Soup and a Real G in the Kitchen.

Yesterday, I skipped the gym and decided to throw down in the kitchen. It was a Scandal late night and I was still sore from my workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday. I got the inspiration from this blogger I follow on Twitter, she posts recipes for GREAT hearty food all the time and I copy what I can. The other day she posted broccoli and cheddar soup w/ homemade croutons and bacons. Drool worthy, right? So that's what I made last night. It's actually pretty easy it just requires a lot of pots and pans which makes for an awful clean-up.

Soup 
So you just cook the broccoli in a fair amount of water, chopping off all the stems, then add the spinach in last because we all know it takes two seconds for spinach to cook. Add a little chicken bouillon seasoning, then put everything in a food processor or blender. I used my food processor because I'm less likely to accidentally shank myself during the clean up phase and I can get all the food out of the processor better than the blender because it's shorter and wider. Anyways, pulse it until everything is chopped up nicely then transfer back to pot with the remaining broccoli juice water. From there, you add your cheese, I did extra sharp cheddar and a cheddar jack mix. I didn't over do it on the cheese because I still wanted it to be somewhat healthy. Then I seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and parsley, and onion powder.
Croutons
Next up take you some thick cut bread hit up some olive oil in a pan until it's fry temperature hot. I would have used wheat bread if I had to buy some, but I didn't, this bread was free. I broke the bread up into about 1.5" pieces and threw it in the pan. The bread I had was already seasoned so I didn't need to do anything special. If it needed to be seasoned, I would use garlic and onion powder. I swished the pan around to make sure it got nice and crispy.
Bacon
Cut up 3 slices of bacon into tiny pieces and throw it in a warm skillet and cook it up until it's nice and crisp.
Final product

I made brussel sprouts and oven baked yams as well. I've never had them before, but I figured what the heck.

If you know me, you know that I L-O-V-E Groupon and Livingsocial. While browsing I found a Cajun place I'm going to try next week. So I decided I should probably prepare myself by looking at Youtube "How to eat crawfish" and I stumble upon this thuggish ruggish bone young fella: Black Cooking Swagg. He is hilarious to watch and he keeps it real, nothing fancy. This dag on boil he did looked drool worthy. I subscribed because he seems like he really loves food and we all know I love me some food. 

This post is dedicated to my Uncle, Chef Leon who passed away this week. 

A laughable $560 later...

This past weekend I had a friend coming into town and we were going to attend For Sisters Only in the city along with Jamie, you know from the Taste of DC post. Well anyways, let me tell you this story...

We were going to leave for the metro at 10:30 am to catch August Alsina perform at 12:00 pm, we would have arrived just in time to sing along, wave our phones in the air like lighters, and stand among other cooing women. My friend gets to Fairfax and her car began to have major issues as soon as she pulled in, like violently shaking, so we're trying to figure it out. I call my dad and we explain to him the symptoms and etc. So we're all outside, myself, friend, Justyn, and his friend and his friend is like "Tiffany is that your Chevy Malibu" I'm like yea, he says "I think you have a flat". I'm thinking "naw I def don't, it's just the angle by which we're looking at it and the curb that makes it appear that way". Well low and behold I had a daggone flat. I mean the tire was DEAD TO THE BED, completely flat. LOL! So I'm laughing, like literally laughing at this weird coincidence. I could have been angry or upset but I wasn't because I feel like everything happens for a reason, maybe it helped me avoid a very bad accident or something, I don't know. So we call a tow truck, so my car can be taken to a shop. We finally get to the event at about 12: 45 pm and we missed August perform, I mean like he wasn't even in the building any more. I was completely heartbroken. So then I get a phone call from the shop I take my car to and they say "all your tires need to be replace, they're dry rotted, you need an oil change, and new wiper blades that will be $590 with our VIP program". My jaw drops and I'm over it at this point. Like I literally wasn't even in my right mind, they say all my tires are at risk for a blow out and that's what happened to the flat tire. So I go ahead and get the new tires, blades, and they do my oil change for free.

I still ended up having a great weekend. The thing is I've spent a couple thousand dollars on car needs since July. I've learned to glean whatever message is being sent to me and not become upset. I have 2 cars, so I can't complain about expenses because some people don't have cars or heat in their home during these colder months and I have both. Granted, I'm much broker and can't buy this $200 watch I want and I've been thinking of anybody who owes me money, no one, but I'm still blessed.

Sidebar: So the event For Sisters Only is a female only empowering type of event. They have panels, vendors, and music artists who perform. The event is geared towards black women all for the low price of $12. How about the main food serving stations had fried food besides the Jamaican station?! If this event is supposed to empower women, then you need to empower them to eat healthy as well. Shameful. I didn't realize this until yesterday when I was snacking on my last bit of seaweed and almonds before the gym. Also, I would like to share this gem with everyone, this woman named Germaine owns Red Bloom spa in Bethesda, MD and she was like a skin genius. She could tell the source of someone's skin issues by simply looking at them. She looked at my face and told me the location of my acne was due to the endocrine system and she checked my knees, chest, and legs for pain to rule out any other type of reasoning. The most awesome thing I've ever seen. She works with clients on their skin from an inside-out standpoint. She has them complete food diaries and all that. I would definitely like to go some day.

"That looks crazy...diarrhea" French Toast Sandwich

This weekend while watching Food Network, I discovered a new (to me) show called The Sandwich King or something of that sort. It's a chef who only makes sandwiches. Normally I'm not into the cooking shows that show the step by step process with recipes and all that, I just like to see them eat the food (Guy Fieri) , whip something up out of nothing (Chopped, Top Chef, Guy's Grocery Games), and try new foods in different cities (Andrew Zimmern on Travel channel). I watched this show mainly because Justyn loves sandwiches and because of the 300 Sandwich girl trying to get an engagement ring. She makes good looking sandwiches too, her background story is just a little odd: She's making 300 sandwiches for her boyfriend with the hope that he'll propose to her after the 300th. He gives me Michael Jackson, closeted gay, vibes though shrug. To each their own.

Anyways, so the sandwich guy made a "Razzle dazzle french toast sandwich" which was French toast as the bread, raspberries, and some type of cream sauce he made and bacon. So I stole the idea and put my own spin on it, I made a french toast sandwich stuffed with cream cheese, strawberries, blackberries, and bacon.

Instructions:
French toast mix: 2 whole eggs beaten to death, with some milk until it turns a lighter shade of yellow, you don't need a lot of milk, I actually had heavy whipping cream and some organic milk so I used both. Then I added brown sugar, cinnamon, and flax seed. I throw flax seed into just about anything that can be mixed up. Then I took my whole wheat light (some new 40 calorie/slice bread I bought thanks to coupons) bread and dipped into the mixture, let the excess mixture drip off, then placed it onto my butter greased breakfast griddle. I had enough batter for 6 slices of bread. I added cinnamon after about the 3rd slice, because that's the first to go in the french toast batter.

Cream cheese filling: I just spooned out some 1/3 less fat cream cheese that I had in the fridge added a little butter because it wasn't the softened kind, threw it in the microwave for about 20 seconds and let it melt a little. Then I mixed it up really good. It probably would've melted without butter, or you could just buy softened cream cheese, but I used what I had in my fridge already. I spread the cream cheese onto only one side of the French toast bread mainly for caloric reasons and because I don't like too much softened textures in my food.

Fruit: I cut the strawberries into quarters and the blackberries into half sizes so they would be big enough yet still small enough for a good bite. After that, just layer on your bacon and add the other slice of french toast. When plated, I still put syrup on it and it was delicious. Afterwards, I slept for 5 hours. Itis.

I was told my sandwich looked "crazy" and also that it looked like it would give one "diarrhea" how so? Idk. But I used cream cheese because that's what they use to make stuffed french toast, so that's how I got that idea. I thought about using Greek yogurt, but Justyn said cream cheese sounded better, which I gladly obliged.