Day 28 of 30- Baba ganoush

I don't know how nature does this, but massive temperature swings have been a fantastically recurring theme this year.  Yesterday was in the 60's.  Today's high was at 10:05AM at 53F, and tonight's low will be 18F.  not cool.  COLD. FREEZING COLD.  This makes preparing to bike a nightmare.  Dressing for the 50's is very different than dressing for the 10's in terms of temperature. OH WELL.  gotta deal with it.

My roommate just told me about the most AMAZING THING ever.  LEGO kits to understand transcription, translation, DNA replication, protein folding..... EVERYTHING!  omg.  THANKS MIT for your brilliant minds.  check this out HERE .  I seriously wish that i had this growing up as a kid.  It would have been so fun to play with in science class and it would have been such an easy and fun way to learn the basics.

Today is a simple and delicious recipe.  I've greatly  missed having hummus and dips and stuff in my life, so baba ganoush is the next best thing :-)  Tahini is still a debatable ingredient, and I think it adds a fantastic layer of flavor.

Baba ganoush

Ingredients

1 large eggplant (try to get the narrower ones) or 2 japanese eggplants
2 T tahini
1 lemon's worth of juice
olive oil
salt
pepper

1.  Cut eggplant in half and roast in the oven 375F, cut side up until eggplant is tender.  Broil briefly to get the nice charred and smoky flavor
2.  When the eggplant is fully cooked, scoop out of the skin and place in food processor
3.  Squeeze in the lemon juice and scoop in the tahini and a drizzle of oil

Next time, I would also roast some garlic and toss those in.  and maybe some olives too for MORE FLAVOR!!!!  Overall, I'm happy with this.  the texture isn't quite the same as hummus, but whatever.  It is a fabulous substitute AND delicious with almost anything!  I dip carrots in it, pour it over my cauli rice, scoop it directly into my mouth and all that jazz :-)

Two more days until i can enjoy my wine and frango chocolate.  Two more days of culinary adventure :-)

til next time, EAT WELL and BE WELL!!!!

Day 21 of 30- Broccoli beef stirfry

Many exciting things happened today.  Namely-- an awesome pharmacogenomics workshop for a wonderful collaboration that the university has with the mayo clinic.  I really hope that something awesome comes of this for the medical students especially!  We have great ideas and we are probably the best equipped to be thrown into the clinical arena with research expertise!   I loved how enthusiastically the physicians and researchers visiting from Mayo wanted to collaborate.  It was such a breath of fresh air to see scientifically minded people actually willing to share their overly abundant mountain of knowledge and resources with those who have the ability to help.  So inspiring.  Times like these rekindle my love and joy for science and medicine together.  After the Individualizing Medicine conference back in October, I really felt inspired and excited.  That tapered off relatively quickly as various obligations took over my mind, but having them come and visit again was really a great way to jump start and refuel the love of learning.

After all this excitement, I felt like I had to try something new-- with my newly acquired coconut aminos!!!!  I had been trying so hard to try and do asian type dishes without the use of soy sauces or sesame oil.  Coconut aminos seem to be the next closest thing, and I found that the Co-op carries a nice and reasonably priced bottle of it!  yay!  WIN.  Today, we experimented with vegetables.  It was a fantastically tasty and quick dish to whip up, espeically with the superb pork roast of crispy carnitas to throw in with the veggies and to soak up the sauce.

Broccoli with meat (sorry for the gross sounding dish name)

Ingredients

1 medium crown of broccoli
1 small onion
large handful of mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
coconut aminos
pepper

1.  chop the vegetables into desired sized pieces.
2.  In a deep frying pan, add some water and heat to boiling and toss in the broccoli and garlic to quickly cook and steam.
3.  Throw in the mushrooms and onions and season with pepper and coconut aminos.  You don't need much of the aminos, two hefty splashes were enough flavor for me.
4.  Add crispy carnitas.

If you are going to cook a meat separately, say, beef!  You can slice the beef into thin strips and cook them up with some aminos and pepper and add them to the cooked veggies.  I might have to try this variation at some point.  The meat that the co-op carries has been so fantastic, it's a shame I haven't tried more cuts yet.

til next time, eat well and be well!!!!  especially be well in this cold.