You can follow me on Instagram @mainstreets.
Highlights include: UES window display, neighborhood mailbox, Jen & Kim, cabaret show, Central Park Saturday, May Day in Union Square, Bruce Springsteen, Ray & Christi’s house, waiting for the subway, Waffle & Wolf, Bed Stuy or die, lovely ladies, kitty cat at Crystal’s, True Widow, Red Bull Total Zero, old ads, RIP Carlos Fuentes, and fun ASOS pants.

With warmer weather comes lighter dinners. Lately it’s been so grey and rainy that dinner has been a non-event. This was perhaps the most inventive meal I’ve thrown together in the last week or two.

Shrimp Guacamole Salad

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound of shrimp, cooked, diced and cooled
• 1 can hearts of palms, drained and diced
• 1/2 lime
• 5 ounces of guacamole (I used Calavo)
• 2 tablespoons mayo
• salt, to taste

Steps:

1. In a medium size bowl, toss the shrimp and heart of palms with the juice of the lime.
2. Mix in guacamole and mayo until thoroughly combined.
3. Sprinkle with salt and give it one more mixing.

Serve on its own, over greens or with your favorite wrap or bread (I ate it inside a Pure Wrap). Makes 2-3 servings, will keep for up to a day in the fridge.

I sampled the mani, coffee, and raw cane sugar pretty much right away. Yum! I even shared the mani with some of my pals at the office who enjoyed the afternoon treat. I’m actually making the habichuelas this week after doing some recipe research so I’ll post my findings after that experiment. The batata jelly is essentially a sweet potato jelly – this one has me stumped but I’m sure I’ll think of something (and soon!). Karin also packed me a nice note and a sample of a local “ad scene” publication that was full of hilarious stories about stairlifts for overweight dogs, classifieds, gossip and more. Thanks Karin!

If you’re interested in learning more about Foodie Penpals, here’s a detailed explanation of the program lifted from Lindsay’s blog:

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!

The highlights include: weeknight dinner, Jacques Pepin, best buds, Union Square Greenmarket, spring in NJ, a furry friend, Easter bunny cake, the walk to work, random outfit shot, Good Karma Cafe, Brooklyn sunset, second random outfit shot, elephants at the UN, old punk show flyer, Midtown windows, and Sichuan work lunch with Joshua Cooper Ramo.

Quick and easy. That’s the name of the game when it comes to dinner these days. Something new? Not really. I started the weeknight dinner series because frankly, not everyone has the time (read: energy) to make elaborate meals during the week and sometimes a little added inspiration can help those in a food rut.

Sausage and Greens

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, diced
• 1-2 bags of baby spinach
• 1 package of chicken sausage (try this one), sliced
• 4 strips of turkey bacon
• olive or coconut oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• sriracha

Steps:

1. Heat a teaspoon of oil in the bottom of a medium saute pan over medium heat.
2. Cook the bacon to your desired crispiness, remove and set aside.
3. Add a little more oil and the onions. allow to cook for a few minutes until translucent.
4. Toss in the sliced sausage and let it sizzle for a minute.
5. At the first sign of browning, add the spinach on top and begin to combine the sausage and spinach as the greens begin to wilt.
6. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, mix in sriracha and continue cooking for a minute or two.
7. Turn the stove off and crumble the cooked bacon into the mixture.

Devour. Sure this didn’t take a ton of thought, but it also didn’t take a ton of time. Makes 3-4 servings.

This is a very non-paleo recipe but what can I say, torta di riso (as known as Italian rice pie) is a family tradition. My family isn’t big on religion or tradition but we are pretty big on food. For whatever reason, rice pie is a integral part of Easter for Italians (from what I gather it’s Neapolitan). My family usually made this pie with “wandi” dough for the crust – the same basic dough used for struffoli, another traditional Italian holiday dessert. This recipe called for phyllo dough which is notoriously annoying to work with since it dries out quickly so I opted for a basic pie crust bottom instead. Heavy on lemon, light on sweetness – the perfect spring dessert.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup of almond milk
• salt and pepper
• Cooked veggies (I chose spinach, onions and mushrooms)

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly coat a muffin tin with some olive oil.
2. Whisk together eggs, almond milk, salt and pepper. Stir in the veggies.
3. Fill each muffin cup almost to the top and slide in the oven for 10 minutes or until a fork comes out clean.

Makes 6 frittatas. Pop in the fridge for a couple days or heat up before you eat.

After a couple months of trying to adhere to last year’s diet, running, and squeezing in Pilates here and there, I’m trying to get a little bit more serious about losing a few and toning up for summer. That said, I started making moves toward the paleo diet over the last few days (I say making moves because I’m trying to eat through any remaining groceries – waste not, want not). I’ve had a few friends try it over the last year who were more than pleased with the results so following blogs like Nom Nom Paleo and researching the diet, I’ve officially gone from primarily vegetarian to practically paleo. This means I’ve been stocking up on fish, veggies, meat, nuts, fruit and seeds and getting back in the kitchen.

So far this week I’ve whipped up some ground turkey with veggies, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, ahi tuna steaks and sweet potato hash with bacon. Most of my recipes are lifted from the blogs I’ve been reading but give it a few weeks and I’m sure I’ll be dreaming up my own dishes.

Today’s Food

• Grapefruit and pomegranate seeds
• Scrambled eggs
• Pistachios
• Ground turkey with veggies
• Roasted broccoli and cauliflower
• A few slivers of sweet potato
• Carrots with baba ghanoush
• Spinach salad with tuna and apples