just me and the bats thursday

I woke up early Thursday morning for a run -- 5.4 miles. When I left it was still dark out and there were bats flying around my head. By the time I got home this guy had gone to sleep in the electrical wires by our house:

He was about 12 inches long from head to toe.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with soy milk, dried cranberries, almond meal, ground flaxseed, and maple syrup. Coffee with milk.

Snack: Biscotti and a Mochachillo.

Lunch: Pizza bagel with half an Udi's gluten-free bagel, tomato sauce, and feta cheese; the other half of the bagel with peanut butter; glass of nonfat milk.

Snack: Handful of corn chips

Dinner: I wasn't too hungry and I was at a cocktail reception so I had some veggies and dip and some veggie pakora (which are fried little yummies in a lentil-flour batter). Two glasses of white wine.

caffeine day wednesday

Food thought for Wednesday: Alcohol is easy to cut back on. Caffeine is not.

Mmm, toddler leftovers.

Breakfast: I wasn't too hungry after a big dinner on Tuesday night so I just nibbled some of the muffin and banana from Muffin's breakfast plate. When I sliced her apple for her school snack and ate about half of it. I had a cup of coffee with milk.

Second Breakfast: While Muffin was at school I sat at a coffee shop and read. I had an iced mocha (aka the Mochachillo at this particular chain) and I brought a Pamela's gluten-free almond anise biscotti.

Pre-lunch: Drinking chai (made by Muffin and my housekeeper) while catching up on emails and blogs.

Lunch: Homemade baba ganoush on Orgran quinoa crispibread with cucumber and red pepper slices. I put the extra cucumber slices in a bowl with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper for a little side salad. I set aside the extra pepper slices to use as a pizza topping later on.

Snack: Half an Udi's gluten-free bagel with peanut butter and a banana.

Dinner: Pizza with a Chebe bread crust, olive oil, tomato slices, feta cheese, garlic, onions, red peppers, and fresh basil. There's no photo available. The family was so hungry we ate before I remembered to take a photo. I also had a glass of white wine. I wasn't planning on one tonight, but I burned my thumb on the baking pan and Muffin insisted on sitting on my lap which made for messy eating. I felt I deserved it.

Snack: I had a little chocolate before bedtime.

all kinds of coconut cake

After my failed almond bread (which was nicely recycled as French toast sticks, but I never got the chicken sandwich I really wanted) I decided to try something fun. I'd recently seen Coconut Bars from Elana's Pantry. There's a lot of coconut here so they should have been great.

They were just okay. They were not what I expected and I'm calling them cake because they seem softer than what I think of with bars.

Almond meal, shredded coconut, coconut milk and coconut oil where no problem for me to find. The coconut flour here is not as fine as American commercial coconut flour, but a few seconds in the mixer takes care of that. (Notice all the coconut products? That's why I've renamed it "all kinds of coconut" cake.) There's no stevia here, and I don't like it much anyway, so I just omitted it.

Maybe I over mixed the batter, but it was much runnier than I expected. As it baked, huge bubbles rose. After the specified thirty minutes I took it out of the oven and popped the bubbles. The batter was under baked so I put it back in the oven. After five minutes, though, I could see that the bottom was going to burn.

The dish was supposed to cool on the counter for thirty minutes and then go into the refrigerator until "chilled." So I trusted that maybe the mushiness would disappear after chilling for a little while. Several hours later I cut a little piece. Hmmm. Coconut. But something was missing from the flavor and the consistency wasn't quite right.

I let the dish sit in the refrigerator for a couple days, mocking me and my weekend of baking failures. This morning I took it out again and offered a piece to Muffin on a whim. She's had a cold, which has made her a picky eater, and I wasn't expecting her to even try it. She loved it. I cut her a piece and it's not the end of the world that she had coconut cake for breakfast. The consistency was much better after being refrigerated for a longer amount of time.

I like the coconut flavor a lot but something is still missing from the overall taste of the cake. I have two solutions to that. I'm going to try a batch with golden syrup instead of honey. It's not in the same universe of being healthy, but it has a nice toasted marshmallow flavor that I really like in some baked goods. I'm also going to try a batch with dark chocolate chunks mixed in. I need something to complement the coconut.

One long weekend, two baking projects to take back to the drawing board. 

thanksgiving wrap-up -- cranberry breads!

Our internet was out most of the day on Wednesday so instead of telling you about the cranberry breads I planned to make, or telling you that I posted a Thanksgiving article at Gluten-Free Works, I spent the day making a This-Isn't-Really-How-Pilgrims-Dressed dress for Muffin:

So now I will give a summary of my Thanksgiving cooking: Yum.

We were invited to a potluck dinner with some friends and our contribution was rice and cranberry bread. I cheated a bit and had my housekeeper make a rice pilaf (from the Moosewood Restaurant cookbook) while I made the cranberry breads.

Earlier in the week I tried a cranberry apricot nut cake from Anja's Food 4 Thought. There's no flour in it and if you use unsugared dried fruit then it's sugar-free as well. I had to substitute some of the nuts and I used cranberries that I'd brought back from the United States with us last summer. Ocean Spray Craisins can be found here sometimes, but I didn't want the expense and the inconsistent supply chain to keep me from making cranberry bread at Thanksgiving so I've been saving them to use since September. Anja calls for a mix of pecan and hazelnuts, but I haven't seen hazelnuts here in months so I used all pecans -- which hadn't been around for a few weeks and miraculously arrived on the shelves last Sunday. I bought enough to get me through Christmas. You could fool around substituting different fruits and nuts. (I bought some amazing dates this week, too, that would be good.)

Muffin and I ate most of that cake, which was evidence enough that it would be a good Thanksgiving dish. I had chopped and pre-measured the fruits and nuts when I made the first loaf so on Thursday morning I could make a fresh loaf in less time.

For my second bread I went back and forth on whether I should add cranberries to either the Pamela's baking mix banana bread or zucchini bread recipes. I went with the banana bread. I know the recipe by heart so it was quick to make on Thursday morning. I made it as muffins to ensure it cooked evenly and to save time and mess from having to cut it up.

Muffin tossed all breads and muffins aside once she got her first taste of turkey. Last Thanksgiving she was too young for real food. This year she inhaled the turkey off my plate and took a few bites of mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, and broccoli as well. We thought giving her a turkey leg to play with would make a funny photograph and we were surprised to see her bite right into it. She is definitely a Thanksgiving eater.

les premièrs macarons

Recently I wrote about my new obsession with macarons and how I was planning to battle the India humidity to make my first batch. I did battle the humidity and the little cookies came out much better than I expected.

Per the book Cecile Cannone's Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes from the MacarOn Cafe I separated my egg whites two days before using them. Early in the morning on baking day, I took my egg whites and other ingredients out of the refrigerator to bring them up to room temperature. I also turned on the oven early and brought the dehumidifier into the kitchen to dry out the room as much as possible.

I had to dry out my almond meal before I started the real baking and that took about thirty minutes in the oven. After that things moved along much more smoothly than I expected. I used the Cuisinart food processor (nearly blowing a fuse but stopping when I could feel the electricity struggling) to grind the almond meal and confectioner's sugar (or icing sugar) into a fine, smooth powder. I had to use an electric handheld mixer rather than my KitchenAid stand mixer to beat the egg whites (because the KitchenAid did blow out a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to get it repaired yet) so it took a long time to get the egg whites and sugar to the stiff peaks they needed to be at but it eventually happened. And I did a little dance of joy because I was so relieved and happy to see them beat properly!

I carefully folded the egg whites with sugar into the almond meal with sugar to complete the batter -- yeah, lots of sugar. So far things had gone by the book but I actually had no idea if my batter consistency was correct. It seemed useable so I kept going.

Getting the batter into the piping sleeves was a tricky, sticky mess and who knows how much I wasted. I had a blocked nozzle once or twice with some almond meal clumps but for the most part the batter flowed just as it was supposed to. I made my little circles on my parchment-paper-lined baking sheet, let the cookies rest for a few minutes, then popped them into the oven.

It's the resting and cooking time that can be difficult. The mixing of stuff is all mechanics, but the resting and cooking is a total crapshoot. The cracked cookies and the ones without the nice little shelf on the bottom are the ones that either did not rest long enough, or rested too long, or were not cooked long enough, or were cooked too long, or the oven wasn't opened enough times to let out steam while they were baking, or they were removed from the tray and parchment too early, or too late. There are lots of factors to worry about.

Although my introductory photograph is purple, I did not use food coloring for this first attempt. The purple is the result of my fooling around with some new photo editing stuff. I wanted to see what the macarons looked like naked, so to speak.

They looked pretty good. Much better than I expected them too. They were shiny on top and not all of them cracked. The cracking is the result of too much moisture but there are a few tricks I can use to combat the moisture next time, especially since we are moving away from the rainy season.

Fresh out of the oven. My first tray, before I got the hang of making perfect circles.

The best macaron from the whole batch.

Lots of them cracked.

They tasted great. They are sweet, that's for sure. But they melted in our mouths just like they were supposed to. We ate most of them plain, but when we had some friends over for dinner I made sandwich cookies, some with chocolate frosting left over from birthday cupcakes a few days earlier and some with cherry preserves.

I'm game to keep trying. I have some colors and flavors in mind to play around with. I've purchased several macaron cookbooks lately and I love the colorful photos. I kind of want to make them just so I can take photos of them, too!

Note: I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on the book link and ultimately decide to buy it, I will receive a small amount of money.
All photos taken by me. 

pumpkin seeds

This was originally published on 3 November 2007. I updated it with our recent jack-o-lantern photo. I actually liked the pumpkin seeds from our Hyderabadi pumpkins better than seeds I've gotten from American pumpkins. They have a nice meaty inner seed.

If you carved a pumpkin this week, then you had a bunch of pumpkin seeds laying around afterward. I've always loved roasting them for a post-carving snack.

I wanted to say a little more than "spread on tray and put in oven" for this post, so I turned to Wikipedia for some pumpkin seed info. Pumpkin seeds are a good source of stuff that's good for us: iron, zinc, essential fatty acids, potassium, and magnesium. There's also new research showing that they are high in tryptophan. So when you're feeling jittery from eating all that trick-or-treating loot, down a handful of pumpkin seeds to help you relax.

There are various "favorite" ways for preparing pumpkin seeds. I separated mine from the pulp and rinsed them in a colander. Then I forgot about them and left them to dry overnight in the sink. The next morning I spread them on a foil-lined baking sheet and lightly salted them. I baked them at 350 for about 15 minutes. They were crispy and light brown on the outside and just a little chewy on the inside.

First I ate them by the handful while they were still warm from the oven. Later in the day I mixed some with sweetened dried cranberries for a sweet and salty snack. Then I topped a green salad with the last of them.

Why do I only do this once or twice a year? I only roast them when I've cut up a pumpkin for some reason. It's just not the same to buy them from the store. I like to get my hands in the pumpkin guts.

laddu

For Diwali this week, our housekeeper showed me how to make laddu, one of the traditional sweets. They're made with besan, which is lentil flour.

She started with 500 mL ghee, which is clarified butter. She heated it up on the stovetop until it was clear. Then she took small spoonfuls of the ghee and put it in a frying pan with a few spoonfuls of the besan, heating it all up together until it was all incorporated and the mixture was free of clumps. She did this for a long time, until she'd combined the ghee with about half of a kilogram (about one pound) of besan. It takes a while because you have to do such small amounts at once, in order to keep the besan from burning.

Then she put half of a kilogram of sugar in the food processor until it was very fine, and she stirred that into the besan-ghee mixture. She also added a few shakes of ground cardamom.

Once everything is mixed and is the right texture, you pick up small handfuls and form little balls. You can also add chopped nuts to the mixture and our housekeeper did half with cashews and half with pistachios. They sit in a cool room (we had to blast the air conditioner over the dining room table) until they've hardened up enough to not fall apart. Then they are eaten!

I liked them. They are heavy and sweet, but also quite filling because of the lentil flour so I tried to convince myself that one or two with a cup of coffee wasn't the worst treat in the world. Muffin enjoyed them as well.

According to our housekeeper, laddu are also given to women in labor to help ease the pain and they are also given the children who are deemed "too skinny."

These are easy to make, but I probably won't make them again until next Diwali because they are too sweet and heavy to enjoy on a regular basis. Next year Muffin will be old enough to get her hands in the dough and help shape the little balls.

Heating up the ghee.

Heating up the besan with ghee.

After the sugar and cardamom is added, shaping the dough into little balls.

A tray full of laddu.

More laddu pleeeeeeeeease!

adventures in veggie shopping

Much like going to the farmers' market in San Francisco or Dupont Circle to check out the fresh produce before heading out to the grocery store, here I have to go to a fruit stand and a vegetable stand to find the best produce before I take my chances on the grocery store produce aisle.

Finding the best "Western" produce is a competitive sport. I only just discovered the secret of the produce stand a few weeks ago. I usually send my driver out for groceries or make one stop at the grocery store and settle for what's there. But now that it's a little easier to shop with Muffin in tow, I love our weekly trek to Star Fruit and Tarkari Vegetables. The veggie ladies give Muffin carrots to play with. Star Fruit is a tiny, jam-packed shop and Muffin pokes and grabs at any fruit or customers within range. (And because people love babies so much here, they don't mind a little grabbing hand from the whitest baby they've ever seen.)

The best thing about Tarkari -- they almost always have green leaf lettuce. At most stores you can only get iceberg lettuce, which I detest. But Tarkari has green leaf lettuce and -- get this -- with a little washing it's perfectly safe to eat! We can have salad again! The first day I discovered the lettuce, there was an Australian woman in the shop who told me to take what I wanted because she was going to buy all of it. Competitive lettuce shopping indeed. When I found fresh basil after weeks of not seeing it, I was the one who bought the whole stock (and then I had my housekeeper make about a gallon of pesto). And I'm sorry other expats, but I also cleaned out the thyme and rosemary at qmart a couple weeks ago.

The prices at the grocery store aren't prohibitive for most expats, like they might be for local shoppers. It's certainly more convenient for one-stop shopping. But what I like about the smaller stands is that the fruits and veggies are local. They are fresh. They are ripe. They may have traveled from another state in India, but few things came on a plane from another country.

You do need to wash everything, but that's one of the benefits of having a housekeeper. She washes and cuts everything up, which makes it much more likely that we'll actually eat all the fruits and vegetables that I buy.

Muffin's been enjoying the local watermelon lately.

Cross-posted at Where in the World Am I.

banana date muffins with coconut oil

I'm in love with coconut oil. I'd been hearing about its magical properties in the removal of Holi paints and this morning as I was rubbing it on Muffin's head, hungry from the toasted coconut smell, I started wondering how I can cook with it. I was going to make banana bread today anyway... could I replace the butter with coconut oil?

Before answering that question, I had to make sure the coconut oil I used was marked "edible." Coconut oil is used in women's hair here and the hair oil is a different grade than the cooking oil.

I pulled out my trusty Pamela's baking mix and got to work.

4 tablespoons coconut oil
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups Pamela's baking mix
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup golden syrup (You can also use granulated sugar or honey, but golden syrup is another new obsession of mine.)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup ripe, mashed banana
1/2 cup chopped dates (You can substitute nuts or another dried fruit if you prefer.)

Mix it all up and spoon into oiled or paper-lined muffin tins. Bake at 350 F / 175 C for about fifteen minutes, until edges start to turn golden and a toothpick comes out clean. My yield was about fifteen muffins, but the muffin papers I've found here a a bit smaller than the usual ones found in the United States.

These were soft and tasty-warm-delicious right out of the oven, and they kept their softness and moisture for a couple days. They are oh-so-yummy, rich with the coconut and banana flavors. I'd love to try dried mango for a full-on tropical muffin.

The answer is yes, I can replace butter with coconut oil, at least in this recipe.

Muffin enjoys her muffin.

(Recipe modified from the banana loaf recipe found on the Pamela's baking mix package.)

jackfruit

Today my driver pulled over to buy some bananas and he asked if I'd ever eaten jackfruit. I hadn't, and as he excitedly negotiated a price for some bananas and jackfruit, because jackfruit is so great I just had to try it, I wondered if jackfruit was the big, ugly spiny melon that was sitting on the cart covered in flies.

It was. But to my relief the vendor pulled out a plastic bag filled with what looked like large, yellow unpeeled garlic cloves. They smelled good, like pineapple. They looked pretty clean. My driver advised me to eat a little of the flesh, peeling it off the large seed on the inside.

Yum! Imagine a pineapple, only sweeter and with less annoying juice and fewer annoying fibers. I gave a tiny bit to Muffin and her head nearly exploded from yumminess. I only ate one pod, thinking it was best to wash the rest before eating them. I'm trying to save some for Mike to try, but it's just too sweet and delicious. I'm popping them like candy corns. 

Jackfruit has vitamins and stuff, and some of the less-sweet flesh is used as a carbohydrate source. People make jams and chutneys out of it and dry it out for chips. I'm just going to be eating it from now until it goes out of season. I can go buy one every day if I want to! I'm thinking they'd be a great addition to my smoothies.

Find more information at Jackfruit Basics. Image from Jackfruit Basics.

almond meal and other gluten-free monthly specials at bob's red mill

Almond meal is great for baking with. It adds a little something special to muffins, quick breads, and pancakes. I also use it in brownies. I'm not saying brownies are health food, but a little almond meal will give you a boost of healthy fats, vitamins, and fiber.

This month at Bob's Red Mill almond meal, rice bran, hemp seeds, chia seeds, raw shelled sunflower seeds, and brown flaxseeds are on sale. They are all part of a fiber-rich, heart-healthy diet and they are all 20% off this month.

Note that not all products on the specials page are gluten-free and not all products are processed in Bob's strictly gluten-free facility. Read product descriptions carefully for making informed decisions.

*I was not compensated in any way for this post. Products are purchased by me for personal consumption.

roland quinoa and other grains on sale at amazon.com

I love quinoa. It's the supergrain that the Aztecs warriors ate. It's packed with protein and for the pregnant ladies it's a good source of folic acid. Roland quinoa, along with polenta and rice, is on sale from Amazon.com. Throughout the month of March, select Roland products are 15% off with the coupon code ROLAN655. You'll save an additional 15% if you sign up for Subscribe & Save.

Note that not every product on this page is gluten-free, so read descriptions carefully.



*I am an Amazon affiliate. If you purchase from these links or from my store, I will receive a small kickback.

chocolate banana milkshake

Milkshakes aren't generally regarded as health food (don't even think about SlimFast or anything related). But as a weekend treat for myself, I've figured out a pretty good combination of bananas, unsweetened cocoa powder, and nonfat milk. How do you get a thick creamy milkshake out of nonfat milk? Freeze the bananas!

Frozen bananas are my latest food obsession. Several times a week I send my housekeeper out to buy bunches of the baby bananas we have here. They are very sweet and taste better than any banana I've ever had in the United States. And they are a perfect size for adding to smoothies and shakes without having to cut them up. Not that it's not difficult to cut up bananas, but every bit of time saved seems to help these days. When I get my bunch of baby bananas I peel them all and put them in a bag in the freezer (which also keeps the ants away from them!). Then each morning I pull some out to add to my daily blender beverage. I only use two in fruit smoothies, because there's plenty of other fruit. But four or five added to the milk makes for a cold, smooth, creamy treat that is exactly as if you've added ice cream.

I don't really measure and sometimes I end up with enough for two (or three, depending on if you're counting both Mike and the baby). I use 1 1/2 to 2 cups of nonfat milk (I use Bob's Red Mill Nonfat Milk Powder to make my nonfat milk), four or five frozen baby bananas, and a heaping spoonful of cocoa powder. Blend it up and pour it into tall glasses. It's super-fantastic, if you like bananas.

If you are in the United States, you may be able to find these baby bananas at an international grocery store. I'd get them at an Asian grocery store in Falls Church, Virginia, and I'm pretty sure I saw them at some of the Mexican/South American stores in the area also. They really are tastier than the oversized, over-produced, under-flavored Chiquita or Dole bananas you'll find at Stop & Shop.

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.

raw revolution

The latest victim in my food-in-bar-form obsession is Raw Revolution. I bought Raspberry & Chocolate, Chocolate & Coconut, and Chocolate & Cashew varieties from Gluten-Free Mall.  

I'm suspicious of "raw diet" marketing. It seems so gimicky. Many healthy snacks are already raw by virtue of them being dried or fresh, rather than processed. But by adding the word "raw" and some flashy packaging (often plastic-wrapped, which bugs the heck out of me), suddenly plain old dried fruit is expensive and trendy. I also have an issue with the use of "live food" on the package, because where I'm living, live food is the mosquitoes that geckos eat (or the geckos that my cat eats).

However, I do like bars for snacks on the go, and you can't beat their convenience when hiking or traveling. So I decided to ignore the "raw" and focus on the chocolate. 

Big mistake. "Health food" chocolate just doesn't taste the same as Ghiradelli chocolate. The bars weren't bad tasting, especially the raspberry one, which had a nice, strong raspberry flavor. But it wasn't like eating a chocolate bar. 

I didn't really like the consistency of these bars either. Remember those slabs of colored clay you used to get in elementary school? It's sort of like that. Only stickier, because of the dried fruit. How "unprocessed" is a food really, when it's all mashed up and forced into bar form? It may not be cooked, but it still had a lot of mechanical help.

Besides food in bar form, another recent obsession of mine is fiber. These bars are fairly high in fiber, so that was my main reason for giving them a couple chances. Unfortunately they are also a bit too high in saturated fat for my liking. I have to admit that these bars kept me full for quite a while after eating one. The Raspberry & Chocolate bar may make occasional appearances in my repertoire, because I do love chocolate, I liked this better than the Jocolat bars, and I like variety and choices. But I enjoy too many other fatty foods to make this an everyday treat.

Raw Revolution bars are sold no where in my neighborhood, except online. You can purchase directly from Raw Revolution, or a number of other outlets such as Amazon.com and Gluten-Free Mall. I don't think I'm going out on a limb by suggesting you can probably find them at your local Whole Foods or REI.

In running news, it hasn't been going well. Mike and I have both been sort of low-energy and flu-like this week. But my arch pain has subsided, my knees feel good, and I'm playing tennis this morning. I'll be back to running again in no time.

Image from Raw Revolution.

I purchased these items on my own from Gluten-Free Mall. This is not a paid review.

tropical fruit smoothie

One of the greatest benefits to living in Bujumbura is the abundance of tropical fruits: bananas, pineapple, mango, and papaya. Sure, it's not a huge selection and occasionally I crave an apple, but it's available year round, it's always delicious, and it's cheap.

Our cook has a standing order to keep fresh tropical fruit salad in the refrigerator at all times. We eat it for breakfast most days and sometimes for dessert after lunch. And several times a week we make fruit smoothies with it. With some of the local passionfruit or pineapple juices and a bit of dry milk powder, we have an amazingly sweet, creamy treat.

We have a five-cup blender and I fill it about halfway with the fruit salad. I add about a half cup of dry milk powder (I prefer Bob's Red Mill nonfat or buttermilk powders), a bottle of fruit juice (250 mL -- and the pineapple is sugar free; the passionfruit has cane sugar added), and six to eight ice cubes, and blend.

When a friend from the States was visiting, I made these smoothies for him and Mike after they'd gone for a run. He exclaimed, "You'll pay seven dollars for this back home!" And here seven dollars buys you more than enough fruit to make a smoothie every day for a week. The juice and milk powder are optional. At the very least all you need is the fruit and the ice.

On Sunday mornings the fruit smoothie makes the weekly malaria pill go down, well, smoothly.

annie's rice pasta & cheddar

I grew up loving the original Annie's macaroni and cheese and I was devastated when I couldn't eat in any more. On the other end of the spectrum, I also loved the fake oranginess of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I found some enjoyable gluten-free macaroni and cheese mixes, but nothing that brought me back to childhood (and college-hood, and first-apartment-hood).

Just before we left for Bujumbura last summer I noticed that Annie's had finally developed a gluten-free macaroni and cheese: Annie's Rice Pasta & Cheddar. It was tasty! It was orange! It was Annie's + Kraft, sittin' in a tree. And I could buy it in bulk from Amazon.com Groceries.

This month, just as my supply is starting to dwindle, Amazon.com Groceries has Annie's products on sale, including the gluten-free Rice Pasta & Cheddar.

Save 30% instantly when you purchase select Annie's products. Enter code ANNHOME5 at checkout. The offer is valid through 31 March 2009. Sold in packs of 12 boxes.


Image from Amazon.com Groceries.

kind fruit + nut bars

I discovered these bars over a year ago, at a Whole Foods just before we left California, and I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned them before now. Maybe because back then I was just buying one or two bars at a time as special treats, but I just recently bought several cases of them to drag up Kilimanjaro with me.

Kind Fruit + Nut bars are totally yummy. They are mostly whole nuts with some dried fruit and a sprinkling of glucose, honey, and puffed rice to help keep everything together. They are a heartier energy bar than anything I’ve tried in a while. (As much as I love Lara bars for the taste, the Kind bars are more filling.)

I’ve been eating mostly the almond and apricot and macadamia and apricot varieties, but to mix things up a little I ordered some different flavors. Today I had my first sesame peanut with chocolate bar. The chocolate was surprisingly chocolate-tasting. However, I’ve noticed that the bars that are mostly nuts without fruit are hard to bite into. They’re tasty once you do bit though. I liked the peanut sesame bar, and all that biting and chewing will give me something to do while I’m plodding up the mountain.

Kind bars are made in Australia. They are gluten-free and some are dairy-free (some have yogurt or chocolate). They can be purchases individually at Whole Foods and other health food stores. You can buy them by the box at Amazon.com.

I have to say that they are a tad expensive, although buying them in enough quantity on Amazon to get the free shipping helps. If I weren’t living in a place with limited snack food plus planning a major trek, I would still be on my one or two per shopping trip buying schedule.

(Image from healthyreader.com)

best bananas

Our cook makes the most amazing bananas on the planet. If I could marry food, this might be my chosen one. He serves them with a yellow curry sauce and when I eat them I’m transported to the delirious times of dizzy noo shak at Bombay in San Diego (scroll down to Bombay Curries Vegetarian… wait for it… wait for it).

lara bars

I heard about Lara Bars when I was searching the forums at celiac.com for energy bars. Any sort of energy or snack bar is suspect because they usually have oats in them or a long list of bizarr-o sounding compounds of indeterminate makeup. Also, even when I could eat those energy bars, I just didn't like them that much.

In comes Lara Bar. The ingredients are simple: nuts and dried fruit. The flavors are amazing. The cherry pie flavor, while not gooey with pie filling oozing from under a flaky crust, actually tastes like cherry pie. Because it's made of cherries. Somehow the cashews in the banana cookie bar mimics the taste of cookie crumbs. The only ingredients though are the cashews and bananas.

While the flavors are amazing and I've been buying them by the case, there's one drawback to these bars. They're somewhat high in sugar and fat. That's to be expected when there's nothing but fruit and nuts I suppose. They do give you the quick burst of energy with a shot of flavor that's better than any Balance or Cliff bar. But I wouldn't want to make a full meal out of them. I keep them as snacky treats for when I'm traveling.

I've seen Lara Bars at Trader Joe's, REI, and other grocery and outdoors stores. You can order cases directly from the Lara Bar website, but they're cheaper from Amazon.com.

(Image from FitSugar.com.)