Eggplant Quinoa Lasagna & Birthday Highlights

"It's not even my birthday," -Rihanna, Birthday Cake.

This song is my guilty pleasure. Whenever this song comes on, I just dance like crazy. And I don't like dancing.

Granted, it's not the greatest song lyrically, but it's catchy. And the lyrics are easy to remember. She says "cake" exactly 15 times in one sentence. Easy enough, right?

Addicting pop songs aside, it was my BIRTHDAY a week ago!! Hence the song reference. Ironically, my birthday is the one day of the year that I can't sing Birthday Cake. (Don't tell anyone, but I did anyway).

Mama got these for me :3

It was lovely. I didn't have class until noon, I was done at 2:30, and I had enough time to cook for the first time in so. long. What did we make? Eggplant quinoa lasagna. That's right. It's amazing. And super healthy! You slice the eggplant super thin, and they replace the pasta sheets. The quinoa replaces the meat. I could even eat the quinoa on its own. It's that good. But it's better layered with eggplant, marinara sauce, and cheese. Trust me. The original recipe is made with zucchini...but frankly, we all know that eggplant trumps zucchini. And if you disagree with me, then you're wrong.

Sry for the bad picture. I was eagerly awaiting consumption.

Eggplant Quinoa Lasagna

Adapted from Peas and Thank You

Ingredients

• 1 large eggplant
• 1 c red quinoa (regular quinoa is fine too, obviously, but the red quinoa makes it look more like meat :D )
• 2 c vegetable broth
• 1/2 c tomato sauce
• 1/4 c minced onion
• 1 t dried oregano
• 1/2 t dried parsley
• 1/4 c fresh basil, chopped
• red pepper flakes (if you want it spicy)
• 2 T cream cheese
• salt and pepper
• 1 jar marinara sauce (I used Newman's Own Sockarooni. I like spicy.)
• 1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. To prepare eggplant, cut a strip off one side to make a flat base. Then use a mandolin to make them into super thin slices. Or you could do it by hand, but that's difficult.
3. Place eggplant strips in a colander, layered between paper towels and sprinkled with salt.
4. Let sit while preparing the quinoa.
5. Combine quinoa, vegetable broth, tomato sauce, onion, parsley, and oregano in a medium sized pot (or saucepan) and bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.
6. When quinoa has absorbed all the liquid, fold in cream cheese and basil. Add salt and pepper. Taste it. Just once, though.
7. Pour enough marinara sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish to cover the bottom.
8. Using a clean dry towel, blot remaining moisture and salt from eggplant and lay enough strips to cover the sauce.
9. Put a layer of quinoa across the eggplant (this is why you shouldn't eat more than a spoonful...I may or may not have disregarded this rule), and cover with another 1/3 c of marinara sauce.
10. Repeat another layer of quinoa, sauce, and eggplant.
11. Top the final layer of eggplant with remaining sauce and 1/2 c of cheese.
12. Bake lasagna for 30 minutes. Let cool for 10-15 minutes.

Lol it's so hard to take a good picture of this

So yeah! Ellen and I made the lasagna, and Lauren came over for dinner. And Ellen made me a flourless chocolate cake, too!

Double-fisting

HBD 2 ME

Flourless chocolate cake!

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful....until Friday. I mean, I had a ton of work to keep me busy until then, but I was especially excited because Léa was coming to visit for the weekend!!! I hadn't seen her since mid-July in Lebanon, and having her here for the weekend was the best present ever :)

Anyway, I've never been able to celebrate my birthday at school with my friends before. Freshman year, it was too early in the year for me to invite a bunch of friends over. Last year, well....Grandpa got sick, and I wanted to be there with him as much as I could. I kept trying to plan it once he got better, but then his health started failing and I wanted to be by his side nearly 24/7. I ended up being busy every weekend with either going to the hospital, the funeral, fall break, or....the blackout -____- By that time it was the beginning of November. So I gave up.

But this year was different. This year I would have a party. And so I did. And it was fantastic.

Ellen so lovingly made this for me!!!! So thoughtful <3

Lauren, Debbie, and me!

<3

mah gurls in blue

"Cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake" -Rihanna

da best.

OPPAN GANGNAM STYLE

I have the best fraaanz

So yes! I had a fabulous birthday surrounded by amazing friends. It was so much fun to celebrate with them! I also made two vegan desserts that I will share with you soon :) (Hint: one of them involves chocolate chips. The other involves peanut butter & jelly).

In other news, I just found out that I am allowed to drop my religion class!! Praise the lord. But I guess the downside is that I'll have to find a different time to practice my Arabic calligraphy.

Oh, I've also decided to rerererererereplay my favorite video game, Tales of Symphonia. If you haven't played it, do it. Although they stopped making it a while ago, since it's a Gamecube game. I bought an extra copy for myself 2 years ago, just in case. Anyway, yeah. I've beaten it a vast number of times, but the last time I played it was probably 4 years ago. And it's still just as amazing. I started Monday evening and I'm already 8 hours in! It's really been helpful in terms of stress, and just overall enjoyment. Shout-out to my cousin Chris Feghali--we just discovered our mutual love for ToS and I am so excited.

Seriously though, I really can't express how much I love this game. I even named my car after one of the characters (Tabatha). Also my fangirl crush on Zelos has been rekindled (ignore the fact that I thought he was a girl until I actually heard him speak in the game). And I've decided to be Sheena for Halloween, as well as Daria. I just can't figure out which one of Sheena's costumes I should choose. I know they'll be hard to make, though....

THE best. I'm gonna go play it now. I have to beat Kvar, after all.

Yeah. Um. Gaming aside, I had a great birthday. And to top it all off, Mama came down yesterday and brought me Thai chili, butternut squash soup, and beans & greens! I love her so much <3

Okay! Time to go beat one of the Desian Grand Cardinals. Thanks for reading! Or looking at pictures. Or both.

Song of the Day #1-- Birthday Cake by Rihanna, of course. But it's not for all audiences, so I'll include another song, courtesy of the Tales of Symphonia OST.

Song of the Day #2-- Revival from Tales of Symphonia, composed by Motoi Sakuraba. I transcribed the song on the piano once--I'll have to find the sheet music I wrote down for it. It's really quite beautiful.

Video of the Day-- Okay, I lied. This is a one-time thing. But I had to! It's the Tales of Symphonia intro, of course. I still hyperventilate whenever I watch it.

Recovery Link of the Day-- Coincidentally, this was posted on my birthday. "The enemy does not stand a chance when its victim decides to survive." -Rae Smith (it actually sounds like something Kratos from ToS would say...)

Gamingly,

Carina

BYOS.....bring your own straw.

P.S. Holy frick just as I was finishing this post, my Christmas tree lights I had hung up above my window came crashing down. I almost screamed. But I didn't, and that's the important thing.

Pumpkin Black Bean Chili and Some Musings

I laughed so hard on Sunday.

So hard that I feel the need to share the source of my laughter with all of you.

Have you guys heard of the book 50 Shades of Grey? Yes? No? Have you been living under a rock..?

Anyway, I haven't read it, but I have heard enough about it that I feel that I can summarize the general idea. It's erotic literature. Literotica. Something I had to explain to my younger sister yesterday when she asked why I was weirded out by our mother reading it.

....it was awkward.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because Sunday night at house dinner, one of my residents showed us a video of Gilbert Gottfried reading excerpts of 50 Shades of Grey. If you don't know, Gilbert Gottfried is the voice of Iago (Jafar's parrot) in Aladdin (which our house coincidentally watched on Thursday). Needless to say, it was absolutely hilarious. I was crying from laughter by the end of it. You can find the video here. Watch it. Now.

It's basically Iago reading you Fifty Shades.

Some other really funny 50 Shades videos are the SNL parody and a video of Ellen DeGeneres attempting to do a reading.

Okay. Now, wipe the tears of hilarity from your eyes--I've got other things to tell you.

1. I'm almost done with the series Daria and it makes me sad.
2. My dad never ceases to unintentionally say hilarious things.
3. It's my birthday tomorrow (the 26th)! I'm turning 20. Mark your calendars.
4. My family came down to CT to celebrate with me on Sunday. My dad (note: he's a dentist) promptly handed me a paper bag and said "Don't say I never get you anything." I opened it. It was an old electric toothbrush. MY old electric toothbrush. Thanks baba!
5. It was my Gram's birthday Sunday--she would've been 82! I got her pearl necklace as an early birthday present. I'm wearing it right now! It's beautiful.
6. I really want to delete some people from my Facebook, but then I realize that their lives are better than reality TV, so I keep them on my friends' list.
7. I'm not down with this chilly weather. Although in actuality, I don't know why I care so much; I drive everywhere anyway. (Well, I walk to psych. But I walk there from Arabic...to where I drive. The only reason for this walking being the lack of parking spaces for students near Allbritton).
8. However, there is one thing about fall that I am down for: pumpkin. I love pumpkin. It's delicious. It's versatile. It's healthy. Fall is also chili season (in my mind, anyway), so why not combine the two? I actually haven't made this yet at school; I just made it a couple times this summer. It's quite delicious though, so I'll share the recipe now. Yay!

Pumpkin Black Bean Chili
slightly adapted from That's So Vegan

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 15oz. can black beans, including liquid
• 2 c crushed tomatoes (use diced if you prefer the texture)
• 1 15oz. can pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 c water
• olive oil

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot and add the onions. Sauté until the onion becomes translucent, then add the garlic.
2. Add the black beans, tomatoes, pumpkin, and spices. Stir for about 2 minutes, then pour in the water.
3. Let the soup simmer for 40-60 minutes. Feel free to game in the meantime.
4. Das it!

I really like this picture. It makes me feel better about the colder weather.

Also, shout-out to my good friend and freshman year roommate, Marissa! Happy birthday!!

Song of the Day-- Nocturne in C# Minor by Chopin (played by Ashkenazy). This is the song I'm learning on the piano right now. It's absolutely gorgeous; and Ashkenazy plays it beautifully.

Recovery Link of the Day-- an excerpt from Marya Hornbachers book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (pg. 6).

Anyway, that's all I have for today. I'm excited for my birthday tomorrow! Turning 20 is gonna be so anticlimactic but I'm excited nonetheless :p

Excitedly,

Carina

Wedding photos came out yesterday. I like this one.

Warm Quinoa Salad with Spinach, Carrots, Goat Cheese, and Walnuts

Well, well, well.

Hello, dear readers. It's been awhile.

(......does anyone even read this blog?)

Whatever, writing is a nice way to get through class vent about my life :D

It's been a crazy three weeks since I've gotten back to Wesleyan (holy god I'm a junior). My summer finished with a bang--I was a bridesmaid in my awesome friend's wedding and it was a blast. The friend is none other than Anna, the genius behind Bashful Bao. Check it out.

Anyway, the bachelorette party was crazy. We started the night off at Shabu Zen in Chinatown for some hotpot. One of the maids of honor made us all sashes...like so.

Yes, I know--we're adorable.

Next up was Jacques' Cabaret....aka a drag show. It was a riot. Many dollar bills were, uh, thrown. Or taken. Or coerced.

....you get the idea.

I cropped out the guy making out with his girlfriend. I figured it was imperative for the integrity of the picture.

It was a blast. I'd never seen a drag show before, but I highly recommend it. Bring lots of singles.

Two days later, it was Sunday. Aka the day of the wedding. My mama dropped me off at Anna's so that the limo could pick us up and drive us to the hair and makeup salon. Of course, Anna was the antithesis of Bridezilla. She was calm and collected, even when the limo didn't show up (apparently the company couldn't get through to the driver, so they sent another one...but it wouldn't be able to get there until about an hour from then). Anna had one of Luke's friends drive us to pick up the other bridesmaids, and then from there her relatives drove us to the hair and makeup salon. The limo met us there, and then it was off to the Crane Estate!

It was breathtakingly gorgeous. The grounds and the mansion both. And it was a beautiful day! We hastily headed to the bridal suite to get ready. I had a little trouble zipping up my dress....

Anna to da rescue!

Then, Anna got ready. She looked positively radiant.

The ceremony occurred quickly afterwards. It was short and sweet, just how Anna wanted it. But alas, after the ceremony, we had to wait to stuff our faces with hors d'oeuvres and down champagne because we had to take pictures forever. They're very pretty though.

The bridal party.

The whole wedding party.

After that, it was champagne, hors d'oeuvres, dinner, dancing, dancing, and more dancing. All in all, it was a wonderful night.

I returned to Wesleyan two days later to move in and then started ResLife training on Thursday. It was fairly excessive but I met some cool people. I've also become obsessed with the show Daria. I remember watching it with my older cousins when I was little (in Vermont, of course), but never understood it. Now I do. I relate to Daria quite a bit. I think I'm going to be her for Halloween.

Also, Ellen moved in the Friday before classes and I finally got to meet Woodrow (aka DP aka Da Pups)!! He is adorable and the snuggliest and cuddliest. Just look how cute he is omg.

Sleepy puppy. 

He's always confused.

He's been a wonderful addition to Turath.

Speaking of Turath, the new house is great. Huge kitchen. I haven't been doing THAT much cooking because my sleep schedule is screwed up and I have more work than I expected, but the dishes Ellen and I have made have been delicious. We had house dinner the other night, and I made Thai peanut pumpkin hummus and a warm quinoa salad with spinach, carrots, goat cheese, and walnuts, with sesame oil. And the latter is the recipe you'll get today. Lucky you!!!

Sry for the shoddy pic. I had to take a picture of it quickly.

Warm Quinoa Salad with Spinach, Carrots, Goat Cheese, and Walnuts, Tossed with Sesame Oil
Ingredients

• 2 c quinoa (uncooked)
• one small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 11oz. spinach (a large bag)
• 2/3 c carrots (chopped)
• however much goat cheese you desire
• 1/2 c walnuts, toasted (place them in one layer on a cookie sheet in a preheated 350 F oven for about 8 minutes)
• sesame oil
• chipotle chili powder
• ground ginger

Instructions

1. Cook quinoa according to directions (usually yields about 4 c cooked).
2. In a large-ish saucepan, sauté the onion in a bit of sesame oil until translucent. Add garlic, then gradually add spinach until it's all wilted. This may take a while, but you can always yell "WILT, SPINACH, WILT!!!" like I did.
3. Add the carrots and however much of the spices you want.
4. Once the quinoa is done, add it to the spinach mixture and toss well. Add some salt to taste. Add more sesame oil if needed.
5. Put it all in a salad bowl and toss in the walnuts. Right before serving, add the goat cheese.
6. Indulge.

It's pretty damn delicious. I'm surprised it turned out that tasty, considering I panicked about screwing up approximately 7.6 times. Approximately.

Anyway, my mama is coming in a few hours, so I should pay attention get some work done.
(Update: this post was written yesterday...so Mama left already :( Love you, mommy!)

Song of the Day-- Gangnam Style by PSY. Don't look at me like that. It's amazing.
Recovery Link of the Day-- A perspective on eating disorders by Marya Hornbacher.

By the way, it's officially been 4 weeks since I've purged! Go me!

Daria-ly,

Carina

"I don't have low self-esteem. That's a mistake. I have low esteem for everyone else."

Penne Arrabiatta

It is 4:17 in the morning and I am wide awake.

Maybe it's because I woke up around 1 PM; I don't know. (Actually, that sounds pretty plausible). But maybe it's because I go back to school in less than 2 weeks and I'll need to wake up at 7:30 in the morning for my job and I want to milk the last of my summer days. (Thankfully that only lasts a week; my morning classes this semester are at noon and 10:30 on alternating days).

Maybe it's both. Who knows.

I do know that I have random cravings for food when I'm up late...like tonight, I got back from my friend Alexa's around 12:30 and was craving arrabiatta sauce. I would've made it too, but we didn't have all the ingredients. I settled for disappointment instead.

But! I don't have to settle for that tomorrow. Because in a few hours, grocery stores will be opening and I can get the ingredients so I can have a nice bowl of pasta sauce soon after I wake up.

Penne Arrabiatta was my staple in Lebanon whenever we went to Italian restaurants. With extra sauce, please. I love regular pasta sauce, but when you add a spicy kick to it...man, that's the stuff. I was able to get by for the first few weeks when I got back because my mother had made an overabundant supply of my grandpa's pasta sauce and meatballs for my brother's grad party (which I missed). It's absolutely delicious and carries years of memories with it, but I started craving the spiciness of arrabiatta.

So, I searched for a recipe and found one. A great one. I didn't change anything from it, and won't, because it's perfect, so here's the recipe, from Una Mamma Italiana.

Few things are better than a bowl of pasta with homemade sauce....one of these things is a bowl of homemade pasta with homemade sauce.

Song of the Day-- Efter Livet by Tingvall Trio.
Recovery Link of the Day-- an ED tumblr in the style of #whatshouldwecallme. Accurately funny.

5:09ingly,
Carina

Good Old-Fashioned Comfort Food...Mac and Cheese Again!

Never look at delicious pictures of food at night.

Especially when you're already in bed and it's too late to cook anything.

I just made the mistake of looking at a picture of the pizza Mod and I had at Flatbread the other night and I'm pretty sure I drooled a little. And now I'm hungry and can't do anything about it because I'm in bed and already brushed my teeth. But I know I'll go hunting for pizza tomorrow. Maybe I'll even drive back up to Vermont. I mean, just look at this pizza.

Half Pepperoni and Peppers, half Punctuated Equilibrium (goat cheese, roasted sweet red peppers, mozzarella, red onions, and garlic). 

We devoured it quickly. Just look how happy we are!

She's wearing my dress.

Flatbread 4 lyfe.















It's so popular that you can't even make a reservation over the phone. On popular weekends, you have to go there at like 3pm to even think about being able to put your name down at 4pm when they start actually taking reservations. It's pretty frustrating for newcomers. They have this sign up in the restaurant:

Ignore the fact that they misspelled 'certain.'

Vermont aside, I haven't written a blog post in a while. I got back from Lebanon two weeks ago and I've just been SO busy. Oh wait, no I haven't. I've been doing nothing except seeing friends and hanging out with family. Which isn't a bad deal, if you ask me. But sometimes my days get boring and I end up watching That '70s Show for 3 hours. Which I guess isn't a bad deal either.

...Anyway.

I figured I should cook something new (I made Mexican quinoa again last week but I've already done a post on that). I was in Vermont this past weekend with my family, and our Vermont house just screams comfort food. So in between playing Rat-a-tat-cat and watching my 3-year old cousin Amin dance to dubstep, I found a recipe to make: Mac and Cheeze with a cashew-based sauce.

Now, I know I've done a mac and cheeze post before, with 3 different recipes, but I've now come to the conclusion that cheeze with a cashew base is just the best. Even my mama agrees, and she likes her real cheese. So the minute we got back from Vermont, I got to work. And oh, it was delicious. I got this recipe from Vegan Heartland. I haven't really checked out the blog that much; I just saw the pic of the mac and cheeze on Foodgawker. But now that I know how delicious the mac was, I'm definitely gonna check out more recipes!

I didn't make any adjustments to the recipe from Vegan Heartland, so here's a link to it. I'm too lazy to write it out myself: Baked Macaroni and Cashew Cheeze.

Don't worry, though. I have pictures.

Bread crumbs just make everything better.

The mac is already gone. 

I shouldn't be looking at these pictures. It's night again.

Even my brother loved it! According to my mom, he went downstairs this morning and said "Who made the pasta??? It was amazing!!!" When my mom told him that not only had I made it, but it was dairy-free, he proceeded to say "Well, it was a little dry." Whatever, he ate it at like 1 in the morning. It was perfectly creamy when I ate it.

Anyway, it's getting late, and I have to watch That '70s Show. Obviously. I made something else for dinner tonight, so a new recipe will be coming soon!

Song of the Day--View of Silence by Joe Hisaishi. Hisaishi is my favorite composer. I love watching videos of his live performances; he gets so into it. I'm learning this song on the piano right now! It's loads of fun to play, but challenging.
Recovery Link of the Day--I like this picture.

Love and Light,
Carina

The Lorax.

Food, Drinks, and the Beach: The Elements of Tyr

Oh hi! I figured it was time for another Lebanon update, so after waiting an hour for 16 pictures to upload (#lebanoninternet) I'm ready to write. Slash share pictures; I'm too lazy to write that much.

Sour/Tyr has been wonderfully relaxing. We've gone to the beach a few times, but we've mostly cooked up a storm and made lots of cocktails. I still need to work on my tan, though.

One of the first days I was here, Dany and I went to this café called Costa and decided to bring a little something with us to add to our drinks. Who says you can't get alcohol in Tyr?

Notice we're using a drug and alcohol prevention bottle.

It happens.

Yeah.

Another day, Amal (Dany's mom) made us mloukhieh! We spent so much time that morning peeling the freaking garlic and cutting cilantro. I never want to peel garlic again. But it was worth it, because the mloukhieh was absolutely delicious! Hopefully I can learn how to make it adequately.

Mloukhieh looks like a swamp, but I swear, it's delicious.

That night, I think we made falafel. And cocktails (obvi). May have been a different night, but whatever, it's summer. Days don't really matter. But I got to use a legitimate falafel-molding tool!

The other day we were so bored that we decided to make cocktails and then make a dessert. It wasn't great, but it looked good. Also most food tastes better after you've had a bit of alcohol, no?

We had maqloubeh too! I have to learn how to make it. It was delicious!

Suzan (Dany's cousin) made us pasta one night too. I pretended to help her cook :D

I took a bunch of pictures of the sunset too, but here are the ones I like best :)

On Saturday night, we crashed a wedding. My first time crashing a wedding, and my first time attending a Lebanese wedding. It was.....interesting, to say the least. I decided that the majority of the music belonged in Mulan.

Notice the sword used to cut the cake.

I even did dabke! It was fun. I failed at it, though. I'm good at walking in 5-inch heels, but not good enough to dance in them! We looked super classy though (we always do).

And lastly, a couple of beach pictures :)

You can clearly see how tan I am -______- I think I'm the only person who will have gone to Lebanon for nearly 7 weeks and come back still pale.

Anyway, I'm gonna watch Community now. I can't believe I'll be home in 2.5 weeks! I really can't believe I've been here for 4 weeks. I love it here, but I'm excited to go home too. But it'll be great to see my family--they get here on Saturday! (I do miss my arghile though--none here can compare to the one Grandpa passed down to me). But for now, I will enjoy the breeze coming through the door and watch an episode of Community before lunch.

Song of the Day-- Politik by Coldplay. I've been playing it a lot on the piano recently, and I even taught Dany the first part! So proud.
Recovery Quote of the Day-- "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars." -Khalil Gibran

Breezily,
Carina