what-i-ate wednesday

I'm going to start participating in What I Ate Wednesdays as a way to motivate my running and healthy eating. For those of you new to the blog, I'm gluten-free and I live in India. I'm training for a half marathon in August. (We do have a housekeeper here in India who does some wonderful cooking for us. But I also have her do a lot of the prep work -- like chopping the veggies -- and do the cooking myself, often with the help of my almost-two-year-old daughter.)

Here's a summary of my Tuesday.

Breakfast: Two banana-coconut muffins baked with the modified Pamela's gluten-free pancake mix banana bread recipe. Coffee with milk.

I took Muffin to school and then met the playgroup moms at our weekly breakfast date. I had two unsweetened iced coffees with milk and a small plate of bacon.

Lunch: A pizza bagel with half an Udi's gluten-free bagel, tomato sauce, and feta cheese (still sipping one of my previously mentioned iced coffees) and an apple.

Snack: Homemade baba ganoush (from the Moosewood Cookbook ) with Orgran quinoa crispibread.

Afternoon Running: About 3.25 miles pushing Muffin in the jogging stroller around the park.

Dinner: Boneless chicken breast with roasted tomatoes (from Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook ) and quinoa and a (not pictured) watermelon-feta salad (modified from a Martha Stewart recipe -- this is a super-refreshing post workout salad).

Dessert: Glass of chocolate milk.

Second Dessert: Glass of white wine.

For more running fun, follow me on dailymile and at my blog Where in the World Am I?.

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contes frozen cheese ravioli

When I was home in the United States last summer I was thrilled to find Conte's frozen cheese ravioli at a health food store near our house. After two years in Africa and being between seven and nine months pregnant at the time, I was craving something new.

These cooked up easily and one package made two meals for my giant, pregnant self. I found the flavor to be somewhat lacking so a spicy tomato sauce or extra basil-ly pesto was definitely needed to perk up the flavor. The texture of the cheese and the chewiness of the pasta was perfect. You'd hardly guess they were made from gluten-free dough. With a flavorful sauce, some fresh tomato slices and basil leaves, and freshly grated parmesian cheese, I had a wonderful feast to welcome me back to American convenience foods.

They were a little expensive, but I was pregnant and only in the United States for a few months so I allowed myself to splurge. The fact that I could easily get two meals out of them helped justify the cost as well.

Conte's frozen foods can be found in health food stores and can be shipped to certain areas from sites such as Gluten-Free Mall.

Image from Gluten Free Mall. I was not compensated in any way for this post. Items were purchased by me for personal consumption.

dosa masala

Dosa are thin rice-flour pancakes stuffed with spicy yummy fillings. They're often served for breakfast with side sauces. They're a convenience food that you can buy from a cart off the street.

We have two dosa sources within walking distance of our house, a cart and a restaurant, and dosas have become my favorite fast food. A plain dosa is usually filled with onion. My favorite kind is dosa masala, which is stuffed with masala-spiced potato. I've also had dosa palak paneer, which is stuffed with spinach and cheese. The sauces are usually a coconut chutney and a lentil soup. One of the restaurants near us also serves dosa with a ginger chutney, which has been my favorite sauce so far.

Here's the tricky part about dosa. Despite the fork and spoon shown in the photo, dosa are traditionally eaten with your fingers, with just your right hand. It takes some practice to rip the pancake, scoop up all the filling that falls out, dip your fingers in one of the sauces, and get it all into your mouth (and in our case, without dropping any on the baby's head) with one hand. I'm getting the hang of it.

glutino frozen pizzas

While I was home in the United States this summer and fall, my pizza addiction led me to try Glutino Duo Cheese, Pepperoni, and Three Cheese frozen pizzas. They were all decent, for frozen pizzas. I doctored them up a bit, adding extra veggies. I also found that I needed to bake them in the oven for longer than the instructions recommended in order to get an acceptably crispy crust and the crust was inconsistent. Sometimes piping hot, sometimes cool in the middle, even though I baked the pizzas the same way.

My favorite was the Three Cheese. The Pepperoni was tasty, but I preferred adding slices of Aidells Italian style sausage to the plain cheese pizzas. The Pepperoni and Three Cheese have brown rice crusts, which was a better crust. For some reason it seemed to cook to a more consistent crispiness and had a better flavor. The cheeses and sauce on all three pizzas were flavorful.

No frozen pizza, gluten-free or otherwise, is as good as a restaurant or homemade fresh pizza. On the scale of frozen pizzas, I'd put these toward the high end if you like a thin, crispy crust.

Image from Glutino.com. I was not compensated in any way for this post. Items were purchased by me for personal consumption.

how long does it take you to eat 10 pounds of pasta?

How long does it take to eat ten pounds of Ancient Harvest quinoa pasta pagodas? It took me about a year and a half.Back in the summer of 2008 when we were preparing our consumables to ship to Africa, I was thrilled to see that Amazon.com had my favorite brand of pasta for sale in bulk. I bought a case of spaghetti, a case of elbows, and a case of pagodas, a short, squat, twirly tricolor pasta. I received 10 little boxes of spaghetti, ten little boxes of elbows, and one giant box containing 10 pounds of pagodas. While all the cardboard packaging of individual boxes may not be stellar for the environment, it's great for long-term storage and for portions. One giant box of pagodas? Not as convenient.

Our consumables met us here in September 2008. Since then I've been slowly but surely pecking away at my pagodas. I've made the spaghetti and the elbows a couple times, but I really wanted to finish those pagodas. The spaghetti and elbow boxes will keep and can be shipped to our next destination. The pagodas are an open box, so the movers won't take them. I had to consume them all.

And tonight, the last bowlful is boiling away, while a creamy cheese sauce waits to smother every last bit.

Image from quinoa.net.

taqueria monte cristo, berkeley, ca

This is the last of my restaurant reviews from my California vacation. It wasn't part of the Pizza Safari. Tacqueria Monte Cristo is one of our favorite restaurants in the Bay Area. They serve some of the best Mexican food we've ever had. We saved it especially for lunch one day after I had to fast for some blood tests.

It was worth the wait and the restaurant was every bit as great as we remembered it. I ordered my usual cheese enchilada platter, with green sauce, rice, and pinto beans. Mike ordered his usual carnitas platter. The salsa bar still had it's assortment of fresh salsas. Mike got an agua fresca and I splurged on a Mexican hot chocolate (I was freezing!) and we sat down to a fantastic lunch. We both agreed that my cheese enchilada was the best we'd ever had. And I'm not just saying that. I truly believe it was more than nostalgia talking, because honestly I've had some mediocre cheese enchiladas from there, as well. Generally, the are very good to the best, though. Mike is always completely satisfied with his meals there.

This isn't healthy Mexican food. It's fresh, and you can taste the freshness especially in the salsas. But it's greasy and cheesy. They are not shy with the sour cream and queso fresco. But do you really have to be healthy all the time? No. That's what special treats are for.

They have a full menu of Mexican cuisine, plus beer, wine, sangria, agua fresca, horchata, and a variety of other beverages. They have counter service with sit-in tables and they do take-away orders.

Taqueria Monte Cristo is on University Avenue next to the Andronico's, a few blocks from North Berkeley BART. There's a small parking lot and some street parking, but we usually hike over from the BART.

cheese fest

I run so I can eat cheese. 

Last night we didn't just eat cheese, we celebrated it. The Belgian community organized a feast of European cheeses and cold meats, like parma ham and hard salamis. It was phenomenal. We met some friends, shared some wine, and ate all the cheese we could. Most of the cheeses were soft, like brie and the most amazing chevre I've ever had. High-quality soft cheeses are hard to find here and expensive when you do find them, so a whole table piled high with them was quite a sight. 

I unfortunately forgot to bring my own crackers or bread so watched the others indulge in artisan breads while I picked at my cheese with a fork. Of course it wasn't the same, but I did what I had to. When it comes to cheese, sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

Image from Jupiter Images.