Category Archives: Trader Joe’s

by Becki | November 4, 2010 · 9:08 am

Weasel Crap Beer?!?

I woke up this morning, put on my gym clothes and was on the elliptical at the gym before my brain registered what was happening. 45 minutes at level 9 – I was dying! It was awesome.

I refueled with a slice of Great Harvest Whole Grain bread with peanut butter and some of Trader Joe’s Cranberry Apple Butter! This apple butter is ah-may-zing!

I went to the library to pick up a book for my road trip tomorrey. I finished “The Girl Who Played With Fire” this morning and wanted more! I had a hold on the final book in the trilogy, but it won’t be in for another month, so I splurged and RENTED the next book, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” for a whole dollar! I think a buck for a week is worth it, plus it supports my local library, which I would die without.

After all the book renting, I needed a big Kitchen Sink Salad to replenish my energy. This had 1/2 a bag of mixed greens, 1/2 of a chopped bell pepper, 1/2 cup egg white salad, 1/2 cup steamed lentils, 1/2 of a zucchini sauteed with herbes de provence and 1/2 of an avocado with a light balsamic dressing. Many halves make a HUGE salad!

Since it’s my last night at home for a few days, I went out to a local wine shop to pick up some fancy brews. I found the FANCIEST of fancy beers!

Let me tell you about this beer. Mikkeller Geek Brunch Weasel beer is brewed with the most expensive coffee in the world. This coffee is made by feeding weasels coffee berries. The berries go through their digestive tract and come out the other end, where they’re brewed into coffee: yes, the coffee beans are crapped out by said weasels. This coffee was added into this beer, which was then stamped with a $15.99 price for 15oz.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn’t have the guts to try it…yet. With a 7 hour road trip ahead of me tomorrow, it just didn’t seem like a good risk to take.

Next time!

After the search for beer, MORE refueling was needed! We ordered in thai food, because lunch yesterday just wasn’t enough! We split tom kha gai, pad ke mao, pad thai and pineapple fried brown rice. All the dishes had meat in them, which I avoided.

Luckily, even though I didn’t get the Weasel Crap Beer, I found plenty to try!

Oh beer, how much I’ve missed you!

First up: The Midas Touch! This one was a sweet pale ale, brewed with honey, muscat grapes and saffron. I’m not a huge fan of sweet beers, but this one had enough hops to keep me happy. I won’t be getting this one again, but I’d definitely recommend it to any wine lovers out there! You’ll love the sweet honey undertones!

I’d love to write more, but I have to finish packing for the long drive to Scottsdale, Arizona tomorrow for my new job! Woohoo! I’ll repeat for any new readers: I’ll be at the Carefree Fine Arts and Wine Festival from November 5th-7th, working at one of the artist’s booths!

Anyone in the Scottsdale/Carefree area want to meet up??

Beer Tasting and Homemade Pizza!

Last night, I went over to the boys’ place for beer tasting and homemade pizza! I stopped by BevMo on my way into town and was assisted by some incredibly knowledgeable, helpful workers who didn’t ignore me just because I look like I’m seventeen years old. Brownie points for that! I explained that I was trying to instill a sense of appreciation for beer in the minds of a certain gentleman who doesn’t like beer, and a certain gentleman who is satisfied drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, and we picked out some hefeweizens, ambers, stouts and porters for the tasting.

From left to right: Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, Napa Smith Amber Ale, Chelsea Moylan’s Porter, Boont Amber Ale and Franziskaner.

Dan was busy chef-ing so we set the brews in the fridge to chill while I documented the cooking process.

What is that, you ask? Let’s take a closer look.

SCISSOR-BACON OF COURSE!!! Dan got all fancy on us!

Since the boys were busy chopping, cutting and sauteing, I decided to treat them to a little serenade.

That note I’m playing right there is an L-flat.
I have no idea how to play the guitar.

We started our tasting with the Franziskaner.

I got a little excited and poured much too fast. Whoops.

I taught the guys how to fully appreciate a good beer. Let’s go through the steps:

First, hold the beer up to a light so you can see the color. (Having 1. First is kind of redundant, isn’t it? My bad.)
Second (see what I’m doing here? Calling back to my first mistake?), smell the brew and see what scents you can pick up right away.
Third (okay, I’ll stop now…), give the beer a good swirl in the glass, just like wine. This opens it up and the carbonation helps release some other notes you wouldn’t have noticed before.
Smell the beer one last time and see if you can distinguish anything new post-swirling.
Take a sip. Let it flow over your tongue and notice the carbonation, the flavors and the finish.

Malachi, the non-beer-enjoyer, actually liked the Franziskaner! He specifically said, “I like this!”. I was quite thrilled. Dan liked it as well, but I think he was just happy to have some free beer – he’s obviously not picky since he can drink PBR. Up next was the Boont Amber Ale.

This one was delicious! It had very strong notes of caramel in both the smell and flavor, and just a hint of sweetness.

Dan finished his masterpiece pizza while Malachi julienned some mint to put atop our salads, and we sat down for feasting.

OH EM GEE PEET ZAAA!

Freaking delicious! This was made with Trader Joe’s Garlic & Herb Pizza Dough, and topped with alfredo sauce, chicken, bacon, and copious amounts of wonderful cheese.

Utter joy!

The Napa Smith Amber came next. This one wasn’t my favorite – a little too light and watery tasting, not very memorable at all.

We moved ahead to the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, one of my favorites, which was liked by Dan, but not by “I don’t like coffee OR beer. Bwaaaaaa!”-Malachi. After sampling the stout, we had some of the Chelsea Moylan’s porter – this one had the same espresso taste as the stout, but was a lot smoother to drink. That, or I’d already had the equivalent of a beer and a half and was starting to feel tipsy and not as studious as I should have been. That may have been it…

Yeah, that was definitely it…

On a random note, here’s a lamp that Malachi made!

We played a rousing game of Pimps & Hoes (also known as Egyptian Ratscrew), then decided to head out to do some location scouting for a top-secret-insanely-awesome-epic film that Dan and Malachi are working on. DISCLAIMER: We did not drive after drinking. Every single place we went was on foot!!!

Well, hello Dan, with your fancy-schmancy camera standing in a dark creeper parking lot at 10:30pm beneath a ghetto street lamp.

We crossed back over the highway (my first time walking over a highway! I’m from Colorado, what do you expect?), and headed over to The Fox and Hound’s for some live music.

There was a Beatles cover band playing. It was pretty awful – after every song, they would drunkenly thank each other in character, “Thank you, Ringo. Paul, did you write that one? Cheers, mate!” until they realized that they should probably start playing another song.

We ignored them the best we could and started taking some more random pictures.

Malachi was not pleased with the bands’ creepy wigs and ramblings.

I also put my wristband to use! ID and credit card secure and no purse concerns!

Thanks, Banjees!

We waltzed back over to the boys’ place and made an impromptu movie about magic card tricks.

You’ll have to wait for Dan or Malachi to edit this and blackmail me on YouTube.

It was quite epic.

We dug up some dirty laundry and watched a few films that Dan and Malachi had made in school, an old Lonelygirl15 video in which I carry a riding crop (!!!), and then Malachi took ownership over Dan’s Facebook and Google account and left comments for everyone in the entire world– one is viewable on my blog under yesterday’s post! We finally passed out around 3:30am.

It was a good night.

I woke up this morning with only a slight headache, drank massive amounts of water and sat in on a pre-production meeting for the upcoming top-secret-insanely-awesome-epic film, then headed off to meet my friend Tanya for lunch.

Tanya recently became a vegan, so we went to Vegan World, a cute little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the middle of a shopping center in Studio City.

I got the pad thai with mixed vegetables and a thai tea. The food was wonderful, but there was just too much on the plate! The waitress looked worried when she came to our table and asked us if there was anything wrong with the meal – we reassured her that it was wonderful and got doggie bags.

I found a friend on my car after lunch! Everyone, meet Harris:

A PRAYING MANTUS!!! I think he read my recent blog post about putting him in hot dogs and came to threaten me. We talked it over and it’s all good now.

Don’t forget to enter the pottery giveaway! Just leave a comment saying why you need a piece of my deformed pottery, then link to my blog on your Twitter or Facebook 🙂

2 Comments

Filed under beer, beer tasting, Dan, filming, lonelygirl15, Malachi, pizza, praying mantus, Studio City, The Fox and Hound's, Trader Joe's

by Becki | July 30, 2010 · 9:18 am

Quasi-Gourmet

My camera was usurped this morning (the roommate is in Florida visiting his family), so here’s the photo-booth Monster picture of the day:

We had no bananas left, so this had 3 cups of spinach, 1 cup of unsweetened soymilk, 1/2 of a cup of frozen strawberries, 1/4 of a cup of frozen wild blueberries and the juice of 1 lemon.

It was definitely not epic. Ah well, we shall move on. I had a bunch of errands to do: one that took me to Costco, I.E. lunch. My lunch consisted of samples of chicken-apple sausage, turkey-pesto meatballs and teriyaki meatballs. Not very healthy, but when you’re on-the-go, you can’t be picky. Plus, free lunch is always good, even if it is too few calories :).

I was going to make Angela’s Cherry, Coconut Banana Bread, but alas, I could not find coconut butter. I tried! I called Whole Foods this morning to ask if they had it in stock: they transferred me a few times and finally told me that they had it in stock. I drove all the way to the store, dug through the baking aisle, and found coconut oil… When I got in line with my coconut oil and 10 cherries, I asked if coconut butter and coconut oil were the same thing. Turns out, they’re NOT! They told me they had it in stock, but apparently had sold out before I got there. Uncool. Whole Foods is on my $h!7 list at this moment >:(.

My cherries are pitted, frozen, and waiting to go on top of the banana bread!

I searched FIVE other stores to see if they had it in stock, and no one carried it! C’mon! This is SoCal: all the stores should carry these crazy ingredients! Alas, there was no CocoButta. I did find whole-wheat/sweet potato gnocchi at Bristol Farms, as well as Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. Half-win for them! I’ve tried to make my own gnocchi before with a recipe via Giada de Laurentiis, and that was a massive fail (Giada loves her salt. I do NOT!), so I think I’ll stick to store-bought from now on.

Dinner was the whole-wheat gnocchi with vodka sauce and grilled zucchini, and a glass of Dogfish Head IPA.

“D-Lish”, as my friend Duck-Duck would say :). I ate half of this bowl before I was completely stuffed. Whole-wheat gnocchi is amazing, and fills you up a lot faster than the regular gnocchi so you eat less! Win-win-win!

I saved some room for one of my chocolate bon-bons from Trader Joe’s (which Lynn coincidentally happened to have today as well! Random, eh?). I’m so stuffed that I could only have one, but I’ll try to fit a second one in later ;).

As for now, I’m off to watch AWtR, yet again. I’m a corny, naive and innocent lady, so I’ll be watching my sweet movie with another glass of Dogfish and bon-bons and NOT feeling any guilt! Tomorrey I’ll be heading out to see “Charlie St. Cloud” in theaters on the opening day! I’ll give a full review tomorrow night after work!

What movie are you dying to see?

4 Comments

Filed under Charlie St. Cloud, Costco, Dogfish Head, gnocchi, green monster, ice cream, samples, Trader Joe's

by Becki | July 6, 2010 · 8:15 am

Happy Belated 4th of July!

Ohhhh, dear! I fear I must attack you with another barrage of pictures since I was offline all weekend thanks to the LBM. So, let’s recap:

After Saturday’s KSS, I went back to the LBM house and tried the Mission St. Brown Ale. It had a good full flavor, but a little bitterness at the end, and definitely tasted a bit cheap. Not something I’ll be getting again.

I woke up early on the 4th of July (Happy belated Independence Day, all you Americans out there!) so I could fit in a good breakfast before work.

I had french toast! Woohoo! I had two slices of Trader Joe’s frozen french toast, sliced up two strawberries (plus one for a pretty garnish) and drizzled it with pure maple syrup. I had a huge mug of green tea with it and lounged around the house until work.

The green tea didn’t cut it. I got a major caffeine withdrawl headache at work, and went to pick up a small honey-almond latte and a tipperary bon-bon. Caffeine and sugar are made for each other!

Yummmm!

I met up with Vicky, her boyfriend Oliver, and Ashley for lunch.

We’re strange, yes.

I decided that since it was a holiday, I would have a big fatty sandwich from Stone Oven. I got the garlic basil chicken sandwich (Again. I’m boring, I know.) with basil pasta salad, and had half. So worth it.

After work, I swung by Trader Joe’s and Albertson’s to pick up some celebration supplies.

Ooooh, yeah! I finished the rest of my sandwich, a mini-bag of barbecue chips, two chocolate chip vegan cookies, a scotchmallow and apple pie truffle, and both of those beers. I tried a new one – Kostriker Shwarzbier. It’s a German black lager that was surprisingly light and tasty! There was no bitter taste which surprised me, considering it was a dark beer. I followed it with the Franziskaner – I know that I love Franziskaner, and just in case Kostriker didn’t turn out, I wanted to end on a good note. It ended very well :).

The only fireworks I heard were in the neighborhood park where I was dog-sitting. To answer your question: no, I didn’t go watch, or even see any fireworks. I enjoyed having a small party with the LBM, watching some really cheesy TV shows and drinking my good beer. I was even more happy with my decision this morning at 7:30am when I woke up to get ready for another full shift at work.

Today started with another round of french toast. I started with it plain, but it needed some color and health from the strawberries.

Now it’s healthy!

I had time to pick up a coffee before work, so I had no withdrawl today :). It was actually very busy today, which was nice because it made the day go by so much faster. My wonderful parental unit came to take me to lunch. We went to the Lazy Dog Cafe :).

When at the Dog, you must always start with their spicy edamame!

I got the Hawaiian Ahi Poke… AGAIN!

We split a big order of the nachos.

I ate too much. It was awesome. My parents rock :).

The rest of work flew by. I got home and had a big KSS.

This had half a bag of lettuce, 1/2 a chopped and sauteed zucchini, LIBERALLY sprinkled with HdP, 1/4 a chopped bell pepper, 1/2 a cup of warmed lentils, and 1/2 a cup of homemade egg white salad. The egg white salad at TJ’s was getting too expensive, so this was made with 8 hard boiled eggs that had the yolks removed, then the whites were finely chopped and mixed with garlic aoili mustard, finely diced red bell pepper, a touch of soy sour cream and 2 of the removed yolks mashed in to give it a little substance.

This will keep in the fridge for about 3 days before I’m too nervous to eat it again :).

Oh yes, and a Magner’s!

Dessert was too many of the vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies split amongst my roommates and me. There is no “off” switch on me when it comes to food lately. Let’s remedy that this week.

Now that I’ve once again bombarded you with photos, I’ll leave you in peace. I’m off to unpack from the weekend at the LBM house, and to go through some sides for an audition I have tomorrow right after class. Tomorrow’s blog will be very late – I’m having dinner with a friend in LA and I’ll be coming back after 9pm.

Enjoy your Tuesdays! Stay off the highways so I can live vicariously through you :).

1 Comment

Filed under beer, Independence Day, Lazy Dog Cafe, little blurry monster, Trader Joe's, work

by Becki | July 4, 2010 · 6:23 am

A Quickie

   A Quickie BLOG. If you make any snide comments on my title, I will know that you’re as immature as I am. And then I will eat chocolate because that will somehow make everything better.

   Because I forced you all into a picture-coma yesterday, today’s blog will be nice and short.

Morning Monster: 2 cups of spinach, 3/4 a cup of soymilk, 1/2 of a frozen banana, 1/2 a cup of fresh blueberries, lemon juice and ice.

Got to work on time, but didn’t have enough coffee to keep me awake. I dozed with my eyes open and then went to Paciugo for some caffeinated gelato (not really, but they do have affogato gelato where they pour shots of espresso over your gelato choices. Why didn’t I get that? I’ll have to try it tomorrow!).

I got a small with rocky road, amaretto chocolate chip, and Grandma’s Peneche which is a vanilla made with sour cream, and ribbons of caramel made from brown sugar. The owners of this franchise actually used their grandmother’s recipe for this!

Lunch was the boring but healthy usual:

A mini-spicy tuna roll with brown rice. Wheee.

Vicky and I decided to decorate our counter space a little more.

We have a lot of time on our hands…

Oh yeah, that’s right – we made Edward! We gave him some white-out fangs, some lip-gloss blood, and glued sequins to his abs so he’d glitter in the light.

Waaaaay too much time on our hands!

Work was typical. We got a stereo and I got to blast my insanely random mix of music – Owl City to Chumbawumba to Uffie to Greg Laswell to Taylor Swift. I’m cool like that.

After work I went over to let the LBM out, then swung by Trader Joe’s to pick up some KSS makings.

This had 2/3 a bag of chopped fresh baby greens, a chopped up zucchini that was roasted with olive oil and Herbes de Provence, 1/2 a chopped bell pepper, 1/2 a cup of Spicy Ranchero Egg White Salad, 1/2 a cup of lentils and 2 teaspoons of homemade dressing (1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon of olive oil and a small dollop of whole grain mustard).

How was that? Short and sweet! Now I have to head back to the LBM house where I will relax, eat a vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, and most likely fall asleep early since I have to work all day tomorrey.

What are you doing for the 4th of July?

6 Comments

Filed under gelato, kitchen sink salad, Paciugo, Trader Joe's, work

by Becki | June 15, 2010 · 8:09 am

Libraries and Infomercials

Is everyone loving their Saturday as much as I am? (I know it isn’t ACTUALLY Saturday, but it is for me!) If you have today and tomorrow off, you’d better be living it up – yay midweek weekends! Today consisted of some of my favorite things: Trader Joe’s, the library, bakeries, Natural Cafe and another library :)!

I realized this morning that the spinach at the house I’m dogwatching at was spoiled. I put it in a colander and it was all slimy and gross, so I came back to my house to make a big ole GM for myself and the roommates. Lo and behold, I got back and they were finishing up cleaning the blender. That’s right, they couldn’t survive a day without a GM so they MADE THEIR OWN!!!! Look what I’ve created! The only downside to this was that I had to make my own and only had about four blueberries to include. It came out kind of bland and chunky. I chewed my way through the glass.

I headed out to return some books to the library, get gas in my car, and on the drive back, passed by THIS!!!!

COMING SOON!!!! NEAR MY HOUSE! SO EXCITED!!!!!

We have a Great Harvest Bread Company by the house, and I’ve been trying to find time for months to go buy a loaf, but I always end up getting there after they close. Today, I got there and the door was open! Hooray! I sampled some of their cranberry-orange bread with whipped honey, and bought a loaf of 9 Grain bread – first ingredient is 100% whole wheat! Note to everyone: wheat flour and WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR are totally different! Always make sure the first ingredient is 100% whole, or something like oatmeal!

So pretty!

And delicious! (One tablespoon of flaxseed peanut butter on top)

After I’d calmed down from my indian/fresh bread freakout, I went and walked the Little Blurry Monster (who will now be known as LBM), and watched a P90x infomercial. Have you tried P90x? I’m dying to try it out – if their nutrition plan is suited for lactose-intolerant people, I’m going to hunt a copy down! The infomercial really inspired me, but not enough to get on the floor to do crunches. Instead I crunched this:

Not the smartest thing to eat, but I think I can forgive myself… yes, I definitely forgive myself.

Lunch was a cup of Progresso lentil soup with fresh spinach and a teaspoon of goat cheese mixed in.

This brand has a little too much sodium for my palate, so I tried to tone in down with a squeeze of fresh lemon. Very delish, but still a tad too salty.

After two hours of cleaning, reading The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud and rotting my brain with a little Food Network, I met up with one of my best buddies for dinner. We went to Natural Cafe and split “The Locals’ Favorite” which has avocado, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, tomatoes and onion on 9 grain bread. It’s also supposed to have garlic mayo but they left it off our sandwich :(. Healthier I guess, but I wanted that creamy garlic mayo!!!

I polished off my half and realized that I forgot to take a picture, but my dinner date was kind enough to let me photograph his.

Oh yes, they also included blue chips and fresh salsa. I may have finished them all by myself, AND had a huge chunk out of that piece of bread in the middle.

Finally, we headed to the library and spent an hour and a half perusing the shelves. I came back with even MORE books on homebrewing. I’m thinking of selling my surfboard in order to pay for some homebrew equipment. Any surfers or homebrewers out there with an opinion on this?

Now I have to go back to the house with no internet connection and walk the LBM, so I bid you all a good night. I looked over my day and realized that except for the goat cheese in my lentil soup, and possibly the chocolate chips in the granola bar, I was vegan today! My brother (who’s been a vegan for 10 years and counting) would be proud! Or he’d punch me in the arm just cuz I’m his little sister :P.

Oh yes, and a coconut milk ice cream sandwich and Mission St. Hefeweizen await me. Did I forget to mention that? 😀

8 Comments

Filed under chips, Dog walking, Hefeweizen, lentils, library, little blurry monster, Natural Cafe, salsa, soup, The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, Trader Joe's

by Becki | June 9, 2010 · 6:55 am

Gourmet Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday, all! I hope you all started off your morning as well as I did 🙂 GREEN MONSTAAAAA!!!

This baby has spinach, bananas, blueberries, lemon juice, soymilk and ice!

Cleaning the blender seems like a big ordeal, but it’s really easy! Just pour a little dish soap and hot water into the blender:

Press LIQUIFY:

Give it a few minutes to whirl, rinse, and you’re done!

After having my massive green fuel-machine (hey, that rhymes! I should get into poetry), I jumped on the trail for another hike up the hill. Today was completely empty and quiet and lovely, and there was marine layer hanging over so the bugs weren’t biting: the PERFECT day for a hike!

I got back and got spoiled by my roomie cooking up a semi-scramble.

We were running low on spinach, so this was made with a little spinach, yellow bell peppers, asparagus and zucchini roasted in herbes de provence. Have I mentioned how much I love herbes de provence? If I ever roast ANY vegetable, I love to cover it in HDP. It just makes everything taste more complex and warmer.

Next came a bunch of thrilling errands that had to be run – Home Depot for chicken wire to keep the rabbits from devouring the new vines, Petsmart to pick up chewies for the spoiled Buddha (nickname for the puppy), the library to pick up a book I requested a few weeks ago, and finally to Trader Joe’s!

I loooove me the TJ’s! For dinner I decided to make Jenna’s (http://eatliverun.com) channa masala recipe. I picked up chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans), canned diced tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, onions, tomato paste and ginger. Every other ingredient I already had at home.

After setting it all up, I chopped, peeled, minced and measured all my ingredients and got them in order. I’m a big fan of mise en place – a French term that means “putting things into place.” It also helps you clean as you go, so there’s not a huge mess in the kitchen waiting to be scrubbed when all you want to do is relax and enjoy your meal.

I caramelized the onions for 15 minutes, then went to the next bowl which contained my chopped garlic, jalapeno and ginger. After stirring that together, the next dish (the tomato paste) went in. I was supposed to pince (cook down) the tomato paste until it had formed a nice crust on the pan, but it somehow came out a little blackened. Next I threw in the seasonings which smoked up the kitchen a bit, then the chickpeas and tomatoes and garam masala.

After letting everything stew for a while to warm through, I squeezed lemon on top (and all over the floor), and plated.

Today I got Trader Joe’s garlic naan! It made the meal complete!

Even though I burned the tomato paste a little, it still tasted A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I only finished about half my plate before I was comfortably full. I’m working on eating until I’m satisfied and not gorging until I’m bursting at the seams: it takes practice! I sipped on a (durr) Fat Tire and enjoyed the evening.

After an hour I got a little sweet craving, so I whipped out the So Delicious mocha ice cream. I’m not a fan of coffee ice cream, so this is perfect to keep me from overdoing it. I scooped about a quarter cup into a mug and ate that, and after was totally content. Just the right amount of sugar in my system, dairy-free, and I didn’t want to go back for more.

Now it’s time for the season finale of “Glee”, so I must leave you all! Happy hiking, biking, and most of all: EATING!