Two Dishes of My Own Creation

I haven't blogged often enough, and certainly not about food, so let me tell you about two recent food inventions of mine (and no, they are far better than the stuff on Trashy Eats).

SATURDAY BREAKFAST: Deli-Style Egg & Cheese "Tartine"

Took a halved segment of whole wheat baguette, toasted both halves in toaster oven. While doing this, sauteed red onion and fresh mushroom. Set aside. Fried egg over hard, melted one of the remaining fat-free American cheese slices on top. Made two strips of fake bacon.

Half an egg with cheese, bacon, and sauteed onions and mushrooms topped each toasted baguette half. Sauced lightly with ketchup. Ate open-faced.

Pretty tasty, if I say so myself.

MONDAY DINNER: Asian Something

The Sherbs was coming home late on Monday, which put me in the solo seat for food preparation, but we also had a standing order to get rid of our remaining tofu before it went bad and to use some of the garlic, because we bought a bag of bulbs at Costco, not realizing that they are packaged there in a quantity more for vampire prevention than for the timely supply of garlic to a couple who do not work in food service.

I realized that, having made a trip to a Fairfax County Asian grocery, that I also had preshredded nori, soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles), and a bag of lotus root. My course of action was clear-

• Mince garlic
• Put garlic in pan with mixture of Kikkoman low sodium teriyaki sauce and San-J Szechuan sauce; heat
• Start water for soba
• Cube tofu, cut lotus root into quarter-rounds
• Cook tofu and lotus root in sauce/garlic mixture, stirring until coated
• Cook soba
• Drain soba
• Put soba in bowl
• Put cooked tofu and lotus root, which have basically absorbed all the sauce, on top of soba
• Sprinkle on shredded nori and sesame seeds
• Get lazy about vegetable side dish and use one of those Bird's Eye Steamfresh pouches that I bought at the Teet because we had a coupon

The Sherbs and I both thought it was mighty tasty, but today I realize that, had I just done a little internet search, and stopped by the Teet for some kale, I could have used even more garlic, plus parmesan cheese. Now, I get the powdered stuff in the green Kraft bottle (also from Costco), but if Germany can call it "parmesan," so can I.

Food, Cookies, Dogs...Oh My!

OK, so I did promise The Pedant I'd blog, but my computer is very, very sick and TP's computer doesn't like me, but luckily I live in a fancy schmancy building with an internet cafe.

So, food wise, I will contribute information about the fantastic dinner TP and I had Sudnay night:

Raosted Garlic Bread
Cheese (Cheddar, Swiss, Gouda, Havarti)
Green Apple
Mustard

It was amazing, although today my stumach is telling me "no more lactose! Stop it!! I want a break!"

Also, part of the amazingness was that we dined in the middle of The Next Iron Chef Marathon, culminating in the win of my favorite, Michael Symon. Very happy. Also, I finally got to see the DeLaurentiis/Ray battle, further proving I love Rachel Ray.

In non-food news, I volunteered this weekend with BREW and got to play with the world's second sweetest beagle, Prince (last one on the page). He was a cutie. I also was dog sitting in DC which was fun for a dog lover like me.

Food news: Jello 60 Calorie Pudding Cups, Chocolate Mint Fudge (or something), fairly tastey, but not quite minty enough.

Tomorrow I begin a new job with a cafeteria. I'll see if they have cookies.

Eat Next

There will be many posts today, as the Sherbs and I had a heck of a weekend with many bloggable activities. But this post will be about the Chinese restaurant we went to yesterday.


We went to Eat First in DC's "China block" for lunch; we picked the name because we were hungry in advance of our journey to the National Geographic Museum and therefore agreed with the sign's audacious call to food. The dishes varied from "meh" to "pretty good"; we had:


1) Cold Sesame Noodles - sadly, these were "lukewarm udon in sesame-Jif sauce." This is pretty common at Chinese restaurants (moreso outside New York). The sauce was far too peanut-buttery, and while it's hard to hate Jif, it's not exactly what we call Asian.


2) Sauteed Lotus Root with Preserved Pork - An awesome dish; my favorite of the meal and a strong showing of food in general. While I like nearly every edible part of the lotus plant, my favorite is the crispy lotus root, which is also quite attractive when sliced, making plating easier.


In this dish, lotus root, straw mushrooms, carrot, celery, and sliced preserved pork, all stir-fried. Had a delicious smoky taste; would order again.


3) General Tso's Tofu - one of the best "General Tso's" sauces we've had in a while; this one actually had spice to it. The tofu wasn't too breaded, so it was less heavy (and hopefully heavier) than many other renditions of the dish.


It was a good meal, and so Eat First should be on your list of acceptable (although not ridiculously cheap) China Block restaurants.

Cheese, Soup, and the Dogs of War

Okay, okay, I lied about the dogs of war. Can we cry havoc anyway? I think it's like primal scream therapy. And for the record, the discussion of domestication is my favorite Lileks riff on a dog picture.

After reading Sherbs's recollection of the fondue at La Bonne Soupe in Manhattan (I don't remember if we ordered a double portion or just got a really big pot, but it was more cheesy than the "dangerously cheesy" that Cheetos are advertised as being), I have to add that I love soft cheese on baguette. Really, it could be any soft cheese - I prefer Camembert, if given the choice, but brie will totally work. Or blue cheese.

Also, I've been thinking of late about Sherbs's and my most recent attempt at soup. We did a Japanese-inspired thing with udon, a whole bunch of veggies we got at JAS mart (including lotus root, which needs to be chopped finely or thinly), and some pareve chicken broth, which was all right, but I think a vegetable broth would do better next time.

Honestly, for Udon Soup version 2.0, we should start with my father's favorite soup starter, a mirepoix (one of the things he picked up from our family's obsession with Iron Chef), add some veggie stock, and then put in a lot of mushrooms to get an earthy flavor. Then we put in the lotus root and the udon.