Lele Lurves Plants

make your own Trader Joe’s vegetable masala burger

2012-01-25T16:03:00.000-05:00

That’s likely the longest title one of my posts has ever had, but anyone who has ever tasted the contents of this box…

… probably just perked up.

Trader Joe’s vegetable masala burgers are the BEST! They are so perfectly spiced, so delightfully crunchy, so indulgently rich and satisfying (if, er, a bit low on the protein). All it really seems to be is vegetables- real, identifiable, chunky vegetables; not some mushy pureed burger- somehow miraculously bound together with wonderful Indian spices.

Those of you unfortunate enough to live somewhere in the US where there isn’t a Trader Joe’s, and haven’t moved away from that place for some reason, take heart.

I was in a cookin’ mood (as so often occurs), and I was in a masala-burger-eatin’ mood (as even more often occurs).

I thought the original could stand to be a bit healthier, oil being the second ingredient and all.

And so I dissection of the (totally reasonable) ingredients began.

Potatoes, well that’s easy.

In teeny teeny TEENY dice.

Then spices. This is a compilation of some of my favorite Indian spices; the spices explicitly stated on the box; and spices other people on the Internet theorized they tasted in the burgers.

I toasted my spices, ‘cause everyone knows they taste better that way.

I did not purchase these frozen vegetables, because I am a food snob and eat vegetables from the farmer’s market.

My sister is not and likes her vegetables to be ready in two minutes. (And doesn’t really like vegetables, from what I can tell, so doesn’t put a lot of thought into them.)

Anyway, we had these and they seemed to perfectly approximate the veggies in those burgers. (In all likelihood, Trader Joes’ frozen vegetable department and frozen vegetable burger department have probably had their own collaborations).

Breadcrumbs were highish on the list, but I didn’t want to use our Italian seasoned breadcrumbs since they tasted Italian, not Indian.

So I took a (sort of old and dried out) whole wheat wrap and ripped it up.

Other copycat recipes I found pureed their vegetables.

But… but… these burgers are CRUNCHY and TEXTURAL! My copycat version must also be so!

So here’s my brilliant thing I did: I partially pureed the filling to make a thick and starchy binder for the rest of it, which stayed chunky.

My first thought was pan frying.

Uh… they dissolved even more than this picture lets on. Binding FAIL.

And a whole lot stayed in that pan.

Let’s try again- baking!

These definitely need some oil to get the wonderful crispy exterior those who’ve tasted the real burger know and love.

So a drizzle in the pan…

… a brush for even coating…

… and a brush atop the patties.

After a trip in the oven, GOSH! Look at those CHUNKY BURGERS OF DELIGHT!

Full disclosure: these burgers are beta. And by that I mean they taste good but are hilariously crumbly.

Try them! Tell me what you think! Give me suggestions! (Or just compliment me, that’d be fine too.)

Copycat Trader Joe’s Veggie Masala Burgers

1/2 tsp. dried ginger
¾ tsp. dried coriander
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1/8 tsp. ground ground turmeric
1/8 tsp. mustard powder
2 tsp. canola oil
3 red potatoes (12 oz.) finely diced
½ c. minced onion
½ c. minced green pepper
1 c. frozen mixed veggies
½ c. whole wheat breadcrumbs
½ c. water
Salt and pepper
1/2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. water
2 tsp. canola oil

Heat a large skillet on medium high. Add spices and toast until fragrant. Remove to a separate bowl.

Add 2 tsp. canola oil. Add potatoes, onion, and green pepper, and cook for ten minutes. Add frozen vegetables and cook an additional five minutes. Add breadcrumbs and water and stir vigorously to scrape up flavorful brown layer from the bottom of the pan. Reduce heat to low. Return spice mixture, add salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle with sugar. Cook an additional five minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Remove skillet from heat,

Remove ¾ cup of the mixture from the skillet and puree in a food processor. Stir the puree and the remaining vegetable mixture together in a large bowl until thoroughly combined.

Chill overnight, or at least until cool (this seemed to help them bind).

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. If small, brush with 1 tsp. oil (and make burgers in two batches). If large, brush with 2 tsp. I used a small baking sheet to bake this in my toaster oven.

Form the burgers into patties (I used my hands, and patted them down as flat as possible) and put on baking sheets, evenly spaced. Use a brush to brush any oil on the sheet that isn’t under the burgers on top of the burgers (so they brown on top and the oil doesn’t burn on the sheet). Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then broil until golden and crispy on top, rotating baking sheet in oven as necessary, about 10 minutes. (Adjust times as needed if using a conventional, rather than toaster oven.) Repeat with remaining potato mixture and oil, if making in two batches.

upping the veggies

2012-01-24T15:19:00.000-05:00

It is good to eat plants. But let’s be honest, it can be a bit harder this time of year.

In the summer, you can chuck corn on the cob in the microwave, saute zukes on the stove, or just chop up some tomatoes or green beans and boom. You’re done. It’s awesome. Summer vegetables are LOW MAINTENANCE. (I mean, you can get all the aforementioned things in the winter but they taste terrible. Do your taste buds a favor. Try to eat seasonally.)

I’ve been trying to amp up my veggie intake because winter vegetables are a little trickier, and they’ve been lacking. I’ve been sometimes eating them more out of duty than pleasure.

Like this meal. This meal wasn’t so great.

Ugly salad:

Just sardines ‘n greens. Which is great if you have the sardines in mustard sauce (SO GOOD!) but if you just buy plain sardines you must season them, which I was too lazy to do this day. And the arugula was none too attractive. I did not buy it, ahem.

Also tried to make a mini green monster with some even older greens that needed using and a frozen kiwi. Yeah, doesn’t sound appealing, does it? It wasn’t.

The bread and PB apple slices were good!

But eating veggies shouldn’t just be about duty.

As my sister seems to see it. So she drinks V8.

One of which I just found abandoned in our freezer?!

With winter vegetables, you just have to be a bit more creative.

For example, making a big pot of butternut squash oatmeal and then getting to eat it for breakfast for a solid WEEK! Yes, root veggies take awhile but if you prep in advance they can be your savior!

Also, so sweet and delicious and you’ve had a serving of veggies before 8 am :D

Mmm, veggies and pecans, too!

Another method I am trying to utilize is called Salad of the Week (or SotW).

Also aided by prepping on the weekend, I’ve been trying to make a salad (but a HEFTY salad, with veggies and protein and no flimsy lettuce that will have dissolved by Tuesday) that I can eat for a few days in the following week.

This was SO GOOD! 3 lunches (and a few nibbles as snacks):

2 small bulbs of kohlrabi, peeled and chopped
~1/2 c. chopped carrots
~6 olives
1 can chickpeas
1/2 an avocado
1/2 cup plain nonfat Trader Joe’s European style yogurt
juice of 1/2 a lemon

So HEARTY! So FILLING! So TASTY!

On a bed of kale (which does not get soggy) for even more veggies!

Next SotW:

Roasted beets
plain nonfat Trader Joe’s Greek style yogurt
a few dashes allspice
a few splashes red wine vinegar

Beets are like CANDY right now. I read somewhere that when it’s really cold, root vegetables try to conserve their energy by transforming their complex starches into simple sugars. Which equals sweet and delicious veggies for us!

And finally two veggie rich lunches that I photographed ages ago but haven’t shared yet.

Obvious ways to get veggies are to blend them into soup (and what’s more inducing of childhood nostalgia joy than grilled cheese and tomato soup?!)

(English muffins make SUCH great grilled cheese)

Or dunk ‘em into some tasty hummus.

A very WELL ROUNDED lunch!

One can also blend veggies into purees, as I did with frozen but flavorful green peas and mint to make this yummy pesto.

(this meal includes anchovies that DID taste good cause I made them into a salad with oil, lemon juice, chopped carrots, and curry powder)

And when in doubt, roast a bunch of sweet potatoes.

dumplings!

2012-01-23T15:28:00.000-05:00

I made some extremely delicious dumplings on Saturday, then realized it was just in time for Chinese New Year!

When I traveled to Asia, (link to those posts at my About Me page! They’re fun!) I JUST MISSED Chinese New Year. (My guess would be that my dad booked tickets before the holiday because they probably jack up flight prices for it. Understandable.)

I have always wanted to get to experience the (I have a feeling) delightful lunacy of the holiday in Asia. According to my stepmother, her family plays Mah-johnng (spelled wrong, I am sure) until 2 in the morning. And the food sounds amazing. And parades! And red envelopes!

This is the year of the dragon we are beginning. The ultimate awesomeness in Chinese Zodiac! I point this out because I am a dragon :D But ACTUALLY, my mom had an acupuncturist who said that it is excellent luck to have a baby in the year of the dragon but if you are a dragon, you have bad luck during that year! Oh dear.

Anyway, in all honestly Steve and I did not plan a Chinese New Year celebration. We just wanted to go to HMart. Actually, I wanted to go to HMart because I wanted more dried shiitake mushrooms and had a guilty, carbon-hogger craving for tropical fruit.

Reason I love My Neighborhood #8235723464508902835

This is the shopping center where there is an HMart. It’s in an area with a lot of (vaguely) affordable apartments and a pretty healthy immigrant population (from all over). There’s also a place called “Chicken House Panaderia” where I have been known to impulsively buy horchata and yuca fries.

After buying Korean awesomeness at HMart, I noticed a woman who seemed to be selling drinks from a STEAMING container. Yknow, just hanging out in the middle of the parking lot.

It was cold and gross outside, and something hot looking called to me. I went “… Want to go over there?” and Steve agreed because like me he loves him some adventures in ethnic eating.

Well, the woman with the container and I had a delightful conversation (in Spanish! Of which she thought I was a native speaker!) about her native pais of Venezuela and its wonderful looking and smelling drink of elote y leche (corn and milk).

Steve, class act that he is, had cash and treated us to a cup to share, which we enjoyed in my car. (I felt guilty making Steve the environmentalist buy styrofoam, but we agreed, this woman probably could use the money, so it felt good to support her).

Plus, it was SO GOOD! Hot milk and corn!

On the one hand, it would be great to make this in the summer when the corn is ripe and sweet and wonderful. On the other hand, having it on a blustery winter day warmed our souls.

Back to Steve’s and we decided it was dumpling time. (Steve came up with the whole idea, which turned out GREAT!)

Filling was made by sauteeing in peanut oil (much less than would’ve been used had Steve been in charge of filling), oyster mushrooms (YUM! So huge and meaty), carrots, tofu, Steve’s homegrown green onions, fresh basil, and oyster and soy and chili sauces.

I got out our (green! How fun! No extra nutrients but they had spinach powder to make a fun color) wonton wrappers, and started a filling station, wetting the edges with a water/peanut oil mix.

Steve upped the ante by adding pieces of bacon to his dumplings (!). He said the bacon grease was great for making the sides stick together. And still has a lot of birthday bacon, because I am a good girlfriend :D

Oh, then he went ahead and proceeded to fry the (bacon filled) dumplings. In bacon.

I chose to boil the non-bacon ones that I had filled :D But it was fun having both textures!

Also at HMart, we took advantage of their (incredibly affordable and fresh) deli section and bought some premade things.

Pickled veggies, in ascending order of deliciousness from bottom to top of spinach, bean sprouts, and long green beans. Just salt and sesame oil. SO yum!

Annnnd Korean sushi, which is made exciting with the addition of black rice (!) and pickled veggies. Also imitation crab, spinach, and egg.

And our DUMPLINS!

The spinach wrapper turned out SO pretty looking. And won tons are so fun to make, cause though they take forevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvver to fill, as I am freshly reminded every time I make them, they boil in seconds.

As for the fried ones, holy crap. Bacon stuffed wontons fried in bacon. Of COURSE they were amazing. They were amazing!

And bacon boy also made some collard chips (in the same style as kale chips) with soy sauce and bacon. Didn’t totally go, but we still ate them with chopsticks :D

Happy Chinese New Year!

alone

2012-01-22T11:04:00.001-05:00

I am someone who recharges when I am alone. Somewhat the classic definition of the introvert. I like people (even love some of them), but my energy reappears when I have time just me, processing what’s in my head, going through the little rituals of the day with no one interfering.

Yesterday morning I woke up to snow in an iffy mood. In part due to the fact that it was 7:30 and I had barely slept all night. Read in bed for a bit. Finally, padded downstairs, made myself a dimly lit breakfast.

I’ve turned into such a grouch about snow in my old age. No more childhood delight. Replaced with panic over power outages and driving on ice.

I made protein pancakes, because I wanted pancakes with butter and syrup but wanted them to keep me full longer than thirty seconds.

So, protein powder it was.

Like all protein pancakes, these were kind of just mediocre because my protein powder (from Trader Joe’s) just doesn’t taste very good. The texture was a lot better this time, though, so I spose I’ll share what I did in order that if you have protein powder that tastes okay you can make and appreciate them:

1 scoop protein powder, 1/4 C. plus 2 T whole wheat flour, 1 egg, 1/4 cup plus 2 T milk, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, pinch of cinnamon, dash vanilla. Serves 2.

With hot tea, naturally.

And butter and syrup :D (I pulled out almond butter but I ignored it. These were good with BUTTER and SYRUP because they are PANCAKES and sometimes you should just go for it)

They did indeed do a pretty good job of leaving me full. And I got to eat butter and syrup. Did I mention that?

I did my next Saturday ritual of the farmer’s market which was sort of nice but I still couldn’t shake the persistently low mood.

So, in what may perhaps an enduring Saturday tradition, I took a hot bath and listened to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me in the tub. It was GREAT!

Nothing so revitalizing as a hot bath. Even Sylvia Plath said so in The Bell Jar, and Lord knows, she could use some cheering.

My brain is still a bit jumbled, evident from my general daily feeling of craziness and from the fact that I seem to’ve quit sleeping at night.

I’ve also been ruminating on the difference between feeling alone and being alone.

Feeling alone is wretched. Feeling like your thoughts are in a constant, inescapable cycle that leaves you feeling stressed and freaked out and disgusted with yourself.

For me the antidote to being alone is reaching out to others. First, reminding myself that everyone feels that way sometimes, especially at points in their lives where things change and the future is uncertain and one lacks control over how things are progressing, and at what pace.

Also, just hearing how everyone is doing. Dissecting our lives with Steve over cafe au laits (or cafes au lait?) at Dean and Deluca. Hearing “Forget You” on the radio and having to call my girl Erin to reminisce about duetting that song and singing it to our Americorps kiddos, then catching up on life. Getting an unexpected jingle from my friend Marisa and spending an hour catching up on our past years (she is doing Teach for America and makes any stress I get right now look like small potatoes). Checking in on a family member who’d been having some serious struggles and seems to be getting help. Bringing dinner to church friends with a death in the family.

I need others to survive and find meaning! It’s worth remembering, reaching out, and appreciating the feeling of togetherness.

And then I can be alone, eating my lunch under a bouquet of lilies from our church friends.

I am still trying, with only some success, to eat well and take care of myself. As Steve pointed out yesterday, nobody has to be perfect. Nobody is perfect. Nobody CAN BE perfect. If you do something better, that’s still something.

This was actually a HIGHLY delicious meal, with the star ingredient (my first taste and tragically the last of what had been a large jar, quickly decimated by the family), OKRA PICKLES!

FANTASTIC veggie wrap: mashed avocado, carrots, heavenly sweet wee farmer’s market cucumbers, greens.

And for Steve, who literally asked me yesterday, “So how is your yogurt stash doing?” because these are the romantic and normal conversations I have with my boyfriend, a bowl of yogurt. With apple and cinnamon.

bits of Bolivia

2012-01-19T22:07:00.001-05:00

These days I’m really wishing I could get temporarily adopted by a Bolivian grandmother so she could teach me her delicious cooking ways.

In the mean time, I will continue to frequent hole-in-the-wall (and even some surprisingly cute) eateries along the Columbia Pike corridor, the for-all-intents-and-purposes Spanish speaking section of Arlington in which my boyfriend is lucky enough to live.

Cafe Sazon is super adorable and super delicious and basically where I meet everyone for coffee and hanging out, because it’s also wonderfully cozy and has a blissfully bizarre soundtrack going (the owner told me they just Pandora whatever they feel like: this has ranged from hours of Weezer and other 90s delights, to Phantom of the Opera, to reggaeton).

I tend to not like drinking my calories but make an exception for api-morado, the intensely sweet, thick, and comforting purple-corn based drink:

My new love is linasa, a flaxseed and lemon infused drink (?!)

Honestly, I thought flaxseed and the like was mainly the providence of upper middle class white female food bloggers (no?). However, a bit of Internet research informs me that in fact fresh flaxseed juice (flaxseed= linseed= linasa, get it?) is an incredibly popular street food in Bolivia.

The way they serve it at Cafe Sazon is warm and lemon and spice infused. It is enormously comforting. Imagine Theraflu if it tasted delicious. Which is basically impossible, I get it. But that’s what this is!

I finally brought my mom there when she had some time off over the winter holidays. I’d been raving about it like a lunatic, and was delighted to finally get here there. I was also happy because that meant getting two drinks and swapping sips! Hurrah.

We also got an actual entree, something I don’t do that often, actually.

I just spent like twenty minutes googling it, and cannot for the life of me remember what it is called. I will likely wake up at two this morning with it in my head. At which point I will go back to sleep. I am not that devoted to this blog.

Anyway, it was yellow rice topped with a fried egg with fried plantains. So obviously it was awesome. The rice… again, I need a Bolivian grandmother to teach me!

It actually turned into a fun little outing, because then my mom and I walked to Shirlington and did some Christmas shopping at my favorite olive oil store. (Yes, these pictures were taken awhile ago!)

And then I decided I needed some frozen yogurt.

To add joy to my life, they had POMEGRANATE SEEDS! Delicious, light, and expensive: the perfect kind of topping when you pay for frozen yogurt by the ounce. I love gaming the system :D

There were also globs of froyo in strawberry, taro, and apple pie (!) flavors. And a peanut m+m garnish.

So fun!

Back to Cafe Sazon… another day. I go there all the time, man.

They are delightful because sometimes they have edible art:

I mean. How cute.

But actually that particular trip was just a pit stop, because Steve and I were taking a stroll (despite the fact that it was, oh, 30 degrees out.)

We just stopped in to have an appetizer (cheese empanada for him), and then made our way to another place of which I’ve grown quite fond: Pan American Bakery.

We’ve actually been to both Pan American (a bakery with chairs) and Pike Pizza (their sister place, a sort of sit-down restaurant next door). Pike Pizza is hilarious. They serve no pizza. More importantly, they have an all-Spanish, earnestly serious karaoke night. Steve and I had a blast, in the way that people do who know everyone will be talking about them the second they leave.

Anyway, Pan American is great when you just want to run in and grab something. There’s no visible menu at the place, except a few specials written only in Spanish on a board. It seems best to just point at what looks good.

Steve did that and got this:

Dude: Deep fried pastry with powdered sugar (awesome), then stuffed with cheese.

He was in heaven.

And then I saw (mystery plantains and rice and egg dish) on the menu and went, “Ooh, I’ve had that, that’s good!”

And this arrived:

Dude. The Cafe Sazon one was good but this was AMAZING. The rice was equally delicious but the plantains were both more abundant and sweeter.

And the egg was perfectly fried.

Mmm mm mm mmm mm.

Okay, so all this being said, all of the aforementioned things are fun to eat but not particularly healthy. (I actually enjoyed a few bites of the plantain thing but then went home and ate a salad. My body thanked me.)

BUT.

Linasa! Flaxseed and lemon! Doable!

I found this linasa tutorial on the Internet and made myself a delectable delight!

Infuse water with cinnamon and cloves:

(mm, the aroma!)

Then add the flax.

They gave you the choice of whole or ground flax in that recipe, so I consulted with my pals at Cafe Sazon about how they do theirs and they say they do ground but grind them themselves.

So, I put my flaxseeds with perhaps a cup of water in a blender and blended away.

After their simmer, it looked pretty revolting!

I drained it, and was left with a LOTTTT of flax at the bottom. And abhored the waste. and thought there was still flavor to be had.

So I added some lemon (because my initial taste of the unlemoned stuff made me miss the citrusy zing I get from the lemon at Cafe Sazon), and more water, and cooked more.

And had a big delicious BUCKET of linasa!

As an added bonus (bonus?), my mother, my boyfriend and I have all been sick to varying degrees, so its throat soothing properties have been particularly appreciated.

The flavor is kinda nutty, kinda sweet, kinda lemony. It is simple, nourishing, and nice.

So what’s next, Bolivian grandmother?

boy + birthday = bacon

2012-01-16T21:58:00.001-05:00

Steve makes my life awesome, and I wanted to make his birthday awesome.

I toyed with the idea of a fancy shmancy dinner out, and then went, “Hmm, is this what Steve wants or is this what you want?” And I thought about what Steve loves. And that’s what his birthday became!

First and foremost, the Saturday night leading in to his birthday, we went swing dancing. Number one Steve love, man.

And neither of us is that good, but we invented a mood where he flipped me onto his back and I stuck my knees in the air that was heaps of fun. And also lots of spinning. No one should take swing dancing too seriously, in MY opinion. Furthermore, I spent much of the evening drooling over the utter glamorousness of the pointy high-heeled, bouffant-haired, hourglass waistline dress’d lead singer in the band. Vair fun!

Midnight, the first moment of Steve’s 27th year (or actually, if you turn 27 that means you have completed 27 years so I guess the first moment of Steve’s 28th year!), we were at a diner, Steve enjoying a postdancing pulled pork sandwich :D

Then the actual birthday involved football watching and beer. No surprise.

And, yes surprise, an 11 mile run (?!?! Steve why you so crazy?!?!?!?!)

And then, the ultimate Steve Joy for the ultimate Steve birthday. Bacon. Lots. Of. Bacon.

Local bacon from my favorite Mennonite farmers!

The site of all this cooking was Steve’s apartment, now known as the hydroponic garden!

I read in Bites and Bowls that you can put the ends of green onions in a cup of water and they will regenerate new onions and SURE ENOUGH!

That’s like two week’s worth of growth! Madness!

Okay so it was cooking time.

Serious. Business.

The bacon-wrapped dates were a huge hit at our bacon-versary dinner. And they’re a glamorous appetizer that are essentially effortless. No brainer that they’d be included in the birthday dinner.

I upped the ante, however, by stuffing them with GOAT CHEESE! Holla!

And you just chuck ‘em in the oven and forget about them while you cook everything else. No idea how long they were in there but they did juuuuuust fiiiiiine. Not dry, just intensively sweet and caramelized. And baconized!

Which is good, because the stovetop needed my full attention. This was set to be a four burner operation.

Preparation is key in these situations, so the veggies got set before anything else. It was a decadent meal, to be sure, but one with an impressive quantity of phytochemicals.

And then it was time to fry up a. lot. of. bacon.

So first on the menu was a dish I was making for the first time (perhaps risky for a special occasion, but the Internet has enabled us to read other peoples’ reviews of dishes before we make them, which is awesome.) It wasn’t hard to tell that Apple Glazed Carrots with Bacon were going to be a hit.

In a genuine effort to produce enough food but not enough food for an army (a constant struggle for me and really Greek women in general from what I can tell), I halfed the recipe (originally serves four people, but I figured I’d eat one portion and Steve’d eat three).

Other than that, though, I followed the directions pretty precisely- fry the bacon-

(duh)

fry onions in bacon fat-

(yum)

and add carrots and apple cider and brown sugar and cook til carrots are tender.

It did take roughly three times the amount of time the recipe said for the carrots to achieve that tenderness. I ended up just jacking up the heat!

Meanwhile, I was making some lovely bacon pasta sauce.

Step 1: Fry some bacon

(duh)

Step 2: In the bacon fat, cook up some mushrooms.

Step 3: Roux! Sprinkle some flour on the mushrooms and bacon fat and mix around until no longer white. Add milk.

Step 4: Stir til thickened. Then add some CHEESE! I used gouda. Splendid.

The sauce was perfectly velvety:

Steve was marveling at how I get an even coating of sauce on the pasta (because he is besotted with me. No one else would marvel at something like that.)

The secret for those of you who want to besot (is that a verb?) someone, is just to cook the pasta shy of al dente in the water and then add it to the sauce, allowing the pasta to finish cooking in the sauce, thus coating it with lusciousness. (I use a slotted spoon to add the pasta to the sauce, which adds a little pasta water. Which is fine, cause it’ll evaporate out as you cook the pasta, and the starch in it will even help thicken the sauce).

The final component of the meal was Austin brussels sprouts. The kind that turned Steve into a brussels sprouts lover, coated in dijon mustard, honey and dill. Recipe on my recipage!

I was super concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get them at the farmer’s market cause I hadn’t seen them for a few weeks and lo and behold there they were, WAITING FOR ME, when I got there. Phew!

So carrots, brussels, pasta, and sauce; that’s FOUR BURNER ACTION! Plus a heap of bacon all set for sprinkling! Plus appetizer in the oven!

How did I not burn anything? Or overcook anything? Because I am AMAZING.

And so the table was laid, with Moscato for my older man who drinks like a little kid. (Grape juice! It’s extra sweet grape juice!)

But fun story- we stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way to Steve’s apartment to get apple cider for the carrots, and they were doing a wine tasting, so obviously we popped in. And naturally, I went “IT’S HIS BIRTHDAY!” And the wine guy at Trader Joe’s had everyone do a toast with their little mini cups! Delightful.

Wined and dined:

Yes that is a Christmas tree in the background. Yes we do plan to keep it up all year. What of it?

The dates were a delight; the extra tang of that goat cheese gave them a little tangy and creamy sumthin’ sumthin’ but there is something so maaaaaaaagical in just the combo of that sweet date (enhanced and caramelized with a trip in the oven) and the salty meaty bacon.

The brussels sprouts were as blissful as ever. Sauteeing brussels sprouts is where it’s at. And it minimizes the smell, for those of y’all who might be bothered by it.

I am always kind of tweaking this recipe… it’s definitely stove-dependent how long it takes the sprouts to brown, how much water you need to add, how long it takes for them to get tender, etc. My stove is sooooooo sluggish whereas Steve’s is really peppy. Anyway, I was quite happy how this version turned out.

In all honesty, I use more oil at Steve’s, too! His pans are kinda lousy.

The carrots just might be my new favorite recipe. Feast your eyes!

The flavor profile is just delightful: the sweet, slightly tangy background of apple cider; the onions that have caramelized; the smoky bacon; the chives adding a fresh bright pop; and the carrots themselves, enhanced by all that tasty action.

Though the carrots took QUITE a bit longer than the original recipe suggested (though we may just have the store to blame for that); their texture was ultimately perfect- tender yet with a toothsome center. A little crunch of bacon in your bite didn’t hurt!

And they smelled awesome.

Oh, and they were beautiful. In case you were wondering why you were forced to look at ten thousand pictures of them.

The two following pictures are nearly identical and I can’t decide which I like more. The first one is kind of shiny and surrealist, the second is more realistic but lacks a certain whimsy.

In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, my FAVORITE book, I always wish you could see their artwork. Like Rosa’s giant surrealist vegetables!

Back to the meal.

We’re finally done with the carrots.

The pasta was great because it was bacony, cheesy, and in a large quantity. So Steve was happy.

Next time I would add even more mushrooms and perhaps make them the star. Mushrooms and bacon are great! Caramelized onions would also not be out of place in here.

Now, despite the abundance you have just beheld, I was actually waiting excitedly for dessert.

Back story: two days prior, I’d asked Steve to give me some adjectives that might describe his perfect birthday dessert.

“Hm… chocolate and peanut butter?” A moment’s though. “Maybe banana too?”

Those (though not actually adjectives), I could definitely work with!

And so I give you what I consider to be my ultimate dessert triumph. The dessert that, in terms of both the taste it produced and the raves I received from the man who ate it, I will have to live up to for the rest of my life. The pinnacle of my creativity and technique.

Banana bread trifle with peanut butter custard and chocolate rum sauce.

It begins, as trifle does, with the carb layer. I used my homemade banana bread (on my recipage), which as you all know is the.best.banana.bread.

(Let’s all take a moment to appreciate that I used the pig bowl to go with this bacon dinner. Just call me Martha)

Then (and I have my mom to thank for this, who when I told her my intial ideas said “Ooh, the chocolate and banana combination sounds kind of Jamaican!), I drizzled on the chocolate rum sauce.

Melted chocolate truffles and rum.

Then it was time for a round of the peanut butter custard.

I… I can’t even fully talk about that yet. Give me a minute.

I did a layer of that and a layer of sliced bananas.

I repeated banana bread and chocolate.

Then… okay… guys. I am going to get a little passionate when I talk about this.

PEANUT BUTTER CUSTARD.

I don’t know how I got this idea in my head. The brilliant peanut butter and jelly dessert from 701 that I had on my birthday probably influenced it. The traditional English trifle we had for Christmas dinner might have brought custard to my mind.

But suffice it to say, divine providence brought peanut butter custard to my life.

I followed this custard recipe to a T, only cutting it in half.

First of all, it is thoroughly amazing to whisk a thin looking mixture of milk, egg yolk, flour, and sugar on the stove and watch it magically transformed by heat, in seconds, to beautiful custard.

Then having the first taste with the rich nutty peanut butter and the zing from the cinnamon and cayenne, feeling my eyes roll back in my head at the utter decadence of it all… Guys.

PEANUT BUTTER CUSTARD!

The dish got finished with a final gilding of banana slices and chocolate sauce.

It was presented to the birthday boy (with a certain amount of fanfare since Steve likes surprises and I demand constant attention for my desserts) and he loved it. LOVED IT!

He actually compared this dessert to the Messiah. I don’t know what that truly means, but I went ahead and took it as a compliment.

And I watched, as it got smaller.

Bite…

… by chocolate-rum-soaked-banana bread bite…

… by rich creamy peanut butter custard bite…

Yes, dessert was enjoyed with a crossword. More birthday joy :D

The moral of this story is that a home cooked meal is often much more fun than something frou frou, and that seriously guys, I can’t emphasize this enough, make this dessert.

breakfast for every meal

2012-01-14T16:16:00.001-05:00

Since I basically eat oatmeal every day for breakfast since it is both extremely tasty and extremely filling, I tend to reserve all other “traditional” breakfast foods for other meals.

Omelets! So filling… at lunchtime.

My omelets typically involve

1. Greens

2. Cheese

Sometimes they are pretty, sometimes not. I’d call this one medium pretty.

Toast for grains group. Celery for veggies group. Grapes for the fruit group. Always bucket of tea.

Fun fact: I went to brunch for like two seconds one time and then left.

Actually, I dropped my boyfriend off for brunch… with my former boss who hates me… so I declined to stay.

But we were at Dama, my beloved favorite Ethiopian place. So before former boss arrived, largely due to anxiety and desire to fill the time on my part, we ordered some attractive Ethiopian bread. Whole wheat! Wrapped in leaves! Too bad she showed up and I had to run out the door immediately and didn’t have more than a bite. Me and my incredible social skills.

On less awkward topics, back to oats. Did I say I typically have oats for breakfast? Sometimes I have it for lunch, too.

Overnight oats, actually, their container hinting at their contents:

That Greek yogurt, non-nonfat. Non lowfat. FAT fat! A welcome hostess gift from the boyfriend, who came over for dinner some night and bestowed a few upon me.

The full-fat stuff falls FIRMLY in the treat category (you kind of gasp at the saturated fat grams), but my heavens, a few spoonfuls on one’s overnight oats (along with milk, oats, ‘n fruit) makes for a decidedly heavenly bowl.

And the Greeks would approve. There wasn’t a lot of low-fat over there.

Along with a gorrrrrrrgeous salad. Gosh I am remembering how good this was and planning on making it again (full disclosure: I ate all the stuff in this post like two months ago. I am hella behind on blogging).

Okay, so my mom made her Mom’s beet salad which is sliced roasted beets and raw sweet onion, tenderized in a bath of olive oil and red wine vinegar.

SO AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS.

Along with that I plated up some greens, tofu, and avocado. SUCH a complete salad, SO delicious.

We’ll call this a breakfast lunch hybrid.

Another classic in the breakfast-lunch hybrid category is the poached egg on salad.

So great, right?! I just did greens and shredded carrot, plus avocado, plus a drizzle of lemon, so then the lemon (acid) avocado (fat) and egg yolk (more fat!) emulsified into this blissful dressing atop the veggies. Stupid good.

Part of this complete (breakfast for) lunch with yogurt ‘n apple ‘n flatbread ‘n peanut butter.

Along with every breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack/dessert/anything, tea is served. Always. Why? I am always cold. I am never adequately hydrated. I am always seeking the warming comforting nostalgic vapor and flavor of tea.

My mom and sister both concur.

So our tea kettle gets a LOT of use.

So it died, finally. So my mom got a new one. The EXACT same model as the last one, cause it treated us nice.

To clarify, lest we go, “Curses! There’s that broken kettle on the counter, taunting us as we heat water in the microwave!” she labeled it. Ah, the joy of a shiny new tea kettle.

Fun fact: we need an electric, rather than stove-heated kettle, because certain people I know have left kettles on stoves and then left. And forgotten them. I have not done this, but several of my loved ones (related and non-) have done so. Because there are enough stressors in the world, we have an electric kettle, which politely boils the water and turns itself off.

Sunday brunch creation:

For the meal when you have a little more time to make something exciting. And want a certain filling oomph.

CARROT CAKE OATS!

Dessert for brunch!

Ingredients:

Oats in your preferred quantity (I do 1/2 cup)
Milk/water ratio of your choice (I do half and half)
For seasoning: cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg
For sweetness: fresh and/or dried fruit; I’ve done fresh pineapple slices, dried dates, Craisins
For carrot cake essential bliss: roasted carrots (chopped up teeny tiny, put on a cooking spray’d baking sheet and roasted til golden), and roasted pecans (again, just popped in the toaster oven til aromatic)

WOWZA!

Things that would likely also be extremely good in this:

Coconut

Raisins

Cottage cheese

Some sort of cream cheese icing

Maple syrup

What else?

Speaking of roasted, this creation here was the BEST dinner.

We had farmer’s market tomatoes. Which seems like a contradiction in terms in winter, but greenhouses. Whoo. (Whoo? What are peoples’ thoughts: does the shortened transit make it okay to buy local tomatoes in winter even though greenhouses suck up more energy? What are the carbon ethics?!)

Anyway, they were good (fresh and local) but not great (winter.)

So, ROAST! Olive oil salt and pepper. For awhile.

Meanwhile, PROTEIN PLATE! (This meal was the ultimate in leftover utilization)

Leftover steelhead. Hard boiled egg. Crumbled goat cheese.

Meanwhile CARB PLATE. My sister had brought home three bagels and immediately forgotten about them for weeks so I turned them into bagel chips.

Then tossed on some whole wheat toast, for whole grains.

Then tomatoes out of oven and behold a VEGGIE PLATE!

Roasted tomaters, beautiful farmer’s market wee cucumbers, avocado, beautiful farmer’s market microgreens.

I’m thinking radishes would also make a delicious addition.

And thus (rounded out with some macaroni and cheese and spinach my sister had made), a NEW YORK DELI MAKE YOUR OWN SHMEAR DINNER EXTRAVAGANZA!

Billions of mini bites of bliss.

If, like me, you like eating interactively (grabbing things, smearing things, combining things, eating with your hands, recommending combinations to other people, trying bites that combine as many flavors as possible), I highly recommend this style of meal.

LIKE bagel chip with cucumber, fish and microgreens. OR toast with roasted tomato and hardboiled egg. FUNNEST DINNER EVER.

cleaning up

2012-01-11T17:36:00.002-05:00

Hello friends.

It has been awhile. Again.

This is going to be a somewhat introspective, somewhat text-heavy post. If you read this for the recipes, or the pictures, you can scroll down. Or just skip it. Return to regularly scheduled programming in the next post. No hard feelings.

Some things I am:

1. At a big life transition.

More than any other time in my life, I feel like I am taking steps for the long haul. This week I started community college classes in the hopes of getting all my science requirements out of the way to apply to Master’s in Nutrition programs in fall of 2013. It’s hella exciting, but it’s also a Big Deal. I consciously know this, but I think it’s doing even more of a number on my subconscious.

2. Still living at home.

I love my family and I love coming home and getting to tell my mom about my day instead of calling her angsting from college and wishing I were closer. Still, there are things that are challenging about living at home. Less control about the people coming into your space. Less control about the STUFF coming into your space. My last semester of college, I had a roommate with a boyfriend she essentially lived with (they just got married, aww), and it meant I had a teeny tiny apartment virtually all to myself. I. loved. it. I cleaned up and everything stayed clean. I controlled the noise level. There was no junk food in my apartment because I didn’t buy it.

3. A control freak.

As you might have guessed with the stuff about the apartment above, I liked being able to control my environment. I like knowing what’s coming next in my life. I like planning. I like making my own schedule. I like organizing things. I like numbers and data.

4. Thin.

Thin-ish. Not as thin as when I started this blog. Nor a few months later, when rather than thin, in retrospect, I was skinny. I couldn’t buy pants at Target anymore. They were too big! That’s no good. I wanted to always be able to buy stuff at Target! Anyway, I am thin, but I feel myself expanding. It began slowly (bakery job), then picked up RAPIDLY (stressful Americorps job), then seemed to be in a pretty solid, maintenance, healthy but satisfying and enjoyable life, “happy weight” place. But lately, I have been…

Okay, let’s get down to it.

5. A mess.

I am a little bit of a mess right now.

Who hasn’t been here, right? Life changes, the stresses and re-evaluations of everything those cause snafus in your schedule, unfamiliar and occasionally unwelcome influences appear in your life and home.

In my case, it’s been the thing that has kind of always been in the orbit of my life: eating. I went to a shrink for like… a day in college. (Anyone who has tried to make an appointment in a university’s student health center, ever, knows what I’m talking about.) I remember saying to her, “Being a heroin addict is easy. You just don’t go under your shady bridge and buy heroin. If you’re weird about food, you have to deal with it at least three times a day. You can’t just quit eating!”

So as of late, my way of dealing with food has been… The best analogy I can come up with is that if a four year old were given free rein of the kitchen.

The funny thing is, what’s really going to stop a four year old from eating whatever he or she wants? Nothing, right, which maybe explains our current childhood obesity epidemic. Still, one hopes, if that child has responsible parents looking out for that child’s best interests, they say things like, “That’s a treat food, not an every day food”, or, “If you’re hungry, sit down at the table and eat your snack instead of grabbing the bag”, or, “Let’s eat the vegetables on our plate and see if we have room for dessert.”

Well, here in my post-holiday cookie-filled house, I have been that four year old kid. Rather than taking on the role of the responsible adult saying “Save room” or “Don’t eat straight out of the bag”, or “Just one cookie”, I have been going NUTS. This is the mess I refer to. Incessant snacking. Simple sugars, typically in the forms of cookies and candy, as mood elevator and energy source. Stress eating.

Then scurrying to the gym and guiltily and unhappily working out for hours and hours. One should exercise like an adult, too, understanding that it’s not a calorie-undoer button, it’s a chance to strengthen your heart and your muscles and whoa, how about that, be a mood elevator and energy source naturally.

And who stops me? Nobody. Because I am an adult, and it’s my job to take care of me. And that job has entirely fallen by the wayside these past few weeks.

So. Where does that leave me? (And perhaps you, as from chatting with various friends- you know who you are- this feeling is not entirely unfamiliar around the holidays?)

Here’s what I don’t want: to count every calorie I eat and remove any joy from the experience of eating. It’s rigid, depressing, and simply unrealistic. I don’t want to be the hungry automaton Anna Wintour and our self-loathing culture want me to be. Here’s what else I don’t want: to continue what I’m doing.

If you are a mess, then you have to clean up that mess. You have to say to yourself, I deserve someone who treats my body with the same respect and love with which a caring parent tends to their child’s body. My body doesn’t deserve this careening-towards-diabetes sugar roller coaster. It doesn’t deserve to be stuffed mindlessly.

Furthermore, the people who worked to create the food don’t deserve it.

My Steve and I took a blissful hiking trip over this past weekend to Sugarloaf Mountain. On our way home, we stopped at a roadside stand and bought some absolutely gorgeous squash.

Because the stand had actually already closed and the register was boxed up, the farmer was going to give us the squash for free (Steve got another three in addition to these!)

But I was never going to let that happen, because I know that this small farmer- along with the other small farmers at my local market from whom I am lucky enough to get a good portion of my food- deserve so much better than that.

Hours of effort, crossing fingers and hoping for no weather disasters, gritting their teeth every moment they have to be out hawking their goods instead of tending to their farm: being a farmer is no easy task. (I actually am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and it’s making me both very pleased at where I get my food and newly respectful- and craving mindfulness- about its source).

The same is true of all food, though. When my boyfriend, or my mom, or my family member, or my friend makes me dinner, they put their effort into it so that it would taste good, so that it would nourish me. If I’m scarfing it down without thinking about it, or I’m gritting my teeth and trying to eat as little as possible because I had three totally mediocre industrially produced cookies earlier, that’s terrible disrespect to that cook’s work.

Where am I going with all this?

Food is nourishment. Food is important. Good food- in every sense- is something to strive for.

So self, yes, you’re a mess right now.

But GROW UP.

No one else is going to take care of my body. I am an adult, with all the responsibilities that entails. If I want to be healthy, if I want to thrive, if I want to be strong, if I want to get all the things I want to get done, done, then I need to take care of myself. Period.

Obviously, there are mechanisms in the brain that are tricky to deal with in our era of Frankenfood. We crave salt, fat and sugar. They are rare in nature but all too common in modern America.

So, I just did a necessary cookie purge in my house. I felt HORRIBLY guilty wasting food, even un-nutritious food, but I gave an atoning donation to the World Food Programme to try to make up for it.

I’m excited to learn about the human body and nutrition in the next semester, and I think it will reinforce this real compulsion I feel to respect and nourish the awe-inspiringly effective systems of my body.

And I have to eat well. I have to relearn, yes, like a kid, to be good.

The irony of course being, that even in this nutty phase I really have eaten some good food, and I am in the future for more things to look like this.

The sugar hangover breakfast:

(Greek yogurt, clementine, banana, apple, puffed wheat, milk drizzle atop)

The non-greasy lunch:

(toasted flatbread, hummus, tomato; broiled)

The contemplative, thought-out cooking and stress-relieving kneading

(calzone dough; calzones ended up in the freezer for future meals)

(on the left, calzone filling; on the right, veggies prepping for lunch salad)

(calzone filling, finished off with a small amount of goat cheese)

The lunch I wish I hadn’t preceded with the office party cake and cookies:

(Clementine; farmer’s market sunflower flax bread, salad)

(On a base of kale, the salad had chickpeas, kohlrabi, carrots, avocado, and olives in a yogurt dressing)

The wholesome snacks I partially ate but too much displaced with junky stuff:

I am going to the gym, because I want to feel good. Both while I work out and when I come home and when I wake up.

Here’s to cleaning up.

last of '11, first of '12

2012-01-05T19:44:00.015-05:00

Let me preface this post by saying that my computer had a little meltdown so I am borrowing my mother's Mac and as we all know Macs are lovely and flashy but are a huge pain to use if you are blogging. So I'm using Blogger's photo editing window... which we all know is terrible.

In happier news, Happy New Year!

Based on my delightful and delicious last day of 2011 and my equally delightful and delicious first day of 2012, it will be a good one.

Maya, a blog friend who turned into a real friend, pointed out correctly that it had been far too long since we hung out. We remedied that by meeting up at The Pure Pasty, a Yelp discovery that turned out to be lovely.

Even more lovely, however, was the weather! So we hop skipped and jump half a block to the W and OD trail for an al fresco lunch. By an adorable artful tree!

It was appropriate that we dined at a pasty establishment since Maya was imminently departing to the land of pasties- merry old England! The Pure Pasty struck my fancy because they bragged of ethical meats, and a seasonal menu focused on local ingredients. And they were right affordable! Love!

Neither Maya nor I was all that hungry (Christmas cookies much?) so we split a coupla things.

When I asked the lady behind the counter what the butternut squash soup was like (curry-y? cream-y? broth-y? smooth? chunky?), she said "I'll just give you a sample and then you'll know.

One spoonful was enough where we were both like "Yeah, that!" It didn't taste all that anything-y, except butternut-y. It thoroughly celebrated the wonderful and seasonal veggie :D

As Maya is a vegetarian (and this option sounded delicious), we split the veggie-stuffed pasty. WOW it was good. My sister (who, hilariously, had been to this place and swore up and down she had repeatedly recommended it to me, which I apparently totally forgot), said they are plenty buttery, and they are!

But the filling was a meltingly tender mixture of seasonal veggies, perfectly season. And the crust tasted like SOURDOUGH. How did they make a simultaneously sourdough and flaky crust? Wonders never cease :D

Maya and I then proceeded to walk and talk on the trail... for oh, 2 and a half hours. More than 5 and a half miles. Yknow.

Clearly, we were overdue :D It was GREAT. Quality girl talk is fun (and sometimes I feel like an old washed-up lady being in a happy relationship and all. So it's fun to hear gossip from another!)

Oh, inexplicably there was a Great Harvest right by the pasty place. So that was an obvious choice. By which I mean... we walked in and got our free bread (mmmm obviously we both got pumpkin!)

And then, as ever, appalled by the prices, I went "Err... can I just get a coffee?"

Steve and I had ambitious plans to go out for New Years, and I had a totally fierce new purse from my cousin that I am not sure I am ferocious enough to pull off (it is made out of an old RAF cap on a metal chain, if that gives you at all an awesome image. Because it is. Thoroughly, thoroughly awesome).

But we just get so looooonesome without each other and he'd been gone for a whole week and we really just wanted to hang out with each other :D Plus he made me a gorgeous, gorgeous dinner including this absolutely stunning salad.

In addition to baked sweet potatoes, kale, and brussels sprouts I have also converted the boy to salad.

And I think the student has become the teacher, cause GORGEOUS!

But the star attraction was all Steve.

Seafood pasta in CREAM SAUCE! Yeah baby, that's a PINT of heavy cream!

But ohhhhh my word that was the least of it (though quite delicious).

Start with toothsome, perfectly al dente whole wheat pasta.

Seafood, ethically sourced (he went to Whole Foods to make me happy! Well and himself too, of course). Shrimp and THE BEST SCALLOPS I HAVE EVER TASTED. I know these photos are not the best and context is off but some of them approached the size of a clementine. And SO FAT. And SO TENDER. And SO FLAVORFUL, imbuing all the sauce with their taste of the sea. And so so so so so perfectly cooked my man is good, guys.

Throw in some thoroughly zingy seasoning (red pepper flakes and Cajun spice oomph), sprinkle on MORE than a little cheese... an absolute delight. He is good.

And of course, everything tastes better when washed down wiiiiiith...

Unlike last year's thoroughly amusing martini concoctions, Steve consulted the expertise of this book that a friend gave him:

And this was serious business. Steve made the sangria in a mega-vat and then used those impressively toned arms to give it a thorough shake.

And to further class it up, there were orange juice ice cubes! Melting did not equal watering down, melting equaled FLAVOR!

The table was laid and was thoroughly beautiful.

The pasta (in Steve's classy new pan that doesn't look dangerous to operate! Steve also got new non-paring knives for Christmas! God bless you, Steve's relatives, for making cooking at my boyfriend's place much more pleasant). It released a heavenly aroma.

My plate, impressively plant centric thanks to the green salad AND a delightful Caprese salad AND perfectly roasted, crisp-tender asparagus.

And then it was 2012! And I was hungry. And thirsty.

I read about Busboys and Poets holding a pajama brunch and that was my cup of tea!

And then I got a cup of tea.

Super cool. And YUMMY.

Busboys was PACKED, as other people (who looked more hungover than we!) decided brunch was a great idea.

But I was disappointed how few wore pajamas (though admittedly, I did not, and would have felt sort of awkward).

The waiters did, which I captured sort of blurrily.

I think Steve's order should be a regular menu item at Busboys and Poets. He came up for a great title for it!

The Hypocrite: a veggie burger. With bacon and egg on top.

I had a bite (and more than a few of those sweet potato fries!) It was pretty boss.

But I was very content to eat my (well okay like 1 3/4 out of three of my) buckwheat pancakes. I started the new year with fruit and whole grains. This feels like an accomplishment.

full of the joys

2012-01-02T21:47:00.001-05:00

It’s that time of the year!

The time we invite everyone we know to stuff themselves into our house and stuff themselves with delicious, delicious food!

This year was no exception.

Some goodies, in no particular order.

Skordalia!

What is skordalia? Good question! Due to an overabundance of potatoes (Steve was going home for Christmas and said I had to take his uneaten potatoes or they would “go bad”. Do potatoes ever go bad, ever?), I thought it would be great to make the garlic-packed, olive-oil rich tangy Greek potato dip known as skordalia.

You begin with 4-6 cloves of garlic (!), which I tried to mellow out by mincing up and then mashing into a paste with kosher salt.

Then (so fun!) I got out the POTATO RICER we inherited from my grandmother. I had yet to play with this but I love cool (yet useful) kitchen tools.

Sure enough, the potatoes, once cooked (I steamed mine) come out in strands as thin as rice.

You give them an initial mash…

Then richen them up with red wine vinegar, a LOT of olive oil, and white pepper.

So simple, so delicious.

Though I was concerned that party guests would be confused (because for some reason rather than forming a smooth dip this resembled mashed potatoes instead; perhaps I used an overly starchy type of potato?), and also thought they deserved fair warning for the sake of their breath of the EXTREME quantities of garlic contained therein.

Thus:

Last year’s retro-chic date walnut blue cheese ball was ridiculously popular, so it seemed obvious to bring it back.

Once again I doubled it, but instead of doing an awkward oblong football shape as I did last year, I patted it out into a pretty impressive rectangle.

Yet people seemed confused by the final product.

Fortunately, I ensure that everything I make is delicious enough that I enjoy, even cherish having leftovers of them.

The piece de resistance is always the turkey, and the reason people lovvvvvvvvvvvve our turkey is because we brine it.

Seriously, I know it’s an extra step in the cooking process and I know space is an issue, but it idiot-proofs the entire cooking process. You can cook it for a really really long time at high heat, you can likely make all kinds of mistakes, you can forget to baste it… it WILL taste awesome.

And if space is really an issue, you can throw it in a bag… in a bowl… in a box… with binder clips :D

And put it in your nice cold garage!

As for the carving of the turkey, it is usually done by my uncle Louie, but he and my aunt Dena were returning from visiting grandbaby Jack (!) in Austin (my awesome cousin Rachel whose happy and delicious home in Austin I’ve waxed rhapsodies of here in the blog had a baby!).

So.

I got myself a YouTube tutorial and CARVED ME SOME TURKEY! My sister thoughtfully got some blurry action shots.

Like most things boys brag about doing, it turns out to be RIDICULOUSLY easy.

Yes, I spent most of the evening bragging to anyone who would listen that I had carved the turkey. My sister plans to get it put on a shirt for me.

And so the table was laid.

When you need a good centerpiece, it’s hard to go wrong with fresh fruit and candles.

Everyone likes cheese. Obviously. So we had that in great quantities. And also in various rearranged forms including pinwheels of mozzarella and prosciutto; wonderful tangy Lebanese kefir cheese (labneh); my date “ball” (log) in its final form with walnuts and parsley atop. And more in the Greek department with a tray of taramosalata (fish roe dip); caponata (eggplant awesomeness); and olives. And stuffed grape leaves.

Very popular (if, I must admit, slightly overcooked), was my artichoke dip (the usual family recipe- artichoke hearts, cheddar cheese, garlic, mayo).

We did a variety of crackers and breads for dunkables and I also put out crudite for the gluten-intolerant among us (and that’s not all! See further on!)

We had years of guests sort of ignoring shrimp and didn’t bother serving it last year. But my sister demanded it this year, saying “Everyone loves shrimp cocktail!” And by everyone she meant my sister.

An attractive shrimp station.

The main attraction was rolls for sammiches and my beautiful turkey…

… as well as some ham (do yourself a favor and buy bone in if you want it to taste good!)

Now, unsurprisingly from earlier posts this holiday season, I also decided it was important to make some Christmas cookies. Shocking, I know.

The most labor-intensive (but visually rewarding upon completion) was this Cooking Light recipe for coconut biscotti. It begins with a somewhat sticky dough (that, somewhat disconcertingly, contains NO BUTTER! I really wasn’t sure how I felt about this).

“Patting it out” was easier in theory than in practice, and getting the right size was a bit tricky.

Then I had to get that sticky mass on a cookie sheet. Thank goodness for teamwork!

But after its first round in the oven, it started to look REAL pretty!

Oh, I should add that while that biscotti slicing was happening… there were recipes on the laptop, ingredients on the counter…

… additional cookies being put on baking sheets…

… and still more cookie dough chilling in the fridge.

But back to that biscotti!

You sliced it after its first round of baking into that familiar biscotti shape.

Then laid it out sideways on a baking sheet so that both top and bottom would brown evenly.

One toasty oven trip later, and I had perfect looking golden coconut biscotti!

Gosh I was proud of these.

They were also quite yummy

Next: let’s talk GLUTEN FREE.

We have a dear friend at church (who sings soprano in the choir with me) with Celiac disease. I wanted her to enjoy some delicious cookies at our party, and moreover wanted her to enjoy something that she’d been lacking since going gluten free (because I love a challenge :D) So I said, “What cookie have you missed the most?” and she said shortbread.

So some poring over the Internet and a test run later, I came up with:

Gluten Free Shortbread Cookies

6 T cornstarch
½ cup white rice flour
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
6 ¼ tablespoons of butter, still cool, cut into very small pieces

Toss together cornstarch, rice flour, and sugar. Use your fingers to crumble in the butter until just combined (it will be more like a piecrust than a cookie dough- it’ll be easier to push together once it’s been chilled)

Chill for at least one hour in the refrigerator.

Take spoonfuls of the butter and roll them into balls, using the warmth of your hands to hold them together. Press down in a crosshatch pattern with a fork sprayed with cooking spray (you should spray the fork intermittently to keep it from sticking to the dough).

Preheat oven to 300. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned.

Optional: if you want prettier cookies, approximately halfway through baking time, use the side of a fork to gently push pieces that have broken/oozed off the cookie back to the central cookie mass. All the butter will kind of fuse them together and the finished cookies will be prettier and more entire!

The cookies look a little busted going onto the sheet…

But, particularly if you do the recommended touch-up during the baking time, they end up right adorable and hold together surprisingly well (a great big thank you to BUTTER!)

And the taste is great. Again: BUTTER!

For the most intriguing flavor and texture, I’d definitely recommend lemon cornmeal cookies. Another from Cooking Light, I found them to be a really unique cookie.

As usual for our party, I made my all time favorite cookies, macadamia butter cookies with dried cranberries

And then, when I pulled out a tin to store the cookies in before the big party day, I found these:

The cookie tin had been in storage in our garage, and so we realized that these guys must have been left over from the last time I made gingerbread people! (Yes, I made them this year, but didn’t decorate them).

Here’s the thing: I know from checking in my blog that we didn’t make gingerbread men for the party last year… or the year before. These were MANY YEARS OLD! Moreover, they still smelled FINE and were suprisingly supple feeling on the outside due to, I supposed, an impressively airtight container!

Awesome. Regretfully, fearing health concerns, I threw them away.

We still had PLENTY of cookies!

Along with my contributions, we had several trays of delicious baklava made by my mom, as well as her labor-of-love Linzer hearts.

I tried to make brownies but something went horribly wrong and they were DRY! Not terrible, but tasted more like cake than my usual blissful fudgy brownies. So I melted a huge amount of sour cherry preserves and drizzle them on top, and called them “cherry chocolate cake bites”. Huge hit.

Gluten free for our gluten free loved one!

Biscotti, beautifully vertical as arranged by my sister, rather whimsically, in my ice cream bowl.

And thus ends my pictures, upon the arrival of our first guests, because everyone knows the best thing about a party, no matter what incredible culinary creations are present, is the people.

I really am full of the joys, even at the prospect of returning to work tomorrow, because I was reminded at that party, as I am most days, at what an amazing group of family and friends we really do have. My super awesome boyfriend hung out with my super awesome family, my super awesome neighbors bonded with my super awesome church members.

Guys, let’s promise ourselves that this Christmas/holiday joy should carry over, because anyone who is loved is blessed every day.

(fried) rice, (ginger) bread, (ravioli) pasta

2011-12-29T18:27:00.002-05:00

All carbs. All delightful comfort food one might enjoy while deprived of the presence of one’s loved one.

Stupid Steve had to go be with his stupid family in stupid Chicago so we celebrated Christmas early.

(He’s coming back tonight YAY!)

To mark the Christmas holiday, as he marks all days ending in y, Steve made fried rice.

Were you curious what we had eaten two days previously, when last I'd dined at his apartment?

That would be fried rice.

Components to Steve’s fried rice:

-short grain brown sushi rice (yum!)
-a variety of fresh and/or frozen vegetables cut in the way very particular to him (carrots in sort of extra large matchsticks, mushrooms in extremely thick slices, etc. etc.) Different things are cooked in different pans and I don’t totally get the rhyme or reason of it but I’m certainly not going to mess with a very delicious system
-eggs made into a proper omelet
-if he has it, FRESH tofu from the Asian market (mm)
-buckets of oil
-every Asian seasoning under the sun
-the occasional totally whacky addition: cheese and/or cilantro and/or something totally random but... sure why not

I was director of the salad department. Steve likes salad now, which he attributes to me.

By “salad” he means, “Salad with cheese and apples and nuts on top.”

Fair enough!

The evening’s entertainment:

Gingerbread was homemade by Steve (and he created, and bequeathed unto me, enough leftover dough for me to make an entire city of gingerbread people for my family for Christmas!)

Icing was canned cream cheese frosting. Should be delicious, right?

Cream cheese frosting- DELICIOUS (I have come to the reluctant conclusion that I really don't like buttercream frosting. 7 minute, marshmallow, whipped cream, ganache, sign me up! Buttercream? Eh)

Canned frosting- DELICIOUS. Like you don’t love every trans-fat-laden bite. In high school my best friend and I devoured an entire can of fourth of July red and blue confetti icing.

But cream cheese canned frosting? Kind of gross. Achieved neither the deliciousness of canned nor cream cheese’d. Sad. But also kind of a relief, since I ate less.

Initial progress was, if I do say so myself, extremely impressive. Especially given that the house’s structure was a bit… warped.

Yeah, it collapsed shortly after these pictures were taken. Too bad so sad chomp chomp!

And, continuing with the holiday festivities, if you squint, you can kinda tell that that laptop is airing the EXCELLENT film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

So we were great.

And Steve had his “delicious” PBR, so he was extra great (rolls eyes)

On the subject of Steve’s cooking, he really is extremely impressive.

We’d tried homemade pasta before but it had sort of dissolved into vindictive words. (Hahaha not really but man you put two oldest children in a room to accomplish a task and it’s gonna get a little competitive!)

Steve was ready to do it all over again, in a positive and nurturing way. Sure.

I stood back and watched, calmly and not alpha and oldest child-y.

It meant watching him crack those eggs into that well of flour…

Get his hands up and ready to start kneading…

… getting raw egg all over my kitchen table!

He persevered. Sure enough, the dough came together enchantingly (and half whole wheat, I might add).

I needed my own project- bread and ricotta dumplings in my beloved How to Cook Everything Vegetarian? YES PLEASE!

You basically mix up torn up stale-ish bread (or if you’re me, Sandwich Thins!), herbs, sun dried tomatoes, ‘n cheese of the ricotta and parmesan types.

Combined it makes a REAL thin dough. You are supposed to add it to boiling water to cook IMMEDIATELY… which I did not.

Er.. anyway. Thickening it with flour fixed everything! You’ll see the finished product later.

In the meantime, my help was required in coordinating the pasta machine. Man cannot roll pasta alone.

(Yes, I wear scarves inside. I am always cold).

It was then fillin’ time. (Just to mention, when Steve plans cooking projects he’s like “Oh, I’ll come over at 6:45 and we’ll eat at 7!” Well okay that is a slight exaggeration but suffice it to say that Steve is OPTIMISTIC about timing! This, like many other adorably enthusiastic Steve meal plans, ended up coming to fruition at more like 9:30.

Fillin’ #1 was butternut squash and onions (ultimately what Steve deemed to be too many onions, so he didn’t eat many. I didn’t either, because I was snottily and whinily protesting that Steve had DOUBLED the butter in an already decidedly decadent recipe).

Fillin #2 was the bee’s knees and entirely Steve’s invention:

It was awhile ago that we made this but I can fairly confidently say that it contained mushrooms, garlic, grapes, walnuts, and basil. Then he mixed it with ricotta to stuff the ravioli:

(positively regimental in its straightness, no?)

Beautifully formed, ready for their boiling water bath:

To give you the scale, quite LARGE ravioli (and a peek at the butternut filling)

Fact: it takes an EXTREMELY long time to make pasta. Then make filling. Then fill pasta. Then boil pasta.

But at long last, dinner was served!

Two megabowls of mega ravioli, and Ileana’s bratty concessions to health in the form of a salad and sort of forgettable thawed frozen vegetables stir fry.

My successful but not especially healthy contribution: the little ricotta gnudi! Seeing this is actually reminding me of how good they are and makes me want to take them again.

Before putting food on his plate, Steve took care of the all important “cheese pile”

I focused on emphasizing veggies (though you know I ate way more pasta than that :D)

My favorite was the awkward wizard-hat shaped ravioli. So dear!

christmases

2011-12-27T20:49:00.001-05:00

Wakeup! Christmas Morning! Woohoo!

Oh… it’s 7:30. Oh… my entire family is asleep. Oh… we’re going to church before we do anything and that’s at 10.

Do some yoga! (I think I did yoga on Thanksgiving too? My practice is basically confined to major holidays when I wake up before anyone else)

Make some gluten free shortbread for our Celiac-disease afflicted friend who wasn’t actually at church but I was happy to give the recipe a trial run before its debut at our party next week!

Went to church!

Went home!

Presents with nuclear family!

Hop in car!

Arrive at Kathy and Tom’s. Park self next to unbelievably amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing fireplace.

Was delighted to see my wonderful family members, and think of those who weren’t there (that Keep Austin Weird mug, which I immediately nabbed, was a gift from my cousin Rachel, who with her hubby Richard and her parents and sister are still in Austin, with Richard and Rachel’s BABY! Who I want to meet, STAT!)

And it was nice to catch up with everyone in a delightfully low-key and relaxed and fun brunch, the spirit of which I think is nicely evoked in my cousin Steven’s bacon frosting.

Obviously, food was present in mammoth quantities, laid out in a beautiful spread.

I probably would’ve eaten a bagel…

Except instead there were biscuits! Done in the Cook’s Illustrated manner.

Kathy is a GREAT cook! I spent the first part of the morning interrogating her about where she got all her recipes cause they were so good :D

She’s also my most devoted blog fan. She said “So I was reading your blog the other day and went ‘Colcannon? What’s that?!’” And I interrupted and went “Ooh it’s so good you should make it!” and she said “I did! And the other recipe you posted that day!” SO FLATTERING.

Onto what else Kathy made- breakfast casseroles! One with jack cheese and queso fresco sprinkled atop, and one with sausage (and it was bliss to be reunited with meat) and DANG that sausage one was exceptional.

It had eggs and bread in it, and the interior was soooooooo perfect; tender, custardy, ethereally light and not at all dry or overcooked. A testament to eggs! (And sausage!)

How many awesome streusel-topped applesauce muffins did I eat? I am sort of not prepared to talk about it. And really don’t actually know… since I was mostly just slamming back streusel. (Slamming back streusel might be the title of my hair metal band’s first album…)

Our contribution: my mom’s Linzer hearts and my/my boyfriend’s gingerbread (after an adorably disastrous gingerbread house, he still had a tonnnnn of gingerbread dough yet, so I made adorable little men. Thanks, adorable man, for enabling me to do so!)

Thoroughly overwhelmed (in a good way) by the riches laid before me, I began with a leisurely mimosa and a cup of tea. And coffee. And tea. And water. And tea (I try to consume a lot of fluids at these things to minimize stuffing my face too much. In the case of the muffins, I happily conceded defeat).

I love mimosas so much. (And now giggle and think about the My Drunk Kitchen version)

My first of several plates. Half a muffin (ha!); taste of both casseroles as well as some cheese grits made by my aunt Nan; grapes (many more were consumed), a delicious layer of smoked salmon, tomato, and capers; biscuit; a smoked oyster. I. Love. Christmas.

(Nice legs, sis!)

Highlights of conversation at Christmas was learning how to say something unprintable in Farsi from one cousin, having another cousin urge me to visit her in Amsterdam and travel throughout Europe because “It’s still fondue season!”, and having yet another cousin urge me to practice forklift driving in a parking lot.

My family is awesome.

Gag gifts of note (nerf guns are basically mandatory at our family events and you generally have projectiles whizzing by at some point in the proceedings!)

BUT WAIT!

Though I’d definitely eaten enough for an entire day (or three…), it was in fact only 4:30 or so when we left the cornucopia of deliciousness and fun that was the Mom’s Family Brunch.

Now (children of divorce, who else is familiar with this syndrome?) the Dad’s Family Dinner!

Let’s start by admiring how frickin’ adorable me and my little sister were back in the day:

The evening began, like many on both sides of my family, with artichoke dip.

I snort every time my dad refers to it as “his” famous artichoke dip… since he definitely got the recipe from his ex mother in law.

Think I’ve written about it before, but it’s just jarred artichoke hearts, cheddar cheese, garlic and mayo. So simple, so delicious!

Bodie (looking like a little sissy in his bow; but he was totally proud) begged incessantly throughout the Christmas activities and seemed particularly interested in this dip.

And Jasmine was all ‘Oh please, I’m not waking up for that.”

We did a formaler (ish) sit down dinner.

My contributions:

1. Totally boss kale salad

Combine:

Shredded kale (I got mine at the farmer’s market the previous day. It was purpley!)
Craisins
Pecans (1 cup pecans, 1 tsp. oil, 1 tsp. dried thyme, dash of hot sauce, salt; roast til golden)
Dressing- a haphazard mixture of lemon juice, honey, mustard, olive oil, and cinnamon

SO SO SO DELICIOUS! The honey was key.

Also, pumpkin risotto. Made in my usual barley risotto style (see my recipage!) but with mushrooms added with onion at the beginning, roasted cubed pumpkin stirred in at the end, and a bit of thyme.

My dad, like any holiday he hosts (literally; he has done this for Thanksgiving) made lamb.

I. Love. Lamb.

(Note: the fact that the meat is browned, rather than still “baa”-ing, means that my dad horrifically overcooked the meat by his standards)

In a tribute to my (recently) late grandmother, my aunt Jeanie made scalloped potatoes. And, as my dad and I rather candidly pointed out later, while making us miss her and think of her, they were definitely BETTER than my grandmother’s. Still awesomely rich, but Jeanie did a great job of evenly slicing the potatoes so they were all perfectly cooked (rather than an occasional alarmingly al dente bite).

The plate. Went back for more salad and potatoes!

Also a tribute to my grandmother: English trifle!

Do people without roots in the British Empire eat traditional English trifle anymore? I’m talking sponge cake sprinkled in sherry, raspberry jam, peaches (canned; you know it!), custard made from Bird’s custard powder, whipped cream, slivered almonds.

So good! Multiply this by about five, *rolls eyes*

Then pressies and a minor miracle: the women on my dad’s side of the family, all with open eyes and a reasonably attractive expression!

My aunt Michele, me, my sis Malindi, my aunt Jeanie, and my stepmother Sally.

Merry Christmas friends! Hope you all enjoyed your holiday as much as I did!

the most wonderful time of the year

2011-12-24T10:20:00.001-05:00

Tis the season for

1. Holiday parties!

They decided to hold our holiday party in our very own warehouse (in the DC office, not the Virginia office where I usually work, which meant for the second time braving my fear of driving in Northeast DC, where the drivers, at least from my point of view, are the craziest).

They did a beautiful job imparting holiday charm via candlelight, wreaths…

… sparkly unicorns? I can only assume it was meant to be a reindeer?

Definitely, though, the highlight of the event was all the TALENT! My coworkers have all these secret skills!

There was a string quartet…

… a saxaphonist, not pictured, a skit by the nutrition education department and a dance by Partner Relations

And then it was time to eat. Biggest buffet I’ve ever seen?

We were supposed to line up “in small groups” so as not to crowd the buffet. Yeah right. Immediately the entire food bank staff got in line.

Amy, my supervisor, was smart enough to bring her own utensil (since apparently we always run out of cutlery at events.)

Behold, the spork! (She gave me one of these for Christmas. Gosh I am so lucky).

Like fifteen minutes later (in which we all chatted about favorite Christmas songs/movies) I at last feasted my eyes on the pretty epic assortment of food I got from the buffet.

From the top: a piece of naan, a strip of roasted sweet potato, shrimp with mango salsa, black beans, guacamole, a deviled egg, mac and cheese (from David! Who made it for our office competitition!), kale salad, corn pudding, Asian-style mushrooms, cranberry sauce, a stuffed mushroom, and some shrimp etouffee.

Ordinarily I am all over desserts but am trying to not be totally indulgent this holiday season since I’m actually sort of unhappy with some extra pounds that are already lingering on my body, ones I got before the holiday season even began. SO I was trying not to be overly tempted by the desserts, beautiful though they were.

And actually though there were a ton of cakes and fancy things, there was a shocking shortage of cookies. And for me, Christmas cookies are where it’s at (see previous posts!)

So, I got more beans for dessert :D

Along with some grapes that were garnishing a turkey and I knew would otherwise be thrown away; a wee scoop of sweet potato casserole (which in my mind is a dessert), and in a token to the season, a piece of chocolate covered peanut butter something (which was good but so intensely decadent and butter/cream cheese-y that I actually couldn’t finish it, and didn’t want to) and a taste of pumpkin roll up.

And then they unveiled our new logo… via cupcakes :D

Do people like the logo? I think it’s all right. (The cupcakes were dry. We all took bites and were like, “Eh.”)

And now more from the holiday season.

2. Sheila being cute. This happens year round, but she looks like a little Christmas present!

3. Cafe Sazon decorating in an adorable fashion. The Christmas tree was backlit, but check out their dazzling display of miniatures!

4. Awesome gift. This was, in fact, a birthday gift, not a Christmas one, but it’s too awesome not to share.

Background: my cousin Nicholas is a very nice person but his diet is just ridiculously unhealthy. Basically all he eats is hamburgers. With the occasional Caesar salad, heavy on the croutons.

When I cook he always says how good it is but he just will not make healthy stuff for himself.

So….

(that’s his pet rabbit on the front cover, saying “Please don’t eat me!” I was able to print it because he puts pictures of his pet rabbit on facebook :D

Thoughts on making cookbooks for family members

- Reluctant cooks probably like pictures laying things out, like this roasted veggies “before” and “After”

- Family pictures are nice for creating an association between things that make us happy (family!) and the recipes on the pages (carrots!)

On the topic of carrots, Nick adooooooooooored the carrots I made last Easter because… they matched his shirt. Apparently, he will eat vegetables if they match what he is wearing?

Anyway, I included a recipe, adapted to NOT have to slice carrots with a mandoline (since normal people don’t own them and I regularly nearly amputate things every time I operate mine)

Cachy headings are always nice:

And there you have it!

A labor of love (seriously, every homemade gift takes ten thousand times longer to put together than you think it will!) but a really great gift that he seemed to really love.

Back to the holidays, I also adore

5. A trip to the theah-tuh

Going to a play seems to be a year-end treat for me this past few years. My mom would often welcome her kids home from college with tickets to some fabulous musical (West Side Story being the be-all and end-all of the awesomeness, though over the years we’ve also enjoyed Camelot AND Spamalot, South Pacific, Noises Off- which I was actually in in high school!- and lots more fun stuff I’m sure I’m forgetting.)

Well, now I have this super awesome boyfriend who knows I love the thea-tuh and last year he took me to Oklahoma and this year he took me to a fun, new musical at Signature Theater called A Second Chance. We ended up in the FIRST ROW of this cool intimate space and it was oodles of fun. I love the theah-tuh!

5. Romantic proper dates

I am all for hanging out at each other’s house and cooking. It is so lovely and also economical.

But occasionally Steve insists upon spoiling me and taking me out somewhere lovely, so pre-theatuh we went to Extra Virgin, a cute little Italian place in Shirlington.

Pretty Christmas wreaths:

Dim lights and red walls:

Insisting on treating the evening like a special occasion, Steve ordered red wine, from two different regions of Italy. We swapped sips. It was weird, it was nothing special on its own but increasingly grew more delicious as it sat out and when it was sipped with food. Which makes sense, since in Italy the wine is supposed to always be served with food.

(Gosh, look at how that charming smile ended up in this picture :D)

Bread was average, but WHOA that dipping sauce. Quality oil, quality balsamic, I don’t know what else but it was exceptional.

One look at the 600 degree oven pizzas on the menu and I was like YES PLEASE!

I opted to order the “Pizza Profumo di mare ‘Barese Dolce’. Tomato sauce, calamari, shrimp, capers, olives, crushed red pepper, red onion and garlic.

Oh my goooooooooooooodness this was good pizza. SO much flavor from the capers and olives, perfectly cooked seafood (and an impressive abundance for one of the more affordable entrees.)

Steve, meanwhile, ordered an eggplant parmigiana-type-dish. It was a bit undercooked. Though it came with polenta, so that’s good. And goat cheese, so obviously that was really good.

Unsurprisingly, what we ate:

Me- 2 slices of pizza, most of the polenta, bread dunked in the leftover tomato sauce from the eggplant thing, scraped the goat cheese out of the eggplant thing.

Steve- everything else!

high stakes meat and potatoes

2011-12-21T15:09:00.001-05:00

So the title sounds a little oxymoronic, no?

Let me explain: for whom was I making this meat and potatoes?

Boyfriend’s parents.

First time cooking for boyfriend’s parents.

Guys. Cooking for people is what I DO. Without making people food they like, how can they like me? They cannot.

So.

I prepped. I like… chopped things in advance, not when the stove was smoking (though full disclosure, I did put a kitchen towel on a hot burner and it did catch on fire… Steve was a boyfriend and ran outside with it so as to prevent a smoke alarm situation).

I also, as is often helpful in stressful situations, made a to-do list. Erin (yo girl) and I last year would both not only have epic to do lists, we’d have multiple to do lists. The holy sh** I have to get this done TODAY to do list and the Long term things that cause me stress but may never get done list.

This was all doable :D (Guys, in case you haven’t picked up on it, there is some sarcasm. I still like cooking, promise!)

Furthermore, Steve was exceedingly helpful at getting me anything I might need (we were cooking at his place).

Anything I might need, wherever it might be.

He also suggested that I join him for a hot cocoa break, which I respectfully declined, but did take note of his rather interesting, some might say risky methodology which involves mixing cocoa and water together cold, then putting the marshmallow on top, then microwaving everything.

I was sure of a microwave explosion, but just as I was mildly taunting him about his marshmallow looking like it was going to blow over the top, he threw open the door and pulled out perfect hot cocoa. So there you go.

Also, if like Steve you are an avid environmentalist and are reluctant to use any sort of climate-altering machinery in your apartment (which is why I’m RAWTHER cold when I’m there these days), it means that in the steamy summer months, the marshmallows you bought for a spring camping trip will cease to be individuals and instead become a molten marshmallow mass.

Okay, so let’s talk meat and potatoes.

Steve’s dad is the kind of person who likes his steak with salt and pepper. That’s it. Steak seasoning is pushing it. Chimichurri would be heresy. I sort of admire that kind of purity in cooking. Get a good raw ingredient and don’t mess with it.

So, okay, I didn’t have the confidence to make a steak but I can make a damn good roast chicken thanks to the Zuni Cafe method (just Google it!).

You salt or brine the chicken overnight (I prefer to brine it, in a ratio of 4 cups water to 2/3 cup salt), then pat it dry, season it with pepper (I like fresh herbs at this point but the guest is king so I omitted them!), and preheat a cast iron skillet. You sear it on down in that skillet, chuck it in a hot oven, flip it periodically, and wait til it’s done.

And it’s per.fect. It’s the best roast chicken ever.

Being rather frazzled by the cooking, I told Steve he was a boy and therefore it was his job to carve the chicken. He did pretty well!

They also got a drizzling of the pan juices, slightly (but not excessively) defatted. Steve requested that I save him the chicken fat… since he loves it for cooking fried rice :D Though that was unfortunate cause then my elbow knocked over the chicken fat can and it was a whole… situation.

Anyway, beautiful chicken:

All you young lovers seeking to impress the parents of your beloved, Zuni Cafe roast chicken is your best friend.

For a side dish, Steve had requested roasted kohlrabi but we couldn’t find any at any normal grocery stores (and hadn’t had the foresight to buy it at the farmer’s market a week earlier). Then he’d wanted me to make my brussels sprouts (which frankly made me more than a little nervous since hello?! So many people hate brussels sprouts!) but those were out too. So then he got asparagus. And I was like “Uh, I’m trying to cultivate an autumnal thing here.”

But he’d also bought potatoes, because he wanted a nice safety vegetable that he knew his parents would like. Meat and potatoes.

So I smiled sweetly, cut up potatoes, drizzled on some olive oil (from Steve’s toddler-sized container, good grief!), and just salt and pepper. While I was doing this, Steve nervously went, “Don’t add rosemary or anything, okay?” Yes, okay!

They were good. Potatoes with… salt and pepper. Kind of nice to eat something so plain and comforting. And roasting potatoes is great because you get the richly flavored crispy outside and the tender inside.

When the meat and potatoes were completed, I finally, FINALLY, got a little chance for some self expression. A constantly going hot oven meant space to roast, in batches, sliced butternut squash; sliced apples; and squash seeds soaked in Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder.

Over bitter greens, they made a pretty gorgeous salad.

I also made a dressing that included olive oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire, soy sauce, honey, dijon mustard, and cinnamon. It was quite lovely.

Annnnnnd because though I was cooking for meat and potato people, I myself am not actually eating meat right now for Advent, so I cooked up some tempeh, with onions and mushrooms and more of the butternut, and what I thought was a good idea, some leftover red wine. It was a terrible idea! It was OLD WINE! You have to TASTE THE WINE BEFORE YOU ADD IT! It almost ruined it but tons and tons and tons of ketchup helped get rid of the grodiness. It was not my finest work though.

And so the table was laid; salad, dressing; leftover roasted butternut; sliced baguette; meat and potatoes, and tempeh.

Wine to wash it all down: what the Trader Joe’s guy said would be good with chicken. (Actually, after tasting something and mentioning how I love wine from countries where they speak Spanish, we talked about the “cena para los padres de mi novio” and wine that is “buen con pollo”. I love when strangers speak Spanish with me, it’s so helpful!)

It is from a country where they speak Spanish, appropriately. I thought it was lovely. (And like $5!)

Finally, for dessert, in keeping with the autumnal thing, apple crisp.

Steve had never had apple crisp before and had also never made pastry, and is a boy, so the whole “light touch” thing didn’t totally happen with making the crisp. More like “smash the butter into submission.” So the butter kind of melted through everything… Fortunately, this was fantastic!

Unpictured: Vanilla Haagen Dasz :D

Steve’s parents had just spent a bunch of time putting furniture into a trailer to move his sister’s stuff home from college and then driven from Philadelphia to DC, ultimately not arriving til around 10:30 at night. Honestly, I think anything would’ve tasted good! However, they seemed totally jazzed to eat this stuff :D

And, I can make some dang good meat and potatoes.

butternutty

2011-12-20T07:31:00.000-05:00

When it’s wintry this is a very typical sight in my kitchen.

To me, this is an ideal dinner.

Colorful, nutritionally varied, and with all my favorite flavors: buttery and rich (salmon), zingy (green salad), and sweet (butternut fries).

As usual, I made Hungry Girl butternut fries. As usual, they did not turn crispy (even though I laid them out like that to salt them for a good long while, which is supposedly the secret). But, as usual, I did not care, since they tasted awesome nonetheless.

And can we say superfoods?!

Okay so let’s rewind:

Do people have meals that they kind of throw together and don’t have real high expectations for and then go WHOA I HAVE TO MAKE THIS AGAIN AND MAKE AN OFISH RECIPE!

That’s the story of this.

I was still working at Americorps and brought home some pinto bean and cheese salsa that the kiddos had made in a cooking project. I stretched and healthified it with s’more salsa and chopped up butternut squash and the ensuing result was one of the best things I ate last winter. Comfort food delight, man.

So I had myself, surprise surprise, another butternut squash.

Chopped it up (please ignore that the unpredictability of my camera produces pictures of the same vegetable that are entirely different colors).

And got out some lovely pantry staples. I got the Pace salsa from the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program and I threw some of that in.

You probably want to use a roasted, rather than fresh salsa. Something like pico de gallo would be a little too watery. I really liked the Pace salsa- it added a nice smokiness that made the recipe seem like it took longer than it did.

When I buy beans, my preferred brand is Goya in the low sodium form. Since Goya doesn’t make a low sodium and the organic Giant brand was on sale, I opted for those. Organic beans are almost always significantly lower in sodium, even if not labeled as such.

You give the butternut squash a nice long saute (a nonstick pan is good for this) so it gets golden.

Then add all the thick liquidy stuff.

When the squash starts to tenderize, you melt in the cheese

And then kind of try to mush it all together (this also helps release the starches from the beans and squash, which act as natural thickeners).

Note: I used the back of this wooden spoon to smuch everything. And promptly inadvertently splashed boiling liquid on the back of my hand. Do not, dear readers, emulate me.

The finished dish is surprisingly spicy (if you aren’t a spice lover you could use less salsa, use a milder salsa, etc. etc. Personally, I love the spice, so it was great for me)

It’s also, though devoid of meat, super satisfying in that meat-y way. You know you’re getting a oomph of protein and it has a great stewy consistency.

It’s also just super warming and comforting!

Butternut Bean Stew

2 tsp oil
½ a large butternut squash, cut into dice-sized cubes (about 6 cups)
Salt and pepper
1 ¾ cups salsa (1 16-oz jar)
1 can beans (I used kidney, you could use black or pinto)
2 oz cheese

Heat oil in a nonstick skillet on medium. Add squash and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Saute, stirring often, until golden.
Add salsa, beans, and water. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until the squash is becoming fork tender, about 20 minutes.
Add cheese, cook another 20 minutes, mashing beans and squash to thicken.

Serves 4 big appetites!

I made an absolutely delightful lunch later in the week that incorporated the leftover stew and various other things hanging around my fridge.

Butternut-bean stew, benefitting from daylight and the thickening (and flavor intensifying) effects of an overnight stay in the refrigerator.

Colcannon, which regretfully did NOT improve with a trip in the fridge and had kind of a gross texture and odd flavor the next day.

If you make colcannon (which you SHOULD, because it’s AWESOME!) simply eat it all the first day you make it :D

Because I am older and wiser than I… used to be? I now know I will be unsatisfied if I do not include grains in my lunch.

So I had a piece of toast. With peanut butter.

Aaaaaaaand finally smiley mug makes me smile.

Inside smiley mug was plain yogurt and a pear that was mega mushy and less than attractive but wowwwwwww made for a good bowl of yogurt.

If the aforementioned salmon is an ideal dinner for me, this is an ideal lunch.

1. Heavy on veggies

2. Using up leftovers/unattractive foods (and thus preventing food waste, which I hate!)

3. Many components to satisfy my culinary ADHD

4. Multiple textures/flavors/temperatures

And, like all my lunches these wintry days, (and dinners, and snacks, and my breakfasts always) accompanied by a bucket o’ tea.

Moving from butternut to pumpkin.

I had mixed success with this pumpkin.

First I made this dish:

Isn’t it attractive? I kind of modified a recipe I found that was supposed to have roasted acorn squash wedges on the bottom and butternut squash cubes on the top that were sauteed with onions and stewed up with parsnips and dried cranberries.

That sounds like it’s supposed to be so good, right? I just used pumpkin in top and bottom components.

Well it was a YAWN.

So the next day, I took the remains (I’d sort of picked out the parsnips and Craisins cause they were the only components with any flavors; so it was basically just pumpkin pieces) and turned them into this:

I borrowed some of the flavors from this West Indian pumpkin soup (sauteed some onion and ginger and jalapeno, mixed in brown sugar) and then added some zesty ingredients of my own (lime juice, chili powder), and the end result was passable.

But I think I love butternut more!

cookie bonanza

2011-12-19T07:31:00.000-05:00

Look at the lovely, festive gift bag!

What magic does it contain?!

Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistmas coooooooooooooooooooooookies!

To me, basically the whole *point* of the holiday season is making cookies. Genuinely, the greatest give I can give myself is making as many cookies as possible. I love making cookies so, so much.

Furthermore, I am currently blessed to be working at a job I really like, with really really good people. Obviously no workplace is perfect, but I know that I will always have encouraging post it notes from Amy, bizarre stories from Rodney, and if I’m stressed I can go downstairs and gab by the front desk with Destiny. This is a GIFT and as such I want to reply with my own GIFT. Of COOKIES!

This has been a multi-day, lengthy process.

I began earlier in the week with a desire to use up the Reese’s Pieces my sister left in our house, I can only assume wanting her family members to have rotting teeth and massive waistlines, because the trans-fat laden bastards are just way too delicious.

So, I decided to disperse them in cookies. Specifically, these vegan m+m cookies, subbing Reese’s pieces for m+m’s. And using real butter… so they weren’t actually vegan :D My main fondness for vegan baking comes from the fact that I get eggs at the farmer’s market and they seem too delicious to dissolve into a baked good. And then I buy eggs for baked goods and feel borderline bad about that.

And of course the other reason I like to make vegan baked goods is that you can eat the dough free from fear of salmonella!

(Full disclosure: I eat the dough anyway).

These turned out a little odd looking. The color of the Reese’s pieces kind of bled out. Still, delightful to bite into a sweet peanut butter bite.

Next, I had a bunch of semolina I wasn’t going to use to make pasta again, an exercise I find tedious and depressing, frankly. Which meant I decided to use it to make COOKIES! Again I turned to a vegan recipe- this one- semolina cookies- but upon combining ingredients (full disclosure: not reading properly and adding wet to dry and forgetting to sift it) it was way too crumbly and wouldn’t hold together.

So… I added an egg. So again not vegan.

I also tried to keep with the Middle Eastern vibe of semolina cookies by topping them with, rather than chocolate chips, preserved cherries.

I found them a bit homely but WOW- kind of a sleeper hit for me! I really enjoyed their not-too-sweet, intriguingly nutty taste, and also loved the crumbly, gritty texture.

We had a glut of hot chocolate (due to my boyfriend’s roommate leaving it behind, hahaha) and I love Trader Joe’s and I love fair trade… but the organic fair trade cocoa tastes super weird in cocoa form.

And then, lucky me, I saw this hot chocolate cookies and said to myself, “Self, those sound awesome!”

I had lots of fun playing with the incredddddddddddibly thick and stiff dough. Seriously, it defied the laws of gravity! Love me some butter.

And how PRECIOUS do they look with the marshmallows dotted on top? (I didn’t bother with the glaze; they already looked so cute!)

These for me win most good looking cookie. Everyone loves chocolate, and the marshmallow is just so precious! Though I wish to high heaven I had a kitchen blowtorch to brulee it!

I’ve been seeing recipes with coconut all over the place and had some of the shredded stuff in my freezer. I also had some very ripe bananas on my counter, so banana coconut cookies were an obvious choice.

AMAZING aroma, beautiful golden color.

These may be the most wholesome of the cookies? Since they’re vegan, with healthy fats rather than butter (the only vegan cookies I actually left vegan :D); contain whole grains in the form of oats; real fruit; and apparently the kind of saturated fat in coconut is good for ya now.

They are yummy :D That is what is important.

And finally, to use up another unhealthy sister purchase and add a pop of red and white Christmas colors, I made white chocolate cranberry cookies.

The only ones I could capture in natural light! (The semolina, hot cocoa, and banana-coconut were all made on a single night! I had the cookie baking itch! And the oven was already on…)

Because I could take these in natural light, I took many.

This recipe was touted as “diabetic friendly” at the website. I’m not really sure what that entails. I have two coworkers who are diabetic, and I was feeling iffy about giving them sugary desserts. So I asked one of them and she was like “Oh, whatever, give us real cookies.”

So I, er, did. Anyone out there have any experience baking for people who are diabetic? Any tips?

So there you have it. More than 140 cookies for 20 coworkers in less than one week.

And there you have it! A variety of flavors and colors to produce one (if I do say so myself) extremely impressive gift bag.

Everyone got at least one of each kind of cookie. The hot chocolate cookies recipe made enough for everyone to get two. The other recipes made more than twenty (I made TWENTY BAGS, btw) but less than forty, so everyone got an additional SURPRISE COOKIE! This person got another banana coconut (lucky person :D)

Holiday Cookie Baking Tip #1:

Don’t bother with fancy packaging. I got these super cute poinsettia bags at the dollar store. 20 cost me $1.59. Sweet!

Also, to bring all twenty bags to work, just buy some boots! Then take the boots out of their box! Then put the cookie bags in it!

I’m actually freezing these over the weekend and will take them to work that way. Keeps the flavors fresh!

Holiday baking Tip #2:

Ovens are energy hogs. They take forever to preheat and cool down, wasting heat (and energy) in the process. And they’re huge and you can only put two trays at a time in them. And to make a single batch of cookies… it just doesn’t sit right with me.

SO while your oven is already on have yourself a roasting bonanza! I made roasted root vegetables with chermoula. Simply marvy!

Holiday Baking Tip #3:

If, like me, you eat a great deal of cookie dough while baking cookies one morning, simply enjoy a healthy, veggie-rich lunch!

First a spicy pumpkin soup (which I’ll blog about soon)

Followed by, you know those tuna salad kits they sell? The mini can of tuna with the crackers and mini packets of mayo and relish? I made my own (better, healthier) version!

My mom had already opened a can of tuna. She took half, Sheila the cat took the tuna juice, and I took the other half.

Then I sliced up some farmer’s market cucumber and got out some crackers and voila! Tuna salad kit!

We got these crackers in a Costco megapack and I am a huge fan:

Their nutritional information is totally reasonable for crackers:

As is their ingredient list. Yeah, a little lengthy, but it’s mostly pronounceable things.

Some wholesomeness after all those cookies! Unpictured: I also took a vitamin :D

where the president hangs out

2011-12-17T16:56:00.001-05:00

I ended my last post (er, several days ago) with a mention that I’d be going to a certain famous building, courtesy of a few invitations sent to the food bank where I work.

This building, it’s on Pennsylvania Avenue? Important people tend to visit it when they go to DC?

Three security checkpoints (none of which, I’d like to mention, involved removing my shoes; TSA, if it’s safe enough for the President’s house, it should be safe enough for you!), I peeked through the fence at a big… white… house!

With the sounds of the day’s protest wafting through the breeze…

(see the yellow signs above the fence?)

We made our way in.

Welcome! There it is! Welcome to ME (and all my wonderful Food Bank coworkers who won the lottery for the invites!) to the WHITE HOUSE!

Were I to sort the holiday decor into motifs, they would be the following.

Bo the dog. Aww. There were lots of cute little spots like this.

(Sidebar: my mom had a meeting with some scientists who’d won a presidential award for mentoring. They’d toured the White House earlier the same day I did, and they saw the REAL BO! The PRESIDENTIAL DOG went bounding through during their tour. So cool.)

2. Classy dames alongside Christmas trees.

The room with the big portrait of Jackie O lookin’ gorgeous was my favorite.

Confession: don’t know who that was in the East Room.

Oddest tableau:

Hillary Clinton… and a gingerbread house! (The only one there… Weird.) Anyway, I like both gingerbread and Hillary Clinton, so I enjoyed, while simultaneously felt confused by, this.

Fancy touches!

I did not know that there were multiple oval shaped rooms in the White House, not just the eponymous Office.

And that chandelier I just thought was friggin’ gorgeous.

Throughout the tour were dozens of Secret Service agents, who were very helpful if you had any questions about White House decor or history (fact: if a president wants to redecorate any of the historic rooms, they have to consult the committee!). The agents could also kill you with a plastic spoon, I am sure.

Michelle Obama’s signature things were on display: to honor military families, there was the “official’ tree (there were seriously at least ten Christmas trees on display in various places) and it was decorated with letters written from and to soldiers overseas.

You also, upon entering, had the opportunity to write a postcard to a service member, which I did. Hope they all get to come home for Christmas…

Perhaps less devoted to Michelle O’s typical push for healthy food was the solid white chocolate White House and huge dessert display :D

I wish I could adequately convey how cool the chocolate building was: there were lights inside! How did it not melt?!

We got to peek out back to the Rose Garden, which looked beautiful.

Soon enough the (brief) tour was through, but we got our photo op in front of a VERRRRY famous white facade :D

Here I am with my coworker Adrienne, beaming away!

Way cool opportunity.

Thanks for the invite, Obamas!

Since I was Metro’ing back to my car and was already in DC on a relatively mild day, I took the opportunity to take a walk.

Went by the Occupy guys…

Felt bad since I knew I was walking by the guys who are currently on a hunger strike…

… But I got myself a delicious snack! (Yes, this is a food blog :D)

Firehook is a local chain of bakeries (I thought there were just a couple, but then I saw two just on my walk!).

I was EXTREMELY impressed with the fillingness and deliciousness of this bar. And impressively wholesome ingredients!

Now, the White House is where the President hangs out now, but Old Town Alexandria is where George Washington used to chill. It was where he went to church, and where the Masonic Temple now memorializes him (and if you want to hear anything else about George Washington and Masons my boyfriend will talk to you for a very long time about it :D)

Old Town is an absolute delight to visit this time of year.

Every place you look, from the boats in the harbor to the trees on King Street, there are twinkling Christmas lights. Plus on the night Steve and I went there were planes taking off, a full moon, lights reflecting on the water… so nice!

We didn’t have any plan to stay there, since this time of year has for both of us meant spending crazy amounts of money, but then we went by the Hotel Monaco and I said “oh, that’s a great place to get a drink” and then Steve desssssssssssperately wanted to get a table by the window looking out at the lights and eat dinner.

So we did :D

Started at the bar, where they said we could get a drink, then go sit by the Christmas tree in the hotel lobby and they’d come get us when they had a window-side table for us. Their customer service was GREAT (though I think it helped that the maitre d’ was from Chicago and Steve was wearing his Cubs hat :D)

I was sooooooooo intrigued by the cocktail menu but was kind of indulge’d out from the Ugly Sweater party the night before.

And Steve could’ve enjoyed a wonderful PBR!

But we ended up just waiting for our table sipping fizzy drinks.

Anyway, we ended up in a very cool space with a very cool view.

I looooooooooooove open kitchens! Watching all the ACTION!

So the restaurant in the hotel, Jackson 20, has a vibe that I really dig. They have kind of an old-timey, down-home, tin plates, down South aesthetic, and are also super into pig. The napkin holders being a prime example :D

The bread basket was BOSS.

Oh my GOD everything in it was so good.

Behold, mini corn muffins and biscuits with maple butter.

The butter which Steve, naturally, used in great profusion.

Whereas I decided the perfectly flaky biscuits didn’t need any extra accoutrements!

I loved the whole rustic style; the biscuits weren’t perfect looking and varied in size (you know I was all over the baby biscuit :D)

I also love that we got a free bread refill! Good service!

For dinner, I knew I was set when I saw this on the menu:

Fall Salad
Caramelized Figs, Radicchio, Tatsoi, Cherry Glen Goat Cheese, Candied Walnuts, Honey-Thyme Vinaigrette

CARAMELIZED FIGS?! Boom. Done.

I knew a salad would be sufficient based on the aforementioned double bread basket and the fact that all the portions we’d seen on our way in had been garantuan.

Sure, the salad arrived looking rather small and self contained on a big plate…

But then I smooshed it to spread it out and it was MAMMOTH!

Oh. my. word.

Obviously it was amazing. Like, caramelized figs. Goat cheese. Awesome bitter greens with sweet vinaigrette. Duh it was amazing.

Steve was similarly overjoyed with his order: a veritable BUCKET of macaroni and cheese with bacon and ham hocks.

He’d been planning on getting some vegetarian thing and I was like “Steve, see all the things on the menu that have pigs next to them? They have bacon. Please order one and be happy.”

First of all, there was such a large quantity (and, er, hefty fat content) that it actually left my bottomless pit boyfriend FULL.

But it was also CRAZY tasty. The top was crusted in these buttery panko crumbs that were SO crisp. Divine!

don we now our ugly sweater

2011-12-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

Steve had a lovely ugly sweater party.

Steve made kale chips, of which I failed to get a picture, so enjoy this lovely picture of me in my ugly sweater (er, blazer, the most enjoyably tacky thing Goodwill had) playing fake drums with kale stems.

I made the following reasonably healthful but reasonably festive looking items:

Cranberry beer bread from Food for Laughter which I made using the modifications I made the last time I made it. That lady is so good at bread, man.

Also, a salad using some lettuce from my house on its last legs and some cheese and cranberries for Christmas colors. And homemade parsley dressing.

Steve ate this and went “I didn’t know salad could taste good!”

Yes, Steve, the secret is cheese.

So did I focus on eating those healthy items? Of course not.

Instead I focused on eating total junk food.

I ate an embarrassing quantity of cheetos (as did everyone; I think we’d all gone for roughly a decade since we’d last eaten them and forgotten how delicious they were), and lots of that popcorn with Old Bay (?! who knew that existed?! But holy yum, man!)

Plantains, which obviously I had to eat in great quantities since that is the plantain law.

And oh. em. gee.

Jillian just started a food blog and everyone should read it!- link here- and she made REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS BANANA BREAD.

So……. yeah.

Fortunately, I had made one additional dish that was entirely fitting with the festive/junky tone taken by the evening:

bread pudding cupcakes!

Basically followed from this Cooking Light recipe, except instead of cinnamon raisin bread I used leftover panettone/sweet breads…

… and I mixed some brandy with the caramel sundae topping and used a lot more than the recipe called for. Cause, yknow, you wouldn’t want them to dry out.

This is what they looked like when they came out of the oven whooooooa mama.

And the rest of the evening was spent festively by the Christmas tree playing a variety of enjoyable board games.

I’ve actually been on a bread pudding baking kick.

We have a monthly interdepartmental meeting called “Chat and Chew”, in which everyone joins up for a potluck lunch with a given theme.

For this past month’s theme of “Thanksgiving leftovers”, I took them at their word and basically cleaned out my fridge and pantry.

Back story: while my sister was still home recuperating from her appendectomy, I’d researched foods that were easy on a post-surgery stomach. Horchata came up a lot, so I repeated a recipe I’d made before and enjoyed- Lola's horchata.

It’s very simple- you grind up some rice in a blender until it becomes the consistency of thick sand, then let it soak for at least eight hours.

See the gritty layer at the bottom?

Once they’ve soaked, you strain out the solids…

And add a bit of milk, sugar, and spices.

So that sounded like things that would be good in a bread pudding, right? Right!

So I added some of that mix. To give an interesting variety of flavors, I also added some soy nog that I’d bought impulsively because it was on sale and my mom’s iffy on lactose and I figured if it’d stimulate my sister’s appetite while being gentle on her stomach that’d be good. And I also added plain ol’ milk.

Annnnnnnd then I got more chocolate truffles (which as you all know I don’t like the texture of which is why I melt them down to make my chocolate truffle brownies).

And then I pulled out panettone from my freezer (I always have a ton of bread in my freezer, which is part of the reason I’m on this big bread pudding kick. Well and also because I love bread pudding!)

And all those things went in a pot together and got baked up. And it sure was a great big hit!

Man, this was just a big parade of junk food, wasn’t it?!

All I want for Christmas is some self control!

honor the stems

2011-12-11T22:23:00.001-05:00

Perhaps you’ll recall a lunch I had, a generally carby and autumnal selection of Thanksgiving leftovers livened up with a cool green piece of sass: broccoli stem relish.

Oh broccoli stems, let me count the ways.

You are just as (if not more) flavorful than your floret cousins. Using you prevents food waste, something I abhor. Your shape is much more predictable and evenly slice-able, thus enabling for an attractive julienne (well I spose that’s large for a julienne but whatever, so I didn’t go to culinary school. Don’t judge me!)

You cut the broccoli stems up and let them salt and drain off a bitter liquid.

Why? Cause the way I make broccoli stem relish is how Jacques Pepin makes broccoli stem relish. The man is fantastic. After reading his (excellent and worthy of recommending) memoir, and hearing about all the rationing he dealt with during wartime, it becomes totally clear why he wants to conserve every part of every food.

The key to the broccoli stem relish is fresh mint.

The key to affordable fresh mint is buying it at the Asian grocery store.

Cha-ching.

Some garlic and jalapeno joined in for the ride once the broccoli stems had finished sweating out some excess moisture after their salt tossing.

Plus sesame oil, chili oil, balsamic… yum yum yum!

Now I’d used my stems so I could use the “normal” part of the broccoli plant that people cook with: the florets!

This is one of those tragically unphotogenic but wonderfully tasty recipes.

It has all those wonderful ingredients that taste indulgent but are actually healthful. Greek yogurt adds low-fat creaminess, strongly flavored gorgonzola cheese only requires a light sprinkling to impart flavor, and uberhealthy sunflower seeds impart great texture and taste.

Broccoli Salad

Florets from 1 head of broccoli (reserve stems for broccoli stem relish!)
3 T Greek yogurt
1 T mayonnaise
2 tsp. canola oil
1 T lemon juice
3 chives, chopped (or 1 T)
Salt and pepper, to taste
Dash garlic powder
¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
¼ cup gorgonzola, crumbled
2 T sunflower seeds

Cook broccoli in a steamer over boiling water until tender, about 8-12 minutes. Cool slightly.

Whisk together yogurt-garlic powder to make dressing.

Toss together broccoli, dressing, parsley, cheese and seeds.

Annnnnd… then I bought more broccoli :D

I actually have yet to cook the florets (any readers have any broccoli recipes they love?) but I got to the stems first :D

Just cooked them in vegetable stock (just eyeballed enough to cover them) til tender…

Then pureed them, adding salt and pepper to taste and, just for good measure, some gorgonzola cheese. And a few florets for texture!

Creamy and dreamy :D

Soup is so obligatory this time of year.

As part of this complete lunch, I enjoyed it with an English muffin (because soup without bread is like Christmas without All I Want for Christmas is You) and some leftover cod for protein and deliciousness’ sake.

where you been all my life?

2011-12-07T14:29:00.001-05:00

I feel like for so long in the lifetime of humanity, the food you ate was limited by the plant and animal life within, say, twenty square miles of the place you were born.

This is no longer true. And at least once a week I find myself confronted with a store, restaurant, produce item, or recipe that makes me all, “WHERE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!”

(Yes, I know that is grammatically incorrect.)

1. Ah Love Oil and Vinegar

This is a store full of olive oil and vinegar. And mini pieces of bread to sample everything.

It’s just pretty and serene and fun and you just want to stay there ALL DAY EVERY DAY spending EVERY SINGLE CENT YOU OWN!

Friends and family, you will likely all be getting Christmas presents from here.

They have the most fantastically eclectic flavor selections: pumpkin spice balsamic, anyone? BACON OLIVE OIL?

(Which, I might add, is somehow totally vegan. Gasp. Yet tastes like bacon. Those of you who are suffering throughout life without bacon for whatever reason, consider yourself saved.)

They also have other items likely to please the palate of any gourmet- a jam cupboard (doesn’t that make you want a jam cupboard?!) and the most exquisitely patterned dried pasta.

Probably my FAVORITE feature, however, is their monthly special:

Each month, they select a seasonally appropriate olive oil and a seasonally appropriate vinegar.

For that month, one can (as I opted to do in November, with cranberry balsamic and rosemary olive oil) buy a mini bottle of each as a gift set for a mere $5 each. And it comes with recipes!

So, so in love with this idea.

2. While we’re on the subject of possible holiday gifts, may I call your attention to Coffee Rwanda?

Our old family friends are two of the most ridiculously accomplished people on earth. In addition to being doctors.. and documentary filmmakers, yknow, no big deal… they also travel to Rwanda twice a year to do public health and development work amongst the historically disadvantaged Pygmy tribes.

This has led to the creation of a nonprofit, Pygmy Survival Alliance. If you purchase coffee from Coffee Rwanda, ALL of the profits will go to the Pygmy Survival Alliance. Moreover, the profits from the sale of one bag of coffee, can provide: 3 pairs of shoes for pygmy children; or health insurance in Rwanda for 2 people for 1 year; or nutritional support for one child with malnutririon for 3 months; or a shovel to dig farming terraces to increase food production in the village.

Love it!

On the subject of do-gooders, my best friend, who is also working at a food bank (in cold, cold Massachusetts) at the mo but is moving home soon (Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!) was home over Thanksgiving break and we spent oodles of time talking about all things life.

The best conversation at the most amazing place ever

3. Cheesetique

Um. Whoa.

In DelRay, the neighborhood with which I”m now passionately besotted, there is a cheese shop and restaurant called Cheesetique.

What they sell:

Grilled cheese.
Macaroni and Cheese.
Cheese Platters.

Lydia and I went there for dinner. We split a cheese platter (a dreamy goat’s milk brie, a nutty Dutch somethingorother, and a sharp Italian) and ate wine and cheese and bread and little nibbles of grapes and olives and bruschetta and marinated beans and pickles and quince preserves for dinner. It was the BEST DINNER EVER.

Also, their service is great. If you want to order a cheese but just aren’t sure which one they’re all “Here, try it.” So we ruled out a stinky raw one (though I’d eat it again :D)

On the subject of good restaurants, there’s always

4. Tackle Box

I knew they existed, and adored their sustainable seafood cooked well but also picnic benches and casual beachy style vibe. You can see my previous trip- ooh weird it’s like a date with Steve but we weren’t dating yet- here. But, I had not been to their Cleveland Park outpost.

Guys, I love Cleveland Park. It’s a super awesome neighborhood. You can walk to the zoo, which is obviously a major part of it’s appeal. Also food. All I really need is good food and zoo walking for a neighborhood to satisfy my every desire.

Also, new to me were the sweet potato fries, which Steve and I DEMOLISHED after walking to Cleveland Park… from South Arlington. (Locals will understand this is a long trip. Nonlocals, it’s about 11.5 miles. Understandably, we were hungry).

On the subject of sustainability, I had an adorable local cabbage from the farmer’s market and wanted to mix it up a bit and make something new.

I discovered something I’m going to make again and again and again and again.

5. Colcannon

Colcannon, WHERE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!

In case you have not yet had the amazing experience of eating colcannon, a primer; it’s a traditional Irish dish that is, in its essence, mashed potatoes and cabbage.

I followed this recipe from Eating Well, which had six ingredients (two of which were salt and pepper).

The recipe is STUPIDLY healthy.

And yet… dude, it is SO GOOD! How is something SO SIMPLE and SO HEALTHY and essentially just a big pot of poor people food (and yo, cabbage and potatoes be cheap, even now) be just SO SUBLIME!

I’m in love. It’s real. It’s powerful.

Clearly, I will need to do some further inquiry into Irish recipes.

Along with that, I had some (also sustainable) cod (Pacific, wild caught!).

My mother found this recipe for pan seared cod with basil sauce. Very nice! Though word to the wise: I used the sauce to deglaze the pan and then poured it on top of the fish. With the quantity of raw garlic it contains, I would recommend you do the same, particularly if you’re planning on breathing on anyone for the remainder of the day.

Finally, on the topic of desires, here is what I would like for Christmas:

1. Microwave-safe, eco-friendly glass containers.

Because every time I microwave something in plastic (as I do virtually every time I eat lunch at work) I sort of imagine my cells mutating.

(original picture here)

2. Some nice socks

Because my poor toesies are always cold. I hear cashmere is nice.

(original picture here)

What made your life better when you discovered it?

What do you want for Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice/General Consumerism that happens in December?

Oh P.S. Since I missed the entire first family visiting the food bank where I work, next week I get to go on a White House tour! Will bring lots of pictures of awesome decorations.

not my proudest moment

2011-12-03T13:06:00.001-05:00

Yesterday took a decidedly peculiar trajectory for me, food-wise.

It began BEAUTIFULLY, with banana oats made in the usual fashion. See how cooking the banana on its own before adding the oats and liquid gives the final dish sort of a caramel color? It has a great caramelized flavor, too!

This was also topped with Trader Joe’s almond butter, in its crunchy incarnation. I know everyone else on the Internet discovered its deliciousness like five years ago, but I’m sure glad I did now.

I had the day off, and I just did not feel any real strong compulsion to take off my pajamas. Or go to the gym.

And then I started feeling… I don’t know… bleh.

Throat hurty, physically and mentally worn out from the week.

So… I spent most of the morning sipping tea and sitting on my coach, working on a project I will reveal at the bottom of the page.

Round about 1, I was sort of hungry (though, understandably, not hugely due to the sedentary nature of my morning). Lunch was a fairly pathetic assortment of things that were taking up space in the kitchen in a disorganized way. This was my attempt to streamline.

So my first plate contained half an English muffin I found abandoned in the toaster oven from my mom; half (a small, wimpy half) of a pear; the last remaining sweet pickle from Thanksgiving leftovers, the last remaining three olives also from Thanksgiving; and the last of a tin of smoked oysters.

Then, the last of the cranberry sauce and the last of some Greek yogurt.

Annnd the last of some tofu microwaved with barbecue sauce and mashed up (yes, horribly unattractive).

Quite the homely ensemble, eh? Everything tasted… okay, I suppose, but I wouldn’t call it the most coherent of meals.

Rather unsurprisingly, two hours or so later I found my hunger levels unsatisfactory. And ate a whole bunch

Anyw of random crap, man! Some overnight oats intended for later in the week; almond butter from the jar (dude, it’s good), dried figs, vanilla ice cream (?!). Not my proudest moment.

Then I did some atonement via kickboxing to an Exercise TV workout, which did make me feel better and more energized than the rest of the day.

Showering and using my new shampoo that I got super on sale at the salon and makes my hair intensely shiny helped.

And then it was off to a slightly weird and depressing event- there was a shakeup at the nonprofit where I did my Americorps year and the director of programs was unceremoniously booted from the job she’d held for TEN YEARS with no notice. In 2011, the funnest year ever to be unemployed.

So everyone went to Rustico for drinks. Rustico is known for having an epic beer selection, so I said what the hey and got a Tripal, which my best friend taught me about. They taste… not too beer-y, which is always my goal when I drink beer, hahahaha.

Anywho, that event ended up going for like four hours! So I went back to the boyf’s and he was super excited to be making some eggs but I was just… really tired and my stomach wasn’t feeling it and I just wanted to drive home and go to bed.

So I did… so… yes, I had beer for dinner.

Not my proudest moment. Nor my best night of sleep, despite the exhaustion.

This is what we call a “Sorry about that, body” breakfast.

I figured it’d probably be prudent to include vegetables in my breakfast, since I’d had a grand total of NONE yesterday.

And, wouldn’t you know it, we had gorgeous local cucumbers (so teeny!) and I had a powerful craving for the tea sandwiches my grandma used to make of just bread, butter, cucumbers, and salt.

So I did that, albeit on a sandwich thin. Butter is SO SWEET AND DELICIOUS! I used a teaspoon, max, and it goes such a long way. Try this. Your taste buds will thank you!

I also read the link on Iowa Girl Eats to Gordon Ramsay's scrambled eggs and WOW! It is so worth watching! His secret to great texture involves putting a pan on and off high heat, rather than cooking it on low; and adding salt and pepper at the end so that the salt doesn’t make the eggs watery.

I sort of made it except without two tablespoons of butter (duh) and with some tomato sauce (eggs+tomato=the bomb)

But now for something completely different- something of which I am VERY proud:

I made a recipage!

Check out, in a user-friendly and photo-filled format, the greatest hits of my recipes- vegetarian friendly-stuff if you’re doing Advent like I am; everything you could possibly desire for the holiday season from cookies to bread pudding to the best banana bread ever; and SO much more!

Enjoy the Lele Lurves Plants Recipage

impulse buys

2011-11-30T21:08:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, while driving home from work, you just need a detour. Sometimes that detour finds you at Chicken House, the completely irresistably aroma’d Peruvian chicken joint more or less on my path home from work.

And then a “side order” of fried yucca is just so cheap that you impulsively ask for one along with your horchata.

The horchata disappeared in about ten seconds, but I managed to hold off on the yucca til I got home (though not gonna lie, it smelled so amazing in my confined Toyota that I definitely had a nibble at a red light).

I sat on the deck in the sun and ate a ton of this.

Ahh, fried food among the foliage.

It was totally spectacular. And as my mother and I discussed as she looked over my shoulder as I wrote this post, the sauces are at least as good as the yucca itself. The green one is super zingy, probably a mix of fresh cilantro and chiles; and the yellowish one is like a remoulade. Mmm mm. And the yucca, of course, is carby, fatty comfort food at the max.

Sheila also enjoyed lounging on the deck. She knew how good she looked with the fall foliage and the blue sky.

Another impulse- I took (and passed!) a math placement test at my community college because I needed to be at least at precalculus level to take Chemistry. To apply to grad school programs. To do a dietetics program. Followed by a dietetics internship. To someday in a zillion years be a dietician.

Unbeknownst to me to place into this chem that’s the mean to the ends, rather than a quick trig test, you had to complete algebra, geo, trig AND precalc. It took like two hours. Mon dieu.

In advance, I’d told myself that if I passed (on the gloomy, dreary day I took the test) I’d reward myself with something I’d been fantasizing about when I saw it on the menu board at my favorite Korean bakery:

sweet.potato. latte.

I know, right?!

You know what this was? A cup of hot milk with some mashed sweet potato (the Korean kind; they’re a bit less brightly colored, more of a soft yellow, and milder in flavor) whipped up together.

As such, it’d be wildly inappropriate for me ever to pay money for it again, as I have a perfectly good blender and a constant supply of sweet potatoes.

I rounded out my plate with healthier things (though honestly I was weirdly un-hungry. Despite eating lunch at like 3:30 in the afternoon. Test taking’ll do that to ya.)

I’d made some roasted cauliflower over the weekend- just high heat, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Fun fact: we send out a newsletter to all the sites our department at the food bank sends food to. I doubt they ever read it. BUT this past month I got to write the recipes for it :D And included one for roasted cauliflower!

I enjoyed this serving of roasted cauliflower in my ice cream bowl :D

Something restaurants will charge you like $8 for as an appetizer: edamame and soy sauce. Attractively presented in dishes I got in Asia :D Even organic, cause that’s the only kind of soybeans my Safeway sells (which is nice since I hate supporting Monsanto in any way).

This lunch was so… warm!

Another POWERFUL impulse: also sweet potato related. So many of my impulses when it’s cold out involve sweet potato.

I had part of a baked sweet potato left over and suddenly all my heart craved was biscuits. BISCUITS! Carbs and butter. Basically, I constantly crave those two ingredients, but this particular night the biscuits were really calling to me.

Fortunately, this was an impulse that I could (and should!) gratify by cooking at home. Not gonna lie, any chance I got during my childhood I’d snarf down a Popeye’s biscuit. But, yknow… trans fat. General unhealthiness.

So I got my bake on and got not just one, but a plateful. It’s nice having high quantities of a starchy food around when Steve is coming for dinner, since that’s how he attains any level of fullness :D

Love love love crumbling together flour and butter by hand. It’s so soothing. Got the required wet-sand look.

Then added wet stuff and sweet tater.

It took awhile for that stuff to combine and I didn’t want crappy-textured biscuits, so I did drop biscuits rather than roll them out and cut them (that’s also a lot EASIER, which is nice for me, isn’t it?)

Sweet Potato Biscuits

1 T milk mixed with ½ tsp. apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/4 cup plus 2 T spelt flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
heaping 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 1/2 tsp. stevia baking mix (or sugar, obviously)
2 T chilled sweet butter, cut into small cubes
1 t. canola oil
3/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes
1 tsp. baking powder

In a wee bowl, combine milk and vinegar and let sit til curdled.

Sift together dry ingredients. Work in butter, oil, and milk mixture with fingers until just combined and sandy. Knead in sweet potato.

Drop in golf-ball-sized pieces or roll out and cut with cookie cutter.

Bake on parchment paper at 425 15-20 min or until golden.

Made me 10 biscuits and 1 baby biscuit! Aww.

Guys, these were SO GOOD. You’d never guess that they were actually good for you. So buttery!

Steve and I had a very deep philosophical talk about how with most biscuits one part is going to be better- either the wonderful flaky slightly crisped outside or the soft tender interior.

But these both aspects were equally good. You just wanted to keep eating them!

That was rounded out with an awesome salad I found on Epicurious and sort of adapted, as always when researching recipes, by wanting things to be healthier and refusing to leave my house to buy more quantities of ingredients.

I have grown very fond of that site- their selection is just really BIG, cause they pull from so many magazines/cookbooks, and they have some more ethnic/creative recipes than you’d see in Cooking Light. Sure, they’re a little less attuned to the saturated fat grams, but even the more indulgent recipes are adaptable.

And in general, I love living in an era where you can buy something at the farmer’s market, go “Hmm… I feel like doing something new with that” and five minutes later you’re making shredded kale and brussels sprouts salad with toasted almonds. Mmm.

Shredded Kale and Brussels Sprouts Salad (adapted from Epicurious)

2 T plus 1 t olive oil
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 small garlic clove ground into a paste with ¼ tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch kale, shredded
10 ounces brussels sprouts, trimmed, put through the grater attachment on a food processor
1/2 tsp. olive oil
3 T almonds with skins, coarsely chopped
1 ounce Parmesan, shaved

With a fork, combine 2 T olive oil through pepper. Let sit.

Toast almonds in the 1 tsp. olive oil.

Toss dressing with kale and Brussels sprouts. Sprinkle with cheese

My adapted recipe is good, but the UNadapted recipe was served at my work potluck that was Thanksgiving leftovers themed (love. my. job.) and it was… splendid.

So make mine if you’re watching the oil or are serving a smaller group, but make the real deal for culinary bliss.

1/2 a cup of olive oil real deal salad found here.

And finally, for protein’s sake (honestly I’d eat biscuits and salad for dinner but the hungry man was over) I threw together a frittata. I’m super into frittata lately. I made and failed to photograph one with kale, potatoes, and caramelized onions that was delightful!

I made this one with sauteed leeks and sun dried tomatoes. My frittatas generally follow a theme called “Clean out the fridge/pantry”.

control freak tendencies

2011-11-27T22:53:00.000-05:00

So anyone who has spent any time with me in real life has figured out that I am a control freak. Like, pretty intensely. Never is this more manifested (at least in my head; hopefully it’s less visible to others) than when there are leftovers in my house.

To clarify: not my leftovers. Other peoples’ leftovers.

You would think that being a foodie, I’d enjoy getting food related gifts. Sweet treats, dishes made from exotic recipes, restaurant leftovers. But quite honestly, the only gift I’d really like is some sort of raw ingredient. That I can cook, MY way, knowing EXACTLY how it was prepared and WHAT went in it and the health implications thereof.

My aunt gave me a pumpkin one time. It was great!

Anyway, we never host Thanksgiving and are always sent leftovers from whatever we attend. This year was no different, since my aunt Jeanie, whose wonderful Thanksgiving I attended; and my aunt Joanne, who picked my mom and sister up at the airport the day before Thanksgiving, ordered them home, and promised them Thanksgiving delivered to the house, did too.

So this year, I decided to try and just CHILL OUT and ENJOY THE LEFTOVERS.

For this particular lunch I was helped by the fact that I got to eat outside, due to it being in the MID SIXTIES despite the fact that it is LATE NOVEMBER! Gosh, lucky me :D

Along with a bucket of tea, I made a wonderful Whole Foods Hot Bar-esque plate. It’s great having lots of different things to taste! This is the ultimate for me! I should enjoy it!

Starting at the mashed sweet potatoes and going sideways, there are those wonderful orangey mashes of delight; my roasted veggies; some broccoli stem relish (that I’ll post about sooner rather than later); black olives (I know fancy shmancy sour olives and wrinkly olives and all that are the gourmet things to enjoy but I had forgotten how much I loooooove BLACK OLIVES FROM A CAN!); and brussels sprouts.

Even better was the side dish:

Greek yogurt, shredded wheat, and the most EXTRAORDINARY cranberry slaw/relish thing. Don’t know how it was made but it’s marvy!

But wait! There’s so much more!

I feel like it’s such an obvious choice after Thanksgiving or any mashed potatoes occasion to make shepherd’s pie.

We had indeed been sent home with mashed potatoes (and though mashed potatoes are one of those foods that incite my control freak tendencies, these tasted delicious and fresh, and not positively overloaded in butter. You also just use a thin layer of them as the topping, as you’ll see, so I consider this a healthful choice.)

But wait! I not only had leftover mashed potatoes. I had leftover VEGGIE BURGERS, having made a batch of my lentil burgers earlier in the week.

So this isn’t just Thanksgiving Leftovers shepherd’s pie- it’s VEGETARIAN shepherd’s pie!

I had previous made and loved Cooking Light’s wild mushroom lentil cottage pie, so I roughtly followed its methodology.

I sauteed carrot, celery, and onion to tenderness, then added some mushrooms.

Then deglazed with a splash of veggie broth.

Rather than adding cooked lentils, I crumbled in my veggie burgers. I used considerably less vegetable broth- maybe 1 cup total. To enhance flavor, I added red wine vinegar and some ketchup.

It looked somewhat astonishingly meaty; and also did a beautiful job of thickening up as it baked, producing a texture (though not a flavor) very reminiscent of traditional shepherd’s pie.

By far the most fun activity- frosting the pie!

By which I mean smearing on mashed potatoes.

This was fun but I also had a slightly control freak-y moment when I worried I’d run out of mashed potatoes. But I did not. And got really the perfect layer.

When my pie emerged from the oven it had charmingly sprung a “gravy” leak in one corner, but goodness the potatoes were lovely.

As for the taste, my mom and I chowed down on roughly three fifths of that big pan there. Very nice.

Finally, this is the ultimate in my control freak tendencies: when I inherit something I’d never in a million years make on my own.

When I look at a sweet potato, I see a vegetable. I see a vegetable that is very sweet and delicious on its own, and mixing in large amounts of sugar seems silly. I see a vegetable that is silky and tender in texture when cooked well, and mixing in large quantities of butter seems silly (and less than heart healthy).

So when I get sweet potato casserole… with sprinkles on top… I am left slightly befuddled.

BUT in these circumstances, just MAKE SOUP.

Really, when the world throws you a curveball, it is just always a good idea to make soup :D

My sweet potato casserole soup has three ingredients:

1. Sweet potato casserole
2. Vegetable broth (to thin it into soup, dilute calories/butter/sugar)

and

3. Roasted butternut squash!

Compatible in flavor, adding a nice texture to sink one’s teeth into, the butternut squash did a PERFECT job of bringing this soup together.

And lo and behold, all that butter and sugar and pecans? It made for a DELICIOUS soup.

In fact, it was positively INSPIRED and never something I’d make on my own. So there, control freak. Let a little outside influence in.

thankful day

2011-11-26T15:17:00.001-05:00

For me, the gratitude began not on Thanksgiving, but the previous day, when my poor exhausted mother and sister returned from the hospital in New Orleans. They were HOME! And my sister, rather than the woeful, morphine-sedated girl I’d heard on the phone for a few anxious days, seemed like herself!

I drove Steve to the airport :( then went home, tucked myself into bed, and felt ready for a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Since the previous two days had involved attending a Thanksgiving celebration with the kiddos at my previous workplace; and a trip to not one but TWO delicious but nutritionally dubious ethnic bakeries (of the Salvadoran and Korean types); I woke up with not much of an appetite at all. At the crack of dawn, arrgh.

I did like five crossword puzzles in bed (amazing); did yoga (Morning Flow from yogadownload.com, my old friend); went grocery shopping to get my sister whatever she asked for cause she got a bloody appendectomy and deserves some enjoyment (I was pleased to discover that if you arrive at Safeway at 9 am on Thanksgiving it is actually not very crowded at all); and then sat down to a highly delicious breakfast.

Greek yogurt; chopped up farmer’s market apple; shredded wheat (which was slightly stale so I also added a splash of milk) and the last of some roasted almonds I’d made the previous day.

Ohhhh the TEXTURE!

Morning was spent reading cookbooks, taking a walk with my mom, laying the groundwork for the evening’s recipes.

Lunch first featured a savory butternut bread pudding; leftovers from the night before when I welcomed my family back to the nest with a comforting pot of home cookin’

Sweet tender squash; wonderfully chewy bread (in all honesty, I did this in a large part because I let some beautiful farmer’s market spelt bread go staaaaaaaaaaale while my mom was outta town- this revived it, thank goodness!); rich eggy custardy bottom that got all golden.

Made it more or less the way I did last time- savory butternut bread pudding-, minus the spinach.

Did get in my leafy greens via a serving of kale.

My new FAVORITE way to make kale in a hurry, inspired by reading Kath: just rip it into pieces and microwave it for a minute and a half, making sure you rinse it for cleanliness and so it’s slightly damp and- this is what’s INSPIRED- throw in a little soy sauce, too.

I used mushroom soy sauce. WOW. SO SO SO GOOD.

That didn’t quite do it, trying to eat light though I was for Thanksgiving, so I had the rest of the morning’s apple. Jonagold. FAB!

Then it was time to pull the gingerbread out of the oven, and poke it with sticks!

I followed the technique from a recipe I’d made before, warm gingerbread with lemon glaze, and I kinda tweaked it (omitting eggs, due to not wanting to buy eggs; adding pumpkin cause all the cool blogs were doing it, etc.) but honestly the original is way better.

So… make that.

You will still get to poke holes in your gingerbread

Then pour the lemon-sugar glaze atop

And watch the magic when it turns from the appearance of Elmer’s glue to a thin lovely glaze.

I want to add that I woke up in the morning unsure whether I’d be attending any Thanksgiving at all, nor what if anything I’d be contributing.

But I’d decided that yes, I’d put in some face time with my dad’s family because we’ve all had a loss together and I feel like I’ve barely seen them.

So naturally I called Jeanie, the hostess, and said, “I know I don’t HAVE to bring anything, but if I WANTED to bring something, what would round out your table?”

Her luscious-sounding descriptions left me confident that I’d eat well, but I thought, why not, round out the table. I brought the above gingerbread (a favorite of my uncle Tim’s; his favorite thing is to soak it in dark rum hahahaha), and I also brought this:

Roasted carrots and kohlrabi- just chopped up the kohlrabi and drizzled it with olive oil and threw it in a 400 oven to give it a, say, 20-25 minute head start. Then added chopped up carrot and a ton of minced garlic, another 20-25 minutes. Took everyone out, drizzled them with balsamic.

Also made cranberry sauce with the fresh cranberries I’d pounced on at the grocery store. Buncha cranberries mixed with this weird but tasty pistachio jam we have from the Lebanese store; some ginger, and some cinnamon. It was great.

A tip for transporting holiday items in a safe and effective way.

Step 1: Go to amazon.com. Buy some boots!

Step 2: Take out the boots, put your food in the box.

The highlight upon arriving at Jeanie’s, as it’s been for our past several visits, is sitting on the uh-mazing new porch.

It’s so beautiful and so comfy and even warm thanks to space heater and apparently god-awful-to-install-but-wonderfully-insulting plastic film stuff over the windows. Also a wonderful red fluffy piece of furniture we call the floof.

Nibbles were in abundance: cheese (excellent), crackers and piri-piri sauce (the green one- it’s South African, my dad’s family’s heritage, and FABULOUSLY spicy) as well as a Jacques Pepin (my aunt Jeanie loves him a LOT) red pepper dip that we basically decimated.

I may have drunk both of those Diet Cokes…

Soon enough it was time to go in and check out the formidable buffet:

Those mashed sweet potatoes? I got a special shoutout from my aunt, who said she’d added the bergamot infused balsamic vinegar (!) I got her as a birthday present. It’s from my favorite new store- will post!

My aunt’s dining room is way too small to do a sit down dinner, and we’ve grown to appreciate our casual help-yourself style anyway, so I grabbed a plate and headed to the living room floor.

I ate this plate (along with more nibbles, obvi)

From the top, my roasted carrots ‘n kohlrabi; the mashed sweet potatoes; my cranberry sauce, the wunnerful roasted brussels sprouts with apples, and Trader Joe’s cornbread stuffing in the middle. Skipped turkey due to Advent fasting for church. And, as all previous Thanksgivings I have done this, didn’t miss it. Side dishes are really what the holiday is all about. Er… and gratitude, obviously.

We took an eating break and enjoyed lots of quality chatting, and then disaster!

Lou, a friend of Jeanie and Tim’s, had brought a GORGEOUS tart (you can see it in the buffet pictures above). She put it in the oven to warm up, and then came in and went “It went splat!” and she had burned her arm, too!

And then we all went “Ehhhhhh… we don’t really care.”

She put it back together and we ate it. Like, homemade butter crust, almond paste (!) and poached pears (!). The hell we were throwing that away.

It was FANTASTIC!

Along with some of my gingerbread. And, yeah, probably a pumpkin pie sliver was nibbled. More gingerbread, too. And the tart was just in PIECES so it was just BEGGING to be picked at.

My dad: Did you make the brownies?

Me: The gingerbread?

Him: The ginger brownies?

Me: Juuuuust gingerbread.

Him: Oh… they’re good!

So… always nice to get cooking compliments. Of a sort :D

North Africa

2011-11-21T19:39:00.001-05:00

North Africa has always evoked to me thoughts of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, stunning architecture, bustling markets where you haggle for some fascinating trinket. Now, however, if its possible, its mystique has grown even greater for me watching ordinary people rising to a challenge and being unbelievably brave in their demands for democracy.

Also, the food, obviously. Has anyone read A Cook’s Tour, Anthony Bourdain’s underappreciated second book in which he travels the world in search of the perfect meal? He goes to North Africa in search of spit roasted lamb and other delicacies and is served couscous and tagine over and over and over.

I am more than happy to eat couscous over and over and over.

Plus, hello weeknight dinner: it takes like two minutes to make.

For this extremely tasty bowl, I just dumped boiling water on some Trader Joe’s whole wheat couscous and some sun dried tomatoes; let them sit, covered, for five minutes or so; and tossed with roasted veggies.

To make this next guy I followed the same basic method and threw in some slow-roasted tomatoes (ooh tangent! Steve said “I have some not very good tomatoes, can I come over and you can figure out what to do with them?” which is obviously a huge compliment to me. I consulted How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, natch, and he said toss with a few tablespoons of olive oil and roast 45 minutes. Et voila, they tasted great). I topped it with that fabulous cheese we got at Lebanese Butcher.

Rounding out that meal, I attempted to recreate a stellar Eating Well recipe I’d made last winter for roasted squash and pears with chili and brown sugar but rather than doing squash and pear slices have a big squash hunk stuffed with pear… since my pears were slightly mushy… and it was pretty but not actually very good.

Stick with the original. The original is VERY good.

Another thing I associate with North Africa: fava beans!

On sale at my favorite hole-in-the-wall health food store. Like all hole-in-the-wall health food stores, it is outrageously overprice, so I only buy things when they’re on the half off shelf.

You definitely get a good bang for your buck with fava beans- look at the difference in size between the raw, unpeeled bean and the peeled and cooked bean:

For a recipe I turned, duh, to Mark. How did I live before How to Cook Everything Vegetarian?!

I ended up pureeing my beans… since, uh… they kind of disintegrated into mush. It probably was because of my unorthodox soaking technique… Rather than using cold water, I soaked them in hot water leftover from making some pasta, because I abhor dumping water down the sink.

Anyway, seasoned with za’atar (!) it made a very tasty puree.

It is super fun having a big bowl of dip for lunch! It makes for a very leisurely pace, ripping off slices of bread and dipping them in the rich, slightly smoky dip.

I also had yogurt with apple and cinnamon…

I also had some leftover shredded kale and brussels sprouts salad which I’d made for a dinner a few nights prior.

WOW it was good. I used like a fifth of the oil called for in the initial recipe. It was still DELISH.

However, though the fava bean puree was good, what I did with the leftovers was even better.

Like, so so so amazing.

Step 1: threw some onion (1/4 c?) and a carrot, chopped up, onto a cooking spray’d baking sheet, into my toaster oven til golden

Step 2: toasted some walnuts (3 T), chopped small, and cumin seeds (1/2 t) in a hot pan

Step 3: Add to hot pan with walnuts and cumin seeds: the roasted onions and carrots, chopped up; last of the fava bean puree (had about 3/4 cup left?); the rest of a can of black eyed peas I’d opened earlier (1 1/4 cups?); and perhaps half a cup of water. Then it was WAY too thin so I added the last of some dried mung bean dal I had (they’re yellow and teeny tiny and cook fast). Ee’rbody cooked together (I ended up adding hot water periodically to keep it from sticking to the bottom) for about half an hour. And just for kicks I threw in some chopped up apple… a couple tablespoons?

It. Was. So. Good!

Note to self: play with texture more. Three beans are better than one!

dealing with it

2011-11-20T17:39:00.001-05:00

I have had a

totally. insane. week.

I knew coming into it it was going to be a very BUSY week, due to work. I am normally part-time but since my direct supervisor is in Thailand on holiday and it is the busiest week of the year for our food bank and food banks in general, I was expected to work full time and step into her (frighteningly capable) shoes.

I was planning a very low key weekend prior to the serious feat of organization that was coordinating deliveries for holiday meals, extra food for extra days, extra donations, packing responsibilities, working with volunteers, blah blah blah, work work work. That didn’t actually happen.

Instead, after a rather disconcerting visit with my grandmother in which she woke up and looked me in the eye but uttered no words, I heard from my dad and his family that she was no longer accepting food and drink and wasn’t expected to last more than a few days.

That turned out to be one day. Expecting Sunday to go to my grandmother’s room and spend time with my family and all deal with her imminent passing, instead I got a phone call from my aunt that it had already happened.

I”d already made baked goods for the family bonding day I’d envisioned… so not knowing what else to do, I brought them.

Autumn Glory Muffins, which contain green tomatoes.

They are inarguably green.

Which, I mean, IS my favorite color.

And pretty tasty. My aunt said it “kind of tastes like a bran muffin… Yeah, Ileana, these are pretty weird.” But my dad ate two, hahahaha.

Things stayed relatively calm until 6 am Wednesday, which was 5 am in New Orleans, where my sister goes to college. She rang to announce that despite being treated with intravenous fluids, Tylenol, and Phenergen the previous day for what her campus health service had diagnosed as a stomach flu exacerbated by stress, she had woken up with a fever and horrible abdominal pain. My mom told her to go to the hospital.

A few hours of uncertain diagnosis later, a CT scan confirmed that she had appendicitis and needed surgery imminently.

Thus my Wednesday afternoon was spent frantically trying to book my mother a flight the week before Thanksgiving while she frantically tried to wrap things up at work to get to New Orleans. A word to the wise: don’t try to use Expedia when you’re trying to find a flight in less than eight hours. They post those flights but don’t actually let you book those flights, as the useless customer service representative being paid some god-awful wage in a developing country informed me when I called them.

But make it she did. And it’s sort of a relief to have a task to distract yourself and help someone out.

I buckled down and gritted my teeth through the rest of the busy week. Holiday deliveries actually went very smoothly and I was proud of the work I did.

And so Saturday arrived.

I woke up after some mediocre sleep despite having taken Nyquil the previous evening. Cheered myself up with a trip to the farmer’s market, mentally planning recipes to nourish my recovering sister and I’m sure exhausted mom upon their return.

Later in the day, I headed out to be with my dad’s family. Lacking any religious background, they decided to do a simple tea at her friend’s home as a memorial for my grandmother.

I brought the best banana bread in the world (in my recipes tab!) and let it be noted that you can cut down sugar to 1/2 a cup, make half the flour white-whole-wheat, and sub ground flax for 1/3 of the oil and it is equally delicious.

And spending time together was nice.

Life is what it is. When it rains, it pours.

Things coming in are mixed- what looked like progress yesterday seemed to go backwards today when my poor sister had to go back on morphine because her pain was so awful.

Flights are up in the air (hah look at me being punny), who knows what Thanksgiving will look like.

If you are lucky, in these situations, you feel grateful. You feel grateful for the people to whom you are close (even if not we are not geographically so). You realize that money, jobs, plans, are just not that important; and when the big stuff happens all you want is for the people you love to be all right. You want to tell them you love them and you want to help them however you can.

For example, my mom is on a bit of a mission: she’s been making daily trips to a juice bar down the street from the hospital to try and find something to entice my sister, who’s still on a liquid diet. (Thus far, they’ve all made her feel sicker :( Ugh, my poor sis. Being nauseous is the worst).

On that walk, my mom passes a pet store where there are three adorable black and white kittens in the front window. Her mission (and yo: if there is anyone who happens to know a guy at the pet store near Ochsner Baptist Hospital, you let me know!) is to get some adorable kittens in to cheer up my sister.

When I’m stressed I tend to reread books I love; one of my favorites is Tender at the Bone, by Ruth Reichl. She was previously the editor of Gourmet and is a wonderful cook and writer. Her book reminds me of how integral cooking and food can be to someone’s life.

It’s how you nourish the people you love, it’s how you nourish yourself, it’s one of nature’s most simple coping mechanisms (as evidenced by my need to eat large quantities of chocolate chips and pecans with the latest less-than-stellar update from the hospital).

So last night my boyfriend, whom I love, came over, and I cooked.

It tasted great. We talked. It’ll all be okay.

Being in the period 40 days before Christmas (known as Advent), my church has entered a meatless fasting period. But I still wanted comfort food.

What is more comforting than gravy?! So vegetarian (actually vegan, as is this whole recipe) gravy, which I began by sauteeing mushrooms, onions, and garlic…

Reconstituting dried shiitake mushrooms to make a broth…

Thickening with flour…

And enriching with seasonings to make a rich gravy.

Meanwhile, some unphotogenic ingredients whirred together in my food processor to make a shockingly tasty and easy-to-work-with meat substitute.

I was initially suspicious that this would cook properly, since it was QUITE sticky. But I scooped it with a cookie scoop (one of my favorite kitchen tools! But a spoon would certainly work too, though I recommend spraying it with cooking spray).

I then cooked up cookie-sized scoops of the mix on my griddle, flipping them around for even browning on all sides. They actually were INCREDIBLY easy to work with and told me when they were ready for me to flip them :D

And voila! Tofu “meatballs”! Don’t they look bizarrely real?!

Though you certain won’t fool anyone into thinking this is meat, I didn’t consider that the point of this recipe when I made it. What I wanted was just to make something yummy, filling, and comforting, which I did. The meatballs have a great flavor from the garlic and parsley; a nice texture from the almonds, some of which stayed in little chunks that make for an unexpected and pleasant crunch; and a nice meatiness from the tofu and soy sauce.

And the gravy was great. Gravy is always great. And this is guiltless gravy!

I genuinely love cooking for Steve; he has such appreciation for when I get a little eccentric and creative in my food experiments. I am also pleased that I’ve figured out that I can send him away from my dinner table full! It just takes some extra carbs.

This particular evening, I took a cue from my mother (and her mother) and cooked him up some orzo in browned butter. Not as good as theirs, but is brown butter ever bad?

Adding to the adorability of fake “meatballs”, I also made some fake “spaghetti” out of spaghetti squash.

Along with a simple but lovely salad of farmer’s market greens with a simple parsley vinaigrette.

In the week’s final tragedy, I knew that my immune system would prefer if I did NOT enjoy a glass of wine with this beautiful meal. But, I slept for nine blissful Nyquil-induced hours last night and am cautiously optimistic this cold may not turn full blown. So… it was worth it.

Anyway, this meal was pretty great on its own.

Tofu “Meatballs” with Mushroom “Gravy”

Gravy
3 T or so dried shiitake mushrooms (or other dried mushrooms; or just use more fresh mushrooms and use vegetable broth instead of mushroom broth)
1 cup or so boiling water
1 fresh mushroom
1/6 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tsp. oil
1 T or so flour
2 or 3 T ketchup
1 tsp or so Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tsp or so balsamic vinegar

Cover dried mushrooms with hot water to rehydrate mushrooms and make a mushroom “broth” In a food processor, blend fresh mushroom, onion, and garlic until finely minced. Meanwhile, preheat a small frying pan to medium heat. Put oil in pan, and stir and fry mushroom, onion, and garlic mixture until browned and fragrant. You may need to add the mushroom broth to prevent veggies from sticking and burning. When veggies are fragrant, add the flour and toss around until it is absorbed into the veggies and no longer visibly white and raw. Then add the mushroom “broth” and mushrooms, as well as the ketchup. Let the mixture cook until it has reached your desired thickness. Then add the mustard and vinegar to taste (adjusting flavors as you wish), and keep warm to serve over the meatballs.

Meatballs
7 oz or so silken tofu, pressed by wrapping it in a clean kitchen towel and putting a heavy pot or cookbook on top of it for an hour or so
¼ cup (1 oz) almonds, toasted
½ tsp garlic powder
2 tsp. mushroom soy sauce
1/4 cup oats
¼ cup parsley leaves
1tsp. dried onion

Blend ingredients in a food processor (just rinse it out from before!) until smooth. Using a cookie scoop or a spoon (grease either with cooking spray to make scooping easier), scoop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a nonstick griddle preheated to medium high (or a nonstick frying pan, or a frying pan with oil in it; this recipe is pretty flexible). Cook, turning frequently, until “meatballs” are warmed through and brown on all sides. Serve with gravy.

Enjoy this comfort food with someone you love, and count your blessings!