Ooh la La Med

Hello Everyone!

Sorry that I've been M.I.A. for a while now.. I've been battling final exams for my summer classes and getting ready to apply for dietetic internships for next year! It's funny to imagine that just 3 years ago I was a high school senior preparing for college and now in one years time, I'll be moving on to the next chapter of my crazy life. Where I'm going... I'm not really sure. All I know is that exciting things are coming up in the future and I can't wait to see where life takes me!

For this weeks post, we're going to yet another Mediterranean restaurant that I've personally always wanted to go to but never found time to visit: La Med!

La Med is one of the many restaurants and small stores up on College Ave toward Elmwood. The restaurant is cozy with a outdoor patio area and a decent size interior.

Okay, so moving onto the FOOD!!

La Med offers a gluten free and vegan menu and all the servers seem very knowledgeable and accommodating, which is always a plus in my book!

So, I heard from various classmates that the Pomegranate Chicken was the best dish in the house and that if you ever went to La Med, that was the go to. Luckily, the dish is entirely gluten free!! And so here it is in all its pomegranity glory!

The servers even threw in some gluten free crackers to go along with their very tasty hummus. :)

The gfree crackers are on the left! Too bad the flatbread isn't. 

In terms of the chicken, I thought the flavor was interesting- it was lightly flavored with a slight sour taste because of the pomegranate but I thought it wasn't mind-blowing. The taste was mediocre for all the positive reviews it got but hey, some nights the chicken could be better or worse, right? The chicken was also a bit dry in the middle which also got it dinged a few points.

For sides, they offer soup, green salad, or Armenian potato salad. I decided to try something different and go with the potato salad. It was pretty disappointing- it was all sour and I ended up throwing most of it out. Don't order the potato salad unless you enjoy sour tastes.

The rice pilaf (all gluten free) and the hummus were amazing though! I could have gone with more rice and hummus to replace the icky potato salad.

The crackers were similar to those grainy rice crackers sold at Whole Foods. Not too tasty but decent with the hummus.

Overall, the experience was good. I was impressed with the service although bummed by the food. I would probably try this place again if someone really wanted to go, but I wouldn't be back here once a week.

Alright! That's it for this week and look forward to more posts coming soon!

Kris

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San Francisco Street Food Festival

Just a shmorgishorg of the festival's offerings

The San Francisco Food Festival is a foodies paradise. It takes up nearly 6 city blocks in the Mission District and attracts entrepreneurs, food vendors, food trucks, restaurateurs, and wannabe foodies *cough*cough ...like myself.  The festival is actually a fundraiser for La Cocina which is a non-profit organization that focuses on helping low-income/immigrant food related businesses grow. I personally think the idea for a food festival as a fundraiser is an awesome idea; it brings together food, people, culture, and art all for a great cause.
You can literally find EVERY single type of cuisine: Thai, Korean, Mexican, Vietnamese, El Salvadorian, Japanese, Chinese, American Fusion, Southern, specialty bakeries, patisseries, and some crazy combos the list goes on. Not to mention that the over 80 some vendors selling their yummies were all incredibly organized. The different vendors were strung together by the same banners which brought La Cocina's theme and fundraiser in perfect harmony within the hustle and bustle of San Francisco city life.

So what did I try?!
- Super fresh mint lemonade, the mint cools the back of your throat.
- Mexican grilled corn, flavor explosion on steroids.
- BBQ meal worms which tasted like corn nuts, pretty tasty actually
- Toffee vanilla ice cream with baby meal worms, good creamy ice cream with little crunchy mildly flavored corn nuts.
- Maple Bacon, do have to explain? It tasted AWESOME!

All new and weird flavors of AMAZINGNESS in my mouth!
Everyone should definitely try to attend next year's festival.
Till next post my dearies,
~T

Grilled Mexican Corn on flavor steroids

All vendors woven together with the same banners 

BBQ flavored meal worms

The real treat of the day: Toffee Vanilla Ice Cream with Meal Worms 

My friend's empanada 

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Chocolate Thing-A-Ma-Jigs - Another kitchen adventure

For those choco-holics out there this recipe is for you!
These babies take all day in the kitchen, so if you got some spare time try these chocolate-y treasures out.

There's actually a story behind the recipe and it involves my wanna-be chef brother again...lol. Basically he was trying to copy a recipe for chocolate mousse cups, but between missing a few ingredients and failing at making chocolate cups it turned into some sort of chocolate mousse cake/candy/dessert.

We attempted, and I say "attempted" chocolate cups via the balloon method because it seemed like an easy way to make chocolate cups to hold our mousse (Pinterest made it look easy at least), but it didn't really work out quite right. Since our 'cups' were a little jacked we decided to turned them into entire chocolate shaped cupcake shells in which our mousse would go inside.
So in our pictures you will see variations of our mousse, our chocolate thing-a-ma-jigs, and left over stuff that we deemed delicious but not so attractive.
We had fun in the kitchen and I hope you all do as well!

Ingredients for mousse:
 - 1 pkg of silken tofu (12oz)
- 1/2 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips melted

Directions:
Blend tofu and melted chocolate in the blender. Set aside in a bowl and refrigerate for later use.

Ingredients for cups and topping:
- small pint of raspberries
- 1 lb of dark chocolate melted (double boiler method) makes about 8-10 cups depending how thick you go
- 1 pint of heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 cup of sugar

Directions:
Melt dark chocolate and form molds/cups using the balloon method. Let molds set in refrigerator.
Allow any extra chocolate to cool for chocolate whipped cream.
Whip the heavy whipping cream and add sugar. Slowly add cooled melted chocolate.
Assemble the cups and pipe the set mousse into the cups, top with chocolate whip cream and raspberries.

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Homemade Tater Tots

I guess my brother and I have been feeling nostalgic lately because it seems all my posts are foods from my childhood. Homemade always beats store bought and tater tots are no exception.  

I remember being allowed to be home alone when I was about 12 or 13 years-old while my brother was 5 or 6 and we be allowed to bake frozen tater tots or curly fries for our lunch; let me say it was a BIG DEAL. I felt very grown up preheating the oven to 375, then delicately spreading the fries evenly over a pan. I had it down to a science because if a curly fry or a tater tot god forbid touched another it would ruin the whole batch and the crispness would be sacrificed. 

So as you can see I take my tater tots and curly fries very seriously and I don't play games. I can’t take full credit for this recipe, it was a joint effort by my brother and me and honestly it would not be the same without him. Part of the childhood nostalgia was eating our tater tots together with loads of ketchup.

And that’s exactly what we did after we cooked our homemade version, except we didn’t use quite as much ketchup.

Ingredients

3 medium potatoes finely shredded

1 egg

Salt and pepper

1 tsp of garlic powder

1 tsp Italian season

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

2 tbs of grated mixed cheese

Oil for shallow pan frying

Directions

Mix all ingredients together with hands, mixture should be on the wet side. Make balls shaped like tater tots, if it is too wet add a little gluten free flour mix. 

Lightly pan fry, DO NOT crowd the pan. Brown 6 sides to get optimal crispiness and to resemble tater tot shapes! 

Enjoy,

~T 

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Pesto Shrimp Scampi

 I had so much fun photographing these food pics and trust me it tasted as good as it looked.
Like I said my brother is getting pretty handy in the kitchen and its crazy how the roles have switched! Back when we were younger and I would diddle daddle in the kitchen he was my sous chef and now I'm the side kick...go figure LOL.

Don't be overwhelmed with the amount of ingredients just use what you have and have fun in the kitchen, use our general recipe as the structure to your own personal tastes!

Xoxo,
~ T

Ingredients
Pesto:
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 tbs Thyme
2 tbs basil
2 1/2 cups of spinach
1/4 olive oil

Salt and pepper
2 cloves of garlic

Gluten Free Angel hair pasta
Steamed Kale
Cleaned, deveined, and thawed shrimp

Extras Vegetables on the side:
Small white onion
Small squash

Directions
Combine all ingredients for pesto in the food processor. Process until thoroughly blended. Set aside for later.
Cook Pasta until al dente. Steam Kale with a little bit of salt.
Sauteed shrimp until they are almost done add pesto sauce, heat thoroughly and toss with pasta. Plate with pasta with kale and other vegetables.

super delicious

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