The angel and the devil

Yesterday I made it until about 2:15 p.m. until my hormones inevitably kicked in and made me cry. I had nothing to cry about unless you too would cry if, on your way to go see “Inception,” a car cut your husband off and you told him to honk at the car, and he said,”Well, do YOU want to drive, then?” Yep, that made me cry, lol. Oh, and the movie made me cry. “Inception” is NOT a chick flick, by the way.
But before that, at least it was the ideal Saturday. Christian and I went for a very nice bike ride through the neighborhood,then stopped by Starbucks, sat outside, read the paper and surfed (well, Christian did. I read). Then we came home and had our leftover goulash from the night before, and I swear it gets better with age. The sweltering 101-degree El Paso weather knocked me out and put me into a deep sleep for over an hour.
When I woke, it was time to go see the movie which I honestly didn’t really get into (don’t tell Christian). May have been the hormones, may have been the fact it was like “Vanilla Sky” with the ending being completely a mystery. Or maybe it was more than two hours long, and I couldn’t go pee as often as I’d like (I have horrible vision in the dark and didn’t want to step on everyone’s feet.
After the movie, we did our usual run to Barnes and Noble to sit in the cafe and flip through magazines we can’t afford, have great coffee we shouldn’t be drinking, and to people watch.
Came home to catch up on e-mails, news and to clean up the apartment (and took some random photos of my desk for your amusement, lol)
and then tried to decide on what to make for dinner.
Since we had some leftover ranch beans from almost a week ago (they’d been frozen), LOTS of ground beef that couldn’t be refrozen, Swiss cheese, cilantro, tostada shells and jalapenos that needed our immediate attention, I decided to make “Angel and Devil Tostadas.” Two tostadas for each of us: one vegetarian and one a meat monster.
I browned some ground beef with sliced jalapenos, cumin and tomato paste and slathered the mixture on two tostadas. Then I reheated the ranch beans and did the same to the other two tostadas. Chopped up some Swiss cheese and sprinkled it on all the tostadas, and made a side salad with lots of tomatoes and cilantro to put on top of the tostadas.
DELICIOUS! While both were great, I think I am a meat monster fan, or my iron levels are dropping. I scarfed the meat version down like there’s no tomorrow, and took a little longer with the bean version. But I definitely cleaned my plate.
I love tortillas and tostadas for their versatility, and hope to make a fish version soon, like the Baja or Southern California fish tacos served with cabbage, mayo and lots of lime.
Do you have a favorite tostada recipe you want to share?
•••
Tonight we’re going to an El Paso Diablos baseball game over on the other side of town. I haven’t been to one since my dad took me and my brother as small children. The Diablos, for those of you who don’t know, well, sort of don’t play well. They JUST broke a 13-game losing streak. They’re playing the Pensacola Pelicans, and I’m honestly not going for the sport of it, but for the people watching sport. We wanted to pack a dinner to take with us, but the website says “No Outside Food or Drink.” Oh yay. We get to be held captive by an overpriced concession that will sell $5 small, under-iced cokes, horrible hot dogs, greasy popcorn and MAYBE nachos if they don’t run out of cheese. Any Cohen Stadium veterans know of a nice park to picnic at that is very near the stadium?

Slaw for sinners

I guess all the overindulging, excusing myself for extra desserts, lattes, second helpings and even thirds, my body decided enough was enough. At least last night. All I wanted for dinner was VEGGIES. Lots and lots of veggies, and COLD. Our swamp-cooler-controlled apartment (it’s an El Paso thing) gets scorching hot if the oven is used for even heating up a piece of bread, and I had had enough of sweating over the stove.
While Christian relished his Köttbullar left over from the other night (thank god for the microwave that does NOT turn the apartment into a furnace), I “indulged” in my new creation of what I call “Sinners’ Slaw,” a Cabbage Soup Diet, cold version, so to speak. Basically, this is what it consisted of:

• 1/2 head green cabbage, shredded
• three large hot pickles, sliced, and 1/4 jar of the juice of the pickles
• One can 4-bean salad (garbanzos, kidney beans, green beans and wax beans)
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon dill

This slaw is great on a steaming hot day when all you want is a cold, crunchy salad with a little bit of veggie protein. Normally I would also add some slice jalapenos, but last night I even managed to wean myself off of those, just to spare my growing baby yet ANOTHER day of extreme spice.
So, I had the protein from the beans, the Vitamin C and fiber from the cabbage and beans, the cool taste and texture, and a clear conscience.
Who knows what today will bring, food-wise. I AM going to try to avoid the totally-unnecessary Starbucks desserts and extra lattes from now on, and focus on the most nutritionally dense foods I can.
Well, MAYBE I’ll have a chai latte on my way to work today…and the leftover Sinners’ Slaw for lunch as a compensation
I still crave bread (in every way, shape or form!) and hot spices, but now cabbage????? Since I’ve stocked up on the stuff, perhaps you too have an unusual recipe for cabbage, red or green? Anything you make with cabbage that makes your family ooohh and ahhhh?

Nervous wreck

It’s 4:15 a.m., and at 8 a.m. I have my second prenatal doctor’s visit, and I’m just a nervous wreck! I’ve got to stop surfing around online about pregnancy after 35, CVS testing, NF testing, symptoms, complications, etc. Ughhh. The more I read the more worried I get.
I don’t know if I’ll have to have a CVS test…I guess I will find out today, since it’s only done between 11-13 weeks’ pregnant, and today I’m officially 11 weeks 3 days pregnant. One part of me wants to have it done, because it will rule out many problems, AND it determines the sex of the baby more than a month earlier than just by U/S, but another is definitely not wanting a jab in the stomach to have the placenta played with. And not to mention the complications THAT could involve!
Other than that, I have NO idea what other tests or procedures are done at the second visit, especially since I’m a high-risk pregnancy. I’m hoping that I’ll have another U/S, because I really want to hear the heartbeat again and see if he or she is romping around in the amniotic sac as a baby should be doing around this time.
I feel a bit sick, but I think it’s worry, and not morning sickness, as well as a little stress from work and just THINKING TOO MUCH! I had absolutely no energy left when I got off work yesterday, and came home and crashed on the sofa for about an hour. Then I got up, and motivated myself to make some healthy bread, using the bananas I had left, rapidly withering in the beyond-warm apartment. SO, I made my “banana/raisin brick bread.” A sweet, yet healthy bread I can slice and toast and serve with cherry jam. Didn’t measure, but eyeballed it, but here’s what it included: (approximate measurements)
• Two cups bread flour
• One cup rye flour
• One cup spelt flour
• 2/3 cup raw oats
• 1/3 cup cashews
• 1/2 cup raisins
• two very ripe bananas
• One cup apple juice
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 2/3 cup sugar
• One teaspoon salt
• 1/3 stick melted butter
• About 1 1/2 cups water
• One package active dry yeast in 1/2 cup warm water

I just mashed it all together by hand, mind you (what a workout!), greased a Pyrex dish, preheated the oven to 350, let the dough rise for about 45 minutes, and cooked it for just under an hour, until the crust was golden and the inside moist but thoroughly cooked.
And it was great! If you like super-dense bread that sticks to your ribs, has a nice mellow sweetness and no preservatives, then you might want to take a try. I happen to like the very nutty, earthy denseness provided by the rye flour, but it can be made with just unbleached bread flour, and usually is, and taste great. I just like the whole grain option. Makes it a bit less “sinful” for me.
Since I was tired, stressed and not up for slaving over a hot oven last night, I decided it would be “breakfast for dinner” night. I ended up making just plain old scrambled eggs (with lots of fresh pico de gallo to spoon on top) and cheese toast, made from the potato bread I bought at the Mountain Top Mercantile in Cloudcroft. Basically a grilled cheese sandwich, without the grill marks. And a green salad. Simple, nutritious, frugal and just hit the spot in terms of comfort eating.
NOT that it stopped me from having a slice of reduced-fat banana-chocolate chip coffee cake at Starbucks afterwards, though. Lol. I win some, I lose some. Or rather, I win some, I gain some.
So I’ll be living off of my banana-raisin brick bread for a few days to come, trying to find various incarnations for the slices. French toast? Banana and peanut butter sandwich? Slathered with Nutella? Well, I guess carbohydrates are definitely my pregnancy food addiction.

So, I’ll try to get some rest before leaving for the appointment, and check in as soon as I can!
•

Iron will

I went to the WIC offices to register and get all the preliminary paperwork and health checks done this morning, and found out that I’d gained 6 pounds since I last weighed myself, around the time we conceived. Oy! The nurse/case worker told me that I was rushing the weight gain just a tad too quickly and, although I was underweight to begin with, I should slow it down. Wow, I need to moderate my intake while pregnant! Ha. Not easy!
I guess — no, I KNOW — the extra Starbucks brownies and after-lunch cheesecake slices found a way to stick around, darn it.

But anyway, I do seem like I’m finally losing that insane sweet tooth and cravings are starting to appear. Cravings for spinach, peas and eggs! Yep, that’s what I had for dinner. I plopped a can of spinach, two eggs, and some peas and carrots into a cast-iron pan and made a pseudo spinach souffle. It was surprisingly very good and filled me up so quickly.
My iron-level test this morning indicated I was at 11.2, which is JUST over the threshold of being unhealthy, so I hope I stocked up a few milligrams with this dish. I’m also digging Belly Bars, which have 100 percent of a pregnant woman’s iron requirement and 200 percent folic acid. But I did manage to stop at the souffle since I was full and the bar would just be satisfying an urge for instant gratification.

Christian was going to bake his sourdough bread tonight, but after checking out the rising dough, deemed it not ready for baking. Damn. But I guess that’s a good thing, since I’d definitely succumb to the smells wafting from the oven and I’d have a jar of honey in one hand and a slab of butter in the other, waiting for the finished product. Now I just have to deal with that craving tomorrow night!
Tomorrow is my first prenatal exam. Well, technically it’s just going to be a consultation and some lab work. Not the big stuff like a sonogram or pelvic exam. That’s next week. But I’ll get to find out my new set of HCg levels tomorrow, and I’m dying to see how much higher up they are than last week!
•••
So, now that I’m fully registered with the WIC program, I will be able to obtain milk, eggs, beans, peanut butter, cereal, fruits and veggies and cheese each month. WIC is an incredible program for those in need, providing not only the nutritious food, but also classes, breast-feeding assistance, referrals and more. I didn’t ever think I’d need to get assistance, but now that we do, we are in awe of just how great a help that program is for new parents! Some WIC clients complain that certain items are not included, such as sodas, chips, white potatoes, etc. I for one am GLAD only the most nutritious items are available. It’s really just a lifesaver.

Mum’s the word

Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours! This is a very lazy Sunday, with the two of us just enjoying the gorgeous weather and having just finished another leftover lunch. But at LEAST we went grocery shopping today, and that means no leftovers for a few days (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but well, a new dish is always nice).
Tonight it’s ribs again. I’m letting Christian do the cooking and I’ll just sit and smell as the aroma envelops the tiny apartment.
Albertson’s, where we get our groceries, was filled to the rafters with flowers, flowers, flowers. Oh, and husbands, sons and daughters frantically searching for a very-last-minute gift for mom. We thought we were in for a crazy-long wait at the checkout counter, but I guess we hit the counter right when everyone else was way in the back at the meat or wine section. No lines at all. THAT makes for a great Sunday in itself, lol.
Then, after we got groceries and rented “Sherlock Holmes” from the RedBox, we headed over to the in-store Starbucks for an Americano (me) and a Vanilla Bean Frap (him).
I’m rambling so much! Ha ha. It’s been an incredibly crazy 48 hours.
Getting my head together and until I do (hopefully later today), I leave you with a bit of abstract impressionism. Can you guess what it is?

Peppered-out, or out-peppered?

I think I had every possible combination of peppers and hot spices yesterday. Yes, I feel it today.
For lunch, I again met Christian at the Cleveland Park near the Library, where I had leftover rice (see my previous post) and half of a Lindt dark chocolate bar with chile in it (I’d seen it but never tried it). To make the rice a bit spicier than it already was, I brought along some pickled jalapenos AND some Tabasco habanero sauce and doused the rice quite generously!
It was incendiary, but it definitely didn’t stop me from eating the whole damn thing. I am such a glutton for punishment, but what is it about chiles that is so painful yet keeps us coming back for more? It’s a definite love/hate relationship!
I couldn’t taste any chile in the Lindt bar, but it was delicious. Unfortunately the habanero in the Tabasco nuked my tastebuds into oblivion for a few hours.
In the evening, Christian and I fell back into our Rudy’s on Friday routine. We were considering Thai, but got lazy in the sweltering late-afternoon heat of our apartment, and thought Rudy’s would hit the spot: near by, reasonable, great view, and mellow (read: not too spicy) meat. Oops. Forgot about the condiment counter, where I stocked up on pickled whole jalapenos to eat with my 1/2 pound of turkey breast. I also got some cole slaw and three-bean salad. All of it (save for the chiles) would ensure a more peaceful stomach, I presumed.
The turkey was fantastic…velvety, moist, perfectly smoked and mild. Cole slaw was crunchy, not watery or over-mayonnaisy; and the three-bean salad I just couldn’t get to. And I skipped dessert due to the fact I had a blondie at Starbucks just hours before.
The jalapenos were killers, or maybe it was just my batch. Christian, a non-native jalapeno eater, didn’t complain, but I had to bring out the tissues and look around desperately with my swollen tongue hanging out of my mouth.
I grew up here. I’ve eaten them all. The hottest of the hot. One of my first memories was popping a whole jalapeno in my mouth and my mom dunking me into a tub of cold water to cool me off (don’t know if that was the way to go, but I’m still here). Am I losing my chile powers? God forbid the day when a bowl of oatmeal sounds better than a cup of pico de gallo with steaming hot tortillas. And that is what sounds good. A bland old cup of oatmeal for cryin’ out loud. What is WRONG with me?

Travels, real and imagined

I am a nomad. Even when I’m not traveling, I’m thinking about traveling, planning my next adventure, scouring Expedia.com or Orbitz.com for deals, maybe not being able to afford it but at least “planning,” anyway.
If I go more than four months without traveling, even if it’s just to my little cabin in New Mexico (only 2 hours away by car), I go stir crazy.
Last year I traveled to Bavaria about 5 times, two of those times staying more than a month. It became second nature to me to make the reservations, maneuver the airports, exchange currency, live out of a suitcase, etc. Many people dread airports: the crowds, security, lack of seating, disorganization and canceled flights. But I love airports. I LOVE them. Even Charles de Gaulle, just for the people watching.
My favorite airport in all of my travels has been Atlanta Hartsfield, by far. And it’s the most busy airport in the WORLD! Little ole southern Atlanta! It’s just so well organized, beautiful, has LOTS of distractions like food courts, bookstores, duty free shops, beauty counters and “sleep pods,” oh, and it has smoking rooms
Even little El Paso has a decent airport, and I make it a habit to get to the airport two hours before my flights, at least, just to sit at the Starbucks there, read the paper, and watch people say their goodbyes or hellos. It’s especially endearing when it’s military.
I also really enjoy Munich’s Franz Josef Strauss airport. It’s modern, hip, and has great cafes and biergartens. And my favorite hotel I’ve ever stayed at: the Kempinski, where the dinner buffet has got to be the most extensive (and expensive) in all of Bavaria. But SOOOOO worth it. Stay there. Even if you think you’re saving money by staying in Munich, you still have to pay to get to the airport, and you might as well get out of bed and be in the terminal at the same time!
Least favorite airport? Charles de Gaulle, bar none. The name “Gaulle” says it all. Just morbid, stuck in the 1970s, and chaotic. So lucky I’ve only had to deal with it once.
My next trip is a while off. Just a few more paychecks, a few less dinners out, and I think we’ll be on our way. But we’ve always got a suitcase half packed and one foot out the door.
•••
I enter contests all the time. I play those grocery store Monopoly games, the scratch-off lotto, office pools. Never win. Never.
Well, my dry streak ended yesterday when I found out my husband and I had won a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant that opened recently downtown. Although in the past, I’ve always cringed at using coupons or gift certificates, I’m older and much less prone to embarrassment I’ve got a question, however, to those who may have used gift certificates in the past: do you order and wait for the bill before you mention you have a gift certificate (thereby ensuring great service, or at least regular service) or do you tell them straight off the bat? Do “coupon clippers” get equal service? Just wondered about that.
•••
Yesterday I met my husband for lunch at the El Paso Public Library, which has a nice little cafe inside that serves a decent coffee, sandwiches and pastries. I’d packed lunch for us and carried it over there, but when I ordered the coffees, I couldn’t resist buying a croissant sandwich (see my previous blog entry. I am not progressing in my healthy endeavors!) filled with chicken salad. It had diced apples and pecans, and just the right amount of mayonnaise, without being gloppy and gross. The picture doesn’t do the cellophane-wrapped sandwich justice, but trust me, it was great and cheap! Gotta find me that recipe, because for a LIBRARY cafe, it was top-notch! Get me with coffee, good food, books AND with my husband, and you get me happy! But what I really want to know is where the library got their croissants. They tasted like the real deal, not mass-produced and dry at all. If you work downtown, give the library a shot for lunch. Oh, and check out their “free books” cart near the checkout area. I found about five yesterday. Good books, too. Not Harlequin romance novels or Commodore computer programming manuals.

Fungi Sunday

It wasn’t easy returning from a dream trip to Manhattan back home to El Paso, but this morning’s sunrise reminded me of how fortunate I am to live in a place that has such amazing sunrises and sunsets, quiet neighborhoods where the honking of a horn turns heads, where most things are affordable, and people are very friendly and un-rushed.
Having said that, both Christian and I agree that we absolutely feel at home when we’re on the road. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we met for the first time on vacation in Munich, then again in Paris, and then again traveled together all over the Southwest USA, Bavaria and now New York. We are constantly seeking the NEW and unexplored and going off the beaten path.
So, it was difficult knowing when we got home Friday night that the NY trip would be the last trip for a while (I do have a Louis Vuitton satchel purse, a Steven Sprouse Louis Vuitton and a Fendi purse for sale if you’re interested. All used, all REAL. Please, fund our trip!!!)
If I had my passport with me in NY, I kid you not when I say that I would easily have expanded the trip by booking us directly to Munich. But unfortunately I left it at home, in the safety deposit box.
At least coming home had its advantages, however. After staying at the West Side YWCA near Columbus Circle in Manhattan, our little, little but PRIVATE bathroom at home seemed like a first-class spa. AND with HOT WATER!!! AND a door that locked! And no paralyzing jabs of scalding water if a nearby toilet flushed! I felt like I was at the Peninsula Hotel Spa with my $1 bath bubbles and rubber ducky when I got my first bath in four days (I am a bath girl, and there were only showers at the Y…not that I would have taken a bath there, anyway).
Also, getting to go online without having to get dressed, go down 11 floors to a busy hotel lobby and sitting Indian style on the floor… not paying $8 for an iceberg lettuce salad or $10 for a pack of cigarettes…walking with my husband early in the morning without a cold, chafing rush of wind or doing the “don’t step on the dog poop” dance…No 1/2 hour lines at Starbucks (I couldn’t believe the fact that there were lines at every Starbucks in NY, and there was one on almost every block!)… Well, maybe I’m just trying to convince myself, but you have to fake it till you make it, right?
I was very much looking forward to a delivery that was waiting for us when we arrived home. We’d won a blog contest and were shipped a great supply of dried mushrooms from MarxFoods.com. Justin from the company sent me the following: dried Northwest Mix mushrooms, dried Lobster Mushrooms, Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Dried Matsutake Mushrooms, Dried Porcinis and Dried Chanterelles. I am so excited to test these babies out, and that starts tonight. We’d already planned on roast chicken that we found on sale at Albertson’s (just $3 for three huge legs!), so I’ll make a sider of porcini creamed potatoes. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I would be so tempted to add major spices like garlic, red pepper flakes or my new obsession, Vietnamese hot sauce. BUT I do want to taste the mushrooms and let their musky aroma penetrate through the potatoes.
Tomorrow night I’ll be creating an über-rich mushroom sauce to go with some penne. That will incorporate the black trumpets and some German spices and techniques passed on to me by Christian’s family. Maybe Tuesday night we’ll make Semmelknödel with dried lobster mushroom sauce. If you are from Bavaria and have an awesome mushroom sauce recipe, I would love to swap recipes with you, and post all the different recipes from the “homeland.” It will be interesting to see the subtle and the drastic differences!
And now, I will peruse the many takeout menus I grabbed in New York and posted on my finally-full fridge and see if I can come up with something tasty for lunch, inspired by our travels. A little bit of Chinatown, a pinch of Mulberry and Mott, a dollop of deli delish and a bissel of Bavaria.

Wish chai thought of this sooner!

After heading over to Goodwill to see if we could find a few hidden treasures (amazing how I come across great brands of clothes at our nearest GW, in great shape…Prada, Juicy Couture, Jil Sander, Ralph Lauren and even vintage Ton Sur Ton), we went to Starbucks to read the paper and have a chai. Our only REAL indulgent habit is to get a “gourmet” coffee pretty much every day, but we save in other respects, such as not having TV or landline phone service. Just the Internet. And we really save on food, making one meal stretch out into three most of the time.
As I was sitting there at Starbucks, I remembered I had a box of Tazo Chai mix at home, and it was begging to be used, and fast.
My first inclination was not to make a drink, but to see how I could add it to food.
So, we dropped by the supermarket and I picked up a really cheap store brand white cake mix. That was all I needed. Got home and started putting my recipe together. I don’t use measurements. I just eyeball it and cross my fingers. Here’s my “recipe” or guideline for Cheap Chai Cake:
• One box white cake mix (the kind that only requires water and two eggs).
• Two eggs (duh).
• ABOUT 1 1/2 box liquid chai mix.
• Large handful of raisins.
• about 2/3 cup instant oatmeal.
• Cream cheese icing.
Mix it all together (except for the icing, of course) and be sure all the flour lumps are incorporated. Pour into a greased glass cake pan and insert into preheated (350 degree) oven for about 25-35 minutes, depending on altitude and your oven.
When it’s pulling away from the sides and the center is done, take it out and let it cool down before you ice the cake. I just iced it, and added some instant mocha mix (sugar and mocha) to the icing, as well as a few extra raisins. I’ll try it this evening (I just had an apple empanada, so I’ll have to wait and be good before I indulge again