Wite-out!

So this is what it looked like this morning.

Crazy, right? As usual, I seriously doubted round 2 of this storm since it stopped snowing last night. Guess mother nature showed me! HA!

I was super productive last night (hence the no blogging) - I grabbed some stuff at the grocery store, got a bunch of work done and made a quickie dinner!

Originally I was going to make a couple batches of mac n cheese (one chipotle mac and one with three cheeses), but I had a bunch of dishes that needed some washing so that got pushed off to this afternoon. Instead I went with a quick an easy Rosemary and Mustard Chicken Salad.

I have a soft spot for chicken salad (Potbelly's with some hot peppers is my weakness) and in a pinch, I know I can grab a can of chicken or a rotisserie chicken breast and make a tasty sammich with pretty much anything I have on hand :)

Rosemary and Mustard Chicken Salad

1 can chicken, drained

1 heaping tbsp low fat mayonnaise

1 1/2 tbsp whole grain mustard

1/2 tsp rosemary, minced

1 - 2 tbsp craisins

freshly ground pepper

Combine everything in a bowl, mashing up chicken as you stir. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes so flavors combine.

I toasted some pita and shoved in some cheddar and spinach leaves along with the chicken salad. Funny thing is that I usually don't order chicken salad sandwiches with cheese. In fact I hate the idea of cheese with chicken salad. I made an exception for this:

My mom used to get this Kerrygold Dubliner Cheese and I completely forgot about it until I saw it at the store yesterday. It's a great sharp, slightly sweet cheese that I think went well with the pita and chicken salad!

This morning's breakfast was another oat bowl - can you tell I get into food phases??

Check out how white it is outside! I took this facing my window and no joke, that's what it looks like right now. I can barely make out the buildings in the alley! Man, savory oat bowls are not good for face making. Bummer.

I'm off to brave the gym (here's hoping it's not packed!) and get crackin' on my mac and cheeses! Are you snowed in too? What do you do to keep from going nutty??

SNOOOOWWWW!!

Ok, so I seriously doubted this 'Snopocalypse' everyone in the DC area was talking about…especially since the flurries were barely sticking at 2pm. I woke up this morning (after a Ryan Reynolds evening watching this and this) to a very thick blanket of snow. Check out the view from the living room:

Yes, we face an alley. I looked out the window a little before I took this picture and saw some people walking…um, easily up to mid-shin of snow. CRAZY! I don't remember DC getting this much snow since 2003 when I also happened to live in this building! I was excused for like a week (really 2 or 3 days) from my internship because of the weather…and my roomie was trapped in PA (I think?). Insane storm! People were playing in the middle of Connecticut Avenue (pretty major street)!

I've been known to complain about my building on occasion, but it's times like this that I seriously start to appreciate all the amenities. For example, I needed to get my second run/walk session of the week in today. All I had to do was pop downstairs to crank out a quick 30 minute session while watching news coverage of the storm and I was even able to fit in a fair amount of strength and stretching in! Brought some bags and warm clothes with me and 2 minutes later I'm off to the Giant!

BIG BIG perk of my building - underground passageway to the grocery store. OMG, best idea ever. Basically, you cut through two parking garages with signs like this one so you don't get lost:

And then poof, you're in the parking garage for the Giant! This was the scene at 10:30am:

MUCH better than what I saw cutting through yesterday afternoon!

Inside was the most depressing scene EVER. The produce section was wiped out. Apparently everyone has loaded up on bags of salad, lemons and carrots. No joke. Those were the big stand out items as I walked through. Lemons???

I managed to snag a few essentials for my next two kitchen experiments, plus a container of oats for breakfast. I figured cereal wasn't going to happen since all they had left were gallon jugs of whole milk - GROSS. They didn't have any scallions for tonight's dinner, but there was one lonely leek that seemed to scream at me. I'm going to make it work…just because I like a challenge.

As I type this, I realize this is the 3rd time I've been to the store and totally forgotten to pick up a bottle of this:

You can say I'm obsessed with the Sticky Fingers Carolina Classic Barbecue Sauce. It's mustard-based, so it's a given that I love it ;p, and it has a great tang and kick to it. I've mentioned this to my sister TONS of times and she went searching for it over Christmas when she made some crock pot pulled pork. Apparently Sticky Fingers is hard to come by in the island of the long, so I said I'd either send or bring up a bottle. Clearly my brain hadn't been fed it's daily dose of caffeine yet.

I'm off to start/marinate tonight's experiment - hint: it's not tropical and it doesn't involve a creature of the sea. Branching out!! Happy snow day! :)

Redemption

After last night's quasi-successful coconut sauce adventure, I decided I needed to redeem myself and experiment with the tons of shrimp I had in the freezer.

This is a TERRIBLE habit, but my mind tends to wander off at work...on occasion. I start daydreaming about flavors and things I can cook. With the impending storm I got really excited about what crazy concoctions I could come up with if I didn't have to work at the store.

I knew I wanted to make something with a) tropical flavors to make me think of warmer days and b) stuff I already had, especially since I knew the grocery stores would be packed. I settled on some Seared Ginger Shrimp over Spicy Israeli Couscous with a Coconut Soy Sauce.

Last weekend I bought this crazy huge box of clementines. I'm not really a big clementine person and I've been trying to eat at least one a day since I didn't have any other fruits around. I don't know what it is about them, but I just am not a big fan. I figured I should use them in as many cooking experiments as possible so I don't waste them.

How did I use them this time around? A little zest in the marinade and some supremes atop my shrimp skewers.

Not my picture b/c well, I only got a couple decent looking pieces and forgot to take pictures.

Seared Ginger Shrimp

10 pcs shrimp, tail on

2 tsp ginger, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

juice of one lime

pinch salt

1/8 tsp clementine zest

1 tsp oil

1/2 tsp brown sugar

skewers

1 tbsp rum

Combine ginger, garlic, lime juice, salt, zest, oil and brown sugar in a bowl. Add shrimp, coat with marinade and let sit for 10 minutes. Skewer 2 shrimp on a mini bamboo skewer and set aside.

Heat a pan over medium high heat and place shrimp in pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes and flip. Pour rum in, cover for 30 seconds and cook uncovered for another 30-45 seconds. Remove from pan.

Spicy Israeli Couscous

1/4 c onion, diced

1/2 c israeli couscous

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

pepper

1 c chicken broth

1/4 tsp chili garlic paste

1/2 tsp fish sauce

Heat olive oil in a pot and saute onion, chili garlic paste and fish sauce together. Stir in couscous, salt and pepper and cook for 1 minute. Pour in broth, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook for 15 minutes.

Coconut Soy Sauce

1/3 c coconut lemongrass sauce

1 tbsp rum

1 tsp soba tsuyu

1 1/2 tsp soy sauce

1 - 3 tsp water

Heat sauce in a pan over medium heat. Whisk in rum, soy and soba sauce for 2-3 minutes. Slowly whisk in water until desired thickness is achieved.

Smear some couscous on a plate, top with shrimp and drizzle sauce on top. Add some citrus pieces and sprinkle with minced cilantro for some color and freshness.

I was actually amazed at how this slight tweak to yesterday's sauce actually brought out more coconut flavor! I really couldn't figure out how to thin the sauce out some so that's why I threw that water in at the end. I also think this would be good with some greens (you know I love arugula on all my plates hehe) and if the shrimp were actually cooked on a charcoal grill. MMM. GRILL!!

I'm off to watch some sappy movies and watch the snow accumulate. Any fun weekend plans? Anyone else snowed in??