As promised a food post

Hey all-

As I mentioned in the last post I was involved in my school's student recruitment the last two weekends. As a result I was able to see two broadway shows. God of Carnage which is now featuring Lucy Liu, and the new musical Memphis which opened fall '09. I absolutely loved Memphis which is about the birth of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s. The singing and dancing were outstanding and the dialogue was pretty humorous. I see a Tony nomination!!

As much as I enjoy recruitment I'm glad it's only a two week event. I ended up staying up until 5am Friday night/Saturday morning but couldn't sleep beyond 8:30am. Then I headed out into the Monsoon that hit the northeast last night for my friend's birthday party, but didn't stay out too late given my lack of sleep from the prior night (actually the night before as well) and loss of an hour due to the time change.

Today I started the day off with a large cup of coffee with almond milk.

I ended up doing my grocery shopping for the week at the local Food Emporium rather than heading cross or downtown for either Whole Foods or Trader Joes. As a result I ended up buying more frozen than fresh vegetables:

A)For the the price, frozen is generally much cheaper than fresh.

B)Food Emporium doesn't always have the best selection, although their local and organic options have increased since I first moved into the area.

C)Unless you know your vegetables are locally grown or organic, frozen vegetables actually have a higher nutrient content since they are picked at their prime and snap frozen to lock in the freshness. On the other hand the fresh produce is usually picked before it's ripe and generally matures via synthesized chemicals.

While shopping I was going to skip on my milk purchase because their soy, almond, and rice milks are about 2x what I pay at either TJ or WF. However, right before walking away from the dairy section I was surprised to see the new Almond Breeze's larger cartons of almond milk. For a half gallon I paid 3.99, not bad since the normal 32oz packing cost 1.99. I'm curious how much the half will cost at WF. Actually I'm curious how much it cost not in NYC, everything is so expensive here.

For dinner tonight I made two sides dishes that I have not whipped up for quite some time; they accompanied my baked tofu.

1st up sweet potato casserole with ginger snap crumble, modified original recipe found here. While this took a bit more work than my roast sweet potatoes, it was a nice Sunday evening treat.

Next up, kale chips. Simply wash kale and remove from stem. Place into a 350* oven until crisp.

Viola! I love kale chips, the taste of the green completely changes upon baking. I would say bake for about 5 minutes and then check them out, if they aren't crunchy enough then pop them back in, but I prefer chips that aren't too dark. I think I baked mine a little too long this go around and as a result only ate about 3/4 of my batch.

Off to bed I go, need to get back to normal sleep routine for the work week.

Nicole