Foods I Made Recently

1) Beef stew. I took beef from Shopper's Food Warehouse, kosher chicken stock from the Teet, turnips, onions, carrots, parsnip, garlic, bay leaf, paprika, and dill, and cooked it for various times in a pot. I got impatient before putting it in containers for lunches, so it's a little more liquid than one might expect for "stew," but it's very tasty.

2) Mushroom and egg thing. I heated up oil with taco seasoning in it, then sauteed mushrooms in the taco seasoned oil. Then I poured the remainder of some Egg Beaters Southwestern into the pan, and finished it off with a sprinkle of cheese. Tasty.

3) Super-deluxe Fiber One® muffins. As you know, I am loath to just use Fiber One® apple and cinnamon muffin mix without adding more apples and cinnamon. This time, however, I also added golden raisins and black walnuts. It was fabulous. Black walnuts change the whole character of the muffin from "OK but box-tasting" to "hey, this is pretty complex and interesting!"

More Lunch News

I too have an exciting lunch today - in fact, I had it for dinner Tuesday so I know it'll be good. It's a sandwich with hard boiled eggs (which I relearned are very tasty on sandwiches while in Scandinavia), roasted garlic hummus, Bittman's caramelized onion chutney and lettuce. And I'm quite excited. The chutney is much spicier this time than I've had it before, mostly because the hot peppers were very hot. But it's quite tasty. And the bread gets all soft and saturated with hummus which is fun.

Cheese Overload!

We have made and eaten some pretty awesome foods this week.

Last night I made tomato cobbler from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian; like any cobbler, it's chopped up fruity stuff with a batter topping. Unlike fruit cobblers, the tomato is mixed with salt, pepper, and cornstarch, then covered with a flour and cornmeal batter. It was pretty good, but not as good as I'd hoped; probably because I didn't add enough cornstarch and so the tomatoes didn't sufficiently gel.

I hate cornstarch. Every time I open the box up, the silken powder gets everywhere. It sticks to my hands, won't measure easily, and doesn't wipe up or wash off without work. So I try to avoid it as much as possible.

This morning I made scones again, and again with chocolate chips. The recipe from Quaker Oats is wrong about adding raisins (or chocolate chips) halfway through the process; if you do that, the raisins or chips will end up mostly on the edge of the scones, and will become burnt into bitter carbon. The rest of the scones turned out fine, though.

Dinner tonight was fondue, from our Barnes & Noble fondue cookbook. It was easy - chop an onion, sauté in a hunk o' butter, add flour and sour cream, then stir in gruyere and cheddar until gooey deliciousness achieved. It was so awesomely cheesy tasty, and none of us should have eaten as much as we did, even using broccoli and cauliflower florets as a nod to balanced nutrition.

Also a frequent dunk into the cheese goodness was Cook's Illustrated's "Almost No-Knead Bread" recipe, which is sadly no longer online for free. It's a variant of Bittman's loaf, with a little tweaking for a higher rise and tangier inside. And it worked, despite all my attempts to ruin it with inaccuracy (I'm not sure I added enough flour), shortcut-taking (we didn't let it cool for two hours because we were too hungry), and my complete inability to knead. The crust is crunchy, the inside soft and tangy, and it tastes like something you get at a restaurant. Next time, we're making it with whole wheat flour.

Meat Without Flame

Chicken kabobs last night on the George Foreman outdoor grill. We used some Soy Vay wasabi teriyaki for marinade. Other ingredients included pineapple, onion, mushroom, and green bell pepper.

I'm still getting the hang of grilling on the Foreman outdoor grill; it doesn't have the same sensation as over a flame, and requires the cover for most of the cooking, so I feel like I have to guess how long it needs to be on before a turn. Regardless, it was tasty.

Chicken Salad Success!

I had a bunch of roast chicken that my mom gave me after dinner Friday. I had a bunch of kosher-for-Passover mayo that wasn't getting any more shelf stable in the back of my fridge.

So I made chicken salad. I also added one whole onion and a whole mess o' pepper.

The salad came out great, so I distributed it onto a number of Pepperidge Farm® Deli Flats for future lunch consumption. Deli Flats are not only pareve, as mentioned before, but are quite good as not-a-lot-of-bread which still tastes like bread. I got the 7 Grain, because they're more fiber and less fat than the Whole Wheat. Go figure.

Salad Unholy Mess

Tonight's dinner was from our monastery salad cookbook, and it was called a "salad picardie," evidently because it's from the Picardy region of France (and wholly unrelated to any spaceship captains played by Patrick Stewart).

It was also a recipe to spray stuff all over the kitchen.

First, the main ingredients were tough to toss. Shredded cabbage, thinly sliced red onion, cauliflower florets, and cubed cucumber really want to throw themselves out of the bowl as if they were lifeboat-less passengers on the Titanic rather than combine into a useful salad base.

Second, I can't peel hard boiled eggs. Fortunately, they're supposed to be chopped, so crumbly egg was not a problem.

Third, the roquefort, which is supposed to crumble, didn't. At room temperature, it assumes the same consistency as Play-Doh®. Have you ever crumbled Play-Doh®? I haven't been able to. I tried "flaking" the cheese from the measuring cup with a fork, which transferred uneven clumps of soft moldy cheese to the fork. And then I shook the fork vigorously, throwing cheese clumps across the kitchen and anywhere but in the bowl.

Fourth, after adding the chopped nuts and the dressing (that was easy), I had to toss again. The salad still wished to flee.

Fortunately, enough salad stayed in the bowl for the Sherbs and I to have dinner. It was quite a tasty salad, if a complete production.

Great Eggs

Last Saturday, I made one of my better impromptu recipes. I wanted an egg, but I wanted more than one egg could provide while still keeping the cholesterol and fat down.

So, I combined the following in a bowl:

• 1 egg
• maybe a quarter cup of dehydrated onions
• 1 Breakstone's "snack pack" of 2% cottage cheese
• a healthy squirt Golding Farms Three Pepper Mustard

then I cooked it in a pan until I was sure that the egg was safe to eat.

It was amazingly good on toast. I added a little Texas Pete's, but it wasn't really necessary.

More Food Successes

First, I had a fascinating experiment with a Ziploc Zip n' Steam™ bag, one of the things the Sherbs and I have to turn frozen vegetables into edible food when we are lazy. The bag says "add frozen vegetables and seasoning," but we'd never actually added any seasoning.

So this time, I threw in with some butter peas some garlic powder, pareve "chicken" consomme, and some Teet brand dijon mustard. After six minutes, it was significantly improved, although I think it was mostly the dijon mustard.

Second, last night we made onion soup, and a lot of it. We sauteed approximately four pounds of yellow onions in a Le Creuset dutch oven, then added "beef" stock, dry sherry, and let it simmer for a while. We didn't add as much fake beef as usual, and I think that made the onion taste more heightened.

My Couscous Goddess

The Sherbs makes a mean couscous.

To get rid of some of the way too many preserved lemons we made in our frenzy for a dish with preserved lemons, last night The Sherbs made a really tasty couscous with the lemons, olives, and some onion from Mark Bittman's vegetarian cookbook. I am eating it for lunch right now and it is just as good.

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.

Faux Burger Time!

Last night was a party for "the awards show," whose name I do not mention because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has registered it, just as the National Football League compels me to refer to their football championship as "the Big Game" unless I have their express permission (at least they've backed off on preventing churches from showing the Big Game).

The Sherbs and I had a party for the show. We made many foods tenuously (but amusingly) themed on various nominated movies. I was responsible for vegetarian mini-cheeseburgers, which were related to this year's winner for Best Original Screenplay.

The mini-burgers were facilitated by shopping trips to both Costco and the Teet. The ingredients:

• Martin's Famous Potato Dinner Rolls
• Dehydrated chopped onion
• Original flavor Boca Burgers
• Kraft fat free American cheese slices

First, I sliced the Boca burgers in fourths after a little defrosting. I won't defrost them next time; they get gooey and almost as bad as raw meat (which is no good because ground chuck is so much tastier). I then cooked the burger fourths, melting the cheese on top, and reserved them for later.

In a small bowl, I placed the dehydrated onions in water and let it sit for a while as I was cooking the burgers. I also halved the rolls and lightly toasted them in the toaster oven.

Once all the cheese patties were done, I laid the toasted burger bottoms a large Pyrex cooking plate. I then put on a small amount of the rehydrated onion, topped it with the cheese patty, and finished it with a bun top. I put the Pyrex into the oven at 250 degrees for ten minutes, then left it on "Warm" until the party.

The verdict: more White Castle-y than I was hoping for - actually pretty tasty. Might add a pickle slice or finish with ketchup next time; the burger can take the extra flavor.

Times, Responses, and Other Excuses to Change the Subject

To play off the Sherbs's previous post: yes, Ikea in Woodbridge, VA has at its restaurant a meal special which pairs fifteen Swedish meatballs in cream sauce with a healthy portion of macaroni and cheese for $5.49. There is also the small dollop of lingonberry sauce (I originally thought it was cranberry, but no - it has to be Swedish, and it has to look like salmon roe) that suffices as the concession to the existence of vegetables in the meal. The Swedish meatballs are in a gravy that Ikea calls "cream sauce." It is delicious. It is food that will kill you.

Today we went to Mai Thai in DC, as the Sherbs had to work late and I believe that eating at Mai Thai gives me a trifecta on credit card points and various other loyalty reward programs. We each had our own soups, which were tasty, but it seems that everything but the tom ka soup uses the tom yam soup base with extra stuff in it. If you love spicy lemongrass soup, you'll love these.

A parenthetical before I continue with the main dishes - the Sherbs and I had a conversation just now about the fact that it was nigh-impossible to find the Thai soups I am blogging about using the Food Network recipe extension for Firefox. Looking on Food Network's programming, there's basically no non-white ethnic food on the channel. Ever. And excessively Caucasian food hosts like Paula "smear it with lard" Deen and Sandra "You Can Make Angel Food Cake Hawaiian by Adding Runts Candy" Lee get tons of airtime. Make no bones about it, I watch a lot of Food Network - but are they racist?

Getting back to our Thai dinner, the Sherbs and I shared a salad and an entree. The salad was made of shredded mango and chopped red onion in a dressing that tasted like lime juice, cane juice, and cilantro. Little bits of toasted coconut were added for texture. Once we get the mandoline blade sharp enough, we are going to try to make it ourselves.

The entree was drunken noodles with tofu. I don't know how authentic the spicy candied version of drunken noodles is, but it's tasty - how could pan frying chow fun noodles not be? We ate every last molecule of it.

Book Recommendations, Etc.

I have just recently acquired a copy of James Lileks's Gastroanomalies, the sequel to his modern classic The Gallery of Regrettable Food, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is hilarious.

I do not just say that so that Lileks's lifestyle, which is that of a stay-at-home dad who makes extra cash by posting funny things on the internet, is still available for me in twenty years. Lileks's witty mockery of bad food concepts of yesteryear (although, I must confess, I am tempted in an inexplicable way to want to try the corned beef in beef-flavored gelatin) is as good as it ever was (unlike, say, Toby Keith).

Currently, the Sherbs and I are trying a Grand Chili Experiment in the slow cooker. We put in corn, beans, two cans of tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, a small can of mild chili peppers, mustard powder, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, half of a large onion, one whole bell pepper, and a whole mess o' TVP. We set the slow cooker on "forever" last night, and we'll see, come dinnertime, how it all turns out.

Onions in the Slow Cooker

Updating today to tell you about my attempt to create stuffed onions in the slow cooker. The recipe called for hollowing out onions (a process that made the kitchen seem like riot suppression had gone on in there) and filling them with chopped onion, shiitake mushrooms, and breadcrumbs mixed with a variety of Asian sauces, then left to cook in sauce diluted in water.

It was edible, but odd, probably because the recipe called for the use of hoison sauce in too many places. I think using Soy Vay Teriyaki instead would provide a less cloying flavor. Also, chili paste should be added to the stuffing; that would give the dish a little more flavor.

The Sherbs made a lovely and tasty spinach egg drop soup; that we're making again, with little to no variation (maybe some tofu and a few more veggies).

BritBit!

I guess it's kind of silly to say "UK blogs are making a fuss about rarebit," since the whole concept began in Wales, but the Guardian has a picture of a particularly cheesy example, with links both the Guardian's own rarebit and a UK foodblogger's attempt at same (with delicious pictures).

The rarebit recipe looks pretty darned tasty, especially on some brown bread. I wonder how it would go with canned brown bread, a food I have not eaten since childhood. It was awesome in its 50's-style futurism; the bread is a cylinder, because it's in a can! It lasts forever! It tastes vaguely sweet and metallic!

Also, smaller rounds mean more servings, or for use in our home tasting menu.

Ha HA!

But, in fact, I will provide more detail as to how the Sherbs and I roasted those vegetables! Point to the Pedant!

The mushrooms, onion, and eggplant were sliced lengthwise, the pepper into strips. Olive oil, salt, pepper, and liberal amounts of paprika were added. We then cooked the whole thing in the oven for about twenty-five minutes.

Very tasty.

Dinner was sushi, and as such was always fabulous.

Starch n' Mayo - The Possibilities

Sherbs and I had a party today, and included in the prefab party platters we got (we were kinda lazy, unlike the last time, where we ended up baking for a half hour after the guests came and I was burning my fingers on mini pizza bagels - such delicious pain) were bowls of macaroni salad.

"Macaroni salad," in this instance, meaning elbow macaroni, shredded carrots, and mayonnaise. It was fair; a better than industrial mayo would have put it into the "almost good" category.

Still, at its best, it was British food bland. I initially suggested to improve it to add red onions and olives, but the Sherbs, she does not love the olives.

So, instead, I think we should start from scratch with the macaroni salad, and make it more like a German potato salad. Not the Oscar Meyer kind, which is all vinegar and bacon (although Bobby Flay's version of the same, with a smoky meat substitute instead of the bacon, added at the end, might be okay), but the sauce in the version I found on Chow.com, which has mustard, is more what I'm looking for.

Evidently, all German potato salad recipes on the 'net have bacon. I buy mine from the supermarket, and they don't put it in there, possibly so that Jews and Muslims can share in the Teutonic salady goodness.

So, anyway, other than the bacon, that's what I'd mix with the macaroni - a mustard/vinegar mixture with red onions and green onions. If we needed texture, I'd also add sweet bell pepper bits, I think.

Breakfast "Burritos"

I had a "quesadilla" for breakfast today (as well as some bran muffins). It was a flour tortilla with a mix of edam and cheddar inside.

It got me to thinking about the breakfast burrito made by the deli across from my workplace. It's basically scrambled eggs with pico de gallo mixed in laid on top of American cheese slices in a tortilla shell. I think I could do better, but I've just been lazy.

Sherbs and I, when we cook breakfast together, often make frittata. But I think the burrito concept has merit, too. I'd add some more onion (both green and white), veggie crumbles, and mushrooms. Also better cheese.