Hashbrowned Potato Pizza

What do Becca and Brandon do when the whole middle level in the fridge is empty? What anyone else would do, whip up a strange and fun new recipe idea. Hence, Hashbrowned Potato Pizza was born. I was lukewarm about it because I wanted the potatoes to be crispier and I wasn't sure that the idea of hashbrowns really went with the idea of pizza in my head.

That being said, I helped Brandon devour it after we cleaned our bathroom. Along with a Great Lakes Brewing Co's Conway's Irish Ale. Yum!

This isn't so much a recipe as it is a technique. If you have any tips for me on making crispier hashbrowns...please throw them at me!

Hashbrowned Potato Pizza [for two]

ingredients:

• 2 medium sized red potatoes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ¾ cup store-bought tomato sauce (remember, nothing in the fridge.)
• 2 ounces muenster, shredded, from the farmer’s market (all grass fed and delicious!)

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Shred potatoes with a cheese grater or your preferred shredding method
3. Heat oil in a cast iron skillet. When skillet is hot, lay shredded taters across the bottom of the skillet in a thin layer. Mix potatoes every now and then to prevent burning, but let them get brown and crispy.
4. When potatoes are done, form them into a flat, pizza-like shape (this can be done in the same cast iron skillet, or other oven safe pan - I used a small cookie sheet)
5. Top potato pizza “crust” with tomato sauce and shredded muenster
6. Put the pizza in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese is as melty as you want it and the crust gets a bit crispier. Enjoy!

W00t! w00t! My empty cast iron skillet! Apparently, this is the only picture I can upload right now (and I'm thinking I should stop tying up my office internet with large picture uploads) so I'll update with pictures later on!

What do you make for dinner when there is nothing left in the fridge?

Peace, Love & Bagels,

Wineday Wednesday: Root:1 Carmenere

Confession: I have been wanting to try this wine for a while now, but I only bought this wine because it was on sale.

Root:1
2008 Carmenere
Casablanca Valley, Chile


I loved the "easy" feeling of this wine. At first it was sweet and after a second or two, you'd get hit with it's bold, spicy flavors. It was pretty glorious. I think I'm biased towards South American red wines though, so take all of this with a grain of salt. This bottle was very similar to a Zinfindel, with a little less "zing". Directly from the Root:1 website:


"Tasting Notes: Deep red in color with gentle and silky tannins and rich flavors of ripe plum, blackberry, vanilla and spice."

According to the internet, this bottle is about $10, but whenever I see it in the grocery stores, it's closer to $15 or $18. When I bought it, it was on sale for $12.49 or something like that (wow, writing this is making me feel like a cheapskate) so I finally gave it a chance.

Oh, and I have some really good news! Tomorrow, Brandon and I are going to a wine tasting class...so maybe I'll be able to actually give you some useful information, rather than just "mmm, I like red wine" ;)

Have you tried any new wines lately?


Peace, Love & Bagels,

DIY Circular Scarves

This is a great step in the right direction towards accomplishing my goal to create rather than consume. My favorite way to exercise that goal is to make gifts for others (like my homemade infused olive oil for the holidays).

This endeavor, in particular, was a gift for Brandon's sister, Tanja. She turned 30 on Valentine's Day this year, and since it's difficult to get reservations anywhere on V-day, we had her over for a birthday dinner at our place. Many cupcakes, cookies and chocolate covered strawberries were consumed that night and it was glorious!

Circular scarves seem to be all the rage right now:

Well, at least I bought one last year from my yoga studio and now I'm kicking myself because they take about five whole minutes to make. Oh, and not only is this working towards my "creating" goal, it also is helping me to de-clutter! These scarves is made out of t-shirts!

Lord knows I have enough of those to clothe a small army. 

All you need is a few t-shirts (preferably complementary colors...but feel free to choose whatever moves you). I used two t-shirts per scarf. Here is the process: 

1. Cut shirts into strips, starting from the bottom of the shirt. It's easiest if you cut off the hem first, because it's sort of too thick to use...but feel free to make it into a doggie toy, that's what I'd do!
2. Take all of your strips and stretch them out until they've doubled in diameter. To do this, I looped them around my feet and yanked with my hands (I didn't have any extra limbs to use to take pictures for this part of the process).
3. Tie all the stretched strips of t-shirt together with (yet another) stretched strip. Loop it around a few times, so you've got some beef to hold the rest together. 
4. Admire your handiwork. 

(cut like so)

What was your favorite homemade gift (given or received?)

Peace, Love & Bagels, 

Marathon Monday: Training Week #7

So last week, our runs went a little like this:

Monday - run/walk for 30 minutes. I did this one at lunch and it was kind of a nice change of pace, running in the daylight instead of dusk/darkness. I felt really great about it all (well, except the half mile long stretch of Route 18 that I have to run to get anywhere). It was a little colder and definitely windier than I anticipated, as I (regrettably, I might add) wore my thin spandex. Plus, it's always fun coming back from a run in spandex to work...I can't wait until the summer so I can wear real clothes that I don't look ridiculous in.

Tuesday - 6mi pace. This is our bi-weekly tempo run, and we KILLED it again. I can't begin to tell you how great this makes me feel, because I can tell I'm getting stronger. We averaged about a 9:30 pace for our 5 tempo miles! That pace used to be very difficult for me to hold. I attribute it 100% to having a running partner to keep me motivated. If I was running alone, it's highly likely I would slow down if I got uncomfortable. Now, I have Brandon to look to. If I get uncomfortable and I see that he is still going strong, I just dig a little deeper and keep it up. That is making all the difference this time around. Thanks, Brandon!

Wednesday - rest!


Thursday - 5x 800. Wow! I am so amazed at how strong we've gotten. We ran all of these half mile repeats consistently at about an 8:00 minute/mile pace. Last time we ran 800's (three weeks ago) we did four at about the same pace, but by the fourth one I felt like I couldn't possibly do another. This time we slowed it down at the start a tiny bit, and ran all five very strong repeats. I was dreading the run all day, but it's much less intimidating now that I am feeling real changes in my running strength. Oh and guess what? It was 60 degrees out!

Friday - yoga. Brandon and I generally practice at home for our cross-training day (speaking of cross training, I started doing my sit-ups on an exercise ball, which seems to be MUCH more effective than on the ground - so if you're following the twohundredsitups plan, try making that change if you hate sit-ups like I do!)

Saturday - 11 miles. Ok, so this run turned into a 9.2 mile run because my Garmin froze on me 10 minutes in, so we had no clue about the time or mileage...and we got lost. It was the best time though! An absolute Cleveland adventure, and even though we didn't do all 11 miles, I feel really good about it! We got to see the city of Cleveland from a whole new perspective, and we spent the last half of our run trying to figure out where the heck we were. I'd like to do more runs, sans watch.


Sunday - rest!


Here is what Week #7 is going to look like:

So, despite the fact that there is another half inch of ice on the ground and it took me two hours to get to work this morning, hopefully we can have another strong week. I need go to Dick's straight after work and invest in a new pair of Yaktrax so I can actually run tonight. 

Oh Monday. 

Peace, Love & Bagels, 

A PL&B Original Recipe: Coconut Crusted Tofu

Okay, unfortunately I had no pictures to go with this post, so I had to gank them from various places around the internet (if you click on them, it'll take you to the source).


I am so excited to introduce you to another PL&B Original Recipe: Coconut Crusted Tofu!


This recipe was inspired by some coconut crusted tilapia that Emily made for Brandon and I a few weeks ago. I was so enamored with the fish, that I really wanted to retry the coconut crusting on something else. I thought about doing it on tempeh - which I might still do - but tofu seemed like the appropriate medium. Plus I had some in my fridge.


While eating our coconut crusted tilapia (and celebrating Tu B'Shevat with four bottles of wine) we pondered some life-sized questions. In a Tu B'Shevat Seder, you explore four worlds in representing them with different fruits and glasses of wine:


The Physical World - a fruit that is inedible outside and edible inside (we represented this with a clementine). Plus one glass of white wine


The Emotional World - a fruit that is edible outside and inedible inside (we represented this world with a date). Plus, a glass of wine that is half red, half white


The Intellectual World - a fruit that is completely edible (represented by a fig) and one glass of wine that is 1/4 white and 3/4 red


The Spiritual World - no fruits, just a glass of red wine with one drop of white


What do these worlds mean to you? Why do you think they would be represented by those specific types of fruits?

Coconut Crusted Tofu
over a bed of wilted cabbage

The tofu can also be baked instead of pan-fried. I accidentally burned the tofu because I was using a [too] hot cast-iron skillet. Baking might make them a bit more enjoyably brown instead of dark and crispy like mine were.


Ingredients:

1 package tofu

1 cup flour

1 tbs cornstarch

1 egg

1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or not - your choice)

oil or clarified butter for pan-frying

half head of red cabbage, quartered and cut into thin ribbons

fine grain sea salt

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or clarified butter

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

a handful or two of raisins (or chopped dates)

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to garnish (optional)

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and saute the onion for a few minutes, with a few pinches of salt. Stir in the garlic and cabbage and cook for just a minute or so, until the cabbage softens up a bit. Stir in the raisins and the vinegar and cook one more minute. Remove from heat, remember, the cabbage will continue to get more and more tender even after you remove it from the heat, do your best to avoid overcooking it - where it collapses entirely. Plate your wilted cabbage and garnish with a bit of Parmesan if desired.

Drain and slice tofu as desired, I prefer flat slices as opposed to cubes. Beat egg and put in a bowl that is big enough to dip your slices of tofu. Mix the cornstarch with the flour and pile it on a plate or bowl for dipping. Place coconut on another plate or bowl for dipping. First, dip the tofu in the flour mixture so it’s lightly coated. Next, dunk coated tofu in egg. Finally, coat with coconut and set aside. Heat enough oil (or butter) to coat the bottom of your skillet on medium heat. Pan fry the coconut dipped tofu until the coconut is golden brown then flip and brown the other side. Set on a paper towel or over a cooking rack to drain.

Serve tofu over bed of cabbage.




Peace, Love & Bagels,

(oh and just an aside, what do you think about me doing a post series about "A Week In The Life Of My Stomach"? Got the idea from Ashley)