Cute food alert

I haven't found any new or blogworthy recipes lately, but I have had some great moments in cute food. Below are some of the cookies I made for my dear sister for Valentine's day (not pictured: psychedelic unicorns).

Also, Mom made me an AMAZING birthday cake. It was a lemony, cholesterol-free cake shaped like our favorite feline!! I hope she'll post the recipe soon.

The Egg Project, Installment #1

I don't like eggs. Never have. I don't order eggs, I don't make eggs, and when I buy them they typically sit in the fridge for about six months, at which point I question if they are safe for consumption, discard them, and then purchase more eggs which I will not use.

I would like to change. Eggs are cheap, nutritious, and can be sustainable. Also, chickens are all the rage right now in berkeley (you know you're a hippy when you have chickens in your backyard. Well, I guess you could also be a redneck). I have several friends with more eggs then they can handle, thus the local, organic, sustainable egg glut in Berkeley. I'd like to take advantage of this situation.

I'd also like to be the kind of person who can casually say, how do you like your eggs? And then create a perfect specimen. This will also be convenient once I get a Ph.D., when I can take my over-educated, unemployed self and go to work as a short order cook.

So I'm going to endeavor to cook eggs in many different manners as the mood strikes me. Enough people out there like eggs; there must be a way of cooking them that I will like.

First up, scrambled eggs. Seems easy enough. I didn't bother doing any research on the subject. I just melted some butter in the pain, cracked in the eggs, added a little bit of goat cheese, and whisked it around with a fork until they no longer looked wet. Then I salted them. I also sauteed some veggies to go along with the eggs.

Here are the results:



My conclusions? Well, I ate everything. And it was pretty good when mixed with the veggies and put into a pita. However, the grapes were definitely the first thing to go.

A quick internet search after the fact revealed that I didn't use the right technique at all. People have strong opinions about what the best method is and my didn't align with any of them. So I think I will revisit scrambled eggs and see if I can do better.

Other egg dishes I'm excited about trying include sunny side up, over easy, fried, poached, and coddled eggs. Then of course there is the omelet.

Some of these things might be the same, or require special equipment or patience, I really have no clue. I really do hope to become an egg lover by then end of it. However, I don't think anything could ever make me give hardboiled eggs a chance. I will close with an apt biblical quote: Thou shalt not put into thy salad eggs which come from beasts with feathers, for hardboiled eggs in salads are an abomination unto the Lord (Deuteronomy, 22:5).

Best cocoa brownies I've ever made

These brownies from bon appetit were amazing! The browned butter is the secret. It didn't even add too much time to the prep work. We topped them with French vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, and rainbow sprinkles. Yum!

Noodle bean soup: another win from 101 cookbooks!

I just made this recipe from 101 cookbooks. I've been home today with a flu-ish thing and it hit the spot! I made a few changes to the ingredients as I did not feel like shopping. I used 1.5T lemon juice instead of lime, added 1/2t coriander, used just a few sprigs of cilantro, substituted sunflower seeds for the walnuts, used whole wheat thin spaghetti rather than egg noodles, and used yogurt rather than sour cream/creme fresh. I think the caramelized onion topping made a big difference, so don't skip out! Mom, I bet this would still be good without oil, and you could probably adapt it for the slow cooker.

Bangers and mash

I don't know how "bangers and mash" are traditionally configured, but I like this spicy, peppery version. I got to try out a new type of soysage (smoked) and use up leftover mashed potatoes, too!

Saute in 1.5t EVOO:
1/2 jalepeno, sliced
~1/3 bag frozen pepper and onion slices
Add:
~1T tomato paste
oregano and black pepper to taste
Spoon these ingredients into a separate container.
Saute in 1T EVOO:
2 smoked soysages, sliced into ~1" pieces
Once these crisp up, add back the veggies.
Serve with mashed potatoes and hot sauce.

Om nom nom.

PS: why does it feel wrong to blog about food while watching the biggest loser?

A party and Semi-Indian Cooking with Suzandra V

I have been doing LOTS of cooking. Last Saturday I had a dinner party with some dear friends from church. I didn't make anything super blog-worthy, as I mostly stuck with dishes I had made before. My one bold move was serving neat loaf. I LOVE neat loaf, but I wasn't sure how meat eaters would react to it. Seemed to be a hit. Viva la f'meat.

The menu:
Hummus + Crudite
Roasted root veggies (beets + squash + red onion + rosemary + oil + vinegar + salt + white and black pepper)
Rosemary buttermilk mashed potatoes (note to self: microwaving potatoes just isn't the same as boiling them, sadly. I need to quit doing that--leaves little bits of uncooked potatoes in the mix)
Neat loaf
Salad (spinach + craisins + goat cheese + cashews) + dressing (oil + balsamic vinegar + mustard + honey + rosemary + salt + pepper)
Rosemary Rolls a la Pioneer Woman (this time I used Sister Schubert parkerhouse style rolls. I think a traditional freezer roll would've been a better base)
Boxed cookies
Berries w/ whipped cream
Apples-to-Apples

The fun didn't stop there. I am now trying to use up the odds and ends of leftovers in my fridge after the party and other cooking adventures. Today I made a semi-Indian (with Sandra Lee?) meal that used up THREE different left-over ingredient foods (beet greens, coconut milk, piece of squash). It turned out surprisingly well given the recipes were all improved.

Semi-Indian Stuffed Squash:
For the filling, mix 2c cooked quinoa (cooked in stock), ~1/4c coconut milk, handful craisins, 2 handfuls chick peas, and a sprinkling of curry powder.
Stuff this into the bulbous part of butternut squash, sliced in half lengthwise and seeds removed.
Cook on low for 8h in the slow cooker.
Serves 2.

I've always thought stuffed butternut squash would be weird since it's too much for one person. Today I just had the bulbous bottom part of the squash left, though, making two perfect portions. It was tasty and super easy! I bet it could handle all kinds of variations, too. I served it with...

Semi-Indian Beet Greens:
Heat ~1/2T EVOO in a saute pan
Add the greens of 3 beets
Sprinkle with turmeric, cumin, cayenne pepper, and salt.
Pour in ~1/4c coconut milk.
Saute until the greens have reached the desired texture.
Serves 2.

Sadly, I did not take pictures of any of this tasty tasty food! I was too hungry.

So, here is a photo of Dan in a bag:


O NOZ, SOMEBODY LET TEH KITTEH OUT OF TEH BAG!

Friday Feast: Roasted Pear and Butternut Salad

Suzanne and Michael joined us for dinner on Jan 7. We ate More Mole (previous post), salmon from Suzanne's Indian cookbook, and a salad of mache topped with roasted pear and butternut squash, with a pear vinaigrette. Enough for the 4 of us came from

- - 10 oz package of frozen butternut squash cubes
- - 3 pears (I used d'Anjou, but the recipe called for Bartlett), peeled, halved and cored

I added a little oil to the squash cubes and roasted those plus the pear halves, turned upside down, in a 350 oven for 1/2 hour. Then I turned the pears over and roasted another 10 min until it was all a little brown.

One pear half went into the blender with 2 T. cider vinegar and 1T. honey and some pepper. You can add 1 T. oil.

The trick was how to split the remaining 5 pear halves among the 4 plates.