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In the hot hot summer I especially enjoy these "cold dinners" of fresh seasonal vegetables. Tomatoes, corn, butter beans, and asparagus with yogurt-mustard-garlic sauce.
Today Neko and I had lunch with a good friend we haven't seen since last year, since she's at grad school at Columbia in NYC. Since she's in San Jose, we agreed to meet half way in Dublin. While the Dublin/Pleasanton area seems to be home to every. single. chain restaurant in existence, I did manage to scope out a promising sounding Afghani restaurant I found on yelp. It got good reviews, and we'd never had Afghani food before, so Royal Afghan it was. Overall it was a very pleasant experience. It was a bit like Indian food but the flavors are milder and "cleaner", if that makes any sense. I had cauliflower in tomato broth and sauteed pumpkin slices in olive oil and yogurt. The restaurant was very pretty and the service was impeccable. So if you ever happen to find yourself in the area, I'd recommend this place.
I have two more finals to go. For my chem final, the professor has a tradition of having a pot-luck lunch while he grades your final exam so you'll know what grade you got for the semester (or at least a very good idea). I'm bringing some vegetarian lumpia from Best Lumpia. (and they do make the best!)
I'm looking forward to this month wrapping up and the new things in my life happening. My stepmom is coming to town at the end of May and we're going to do a tasting with the caterer for the wedding. And on June 2nd I start my CNA training! Eee! I hope I look good in scrubs and a stethoscope :)
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1/4 cup plain greek yogurt (I suppose plain regular yogurt could work as well)
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 clove minced garlic (although when I'm lazy I use a dash of garlic powder)--this can be adjusted to how garlicky you want it
Balsamic vinegar (this is where I kinda fudge on the measurements)I just kinda pour some in there. It's probably around a tablespoon.
The juice from one lemon wedge--and obviously "wedge" is up to interpretation, but for me, it's a quarter for a lemon
Salt/pepper
Occasionally a dash of hot paprika if I feel like it.
I also use this as a salad dressing. If that's the case, cut the mustard down to 1/2 teaspoon.
This is basically a recipe for balsamic vinegrette, with yogurt standing in for the usual olive oil. I came up with this when trying to find a ceaser-salad type dressing that didn't involve gobs of mayonnaise or raw eggs. Now I use it as my standard salad dressing because yogurt has a lot less calories than olive oil.
What brand of Dijon mustard do you use?
I found out recently that I have gallstones, so I've been eating healthy. It's sort of like a forced Weight Watchers. I've lost like 30lbs in the past few months.
I've been scouring the internet for healthy/interesting recipes. So far I like cookinglight.com and simplyrecipes.com for their ideas.
Are you going to have a cholecystectomy? Or just have the stones removed? I suppose either way you're not supposed to eat a lot of fat, is that correct? See if you can find some fat-free greek yogurt. Again, Trader Joe's has it, but I suppose that's not very helpful to you. But greek yogurt is really the best because it holds its shape better. Other yogurts are too runny, IMO.
Check out sparkpeople.com They have this nifty tool where you can put in the ingredients and amount for a recipe, and they will give you a nutritional information thing for the recipe. It'll give you calories, fat, and nutrients. Pretty handy.
I also like recipezaar.com because they give the nutrtional information on all posted recipes. They're not all healthy, they have all kinds, but you can search for whatever you want.
I will have to check out Trader Joe's at Tops next time I go to into U.S.
Sparkpeople looks like a good site too, ty!