Results matching “garlic” from Jeanette Hada's Wellness and Happiness Blog

It's 2:16 a.m. and Aislee is sleeping in my lap.  She's growing amazingly fast and is really active these days.  It's been challenging for her fighting her first real cold.  She'll wake up several times frustrated with her stuffy nose.

I've been thinking how incredibly different life has changed with the baby.   I wouldn't have it any other way.  It's almost frightening how much I love this tiny human.  The funny thing is, before she was born, my dear friend told me that it's important to not neglect the husband when the baby arrived.  It's been non-stop taking care of her that there really is no time to pay attention to Naoki or really myself these past several months.  Taking a shower uninterrupted is a luxury and I'm thankful when papa is able to take Aislee for a walk while I handle a few household chores.  He spends most of his free time caring for the house and garden.  What's interesting and a little funny, is that after you have this cute little one with small everything and inquisitive expressions, anything that was remotely cute or appealing in your partner ceases to be...well, cute.  Suddenly, the baby has taken control of all that is cute.  Not even Lucky, our comedic bird, can compete.

Other observations of life with baby...  Buying new clothes, shoes, makeup is no longer a necessity.  It has been replaced by buying food, toys (for baby), and diapers.  I wear mostly what's comfortable now.  Her comfort and well-being is my top  priority.  So far, I've been blessed with clients who are baby-friendly. She comes with me everywhere -- even to tour properties.

I never thought becoming a mother would incur so many changes.  The pressure cooker Naoki purchased is a lifesaver.  It makes healthy baby food in minutes!  I'll try chubbing Aislee up with avocados, sweet potatos, and bananas.  She loves Japanese pumpkin, kabocha, which cooks beautifully in the pressure cooker.  I add a little cinnamon sometimes.  She seems to enjoy it.

Finding time to eat for myself has been difficult while juggling caring for the baby and working.  Making sandwiches enables me to eat and have a free hand while eating.  My current addiction is Trader Joe's Garlic Cheddar Sourdough toasted and smothered with avocado on one side and thinly sliced cucumbers and cream cheese.  Sometimes I'll slather raspberry jam and a savory speadable cheese on the same bread which is super good as well.

Ok, time for us to move to the Sun Room to sleep.  This is where we now have our bedroom.  The Star Room is our library/office, the Moon Room is also an office (that's in serious need of cleaning).  I work in the Fire Room most of the time and the Sky Room (aka the dining room is used for gatherings.  We'll be hosting Aislee's first birthday in July and hope to see some of you here at our gingerbread house.

As I sit under the warmth of the much appreciated kotatsu (heater table) with my daughter sleeping peacefully in my arms, I can't believe a half year has already passed since living in our home.  For nearly three weeks two months ago, we dealt with uncomfortably cold weather and met with the challenges of staying warm in an older (109 yrs old) home while making an effort to keep the PG&E expenses down.  With all my complaining and grouching, our last two bills came in under $100 dollars!  Even while living in our tiny condo, our electricity bill usually fluctuated around $150.

I've really come to love this house with it's beautifully painted rooms.  Naoki finished the Venetian plaster in the sun room and recently the star room.  He did a wonderful job and they look wonderful and bring a warmer feeling to the house.   

Life has been busy with family and business.  We've been blessed in both areas.  Naoki's mother and sister came for a brief nine day stay. They really enjoyed all the tasty fruit (navel oranges, pummelos, fuji apples, and oro blancos) that are in season from the farmers market in Campbell.  I made a garlicky spinach pasta with fresh Meyer lemons from our yard one night.  It came out very well, though I would have liked it to be spicier...recipe to follow.

In business, I feel very fortunate and again blessed to be working with so many incredible people.  My listing in San Bruno thankfully sold and the seller is buying a lovely place to call home in Sacramento.  Four deals have closed this year so far and with another in escrow, there is much to be appeciative for.  Although the news is always painting a bleak outlook, they are usually behind in reporting how things are looking up.

Back to talking about home...  We have nearly 50 fruit plants/trees in our yard now.  The potatoes are sprouting in the crop circle Naoki made.  The blossoms are radiant on Aislee's white peach / white nectarine tree and on the Georgia Peach tree we adopted from a home in Palo Alto.  I'm looking forward to making fruit pies if the fat squirrels don't get to them first.

The old avocado tree that came with this house bears California Diablo avocados.  They're smoother and creamier than Hass and have a thinner skin.  They take two weeks to ripen once picked from the tree.  Hopefully we'll have more growing as I love avocado sandwiches on toasted bread with Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie brand) and slices of cold cucumber! So good!!  I could go off on a tangent when it comes to avocados...  Actually it looks like I did.

Ok, on to the pasta recipe -

Boil your preferred pasta al dente (slightly undercooked) as you'll be adding it to another pan to mix in with the garlic lemon sauce.

1. In a large sauce pan drizzle a tablespoon of grapeseed oil (olive oil is fine too) and a pat of butter, heat on medium flame.
2. Add crushed garlic, approximately 5 - 7 cloves
3. Sprinkle a teaspoon (or more depending on your heat preference) of red pepper flakes
4. Add a few pinches of salt to meld flavors, more can be added later to adjust
5. Careful not to burn the garlic, give your mixture a few pushes around your pan.
6. Once garlic is crisp, add spinach and pasta.
7. Mix everything well til spinach is cooked, adding a touch more oil or butter as needed.
8. Finally add thinly sliced lemon wedges of one lemon or juice lemon and add it's zest.

 

One of the biggest perks of living close to my mom is having access to her wonderful home cooking! During my first trimester, I experienced a loss in appetite and could barely eat anything that wouldn't make me nauseous. The only dishes I could truly indulge in were prepared by my mother. Garlic and onions would turn me green, which is strange since my mom used both of those ingredients to make her lasagna. My baby is probably made of 80% lasagna / 5% oatmeal cookies / 10% white peach cobbler / 5% pickles. Of course, I've made it a habit to take my vitamins, extra calcium (w/magnesium and D), folic acid, plus a consistent amount of omegas for her development. I falter a few times a week when it comes to eating low-glycemic, and really try to monitor my sugar intake. At nearly eight months, I've gained 18 pounds and will continue to watch the scale and what I eat to insure this little girl is getting proper nutrition and gaining weight in a healthy way. In other news...we finally closed escrow on our home last Friday. It was a challenging experience purchasing a bank owned fixer upper, but the lovely little gingerbread craftsman was well worth the wait and huge pile of paperwork! I've dealt with many REO (real estate owned) properties this past year and am always amazed at what they previously sold for and how much attention or lack of was spent on maintaining the home.

After an excellent appointment with my midwife's assistant/doula in Menlo Park, my friend and I headed to downtown Los Altos to indulge in something light and sweet at Satura Bakery. If you've not yet been, I highly suggest taking a trip there on a Thursday afternoon. After eating one of the best choux creams in my life, we walked over to the farmers market. This is one of the rare markets that stays open later in the day. We sampled different types of flavorful cherries that were sweet and not the least bit sour, hearty Jersey Brand milk cheeses, super sweet sweet peas, and dark juicy red strawberries. I left with five small, but crisp and sweet, organic white peaches from Kashiwase Farms, organic Spring Hill Farms garlic curds (made from fresh mozzarella), and also one of their pesto jack blocks, melt-in-your-mouth roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes (we ate those there), and a small basket of unusually pointy, but remarkably sweet strawberries!! Oh, and I also purchased five of Satura's choux creams for Naoki -- three vanilla and two green tea flavored. Forgive all of these foodcentric posts. Occupying my mind most of the time is food, house hunting for friends/clients and ourselves, and this baby.

Ever since returning from Taiwan in 2005, I've really enjoyed the ritual of having a cup of tea after dinner. There was a particular mulberry tea from there that I loved, but finished off within the first few weeks after our return. If I have the chance to visit again, I will make a special trip to purchase the same brand again. Other mulberry teas just don't seem to have that same deep flavor. Mulberry leaf tea is known to be good for lowering blood pressure and maintaining blood sugar levels.

The tea I had this evening was made with ginseng and dried pink rose hips. I was a little put off when I first opened the teabag as it smelled like potpourri, but after brewing it for a few minutes it made the prettiest and most aromatic cup of tea. Rose hips are high in vitamin C and can also be eaten. The ginseng teabag that you add separately has a flavor that takes getting used to. It's definitely an earthy tasting brew.

There are always treasures to be found at each of the local farmers markets in the Bay Area. Today was our first time exploring the one held in downtown Campbell. We decided last Sunday while at Santana Row's Farmers we'd follow one of the friends we made at the Twin Girls Organic Fruit Stand to his new location and purchase some of their fresh pressed, organic pomegranate juice. As usual, we arrived 30 minutes to closing. We found our friend, Isaias, and puchased a bag full of Fuyu persimmons, red/black pluots, two pomegranates (cracked, how Naoki likes them), and two bottles of the pom juice.

If you've ever tried and liked POM at your local grocers, you will LOVE Twin Girls freshly pressed pomegranate juice! The first sip will make you pucker, but after your initial taste it really becomes so deliciously sweet. It would make for a wonderful popscicle, drizzled atop vanilla ice cream or even a fruity vinegarette dressing. One thing to keep in mind though, it's best to drink it in a small glass. While it is preferable to drink after it's just been pressed, it does contain a high amount of sugar. There's also a potent amount of antioxidants, but a little does go a long way.

More on the health benefits of these jeweled fruit -

- High in potassium, vitamin C, folic acid, fiber and polyphenols
- lowers risk of heart disease by preventing the formation of plaque
- preserves nitric oxide, a chemical that regulates blood flow and maintains healthy blood vessel health
- combats free radicals that may cause stroke, hypertension and Alzheimer’s disease
- high levels of antioxidants may prevent premature aging
- polyphenols may slow or even prevent the development of cancer

Gazpacho is one of my favorite dishes, especially on hot summer days! This is an easy recipe that I modify to my taste using spicy peppers, more garlic and sprouted wheat toast (instead of the stale white bread). Since this is a cold soup, you can add Phyto-Aloe powder to enhance the nutritional value and taste. Enjoy!

Never thought it would be possible to find good pizza in the Bay Area and was actually looking forward to my March trip to Fort Worth, Texas where there's a NY-style pizzeria with the most amazing pie that I think about that cursed, delicious cheesy piece of heaven almost a few times a week since I was there last year.

Last night, a friend and I (she's a native east coaster), dined at Tony Soprano's pizzeria in downtown San Jose. After that first bite into a simple slice of hot cheese pizza, I was in total bliss. The sauce and melting cheese were pure perfection! Don't even get me started on their crispy (not oily) calamari, hearty and generous servings of Chicken Marsala over a bed of linguini or their golden toasted garlic bread. The only thing that outshined the food, which wasn't an easy thing to do, was the service. Everyone from the patrons to the employees were so happy, wonderful and nice. Did I mention it was a Monday night? Anyway, my friend told me that their pizza was the closest she's come to what she's had back east and that's saying a lot! Her next quest is to find the perfect cannoli here...

The restaurant is a few months old and they will be getting their liquor license by the middle of this month. Drop in and take a look at their menu, bet you'll have a difficult time deciding what to order. My next visit will be to indulge in their seafood pasta laden with wine drenched mussels, clams, shrimp, and scallops in your choice of white or red sauce. Portions are extremely generous and can be shared or saved for the next day. Oh and pizza can be purchased by the slice!

Tony Soprano's Pizzeria Ristorante
87 E. San Fernando Street (btwn 2nd & 3rd Street)
San Jose, CA 95113
(408)271-9707

Worth visiting Monday thru Saturday when the incredibly talented Chef Marvin is working!!

Tell Richard J says hello!