Smoothie of the Week

via macskafarok

After yoga on Wednesday, I was a hungry, hungry hippo. We have been on a kick of trying to get rid of things in our fridge, and feel like we're constantly keeping up with best by dates. Using some of the things that were about to kick the bucket, I came up with this (and it was delicious):

1 cup soymilk
2 Tbsp peanut butter
1/2 cup packed fresh spinach
1 cup frozen strawberries

Yum.

Things I Love Thursday

My Husband (and his birthdays)

I love celebrating his birthday almost more than celebrating my own. I surprised him with a vinyl copy of Radiohead's The Bends, and we went out to dinner with a bunch of friends to one of the most awesome restaurants in Somerville, Highland Kitchen—I ate about twelve thousand buffalo brussels sprouts. I also made red white and blue (freedom) cupcakes that were decorated with robots. Geeky fact no.157 (that people at the table did notice): the candles were J's age in binary: 11101.

Things that made me smile
I recently went to a guided meditation for the first time and we used energy as a concentration tool. This is going to sound so strange like hippie nonsense, but I actually "held" a ball of energy in my hands this week. It felt awesome and powerful and so calming  ♥ Long weekends are great—I feel refreshed and recharged, and so much brighter—for my short work week! ♥ 

Crash Course in Cooking

So, I have been cooking more, lately - in fact we haven't spent any money on food since last Saturday when we went grocery shopping, and even after I used most of our food, I managed to squeeze some veggies and bulk potatoes into a soup!

It's overwhelming to throw down $100+ at the supermarket. It feels like quite a bit of money, and it kind of makes me want to cry sometimes, but we do everything we can to keep the costs low, and while we do treat ourselves every now and again (we don't scrimp on olive oil, for instance, or certain spices), we use coupons, buy store brands, and take advantage of sales.

I made myself kind of sad with the photography. Food photography is tough to begin with, but our apartment has such shitty lighting, and I occasionally get a good shot,







But mostly, I get shaky shots, or shots of pork tenderloin looking undercooked.

And then nights like last night, when I had a stressful day and have been eating cheese since 10AM, we make a 1/3 cup of lentils, have some hummus and call it a night. No, it's not gourmet cooking, but it's better than our usual standby of Taco Bell or Aram's Pizza.

So documenting hasn't improved my cooking, but cooking has improved my cooking, if that makes any sense.

The only recipe to emerge from this month was the Rosemary Chicken (first picture of the three shown above). It's delicious, it's baked, and it's got sweet potatoes and leeks, so the vegetables are right in there with everything - a one stop cooking wonder. I just need to get the quantities right, because the recipe calls for a whole chicken, and I'm just not comfortable with that. Next step: mastering the Rosemary Chicken, and finding a new recipe.

Meal of the Day: Enchiladas

Enchiladas! I get so excited any time anyone mentions them. I love them so much that I buy frozen ones from Trader Joe's just because they're the most authentic thing out east. Sure, I'm half Mexican, learned the recipe from my naturalized grandmother who was born in Chihuahua, but I buy mine from Trader Joe's, because they're "more authentic." Wait. What?

Okay, so the thing about enchiladas: They're messy and they're time intensive. There's either oil involved, or just the flipping and the number of dishes it takes can be overwhelming, plus what do you serve with them? Where's the vegetable? The only thing I do differently than my grandma taught is that I buy my enchilada sauce from Old El Paso instead of making it in my blender from dried red chilies. Oh, and I also buy my tortillas instead of making them from scratch, but let me tell you: I bought some masa last time I was at the supermarket, so watch out supermarket tortillas.

Enchiladas are a highly attention oriented meal, where you're doing all the work the whole time, and then it's time to eat, which is something that doesn't entirely appeal to me (there's something poetic about checking my email while dinner "simmers" or "boils"), but in the end they were delicious and well worth the effort.

The thing that tripped me up was the mexican rice. I haven't ever attempted to make rice that wasn't plain and straightforward rice+water in rice cooker, and I wasn't sure it would turn out fantastically. I added some stewed tomatoes and tomato boullion, and I browned the rice over oil with garlic and onions before throwing them in the rice cooker. Turns out it's hard to screw up rice when you use a rice cooker. Maybe will repeat on Taco night?

Meal of the Day: Beef & Veggie Stir Fry

Today I made a beef and veggie stir fry that was adapted from a Stir Fry cookbook I bought off of half.com years ago. The beef was nice and tender because I marinated it overnight, but for some reason this recipe had much less flavor than it has had the past few times I've made it. I've made this before, but it's taken us a while to find a combination of veggies that works for both of us (hint: only one of those vegetable is actually called for in the book), and last night's rendition was good, but hopefully it's better next time. The first time I made this, I think we both ate in awe and silence for a few minutes, it was that. good.

marinade:
1/2 cup dry red wine (I use cooking wine, but sometimes open a nice bottle of cab or chianti if we're going to have it with dinner)
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 or 2 cloves of minced garlic

1LB of sirloin, beef tips, or whatever kind of beef you feel like cutting into stir fry appropriate pieces
1/2 cup green onions
1 cup broccoli
1 can of sliced water chestnuts (sometimes I throw these in recipes that don't even call for them! YUM)
1/4 cup of celery (the recipe calls for a ton more, but celery? yuck, after a certain point. that point being 1/4 of a cup)
*a few radishes, sliced thin (which I skipped this time around)
2 Tbsp hoisin sauce

After the meat is marniated for at least 30 minutes, you put it in a wok with some vegetable oil until it's cooked through. Take it out of the wok, then mix all of the veggies (I start with the tougher ones for a minute before I add the softer ones) with the hoisin sauce and cook those for a few minutes. Add the meat back in, and let it all cook together for a few more minutes.

I serve this with Jasmine rice, and there's always enough for lunch the next day.

Baked Chicken

J and I have developed this really bad habit in the last seven months when we go to the grocery store. Sometimes I have a pretty detailed menu in hand, complete with a shopping list, but most of the time I have a menu in the broadest sense of the word, and we kind of piece it together as we shop. We know how unproductive this is, but we have persisted in doing it this way, anyway. Even when we have the detailed list, we either are derailed (damn you Trader Joe's and your delicious organic products), or we become super lazy as the week progresses, and end up eating out, leaving things like the vegetables or all of the bread to rot (damn you Trader Joe's and your highly perishable organic products), which is disappointing and not exactly encouraging, then it leads to less grocery buying, and thus more eating out. By the end of 2008, we were eating out quite a bit, and our fridge didn't smell very nice. There kept being "too much to do," though, and it just felt too overwhelming to fix it at the moment.

Jointly, we have decided to ditch this habit in 2009. Partly because I am so dead broke right now that I cannot afford to eat out more than once a week (we do breakfast with friends on Sundays, and even in this economy that's a non-negotiable for me), and partly because of my resolution to be more careful with what we bring into the house. Cooking for ourselves is a good way to ensure that even if we're not being 100% organic or green and healthy, at least we know what's going into our meals, and the waste that is associated. I said jointly and then I listed my reasons...but don't worry, J is jazzed, too.

So for the month of January, hopefully until this becomes habit, I will be documenting what we eat, if we stray from our goal, and maybe some notes on how delicious and easy a meal is, or how I will never put it near my mouth again.

Tonight we used some chicken that had been sitting in our freezer for a while, some couscous that had been sitting in our pantry for a long time, and some fresh green beans. We've been out of town for a while, so even though we took a trip to the supermarket today, our goal this week is to rid ourselves of the last of the 2008 perishables. We paired the meal with some of the Yuengling that we brought back from PA. We have a lot of Yuengling.

This meal was simple enough, very tasty, and I'd say it was fairly healthy, too (although portion sizes...? I didn't bother to check). We almost always buy organic chicken breasts - I don't like dark meat, and the Perdue thin sliced breasts cook up pretty easily - those were what I* cooked today. I basted about 1 lb of chicken breasts using a little less than one Tbsp. of butter, and then covered them with Progresso breading mix. I baked them at 400° for 12 minutes, covered, then flipped them over and baked for 8 minutes, uncovered (does it matter that I uncovered them? Probably not. I basically forgot to put the aluminum foil back on...).

I sauteéd the green beans, with a little bit of olive oil and some minced garlic, for about 6 minutes, although I think they could have used another minute or two - I kept reading warnings about how nasty overcooked green beans are, and don't do it, and I got nervous. I also got to use the new paring knife J's mom got us for Christmas, which was exciting.

The couscous came in a box.

My other secret desire is to take better food pictures. Today's was kind of a quickie (I forgot until just as J and I sat down to eat), but I'm going to try to be better about it in the future, at least for new recipes.



*While J is actively involved in the decision as to what we eat, I tend to do most of the cooking. This is because I abhor cleaning up. This doesn't mean my boyfriend doesn't cook, or can't cook. This also doesn't mean that he doesn't help. He chops, mixes, and grabs the wok from our tall shelf for me, sometimes. But mostly he does the dishes, which is why he is possibly my favorite person in the world.

Monday Madness - Food

Are there any weird "food rules" you have? Feel free to list as many as you like.

Not really, it's just that I hate onions and won't eat them. That's not a rule, just a way of life.

When you were growing up, what ONE thing did your parents always remind you of, when it came to meal time (or cooking)?

My dad ALWAYS reminded me that we weren't at Burger King and things couldn't be cooked our way. My mom worked hard making us a meal, and we'd enjoy it and to stop asking for things with "no meat" (me) or "no green things" (my sister). Never mind that the only reason my mom had to make "special" meals for the two of us was because my dad refused to eat things with "no meat" or "no green things."

Is there anyone you know whose food you won't eat (for one reason or another)?

I don't really like eating food made by people I don't know, period. Especially old people.

Is there anything you "specialize" in cooking, that people actually ask for?

No, but I make a decent bowl of salsa

When you were growing up, what one meal do you remember as being your favorite?

Spaghetti

Today, what is your IDEAL meal?

Pasta, interestingly enough, but I prefer Angel Hair pasta to spaghetti.

Picky Eater

I have somehow gotten the reputation for being a picky eater.

I don't know how this happened. Was it when I said I hated vegetables? Which is mostly true except for some things. Like lettuce smothered in salad dressing. Or tomatoes in a sandwich, provided I am allowed to meticulously pick off every single one of the seeds. And olives.

I'm not a big fan of fruit. Lately, Alisa has found a way to convince me to eat bananas. I like bananas, for the most part, but usually I'm eating them for the greater good of the apartment, and not because I want a banana. Because by the time I'm called in, they've started to rot and Alisa wants them Out. They're really sweet when they start turning brown. I say this because I had the overwhelming urge to eat a barely ripened banana today and it's pretty gross. And this is why I don't like fruit. It's unpredictable. One day I'll love it, and the next day, it's got seeds in it or something. Even "seedless" grapes have thrown in a seed or two in my day. Gross. Who needs that? Not me.

So, according to people at work, if it isn't meat or cheese, I'm not interested. Unless it's pasta. Then go ahead and serve it to me. With meat. Or cheese.

And...yeah. That sounds about right.