"Rainy days and Mondays always bring me down..."

The first day back to work after Daylight Savings Time always drags. I spent most of the morning wishing for 5 o’clock, then got busy enough that around 3, I was wishing that the clock on my phone was correct, and it was the clock on my computer that was incorrect (someone forgot to update the clock on the phones until after 4 this afternoon). I was pleased to discover when I got home that I still have a back yard, and that there is greenish grass underneath the melting snow and amid the mud.

I also discovered that Popchips are evil. Kendra was kind enough to get me a subscription to the Weight Watchers magazine for my birthday last year, and they occasionally have ads for Popchips. Living in Nowhere, SoDak, they don’t carry them anywhere around here, but I did find them in the Sioux Falls Target last evening when we were there. So I bought some. Big mistake. I held off on opening the bag until this evening, then proceeded to eat 95% of it. There’s still a handful of crumbs left, and the bambino had a couple little-man handfuls, but I pretty much cleaned out the bag on my own. I have a bag of salt & vinegar ones that are taking all my willpower to stay away from. I’ll probably stuff those in my craw tomorrow night while I watch The Biggest Loser.

In between shoveling in Popchips, I made a nice dinner. A take on grilled cheese & tomato soup, but a little fancier, if you will. Beefy Tomato Pasta Soup:

(This is before I tossed a large handful of croutons on top)

And grilled cheese panini (No recipe here–Just a couple slices of homemade bread and a slice of organic cheddar; slather both sides with butter, and grill on a panini press):

Thanks to the Popchips, I was only able to eat half of it, and left a bit of pasta in my soup bowl. Despite the bambino taking 2 microscopic bites from his sandwich and zero bites of his soup, it went over well-enough, as Jay ate my other sandwich half along with his whole, and cleaned out his soup bowl. For whatever reason, I felt I needed some hot cocoa after all was said and done, and I am now here at my computer regretting it. Good thing I’m already in flannel elastic-waist pants!

[Via http://tramplingrose.wordpress.com]

Sous vide - next try

I decided to continue my sous vide experiments. I still don’t have a vacuum sealer and I still don’t have a temperature controlled water bath. The setup was thus equally improvised as last time.

This time, I cooked duck legs instead of steaks. The idea behind this was that duck legs should be more forgiving about temperature. From my previous experiments, I knew that the lowest possible setting of my stove will bring the water to temperatures somewhere above 60 °C. Since this is too hot for a good steak, I had manually switched off the stove from time to time. This time, however, I decided to let it on. And I do now know that water temperature will then lie constantly between 63 and 64 °C. This should be alright for duck legs.

I cooked them for a total of three hours. The result was … well, it wasn’t really bad, but it wasn’t exactly good either. While the muscle parts were done, the connective tissue wasn’t. Obviously, those three hours weren’t enough to break down the collagen. So while the meat was indeed tender, the duck leg as a whole was too chewy. Next time, I will try out five or six hours.

In terms of flavor, the meat was really fine. I chose a classic French style: canard à l’orange. Originally, canard à l’orange is made from a whole duck which is filled with oranges and then cooked in the oven. My version of it was largely inspired by a recipe of Hervé This, published in his 1995 book “Révélations gastronomiques”. I really liked his idea of injecting herb-infused orange liqueur into the meat. However, This’s original recipe suggests microwaving instead of sous vide cooking (which was not common back in 1995). I also made some adjustments to the sauce.

Canard à l’orange – sous vide

Serves 2:

2 duck legs

50 ml orange liqueur (Cointreau or Grand Marnier)

2 thyme sprigs

1 bay leaf

salt

pepper

1 large orange

1 tsp. sugar

100 ml white wine

200 ml chicken stock

2 tblsp. oil

Chop thyme and bay leaf and mix with the liqueur, salt, and pepper. Macerate for 20 minutes, then strain. With a syringe, inject the liqueur into the duck legs. I tried not to puncture the muscle strands, but to distribute the liqueur throughout the connective tissue spaces, i.e. under the skin, along the large vessels and nerves, or even along the bones. Thoroughly massage the duck legs afterwards to distribute the liqueur more evenly. Put each duck leg into a plastic bag of its own, carefully squeeze out any air, and tie a knot to close the bag.

In a large pot, heat water to 60-65 °C. Place the plastic bags into the water. If necessary, use a wire rack to hold the bags under water. Cook for three or more hours.

To fillet the orange, generously cut off the peel, including the white pith. Then cut out the segments. Carefully capture all the juice and squeeze out the remaining membranes.

Melt the sugar in a small pot over moderate heat until golden. Add the white wine, boil down completely. Then add the chicken stock, again boil down to a thick sirup.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Take the duck legs out of the plastic bags and dab them dry with paper towels. Quickly sear them over high heat from all sides.

In the meantime, add the duck juices from the plastic bags as well as the orange juice to the caramel, bring to boil. Remove from the heat, add the orange fillets, and heat them. Season with salt and pepper.

Arrange orange sauce and duck legs on plates. I served the dish with saffron risotto.

[Via http://noaddedcolors.wordpress.com]

Food is the New Sex

Food is the new sex, at least for me.  I love to eat, and I do it all day long.  Sex is great, from what I remember, but I’ve gone so long without it I could almost care less…almost!  I love to experiment in the kitchen, I love shopping for food, I love reading cookbooks.  Anything related to food, I’m there.  Of course, it would be great to have a sexy man who appreciates my cooking, but that’s my life at the moment.  Not that I’m complaining, because while I am perfecting the art of cooking these days, my perfect man is out there somewhere, just waiting to be overcome by the aroma of some delicious creation of mine wafting out of the windows and into the street.  Just like Italian prostitutes used to do to attract their customers!

[Via http://foodisthenewsex.wordpress.com]

Two Great Loves: Pesto and Bocconcini

I recently did a week-long vegetarian stint so that’s the reason for the multiple vegetarian dishes. I much prefer being vegetarian in Australia than in Malaysia. The fresh produce here is just so beautiful.

I’ve developed a new habit of going to the market every Sunday morning. I sit down with a few recipe books or food magazines on Saturday night and plan my menu for the week and write down a shopping list. This is really important for me because it makes me focus on the things I know I will make. I get distracted by the sight and scent of gorgeous produce and sometimes I get carried away. I’d end up with a heavily stocked fridge and no clue how to use up all the produce before it goes bad. Since I’ve adopted this more logical exercise, my produce dwindles down to almost zero by Sunday so I fell all right about hitting the market. I love doing this too because I want to avoid buying anything from the supermarket. It’s expensive, the produce isn’t as fresh and it takes away from the experience of shopping for your food. Now I’m only in the supermarket for cleaning products and the occasional tin of tuna or dried pasta. I haven’t yet mustered up the courage to try making pasta from scratch. I want to, though I have no clue if I have the space to dry them…

My haul from the market one week

One of the things I always make when I go vegetarian is pesto. It’s great for a quick snack with toast or for an easy meal with some pasta. I first tried pesto when my brother made it from scratch many years ago and I fell madly in love with it. I’ve tried some bottled varieties in the supermarket but they never live up to their fancy description of ingredients so I just steer clear away now knowing that anything I buy will be inferior to the tried and tested recipe that I’ve perfected over the years.

Pesto pasta salad

The recipe I use is the same one I first tasted when my brother made it for me all those years ago, and if I’m not mistaken, he snitched it from a Gordon Ramsey cookbook, although exactly which I can’t ascertain. It is fantastic and I can’t insist enough that everyone try this at least once because it’ll put you off the bottled versions in the supermarket forever.

This recipe uses basil and pine nuts, and I know there are other versions with other herbs and nuts like parsley or spinach or cashews but I do enjoy the scent of basil a whole lot more than the other alternatives.

Classic Pesto

adapted from some cookbook of Gordon Ramsey’s

Ingredients

50 g pine nuts

70 g fresh basil leaves, plucked from the stems, washed and dried

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

50 g Parmesan cheese

125 ml extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

1. Fry the pine nuts in a pan (with no oil) until slightly brown. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

2. Place pine nuts in a blender with basil, garlic and Parmesan. Blitz to combine.

3. Scrape down the sides. With the machine running, add in the oil slowly. Scrape down occasionally. (I don’t have a machine that has an accessible open top that I can open while it’s running so I just dump the oil in batches)

4. Taste and check for seasoning, add salt and pepper according to your preference. I usually add only a teeny tiny bit of salt (the Parmesan salts it enough) but I do go heavy on the black pepper because that’s the way I like it.

5. Dump in bin and go to bed. This was what my brother e-mailed to me many years ago. I hadn’t noticed until I was making the pesto and pissed myself laughing for ages after. He’s a prankster, that one!

To make the really simple, really easy Pesto Pasta Salad in the photographs, I’m not even going to bother giving you a recipe. All you need is some pesto, a handful of cherry tomatoes, a few balls of bocconcini cheese, and some fresh mushrooms. Boil some pasta, saute the mushrooms with a little salt and pepper. Dump the cooked pasta in a bowl, add a tablespoon of pesto per individual serving, mix it up so it coats all the pasta. Add in the mushrooms and tomatoes and shredded bocconcini. Season with a little salt and pepper if you feel like it (I personally didn’t find a need for it). DIG IN!

I feel the need to express my undying love for bocconcini for a moment. I have a massive savoury fang, even though I love making desserts (this shocks people a lot). I’m not the kind of person who would choose dessert over a main course. That’s just crazy talk! One of my biggest savoury delights is cheese and while I enjoy cheese, I can’t handle eating camembert and brie or even blue cheese too often. I can take them in small doses but I have to be very light handed with them or they gross me out and put me off a dish. However when it comes to my two greatest cheese loves: fresh mozzarella and bocconcini, I would sing a different tune. I especially love buffalo mozzarella (which I’m told is the larger version of bocconcini) although I am convinced buffalo mozzarella has a stronger taste. Or maybe I’m hallucinating.

Bocconcini has the loveliest, fluffiest texture; it’s the right amount of chewiness and the taste! Oh the taste! It’s really mild and it absorbs the flavour of whatever it is served with but I have been known to munch on a plain bocconcini ball.I could eat bocconcini daily and wouldn’t utter a single word of complaint. There’s no such thing as too much bocconcini in my book.

My favourite vegetarian meal

They look almost like fetta in these pictures and they probably don’t look very pretty but they’re a very subtle, joyous party in my mouth.

[Via http://heysugar.wordpress.com]

Cured with Curry

It’s Friday! As if you all didn’t know and weren’t already celebrating that fact I hope everyone’s week was an easy one and you’re able to look forward to the weekend and don’t have to work tomorrow, like I do.

The last time I visited Hannaford’s exotic fruits section, I decided on what I thought was a cactus pear. I have this thing where I like to try at least one new food a shopping trip. This includes a main course kinda deal, as well as a new fruit and/or veggie. I get a kick out of new fruits. This wasn’t, however, a cactus pear. This was an apple pear. I discovered this after the fact, and the ironic part of this not-completely-necessary story is that when I tried it first, I thought “Hm. Tastes like an expensive apple.“

Pretty sure most “exotic fruits” are really just grocery stores’ and farmers’ way to get consumers to spend more moolah on something that is supposedly drastically different. Meh well. I do still want to try a prickly cactus pear. At least now I know what they look like and I won’t be taken for a fool.

Regardless: I decided to saute my almost neglected apple pear in some almondmilk with some raisins, and addded half of it to the oatmeal base, as well. I really like pears, and I also really like apples. You know what else I like? Cinnamon Raisin Swirl, dates, and crystallized ginger. I like a lot of other things, too – but not everything I like goes this well in oatmeal.

After this bowl, I about finished yet another half gallon of almondmilk. This led me to compose an open-letter to Silk.

To whom it may concern at Silk Pure Almond:

To cut down on so many un-neccessary frantic grocery store runs in order to feed my Silk Pure Almond almondmilk addiction, I feel you could take one to three of three possible actions:

1. Hire me. I promise I’ll only drink approximately half of the profit.

2. At least give me an ad campaign already – I need money to fuel this addiction somehow.

3. Start producing ten-gallon pails. I don’t have room in my fridge for twenty half-gallons, but I could clear out some space for a ten gallon pail no problem.

Sincerely,

Just Another Health Junkie

P.S. Thought I would ask – when is your coconut almondmilk coming out? I feel this would greatly add to your already highly-qualified lineup.

P.P.S. Feel free to chose to take all three of the above actions.

Rumi’s, the best plum ever, and Irish Creme. I thought I was being clever and making my own “jam.” That didn’t last long. I ate it separately.

Pretty sure today marked the beginning of mud season. Que? Yes – Vermont has five seasons. Maybe more like six if you count the minor detail that we really have two mud seasons. Oh, praise the months where we clean our cars, only for it to be brown in a matter of hours. Where we can’t walk from our porch to our desired destination without muddying up our entire wardrobe and/or wearing big ol’ clunky muck boots. When you can step outside and rather than smell beautiful spring air – you come to the realization that the smell of mud is the smell of beautiful spring air. When you can’t make it down a dirt road without needing an alignment and a winch-out.

Enter: Why I drive a Jeep. Gas-hogging, environmentally unfriendly, but lovely.

Enough about that.

I finally jumped on the PopChip train.

Would anyone mind telling me what I was waiting for when I passed on the PopChip craze? Actually – I think it had mostly to do with the fact that I couldn’t find them anywhere. I would always look, and always fail. I finally saw that Hannaford started carrying them last I was in there, and gladly picked up the BBQ flavah. Oh. Muh. Gaw. They are perfect. I have been hunting for the perfect chip replacement, and thought I’d found them with Kettle chips. Granted – I am not a huge chip fan, but sometimes they just really hit the spot, ya dig? Kettle is still fine by me – but I love how popchips are sort of like a cross between rice cakes and chips, and have ridiculously amazing flavor. I like that they’re not so potato-chip-y the most. Definitely my kinda snack! Have you tried them? What’s your favorite flavor? I can’t wait to try the others!

Lunch was a hummus & fried egg & veggie wrap. I’d noticed I’ve been being lazy packing lunches, and almost was again today by grabbing a yogurt again. I decided I should really use up some veggies, and reminded myself that I don’t find yogurt nearly as satisfying for lunch as a delicious wrap, anyways. So I panini’d up one after eating breakfast.

This tasted great. However, I am fairly sure the hummus was on its’ way out – my stomach was not quite right for the rest of the day! Yuck. I know, I know – hummus should be chucked if not used within a week. I hardly ever have it last that long, but for some reason haven’t been eating it as much lately – probably due to my drastic wrap consumption reduction.

This hummus was probably nearing its third week. Hey – the date said April 9 2010 so I didn’t want to chuck it. I find wasting food incredibly difficult. I should have chucked it.

However, I take a different “upset-stomach” remedy than most. I remedy myself with food.

Especially Z Bars. Especially S’mores Z Bars. Because my stomach may have been angry, but my taste buds didn’t need to suffer. I have a difficult time differentiating between “eating more will make you feel better,” and “eating more will make you feel worse.” Luckily, usually eating more makes me feel better. Strangely.

Sure, a S’mores Z Bar was an odd choice, but my dinner choice was even more upset-stomach unfriendly.

Am I the only person in the word who decides that a  honey-curry tempeh & sweet potato dinner is a good idea for an upset stomach? Maybe. Strangely enough, I started feeling better shortly afterwards. Guess it just goes to show, the cure lies in the curry! Or the sweet potato. I always knew sweet potatoes deserved my complete love and affection.

I know, I know – it seems like you just saw this dish. March 5, to be exact.  I can’t help it! I love this honey-curry sweet potato idea, and had to try it with the tempeh! I also made it with kale again, which – even though I said it was what I didn’t like about it last time – really worked this time, haha. I don’t know, I just wasn’t feeling it with the chickpeas and apple I used last Friday.

Pretty sure tempeh may become a new addiction. It’s so fun to play with – I’m pretty sure you can do anything to it and it will still taste good.And I’ve come to love the texture. Isn’t it strange how the things we initially dislike about something new – become what makes us really love it?  Maybe not true for all things – but something I’ve observed a couple times with myself, at least. What’s one example of this in your case?

I’ve still got bunches and bunches of photos to go through, and am working tomorrow, so won’t have a bunch of time to play with them this weekend – So i’m off to try to get as  much as I can done tonight! I hope everyone has a fun weekend planned, and has a great night!

[Via http://healthyexposures.wordpress.com]

Baking and Bechamel Discoveries

Yesterday I made bechamel sauce for my pasta and peas lunch: truly you can make the sauce while the water boils on your lunch hour. My secret processed food allowance for years has included a few boxes of Annie’s mac and cheese for emergency comfort food. Obvious now that there was some gap in my thinking (damn you Don Draper) how could a powdered mystery substance really be easier than butter and milk and flour. Now Kraft seems as quaint and inexplicable as Bisquick, having lost all emotional control over me.

And then these wonderful molasses cookies that were baked between when I got home and when I went to the neighbors’ for dinner. Delicious modern ingredients that make these better than the old school cookies are 1 tsp. lemon zest and 1/2 cup wheat germ. Recipe comes from Moosewood Classics. I would mail you some, but I ate them all.

[Via http://emilynichols.net]

risotto, yum

I’ve never cooked risotto before, so I gave it a go yesterday. Channeling a recipe from taste.com.au I made a tomato and sausage risotto.

The recipe was simple to make and also tasted delicious. It would be a fantastic base recipe to expand on later on. I did give myself a nasty burn lifting the lid of the pot after I took it out from the oven, so make you sure you remember the lid gets hot too! Especially when it’s in a 200 degree hot oven.

And now just to add a hint of cuteness:

Bailey! Seeming quite unimpressed at me taking a photo of him. I shall soon post of the success of my sushi making last night – having just finished some for lunch, all I can say is yum!

[Via http://adventuresoftheordinary.wordpress.com]