Tag Archives: Green Monsta

WIAW 2: Tuno

I’ve been playing around in the kitchen a bit since coming back from California. A little detox was needed after the crazy amount of fried fish, buffalo chicken sammiches and good Cali brews that I enjoyed in the sunshine. Tuesday was the initiation of cleansing foods, which ended up being delicious! Go figure.
am5My breakfast before getting back into the intensive workout regimen (after a wonderful vacation full of lazy mornings sipping coffee on the beach) – a hot boiled egg and two giant cups of coffee in an ugly rooster mug.
am11My ugly rooster mug collection! I keep finding these awkward mugs at Home Goods and they look at me like they need a home. I love it. I’m weird.
amAfter sweating my arse off with the workout, it was time for an icy cool down.
am1An entire box of spinach, half a frozen banana, 1 lime, a handful of frozen peaches and blueberries and a little almond milk whirled into a creepy looking brown beverage.
am2But dang, I love my monstas! No matter how unattractive, they’re always so delicious.
am3Lunch was an experiment with soba noodles. I’ve used them once before in a stir fry and wasn’t impressed. This time I mixed up a little sesame oil, tamari, lemon juice, minced garlic, powdered ginger, red pepper flakes and a dash of honey and tossed in freshly roasted broccoli and the noodles.
am4Soba noodles redeemed! Earthy noodles and a spicy, tangy dressing with fresh, slightly caramelized broccoli. Happiness.
am5Homemade trail mix on the way to Whole Foods – raw almonds, roasted walnuts and cashews mixed with a few dried cranberries. Simple and satisfying.
am6I saw this at Whole Foods and had to pick it up. Cherry Chia Kombucha. I used to drink Kombucha when I lived in West Hollywood and found it extremely weird. Add chia seeds to the mix and it becomes even weirder. I dig weird.
am7And then the back statistics made me feel all healthy and crap. Bonus! Does anyone brew (ferment) their own Kombucha out there? I might be joining you on the endeavor soon and would love to hear feedback!
am8Dinner: Tuno. It’s a little bit of a scary word… a frightening concept. Vegan tuna. Well, worry no longer: I put myself out there and experimented for you, and then took terrible pictures that don’t make it look appealing at all. *Hangs head in shame* Honestly though, this was absolutely amazing!
am13I tend to stray as far away from vegan foods as possible in rebellion of my 10+ year vegan bro and sis-in-law, but curiosity got the best of me. A blend of chickpeas, almonds, diced celery, red pepper, green onions, tofu (normally a blech for me, but unnoticable when blended into the “mayonnaise” portion of this), and kelp granules. Scary but good. I piled a good cup onto a bed of arugula and added sauteed asparagus to the side.
am9I felt like my meals for the day were almost too healthy, so I made sure to layer a bunch of this chimichurri sauce on a few slices of freshly baked crusty french bread. It’s all about balance.
am10Today is a day made for baking bread and enjoying the 60 degree weather we’ve been blessed with! Happy Wednesday!

Any Kombucha brewers out there who can offer suggestions/warnings?

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Draft Systems and Daydreams

I finally put together a study schedule from the master syllabus for my Cicerone exam! My day consisted of this:
Back to Monstas! Nothing like a liquid salad before 9am!
Study, study, study! Today was the beginnings of draught/draft systems and anatomy of kegs and couplers.
Lemony lentil soup with onions and spinach and Hi-5 Fiber bread from Great Harvest with olive oil and fig balsamic. Healthy, healthy, healthy!
All that topped off with a healthy dose of daydreaming.
Escaping back to Monday in Santa Barbara, celebrating my mumsie’s birthday!
Then I got back to studying. Kinda…
Another escape back in time to last week. But that’ll have to wait for another post…

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Simplicity: Part I

Sometime all you need in life is to sit back, relax and enjoy the simple things in life.
A beautiful, warm summer morning.
A hot boiled egg.
A green monsta made with a handful of spinach, splash of almond milk, a peach, 3 sprigs of asparagus, a lemon, half a banana and a cup of frozen berries. (Everything tastes better when it’s sipped from a pint glass…)
Super simple, yet simply Magical Bread Pudding


Life is good. Simply good.

Beer tasting tonight makes it even better!

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So. Much. Beer.

I have my Cicerone test to become a Certified Beer Server on Saturday, so my day was spent like this:
Healthy monsta to start! We had a peach that was about to pass its prime, so I threw it in the Vitamix. Nothing like getting two cups of spinach in before 9am!
Then I got down to business.
My plan was to start studying at 10am, and not stop until all fifty-six of these styles’ ABVs, IBUs and SRMs were memorized!
But then I started posting pictures of what I was preparing to study for on my Bites ‘n Brews Facebook page and forgot to actually BEGIN the studying part… (I was even wearing my Odell IPA sweatshirt to mentally prepare!)

Eventually, I DID get down to business! I spent a good three hours learning about the off-flavors you can encounter in beer, how adding oats to the brew creates an oily or silky texture to the mouthfeel, that lowering the mash temp will create a thinner, crisp finish, that umami surfaces in beer with a taste of soy sauce, that having DMS (Dimethyl Sulfide) present in the beer creates a canned corn taste…
Yeah. And that’s just a small part of the perception of flavor section.

Luckily for my sanity, I had plans to meet up with Janelle and her hubby, Andrew at Wades Wines for a beer flight night!
There wasn’t a style setup this night, unlike the previous beer tastings we’ve been to, but an introduction to some new beers they have on tap. I’d already tried both of the Heretic brews at Ladyface with Janelle last month, but needed another look.
Any brewery that has their own coasters AND temporary tattoos has made it!
Of all the four beers, the last two stood out most to me. Heretic’s Evil Twin is HOPPY! The Bruery’s Humulus Lager is… different. Big hops on the nose and taste, but they fade immediately after the swallow. Here’s the confusing part: Evil Twin = 45IBU. Humulus = 70IBU. Whaaaa? There’s a HUGE difference in the bitterness of the Evil Twin vs. the Humulus. Evil Twin almost bowled me over, but Humulus seemed pretty tame. I had to come home and find out how IBUs are rated.

I came home, ready to research how IBUs are determined, but I opened my fridge to this:
That’s not including the Dogfish Head Sah’tea and Labyrinth Black Ale I picked up after the tasting tonight… Needless to say, I opened a Boont ESB and promptly forgot about IBUs. Until tomorrow…

Random catch-up time! I asked on Twitter yesterday if pairing a CoCoNut PorTeR from Maui Brewing Company with a super spicy butternut squash and leek soup was a bad decision. Two people responded to me, recommending that I stick with an ESB instead…
I received those recommendations halfway through the bowl of soup and glass of porter. Oops. I’m happy to report that the coconut porter does NOT overwhelm the soup! In fact, I couldn’t detect any of the “hand toasted coconut” in the porter. It smelled like a dense, rich coffee porter stuffed with chocolate malts. I enjoyed a can (or two) to soothe my blazing mouth while I watched Black Swan.
It was an intense night.

And now, I’m going to retire to the soft couch that beckons me from the living room, and rot my exhausted, beer fact-riddled brain and watch a stupid comedy. G’night!

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Filed under beer, beer tasting

The Meal of my Dreams!

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day! It started out with a hike the national park, in 68 degree weather.
Followed the hike with half of an icy cold Green Monsta and a half serving of Kitchen Sink Salad. Half-back to the classics!
I’m practicing this newfangled concept of eating smaller portions and stopping when I’m satisfied. No idea how my roommate convinced me to go on this crazy journey, but I’m in for a ride!

Dinner was a beautiful mish-mash of different eating concepts. I made Angela’s Cranberry, Apple and Almond Quinoa, but added in a stalk of chopped celery to the onion and carrot saute, cut the salt in half, and used raisins instead of cranberries. I tried this recipe a few weeks ago, force-fed it to my roommates (who first tried my terrible, mushy Lemony Quinoa and swore to never consume quinoa again) and created quinoa-lovers! They actually requested it to be on tonight’s menu!

I also made Chicken with Pineapple Salsa from the Sonoma Diet Cookbook one of my favorite cookbooks ever! The combination of the acidic, tart fresh pineapple with the smoky spice of chipotle peppers will knock your socks off!
Roasted broccoli rounded out the meal, which we ate slowly, taking our time to chat and actually taste and enjoy the food! This concept is just so INNOVATIVE! Who woulda thunk? We even went so far as to use pretty placemats and tapered candles to make it feel like an event. Try this! It makes the meal so much more enjoyable!
This may, in fact, be the best healthy meal I’ve had all year. Hooray for leftovers!!!

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Filed under Dinner, Sonoma Diet, Uncategorized