YUM FOOD BLOG- A Blog About What Was Cooked Today

Sweet Tart

2012-02-06T21:09:00.000+04:00

It's plum and apricot season in South Africa! So here in Dubai we have tons of sweet lovely yellow and bright ruby red plums, and little juicy blushing apricots. Its hard to keep them in the house long enough to make anything with them, (Baby Chuck is also known as the human compost pile...), but the other night I brought this delicious tart to my friends house for dinner. Its super easy, especially given the high quality, ubiquitous, not terribly $$ puff pastry that is in every market here, definitely the right thing for a last minute invitation.

One package of puff pastry
6 yellow, 6 red plums OR 12 apricots
package of white marzipan
butter (very soft)
demerara or other coarse sugar

Brush the bottom of a 10" glass tart pan with butter. Press the puff pastry squares into the pan to cover the bottom with an irregular 3" (or so) overhang. Slice the marzipan in about 1/8" thick pieces and use them to cover the pastry. It will melt so this doesn't have to be very precise. Slice your plums and line the dish with alternating circles of yellow and red (or you could alternate colors too...). Fold the overhang onto the plums. Brush the pastry & plums with butter and sprinkle with a generous pinch of sugar. Bake at 350 (180) for 25- 30 minutes until pastry is browned on bottom.
Serve cold with whipped cream or warm with ice cream. Almost any combination of non-citrus fruits works well with this...

Green Slime

2012-02-05T14:16:00.003+04:00

As part of the health-kick thing, we eat appetizers of vegetables and some kind of dip before each meal. So far we've made lots of hummus, hummus from peas (which is kinda gross), guacemole, white bean dips, and yogurt dips.

Green Slime is the favorite of the FAC's (Fussy American Children).
1 avocado
1/2 can white cannelini beans
1 clove garlic
salt, pepper
olive oil (2 tsp)
juice of a small lemon

into the food processor, grind it up, its good on crackers too...

Keep it Simple, Stupid.

2012-01-10T11:46:00.003+04:00

Sometimes, and maybe this is a condition of living in Dubai where you can literally get almost any foodstuff that exists (except black beans, there is a black bean shortage again), I forget that the easiest, simplest food is often the best tasting.

Winter Vegetable Bake

1 large parsnip- sliced

1 large carrot- sliced

1/2 butternut squash

1 small head cabbage- sliced

2 cups of brussels sprouts- whole

1 small sweet potato- chopped

1 small beet- chopped

1 red onion- chopped

4 cloves garlic- chopped

1 thumb of ginger- chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Put it all in a bowl. Add the oil, salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Roast in a shallow baking pan for about 35min or until vegetables begin to brown.

Broccoli & Brown Rice

1/2 large head broccoli- chopped into small florets and steamed.

1 cup brown rice

2 cups vegetable stock + more as needed

pepper flakes

Bring rice to a boil in stock, simmer until 1/2 the liquid is absorbed. Uncover and cook, stirring constantly until the remainder of the liquid is mostly absorbed. If the rice is not quite cooked, add another 1/4 cup stock, keep cooking and stirring until the rice is cooked to your taste. There should be some liquid remaining. Add broccoli, serve.

Salsa for fish

2012-01-09T09:16:00.004+04:00

We're being so very clean and healthy around here these days. The kids, of course, wont have any part of it, so I still get to make interesting food for them. Last night the DH and I had grilled salmon, well we would have if the George Foreman grill hadn't melted right in front of our eyes. We had BROILED salmon with this delicious salsa:

1 navel orange - remove peel and pith, cut into dice

1 avocado- dice

1/2 red onion- finely chopped

1/4 cup cilantro- also finely chopped

salt and pepper to taste.

I think this would work with almost any fruit, except berries. Mango, grapefruit and pineapple would all be lovely here. It was great on the fish.

Antonio Mendosa would like an enchilada!!!

2012-01-04T05:12:00.006+04:00

My friend Mrs. A. made amazing sour cream enchiladas last night. I wont give you the exact recipe, I haven't asked permission to post it, but here's a variation which is just as yummy.

4 whole chicken breasts
8 medium sized whole wheat tortillas
1 12oz container of sour cream (plain greek yogurt would work here too)
2 tbsp flour
8oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 package of baby spinach- steamed
2 cups chicken stock
1 head roasted garlic (you could use raw- 4 cloves very finely chopped)

Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and roast in a 350 degree oven for 20 min or until just cooked through (they are going to bake again). Heat your chicken stock in a saucepan with your garlic. When just boiling, add the sourcream and the flour, turn the heat WAY down and season with salt and pepper. Wisk together until smooth.
In a bowl, shred the chicken, add the spinach and the shredded cheddar (reserve 1/4 cup). Take a tortilla and place it on a plate, ladle some of the sour-cream sauce onto it and flip to coat. Fill the tortilla with a generous handful of the chicken mixture, roll and place in a baking dish.Repeat with other tortillas until the pan is full. Pour any leftover sauce over the enchiladas, top with the reserved cheddar. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Top with chopped fresh cilantro and spring onions. Serve with salsa.

Jet lag party

2012-01-01T03:17:00.003+04:00

I woke up at 10p, the kids got up at 11. It is now 3:17a and we are all wide awake, trying to figure out what to do with ourselves while being quiet enough not to wake the man of the house. Not fun.

This evening, we're having some friends over for supper in the hopes that this will motivate us not to sleep all day.

Click here for cool info-graphics on jet-lag

The menu

French bread toasts with goat cheese & tomato, tuna & capers, and blue cheese & green apple

Pan fried sausages with bakery rolls. I have to try to find some decent non-pork sausages here.

Lentil soup
8 cups chicken stock (making it right now)
2 cups red split lentils, washed
1 large onion
1 head of roasted garlic
1 8oz can chopped tomato & green chili
1 large carrot
2 medium stalks of celery
salt & pepper to taste

Chop onion, garlic, carrot, celery finely. Saute them with the lentils in a large stock pot with about 1 tsp olive oil. When onions begin to brown, add the tomato & chili, the chicken stock and salt and pepper. Simmer for an hour or so.

Spring mix salad with
golden raisins
apples
pear
pumpkin seeds
blue cheese
balsamic vinaigrette

Good bye 2011. Bring on 2012! Happy New Year to all y'all.

Smooth....

2011-12-31T02:51:00.004+04:00

Smooth, its an awful word really, can't even say what it makes me think of in a food blog.

I learned to make good smoothies while working at an ultra-cool vegetarian cafe in Austin TX. It was just when the low-carb thing was starting to take off, and emaciated and smelly people would order beet and ginger smoothies to detox their livers.

Smoothies kind of go well with the whole New Year's resolution thing. A way to eat a lot of fruit without chewing, I guess. They are featured on tons of magazine covers this month....

I usually base my smoothies on a frozen banana and I do not use ice (just makes them watery). The rest is kind of improvised, but here are some tasty smoothie recipes for normal eaters:

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup milk or soy milk
1tsp cocoa powder
drizzle of honey to taste

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 cup frozen mixed berries
splash of milk or soymilk

4 dates
1/2 cup soymilk (blend together first)
2tbs. almond meal
1 frozen banana
drizzle of honey to taste

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup frozen mango slices
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup light coconut milk

Lessons Learned: How NOT to cook a Turducken

2011-12-30T06:39:00.001+04:00

I think the number one problem with the Tur-duck-hen was treating it like cooking any old turkey. I have a tendency to do that, just sort of figure 'how hard could it possibly be?' and not pay too much attention to the project. So here are some lessons learned, I wont post a picture of the thing, too sad.

Examine and wash each bird the minute you get home from the butcher. I left it until Christmas morning, if I hadn't, I would have realized that holding it together was going to be a problem.
Because it is deboned, the meat is going to be sort of flavorless unless you season it very very well, well beforehand. I simply salted it but I think it should have been dry brined or otherwise coated in herbs and salt.
Know your oven. I used the one in my parents house, which does run hot. Years of the Father cooking at 'incinerate' seem to have broken the thermostat.
If it smells like it is burning, it is. I kept attributing this to random leftover grease in the oven.
Find and use a recipe. We were trolling the internet for information on Christmas morning with the kiddos running around our feet playing with their new toys. NOT conducive to precision.
The stuffing has to be kind of dry, omit it all together. Duck is greasy. Your stuffing will soak up all the duck grease.
Tur-duck-hen is expensive. It cost us about $90 to make a big pot of soup.

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. I did, in spite of the mess.

Resolution this!

2011-12-30T06:36:00.004+04:00

Never been much of a New Year's resolution person. But I did decide that I don't want to let this blog die. Its too much fun to go back and read about what we were doing and eating at different time points. When I started this I hoped it would exist as a recipe journal for my kids, something I think is more important with the passing of my dad since he was so secretive in the kitchen... Anyhoo...

We're back in the UAE and back on the healthy program after a Christmas of booze, cheese and a hideously unsuccessful turducken. Which maybe I'll recount for you, but I'm still feeling rather broken up about...

My DH has to fly today and since I was up at 4a, I made him this lovely breakfast frittata (really baked eggs...). You can fool around with ingredients as much as you want and based on what is available, but try to stick to a theme, today was Mediterranean/ Greek.

Breakfast frittata
Lightly grease a small-medium sized casserole pan (8"x6"x4"), with butter or olive oil (1/4 tsp is all you need). Fill it with:
1/4 cup chick peas
6 kalamata olives- chopped
1/2 cup asparagus- cut into 1/2" pieces
1/3 large red pepper- chopped
1/4 cup low-fat feta- crumbled
1/2 red onion- also chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
5 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
Bake at 350 or so for around 25 min or until set in center. Its actually better served at room temperature than hot out of the oven.

Thanksgiving is incompatible with healthy eating...

2011-11-19T12:38:00.005+04:00

Thanksgiving is coming! Must procure a turkey! Cranberry sauce already cooked and frozen. Just found a guest who will take charge of mashed potatoes. My probably BFF in Dubai is going to some length and expense to make pecan pie! I've got a jar of limoncello and big ideas about cheesecake! Anchovy crostini mix is fermenting in the fridge!

My DH and I are absolutely slathering in anticipation of Thursday. We pretty much agree we will give up on the whole Healthiest Way of Eating plan (combined total of 7+ kilos gone! so far...) for the day and just enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner. But can we?

The funny problem with this way of eating is that it grows on you. I actually ate a piece of prosciutto the other day and thought it was way too salty. I didn't like it at all. We shall have to see what happens with the feast we are planning.

Cranberry Sauce:

1lb cranberries

1 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

1 orange

1 thumb ginger

Combine cranberry, water and sugar in a heavy bottom saucepan. Simmer until berries are beginning to burst. Cut orange, removing all pith. Chop ginger very finely. Add to pan and simmer another 20 minutes or so until everything is well combined. Freezes very well.

Crostini:

1/2 lb ground beef

2 cloves garlic

1 small onion

pepper, salt to taste

1 can anchovy in oil

Coat the bottom of a 9" frying pan with oil. Chop and cook the onions until well browned. Add the beef and brown it. Add garlic, also finely chopped, salt and pepper. When beef is cooked through, add anchovy and the oil from the can. I usually make a little well in the middle and let the anchovy melt, then stir it into the beef.

Spoon on slices of toasted french bread (either buttered, plain or with mozzarella cheese, depending on how decadent you are feeling).

Eating for fat old people....

2011-10-31T15:50:00.004+04:00

We have finally decided to get very serious about changing our diets, before we are confined to hover-chairs... Its not that we eat particularly badly, but we do eat a lot of takeout food and we do eat too much food. And as a result, we have experienced the 'middle-age hip spread' year by year, and find ourselves of significantly larger 'carriage' than in days gone by....

We have chosen to base our diets on the World's Healthiest Foods , by George Mateljian. In part because I lost a good deal of weight following it back when Mr. Muffin Puff Cake was born, in part because all of the recipes actually turn out really deliciously, and in part because it seems to be a sustainable program that can be followed for the rest of our lives.

The program can be summarized along the following guidelines:
Drink green tea instead of coffee (haven't quite mastered this one).

Alternate your day's breakfasts with protein (generally eggs) and complex carbohydrates(oatmeal or muesli).

Eat 3 fruits a day.

Eat one serving of nuts per day.

For lunch, eat a salad with a source of lean protein (chicken, fish, eggs, beans).

Eat one serving of hard cheese or plain yogurt each day.

Precede each dinner meal with a plate of fresh chopped vegetables and a light dip (hummus, garlic dip etc.)

For dinner eat 6oz of lean protein (fish, chicken, lamb) with a side vegetable or two.
At least two dinners per week should be vegetarian.

Drink one 4oz glass of red wine or unfiltered grape juice per day.
Do not eat any processed foods.
Do not eat white flour, pasta or potatoes.

The website is great because it contains hundreds of recipes and so you have lots of variations on this theme, if you want to join in, go check it out.

Restaurant Review: Ping Pong Dim Sum

2011-10-14T07:44:00.004+04:00

I'm so seldom in love with restaurants that I'm feeling a little dizzy. Ping Pong Dim Sum has turned my head. I don't even need to write a review really, the motto on their website, "Little Steamed Parcels of Deliciousness" pretty much says all that needs to be said.

Personal favorites include the chive dumpling, in its pretty green wrapper and the scallop and shiitaki mushroom dumpling which is just exquisite. Spicy chicken and vegetarian dumplings proved tasty. My husband enjoyed a king prawn dumpling in a black squid ink pastry. We also gobbled a bunch of crispy asparagus and some fantastic tiny spring rolls some vegetarian, some chicken. Oh, just go and order everything!

We went to the Dubai Mall branch.
The decor is simple, dark wood offset by white plates and accessories.
Service is pleasant and efficient, no weird Dubai hovering and seems genuinely friendly.
Dinner for 7 (with one person who didn't eat very much) cost around 500dhs but it might be worth going to their Lazy Friday promotion (unlimited dim sum for 132dhs per person, kiddos for 65dhs).
Ping Pong also offers a large variety of tasting menus which seem like a cost- efficient way to go for one or two people.

I have three teeny tiny little complaints.
1. I feel like a bit of a piggy eating there because the dumplings come three to an order. For a family like ours (5, all dumpling fanatics) I wish they would break out the large steaming baskets. And I acknowledge this is my only possibly legitimate issue with this place...
2. The lack of beer . There is nothing better than a cold beer with your dumplings, but not my country and all, I shan't complain, very much.
3. The lack of pork. Again, not my country but I would love to see what the chefs at Ping Pong would do with pork (something magnificent, I'm guessing).
*** $$

Birthday Party snacky bits...

2011-10-08T09:11:00.007+04:00

Its my husband's birthday, so we're having a party. I knew I was in trouble when I was told that the guest list was being 'tabulated'. This party was supposed to be like a party we went to a couple of weeks ago which had 4! couples, but somehow 25 people have been invited to my house tonight! I don't have a maid anymore so what the h$&# am I supposed to do here....
Man's infinite capacity for clue-less-ness kinda blows my mind, really.

My goal with the food was to avoid having to do dishes so everything was either small enough that you could just pop it into your mouth or served on a skewer or slice of bread...

Hot Snacky bits-
Hot dogs- seared in a pan, rolled up in Lebanese Flat bread with some mustard and carmelized onions. Secure with toothpicks, slice. Everyone loves these.
Chicken skewers- Marinate chicken bits in yogurt, tandoori masala, chili powder, turmeric, salt and pepper. Skewer with tomato and onion, broil.
Cheese tarts- blend soft cheese, sundried tomato, herbs, salt and pepper with an egg, scoop into muffin cups lined with puff pastry, bake. Eat.

Cold Snacky bits-
Skewer tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil leaves with a toothpick. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle salt & pepper.
Mix well drained tuna with way too much mayo, capers, chopped tomato salt and pepper. Serve on slices of French bread.
Shrimp cocktail. If you cant get horseradish for cocktail sauce, ketchup, hot sauce, salt and pepper makes an acceptable substitute.

Veggie and hummus platter
Fruit platter.

Plus some other stuff I cant remember right now...

For Birthday Cake we had a 15 layer Russian Honeycake. Spinney's sells these. They are the most delicious cake I've had, maybe ever. I decorated it with sugared currants and blackberries.
A friend who is Italian and therefore cannot go anywhere without too much food, brought a tiramisu and some Dunkin' Donuts for the children.

Restaurant Review: Sumo Sushi- Dubai

2011-10-05T23:15:00.000+04:00

Updated Review:
Ok so I finally went back over to Sumo and I'm kind of thrilled to report that all the stuff I hated about it has been fixed! They've got a fume hood and or they are cleaning the grease traps! They are chopping the seaweed a little finer! My hair doesn't smell! Whoohooo! I'm thrilled. I can now recommend you go there.

I used to love it, but now I hate it... Sumo Sushi is a Dubai sushi chain. It has a lot going for it, like not hideously unhealthy kids meals (rice, fruit, edamame, other cold veg and entree), fresh fish, and some innovative dishes like the sushi sandwich (a chopped spicy tuna layered in rice 'bread' with a seaweed 'mayo' inside. They have a cute logo and the one we go to, in Town Centre is a contained restaurant but entirely open and smack dab in the middle of the mall, which makes for fun people watching without it being a food court kind of experience. It also has some low tables where you sit on the floor, which is always fun for the kiddos.
Prices are fair enough. A family of five with the meal described below runs around $100 (but this is with the ubiquitous overpriced Dubai juice cocktails, which I'm trying to get the kids to avoid these days...).
We usually all start with a cup of miso soup. Sumo's miso seems to be made from a powdered mix. Its a little briny but it is redeemed by generous chunks of silken tofu and lots of seaweed. I think I'd prefer the seaweed chopped a bit finer, its difficult and a little silly to eat it.
My DH usually gets a salad called 'Avocado Maguro'. Its avocado and tuna with sesame seeds and a soy vinaigrette dressing. I ordered a Seaweed Salad once and instead of what I am used to (long strings of seaweed in a peppery-vinegar dressing) I got a garden salad with large, flat, hard-to-chew pieces of green seaweed standing in for the lettuce.
Usually I get a Tuna Lover's Bento or a Salmon Lovers Bento and the Husband gets something called a Rock and Roll. Sometimes we split a small sushi sandwich with it too.
The Rock and Roll is the origin of my problem with Sumo Sushi. Its a roll of tuna, avocado and salmon with the outside rice covered in crispy fried bits of panko. I fear, that like a lot of restaurants in Dubai, Sumo Sushi has fry-o-lators and no fume hoods. Over time, this is causing EVERYTHING in the restaurant to begin to smell a bit like fried food, including the tables and chairs and your hair when you leave because bits of grease become airborne as they cook with no hood.
For me, the effect is revolting. I cannot stand the smell of the place and am to the point where I avoid the Town Centre mall because of it. My enjoyment for Sumo would be immediately salvaged if they got a fume hood (if they have them they need to be cleaned desperately). And I'm bummed that we have to find a new sushi place...

The Wedding of the Century (cont.): Rotisserie Chicken- coming clean.

2011-09-18T15:03:00.004+04:00

So we originally wanted to spit roast a lamb for this wedding. Unfortunately, the 'lamb weirdos', as every farmer who deals with lamb in the tri-state area (CT. MA. RI) will forever hence be known, were ultimately unable to come through with the beast. So, we decided on pork loins. But, given that there were a fair number of Jewish and Muslim guests, we thought we'd serve some chickens too.

Now, we did rent an absolutely enormous rotisserie grill on which we did cook a truly enormous amount of pork. What we did not actually do, and I'm using the royal we here since I only had kitchen help on the last two days (Thanks H. & P.), was rotisserie cook a dozen chickens. What we did do, was call Price Chopper and order them.

Wait, before you boo and hiss, we did make a sauce:
One rotisserie chicken
1/2 cup green olives (pitted)
1/2 cup roasted garlic
1 lemon - grilled
1/4 cup of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Chop olives, garlic and grilled lemon, mix into oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour over rotisserie chicken. Pretend you made it yourself...

The wedding of the century (cont.)- Side dishes

2011-09-15T12:33:00.003+04:00

So originally, we thought we'd make Quinoa, but one of my brothers referred to this most ancient and venerable grain as 'repulsive' so, it was decided that couscous would substitute.

Fall Couscous
1 cup cous cous
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup toasted crushed pecans
1/4 cup carmelized red onion
juice of 1/2 a lemon
two tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp ginger (toasted)
1/2 tsp cumin (toasted)
salt, pepper to taste
Prepare couscous according to package directions. Blend in other ingredients. Season, serve. This dish has a warm, fall taste to it. Originally, I thought to add something green and crispy to it, but its lovely as it is especially with a tangy main dish (wait for it...)

Orzo with cheese and peas
2 cups cooked orzo pasta
1/4 cup mixed cheese (parmesan, pecorino, asiago)
1/4 cup butter
peas
salt and pepper to taste
No tricks here, just mix it all up when the pasta is hot.

Roasted Vegetables
Season your choice of vegetables (red pepper, we had some lovely black peppers, eggplant, squashes etc.) with vinaigrette (nearly empty mustard jar, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, salt, pepper, crushed garlic clove, finely chopped shallot, any fresh herbs you have around) by tossing in a large bowl. Spread on a baking sheet, bake at 400 or so for about 35 - 40 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

T'aint a party without buckets and buckets of hummus.

2011-09-13T05:09:00.004+04:00

Hummus is not precisely a healthy food. Because it is generally a whole food, it seems very healthy. But the fact of the matter is that delicious hummus is delicious because it is absolutely loaded with olive oil, and sesame oil, and salt.

Healthy hummus
2 cans chick peas (rinsed)
1 tbsp sesame tahini
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic
juice of a lemon
salt and pepper to taste
Blend ingredients in food processor. Add water to correct consistency. Feel virtuous.

Actually Delicious Hummus
2 cans of chick peas, drain one- keep liquid from the other
4 tbsp of sesame tahini
1 large bottle of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic (boiled and peeled)
juice of a lemon
salt and pepper to taste
Blend up your chick peas and sesame tahini with the lemon juice, it will be sort of chunky. Stand over food processor with bottle of olive oil and pour it into the hummus while it is running. Continue pouring until you feel like you have to look away because you are using so much oil.
When hummus is whipped and creamy, add salt and pepper to taste. Be smug as skinny people gorge on your hummus because 'hummus is healthy' teehee....

Wedding of the Century (cont.)- Cold Appetizers

2011-09-06T19:57:00.002+04:00

Love the cold appetizers on a hot day, which mercifully, it was for only about an hour...

Deviled eggs
Boil and peel your eggs.
Mix the yolks with equal parts mayo and mustard. Add a splash of vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Fill your egg halves with mixture. Top with crispy bacon. Top with rolled fillets of anchovy. Top with chopped chives. Everyone (except the bride) loves deviled eggs...

Bean Bruschetta
Two cans of white beans (cannellini). Blend one in a blender with some olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Fold the remaining beans into the blended bean mix.
Set aside.
Chop some tomatoes and spread them on a baking sheet. Top with oil, red onion, salt and pepper. Bake until cooked and beginning to carmelize. Set aside.
Slice a baguette thinly. Spread bean mixture on rounds. Top with a fresh basil leaf and a dollop of the tomato jam.

The wedding of the century, only smaller....

2011-08-31T15:28:00.003+04:00

Post hurricane Irene, we are gearing up to get my sister married. It appears that all caterers in my little town believe they are Escoffier and think it is therefore appropriate to charge thousands upon thousands of dollars for food and labor. One proposed paying the waiters a little less per hour than we pay our attorney! with a mandatory 18% gratuity tacked on. Who knew so many culinary movie stars could be packed in such a small place?
And getting slowly to the point of this post, I'm doing it myself...

First up- Two Hot Appetizers....
Sundried tomato and goat cheese tartlets.
2 large logs of goat cheese
2 packages of cream cheese
4 eggs
2 8oz jars of chopped sundried tomato in olive oil
fresh herbs (marjoram and thyme, in this case...)
pepper and garlic powder (tsp. each?? to taste)
Blend all ingredients with a hand mixer, spoon into prepared puff pastry cups (c'mon I'm not THAT good...) garnish with herb leaves. Bake at 350 for around 6min, longer if freezing first. (makes 120 bite size, or 60 muffin-cup size)

Broccoli Rabi Stuffed Mushrooms
2 large heads broccoli rabi
1/2 cup prepared roasted garlic (chopped)
salt & pepper, olive oil (a lot)
1/2lb ricotta cheese (season with salt and pepper)
camembert cheese (1.5lbs)
6 LARGE boxes of button mushrooms
Chop rabi finely. In a large sautee pan, fry the rabi and garlic in oil until well mixed, and rabi are beginning to soften. Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon ricotta mixture into mushroom caps, top with rabi.
Coat the bottom of a baking sheet with olive oil and assemble the mushrooms. Bake at 375 or so for around 40 min or until mushrooms are tender. Top each with a dollop of camembert. Try to serve them before you gobble them all...

My camera seems to have disappeared in the festivities, so you'll have to imagine. I can tell you it all disappeared mighty quickly...

Mango, Papaya and Tangerine...

2011-06-22T03:02:00.003+04:00

Mango and Papaya are appearing regularly in my new favorite part of Stop & Shop, the scratch & dent produce shelf. I even went so far as to write Stop & Shop a thank you note for keeping usable food out of landfills, putting odd food there with enticing prices to encourage trying new things, and making fresh produce available at knock down prices. So I've got all these ripe mangoes and papaya and what shall I do with them.

1. I'm cutting a bunch into chunks and freezing them for smoothies. Mangoes add yummy sweetness to berry smoothies.

2. Papaya Salsa- papaya, salt, pepper, lime juice, garlic, ginger, spring onion, cilantro. Deliciously summery on grilled fish. If you want it spicy, a bit of jalapeno pepper is good in this too.

3. Bread pudding. I love bread puddings with unexpected fruits like mango, papaya, and blueberry, instead of apple and raisin.

4. I've been messing around with a spread of whipped mango, butter and lemon juice for toast, but something is missing and I'm not sure what...

5.Papaya and avocado make a nice salad over romaine with some vinaigrette dressing.

Here's Rosemary Clooney singing the Mango Song to get you in the mood...

Green Cold Sesame Noodles

2011-06-10T19:33:00.004+04:00

Love cold sesame noodles when the weather is hot. So many recipes for them are really peanut noodles so I decided to try sesame tahnini instead to amp up the sesame flavor. I also wanted something that was a bit like a salad with noodles in it...

Cook one bunch soba noodles according to package directions.
In a medium size bowl, combine:
1 tbsp. sesame tahini
1/2 tsp. rice wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
one finely-chopped clove of garlic
one finely-chopped small thumb of ginger
a splash of sriracha or other hot sauce
2 tbsp. warm water
1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
2 tsp. soy sauce

Mix noodles with the dressing. Then toss with:
1/2 cup blanched green beans
1/2 cup julienned cucumber
1/2 cup shredded lettuce
1 generous bunch of pea-shoots, fresh cilantro and chopped
spring onions

Tuna Fish Sandwiches

2011-06-07T03:20:00.003+04:00

I'm a hankerin' for tuna fish. Must be low on mercury...
First, I only use this one kind of Tuna: Genova White Tuna in Olive oil. Its a Chicken of the Sea product, who knew?? I just think Tuna in water tastes like the can.
Some delicious ways to make tuna salad:

One can of tuna, one 1/2 cup mayonnaise (yes, you read that right), one tbsp. capers and a generous amount of black pepper. This is more of a spread for a sandwich than a filling. Its delicious on french bread with lots of tomato, spinach and cucumber or served as an appetizer spread on crackers or thin slices of baguette.

One can of tuna- don't drain the oil. Chop- 1 doz. black olives, one small red onion, clove of garlic, two or three roasted red pepper filets, a small tomato, some fresh parsley. Mix veg with the tuna. Add more olive oil and the juice of 1/2 a lemon. This is good scooped into endive leaves as an appetizer too.

One can of tuna, two tablespoons mayonnaise, chop one stick of celery, one small white onion. Mix, add black pepper. Serve on white bread with dill pickles and Lay's potato chips. Heaven...
Or add about 1/4 cup fresh salsa to the above recipe and skip the pickles and chips, if you dont want to be soooo blanco.

Engagement Chicken and food with which to snare a man.

2011-06-06T03:11:00.004+04:00

Have you heard this business about Engagement Chicken? I gather if you make it, your boyfriend will propose to you because its so delicious he will want to be your husband so he can eat it forever... Its a lemon chicken, which is always nice, no doubt. But I do think if you are looking for something that might snare a man, you're going to want to put in a little more effort than roast chicken. Well, I guess it depends on the man.
This isn't the easiest recipe to assemble, unless you are in Rome in the spring, but if you can find everything, it will work on really serious, smart (MIT level genius type) men...

1 dozen zucchini flowers (go out and plant some zucchini right now and you can make this by mid-August)
1/2 cup freshest possible ricotta cheese
1/2 cup stale Italian bread (good bread, not supermarket Italian bread)
some chicken stock to wet the bread
a shake or two of garlic powder
black pepper
salt or an anchovy or two
savory
parsley
thyme
other fresh herbs
eggs and flour for dredging

Mix all your ingredients except the flowers in a bowl. Use around two or three tablespoons of herbs. The flowers have a pretty delicate flavor which you don't want to lose to the herbs... Spoon the filling into the flowers. Dredge the flowers in flour seasoned with a bit of pepper. Fry in about 1/4" of oil until coating is browned. Serve immediately with a crisp white wine (Orvieto). Watch smart man become slightly dazzled by you...

Non-dairy chocolate pie, some possibilites.

2011-06-05T17:22:00.005+04:00

This is a suspension of disbelief pie if ever there was one. My first incarnation of this thing was a standard Vegan Chocolate Peanut-Butter pie. While the texture was lovely, the peanut butter mixed in with the chocolate muddied the flavors of each too much.

My first thought was to make this into a pie version of a Peanut Butter Cup.

One package chocolate graham crackers (if you are a serious vegan, read the labels- a lot of them contain milk) crush. Melt one 1/2 stick of soy margarine. Mix together. Press into the bottom of an 8" pie pan. In a blender or food processor, combine 1 16oz block of silken tofu, 3/4 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup sugar (taste to see if you want more sugar), and 1/4 cup soy milk. Pour into crust. Refrigerate. Heat 1/2 cup full fat coconut milk in a saucepan until nearly boiling. Remove from heat and stir in about 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips. Continue stirring until cool and thickened. Pour over top of peanut mixture in pie. Refrigerate overnight.

My second thought was to eliminate the peanut butter altogether and make it like a french silk pie.

Follow crust directions above. In a blender or food processor, combine 1 16oz block of silken tofu, 1/2 cup sesame tahini, 2 tbsp cocoa powder, 1/2 cup melted chocolate, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup soy milk. Pour into crust. Refrigerate overnight. The sesame tahini gives this pie an absolutely to-die for texture and does not compete with the chocolate so the flavor is pure saturated cocoa fabulous. I dont think this one needs the ganache, but there's no reason not to add it...

I suspect I'm going to spend the better part of the summer playing around with these kinds of tofu no-bake pies. I have this idea about raspberries, and maybe key limes...

Wedding planning: A happy outlet for my maina, or mania as the case may be!

2011-05-19T18:08:00.005+04:00

My Seester is marrying the K-man at my house!!! Woohoo. Its so exciting to be pouring my energies into something other than dealing with death and sickness, really, it's a thrill.
We've got the porta-potty, we've got the tent, a message is in to the Justice of the Peace, an engineer is baking a lemon/ raspberry cake, spit-roasted lamb is on the menu and I'm cultivating an obsession with paper lanterns.
What more fun could I possibly be having???

Pickle Kingdom

2011-05-16T05:38:00.005+04:00

Mr. Muffin-Puff Cake has decided that he really enjoys making pickles. So much so that he is going to open a pickle bar called 'Pickle Kingdom' OR if I ever return to our little town permanently and open a bar in this cool building around the corner, he will have the pickle concession.

Basic dill pickle brine for refrigerator pickles:
4 cups water
1 cup salt
1 cup sugar
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
tsp. dill weed
tsp. pepper

Boil water, add seasonings, let cool slightly. In small-medium size jars(you can re-use jam or salsa jars just run them through the dishwasher but not the lids so they will seal) stack up carrot sticks, green beans, cucumber slices, cauliflower slices or anything else that catches your eye. Pour your brine over the vegetables and put the lid on. Lest we poison you, use only one kind of vegetable per jar and put your pickles in the FRIDGE!!!! Pickles are good after 24 hours, excellent after 48...
Pickled green grape tomatoes are rad in a martini...

Enchiladas

2011-04-23T02:04:00.003+04:00

I've been avoiding this blog for a while. I've just had too much going on. Too much fear and too much sadness. Things are looking up, though, and I'm feeling rather blessed by my immediate and extended family. As part of the post-traumatic event doings, we are having lots of guests which has me in the mode of preparing food in advance so I don't have to worry too much about feeding people while they are here.

I made these enchiladas last night and enjoyed them with good friends today for lunch.

Spray an 8"X8" glass baking pan lightly with cooking oil spray (I avoid the ones with silicone and/or propellants and just buy the supermarket version with only oil). Cover the bottom of the pan with corn tortillas, break them up to get into the corners. Top with black beans, shredded leftover chicken or pork and some cheddar soy-cheese (or real cheese if your guts haven't betrayed you...). Keep layering like this until the pan is about 80% full. You can also take each tortilla and fill it with the beans, chicken and cheese and roll them up individually, but I find the lasagne method a little faster and easier (tastes the same...)
There are lots of options for the sauce:
11/2 cup green chile salsa, blended with 1/2 cup pureed pumpkin and two garlic cloves
2 cups chunky 'fresh salsa'
2 cups classic red enchilada sauce

Whatever you make, top the enchilada with it, cover with foil and either refridgerate or bake at 350 for about 30minutes. Serve with sour cream, chives and some cold salsa.

Cheese Weasels

2011-02-28T20:00:00.003+04:00

The Cheese Weasel is the nerd Easter bunny who leaves a slice of American cheese under the keyboards of good IT geeks on April 3. I don't know how I got into the habit of calling these Cheese Weasels. I think I just never had a particular name for them and 'cheese buns' don't really give you a sense of the fabulousness awaiting you...

2 1/2 teaspoons regular instant yeast or active dry yeast*
1/2 tsp. honey
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water
3/4 cup lukewarm milk
3 tablespoons butter, softened or melted
about 1 cup shredded best-quality cheddar

In a large bowl, combine yeast, honey, salt, and flour. Add the water, milk and butter, and mix until cohesive. Knead the dough on a lightly oiled surface till it's smooth and supple. Its ok if the dough is a bit sticky, your rolls will be more tender with a stickier dough.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and set the dough aside to rise till doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours.
Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Shape each piece into a thick disc. Place the cheese in the center of each disc and pinch the dough closed around it.
Lightly grease a 9 x 13-inch baking pan. Space the rolls in the pan (pinched side up), cover them with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow them to rise for another hour or so, until they are puffy and touching one another.
Bake the rolls in a preheated 350°F oven for 20 minutes, or until they're golden brown. Remove them from the oven, set them on a wire rack to cool, don't eat them right out of the oven, the cheese especially will be too hot and burn the top of your mouth...

Chocolate Loaf for your Lovah...

2011-02-15T23:00:00.005+04:00

Valentines Song...

I wanted to make a super fudgy chocolate pound cake for my DH yesterday. I think I got pretty close... I used Nigella Lawson's recipe for Madiera cake as the basis, but substituted chocolate for the lemon and made a few other changes as well...

150g salted butter (softened)
200g sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
100g best-quality cocoa powder + 2tbsp. neutral oil
200g + 3 tablespoons self-rising flour

Pre-heat oven to 170. Butter and Flour an 8" loaf pan. Cream together butter, sugar and vanilla. Blend the cocoa with the oil in a small bowl. When the cocoa mixture is smooth, add this to the butter & sugar mixture.
Add the eggs one at a time with a tbsp. of flour, blending well after each addition (I'm not sure why this is important, except one cake I made without doing it was the consistency of a brick...).
When the eggs are added in, stir in the remainder of the flour just until well incorporated.
Fold the mixture into your pan and bake for around 35 - 50 minutes. Do NOT over cook. After 35 min, check very carefully every five minutes.
Cake is done when a toothpick comes out with just a bit of crumb on it (clean = overdone).
Its a very buttery cake so refrigerate it. Serve cool, topped with whippped cream.

Restaurant Review: Bo House Cafe

2011-02-14T16:40:00.005+04:00

Today my DH took me to Valentine's lunch at the Bo House Cafe in Dubai's Jumeirah Beach Residence Complex. I was kind of excited, the Bo in Bo House is supposed to stand for 'Bohemian' and I was thinking something like our own hometown, ultra-cool (but more importantly delicious), Vanilla Bean. While the Vanilla Bean is, in fact a bohemian kinda place, Bo House is just another corporate 'concept' restaurant.

Its not a bad concept. The interior of the restaurant is all undulating white walls and nook-like vistas of the sea beyond. It has a VERY notable poured epoxy floor covered in swirling multicolored decals and crazy flowered sofas for seating. Outside, where we were happy to eat, is miles less distracting with simple, ubiquitous, imitation-rattan furniture covered in cozy pastel pillows and large umbrellas overhead. The view from the patio is of the JBR public parking lot, but it didn't really detract as seating is high enough up that you get a good sea view as well.

We started with salads. For him Halloumi cheese over spring mix with pomegranate seeds and pine nuts in a balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was tasty but perhaps at 55dhs could have used a more generous hand with the cheese, three wafer-thin slices of the grilled Halloumi didn't really allow for it to be enjoyed throughout the dish.

I had a Mixed Vegetable 'healthy choice' salad which was quite nice. It included steamed cauliflower, artichoke hearts, yellow and green zucchini on a bed of chiffonade lettuce and white cabbage in a basil vinaigrette.

We shared a pot of yellow curry with chicken. The curry was tasty enough but a little bland. It actually reminded me of a super-creamy version of the Japanese boxed curries my college roomie's mom used to send her from Tokyo. Bizarrely, and annoyingly, someone has decided to serve a good two cups of curry with less than a full cup of slightly greasy 'saffron' rice. Ditch the seasoned rice and just give a reasonable portion of plain white rice with this dish and it will be fine.

While the food at Bo House is ok, the service tends to feel a bit like a very mellow version of the Three Stooges. I spotted some friends eating in the cafe proper and I got up to go and say 'Hi'. One staffer was bizarrely confrontational in finding out what I was doing or if I needed anything. "Madam! Where are you going?!? What do you need!?!" I know, everyone in Dubai is afraid that if something is wrong they'll get fired, but if Bo House wants to cultivate itself as a cool meeting place the staff needs to chill about people wandering around the restaurant.

Also, pretty much the instant my final forkful of salad hit my mouth, a server came rushing over and grabbed away the salad plate and utensils, without saying a word, which annoys me. But when we had finished our curry, the empty dishes sat in front of us long enough to gather flies. Timing is everything and Bo House seems to have a problem with offering the sort of laid back but highly functional service that make some 'Bohemian' restaurants truly cool places to go.

$$ ***

Cook Book Review: How to be a Domestic Godess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking- Nigella Lawson

2011-02-13T10:59:00.004+04:00

How to be a Domestic Godess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking is certainly a fun book anyway. Nigella takes you through all kinds of festive AND practical baking options with aplomb and a good dose of humor.

The illustrations in the book are positively mouth-watering. I'm especially enthralled by a photo array of four layered cakes (a boston cream pie, butterscotch layer, a zucchini cake and something called a Victoria sponge which looks like what you eat at tea time in an E.M. Forster book). I think I need to throw a party so I can make these things...

Some of the more particularly British sections, like savory pies, steamed sponge puddings, and trifles are intriguing, but possibly not likely to be made by your average American. Steak and kidney pie holds zero appeal for me, I have to say, but other savories like mushroom tarts do.

The book isn't a step-by step manual of how to learn to bake. Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook is way more informative if you need that. Nigella assumes her readers have a good amount of basic skills before they pick up the book, but it is certainly inspiring.

Five foodstuffs which maybe make my life easier.

2011-02-08T11:06:00.004+04:00

Jamie Oliver's Sun dried Tomato pesto. Either make it yourself from this easy recipe or Jamie is selling it in jars now. I make it myself because, uber-chef marketing machine or not, the Naked Chef still looks like he could use a bath. This was originally pointed out to me by one of my faithful readers (you know who you are...) and she gets the guffaws... Especially good on chicken or pasta.

The Thai Choice brand of curry pastes and spices. The quality of these pastes is great and there is no easier way to cook fish than with their green curry and coconut milk. Its generally not available in the Eastern US so you're stuck with the insipid flavors of the Thai Kitchen brand. Hopefully this will change soon.

Eat and Drink Restaurant Hummus. Sadly, they have ditched the animation of a crazed woman inhaling burger fumes on their website. Their hummus is still the best there is. Supercreamy, exactly the right balance of beans and tahini, just a little zip of lemon...mmmm, heading out to get some...

Rotisserie chickens. Its the modern mom's best friend. There's actually a book called 101 Things to do with Rotisserie Chicken. And its only $10 I think my favorite is rotisserie chicken, french bread, caprese salad, and fruit salad for supper.

Progresso Chickarina Soup. I know, so retro. And pretty terrifyingly salty. BUT, its the best stuff in the world for a hangover or if a little one has been sick in the stomach and is ready to start eating again. Also a perfect 10-minute supper with a toasted cheese sandwich and a salad.

Of candy sushi and rapidly aging children...

2011-02-05T19:20:00.005+04:00

Today we had Mr. Dumpling's 9th birthday party! I cannot believe that this person who used to fit quite comfortably with his head in my hand and the rest of his body stretched out along my arm is 9. Really, where did the time go??

He loves sushi, he loves candy, so for his party we made candy sushi. Its very simple, silly, a little disgusting, and fun.

Make some Rice Krispie treats but instead of the six cups of cereal the recipe calls for, use 5. Spread the mixture out in a baking sheet, press it down well with saran wrap, and refrigerate for about 1 hour, you want them soft, but holding together.

Trim the edges of the treats so you have a flat sheet. On the edge of the sheet place 4 gummy worms (pref. of different colors) and roll the sheet over the worms squishing the cereal around them as you go. Cover the outside of your roll with fruit roll ups. Slice.

Take some Rice Krispie treats and cut them into squares about 1" X 3". Top each with a gummy frog or gummy fish. Attach the frog or fish to the rice using a stretched gummy worm or a bit of the fruit roll up.

Indian Pavilion or Gobbling our Income

2011-02-03T19:13:00.000+04:00

Indian food is really, relatively easy to make. At least according to my neighbor who is from S. Africa by way of Gujarat State. But she has something like 200 different spice powders on a rack from Ikea hanging by her stove. I have six or eight plus some garlic powder I bring in from Italy when I can. I do love Indian food though. This causes me to resort to the Indian Pavilion in the supermarket shopping center.
A medium sized restaurant tupperware container of Tadka Dahl will set you back about 21dhs. or $5.72 This is, in point of fact, a wholly outrageous price for what amounts to mostly lentils and some onions. So I learned to make my own.
In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, cook one cup of split red or yellow lentils with one liter of water and two teaspoons turmeric. Add a sprinkling of mustard seeds and methi (fenugreek seeds). In a separate frying pan, sautee one onion, 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, a thumb of ginger and a green chili until the vegetables are soft. Add a tsp. of garam masala, stir well and continue to cook on low until fragrant. Add your cooked vegetables, 1/2 of a veggie stock cube and about 1/2 cup of chopped tomato (canned are ok), to the lentils. If the water has cooked off, add another 1/2 cup. Continue to cook this on low for 10-15 min. Season with salt and pepper. Serve over brown rice.
I added about a cup of finely chopped zucchini just to up the veg content. But this left T. shaking her head in disgust at me... I couldn't really taste much impact from the zucchini.

Big Trouble...

2011-01-28T14:58:00.005+04:00

So we're going to Istanbul Flower tonight with a mess of friends. Sometimes, not always, but often, this particular group tends to return to our house for coffee and continued discussion of "WHAT is going to happen in Dubai???!?!?!?!" after dinner.
So I usually provide dessert. Sometimes I go to Al Reef Bakery and get the baklava selection. Sometimes I make apple crumble which is what I was thinking I might do today.
But then THIS beautiful box of arabic sesame sweets caught my eye when I should have been looking for apples. Oh man! I have been thinking about giving these things a try forever and let me tell you, they are AMAZINGLY GOOD!!!
Clockwise from 1 o'clock (click on the photo to see it in its full size sesame glory...)
1. chocolate and sesame- smooth on top and flaky in the middle
2. plain sesame- smooth throughout
3. pistachio and sesame- crispy pistachio on top, smooth sesame, then flaky sesame in the middle.
4. wafer cookie- wafer cookie rolled around fluffy sesame filling with chocolate bits (favorite!)
5. ribbon- a ribbon-y stick of sesame and chocolate sesame paste
6. sesame ribbon- smooth sesame paste ribbon
According to a friend who knows such things, you have to check the production/ expiration dates religiously. Anything more than a week old and they get stale although they are dated to be good for a year.
This is bad bad bad because I was trying to quit eating sugar. Not today.

Lamb Rogan Josh- Indian-style stroganoff.

2011-01-19T20:49:00.006+04:00

Its not much to look at, but it is tasty.
On the heels of yesterday's total washout of a supper (I hit a personal nadir with scrambled eggs and toast...) I decided I needed to redeem myself and make something delicious which everyone would/ could eat... Yeah, right.
Instead, I had some nice lamb shoulder cubes and decided to make Lamb Rogan Josh. If you Google this dish, the cut of the lamb varies wildly from a bone in shank to the shoulder cubes but I think I quite like it as a stew rather than trying to deal with it as a roast with the bone-in.
one white onion
two cloves garlic
1 thumb of ginger (suddenly American ginger is unavailable here. we have only the Chinese kind and I'm leery of eating stuff from China... so I substituted 1 generous tsp. of powdered).
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. indian chili powder ( I skipped this because of the kids...)
1 lb lamb shoulder cubes
1 16oz can chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup full-fat plain yogurt (low fat is possible, just not as good)
cilantro
salt and pepper to taste.

Put your onions in a heavy saucepan with about 1tbsp neutral oil and cook them until browning. Add your meat and spices. If I get meat from the supermarket the same day as I'm cooking it, I put it into a dish with the spices ahead of time, if not, just add the meat and spices to the onions and cook until meat is beginning to brown on the outside. Add the tomatoes and cover. Cook for about 45-50 min on low until meat is very tender. About 10 minutes before serving, blend in the yogurt, avoid boiling it or it will break and you wont get the creaminess you want. Stir in cilantro, salt and pepper to taste just before serving.
Serve over basmati rice with a side of steamed veg. Mostly accepted by the children. Only baby Chuck actually liked it.

So uninspired....

2011-01-17T20:06:00.004+04:00

I'm the most uninspired cook in the world right now. I wanted to make a lovely supper for my family, but we were puttering in what we call a 'garden' (sand pit) and trying to decide what to do with all our dead grass. We thought to ask our neighbors if we could see theirs because its a 'desert' garden and is purported to be quite nice (it is...). They are so organized and design-savvy compared to us... So, by the time we got home with a donated sofa, the name of a house painter, and a renewed sense of purpose to make our bizarre, enormous, concrete bunker-by-the-highway a home, I was too cranky and too tired to prepare anything more taxing than mac 'n cheese.
We had broiled beefsteak- salt, pepper, splash of red wine, herbs de Provence & olive oil.
Mac & Cheese- from a box even, I am pathetic.
Platter of chopped raw veg.
So extremely pathetic.

I did make a decent salad.
Boston lettuce
Goat cheese
Raisins
Pear
Cashew
Balsamic Vinaigrette.

I picture of lettuce- click on it to see the names of each. lame picture for a lame supper for a lame post...

Clown sundae

2011-01-16T20:51:00.005+04:00

It's birthday party month around here. All my concern and worry and kvetching about sugar is about to go whizzing out the window on a candy-colored cloud of sweetie goodness.

First up, we've been invited to two. Well, one didn't really pan out food-wise (a story for the Random Complaining column). But the other one is pretty much guaranteed to more than make up for it as the mom is a known sugar addict and an absolutely excellent cook.

And then, we are throwing two.
Baby Chuck is now old enough to plan his own menu which is nice, no dilemmas for me. It's a little predictably terrifying too. We're having chocolate chip muffins from Spinney's enhanced with frosting. AMERICAN frosting in a can (he's being quite specific), so we can put candles in it and sing Happy Birthday to him.
THEN, we're going to let the five year olds make ice cream sundaes. Clown sundaes. They are also supposed to get 'lots of gummy' in their party favors, but I suspect their parents will kill me so I'm skipping it... I did convince him we should have hummus and vegetables for the grownups, he agrees as long as he doesn't have to eat it...

Mr. Dumpling is going to be nine and is therefore much more sophisticated in his food choices. We're having pizza, cake and 'candy sushi'. Mr. Muffin Puff Cake tried to sell him on the idea of an all gummy feast (he's been angling for one, ever since he heard me call gummy 'the 5th food group'...) but the birthday boy is playing it cool.
Candy sushi involves making copies of sushi out of rice crispy treats, gummy fish, and green fruit leathers i.e. a mind-boggling amount of work for me. Which I will do because I have lots of guilt and too much time on my hands. mmmm..... gummy.......

Compote my a**!

2011-01-08T20:56:00.003+04:00

I bought fruit compote at the sorta fancy only supermarket in town where you can get plain cheerios and no-sugar added peanut butter. It was jaw-droppingly expensive, around $7.60 for a pint of the stuff. The title of this post arrives because I can hear my father in my head. "7 bucks for jelly? are you drunk??" "Its compote, dad." "Compote my ass. You just paid $7 for jelly. You're drunk."

I really don't know what I was thinking. Well, I do, actually. I was thinking it would be healthier and more delicious to add this stuff to plain yogurt than to keep buying the kids pre-sweetened yogurt (which as we discussed this summer, is horrifically sweet...). And my plan was successful except that it is so unbelievably delicious that I just want to eat it with a spoon and so do the kids and so does my husband. So I think I need to investigate making my own fruit compotes right quick.

Basic recipe:
two green apples peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 pint blackberries (frozen ok too)
1/2 cup cranberries
splash of apple juice
2 tbsp sugar (add one at a time to taste)
1/2 tsp. corn starch
1/2 tsp vanilla
Cook until thick but apples still retain some substance. Cool, spoon on things like yogurt, ice cream, etc.. feel very silly for ever paying $7 for this...

Sri Lankan Spaghetti

2011-01-08T20:15:00.004+04:00

My feelings about spaghetti are well known to my readers (you three...) But we are fortunate enough to share our home with a small Sri Lankan superhero who is faster than a speeding toddler, more powerful than a door-to-door rug salesman and able to navigate bur Dubai in a single bound! And she makes spaghetti. The Sri Lankan version.

She does not like sharing her recipes with me, she just laughs at the depths of my ignorance on vegetables, spices, masala etc. etc. She shakes her head wondering how it can be possible that I write this website on food, when I do not even know how to properly gut a fish. She's right, of course, but by careful observation I can tell you how to make the spaghetti...

4 red indian onions (price of onions going up every day!)
4 large carrots grated
2 sri lankan green chili peppers (they are short and pointy - thai pepper ok here too...)
2 tomato
1 clove garlic
1 thumb of ginger (Sri Lankan food doesn't really use ginger but she has lived in the non-melting pot a long time and likes to use "ingredient from other people food"...)
1 pinch of indian chili flakes
a bit of asafoetida and some fenugrek seeds
2 or 3 tsp. turmeric
2 eggs
1 lb of spaghetti

Cut up and in about 1-2 tbsp. safflower or other neutral oil fry fry fry (she always says this) your onions, garlic, tomato, chili pepper, and ginger until onions are around 1/3 the volume you started with. Ok if onions get a little brown, if you are worried about the garlic burning, you can add it at the end.
In a large bowl toss the carrots, turmeric, asafoetida and fenugreek (you could skip these and use some shaved fennel with your carrots if you cant find them). Scramble and fry up your eggs. When cool, mix these, and the onion mixture with the carrot mixture.
When the spaghetti is cooked, toss it all together. Now you can eat it like this (cut coriander & green onion over it to serve) or you can refrigerate it for a day (making it good party food...).
On day two, place the spaghetti in a frying pan. Top it with some fresh coriander and green onions and any leftover vegetables you have around. Tonight we had broccoli, string beans and a bit of yellow pepper. Cook the pasta covered in the pan until the veggies wilt a bit and you hear it crackle, be patient. The idea is to let it get a little brown and crispy on the bottom.
Voila! acceptable spaghetti.

Drinking to excess...

2011-01-03T08:34:00.008+04:00

Like most ex-pats in Dubai, I probably drink too much. There's something about this place, the heat, the expense of everything, flower prints and the large numbers of bored housewives... that makes it feel a bit like 1955. Now there are no photos of me on Facebook with my dress up around my knickers, and I'm not a danger to myself or others, but its become something of a regular habit.
I've got this delicious bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream sitting on top of my fridge, about 16 bottles of wine (DH went to Italy 3x in December) plus vodka and beer. So maybe I'll start cooking with it, just to use some up...
Most cake recipes that call for Bailey's involve substituting it for the water in a yellow cake mix, which I suppose is inappropriate for a five year old's birthday party (coming up soon...). I could add it to a cheesecake or make truffles out of it, have to think about this....
Wine is easier, can start adding red to anything with tomato in it... Ground beef cooked with garlic and onions and a generous splash of red wine can be used for all kinds of things, especially good mixed with anchovy and spooned on french bread slices..
White wine mixed with stock and savories is good for poaching fish and chicken.
And a shot of vodka can be added to pink sauce to give it a little bite... click for recipe...
Suppose I wont be having too many Muslim friends over to dinner for a while...

New Year's Eve

2011-01-01T12:11:00.003+04:00

We are very lame old people and cannot generally be relied upon to make it to midnight on New Year's Eve. So last night we had a cocktail party, at cocktail hour (4-7, although Dubai cocktail hour is more like 2 - 7...). Here's what we ate...

Corn muffins, with apricots cooked in. Just pop half an apricot into a jiffy corn muffin. If you live in Dubai you have to get Jiffy Corn Muffin mix in the pork section, its got lard. Its easy to make your own corn muffins if you are a veg. or non-swine eater...

Curried Turkey salad on nut bread. Turkey, mayo, sesame oil, soy sauce, cashews, green apple, turmeric and curry powder. Veg version, use crushed up chickpea for turkey.

Deviled eggs with asparagus. These are always good but not as much fun without a pastry bag...

French bread bruscetta, with buffalo mozzarella from Italy, basil from Holland, Syrian olive oil and at least local tomatoes.

Sister-in-law salsa and chips.

An interesting cheese the DH brought from Italy called Bastardo del Grappa along with some salami and a lot of nice Italian wine. (Does big giant international airline realize that their big giant company issued suitcases come back to this country stuffed full of pork and alcohol?- probably, they know all...)

American supper

2010-12-17T04:08:00.004+04:00

We had our good-bye America supper the other night. Suddenly, my boys love mashed potato. They were never very interested in eating it before, but they are now. (Except for baby Chuck who says it 'looks like paste', impeccable logic that one...)
The menu:
A roasted chicken. In keeping with my pesto turkey idea from Thanksgiving, I made a paste of caper, lemon, garlic and olive oil (use a knife or mortar and pestle, don't go electric, capers get bitter) and rubbed this under the skin of the chicken, I also spatchcocked it to cut down on cook time (cut out the backbone- there's a link under ~food blog fun~ to Gwyneth Paltrow showing you how to do this).
Mashed potato. Just steamed them until fork tender and mashed them up with some butter. Ok, a lot! of butter, a bit of milk and some garlic powder. I can't wait to make mashed potato with garlic cream here in Dubai...
Steamed green beans. Topped with a dash of sesame oil, some sesame seeds and a bit of soy sauce.
Salad of AMERICAN golden raisins (which I forgot to pack for Dubai, DARN!), apple chunks, almonds and some maytag blue cheese over romaine. With a vinaigrette.
And APPLE CRUMBLE for dessert.
Now its time for me to be in Dubai and repeat over and over that I will do Yoga every day and eat mostly vegan food and attend mass regularly and be generally sound in mind and body.... until Christmas or until I am completely seduced by siren song of the 4lbs of cured meats, 10 bottles of wine and 3lbs of cheese my DH ported over here from Venice and Milan....

Fruit Crumble

2010-12-14T01:50:00.004+04:00

Every single time I make fruit crumbles I wonder to myself why I am not making them every single day. The answer, of course, is that I would prefer to remain just plump rather than cross over into grotesque obesity. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to guess that a daily breakfast of fruit crumble will rapidly get me there...

Beautiful crumblescape...

Apple crumble:
1/2 cup flour + 1tbsp
1/2 cup oats
1 stick of butter (very cold)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp white sugar (if desired)
1/2 tsp of whatever spices you want (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger)
about 2 cups of fruit (apples, blueberries, plums, apricot, pear etc. etc.)

Pre-heat oven to 350. Generously grease a 9" tart pan. In a large bowl combine your fruit with the extra spoons of flour and sugar, toss to coat.
In a small bowl, fork sift flour, oats, brown sugar & spice. Use a pastry cutter or just a knife and fork to cut-in the butter until your mixture is small pea-size chunks of flour & butter. Work fast so the butter doesn't get too warm. If you have a lot of dry flour that isn't incorporating well, you can add a tbsp of maple syrup or honey to help it along.
Evenly layer your fruit in the tart pan, top with butter & flour mixture. Bake for about 45 minutes, until fruit is bubbly. Serve hot with ice cream or cold for breakfast. Grow fat & happy.

Fruit combinations:
Cortland Apple and Cranberry
Blueberry Plum
Green Apple Raspberry
Pear Raspberry
Oh, I could go on all day... you get the idea.

Martha Stewart's Apple Brown Betty
Apple crumble search results on Cooks.com
World's Healthiest foods 'suspension of disbelief' no butter cobbler
101 Cookbooks Cherry Cobbler (& Best looking...)

Beautiful pumpkin cheesecake.

2010-11-25T22:43:00.003+04:00

I've eaten more cheese today than I have probably consumed in all of the last 8 months. I'm a little farty (sorry, TMI) but on balance, I don't really feel bad. Interesting...
I made pumpkin cheesecake. I don't really like pumpkin pie and I wanted something a little swankier than pumpkin bread.

Making cheesecake in the middle east is incredibly easy because of this tasty stuff called Labneh, which is essentially a strained salted yogurt. The Labneh I used is called Pinar and is from Turkey, but you can Google it and make it yourself from whole milk. I have tried other brands, but Pinar seems to be closest in taste to cream cheese but is incredibly light and creamy.

Press a mixture of 1 part crushed digestive biscuits or graham crackers, 1 part butter and generous sprinkling of sugar into the bottom of a springform or ring pan. Adjust quantity to have enough to put about 1/2" layer of crumbs in the pan.
Blend one 8oz can of cooked, pureed pumpkin, 8oz Labneh, about 1/2 cup sugar and three eggs in the blender. If it needs more sweetness, add about 1/4 cup maple syrup. Add whatever spices you like, I used ground ginger.

Pour the cheese/ pumpkin mixture over the crust, and place your pan into another, larger roasting pan. Fill the outside roasting pan with boiling water to around 2" below the top. Place the two pans in a 350 degree oven for around 45 minutes, check with a toothpick. Cake will not be completely cooked through but will continue to cook as it cools.

The texture of the cake is lovely and light with little air bubbles throughout, almost like a mousse. I think the same recipe made with raspberry, rather than pumpkin would be exquisite. Serve topped with caramel sauce or fresh berries.

Easy Thanksgiving Turkey

2010-11-24T19:14:00.006+04:00

Thanksgiving is a mixed bag for me emotionally. Suffice it to say that yes, the holidays are the worst, especially the further out you get.
Still made a Turkey though...
Skipped the small, scary Syrian ones (now with extra feathers and blood!) and went for a shiny clean frozen Butterball. I know, I know, not regional, not carbon friendly, probably filled to the brim with the hormones but yeah, it was damn delicious.

For the turkey: Once you have washed it, slip your hand up under the skin on the breast to separate it from the meat. Then take generous handfuls of basil pesto, I used about 1/2 cup total for an 18lb turkey, and rub it into the meat. Do this on the legs and anywhere else you can get up under the skin without tearing it. Then cover the outside skin with a generous rubbing of butter.

For the stuffing: Saute one onion, two cloves of garlic, a chopped carrot (or two), two stalks of celery in one tbsp olive oil and one of butter until beginning to brown. Add one chopped green apple, and about 1/2 cup golden raisins. Pour over your stuffing mix (I used Paxo sage and onion flavor, at home I use Pepperidge Farms), add two eggs and mix by hand, stuff into your bird.

Tent the bird with aluminium foil and bake at 350 for about 4 hours. Use the Butterball hotline (1-800-BUTTERBALL) if you have questions about time. I usually cook a turkey for 30 minutes per pound if it is stuffed, 20 min if not. But there is a lot of wiggle room here. Go by the smell and look of the turkey too. Slightly underdone can go back in the oven, overdone and you are done, nothing grosser....

If you've got a good amount of pan drippings, then you can make gravy. I just take all the pan drippings, bits of stuffing, bits of meat and skin, and throw them in the blender with a bit of flour and then cook it down until it thickens. This only works if you have washed and salted the turkey well beforehand...

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Restaurant Review- Silk Route Chinese and Thai at the Arabian Courtyard

2010-11-21T23:16:00.004+04:00

We have a guest so we went downtown to the Dubai Museum today instead of doing school. After the museum, everyone was starvingly hungry so we headed across the street to The Silk Route Chinese and Thai at the Arabian Courtyard.
Normally, I avoid hotel restaurants. But our guest had read a review of the restaurant and wanted to check it out and we hardly ever have Chinese food here so we thought we'd go for it. That and the boys were at borderline whining...
The hotel is pretty fantastic for its decor. Really outrageous, lots of atrocious gold fabrics, multi-colored waterfalls, shiny surfaces, etc. The restaurant keeps to this style with red silk wallpaper and bamboo as its main decorating themes. Paper lanterns everywhere complete the kitchy look.
For the boys we ordered the vegetable wonton soup, a plate of lamb satay, some chicken dumplings and some fresh spring rolls. The wontons were stuffed with broccoli, carrot and cabbage; quite nice and enjoyed by all the self described 'meat-arians'. There was some complaining about the lack of pork wontons. Along the lines of "if they can serve alcohol in hotels, why not pork?" Perceptive little munchkins, aren't they?
My only complaint was with the spring rolls which were marked as vegetarian but still contained shrimp.
Husband ordered hot and sour soup which he said was not particularly good, but he thought this might be an American -vs- rest of the world thing as he never has it the way he likes it out of the US.
Both Guest and husband had crispy beef. Guest asked for not-spicy which evidently the restaurant took to mean 'no flavor' so she was fairly disappointed. Husband enjoyed his. I had vegetarian pad thai (no shrimp) which was also pleasant enough with generous chunks of a seasoned tofu and slivers of fresh vegetables.
All in all, an ok meal, I probably wouldn't go there again though...

$$$ **

Failed Vegan

2010-11-15T23:00:00.003+04:00

I'm a flop as a vegan. I really want to be into it; own eco-friendly everything and get that wan vegan look... But truth be told, I'm just doing it to avoid certain physical discomforts, and since they went away so quickly with the vegan program, its hard not to think I can just go back to eating 'real food' again. It's doubly hard because none of the men around here are going vegan anytime soon and its triply hard on a night like tonight when I made them a DELICIOUS meat loaf.
I haven't made it in probably a solid year so it seemed special, but it was objectively really tasty too.

1/2lb ground beef
1/2lb ground lamb (if you are in Dubai, use the lamb kofte meat)
1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1 egg
1 tomato (chopped)
1 small onion (also chopped)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
parsley
garlic
salt
pepper
1 tbsp Katchup
1 tbsp Mustard

Mix it all up, shape it into a loaf, bake it at 180 C for around 40min. Let it sit for 10 min before serving. Served it with french fries and some vegetables.

Thanksgiving menu planning hell.

2010-11-11T09:43:00.015+04:00

With Thanksgiving coming on and all, I want that homemade, genuine American experience...
A fried Butterball turkey, stove top stuffed inside, Idahoan spuds, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, green beans in onion soup with fried onion rings on top, a Mrs. Smith's pie... all that crap...
You get nostalgic for stuff you would never have if you were at home, its weird. Its why Americans can be seen in their cars singing Elton John's 'Philadelphia Freedom' whenever it's on the radio...
So what are we having? I need to speed up the menu planning process or I'm going to find myself at Spinney's on the morning of the day in question grasping desperately at whatever whole chicken I can find...
Working backwards:
For dessert, I think I will make a pumpkin cheesecake, we've got this lovely yogurt cheese here called labneh that makes a fabulous cheesecake.
For a salad maybe pears, walnuts, blue cheese and golden raisins over frisee with a balsamic vinaigrette.
I like your classic green beans almondine, just have to find some green beans that dont taste like they've been watered with greywater (which they probably have...). Or maybe a broccoli and yellow pepper stir fry.
I'm torn between sweet and white potato, this is a tough one. I wish I knew how to make my mothers poopie potatoes, it uses both...
Then, either Turkey or going nuts and making Braciole. I think Mr. Dumpling might keel over if we didnt have turkey...
For appetizers, deviled eggs, stuffed mushrooms and maybe a crostini...
We shall see if I manage to put this together... its about a 50/50 shot right now.

Survey of weird 3rd world health food...

2010-11-11T09:43:00.010+04:00

There are all kinds of odd things masquerading "healthy food" here. I am not sure what this is about exactly, they say for some people from very poor countries who come to Dubai it's a dietary minefield. Perhaps because every food is available here, and it is pretty cheap considering it all has to be flown in. Maybe people really are that susceptible to marketing when it is sort of new to them.

The (in point of fact, amazing) wall of chocolate cereal in EVERY supermarket comes to mind. A full section dedicated to only chocolate cereal. And every one of them covered in health claims. 'Now with Whole Grains!" or "Low Cholesterol!" or "Balanced Nutrition!" I have to have a whole discussion with baby Chuck about why chocolate cereal is not food at least once a week. The worst part- chocolate wheat-o's is one of the lowest sugar cereals available here. Boys wont touch puffed wheat or rice crispies unless they are coated with marshmallow...
Click here to play the WheatO's kitchen assault game (caution: it may take over your life...)

Nutella is advertised as health food. Well, its like that in Europe too, but there are these really weird Nutella ads where the mom, in her abaya, makes sure her kids get off to school with heaping piles of nutella on their toast and a bit more nutella with little dipping breadsticks in their lunches. Then after the little ones are off, she sits down smilingly across from her husband who looks like a young Yassir Arafat to their own platter of nutella and toast with tea. Nutella, the new Arab superfood!

The kinder bar. The kinder bar is THE ubiquitous candy bar here and in the EU, and is advertised as a healthy food for kids. I personally hate kinder milk chocolate, burns the back of my throat. All they will admit to it having going for it is milk. Newsflash: this is a candy bar it is not qualified as food.

Pocari Sweat. Which is some kind of Japanese Gatorade, but its called POCARI SWEAT for heaven's sake. They actually advertise that because you might sweat while you are sleeping, you should drink this garbage first thing in the morning!!! The name is just so unbelievably foul, its supposed to taste nice, but I cant bring myself to try it.

Veggie Stir Frys

2010-11-10T18:25:00.003+04:00

I'm trying to be a vegan. I'm not terribly good at it. I don't have a big deal moral reason for it, just some gross, aging-related health problems I wont bore you with the oogy details, but they do seem to be radically improved by the avoidance of meat, milk, caffeine, alcohol, anything good, really...
So today I made two different vegetable stir fries for dinner. Both were really delicious, I have to admit.
Just use the basic formula and you could come up with all kinds of yummy things.

Enough for a side dish for four or for two vegans... This would be absolutely excellent with the addition of some thinly sliced pork chop.
Saute 1 sliced onion in 1 tbsp safflower oil. Add 1 thinly sliced clove of garlic, and 1 or 2 asian green chilies also sliced thinly. When the onions begin to brown, add 1 whole savoy cabbage sliced very thinly and one matchstick-ed carrot. Stir fry until cabbage begins to brown.
Add 1 tbsp. soy sauce and 2 tsp. sesame oil and cover for a few minutes until steam begins to collect on the lid (3 or 4 min). Toss and serve.

Variations to try:
Broccoli and sweet yellow pepper
Cauliflower and tomato
bean medly (green, sugar snaps, snow peas)

Braciole - it all hangs on the string...

2010-11-10T09:23:00.007+04:00

Braciole, its pretty much the platonic antithesis of a vegan foodstuff. I've actually had a dream about it. I'm not entirely certain of how you make it, this is cobbled from my memories. Dear Siblings, chime in here if I'm forgetting things...

You need about 1lb round steak as thinly sliced as you can get it. Once again, advantage Rhode Island. At holiday time in RI, supermarkets carry 'braciole' meat all ready to go. Otherwise you will have to flatten it. Its much more fun to do this with a rolling pin than a meat mallet. Make sure you put the meat between two sheets of saran or waxed paper (you will die from the mess if you don't) and pound it as thinly as you possibly can. Eye round is pretty tough stuff, its going to bounce back a little no matter what you do here....

In a small, separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (Progresso, Italian style- which you can get in Dubai! hooray!), 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, a good shake of garlic powder and a lot of chopped parsley (maybe a full 1/4 cup).

Take a piece of the flattened meat and layer it with one slice of cotto or polish ham. (A lot of people use prosciutto for this, but I tend to think its a waste of good cured meat, since you are going to cook it and most of the flavor will go into the gravy) and a thin slice of mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle this with the breadcrumb mixture and roll up your braciole.

Now, the critical part. You have to tie it up. You need the right kind of unbleached cotton twine for this. I'm really bad at explaining how to do this, here's a photo:

Make sure its very very tightly tied, because you need to cook them in gravy after. You want to use just one piece of string so it is easy to cut off to serve. Toothpicks are ok in a pinch, but make sure you remove them all and watch out for splinters (ick.)

When you've rolled all the beef up take a well oiled baking sheet and lay them out on it. Cook them, turning once for about 5 -7 min on each side at about 400 degrees. Then add them to a pan of gravy (click for gravy recipe you will want to double this and add a bit of wine to it for cooking the braciole) for a few hours.

I think I might have to have this instead of Turkey for Thanksgiving. Its very hard to find good turkey here....

Sandwiches....with special thanks to Pnsndltn...

2010-11-09T22:03:00.003+04:00

I've been thinking about sandwiches, well I've really been thinking about my Dad, and his favorite kinds of sandwiches. And also my cousins who taught my kids to giggle every time they hear the word "saannndddwiiccchhes"...

When I worked for my dad we would go to the flea market on Sunday mornings at like 4am. On Saturday night, we would make the sandwiches. Usually, we took round soft egg buns (like a burger bun) and filled them with roasted red peppers and anchovies. I never really got into the anchovy ones. But let me tell ya, when you've been up since 4am swilling bad flea market coffee out of a styrofoam cup, there ain't nothing in this world more bracing than an anchovy and roasted red pepper sandwich!

There is a shocking sandwich he loved which most people are terrified to try, it can't possibly be real, it's THAT bad for you. You get a loaf of french bread. Or, if you are in Rhode Island a Crugnale's roll and you slather it with salted butter (preferably a little cold) and into this roll you layer a half dozen slices of the best possible, thinnest sliced prosciutto you can get your hands on. This is blissfully delicious, but hard to get your mind to just shut up and let you enjoy it.

He also loved tiny chicken salad sandwiches; the kind you get at lunch buffets or not-so fancy weddings.

A chicken salad recipe (he would never abide by fruit in chicken salad, but what the hey...):
1 cup cut up chicken, 1/3 cup mayonnaise, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil, 1/4 cup golden raisins, 1/4 cup cashews, 2 ribs of celery- chopped, 2 or 3 spring onions- chopped. Mix it up, spoon into rolls, sprinkle some coriander on top.

Click on this to Google Image 'Sandwich Platter' rather beautiful.

Pumpkin fun.

2010-11-05T20:40:00.003+04:00

So I go to the co-op and ask for 3 whole pumpkins. "WHOLE pumpkins, madam?!?!" "I really like pumpkin..." We are going to carve them for Halloween, but I can't really explain this. I can say 'I really like pumpkin' أود حقا اليقطين in Arabic, I hope that's what I said. You can see where it has the potential to be a bit of a minefield... They were laughing at me, not in a dirty way, so I think I got it right... I hope...

Some things to do with pumpkins:
The easiest way to cook pumpkin for a puree later is to slice it in half, lay the cut sides down on a well oiled baking sheet and bake it. The flesh will steam itself but retain a lot more sweetness than it will if you boil it.

1. Substitute one cup of cooked, pureed pumpkin for banana in banana bread or muffins.
2. Blend pumpkin puree with chili, garlic, and tomatillo salsa for a delicious enchilada sauce.
3. Cook pumpkin puree with sage and butter and serve over pasta (with or without Parmesan cheese).
4. roast chunks of pumpkin with salt pepper and olive oil (toss in a salad with goat cheese, sweet corn, arugula, pomegranate seeds...)
5. Add 1/2 cup cooked pureed pumpkin and 1 tsp. ginger to your pancake recipe.
6. Use 8oz of pumpkin puree in a NY style cheesecake recipe (add an extra egg...).
7. pumpkin pie of course, drizzle it with chocolate ganache for a twist, surprisingly yummy.
8. pumpkin soup with turmeric, curry and ginger.

Quahogs, as promised.

2010-10-31T17:49:00.003+04:00

I'm un-wholesomely jealous of all you people from Rhode Island right now because I have a total craving for quahogs. A quahog, for you poor souls who have never had the supreme privilege of eating one, is a large, hard shelled clam. I even feel bad for Italians in Italy who think they have eaten linguini and clams but have only ever had those poor sad little Mediterranean clams. Do not comment that you have the greatest clams in Cornwall or Brittany, I will delete the comment, you do not know what you are talking about. Some ocean quahogs have lived up to 410 years! Not if I can help it...

Here it is, linguini and quahogs. My mother ate this nearly every Friday night of the 40 years of her married life.

1 pint frozen whole quahogs or about 18 quahogs if you are cleaning them yourself.
liquor from the quahogs (this just means the juice...)
1/4 cup olive oil
4 or 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
fresh parsley
pepper
salt, but it probably wont be necessary.
linguini (about 1/2 lb)

Boil some water. While it is boiling, use a scissor to cut up your quahog into thumb sized bits. Put the olive oil, garlic, quahogs and liquor, lemon zest and juice in a medium sized frying pan, in that order. Do not put the heat on.
When the water boils, add the linguini and then, and only then, turn the heat on (medium) under your clams. Stir occasionally, dont let it come to any kind of rolling boil, but it's ok if it bubbles.
When the linguini is done, clams should be done too, they will be opaque and slightly rubbery (that's ok, part of the deliciousness is to chew them a little...). Put your linguini in a bowl and pour the clams over, season with salt and pepper and use a scissor to cut a generous portion of fresh parsley over the top.

This is a clip from the very bad movie, Federal Hill, which features a shot of a beautiful grapevine my dad grew.

Pesca pesca pesca

2010-10-28T17:54:00.004+04:00

Thursday is the beginning of the Arabic weekend. As such, I decided to make fish tonight. I know that I am supposed to eat fish on Fridays because that is what Catholics do, but I have to say the association for me is more with a fish dinner starting the weekend than it is with Friday, the day in particular.
I used to love to come home to the parent's house on Friday nights when I was working and still living with them. I would be handed an enormous glass of wine by my mother and a beautiful bowl of linguini and clams by my dad followed by a slab of codfish cooked in a very particular way. (Which if any of you know how to do it, please tell me, I cannot remember...)
So, tonight I made fish.
I had 3 good sized pieces of white fish, 500g or 1lb. Not sure exactly what, maybe haddock? from the co-op. This afternoon, I put it in a baking dish with a bit of olive oil in the bottom and covered the fish with a tomato-basil pesto (basically throw a jar of pesto into the blender with a couple of fresh tomatoes and an extra clove of garlic or two). Baked it in the oven for about 20min at 200C.
Served it with some vegetables and aglio olio. Anchovy, garlic and oil sauce because there is no way on earth I'm going to eat warm water clams (hepatitis specials). This is one of those things that if you are familiar with the quahog, you will have sympathy for me. If you aren't, just write me off as an insane Italian/American. Tomorrow maybe I will tell you what to do with quahogs if you are so lucky as to have access to them...

Chana masala and the problem with fancy supermarkets

2010-10-27T19:22:00.004+04:00

Lately I've come around to shopping at the Union Co-op rather than Spinney's or Carrefour. I admit it is pathetic that it has taken me this long, but I was kind of intimidated by the Co-op. Depending on who you talk to, membership in the co-op may or may not be available to non-Emiratis. Nobody at the co-op is going out of their way to help you, except the smiling Indian guy who is whamming cans of beans onto your loaves of bread. And all the 'yes-madam'-ing at your fancier ex-pat markets can be kinda seductive.
BUT, and it's a big but, I've come to the conclusion that Union is FAR FAR superior in the freshness and quality of what they are selling AND they clock in about an average of 30% cheaper! What's not to love? For a 30% lower grocery bill and better food, I'll accept some sneering.
Chana masala spices were the clincher for me. I picked some up at Spinneys. I didn't examine the box very carefully. If I had, I would have found that it had been opened and re-glued and was literally crawling with several types of bugs! YUMMY!
Union co-op seems to be moving enough of this kind of stuff that nothing has bugs in it and I get the sense that there would be hell to pay if a supermarket was trying to sell such garbage to local grandma's.
Chana masala is a cooked chickpea dish that I tried a few months ago at an Iftar buffet. Here's my super simple version, quite tasty.

In a medium saucepan cook together 1 tbsp corn oil, 2 small red onions, 2 small tomatoes, 1 clove garlic, 1 thumb of ginger, 1 green chili. Cover and cook on low until reduced to about 1/3 of the volume. Add 1 can of well-drained chickpeas, about 1/4 tsp (to start) indian red chili and chana masala spice, plus salt and pepper. Stir to coat and add 1/4 cup light coconut milk. Cook on low until warmed through and chick peas are beginning to lose their shells. Top with fresh coriander.
Serve over rice or with chapati.

Party Food!

2010-10-27T09:44:00.001+04:00

Suddenly, we are awash in social events. Tomorrow, I have to bring lunch for mine plus extra for about 10 people to a homeschooling event.
Menu: Turkey and cheese sandwiches with mayo or mustard, lettuce and tomato. (Muslim country, no salami, poor Mr. Dumpling...)
I'll bring a bag of apples and a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip muffins.
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup applesauce
1 egg
1/3 cup melted butter
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup each chocolate chips and walnuts (with a walnut alert sticker on the tupperware).

Then, Friday night we have our neighborhood Halloween do. I'll probably bring hot dogs for the kids to grill and then we are supposed to supply a side dish. I'm going to make this spinach and egg pie, just don't call it a quiche, manly airline types might not want to eat it...

One 8oz package spinach (thawed).
8-10 eggs
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I know, but this is why it is really good!)
6oz grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1 lg. frozen pie crust OR you can make Martha Stewart's pate brisee, which is the most reliable one I've found.

Pre-heat oven to 350.
Grease and press pie crust into a 12" tart pan. Do this quickly so it doesn't warm up too much, it doesn't need to be perfect, just covering the bottom.
In a blender, mix eggs and mayo.
Pour egg mixture into a bowl and fold into spinach and all but 1/4 of the cheese. Add salt and pepper.
Bake for about 1 hour. At 50 min. top with remaining cheese. Bake for 10 min more, let cool. It is ok if a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out a little eggy. The tart will continue to cook for a bit after its out.

Peanut soba noodles.

2010-10-22T11:25:00.004+04:00

Everyone's making peanut soba noodles everywhere in the food-blog-o-sphere.

101 Cookbooks - Lazy Day Peanut Noodle Salad
Food.com - Cold Peanut Soba Noodles
Post Punk Kitchen - Ginger Peanut Soba Noodles

These are just a few of my favorites.

Here's my contribution to the question:

1 package buckwheat soba
1/3 cup Jif or other creamy peanut butter (I like the balance of sweet and salty in Jif)
1/4 cup lower-sodium tamari soy sauce.
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 generous splash of Frank's hot sauce
1 clove garlic
1 thumb ginger
about 8oz well drained, firm tofu (this I had marinated in lemon juice ginger and garlic, but plain tofu will do fine here).
green onions
asparagus
green beans or snowpeas or sugar snap peas or edamame
1/2 cup roasted salted (or unsalted) peanuts

Cook the soba according to package directions. When I drain them, I usually pour the boiling water over the beans & peas to save cooking them separately.
In a bowl, combine peanut butter, tamari, rice wine vinegar, hot sauce and the garlic and ginger (either very finely chopped or pressed). Add noodles, mix well.
Let the vegetables sit in the water until bright green and a bit tender. Drain, add to noodle mixture. Top with green onions and the peanuts.
This is a dish with infinite possibility of course. Pretty much any vegetable is going to work here. Try red pepper and broccoli, shiitaki mushroom and fresh peas etc. etc.

Chicken Biryani

2010-10-16T13:00:00.004+04:00

Chicken biryani, it's what you have, Indian, Sri Lankan, or Local Arab, when you are having a bunch of folks over.
I've made it only once myself, but I've tried my fair share. I think the key is to make sure you have enough of the sauce so that the rice is not dry, but also to be careful about oil so it isn't greasy either. Here's something akin to the process, step by step... It should serve about 4, although it's a lot of work no matter how many people, so go for a big dinner party.

Take a chicken, cut it up.
Wash it well in warm water and a bit of salt.
Dredge your chicken lightly in flour, some turmeric, black pepper, a bit of curry powder or what have you, and fry just until its crispy on the outside, in oil or ghee. Chicken does not have to be fully cooked at this point, because it will get cooked again. Set chicken pieces aside.

In a different pan cook together, 1/4 cup vegetable oil. 5 small onions, 5 green chilis, 5 red chilis, 2 tomatoes, 4 or 5 cloves of garlic. Now here is where it gets tricky and personal. Everyone seems to have different ideas about what spices go into the biryani. I'd go with ginger, cumin, cardamom and cloves. But some people also use cinnamon, caraway seeds, and bay leaves too. When you have a nice thick spicy onion mixture, add the chicken and cover on low heat until it is cooked through. Finish with a generous amount of fresh coriander and serve over basmati rice. More authentic Biryani calls for par-cooking the rice and letting it finish in the sauce mixture, but I cant taste the difference, perhaps because it is quite spicy.

Cookbook Review: Tana Ramsay's Family Kitchen

2010-10-14T05:49:00.004+04:00

I have to admit, I'm a Gordon Ramsay fan. Yeah, he's almost eye-wateringly vulgar, he can be actually mean, and he's got the face of a busy fighting dog. But, I think Gordon's war on fussy food and stupidity in the Kitchen Nightmares series (esp. the UK version) makes for really fun TV.
Tana, his wife or former wife (not up on my Brit tabloids) has a few cookbooks out, and because I caught it on Amazon for $4.99, I went ahead and bought Tana Ramsay's Family Kitchen: Simple and Delicious Recipes for Every Family.
On Balance, I like this book. She has some nice ideas about pushing the culinary envelope with kids, although I don't foresee mine eating Moroccan-style lamb with ginger and apricots anytime soon. The desserts and children's party ideas are lovely, especially for very young kids (3-5), not so sure older ones would really appreciate the style. Some of the side dishes earned dramatics from the Fussy American Children, but were eventually eaten and enjoyed (mushy peas...).
The layout is good and the pictures are nice. The family photos of the kids are endearing. I think she tries a bit too hard to give the reader the sense she is a 'regular mum'. Of course you aren't, that is why we are buying your book, silly woman!
Forewarned though, the book is in desperate need of kitchen testing and careful editing. Recipes call for things like a 'good dollop', list sugar in the ingredient list and then don't tell you when to use it (for something where sugar isnt an obvious ingredient), no cake pan sizes are given etc.. These sorts of problems are prevalent and really spoil the book from a technical point of view.
Get it from the library to be inspired, but don't try to use it as a reference book.

SriLankan Spicy Hot dogs.

2010-10-13T18:04:00.007+04:00

1 package of hot dog (8)
4 small indian red onion
4 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tomato
1 or 2 red or green chili (red is hotter...)
2 cloves garlic

In a medium size saute pan, cook the onion, tomato, chili and garlic in the oil until well browned and soft. Onions should be about 15% of their original volume Slice the hotdogs on the diagonal and mix continuing to cook for another 10 min or until they are warmed through. Add 1 tsp. Sri Lankan chili powder.
Serve with rice or any astringent green vegetable.

I know this sounds weird, but they are delicious.

Banana date muffins

2010-10-13T15:34:00.007+04:00

I've never been much of a date eater. Sometimes they make me think of big beetles with their glossy outer shell. And at this time of year, the smell of date palms can be sort of overwhelmingly sticky sweet.
Lately though, I'm kind of getting into them, especially for their versatility in baking. They add sweetness and fiber without losing softness in the crumb. Try these muffins, they are absolutely delicious and super-simple.

Click on the picture for a chart of all the different kinds. Still prefer the california medjool, but my palate is expanding.

Apologies to the Americans for the metric notations... back in the ME, you know...

300g strong whole wheat flour
a scant 50g caster sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
dash salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
100g dates pitted
1 banana
1 egg
1 1/4 cup soy milk (or milk)
1/4 cup canola oil (or melted butter)

Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Grease and flour a 12 muffin, medium size tin. In a large bowl, fork sift flour, sugar, baking powder, spices and salt.
In a blender, combine the dates, banana, soymilk, and oil. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and add the egg. Stir.
Scoop into muffin tins. Bake for about 15min, check them at 12.

Guest Columnist: Edewah's Banana Compote

2010-10-13T04:45:00.002+04:00

Today, my brother has agreed to be a guest columnist, which I am just so excited about!!!

Ed's Banana Compote-

2 days ago my good friend Scott had about 30lbs. of bananas that were going bad. So what to do when you are offered about 25 bananas that have a shelf life of 48 hours? First I peeled and froze ½ of them, another 5 went into a nice banana bread. This left me with about 7 or 8 bananas. In searching through my collection of cookbooks, I came across this recipe in The Culinary Arts Encyclopedia of Cooking 1987 and made a few changes. The Culinary Arts Encyclopedia of Cooking is a must have in any kitchen. I picked up mine for $2 at Goodwill. Some years are probably better then others, but with over 4,000 recipes, I have some time to get there.

Ingredients:
1 cup water
½ cup sugar
½ cup Apricot Jam
¼ cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoons cinnamon (optional)
6 ripe Bananas (sliced into ¼ inch rounds)

Prepare the Apricot Sauce: Dissolve ½ cup of sugar in 1 cup of water over medium heat. Add ½ cup Apricot Jam and stir until the sauce becomes thick. Go for the consistency of maple syrup, not caramel. When finished, set aside.

Cook the Bananas: In a large skillet, melt ¼ cup unsalted butter on medium heat. Add 1 teaspoons cinnamon if you are a cinnamon lover. Cover the entire bottom of your pan with banana slices. You will not be flipping the bananas so you can really pack them in there. The original recipe says cook until the edges of the banana start to turn brown. The challenge with this is getting the bananas to brown without having the butter start burning. I waited until the bananas turned gold, almost looking super ripe.

Combine: Pour the Apricot Sauce evenly over the top of the bananas. Turn the heat to high. Cook for 5 minuets uncovered and then about 3 minutes covered. The idea is to release enough steam that the sauce and bananas together look thick, and not watery.

Set: Pour the mix into your favorite glass or ceramic bowl

Chill: Place in the fridge, allowing the compote to chill and set. (I waited 24 hours here, but I think you can get away with 6, 4 in a rush

Present: Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to soften the flavor, garnish with some frozen blueberries and strawberries.

5:28am lentil soup

2010-10-12T05:28:00.004+04:00

Because of this whole Julia Child thing, I really want to cook. I really want to cook for a lot of appreciative gourmet types. I really want to serve my cooking on china with linen table cloths, excellent wine and sophisticated conversation (truth be told, sophisticated conversation usually leaves me fuming, but I'm working on a vision here...).

The fact of the matter is, however, that I am home in Dubai in a semi-furnished house with three young children who are currently sleeping from four in the afternoon until two in the morning. Our tableware runs the gamut from chipped Ikea plates and Nutella jelly glasses to company-issued flatware which is falling apart... We need to make a few changes in order to bring the dinner party vision to fruition.

In the meantime I'm eating spicy lentil soup in the belief that spicy food will hasten the shedding of Eastern Standard time and get me onto GMT +4...

Curry Lentil Soup
1 carrot
1 large shallot
2 cloves garlic
1 thumb ginger
1 stalk of celery
1 tsp. olive oil
1 cup red (or French) split lentils
4 cups vegetable stock
8oz sliced mushrooms (button, shiitake, crimini etc.)
1 tablespoon yellow curry paste or more to taste.
2 cups cooked brown rice
green onions
coriander

In a large stock pot, saute the vegetables in the olive oil until softened and slightly browned.
Stir in the lentils until well coated with oil
Add the vegetable stock and turn the heat down to a simmer.
When the lentils are soft, add mushrooms and the curry paste.
Simmer until the mushrooms are cooked through.
To serve, mix in 1/4 cup cooked brown rice, top with green onions and fresh coriander, a dollop of plain yogurt or a splash of lemon juice would be nice too.

Discovering Julia Child

2010-10-11T05:20:00.007+04:00

Ages ago, I saw the movie Julie and Julia. There were aspects of this movie that annoyed me, mostly the Julie part. My Tuscan response to all that existential angst is 'go a dig a ditch, you'll feel better' (I suppose preparing all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a bit of metaphorical ditch digging, but I digress...). I was, however, really fascinated by the story of Julia and Paul Child before she was The French Chef.

I only realized in the last two days that this story comes from the much better book My Life in France which my DH has left lying around the house at an opportune period of severe jet lag. The book bubbles over with Julia Child's particular utterly charming joie de vivre. I personally think the filmmakers should have ditched Julie altogether and just gone with the My Life in France Story.

So where is this taking me... I'm not about to begin cooking my way through any of her books, Julia wasn't homeschooling 3 and I doubt my liver could survive such an adventure. BUT I am desperate to get a hold of Mastering the Art... I've always wanted to make Daube de Boeuf and Cassoulet that didn't taste like mud and I really need to acquire some pastry skills. Perhaps a bi-monthly Julia Child dinner party? I wonder if this could be done in Dubai??

Julia Child-like scrambled eggs:
The key is patience, which I do not have, but if you can force yourself to do this slowly, the results are certainly yummy.

Heat a blob of butter in a small saute pan (about 1 teaspoon) over a very LOW burner.
GENTLY scramble your eggs in a bowl. It makes a BIG difference, do not whip them. STIR.
When the butter is bubbling and beginning to turn a little brown, pour in your eggs.
WAIT 2 minutes. Now gently stir the eggs. Watch them come together in small curds.
BEFORE they are fully cooked, pull them off the heat (they will continue to cook). Salt, pepper and serve. Julia added gobs more butter and cream at the end but I just cant bring myself to do it (protecting the liver and all...)
Quite worth the wait, something very different from my normal (and now considered icky) eggs.

Click on this for Dan Ackroyd as Julia Child- hysterical. I wonder what she thought of it?

Guacemole

2010-10-06T03:08:00.005+04:00

It happened again so I have to discuss this again.
Avocado is a very delicate fruit. Please don't mix it with raw white onions, it can't meet onions on the field of battle and retain any flavor of its own. Guacamole made in this way is slimy onion sauce. ick.

To make unbelievably GOOD, Avocado flavored guacamole:
Take an avocado or two - scoop it out into a bowl.
Use a fork to mash it up.
Add salt and pepper and, if you are feeling kind of randy, a bit of garlic powder.
Add the juice of about 1/4 of a lemon.
Mix. Serve. That's it, that's all.
Try it. love it, be converted to this idea and stop the onion-y slime!

Restaurant Review: Vintage, Woonsocket, RI

2010-10-03T18:36:00.004+04:00

I think its impossible for a restaurant to be perfect. It's the nature of the beast. We recently checked out a restaurant in Woonsocket, RI (of all places!) that came a darn bit closer than I've experienced recently but like so many, fell apart at the entrees.
Vintage is a converted warehouse, hip, cool, new, pre-real estate bust kind of place. The decor is not notable except for being comfortable and having generously spaced tables so one isn't sitting on top of one's neighbors, something my DH especially appreciates. Its all buffed copper, soft colors and discreet lighting. Fake candles seemed a bit silly, but there's a recession on after all...
The menu features a whole bunch of frilly 'martini' drinks including one with frozen wild maine blueberries floating in it that our table mate enjoyed very much. My Beefeater martini was nothing short of perfect. Icy cold, kinda dry (how I ordered it) but not glass of gin, with five crispy unstuffed manzanilla olives floating happily in the brew, predisposed me to enjoying Vintage very much.
Fresh Italian bread was served with an olive oil dipping sauce of tasty roasted garlic cloves, parmesan and red pepper flakes.
Salads of spinach, arugula, and wine poached pears were topped with a generous warm round of goat cheese encrusted in pecans. The chef, most gratifyingly, avoided the temptation to ruin the whole thing with the dreaded balsamic vinegar reduction and opted instead for a gentler wine vinaigrette that worked really well on the salad.
For an appetizer, we shared the Sashimi deluxe which consisted of three slices of three different cuts of tuna and three pieces of salmon, I wished this was a bit more varied, but the freshness of the fish was impeccable. Normally, I am quite skeptical of non-sushi restaurants that add a sushi menu, it can feel contrived and out of place, but at Vintage it all kinda works.
For dinner, we had two orders of vanilla-seared scallops with "Mediterranean Couscous". While the scallops were delicious, the cold couscous struck a strange note. This side needs to be re-considered. Israeli Couscous is not good cold and the mixed-in, nearly raw red peppers don't mate well with the subtle vanilla-y sweetness of the scallops.
I was intrigued by the wasabi-pea crusted tuna. The fish was good, the wasabi pea crust was zingy and tasty. The only off-note on the fish was that sometimes, in a bag of wasabi peas, there can be very hard, inedible ones. These appeared on the tuna more than once, were annoying and hurt my teeth. Unless Vintage can find wasabi peas without the nasty ones, or make their own, this dish is doomed. The side of "Shoyu snap pea rissoto (sic)" was inedible. This was rice soaked in soy sauce with three wildly overcooked snow peas, a complete and total mistake.
A grilled salmon piccata with creamy risotto and summer vegetables lived up to its description. With a deftly cooked generous portion of salmon in an interesting sauce and sides that were a positive complement to the fish, this was the only home-run at our table.
All the entrees are topped with a bit of watercress which could have been quite tasty, but, perhaps because it was the end of the evening, we got the saddest, most abused looking bits of green I've ever seen. This stuff was suitable for feeding a turtle, maybe. I'd much preferred they skip it altogether.
For dessert, we shared a key lime cheesecake, a strawberry napoleon and a warm "Malted" chocolate cake. The cheesecake was tasty but initially came on dirty plate with visible fingerprints and something clinging to the bottom, the Napoleon was quite good and the MOLTEN chocolate cake very very good. All were topped with a luscious, presumably house-made vanilla bean whipped cream which they ought to consider serving in a bowl by itself with a spoon.
Service at Vintage was great. Our waitress was pleasant, prompt, un-intrusive and efficient. She dealt with and dispatched any complaints graciously and immediately. My only tiny concern was that our busboy had his hand wrapped in a rather nasty looking bandage. A clean dressing or even a glove over this was necessity and a metaphor for the place overall. They are getting most things right but need to work a bit at the small details that make an average dinner a memorable occasion.
Vintage is certainly worth your time, but I might stay away from entrees and stick to the appetizers and salads.

$$$ ***

The Favorite Meal

2010-09-29T13:44:00.004+04:00

We stayed around the corner from a cool little hotel (in a not-so cool hotel, but that's another blog altogether...) with a great restaurant.

We were leery about eating there at first because it is located directly across from the Four Seasons Hotel ($650 night for a double...) and we figured the bill would kill us.

That and some very serious looking very white people couldn't hide their distress at the appearance of our gang. However, it's Turkey and the people running the restaurant were more than happy to have a gang of little guys in their place. The mayonnaise winced through their meal each time the children spoke or were kissed on by the waitress but happily, they were done pretty quickly.

As it turns out the restaurant is rather reasonable and quite delicious. Great service MORE than made up for the dramatics of the clientele.

By this juncture in our trip both the husband and I were feeling the effects of all that grilled meat so we opted for lentil soup and to share a platter of vegetarian mezze (appetizers). It was definitely high on the list of memorable meals for me.

Turkish lentil soup is made with red split lentils and is quite delicate and delicious. The recipes in every place we ate seem pretty standard but the one at this hotel was distinctive for its fresh, bright taste. Sumac differentiates this soup from other lentil soups.

Our waitress brought us a large fresh loaf of puffed crispy bread coated with sesame seeds. The appetizer plate consisted of
Cubes of eggplant roasted in olive oil and salt.
A roasted eggplant spread like Baba Ghanoush studded with pomegranate seeds.
Roasted red peppers with parsley and olive oil
Yogurt cheese with herbs
A super creamy hummus
Boiled potato seasoned with fresh herbs and oil and a
Tomato and olive pesto-like spread.

I know it all sounds rather simple, but it was perfectly delicious. Each thing simply sang with bright juicy vegetable flavors. I think the Eggplant is very different in Turkey. It is sweeter and smaller and doesn't have that nightshade bite to it. Whatever they are doing in their little kitchen, they are making some alchemy.

If you are in Istanbul, run, don't walk to this restaurant...

Turkish Delight

2010-09-22T22:20:00.004+04:00

We recently had an opportunity to spend four days in Istanbul. Its a fantastic city, incredibly beautiful, totally walkable, gorgeous weather, pleasant people. Go if you get the chance....
Turkish food, on the other hand is a little more curious.

Perhaps because we were in Istanbul and in the main tourist district at that, we found it all fairly homogeneous and fairly expensive. Lots of grilled meat and vegetables, kebabs everywhere. There is lots of street food which is more interesting and affordable, though.

Kagit Helva- Sugar waffles. At around 2p, the sugar waffles come out. They are sold everywhere by people carrying stacks and stacks of them. They are like giant sugar wafer cookies. Quite tasty, albeit non-nutritive snack.

Gozleme- This is a very thin almost pancake like bread stuffed with meat, cheese, spinach or potato. We had them as an appetizer and were going to go back to the quite expensive place where we tried them first, when my son spotted a guy near the hippodrome making them from a stall for 4lira. They were better than the fancy restaurant ones too!

Apple tea- Every restaurant serves apple tea. Its sugar with a powdered apple flavoring mixed into hot water. The kids absolutely loved it. I have to say I don't really 'get' it. But it definitely was fun for them to have a hot beverage after dinner with us while we sipped our coffees...

Pide- Restaurants call Pide 'Turkish Pizza' but it isn't really like pizza at all. It's usually a cigar-shaped dough folded around meat, cheese, and egg with a big hot green pepper baked in the middle. I ADORED these especially when they were hot out of the oven, my DH, not so much. The meat is definitely a little dodgy, but into every trip a little intestinal trouble must fall....

Simit- We were departing on the opening day of the Simit Festival so we didnt get to catch it. They are a circle-shaped dough. Ever so slightly sweet and washed with egg. Very light, reminds me of challa.

Corn- This is another thing I don't get but THE snack of choice in Istanbul seems to be corn-on-the cob. This is not New England Sweet Corn. Its what we would consider corn that was picked WAY too long ago. Its served either boiled or grilled with just a bit of salt. Mr. Muffin Puff Cake was enchanted by the idea of corn-on-the-cob available on every corner for 1lira, but even he admitted it wasn't very tasty.

Eventually we found two good places. One a total hole-in the wall that we sort of stumbled on near the Kukuck Ayasophia served delicious food no different from any of the more expensive places and all freshly made for about 50tl ($32!) to feed the whole team.
The other is opposite the Four Seasons Hotel which although you would think would bode ill for the pricetag, ended up being VERY reasonable, around $65- 70 to feed a family of 5 in a quite nice atmosphere.

Next post, I'll tell you about my favorite meal...

Arabic Junkfood

2010-09-06T18:12:00.004+04:00

One of the few meals that all members of the clan agree on is Arabic Junk Food from the Eat & Drink Restaurant. Which has, I am happy to report, one of the weirder websites I have ever seen. ~Do hesitate not to visit! Make an especial note of woman breathing fumes of burger! Delicious.~
Middling English fluency is so awesome.

Tonights dinner of two chicken kabab platters and two lamb kabab platter set us back a whopping 66 UAE dirhams, that's $17.98 for:

20 kebabs (12 lamb, 8 chicken I've been told I should order Chicken Shish Tawok next time because its chicken chunks rather than ground chicken meal which is tasty but well, dodgy.)
4 pints of hummus (personal favorite throughout the city- perfectly balanced tahini & chick pea, creamy, but you can still taste the chick peas...)
6 large arabic flat bread rounds
1 pint of yogurt sauce
1 large green salad
assorted pickles
french fries (They sprinkle these on top of the kebab to soak up the grease I think, rendering them extra delicious...)
Truly enough food to feed an army at an amazing price mostly vegetarian friendly if you just skip the kebab too!

Ramadan blobiness

2010-08-31T14:29:00.004+04:00

We are full on Dubai Ramadan blobs. Its scorchingly hot outside. Most days, it isn't really possible to go outside until around 4pm. We get up, the kids play on the Wii until lunch, then we hang out. Friends start dribbling in as the afternoon wears on, other bored moms and kids for coffee and tea.
I'm glad of the company and I like that people feel comfortable dropping by my house, BUT, I do get kinda tired of figuring out what to serve them.
All the snacking isn't great for the vegan program either...

Fruit salad is really what I should be eating. But instead we're downing jar after jar of nutella slathered on 'Wholesense' digestive biscuits, poundcakes which the people from the Little Island (England) seem so fond of these days, and of course the ubiquitous arabic bread and hummus. We've got Swedes bringing us odd jars of mushrooms that they DEFINITELY DONT SELL AT IKEA and madeira soaked, nut and chocolate covered marzipan bars (heavenly).

I really don't know where to begin to return to my healthy eating program. I know in about two weeks all this snacking is going to cost me too...

Book Review: The Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics

2010-08-06T00:05:00.006+04:00

Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics: Fabulous flavor from simple ingredients. Ina Garten

I have to be up front about my prejudice here, I adore Ina Garten and her cookbooks. Ina writes about and maybe lives on? a planet where cocktail hour starts at 1:15 and is accompanied by acres of lucious, effortless, crispy snacky delicious tidbits...
No one is ever hungover because you simply stroll out to the patio and down your freshly squeezed, organic cranberry, artisan vodka, sicilian blood orange sea breeze while lingering over perfectly cooked cheddar cheese eggs followed by a bracing dip in the pool (conveniently maintained by someone else and paid for by poor Jeffrey...).

Nobody ever says anything inappropriate or nasty because the food and drink are just too deliciously perfect social lubricants... This is what I want my parties to be like...

On to the book:
Physically, I find all of her books very engaging. The colors are bright and clear, the images of food mouthwatering and the layout is easy to both browse and search. My only very slight annoyance is with the way she lingers for a few pages on her house. Show me pictures of dinner parties or something. I just feel like the real-estate porn shots of her patio are pretty irrelevant and sort of ostentatious.

As usual, the book has quite a lot of family-friendly fare and easy, clear instructions. I especially like her 'ten tips' pages. 'Ten things NOT to serve at a party' was a revelation to me, must remember them. I'm also enamoured with her idea of adding a flavor boost to foods right before serving to brighten up a dish overall. So, if you are making lemon chicken, you squeeze fresh lemon juice on it as it goes to the table. I've been trying to remember to do this lately, and I'm very happy with the result.

On the negative side, I think Ina needs to lighten up some of her cooking a little. She's heavy handed with oil, butter, and salt. Sometimes NOT in a good way. The pot roast is a prime example, I personally cook stuff like pot roast and stews without salt and just let people use the shaker at the table.

On balance, worth owning, although if you have The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, just get this out of the library.

Spring rolls

2010-08-04T06:27:00.004+04:00

I forgot about spring rolls. I haven't eaten them in ages, don't really know why.

So I made them last night for dinner.

Boil water, pour over bean threads, drain when soft.
Dip the wrappers (they are called Bahn Trang) in warm water.
Place some cilantro and or lemon basil leaves on the wrapper
In the middle, place a pinch of noodles (perhaps 1/8 of a cup).
Top noodles with cucumber sticks, green onions, string beans and or snap peas.
You can add leftover meat or nuts for protein.

Fold wrapper over filling, then fold in the two sides and roll up the wrapper. If you can stop yourself from eating them long enough to make a plateful, take a paper towel and dampen it with a bit of water. Wring it out well and use it to cover the rolls while they are resting on the plate.

For the peanut sauce:
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tsp. either Sriracha or Frank's hot sauce

Spoon into the rolls. Enjoy...

Comments are now allowed.

2010-08-02T03:13:00.002+04:00

Hi all, I had been getting a lot of weird spam on this blog so I made commenting really restrictive. A few of you have mentioned to me (thanks, EADP) that you wanted to comment but couldn't so I'm going to try leaving it open again and see what happens.... as long as I dont start getting a lot of weird ads to purchase Viagra from Ecuador (great idea, btw!) then I'll leave comments on... Thanks for reading.

Book Review: The Healthy Kitchen by Andrew Weil MD and Rosie Daley

2010-08-01T18:43:00.007+04:00

I've decided to add cookbook reviews to this blog. Especially since lately I've acquired about 10 for birthday's and other gifts.

The Healthy Kitchen: recipes for a better body, life and spirit. by Andrew Weil, MD and Rosie Daley

Spoiler: This is actually not a bad cookbook if you can get past all the annoying 'health' chatter.

Layout: The book has a lot of nice color photos and is set up into easy to search sections. I'm super curious about the relationship between the two authors, there are numerous pictures of her feeding him and them standing very very close. They seem awfully intimate for a book that doesn't mention the relationship. His recipes and health screeds are in blue sections and her 'Tips' are in yellow. He spends an awful lot of time discussing 'best quality' ingredients in a health context and I wish they had included a section on where to acquire some of the more morally elevated foodstuffs...

Recipes: In general, if their recipe seems too healthy to be good, it is. Multi-Grain Scones are completely gross, made with canola oil rather than butter, they have a greasy, nasty consistency. I'm not even sure I could coat these with borax and use them as ant-bait. Entrees like Grilled Ahi Tuna with Cilantro Ginger Sauce, however, are yummy. As long as what they are making is what it is, not a lame attempt a healthy imitation of something more delicious, the recipes are quite serviceable.
I also really enjoyed reading all of the fresh salsas and relishes they use throughout. These are definitely worth trying.

Other info: Dr. Weil sprinkles a lot of 'health' information in one-page essays throughout the book. I personally found his advice contradictory and sort of annoying a lot of the time. He is definitely a 'nutritionist' in Michael Pollan's worst sense of the word. There's way too much time spent on substitution and way too little spent on talking about balance in the diet. The 'Tips from Rosie's Kitchen' sections are annoying and really a little too obvious; i.e. "When you have more bananas than you know what to do with, don't throw them away!" Seriously, thanks....

I wish the authors of books like this would admit you CAN'T have your cake and eat it too, if you are focusing on the health qualities of food, anyway. On balance, not really worth owning. Get it from the library, it does have some utility.

Improving Good Seasons- if that's possible...

2010-07-30T04:32:00.004+04:00

I love Good Seasons salad dressing. My mom used it, always. It reminds me of her so I'm biased, but I find it so delicious and so versatile.
Right now, I have this huge jar of Good Seasons mixed with farmer's market pesto that I'm slathering on positively everything.
Chicken, pattypan squash, zucchini, salad, bread. Etc. etc.

Delicious as a dressing on a mozzarella and tomato sandwich.

Here's my alteration of the standard recipe.
One envelope good seasons
1/4 cup of water
a healthy splash of cider vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup best-quality pesto (vegan, no cheese, works better in the dressing, if you can get it)
Blend it all up. Eat on stuff.

I used to think that it was MSG that made the Good, but actually, come to find out there isn't any, another bonus.

That's all for my good season's ad.

Home Sushi

2010-07-21T04:13:00.004+04:00

I'm getting kind of good a making sushi lately. Its because the boys are mad for it, its been really humid so the no-cook meals are popular with me, and I feel a lot of economic pressure to make my own... Its just so horribly expensive to take them all out for it, they love it so and will just keep ordering.

It kind of hangs on the rice. I've been using basic Japanese sticky rice for sushi lately, but I usually use short grain brown rice. To one cup of rice you need to add 1/2 tsp of sugar and a splash of rice-wine vinegar. I sometimes add a shake or two of seaweed powder (the package is in Japanese, I have no idea what it is...)

Mr. Muffin Puff cake gets a mix of vegetables in his, avocado, blanched green beans, peppers, pea shoots (if I can find them), and cucumber with sesame seeds.
Mr. Dumpling likes fish and rice only. I usually buy a 4oz tuna steak and a 4oz salmon steak, slice these very carefully and roll them in the rice with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds.
I like mixed and usually make a salmon avocado and a tuna cucumber roll for myself.
Baby Chuck is anti-sushi, he eats mac & cheese or a penut butter and jelly if we are having sushi and loudly complains about how gross he thinks it is.

Restaurant review: Uncle Tony's Pizza and Pasta

2010-06-26T15:59:00.004+04:00

Met an old friend (from 3rd grade) the other night at Uncle Tony's Pizza and Pasta which is definitely a dying breed of old fashioned Italian places in RI. One of the hallmarks of these places is the ability to order a platter of meatballs with a side of fries. Kind of the ultimate Italian working man's dinner. We are well out of balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil territory here...

If you look at the menu, you can see its not really a place for the newly cheese free, but they were extremely accommodating about not adding it to my food.

We had salad as an appetizer, nice plain fresh garden salad. Iceburg, no arugula. Their wine vinaigrette was quite tasty. Our friends ordered fried cheese. I assume these were good as they didn't have too much pickup on them and they disappeared pretty quickly. I can't say I miss restaurant fried cheese all that much, never really did it for me in the first place. I dont think the bread coating really works. I will miss halloumi and real fried mozzarella, though.

For dinner, I had something unfortunately named a Plumpy, it was a spinach pie, no cheese, no pepperoni. One of our dining companions had the real deal, which looked much more delicious than mine, the DH had chicken parm, comes with a side of spaghetti and was positively dripping with cheese. Our other dining companion had a grilled chicken sandwich, draped with, you guessed it, cheese...

The food is honest, but really rich. I think reviewing restaurants isn't all that interesting anymore, maybe I'll only review vegetarian restaurants from now on...

Just when you thought it was safe...

2010-06-22T16:26:00.003+04:00

Right about the time that diapers become a distant memory and they stop catching absolutely every illness known to man and you start to relax a little, guess what? They get their big teeth. Like absolutely everything in America today, this is fraught with opportunities for hand wringing and medical interventions...

And presents certain culinary challenges.

Poor Mr. Muffin Puff cake couldn't really eat anything for about a week because he had a wiggly lower front tooth. I am lucky because he adores poached eggs and smoothies. Here's a recipe for yummy noodles that go down easy on the toothless....

1 pkg. Udon noodles- cooked to taste
Chop the following very very finely
1 head napa cabbage
1 shallot
1 thumb of fresh ginger
1 garlic clove
1/2 cup green beans
2 green onions
saute with 1 tbsp vegetable oil until soft, season with pepper
Grill an 8 oz piece of salmon on the bbq brush with lemon and soy sauce.
In your serving bowl add:
1/4 cup soy sauce (room temp)
2 tsp sesame seeds
2 tsp sesame oil
a splash of rice wine vinegar or lemon
add the sauteed vegetables and the salmon, use a fork to break the salmon into small bits
add noodles, toss and serve.

Enjoyed by toothy and toothless alike.

Day six- flunked

2010-06-21T01:39:00.003+04:00

So we kind of failed. Its day six and we were having guests over so we went and got all kinds of things and are down $250. Now, if we dont eat out, and we dont go back next week we will be ok. I have definitely decided, and learned it is possible not to go to the market more than once a week. Although we already have three things on the shopping list.

We have lots of leftover barbecue chicken because our guests were vegetarians, which I forgot.

Barbecue sauce for one chicken. If you are going to grill, it is worth it to ask your butcher to remove the backbone for you. Most of the time, they are happy to do this for no extra charge and it cuts way down on cooking time...

1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup molasses
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 finely chopped shallot

The longer it marinates, the better it will be, baste it as you go.

Day Four

2010-06-18T16:46:00.002+04:00

Yesterday, we had to go to Providence so we got takeout lunch at Crugnale's bakery AND we went to the farmer's market and acquired beets (which I think are gross, but the houseguest adores them), asparagus, lettuce, some very very expensive early tomatoes (they get you because they are so beautiful and there are no good tomatoes in NE until late July), a thyme plant which I was cautioned not to overwater, and some very tasty local milk (I only had a sip of it to try it).

Breakfast: Blueberry pancakes (if the kiddos havent found the blueberries and gobbled them while I was writing this)
Lunch: Free lunch and a movie at the library. (I feel a little bad about my kids eating free lunch but the librarian insists its not a charity thing...)
Dinner: WackyMac which I'll probably make with red sauce (gravy) for the kids and something else for the grups... Beets, asparagus...

We are out of about 17 things now. Lucky we have free lunch today and a birthday party tomorrow!

Day three

2010-06-17T05:04:00.002+04:00

Yesterday I did set foot in a supermarket. I only purchased eggs (1.69/ 18) so I'm not feeling too bad about it. Our house guest needed some lemons for her morning lemon juice drink and we went by the health food store for melatonin for jet lag.

Today the pickin's are a little slim, but I think we will be ok (eggs make a big difference...)

Breakfast: poached eggs on toast
Lunch: peanut butter & jelly and chopped veg
Snack: Mrs. M-H's brownies and milk
Dinner: asian noodles with leftover sesame chicken

Day two

2010-06-16T16:46:00.002+04:00

We are now out of about 10 things but I am soldiering on. We have a guest coming to stay with us who is gluten-free among other things so I may have to bring her to the market. I wonder if I can do it without getting anything...

Breakfast: Kashi cereal and strawberries with milk.
Lunch: Sandwiches (we'll then be out of salami)
Snack: hummus and carrots
Dinner: Burgers (we have to go to the hardware store for propane, does that mean we flunked??)

Day one.

2010-06-15T20:46:00.002+04:00

We are out of eggs. This is going to be problematic because I wont be able to bake later on in the week when food starts getting scarce. Which I'm guessing it will because we are also out of tortillas, and will be out of coffee...
The DH is already changing up the rules and saying we can go to the supermarket for staples like milk, eggs, coffee etc.

Breakfast: poached eggs on minibagels
Lunch: Mac & cheese with mixed veg, chocolate chip cookie & strawberries for dessert
Snack: Chips and salsa
Dinner: Mustard Tarragon chicken over rice, broccoli rabe and roasted sweet potato

Supermarket boycott

2010-06-15T06:40:00.002+04:00

So I've been to the supermarket about 11 times this week. Today, BOTH my DH & I went to the supermarket. We're spending thousands, we're totally disorganized, the cupboards are overflowing but we keep running out of things and its exhausting. My mother didn't go the market every day. Why is this happening??

Resolved: We are not setting foot in a grocery store until next Monday! I don't care if the kids are putting non-dairy creamer on their cereal. I am NOT going!!!

Breakfast: Cereal with blueberries and milk.
Lunch: Quesadillas and mixed chopped veggies. Animal crackers & strawberries
Snack: Fruit & yogurt
Dinner: Home-made sushi and noodles for baby Chuck, ice cream cones, watermelon

I'm going to do constructive things (like paint the guest room) with all the time I save. Let's see if we can make this work.

In-law Palooza

2010-06-05T22:10:00.005+04:00

The in-laws are descending. Tonight, burgers on the grill. My DH, who has been away too long, picked up the bathroom copy of Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa At Home (which every family needs). He has become fixated on a delicious-looking blue cheese burger. I'm not about to impose my new-found veganism on my husband (or his family for that matter) so I'm making them.

I'm modifying her recipe a bit, using 1 lb ground turkey and 1lb ultra-rich ground beef from our town farmer's market. Mixing them up with 1 egg, a generous bunch of garlic powder and some fresh basil and oregano.
These went on the grill for 5 min on one side, 3 on the other and were topped with tomato, lettuce, onion and blue cheese. I hear they were good. I ate a grilled portobello mushroom which was tasty but wasn't a burger...

Nearly healthy chocolate chip cookies.

2010-05-30T02:52:00.005+04:00

So I've been mostly vegetarian for the last four days on the recommendation of a friend because I wasn't feeling so hot. A large component of this is mental, I am totally depressed, but I figured it couldn't hurt to have a go at the physical part. And guess what? I feel fantastic. Truly, I'm sleeping better, I'm actually eating less but I dont feel particularly deprived and a lot of the little pains I've experienced are going away.

I'm sold on the whole mostly vegetarian thing and I might try to quit dairy products altogether.
Tonight the boys wanted a treat after their dinner of sesame buckwheat noodles, steamed vegetables and seared tofu (which they ate!). So I made these nearly healthy chocolate chip cookies.

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sesame butter
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oat bran
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together butters and sugar, add eggs and vanilla, beat well with a spatula. In a small bowl, combine dry ingredients and fork sift. Add the dry to the wet ingredients and blend well. Add chips. Roll dough into a roughly 2" thick loaf. Slice into 2 doz. cookies. Bake for about 15 minutes or until dry. They expand a bit, but not too much so watch them carefully for done-ness. They get nice and crispy when cool.

Yogurt and Popsicles...

2010-05-25T03:55:00.006+04:00

The sugar control obsession really got into high gear because of yoplait yogurt. A regular 6oz yoplait has 27 grams of sugar! That's six teaspoons of sugar! SIX!!! How is this even possible?? This has started me reading nutrition labels kind of obsessively.
Now I'm buying plain yogurt and letting them add sugar and fruit to it (they generally put one teaspoon in). We were buying the yoplait yogurt in a tube and freezing it which I assumed was better than popsicles, nope.. So now I'm making my own.

The following recipes make enough to fill 8 4oz popsicle molds.

1 120z bag mixed frozen berries
3/4 cup unfiltered apple juice (filtered apple juice freezes too hard, I think...)
blend in blender, pour in molds, freeze...

1 12oz container strawberries, hulled
1 8oz bottle of strawberry milk

1 cup fresh or frozen peach slices
1/2 cup plain yogurt
2 or 3 tbsp of honey
splash of apple juice (just to get the blender going)

1 cup fresh or frozen mango chunks
1/2 cup plain yogurt
2tbsp of honey
1 tsp cardamom
splash of apple juice (just to get the blender going)

12oz of any single type of berry
1 cup of gingerale
1/4 cup apple juice

The boys also like frozen herbal tea which is refreshing on a hot day, even more so with no sugar added to it.

Al Fredo

2010-05-24T05:25:00.004+04:00

Fredo is the brother in the Godfather who Michael has to do away with because he betrays the family to Hyman Roth. Alfredo is a restaurant in Rome which claims invention of the sauce. Alfresco means outdoors, or an excellent place to eat your fettucine alfredo.

I have no idea where my father got the recipe for his alfredo, he might have made it up. Its luscious. I can't tell you how to make it, but I'll give you a tasty recipe which is not even close so no one can accuse me of giving away family secrets...

1 stick of butter (yes the whole stick- forget about eating this altogether if you are on a diet)
1 pt. heavy cream
2 cloves garlic
1 cup of romano cheese
salt & pepper to taste

The important thing to remember about making this is DO NOT LET IT BUBBLE AT ALL EVEN ON THE EDGES OF THE PAN (Critical).

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan, press the garlic cloves but do not let them cook, just swirl them around. Whisk in the cream slowly and warm the mixture. Whisk in the romano until it is just melted. Add your salt & pepper. Pour over hot pasta. Cut some basil over the top to serve. Some people are very opinionated about pink sauces, I just throw a few tablespoons of marinara into this to make pink sauce which is very pleasant with tortellini.

Blog name thief!

2010-05-23T15:36:00.004+04:00

I dont know who was first, but should I change my name? And if I do, what do I change it to??

I'm so annoyed that I have to share a name with a too-slick blog that features kangaroo, couscous and poached eggs on everything, and bad grammar. It's the bad grammar that is getting to me.

http://yumfoodblog.com/

Click on it, then tell me what you think- change name or no?

Shiitake Mushrooms

2010-05-22T15:47:00.005+04:00

Thanks in no small part to my brother & sister-in-law being awesome cooks, I am thoroughly addicted to shiitake mushrooms. Some things I like to do with them:

Fry up about 4 oz with butter, add an egg, scramble, sprinkle with goat cheese. Power breakfast.

Saute them with garlic and a splash of lemon juice, top a raw spinach salad with the hot mushrooms.

Anchovy pizza with shiitake, to die for!

Saute with garlic, chop, mix with cream cheese and cooked chopped asparagus (salt & pepper to taste). Line a baking pan with saran wrap. Fill with mixture and refrigerate until set. Serve with crackers or good bread.

Here's a cool graphic on the life-cycle of the mushroom if you want to grow your own (This is bad advice, don't do this, just get them in the supermarket). Click on it to see the full sized image.

Dietary rehab

2010-05-19T15:13:00.002+04:00

Back in dietary rehab after a week of cheese and crackers and cocktails. And the Fair food. Gyros, grilled sandwiches, sausage and peppers, the Pilgrim sandwich (thanksgiving on a bun), and all sorts of gimmicky, greasy, treats... I do try to stay away from the stuff, most people who work the flea market do, but then one figures how bad could anything served in a waffle ultimately be? Alright, pretty bad...
So yesterday I made dahl with spinach in curry. Cant get much healthier...

Cook 1/2 cup split red lentils in 1 cup of water with a 1/2 teaspoon each of turmeric and salt.
In a pan, saute one cup spinach (frozen chopped spinach is fine) in a teaspoon of olive oil with one onion and one clove of garlic, add the lentils and 1tsp curry paste, if the curry paste is un-salted you will want to add salt to taste.
Serve over brown rice.

Cocktail hour at the flea market.

2010-05-18T16:10:00.002+04:00

This past week I set up at the Brimfield antiques market, my dad did it every year (he had pre-paid for the space...). If you are a person who shops at antiques markets, I will offer you some pointers;
Insulting people who are working at the market will not get you better prices.
Do not let your children do anything with the merchandise you wouldn't let them do at Target.
Some of us are, in fact, wicked marginal. Question the wisdom of kiting a check (with your address on it) to a guy selling antique weapons...
Its not the American way, but try to see past the way the dealers look. Flea market people are the greatest people you will ever meet.
After dealing with the insults, the chiseling, and the generally hard work of selling junk, we have cocktail hour. This week we were blessed by the presence of Ms. J. and Mrs. R, a pair Texans who really know how to put together a cocktail hour in spite of rustic surroundings...

Drinks:
Beer- of course.
Wine- Gallo Burgundy (ick!) in memory of my dad.
Vodka with limoncello, lemonade and seltzer.
Raspberry vodka with cranberry rasperry juice, a squeeze of lemon and seltzer.

Eats:
Hummus platter with pita chips.
Roasted, salted Cashews
Dates
Tortilla Chips and salsa
Assortment of cheese and crackers.

Then we make fun of our customers, tell bullshit stories about how much we charged for this and that and laugh and laugh and laugh...

What to serve an angry mob? Part II

2010-04-23T15:46:00.005+04:00

Ok so they are headed this way, pitchforks and torches in hand. The Hon. Nurnberg has pointed out that food can help diffuse this situation- so we shall bake!

Here is a Facebook link to my sister in law's amazing banana bread, if you can't get to it and want it message me and I'll post it here (with her permission...).

And then I think I'll try a chocolate pound cake. I have trouble with these, I made one for Easter that had a very nice flavor, if you could get past the brick-like texture... More than one person pretended they liked it but couldn't hide the fact that they were unable to chew it, which was sort of funny. Maybe I could repeat this and then fling chunks of it off the roof at the angry villagers to repel them?

I might squeeze in a cranberry walnut loaf. I have a freezer full of cranberries...

So I'll go to Dunkin' Donuts (internet distraction- this link takes you to a design-your-own donut widget...) and get a couple of boxes of coffee. Too bad it wont be hot enough to pour down the parapets at them...

After this, the next person who tells me my kids shouldn't be homeschooling 'because of the socialization' is going to get a hard smack in the face, just sayin'.

What to serve an angry mob??

2010-04-23T06:12:00.005+04:00

Husband is gone back to Big Giant International Airline in the sand, and I am left home to host the first, and probably last, meeting of our Local Catholic School's parents rebel alliance for change. How I ended up in this situation, I will never know. Suffice it to say this is a VERY small town and my DH's paycheck is signed by an oil Sheikh who lives 10,000km away and could give a fig about what happens here.

The situation as it currently stands is:
a kindergarten teacher intends to sit outside my house and take names to report us
the first grade teacher has been fired for evidence of alcoholism
the second grade teacher is virtually paralyzed by ocd
the third grade teacher is in the hospital with a life-threatening illness
the fourth grade teacher has publicly stated she is going to make our children pay for our participation in this meeting
the fifth grade teacher is threatening to crash the meeting (and crash she shall have to because she uses a walker and I have 10 very steep steps to climb to get onto my property...)
a 70+ year old eucharistic minister has called us a 'lynch mob' for trying to get together and discuss how we can help solve some of the problems with the school.
An insightful friend points out that this must be about money for what else gets people so crazy?

On to the food part: The rebel alliance is coming here. Perhaps 20, maybe even 30 parents, plus whatever crazies show up to cause trouble. One well meaning parent pointed out to me that I need to feed them SOMETHING... Which I promise I will discuss in the morning...

Kids and sugar and Easter and school and Parties...

2010-04-02T02:46:00.006+04:00

Mr. Muffin Puffcake had an 'Easter Party' at school this week, as did the other two, which got me thinking about school and food and especially all the sugar they seem to constantly pour down their throats in the name of Jesus.

All eight parents were asked to bring enough 'treats' for twenty kids. I guess they invited another class. Assuming eight in that class and two teachers we are talking about 360 servings or 16 servings of sweets per child!!!!! There were literally buckets of cookies, platters of cupcakes, bowls of candy etc. etc. It was frankly, fairly horrifying to even my sweet-loving eyes.

Now I am a great preacher of the whole 'parental responsibility' bit, but what on earth is a semi-responsible person supposed to do in the face of so much reckless consumption of sugar?!?!
I sent fruit salad rather than cake or candy, I immediately threw away anything that came home with them, and I've declared a moratorium on all eating between school and supper. I feel a bit like I'm rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic here.

Baby Chuck has snack at school that usually consists of an 8 - 12 oz glass of juice and some sugar cereal. He tells me that 'the sugar is good tasting even if it doesn't help you grow'. The teachers sniff at me when I ask them to water his juice.

I think I'm going to ask for a doctor's note excusing them from any and all sweets not provided by me (you know who you are, can I impose upon you this way? I'd bother Dr. K but the same last name thing would limit the credibility of such a note, I think...) Arrgh! I dont have the first idea of what to do here and its only going to get worse as we go into spring. HELP!!

I was going to post a picture of the worlds fattest toddler, but actually its too scary... Google it if you must...

Spaghetti and other unmentionable foods.

2010-04-01T01:03:00.006+04:00

I dont eat spaghetti. Its kind of complex. Spaghetti is for the Mayonnaise, as Tony Soprano, a favorite Italian-American stereotype, calls you people. My father called you the Medi-gans, try to figure it out, not to speak ill of the dead, but suffice it to say he could be less charitable on this question than Tony Soprano...

Anyhoo, today I made spaghetti. I had it in the cupboard, what can I say? It wasn't precisely bad, I think its the roundness that I find objectionable. Too slippery or something.. I used the 1/2 whole wheat brand of Ronzoni thin spaghetti. The boys didn't seem to notice the difference between it and our normal thin linguini, except Mr. Dumpling who agrees that spaghetti is 'not for us' (the comment that got me writing this post...).

For a pleasant spaghetti sauce, my people call it gravy, made in the crockpot:
2 cans crushed peeled tomatos
1/2 can of water
1 jar Newman's own pasta sauce (cheating, I know, but again, it was in the cupboard, adjust for salt when using jarred sauce)
whatever red meat you have around, in my case it was a couple of pork ribs from the other day (frozen), some ground beef with garlic, and a few pieces of veal in red-wine gravy.
1 large onion, browned in a scant teaspoon of olive oil
2 or 3 cloves of chopped garlic
some dried italian herbs
you can add a splash of red wine too, if you like

I let it cook on low for about 8 hours, stirring occasionally. Its a rich sauce without being too thick, perfect for long pasta, ahem!, spaghetti...

Broken eggs...

2010-03-25T22:47:00.002+04:00

So today was kind of a strange one. I went to the market after dropping them off at school and running the suburban mom gossip gauntlet. I managed to get everything I needed and get it all into the house before the trouble started.

One 1/2 gallon of milk was almost entirely lost because it was leaking out the bottom of the carton (Organic- $3.49 down the drain...), the peanut butter I bought was expired (I didnt know this was possible and I'm NOT throwing it out..), AND I broke an entire carton of eggs on the floor because I was trying to juggle too many things at once.
The big question was then what to do with all these broken eggs. Since its spring, sort of, I made a pie.

8 broken eggs (pick out most of the shells)
1/2 cup spinach
1/2 cup cooked sausage
1/4 cup cheese cubed or shredded (your choice)
1 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp parmesan
salt & pepper to taste

Butter an 8" baking pan. Put the sausage, spinach and cheese in. Take the eggs and whirl them up in a blender with the mayo, pour over sausage. Top with pepper, salt and parmesan. Bake at 350 or so for 20-30 min or until just set (it will finish cooking in the pan).

Leftovers...

2010-03-10T03:16:00.003+04:00

I have terribly unsuccessful pork ribs in herbs de provence with garlic and olive oil. I liked them well enough, but there was a full pound of meat and the boys didnt eat ANY of it so now what the hell do I do with it? My brother needs to eat here more often.

Cooks.com has 40 things to do with leftover pork roast...

Suggestions, people I need suggestions...