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Got a new favorite lunchies! It’s quick, easy, nutritious and pretty dang tasty, if I do say so myself.

I can’t take all the credit, though. I liberated a recipe that I saw on eatyourselfskinny.com, which I originally wanted to try because it had kale in it, and I’m still trying to like kale….but I ended up tweaking it, LOL! My version doesn’t have kale in it.

Yeah, the whole me trying to love kale thing? It’s not going well, but that leads me to one of the joys of cooking –substitutions. 🙂

This serves one person, by the way, and cooks up in a flash, so you’ll want to start by gathering your ingredients and having them prepped and ready.

Here’s what you’ll need…

• 1 tbsp olive oil (or you can use an olive oil spray, but I like to add a little healthy fat so that the meal sustains me for longer than 10 minutes)
• 2-3 minced cloves
• 4 cups of fresh spinach
• 1 cup of cooked brown rice (or a 1/2 cup, depending on how hungry you are; I use Trader Joe’s Organic Brown Rice, which is in the frozen section)
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp grated Parmesan
• 1 egg

Start by warming the tablespoon of olive oil in a non-stick skillet, then add your garlic. Cook until the garlic turns fragrantly golden… On my electric stove, this takes about three minutes. Watch it carefully, though, because you don’t want to burn the garlic (it’ll get bitter).

In a separate pot, cook the brown rice.

Next, toss in the cooked brown rice, and stir to mix it in with the olive oil and garlic.

Then mix in the spinach, and cook until it’s about halfway wilted.

Next, mix in the grated Parmesan and breadcrumbs, and cook until the cheese gets melty and the spinach fully wilts.

Be careful not to overcook the spinach, because that’s no fun, and place in your serving bowl.

You could can have it right like that, but I like to top it off with an egg over easy that’s been lightly dusted with a pinch of salt. Not too much salt because Parmesan is already pretty salty.

If the egg doesn’t sound like your thing, you could substitute it with tofu, tempeh, chicken, fish, beef, whatever you’re in the mood for.

Last, but certainly not least, dig in! 🙂 It’s nom time.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Have you happened upon any healthy new recipes lately? Inquiring/hungry minds want to know.

Connor’s first birthday lasagna was a smash super hit! Of course, I’m exhausted from all the festivities (hosting is fun but tiring, am I right?!), but it was all worth it.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Even though I think love should be celebrated every day, I don’t mind that February 14 is the designated day to say, “Hey, love! ??? You’re pretty awesome.”

I’ll be spending Valentine’s Day with Ms. Connor Claire, who’s dressed in head-to-toe hearts for the occasion, and her big brother Tabs, of course. Later tonight, El Hub will pick up dinner on his way home, because I’m craving Puerto Rican food… Nothing says “I love you” like fried ? plantains, LOL!

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Soup is one of those things that seems (to me) like it would be hard to make, but when you really get down to it, it’s basically just throwing a bunch of stuff into a pot, mixing it around and waiting.

It’s not that hard! It’s kind of like smoky eyes. A little bit of practice, and you start to figure out how the pieces fit together. Then it’s not that hard to execute.

Soup is my favorite thing to eat when I’m feeling under the weather (I’m still getting over that cold), and I made this chickpea tomato soup last night from a recipe on skinnytaste.com. It turned out SO delicious. I can’t wait to make it again, but I think I’m going to double everything and make twice as much. Then I’ll freeze the extra.

It was kind of a last-minute decision, and I didn’t have the fresh herbs, so I substituted them for dry herbs from my cupboard.

I used my new Dutch oven (got it from Target last month), and I freakin’ love that thing. How did I make it this long without a Dutch oven??

This is basically the same as the recipe on Skinnytaste, but I started by warming a teaspoon of olive oil in a medium sauce pan. Then I dropped in the chopped celery, carrots, onion (I used shallots because I had them) and garlic and cooked until they got nice and soft.

Then I poured in the broth and made a point of scraping up any bits of veggies that got stuck to the bottom of the pan, because it would add flavor to the soup.

After the broth, I added two cans of chickpeas (drained and washed), a big can of diced tomatoes (I think the original recipe listed crushed tomatoes, but I had diced), Parmesan and the herbs. I stirred it all together, then put the top on the pot and let it cook on low for 30 minutes.

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Our little coywolf isn’t so little anymore. Was there really a time when I could put her on a blanket, and take pictures of her while she sat and smiled cutely?? Now, I gotta chase this child down to grab a couple shots!

She’s about 10 months old now and spends most of her days playing xylophone music, redecorating and doing baby laps inside her play area, when she isn’t tilling the carpet fields behind her baby walker. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

My brother’s going on a one-month trip to the Philippines this month, so he’s been working a side gig on the weekends to earn some extra money before he goes. It’s at a thing called a pop-up, which is like a restaurant that takes over another restaurant for a short time. This one’s called Friends With Benedicts, and Connor Claire, El Hub and I went for brunch (complete with mimosas) Sunday morning.

It was delicious!

The pop-up is at Mykonos Greek Restaurant at 1431 Polk St. in San Francisco, easy walking distance from one of the cable car lines, and they’re open on Saturdays and Sundays.

Basically, in the pop-up idea, the pop-up crew — the cooks, the wait staff, the kitchen helpers and the manager — visit and temporarily take over the other restaurant for the day, so the parent restaurant (Mykonos Greek Restaurant, in this case) is closed. It’s just the pop-up that’s open.

It was like visiting somebody’s house and them make great food for you, like classic breakfast/brunch dishes with scrambled eggs, eggs benedict, pancakes, etc., and some weekends they’ll do brunch specials with a twist, like an eggs benedict with beet-infused hollandaise sauce, or themed brunches (they did one based on old-school breakfast cereals, another one called That ’70s Brunch, and another one inspired by The Jungle Book), so they have fun with the idea, too. It’s not stuffy or formal.

Everyone was friendly and down to earth, unlike some brunch spots or restaurants where you’re ushered in and out. This didn’t feel like that at all. The cooks and greeters and wait staff (and the bartender, who made a damn fine mimosa, BTW) were incredibly friendly.

El Hub had a baked croque madam (brioche pain de mie with grated cheese and slightly peppered ham topped with a fried egg and hollandaise sauce; served with fruit), and I had the banana pancakes, which I ended up only eating half of because Connor decided to mooch off mommy’s breakfast, which was fine.

Both of us thought it was delish!

If you ever find yourself hungry for good food and friendliness in the city on a Saturday or Sunday morning, you should go. Maybe we’ll see you there. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

According to secret Costco security footage recently leaked on YouTube, when the lights go off at night, and the store shuts down, these bears come to life!

Now we finally know what they’re doing when they’re in the store by themselves…

They chug the wine and eat the massive jars of honey that are supposed to be for restaurants and, I guess…families that really, really, really like honey.

And then they sit in front of the big TV screens and watch really bad reality TV shows.

That makes sense, I guess… I mean, I can’t see them wanting to watch nature programs. After a tough day at work, most people like to watch TV to check out and get away from it all, so why would a giant teddy bear want to watch a bear show??

Well, it turns out that they watch Real Housewives, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette — basically, shows involving people finding “true love” (quote, unquote) on TV.

Makes perfect sense to me. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen