Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Table for One

At last! My first entry! So, as you can see I am completely new to this whole blogging thing and honestly, this feels a bit weird, but I'm just going to go with it. I recently relocated from San Francisco to Los Angeles in preparation for starting law school in one month exactly (eek!). In San Francisco, I lived with my bestest friend in the whole wide world - Shmaup. I am sure you will hear reference to her frequently. Anyway, I suppose you can gather from the fact that I am creating a food blog that I love to cook and pretty much through out the entire two years Shmaup and I lived together I cooked dinner for us every night. The only thing I love more than cooking is cooking for and sharing a meal with a dear friend. Now that I live in LA, I do have roommates, but we do not share groceries or eat meals together so I am left to cook and eat by myself. This SERIOUSLY depletes the amount of enjoyment I get out of meal times and is something I will have to get used to. I am hoping this blog helps me maintain the happiness I derive from creating and eating healthy, home-cooked meals. Otherwise, I feel I will be thrown into the arms of frozen meals and pb&j sandwiches! Just kidding...

I do get to cook for my boyfriend on weekends but we live an hour apart so he cannot just come over for dinner, unfortunately. I also had the opportunity to reconnect with one of my best girls from college and we cooked dinner together one night. For the most part, however, I will be eating alone and thank goodness we have a television because at least I can have the Golden Girls or Kardashians to keep me company for dinner!

Another challenge I am facing is learning to grocery shop for one. First of all, let me just say, that I have this crazy obsession with having a well-stocked pantry and fridge. It makes me feel safe and comforted and I just feel so unsettled if there isn't any food in the house. Additionally, I came from shopping for a household of 3 in San Francisco (we all shared groceries) to now shopping for one and trying not to take over the entire refrigerator with my stuff. Couple that with the excitement of exploring new Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and the Hollywood Farmer's market and let's just say I spent a little more than I probably should have on food in my first few weeks here. Of course both whole and ground cumin seeds are absolute necessities!

For one of my first personally sized meals, I whipped up a stuffed pepper for one (Sunday dinner). I had some prepared red quinoa already in the fridge from a meal I cooked over the weekend and combined that with some tofu and spices to create a wholly satisfying, albeit lonely meal (I hadn't figured out the television yet).

1 bell pepper (top cut off, seeded, and rinsed)
1/2 small yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup canned diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp cumin (ground)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp chili flake
1 oz tofu diced very small (1/4 inch cubes)
1/4 cup prepared quinoa (or as much as you need to fill the pepper!)
olive oil for coating the pan
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F. Put a medium sized pot filled with enough water to cover the bell pepper on the burner and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add pepper and cook for 5-10 minutes.Coat the pan with oil and saute the onion over low heat until softened and transparent (5ish minutes). Add seasonings and stir it up. Add tofu and turn up heat to medium. Saute until lightly browned. Add tomatoes and simmer until some of the liquid is absorbed. Stir in quinoa and take off the heat. Once the pepper is done precooking, remove it from the water, stand it up in a wee baking dish, and stuff to the brim with the quinoa mixture. You can also mix in some shredded cheese or shredded vegan cheese substitute. This time I just put some cheese on top and found that unfortunately, it didn't add much to the dish and next time I'd either add more/mix it in or just leave it off altogether. Bake until cheese is ooey gooey and everything is warmed through (10 minutes or so). Enjoy!



The pepper in all it's beauty with superfluous cheesy topping.



And sliced open with all of it's glorious filling.

Alright, I guess this officially concludes my first blog post. Please bear with me if my thoughts seem scattered and my entries too long! I am sure I will figure out more about the blogging style I want to portray with practice...In short, I hope I didn't bore you to death! Thanks for reading :)

3 comments:

  1. No such thing as a food blog entry too long! <3

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  2. Good luck on this new blog venture! I only started in May and it's been fun so far. There is a great community out there and tons of new fun foods to discover :)

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