April Foods!

Man, I haven't posted in a while. I guess I've been too busy catching up on Kings, the biblically-themed monarchy drama that is, as my sister so often says, "awesome sauce." And not just because it stars Ian McShane, the voice of the killer leopard in Kung Fu Panda.

Anyway, the Sherbs and I have been making plenty of tasty food. This Saturday we went back to the Book of a Million Zillion Curries (comic book reference explained here) for dinner, and made both the tasty tea and chickpea curry and a curry of French green lentils and too much spinach. Turns out the recipe makes something like eight cups of food, so I'm glad we broke out the big pot; it's not easy to wilt two pounds of spinach in boiling water already full of lentils. Also: it made the water turn really green.

What was kind of interesting about the spinach/lentil curry is that it basically was boiled spinach and lentils with what I'd call a "sauteed pico de gallo" tossed in during the last fifteen minutes. If tomatoes were in season, there would probably be a bit more flavor (also, we ran short of cumin - who keeps track of how much cumin they have?), but the spinach was otherwise tasty and a good counterpoint to the chickpeas, which were spicy.

The chickpea spiciness could be in part due to the serious chopping of the serrano chiles in that recipe; we have an off-brand Slap Chop® (for immature but hilarious parody, click here; for incident involving the Slap Chop® pitchman and a prostitute, click here) that does in fact make short work of garlic, ginger, and serrano peppers, rendering them into tiny bits in a matter of moments. With more pepper surface area exposed to the oil in the pan, we got more spiciness.

Tomorrow's dinner will involve another salad from the Benedictine monks. This one will require me to make carrot matchsticks tonight. Wish me luck; I can never get them small enough.

We want you! We want you!

Recently, one of my favorite political bloggers mentioned a foodstuff I'd never heard of: bean pie.

The country group Alabama had made me aware of sweet potato pie (and its silencing qualities); I had heard of rhubarb pie from Sesame Street (and then subsequently warned off of it by my rhubarb-skeptical parents, as well as Jack Nicholson); I am even familiar with shoo-fly pie (although, honestly, just from the song, and without Google I wouldn't know what the companion food was).

But back to bean pie. According to what appears to be the Nation of Islam's recipe (no, I am not kidding), bean pie is navy beans pureed with enough traditional piestuffs (condensed milk, vanilla, nutmeg, butter) that the beans cease to be vegetable and become merely starch for a pie filling. In theory, I think I approve.

A blogger who tried a packaged version said they tasted better than OK. Personally, if I were to have a bean pie, I'd make one. We do have a lot of navy beans lying around that we have no use for, so I wouldn't even need the commercially available bean pie mix.

Now, the real question is whether I make my own pie crust, or let Keebler do the low-fat cooking?

More on the Food Party

There was a good article in the Express today (but strangely, not on the Express's web page) about Presidential Election Foods, but my question still lies somewhat unanswered.

Not that you haven't helped. Yes, smoked salmon would be similarly good for Sarah Palin, even if the Sherbs is opposed to fish. Blini or blintzes would be tasty. And I could just get a Snyder's of Hanover bag and give up on Biden.

But I want to be extra-clever. If I had a million dollars for this party, I'd make a $150,000 dish to represent Sarah Palin (it would be even better if I could use $150,000 of the RNC's dollars). I'd love to have a Biden dish which would be significantly tested in its first hour after presentation, and won't be popular with the general public.

Still mulling my options for clever foods; if you think you've got a good one, let me know.

Election Party!

So, the Sherbs and I are planning an election results-watching party. I want the party to have election-themed foods, but I have some difficulty with foods related to the vice presidential candidates.

My tentative munchies menu is as follows:

1. Obama-themed food: Vegetarian "Hawaiian" pizza - pizza with fake ham and pineapple. Combines Obama's Hawaiian and Chicago heritage, plus those doubts that pineapple on pizza is "real" pizza are equivalent to some critics' take on Obama's ethnicity.
2. McCain-themed food: Vietnamese spring rolls. There was a really tasty-looking recipe in Vegetarian Times, and McCain does occasionally mention that he spent some time in Vietnam.
   
3. Palin-themed food: Baked Alaska (maybe). Baked Alaska is kind of hard to make, plus it's a little lazy. I may do a chocolate mousse instead, but that's merely a pun, and not very clever. I did a search on Russian snacks, for an "I can see Russian snacks from here" joke, but most Russian snacks involve foods that make the Sherbs gag, like salted fish or fish eggs.
4. Biden-themed food: California rolls (maybe). Neither Scranton nor Wilmington has a famous local food. Delaware sort of has crab, so we could do imitation crabmeat, but no one really wants to eat that as is. So, California rolls.

If anyone has better VP foods in mind, let us know.

Eating, Drinking, and Merriment

The Sherbs has already mostly dealt with Sette Bello; my only contribution is to add my meal there, which was a seafood medley on squid ink pasta (pretty good, although basically just stuff in a garlic-butter sauce; not exceptional) and the veal with saffron risotto entree (veal: slightly dry. Risotto: good).

At least as tasty was the pasta dish the Sherbs cooked up last night, which was spinach and garlic on whole wheat rigatoni, topped with parmesan and chopped walnuts. Really tasty.

We also made sangria yesterday to get rid of the half-bottles of cranberry wine and cheap red wine we had lying around (especially since they had a sale on fruit wines at the Teet, and we stocked up). The fruit part was contributed by a frozen fruit medley we were initially going to use in smoothies, but then we used the yogurt for something else...I can't remember what.

Tonight I am going to try to rock the wok with a paella. Wish me luck!

Baked Cheetos

I've been eating 100 calorie packs of baked Cheetos. They have a mouth feel as if they were made pre-stale for my convenience, but the cheese powder is still good.

Maybe they should just sell cheese powder like Pixie Stix™.

I would eat that.

Pumpkin Failures

Last night the Sherbs and I were at Aroma in Shirlington again, sort of with regards to my birthday (my parents were there and gifted us with a cordless variable-speed drill). I strongly recommend the crispy okra and the malai kofta for vegetarians, and the vindaloo is amazing for the non-vegetarians.

In food failure news, blog The Bacon Show provides a recipe claiming to be "silverbeet with bacon, pumpkin, and feta." You will have to convince me that bacon, pumpkin, and feta are complementary flavors. Bacon/feta sounds like failure. Pumpkin/feta sounds like failure. Just serve beet salad with feta as one dish, and then have a separate bacon/pumpkin dish like bacon pumpkin pie or a bacon-riffic pumpkin soup.

Sugar Sugar! (Boo-bee-boo-boo-boo-boo) Oh, Honey Honey!

The new Vegetarian Times came in with the mail this week, and there are a number of recipes I'd like to try.

One of the ones that will have to wait for company, because it will be snorfeled up like the delicious chocolate chip cookies the Sherbs made for her coworkers on Wednesday (we got to keep the mildly burned ones), is the recipe for "honey goat cheese phyllo triangles" (see recipe #5). Phyllo is a temperamental dough but for crispy sweetened goat cheese treats, it's worth it.

Recipes Good and Bad

Got the new issue of Vegetarian Times this week; the chickpea stew and the recipe using a can of baked beans both look good.

On the flip side, while the Vegetarian Times recipes are usually pretty good, the Joyva official tahini cookbook had a really mediocre recipe for "tahini mushroom soup." Perhaps we just don't like that much rosemary (the basic broth), but its two main flavors were bland and bitter, with the addition of sauteed mushrooms.

The Sherbs used some of the leftover mushrooms last night to make a delicious "Greek style" mushroom dish from the Cook's Best cookbook.

Making a tuna casserole right now for lunch; finished off the fat free American cheese slices as the Sherbs doesn't like American cheese and I was hungry.

Dr. Pepper Post!

They now have Dr. Pepper-flavored lip gloss.

Also, a blogger vindicates my obsession with putting commercial beverages into food (he calls it an extension of the "found art" movement).

According to a post on the Chicago Moms' Blog, there is a cupcake establishment that makes Dr. Pepper flavored cupcakes. However, that offering is not currently in their flavors of the week.

Finally, Dr. Pepper pork chops. Honestly, any meat cooked in four cups of Dr. Pepper, brown sugar, garlic, onion, cloves, ginger, and pepper will be pretty darned tasty. I think a strong case could be made for chicken breast.

Magazine Madness!

The Sherbs and I got our first issue from our subscription to Vegetarian Times yesterday, and it was totally awesome.

Although it's full of a lot of pseudoscientific alternative crap (unlike Dr. Drew, their doctor advocates "cleansing fasts," despite basically saying in the article that the only benefit is psychological as a spur to get your diet in order; no other scientific benefits have been shown), the recipes look delicious. There's a whole article on tartine recipes ("tartine" is the French for "crunchy open faced sandwich," see an example from Food Network), plus soups that look awesome, such as the American Indian pecan soup.

Even the ads have tasty-looking recipes, including a ministrone recipe from a company that makes vegetable wash.

Mid-Prep Blogging

I am blogging mid-cooking, waiting for my eggplant rounds (soon to become miso-glazed eggplant) to absorb the salt I sprinkled on them a while back; Cook's magazine's Best Vegetable Recipes cookbook says thirty minutes, so I'm in a lull. In the first part of the thirty, I chopped a scallion and prepared the miso sauce.

Evidently, the miso that the Teet sells comes in a cantankerous bottle. If you do anything like squeezing it, it bolts out of the bottle and sprays across the cabinets, the countertop, and your jeans. After a quick cleanup and wardrobe change, I finished the dressing, and now I am here, blogging to you.

Thirty minutes is almost up. Time to find the sesame seeds.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

On the political weblog The Huffington Post, a commenter satirically suggests that CNN will spice up its campaign coverage with a partnership with Food Network so that, no matter what is happening, there will be a picture-in-picture of tasty, tasty cakes.

I'd rather watch food pass by than the usual "baby rescued from well two weeks ago still piquing interest of Nancy Grace" crawl that CNN does.

Quick Thoughts Before Real Blogging

The Sherbs and I have realized that we have to get our post count back up, so we'll be doing a couple posts today. The first of mine is one of those "scattered thoughts" posts.

1. Went out for Ethiopian again last night, to a local place called Harar Mesob. It's right across the street from an Eritrean restaurant, but unlike the Horn of Africa, there appear to be no threats of armed conflict between the two. The Sherbs will give the definitive post on the place, but I must say I found it teff-riffic.

2. I was clipping coupons from the newspaper the other day (we got a good deal on the Washington Post's Sunday edition), and I found that there are few good manufacturer's coupons anymore. Most of the products were for things I wouldn't ever buy, and even for the ones that were closer, the terms were onerous.

$1 off two "I Can Darn Well Believe That This Is A Butter Substitute"? We do use a flax oil butter substitute, but one smallish tub at a time. We don't need the gallon size of Country Fraud. We're still not sure what we're using the second tub of Breakstone's sour cream for (another "buy two and get a lesser amount of cash off"), although the first one will likely be a stroganoff-style meal tonight in the slow cooker.

3. The Sherbs made a great couscous, cheese, garlic, and asparagus dish on Thursday.

No Excuse for Bad Blogging

I have been remiss, even though food has come through my life. Let me do a little recap, and a little look forward.

Last night The Sherbs and I went to Meskerem, an Ethiopian restaurant. In Ethiopian cuisine, everyone takes chunks of the main dish by scooping it up with a spongy tortilla-like bread called injera. Since all the food is served on a big round of injera, after most of the dishes are eaten, there's some saucy injera goodness at the bottom. Injera is tasty, with a mildy tart yeasty flavor. I will eat Ethiopian food again.

Tonight we are going to make a coconut milk, tofu, and asparagus dish out of The Sherbs's Weight Watchers cookbook with the three panels of flip pages for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. It sounds delicious, but I'll eat anything with coconut milk.

I am just like General MacArthur

As promised, we have returned. Massive amounts of environmental toxins have been sprayed into the corners of our apartment, and even though the Sherbs and I still see the isolated pest, we still have more spray, and our courage.

Anyway, about food, because that's more fun. Mostly from my archives, due to the bug issue.

1) Bartenders love to treif up drinks with bacon fat. Note to readers: does not go well with Dr. Pepper.

2) Make pizza in your Dutch oven! If you're Jewish, you can omit the bacon, unlike Rachael Ray, who gets mad cash from the American Applewood Smoked Bacon Producers Association.

3) Hell's Kitchen - the video game! I am so sorry that I always miss this show on TV.

4) Wikipedia: it's what's for dinner.

More as we settle back into our routine and have more bug destruction.

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.

The Treif You Crave

I'm sure by now you've heard of the winner of the annual White Castle recipe contest; you know, the woman who put chopped-up steamed hamburger bits in the root vegetable celebration of the victory of crazy fundamentalist Jews over assimilation-forcing Greek-wannabes. Hey, how many holidays do you have from the Apocrypha? I thought so!

Of course, the first thing I thought of was, "there's a White Castle recipe contest every year? Who knew?" And there is. According to the rules, the next deadline is July 13, 2008. The web entry form is found here. You take ten burgers and turn them into some non-burger food. Winner gets more burgers than he or she should ever eat; although, since the last time I ate at White Castle I and a couple other stupid people bought a box of 100 burgers, moderation doesn't really come into play.

Cake recipes, for good or for ill

Godiva Chocolate's recipe this month is for a "Scary Monster Cake." Chocolate-syrup soaked sponge layers glued together with chocolate-caramel mousse filling and iced with more chocolate are not scary or monstrous in the least.


Some people allege that replacing Dr. Pepper with mashed banana in a cake recipe yields useful results. I am skeptical; the Sherbs, not so enamored of the banana, surely disagrees. I do have to wonder, though, while all Dr. Pepper cakes seem to be chocolate cakes with Dr. Pepper in them (see also: chocolate cake mix with Dr. Pepper). Wouldn't it be just as tasty to make Dr. Pepper the primary flavor - a cake that makes the world taste better?

"Rarebit"

While I'm thinking about it, tonight's meal, which I'm really looking forward to, is a rarebit from the Moosewood Cookbook. Wikipedia tells me that rarebit has never had meat in it, so calling it a "vegetarian rarebit" would be redundant.

Regardless, the plan for tonight's version is to have roasted potatoes, a sauce starting with a roux, and some actual green veggies.