(Mis)Adventures With Food

Gluten-Free Meatballs & Spaghetti... Yes, it can be done!

2012-02-01T16:02:00.000-05:00

You guys, I'm really successfully doing it! (I sort of half expected to start crying and give this up after a day) but now in day 3 I'm gluten-free and going strong (even though I did have a dream about bagels the other night.)

On Day 1 I made a FANTASTIC and delicious Braised Coconut Spinach & Chickpeas with Lemon and served it with rotisserie chicken (provided by the good folks at Whole Foods... they do a fabulous job of rotisserying - is that a word?) The recipe calls for a pound of baby spinach but I used 12 oz of baby spinach and 6 ounces of BABY KALE because I saw it at Whole Foods and couldn't resist (yay, extra vitamins and antioxidants?)

But here comes the real crux of my post... MEATBALLS!

Let me tell you about meatballs. Once upon a time I was scared of meatloaf. Why? I didn't know what it was. Back in my younger days (college) I was invited over to my then-boyfriend's house for dinner and his mother fixed me meatloaf. I was terrified. My family was not a Meatloaf Family. But then I realized when she served it that meatloaf is really just one big meatball served in a pan. Also sort of like eating a hamburger without the bun. I like hamburgers. I like meatballs. Hence, meatloaf ain't so bad!

So when drawing up recipes for my gluten-free experiment I thought that meatballs would be gluten-free. Why? I was always under the impression that meatballs were just round hamburgers. Again, wrong. Apparently I have so much to learn about meat. Meatballs (and meatloaf) also include breadcrumbs. A lot of them.

I found this great recipe for making meatballs (but of course, it is loaded up with breadcrumbs) so I thought about what I could do for a substitution. I searched around my cupboard and the internet and settled on crushing up some Rice Chex (which are gluten-free!) and Rice Krispies (the gluten-free variety... NOTE: Regular Rice Krispies are NOT gluten-free, we'll get to this in my next post.)

I crushed these up, added JUST A TOUCH OF WATER, some Italian spice and baked a little so the spices mixed in. It worked out pretty well to add some "filling" to the meat for the meatballs. I added bits of sliced onion also to boost up the flavor.

Of course, this was my first time making meatballs, so what do I know? They sort of fell apart a little while cooking. Is this normal? I tried not to pack them too tightly as the recipe warned, maybe I should have packed them a little harder... either way, they pretty much stayed together enough to actually be meatballs in the end. I cooked them on the pan for a while but I was worried they were just searing the outsides and not cooking through so I also baked them for 10 minutes in the oven while the pasta cooked on the stove.

The outcome: Delicious! They were soft, moist, and very tasty! Also, the gluten-free pasta, made from rice, tastes exactly like normal pasta. Score.

Bonus: Here's my cat in a bowl. Isn't she cute? And no, I didn't cook dinner with this bowl, don't worry.

Going Gluten-Free : Day 1

2012-01-30T10:46:00.004-05:00

First off, I AM SORRY. I know I have been an utterly terrible food blogger. Absolutely abysmal. Beyond abysmal. What's beyond abysmal anyway? Atrocious? Well, whatever it is, it's me. But don't fret, I haven't been living strictly off of Buffalo chicken pizza and other takeout fare, I have been cooking... sometimes. I do indulge in a good BC pizza now and then too, of course.

I promise to blog better. (I know, you've heard this promise before.) But really, I will. And to kick it off I have a real challenge/experiment I'm starting. I'm going GLUTEN-FREE for two weeks.

Why? Two reasons.

1. For work. In my day job I'm a magazine editor and I write a magazine column where I ask readers to offer me up challenges/things to "try." Well, we have a lot of readers with children who have special needs and food allergies so someone suggested I try a gluten free-diet for 2 weeks.

2. In doing some research I learned that a low-gluten or gluten-free diet may be beneficial for migraine sufferers. (That's me.) And, in fact, migraines might indicate a gluten intolerance or sensitivity. Yikes.

So, here we are. My official Day 1. I ate my final gluten-full meal on Saturday with a tuna melt and then had my last taste of gluten on Sunday with a brownie, but other than that Sunday was relatively gluten-free.

I'll be going grocery shopping today to pick up goodies/snacks/meals for the week. But yesterday I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up gluten-free cereal that I plan to mix in with yogurt for my breakfast.

Oh granola, how I'm going to miss you! Good thing coffee is gluten-free. Wish me luck. I'll keep you regularly updated on my progress!

Couponing Win!

2011-09-13T10:13:00.003-04:00

I’m writing an article for work about couponing. You’ve seen the show I’m sure, or if you haven’t you at least know about it -- EXTREME COUPONING. I had never actually seen it before… until last night. I had seen clips of it, when it was briefly being made fun of on something like The Soup, but I had never really seen it in its entirety. Well, I was in for a treat.

I knew what to expect though because two weeks ago I started to follow some coupon blogs. I started to LEARN. I came into this coupon thing as a total newbie. I seriously asked questions like: “Does Target take coupons?” “You can print coupons ONLINE?” “What is a circular?” “You can use more than one coupon at once?” But that’s all for a later discussion – and my work article.

What I’m here to tell you about is my first real coupon experience. Yesterday! And because this is a food blog, it’s food! But, here’s the catch, it’s not people food… it is kitty food.

I was a coupon superstar yesterday and was able to snag free cat treats at Target and now I’m going to tell you how you can do it too:

The usual price for the Whisker Lickin’s Cat Treats is about $2
There’s currently a SALE to $1 (until 10/22)
Target is offering a $1 off coupon on there website (which you can find & print HERE)
Final Cost: FREE! (Really, FREE! This still sort of blows my mind!)

Now, I’m not suggesting you waste an hour of your time or travel 20 miles to score a $2 bag of cat treats for free, but if you happen to be going to Target in the next few weeks, think about your fuzzy friends and maybe bring them home something special.

ALSO: There's a Living Social deal today for $20 worth of Whole Foods groceries for $10. (Click that link and buy it, seriously.) And my awesome 75% off J. Crew trench coat arrived yesterday. The world is just full of deals this week. How did I ever buy anything full price before?

Black Bean & Mango Salad

2011-07-20T13:34:00.002-04:00

Hello loyal food blog readers, I have forsaken you and I am sorry! I have been so busy this past month (why the heck am I busy? I graduated!) that I’ve barely had time to post. But I’m back… and with a vengeance! I vow to be more consistent in my food blog posts and I’m kicking it off with a yummy recipe! (And lots of exclamation points!)

I went to Whole Foods yesterday with the intention of buying burgers to throw on the grill for dinner and stumbled upon a great (non-burger) recipe which I will now share with you. But let’s back up a moment…. That’s right foodie readers, I bought a grill. It happened over 4th of July weekend when I went to Home Depot with the intention of buying some potting soil. As you can see I’m an impulse shopper.

Anyway, Whole Foods has this awesome little flyer called “Meals for Under $15.” Since I just invested $1000 in a trip to LA for a writing conference I figured a less than $15 meal is just what I needed. Enter Black Bean & Mango Salad. Also, there is no actual “cooking” involved, it’s all chopping and throwing in a bowl. Score.

I think chopped up mango sort of looks like cubes of cheese....

This salad was so summery and delicious and I even got to use some fresh items out of my very own garden, including cilantro which has magically stayed alive! (Apparently, fourth time’s a charm when it comes to growing cilantro plants.) The salad was also a great accompaniment to the Au Poivre burgers, but I think it would also be tasty with some grilled chicken or fish.

Fresh cilantro!

BLACK BEAN & MANGO SALAD compliments of Whole Foods

Prep time: 20 minutes Total time: 20 minutes (aka, the whole thing is prep)

Ingredients:

1 (28 oz) can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 large mango, peeled and chopped
1 small red onion, minced
1 red bell pepper, minced
1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and minced
4 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 fresh lime, zested and juiced
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:
Mix beans, mango, onion, peppers, cilantro and garlic in large bowl. Toss with lime zest and lime juice, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve chilled. See how easy that was? Serves 4-6.

I also served mine with some taco chips. Yummmmm.

Happy summer, see you soon… I promise!

Urban Gardening Week 3 : Garden Expansion

2011-06-16T19:16:00.000-04:00

I added a few plants to the little backyard garden! Things are really coming along nicely!

The full garden:

New additions:

Purple basil
Pineapple mint/sage
Catnip (this sent Mittsy into a fit of crazy aka she tried to maul the plant immediately. Totally a hit.)

Alpine strawberries

Cilantro (looking very sad, I hope it will resurrect itself.)
Arugula
Mixed greens

Yummmmmm.

Urban Gardening Week 2

2011-06-07T18:08:00.000-04:00

So far so good. Mostly. I went out of town for a few days, and what blew through Massachusetts while I was gone? A tornado. Really, folks. And that tornado carried with it a storm that did some damage to my wee urban garden. But alas, all seems fine. Even if the board behind my plants fell over, causing the jumbo mint plant to fall on my small oregano plant, where it sat atop it -- crushing it -- for four days before I could come back into town to rescue it.

OREGANO STATUS: Surviving? Hanging on?

PEPPER PLANT STATUS: growing!

CHIVES STATUS: kitty loves them. She now has stinky breath.

MINT STATUS: growing great. I tried to feed some mint to kitty so she would smell better. She wasn't having it. Aren't cats supposed to like mint because it's a relative of cat nip?

TOMATOES STATUS: Looking plentiful.

Urban garden week 2 overall status: Great.

(Mis) Adventures in Gardening

2011-05-27T16:04:00.000-04:00

I'll be honest, I don't have a green thumb. I like to think I do though. I like to buy plants. Whenever I see them at a store, let's say, Whole Foods, I always stop and look at them and think, "Why yes, I could use an ivy plant in my house." Most of the time I make the right choice and keep walking. But sometimes I take a plant home.

And wouldn't you know, the very first plants I ever bought are still alive and kickin'. I was so excited to get them I even named them. Spike & Fuzz. I got them both at Trader Joe's when I was living in Tucson. These babies are more than 5 years old now. Granted they are succulents, aka hard to kill, but I still take pride in the fact that they have lasted that long. And have outlasted some of their fellow plant-mates. RIP bamboo1, bamboo2, bamboo3, indoor tree, cilantro1, cilantro2, oregano plant & pepper plant.

Spike & Fuzz are to the far left and far right.
That cilantro plant in the front died within a week.
Basil is now a beast.

Part of my failure as an indoor gardener is that my plants don't get enough sunlight. Enter: the OUTDOORS! For the first time in years I have a bit of a backyard, and a sunny one at that. So I decided that this summer was the perfect opportunity to try my hand at container gardening. I opted for relatively easy plants (I think? I hope?) that love sunlight. All of them are also edible so I can enjoy the rewards of my gardening in the kitchen.

If you couldn't tell from the above picture, the garden lineup includes:

Hungarian spicy wax peppers (which are supposed to be way spicy!)
Tiny Tim tomatoes (the perks of this plant is that it produces cute little tomatoes and doesn't need a stake/grate/cage/etc.)
Globe basil (smells delish!)
Spicy oregano (it's not spicy like the peppers are, spicy like flavorful)
Chives
Peppermint
Chocolate mint (seriously, omg! I can't wait for this to grow to be a beast so I can eat chocolate mint every day.)
French lavender (lavender is supposed to be a migraine cure, so we'll see how this does to aid my aching head.)

I'll be keeping you posted on how the garden grows. Wish me luck!

Pistachio-Chai Muffins

2011-05-25T10:10:00.001-04:00

Mmmmm I love a good muffin. When I saw the list of “Healthy Muffins” from Cooking Lite I knew I was in heaven. A few years ago I used to buy a blueberry or corn muffin each morning from Wegmans until I learned that each muffin had approximately 60 grams of fat and 300,000 calories (yes, an exaggeration, but it was still a lot!). Unreal. FOR A MUFFIN! I was disgusted. If you’re getting all those fat and calories you might as well be shoveling in like ten donuts and a chocolate-filled croissant.

Anyway, I was so pleased to see these healthy muffins, and one’s that don’t seem to skimp on flavor. With my mom and sister coming into town, I decided to try out the first one that jumped out at me: Pistachio-Chai.

It gets the chai flavor from real tea bags which seemed cool to me because you can adjust the flavor based on which tea you select. All was going well in the cooking process… I even managed to work around the fact that my oven fills my kitchen with an awful gas smell so cooked my muffins with the broiler (turning it on and off at intervals to heat up the oven just enough without searing the tops of the muffins… somehow the broiler doesn’t make my kitchen stink of gas. Anyone have an answer for this?)

And then, the final reveal. I pulled the muffins out of the oven and let them cool and got ready to drizzle on the icing. And what? I FORGOT THE PISTACHIOS! In all my cleaning, stressing about the gas smell, etc. I forgot to add the crushed pistachios to the tops of the muffins before baking. *sigh* BUT they were still good. They were just Chai Muffins. Or Pistachio-Chai Muffins Sans Pistachios, if you want to think of it that way.

They were easy to make so I’ll probably whip up a new batch for myself later this week WITH pistachios. Mmmmm. Recipe is below. Enjoy!

Pistachio-Chai Muffins (Makes 12 muffins)
INGREDIENTS:

• 7 9/10 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 3/4 cups)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 chai blend tea bags, opened
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• Cooking spray
• 1/3 cup shelled dry-roasted pistachios, chopped
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Cut open tea bags; add tea to flour mixture, stirring well. Make a well in center of mixture. Combine buttermilk, butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and egg in a bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.
3. Place 12 muffin-cup liners in muffin cups; coat liners with cooking spray. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle nuts evenly over batter. Bake at 375° for 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in pan on a wire rack.
4. Combine remaining 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, powdered sugar, and 1 tablespoon water, stirring until smooth. Drizzle evenly over muffins.

Source: Cooking Lite. See the rest of the muffin recipes HERE.

Farm Market / Spring Market

2011-05-04T12:37:00.000-04:00

Oh, I am so totally craving Farm Market Season already. I love me some fresh/local/organic produce but golly Whole Foods is just so darn expensive. And I like supporting local, and browsing the crazy selection of things offered at Farm Markets that even Whole Foods doesn't stock. Can it be Farm Market Season yet, pleeeeease?

After some intense internet searching I found a mini-solution, it looks like Newton has a spring market! Huzzah! Here's the deets found on the Newton Farmers Market website:

SPRING MARKET - Tuesdays
American Legion Post 440,
295 California St., Parking Lot
May 24 - June 28
12:00PM - 5:00PM

Picture compliments of the Newton Farmer's Market website...
look how pretty!

I still have to wait three weeks, but it's better than waiting until mid-June which is went my local markets, Brookline and Alston, open. If you're looking for info about Boston area markets once they open, check out my post from last year featuring area markets by the day of the week: FARM MARKET TIME!

Anyone else know of area spring markets? Please share!

Panini Perfection

2011-04-20T11:45:00.004-04:00

I bought myself a new kitchen gadget -- a panini press! It's more than just a panini maker though, I went for the Cuisinart Griddler so it serves a lot of functions, including the fact that I can buy waffle inserts to make my own Belgian waffles. YUM.

In the past week I’ve tried it out three times, all with amazing success. I’ve made two grilled sandwiches and one quesadilla. What I love about this grill/panini press is that it has removable/reversible plates so you have the option of a flat surface or a rippled one -- I’ve learned that I completely prefer flat.

MEAL 1 : Proscuitto, Fig & Fontina Panini

Ingredients:

A few slices of proscuitto
Fig spread
Fontina cheese
Salad greens
Good bread (I splurged and used $6 a loaf rosemary/garlic bread from a local bakery – Nashoba Brook Bakery -- that I got at Whole Foods. It made an incredible difference.)

Directions:

Spread fig preserve on one slice of bread.
Add cheese, greens, and proscuitto on top of spread and top with second slice of bread.
Grill on medium until cheese is melty and bread is toasty. Cut in half. Enjoy!

Photographing sandwiches is hard....

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MEAL 2 : Beef & Cheddar Quesadilla

Ingredients:

A few slices of roast beef
Sharp cheddar cheese (I recommend using really good cheese, not that phony cheese stuff. The better the cheese the more delicious this quesadilla will be, and with only a few ingredients you really want the cheese to shine.)
1 medium onion
Tortillas

Directions:

Slice onion and sauté until translucent. While onion is cooking slice cheese into thin strips to help it melt.
Layer cooked onion, cheese, beef in a tortilla and fold over so it looks like a big taco.
Grill on medium until cheese melts and outside of tortilla is toasty. Enjoy!
(Note: Watch out that cheese doesn't melt too much and run all over the panini plate… mine did.)

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MEAL 3 : Roasted Pepper & Veggie Panini

Before grilling... it looks like a big piece of bruschetta.

Ingredients: The best part about this panini is that you can use basically anything you have on hand. I used:

My ingredients all chopped up

Roasted red peppers
Artichoke hearts
10 kalamata olives
Basil & sun dried tomato goat cheese
Salad greens
Good bread (I used the same bread as Meal 1.)

Directions:

Chop up all veggies and cheese.
Layer all ingredients between two slices of bread.
Grill on medium until cheese is melty and bread is toasty. Cut in half & enjoy!

All three of these meals were incredibly delicious and relatively healthy, too! I’m so excited to make some more. Thank goodness I no longer have to do the awkward attempt to flip sandwich/quesadilla on pan and watch all my fillings fall out routine that I used to do when making grilled sandwiches. YAY!

If you have a favorite sandwich/panini recipe I would love to hear it! Share!

Pasta With Mushrooms & Rosemary

2011-04-13T10:14:00.002-04:00

Last week a fellow Simmons grad student lamented about the difficulties of meal prep/planning on her food blog, and I couldn’t agree more. Planning meals is hard work! Especially when you have boyfriends to factor into the equation and can’t do the single girl thing of “eat a bunch of cookies for dinner and call it a night.” I have a hard enough time deciding what I want to eat for dinner on Wednesday night ON Wednesday night, let alone trying to decide that on Monday night as I pour over food blogs and cookbooks and try to plan out my week. But I’ve been trying… with some success. With such a busy schedule this semester I’m still relying heavily on take-out, but I’m trying much more to do some easy meal-prep and to shop accordingly.

I’ve also re-instituted “date nights” which makes The Boyfriend laugh when I call it that since we live together and all it’s not like we’re really going out for a date. But I insist we are… it’s a reward for my careful meal planning and preparations all week long. And it’s our chance to get out of the house.

I’ve been on a mushroom kick lately, so when I saw that Fellow Grad Student posted that one of her recent meals was pasta with mushrooms I knew I had to try it.

After all, it already had a stamp of approval. The original blogger she got the recipe from HERE served it with a side of sautéed kale, but heeding Fellow Grad Student’s warning that pasta plus kale was a lot to cook together, I saved the tasty-sounding kale recipe for a later date and just stuck to the mushrooms and pasta. Definitely a good idea.

I couldn’t find the cute little ear-shaped pastas at Trader Joe’s so I had to settle for bow ties, which were still cute. It made an enormous batch and we had leftovers that I ate for lunch for a few days after. I liked that this recipe was so easy... it was definitely a good mid-week meal for when I drag myself home from class or writing group or pull myself away from the computer after writing/working all day long. I think next time I try to the recipe I might fancy it up a bit with some wild mushrooms to give it an extra kick.

I served the pasta with steamed artichokes and butter for dipping. Delish!

Krispie Crazy

2011-04-06T11:14:00.002-04:00

I am a kid at heart. I have never grown out of loving Rice Krispie Treats. If anything, my fondness for them has only grown over the years. They are so simple, yet so delicious. That’s why when there was a bake sale earlier this year (I know, I’m a little behind writing this post) at the MSPCA where I volunteer I knew exactly what I was going to make.

I thought it was possible that someone else might have the same brilliant idea so I wanted to add some extra flair to my treats. I began with a little search of the internet. When my sister was living in Philadelphia a few years back we were at a restaurant that boasted a “Rice Krispie Treat Platter” for dessert. (Had we not been so stuffed from dinner we would have ordered it. And to this day I still sort of regret that we didn’t. C’est la vie.) I hunted around online trying to find the types of unique Krispie Treats that might have graced that list. What I found was incredible. People do all sorts of unique things with Rice Krispie treats!

First thing’s first, you can find THE ORIGINAL RECIPE HERE. Now… on to the fun part. I found people who did just about EVERYTHING. Mixing in Oreo cookies (YUM!), M&Ms, layering with chocolate, caramel, butterscotch, etc.

I decided to buy a bag of chocolate and peanut butter chips which I melted over my super old school flat top plug in heater (the official name for which I don’t even know). I made the Rice Krispie treats according to the box directions (same as the directions above). When the chips were melted into a nice smooth creamy consistency I spread out the chocolate/peanut butter mixture on top of the treats. I then tossed on colorful sprinkles and let the whole thing sit for a while so the chocolate/peanut butter could cool and harden.

Let me tell you, it was AH-MAZING. I wish I could make treats every day.

Here’s a list of a few treats that sound interesting:
(I think I am going to have to pick something off of this list and whip them up for class and/or writing group this month!)
FOR EASTER
FOR EASTER
CHOCOLATE & COVERD W/GOODIES
PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY
COOKIES & CREAM
COOKIES & CREAM

Have you ever made Rice Krispie Treats with unique mix-ins and ingredients? If so, share!

My March : Dining Out, Bangers & Stew

2011-03-31T10:38:00.000-04:00

I have been such a bad, bad little food blogger. I deserve to be doomed to eat nothing but McDonalds French fries and burnt toast for the rest of my life… Ok, not really. I keep promising myself I’ll post more regularly, but this semester/past few months have just been insane. I’m trying to write a novel, edit the novel I wrote this fall, keep up with TWO classes, keep up with my 30 hour a week job AND cook more? Yowzers.

So here’s a little recap of what my past month has entailed:

>> I found a delicious restaurant in Newton that I LOVE called 51 Lincoln (http://www.51lincolnnewton.com). Highlights: house-made charcuteries (which were so very tasty!) and this awesome prix fixe option Mondays through Thursdays called the “Chef’s Whim.” Seriously, it’s his whim. For $35 he gives you an appetizer, an entrée (specify if you want veg, meat, or seafood) and a desert. Byron and I both ordered this. We got different appetizers (myself a salad, him a soup) and the same chicken entrée and different deserts (myself Italian donuts, him banana flan). INCREDIBLE. I can’t talk this place up enough. Definitely placing it on my “date night go-to” list.

>> I made bangers and mash the day before St. Patrick’s Day… look I was festive!

>> I pulled out my crockpot and made an incredibly delicious pork and tomatillo stew. I ALMOST erred in making it though (eeep misadventure!) I got everything into the crockpot and had it on cook when I realized that I forgot to add the hot peppers (the 6 seranos!) Whoops! So I stuck them into the oven and roasted them on their own and then used my handy little food processor to chop them up. They really made my kitchen smell like spicy goodness and I had to be super careful not to touch my fingers ANYWHERE NEAR MY EYE. Luckily, I escaped without tears.

tomatillos sort of look like mini apples

I was first introduced to tomatillos when I received them in my farm share last summer. They are awesome. I always wondered how green salsa was green but I guess I never wondered quite enough to look on the back of the bottle and read the ingredients to find out. Tomatillos are tasty.

Here they are all browned up from the broiler

The stew was so easy to make. I used a recipe from one of my cookbooks but you barely even need one. Here is my simplified HOW TO:

Step 1: Brown 2 lbs. of cubed stew pork then add to slow cooker
Step 2: Roast under broiler 2-3 lbs. of tomatillos, 1 onion, ½ clove of garlic, 5-7 serrano peppers (depending on preferred spiciness) until browned. Chop then add 2 cups of chicken stock and puree and add to slow cooker. You can add some tortillas to the pureeing if you want to thicken it up a bit.
Step 3: Cook for 6-8 hours on low heat.
Serve with shredded cheese and tortillas. Done!

Mmmmm cooking pork!

This stew had the perfect amount of spiciness and tang. YUM! I almost never cook with pork (I’m not sure why exactly, other than the fact that in the history of my cooking I just haven’t) and I was pleasantly surprised.

So that’s been my month of March. Hopefully April will bring me some extra time to cook, some extra time to post, some extra time to brew up a new batch of beer, and some extra time to dine out so I can share all of these wonderful things with you… my fabulous readers.

Cheers!

Patiently Awaiting My Beer

2011-03-16T11:33:00.001-04:00

Our third and fourth batches of brew are now in bottles (an Imperial Stout & a Nut Brown Ale) and I'm anxiously awaiting the day they will be ready for drinkin'. I'm super excited for the Nut Brown Ale, my selection, which I hope turns out tasty because I really want to do some experimenting with it -- think Hazelnut Nut Brown Ale, Vanilla Nut Brown Ale, Cinnamon Twist Nut Brown Ale, Raspberry Nut Brown Ale, Chocolate Nut Brown Ale... oh the possibilities are endless!

Here's a little preview of our work from our taste test pre-bottling:

Meanwhile, I just read a great article in The Atlantic about shattering beer's glass ceiling. Yay, girlpower! << Read it!

I'm really excited to start planning brew batches 5 & 6. I'm thinking something spring-like and summery. Perhaps a honey blonde. Mmmmmm.

Foodie?

2011-02-26T14:18:00.000-05:00

I found this recent article in the Atlantic interesting. As someone who enjoys food writing (reading it as well as making attempts at writing it) it's a fascinating look at what it means to be a foodie, enjoy the food experience, as well as write about it:

THE MORAL CRUSADE AGAINST FOODIES
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/03/the-moral-crusade-against-foodies/8370/1/

Eating Healthy and Eating Cheap(er)

2011-02-21T15:43:00.000-05:00

I love food. So a lot of my money naturally goes to filling up my belly with delicious goodness. In a city like Boston it's so, SO easy to abandon the kitchen and order moderately priced take-out every single day... and when one is tired and over-worked and doesn't have energy for cooking, those menus look better and better. Indian, please. Oh, no, wait, Thai. Oh, or pizza! Thin crust! Wait... wait... there's an Anna's down the street... I want a burrito. *sigh*

But while there's tons of great, easy food that can come right to my door, I love dining out even more. Perhaps if I can do a little more homecookin' I can convince the boyfriend that we deserve more date nights out.

So in a effort to be a little healthier, and save a little cash (not that Whole Foods is inexpensive by any means, cooking at home can be pricey too), I'm trying to reconnect with my kitchen. The problem I've had this past year is that when I cook it's a big production. It takes hours, I labor over recipes and chop veggies til my fingers hurt. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the meals I have been making take time. And time is a precious thing right now...

I decided what I really need are some quickie recipes. But I don't want to sacrifice flavor either. Ramen noodles might have cut it in my younger years, but not anymore.

So I scoured my cookbooks for some relatively easy, moderately priced recipes and planned out some meals for the rest of my week. What's cookin' at casa de Jillian?

Pasta with Shitake Mushrooms & Panchetta in Cream Sauce

Puttanesca Bianca (kalamata olives, anchovy and caper sauce)

Penne with Spinach & Ricotta Cheese

Wild Mushroom and Rice Soup

Black & Blue Beef Quesadillas (with blue cheese)

Veggie stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Off to Whole Foods I go!

Do you have quick go-to recipes that are somewhat inexpensive and don't take hours to prepare? I would love to hear them! Share away!

In Which We Brew

2011-02-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

I waited years for this day. I dreamed about it while I lived in my little studio apartment. I thought and I planned and I imagined what it would be like. And now that I have a big kitchen, the day finally arrived -- HOMEBREW DAY!

Instead of going into elaborate detail about the brewing process (*snore*) I’ll give you a little pictoral showcase of our handiwork.

Our first brew was called Liquid Desert. We got the recipe from the Homebrew Emporium in Cambridge, where we also picked up all the ingredients and supplies. (You can find the recipe through the Homebrew Emporium’s website here: https://www.beerbrew.com/downloads/recipes/LiquidDessert.pdf) No brewing kit for us on our first time! We picked out the grains, malts, hops, and followed the directions (mostly). We erred a bit in our first batch, but errors are to be expected! We learned from it and have moved on. But even with errors, Batch 1 turned out delicious.

Since that fateful day, we’ve brewed 3 more batches of beer. First we did a second attempt at Liquid Desert (which we recently bottled), then an Imperial Stout (currently in the first fermenter), and then a Nut Brown Ale (in its first fermenter). I’m very excited about the Nut Brown Ale... I want to play around with the recipe in the future, adding some things like Hazelnut, Vanilla, Cocoa, Raspberry, and the like. Mmmmmm Hazelnut Vanilla Nut Brown.

The one thing I've learned so far about brewing is that you have to be patient, there is a LOT of waiting! But, hey, I've been waiting years to start brewing so what's a few more weeks? :)

Without further ado, I bring you BEER:

Mashing up the Cocoa Beans

All crushed up.

We didn't have a big enough pot to handle all the ingredients (we've
since purchased one) so we had to brew two pots at once, thus had to
divide all ingredients in half.

Steeping the grains.

Grains steeping.

Boiling hops in with the grains.

Of course, kitty wants to sit on the kitchen mat and watch what we're doing.

After the hour boil of the hops cooling the pot down in the sink.

More lessons learned: buy a strainer so you don't have to reuse
the grain sack to try to strain as you pour into the fermenter.

Straining/pouring into the first fermenter.

After two weeks of sitting in the closet it's time to transfer over to the
secondary fermenter!

Utoh, here's where things went wrong. We SHOULD HAVE added this
malt to the original boil. We wonder if we can just toss it now. Hmmm...

It worked. (Sort of.) It was very clumpy. But it didn't ruin our beer
like we thought it might.

Taste test!

Wow, sludge.

Lots more sludge.

Secondary fermenter. A few more weeks
in the closet.

Siphoning so we can bottle.

Getting ready to bottle.

Putting on the caps.

FINAL STEP: Wait (again) then drink & enjoy! Cheers!

Food Porn for Carnivores

2011-01-29T11:32:00.000-05:00

Does the idea of a juicy burger or a big old meaty sandwich get you all hot and bothered? If so, this week’s post is right up your alley. I don’t have quite enough time to dedicate one post to each thing I made, so I’m lumping these delicious meals together into what I call “Food Porn for Carnivores”.

I could go on a long speech about the use of food in literature and how in children’s literature it is typically a substitute for sexuality and sex… but let’s save that for a later date. Or just the grad school classroom.

For Christmas I bought my boyfriend nearly 100 dollars of meat. And not just any old meat, but exotic meats -- antelope, kangaroo, elk, alligator, boar… to name a few. I went with simplicity when making each of these dishes because I wanted the flavor of the meat to really come out. Though the idea of eating wild boar burgers was a little strange, each meat so far was very tasty -- I think I’m an exotic meat convert. I can’t help but wonder if I lived in movie-world (and rich, of course) if I would have been one of the first people to snag a ticket to the Endangered Animal dinner in "The Freshman."

Without further delay, I proudly present to you: FOOD PORN FOR CARNIVORES.

FRENCH DIP SANDWICH. DOESN'T FALL UNDER THE "EXOTIC
MEAT" CATEGORY...BUT I MADE IT A FEW WEEKS AGO AND IT
WAS DELICIOUS AND DESERVED REPRESENTATION.

BOAR BURGERS FRYING IN THE PAN. I TOPPED THESE WITH
A LITTLE BIT OF SPICES... DELISH!

BOAR BURGER ALL COOKED UP AND WAITING TO BE EATEN.

ELK STEAKS READY TO COOK.

ELK STEAKS WERE VERY TASTY. SERVED WITH POTATOES
AND SARDINE/TAPENADE TOASTS.

OSTRICH STEAK SERVED RARE/MEDIUM-RARE. VERY
SOFT, TENDER, AND TASTY.

ELK BURGER TOPPED WITH GOODIES. THOUGH THIS COULD
HAVE BEEN THE ANTELOPE BURGERS... I DON'T REMEMBER. EITHER
WAY, VERY GOOD!

Welcome 2011, Year of the Rabbit

2011-01-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I know it’s not actually Chinese New Year yet, but for the sake of my blog, can we just pretend? Because 2011 marks the year of the rabbit. Sweet, cuddly, fluffy bunnies. My sister owns one, actually. Its name is Toffee (though it has gone by other names including Robot, Bunnix, and Nixon -- my personal fave.) I volunteer at an animal shelter here in Boston, and I sometimes visit with the bunnies. I LIKE rabbits. They’re cute. They remind me of Easter and candy and cartoons.

** NOTE: Bunny lovers, be warned, this is where you should stop reading this blog post**

So why, you ask, did I decide to cook rabbit stew?

I recently purchased a few Polish cookbooks (part to get in touch with my Polish heritage, and part as research for a novel I’m working on.) And what did I find inside each one of them? A recipe for rabbit. And in some cases, MANY recipes. What I gleaned from this: at one time eating rabbit was cool. And based on these cookbooks, I get the impression that Poland was overrun by rabbits – sort of like my neighborhood here in Boston is overrun by rats (ew). But unlike rats, rabbits made for good eating.

So why are Americans (many of who are descendents of Europe) so horrified by the idea of eating rabbit? I blame Disney. And Warner Brothers. I had the same feeling of shock and horror the first time I ate venison. BAMBI!? NO! This time while I was at the butcher shop and looked at the rabbit meat in the freezer I had images of Thumper and Bugs Bunny flash through my head.

Bunnies are for snuggling and hopping around your apartment and nibbling on power cords and scaring your cat. Not for EATING! Right?

But people DO eat them. Many people.

As I stood at the freezer at the butcher I got to thinking: What makes some animals good eats and others taboo? I’ve decided it is The Snuggly Factor. We have no problem eating chickens (man, are they ugly) or cows or pigs or turkeys (also quite ugly) or fish (certainly no snuggling there.) But cats and dogs, no way, they are so CUTE! And rabbits, CUTE! I recently learned that we are genetically programmed to think baby animals are cute and they trigger nurturing instincts in us. Is that why we have a hard time eating cute animals? Because it goes against our nurturing instincts? I’m no scientist, but I might be on to something.

In any case, I threw caution to the wind (and instincts) and bought rabbit. I cooked it up in a traditional German style -- slow cooking it as a stew. Verdict: Tastes like chicken.

Dear Readers, Do you eat rabbit, or any other “non-traditional” animals? Tell me about it, I’d like to hear. PS: For you meat fanatics, I just bought my boyfriend a whopping of strange meats for Christmas (elk, antelope, kangaroo, alligator) so stay tuned while I serve up some of that in the coming weeks! I’m also going to work on posting more regularly. Happy 2011!

Oh Pumpkin, my pumpkin…

2010-11-18T11:03:00.000-05:00

‘Tis the season (and has been for the past month and a half now) for PUMPKINS! Pumpkin things have been really high profile these days. Or maybe just haven’t noticed in previous years because I spent a good 3 years living in the southwest to which pumpkins are not native.

But I’ve noticed over the past 3 years since moving back that in autumn, in the east, there are pumpkin things, LOTS of pumpkin things, everywhere you look! And this does not mean just pumpkin pie… there are loads of other things out there just waiting to make your taste buds tingle.

Over the past month I took a mini-tour of pumpkin land. I gave myself a challenge: if there was a pumpkin thing available I would eat it and if there was a pumpkin drink available I would drink it. So I devoured and I chugged my way though the past month. Some good, some bad.

Here’s a little round-up of what I call PUMPKIN PARADISE:

Mini Pumpkin & Walnut Scones
Where I got it: Wegmans! Oh Wegmans, how I miss thee. I was able to snag these tasty treats while I was visiting Rochester.
Assessment: Ate them for breakfast for a week straight. Delish.

Pumpkin Cupcake

Where I got it: Sweet on Boylston St.

Assessment: MORE PLEASE! I don’t know what the deal is with this new cupcake craze, but I like it. Om nom nom.

Pumpkin Latte
Where I got it: Starbucks
Assessment: Starbucks pumpkin latte you taste so good, why do you have to be $5? Autumn always rekindles my ‘bucks addition… it probably didn’t help that I was lazy and it took me more than 2 weeks to buy coffee filters when I ran out. Hello autumn (and winter!) ‘bucks flavored lattes, goodbye paycheck.

Pumpkin Latte
Where I got it: Dunkin Donuts
Assessment: Not as pricey as ‘bucks, but also not as good. Le sigh. It was still worth drinking though.

Pumpkin Donut
Where I got it: Dunkin Donuts
Assessment: I love donuts, especially the cider ones that become popular in fall (even though I really don't eat them very often). This pumpkin donut didn’t let me down. Yum, you made my drive back to Rochester less boring.

Pumpkin Soup
Where I got it: Sunset (Boston)
Assessment: This was even more delish than I was expecting. Part chicken soup, part stew, this soup was everything – and more! I really enjoyed it, as you can tell.

Pumpkin Ice Cream
Where I got it: Sunset (Boston)
Assessment: I was already two pumpkin beers deep so maybe that’s why I thought this pumpkin ice cream was PHENOMINAL. It was served with pecan pie and whipped cream. So good.

Pumpkin Beer
Where I got it: Varieties!
Assessment: I love pumpkin beers. Each year it seems like there are more and more available at the stores. Pumpkin beers are delicious, spicy (with hints of cinnamon & nutmeg), sweet, flavorful. The best is when you get a pumpkin beer at a bar and they dust the rim with sugar or cinnamon… oh yum. This year I tried to taste as many pumpkin beers as I possibly could. Unfortunately beer goes to my brain and I forgot to write down every single one of the pumpkin beers I tried… sorry. BUT I will give you a peek at breweries whose pumpkin beers I definitely drank: Dogfish Head, Southern Tier, Wild Onion, Shipyard, Cambridge Brewing, Buffalo Bill’s, Saranac, Post Road, Cape Anne Brewing. Some of my favorites: Southern Tier & Shipyard are definitely my favorites – highly recommend! Looking for more info about pumpkin beers? I found this taste-off online HERE

Pumpkin Cocktail
Where I got it: Haru (sushi restaurant in the Back Bay)
Assessment: I was lured by the $5 special on this drink when all other cocktails at this restaurant were $12+. My first mistake was right there. My second was drinking the whole thing. Oh, and my third was accepting a pumpkin cocktail at a sushi restaurant. Ok, it wasn’t THAT bad, but random cocktails are not exactly my thing. I’ll take a pumpkin beer please.

Do you have a favorite pumpkin food or drink you would like to share? Or perhaps a pumpkin recipe? Go ahead, don’t be shy!

PS: While I love pumpkin and all that it stands for (autumn, leaves, cool weather but not COLD weather) a part of me is looking forward to the flavors of winter – Crème Brule and eggnog. I’ll have to set myself a challenge for those too… mmmm.

Cheers!

Glorious Granola

2010-10-27T11:26:00.000-04:00

I’m a total breakfast girl -- give me eggs, bacon, toast slathered in butter any time of the day. Bagels with cream cheese and lox… bagel sandwiches… fresh-baked muffins… om nom nonm. But all that stuff takes a lot of work in the morning, so I usually reserve it for weekends or brunch at a restaurant. What I’m always looking for is a quickie breakfast that can accompany my 3 cups of coffee while I open up my laptop and prepare for work or writing. Oh, and I don’t like oatmeal, bleh! So what’s a girl to do?

Here's a "weekend breakfast" : On Sunday made scrambled
eggs with onions and peppers and served
with baked potatoes and onions.

Call me a tree-hugging hippie if you’d like, but I love granola. Crunchy, crunchy, crunchy granola. Though I love granola, I almost never buy it in the stores. Mostly that’s because it’s expensive (or more expensive than I feel like it should be -- it’s just oats and nuts for Pete’s sake!) But it’s also in part because I don’t like raisins -- or any other fruit for that matter -- in my granola, and you wouldn’t believe how few granolas are available sans fruit.

That’s where making homemade granola comes in. I’ve made it once before… the recipe I made was gloriously delicious and I ate it as a snack at work for nearly a whole month. Let me tell you a little about the last version: it was made with peanut butter which created those wonderful big granola clumps which were perfect for snacking! OH YUM! But, while the last version was good I wanted to try something new this time.

The dry stuff: oats, almonds, coconut, and sunflower seeds

I searched around the internet for some recipes, and cobbled one together on my own based on suggestions from various sites and bloggers. (As I’ve mentioned before, I love the DIY sort of recipes where it’s easy to adapt things to your own specifications.)

The wet batter all whipped up and ready to pour on the dry stuff.

What I came up with was a deliciously sweet and spicy, kind of salty, cinnamon-y granola. It had the kind of flavor that actually bursts in your mouth. Perhaps the granola was a bit overdone… I suggest limiting your salt content if your seeds/nuts are already salted -- whoops… but all that flavor works well when the granola is tossed into a bowl with milk, and I bet it will be delish when I stir it up with some yogurt and berries which will probably help to mellow out the saltiness. (Yes, I do like berries WITH my granola.)

30 second granola making lesson:

Pick your dry stuff -- rolled oats (not the instant kind!), seeds, nuts, spices, sugar, salt, coconut, brown sugar, maple sugar
Pick your wet stuff -- honey, oil, peanut butter, vanilla extract, maple syrup
Mix your oats and nuts and seeds in a bowl. In another bowl whisk together your wet stuff, sugar and spices. I found this tip from a fellow blogger and it’s definitely key to making well-mixed granola. When your wet stuff has a nice well-mixed consistency pour it over your dry stuff and stir together so the dry stuff is coated well with the mixture. My wet mixture looked a lot like brownie batter, and it smelled OH SO GOOD.
Place the wet granola on a greased baking sheet, or a silpat like I used, and bake for an hour at 300 stirring the granola around every 15 minutes. While I mentioned that the wet mixture smelled good, the granola smelled EVEN BETTER while baking in the oven… it made my whole kitchen smell delicious and like autumn!

Ready for the oven!

WARNING: When you have only one silpat you will have to bake the granola in 3 different batches. When you get antsy near the end of batch two and decide it might be a good idea to let the whole thing cook for a few minutes under the broiler to speed up the baking process, be ready with a towel because your granola may start to smoke and you may set off every smoke alarm in your apartment and then you may have to run around like a madwoman opening windows and frantically fanning away at your smoke detectors. And then you may be embarrassed because you know that your neighbors upstairs can totally hear what’s going on and assume you are an awful cook. Not like I know from personal experience or anything…

When all batches are done let the granola cool and then store in containers. Enjoy alone or with milk or yogurt!

While there were some errors with my granola, it’s certainly still edible and generally tasty. Finding the right mix of spices/sugar/nuts/seeds might take some time, but once you perfect it you can say goodbye to the small $7 bags of granola at Whole Foods.

Look! Enough granola to last me through the rest of 2010!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jillian's Glorious Granola:
If you’re looking to replicate my exact granola recipe, here’s what I used. I chose to make a really large batch both because I wanted enough to enjoy the granola for a few weeks but also because then I could use the whole bag/containers of the nuts and coconut I purchased. It’s easy to slim this recipe down to a 1/3 the size of what I made:

12 cups oats (I bought mine from the bulk container at Whole Foods – it’s cheaper and you can pick out just how much you want)
3 cups sliced raw almonds (one bag from Trader Joe’s)
3 cups sunflower seeds (one bag from Trader Joe’s)
3 cups coconut shredded coconut flakes (one container from Whole Foods)
1 cup olive oil
1 cup pure maple syrup (use the good stuff!)
½ cup honey
2 tablespoons salt (I recommend not using any salt if your nuts/seeds are pre-salted)
3 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon Saigon cinnamon (which the package tells me is fancy stuff)

Happy Breakfasting!

Autumn Squash Soup

2010-10-18T13:12:00.001-04:00

Have I already told you that the immersion blender is one of the greatest kitchen gadgets invented? Oh, I haven’t? Well, let me tell you… It. Is. AMAZING.

The air is chilly, everything smells like leaves, apples are fresh for the picking -- it’s officially soup season. As you know, I love a good soup. When I received a few butternut squashes in my weekly farm share I knew that there was no better way to cook than up to turn them into soup. Mmmmm.

Chopped up squash and potatoes ready for cookin'

I used to shy away from blended soups. I hated having to spoon hot chunks of squash (or whatever veggie) and broth into my blender for pureeing, all the while crossing my fingers and hoping to not have a disastrous mess. Not to mention when I made more soup than the blender can hold I would have to blend in batches – bleh! Enter immersion blender, which lets me blend everything right in the same pot I just cooked with. THE SAME POT!

The soup before blending

I was eager to put my new gadget to use for this autumn-inspired butternut squash bisque. I used my farm share goodies, as well as some potatoes that were grown by Byron’s mother in her garden.

Final product: creamy and smooth!

Overall, the recipe was pretty good. It was nice and creamy but I could have gone for a bit more flavor. It’s worth making, especially as an accompaniment to something like baked chicken, but next time I might find a way to spice it up a bit more.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Butternut Squash Bisque (recipe adapted from The Soup Bible)
Serves 4
Ingredients --

2 tablespoons of butter
2 small onions, minced (I also threw in a bit of leeks because, you know, I had them on hand)
3 cups peeled, seeded, and cubed butternut squash
1 ¼ quarts chicken stock
1 ½ cups cubed potatoes
1 teaspoon paprika
½ cup whipping cream (I used a few dashes of milk instead of cream)
1 ½ tablespoons snipped chives, plus a few whole strands for garnish
salt and pepper

Directions –-

Melt butter in a large saucepan. Add onions and cook until soft (5 mins).
Add the squash, stock, potatoes, and paprika and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to low, cover and simmer for about 35 minutes until the vegetables are soft.
Pour the soup into a blender (or use an immersion blender!) and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper and add milk/cream.
Stir in chopped chives and garnish with slices.
Serve with toasty bread! (My own addition, I love toasty bread with soup!)

Tear-Jerker Chili

2010-10-15T13:11:00.001-04:00

I have FINALLY located the little contraption that takes the photos on camera’s photo card and imports them into my computer! HORRAY! While means I can finally be back up and posting some of the yummy things I’ve made since moving… and share new things, of course, too! HERE WE GO:

As Natalie Portman’s character says in Garden State: “I look forward to a good cry. It feels pretty good.” Well, if you’re in one of those moods, I have the meal for you. Voila! Tear-jerker chili!

Peppers and tomatoes

WHAT YOU NEED:

A variety of chili ingredients – most importantly, onions and spicy peppers
A sappy movie or two – may I recommend, Rudy, My Girl, Scruffy, Titanic, or Up.

HOW TO:
Step 1: Pop in your sad movie to watch in the background as you cook. (Or if it’s Sunday turn on the TV to watch the Bills.)

Step 2: Brown your meat. I used a 2/3 lb of hamburger meat from Whole Foods coupled with 2/3 lb of hamburger meat purchased at the Brookline Farmers Market from River Rock Farm.

Step 3: Slice the rest of your veggies. For me that included tomatoes that came from Byron’s mother’s garden and mixing those with 2 cans of beans: one kidney, one black.

Step 4: Slice your onions. I used 3 onions from my Enterprise farm share. As you slice the onions feel free to let those tears flow, just remember to have a hankie on hand to wipe away any mascara smudges.

Step 5: Slice up your peppers. I used:

1 LARGE jalapeno grown in Byron’s mother’s garden
1 small jalapeno grown in Byron’s mother’s garden
1 red chili pepper purchased for 40 cent at the Brookline Farmer’s Market
1 bell pepper from my Enterprise farm share
1 sweet red pepper that I bought at the Brookline Farmer’s Market
1 habenero pepper purchased at the Brookline Farmer’s Market
(Note: Farmers markets are CHEAP for peppers! Stock up when you go. A single pepper will cost anywhere from 25 cents to a dollar – a total steal compared to the supermarket.)

Sliced up spicy peppers... mmmm

Step 6: Cry when juices from the hot peppers get into the little cut you have on your finger. If you don’t have a cut on your finger, fake it, then you don’t have to feel like a schmuck when you start to cry when Rudy finally gets called onto the field and everyone chants RUDY RUDY RUDY!

Step 7: Throw everything into the slow cooker. You can use a can of tomato paste, I used a Campbell’s tomato Soup at Hand because I didn’t have any tomato paste in my pantry. It seemed to have done the trick. Add some spices. I used a tablespoon of garlic powder and a few large shakes of chili powder. Plus some salt and pepper. Cook on high for as long as it takes for the veggies to get tender (a couple of hours.)

Step 8: While the chili cooking, watch another sappy movie. Or, if you are a writer like me, write the first draft of a chapter where you kill of a loveable/sympathetic grandmother, or stab an unsuspecting, friendly grandmother in the back.

Step 9: Spoon chili from the slow cooker. Sprinkle cheese on top. Eat your first bite. Yell out in pain when you realize how spicy the chili is, and then start to cry again.

Delicious!

Step 10: Crack open a beer (or five) so you can blame your crying on Beer Tears. As if that’s a better excuse…

If you follow these easy steps, you, too, can have a day full of tears. Cheers!

Watermelon Muffins From Hell

2010-09-14T18:07:00.002-04:00

I’ve been getting cocky lately. I’ve had so few kitchen mishaps that I’ve been darn near considering myself an expert cook/baker. Things have been turning out so well: I haven’t set anything on fire, I’ve only set off the smoke detector a few times (and really it’s not my fault, the stupid thing is quite finicky), and all meals have been more than just edible they’ve actually been good. I guess I needed a good dose of reality to bring me back down to earth. Enter in Watermelon Muffins from Hell.

Don't be fooled by that cute little heart shaped muffin on the left,
he's just as evil tasting as the others.

If I was being graded on my cooking/baking skills, today’s report card would look like this: FAILS TO FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!!! F- Oh I was so excited to make these muffins. I had my farm share watermelon sitting in the fridge eager and waiting. I bough all the necessary ingredients – even if it meant going down to the corner store when at the last minute I realized I didn’t have baking powder. I didn’t even try to fudge it and just go without like I might have in the past! I really tried! I popped them into the oven and I watched as they rose, and then to my horror they sunk in the middle like there was a black hole sucking the tops down towards the bottom of the pan. What’s happening? I wondered. Perhaps it was a side effect of the watermelon? No worries, I thought, I bet they will turn out ok in the end.

Then came the taste test. They smelled good. But boy were they were ugly. It’s inner beauty that counts though, right? And then I got cocky again. I mentally prepared to title this blog post “Inner Beauty” and wax on about how these muffins ‘aint winning any beauty pageants but how wonderfully delicious they are. I had all my metaphors about muffins and life lined up. But let me tell you something, when a muffin is ugly on the outside sometimes it’s ugly on the inside too. These muffins tasted like sin. Well, I guess that’s a big over dramatic. They didn’t taste like muffins, I can tell you that. They tasted disgusting. Bitter, strange, and like chemicals. Like nothing I’ve ever tasted before.

So what went wrong? What I have since pieced together is that it all came down to one simple little letter: a B. I was so excited to make these muffins, and I was in a rush because I needed to get back to work, and I just didn’t pay attention. Listen kids, tbs does not a tsp equal.

I deduced that the disgusting flavor that I tasted was the near doubled amount of both baking soda and baking powder. While the recipe called for a TEA SPOON of baking powder and two TEA SPOONS of baking soda, in my stupidity I used TABLE SPOONS. Gah! Well at least I learned something today, following directions is important. I’ve been considering taking some cooking classes at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, if this doesn’t confirm my belief that I am in dire need of them than I don’t know what does.

These muffins aren’t even remotely salvageable. To the trash with thee! Muffin fail.
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If you would like to try your hand at the recipe here it is, compliments of Healthy Home Recipes:

Ingredients --

1/2 cup Flour
2 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Baking powder
1 pinch Salt
1/8 tsp Cinnamon
6 tbsp Butter, room temperature
2/3 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup Watermelon juice
1/2 cup Watermelon pulp
1/2 cup Raisins

Instructions --

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in large bowl.
Cream butter and sugar; add eggs.
Whip in milk, juice, pulp and raisins.
Add wet mixture to dry ingredients; blend just to incorporate.
Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full.
Bake 25 minutes.

Transfer to wire rack; cool.
Note: a few drops of red food color can be added for a watermelon color.

Toasted Watermelon Seeds

2010-08-27T13:00:00.005-04:00

All week I've been posting for the blogathon to celebrate Farmers Market Week here in Massachusetts... for more info about the blogathon see my previous posts this week. Unfortunately due to packing I couldn't post every day like I had hoped, but there are some good ones from earlier this week, check 'em out! There comes a time in every young amateur chef’s life when she asks: “Am I doing this right?” For me that moment came today when a watermelon seed exploded, startled me and sent me jumping backwards stepping into my cat’s water dish. “WHAT?!” you are probably saying. I guess I should backtrack and start at the beginning….

I received a watermelon in this week’s Enterprise Farm farm share. I immediately ate half of it for lunch. I like watermelons. It runs in my family. When I was younger my sister and dad used to have “Watermelon Club” after dinner where they would each indulge in many slices each. Sometimes I participated but I was much more of an ice cream girl.

Watermelon seeds drying on the window sill

While eating my watermelon lunch I wondered to myself: Are watermelon seeds good for anything other than spitting at your little sister when she’s not looking? Can you eat them? This led me to Ye Olde Trusty Google. You can eat the seeds! In fact, it’s part of Egyptian culture to roast the seeds and eat them. Watermelons are native to Egypt? Who knew.

I saved the seeds from my half of already eaten watermelon and decide to chop up the remaining half and remove the seeds from there as well. This left me with a little handful seeds. The whole process seemed relatively easy. Step 1: Wash. Step 2: Dry. I patted them with a paper towel (which they stuck to) and then decided to spread them out on a plate and sit them on my windowsill in the sun. Success.

Step 3: This is where things got tricky. Heat a pan and place the seeds in the pan. Stir them around until their roasted. How was I supposed to know when they were thoroughly roasted? I figured I would give it the old eyeball test. After a few minutes they looked pretty good. Then POP! One of the seeds shot off of the pan and directly at my face! POP POP! Two more seeds! It was sort of like popcorn. I took that as a sign to mean they were done roasting.

Step 4: Pour a cup of salty water into the pan and boil and stir around until it all evaporates. I made a bit of a mess here, there was no indication for how much salt and I figured the more salt the better… they’re supposed to be salty, right? Fail. I ended up with some seeds and salty sludge. So I tried again by removing some of the salt and adding more water and trying all over again. Success. No gross clumps of burnt salt this time.

Step 5: Cool and dry. Then enjoy!

I ate one of the seeds fresh out of the watermelon and I’ll say it wasn’t bad. Though roasted salty watermelon seeds were pretty good they really just tasted like a salty, toasty, drier version of the former. But isn’t that what all seeds taste like anyway? They tasted a bit like if pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds merged. One website told me you’re supposed to bite off the exterior in your mouth to get to the inside meat but that was just way too much work for me so I ate the whole thing as is which was pretty good without all that effort. I suppose I might try this again, but more likely I’ll make “seed adventure number 2” happen when I receive a pumpkin later in the season -- even though I find the insides of a pumpkin kind of icky.

Word of advice: Go easy on the salt, you don't need much. I wish I had something fun to eat these with like baking them into muffins or a salad on the horizons to toss these into. I guess i'll just eat them on their own, still good! :)

Cheers!

Hodgepodge Couscous Salad

2010-08-24T13:23:00.002-04:00

Continuing the celebration of Farmers Market Week and the blogathon to raise money for Mass Farmers' Markets put on by Loving Local and In Our Grandmothers' Kitchens here's a tasty treat for this Tuesday:

I don’t know exactly when the whole D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) trend came about, but I must confess that I like it. Love it, actually. I love watching cooking shows, reading cooking magazines, home decorating magazine, and craft magazines. I think it’s because I really like to make things my own. What fun is the world if everything is cookie cutter similar?

Chopped up fresh cucumber was a tasty and refreshing addition

I carry my love of DIY into the kitchen, which as I’ve mentioned before, means that I like to make recipes my own and change them somehow from the pre-set directions. Usually this means adding in a thing or two. Sometimes it means taking out an ingredient I don’t like (or more often it’s removing an ingredient I just don’t have on hand and I don’t feel like buying. Rant alert: I find it incredibly annoying to have a recipe where they tell you to add in a tablespoon of vinegar or a half cup of chicken stock or a quarter of a bell pepper and then I’m left with the rest of that product wondering just how I’ll get through it before it goes bad. Someone should really make a cookbook that incorporates only whole products –- a whole jar, can, veggie, bottle, etc. If one of these cookbooks exists somebody do me a favor and let me know, I would be forever grateful!)

Anywho… where was I? Oh yes, DIY. Aside from salads, I have found my favorite sort of thing to cook up DIY style: couscous salad. And thanks to my farm share, I usually have lots of odds and ends that I never know quite what to do with. I’ve posted earlier about tabbouleh, and this recipe is very similar but I’ve adapted it so that it’s just called “hodgepodge couscous” and is a recipe that is truly all inclusive. Really kids, feel free to get wild.

My favorite things about this recipe:

It uses up left veggies from previous recipes
It’s a great way to use my share because sometimes I get a solo tomato or just two cucumbers
It’s healthy
It’s easy to make
It tastes good
No “cooking” involved, it’s just chop and mix

This is how I usually build my DIY hodgepodge couscous salad:

Step 1: Pick a grain. A box of couscous works, they are about a dollar to two dollars for a box and it’s usually a nice portion size. For my most recent variation I used a bag of Harvest Grains Blend which was a variety of grains including Israeli couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa. I got it from Trader Joe’s, also inexpensive.

Step 2: Pick some veggies. Tomatoes work well. So do peppers of all varieties. I’ve never tried with an onion, but I bet a sweet one would be good. This time I had some celery and cucumbers grown by Enterprise Farms so I use those, it gave the couscous salad a nice crunch. Chop the veggies up into nice little bits.

Step 3: Pick some herbs. My most recent variation included both flat leaf parsley and a bunch of basil. You could probably use some actual lettuce in here too. If you want to make this more of a Mexican fare I bet that cilantro would work well. I didn’t have scallions on hand this time, but sometime I use those or chives. Chop this up nice fine.

Step 4: Pick some spices/flavorings. Sea salt, pepper, anything you like. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil – it helps break apart the grains but also gives it a nice flavor. If you have fresh lemons on hand lemon juice is a nice accompaniment.

Step 5: Clear out your fridge. Add whatever you want. This time I used a can of garbanzo beans and it worked out great. If you want to get experimental you can divide the whole thing into two batches and try out different ingredients with each.

Step 6: Mix it all together and enjoy! Cheers!

German Red Cabbage

2010-08-23T17:49:00.010-04:00

Welcome blogathon! As I mentioned, this week I’m participating in the Loving Local blogathon to celebrate Farmers Market Week and raise money for the Mass Farmer’s Markets. If you love my blog, and love local food, go ahead and donate a bit of green to that wonderful cause. Visit HERE and click “donate” I also encourage you to visit Loving Local HERE to find some other area bloggers who are writing about local food, cooking, farms, and much more. As part of the blogathon I’ll be posting (or attempting to anyway!) a new post every day this week, so be on the lookout for some great new content from me daily!
Now let me tell you about cabbage...

A wonderful mix of colors on this plate!

My ancestors would be proud. Why? I succeeded in cooking cabbage. *Polish/Ukrainian/German ancestors applaud* Really, I’m proud of myself. As a previously self-professed Cabbage Hater, I’ll say that I’m officially a convert. It really happened approximately three years ago when I went to Germany. I always turned up my nose at the idea of sauerkraut, but once I had some real, authentic German sauerkraut (you know the kind… it’s tangy and warm and oh so delicious) I fell in love. Maybe cabbage wasn’t so bad after all.

Flash forward to today and welcome in the good old Enterprise Farm Share which supplied me with a head of red cabbage. My cabbage cooking history includes no previous usage of cabbage. Not a one recipe ever cooked with cabbage before. Nada. But this was the time. I found a wonderful recipe at www.allrecipes.com and it’s everything that the reviewers said it would be.

My bouquet garni looks a bit like a mummy.
Is it supposed to look like this?

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS RECIPE:

It was warm, tangy, sweet, and a superb accompaniment to any meat dish. Oh, and easy too! (I served it with baked chicken drumsticks and sautéed Swiss chard, though in retrospect I should have made some sausage or something… maybe next time.)
The color! After cooking lots of greens for the past few months it was nice to have this wonderful pinkish-red accompaniment to my meal!
Because of the apples, allspice, and cloves (and my own addition of a pinch of cinnamon) this recipe really reminded me of the of fall and the holidays so maybe I’ll make some for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year.
Oh yeah, I also made my first every bouquet garni (with the peppercorns, allspice, cloves) for this recipe. I’m starting to feel pretty professional!

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German Red Cabbage as found on Allrecipes

Ingredients --

1 medium head red cabbage, cored and sliced
2 large tart apples, peeled and sliced
1 medium sweet onion, sliced and separated into rings
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon salt
6 whole peppercorns
2 whole allspice
2 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons cold water

Directions --

In a Dutch oven, toss cabbage, apples and onion. Add water, vinegar, sugar, butter and salt. Place the peppercorns, allspice, cloves and bay leaf on a double thickness of cheesecloth; bring up corners of cloth and stir with kitchen string to form a bag. Add to Dutch oven. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 1-1/4 hours.
Discard spice bag. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and cold water until smooth; stir in cabbage mixture. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

Bring on the Blogathon!

2010-08-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

I'm excited to announce that I'll be participating in Loving Local's Blogathon to celebrate the wonderful flavors of Massachusetts during Farmers Market Week August 22-28.

What's the Blogathon? Loving Local says :

"Hosted by In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens with help from Massachusetts Farmers Markets and the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, LOVING LOCAL will gather bloggers across the Bay State and beyond into a giant smorgasbord of good, local food."

Funds raised during the blogathon will go to Mass Farmers Markets, a non-profit charitable organization that helps farmers markets throughout the Commonwealth. So look for some extra fun content coming from me next week and be ready to pledge some money to go to a great cause. Yippie, I'm excited!

Call Me a Hater

2010-08-15T14:01:00.000-04:00

Dear beet, I think you taste like a dirty potato. Sorry.

Photo courtesy of Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

So when this article was called to my attention (Beet Recipes Even a Beet Hater Can Love by the New York Times) I was intrigued. Albeit, still skeptical. I have yet to make one of these "tasty delights" which include:

Beets & Beet Green Gratin
Beet, Citrus and Avocado Salad
Mixed Spring Green Salad with Roasted Beets
Grated Raw Beet Salad
Roasted Spring Onion and Beet Salad

Perhaps I will dive in and attempt one of these and *gasp* maybe I will like one of them. Though, dear beet, don't hold your breath.

Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte

2010-08-12T12:21:00.002-04:00

Not so beautiful, but it was yummy and filling!

My farm share really likes loading me up with summer squash so instead of the normal old bake or sauté way of cooking it (bleh, borrrring!) I decided to hunt around for something more fun. Alas! A torte! I found a great recipe from fellow food bogger Deb at Smitten Kitchen. While she said her torte wasn’t winning any beauty contests I disagree, the picture looked scrumptious and I just had to try it. Note: If she thinks her torte “isn’t winning beauty contests” mine looks like roadkill. *sigh* But anywho, it’s not about the beauty of the thing, it’s the taste.

Layered summer squash in the pan

And oh boy was it tasty! I didn’t have two round dishes to make the torte so I just layered everything in a big glass casserole dish and it still came out wonderfully. No, it wasn’t beautiful, BUT it was delish. My torte was probably thicker than normal, especially because of my lack of mandoline (see below) and it didn’t really stick together well when it came out of the pan -– but I’ll overlook that because it was so tasty. It was also amazing to heat up and eat the next day, and the day after that since this recipe was huge -- you might be interested in cutting the recipe in half if you don’t want to be eating torte for a week. While the recipe didn’t call for it, I served my torte with a big dollop of sour cream. YUM!

Now that we have the actual "cooking/recipe/eating" portion of this post out of the way, let me tell you about the mandoline: As I mentioned, my kitchen is a little sparse when it comes to gadgets and cooking utensils. I pretty much use just one knife for every kind of cutting and chopping (*gasp*!) and occasionally my little food processor for meal prep. My trusty old knife made the task of thinly slicing 5 potatoes and 3 summer squashes pretty tedious.

After the torte was in the oven baking I decided to read some of the reviews. Silly, I know, I should have read them BEFORE cooking. But, I’m a fool. Someone asked “What’s the best way to slice the potatoes and squash if I don’t have a mandoline?”

“A mandoline?” I asked myself. “Surely this person is bonkers. I know what a mandoline is, it’s the funny little string instrument my boyfriend owns.” Yes, that is indeed a mandolin, but add an “e” and it becomes a marvelous kitchen gadget that I didn’t know about but MUST. HAVE. IMMEDIATELY! Check out this wonderful one from William Sonoma – even comes complete with a tutorial video you can watch! http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/oxo-v-blade-mandoline/

While I enjoy slicing veggies I’m not very good at it, maybe because I fear slicing the top of my finger off and turning my meal preparations into a trip to the emergency room. I tried so very hard to slice my potatoes and squash thin like the recipe suggested – and really, for the most part I was very successful, though it took me about a half hour of slicing patience. Had I had this wonderful mandoline gadget I bet the torte would have come out even better. I am definitely putting mandoline at the top of “cooking gadgets to buy” list for when I move to a bigger apartment in 3 weeks.

PS: I am getting REALLY far behind on posts, yikes! Be on the lookout for some great recipe posts coming next week! Cheers!

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Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Tort (adapted from Smitten Kitchen (adapted from Bon Apetit))

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients --

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
12 ounces yellow crookneck squash or regular yellow summer squash, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
6 teaspoons olive oil
(Jill's note: I also threw some parsley in here because, you know, I had it on hand)

Directions --

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter two 8-inch-diameter cake pans. (Jill's note: I had only a large casserole dish, so what you see in my pictures is much thicker than probably intended.) Set aside 1/4 cup sliced green onions. Toss remaining green onions, cheese, flour, thyme, salt and pepper in medium bowl to blend.
Layer 1/6 of potatoes in concentric circles in bottom of 1 prepared pan, overlapping slightly. Layer 1/4 of squash in concentric circles atop potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture. Repeat with 1/6 of potatoes, then 1/4 of squash and 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture. Top with 1/6 of potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture and press gently to flatten. Repeat procedure with second cake pan and remaining potatoes, squash, oil, and cheese mixture. (Jill's note: If you find it confusing it might be easier to think of it like this if you're making just one pan of it. Layer like this: potatoes, squash, oil, cheese mix, potatoes, squash, oil, cheese mix, potatoes, oil, cheese mix.)
Cover pans with foil. Bake until potatoes are almost tender, about 40 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until tortes begin to brown and potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes longer. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Cool. Cover with foil and chill. Rewarm, covered with foil, in 350°F oven until heated through, about 30 minutes.)
Cut each torte into wedges. Sprinkle wedges with 1/4 cup green onions; serve. (Jill's note: Serve with a dollop of sour cream, too, if you wish!)

Polish Pickles

2010-08-05T17:31:00.000-04:00

How beautiful my pickles!
(I JUST learned how to caption pics in blogger)

My fridge has been taken over by cucumbers. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing, I enjoy a cuke now and then. And I’ve been finding some creative ways to cook with them (see fried cucumbers). The point of this blog and joining my farm share was for a culinary adventure -- try something new, be inspired by new things, and experiment. So with the idea of experimentation in mind, I decided to attempt to make pickles.

A personal note about pickles: I’m a very picky pickle eater. I like them crunchy and I like them flavorful. I detest those thin little pickles you get in a jar that taste like mush. Bleh! I rarely eat the pickles that come alongside a sandwich in a restaurant because I am skeptical about them. I like a nice crisp, garlicky, dill pickle that has a kick. I suppose I am certifiably a pickle snob. My dad used to make pickles when I was younger, using the whole cucumber and jarring them in our basement for months in a brine of salt, whole garlic, and onions. Now THOSE were pickles. The recipe he used was an old Ukrainian recipe that I can only assume was passed down from my grandmother. Though I thought about trying that old time recipe, I really have no place to put 20 jars of pickles.

I used 4 pretty big cucumbers

Alas, I was looking for something a little…. Easier. I searched the web and came up with a huge variety of pickle recipes, really, it was a number that blew my mind. Who knew there were so many ways of creating pickles? Jarring them, letting them sit from anywhere to a day to weeks, different flavors, styles, my oh my. I was really beginning to get overwhelmed.

I sliced them into rounds

Then destiny struck. My weekly farm share newsletter came with a pickle recipe! An OVERNIGHT pickle recipe! Not to mention the recipe originated with a Polish guy named Joe who used to make the pickles and bring them into the American Legion. Now I know Polish people, (I mean I am half Polish after all), and we are picky about our pickles (see above). Knowing this recipe came from Joe made me confident in their greatness. And oh gosh, they just seemed so easy!

The hardest part about this recipe? Waiting overnight to try a pickle! I know, patience is not my strong suit…. Just think how bad it would have been waiting for a few weeks. Yikes.

The large jar before pouring in the liquid

I followed all directions carefully (though I ended up using 4 cucumbers, not the amount they suggested… maybe my cukes were much bigger than what they recipe had intended). I sliced some of the cucumbers I got pickle rounds and then I also made some spears for variety. The liquid mixture was perfect to fill a tall canister and a shorter canister that I had on hand.

Tick, tick, tick, 24 hours went by… then I popped open one of my jars of pickles from the fridge. I was nervous. I really wanted them to be good. And they were! They were wonderfully crispy and had an impressive garlicy, dill, seasoning kick that is just delicious! I have been snacking on them ever since! I suggest you make some, maybe for a party or picnic or just for fun.

Na Zdrowie! Happy pickling!

Oh how yummy!

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Ingredients & Directions --

1 cup white vinegar
6 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup salt
Bring to a boil and let cool.
Add:
1 tbsp. pickling spice
1 tbsp. mustard seed
15 to 18 cucumbers, sliced
1 onion
As much garlic and dill as you want (I sprinkled in crushed garlic and dill after each layer of pickles.)
Layer cucumbers, onions, garlic and dill in a gallon jug in multiple layers.
Pour liquid into jar and refrigerate overnight. Keep refrigerated.

Fried Cucumbers

2010-07-31T11:06:00.003-04:00

“Everything is better fried.” That’s one of my cooking mottos. That and “Everything is better with cheese.” So when I received a load of cucumbers in my farm share two weeks in a row I wondered, what should I do with all these cukes!? Pickles were an option (and an idea I might try out soon!), so was slicing them up for salad. But I wanted to do something new, exciting, fun… adventuresome!

The internet is really a magnificent thing. I don’t know how my cooking would go without it. I typed “unique cucumber recipe” into Google and alas, I found myself a recipe for fried cucumbers. FRIED CUCUMBERS?! You say. Well, of course! There are fried green tomatoes, so why not cucumbers. Remember the motto: Everything is better fried.

I made this recipe as an appetizer to a casserole that was cooking in the oven, and they were a wonderful treat to snack on before the actual meal was ready. These tasty little cucumber rounds were crispy and fried on the outside and soft and warm on the inside. Oh, yum. Even though I made these on a very hot evening, and while it heated up my kitchen even more, I didn’t care, because they were so delish!

I posted the recipe as I found it online, there are a few things I will note that I did/would do differently from their directions: First, it calls for 5 eggs but there was quite lot of egg/milk batter left over, you could probably do with just 3 eggs. Second, I used sunflower oil instead of vegetable oil and just lightly coated the bottom of a frying pan (since I didn’t have a deep-fryer) and that worked out pretty well… probably saved a bit of unnecessary oil/fat too.

Cheers!
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Fried Cucumbers – Recipe compliments of AllRecipes.com

Ingredients --

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
5 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 quart vegetable oil for frying
2 large cucumbers, cut into 1/2-inch slices

Directions --

Whisk the flour together with 2 tablespoons salt and 2 tablespoons pepper in a mixing bowl; set aside. Beat the eggs in a separate mixing bowl; whisk in the milk, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper until smooth.
Heat oil in a deep-fryer or large saucepan to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Dip the cucumber slices into the beaten egg, then press into the flour. Gently place the cucumber slices into the hot oil and cook until golden brown on both sides, about 3 to 4 minutes. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate, allowing to cool 5 minutes before serving.

Pretty Pesto

2010-07-29T17:58:00.002-04:00

I am typically not a fan of traditional red sauce on pasta, but I do love pasta and I love sauce. So what’s a girl to do? Enter pesto. Only recently did I learn that there are numerous ways to make pesto, featuring various different ingredients – Arugula? Mint? Basil? Oregano? You betcha. The options are really endless as long as you have something leafy and green.

I received an arugula bunch (an aromatic green, typically added to salads) in my recent farm share and figured I would try this whole pesto thing out. Gotta make use of my little food processor, right?

I hunted around the internet for a recipe, and most of them seemed pretty similar… some mix of arugula, nuts, olive oil, garlic, and cheese. I wasn’t quite satisfied with any one in particular so I figured I would create my own. Especially since I didn’t have pine nuts or walnuts on hand (which many recipes suggested to use) I created my own variety using pumpkin seeds. Note: if you’re going to make this with pumpkin seeds use the good pepita kind, not those white salty ones you usually find at the gas station or supermarket. (You can most likely find them at Wegmans -- for you Rochester readers -- or Trader Joe's and Whole Foods -- for you Boston readers.)

I like arugula but I was a little concerned about making a whole pesto out of it considering how bitter it is. But, I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it had a bitter kick (so if you don’t like that, this recipe is not for you) but once it sat in the fridge for a few hours, some extra salt was added. and the pesto was poured over pasta it mellowed out enough to be quite enjoyable. A wonderful pasta accompaniment for hot weather, that’s for sure!

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Jillian’s Own Arugula Pesto

Ingredient suggestions are based off of what I did, you can obviously add more or less depending on your taste.

Ingredients –
• One bunch of arugula
• ¼ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon kosher sea salt
• ¼ cup shredded 3 cheese blend

Directions –
• With a knife chop the arugula just enough that it will fit in your food processor.
• Chop/gate the arugula in a food processor.
• Add arugula to a large bowl.
• Mix in all other ingredients.
• Return the whole mixture to the food processor and chop/blend.
• And salt and pepper to taste.
• Serve with pasta as prepared by box directions. Enjoy!

Tasty Tabouleh

2010-07-20T16:39:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite restaurants back in Rochester is a Greek/Mediterranean place called Aladdin’s. On their menu (which includes many pitas, wraps, and pasta dishes) is also a substantial amount of appetizers and dips for pita, including tabouleh, which is where I fell in love with this delightful dish.

According to Wikipedia “tabouleh is a Levantine salad dish. Traditionally a mountain dish from the Lebanon, and one of the Lebanese main dishes, it has become one of the most popular salads in the non-Persian side of the Middle East. Its primary ingredients are finely chopped parsley, bulgur, mint, tomato, spring onion, and other herbs with lemon juice, olive oil and various seasonings, generally including black pepper and sometimes cinnamon and allspice. In the Arab world, but particularly the Greater Syrian region, it is usually served as part of the mezze, and is served with romaine lettuce. The Lebanese use more parsley than bulgur wheat in their dish.”

Now that we have the details out of the way I can tell you how much I love tabouleh. It’s refreshing and tasty and perfect with pita. That’s why I was super excited that I received a bunch of fresh parsley in my farm share a few weeks ago AND that the weekly newsletter came with a recipe for tabouleh! And lucky for me, I already had some fresh mint in my refrigerator that my dad had sent me a few days earlier. Again, the cooking fates align.

Since I was already well-equipped with the herbs and spices I needed I didn’t feel like going out to the store to buy the bulghur wheat that the recipe called for so I just substituted a packages of couscous that I already had on hand (making it according to the box directions but not including the spice packet.) That worked out really well and the tabouleh came out phenomenal! It was very tasty with crackers, and pita, and these wonderful herb pita chips that my mom found at the Rochester Wegmans. Oh Wegmans, how I miss you. I made the tabouleh only a day before I ventured back to Rochester to do some research for the book I’m currently writing so both of my parents had the chance to sample the tabouleh (including my Dad who had supplied the mint.)

I would gladly make this again and I think it could be a real hit at a summer picnic or a casual dinner party.

Cheers!

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Tabouleh (recipe compliments of Enterprise Farm Newsletter)

Ingredients --

1 cup bulghur wheat
4 scallions, finely chopped
1 box grape tomatoes, finely chopped, with their juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 3/4 cups finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Freshly ground pepper
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
2 tablespoons finely chopped mint
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions --

Soak the bulghur in cold water for 10 minutes.
Drain in a sieve lined with damp cheesecloth, squeezing out all the water.
Transfer to a bowl and fluff with a fork.
Stir in the tomatoes w/ their juice, the parsley and the scallions.
Add the lemon juice, salt, and oil.
Season with pepper.
Toss to coat.
Just before serving, mix in the mint.

How does your garden grow?

2010-07-16T13:01:00.009-04:00

My little garden is growing. My basil plant has taken off and is reaching new heights every day and I have also introduced a rosemary plant to the mix. Petit sous-chef kitty says “I approve!” Sous-chef kitty was very eager to check out the rosemary plant when I first brought it home but she has thankfully since left it alone to do its thing… you know, sit by the window and grow. I’m thinking of buying a catnip plant so Mittsy can have fresh nip whenever she wants it… I’m really such an over-indulgent cat owner.

In sad news, I can not get a grasp on growing cilantro and my cilantro plant kicked the bucket a week ago. Also, neither of my attempts to grow an avocado plant from the pit were successful. But I’m not letting this discourage me, there will be more growing attempts in the future!

In other news, I’m moving into a much bigger apartment in September and it has a little outdoor area! I can’t wait to buy some more plants and pot some things like veggies and herbs. Currently on my list are tomatoes and mint.

Anyone have suggestions on good veggies and herbs to grow in pots that aren’t too tricky (as I am not yet an expert grower)?

Toast En Français

2010-07-14T16:17:00.001-04:00

It’s only fair that I celebrate Bastille Day with a second cooking blog post honoring our beret wearing friends across the Atlantic. Ah, the French. They bring us such culinary delights as escargot, frog legs, croissants, brie, wine, champagne, crepes, and baguettes… my mouth waters just thinking about it. I really love French food. And of course, there is French toast! Although I had a feeling French toast is not truly part of French cuisine, and the internet has proved my suspicions right:

According to Wikipedia, French toast is a breakfast food served in North America and some countries in Europe. In the United Kingdom it is sometimes known as Eggy Bread. It is a Christmas time dessert in Portugal and Brazil (rabanada) and an Easter dessert in Spain (torrijas). "French toast" can be found in print in the United States as early as 1871. The Oxford English Dictionary cites usages of "French toast" in English as early as 1660 (toasted bread with wine, orange juice, and sugar), and cites an egg-based recipe of the same name from 1882 According to the International House of Pancakes, French toast is not necessarily French in origin; it is likely that the recipe dates back to medieval times, as "torrijas" in Spain already existed in the 15th century.

Oh well, I’m posting about it anyway!

French toast was a staple of my childhood. I like pancakes and waffles and all, but French toast is my favorite of all the breakfast foods. My mom always made it with regular sliced bread but recently I’ve learned of an even more French-y way to create this breakfast dish using French bread or a baguette (thanks to Byron for educating me about this way of making French-y French Toast.)

Why I love this recipe:

The use of French bread/baguette makes wonderful little bite-sized toasts that are a lot more fun than plain bread. Note: It’s best to use a baguette or French bread that is a day old, which actually makes this recipe perfect because you don’t have to go shopping in the AM for bread and can buy all your supplies the day before.

Plus, I’m a real sucker when it comes to vanilla, so the inclusion of pure vanilla extract in this recipe makes it all the yummier and gives it a nice rich flavor.

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French-y French Toast

Ingredients –- (These ingredients are an approximation based on how much French toast you want to make. Feel free to eyeball it and add more or less of things as you see fit. Mostly you just want to create a nice batter out of the eggs/milk/OJ that will be soaked up by the bread.)

Day old baguette or French bread
Cup of orange juice
Cup of milk
4-5 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Powdered sugar
Butter
Pure maple syrup

Directions --

Slice the baguette/French bread about 1-1 ½ inches thick so you have a bunch of nice round pieces. I ate about 5 pieces, so use your judgment for how hungry you are to determine how many slices to make.
Whisk milk, orange juice, sugar, vanilla, eggs, and cinnamon together creating a nice eggy batter.
Place the baguette rounds in a large casserole dish and pour the batter on top.
Move the baguette rounds around and flip them over so both sides are covered with the batter.
Leave them to marinate/soak up the batter for approximately a half hour.
Heat a skillet/pan over medium-high heat and cook the batter-covered baguette pieces until they are brown on the outside and done.
You will probably have some leftover batter which you can turn into scrambled eggs to accompany the toast.
Serve with butter, powdered sugar, and pure maple syrup.
Enjoy!

Greens with Envy

2010-07-14T15:17:00.005-04:00

As I’ve mentioned before, I started out my summer with very little knowledge of greens. Had you asked me to name you some greens I probably would have looked at you cross-eyed and said “um, lettuce?” Sure, lettuce is green, but the category goes far beyond that. Thanks to my farm share me and greens are becoming very well acquainted. So are me and my wok.

"So what ARE greens?" you ask. They are big leafy green plants that taste delicious! Lucky for me, the farm that I chose to do my farm share with here in Massachusetts is well-versed in growing greens and I get plenty of them each week in my share.

Here are a few of the things I’ve been cooking with. Wikipedia definitions to the rescue:

Chard: Also known by the common names Swiss Chard, Silverbeet, Perpetual Spinach, Spinach Beet, Crab Beet, Seakale Beet and Mangold, is a leafy vegetable, and is one of the cultivated descendants of the sea beet. Although the leaves are eaten, it is in the same species as beetroot (garden beet) which is usually grown primarily for its edible roots.

Kale or borecole is a form of cabbage, green or purple, in which the central leaves do not form a head. It is considered to be closer to wild cabbage than most domesticated forms. The species Brassica oleracea contains a wide array of vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and brussels sprouts.

Collard greens are various loose-leafed cultivars of Brassica oleracea, the same species that produces cabbage and broccoli. The plant is grown for its large, dark-colored, edible leaves and as a garden ornamental, mainly in Brazil, Portugal, the Southern United States, many parts of Africa, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain and in Kashmir.

Callaloo: Jamaican callaloo is a Jamaican vegetable that resembles spinach. Though it tastes almost like spinach it is not as sour. Jamaican callaloo is though to have its origin in South America however it has been recorded as being in Jamaica from as early as 1752. (From www.getjamaica.com)

Bok Choy is a Chinese leaf vegetable used often in Chinese cuisine. These vegetables are both related to the Western cabbage, and are of the same species as the common turnip.

I like greens for their simplicity and ease of cooking. I’ve cooked up a few different kinds of greens so far and in different ways. I’m finding the best way to start of cooking them is to sauté them in a wok with oil and garlic for a few minutes until they have cooked down (look sort of soft and wilted and not so much like lettuce anymore) and then I add other stuff to the wok.

Lately I’ve tended not to work directly from a recipe when cooking greens, which makes the whole experience a bit of an adventure. Lucky for me, everything has turned out well so far! Things I will throw into the mix include potatoes, onions, tomatoes, spices, turnips, and all sorts of odds and ends that I’m left with from my farm share when the week comes to an end. You can also sautéed everything up and serve as is or add broth and turn the whole thing into soup or sprinkle with cheese and bake in the oven for a bit to make a casserole. Really, the possibilities are endless. Not to mention, if you want to stick to real recipes there are LOADS of great recipes for greens available online which you can always tweak yourself as you see fit.

Some of my favorite creations so far have included:

An assortment of greens (beet greens and chard) sautéed with turnips (see fourth picture)

A kale, sausage, and potato soup

A kale, sausage, and potato casserole (see first picture & fifth picture)

Bean and Swiss chard soup

Greens on their own (or with a few other veggies and spices added) make a great accompaniment to a meat dish or they go very well with some rice or pasta. Tomorrow I’m going to be making Jamaican style callaloo (see recipe below) and will be serving it with some baked chicken drumsticks and steamed rice.

Cheers!

PS: If you have any greens recipes you would like to share post a comment below!!

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Jamaican Style Sautéed Callaloo (recipe compliments of Enterprise Farm newsletter)

Ingredients --

1 bunch callaloo 1 large onion, sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (to taste)
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried thyme salt and pepper
1 large tomato, diced

Directions --

Cut the bottom 1/2—1 inch off the bottom of the callaloo stems.
Peel the remaining stems (as you would with broccoli).
Slice everything into small ribbons, wash well and spin dry in a salad spinner.
In a large skillet (or wok) heat oil.
Add onion and garlic, sautee for 3-4 minutes, until onions are slightly translucent.
Add callaloo, season with cayenne, crushed red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and thyme.
Allow to wilt.
Add tomatoes and cook for 2 more minutes.

A Lobster-tastic 4th of July Feast

2010-07-08T14:11:00.004-04:00

What better way to honor our fine nation’s independence than with a truly American backyard feast? And nothing compliments America more than lobster. (Yeah, I know you could say burgers, or hotdogs, or something like that, but for we were going for being classy this 4th of July and there’s nothing classier than lob-stah.)

It’s funny to think that years ago people thought lobsters were the scum of the sea and they were served to prisoners who complained about the copious amounts of lobster they were fed: “MORE lobster? Can’t we just get some plain old bread and water or something? Geeze.” And now lobsters are a delicacy, oh how times change.

I ate my first lobster (in its pure un-cracked, un-bisqued, un-anything-elsed form) back in January –- you know, when they plop a big red lobster down on your plate and you have to actually DO something to it before you can eat it. I was terrible at cracking it open and I made quite a mess, but, a mess that was well worth my effort because lobster is DELICIOUS. With those sentiments, we settled on 10 lobsters for our America feast. Before you call me a glutton, I must tell you that these 10 lobsters fed 7 people and I personally ate one and a half. Feel better?

Our original intent was to cook the lobsters ourselves (something that I am completely terrified of doing). I like animals, A LOT. I feed stray cats and throw bread to pigeons and name raccoons that crawl up onto my fire escape. My biggest worry was that once I brought home a lobster and saw him crawling on my floor that I would start to do silly things like give him a name (Mr. Pinchers), make him race the other lobsters, etc. And then I would no longer have dinner, I would have a friend… and nobody wants to drop their friend into a boiling pot of water. But, thank goodness, the Star Market will steam them for you while you wait so you don’t have to deal with the potential of be-friending your future dinner.

What I love most about grilling/barbecues is the aspect of all day eating. From 2pm until 9pm the food never really stopped. Something goes on the grill, something comes off, and something replaces it on the grill. It’s a wonderful cycle of deliciousness.

Here’s what our feast looked like:

10 lobsters (pre-steamed)
Veggie kabobs with red, yellow, and green peppers and a Vidalia onion (pictured to the right)
Potato Packets: Diced red and russet potatoes (1 inch cubes) which I brushed with olive oil and then sprinkled with garlic powder and kosher sea salt. I wrapped the potatoes up in aluminum foil packets and put them on the grill for approximately 15 minutes. These potatoes were so yummy and so easy to make that I want some right now as I write this. I received both types of the potato from my Enterprise farm share and I’m eager to get more soon since this was a great accompaniment to any backyard grilling. (pictured above)
Sliced and grilled zucchini (pictured to the right)
10 ears of corn (pictured to the right)
2 pounds of clams baked on the grill: Just stick them on the grill on medium heat and they pop open when they’re done.
Grilled leek
Homemade garlic butter: Crushed garlic mixed with softened butter. This went really well with the lobster and clams.
Homemade chili-lime butter: I asked Byron to pick me up limes at the supermarket and he came home with a bag of key limes. Little did I know using key limes made this butter all the more tasty! The key limes added a tang and sweetness that made this butter perfect for the grilled corn. (pictured to the right)
Sliced cantaloupe melon
Skirt steak
Another steak

Wow, is all I have to say... the day ended with fireworks and a very happy tummy. I can’t wait for another holiday to do it all over again… National Teddy Bears Picnic Day on July 10th anyone?

Overall score: 10 out of 10.

Heaven in a Bowl (If you Like Tomatoes)

2010-07-01T14:40:00.001-04:00

I once dated a guy who hated tomatoes so much that if they came with a meal he had ordered in a restaurant he would evacuate them from his plate as if they were bombs about to explode at any second. Me? I like tomatoes. Let me clarify though for those of you who have seen me order things sans tomatoes. I don’t like tomatoes on my sandwiches, they make it all soggy. I guess I’m a big peculiar too. But, there is a time and a place for tomatoes and one of those places is salad.

So far each week I have received a little carton of grape tomatoes with my farm share, which I love. Grape tomatoes are the best because you can throw them into soup, add them to salad, or really do anything you want with them. For lunch I decided to whip up something quick and tasty using these tomatoes. About a month ago I bought a little potted basil plant at Whole Foods and since that time the thing has grown into a monster -- it’s taking over my apartment, really. I figured it was time to give it a little trim-down and finally put some of those leaves to good use.

I really enjoy caprese salads so it though I would make my own Jill-ized version using things I already had on hand in my apartment/fridge. The result was absolutely amazing, and healthy, too! True to form I abided by one of my cooking mantras: “Everything is better with cheese.” (Going Vegan sounds like the worst thing ever to me, EVER… I don’t know how those people do it! Cheese is just TOO good.)

When making your own version of this salad I highly suggest that you invest in a high-quality vinaigrette, it really makes a big difference. I found this delicious “Roasted Hazelnut & Extra Virgin” vinaigrette at Whole Foods from Lucini of Italy. It was absolutely great in this recipe and I’m quite excited to try out a few more of the flavors that they offer.

This salad was the perfect accompaniment to an 85 degree afternoon and the 10 seconds I had to eat before class. Ah, summer.

Overall score: 10 out of 10

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Tomato, Basil, Goat Cheese and Vinaigrette Salad

Ingredients –

Handful of grape tomatoes

A couple of spoonfuls of goat cheese crumbles

5-8 fresh basil leaves sliced up into little pieces

A few dashes of vinaigrette dressing

Directions –

Mix together in a bowl and enjoy!

Beer Me

2010-06-25T10:29:00.000-04:00

There’s nothing better than a warm Friday morning to complement your re-cap of last week’s American Craft Beer Fest. I attended the first session of the fest last Friday at Boston’s World Trade Center. I’m a beer festival veteran so I came bright eyed and bushy tailed with a big prosciutto sandwich in my tummy -- So I was ready for action.

I love beer festivals. I love trying new things and I love variety. While I tend to buy good beers/craft beers at the store and out at bars and restaurants, beer fests give me the extra opportunity to try out different beers that might be out of my normal ordering or purchasing range. Not to mention, the fest is a great opportunity for breweries to showcase beers that you can’t even get anywhere else! If you’ve never been to a beer fest the run a bit like this:

You pay $40
You get a little plastic or glass sample cup
There are 100+ breweries with booths stationed in the venue handing out samples of their beers
A brewery could offer their best sellers, a few new products, and then some stuff that isn’t available anywhere else
Many of these beers are strong and high in alcohol
You go round and round to booths for 3 hours and the breweries pour you 2-3 ounce samples of their offerings
You leave feeling good

Sidenote: I’m very excited to announce that I just signed the lease for a new 2-bedroom apartment starting in September and it has a wonderfully fabulous kitchen where I am going to try my hand at…. wait for it… brewing my very own beer!

Enough with the introduction and digressions… what I’m really here to do is give you a the list of what I tried out last week. Amazingly enough I was actually able to completely document my beer journey and appropriately check off the beers I tasted at the festival guide. (Trust me, it’s a feat worthy of applause.) I don’t deserve all of the credit though, the wonderful American Craft Beer Fest program guide listed each brewery in attendance, their beers available, and the alcohol percent so that I could share them with you here.

What I tried. Those in bold I found particularly delicious:

21st Amendment Brewery (CA) : Hell or High Watermelon (Wheat Beer/4.9%)

Alagash Brewing Company (ME) : Allagash Victor (Belgian Strong Ale w/grapes and yeast wine/9%)

Atwater Block Brewery (MI) : Vanilla Java Porter (6%)

Berkshire Brewing Co. (MA) : Nitro Coffee Porter (6.2%)

Boston Beer Co. (MA) : Kosmic Mother Funk (Belgian Sour/7%)

Brooklyn Brewery (NY) : Dark Matter (Whiskey Barrel-aged Strong Brown Ale/7.5%)

Brooklyn Brewery (NY) : Local 1 (Belgian Strong Golden Ale/9%)

Cape Cod Beer (MA) : Cape Code Beach Blonder Ale (American Golden Ale/4.8%)

Cody Brewing Co. (MA) : Wheeler Oatmeal Brown (American Brown Ale/5.7%)

Defiant Brewing Co. (NJ) : Defiant Little Thumper (Ale/5.2%)

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery (DE) : World Wide Stout (Imperial Stout/18%)

Earth Bread + Brewery (PA) : ABA (American Brown Ale/6.2%)

Earth Bread + Brewery (PA) : Donut Hole (Belgian Dark)

Flying Goose Brewpub & Grille (NH) : Pilsner

Flying Goose Brewpub & Grille (NH) : Red

Franklin’s Restaurant, Brewery & General Store (MD) : Hop Zen (American Strong Ale/7.2%)

Franklin’s Restaurant, Brewery & General Store (MD) : Smoked Porter (6.5%)

Goose Island (IL) : Coffee Stout (Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Coffee Stout/13%) -- This was my personal favorite of what I tried at the festival

Harpoon Brewery (MA) : Leviathan Big Bohemian Pilsner (Imperial Pilsner/9%)

Harpoon Brewery (MA) : Belgian Cask

Harpoon Brewery (MA) : 100 Barrel Series Pott’s Landbier (Landbier Lager/4.8%)

Kennebec River Brewing (ME) : Summer Ale (American Pale Ale/5.8%)

Kennebec River Brewing (ME ) : Penobscot Porter (English Stout/5.8%)

Mayflower Brewing Co. (MA) : Mayflower Pale Ale (English Pale Ale/5%)

McNeill’s Brewery (VT) : Warlord DIPA (Double IPA/8.5%)

McNeill’s Brewery (VT) : McNeill’s ESB (5.8%)

Narragansett Brewing Co. (RI) : Naragansett Bock (7%)

New England Brewing Co. (CT) : Alpha Weisen

Old Burnside Brewing Co. (CT) : Ten Penny Reserve Ale (Wee Heavy/9.2%)

OPA-OPA Steakhouse & Brewery (MA) : Opa Opa Watermelon Ale

OPA-OPA Steakhouse & Brewery (MA) : Blueberry

Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery (MA) : Cinco de Mayo (Jalepeno Lager/5%)

Sebago Brewing Co. (ME) : Frye’s Leap IPA (American IPA/6.2%)

Sebago Brewing Co. (ME) : Hefeweizen (4.2%)

Schmaltz Brewing Co. (CA) : He’Brew Rejewvenator ’10 (Dubbel/Dopplebock with Concord Grapes/8.2%)

Stone Brewing Co. (CA) : Stone 14th Anniversary Imperial IPA

Stoudts Brewing Co. (PA) : Karnival Kolsch (4.8%)

Stoudts Brewing Co. (PA) : Heffer-in-Wheat (Hefeweizen/5%)

The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery (NC) : Duck-Rabbit Barrel-aged Milk Stout (5.7%)

Trinity Beer Co. (RI) : Belgian Strawberry (11%)

Trinity Beer Co. (RI) : Russian Imperial Stout (Oak-aged Imperial Stout/9%)

Weyerbacher Brewing Co. (PA) : Fifteen (Smoked Imperial Stout/10.8%)

It seems like I tried so much but really what I tasted was just the tip of the iceberg as far as what was being offered. I was able to taste stuff from only about half of the breweries in attendance and try 1 out of 5 things they had to offer.

But, there’s always next year! Cheers!

Swiss Chard Makes Super Soup

2010-06-24T19:36:00.001-04:00

Oh goodness, I’m so cheesy. It must be all the Boston humidity seeping into my brain or the fact that I just spent a good 40 hours straight staring at the computer screen in preparation for my final project in my grad school publishing class. (Yes, I’m aware I should un-glue myself from the computer and go outside and play, but really, I wanted to make this post first.) Dear eyeballs, please forgive me.

In the spirit of continuing my experimental cooking with my farm share vegetables I bring you a fabulous Swiss chard soup that I took liberties with and tweaked a bit. My fridge was filled with an abundance of greens so I to searched around for a soup recipe that used Swiss chard. Swiss chard is really quite pretty, look at that beautiful big leaf over there. Unfortunately, I don’t think any food should be named “chard” as it too closely resembles “charred” which is a characteristic no chef wants their food to have. Oh well, name aside, I am a fan of said veggie.

I found recipe on epicurious called “Beans and Swiss Chard,” which sounded fab. Slight problem though: this recipe was vegetarian and my dining partner is a male who demanded meat. So what’s a girl to do? Tweak time. I bought a pound of chicken drumsticks, seasoned then, and then baked them in the oven for 45 minutes. When they cooled I pulled the succulent meat off of the bone and TADA meat for my soup! Bonus: I was able to do this a few hours before actually making the soup and then stick the chicken in the fridge until I was ready for soup prep.

The recipe I found called for 1 cup of beans but a few reviews from people were saying that they wished they had added extra beans so I decided to really beef it up and buy a can of white beans AND a can of chick pea beans so my soup would be extra bean-y. And that’s where my tweaking ends, from then on out I followed the recipe pretty closely but added some extra broth to accommodate my meat and extra beans.

Oh dear, looking back at my pictures I realize that I lied to you earlier – one more final tweak to the original recipe: I added a handful of grape tomatoes to the pot at the same time that I added the pasta.

This recipe was really great and with my addition of shredded chicken bits it was sort of a unique twist on chicken noodle soup. It was also really tasty the next day, though a bit more like a pasta dish since the little shell noodles soaked up the broth. But still quite delish!

Overall score: 7 out of 10.

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Bean and Swiss Chard Soup compliments of Epicurious and with my own tweaks

Ingredients—

½ to 1 pound of cooked chicken (my addition)
1/2 pound (225 g) Swiss chard or kale, trimmed (I used that nice red-stemmed chard)
1 teaspoon coarse salt, plus additional to taste
2 flat anchovy fillets
1/4 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves or dried
1/3 cup (80 ml) olive oil
2 medium garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 cup (225 g) cooked small white beans or drained and rinsed canned beans (I used two cans of two different beans to add variety)
4 cups (1 liter) chicken stock [or Garlic Broth for a meatless soup]
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup (60 g) small shell macaroni
handful of grape tomatoes (my addition)
freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Preparation —

Season and roast ½ to 1 pound of chicken pieces in the oven until they are done (juice runs clear when poked with a fork.) I cooked mine for approximately 45 minutes.
In a medium saucepan, cook the chard with 1/2 cup (125 ml) water and the salt over medium heat until tender. Drain the chard, reserving any liquid that remains. Coarsely chop the chard.
Very finely chop anchovies together with the rosemary.
In a medium saucepan, stir together the oil and garlic over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic is pale gold, about 10 minutes. Stir in the anchovies and rosemary. Cook, stirring for 1 minute. Discard the garlic. Stir in the chard and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring to thoroughly coat it with the oil. Stir in the beans. Cook for 3 minutes.
Stir in the reserved cooking liquid and the stock. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and stir in the macaroni. Boil for 6 minutes, or until the pasta is tender. Adjust the seasoning, if necessary.
Pass Parmesan cheese at the table.

Cooking with Kale

2010-06-19T12:37:00.001-04:00

My second box of farm share veggies included kale. Commence poor veggie knowledge in 3... 2... 1. "What is kale?" I asked myself. Apparently, it's a leafy green veggie that look sort of like lettuce but isn't. It's more like spinach or chard (which I learned about last week!) It's good in soups and sauteed in a pan. Who knew there were SO MANY different veggies out there!

I hadn’t made a soup in a while so I decided to try out a soup recipe with kale. I found a recipe online for kale, sausage, and potato soup (google search to the rescue again). Since I love tweaking recipes, I decided to add an onion as well to beef up the consistency and flavor.

Since the recipe is made with chicken broth and wine I thought it would be good to use a chicken sausage (instead of pork). I found a nice spicy chicken sausage at Whole Foods –- bonus, chicken sausage has way less fat, so at only 7 grams per sausage the whole big pot of soup only had 28 grams of fat.

This soup was amazing and oh, so simple! It really only required chopping some veggies and browning sausage and then throwing it all together in a pot. I absolutely loved it. I doubled the recipe that I found online because it claimed that it served two –- and I figured this might be two servings of soup appetizer, not soup for a meal. I made a good call with this, doubling the recipe made this pot of soup perfect for two people for a whole meal. I would gladly make this recipe again and can probably think of all sorts of other ways to add variety to it and try out different veggies to add, not to mention the fact that Whole Foods has a TON of different types of sausages. YUM!

Overall score: 9 out of 10.

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Smoked Sausage, Kale and Potato Soup compliments of Epicurious

Ingredients --

4 ounces smoked fully cooked sausage (such as kielbasa or hot links), sliced into rounds
2 3/4 cups canned low-salt chicken broth
3/4 pound small red-skinned potatoes, thinly sliced
1 cup dry white wine
5 cups thinly sliced trimmed kale leaves (about 3/4 of medium bunch) or 3/4 of 10-ounce package frozen chopped kale, thawed, drained
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds, lightly crushed

Directions --

Sauté sausage slices in heavy medium saucepan over medium-high heat until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes. Add chicken broth, sliced potatoes and white wine and bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat to medium, cover and simmer until potatoes are almost tender, about 10 minutes.

Add kale and caraway seeds to soup. Simmer soup uncovered until potatoes and kale are very tender, about 10 minutes longer. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls and serve immediately.

Steak ‘n Squash

2010-06-15T10:48:00.004-04:00

Aside from both starting with the letter "S" steak and squash don’t have many similarities. Or do they? For starters, both were recently cooked by me, and both are delicious. Sounds like similarities to moi. I received an acorn squash in my first week’s farm share box so like my adventure with the beet I went to the trusty internet to find what to do with it.

I located a delicious sounding recipe for acorn squash baked with brown sugar (yum!) butter (yum!) and honey (yum!). That’s three yums in a row, we’re talking big-leagues now.

To go along with my squash (and zucchini which I would also roast in the oven) I wanted a low-fuss meal that was tasty, filling, and wholesome, too. So I headed to Whole Foods and found myself a nice sirloin steak. Because really, when you pair steak with veggies you can’t go wrong.

The result of this meal was a wonderful mix of seasoned steak with an appropriate, and not overwhelming nor scant, amount of veggies. I really enjoyed the sweetness of the squash, especially in contrast to the tender and juicy steak. The sugar and honey and butter melted down to create a quite yummy syrup that accompanied the squash very nicely. However, my only complaint is that I probably could have left the zucchini in the oven for a little longer but it was still tasty and edible so I guess that’s all that counts. And it was made up for by the fact that the steak, as always, was fabulous.

Overall score: 7 out of 10.

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Baked Acorn Squash compliments of Reluctant Gourmet

Ingredients --

1 Acorn Squash, halved

2 pats of butter

2 teaspoons of honey or maple syrup

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

Salt & pepper

Directions --

Pre-heat oven to 375 - 400 degrees F.

Scoop the seeds out of each half acorn squash with a spoon.

Add 1 pat of butter, 1 teaspoon of honey or maple syrup, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, salt and pepper to the hollow scoop of each half.

Place upright on a greased cookie sheet and roast for about 1 hour or until tender when flesh is poked with a fork.

Farm Market Time!

2010-06-08T21:31:00.000-04:00

I am so excited that farm market season is finally here! While I’m doing a CSA/farm share this summer, I of course want to supplement what I get each week with some other odds and ends that I pick out myself – especially local meat, cheese, bread, and baked goods. I’m terrible at remembering the date in the summer (not to mention what day of the week it is) so I figured I would make myself a handy list so if the farm market mood strikes me I can know exactly where to head –- once I figured out what day of the week it is, of course. Here's a short list of what's around my area:

Monday

Boston City Hall: 11am-6pm

WHERE: 1 City Hall Plaza, Government Center

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Tuesday

Copley Square: 11am-6pm

WHERE: Copley on Boylston

Dewey Square/South Station: 11:30am-6:30pm

WHERE: Summer & Atlantic Ave

Jamaica Plain: noon-5pm

WHERE: 677 Center Street, Bank of America Parking Lot

Newton: 1:30-6pm (Note: July 10th start)

WHERE: 1200 Beacon Street, Cold Spring Park

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Wednesday

Boston City Hall: 11am-6pm

WHERE: 1 City Hall Plaza, Government Center

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Thursday

Dewey Square/South Station: 11:30am-6:30pm

WHERE: Summer & Atlantic Ave

Brookline: 1:30-dusk

WHERE: Beacon Street and Centre Street, Coolidge Corner

Mission Hill: 11am-6pm

WHERE: Huntington & Tremont, Brigham Circle

Prudential Center: 11am-6pm

WHERE: Outside the Pru on Boylston Street

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Friday

Copley Square: 11am-6pm

WHERE: Copley on Boylston

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Saturday

Jamaica Plain: noon-3pm

WHERE: 677 Center Street, Bank of America Parking Lot

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Sunday

South End: 10am-4pm

WHERE: 540 Harrison Ave.

Garlicy Roasted Romano Beans

2010-06-07T17:56:00.001-04:00

I received a big bag full of Romano Beans in my first week’s farm share box. The Enterprise newsletter told me that Romano beans are a form of flat snap bean which originates in Italy and that they are flattened, rather than rounded, and meant to be eaten whole, just as we would eat other summer green beans. Their flavor is tender and mild. Romanos are often braised with other summer vegetables and eaten as a side dish. I decided to try a create-it-yourself/fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants recipe:

First, I snapped the ends off of the beans and washed them. Then I coated the beans with a bit of olive oil, a heaping tablespoon of crushed garlic, then some freshly ground pepper and kosher salt.

I then put them in a small glass dish and baked them uncovered in the oven for approximately 7-10 minutes. The Enterprise newsletter warned me that Romano beans can become a yucky mush if cooked too long so I didn’t want that to happen and I took a peek at the beans every few minutes to see how they were doing. After a little under 10 minutes of cooking in the hot oven I turned on the broiler and let them broil for 2-3 minutes so the beans would get a nice toasted quality on the top. I wish I had some Parmesan or Asiago cheese to sprinkle on the top of them… maybe next time!

While I ate these all by themselves as a snack (I know, a weird snack) these beans would be a great accompaniment to a grilled steak or fish. I didn't overcook them so they still had a nice crispy texture and tasted wonderful with the garlic and pepper.

Overall score: 8 out of 10.

Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

2010-06-04T11:53:00.001-04:00

What is a beet? Is it just a nickname for that other red veggie known as the radish? But that leads us to another question… what is a radish? Are either of them actually veggies? Does Dwight actually own a beet farm? Enter all-knowing Wikipedia:

"Beet : The beet (Beta vulgaris) is a plant in the amaranth family (which includes beet, goosefoot, quinoa, and spinach.) It is best known in its numerous cultivated varieties, the most well known of which is probably the red root vegetable known as the beetroot or garden beet. The usually deep-red roots of garden beet are eaten boiled either as a cooked vegetable, or cold as a salad after cooking and adding oil and vinegar. A large proportion of the commercial production is processed into boiled and sterilised beets or into pickles. In Eastern Europe beet soup, such as cold borscht, is a popular dish."

"Radish : The radish (Raphanus sativus) is an edible root vegetable of the Brassicaceae family (includes Some examples of cruciferous food plants are the cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnip, rapeseed, mustard, radish, horseradish, cress, wasabi and watercress) that was domesticated in Europe in pre-Roman times."

Dwight Schrute : Dwight lives on his family's 60-acre beet farm, in a nine bedroom farmhouse (with one bathroom), with his cousin Mose where they grow table beets. Dwight also likes paintball, survivalism, Karate and weapons. Fact: bears eat beets (see shirt from café press.)

Note to self: All red veggies are not related. Either way, both beets and radishes are two things that I have never eaten before. The other distinguishing difference? My first farmshare basket from Enterprise Farms included 6 beets (and no radishes.) How do I know this? It was in their newsletter -- thank goodness, or perhaps I would have misidentified these suckers!

So how does one cook beets? I scoured the internet for something to make that has beets in it and is not borscht, which I will save for a later date. (Given my Eastern European background it really is quite surprising that I’ve never had borscht before, but it’s good to see that it makes numerous appearances in all four of my Polish cookbooks and my one Ukrainian cookbook. You know, in case I want to try out some different ways of making it.)

Have you ever felt like something was made JUST FOR YOU and nobody else? Well, I had that feeling earlier today while searching for a beet recipe. Really. I found a recipe for beets (which came in my farmshare), potatoes (which came in my farmshare), an onion (which came in my farmshare), and mint (my dad sent me a baggie of garden-grown mint about a week ago!) Talk about fate.

Of course, having never tasted a beet, I had no idea what to expect. What I learned: Beets turn everything red, including your fingers. Really, everything... including your cat's water dish when you accidentally drop in a beet chunk. (Sorry kitty.) Also, when peeled and chopped beets bear a striking resemblance to raw meat.

In general, this recipe was just a little too bland for my taste and I ended up spicing it up with some basil, salt, and pepper which helped it out a bit. It probably could have used some meat or something, but for my first beet experience I would say it went well.

Lesson: Beets just taste like an earthy, less soft potato.... I'm no longer frightened of them.

IF YOU HAVE A BEET RECIPE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR IT, LEAVE ME A COMMENT BELOW!

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Beet, Potatoes and Mint (recipe compliments of Lovetoknow.com recipes):

Ingredients

6 beets, peeled raw, diced small

4 potatoes, peeled, diced large

1 onion, peeled, chopped fine

2 cups water

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon mint leaves, chopped

Seasonings to taste

Instructions

Put all ingredients, except the mint, in a stew pan.

Bring to the boil, then cover and lower heat to low.

Let simmer about 35 minutes.

Before serving, sprinkle with the chopped mint leaves.

Overall score: 6 out of 10.

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PS: What else came in my farmshare this week? Blueberries, acorn squash, zucchini, lettuce, salad greens, and romano beans. YUM!

CSA Time!

2010-05-31T17:13:00.004-04:00

I just got my first email newsletter about what to expect for my first pickup of my farm CSA basket (which I am doing through Enterprise Farms). I can't even express how so so so excited I am! Here's what could be included in my basket this week:

Baby Bok Choy: Enterprise Farm (see picture to the right)
Lettuce (Redleaf/Greenleaf/Romaine): Enterprise Farm
Salad Mix: Enterprise Farm
Romano Beans: Mt. Vernon, Georgia
Yukon Gold Potatoes: Craig Farm, PEI, Canada
Grape Tomatoes: Somerset Organics, Florida
Zucchini: Cottle Farm, North Carolina
Acorn Squash: Somerset Organics, Florida
Bunched Beets: Lady Moon Organics, Florida
Blueberries: Eastern Carolina Organics, North Carolina
Dandelion Greens: Enterprise Farm / Lady Moon, FL
Vidalia Onions: Bland Farm, Georgia

While I won't be getting everything on the list (especially since I ordered a small share) I am still way excited to start cooking with this wonderful stuff. My newest cookbook purchase also includes a delicious sounding bok choy recipe as well as something for grilled onions and potatoes. YUM! My first pickup is this coming Thursday, stay tuned to see how this all pans out... (Dandelion greens? This sounds fab.) Cheers!

New Cookbook, New Cookbook!

2010-05-24T17:09:00.003-04:00

For all my hard work in the kitchen I bought myself a new cookbook : The Slow Cooker Bible. It's packed with 200+ recipes for the slow cooker (duh) and includes tasty things that I'm adding to my "to make" list like:

Honey-Mustard Chicken Wings

Parmesan Ranch Snack Mix

Party Mix

Honey-Sauced Chicken Wings

Slow Cooker Taco Shredded Beef

Hearty Chili Mac

Slow Cooker Mesquite Beef

Mediterranean Meatball Ratatouille

Coq au Vin

Easy Homemade Barbecue Sandwiches

Double Thick Baked Potato-Cheese Soup

Potato & Spinach Soup with Gouda

Hamburger Soup

Campfire Sausage and Potato Soup

Potato and Leek soup with Bacon

Chili with Chocolate

Peasant Potatoes

If you would like to see what else I have on my "to cook" list check out my page "Yummy Things I Want to Cook from My Cookbooks."

Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit…

2010-05-23T20:07:00.002-04:00

Contrary to how it may seem based on my taunting, child-like rhyme that I titled this blog post, I do indeed love beans. Not only do I think beans are quite amazing, they have led to this wonderful double meal blog post.

Day one: Bean dip, salsa, and rice & beans.

Day two: Tacos!

For dinner number one, I decided to make a salsa verde salsa, spicy black bean dip, and rice & beans and then use the leftovers in the next day’s Mexi-fest. The black bean dip is an invention of mine that spun out of an attempt at making salsa a few weeks ago. I chopped up tons of veggies and peppers and tomatoes and then grinded them up in my little food processor for a salsa verde. The result was pretty good but not awe-inspiring. I didn’t use enough spice or something and it was a tad too bland. However, I decided to throw in some leftover black beans and the result was fabulousness. The mix of veggies plus beans all chopped/pureed together resulted in a delicious dip that was perfect for my Tostitos scoops (aka the best invention ever for holding lots of dip on a chip.) As before, the black bean dip came out great again, and with an extra jalapeno pepper throw in it also has a rockin’ bit kick.

I then used my second can of black beans and some instant rice (and some of the leftover peppers and tomatoes) to make a vegetarian bean and rice mixture to eat for dinner but also to accompany the next day’s tacos/fajitas.

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Spicy Black Bean Dip

It’s relatively easy and you can really throw in any ingredients you prefer to satisfy your own tastes. What I used:

1 medium red pepper

1 medium yellow pepper

1 large sweet onion

3 medium tomatoes

2 jalapeno peppers

1 can black beans

Chop all ingredients and then combine in a food processor or blender until a smooth consistency. (You can also make a bit chunkier so it resembles a salsa verde with beans.)

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Black Beans and Rice

1 can black beans

3 cups cooked white rice

A couple of spoonfuls of the chopped pepper, onion and tomato mixture from the dip

Spicy Mexican sauce to taste (I used Chalula)

Mix together and heat for a few minutes over medium heat.

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Meal Numero Dos: Taco time!

I headed to Whole Foods and loaded up with an orange pepper, avocado, limes, small onion, corn tortillas, skirt steak, cilantro, shredded cheddar & Monterey jack cheese and sour cream to accompany my previously created bean dip, rice & beans, and salsa. It was a veritable cornucopia of Mexican goodness. Talk about amazing.

These were the best make-your-own tacos. Ever. I got so excited eating and making them that I forgot to take pictures… but you can imagine: picture heaping mounds of medium cooked steak bits, sautéed veggies, cheese, sour cream, sliced avocado, etc. YUM! As with most Mexican meals I make I think the best part is the ‘do it yourself’ method where you can throw in anything you want at any time and mix it up. The key is just to have fun and be creative!

Overall score: 10 out of 10.

Nacho, Nacho Time!

2010-05-17T18:52:00.003-04:00

Ohhhh, myyyy loooove, my darling, I hunger for…. nachos.

Yeah, my intense passion for Mexican food continues with these scrumptious veggie and meat covered nachos. I love making nachos because I have an odd obsession for chopping veggies into tiny little pieces… really, there’s something very therapeutic about it. When making nachos (like my homemade guacamole) I always fly by the seat of my pants – no measuring cups allowed! Typically here are the things I include: red pepper, yellow pepper, jalapeno pepper, onion, cilantro, tomato, black beans, and smothered in sharp cheddar cheese.

This time I was in for a yummy treat and these nachos were topped off with some leftover chicken. I also recently purchased a cilantro plant so the cilantro that I used in this nacho batch had a special place in my heart (and my cat’s, since she likes to take nibbles of the plant when she thinks I’m not looking.)

Personally I think nachos are the perfect way to use up the extra veggies that are left over from kabobs, soup, stew, or whatever I’ve made a few days earlier, which makes them both economical and quick to make.

My score is obvious here: 10 out of 10. Complete success!

Being Cute in the Kitchen

2010-05-12T16:02:00.000-04:00

Who said cooking and fashion can't go hand in hand? And really, what's the point of cooking and baking if you can't look cute while doing it? After misplacing my bland, boring, ugly, apron during my move to Boston, I decided it's time to get a new one... while also adding some spice to my kitchen (and wardrobe). I searched around a little online and here are four of my favorites so far:

This one is from the Etsy store Lover Dovers Clothing. I LOVE the vintage style and the bright, bold colors. I feel like I should be strapping on some roller skates and serving up milkshakes, burgers, and fries.

I also love both of these next two aprons from the Etsy store Boojiboo. The patterns are great, the cut is flattering and flirty, and pockets are always a plus when cooking!

The black and white damask pattern is great and looks especially pretty with the bright red trim.

However, Pink + Cupcakes = Apron fabulousness.

And finally, this one I found on Amazon.

All of these aprons are so darn cute it's going to be hard to pick just one! Is it possible to start wearing aprons out as normal clothes? These are cuter than a lot of dresses.

Do you know of another great place to buy an apron? Leave me a comment and I'll check it out!