Fricassee of Heart

 

(SL, thanks for the deeply needed inspiration. I agree that every author has certain taboo words, one of mine is tears, and you won’t find it in this one.)

She cooked it herself.
Sliced away fragile
threads
that had always held it in place,
kept it safe,
secure in its cavity chamber.
Had to break a few stubborn bones
but managed, without too much damage,
to set it free, get it to stand alone.

Sautéed it with a bit of butter,
turning it frequently so it browned
evenly, then let it simmer in its own juices
with a few drops of vintage wine,
while she created succulent side dishes
out of nothing but hope-filled wishes
and fine-lined dreams.

Sprinkled in a bit of this,
a dash of that,
tossed it all with a vinaigrette
of fancy verbiage, a touch or two
of regret for fuller flavor.

Then sat alone
at the table she’d set,
waiting for a single guest
who would never know
he’d been
invited.

Elizabeth Crawford  9/30/09

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

She’s one of my favorite bloggers and she’s written a cookbook and I have already pre-orderd my copy and she’s gonna be in St. Louis for a book signing Tuesday, November 17, 2009-7:00 PM at LEFT BANK BOOKS, the Downtown Location (321 N 10th ST).  I’m planning to go get my copy signed by fellow homeschooling mom Ree Drummond. Her cookbook can be ordered HERE at Amazon.com.  To try out some of Ree’s recipes, to read about her homeschooling, or just to read her blog posts and see some of her pretty pictures you can visit her blog… The Pioneer Woman

Boiled Peanuts and Home

I went home this weekend. By home, I mean I went back to the place where I grew up, where my parents still live. My folks actually moved from the house I grew up in almost two decades ago. They moved from that suburban neighborhood to a plot of land in a much more rural area.

They have acres of green space and a garden that would be the envy of a good survivalist. They preserve the food they grow and freeze it and sometimes even dry it. There is nary an aluminum can in their pantry. Instead, the shelves are packed with jewel-colored jars full of blueberry jam, fig preserves, apple butter, pepper jelly, and tomatoes in every form (juice, diced, salsa, etc.). They have two freezers stuffed with bags of purple hull peas, corn, pecans, fillets of bream and white perch (thanks to my father’s post-retirement fishing hobby) and, my personal favorite, boiled peanuts.

If “boiled peanuts” pulled you up short, you are what is commonly known as a Yankee. I’m so sorry.

I know that the South has its shortcomings. I’m no fan of the politics, the heat, the mosquitoes or the mildew that accumulates in a shower about five minutes after you’ve scrubbed it. There’s a reason I no longer live there and have no desire to live there in the future, but let me speak out in praise of the boiled peanut.

If you’ve never had a boiled peanut, then you probably cannot be won over to its charms. Boiled peanuts, like Cream of Wheat (yuk) or Jello (gross), must be introduced early in life to be appreciated, preferably before a child can ask for them by name. My husband was raised in Ohio and while he enjoys many of the culinary curiosities of my Mississippi heritage, he does not care for the boiled peanuts. Fine with me. I get them so rarely that I’m not interested in sharing.

I brought back a gallon bag full of boiled peanuts and I’m eating a bowl full every day. They are salty and soft, but not mushy. Delicious.

Currently, I am writing a novel that is set in the Mississippi Delta, a place where they sell boiled peanuts on the side of the road and in every convenience store. The taste of these peanuts and the smell of them makes me realize that I’ve been remiss. Though I’ve already included a number of scenes featuring such delicacies as cornbread, fried okra and blackberry cobbler, I am suddenly compelled to put boiled peanuts into my characters’ hands. They are demanding it. Rain is falling and their hands are cold and empty and tired of gesturing at meaningless objects. What they need is something useful to do and I can think of nothing more satisfying than supplying them with a pot of hot boiled peanuts. I can see them now, prying apart the shells with their teeth and sucking out the soft nuts inside. Someone will allow the salty brine to drip down his chin. Someone will complain about the mess of discarded shells. I can’t believe I haven’t given them boiled peanuts already. I’m 200 pages in and now this omission just seems cruel.

I am off to write and to rectify the situation. If you are a fan of the boiled peanut and have moved away from the place of your upbringing, I urge you to seek out a batch. Eat them warm and with a good book on your lap. Be sure it is a good book by a Southern author. I recommend Flannery O’Connor or Eudora Welty. I promise you will not be sorry.

Happy reading and happy eating,

The Hungry Bookworm

cooking mama 2: dinner with friends

Buy Cheap Cooking Mama 2: Dinner With Friends
Buy Low Price From Here Now
Hot on the heels of her award-winning debut title’s sales success, Mama returns to the kitchen with new recipes, ingredients and friends in Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends. Think your dishes are delicious? This time, only your hungry friends will be the judge of that!…….
Readmore

Technical Details

– Improved graphics and real-time effects make you feel like you’re actually cooking
– Recipes progress from simple to complex, from small to large and so do the expectations
– If you friends think your dish is delicious you’ll unlock another new friend
– Earn bronze, silver and gold medals from Mama based on the quality of your cooking
– Keep a diary of your best creations and add earned seals to dress it up and share with your in-game friends
See more technical details

 “Cooking Mama……..Excellent!” 2009-07-14
By L. Preece (Florida)
Cooking Mama has it all…..Hours of fun for the kids….boy or girl. Can’t say enough about it. Try it; you’ll like it!

 “Not what I expected” 2009-06-09
By Kathryn (Culpeper, VA)
Maybe I’m playing this game wrong, but it’s dumb. It’s like: get the kernels of corn off the cob, so you take your stylus and rub it back and forth and back and forth on the screen. Or you stir a mix and take your stylus and spin it round and round and round on the screen. Or you flatten dough and you take your stylus and tap it 100 times on your screen. ??? How is that fun? It’s stupid. And it was expensive.

My favorite DSs are Cake Mania, Diner Dash, Touchmaster – I thought this would be similar but it’s not.

 “Mama is still cooking.” 2009-04-19
By Ellen L. Wojdyla (APO, AP Japan)
Cooking Mama 2 is good fun. There is more talking and the game is easier to navigate than the first one. I also think this version is more sensitive to the stylus. I find I don’t have to press as hard when doing the movements such as slicing and flipping. I also like the option of customizing mama’s clothes, kitchen,and utensils. This version also seems much more colorful than the last and the graphics have improved.

 “The Godfather II of DS Games” 2009-04-02
By Steven R. Shroyer (Kent Ohio)
When you ask someone what is the best sequel of all time they’ll say either Godfather part 2 or The Empire Strikes Back. Back in 2006 a game came along that was so unique so original that it drew world wide aclaim and a boatload of fans. That game was Cooking Mamma and now we as DS owners have our own Godfather 2 or Empire with Cooking Mamma 2 Dinner with Friends.

This is the best video game sequel I have played since I first got my DS this and the orginal have endless replay value even after you’ve unlocked all the recipies.

The gameplay is the same as the first which is performing kitchen tasks with a time limit to complete a dish. Yet the people at Office Create have added a few twists. For one you can unlock new outfits for mamma and can control how her kitchen looks. Then there are her friends. Mamma’s friends are picky, mess up just one time on one of their recipes and you tick them off(My heart breaks every time I see David cry).

I pre ordered Gardening Mamma, the spin off to this series, and it looks as good as the first two Hopefully they make a third one for this console.

If you like this game I would also recomend My Pet Shop, a game that is a cross between nintendogs and cooking mama.

Enjoy

 “davis10ac” 2009-03-18
By Beverly Davis
Purchased game for my granddaughter – she loves it. Plays it ALL the time.

Images Product
Buy Cooking Mama 2: Dinner With Friends Now

top (independent) news stories

1. i’ve been forced to stop reading a paper newspaper (morgunblaðið) i never read anyway, plus, which is a tad more sad, the online news (mbl.is) i read daily. this all due to one of iceland’s former pms & the most recent former head of our central bank, ie the man who gleefully embodies arrogance, self-righteousness and unconcern for other people, mr davíð oddsson, having been hired as these news sources’ editor in chief. where will i get my local news from now? i post a link – here – from a likely candidate, which carried the story of davíð being hired, and included a flattering picture of the man.
2. ninjai has returned to her old cuddly self. with some slight mishaps along the way. like miscalculating distance and need for claws when jumping from sofa to my chest. she came in short, and it hurt when she clawed herself into position. but i forgive, bc the little meowing needy ninjai is back, and that’s just cute.
3. nala finds new ways every day to disturb the peace & tranquil order in the flat in general, and also between me and flat mate even more so. she does this in a variety of ways, but mainly by being messy (she’s literally a snotty brat! when you have a flat mate who doesn’t ‘do’ bratty, snotty & pet, then your fkcd), and by not leaving all the things alone which ninjai leaves alone. in nala’s defense, she is the more normal kitten of the two. this is obviously why i adore ninjai so much, though! you know me and normal … not exactly bff;) her most recent stunt is jumping up to ‘hunt’ the enticing flower decor on the living room wall. i admit that perhaps telling her off while holding my camera in one hand ready to record this misdemeanor might not send the right signals, but while it’s super annoying it’s also, you know, a little cute.
4. i’ve had an epiphany! this should really make the top of the list, shouldn’t it? i’ve had a crafts and diy epiphany. i had some ideas abt stuff i wanted for myself, and to give to others, and my online research led me to sites which gave me ideas on how to actually make the things myself. this all started really with me having a smaller epiphany re: the dreary curtain situation in my room. sheets for curtains are only cool & kosher for so long. i decided to use the curtains i’d initially bought as a 2nd / thicker layer of curtains for the living room in my room, and put the ones already in the living room on a nicer curtain rod, and voila! it opened a portal of creative thought like you wouldn’t believe! here are some things i am going to make, for me and perchance others: (a) jewellery holders; (b) cat litter box hiders / easy-to-make furniture which camouflage the so-not-sophisticated poo’n'pee receptacles; (c) cat nap places (shelves really) in high places, complete with ’stairways to heaven’ fit for my kittens to frolic on; (d) knitting projects for which i’ve finally found the right ‘recipes’.
5. i’ve started cooking. not more, or fancier, just … i’ve started cooking. i will be happily astonished if this continues after my making it public. things tend to stop or vanish after i’ve said them outloud / put them down in writing. does that happen to you? but for the time being, both me and flat mate are thrilled:)

The Poor CookBook: Pan Fried Chimis

Ah, college living.  As a true middle class American and now flat broke college student I am having to make creative meals out of the bare minimums, then on a budget. Needless to say the ramen and beer diet is in full swing.  So here are recipes impromptu using the cheapest food out there. Enjoy, if you can…..

Needed:

Pan (duh)

cooking oil (preferably extra virgin olive oil, butter will also due)

2 chimis/burritos/

Cheese (I had pepperjack, munster, and swiss deli slices)

Cholula  (or similar hot sauce)

Cooking:

So as cheap goes we have have ElMonterey frozen burritos (chicken rice and beans) at ~$4 for a pack of 12 at your local kingsoopers, the cheeses which were 3/$5 on sale, and the cholula which is in the $3 area or easily lifted from a local Chipotle for the more desperate and less moral.

Now, the cooking instructions for the burritos dont give pan fry instructions… thus i thawed the burritos first which you can do a few hours before by putting them in the fridge or microwaving them for about 2 min (1 on each side).

Next heat your skillet to medium. We have the typical wire range which seemed to work ok on medium. It was hot enough to allow the burritos to cook a few minutes on each side without burning the wrap.

Add your olive oil (approx 1Tbsp)

Pan fry on each side for 2-3 minutes or until browned (avoid blackening the wrap)

Transfer to a plate, apply gratuitous amounts of cheese

Throw into the oven on broil until cheese is sufficiently bubbly

Here you can splash on some hot sauce and dig in. Beware the plate if you will be eating off it as it will be unforgivably hot by this time. A trifolded kitchen towel can easily double for an oven mit, adding to the long list of things they do for you.

Now you can always toss some sour cream and salsa on the side if you have the option, and of course if you want to go whole hog you could spring for some green chili and smother it post pan fry before the oven.  Be creative, make every night you have to eat this meal a little more bearable.

So the ingredients come to $12 divided by 6 meals (at two burritos per meal) leaving us at $2 per serving. Less actually considering the hot sauce will continue to haunt the fridge, and you probably wont use the cheese up.

The Aichmophobic Chef

I love cooking. And I live in fear of knives.

I’ve always had an irrational fear of slicing myself wide open. I’m a pussy about pain in general, but even more so when it comes to the thought of gaping wounds in my own body. My aichmophobia wasn’t helped when, early into my second marriage, my wife told me about the time when she was preparing food as a teen and accidentally knocked a Ginsu knife off of the counter, sending the blade tip-first into her foot. I cringe even thinking about that. I cringe even thinking about thinking about that.

Perhaps “live in fear” is too dramatic. It’s not like I think my chef’s knife is going to sneak up and stab me in the heart while I sleep. Better: I respect knives. I’m all too aware that the same finely crafted J.A. Henckels edge that can slit potatoes like paper could also cleave off the top of my index finger.

Having never experienced a severe knife injury myself, I can tell you that they are the most painful form of mutilation imaginable. (I have a vivid imagination.)  Which is why, when I’m cooking, I treat even the dullest knife with tender mercies. When using them, I am Zen-absorbed: there is nothing but the knife, the food, and the distance between my free hand and the blade. When I’m not using them, I set them far (faaaaaaaaaar) away from the cliff of the counter, edge toward wall.

Hand cleaning (you don’t put your premium cutlery in the dishwasher with the peasant knives, right??) is a delicate ritual that approaches pampering: I wipe the blade as gingerly as possible, then pad it dry like a baby’s ass. After it’s clean, it goes back into the butcher block, where the possibility of it piercing my flesh asymptotically approaches zero. I say “asymptotically” because, well…I’ve seen Dark Willow in action.

Never underestimate a witch in your kitchen. It throws the safety quotient all to Hell.

Preserving Peppers

While today is a beautiful fall day – a bit cool, but warm in the sunshine – I can’t help but feel that first twinge of sadness as I see the end of harvest season and winter looming. This was even more apparent at the farmer’s market today, where some veggies at the end of their season were on sale, most likely precipitated by the past week’s night temps in the rural valleys that came close to freezing.

Thus peppers were on sale – 10 for a $1 for small sweet green ones. I have also been getting a veritable bounty of red peppers the past few weeks in the farm share, which have been accumulating in my fridge. One can only eat stuffed or roasted peppers so many days in a row until you feel a bit decadent. Plus, this year’s red peppers were the sweetest I have ever tasted. Hands down. Amazing.  I would love to taste that sweet savoriness in the depths of winter and know that what I was tasting was local and preserved at the peak of its freshness.

So today I plan to freeze some peppers – very easy: chop fresh into large hunks and freeze them in a single flat layer in a plastic freezer bag. I also will do what I did about 3 years ago when I got pounds of amazing red and green peppers the day before I was leaving the country. I roasted them whole in the oven (40 minutes or so at 350 degrees), then cleaned them of their seeds and ribs once cool enough. Then layered in a clean glass jar and covered with olive oil, making sure to eliminate any air bubbles. I kept these in the fridge all winter, sneaking a few sweet roasted peppers for salads, antipasti platters or what have you, with the bonus being the sweet pepper-flavored olive oil that added a nice twist to fried eggs, pastas, salads or potatoes. I plan to experiment with roasting hot peppers and preserving them in oil as well.

Milkfish Belly Steak

Milkfish, better known locally as bangus, is, without a doubt, one of my Dear’s favourite food.  His food blog wouldn’t be named after it if it weren’t.  It’s a very tasty kind of fish, and its belly is cooked here in the Philippines in a variety of ways.  The belly is sufficiently fat and succulent but not as fat as that of the salmon.

It’s a very rainy day today (according to the news, there’s a storm coming), and we were supposed to be out all day on errands.  However, the floods surrounding our area prevented us from doing so.  My Dear has been requesting me to make bangus belly steak (a dish I tried a couple of times and turned out to be good), and I finally obliged.

Making bangus belly steak is quite simple.  All you need are:

- bangus belly, of course

- some soy sauce

- calamansi juice

- garlic

- 1 whole white onion (chopped into rings)

- pepper to taste

Since I am on a low salt diet right now, I used very little soy sauce for the dish.  As for the “sourness” factor, I specifically use calamansi instead of vinegar because its acidity is more suitable for a dish such as steak.  More importantly, the juice has a little sweetness to it, too (because of its fructose content), hence giving the fish a good sweet-sour balance.

I first marinated the bangus belly in soy sauce, calamansi juice, pounded garlic and pepper for about 30 minutes.  Afterwards, I took out the bangus belly and fried it in high heat until its skin was crispy.  I flipped it over and fried the other side for about 2 minutes then set it aside.

Using the same pan, I then proceeded to cook the onion rings for about 3-5 minutes, or until they turn slightly transluscent.  I just love onions in a steak dish.

For the sauce, I poured the marinade into the same pan (while adding a little bit of oil), added some more calamansi juice, then 1/8-1/4 cup of water.  Then I allowed this mixture to reduce on medium heat.

After the sauce was done, I poured it over the fish I fried earlier, then added the onion rings on top as a final touch.  Ta-da!

I think this is the best bangus belly steak I’ve made thus far.  My Dear and I just loved it with steaming white rice.

My Birthday

Well, yesterday was my birthday and so as far as doing any cooking…. that is a no. I had a great meal from Applebee’s. It was amazing, and it was even better with the A1 sauce. As far as cooking goes, I got this miso paste, not sure if thats the right spelling. It is supposed to be the stuff I needed to use to make fried rice. SO, I will have to check that out and let you guys know how it goes, now that I know how to properly cook rice. On another note, I have learned to love a store, World Market. I am not sure if there is one around here but I know there is one down in Canton. It is an amazing place to get very odd things as far as food. Food from many other countries, and they have some furnature. Very nice place. So just thought to let yall know.  I also found one of the best recipies for queso dip.
Gross out!

Sake Glazed Salmon

It can’t get more simple than this: sake glazed salmon. It took me 10 minutes to make this. And as always, I love the crispy salmon skin!

[wild]

Ingredients:

• 0.25 cup Japanese sake
• 2 TB brown sugar
• 0.25 cup soy sauce
• 2 TB rice vinegar
• Fatty salmon fillet (with skin)

Instructions:

1. Mix the sake, brown sugar, and soy sauce in a baking dish or bowl that will fit the fish
2. Marinate the salmon in for 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the skin side
3. Heat a pan on high, use a tiny bit of oil if you want
4. Cook the salmon for 2 minutes (skin facing down) and then turn it over, add the marinade and cook for another 2 minutes
5. Remove the salmon, and add the rice vinegar to the hot pan for 10-15 seconds
6. Pour the glaze over the salmon
7. Serve with spring mix salad and/or rice

tofu & edamame lo mein

8 ounces whole-wheat spaghetti

1 package extra-firm tofu, well drained and cut into bite-size pieces

2 cups fresh or frozen shelled edamame

6 scallions, thinly sliced

2 medium carrots, cut into matchsticks

1/4 cup vegetarian oyster sauce

1/4 cup rice-wine vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

2 tablespoons canola oil

crushed red pepper flakes to taste

 

bring a large pot of water to a boil. add spaghetti and edamame and cook, stirring occasionally, until pasta is just tender. drain.

meanwhile, whisk scallions, oyster sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and crushed red pepper in a small bowl until the sugar has dissolved.

heat canola oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat.

add tofu and carrots and cook, stirring often, until tofu begins to brown and carrots are slightly softened, about 5-6 minutes.

add the pasta and edamame, cook 3-4 minutes.

turn off heat and add sauce. stir to combine.

serve immediately.

What Inspires You? Cooking For Friends

What inspires you? Cooking for Friends

I am planning a small dinner party tomorrow night with a few friends that I rarely get to see and a few new friends. I am planning to start with a ginger and lemon grass martini. (cut up ginger and lemon grass in a big pot and fill with water and cook for ½ hour, add honey and store in bottle for later use. Then add vodka for martini or rum for a variation.) Then for dinner we will start with a butternut squash coconut soup. I made a tester batch the other night and it was so delicious. I usually look at recipes for inspiration but always change it depending on the ingredients I have on hand. I steamed the butternut squash and carrots (not in the recipe), pureed it with an apple (not in recipe) that was the last one in the fruit bowl. Added broth to thin it out, then reheated it with coconut milk, a dash of Bragg’s amino, dash of chili sauce. Seasoned it to taste and served it. It was so good. So I plan to make it again for the dinner party, which I will also prepare lemon chicken. A friend is cooking a mushroom risotto. I will serve salad from my garden. For dessert, a simple vanilla ice cream topped with a raspberry couli I made last week (cook fresh or frozen raspberries with ½ cup of water and sugar) puree it, cool and serve over cheesecake or ice cream. I put mine in a squeeze bottle for easy use. I will top the ice cream with the raspberry couli, add a splash of raspberry liquor (my favorite is Chambord from France) and whip cream.

The Search for a Perfect Tomato

Once upon a time there was a garden that grew each summer and produced red juicy Tomatoes that were sweet and flavourful.  I can still remember going out to the garden to pick those Tomatoes as my mom was preparing salad to go with dinner. They were warm from the sun and smelled of vines.  Those Tomatoes were good enough to eat plain with just a sprinkle of salt and dash of pepper.  After eating far too many mediocre, mealy and flavourless tomatoes in the intervening years, I sometimes ask myself: Were those Tomatoes for real?  Or did they only exist in my imagination?

 

A basket of tomatoes, September 2009

I’ve had fleeting encounters with Tomatoes again from time to time (as opposed to small ‘t’ tomatoes, the mediocre tasteless fruit of which I’ve had too many).  A trip to Napa, California in 1999 led us to Michael Chiarello’s restaurant, Tra Vigne.  It was early September and tomatoes were at their peak.  The menu featured them heavily so we ordered a simple caprese salad and an heirloom tomato mini pizza.  A good caprese salad is all about the ingredients so everything has to be top notch: high quality mozzarella, fresh basil leaves, good olive oil, sea salt and of course, the very best Tomatoes you can find.  The Tra Vigne caprese was flawless.  The restaurant made their own olive oil and mozzarella and the Tomatoes had the advantage of California’s climate to ripen them to perfection.  

Now and again I would encounter a Tomato again but was particularly hopeful that a trip to Italy would provide a cornucopia of perfect Tomatoes.  After all, don’t Tomatoes and Italy go hand in hand?  Aside from the fact that tomatoes actually came to Italy from the New World, we were traveling in the Tuscan region which isn’t the epicenter of tomato based Italian cooking.  However, one day in Florence, I ordered a simple bruschetta with lunch.  On two pieces of toasted Tuscan bread were chopped ripe tomatoes and a drizzle of local olive.  I took a bite and there it was: that elusive fresh Tomato flavour that I had been seeking for so long.  

Bushels of tomatoes at a roadside stand in the Niagara region

 

Upon my return to Canada, I visited farmer’s markets and roadside stands in my quest to find delicious Tomatoes.  I was always hopeful but all too often even bright red ripe specimens yielded no flavour and even worse texture. Occasionally I would find ones that were pretty good and they weren’t always the ones you’d think.  Just because a tomato has an odd shape or strange colour doesn’t mean it has no flavour.  Likewise, perfect looking tomatoes can be awful. Luckily, heirloom tomato varieties have seen a surge in popularity over the past few years and the quality is often remarkably high.  Heirlooms are tomatoes that have been grown from seeds passed down through generations.  I have tried to grow my own but due to lack of space, a shady property and devilish raccoons that foil all attempts at growing anything edible, I’ve given up and now rely on the farmer’s markets.

Roasted cherry tomatoes

Admittedly, 2009 was a poor year to embark on a quest to find the perfect Tomato. The weather in Eastern Canada was unseasonably cold and wet for most of the summer which is not the ideal environment for tomato growing.  Most tomato varieties require hot, dry weather and lots of sun so clearly this wasn’t going to be a banner year. However, I held out hope of finding something more acceptable than tasteless watery tomatoes that are no better than what’s available in January supermarkets. I visited farmer’s markets and asked farmers their opinions about which ones tasted the best.  I bought heirlooms in various colours, cherry, grape and plum tomatoes, basic field tomatoes and strange looking cluster tomatoes.  Then I cut them up, sprinkled them with a bit of salt and subjected my poor husband to a blind tasting.  The results were as follows (I’ve used somewhat generic terms to describe the types of tomatoes I tasted – there are hundreds of specific cultivars):

From left: coloured heirloom tomatoes, cluster tomato, Campari cocktail tomato, plum tomato, field tomato

Field Tomatoes - Generally pretty poor overall, with pale colour, little taste and mealy texture.  

Plum (Roma) Tomatoes – Plum or Roma tomatoes are typically a bit drier than field tomatoes but I also found them lacking in flavour.  However, cooked into sauce and seasoned they were still pretty good.  Roasting will also enhance their sweetness.

Heirlooms – These come in a variety of colours and even patterns such as green and yellow zebra stripes.  Overall they were pretty good – sweet and flavourful and with tender, moist flesh.

Cluster Tomatoes – These were some of the best I found.  They were bright red, meaty and full of flavour.  When I returned to the market the following week, I mentioned to the farmer how much I enjoyed them and he threw in a couple for free which was very nice of him.

A cluster tomato

Cherry Tomatoes – These were also quite good.  Small and sweet, they were my tomato of choice this summer.  When roasted, they get even sweeter as their juices concentrate.  They’re also great for salads because you don’t have to fuss – just toss them in whole or simply cut them in half.

Greenhouse Grown Cocktail Tomatoes – For comparative purposes, I threw some Campari cocktail tomatoes that were greenhouse-grown into the mix.  To my surprise, they compared very favourably to the summer varieties.  This is good news for the 10 months of the year when fresh field grown tomatoes aren’t available where I live.

 

Colourful heirloom tomatoes at the farmer's market

So overall, it was a bit of a mixed bag and I didn’t find the elusive Tomato of my youth but I will continue my search next year. Cherry tomatoes and heirlooms were the most consistent overall and the cluster tomatoes were also pretty good (although they can be a bit harder to find). Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a ton of tomatoes to deal with so I’m off to make sauce….

Check out some of my tomato recipes, including a few for roasted and cooked tomatoes which can be made year round:

 

 

Tomato Recipes

Crab and Avocado Stuffed Tomatoes
Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta
Winter Caprese Salad
Bucatini All’Amatriciana
Heirloom Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese and Sherry Vinaigrette
Slow Roasted Tomatoes
How to Peel Tomatoes
Tomato Tart with Herbed Ricotta
Caprese Salad 101
Corn and Tomato Salad with Basil Vinaigrette

 

A cocktail tomato stuffed with fresh mozzarella and a basil leaf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soup

It’s Fall and with Fall comes on my ever increasing need to cook. Some people go on adventures I travel thru cuisine. This year I’m going to be experimenting with Soup. From South African Peanut soup to India Garlic, Chickpea and Spinach Soup, to the Mediterranean with Chicken and Gnocchi soup. We will have a fun trip. Below is the list of soups I’ll be dabbling in this Fall. They are in no particular order. The Peanut Soup will be first though. I’ll post updates as it gets closer to cooking time.

Corn and Potato Chowder

Peanut Soup

Cheese Enchilada Chowder

Cheeseburger

Pumpkin Curry

Creamy Yellow Summer Squash

Garlic, Chickpea & Spinach

Egg Drop

Peach

Broccoli Cheese

Dumplings

Kirsebærsuppe (Cherry Soup)

Potato and Leek

Chicken and Gnocchi

Black Bean

Pasta E Fagioli

Italian Sausage and Tortellini

Zuppa Toscana

Chocolate

Spinach

Cocoa

Cream of Carrot and Honey

Creamy Yellow Summer Squash

Ellioti's Restaurant, Aruba

Ellioti’s Restaurant is located near the Costa Linda timeshare in the low-rise area of the island of Aruba. You’ll find some very good food and service here.

We arrived without reservations but with a hankering for some reliable Italian dishes. We were greeted by a friendly hostess who found us a nice table. There is a bar and seating outside, as well as a nice fellow playing the piano. I ordered a mixed salad, which arrived promptly and was well presented. Take a look:

The greens, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers were garden-fresh, crunchy, and delicious. I appreciate a good salad to start, especially in Aruba, where vegetables (for some reason) are too often an afterthought. My wife likes a Caprese salad and here’s a view:

Again, a very pleasant presentation. Moving on to the entrees, my wife ordered grouper in puttanesca sauce. She thought it was great and here is what it looked like.

Don’t miss that little shaving of ginger on the bottom there. I went with the tried and true spaghetti bolognese and this meat sauce was a bit sweet but very good indeed. Here it is:

To think that this was the appetizer portion! I didn’t finish it until the second half was consumed for lunch the next day.

Service here was among the best I’ve had on the island. I tipped liberally with good reason. I only wish I had gone to this place before.

Bon dia.

Monday.

After a quiet and relaxing weekend, we packed quite a bit into today.

Alex mowed the yard.  The fertilizer for the new grass seed along with regular watering and a good rain has made our lawn go crazy.  Hooray!

Do you see all of those happy baby grass blades??

As usual, Jack supervised.

I spent the morning giving baths to our stinky kids.

Who now smell quite pleasant. Thankyouverymuch.

(It was random that they’re both looking the same direction… We need to work on directing attention to the camera.)

Then, this afternoon I baked some Spicy Zucchini Cookies. (Thanks Donna for the zucchini!)

They aren’t as “spicy” as I’d expected, but are very tasty.  I even took some over to our neighbors to share .

And my wonderful hubby grilled up a very yummy dinner – steaks, grilled zucchini (again, thanks Donna!), and garlic mashed potatoes.

(Can we say Holy Huge Steak, Batman?!  I got these steaks on sale earlier this summer for a great deal.  We ate two when I bought them and froze two for a treat later in the summer.  It isn’t often on splurge on huge deliciousness like this.  But Alex is definitely a meat and potatoes man, so I think it’s a nice treat for him.)

(I think I’m a real blogger now, I’m taking pictures of everything!… Did I just share a picture of raw meat on my counter with the whole internet? … But do you see those savings??)

Finally, I’ll leave you with the bloom I discovered on the deck this evening.  It’s been opening for a couple days, but really popped today.

Trends in Baking

What’s the deal with RED VELVET CAKE?  It’s everywhere.  Can u say trendy much??  I remember when it was all a big deal that Dough Boy (R.I.P.) served big slices of red velvet cake and everyone was in awe of it.  Well I was at the fucking California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) on saturday and saw some waiter carrying around a piece.  What the hell?  Wasn’t this supposed to be a Southern Wedding cake?  Or at least some fancy hotel served dessert?

Though the consensus is that red velvet, like many layer cakes, is from the South, it is certainly not in every cookbook about Southern food. No definitive information exists on exactly where it came from, how it should be made or why it is red. In fact, red velvet cake has produced almost as many theories and controversies as recipes.

A resurgence in the popularity of this cake is partly attributed to the 1989 film Steel Magnolias in which the groom’s cake (another southern tradition) is a red velvet cake made in the shape of an armadillo. Others say Oprah named it one of her favorites in 2007, creating a celebrity-endorsed large buzz.  Either way…  I don’t care! This cake is great and everything but do I need it everywhere I go?  Do I want a Moroccan Chicken Salad and Cheeseburger Pizza followed by Red Velvet Cake for dessert?  NO!

Shit is played out.  Ranch is the new Ketchup and Red Velvet is the new Cheesecake.

This place MILK sells Red Velvet Cupcakes in case you don’t want a whole cake.

Great, just to feed your quick fix, just a little hit- we got “Red Velvet Poppers.”  These are mini-cupcakes for 75¢, “oh i just need a hit, just dose me a little with Red Velvet”

I assume to see Red Velvet in 7-11 and every vending machine around.

Remember how Gillette made the Mach 3 razor blade, then the Schick Quattro came out, then Gillette came back with the 5-blade Fusion?  Well there’s competition brewing in the world of velvet cakes too.  Here’s a hint of future baking:

BLUE Velvet cake?!?!?

Anyone else sick of Red Velvet cakes?!?

And stay tuned for future food rants…  next up is Applewood Smoked Bacon.  Is that the only bacon being made?  Whatever happed to Hickory smoked slab bacon? BOLLOCKS!

How to peel carrots without cleanup...

I love to cook, but I hate to clean up. Most people feel the same way, I’m sure. So when I discovered this method for peeling potatoes or carrots without having to pick up peels for days afterwards, my life has been much happier!

It’s a simple concept, really, and one that seems to be more effective than any other I’ve tried. Grandma always peeled into a bowl or onto a cutting board. Then you had to scrape the slippery peelings out of the bowl into the trash, which was messy.

Mom always peeled over the trashcan…which was a vast improvement over Grandma’s method, but I never got all the peelings into the trash, so I’d still be down on my knees, scraping up those slippery peelings that missed the trashcan, plus my back would hurt from bending over to try to get the peelings in the trash…so that wasn’t the best option.

The third generation (that’d be me) approaches it all differently. I still use Mama’s potato peeler, but cleanup is a breeze with the new method.

First, you cut off both ends on a flexible cutting mat:

Then, place a plastic grocery bag in an empty sink. Spread it out as open and wide as you can get it. Then begin moving your peeler (or a paring knife if you don’t have a peeler) from one end to the other of your carrot.

The peelings will conveniently fall into the grocery sack, like this:

When you are finished, simply tie the bag closed and carry it to the trashcan (or dump into your compost pile if that’s your thing). No slippery peels to clean up, no mess on the floor, and the bonus is that your back doesn’t hurt from bending over at an awkward angle to peel into the trashcan!

Tomorrow I’ll post on how to make a crockpot roast with carrots and potatoes, but I wanted to show you my method for peeling potatoes and carrots first!

Looking Forward to Another School Year!

Things have been fairly busy on the homefront as we gear up for another great year of homeschooling! Andrew is now in Grade 1 and hopefully we can get Jansun in Kindergarten…if not…will continue to do what we do until we can register him. This year’s schooling will be relatively different for us as the kids are now ready to take on new adventures.

Andrew has decided to learn piano…as to which method (Suzuki or European???) we still haven’t decided yet. So far, he has learned to play Mary Had a Little Lamb and is starting to learn to play Twinkle Little Star. He enjoys playing his songs but not so much the theory. Andrew also enjoys going around the house “playing” tunes on his recorder.

Cibo has become our little princess who loves to dance and sing. She looking forward to her weekly ballet/tap classes and loves to twirl and sing around the house.

Jansun has yet decided what he will take..he really wanted to do basketball but nothing is available for his age group until the New Year.

We wanted to get the kids into yoga but unfortunately the times conflicted with their other schedules. We hope that Jansun will think about learning piano as he too learned Mary Had a Little Lamb with very little instructions and mainly on his own. Jansun is definitely a self taught “learner”. Many things he does surprises me … without formally being taught how to write his Alphabets, he is able to learn on his own and he also learned how to count on his own as well…largely due to the influences of his brother.

Our little baby Soleil is doing lots of things these days….she definitely lets us know what she likes and dislikes. Some of her favourite foods include pears, apples and veggies. She does not care for papayas, bananas and plain ol’ rice cereal. Soleil is quite the adventurous these days crawling to explore her small world which includes every grain of tidbits that fall on the floor!!! She is also quite the chattery type…yes and one of the many “babbles” she says is “mum mum” :p The older kids can’t wait for sister Soleil to grow older so they can play with her…or get hair pulled by her )

Here is a photo of the aftermath of the attack of Soleil on our computer!

So far this year Andrew has come up with many ideas as to what he wants to learn…some of his learning plan ideas include..building a remote control car, a remote control robot, skating, counting past 100, reading a chapter book by himself, sewing, etc…Okay, mom will have to stop procrastinating and start working to put these projects together for him!

We just finished a Safety City course yesterday and Andrew seemed to have picked up most of the valuable information regarding how to cross the street and riding a bike.

We also had a good time helping Baba making dumplings and enjoying eating them afterwards.

We also made chocolate chip cookies too! Here is our favourite chocolate chip recipe:

Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

SUBMITTED BY: Debbi Borsick PHOTO BY: Allrecipes

“Everybody wants this recipe when I take them in for a carry-in. To make them award winning, my daughter, Tegan, made them for a cookie baking contest and won a red ribbon! You can use any flavor pudding you like for this recipe.”

RECIPE RATING:

This recipe has been rated 6,375 times with an average star rating of 4.6

Read Reviews (5,146)

Review/Rate This Recipe

PREP TIME 15 Min

COOK TIME 12 Min

READY IN 1 Hr 40 Min

Original recipe yield 6 dozen

SERVINGS

* 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

* 2 teaspoons baking soda

* 2 cups butter, softened

* 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

* 1/2 cup white sugar

* 2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix

* 4 eggs

* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

* 4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

* 2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.

Finally, our bug hunting adventure faired quite well, the kids learned a lot of new bugs, and we also learned how a fly sticks onto our ceiling. We also played our “metamorphisis”(spelling???) bug game where the kids pretended they were different types of bugs that you can find in our backyard. We also tried to put a cookie trail for the ants but it seems the ants are not interested in mom’s homebaked cookies. So we were not able to see how ants are able to communicate with other ants when they find food treasures. However, we were able to find lots of ladybugs and Andrew even had one climb into his shirt! Our bug adventure this week seemed quite fun!

Looking forward to next week’s activities….what do you do for activities in your spare time?

Pasta with chorizo and tomatoes

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was supposed to prepare and cook vegetable rolls for our Sunday lunch (and probably dinner, too).  However, due to the busy and crazy week we had, we were unable to get the necessary ingredients for the rolls (mungbean sprouts, sweet potato, celery to name a few).

So, my Dear suggested that we make a pasta dish instead, since we had some linguine in stock.  For sauce of the dish, the ingredients were very simple — chorizo, tomatoes, onions and pepper.  My Dear suggested that I fry/sautee the pepper along with the onions first instead of putting it later as the sauce is cooking — a technique he says he got from Keith Floyd in his show, Floyd’s India.  After the onions started to become a little bit transluscent, I added the chorizo slices (since it still needs a bit of cooking) and the finally, the sliced tomatoes.  My Dear had originally planned to add the tomatoes when the sauce is almost done, to retain its freshness.  However, I was able to convince him to let me cook it my way instead (hee hee), wherein the tomatoes are going to be cooked longer until they are soft, creating a subtle tomato sauce base.  The total preparation and cooking time took us less than 30 miutes!

The pasta turned out great.  Everything was just right, and I noticed that frying the pepper had the effect of making the spiciness of the dish more uniform and suave.

Spicy Chocolate Chili

I’m working on a vegetarian version of a dish I actually have never heard of before — chuck roast with potatoes and carrots.  I know, I know, who hasn’t heard of chuck roast? Me. That’s who. But I have heard of kaleh-pacheh, and I bet most of my readers haven’t. So there. Stay tuned for a vegetarian version of that recipe (chuck roast, not kaleh-patcheh), and thanks to Holly and James for the suggestion. In the meantime, I’m tackling another recipe request from one of Roger’s friends, mostly because I have a tried and true recipe that I’ve refined over the years. Ladies and gentleman, introducing Zahra’s Spicy Chocolate Chili. You may never want chili made with dead animals again. At least, that’s what Roger says.

Zahra’s Spicy Chocolate Chili

The flavors of this chili are inspired by a mole. The recipe calls for stout beer, but you can substitute more vegetable stock for that if you object to the beer. It is just as tasty.

Ingredients:

• 1 large yellow onion (a Vidalia works particularly well), diced
• 2 large carrot stalks, diced
• 1 stalk of celery, diced
• 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 large red (or any other color) bell peppers, diced
• 1 serrano chili pepper, finely diced
• 1 large (22 oz or so) can of diced tomatoes
• 2 cups of frozen corn
• 1 14.5 oz can of dark kidney beans (black beans also work really well)
• 1 box of frozen boca burger crumbles (or 1 bag of Morningstar burger crumbles)
• 4 cups of vegetable stock
• 1 can of stout beer
• Dry Spices:
  • 2 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate, grated
  • 1/4 cup chili powder
  • 1/4 cup of cumin powder
  • 1 tsp of cayenne pepper (more if you like the spice, as I do)
  • 1 tbsp of paprika
  • 3 tbsp of cocoa powder (the unsweetened kind for baking)
  • 3 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Add a couple of tablespoons to the bottom of a large poton high heat. I like to use my giant Le Creuset Dutch oven, but you can use any large soup pot.
2. We’re going to start with a mirepoix of sorts (the ratios are a little off). Add the onion, carrots, and celery to the pot and saute until the onions are translucent and start to brown a little at the edges.
3. Add the serrano chilis, bell pepper and garlic and saute for about 3 or 4 more minutes, until the peppers start to get a little soft. Make sure you keep the mix moving so the garlic doesn’t burn.
4. Add the vegetarian burger crumbles and mix well. Stir until the crumbles are no longer frozen. This only takes a few minutes.
5. Take all of the dry spices, except for the grated baking chocolate, and add to the mix. Stir well for about a minute until all of the vegetables and veggie crumbles are well-coated, then add the vegetable stock.
6. Add the corn, beans and tomatoes and bring the chili to a boil.
7. Once the chili mixture is boiling, add the grated baking chocolate and bring the heat down to a simmer (low-medium heat). Stir well to make sure everything is well combined.
8. Simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring every once in a while to make sure the ingredients don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
9. When the mixture has gotten really thick and much of the liquid has evaporated, add the can of stout beer (or the equivalent amount of vegetable stock). Stir in the liquid and cook for an additional 15 minutes, at least.
10. You can now eat the chili, or even better, turn the heat to the lowest setting possible and leave the chili on the stove for another hour or so. The longer you leave it, the more concentrated the flavor.

I serve this up with the following accompaniments in bowls and let everyone serve themselves directly from the pot (it makes the whole chili eating experience more rustic): 1. fresh salsa, 2. Greek yogurt, 3. grated cheddar cheese (soy cheese works well), 4. cilantro and/or flat leaf parsley, 5. tortilla chips. I also usually add some hot sauce, and often bake up some cornbread from scratch.

Shiresday Prep

Tomorrow I teach Simon (at his request) how to make an apple pie and a pumpkin pie.

I will be baking herb bread, and on Sunday I’ll be making my delicious potato soup for everyone.

Again, cut for juvenile drama…

She won’t be there.

We decided, after much deliberation, that we would tell Simon’s brother this:  We will come regardless, and would prefer to not see her.  However, if he would like the chance to see and visit with his friend, we won’t make a fuss.

But apparently venting to a mutual friend wasn’t enough for her.  Greg said that he got on his LJ to catch up with people and found a huge rant about how angry she is with everyone about her lack of invitations.  So Greg said, fine.  She’s not invited, then, if she can’t play nice.

I feel mean and relieved all at once.

Goodbye-Summer Couscous

The last official day of summer is Monday. Tear. I really can’t believe it. Where did you go, summer? Come back … I’m still pale!

I’m not prepared for it to start getting dark at 6 p.m. And I’m really not ready to say goodbye to my loves: strawberries, peaches and, oh it breaks my heart, ….tomatoes. I know I’ll get over you when I have a sweet potato or some winter squash. But for now I’m sad. It’s like realizing Christmas is over, or knowing you have to wait a whole year for the next season of “Lost.”

So here’s one last tomato fix. When I followed the recipe for this lemon-basil couscous it had way too much onion and lemon. So here’s a scaled back version. I also swapped in cherry tomatoes because I love the red and yellow mix. And they’re just cute.

Here’s what you need:

1 cup whole wheat couscous

1 cup water

1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas)

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1/2 small red onion, chopped

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

1/4 cup lemon juice

1-1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Here’s what you do:

To prepare the couscous, boil 1 cup of water with 1 tsp salt in a medium pot. When the water comes to a boil add the couscous, remove the pot from heat, cover, and let stand 5-10 minutes. When the couscous is done all the water will be absorbed and you can fluff it with a fork. Stir in a few drops of olive oil to prevent the grains from clumping.

Transfer couscous to a large bowl and mix in all the other ingredients: garbanzo beans, red onion, tomatoes, basil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Put it in the refrigerator to chill at least 1 hour before serving.

This yields a big bowl’s worth so you can make a lot, store it in the fridge and have it for a few days.

So long summer, until next year….

Tasty BBQ Baby Back Ribs

Tasty BBQ Baby Back Ribs

Here is my BBQ baby back ribs recipe. I put it together based on my recollection of how I did it in the past. If you care to try it, I welcome your comments. Jingjing had tried it and Bobby was her test subject.

Direction

• Use 1 whole slab of Baby Back Ribs and cut it into slabs of 4 ribs each.
• Rub both sides of the ribs with vegetable oil
• Make enough marinade to cover the ribs in a large mixing bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic film and store the meat in the fridge. Marinade the ribs at least overnight.
• Pre-heat the oven to 275 oF about 3 ½ hours before the serving time.
• Remove ribs from the marinade and arrange them in a deep baking pan; meat side down.
• Pour the sauce over the ribs. Some sauce will stay on the ribs and some will drip to the bottom of the pan. It can be used for potatoes, carrots and/or yams.
• Cover the pan with aluminum foil and place the pan on the middle rack of the oven..
• Bake the ribs covered for 2 hours at 275 oF.
• Remove the aluminum foil and baste both sides of the ribs with sauce in the pan.
• Increase the oven temperature to 375 oF and bake the ribs uncovered for 45 minutes.
• Baste the ribs again with sauce in the pan and lightly sprinkle the ribs with garlic salt, sugar and ground pepper mix. Set the over to broil.
• Broil the ribs (meat side up) uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes until the meat is golden brown or slightly burned on the edge.
• Turn the oven off and keep the ribs in the oven for 10 more minutes before serving.

Potato, Carrots or Yams

• You can add some potatoes, carrots or yam in the baking pan and bake them with the ribs.
• Coat the potato, carrots or yam with vegetable oil and sprinkle them with black pepper and garlic salt 20 minutes prior to the baking process.
• Add the vegetables in the pan and mix then with the sauce.
• Bake them with the ribs from the beginning.

Marinade:

3 tbsp                           Hoisin sauce

3 tbsp                           Ketchup

3 tbsp                           Honey

¼ cup                           Kikkoman soy sauce

¼ cup                           Kikkoman – Aji-Mirin (Sweet Cooking Rice Wine)

2 tbsp                           Cooking Wine

1/4 cup                         Water or chicken stock

3 tbsp                           Sugar

2 tbsp                           Lemon Juice

1 tsp                             Worcestershire sauce

3 cloves                        Garlic – smashed

1 tsp                             Ginger – minced

1 tsp                             Orange zest

Salt & Black Pepper

Tips:

• Make enough marinades to immerse the ribs.
• Taste the sauce and add salt if necessary.
• Evenly coat the vegetables with the sauce during the baking process
• You might want to wrap the inside of the baking pan with aluminum foil so that it won’t be too messy afterwards. I completely covered the inside of the pan with heavy duty aluminum foil before placing the ribs inside. Cleaning up is a cinch.
• Make sure you use timer when broil the ribs if you have other things to do. Check them every five minutes from outside of the oven to make sure the ribs are not burned.
  • Prepare the potatoes and lightly coat them with lemon sauce to prevent oxidation.
  • Mix the marinades with some vegetable oil before pouring it on the ribs. It makes a more tasty sauce.
  • Add some white onions with the vegetables before baking starts. The sweetness and aroma of the onions makes the vegetables more interesting.

Wine Paring

Syrah

"Accelerated" Slow Cooker Beans

We love slow cookers, but sometimes they they can be a little too slow (or we can be a little too late!)  Yesterday, for example, I was presenting “How Can You Tell If You’re Eating Well.”  It’s a fun talk about “eating close to the earth” and how that simple approach makes it easy to know if you’re eating well.

Anyway, at the end of the talk I planned to demo a fast, “eating close to the earth” dish using slow cooker black beans.  But while fixing my morning cup of tea, I realized that I’d forgotten to soak the beans the night before, so they could slow cook all day, and be done just in time for my evening class.  As I poured the water over my Earl Grey leaves, I watched my carefully laid plans collapse.  What do I do now?

Innovate.   Fortunately, a bolt of inspiration struck and left behind a formula for  “Accelerated Slow Cooker Beans:”

8:48 a.m.  Put quart of water on to boil on biggest burner on highest heat (with the lid on because that makes it boil faster, too)

8:49 a.m.  Measure out 1  1/2 cups black beans, pour on a plate and pick out dirt clods and bad beans (my beans come straight from a local farm, so they take a couple extra prep minutes, but the taste is well worth it.)

Sorting Black Beans: Pour into a pile on left side of plate. Working in small batches, push to right side of plate, pulling out bad beans, small stones or dirt clods like the one in center of plate.

8:52 a.m.  Pour cleaned beans in slow cooker.  Water is now boiling so pour it in.  Cover and turn to high heat.

1:00 p.m.  Beans have already begun to soften, the same as if they had soaked all night, so I drain them, return them to pot and put another quart of water on to boil.

1:05 p.m.  Second round of water is boiling.  Pour over drained beans in slow cooker, cover and return heat to high.

5:00 p.m.  Return from appointment to find that beans are perfectly cooked–just a little on the soft side, how I love them.

Moral of the Story:  “Slow” cooker beans are possible in just 8 hours instead of 24.

Add salt at the end and that easily (and cheaply) you’ve got a dish fit for a healthy-eating king.

I’m always amazed at how good beans taste when cooked from scratch in a slow cooker.  Canned beans are perfectly fine, but I’m always nagging people to experiment with fresh-cooked–just once (’cause you’ll be hooked).  Experiment with this accelerated method or, if your brain works at night use the more leisurely method and put the beans on to soak the night before.  You can read more about the leisurely method in a previous post:  “How to Cook Dried Beans?“

Re: Argentina exports first ice wine

I remember stories about Canadians making ice wine in the freezers. Wine folks do many admireable things and much only the insiders know. The Canadians got caught. Argentina has been coming up in the wine circles for many years and ice wine is a very interesting step for South America. I guess experiments are the way to go until the best have been established as a system.

————————————————————————————————–

Argentina’s first ice wine will hit the US market this year.

The sweet Malbec from Mendoza will be available in three American states, as well as Brazil and Columbia.

Viña Las Perdices president, Carlos Muñoz said its Las Perdices Ice is unlikely to compete with renowned ice wine producers Germany and Canada but added: ‘We just wanted to make something similar, but distinct, with a good price quality ratio’.

In the first two vintages, just 10,000 bottles were made.

The wine is made using an artificial freezing process called cryoextraction, so cannot use the term Ice Wine on its label.

http://www.decanter.com/news/288060.html?aff=rss

 

 

balsamic quorn cutlets

this is soooo yummy. sweet and sticky and garlicky!

 

1 package quorn naked cutlets, thawed

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup fresh mushrooms of choice, chopped

6 cloves garlic, sliced

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3/4 cup mushroom or vegetable broth

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon butter

 

season the flour with salt and pepper.

dredge the cutlets in flour mixture to coat.

heat oil in skillet over medium high heat. saute the cutlets until nicely browned on one side.

add the garlic and mushrooms. turn the cutlets and continue to saute until browned on both sides.

add the vinegar, broth, bay leaf and thyme.

cover tightly and simmer over medium low heat for 10 minutes, turning occasionally.

remove cutlets from pan and keep warm.

continue simmering the sauce, uncovered, over medium high heat for 2-3 minutes.

discard bay leaf and swirl in butter.

pour sauce over cutlets.

Kentucky-Day 2

The day started around mid morning.  I slept late after the previous days travel, events, and excitement which I felt was a well deserved treat.  But after I crawled out of bed, I got ready for the day.  My daughter would be in school until 3:00 so I had then to myself and to do a little sight seeing and maybe a tasting.

My first stop was at Heaven Hill distilleries, the makers of some very popular names in bourbon like Evan Williams and Elijah Craig.  They are also partners in bottling,  importing and/or distribution of many other products such as Hypnotiq and Christian Brothers.  Heaven Hill is the home to The Bourbon Heritage Center, a   limestone building with white oak floors, and a copper roof that houses the history of bourbon.

After doing a couple of tours in distilleries, you begin to hear very similar stories, including the how to’s of making and why bourbon is unique.  And though each distillery does thing a little different, the process is the same.  But if you listen and look closely through the tours (assuming you have a good guide like John at Heaven Hill), you may tidbit or two the you never knew.  Such was my day today….

In 1888, a man named Marvin Stone invented the paper straw.  Previous to this, straw were typically made of grass.  But Mr Stone was a Mint Julep drinker (bravo!), and created the paper straw.  Why?  So that the grass would not interfere with the flavor of his Julep!!  Cool, huh?

After the tour there is usually a tasting, and  Heaven Hill is no exception.  The group I was with was sampled to two of there premium products: Evan Williams Single Barrel, the only vinted bourbon ( this one was a 1999), and Elijah Craig 18 year Old.  Both are amazing!

Unfortunately, sleeping late did not allow time to do much more before I picked up Savannah.  But I had a little time to kill, so I played tourist walking the street of downtown Bardstown and looked at the window displays each sponsored by a bourbon brand in the shops set up to celebrate the Bourbon Festival.

Time came to get Vannie.  Our evening together was typically Daddy/Daughter stuff, but ended at Nelson Park with the kick off party for the festival wich included a couple of Bouncy Houses and a Balloon Glow.  Well done!!

After I took a very tired young girl home, I decided to hit the Old Talbot Tavern for a night cap. The Old Talbot Tavern is right in the heart of Bardstwon and is rated as one of the top 10 bourbon bars in the US (as it should be considering where they are!).   I enagaed myself into a conversation with a couple who was doing a tasting flight of Bourbons.  The Tavern carries about 27 bourbons and for $25 you can sample any 5 on their list.  These are not tasters either: they are full shots!! 

Then I met  Charlene, a member of the Order of Colonels, and a fellow traveler Phillip, whom Charlene had met at the visitor’s Center earlier that day, and took him on a guided tour of the town. When Charlene found out I lived in Santa Fe, she told an amazing story of her experiences in The City Different and of dancing at Fiestas some years ago.  She regaled her story with a childlike flair and energy that reminded me of my deep love of New Mexico.  And as I walked back to my hotel I realized I was a little homesick.  Salud, Lady Charlene.

 

 Bourbon Barrel Family

For more pics, find me on Facebook!

Whole Wheat Elbows with Spinach, Mushrooms x 2, & Turkey

While I was grocery shopping tonight, I decided that I didn’t feel like eating any of the cooked food I had waiting for me in my fridge, so I came up with this recipe on the fly.  It was inspired both by the huge container of organic spinach I had in my cart (for the Green Monster Smoothies) and by the fact that the weather has turned into autumn almost overnight.

Whole Wheat Elbows with Spinach, Mushrooms x 2, & Turkey

Ingredients:

12.5 oz whole wheat elbow pasta

1.25 lb lean ground turkey, Italian seasoning flavor

1 onion

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

6 cups spinach

8oz sliced “baby bella” (crimini) mushrooms

8oz sliced white mushrooms

2 TBSP olive oil

1 cup 2% shredded mozzarella

2 TBSP parmesean cheese

red pepper flakes, to taste

black pepper, to taste

salt, to taste

Nutritional: I put this into the points tracker on eTools on WW.com, and it came out to 8 servings, worth 8 points each.  Since this is a meal unto itself – protein, veggies, and carbs, it’s all you need, so the higher points value shouldn’t be too much of a concern.

Directions:

I decided to give the Dreamfields elbows a try, because so many people rave about them.  They were good, but I didn’t notice any significant taste difference between these and my normal Barilla pasta.  In fact, I think I like Barilla better.

As soon as I got home I put a pot of water on to boil.  While it was ‘getting there’ I put all the groceries away, prepped the veggies, and got the meal organized.

Cook pasta until it’s al dente, or according to package directions.

While the pasta was cooking, I started browning the turkey:

I didn’t add anything except Pam to the pot, because the turkey gives off its own fat, even though it is lean.

I drained the turkey and put it aside.  In the same pan I added 2 TBSP of olive oil, onions, and garlic and sauteed them until they were almost translucent. Then I added the mushrooms.  I wanted a combination of the “baby bellas” (don’t you just love that name!) aka the criminis along with the regular white mushrooms, just to give a bit of variety to the dish.  I love the rich, meaty texture of the criminis, but I also like the woodsy flavor of the white mushrooms.  The combination of the two is perfect, to me. I added lots of black pepper and a bit of salt to the mushrooms and onions at this point.

Once the mushrooms had released all of their water, I added handfuls of spinach.  I’m guessing about 6 cups.  (I told you I bought a HUGE container of organic spinach!)

Doesn’t this just look healthy and hearty at the same time?!

Once the spinach wilted down, I added more black pepper.

Next comes my favorite part – add the elbow macaroni  and the browned turkey to the pot and mix.  I added quite a bit of red pepper flakes at this point.  As I mixed it up, I decided that I wanted a bit more spinach, so I added another handful.  It was at this point that I also added the mozzarella cheese, which when combined with the juice from the mushrooms, made a really nice, light cheesey sauce.  No pasta dish like this is  complete without some grated parmesean, so I added that at this point, too.

This looked like the ultimate comfort food to me.  It made a huge amount, I’m guessing at least 8 servings.

Mangia!  For a meal inspired at the grocery store, I think it turned out wonderfully.  I hope you enjoy it.

I Received a 90% Discount to Local Restaurants. Know Why?

I’ll tell you why. I am a subscriber of 2plus7 that has National Discounts on prescriptions, grocery coupons, restaurants and a whole lot more available to me. This past week in addition to our restaurant discount, with our promo code I received the 90% discount. I bought 4 $25.00 gift certificates to a local restaurant for $1 buckaroo each. Yip I spent $4.00 for $100 worth of gift certs. I gave 2 certificates for our drawings at our meeting and I gave 1 to my friend. She ended up going to our meeting and signed on as a subscriber. She loved the gift certificate idea for Christmas gifts, but I think our Mortgage software was the topper. You see she wants to pay off her mortgage in 1/3 the time so I showed her our Mortgage Calculator that comes with your subscription. Boy is she excited.

I am excited because I help people stretch their dollars, save and they can get paid too for sharing with others. Boy what a concept.

Well gotta run for today. Have a lot of people to follow up with to help them save.

I can be reached at viewfromtop@gmail.com

Persimmon beats vanilla

You know how you notice the make and model of every car at an intersection when you’re in the market to buy a new car? I’ve been reading other people’s blogs for years, but now that I am immersed in the process of creating one myself it feels like I am suddenly seeing them for the first time. It’s only after learning even the basic rudiments of blog building that I can begin to deconstruct other people’s creations and critique their use of the medium.

I was already familiar with several cooking blogs because I have been writing up my own vegetarian recipes–about 130 of them at this point, each one intended to work as a stand-alone article–for the last two years. In the course of researching ingredients and recipes I have bookmarked many vegan and vegetarian sites with the most innovative approaches so that I could return to them for reference purposes.

PostPunkKitchen is a web site, a public access vegan cooking show (described as “currently on hiatus”) and a blog hosted by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and her team. The site is edgy, chaotic but confident and sophisticated. The warm and spicy color palette of pumpkin and persimmon reinforces a sense of passion and spontaneity. It doesn’t take too long to figure out that Isa is featuring 3 books as “Hot Stuff” on the Home Page of her site. Her opus, Veganomicon, is currently sold on the endcap displays at Whole Foods Market, proof of her marketing success. The site feels disorganized, but the hyperlinked, layered pages and long list of sidebar links encourage the reader to linger and explore.

Conversely, Vegan Yum Yum, Lauren Ulm’s site promoting a book of the same name, is hard to get excited about. In spite of the really gorgeous photography, which Ulm explains at length on her “About” page (this is not unusual–I have seen this same attention to photographic technique on other sites), Vegan Yum Yum feels static and unimaginative. The pastel colors and the straight-forward layout might be within acceptable limits if Ulm used the capacity of the web medium to enrich the sidebar with helpful reader links, rather than stuffing it with ads and self-promotion. Finally, especially in the case of a blog that features a writer, it is hard to justify the presence of careless typos and even worse, the use of the meaningless word “awesome” (in this case twice in one paragraph, once in caps)–a cardinal diction sin in virtually any context unless you are a thirteen-year-old.

Mole Crab Chowder Recipe

OK, so I mentioned in the Fried Bait post, that I saw some discussion on sand flea or mole crab recipes.  The below recipe is courtesy of Unique Culinary Adventurers.  I have not tried this yet, but of course will.  Seems like a little less work and a little less ‘crunchy’.

MOLE CRAB CHOWDER

1 to 2 pounds of live mole crabs

2 cups of water

2 to 3 red onions, chopped

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablepsoon butter

½ teaspoon cilantro, minced

2 to 4 more cups of water

1 cup noodles, rice, or potatoes, not cooked

flour or toasted wheat flour

Steam the crabs in a covered pan with 2 cups of water until they are tender, about 20 minutes. Remove from the stove and, with the crabs still in the broth, mash thoroughly with a potato masher. Strain through cheesecloth, retaining the broth and discarding the crabs. Next, fry the onions to a golden color in the oil and butter, and mix with the broth in a saucepan. Add the cilantro and two cups of water. Heat the broth and add either the noodles, rice, or potatoes to “stretch” the broth. Remember to add sufficient water to cook the quantity of ingredient you add. The broth and chowder may also be thickened by adding plain flour or toasted wheat flour.

Contributed by Mrs. Judie Spitsbergen, Morehead City, NC

[Via http://pronet1.wordpress.com]

Taking the Cure

Ray and I were under the weather on Labor Day weekend, so I decided I to make a nutritious soup using all the wonderful vegetables in my garden. As I was picking the ingredients for the soup, I was thinking about the article I read on the Garden Rant blog where the author mentions the occasional bug she may unknowingly serve her family. It made me chuckle, but it made me buck up too — if I don’t eat that kale that looks like it was blasted by buckshot, then what’s the sense of having an organic garden?! So I grabbed a handful of that too. I had to triple wash it and really rub those leaves to get rid of the bugs. I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t pretty.

Anyway, I got through it and the soup was delicious. And maybe, just maybe, the missed bug or two were actually the medicine we needed to get better!

Fresh from the garden

Garden Vegetable Soup with Barley (bugs optional!)

• 1 bunch kale, with stems, roughly chopped  (I started throwing the entire kale leaves, stems and all, in the soup when I read my niece Kristin’s blog. She has a great blog on nutrition and food. You can read about the benefits and healing properties of food at foodbykristin.)
• 1 bunch Swiss chard, with stems, roughly chopped
• 2 large beets with their greens, beets cubed, greens, with stems, chopped
• 1 medium Trombetta squash, sliced 1/4″ thick
• 2 large yellow tomatoes, cubed
• 3 Roma tomatoes, cubed
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, cubed
• 1 large leek, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• handful of basil, roughly chopped
• 3 small onions, chopped
• lots of garlic, smashed
• oregano, sage, parsley, sage, tarragon, rosemary — whatever you have on hand
• Barley about 1/4 cup, or more
• filtered water
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes

Saute garlic and onions in olive oil until tender. Throw in rest of veggies and saute until tender. Add basil, sea salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Stir. Add water, about 4 – 5 cups, and barley. Bring to a boil. Add the fresh herbs. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

I don’t worry about too much about measuring ingredients for the soup. I just add whatever is ripe in the garden, season with lots of fresh herbs, add salt and pepper and add enough water to make plenty of broth. Whatever ingredients I use, it always makes a thick delicious broth and it’s really good for you. Just don’t look too closely… no, seriously I got them all!

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

Mozzarella Meatballs...

These delicious meatballs were sparked by D. and Pup watching ‘Big Daddy’s House’ on The Food Network. They came in after seeing it, and it was determined that we’d be making them that day. So we did… We sort of followed the recipe, found here, but with a few adjustments. All in all, they were very tasty… we loved the mozzarella inside and the flavor from the Worcestershire sauce.

• 6 slices Bacon
• 1-1/2 lbs. Ground Beef
• 1 package Knorr’s French Onion Soup Mix
• 2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
• 1/2 cup Bread Crumbs
• Fresh Mozzarella

1.  Rough cut the bacon and cook.  Set aside and let cool

2.  Using your hands, mix together the ground beef with all other ingredients except the mozzarella.  Add in the cooked bacon and mix.  Make palm-sized patties with the beef, and place a gumball-sized ball of mozzarella on top.  Fold the patty over the cheese and roll into a meatball.

3.  Place meatballs on a foil-covered baking sheet.  Cook in a 400 degree oven for approximately 12-15 minutes.

We had ours in a meatball sandwich of sorts, but they’d also be good with a nice spaghetti dinner with a light marinara sauce and some parmesan sprinkled on top.  Definitely a keeper.

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

Darn Good!

What would you consider the value of a bowl of frozen yogurt?

To be clear, I don”t mean its sentimental value, nothing as romantic as all of that, I”m talking about nitty-gritty, slap-a-price tag-on-that-puppy value.

Hold on, let me give you the details before you all start yelling out answers all The Price is Right-style on me.

This is not just any frozen confection. It is removed from the insipidly-sweet ranks of those frozen yogurts parading as ice cream. It has the unmistakable twang of yogurt, softened only slightly by sweetness. This is one that puts Greek yogurt front and center; yogurt so thick that when spooned it falls lazily back upon itself in luscious folds. This is one where the yogurt plays equal partner to handful upon handful of mixed berries that have been squished and squashed into a violet-hued pulp.

It”s darn good stuff.

Read more

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

Take Another Little Pizza My Heart

Since childhood, which contained hundreds of hours spent watching Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (apparently, British children in the 1980s were unaware of what ninjas are), I’ve loved pizza. Those steaming, spotted (with what I soon learned was pepperoni) cartoon discs served to arouse the instant feeling of mouth-watering hunger each time they appeared on the screen.

This love affair continued to develop through my teenage years when, on a slim budget, my friends and I used to eat out at La Porchetta, where we’d be astounded at the sheer size of the pizza that arrived in front of us mere minutes after ordering, all for about a fiver. It was also about this time that I realised delicious pizza is a very thin, slightly blackened, crispy affair, as opposed to the doughy mouthfuls I remembered from takeaways earlier in life.

Anyway, all these memories were bought back today when I made my first ever attempt at making a pizza completely from scratch, with the help of a newly purchased pizza stone. Here is a pictorial document of my maiden voyage into the world of pizza making.

First, I laid out all my ingredients in photgenic readiness.

Next, I prepared my tomatoes for roasting. Each have their own little sliver of garlic to make them taste extra delicious.

Then I combined two types of flour, Italian OO and plain old white, some yeast and salt, to which I added warm water and olive oil.

Once kneaded to an encouragingly smooth dough, I popped it in a fresh bowl, ready to rise.

By this stage, my tomatoes had just begun to take colour, so I took them out of the oven…

…and passed them through a sieve to make my sauce. Take a moment to marvel at the magnificent pink spoon P purchased for us the other weekend in Suffolk.

Soon, as if by magic, my ball of dough had grown to twice its original size. The properties of a few grams of dried yeast will never fail to amaze me.

Now, my pizza was ready to assemble, so I rolled it out nice and thin and added some tomato sauce, olives, anchovies and goat’s cheese.

Lo and behold, after a few minutes cooking at the hottest temperature my oven could handle, and a handful of torn up basil and a splash of olive oil later, my pizza was complete. Very delicious it was too.

I realise that hearing about the cooking of someone’s lunch isn’t many steps lower on the banality scale than hearing what they dreamed about last night but, considering the amont of time I spend thinking about, and boring my friends with talk of food, I thought it wasn’t especiially well represented on this blog.

So there!

If you’d like to cook a pizza like this, then do as I did and follow Dan Lepard and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s recipe from The Guardian weekend magazine which can be found HERE.

[Via http://pete485.wordpress.com]

White Chocolate Plastic Roses

Chocolate plastic roses

Having trialed the top tier of my son’s wedding cake I thought it was time to start making the roses that will decorate it. I found a site that made it sound very easy [www.bakingobsession.com] and with my recent experience making rose buds from fondant, I thought I was set - I even have the proper cutters.

I made my chocolate plastic and put it in the fridge as specified. After 3 hours I took it out and let it sit on the bench for an hour before trying to knead it. It was quite hard and when I tried to knead it, it just crumbled. The only departure from the recipe was the addition of some powdered colouring as the bride wanted red roses. I wondered if that had mucked things up. Or perhaps my ingredients weren’t quite right. I used corn syrup but wasn’t sure whether it was ‘light” or not.  I did a bit of googling and found a site that recommended zapping the chocolate plastic in the microwave for 10 seconds to warm it up. I did that a couple of times and was then able to knead it.

Chocolate plastic roses

As I suspected the finished product was pink rather than red but the bride and groom are quite happy to have a mix of pink and white roses.  I made 5 roses before heading to bed and will make the rest tonight and tomorrow. I was quite happy with how they turned out but I think they look more like camellias than roses. The book recommends having a total of 20 roses in various sizes – I think I will make slightly more white than pink roses and will make more than 20 so I can use some on a second practice cake.

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

In Defense of GOOP...Ramble

“Fuck the haters!” Gwyneth Paltrow said in the March issue of British Elle. “I saw this blog of people writing horrible things about me and for a second your ego is so wounded … How could people hate me, my intentions or what I’m trying to do? I’m a good person and I’m trying to put good things into the world.”

Hey Gwynnie, that’s not exactly the motto of your lifestyle website, GOOP, “nourish the inner spirit.” Yet, I can’t help think that it is. Tell those haters to shove it because honey, you have an Oscar. Why are all these people hating on Gwyneth? Yes, she says high brow pretenscious things all the time, but I take pure joy in hearing them and wondering if she is in on the joke. I think she is the mastermind of the joke. We’re too damn sensitive all the time and she calls us, America out on it. Stop being sterile people. Gwyneth has an opionion and she’s not afraid to speak her mind.

I get asked ad nauseum why exactly I like her. According to my sister, I’m the only one she knows who likes Gwyneth. She’s wrong, Dr. Mom likes her too! As I do seem to always like the esoteric aka ‘difficult’ ones, I’ll give you insights into why I get a kick out of Gwyneth.

Gwyneth had a number one hit for singing ‘Cruisin’ with Huey Lewis. Yes, it was in Australia, who also are the only country to release The Hoff ‘Get Into My Car’…..but also the home of INXS, Jimmy Barnes (his daughter Eliza is the muse of Liam Finn), John Farnham, and of course, hello the one and only Eric Bana. Eric deserves his own ramble so I’ll move on now.

Which she and hubbie, Chris Martin sang at a friend’s wedding. She sounds vocally better than CMartin on this one (vocal imperfections make me, yeah love Coldplay!)

She’s married to the aforementioned Chris Martin, another person people seem to think is far too serious. Ricky Gervais’ interview with Chris sheds some light on that one:

and her man beats up the paparazzi for her when she’s been in hospital for fasting too much:

Oh, you thought I was going to say he also wrote a number one hit “Fix You” that is now a Coldplay classic? Well, yeah that too. He proves in this bit, that he rushes home for Gwyneth’s cooking.

Which takes us to Gwyneth’s cooking videos on GOOP. Who doesn’t need to know how to properly debone a chicken?

Not only did I find that video useful and I want to make some yummy chicken, I dearly love to laugh just like Elizabeth Bennett in ‘Pride & Prejudice.’ GP’s first cooking video took a lot of heat and even sparked this hilarious send up on Funnyordie.com

Gwyneth Paltrow Makes Chicken Goop.com with Abby Elliott from Abby Elliott

If you can inspire in song and laughter how bad can you be?

Still not convinced? She let’s her kids listen to Uncle Jay-Z “99 Problems.” No? How about GP went on Conan with actual GOOP all over her fabulous legs. Thanks Gwynnie for posting exercise videos from your personal trainer so we can all try to get our legs looking that fabulous.

Gwynnie is just an Oscar winner trying to give back. She was charming in ‘Emma’ and renewed my love for that book. I thought Miramax should’ve campaigned for Joseph Fiennes’ eyes to win for ‘Shakespeare in Love’ but GP made it up to him by getting him cast in ‘Running With Scissors.’ GP is good to her friends, who mostly happen to be famous. How could they not? She grew up with a father who was a director and Blythe Danner for a mother? Even her brother, Jake is now a director.

(Photo: Jenny Gage & Tom Betterton)

I adore Gwyneth because a) her line in ‘A Perfect Murder’ delivered with disdain: “That’s not happiness to see me.” Response:”Try surprise.” b) dig the reading reccomendations and advice through GOOP, which lead me to ‘Drink, Pray, F@ck’ which sends up the horrid whine, whinge, whine and repeat boo hoo I’m the victim ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’ c) admire her for being able to wear those wonderful ankle breakers. She was the first one photographed in them and now I bet you have some version of that in your wardrobe as a must d) she gets to make babies with Chris Martin e) when she gets a mother-daughter photo, it’s taken by Annie Liebovitz

(Photo: Annie Liebovitz)

Finally, I got a cheap thrill out of the fact I turned my friend Brian onto loving Gwyneth. He now goes around qualifying people with “she’s so not fabulous, she’s not being followed by GOOP on twitter.” In closing, I’m not saying she’s Flawless, but that her imperfectiosn make her loveable to me. I also have a few suggestions to give her for increasing GOOP’s traffic but I’ll have to save that for the day when I either get to interview her or vice versa. GP let’s hang.

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

Banana and Zucchini Breads

My friends and I made Banana and Zucchini breads tonight. One banana chocolate chip, one plain zucchini, one banana walnut (for grandpa) and one zucchini chocolate chip.

Let me tell you, kids: even if you think you have used WAAAAAAAAAY too much zucchini, YOU HAVE NOT. The plain zucchini tastes… plain. Not like zucchini at all. The zucchini choclate chip tastes like chocolate chips. Kinda a disappointment. Oh well, live and learn.

Anyone know what to dress super plain zucchini bread with? So far, we’re thinking some sort of carrot frosting. Maybe without the carrots.

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

09/09/09 --- Today is The Day

The above tweet was sent out by me on Twitter last night at about 1:30 am.

I forgot about it until I saw a link to an article on Yahoo titled Why 09/09/09 Is So Special. From calculated marketing activities such as film openings to the most personal celebrations such as weddings, people around the world have attached some significance to the date. Some good and some not so good.

One of my first thoughts was to radically change my life by making a radical change in my daily lifestyle. My second though … why are you lying to yourself … seriously. Am I really gonna exercise an hour a day everyday? While I’d like to, I don’t want to disappoint myself with such a lofty goal right now.

I was recently talking to someone about making a radical change in our lives and losing weight. He is taking small steps and being realistic about what personal changes he will make that he knows he can realistically keep. I’m sure his small daily steps will lead him to his ultimate goal. I need to do the same. Small realistic goals.

As I continued to mull over ideas, I’ve come up with something that I think I can do which will help me stay committed long term. I think it’s actually a good idea. The action is small enough where I really don’t have a valid excuse to not do it, plus it’s flexible enough so that I will truly stay committed. I’ll never be able to say that I don’t feel like doing one thing because I don’t have to do just one thing.

Does that sound like a commitment to not committing to anything?

It does, but really it’s not. Really.

I’ve decided to commit myself to doing something for 9 minutes a day to increase my overall well being. It can be exercise, meditation, cooking a healthy meal or just making the conscious effort to relax and take a moment to myself. While this may seem simple, the truth is that I really don’t take much time out of my life for myself. I don’t exercise regularly, I don’t cook, I’m always stressed about something in my life, I’m overworked and sometimes my life is chaotic. Very chaotic.

Over the years, I’ve always struggled with the work/life balance that comes with being an entrepreneur. Add being a caretaker to a developmentally disabled brother (who I described as a perpetual kid/teen who struggles to be independent but who constantly requires my help in managing his life) and you can probably understand why finding “me time” has been challenging.

I’ve rolled with the punches that life has tossed my way, but I’m finally realizing that if I don’t start fighting back that I may be down for the count. My battle with my weight is literally a fight for my life.

As I get older, my fear is becoming a statistic. African American woman, obese,  with high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc. All diseases which can be attributed to lifestyle. All diseases that my relatives have had and died from.

As I though more about the 9 minute idea, I realized that it may be hard to do some things in 9 minutes. It doesn’t matter. The beauty of the idea is that if when I get up to exercise (or do something else) for 9 minutes, I’ll probably keep doing it since I’ve started. Getting started is always the hard part for me.

Can you relate? Do you have any tips on keeping commitments to yourself? Put any ideas, suggestions in the comments section below.

~ April

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

Labor Day Cooking

Made the following this weekend

Strawberry cake: I used the Sprinkles strawberry cupcake recipe and added a little bit more strawberry than it called for.  I made them in a mini loaf pan.  Then glazed them with a strawberry puree, powdered sugar, vanilla mix.  Turned out well. Next time I will let the glaze get a little firm on the cake before packaging

Blue Cheese Rolls:  1 puff pastry sheet or 1 pkg crecent rolls all the seams smooshed together. Mix blue cheese, walnuts, pears, honey together and put in to one of the edges (longways) of the roll. Roll chill/freeze for 10 min, slice bake at 375 for about 10 min or so.  Very good. Will add to party menus.

Tomatillo Salsa:  roasted 2 large tomatillos and 2 serranos in the oven. Put those in a food processor with some garlic and sauteed onion.  Pulsed and then added salt, cilantro, and two avocados. Spicy but very good. Adapted the recipe from Rick Bayless

I will try to post more pictures and recipes with the cooking segment of this world.

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

Healthy Cooking For A Healthier You

You love to cook, and you love to eat. But you feel like you’re not doing it right. Somehow you know you need to change the way you cook. You eat and you gain weight. Yet there are others out there who eat such lavish dishes yet never seem to put on the pounds. You need to learn the secrets of healthy cooking. Don’t fret, you can learn these easy healthy cooking techniques and cook you way to a better diet, better health and a better life.

It is relatively easy to find healthy cooking techniques which you can apply to your daily life. Just look it up on the internet, and you will find hundreds. Look at books and videos, and you will find even more techniques for cooking healthy. Just remember that cooking healthy is simple and will not alter your life. One of the most immediate technique that you can use is as easy as replacing your salad dressing. Instead of the usual high-calorie fattening salad dressings, opt for low-fat or non-fat dressings available readily in the market. This basic change will assist in reducing your intake of calories. Many of us would think that eating salads would be a healthier choice compared to say a burger. However keep in mind that if we drench our salad with the fattening dressing, our salad will contain more calories than that burger!

Hey, those low-fat and non-fat dressing tastes funny, you say. Or they are tasteless. Well, this doesn’t have to be so. Another option is to have salsa, which packs a punch. Salsa is a fantastic alternative to fattening salad dressings. The appetizing salsa can help dress up any dish you have. Instead of salsa, you can also choose marinade. These no fat low calorie marinades instantly add a burst of flavor. Or you could have some mustard mixed with some soy sauce. This homemade dressing is simply delicious. Be creative and bold and try out new recipes.

If you’re a meat eater and love cooking meat, you can have ground beef or turkey as alternatives to a healthier diet. One healthy cooking technique that you can try is to basically cook the meat and once that is done, to use a spatula to hold the meat in place while you drain off the excess oil and fat. Once you drain off all the unnecessary oil and fat, you can now enjoy your meat without the excessive fat content and calories. Your food will taste lots better and you will not be dragged down by the lethargic feeling you’d normally get from eating a greasy, fattening meal.

Healthy cooking techniques when put to use can improve your diet, your health and your life. And if you cook for others, you will be giving them the great gift of these advantages too! You will be in for a great surprise when you realize how easy it is to utilize these healthy cooking techniques in your everyday diet, and make room for a healthier you. If you’re a meat eater and love cooking meat, you can have ground beef or turkey as alternatives to a healthier diet. One healthy cooking technique that you can try is to basically cook the meat and once that is done, use a spatula to hold the meat in place while you drain off the excess oil and fat. Once you drain off all the unnecessary oil and fat, you can now enjoy your meat without the excessive fat content and calories. Your food will taste lots better and you will not be dragged down by the lethargic feeling you’d normally get from eating a greasy, fattening meal.

Healthy cooking techniques when put to use can improve your diet, your health and your life. And if you cook for others, you will be giving them the great gift of these advantages too! You will be in for a great surprise when you realize how easy it is to utilize these healthy cooking techniques in your everyday diet, and make room for a healthier you.

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