Check Out My Spice Rack

Rancher's Pie

2009-10-04T20:34:00.003-05:00

Like Shepherd's Pie, but with beef instead of lamb!

2 1/2 lbs potatoes, peeled and cubed for boiling
1 stick butter (yeah, 1 stick)
1/2 cup whole milk

Boil the potatoes in well-salted water for about 15 - 20 minutes. They should be fork tender. The time varies a lot depending on how small you cut the potatoes. Drain and mash with the milk and butter. Or you can use instant if you want to make the baby Jesus cry.

1T olive oil
1T butter
1/2 bag frozen pearl onions, thawed
5 peeled, chopped carrots
4 ribs celery, chopped
1 pkg whole button mushrooms
3 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 lbs beef stew meat
1 package beef gravy mix
1/2 cup red wine
1 drained can diced tomatoes
1 cup frozen peas

In the Olive Oil and butter with a ginormous pan, sautee the onions, carrots, and celery for a few minutes, maybe 7? The carrots will be pretty firm still, but add the mushrooms. Quite a bit of water will come out of the vegetables. At this point, I pretty much dumped in everything else and about 1/2 cup water. I simmered it for about 15 -20 minutes. Once the meat was cooked through, I turned off the heat and let it stop bubbling. Then I MEANT to stir the peas in. But I forgot. I slid the potatoes on top but couldn't really spread it around because there was a lot of liquid still. I think at this point if I had dotted a bit more butter on top of the potatoes and broiled it all, that would have been delicious. We were not that patient.

I ended up sprinkling a few peas in the bottom of each bowl as I served it. And then in the bottoms of the plastic leftover containers as I put that away.

The Return of Disposable Income

2009-08-18T18:57:00.002-05:00

When I realized I had written the last check for summer daycare I felt a great wave of relief that was practically a religious experience. Then I realized-- I could eat food that other people cooked and which was not handed to me through the window of my car.

I may have gone overboard however, here is where we've been in the last week and a half:

Hiro. Hiro is my hands down favorite sushi in Omaha. I don't like a lot of ornamentation with my sushi (like one local place that served or order with a foggy cup of DRY ICE). They presentation is simple. We started with sweet potato fries and miso soup. Normally, there is a sesame-soy-chili-mayo sort of dip, it was a little less spicy than usual on Friday. The miso soup had those adorable enoki mushrooms. Where can I find these in Omaha? They are so delicate in texture and flavor-- really the perfect mushroom for miso.

I drank Purple Kimono which was delicious. I almost ordered the ridiculously named Zentini, but the waiter recommended against it. He brought a sample of it out and he is right, it was not delicious. In fact, it tasted like lemon dish soap. Of course I've tasted lemon dishsoap. I'm a pottymouth vulgarian. Duh.

For sushi, we had spicy tuna roll, tuna sashimi, an inside out California roll, which has that teeny orange roe on the outside, a Naked California roll-- which is wrapped in cucumber instead of rice and seaweed, a couple of pieces of toro. As always, the sushi was delicious and fresh and served promptly.

Last Sunday I felt like a dog's dinner so I was not going to cook. I went to Amsterdam Felafel and Kebab in Dundee. (Really bad web design. I hate click through. Also the most important feature of your website is YOUR MENU, not your history or your friends. Feature the food for God's Sake.) The felafel is served in a hard roll, and I really prefer a flatbread sort of arrangment. The felafel patties were a little more coarsely ground than I would have preferred. Inside the bun was a mixture of shredded cabbage and chickpeas. I wish I could remember the name of the place that used to be on south 72nd. So delicious. With our curry fries we had a side of hummus. Overkill on the ButtBean. (You know they are shaped like a butt, don't pretend you haven't noticed.) I have this mental image of a giant truck driving up to the back of the place and hooking up a large pump to the back window. Then the kitchen is pumped full of garbanzo beans. The food was just ok, but there are not a lot of options for felafel besides this place and McFoster's. Unless my googling is somehow faulty. I cannot be arsed to make felafel myself. Frying food makes me feel like I'm covered in a revolting film. And the house smells for days.

Monday, after open house for school we went to La Mesa on Maple Street. I love the chicken nachos there. I just need to remember that they are GINORMOUS and enough for Jason and I together. The timing was all off and we were served one by one by one by one. That was not typical of our dining experiences there. I will say that they have some fantastic guacamole. The mango margarita is also delicious.

Lettuce Wraps

2009-08-08T19:45:00.001-05:00

In her book Forever Summer, Nigella has a recipe for Thai Ground Beef. Friday night I used that as a jumping off for lettuce wraps.

1T toasted sesame oil
A few dried chilis of unknown origin (about the size of the tip of my pinky finger)

heat the oil and let the chilis infuse it. I should have used more of them, or infused them longer because this lacked the heat I wanted.

Then add:
1 small onion, diced finely
1 can water chestnuts, diced finely
1.2 lbs ground chuck, 85% lean
1T ground ginger
2T crushed garlic

When the pink is gone from the meat add the following and cook till moisture evaporated:
2T fish sauce
2T soy sauce
3T hoisin sauce

Remove from heat and add:
juice of 1 - 2 limes
1/4 cup each chopped cilantro and parsley

Serve with romaine or butter lettuce, slices of cucumber or other small amounts of crunchy vegetables may also accompany.

This served Jason and I with enough left for me to have lunch the following day. It was delicious, but again, needed a smidge more heat for my liking, quite a lot more for Jason's.

Chilled Reds

2009-07-23T18:48:00.001-05:00

This settles it, I am chucking the Pinot Noir I have into the fridge for a bit. My A/C is out and my day sucked big-time.

I Scream, You Scream

2009-07-17T23:44:00.001-05:00

Edy's Spumoni is curious. The chocolate stripe is great-- velvety texture, slightly bitter. The other two stripes are fair to middling. There is a lack of chunkies in them and the artificial color is over the top. Blue Bunny makes a better overall Spumoni, but it is available only at Christmas. Hey, Blue Bunny, I'm Italian ALL DAMN YEAR. GIMME BACK THE SPUMONI!

You Are What You Eat

2009-07-17T11:54:00.002-05:00

I made deer jerky. It was delicious. I wish I could post a proper recipe, but I didn't weigh or measure anything. About 2lbs venison, sliced about 1/4 inch. around 1/4 cup each of lawry's, pickling salt, and brown sugar. A few shakes of liquid smoke and worcestershire. Red, White, and Black Pepper. Garlic Powder. I put it all in a ziplock and mooshed it around. Then I put it in the fridge for about a day, with periodic mooshing around. At bedtime, I put it in the oven on 175 degrees Farenheit. It was done when I got up. In retrospect, it was insufficiently garlicky. I am thinking that not much harm could come of using fresh instead of powdered. I am also thinking of trying to make some sort of salmon jerky.

Cooking At Work

2008-09-25T13:00:00.002-05:00

Ok, the crickets can stop chirping now.

Seems like I've been doing my best cooking at work lately. I have a quesadilla press in my desk. No Lie. We had quesadillas on the last food day and I never took it home.

Monday, someone we'll call Schoonie brought in a metric buttload of apples (same as 2.2 avoir dupois buttloads). I made stewed apples in the microwave. And you can too! If you have spices, butter and honey at work. Just cut a couple of apples up, toss with a little penzey's baking spice, a small pat of butter and a spoonful of honey. Nuke it for 2 to 4 minutes.

I just made a little Caprese salad for my peeps after another coworker brought in basil and tomatoes from her family's gardens, a ball of fresh mozzarella, and balsamic vinegar.

So, keep a knife in your desk, but don't tell HR.

LOST Correction

2007-07-17T21:34:00.000-05:00

Well, nuts. I put the wrong link in my post regarding the LOST season finale. Here is the most awesome summary on the internet. And I say that as a long time fan of Television Without Pity.

LOST Lolcap

Ratatouille

2007-07-17T20:30:00.000-05:00

Ratatouille is one of those "Man Goes On a Journey" stories. Only there are 2 men. And one of them is a rat. Actually, there are a lot of rats in this movie. If you were made motion-sick by Cars, you might get freaked out by the rattiness of all the rats in the rat-crowd scenes. The other warning about this movie is that it may make you crave cheese. Or is that just me?

Unlike other animated offerings, the character voices were stellar-- seamless and opaque without the intrusion of the performing celebrities. I actually had to watch the credits to identify them all. I cannot say that this is the best part of the movie, because the story and the animation were also great and I would not want to disparage either aspect.

The story begins in the country, where we can see the humble beginnings of our twitchy hero, Remy. Remy's foodie gifts are being wasted as he sniffs food for the colony to make sure they don't eat poison. Well, Remy is quite lucky to have a bumbling brother who gets him tossed down a sewer so that he can float to Paris. The initial Paris scene is dazzlingly animated. It looks like they filmed the scene instead of rendering it.

So, Remy strolls into the eponymous restaurant of his idol, Auguste Gusteau after having a few conversations with the spirit of Gusteau that lives in his ratty little head. No mumbo jumbo like ghosts in this flick! Just a rat who talks and eventually controls the restaurant's hopeless garbage boy, Alfredo Linguini, by hair pulling.

Alfredo's sudden transformation from garbage boy to soup genius soon attracts the attention of the whole kitchen, and makes him dangerous enemies. There are two good villains to root against-- Skinner, the executive chef since the passing of Gusteau and Anton Ego-- a critic. Skinner is motivated by profit, profit, and more profit. Ego is simply a cynical food snob-- made rail thin by his refusal to swallow anything he doesn't love.

Speaking of LOOOOOOVE, no movie set in Paris is complete without a little romance. Colette is Alfredo's human mentor and love interest, voiced by Janeane Garafolo.

There were so many great foodie moments in Ratatouille, but I don't want to spoil it. It's worth seeing, but smuggle in your own movie snacks-- cheese and fruit would do nicely.

What Do You Do With a Deli Chicken?

2007-07-02T18:57:00.001-05:00

I could torture you with a Weird Al Style Parody of "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?" So be warned.

We often get a rotisserie chicken and attack it with forks when J and I have failed to plan. Augs' favorite part is the skin. Shudder. We rarely eat an entire chicken and so I have started to try to do something interesting with the remainders. Usually, I start by surveying the fridge for things that are about to go dodgy.

Tonight I found a teeny little gladware with a knob of garlic butter, most of an onion, and 2 kinds of mushrooms. Oh yes, and Pinot Grigio. A splash of Pinot Grigio in the cook is sometimes inspirational.

I put on some polenta-- toast coarse cornmeal in a pan with a smidge of oil until it smells corny. Yeah, corny. Then add liquid and turn the heat to low. I like a very creamy polenta, so I use a 3.5:1 ratio. 2 parts of the liquid were milk, 1 part was the now gelatinous juices at the bottom of the deli chicken container, and the .5 was water. Had there been some prepared stock in the house, I'd have used that. You need to use LOW heat, and come back often to stir. If you have a nonstick saucepan, now would be a good time to use it. Otherwise, be prepared to soak the pan and scrape it later. (For that sort of thing, I have about 8 of those little brown nylon scrapers that Pampered Chef sells.) At the last minute, I generally chuck a handful of grated parmesan into the polenta.

Next I peeled the onion, sliced it on the prime meridian and then sliced it thinly. I put that in the skillet with a smidge of olive oil and salt to soften and get a wee bit brown. Then I sliced up the forgotten baby bella mushrooms and button mushrooms and chucked them in with the forgotten garlic butter. I cooked that down a bit, then lowered the heat and shredded the remaining chicken. You can do that first, but I prefer to do the vegetables first, then the meat since I don't want Jason to wash 2 cutting boards later. Truly, I am the Best Wife Ever.

I added the chicken with a little vino (3-4 oz?) and water (about the same), another sprinkle of salt, some herbes Parisienne from Penzey's and a grind of pepper. I reduced the heat to a low simmer and let it cook until umm, the table was wiped down and the easy mac for my ungrateful children was ready. About 7 to 10 minutes.

The chicken, wine and herbiness were light and delicious for summer. The polenta added elements of creaminess and heartiness. The mushroooms and onions grounded it with earthiness. It could have used more pepper but it was quite delicious otherwise. Something green and slightly bitter would be nice with it, like mustard greens with shallots, pine nuts, and golden raisins.

Dinner Redemption

2007-05-24T20:05:00.001-05:00

Much like with comedy, timing is everything in cooking. It makes the difference between everything hitting the table at one time, golden brown and delicious and everything just plain hitting the fan. Last night, I totally pooched dinner. Charlie helped by throwing multiple kitchen- and mommy - centric tantrums. I had planned on serving shrimp scampi, mustard greens in the style of Bianco Ristorante's spinach, and butternut squash ravioli with sage-brown butter and parmesan.

Sadly, we ended up with chewy shrimp, watery greens, and sad looking ravioli. Other highlights included a fine layer of sage all over the kitchen counters and a buttery handprint on my shirt. In the end, we went to Sonic for consolation sundaes and then I had a major cleaning frenzy before LOST (which was COMPLETELY AWESOME, BTW. )

Tonight, using the same marinade from the lamentable shrimp, I made scallops. Basically, salt, lemon juice, olive oil, a handful of teeny little chilis, and a buttload of garlic in a ziplock with a pound of scallops overnight. I use frozen because most of the so-called fresh ones have been frozen anyway, plus they are soaked in a preservative called TSP, which makes my mouth swell up.

I made an artichoke with my usual garlicky dip. The dip is just a dollop each of yogurt and mayo, a squeeze of lemon juice, a pressed clove or 2 of garlic, and fire salt). Artichokes are just so beautiful. And fun to eat. In a stunning victory, I got both kids to try a leaf! They hated it, but still! Tried! A! Vegetable!

The star of dinner though was Clotilde Dusoulier's Cauliflower Gratin The cauliflower was soft, the sauce was creamy, the cheese was nutty, and the breadcrumbs were crunchy. Dusoulier's cookbook is in my cart at Amazon as we speak. I can't wait for the leftovers.

L O S T Finale

2007-05-23T14:23:00.001-05:00

First of all, if you watch L O S T, you should check out this season recap at LiveJournal:

http://ack-attack.livejournal.com/370261.html

Now, I am a fan, but I also believe in mocking the hell out of JJ Abrams and crew because, well I'm a mean, mean bitch. I judge the writing crew to be comprised of 12 year old boys who can't meet girls outside of the debate team. There's some seriously weird gender stuff on this show. First of all the women who get laid die on this show (Shannon, Ana-Lucia, and even though she just LOOKED at Hurley, Libby). If they don't die, apparently they get pregnant, which will kill them, so they will die 20 weeks later (Sun and probably Kate). The men just have super Island enhanced sperm so they get to father the doomed, doomed island spawn. There are also strange properties at work keeping all the women smooth and hairless while the men sport rugged looking stubble. It's like the Island of Nair. They actually had 2 girls mud wrestle this season. PLEASE. If they must do this, then can we please have Sawyer, Jin and Sayid lose their pants permanently?

I have some theories on what is going to happen tonight-- supposedly a 'fan favorite' is going to die. After some watercooler debate, I think it will be Desmond or Sayid. The two main components of the eyecandy. It seems too obvious that it would be Charlie. And they don't have the guts to kill Jack. Hurley's character seems to have reached the end of his arc though.

I further predict that one of the underwater Bond girls holding Charlie hostage is Benry's Annie.

Also, I predict that Juliet is up to no damn good. And Jack will cry. He's such a baby.

The Right Call

2007-05-22T14:47:00.000-05:00

Stopping at Sinbad's for naan was an EXCELLENT IDEA. I am a genius! It rounded out the meal wonderfully. The price was definitely right at 99 cents each. The naans were fresh, fluffy, and delicious. Charlie even ate them without butter!

Sorta Curry

2007-05-21T13:40:00.000-05:00

I am pleased to announce that Penzey's has opened a brick and mortar store in Omaha. They are on the west side of 72nd street, North of Nebraska Furniture Mart. I am shocked to announce that I got out of there without spending a hundred bucks. Thanks to ebay, I just got an Indian Spice Box (dabba masala) and I was intending to go fill it with whole spices and then toast and grind my own each time I had a yearning for Indian food. Then I got a grip on reality again and bought 3 different curry blends-- the sweet curry, the Maharajah curry, and the hot curry. (We also got Fox Point, Herbes Parisienne, Szchewan season salt, Spanish and Hungarian paprika so there will be more spice talk in coming days.)

I love Indian food, but it is very time consuming to make and I tend to get the balance of spices wrong if I blend individual ones since I am physically incapable of following a recipe if I'm not baking. My most common mistake is that I end up with too much tumeric. I generally throw up my hands in frustration and go to the Taj in Miracle Hills, or the Sitar, or Jaipur. I have yet to try Sinbad's on Maple Street, which is dumb since it is the closest to my house. Right on the way home from daycare!

Last night I made a sort of mulligatawny soup with some tired carrots and celery sweated in butter (no ghee in the house!) garlic, ginger, and the maharajah curry. The maharajah is a mild curry with threads of saffron in it. It's a little light on cumin in my opinion. I do love cumin though. After that lot was soft, I added a couple cups of red lentils, the juice of 1 lime and about 7 cups of water. Initial tasting revealed it was heatless and I added red and white pepper. I simmered it until soft than blended it smooth. It was still not spicy enough, so next time I will chuck in a couple of those lethal little chilis and probably the juice of at least 1 more lime.

To go with the soup, I made a modified Tikka Masala. Tikka Masala is sort of a mild creamy tomato sauce. By "modified" I mean "completely inauthentic recipe pulled straight outa my. . . navel." It did look a lot like this picture at wikipedia . I used the last of some sundried tomato paste, a can of coconut milk, a blend of the hot curry and sweet curry powders, garlic and ginger simmered for a bit. Then I added 3 chicken breasts and a bag of spinach. It was a teeny bit tinny and I think that was a result of using the sundried tomato paste and the spinach together. I served it over plain brown rice however, I did the math wrong on the water and had to drain it. This is truly the lamest cooking mistake and yet, I continually make it.

We are having leftovers tonight. I should stop by Sinbads and get some flatbreads to have with it. And maybe samosas. And maybe while I wait for the order I can have a mango lassi.

Be A Hero-- Join the Bone Marrow Registry

2007-05-18T06:29:00.000-05:00

Register in by Monday at http://www.marrow.org or use their site to find a marrow drive in your area. They are currently waiving the processing fee. The registry process doesn't take long and doesn't involve needles-- a cheek swab is used. I registered in March and it was super easy. So far, no call to heroism. But I'm ready!

I know that a personal story or something would go great here, but I don't have one. I saw a flier for a drive and figured it was a step up from donating hair (locks of love) and blood (red cross). I'm parting myself out like an old taxi. An old, swearing, taxi that is regenerating the donated parts. Umm, maybe a story isn't such a good idea. Just go swab your cheek already.

Reading about Food

2007-05-17T10:28:00.000-05:00

I've just finished a long road at work-- successfully even! Now I am back to working regular hours on regular days but I haven't been able to put aside the insomnia. So I'm reading. A Lot. I've finished 3 books since Sunday night and I'm about done with the 4th. Two of them were about food.

The first was Ruth Reichel's latest memoir-- Garlic and Sapphires. I read her first book, Tender at the Bone which was kind of a coming of age food memoir. That one bordered on too confessional and I found it unpleasant to read about her infidelity in her first marriage. There was also painful, honest stuff in there about infertility and a lost adoption and I was having trouble getting pregnant at the time as well, so there ya go. It is all about me, after all.Her food descriptions are sublime in that book. Her stories about her mom are hilarious, but they made me more cognizant of how mean I am to my own mom. I'd like to think I've gotten better. But ask my mom.

Reichel's voice is so likeable, but it was just hard to read TATB. I didn't read her second book, Comfort Me With Apples, out of fear that there would be Too Much Sharing. G & S however was about her time at the NYTimes as their restaurant critic. I've heard much made of her stint there and figured since she was still with the same husband, she wasn't likely to be writing about being unfaithful to him. Reichel used to disguise herself to compare her experience as a regular diner to experience as a high profile critic and not surprisingly found a huge difference in service level and food quality. Is anyone surprised by that? So G& S combines theater, food and judging-- some of my favorite things. There is no small amount of navel-gazing in the book as Ruth talks about how she wishes she were more like her fun characters and less like the mean ones. Blah, blah, y blah. Intermingled with the characters she created are a few recipes, which I have not tried yet. I will post back if I do, but nothing really screamed out to be made by me. The book isn't due back at the Omaha Library until the 31st though.

I also got The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. Oh, Anthony, I love you! No, I hate you! Such a bad boy and then such a relentless dickhead. TNB is a collection of essays, probably cribbed from previously published things, since he's kind of a lazy bastard. The first chapter is about System D-- for se debrouiller. System D is to the kitchen what Hacking is to the web. It is making do and improvising so that you don't get your ass handed to you during the rush. His descriptions of the rush, the slam, falling into the weeds, or whatever you want to call it is exactly why I don't want to work in a restaurant. It's not that I mind the hardness of the work, the sweatiness, the way you leave a kitchen filthy and stinking, it's the facing down of failure EVERY NIGHT. That kind of stress 6 nights a week and I would soon lose my ability to sleep without narcotics. Ok, I am also limited in that they don't make chef pants in a 25 inch inseam.

He is SO MEAN. Which would be fine if he would really tear into Sandra Lee, the Semi-Ho, and make her get off my damn TV already and step into a warm bath with a hemlocktini and festive razor tablescape. He picks on Rachael Ray quite a bit (not in this book, in general), which seems like the Prom King making fun of a girl on the debate team. And you know I hate it when the cool kids pick on the nerds. LET MY PEOPLE GO. She really should tip better on that $40 a day show.

Bourdain is confident in a way that skips back and forth over the line of compelling and repelling. And while he is relentless to his fellow celebrity chefs, he is an ardent supporter of those who have come up in the ranks and an advocate for chefs of color. Tony does poke some fun at himself and actually admits another restaurant has better frites than his own. So I skip between enjoying his writings and rantings and wanting to poke him in his bony old-man chest.

Note to Tony: Please, please stop with gratuitous shirtlessness on your travel show. It makes me think you need to be braised in wine for 2 days, like Coq Au Vin. You are, how do they say? STRINGY. Also, you have the legs of the chicken. Forget I wrote that. CALL ME.

I'm shocked! Shocked to find out there is gambling in this establishment!

2007-04-06T07:56:00.000-05:00

(If you don't understand the title, rent Casablanca.)

Diets Don't Work.

This is a meta study (a study compiled by looking at data from other studies) about the long term success of dieting. It doesn't look too good. Only a small minority keep it off. The rest of us poor slobs gain it back, reaping no health benefits except wear and tear on our poor bodies. There is a tiny blurb on exercise. They notice the people who lost the most weight were those who exercised. They concede that they don't know if that may be the key to keeping it off. I believe that it will be the key. Just a hunch.

Dark Days Ahead, AGAIN

2007-03-30T12:11:00.000-05:00

I am back at Weight Watchers. Stupid stress eating. So, there should be some excellent snark in the coming weeks. I am not doing WW@Work, because I'm no longer at the same building. Also, it's better to be among strangers where I am free to roll my eyes at stupid people. I am on the bulletin boards there very selectively. Emoticons! FatFree SugarFree CoolWhip Recipes! People who don't like vegetables! It's all too much for me to handle. Also, they don't so much like the profanity. And I do love a good f-bomb.

In case you were wondering

2007-01-23T12:55:00.000-06:00

Curry Chex mix is GOOOOOOOOOOOOD. Follow the usual chex mix instructions but add curry powder (I did about 1/2 TB) and cayenne (1/4 tsp) .

Too Mean?

2007-01-16T05:50:00.000-06:00

Last night, someone called me at 1:40 am. I called them back when I woke up at 5:30. Oops, they had a wrong number!

If it were up to me, every phone would have an attached breathalyzer and would only call 911 or your mother after 10pm.

Nakey Noodles

2007-01-15T14:07:00.000-06:00

After shovelling snow for 90 minutes, I was tired and starving. So I decided to go with full metal carbs.

I had a shockingly good lunch of nakey noodles. Nakey noodles are not, strictly speaking, nakey. While the noodles boil, you chop as much garlic as you want-- in my case this is how ever much I can chop in 9 minutes while the spaghetti boils. Then when the noodles are done, you drain them and in the cooking pot you melt a little butter and olive oil and then cook the garlic with some chili flakes-- I like enough to be a tease, Jason likes enough to blow his head off and make him sweat. You don't want to use too much fat, because then you will have an unsightly pool at the bottom of your plate AND the delicious bits of garlic will slide off. Just enough fat so the garlic can cook. If you use a non-stick pan, you can do about 1 tsp each of butter and of oil per serving. When the garlic is cooked to translucent, you add the pasta and stir around to coat everything. Then sprinkle grated parm on the bottom of your plate, add the pasta and sprinkle more parm.

Wine suggestion: Pinot Grigio

I am tagging this with dinner, even though it's lunch. I do find that if I am majorly stressed or there is some kind of freakage, that a high carb dinner helps me sleep better than a high protein dinner.

I have a (strange) dream

2007-01-15T09:05:00.000-06:00

MLK had a bold dream for an amazing future. I just had a strange dream about the past and how it ripples into the present.

The Background:

Recently, I went to a wedding in North Omaha for a coworker of J's. We had an hour or so to kill between the wedding and reception and I wanted to drive past the house where my mom grew up. It was near 40th and Ames, for those who know the city. She went to Holy Angels grade school, sadly torn down for the stupid interstate exchange. So I called my mom and got the exact address and we drove by. Then we went around the block and I took a picture with my cell phone, which didn't exactly thrill the new occupants, but I did tell them that it was my grandma's house and I just wanted to show the pic to my mom. The exterior of the house had been redone with siding and new windows. The yard was clean and well maintained. It was nice to see the old place was taken care of and loved. There were people on the screened in porch, just chillin'.

The house, when it was sold and my grandfather went into a nursing home, was a sad thing. Empty, with poor plumbing, mice, and a whole host of disrepairs. My mom and her siblings had rented a dumpster and threw out almost everything except a few pieces of furniture.

I wish I had some of the cast iron to cook in, especially the smallest little skillet. I know, it's silly but I just wish I had one pan of Grandma's. She was really a good cook. She was an excellent baker. And there was always iced tea, unsweetened, in the cut glass pitcher, but you had to drink out of red or blue solo plastic cups. Which were washed and used over and over. I know if I'd have been at the big cleanout, I'd have clung to stuff I didn't need and didn't have room for because of the person and times I miss.

No one had their own birthday parties, we had a party pretty much every month to celebrate all the birthdays in that month. Mine is in September, like Grandma's. There were always multiple cakes-- mostly so that all those freaks who like the dried out corners could get a corner piece. And the big value bucket of ice cream. And tea. And then, later, UNO and Yatzee. With swearing and bird flipping. And tea.

The Dream:
So last night, I dreamt I was at a party at the new house. It was a summer night, warm and moist and there were torches and I could see the ferns along the side of the house. I didn't know and couldn't find the owners of the house, it was that kind of party. The kind where you aren't invited, you just hear about it from a friend and show up. I think I was there because of some art community connection. My friend Bill S., from work was there with his wife and we were talking about how kids turn into teenagers. Finally, I had to pee and I had to go inside. I was afraid the house had been made bland or that it was still a wreck inside. And it was gorgeous inside. Pretty flashy, but all the woodwork had been restored and the bathroom had been expanded and had a little jacuzzi.

I wandered from room to room and finally went to the dining room, where I'd once had so much cake. And tea. I was so surprised to see that the buffet was there. I imagined it had been too big to get out of the house. But it was shiny and clean. The patina had been buffed off and new stain and varnish applied. (Yes, with antiques, this reduces the monetary value, but let's face it, old varnish gets gummy and dull and just plain gross.) Once, that buffet had been full of all the things you'd need at a party-- silverware, dishes, tablecloths, UNO cards, extra dice for yatzee, paper napkins, my Grandma's diabetes stuff, sugar free candy, lifesavers. It was like a 5 yr old boy's pockets. (If you don't know, you don't want to.) I went to peek inside and then the host walked in. He was a middle aged man, gay, but not flaming. Stylish, but not aggressively metro. His face looked tired and worried. He and his partner wanted to get rid of it and get something more delicate. I was ready to take it, I was eager to take it. I didn't know where the hell I would put it, but I was on my phone calling my dad so I could borrow his truck.

My mom answered and dad wasn't home. I told her that I'd wanted to use the truck and why. She didn't say anything. The host asked if I'd take another piece of furniture as well and I saw it had the few children's books in it that my Grandma had kept for us. (Lives of the Saints being one of them.) I told my mom there was a bookcase as well. I assumed that they'd left it with the house because of the size and inconvenience but my mom said that they didn't want it, that it made them all sad, her and her siblings. She didn't want me to take it, and said I couldn't use the truck, and that if I did take it that I couldn't tell her siblings. That they wouldn't want to know. So I hung up, and I left it behind. I told the host that if my owning these things would make my mom so unhappy that I wouldn't be happy with them, despite how wonderful they were, and how they made me think of my Grandma.

On waking, I wish that in my dream I had at least gotten the Lives of the Saints and my favorite picture book from the case.

It's not you, it's the bugs

2007-01-13T07:45:00.001-06:00

This article in the Washington Post discusses new research in obesity. Turns out there is a distinctive profile for the bacterial flora in the guts of the obese. Now scientists are trying to meticulously manipulate it to help obese people lose weight. Sounds like the beginning of a Mary Shelley novel to me, but I live in hope that one day Science will discover something that will wipe the diet industry out of business.

You Gotta Fight! For Your Right! To Health Care!

2007-01-09T19:05:00.000-06:00

I have spent about 1/4 of my working time for the last 7 business days fighting with health and dental insurance to get some work done for my son's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad teeth. Both the medical side of the care (Nebraska State Statute 44-798 requires group insurance and self-insured groups to cover general anesthesia when medically necessary for children under 8 years of age and developmentally disabled persons) and the dental side of the care were denied in error (apparently, I should have known that my group number was going to be changed at the first of the year and scheduled any care until I had that and also? It takes 30 days). Today, though, after days of being stubborn, strident, and generally unpleasant combined with extensive google research, someone in HR persuaded the insurance company to correct their error. I was quite happy about this, because first of all, my son is in pain. And secondly, I don't have $5000 extra dollars hanging around. Just the benefit of getting the negotiated amounts would have been great, but the Omaha Surgical Center offers no negotiation with those paying out of pocket. They can help you get financing though.

The whole experience really brought to mind the U2 lyric "The rich stay healthy and the sick stay poor." I have to wonder though, how much money the insurance companies make because people just accept the denials as accurate.

Oddly enough, my insurance policy does cover things that are medically unecessary-- namely infertility treatment, with much less hassle. If only they hadn't done that, they wouldn't have been bothered by me this week. SUCKERS!

Biaggi's Omaha

2007-01-02T09:27:00.000-06:00

Jason and I tend to go out on New Year's Day instead of Eve as it is much easier to get a baby sitter. And a reservation. And the traffic is much easier. So last night we got dolled up. Excuse me I was dolled, I guess he was an action figure. We did our usual dance of "Where do you want to go?" "I don't know where do you want to go?" We decided to stay near the Grandparently babysitters and West Omaha so we chose Biaggi's. We have been there a few times and liked it quite well.

I have to say I love that Omaha is smokefree, but there were annoying guys smoking in the foyer. Take it outside, you inconsiderate jackasses. OUTSIDE. Come on, if you're so tough you can face cancer, you can brave the weather.

We were seated right away and our waitress came out pretty quickly for drink orders and menus. Her recommendation on red was of course the 2 most expensive wines on the list. Um, no. I had a Montepulciano. It's Italian, yet she pronounced it rather inexplicably as if it were Spanish. Same deal with the soup: Minestrone Pollo. It pains me. Poignant pokers of pain.

Jason ordered a coffee drink-- the Italian, which is essentially espresso with sambuca. I know, a dessert drink! As an appetizer! He's kooky and quirky! However, dinner was an attempt to cheer him up. (Short Version.)

Jason had the tomato-sherry soup. It is fairly creamy and has a little sherry added. Last night it was more peppery than usual, but still very good. Jason wasn't dazzled by it though.

Rather than ordering an entree, I had 2 appetizers-- duck confit with mushrooms and dried cherries over polenta and mussels pomodoro. The duck confit is my favorite thing on the dinner menu there. (Close with the carpaccio though.) It was nicely sagey throughout both duck and polenta. The polenta was crisp on the outside and creamy on the inside-- as it should be. The duck-cherry-mushroom combination is rich and meaty with the unctuous fatty goodness cut by the sweet-tart cherries. I hate to be one of those people who always orders the same thing, but the duck confit is just this good. The mussels were tender and sweet, with a little spicy tomato puree thinned by their own liquor. Biaggi's serves them with a slice of grilled bread, and they had apparently grilled it where they grilled J's steak. Not that I'm complaining-- the meaty, charred bread was awesome for sopping up juices. In fact, 2 pieces would have been even better. I managed to muddle through with offerings from their bread basket. Biaggi's is one of those places that serves olive oil with the bread, and I approve heartily of this.

Jason ordered the filet mignon, medium rare. The waitress informed us it would be very pink and a little cool in the middle. Well, I should hope so. The filet was served with whipped potatoes, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and a tomato cream sauce. That's a lot of stuff going on in one meal. Jason said the cherry tomatoes were neither under nor overdone, which is almost a miracle. The tomato cream sauce was 'eh'. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything special. We tend to prefer a pan sauce made with a little beef stock, red wine and an herbal note or grainy mustard for steaks. Maybe for a leaner cut of meat cream sauce would be necessary, but not filet. Still, it was very good and that's more of a suggestion than a complaint.

I will complain about the post-entree service. Once the plates hit our table, she was like a ghost. In fact, another waitress served the soup and my appetizers. The waitress was sadly neglectful in getting our dessert order, which took over 15 minutes to get after we ordered it. We had a disappointing bananas foster-- served with what tasted like prepared caramel sauce, a sad lack of cinnamon, and really rubbery crepes. The ice cream was melted to a degree that indicated the delay was as much with our waitress as the kitchen. Hint to Biaggi's-- make the waitress plate up the ice cream portion of the desserts to minimize the melting.

The coffee was some of the WORST I've ever had. Really bad. Worse than diner coffee in Western Nebraska. Worse than Folgers. Bitter as the Democrats in 2004. And yet, not very coffee flavored. My cup was the last in the pot, as the cream I poured in turned it a distinct gray shade. Not very hot either. Jason got the first cup of the next pot (cream turned a warm brown) but there were grounds floating in it. The real insult was that they charge $2.19 for this terrible inferior brew. Frankly, they should be ashamed of their coffee. Worst $4.38 I've spent in a long time.

We didn't stiff the waitress on the tip, but I really feel that she was given a generous gift at exactly 15%. She was inattentive, she couldn't pronounce menu items, and I think recommending just the most expensive wines is plain tacky. Especially since their glass rate is about equal to what an entire bottle costs retail. Wine markups exceed the usual 200% that I have come to expect.

Total Bill: $78 plus tip.

Why Wasn't I Informed of This?

2006-12-31T21:55:00.001-06:00

National Drunk Blogging Day

I JUDGE

2006-12-31T10:36:00.000-06:00

Bush is too busy for Ford's Funeral. What is taking his attention? Choppin' trees and ridin' bikes. What. A. Brat.

There's a Whole Lotta Stupid Goin' On

2006-12-30T11:53:00.000-06:00

In Washington DC, of course. According to this article at MSNBC.com a dumb guy thinks that when he pays a girl in designer frocks for a spanking and some submission that he is also paying for online privacy. Seriously? It's like this guy learned nothing from Bill Clinton!

Slacker Bread Followup

2006-11-29T18:04:00.000-06:00

The wheat version took longer to cook and then it got dry faster and yet smelled fuhhhhnnnnkeeeeey. Almost sockish.

I tried to make kolaches and completely spaced off that I had started. I left the dough to proof in the oven for, oh. . . a couple of days and then started the oven up to preheat for tostada shells only to think. . . "weird, smells like melting plastic and something fermenty. . . ."

All the Kewl Kidz R Doin It

2006-11-20T07:07:00.000-06:00

All the kewlios in the blogosphere of kitchen nerdz are making the No-Knead Bread that was published in the New York Times on Nov 8th by Mark Bittman. Apparently the secret to bread is inattention. Rose Levy Berenbaum actually has a very mathy/chemistry/gadgety series of posts and comments. I love her so. And we can never meet because I would certainly make her head explode. That would be sad!

In my wild single gal days, I used to get together with a couple of my friends on Saturdays and make a few kinds of bread. I know, it's very lurid. We'd set up the sponge, then have coffee and smoke. Then we'd bring the sponge to dough stage. While that rose, we'd play scrabble or listen to music or even just read quietly. Then we'd shape the loaves, leave for the final rise and clean up/get ready for a bread feast. Sex, Drugs, Kneading Dough. Had we been making the method Bitterman wrote of, we could have gotten some of those life thingies I've heard so much about.

The Slacker Bread requires a large, heavy pot with a lid. I am using a cast iron dutch oven I got at an auction (with a fisher-price little people house, a baseball, an angel food pan, and a bunch of thermoses). The lid from my oven proof large skillet fits it nicely. Others are using corningware baking dishes and le crueset. The pampered chef stoneware would be excellent for this. You will also need non-terry type tea towels and cornmeal. I consider it equipment since it impedes the stickage. Oh, and a bigass bowl.

So to start, you will need to use 12 oz water (Bittman says 13, but the Rose L-B pointed out the video used 12 and I don't like 13, so I used 14 and That Sucked) , 3 cups flour, 1 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp yeast. Mix it all up, cover with clingfilm and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. 12 - 18 hours is called for, but I've left it more than twice that. Again with the not following of directions!

Actually, the first time I made it, I used double the yeast b/c mine was expired. Then I accidently doubled the salt only I didn't notice until the 12 hour mark. So I doubled everything else and waited 10 more hours, and then picked back up with Bittman's instructions and split off half as a starter.

After the first rise, you shape the bread. It is sticky. Very, very sticky. Flour the hell out of your hands and your table. Work quickly. Then put the dough on a cornmeal sprinkled tea towel and let rise till doubled. About 2 hours

Preheat the oven and your lidded heavy kettle at 450 for at least 30 minutes.

When the dough is risen, CAREFULLY open the oven, remove the lid from the kettle, and dump in the dough seam side up. Clap on the lid and set the timer for 30 minutes. At 30 minutes take off the lid and bake for 10-20 more minutes. A done loaf is golden brown and when thumped produces a hollow sound. I was amazed that the loaf didn't stick at all to the kettle and in fact popped right out. I thought it would need to sit and steam its way out. NOPE! The crust on mine was crunchy and thick. The inside was chewy and had a widely holed appearance. My Children Ate Crust. Dudes. My Children Ate Crust.

I have a wheat loaf in the oven right now. At a higher temp. With a much shorter final rise. We shall see. . .

While I've Been Out

2006-07-28T11:10:00.000-05:00

I haven't been writing as much, obviously. I've been concentrating a lot of effort on decluttering my basement and not as much on kitchen creativity.

Artichokes. I've been on a bender with these. They are dead easy to cook, but not particularly fast. I generally make one each for myself and Jason. I fill my Red Kettle with water, add some salt, a sliced lemon, and a few peppercorns to the water. Then while it comes up to heat I clean the 'chokes. I cut off the tops and the bottom of the stem. Not the whole stem. The stem is delicious, so I try to preserve what I can of it. I remove the bottom ring or two of leaves and if there are pricks (heh) I trim them off with kitchen scissors. When the water comes to a boil I put the artichokes in upside down and put a pie plate (not aluminum, non reactive metal!) over them to keep them submerged, then I boil them for 40-50 minutes. I tried steaming them in the microwave and it only saved about 10 minutes. Of course, the microwave doesn't get the kitchen as hot as a gas burner on high. While they boil. . .

I can grill some sort of protein and make another vegetable that the kids will eat (corn, peas, green beans, carrots, that's all). More importantly though is the dip for the artichokes. I don't do drawn butter because I feel so greasy after it that I need a shower, only my house doesn't have one. I have been making a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of yogurt and reduced fat may with sprinkle of firesalt, a couple of fat cloves of garlic pressed in and the juice of one lemon. So Good. We like this dip on all manner of steamed and roasted veggies-- baby carrots and asparagus are especially good. Green beans are passable.

I've been having Meat Salad for lunch most days. A few handsful of baby greens, a handful of assorted chopped veggies, a sprinkle of blue cheese crumbles, and 4 oz of steak, chicken, shrimp, or salmon. I chop the veggies on Sundays and Wednesdays and cook the protein on the same nights. I've been using a marinade of red wine vinegar, olive oil, season salt, and garlic. Then I use those same components plus coarse mustard and Greek seasoning blend for the dressing. Sun dried tomato spread is a good substitute for the mustard. Both help the dressing maintain emulsion when you shake it.

Corn is in season. I like it boiled or roasted in the husk. Cold in salads and black bean salsa. Even dressed with lime, chilis and salt is pretty damn good.

And my obsession with gelato continues. The Omaha Chocolate Company has a new location at 132nd and Maple. Down the strip from Old Chicago. I believe I shall declare their chocolate The Best In Town. Not as much variety as the other places. Better service than Café Gelato. Plus? Truffles.

I Stand Corrected

2006-05-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

Apparently, limoncello is not supposed to contain the juice. Umm, ok.

Also, the tea jug leaks.

Candy Is Dandy, But Liquor is Quicker

2006-05-14T12:47:00.000-05:00

So, in Italy they have this stuff called Limoncello. It is essentially lemon zest and sometimes juice left to infuse with simple syrup and clear distilled liquor. I found a few recipes on the internet. Oh, how I love the internet. Here is how I made mine.

First of all, you're going to want one of those sun tea jugs with a spigot. I found a glass one, plain, at Target. I poured in 2 bottles of cheapish vodka, 750 ml each. Then I used a vegetable peeler to remove just the zest of 15 lemons and put that directly in the vodka. After that, I put a liter of water on to boil while I juiced the lemons into the vodka and zest. I did it over a mesh strainer to prevent pulp and seeds from getting in there. When the water came up to the boil, I dissolved in 3 cups of sugar and added the simple syrup to the jar. Apparently it tastes really good after a month, but after just a few days, it is pretty yummy. Lethal, and yummy. I had a little straight up on ice and I've had it with club soda. I bet gingerale would be good as well.

Best of all? The jar is half full. I COULD DOUBLE THE RECIPE!!!!

Mmmmmmmmmmmm Beer

2006-05-10T07:47:00.000-05:00

I made beer braised salmon and vegetables last night. Also, to my great shame Pasta Roni.

I sauteed a large shallot and some celery (1 rib) and carrots (2) in butter for just about 3 minutes. Then I put the salmon (3 4 oz. fillets, salted and peppered) on top of the vegetables, turned the heat way down, deglazed with a few oz of one of the Belgian style beers by those Fat Tire people and a few oz of chicken stock. I put the lid on and let it go for about 8 minutes. After that, I turned off the heat, added about 1/2 cup of frozen peas and in a couple minutes, they were heated through. The vegetables were good, but the salmon was a little bland. It could have used a saltier cooking liquid and an herbal infusion. You know what would be good? Herbal tea style bags for cooking with dried herbs. Why is there no such thing on the market?

Thanks for nothing Mr. Lee Terry!

2006-04-28T11:59:00.000-05:00

Lee Terry did pretty much what he always does: put the concerns of business ahead of those of individual citizens. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. He consistently votes for the Reverse Robin Hood budgets so popular with the GOP, the kind where the rich get tax cuts while the pork flows like water. (How is that for a disgusting mental image?) He also never answers emails that I send. He is for sale. If only I were rich and powerful, I'd buy me some civil liberties. And you too. Feel free to call Lee Terry and let him know that he's a weaselly little creep.

Congressman Lee Terry
Phone: 202-225-4155
Omaha District Office: 402-397-9944

Save the Internet

2006-04-26T05:47:00.000-05:00

Here is a recap of the Network Neutrality issue from MoveOn.org:

We are fighting to protect Internet freedom. Internet companies like AT&T and Verizon are spending millions lobbying Congress to gut Network NeutralityÂthe Internet's First Amendment. The "Markey Amendment" would protect Net Neutrality.
Net Neutrality ensures that all speech is treated equally online so the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site. Without Net Neutrality, Internet companies could rig the playing fieldÂforcing websites like MoveOn and Google to pay "protection money" to work properly.
Internet freedom has made the Internet great. The idea that everyone's site gets treated the same has led the Internet to be a revolutionary force for economic innovation, civic participation, and free speech. We're fighting to keep this rule in place to keep the Internet great.

Are you a Nebraskan? Can you call Rep. Terry today and tell him to support Rep. Markey's amendment supporting Network Neutrality? Then ask how he will vote.

Congressman Lee Terry
Phone: 202-225-4155
Omaha District Office: 402-397-9944

And now my thoughts, which up until now have not gotten political. I don't like the thought of my ISP controlling what sites load fastest. I get internet from the same fine people whom I pay for cable. Imagine if your cable box made you watch certain channels? I get my phone from them too. Imagine if your phone could order pizza from Domino's but not from Frank's (132nd & Dodge). Now imagine an end to Net Neutrality. Suddenly, you can't get to your bank or broker as quickly as their competitors. From the viewpoint of a consumer, the whole idea that Net Neutrality may go the way of the dodo is appalling. No one decides how I waste time on the internet but me!

From the viewpoint of a web content provider this is chilling. I for one, cannot afford to pay ISPs so that the 10 people who read my blog can continue to do so. There are a lot of great bloggers out there and none of them rake in the buck like entertainers. There are hundreds of mom and pop shops on the web, selling hand crafted items, or weird stuff and I imagine they can't pay what Amazon can pay. The end of Net Neutrality would mean the end of small businesses and small writers on the Internet. It would, in my opinion be the end of something great and the beginning of a cyberspace where all your options are the same boring, bland, whitebread options as in 'meatspace'.

And now, here are a couple of articles about Net Neutrality.

"Gun Owners, Librarians Unite Against Bells," Telephony Online, April 24, 2006
http://www.freepress.net/news/15113

"New Group Aims to ‘Save the Internet’" Cnet News, April 24, 2006
http://www.freepress.net/news/15112

"Average Joe And Saving The Internet," Webpronews.com, April 24, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1671

Chocolate Chip Banana Cake

2006-04-23T15:30:00.000-05:00

I made 2 chocolate chip banana cakes this morning in an effort to clear some space in the freezer. 18 bananas. If they get ripe, I hate to pitch them so I tell myself I'm going to make banana bread with them and freeze them. After I made the cakes, I found 5 more bananas. If there are any in the deep freeze, I may make this again without the chocolate chips. You can add nuts, but I don't care for them in cake or bread-like textures. Love them in cookies though.

So, preheat the oven to 350. If you have a kitchen-aid, this is a good time to get it out. Also, the bowls are interchangeable, so I used the larger sized bowl and it was full to the tippy-top.

Mix the Wets:

18 bananas (if you've frozen them, quite a lot of water will come out as they thaw. I drained this off)
1 stick of softened butter
3 eggs
4 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup orange juice or lemon juice

mix well and add the dries:

6 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
1 T salt
2 T baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 1/2 bags of chocolate chips (I actually used mini-morsels and some extra dark chips by Ghiradelli)

Divide evenly into 2 9x13 pans. Bake for 25 minutes, rotate the top cake to the lower rack and the lower cake to the top rack and bake 20 more minutes.

Easter Leftovers

2006-04-22T09:05:00.000-05:00

What does one do with a bunch of ham? My mom sent us home with a big ziptop bag of ham. I decided to make pasta with ham and peas.

I set the pasta water to boil. Then chopped a shallot and sauteed that in some butter. When it got soft, I added about 2 cups of chopped ham and cranked the heat to create a little brownness. Then I added in about 1/3 cup of cream and 2/3 cup half and half. I brought that to a simmer and grated in about 1/3 of a nutmeg and added 1/4 tsp or so of white pepper. Then I turned the heat low and mixed in some green can parm. I know, the horror.

When the water came to a boil, I put in some little curly pasta (campanelle?) . At the same time I added some chopped spinach to the sauce. When the pasta was done, I drained it and added it to the sauce with 1 cup of still frozen peas. This allowed it to cool enough to be servable to the monkeys. We added some more green can parm at the table. It was delicious.

Peanut Noodles

2006-04-22T08:48:00.000-05:00

I ended up making a large batch of peanut sauce last week, because the shaky top of the soy sauce went amok. Generally, I use the natural style peanut butter, lime juice, soy sauce, garlic, fresh ginger, soy sauce, and a little toasted sesame oil and chili paste.

For one meal, I generally use about 1/2 cup of peanut butter, which I soften in the nuker for 30 seconds or so. Then I put in maybe 2 or 3 cloves of minced garlic, about a 2 inch piece of ginger (grated with the microplaner), and then add the other ingredients until it tastes how I like it. How I like it is never spicy enough for Jason. I do generally thin it with a little water, but you can use chicken stock I suppose.

I serve it over either buckwheat noodles or (gasp) ramen style noodles. While the noodles boil, I like to saute very lightly some strips of other sturdy veggies (with more garlic, ginger and sesame oil: carrots, peppers, celery, cabbage. Generally, I use a vegetable peeler that makes strips for the carrots and julienne the other stuff as well as I can, which is not very well at all. For protein, tofu, shrimp and chicken do well. Other types of fish don't hold up well. And beef is just too much richness.

Faro's

2006-04-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

It just so happens that one of my coworkers owns a restaurant in West Omaha called Faro's. Faro's is at 129th and West Maple Road. It's in Eagle Run, in the same section as Hiro, but just a bit West of there. In addition to serving dinner and lunch, they sell wine and Italian Deli items.

A couple of Fridays ago, Jason and the boys and I went to Faro's for dinner. It is a nice space-- high ceilings, but not too much echo. Not particularly loud. And to my great delight, I was able to read the menu. Our server was very attentive, one of the better servers we've had in a while. I suspect that servers don't like families unless the restaurant is specifically family oriented. And by the time they realize you will tip proportionate to the chaos of your kids, it's too late for them to do-over. You will NOT have an experience like that at Faro's.

With our drinks we got some nice breadsticks-- soft and buttery. There was marinara to dip them in. The sauce tasted like the Tomato-Butter sauce from Marcella Hazan's cookbook, only with some more herbal notes. Bright and fresh, which is how I prefer my red sauce. Augs loved it, since he is all about dipping food into condiments.

We got the soup rather than salad. Jason's was minestrone and I know it must have been good because when I asked how it was he said "Oh, this is horrible. You don't want to try it. I'll spare you by eating it all myself." This is his way of indicating that he does not want to share. You see what I have to deal with? He's lucky he's good looking because he's certainly no comedian. I had the cream of mushroom. Poor cream of mushroom soup-- it gets an undeserved bad rap due to the gak by Campbell's. Cream of mushroom, when it is made instead of manufactured, is so delicious. Faro's has nice sized slices of button mushrooms, shreds of carrot, and a nice note of pepper to it. So yummy. It is creamy without the gelatinous texture of starch based thickeners. This is what cream soup is supposed to be like.

Augs had the Bambino Cheese pizza (about 8 inches across, he could have split it with Chas, easily). Jason had shrimp and linguine with gorgonzola sauce. This, he consented to share. I had the seafood ravioli. Chas shared with us.

I had the seafood ravioli. Holy Mother of the Sea. GOOD STUFF. Nice rich creamy sauce. Full of minced seafood but not aggressively fishy tasting. Fresh, homemade pasta. It was so good I hated to share with Charlie.

Jason had the Shrimp and linguine with gorgonzola cream sauce. Nicely bitey with the taste of gorgonzola. The shrimp were plump and cooked perfectly. If they curve more than a comma, they are overdone. Faro's chef did a sublime job with them.

We took home 2 pieces of the chocolate layer cake to share. So dense, so chocolatey. Perfection with a large glass of ice cold milk.

Donut Professor

2006-04-08T13:40:00.000-05:00

You know, I wish my academic advisor had told me that doughnut Professor was a career option. I might have gone straight away to grad school. I can see it now-- my thesis could be Vanishing Crullers: The significance of independent stores and authentic batter.

Anyway, the last 2 Saturdays I've gone to the Donut Professor on 72nd and Pacific-ish. You can get an assorted dozen for $6.19.

They make a true cruller. TRUE CRULLER. I cannot get past how rare this is and I cannot describe how sublime it is to finally have them in reach. The (One Holy) True Cruller is made with a very eggy batter, only slightly sweet. It's much like a popover in texture. When you break open a cruller, it should be quite moist and have large pockets of air. Many places have these gorgeous looking donuts that turn out to be cake on the inside or just a ridged raised donut. The glaze for a cruller should be somewhat thinner than that of a glazed doughnut to more closely match it with the lightness of texture. I've had true crullers that were sadly suffocated under a thick glaze. The Donut Professor doesn't just avoid these pitfalls, they dance past them on fairy wings.

We also sampled some cake varieties. They were all moist and delicious but the standout is the chocolate donut with chocolate frosting. It's really intensely chocolate in flavor. It still retains the tender moist crumb like the yellow cake donut.

I did figure out a trick-- Chas only eats the tops, where the frosting and sprinkles are (gag). So I cut the donut in hemispheres. He does at least chase it with milk and a banana, so he's getting some nutrition. Anyway, I'm not a fan of frosting or sprinkles, so I eat the donut bottom.

The Donut Professor is only open from 6am to Noon, so if you get a late night donut craving, forget it. Or just stay up until 6am.

I'll take Potpourri for $1000

2006-04-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

Pork Loin

I've always been chicken of pork. All the porkchops of my youth were desicated, tough, flavorless hunks of meat with slippery, grainy fat ringing the outside. I've bitten into lamentably chewy bacon cooked in the MICROWAVE. And I've had more chopped and reassembled ham than I care to think on. However, I am trying to put my porcine fears to rest. Last week, I tackled the pork tenderloin. They were on sale with the Kroger's card and came 2 to a pack. I looked at a handful of recipes on Epicurious.com and decided to go with the braising method. Many of their recipes incorporated fruit-- apples, cherries, and cranberries. For the fruity element, I decided to use the last of the bottle of white wine (Pinot Grigio) that I had on hand.

So, I chopped up a little mire poix (2 parts onion, 1 part each carrot and celery). I sauteed that in in my gigantic stainless steel skillet with a little butter and olive oil, chucked in some garlic when the onions started getting soft, then added some sliced brown and white mushrooms. When the mushrooms were cooked like I like them, I put in the 2 pork loins (liberally seasoned) and browned them on all sides. At this point, I added the wine (about 10 oz) and some chicken stock (about 2 cups). Then I clapped the lid mostly on and set the heat to low. I put some scrubbed yukon gold potatoes in the oven at 400 and in 45 minutes everything was done and delicious. The pork was tender, flavorful and moist. The vegetables and juices were quite delicious spooned over the potatoes. Plus, there were leftovers that held up quite well to refrigeration and reheating.

Firebird's

About a week ago I went to Firebird's in Village Pointe. First of all, let me just say how deeply I hate Village Point. The parking is insane, the parking lot traffic is stupidly mazelike with all sorts of construction dead ends and almost every exit has a median so that you have to make eleventy billion right turns just to go home. I went with some friends to test Firebird's Child Friendliness Quotient. We did make a reservation to insure that the wait time was not excessive. A long wait for a table pretty much is a useless burning of toddler amusement resources.

I will name a couple of names here: TGIF-ingFridays on Way the Hell Out There and Maple Street is pathetic. The last time (and I do mean LAST) that I was there, they gave us the wrong wait time and the 'host' was an apathetic mouthbreathing dillweed when we had the AUDACITY to complain that our 30 minute wait had stretched to 45 minutes and they couldn't even ballpark us on a table time. Seriously, those jackasses took our names over the phone and then proceeded to give us shitty service and no damn food. They would actually stand a chance that I'd ever eat there again in a million years if they had said "I'm really sorry, but we cannot accomodate your large group tonight." There were 8 of us, trying to celebrate my brother's promotion. And none of us is inclined to go there again. Plus, I'm telling everyone about how stupid they are at TGIBiteMe's.

Another name I'd like to offer is Kona Grill. I'm not going to wait 45 minutes for a table. If it's that hopping busy, take reservations and just don't honor them if people aren't there 5 minutes early. By the time things settle down there enough for me to waltz in and get a table, they'll be going out of business.

I digress. As usual.

Firebirds is a little too dim inside. I hate that. It's hard to read the menu. I'm going to start bringing this annoying flashlight of Augie's-- shaped like a hippo and the light is inside the mouth. When you push the button to open his mouth and turn on the light, there is a laughing noise. Not that you can hear it in Firebird's. The restaurant itself is loud enough that unless your kid is throwing a full metal tantrum, he will not possibly be heard more than 1 table away. Not that I'm naming any names here. But I will say that the shortest person in our family has the shortest temper as well.

The bread was passed around while we waited for drinks. It was super fresh, and in fact, too hot to slice without smooshing it. Still, good bread. After consulting with my fellow guests, I decided on the 7 oz fillet for roughly 20 bucks. It comes with choice of potato. No salad, no green vegetable. They should either give a vegetable or put it on a smaller plate. Also, due to the dimness of the lighting, I got some fat in my first bite! I know that this is a subject of hot debate, and many people savor the fat inherent in beef, but I am not one of those. The texture revolts me. And with such a naked plate, I had nowhere to put it to keep it out of the sight of my fellow diners. So I put it in my napkin. Ew. Other than that, the steak was delicious. I had the garlic/parm mashed potatoes. They were good, but you know, not DAZZLING or anything. If they want to do one accompaniment with the steak, it should be something that can hold its own-- sweet potato fries would be good. The boys had fries and corndogs. Huge servings of fries for the kids there. I could have had them split the dinner. One of my group got a bottle of the house red which is some kind of blend. It was ok but not spectacular. In fact, I would say that "Ok but not spectacular" sums up the Firebirds experience. If you want to go out to dinner and you are already out there drop in and have a good steak. But I wouldn't drive in from midtown when there are other places to get a steak and eat with the kiddos.

Cafe Gelato

After dinner, we went to Cafe Gelato at 156th and Dodge. Charlie had a cookie that was $2 and yet, hard and dry. Skip the cookies. Augs had a vanilla cone which he really liked. I had a 1/2 triple chocolate, 1/2 something rum and coconut. There were tiny bits in it! The triple chocolate was excellent though. I must say that the girls working there were dumb as posts (really, if you can't work a cash register, you are in trouble) and when I went back to buy a soda after our initial order, it was quite difficult to get their attention. I'm thinking of organizing a gelato crawl this summer. Like a pub crawl, only without the hangover. Cafe Gelato will definitely be a stop along the way, despite the mediocre service.

Eating Like Normal People

2006-03-13T19:28:00.000-06:00

In other words, it's been a lot of "dinner's in the microwave!" at our house.

I hit my 10% mark at Weight Watchers. That's 10% of my total body weight lost. I have %13 lbs to go. I still say they are dishonest hucksters. Group Leader said (while proclaiming her medical background) "How many deaths could be prevented by maintaining a healthy weight? . . . . .One in two!"

NO, YOU MORON! WRONG! Death cannot be prevented. It can only be postponed! Cram it down your hole!

Sorry, that was going to kill me if I kept it in any longer.

Lentil and Couscous Salad

2006-02-27T14:28:00.000-06:00

1 cup of french lentils
1 cup of Middle Eastern style couscous (looks like medium tapioca pearls)
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
2 smoked sausages (about 3 or 4 oz each)

Cook the lentils and couscous separately in well seasoned water or stock. The lentils take about 40 minutes to reach tenderness. The couscous should be just a tiny bit under done at 6 minutes, which suits our purposes. The lentils discolor the cooking liquid so you don't want to cook them together unless green couscous is fine with you. The couscous and lentils are from Whole Foods. You could probably use regular couscous, just be sure to go shy on the liquid so that it can absorb the vinaigrette.

While the lentils cook, chop up the grape tomatoes and sausage into small bite-sized pieces. Make a vinaigrette. YES. Make. Not Open.

1/4 cup balsamic or red wine vinegar
1 T grainy mustard
1-2 t anchovy paste (optional, but you're a weenie if you skip it)
1-4 cloves minced garlic
pinch salt

combine the above in a measuring cup, then add olive oil to make 3/4 cup. Whisk vigorously and stir over the warm lentils, couscous, sausage and tomatoes. Red onions would be nice in this and if I'd have had one in the house, surely I would have added some. Cover and let sit to combine flavors. This is good room temp or cold and probably would have been good warm as well. An herbal note or a spice blend would have been nice as well.

Steak and Potatoes

2006-02-25T21:05:00.000-06:00

Well, I made a panfried steak for the first time ever tonight. It was fabulous. I got the pan pretty hot, put in a little olive oil and dropped in the steak. The only thing I seasoned it with was fire salt. (Fire salt = season salt to a preschooler) When it had a nice crust on the bottom, I flipped it and finished it to just about medium rare. Then I made a little pan sauce where I deglazed with some water and wine-- practically biblical. I reduced it, took it off the heat, and finished with a little butter to make it rich and shiny. The wine was a Valpollicello and it is yummy. I had some of it with dinner.

On the side, we had baked sweet potatoes and broccoli with a little hard cheese grated on it. I don't care for the whole marshmallow and sugar preparation of sweet potatoes. I just clean them up and chuck them in the oven. When they're done I eat them like any other baked potato, except the skin on sweet potatoes isn't really any good for eating.

The boys soundly reject steak in all its forms and so they had kid cuisines. AKA-- frozen nuggets, corn and pudding in a plastic, partitioned tray.

Geekly Backlash

2006-02-24T08:37:00.000-06:00

Slashfood has this article about The Death of Food Network.

Well, slashfood doesn't call it the DEATH of Food Network, but I do. It's the dumbing down of a formerly good network. Stupid new president.

Iron Chef America-- sucks. No bad dubbing! No cheesy starlets! Not nearly disgusting enough.

Rachael Ray-- 30 minute meals are just ok. $40 a day is utterly unuseful.

Semi-Ho-Made -- Sandra Lee makes the most vile, disgusting stuff. Have you seen her Kwanzaa Cake? It's an inedible hate crime comprised of a store bought angelfood cake, canned frosting and no kidding, Korn Nuts. On her Valentine's show she advised sprinkling the sheets with Pixie Stix. That'll put the ants in romance. Her show is all tablescapes comprised of junk from the dollar store, excessively strong cocktails, and canned slop. Also? Sandra? Buy. A. Better. Bra.

Giada DeLaurentis -- Bobblehead. Weird ennunciation. I always imagine she spits out the food as soon as they go to commercial. I want to like her, but I just can't. Disgustibus, I guess.

Emeril-- Part Hobbit, Part Muppet. I like his show without an audience. In front of an audience he's an over the top ham. Pork fat does rule though.

The Secret Life of Dot Dot Dot -- Extended commercial, pinched and plastic host. He creeps me out. His face looks sort of melted, like bad plastic surgery.

Alton -- Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin. My soul. No, wait. I didn't write that.

The Guys Who Won Their Own Show -- is it just me or does the short one look like Gilbert Gottfried? It's not just me.

Paula Deen -- Yaaaaaaaawwwwwl, the Draaaaaaaaawl ain't as bad as the food. In 30 years, Britney Spears is gonna be her. You read it here first. Deen's got some hottie sons though.

Food TV totally bites it now.

Celebrating President's Day By Dropping Benjamins

2006-02-21T09:39:00.000-06:00

Which is funny, since Benjamin Franklin wasn't actually a president. Maybe not funny. Maybe just stupid. . .

So, I went a little crazy at Whole Foods yesterday. As in $160 of crazy. I cannot believe I spent $14 on gelato, but I did. I took home 2 pints. Mango and Vanilla. Have you ever noticed that mango, despite it's deliciousness has just a tiny hint of fishy flavor to it? It's still there in the sorbet, but it's also still delicious. The vanilla is made with the bean and it's not like crappy mass produced vanilla ice cream. This is rich, smooth, and almost perfumey. But not like fake vanilla hand lotion from freaking Bath and Body Works (how I loathe that crap). No, this is perfumey like Chanel. As I ate it, it was apparent that the flower that vanilla comes from is indeed in the orchid family-- a delicate, tropical bloom of beauty and fragrance. I tricked you into reading another gelato post! Neener, neener, suckers!

I got some of the Whole Foods brand coffee. Meh. I keep expecting to get some expensive coffee that is transcendental or something, but nope. So far, the stuff I get that is locally roasted by our fine friends at Pears is just as good.

I got the Blue Moon White Belgian style wheat. Yummy. Crisp, nice hint of bitterness, not too thick. Yes, I don't know the Official Beer Taster Lingo. Sue Me. Or Bite Me. Whatever.

I got a few bulk items so I could make some soups for lunch and risotto for dinner. Tonight we're having steak, mushroom risotto and maybe some spinach. I have a nice smoked ham hock for the split peas. And some sausage to go with french lentils and middle eastern style couscous (larger than usual couscous).

I got some very disappointing items from the prepared foods arena-- unseasoned boiled shrimp, shrimp gumbo too hot to eat, a sad, dry rotisserie chicken, unsalted red skin mashed potatoes, with some grit left on the skins. I wish that people making skin-in mashed potatoes were as freakishly anal in the kitchen as I am. The world would be a better place. Some kale and broccoli, which no one liked but me. Some spinach dip. Crispy, airy breadsticks, which Chas didn't like. Those 2 bite crack brownies. Man, those things are fiendishly good.

I also got the current Cook's Illustrated with the Holy Grail Chocolate Cake Recipe. More to come on that, you can be sure.

Ch-ch-ch-chocolate Cake

2006-02-11T13:06:00.000-06:00

I made a fabulous chocolate cake for Jason's birthday this week. The cake was Rose Levy Berenbaum's chocolate butter cake recipe from The Cake Bible. Blah blah y blah copyright laws blah blah y blah intellectual property rights. Buy it and a digital scale. Both are conveniently available at amazon.com.

While the layers cooled, I made homemade chocolate pudding to go between the layers. Yes, it can be made from scratch. Thusly:

2 cups 1% milk, it was all I had. Whole milk would be better. Put in a nonstick saucepan and brought up to scalding. Added 8 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened) chopped. I wisked it with a ball whisk (protects the surface of the pan)until the chocolate melted. Added 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup dark dutch cocoa, more whisking. Make a slurry with 1/3 cup cornstarch and 2/3 cup more milk and add to pan with a pinch of salt and 2 large egg yolks. Bring heat back up and whisk constantly until pudding thickens. I really let this get too stiff because I was afraid it would slop out of the cake. Removed from heat and finished with 2 tablespoons unsalted butter and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. If you have lumps you can push it through a mesh strainer with a spatula. If you want to cool it quickly, press cling wrap against the surface of the pudding and put it in the freezer for 15 minutes or so.

The cake was iced with cocoa whipped cream. I made cocoa whipped cream with just a pint of whipping cream, 1/3 cup of sugar, and 1/3 cup of valhrona cocoa powder. I chucked it in the Kitchen-Aid, used the balloon whisk, cranked it to medium and in 5 minutes, maybe less, I had gorgeous, fluffy, chocolatey goodness.

Gelato and Disappointment

2006-02-11T12:45:00.000-06:00

I went back to Whole Foods for more gelato, because I'm easy like that. I sampled the pink grapefruit sorbet. Very nice, astringent and sour. They also had both peanut butter gelato and grape sorbet. I'm thinking that would be like a refreshing cold PB&J. In the end, I had a small that was 1/2 raspberry cheesecake and 1/2 chocolate. The raspberry cheesecake was disappointing. Cheesecake flavored things just fall short of actual cheesecake. I think it goes back to the texture issue. There were big chunks of raspberries though, and I give that 2 thumbs up. The chocolate was dreamy-- bittersweet and creamy.

Also in the area of disappointments, I have not hit my 10% mark in Weight Watchers yet. I'm still about a pound and a quarter shy of it. My motivation is falling. Also, we had Jason's birthday so I've been on a cake bender. More about the cake in the next post. Which actually looks like the previous post.

Sorry to the anonymous deleted commenter, there will be no picture of my spicerack, IYKWIMAITYD. First of all, my coworkers read this. Secondly, my Mother In Law reads this. Thirdly, I'm wearing a very unsexy nursing bra. My rack is fabulous though. Not only has it fed two thriving babies who would have otherwise had to have superexpensive hypoallergenic formula, but also? Kickin'. I have a great pair, just use your imagination.

Three Gelatos

2006-01-23T18:10:00.000-06:00

After dining at TasTe, (review never published!) we decided that one dessert was not enough and headed to Whole Foods to sample from the Gelato Bar. You can get 2 flavors in the small cup.

The first flavor I tried was pomegranate sorbet. I figured that having no fat, it would be less point-intensive than a creamier gelato. Part of the pomegranate experience is the fantastic mess: picking out those little jewels and crunching them merrily. The fruit itself has an astringent quality in the mouth. The sorbet lacked that astringency. That eviscerated the pomegranateness out of the treat. It was cold and fruity and slick. No seeds! Incidentally, if you have a need to keep a young child occupied (a child outside of the choking hazard age range), give them half a pomegranate and a bowl. They are already equipped with nimble fingers.

I thought that Chocolate Chipotle would be a perfect marriage of my love of chocolate and my husband's love of spicy food. A chipotle is a smoked, dried jalapeno chile. I expected an element of smokiness with the heat of the peppers. Something akin to the flavor of a dark roasted coffee. The heat of this gelato is bright and fruity and is not quite as good a fit with the chocolate's creaminess, sweetness and bitterness. I suspected the peppers used were raw and a few bites in, I did find a tiny green remnant of raw pepper. How small was the remnant? I would say normal people would not find it offputting. With me it was more like a pea under the mattress and I was a Real Princess. (And yet tragically, I have no tiara!) All that being written, I wouldn't disregard this flavor. The heat is cumulative, letting your mouth build a nice little spice buzz by the bottom of the bowl. The chocolate holds its own against the growing threat.

To intermittantly cut the spice, I had switched off with the third flavor we tried-- Orange Fig. If you don't like figs, then read no further. The orange fig gelato is really good. There is a seedless fig puree running in stripes through. I do believe it is the richness of flavor that figs have which allows that seedlessness to work-- unlike the aforementioned pomegranate. The orange base is very creamy, and doesn't have the acidic quality of oranges. It's like an uptown Dreamsicle. I've had a hankering for it for going on a week now.

Secrets of My Success

2006-01-20T10:24:00.000-06:00

I was down .9 this week despite eating a pretty crazy number of cookies.

I have a few activity-based secrets that may help others but will definitely reveal a new layer of my dweebitude.

The first secret is Swiffercizing. Swiffercizing is great for those who hate cleaning wood floors. Preclear floor of legos and other things that you would not want to step on. Turn on music, movie or other tv. Put on socks. I like the really slippery fuzzy ones made of eyelash yarn. Close curtains or blinds. Fake Cross Country ski as if on invisible Nordic Trak. This is when I watch the crime shows that are not appropriate viewing for my kids. If you have either good balance or good health insurance, you can put Pledge on your socks for an extra shine to the floors.

The second secret is Digital Cable Dance Party. We got digital cable, and with it, a gajillion channels of music. Pick one, and boogie down with the kids. Carry a toddler and it's strength training too!

The third secret is my iPod. I listen to upbeat music all day and I constantly tap my feet now at work. I'm one of those fidgeters. That's bound to kill a cookie.

The fourth secret is baby steps. I try to do a couple of extra trips up and down the stairs each day. I park further away at work. (Or is it farther? I forget.) Sometimes when my brain is full at work, I do a lap around the building to clear my head. You don't have to do 30 minutes in a row.

Ay, Bambi!

2006-01-09T17:29:00.000-06:00

The barbecue is gooooooooood.

I feel so dirty

2006-01-09T05:01:00.000-06:00

I just used bottled barbeque sauce. A huge bottle of it. KC Masterpiece. I gotta find a good recipe.

I just took 2 small venison roasts (about 1 1/2 lbs and 2 lbs) and chucked them in the crockpot with a sliced onion, the sauce and a cup of water. I will shred the meat when I get home and cook a little longer.

I'm concerned this deer doesn't have enough connective tissue to get all melty and finger lickin' good in the crockpot. If that is the case, I will have a big stringy mess when I get home.

Plus, that is a WHOLE LOT of high fructose corn syrup- which I've come to think of as liquid cocaine. I'm not anti-sugar, but that stuff bugs me.

Venison Stroganoff

2006-01-08T20:35:00.000-06:00

I think I finally perfected my recipe for venison or beef stroganoff.

2 T butter
heat till melted, add
1 large onion, sliced
1 lb assorted mushrooms, sliced
salt liberally, cook till softened, not limp then add
2 lbs stew meat in bite sized pieces
salt liberally, add
2 cups red wine
1/4 cup grainy dijon mustard
simmer (low simmer) for 30 minutes, adding water if necessary. There should be some sauce, but it's not a stew or a soup. This is a good time to start boiling some salted water for the noodles you're going to serve with this. Turn down stroganoff to lowest heat and stir in
1 cup sour cream
Hopefully, this is where you add the noodles to the water, and the sour cream will heat through and melt into the stroganoff while the noodles cook. Do NOT boil your stroganoff or the liquid will break.

Enjoy!

Who rules?

2006-01-07T08:48:00.000-06:00

I DO!!!!!!

I'm now down 10 lbs! So, umm, 25 more to go. I hope to hit my goal weight by the time the baby turns two and I wean him.

Christmas Loot

2006-01-05T08:20:00.000-06:00

So, I did get a few culinary gifts. Huge surprise! I was surprised to get not one, but TWO copies of The Silver Spoon. It is essentially the equivalent of the Betty Crocker cookbook for Italians. Apparently, a common wedding gift. It may be the least 'chatty' cookbook ever. There is very little discussion of technique in it, so I am guessing that for those brides who don't know how to cook already, it's something of a flop. It has over 1000 recipes and plenty of them are just great. However, the book is arranged into main ingredient topics and more than one section starts by saying how hard that main ingredient is to get. That is pretty damned annoying. There is not much talk of things that substitute well for other things. Also, the translation is uneven and there are startling little grammatical errors that come from that. I can't explain that properly, but if you check it out and you've ever studied a Romance language, you'll see what I mean. For an experienced cook, it's a great resource. Otherwise, best to skip it in favor of Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking.

I also got a cookbook that is all Italian rice recipes. Pretty much a whole risotto book with some soups and rice puddings. It's cute, but I don't see myself making a lot of risottos until the baby can actually use a spoon properly.

Oh, and I got a ball whisk and some cute little bowls. The ball whisk is great for making sauces in nonstick pans. The cute little bowls are actually teeny-- like the bowls cooking show hosts use to hold the various spices they have set up in their mise en place.

Augie got a chef's hat and apron, so he's been using them when he helps me, but he really wants to use them to bake. I think he mostly wants more cookies in the house. I may have to humor him on that front. He really, really looks adorable in his red hat and apron.

New Years Day

2006-01-02T10:06:00.000-06:00

Yesterday being New Year's Day, I decided to make something traditional. So, we went south of the Mason Dixon line for black eyed peas, greens and cornbread. It's supposed to bring a prosperous new year. The peas signify coins and the greens 'folding' money. The cornbread is just a good flavor with it.

When I got home NYE with the prosecco (an Italian sparkling wine) I put the black eyed peas on to soak overnight. New Year's morning I woke up miraculously hangover free at 8:30. We had bacon and toast for breakfast because no one wanted eggs except me.

Around 10, I rinsed the beans. I made a small dice of a medium onion, 1/2 a red bell, 1/2 a yellow bell, and a whole green bell. At this point, it would have been nice to have some celery, but I'm an airhead and forgot it. I sauteed those veggies in the drippings of 4 slices of bacon. Then I added the beans, a whole bag of prewashed mixed southern style greens, a tablespoon or so of poultry seasoning and 8 cups of vegetable stock. I pretty much just let it go all day, but my burner was being goofy and I had trouble keeping a bare simmer going. I kept going back and forth between full boil and just steaming.

We ended up eating at around 6 and J and I quite liked it, as did Charlie. Augs just had milk and cornbread, the little pill. I just follow the cornbread recipe on the cornmeal container, using buttermilk instead of milk.

I had been unable to find a bone-in ham weighing less than 10 lbs, so I had plans that I'd use a boned ham. I ended up not using it out of sheer slack. I may make it later this week.

Later, I poached some sliced red pears with spices in the left over wine (I know, pathetic that 2 adults can't drink a whole bottle of wine on NYE) until it was reduced enough to be syrupy. Those are chilling until I get some vanilla ice cream.

Soup and Sandwich Supper

2005-12-30T20:19:00.000-06:00

I don't grill our cheese sandwiches, I toast them on a tray in the oven: 350 for 10 minutes. They don't brown as well, but it's easier. I use a lot less fat that way as well, but still, not a lowfat sandwich.

I made a bunch of tomato soup using a can of diced tomatoes, a can of crushed tomatoes, 2 cups of stock, 1 bunch of greens (turnip, though kale would have been nice as well), a knob of butter, 1 cup of cream and an onion, in quarters. I let it all simmer for about 4o minutes, then fished out the onion. If you leave the root on when you quarter it, the quarters stay intact for easy retrieval. It made about 10 cups of soup. It was pretty rich. Next time, I'll use no butter, and probably use whole milk instead of cream. I ended up freezing 5 1-cup servings, we ate 2 cups, and I have 3 more stashed in the fridgeforlater. (Fridgeforlater is what Augie calls it, and now Jason and I call it that too. Makes sense!)

Tomorrow I'm going to make a butternut squash soup and freeze some more 1-cup servings. It's handy to have soup for lunch along with some kind of lean protein and maybe a nice starchy side like bulghur or whole wheat pasta.

All in all, dinner was pretty points intensive, and I've still been hitting the gingersnaps pretty hard.

Still, I was down half a pound in the last 2 weeks. For now, I'm ok with slower progress. I figure most people are gaining this time of year and I'd have been happy to just maintain. God, I love Christmas cookies with an unholy passion. If there isn't a table groaning under the weight of cookies, it doesn't even feel like the holidays to me.

Festive Holiday Cocktail

2005-12-26T09:05:00.000-06:00

Last night, J and I devised a lovely cocktail. This makes 2 that should be served over ice:

4 oz orange juice
4 oz cranberry juice
1 can of club soda (or you could use ginger ale)
3 oz Grand Marnier

It's not very strong. Tangy and fizzy and not too sweet.

Putrification

2005-12-25T22:50:00.000-06:00

I do not quite understand why, but the oatmeal cookies putrified. In 36 hours! I will have to rework the recipe. So, don't make them. Thanks.

For the Christmas dinner with the inlaws, I brought pumpkin and apple pies and cheesy potatoes.

Cheesy Potatoes:

1 package frozen hashbrowns (I use the kind that look like little cubes of starchy goodness, not shreds)
1 pint of sour cream
1 can of any variety cream soup. I hate cream soup, but I use it in this. Cream of onion this time.
3 cups of cheddar cheese.

Combine all ingredients in a 9 X 13 pan and bake for about an hour at 350. The corners will be crunchy and divine.

Orange Cakelets

2005-12-24T15:43:00.000-06:00

2/3 cup shortening
3/4 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup orange juice
1 t orange extract
2 tablespoons orange rind (grated)
2 1/2 cups cake flour (sifted)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Orange Cream Glaze

1 cup powered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3T orange juice
2T tablespoon cream

Like all my cookies-- line the sheets with parchment. In a crazy, whacky deviation, preheat the oven to 400 instead of 350!

Cream the shortening and butter together. I used the new crisco that is free of trans fats. It didn't have an adverse effects on this cookie. While I let the kitchen aid go, I mixed the flour, orange rind, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. To the shortening/sugar mixture I added the egg, orange juice, and orange extract. Then I put the flour mixture in 1/3 at a time.

I dropped these using the 1 T scooper. The batter is very wet, almost like a muffin batter. Be sure to leave enough room between the cookies. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. When cool, frost with the glaze and allow to dry.

I made a double batch of these and got about 6 dozen. I took 3 dozen to the cookie exchange at work. I took all those cookies to a party, along with another dozen of these and I am proud to say my orange cakelets were eaten first!

Ginger Snaps

2005-12-24T15:28:00.000-06:00

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup molasses
2 eggs
4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 T baking soda
2 t baking powder
4 T ground ginger
1 1/2 t ground nutmeg
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon
1 1/2 t ground cloves
1 1/2 t allspice
1 t salt
1 t white pepper (yes, that's right)
turbinado or raw sugar for decorating, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment. I really prefer using parchment because I'm lazy. After the cookies are done, I toss the paper and wipe the cookie sheets with a papertowel to remove any crumbies. I got a great gift certificate to Amazon.com and I think I will buy myself some silpat liners for the cookie sheets.

Mix the flour, baking soda and powder, spices and salt in a separate bowl. I just started mixing the dries separately and I think it helps distribute things more evenly in the cookies.

Cream the butter and the sugar. Again this is a step where taking the time to really go to town will help with the structure of the cookie later. Add the molasses and mix. Add eggs one at a time. Add the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. I didn't scrape the sides and bottom well enough at this stage and ended up having the last few cookies be too buttery and wet. Those cookies spread like crazy. Chill the dough. I think chilling helps the cookies stay a little higher and not spread as much.

I scooped these with a 1 T scooper into a dish of turbinado sugar and then put them sugar side up on the cookie sheets, smooshing just slightly with my hands. This recipe made 6 dozen cookies. And we've eaten a dozen of them already. They are sure snappy. I think next time I might increase the white pepper to 1 1/2 teaspoons.

Sofa King Good Cookies

2005-12-24T10:10:00.000-06:00

I wrote a recipe for cran-apple oatmeal cookies and they RULE. So good. This makes 6 - 7 dozen cookies. I got 6 dozen plus 4 using a 2T scooper.

2 sticks softened butter
2 c brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup applesauce
2 apples, cored and grated
2T vanilla
2 cups dried cranberries
4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 t baking soda
1 T cinnamon
1 t cloves
1 t allspice
1 t salt

Preheat oven to 350 and line cookie sheets with parchment or silpats. Beat the softened butter, then cream in the sugar. I let this go in the KA for a while to incorporate some air. Add the eggs 1 at a time. Then the applesauce, apples, and vanilla. Combine and stir the dried ingredients (including cranberries) in a separate bowl. Add to the wets. Chill the dough. Scoop onto parchment lined cookie sheets, flatten lightly with your hand and bake for 14-16 minutes for cookies scooped with the 2 T scooper. Mine took exactly 16 minutes.

Buon Natale!

Festive Holiday Goodness

2005-12-19T12:07:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Augs and I made chocolate and 'vanilla chocolate' covered pretzels. I am not sure how it takes 3 lbs of chocolate to cover 1 lb of pretzels, but I approve. Augie approached the project with some trepidation. It turns out that he misheard and thought that almond bark was almond barf. We got that cleared up and then got out the bamboo skewers for dipping while I melted the white bark in the nuker. Since I started using the microwave for melting chocolate I haven't had a single sieze. The double boiler is just too risky. I think about 1/2 a pound of chocolate was splattered on us, the table and a few places that will become known at a later time.

I am going to make some orange drop cookies tonight and hopefully some peppermint bark. I have to work late though, so I might push back the bark until Wednesday-- the first day of my vacation. I am planning to make the bark and at least 3 kinds of cookies. I might get crazy and make more though.

Marinara and Meatballs, now with ooze

2005-12-12T14:12:00.000-06:00

So, last night I made meatballs using 1 lb of 93% lean, and about ½ cup each of finely minced onion, red bell pepper, and mushrooms. I also added a full teaspoon of season salt. Because there is not much fat in the 93% lean, you have to use an egg to hold it together. I was annoyed to find I was out of eggs. I decided to use a flax egg replacer. When you bake, you can replace the binding action of eggs with 1T of flax meal and 2T of water per egg. Umm, this does not work in meatballs. It will hold them together, but the umm, eggy sliminess remains after cooking. It was not like big balls of raw egg but there was an undercurrent of distinctly gelatinous moisture to them. Charlie still ate 3 of them. Jason didn’t mind, but did notice. Augie refused them outright. So, there you go. Flax meal does not work in meatballs.

Dark Days Ahead

2005-12-06T14:30:00.000-06:00

So, being rather sturdy of build, I joined Weight Watchers. So far, it's going ok. Except that I hate the meetings. And the recipes that other people suggest. And the constant hawking of more products. Let me address those points in reverse order.

I paid my damn enrollment fee, I am uninterested in buying anything else. Not special serving spoons that are measuring cups. Not wax covered snack bars. Not weird candy that is "a cross between a gummi bear and a lifesaver." How is that even possible? It it hard or not? I don't want to know. The very last thing I am interested in buying is a Weight Watchers Cookbook. Frankly, their frozen entrees are so very vile that I cannot imagine anything good coming out of their cookbooks.

I am also bitter because I did this whole points thing in 1998, when the points system was pretty new. A couple of things built in to the program at that time sabotaged me. The first was rounding. You are supposed to always round points up. I was losing 2-3 points a day that way. This time, I track points on an excel spreadsheet and I use the partial points to calculate my total. The second thing tripping me up was the now refined system for calculating activity points. In 1998 I had no kids and I worked at a company with an onsite gym. I was doing 45 minutes on the eliptical cross trainer about 5 days a week, sometimes 6. I was doing 30-40 minutes of weight training 3 times a week or more. In today's world that would be 4-6 points per day for activity points. I was undereating and my metabolism stalled out almost immediately. The moronic perky group leader was of absolutely no help at all. She continually acted like a 4 oz weight loss was grrrrrreat! I wanted to punch her. She should have been able to look at my journal and seen that I needed to eat more food, but instead she insisted I was not calculating my points right. I really feel that I have paid enough money to those bastards and I'm not buying any additional shtuff from them. I am not sure why I even joined this time when I know fully well that all the formulas are available on the internet if you simply search for the patent they have on their formula. Should you find yourself needing to lose 10 lbs or so, try google. I was talked into joining by one of my favorite co-workers and since the holidays are a prime time for things like emotional eating and drinking and umm, cookies, I decided to join up. Also, I considered it punishment I deserved for not getting to a reasonable weight on my own.

The recipes suggested are just bad. They are chock full of fake fats, artificial sweeteners, and low on flavorful ingredients. The recipes allow people to eat pretty close to the same quantities of fake foods. I think this is setting folks up to regain-- surely not so WW can get more money out of them. But those of us who are overweight didn't get this way through perfect portion sizes. I could be wrong but I don't think most people are going to live life under the oppressive yoke of fake food. Without adjusting portion sizes, they will go back to the same big bowls of real ice cream and balloon back up. I know that I need to learn to eat real food in realistic portions. They always say "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." Not the way you guys cook. Fat free, sugar free coolwhip is NOT FOOD. I don't even know what it is.

That brings me to Meetings. I am not a big fan of meetings of any kind. But these. . . eesh. It is apparent that WW is selling a line that life is going to be better on the thinner side of the fence. There's a big gaping hole in that-- emotional eating is usually a symptom of a problem other than weight. I call it The Consolation Cookie-- I can't have X so I will have this cookie instead. Or I can't express this ugly feeling so I will cram it back in with some pie. That stuff is dark and ugly and WW doesn't have anything to say about it. What they should be saying is that you will be physically healthier but you'll still be the same person you were before. If the fat person needs therapy so does the thin one. They are supporting the idea that fat people should put their lives on hold until they are thin with the whole "What are you going to do when you reach your goal weight?" You know what I'm going to do? Not a damn thing.

My life will not begin when I weight 125. It began at birth and the years are ticking away mercilessly enough without putting this fake obstacle in my path. So, wear your bathing suit now and if people don't like it, they can turn their heads.

Also, I'm down 5 lbs in 3 weeks, which is about what I lost in the 22 weeks I was on the program in 1998. So go me. I think eating real food, tracking points accurately, and working out more moderately is working better for me.

Mmmmmmmmmmm: Bambi!

2005-11-28T09:09:00.000-06:00

The Great White Hunter got a deer and I've been on a spree. He made a bunch of jerky and is making more this week.

The first thing I made was Venison Stroganoff-- about 1/2 lbs of venison, 8 oz sliced mushrooms, a sliced onion, a couple cloves of garlic, 1 cup low sodium beef stock, 1/2 cup red wine, 2T butter, 1 cup sour cream. In a large nonstick skillet melt the butter and cook the onions until they just start to turn golden, but not brown. Add the mushrooms and chopped garlic, when mushrooms are almost done add venison and stock. Simmer for 30 minutes, add sour cream and serve over noodles. I used whole wheat spirals.

I also made Venison Curry: 1/2 can full fat coconut milk, 2 cups beef stock, 2T good curry powder, 1T each minced garlic and ginger, 1 1/2 lbs venison, 5 cups vegetables of your choice. I used carrots, cauliflower, yam, and peas. Lima beans are really good in curry. I swear. I combined the curry, ginger, garlic and coconut milk then added the hard vegetables and stock and let it simmer for a while. When the veg was about half cooked I added the venison and let it simmer for a while. You can serve this over rice or as is.

Yesterday I made Venison Stew in the crockpot. 1 1/2 lbs venison, 2 cups carrots, 8 oz whole button mushrooms, 1 pkg fresh pearl onions, 2 lbs potatoes, 2 cups beef broth, 1 cup red wine, 1/2 cup peas, 3T cornstarch, 1T season salt, 1T Rosemary, 1T poultry seasoning, 1T marjoram. I boiled the pearl onions in 2 cups of water for 3 minutes to make them easier to peel. I put the water in the crockpot. I tossed the venison with the cornstarch and season salt to season and thicken the broth, this was not enough to thicken it visibly. I will have to work on that. I put the dried herbs in an empty paper teabag, tied with string and suspended in the pot. Rosemary is poky and not pleasant to eat. Then I put everything except the peas in the crockpot and set it on medium for 6 hours. It could have used a little more time to make the potatoes more tender, but the venison was almost melty it was so tender. I just added the peas for the last 20 minutes of cooking. We have a metric buttload of it left. I served it with pillsbury THWAP cornbread twists. I love the THWAP! sound those tubed carbs make when you open them.

Praise The Lard

2005-11-25T08:25:00.000-06:00

Ok, here is my pie crust recipe:

Makes 3 crusts:

3 cups of flour

1/2 t salt

8 T lard, cut into small pieces

8 T butter, cut into small pieces

Mix thoroughly by hand until mixture has the texture of fine gravel.

1 beaten egg

1/2 cup buttermilk

Combine with flour and fat until a ball forms, preferrably by hand so the dough does not get overworked. Divide into 3 balls and roll out crusts between 2 layers of plastic wrap or wax paper. CHILL the dough for at least 30 minutes before baking, either in the plastic/paper or in the pie plate.

I really think doing all the mixing by hand is the best method for keeping your dough from getting overworked and tough. I haven't ever made this with a food processor, because I think they're a bitch to clean. And I hate cleaning.

I doubled this recipe yesterday and made 4 pies for my family, plus a cran-cherry crisp.

There were 2 pumpkin pies made following the recipe on the can of libby's pumpkin, subbing allspice for ginger. There was no condensed milk in the house so I used cream. I am surprised to say that it was a little wetter with cream. Next time I will use the condensed milk.

I made an apple pie, but it really needed about 10 more minutes in the oven. I do the apples (Granny Smith)on a peeler corer slicer and toss them with 1/3 cup sugar, 1T cinnamon, 1/4 t each nutmeg, cloves, allspice.

I made a chocolate pecan pie which is the pecan pie recipe off the bottle of Dark Karo syrup plus two squares unsweetened melted baking chocolate and a jigger of whiskey.

The crisp topping recipe is:

1 cup oats

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 T Penzey's cake spice

1/2 t salt

1 stick butter

3/4 cup chopped nuts

I combine it all by hand until crumbly

I put half a bag of fresh cranberries and 2 lbs frozen cherries tossed with 3T cornstarch in an oval stoneware dish, top loosely with the crisp, and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. The frozen cherries were crap though. Very watery. Not much flavor to them. I should have done pear and cranberry. Oh well.

New To Me

2005-10-24T17:24:00.000-05:00

I tried a couple of new things this past weekend. The first was the Grilled Tuscan Chicken Sandwich at Sonic. If I may rip off Jon Stewart-- this sandwich is Tuscan in the same way that Madonna is Jewish. It is a plain chicken breast with ranch dressing(WTF?), nondescript white cheese, tomato and iceberg lettuce on a fakely artisan style bun. It is a very pale, soft bun dusted with flour before baking. Now let me tell you something about Florence, the heart of Tuscany--they make bread in their own way. It is a long fermented sourdough with no salt at all. The crumb should have large holes and it should be chewy inside with a crispy crust. Also, tangy. The sonic bun was soft, doughy and not even a little tangy. Also, has salt.

The other thing I tried was a surprise discovery at the dollar discount place on 90th and Maple. There are two of those places in that little plaza and I went to the one next to the fabric store, not the one next to Harbor Freight. I found mocha kit kats. SWEET MOTHER OF MOCHA. So very good. I am not normally a fan of either milk chocolate or wafer cookies. The edge of coffee truly transformed this humble snack. Also, it was a much creamier chocolate than I expected. Certainly as good as Hershey's only other bar I like: the Symphony bar. So, if you are out and about and snackish go for the coffee kit kat.

Not the lame-o Tuscan Chicken Sandwich.

Want to eat something disgusting?

2005-10-19T13:01:00.000-05:00

Try This! It’s a really vile soup that I bought at WalMart. Serves me right for trying to grab a quick lunch at the Empire of Evil. The tomato-basil soup has crunchy bits of undercooked jarred garlic and a whopping 1880 mg of sodium in a single bowl. I took a few bites and threw it away. Instead I’m having a cup of Fantastic Foods Country Lentil. Sodium content is a more reasonable, but by no means stellar, 440mg.

Want to make something disgusting? Then Go Semi-Ho Made! Seriously, Foodnetwork should be ashamed of themselves for passing this wretched, wretched woman off as any kind of cook. Her food is what Satan and his minions cook for the superbowl party in Hell.

Some people will eat anything to amuse the blogosphere

2005-10-10T12:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_steve_dont_eat_it.php

Mad Propz

2005-10-10T07:30:00.001-05:00

Looking at the blogs of note section on my blogger dashboard I found this:

http://operationeden.blogspot.com/

Operation Eden has a truly amazing collection of photos and accounts of the Katrina aftermath.

Mad Propz

2005-10-10T07:30:00.000-05:00

This Is Heaven To Me

2005-10-07T13:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, perhaps I exaggerate. or blaspheme. Whatever. They just opened a Whole Foods Market in Omaha and it’s the MF bomb. They have stuff there I’ve never heard of and it warms the cockles of my neophiliac heart. We’ve hit the prepared foods/takeout area a couple of times and been pretty happy with the results. (With the notable exception of these weird shrimp Jason got that were way to salty and tasted like perfume and spice. Eesh.) If you have not been yet, you should go. But for the love of all that is holy and pure, don’t go hungry.

Charlie's Not On The Lake, The Other One

2005-10-03T07:42:00.000-05:00

So, about a week ago, my husband and I went out on a date. Seafood sounded good, so we went to Charlies, not on the lake, the other one. We must have gotten lost because we ended up in FOGEYVILLE. It didn’t suck but it was underwhelmingly average.

I ordered the midpriced Pinot Grigio, which they were out of. They offered me the same priced White Zin instead. Apparently, our waiter must have been a teetotaler. Or perhaps he only drinks umbrella drinks. Also, he wore shorts. Cargo shorts. And he crouched by our table, “What’ll you folks have tonight?” Show some freaking decorum, dude. He didn’t bother us much—by which I mean that he didn’t keep my water refilled properly.

We had the peanut shrimp appetizer. The sauce was ok, nice hint of spicy but also a perplexing hint of fennel. Eesh.

Jason’s salad was underdressed, but mine was ok.

I had the mahi-mahi and Jason had the tuna. When you order the broiled fish at Charlie’s the best that can be said about it is that it is served piping hot. Mine was, mercifully, not overcooked, but Jason’s was a couple of minutes past the medium-rare that he ordered. Frankly, it didn’t taste any better than canned. And by the by, broiled is broiled with these folks. Not seasoned and broiled. My fish didn’t get even the barest sprinkling of salt. And certainly there is no sauce served on the side. A nice deconstructed pesto, or herbs blended with some flavorful oil, or a chutney or something would have gone a long, long way. Charlie’s apparently is economizing by serving the fish absolutely stripped on a plain white plate with a small wedge of lemon and a meager sprig of parsley. For which we paid $18. Each. I guess for that kind of price, I expect some gilding of the lily, rather than just rinsing the dirt off of it and slapping it on a plate.

My fish came with something called twice baked potato. By my definition, a twice baked potato is one that’s been baked, halved, scooped out and then had the scoopings mixed with yummy things. Then the scoopings plus yummy things are put back in the skin, topped with some cheese and baked. By Charlie’s definition they are potatoes mashed with skins (sadly not well washed first as I had a bit of grit) mixed with a lot of cheese, some chewy bacon pieces and then scooped into a sorbet dish and baked. There is no crispy skin contrasted with creamy, cheesy goodness. And chewy bacon? What is that about. It should be CRISPY.

Jason had a pilaf so overcooked the rice looked like orzo pasta with some bits of overcooked vegetables that had turned that uninspired shade of olive drab commonly found in school cafeterias. I didn’t punish myself by trying it. His overcooked tuna had been bad enough.

We skipped dessert.

Salmon and Couscous

2005-09-17T08:26:00.000-05:00

Preheat oven to 350. Spray small, shallow casserole with olive oil. Put in 1 cup of dried couscous, 1-2 cups mixed large-julienne veggies on top of that, 2 seasoned salmon fillets (6 oz each), pour in 1 can broth. Cover with foil and bake till salmon is done-- about 30 minutes in this case. That seemed like forever to me last night.

For the veggies, I did strips of multi colored bell peppers, baby carrots, and zucchini. Since I was feeling madcap and Friday-ish I sprinkled in some pine nuts and julienned sundried tomatoes. I tried to stud it with whole garlic cloves, but mine were too large and didn't get soft.

I served it with a little grated parm. And to drink, the grownups had some Beaujolais-Villages. Which I am probably spelling wrong. There is a Hy-Vee wine and liquor satellite store at 102nd and Maple. Right by my interstate exit. W00T. Also, the guys working there were quite helpful.

Modular Food

2005-09-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

I love little square bars of food. They feel space-age. They feel scientifically calibrated for optimal nutrition. Plus, I have some whacked out pancreas issues and sometimes find I NEED TO EAT NOW. So, I often try new little bars and keep one or two in my desk or bag. Here is my report on Modular Eating:

Nature Valley Classic Granola Bar-- yummy, but surprisingly low in fiber, protein and fat. It is a mostly carb bar that will rocket through your veins like a speedball. (Mom, that’s heroin and coke, mixed together.) It will take the edge off of a blood sugar crash only to be followed in a couple of hours by an even worse crash. The only thing worse is a rice krispie treat. And frankly, if you can’t find the time to make rice krispie treats, your life is woeful. There are just three ingredients in the homemade treats.

Zone Bars-- come in probably a dozen flavors. There are no variety packs though! C’mon Zone people—hook me up. I like the chocolate based flavors. No surprise there. The fruit flavored varieties taste like artificial fruit flavoring and plastic. I don’t recommend them at all. I ate these a lot when I was pregnant because they are two carb exchanges for those following a gestational diabetes eating plan with some fat and protein in the golden ratio espoused by Zone Fanatics.

Atkins Bars—taste like dust and wax. Loaded with sugar alcohols, which umm, make you as flatulent as an old dog after a beer and bean bender. Come in a variety of disgusting flavors all of which are worse than being fat.

SlimFast Bars—contain my archnemesis: NutraSweet. It’s a migraine trigger for me. If it is one for you, you should bypass the Slimfast Optima line of food-replacement products.

Kashi Chewy Granola Bars-- not bad, not great. Contain omega fatty acids and 4 g of fiber. A mere 5 g of protein though. If you are nursing and trying to increase your supply, the flax seed and oatmeal in these are going to help. I’ve been eating them this week and I am much more proficient at the pump. It’s kind of surprising to me that something that sounded like an old wives tale has turned out to be true. The bars are not very sweet and they are a little dry. Plus, flax seed is definitely an acquired taste.

Luna Bars—another high carb, low protein bar. These are tasty though. I sometimes have one and then eat protein with it in the form of nuts or string cheese.

Bad Food

2005-08-29T08:32:00.000-05:00

You know, up till now, I’ve held off on talking much about the Scary Food News. You know—the studies that come out to scare the crap out of you. Hydrogenated Fats! Mercury in Tuna! PCBs in Farm Raised Salmon! Farm Raised Salmon Sold as Wild! MAD COW! I do worry about that stuff and it does change my eating, cooking and shopping habits. But it’s like the house at the end of The Cat in the Hat: A great big mess. So that’s what I’m thinking about but I’m still composing some longer thoughts.

Friday Night Specials

2005-08-26T15:07:00.000-05:00

You know, on a Friday night, I just don’t care to cook. I want to eat takeout and drink a beer. I’m thinking of trying this little drive through on 90^th that used to be a Taco Bell and is now independent. Plus, Rolling Rock. Summer is almost over and I think it would be a good night for Rolling Rock.

You know what the world needs? Beer Slushies.

The Almost Healthy Lunch

2005-08-25T12:45:00.000-05:00

BK and Wendy’s now let you sub out the fries and soda in your value meal for salad and milk. I’ve been getting a burger, no cheese, salad and 1% milk. I only use about half the salad dressing, so there’s a savings of some empty calories. All in all, it’s a satisfying lunch and less than 5 bucks. Plus, it saves me a precious 15 minutes in the morning. I will try the same thing at McD’s as well.

Call Me Mamma Bear

2005-08-25T09:10:00.000-05:00

In my continuing Rice Cooker Adventures, it makes steel cut oatmeal. I put in 2/3 cup steel cut (aka pinhead) oats and 2 cups of water. Plus a small knob of butter and a tiny drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of salt. It made two medium bowls of very lightly sweetened oatmeal that was creamy and chewy. It was Just Right. I think tomorrow I will add a little flax meal for extra fiber. I like to visualize teeny little men in overalls with scrub brushes making my arteries shiny and new. Not like the hard, crusty ones that sadly run in my family.

Not Rah! CAKE! But, Blah Cake.

2005-08-23T09:48:00.000-05:00

The cake was not so great. It wasn’t horrible. In fact, Jason and my MIL loved it. I thought it was too dry and crumbly—which is my own dumb fault for not checking it sooner.

But it was also BLAND. I blame this on the recipe. Reluctantly, I must say that the Alton Brown yellow cake recipe is a snoozefest. He claimed that butter flavored shortening produced superior results to actual butter and he was flat out wrong. The Rose Levy Berenbaum recipe is better. It’s also fiddlier. I think I’m going to try Martha’s recipe.

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

2005-08-20T12:44:00.000-05:00

Charlie's cake is out of the oven and cooling. The frosting is made. I went about things kind of bassackwards.

The cake is Alton Brown's yellow cake recipe from www.foodtv.com. (By the way, FoodTV Webmaster-- YOUR SITE SUCKS. IT'S SLOW AND POORLY ORGANIZED.) I doubled it and made it in an 11 x 15 pan. **Note to self, write down that it takes 50-55 minutes to bake a cake in this at 325. You always forget, self, and it's annoying.

I was skeptical about making a cake purely with shortening so I made it with a combination of shortening and butter. I was 40 grams short of the amount of sugar, so I used some brown sugar. Also, I just didn't feel like sifting the dry ingredients. I did compensate for that lack of aeration by creaming the fat and sugar for an extra long time. They more than doubled in volume. The cake itself looks and smells great. I think it is ok without the sifting.

I made the faux-buttercream that comes of just chucking butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla in the kitchen aid. I have made true buttercream-- which has eggs in it. It tasted slick and plasticky to me.

I keep meaning to frost a cake with whipped cream, but then I forget to buy whipping cream. Eh.

Nice Simple Supper

2005-08-17T21:24:00.000-05:00

In keeping with Wednesday Tradition, we had a simple dinner of fish and vegetables. I made salmon in the oven. And steamed more vegetables in the microwave. Sadly, I dropped the baby carrots all over the floor. Bleargh. So we rounded out the meal with popsicles. I know! Actually Charlie doesn't like things that cold, so J cut up some strawberries for him.

Augs has never been much of a fruit eater so it's taking me by surprise that Charlie is. He likes bananas, all kinds of melon, berries, mandarin oranges, peeled (cut up) grapes, and canned pears.

I am not the SuperFantastic

2005-08-12T15:32:00.000-05:00

I continue my recent trend of kitchen slackage. I did figure out that the microwave baby bottle steamer can be used to steam vegetables in the nuker. So if you have an Avent steamer, give it a shot.

For the super fantastic shoes as well as the humor check out www.manoloshoeblog.com .

Almost Back In Action

2005-08-08T13:23:00.000-05:00

We are in the last throes of a summer cold and I think my next kitchen project is going to be Charlie’s Birthday cake. I’m sending cupcakes to daycare on Thursday and Thursday evening we’ll probably have cake at home en famille. Some parents would make a low sugar carrot cake with yogurt frosting, but I don’t happen to be a crazy, puritanical bitch. We’ll probably have yellow cake with artificially colored icing. For daycare, I’ll probably do a mix cake—kids just don’t give a crap about scratch cakes.

Hiatus

2005-08-04T09:07:00.000-05:00

So, Jason was in Wyoming for work for two weeks and I didn’t do any real cooking while he was gone. We had an assortment of frozen things that were all high in sodium and low on flavor. The kids were almost universally unimpressed. Except for the frozen meatballs which were a hit with Charlie and Augie both. And in the absence of Jason, I pretty much fell to pieces healthwise. Kept the house clean though! So, tonight I intend to get back into things with a trip to the grocery story. I’m thinking tonight we’ll have fish/fish sticks; veggies, and a simple pasta side dish like broken linguini with garlic, olive oil, and parmesan. Except no parm for Chas. Dairy makes him hurl.

I’m going to a cookout Friday after work. I believe I will make the banana chocolate chip cake in 9X13 form instead of as a bundt. That way, I can put it in a foil pan and not worry about leaving it in Elmwood park.

Did You Ever Know That You're My Hiro?

2005-07-18T21:43:00.000-05:00

You’re everything I wish I could eat.

Saturday night, after a great deal of drama, we deposited our children into the loving arms of their grandparents and we took our tired, cranky, starving selves out for sushi. We chose Hiro on 132nd and Maple. We have eaten sushi at about every place currently serving it in Omaha and Hiro is our favorite for a number of reasons. The first and foremost reason is that they serve excellent sushi. Secondly, the restaurant is quiet and cheerfully staffed. Thirdly, the wait time is not excessive. And fourth they are conveniently located between our house and my parents’.

When you walk in to Hiro, there is a calm tranquility about the place. The lighting is subdued, but not dim. You can read the menu and see your food. The host was able to seat us immediately, at the sushi bar. I like to watch experienced sushi chefs in action. Those are some amazing feats of manual dexterity. Also, when you sit a the sushi bar, you can ask the chef what he recommends and what is freshest. There is music at Hiro, but it is not loud. My husband and I were able to hold a conversation and do a little recreational eavesdropping without too much strain. I don’t expect tomblike silence, but I don’t want to have to yell as if I’m in a club.

Despite the calm and quiet, the service is not lackadaisical or slow. We ordered the Top Flight Sake Sampler, miso soup and edamame to start. They were served promptly by a nice woman who was very knowledgeable about the intricacies of sake. Far more so than I. She set them out from driest to sweetest. I preferred the driest and second from sweetest but they were all quite tasty. Jason felt the miso soup was excellent, earthy with just the right amount of tofu cubes, seaweed shreds and sliced scallions. I could not have agreed more. The edamame was probably the only part of our meal that was not outstanding. You see, the coarse salt was missing from the bottom pods in the bowl. Oh, the poignant pokers of disappointment! If you have never eaten edamame, they are steamed soybeans, served in the pods, liberally salted with coarse salt. They taste like a cross between a boiled peanut and a fresh green pea. You scrape them out of the pod with your teeth and discard the pod. Delicious with a cold beer.

The sushi menu at Hiro is helpfully color coded so you can see what is raw and what is cooked. Cooked items are in red. We always order off of the sushi menu rather than the full menu. We ordered toro and red snapper and 5 rolls—tuna, yellowtail, spicy tuna, California, and vegetable. Toro is a delicacy. There’s just no other word to describe it. It is highly fatty, has a very tender texture and a pale color. The flavor is unctuous, mild, and just a little salty. It’s like butter that swims. I could eat a scandalous amount of Toro, but at 10 for two pieces of fish on rice or 18 for 10 pieces of sashimi without rice a meal of toro would cost about as much as a week of daycare. The red snapper was mild and very fresh. The meat has quite a bit more texture to it than toro, but it is a coarser grain.

The tuna and spicy tuna were great. Again, very fresh. The spicy tuna was indeed spicy, with nice notes of sesame oil and mayo in it. Some places go overboard with the mayo or they practically puree the tuna and the texture is wrong. The yellowtail was a special—yellowtail and avocado. It was ok, but I think the creaminess of avocado requires a stronger fish than in this case. The California roll is a nice safe roll. It’s like the French fry of the sushi world. The surprise hit was the vegetable roll. There was a nice assortment of fine strips of vegetables that were well balance in flavor and texture—crunchy, soft, mild, sweet, pungent.

So our bill was $76 including tip. We don't often eat out just the two of us. Had we had less sake and no toro, it would have been considerably less. If you haven't tried Hiro, give it a go.

Man Cannot Live By Bread Alone

2005-07-10T21:12:00.000-05:00

Sick baby this weekend. So, since I was pinned to my rocking chair nursing for large chunks of the weekend with only small reprieves, I made the friendliest, easiest things to make: Bread and Butter.

I made the butter using a kitchen-aid mixer and the instructions at www.cookingforengineers.com. It was a cinch!

I made honey wheat bread with my own recipe, following instructions for method from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.

Aim Low, Sweet Chariot

2005-07-06T19:10:00.000-05:00

Today, I decided that it was Jason's turn to cook. I set him up for success. This is a technique I recommend across the board for new endeavors. If you are not a good cook, don't try to start with a souffle'. Jason made ravioli with meat sauce. I basically laid out the ingredients in the order he needed to prepare them. Ground beef and (pre-sliced) mushrooms browned together, canned tomatoes and sauce, frozen spinach (thawed and drained). The ravioli were the frozen kind. I told him to start the water, then combine the ingredients and season to taste. It took him about 20 minutes to throw it all together and then another 15 of simmering the sauce before he started the pasta. The small frozen ravioli only take 5 minutes to boil.

Later we may have graham crackers with chocolate frosting.

Think Outside the Box

2005-07-05T09:04:00.000-05:00

I made 2 cakes from scratch yesterday. The first was a chocolate chip-banana cake. It was a dense, moist cake. The chocolate and banana flavors were well balanced with neither stepping on the toes of the other. It was a homey kind of cake, a cake your grandma might make. It didn't rise very high and I think that is because it had baking soda only, no baking powder. This cake would be delightful with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it.

The second cake was a lemon-ginger cake with a little white pepper for heat. It was a fancy, high-stepping cake that rose to the tip top of the bundt pan. The tippy top, even. Just a little more loft would have resulted in a cycle of the self-cleaning of the oven. No mundane frosting for this cake-- the recipe called for a lemon juice and sugar glaze to be brushed on with a pastry brush after the cake is out of the bundt pan. Instead, I poked a bunch of holes in it with a metal skewer and slowly poured the glaze over the cake until it was all absorbed. I thought my method was faster. The problem with my method was that the outer crust of the cake, where it was in contact with the pan, would have been the best venue for the glaze. Next time! I hear that the heat concentrates a bit after the cake sits overnight, but I neglected to eat cake for breakfast this morning.

Toddler Mixed Grill

2005-06-30T13:37:00.000-05:00

I really want to paint one wall of my kitchen with chalkboard paint. This would allow me keep the boyz occupied with drawing while I cook. Also, I could write humorous specials.

Last night we had what I call Toddler Mixed Grill. In other words, I went through the freezer and retrieved the boxes containing things like 1 lone chicken patty or three fish sticks and the bags of frozen veggies with small amounts of veggies. I fired up the oven to the middle of the range required by all the breaded things and put them on a cookie sheet. Then I mixed veggies in a microwaveable bowl and called it succotash. Sufferin' succotash indeed. I let Augs put in the seasoning for the veggies. I also served fromage et nouilles de boite bleu. Yeah, that's right.

It was totally lame and Augie ate like a field hand.

What else should I be? All Apologies.

2005-06-27T14:11:00.000-05:00

Normally I do a lot of my writing in the evenings and over weekends, but there have been issues with teething, a traveling husband, and oh yeah, I had to make my house stop looking like Trainspotting .

Last week on Monday I more or less followed Rachael Ray's Sloppy Joe recipe. If you like the traditional type of recipe—you can follow this pretty much to the letter. If, like me, you find them too sweet, you can omit the brown sugar. I did that. Also, I used less tomato sauce and a full can of tomato paste—because I didn’t want to store a part of a can. I added a few mushrooms with the pepper and onions and I minced it pretty fine. This recipe would be easy to double for a freezer batch. As long as you have a gigantic skillet. It made enough for 8 good sized joes. You could also make this vegetarian style with your favorite meat substitute. I would probably do a combination of minced mushrooms and textureized vegetable protein, though minced eggplant would also be good.

I bought a lot of prewashed bagged veggies this past week. Some were great, some (Kroger’s prewashed and trimmed green beans) were sucky. I used them to make mixed steamed vegetables in the nuker with a deli chicken. I also made some stirfry with them, using Kroger brand frozen bay scallops. They were very fishy smelling. I won’t be buying those again. Finally, last night, I made a sort of Chicken A La King thing.

I picked about 3 cups of meat off the carcass of the chicken. I sweated a shallot and a couple cloves of garlic in butter and olive oil in my 14 inch skillet. Then I added baby carrots, red pepper strips, broccoli, and green beans, some Montreal Grill Seasoning, and a can of chicken stock. I slapped on the lid and made a white sauce with roux and whole milk while the veggies cooked. When the veggies were close, I added the chicken and white sauce to simmer some more. I served this on toast because I didn’t have buttermilk for biscuits. The baby went wild for it. He was screeching his head off we didn’t hand him little cooled off bites fast enough. Tonight I’ll make biscuits for the leftovers.

Just for fun, Augs and I made oatmeal cookies. Not with raisins. Blech. We used those promotional dark chocolate Star Wars M&Ms. One is too many and a thousand’s not enough.

I still believe, in spite of everything, that carbs are really good at heart.

2005-06-20T06:40:00.000-05:00

Miserable stupid boxed cake mixes. They freaking suck. They are very sweet and light, but have no character, no flavor. The last 2 times I’ve made boxed cakes, I’ve used Pillsbury and followed directions in the Cake Mix Doctor and I’ve had very short, dense, rubbery cakes. When I make cakes from scratch, I use Rose Levy Berenbaum’s The Cake Bible, weigh my ingredients on a digital scale and I get really delightful results. Not as quite as high as a box mix, but much more flavorful and with a more tender crumb. Her yellow butter cake recipe has a pale, creamy batter that tastes like melted vanilla ice cream. I wish I’d gotten out the ole Kitchen Aid and made one of those. I did make chocolate frosting using Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa. I followed the recipe on the container for frosting and it was good. Too good for that cake. Fortunately, it made more than I needed for a 9x13 pan. I think well have graham crackers and frosting at some point this week.

In other sweets related disappointments, I tried Breyer’s Extra Creamy Chocolate ice cream this weekend. It is not extra creamy. It is extra airy. It has a lot more air churned into it than their standard ice cream so it remains easier to scoop. Bit Fat Deal. Actually, what would be a big fat deal would be if anyone made proper ice cream, like Haggen Daaz made before they were purchased by the Evil Empire of Nestle. The first time I ever had HD it was rum raisin. It left a film of chilled butter fat on my palate. Damn, that was some good ice cream. Now, the first ingredient in most ice creams is skim milk. SKIM MILK! What the Hell? Cream is usually third on the list after sugar. Again I say WHAT THE HELL? It’s ice CREAM people. Get back to basics.

Had I known how fluffy the Breyer’s would be, I’d have used more when making milkshakes on Saturday night. I used 2 cups of milk, 2 cups of ice cream, some malt powder, and some chocolate syrup. Blended, poured off one for Augustus, and then added a nice healthy glug of Grand Marnier for the grownups. It was delicious but thin.

Eureka!

2005-06-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. You know what? YOU CAN COOK OTHER GRAINS IN THE RICE COOKER! I made a nice creamy polenta in it last night. My timing was a little off and it sat for a while too long while other things finished, so it set up. Anyway, if you want to make creamy polenta in the rice cooker you can put in 3 cups of water or low sodium chicken broth, a TB or 2 of butter, some salt, and 1 cup of coarse cornmeal grits. When the cooker kicks over to warm, you can serve immediately as soft grits OR you can put it in a saran wrapped loaf pan, let set, turn out, slice with unwaxed dental floss and then pan fry. I served the polenta with some leftover tomato butter sauce but I also like to serve it with mixed sauteed mushrooms and herbs. Traditionally, it's served with a sort of kidney mushroom gravy but I am not eating something that makes PEE. Ew.

We also had cauliflower and carrots roasted in the oven with olive oil and season salt. Yummy. Roasted and curried are really the only way I like cauliflower. Steamed it just tastes wet and bland. Yech.

And I made a marinated flank steak on the grill. I did the usual red wine vinegar, olive oil, mustard with salt, pepper and herbs and added a little Worchestershire sauce. I only marinated for an hour, because I was so hungry I wanted to eat my own feet. I think flank steak stands up to a longer marinade and becomes pretty darn flavorful, but I am dubious of claims that long marinades lead to significantly better tenderizing. I preheated both sides of the grill till it was superhot and did about 6 minutes per side. This was a bigass steak, so it was still pink in the middle. I sliced against the grain and I have to say, my knife skills are for crap. These were not the thin slices of stir fry or fajitas. Flank is good for both of those. I hear tell that you can pop your flank steak in the freezer for 20 minutes and it's easier to slice wafer thin. Eh, maybe I'll try that some other time.

I wanted to make milkshakes with chocolate ice cream, and for the grown-ups Grand Marnier. Sadly, we were out of ice cream.

Shrimp Curry

2005-06-14T21:06:00.000-05:00

Cleaning the fridge I found that there were two jars of Patak's Mild Curry in my fridge. One was half full. One was half empty. I decided that we'd have Shrimp Curry for one of the dinners this week.

As soon as I got home, I combined the remains of 1 jar with 1 lb of shrimp (raw, peeled, deveined), the juice of 1 lime, and about 1 cup of yogurt. You'll be happy to know that the homemade quart of loogie is almost gone! The shrimp was still semi-frozen, so in flagrant violation of government advice, I left it on the counter to thaw.

What're you rebelling against, Johnny? Whaddya got?

Jason did the dishes while I nursed Charlie. Then I got down to the business of curry. I put a cup of rice and two cups of water in the rice cooker.

I rough chopped an onion, two potatoes, and minced 4 large cloves of garlic. Put all of that in my 14 inch skillet with a TB of peanut oil and about 1 1/2 TB of minced ginger. For the sake of authenticity, I should have used ghee (clarified butter). While that got started, I turned half a head of cauliflower into florets and I added them along with half a pound of baby carrots and the other remains of curry paste. I stirred to coat everything with the curry, added a cup of water and a can of coconut milk and brought up the heat. When it came to a simmer, I clapped a lid on and let it go until the cauliflower was al dente. Then I added a good half cup each of frozen peas and frozen baby lima beans. DO NOT DISPARAGE THE LIMA! I love those little things.

When all the vegetables were tender, I added the shrimp. I used tongs because I didn't want to just chuck in all the curry/melted shrimp ice. The curry would have been to runny. When the shrimp just began to curl and the tails turned pink, I took it off the heat. I cannot abide overdone, rubbery shrimp. It's such a waste.

I served the curry over rice and it was so good. Augs didn't care for it, but that comes as no surprise to me. He ended up having some toast. As did Charlie.

Pasta, Broccoli, Sausage

2005-06-14T10:37:00.000-05:00

I fell asleep before I could record last night’s dinner. Before I had children, I really couldn’t appreciate how tired I could be and still function.

I had a batch of the tomato butter sauce in the fridge and some leftover broccoli. I decided to make pasta for the sauce and a beer cheese sauce for the broccoli. For protein, I thawed 2 lbs of Hot Italian Sausage in the nuker.

Then, I got out my pasta kettle. I don’t have one of those two part strainer kettles because I think they take up too much space. I have a large dutch oven type thing my parents got when they got married. It had been stuck away with the camping stuff until I went to college. I used to make spaghetti in the communal kitchen area of the dorm when I just could NOT take the dorm food any more. I am unnaturally attached to this pan. I filled it with water and put in a good amount of salt then set it to boil. The shape of the night was little stars.

I roasted the sausage in the oven. 375, on a cooling rack on a cookie sheet. I like to line the cookie sheet with foil because the drippings from the sausage are hard to clean up. The sausage is made by my dad, myself, and a whole bunch of other people once a year at the Bellevue Berry Farm. Usually, my dad measures the spices, and I have come to really like the Hot. They make Mild, Hot and Killer. This year, in an atypically boneheaded moment, my dad bifurcated his thumb with a table saw. SAFETY FIRST, PEOPLE. So he was unable to perform his duties due to not being healed enough to avoid grossing everyone out. Both of my devoted readers should thank me here for NOT linking in a picture. It is seriously disgusting. This year, the pinch-spicer got a little carried away. I roasted the sausage for about 35 minutes. It ended up being cooked perfectly, but it was so much spicier than I expected.

Here’s a bit of trivia I learned a while ago and will pass on—microwave reheating of peppers intensifies the spiciness.

So, while the sausage roasted I made a white sauce. I started by melting 2 – 3 Tb butter, then I added 3 large cloves of garlic to soften in that. I sprinkled in 3 Tb flour and whisked and whisked for 5 minutes. I like to let a roux get just a little blond in color so that I know I’ve cooked out that raw flour taste. If you rush this step, your white sauce will taste pasty. After that sort of blond color came to, I whisked in 6 oz of milk and 6 oz of beer. I whisked, whisked, whisked—about 5 more minutes. It came up to a pretty strong simmer so I lowered the heat and started grating in some parmesan. I think I grated in a good couple of ounces, maybe three. Then I ground in some pepper and adjusted the salt. This ended up being a nice beer cheese sauce that complimented Italian flavors. It was also more than I needed for the leftover broccoli so I chucked the rest in the fridge.

Sadly, my broccoli and my pasta was done, but the sausage still needed time. Augie ended up making pasta sandwiches. Ew. And licking the sauce off of the broccoli. He ate about half a sausage and drank a lot of juice to “make the burn go away!” It was the best he’s eaten dinner in a while. Charlie had some peas and carrots, some pasta, and got very angry at a pretzel for being totally unchewable

Adventures in Marinades

2005-06-13T00:16:00.000-05:00

Dinner was so good I kinda wanted to make-out with myself.

In the afternoon, I made a marinade of 1Tb grainy Dijon mustard, 1/3 cup each red wine vinegar and olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, about ½ Tb salt, some fresh cracked pepper, and 1 tsp dried rosemary—heated for 90 seconds in the nuker then I added a minced shallot and 3 minced cloves garlic. The heat helps the spices, shallots, and garlic open up. I let that sit for while to let the flavors marry.

At about 4:50, I skewered a pound of shrimp (49 of the little darlings) and coated them nicely. I let them sit in the marinade for about an hour, turning once. At 6, I put them in the oven at 300 for about 10 minutes, top rack.

While all this was going on, I put a pot of water on to boil for pasta—alphabet noodles! I served those with butter and parm. I also steamed some broccoli and braised some carrots and a yam with 2/3 cup chicken stock,1/3 cup orange juice, 2T minced ginger, and 2T butter.

Dutch Baby

2005-06-12T12:07:00.000-05:00

Breakfast today was a Dutch Baby-- sounds cute doesn't it? It's also called a Puffy Oven Pancake.

To make enough for Jason, Augie and myself:

Turn oven to 400 degrees, put a ceramic casserole (I use one that is 1inch high, 6x10) with 3-4 Tb of butter in it. Trust me, you want to preheat the pan with the oven.

Mix 3 eggs, 3/4 cup each of milk and flour, a pinch of salt. I like to add 2 TB of maple syrup as well. Or honey. Don't use pancake syrup-- it's disgusting. Sometimes, I slice a couple of apples or bananas and toss with some cinnamon, clove, and a generous amount of sugar. Don't add to the batter.

When the oven is hot, swirl the butter around to coat the casserole, put in the fruit, if any, then dump the batter on top. Bake this for 25 minutes.

It's delicious! And less work than individual pancakes. If you make the batter in the blender, it really adds a lot of air and gets pretty puffy.

For a variation, I made it with jiffy cornbread mix. It was not that great. Also, if I don't have much milk, I might use buttermilk or use part milk, part plain yogurt.

Book Review The Joy of Cooking

2005-06-08T08:49:00.000-05:00

So, I checked The Joy of Cooking out from the library on Saturday. If you don't like cooking and don't want to spend more time than necessary cooking you won't like this book. Many of the recipes are not compatible with weeknight cooking. However, it is an excellent resource. If you want to try cooking something new-- like my beets this weeked, you can get info on what to look for when buying them and a few diverse recipes and techniques that bring out their best.

According to the forward, JOC was originally written as upper middle class women were becoming less likely to have domestic help, the poor dears. Not for blue collar types, and certainly not for working women. The target audience would have been beginning cooks who didn't have mothers or grandmothers to learn from. And I suspect the target audience would be of the sort that is expected to do a swankier sort of entertaining than one is likely to find at my house. Fish forks are mentioned. I have no fish fork, alas. Currently our wine is served in the style of many of my Italian ancestors-- in those little jelly jars and the jars that pimento-cream cheese spread comes in. KLASSY!

I would prefer some photos and illustrations. Particularly regarding proper techniques. If your cooking skills are not proficient probably best to start with something more basic and work your way up to this. It is interesting reading, but I take it from discussions with others that I am something of a dork and a food snob to boot.