BrightAppleGreen: 2008

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Seafood Sandwich

This recipe is not only a no cook recipe, but is one of my favorite things to make for lunch. I'm a typical college student who is strapped for time so I don't like to cook for lunch. I find that Safeway sells this amazing seafood salad in their meat section; it's $5.99 and it makes up to four sandwiches. Plus, it's about the same price as a package of deli meat. Here's a picture of it:

For some reason, I wouldn't want to tweak this combination of ingredients. Each element seems to go really well with the others, plus the potato bread, seafood salad, cheese, and avocado are such a pretty combination of summery colors.

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Seafood Sandwich

Serves 4.

1 package of potato bread buns
1 package of Salads of the Sea, Seafood Salad
4 slices of medium sharp cheddar cheese
1 ripe avocado, sliced

Arrange ingredients onto 4 buns, with cheese on the bottom, then seafood salad in the middle, with sliced avocados on top.

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This day, I ate Pink Lady apples with my sammy. It was the first time that I tried them. I usually like to eat Fuji apples, but I decided to branch out. Apparently, Jennifer Connelly has said that she eats 3 of them a day. I liked them too, but not THAT much!

Pink Lady apples have a really interesting background. First of all, I must say they really are pink! They have a really distinct flavor - kind of sour but still pretty sweet. According to orangepippin.com... "The marketing effort has particularly targeted young women, and has resulted in Pink Lady apples being promoted in such unlikely settings as the Glastonbury music festival, as well as in women's magazines, and cross-marketed with Barbie dolls. Pink Lady even has its own website - www.pinkladyapples.co.uk. The marketing effort for Pink Lady focuses on lifestyle rather than flavour, and having achieved about 10% of the UK market in a very short space of time, it is clearly working." It's so weird how the color pink is like every marketing executive's dream. There's the pink blackberry phone, the pink Nintendo DS, "Pink" the Victoria's Secret brand... How funny that it actually works!

Sloppy Joes and Cornbread

Cooking for myself is great for a lot of reasons. I get to control how healthy and nutritious my food is and I get to pick stuff that I love to eat. Growing up, I really loved sloppy joes. I never got to eat it at home, just occasionally whenever my school cafeteria happened to serve them. There is something I've noticed about the recipe though. A sloppy joe is made as if you took the inside of a hamburger, (onions, ketchup, mustard, and beef), put it in a blender, and then put it back onto a bun. No wonder they taste so good :). Anyhow, if you're going to do sloppy joes, which are quintessentially American, might as well serve it with a slice of cornbread. Some recipes online even suggest serving the sloppy joe mixture over the cornbread! Below are recipes for my take on sloppy joes and for honey butter to serve on your cornbread.

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Sloppy Joes

Serves 5.

1 pound of extra lean ground beef
1 whole green pepper, finely chopped
1/2 a large yellow onion, finely chopped
6 oz can of tomato sauce, no salt added
1 cup of ketchup
2 tbsp. spicy sweet mustard
1/4 tsp. pepper
salt to taste
5 whole wheat hamburger buns

Spray skillet with nonfat cooking spray. Cook green pepper and onion. Add ground beef and break up the beef while cooking until beef is crumbly. While the beef, peppers, and onion are cooking on the stove, combine the remaining ingredients into a large bowl and mix thoroughly. As soon as beef is no longer pink, add the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes.

Cornbread with Honey Butter

1 9x9 inch pan
1 package of Marie Calendar's Original Corn Bread Mix
1 15 oz. can of whole kernel corn
4 tbsp honey
4 tbsp Smart Balance (or butter)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Follow directions on the back of the package for the recipe containing real corn (it tastes better!).

Stir equal parts honey with equal parts smart balance in a separate bowl until fluffy. Voila! Instant honey butter. It is a divine combination :)

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Tote Bag - E is for Environmentally Friendly

The last time I went to Berkeley Bowl, I swear I didn't see a plastic bag in sight. Everyone had brought their own canvas bags. It's a great thing that this is catching on. I just have to make sure to remember it as I'm leaving the apartment on a grocery run.

I went to Joann's and bought the biggest canvas bag that I could find. This thing can fit an amazing amount of groceries. I'll have to sew in a piece of vinyl or something to reinforce the bottom, though, because a lot of groceries can get heavy. I loved this yellow "E" that I found. I think my bag looks very collegiate and it's UC Berkeley colors of course.

Sweater Pillow

So I finally made my pillow which also required me to learn how to use a sewing machine. My roommate Diana graciously taught me how to thread the needle and bobbin. I decided not to use terry cloth because I saw this cute blanket made out of a thermal/sweater material at Target for $10. The great thing is, the material has lines on it which made it easy to guide my sewing. I bought a 24'x24' pillow from Joann's. Click the picture to see an enlarged image.

Materials:

Sewing Machine
Thread
Towel or other large piece of fabric
Ready-made pillow insert (24'x24')

Instructions:

Click here to be directed to Martha Stewart's website.

The Best Fruit Salad

This is, in my opinion, the best combination of fruits for a fruit salad especially since tropical fruit is my favorite kind :).

1 ripe Mango
1 Red Papaya
2 Kiwis
1 small container of Raspberries

And, because it's always fun to see why certain delicious foods are good for you, here is some nutritious info about papayas:

"The most common use for papaya is to aid digestion. Papayas are the only natural source of papain, an effective natural digestive aid, which breaks down protein and cleanses the digestive track. This means less food settles into the metabolism and becomes fat, making papayas’ natural digestive properties an advantage to people trying to lose weight — especially for people who may cheat on their diets, said Homero Levy de Barros, president and CEO, Caliman International.

But in addition to assisting the body in digestion, papayas pack a nutritional wallop. Known as a “nutritional masterpiece,” papayas are rich in vitamin C, folate, and potassium. They are also good sources of fiber, vitamin A, vitamin E, the eye-saving carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, and lycopene. A papaya has a lycopene level of about 2,000 ug per 100g (or 3,000 ug in one slice of papaya of 150g)."

Source: http://health.learninginfo.org/

Martha Stewart Crafts

Marthastewart.com had listed some crafts that I thought were adorable. My next project will be the terry-cloth pillows. But, I'll list the other ones here that I thought were particularly clever. The pictures are linked to their respective web pages.

Terry Pillows

One of the reviewers of this craft on the martha stewart website said that she lies on these when her hair is wet. That's a great idea, but I want to make them because terry cloth is easy to wash and is a very cozy fabric.

Picnic Blanket with Tarp

I thought this was such a great way to keep a blanket relatively clean when sitting on it outside.

Tote Bags

I need another big canvas bag to bring with me when I go grocery shopping. It would be fun to decorate my own.

Jewelry Box

Jewelry boxes are quite expensive and this just seems like a very unique, inexpensive, and organized way to store jewelry.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Summer Crafts

Pencil Box

Materials:

1 small cardboard box
extra small pieces of cardboard
1 sheet of scrapbook paper
Hot glue

The pencil box was made out of a cardboard (raisin) box. I simply wrapped it up like a present, leaving the top open of course. I pasted extra cardboard to the inside of the box to reinforce it. I also kept it kind of tall so that it wouldn't fall when it had pencils inside of it. The letters were bought in a box of metal letters from Michaels.

Recipe Box

Click to enlarge image.

Materials:

1 wooden box ($2.99 at Michael's)
1 pack of glass beads (for the border on the top)
1 pack of metal letters
2 sheets of pretty scrapbook paper
brown ribbon
1 sticker sheet of letters
3x5 cards

The orange swirls and brown ribbon were inspired by a pretty wedding invitation that I saw in the craft store.

Summer Colors Pasta and Blackberry Cream Cake

Melissa, her boyfriend Griffin, and I made a great dinner tonight. We just sort of made stuff up as we went along and it turned out great :). Melissa and I tried to go to the Market Hall in Rockridge, but we were disappointed that it's not a true farmer's market like I thought it would be! I was expecting a lot of produce, but it seems more like a pastry, cheese, wine, and high end packaged food store. So, off to Berkeley Bowl we went. It was my first time being there and I can see why people love it! Their produce selection, of course, is their claim to fame. But they had a nice selection of other items too, like yogurt! I got some honey Greek yogurt which I fully intend on finishing within the next few days. This was our menu:

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Summer Colors Pasta

Serves 4.

3 large handfuls of spinach leaves
1/4 pound of prosciutto
2 tablespoons of artichoke hearts from a jar
3/4 cup sliced baby yellow, green, and grape tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Penne pasta
Grated Parmesan cheese
Sauce:
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup white wine
sprinkle of salt
sprinkle of dried basil

Cook pasta separately. Pan sear the prosciutto. Remove from pan. Spray pan with non-stick cooking spray. Toss in the garlic. Cook tomatoes and spinach until the spinach is fully wilted. Add prosciutto and artichoke hearts. Stir. Add the creamy wine sauce. Let simmer on low heat. Toss pasta in with other ingredients in the pan. Serve with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

Blackberry Cream Cake

Serves 6.

Okay, so this dessert wasn't quite a torte and wasn't quite a parfait, but I can't really explain what it is... sort of a combo between the two! Melissa showed me how to make whipped cream using a blender and it came out more like custard, but I think I liked it better that way.

1 small package of blackberries, washed
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1-2 teaspoons of sugar (basically, sweeten to taste)
Sponge cake

Blend the cream and sugar (sweeten to taste) on the "whip" setting until it is thickened to the consistency of either whipped cream or custard. Spread the whipped cream over a slice of sponge cake. Top with blackberries. Voile! Super easy, pretty, and yummy.

Fall Clothes

Oh, August... the first of many months that we can look forward to big sweaters and leather boots in stores! The new fall line is always fun to browse through after a long summer of bright tanks and shorts.

I've been looking at two of my favorite (yet, unaffordable for me) sites and have put my favorite stuff here with the links... just in case anyone out there is curious about any item.

And, even though I can't really buy this stuff without experiencing a load of buyer's remorse, it was still fun to put together outfits using clothes from the anthropologie website.

I'm glad yellow seems to remain a popular color and I hope the wide-leg trend catches on a bit more. It's still difficult for me to find tops and shoes that complement that pant shape. Drop-waists are also gorgeous and flattering, so hopefully that will be big.

FREE PEOPLE