

Serves 2

recipe: kale & cheddar gratin

Do you eat kale because it’s a nutritional power house? That’s fine and dandy, but this probably isn’t the kale recipe you’re looking for.

For me, this dish is a lot like mac & cheese without the mac. It makes a delightful side dish.

Kale Gratin

1 pound kale, washed, stemmed, and cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour (I used all purpose)
1 1/5 cups milk (I used whole)
1 cup extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated
salt & pepper
1/2 teaspoon turmeric (optional, for color)
a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
a tablespoon of olive oil, for greasing the baking pan

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Wash, stem, and chop up the kale into small pieces. Add a couple tablespoons of water to a large stockpot and add the kale. Cook the kale over medium heat for about 2 or 3 minutes, or just until it’s started to wilt. Drain the kale through a colander and squeeze out a little bit of the liquid. Let the kale continue to drain as you grate the cheddar cheese.

In a skillet, melt the butter over medium low heat. Stir the flour into the butter, then add the milk a couple tablespoons at a time, stirring constantly until the mixture has formed a thick and smooth sauce. Add salt, pepper, turmeric (if using), and nutmeg. Add in the cheese, stirring constantly until melted.

Grease a baking pan (mine was 8″ x 8″) with olive oil and add the kale. Pour the cheese sauce over the kale and tip the baking pan back and forth to make sure all the kale is covered in cheese. Transfer to the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until bubbling. If you’d like the gratin to have a nice brown top, add it to the broiler for 3-5 minutes.

Serves 6-8

–

Originally posted in January 2011

Sun Araw – Deep Cover

I am completely obsessed with the Hotline Miami soundtrack. And no, I haven’t even played the game.

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About

Why, hello there. My name is Rose. Originally from Flint, Michigan, I now call San Francisco home.

I enjoy corgis, cooking, vidya, and the internets. Cory is my favorite person.

deal w/ it

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