The Moody Foodie

Momocho

2011-11-30T09:51:00.001-06:00

Even the name of the restaurant sounds like something a babbling baby would say to express hunger. Mo-Mooooooo- Choooos, Mommm-mommm-nomm! So, when my sister-in-law, Cris, was describing some of the food at Momocho [smoked trout guacamole, please!], I was finding new space in my stomach despite the previous day's Thanksgiving gluttony.

The Ohio City restaurant, featuring "Mod Mex" cuisine, is nestled in a cozy neightborhood with quaint homes and narrow alleys. Once inside, The restaurant was very dark, very crowded, and somewhat intimidating because of its lucha libre and Dia de los Muertes themed decor, and its hip, slightly snobby wait staff. But that only made me feel more giddy... Date night! No kids! Restaurant featured on Food Network!

While our husbands ordered the first off beat beverages they found (cervezas especial michelada style with ice, lime, salt, worcestershire and hot sauce), Cris and I pored over the paper menu, squinting in the dark at the extensive guacamole list and scribbling tick marks in the margins of the main dish and appetizer sections.

We finally settled on:

Guacamole with smoked trout, bacon and chile poblano. I was thinking about it later, and the reason this works so well is because it's a little bit like a revved up California roll, minus seaweed, crabstick, rice and tobiko. OK, it's nothing like sushi, but the avocado and uncooked fish textures and flavors work so well in Japanese cuisine, that I'm not surprised that they dance together in this rich dip.

Just in case you're interested in the other varieties that we didn't try, I brought home the menu from the night. As avocados are on sale this week at Kroger, I think I will have to try to make some of these at home:

goat cheese, tomato, chile pblano
jicama, pineapple, chile habanero and mint
garlic confit, blue cheese, chile verde
honey crisp apple, mango, chile serrano and thai basil
pickled corn, crab, chile chipotle

Seared Sea Scallops with cauliflower and hominy frita, jalapeno creamed corn. This was my favorite dish, aside from the trout guacamole. The flavors were light, creamy and sweet, so they didn't overpower the delicate flavor of the scallops, which were just slightly undercooked in the center, but still pretty good :-) The ball in the middle is kind of like a cauliflower hush puppy. It would have been better if there was more cauliflower than hominy.

Butternut squash and goat cheese empanadas with oaxacan red chile and chocolate mole.
This was Jack's favorite dish of the night. I also liked it, but it was almost a dessert with all the sweetness and richness. As far as I'm concerned, anything with goat cheese is good.

Smoked gouda tamale dumplings. Cris found these to be a little bit dry, but I thought they were pretty well balanced when forked with a bittersweet heap of the crisp onion and corn saute with which it was served.

Our server recommended the sofrito green beans, adding that they were very popular. But these were actually my least favorite dish of the night. If you've been reading me for any length of time, you probably know I generally prefer vegetables to the other food groups. In my not so humble opinion, a good green bean should be flash fried just enough to be bright green, but still crisp enough to bite through the strings, OR they should be slow cooked down to a buttery-melt-in-my-mouth slurp of a legume, preferrably laced with pork fat. I would have expected the crunchy end of the cooking spectrum for this dish, which was heavily seasoned with the sofrito. (I'm guessing the mix included chili, cilantro, onion, garlic and maybe tamarind or something to give it bite.) Instead, the beans were in that no-go doneness zone in the middle. They were too cooked to maintain their crispness, and not done enough to eliminate the stringy toughness. In addition, I felt that the flavor was too sour and too bitter, when I was craving savory, zesty and sweet. OK. That's enough philosphizing about green beans! On to the wild boar....

No joke, we orderd chancho, adobo braised wild boar taquitos with pickled jalapeno and mustard crema. After all, the guys needed something to go with their worcestershire beers, and this was one of the more awe-inspiring meats on the menu.

(As a side note, please excuse the horrible quality of my photos from the night. The room was exceedingly dim and I didn't want to draw attention to myself by flashing the food every 60 seconds.)

I'm not a fan of tough meat, or even red meat in general. And this was overtly both very red and tough meat. However, a little dollop of boar shreds on a mini corn tortilla with copious amounts of the pickled jalapeno and mustard crema was pretty good. And if I wasn't so stuffed that I felt every bite was bound to come out my ears, I might have liked it more.

Ironically, neither Jack nor Joe really liked this dish, despite Cris and my chidings that they didn't add enough of the salsa and crema. If I were to get a do-over on ordering, I would have thought less about what others might like and ordered what I knew I'd like: the picadillo, ground lamb shoulder with mint, walnuts, red chile and chocolate mole, which sounds like a pretty amazing little taco. Or, the camarones, achiote shrimp al postor style with pineapple and jicama salsa... or pato, slow cooked duck confit with chile anco and pomegranate barbacoa. Or...

There's always next time.

Potluck Thanksgiving

2011-11-30T09:07:00.001-06:00

I've mentioned before that Thanksgiving meals when I was growing up were usually this weird combination of traditional and Chinese and sometimes fried chicken or lasagna. Since I've been married, we usually head to Joe's parents for the big meal. This year, my mother-in-law decided that everyone could just bring what they wanted. So there were Chinese dumplings (made by my Italian Auntie), Nicaraguan floutas-- akin to taquitos but way better-- made by my Canadian sister-in-law and garlicky salad made by me. There was also plenty of traditional food like baked sweet potatoes, green beans, ham, a free-range turkey and stuffing.

I really like the ratio of greenery to other things on my plate.

And afterwards, I felt good enough to go on a nippy walk around the West Side neighborhood where the Parrinos live with Cris and Amy.

That made us hungry for dessert. Amy concocted one with Trader Joe's puff pastry, fig butter, pistachios, almonds, dark chocolate and Brie. I was a little concerned that there might be too many things going on in these pain au chocolats, but the flavors melded wonderfully!

Fujiyama in Clarksville

2011-09-09T15:23:00.001-05:00

Hidden in a quiet commercial strip off Wilma Rudolph about 5 minutes past the heavily trafficked shopping area, this Clarksville, Tenn., sushi bar is a tiny treat. Both times I've visited, I've had my two boys with me. But even though my attention has been divided between stuffing my own and their two tiny gullets, I found the presentation to be pretty, the selection broad and the sushi plump and fresh.

Pictured above, special bento boxes with california rolls, teriyaki salmon and teriyaki tofu, xiao mai, crab rangoon and rice.The tofu was silken, but fried to a crispy, chewy crust on the outside, making it my most shared item off my box.

I can't remember the name of the sushi roll that looks more like a still-wet oil painting than food... but it was really good. Sorry. I'm writing this post about four months after the fact. Again, little gullets getting in the way of my goals as foodie and blogger...

A salmon-bone to pick with IKEA

2011-07-30T14:43:00.001-05:00

The trip between Hopkinsville, Ky., and Cleveland, Ohio, with two little ones in tow, is ardorous. The one bright spot had always come in the form of a cobalt blue building looming on the horizon of the interstate not far past the "Florence, Ya'll" water tower. IKEA. The land of modern but affordable DIY furniture, random houseware bargains and, a decade ago, an exciting Scandanavian cafe. The West Chester IKEA, outside of Cincinatti, is our half-way point and stopping point of choice because of the kid-friendly bathrooms, eating area and play areas. It has ceased to be an exciting stop for me, though, because I can only taste my memories of favorite dishes like Pittya-pana and Three Salmon plate.

They've still got the multi-colored carrots, Swedish meatballs, elderberry flavored drinkboxes, and maybe one overcooked fish dish on their menu, but IKEA's top-floor cafe has slowly slumped in my opinion from a destination ethnic eatery to a hum-drum cafeteria.

The rest of the store's offerings include chicken fingers and fries, mashed potatoes, soggy steamed vegetables, mac n cheese, dried out wrap sandwiches, a hockey-puck sized conglomeration of spinach and eggs and limp salad bar fixings.

It really depresses me!

Sushi Ya

2011-07-30T14:29:00.001-05:00

I know I've written about Sushi Ya in Schaumburg, Ill., before, but I tried some new makis that I had to share :-). On my recent trip home, I ate here three times! The bento box was really yummy, but I didn't have my camera on me that first trip. We ordered sushi take out our next two trips.

My new favorite, "Green Turtle Maki," is shown in the lower half of the box. It has eel, cucumber and crunchy stuff at the center, with avocado, shrimp and green tobiko and some kind of light special sauce on the outside of the roll. Above is just the standard Spider Roll, with a tempura soft-shell crab at the center, along with cucumber and avocado.

It was so good that my mom and I returned a second time during my recent trip to get another Green Turtle and to grab Sushi-Ya's "Schaumburg Roll." It's fun to eat local-named makis. (Just realized I had tried this before back in 2009, though it seems like it had carrots then and not now. I didn't miss them!) We at our rolls by the duck pond in the town square before taking Stephen to the nearby splash fountain.

The Schaumburg Maki is also crammed full of my favorite sushi components: Soft-shell crab inside, with a generous crust of eel and avocado outside. I feel a little sad to be writing this post since I'm hundreds of miles from Schaumburg and its namesake maki.

Squash Kebabs

2011-05-25T11:38:00.001-05:00

Monday night, we did baby squash and marinated mushrooms on the grill. I was just tickled by the way skewers look threaded with whole squashes.

I used salt, garlic powder and olive oil on the yellow squash and greek salad dressing on the mushrooms.

Tea Eggs

2011-05-16T16:08:00.001-05:00

Mine look nothing as pretty as the marbled eggs in Martin Yan's cookbook, but they had that nice smoky, spiced umami flavor and the slightly chewy texture that I expect in a good tea egg.

Something I like about trying foods from other cultures and cuisines is learning a new take on a familiar ingredient. For example, I regularly toss romaine lettuce into ramen because Chinese are fond of cooked leafy greens and a little confused by raw veggie salads. (When we lived in Taiwan, salads were just becoming popular as sort of a system-starter breakfast.) Americans, on the other hand, wouldn't think of cooking the foundation vegetable of a crunchy Caesar salad.

Well, hard-boiled eggs are another ingredient that have a wide range of interpretations in different cultures. Indians and Eithiopians both have dishes that stew them in a thick oniony sauce. The Chinese have some more shocking uses, such as the teeny, fermented, chewy, green-centered "Thousand Year Eggs," which, along with boxes of moon cakes, dried mushrooms and loose leaf tea, are the kinds of goods that are packaged in bright red boxes with golden characters to be given as special gifts. A more humble--and in my opinion, more palatable--version of eggs is the tea egg. As easy to find served up in slow cookers at 7-Eleven as they are in grandma's kitchen, these eggs steep in a tea, soy sauce and spice liquid.

Martin Yan tells us to hard boil the eggs for 10 minutes, then tap the shells all over with the back of a spoon to form a web of hair-line cracks through which the marinade can seep. They then simmer in water enriched with 1/2 cup soy sauce, a couple of black Chinese tea bags, star anise, brown sugar, cinnamon stick, five spice, scallion and ginger. I didn't have all these things, so I substituted with regular white sugar, two "Licorice Spice" herbal teabags, and some onion powder. I actually didn't use any black tea in my marinade... but I think they still qualify as tea eggs because I did use herbal tea. Yan recommends simmering them in their cracked shells for 15 to 60 minutes. I also stored mine in the liquid for a few days in the refrigerator. They will absorb even more flavor if you peel the shells and store them in an air-tight container with some of the liquid, which is what I did after I took the photo above.

Sweet potato strudel

2011-05-14T09:17:00.001-05:00

This recipe, adapted from my Periplus Step-by-Step Healthy Eating cookbook, is somewhat like the spanikopita I'd been making a lot of lately... but instead of triangles, it calls for rolling everything into an 8-sheet phyllo dough and olive oil layered log. My version of the filling includes roasted sweet potato cubes, roasted smashed garlic, spinach, sun-dried tomato feta, fresh basil, pine nuts and vidalia onion. The whole thing gets baked at 350 until golden. My only regret was that I only used half a 10 oz bag of spinach... would have been better with a higher green-to-orange ratio.

Other uses for Aloo Gobi

2011-05-10T16:33:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago, NBC had the finale of a new show "America's Next Great Restaurant." I was kinda hooked... not because I really like over-extended drama or snarky judges' remarks (really- I never knew Bobby Flay could be so mean!), but because I really wanted to know which restaurant would open as the next chain as the prize for winning.

The final three were a soul-food "meat and two sides" joint (which won), a "modern" Indian version of Chipotle and a meatball place, which, by vice of its original name "Saucy Balls," I knew would not be the winner. The soul food joint, "Soul Daddy," justly won the contest as the creator had a strong work ethic, a smoothly running prototype and a heart-warming against-the-odds family story requisite for any reality show cast. However, I can't say meat and three or meat and two really excites me since the vast majority of non-chains in Western Kentucky are this kind of restaurant. On the other hand, Soul Daddy evolved from a chicken and waffle concept to a healthier, more veggie promoting version of soul cuisine, so it might not be so bad. Not that it will ever come to Hopkinsville!

OK. So my point of this whole rambling intro is that the idea of a chain Indian restaurant that caters to the masses while also introducing white-bread America to some classic Indian dishes got me thinking what kinds of things I would put on the menu if I were in charge.

I've frequently posted the very few Indian dishes that I know how to make... Aloo Gobi, Tandoori Chicken and Behl Puri are probably my short list. And my long list. Aloo Gobi, which is just potato and cauliflower fried in garam masala and lots of onion and garlic, is not only my favorite Indian dish, but one of my favorite dishes in general. See my "Top 5" at this old post. So, what would make it American-y enough to appeal to the masses? I thought of two possible ways to serve it: Masala Gobi over a baked potato (sorry, didn't take a picture of that experiment, but it was a tremendous time-saver and was very tasty) and today's leftover creation: Gobi potato salad with crunchy veggies.

Aloo gobi tastes pretty good cold, in my opinion. With some chopped fresh tomato and cucumber, it's like a salad with all the best textures-- rich and smooshy potato, tender cauliflower, juicy tomato and crisp cucs.

I think another possibility, which I'll have to try, is to turn it into a sandwich filling or make a sandwich sized samosa type turnover. Like a spicy potato pasty or something... mmmm.

uh-oh, son one is up from nap and throwing a tasmanian devil style fit. better go.

Sea Salt Chocolate

2011-05-07T14:57:00.001-05:00

...my new favorite! Joe got me some Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt for part of my Mother's Day present. I love this stuff... it's like eating a chocolate covered pretzel without the pretzel. The chocolate is smooth and rich and there's little bursts of crispy salt as the confection melts.

Garden beginnings

2011-05-07T12:41:00.002-05:00

Joe and I took the boys to Lowe's the other night and I sniffed out this delectable peat pot mint plant. It reminds me of two happy memories: All the fancy-smancy desserts I've ever eaten at fancy-smancy venues (They're always topped with a tender little mint sprig) and the townhouse in Schaumburg, Ill., that was my first home and that had a bunch of this growing wild in the front yard.

A few of the leaves were a little chomped on, but it was the bushiest of the bunch. To tell you the truth, I wanted to just eat it up myself at the store. But he made it home intact, and my new little edible friend is sitting on my desk, awaiting transfer to this summer's container garden or... to this summer's fancy-smancy dessert.

Goat Cheese Pizza

2011-05-05T15:38:00.001-05:00

Joe spotted a log of chevre with the Kroger "Manager's Special $3.69" label on our last big shopping trip. I used it all on two homemade pizzas yesterday a day before its expiration :-) The first time I had goat cheese on pizza was several years ago when I was a little more dilligent in avoiding cow's milk and all of its yummy derivatives. My parents took us to Bahama Breeze, a chain restaurant with "island" cuisine. I don't exactly remember what else was on the pizza I ordered, but the chevre really put it over the top for my cheese-deprived taste buds. Anyhow, I'm sure there are lots of fancier uses for a log of Silver Goat Chevre, but pizza is what always come to mind when I see one.
To make, I followed the foccacia bread recipe from my 3 and 4 ingredient cookbook (it makes a softer dough than the usual pizza crust, which I need because my TMJ has been acting up lately and I can't chew chewy or crunchy things enjoyably).

To make it, I proofed one T of dry yeast in scant 2 cups warm water with a T of sugar. Then I added a splash of olive oil, 4 cups flour (a mix of bread and unbleached all purpose because I was at the end of my bag of King Arthur's) and a pinch of salt. I let it rise 'til double, punched down, divided it into two balls and rolled them out to roughly match the shape of my jelly roll pans.

One pizza got a topping of sliced tomato, mozzerella, fresh spinach, minced garlic, olive oil, dried parsley and basil and the goat cheese, of course.

The second pizza had pepperoni, tomato, oil, sweet onion, zuchinni, spinach and the herbs along with the goat cheese, except for one corner that I did up with tomatoes, spaghetti sauce and muenster cheese for Stephen.

I recommend drizzling oil on top of all the other ingredients, especially the spinach, which will get all crispy and translucent if you cook it long enough. I like crispy spinach.

And, I made some lemon bars for dessert.

Revisiting Turkey and Farewell Brunch

2011-04-26T15:52:00.002-05:00

A big bowl of spanikopita filling.

Kai with cornstarch, at the controls on the yogurt chicken.

Samuel giving me a sweet baby smile.

The lovely southern-style spread at Bill and Kaye's for Kai's farewell brunch.

Plantains

2011-04-18T15:51:00.002-05:00

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that Stephen grabbed some plaintains and other goodies at the Indian grocery store in Chattanooga. We actually did buy them, but they didn't ripen until a couple of days ago.

I was worn out from round two of bagel boiling, so Joe decided to make this dessert from a recipe he found on the food network. I don't remember it exactly-- but it involved 2 plantains, butter, sugar and cinnamon. It was delish!

Boiled, not fried

2011-04-18T15:17:00.000-05:00

You know how all those cracker and snack labels now make a point of saying the product is "baked, not fried"? If not, just ignore my post title.

I remember once getting into an argument with someone about bagels. I had heard they were boiled before being baked and so I said so. The other person--whom I'm not naming because I truly can't remember who it was--insisted I was crazy for thinking bagels were boiled instead of baked.

Anyhow. They are boiled. And then baked. And I made two batches in the last couple of days!

My dear friend, Kai, is moving to Turkey in a couple of months. For her going-away brunch, I wanted to make something that I'm assuming she won't find in Urgup or whatever little place she and her family of 6 endeavor to go. Also, Kai, is one of those special people for whom it's not unusual to drop in on and find a homemade crusty loaf of French bread sitting plateless on her kitchen table next to a vase of fresh flowers or a blooming dogwood branch. That's Kai.

So, I was inspired to take a turn kneading the dough to honor her... and so I could enjoy some hot chewy-chocolatey goodness myself.

To make these bagels, I followed a recipe in my beloved Mennonite cookbook that isn't sold anywhere I could find online, and therefore, cannot be linked :(. The recipe calls for:

3 cups flour
1 T yeast
2 T sugar
1 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
Any toppings or mix-ins desired

Proof the yeast in the water with the sugar. Once it's frothy, add the dry ingredients and mix well. Then knead on floured surface for 10 minutes. Let the dough rise for 40 minutes. Then, divide into 8 balls, poke holes with your finger and twirl them on the counter to enlarge the hole. Let the bagels rise for another 20 minutes while getting a big pot of boiling water going and your oven heated to 400 degrees. Boil in batches of 2 or 3 for a "couple of minutes," flipping once. Transfer boiled bagels to a greased cookie sheet and back for 15 minutes until golden.

The first time I tried this, I pretty much followed the recipe. I added cranberries to four bagels and mini chocolate chips to the other four. They turned out a little lighter and fluffier than most bagels, probably because I made them on a nice warm, dry, draftless day. Yeast; you know how moody those little critters can be. It's like they have Seasonal Affective Disorder. I liked the results, but I found that much of my mix-ins popped off in the water while boiling. So the second time I made the bagels, I made some changes:

First, I skipped the cranberries, and just went for the chocolate, which I mixed in before letting the dough rise the first time. Next, I made 16 bagels instead of 8. Also, the weather wasn't as nice. In fact, the weather was everything it shouldn't be when you do yeast baking: Windy, wet and overcast. I tried to warm up my kitchen by turning on the oven early, but the bagels just didn't rise as much as the previous batch. Another change I made was that I dipped the boiled bagels in cornmeal before putting them on my cookie sheet, because even though the first sheet was generously greased, the bagels were cemented on there! The mini bagels were chewier and had a more marbled chocolate effect because some of the chips melted as I kneaded the dough. They were also quite a bit uglier because they lacked the smooth surface of their predecessors. I think when I make them again for Saturday's brunch, I'll still stick with mini bagels, but I will let them rise longer after the bagels are formed. Also, I think I'll sprinkle the cookie sheet with the corn meal, as it really helped with the sticking.

Singapore noodles

2011-04-18T13:21:00.002-05:00

Another clean-out-the-fridge-and-freezer meal: Singapore noodles.

My version of this dish started with some rice vermicelli soaked in hot water for a few minutes. Then, I sauteed sliced onion, garlic, shredded cabbage and some korean fish cake sheets in oil and curry powder. Once that was all soft and fragrant, I transferred it to a bowl and added shrimp and frozen peas to the pan with some more curry and salt. I only cooked those until they were heated through... I don't like my peas to get mealy or my shrimp to get chewy! To prevent either of those things from messing up my dinner, I took them out of the pan and put the noodles in with the original veggies. I think I could have saved myself some trouble by starting with the shrimp and peas, but my brain doesn't always work like that! Anyhow the whole thing gets stir-fried with a little soy sauce until the noodles are transluscent. Add shrimp and peas back in and give it a quick stir, then transfer to a bowl and top with fresh cilantro.

Behl Puri Kit

2011-04-18T08:38:00.004-05:00

There was a little Indian grocery next to The Curry Pot. While Stephen ran up and down the aisles snagging cucumbers, plantains and cartons of cumin cookies, I was looking for a tasty snack that Joe and I had a few years ago when we attended a festival with our former Indian neighbor, Ravi.

I LOVE Behl Puri. It's kind of like a vegetarian Indian taco salad made with savory dry cereal instead of tortilla chips and chutneys instead of salsa.

After purchasing this boxed Bhel Puri kit and inspecting the vacuum-sealed pouches inside, I learned that Bhel Puri is actually made up of Bhel mix-- little Rice Krispie-like lentil crackers, Puri--round and super fried lentil crackers, and Sev- which look like dried noodle bits. I make mine with chopped cooked potato, tomato, cucumber, cilantro and the three chutneys included in the kit: green chili, tamarind and garlic.

The Curry Pot in Chattanooga

2011-04-13T15:15:00.004-05:00

The Curry Pot is an Indian Buffet no where near the touristy part of town. The couple that own the buffet must be Christians, as their menu features a logo with a verse from 2 Corinthians on it. The food was much less spicy than the other Indian restaurants I've tried (and than Indian food I've had with Indian friends), but I really liked their Saag Paneer (spinach with fresh cheese cubes) and their Vegetable Korma (creamy veggies with cashews). I also liked their Channa Masala (spiced chickpeas)

Their tandoori chicken, a staple at most Indian buffets, was really charred and overdone. I wasn't a fan, but Stephen really dug it! He wolfed a PB&J and then realized there was more interesting food to be had. "Can I have some Indian food?" he blurted out loud enough for the ladies in the next booth over to swivel their heads and smile.

Big River Grille

2011-04-13T15:07:00.001-05:00

Between the two halfs of the Tennessee Aquarium, we took the boys to the Big River Grille and Brewing Company. First off, I'm not a huge fan of brewing companies and I get irked by places that add an unecessary "e" to the end of perfectly straight-forward words... eg "grille" or "shoppe".

And when the lady at the Visitor's info center suggested this restaurant in response to my query for an Italian or ethnic restaurant, I was a tiny bit annoyed. "Well, it's not really Italian, but it's very good and kid-friendly," she said.

I could tell that Joe was trying his best to find me something more exotic; afterall, Chattanooga offers plenty of cuisines that can't be found in little ole Hopkinsville, KY. I appreciated his efforts to preserve a happy wife, but we had the McQueen's double stroller and the clock was already circling toward 1:00 p.m.
"It's just across the street," she said.
"Let's just go there," I said.

The first thing I noticed was how genuinely nice the hostess and servers were. Our server even helped us lift the double stroller up two steps to a dining area that was less crowded and rearranged the tables near ours so we could roll sleeping Rockam up to the table. She was also quite knowledgeable, having eaten through every dish on the regular menu and some of the dishes on the new-that-day Pacific Rim specials menu.

The atmosphere was also nice--- sort of the typical masculine, dark wood decor you'd expect at a brewing company, but without any of the rowdyness. Despite being a rather large restaurant with several large seating areas, it was pretty quiet. Joe and I actually were able to have some decent conversation (I should qualify that my standard for "decent conversation" is considerably lower since having two kids).

Joe got some kind of burger. He ate it too quickly for me to remember what it was exactly, let alone take a picture. I ordered the Udon Noodle Bowl... laden with shitake mushroom slices, chopped baby bok choy, fried chicken cutlet and fresh bean sprouts. I've slurped a lot of udon in my day. This dish definitely did not taste Japanese, but it was really good :-) The broth was salty-sweet and the chicken was more of an American-style, but all the veggies were flavorful and fresh. Stephen enjoyed slurping some of my noodles in between handfuls of Goldfish and graham crackers.

Pasha Coffee and Tea

2011-04-13T14:19:00.007-05:00

Located near the bottom of the Incline railway in St. Elmo, Pasha Coffee and Tea caught my eye on the restaurant review site Urban Spoon.

Their menu includes yummy Middle-Eastern-influenced dishes like this Turkey Pesto Panini served with a side of pita chips and a grape-leaf dolma. They've also got breakfast all day, with various scrambled egg sandwiches. One was called curry eggs... but the girl behind the counter said if I was really hungry, the panini would fill me up better. I took her advice. Free of the buttery coating found on paninis I've had at Corner Bakery and Panera's, Pasha's Panini was more like something I might make in my toaster oven, well-stuffed with turkey, tomatoes, pesto and feta cheese. It would have been better if I could've eaten it hot off the press. Alas, Rockam was hungry too, and I had to nurse him right after I placed the order. So, even though it wasn't hot and toasty, it was still tasty. The petite dolma was tender and filled with tangy rice. The pita chips would have been better if there was some hummus or baba ganoosh to dip them in, but they did help fill me up.

Joe had one of the egg dishes, but he polished it off and had become engrossed in USA Today before I returned from nursing Rockam in one of the back rooms, so I really don't know much about it! He also ordered Turkish coffee, with the famous sludgy grinds at the bottom of the cup. We split a jumbo M&M cookie that was about 50 percent crunchy and 50 percent chocolate.

Pasha's atmosphere is artsy and rambling, with a small, strangly shaped main room and a couple of dimly lit back rooms that feel like hallways more than bona fide rooms, furnished with mismatched wicker furniture, metal cafe tables, a ficus with christmas lights and starving artist paintings on the walls. It's definitely a college town hang out, and it's youthful clientele and baristas made Joe and I feel like old fogeys... not intentionally, I'm sure.

Stephen really liked the big leather couch. He decided to take his nap a few minutes after I set him down on it.

Homemade focaccia

2011-04-13T14:11:00.000-05:00

I got this recipe out of my 3 and 4 ingredient cookbook. Just want to post the photo now that the boys are sleeping. Will put up the instructions later.

Turkish taste test

2011-04-13T14:08:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I helped my friend, Kai, prepare a meal that she planned to make for our church's small groups. She and her husband, Chris, are taking their four kids back onto the mission field in Turkey this December.

Chris and Kai have been some of our closest friends in Kentucky, and while we're really excited for them to have and heed a call from God, we're also so sad to see them leave.

Let's just say I've been doing some research and have decided that Cappadocia would be an awesome next big vacation. And the town of Urgup has what looks to be a really awesome restaurant called Ziggy's.

Anyway, back to the food above. Kai's menu has included Yogurt Chicken, Broiled Lamb, Spanikopita, and some kind of flat bread. She's also been making grape-leaf dolmas, pilaf and strong, sweet tea.

I love the yogurt chicken. It involved copious amounts of fresh herbs, lemon, garlic and onion as well as yogurt based sauce thickened with a little flour. We tweaked the spanikopita recipe so that we used fresh instead of frozen spinach, olive oil instead of butter and chunks of mozzarella instead of feta.

Cantaloupe Cookies

2011-01-13T16:12:00.000-06:00

It all started with a 99-cent cantaloupe from Aldi. It smelled good; it looked good. It did not get along with pregnant digestive track. I was burping cantaloupe all day two days ago. Because Joe isn't fond of the orange melon, and Stephen also tried and rejected it, I decided I would need to transform it into something else. My mom got me a copy of Gourmet's Cookie Book for Christmas, and I've been getting inspired before bed several nights now. (Even Stephen likes to look at it with me. He'll say: "How 'bout we read the cookie book?") What about cantaloupe cookies? I thought either a thumbprint or kolachky or bar cookie might work. Recipes for cantaloupe quick bread and cake abound on the Internet, but I couldn't find any cookie recipes. So this morning I decided to chop the thing up into tiny bits and cook them over medium with a big mound of sugar and a big shake of cardamom and a little tiny shake of ginger powder. I also added the zest of one lemon. Surprisingly, it turned into a very thick jam. I guess cantaloupe has a lot of natural pectin? I made a bar cookie base of a cup flour, 1/3 cup butter, some sliced almonds and a 1/4 cup instant oats, which I pressed into a square dish and baked for 18ish minutes until it was very lightly browned. I spread the cantaloupe mixture over that and then beat 2 eggs, the juice of one lemon and 3/4 cup sugar and 2 Tbs flour in a bowl and poured it over everything. It baked at 350 for maybe 20 minutes and came out like....

Not terribly pretty in my estimation, but pretty good for a completely experimental cookie. It's intensely lemony and sweet and rich and gooey. I'm pretty sure they need to be refrigerated. I think I could have upped the cardamom and ginger to give it a more obvious exotic flavor.

gingerbread

2010-12-16T13:53:00.000-06:00

Getting artsy

2010-12-09T17:47:00.000-06:00

I don't do a lot of creative cooking these days... with a two-year-old, a part-time job, baby due Feb 3 and various other projects to keep me busy, it seems I've lost a lot of my foodiness lately :-(. Joe now works at the local high school and keeps slightly odd hours. But occasionally I fight my laziness and make something interesting--or at least interesting to look at.

This one was trying to take a page from the Tre Kronor book (where I ate the most delicious fish ever back in September.) I mashed sweet potato with butter, orange juice and apples. I stacked some baked whiting on top of that, then spinach and a tomato relish. The whole thing is bordered with some flour-dusted, pan-fried zuchinni. Yum.

Thanksgiving - November 2010

2010-12-09T17:41:00.000-06:00

This Thanksgiving, we spent our holiday meal with some friends from church, Kristie and Cory Houston. They were gracious enough to open their home to (and feed) a rag-tag group of folks without local family. It was a treat eating their smoked turkey, wild boar, OYSTER STUFFING, and more traditional fixins at their home out in Christian County. Cory is in the Army and is being relocated to Washington in a very short while. We're blessed to have gotten to know them before they move.

I made mango cobbler, stuffed pumpkins and a garlicky salad.

Jack and Cris' wedding (food)

2010-12-09T17:35:00.002-06:00

My brother-in-law and his new wife, Cristiana, got married the weekend before Thanksgiving at the Sweetbriar golf club in Avon Lake, OH. The food at the reception was exceptional. I wish I had a photo of Joe's Apple Pork Tenderloin entree. I've never sampled such tender meat before. Stephen also liked his kid's meal: apple sauce, french fries and a real breaded chicken breast. Usually, I can't get him to eat meat, but he ate quite a bit.

I was one of only two guests to order the "vegetarian" option at the reception. It was excellent! A big, flaky phyllo-wrapped packet with roasted tomato, portabella and pencil asparagus. Served over rice pilaf and sauteed veggies.

Squash tradition goes on

2010-12-09T17:22:00.002-06:00

Continuing the weird squash tradition Joe and I began a couple years back with the purchase of the Cushaw, We got a great big, blue hubbard squash this year. It has orange flesh and grayish blue skin and quite a bit of flesh inside. I made pancakes and a bunch of other things out of it. Stephen really liked the pancakes. Above is a picture of Evan Couchman inspecting the alien-looking vegetable.

Basmati is now Bombay

2010-12-09T17:19:00.000-06:00

On the way home from Chicago (where we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday at the most awesome Swedish restaurant ever-- see previous post), we stopped in Champaign to eat lunch buffet at our favorite Indian restaurant, Basmati... only to find that it had been sold to Bombay, our second favorite Champaign Indian restaurant :-) The food was still yummy and the service was a cut above. One of the waiters took a liking to Stephen and gave him his own Mango Lassi (yogurt drink). Stephen loved the naan. I liked it all.

This restaurant is at the corner of I want to say First and White streets in Champaign on the outskirts of campus.

Chicago food - September 2010

2010-12-09T17:14:00.002-06:00

The best fish I've ever eaten... Trout at Tre Kronor, a Swedish restaurant in Chicago. It was butterflied and served with sauteed spinach and a chunky tomato sauce, most likely drenched in butter and lemon :-) The creamy white mound is potato gratin.

Our first garden

2010-12-09T17:10:00.000-06:00

Joe built me a raised bed in the backyard of our new home last spring. This post is about 6 months late... but here's a summary of what we grew and ate from our own backyard through one of the driest growing seasons Hopkinsville ever had... My herbs: dill, Thai basil, globe basil and red basil, cilantro.

Eggplant-- I grew purple, white, and green varieties.

Cucumbers transplanted from the McQueens' garden.

"Pineapple Tomatoes" -- an heirloom variety that I got from an Amish seller at the Hopkinsville Farmers Market. Delicious flavor, but small with tough skin.

My personal triumph, even if they look weird: Sweet Potatoes! I dug these up in late October, not sure what I might find. We ate some of them roasted and added the rest to a big pot of chili. Pretty good, but a lot of work. Early in the season I ate some of the leaves in soup. In Taiwan, sweet potato leaves are a common "qing tsai".

Fairy-tale salad and fresh chicken spring rolls

2010-05-25T14:57:00.002-05:00

I loved the way some of my raddishes from the farmer's market turned out to be purple. The purple ones were milder than the hot-pink edged variety. The two together made for a very pretty salad with peas, garbanzos and butter lettuce.
I harvested some of my cilantro, purple basil and globe basil to make spring rolls. The filling also included mung bean threads, chopped cabbage, chopped butter lettuce and strips of baked chicken breast.

My peanut sauce, which is not pictured, is:
big gob peanut butter
splashes vinegar and soy sauce
1 fat clove garlic, minced
mini glob honey
little shake cayenne

Chilly weather foods

2010-05-15T12:13:00.000-05:00

Last week's rainy weather made me whip out my fleeces and fuzzy socks... and whip up an easy ramen bowl, some homemade calzones and a non-dairy tilapia corn chowder.My favorite instant noodles, as I've mentioned in a previous post, are the "Hoo Roo Rook" Korean brand of low-fat ramen. They come with a broth packet, a sauce packet and a seasoning packet filled with freeze-dried green onion, egg strips, sesame seeds and sea weed. I love eating the noodles without the soup, topped with crunchy veggies, an egg or tofu, some boiled leafy greens, several shakes toasted sesame and tossed in some teriyaki sauce and a little canola oil.
I haven't mastered calzone dough. But the fillings: salami, spinach, mushroom, mozzarella and tomato sauce were spot on. The Parrino boys wolfed down my batch of eight calzones in two days.
Finally, though I'll admit it looks rather unappetizing, I made a really tasty tilapia corn chowder with chicken stock, 5 or 6 yellow potatoes, sweet onion, a little garlic, dried and fresh dill, a small squeeze of lemon juice, canned sweet corn and three frozen tilapia fillets. Sorry, I didn't measure anything, as usual. But I started by sauteeing the onion and garlic in some oil (butter would've been better). Then I added the diced, peeled potatoes and covered it with the chicken stock, some of the corn "juice" and water to cover everything. Once everything was well cooked, I added half of the corn and my tilapia. Once the fish was flaky, I removed it and used an immersion blender to blend the rest of the soup. After that, I added the fish back in, the rest of the corn and just a little lemon juice and seasoned thoroughly with dill and salt.

BBQ Tuna burgers

2010-05-07T10:51:00.002-05:00

This is something I make for myself when Joe isn't around to eat with me. He's not fond of tuna burgers. But mine are so good they don't even taste like tuna :-)

To make my yummiest ever BBQ tuna burgers:

Start with:
2 cans chunk light tuna in oil or water, drained
1/3 cup instant oats
1 egg
3 Tbs Sweet Baby Ray's or your favorite sauce
3 scallions, chopped finely
pepper, cayenne, salt to taste

Shape into flat patties and pan-fry in a little bit of vegetable oil until browned on both sides and a little crispy.

Pile patties onto some bread with tomato and lettuce. Enjoy!

Coconut chicken sweet potato curry

2010-05-07T09:08:00.002-05:00

I mentioned in my previous post that I've been on a campaign to feed my husband lunch. I'm really embarrassed to say that ever since he started his permanant subbing position at Rossview Middle School in Clarksville, I couldn't quite get up early enough to pack him some leftovers.

When I was tallying up our receipts and saw things like atomic fireballs and giant packs of slimjims, I knew it was time to intervene. So, with the purchase of a new set of plastic food containers, I spent one very productive Friday making freezer meals.

I made the quiche muffins from the previous post, a hearty turkey vegetable soup (canned tomato, canned corn, ground turkey, head cabbage, garbanzos, potato, green beans), and this coconut chicken curry with sweet potatoes and peas. The photo is the curry spread over some instant rice noodles.

To make an easy curry:
Saute some chicken or extra firm tofu until browned.
Pour in a can of coconut milk.
Add some fish sauce (or soy)
Curry powder
Salt and sugar to taste
I like adding a little cayenne, but your favorite hot sauce will do.
Add cooked veggies and let the whole things simmer until everything's permeated with the sauce.
Squeeze a half or whole lime over it, if you like a little tang.
Serve over rice or noodles.

Another cyberfridge cleanout...

2010-05-06T16:02:00.007-05:00

Baozi. I promised I'd write the recipe last time I posted about these, but I never did. I'm gonna have to make another empty promise...
EDIT 5/7/10: OK,I actually found my chicken-scratch recipe for the baozi dough:

3 cups flour
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp yeast (or one packet)
1 cup warm water, give or take a teaspoon
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1 large egg

To make dough:
Combine flour, pinch of salt in a bowl. Make a well in the flour and pour in oil and beaten egg. Proof yeast with sugar in water. Once it's foamy, pour into the well and stir, gradually incorporating flour into liquid in the well.

Knead into a soft, but not terribly sticky, dough. If it's stiff, add a few drops of water at a time until it's soft. If it's sticky, add a tsp flour at a time until it's not.

Let it rise in a bowl, covered with platic wrap and placed in a warm, dry, draft-free spot. (I put mine on top of the stove.)

After an hour, punch down the dough. Let it rise again until it's double the original size.

Divide the dough in half, then each half into half... etc. until you've got 16 balls of dough.

Starting with one dough ball, press or roll the ball into a flattened circle, about 1/4-inch thick. Scoop one tablespoon of filling into the center and then pinch the edges together to close, giving it a little twist to seal. Place bun seam-side down in a steamer basket and steam for 10 to 15 minutes.

As for the filling, I'm afraid I usually just wing it.
So, try using the following ingredients to taste:
1 lb ground turkey, crumbled and cooked with
chopped sauteed cabbage
shredded sauteed carrot
chopped sauteed onion
a few splashe soy sauce
a few drops vinegar
generous amount of garlic/garlic powder
pinch cinnamon or five spice
a couple spoonfuls sugar
a few shakes salt
pepper
a dusting of cayenne or chili powder

You'll probably have filling left over. So, you'll just have to make some more buns!

Veggie Quiche Muffins. It's pastry made from scratch, filled with veggies, cheese and eggs. I made these for Joe to take to work, as I've been on a campaign to actually feed him.
On the opening day of the downtown farmers market, I bought some beautiful barrel-shaped radishes... from which I made baked radish chips that got eaten so fast that I don't have any photos. :-(
Morroccan Carrot soup... so delicious I was calling it a carroty butter cookie in a bowl. I ate it for breakfast it was so good. From Bon Apetit, which is just barely growing on me. I'm going to post the recipe as soon as I post the baozi recipe, if you know what I mean.
Finally, something I didn't cook: Tried some new specials at Da Vinci's while my mom was visiting. The foreground has lobster ravioli with sage and butter sauce. I love sage with pasta.

Clean out the cyber-fridge post

2010-03-24T13:46:00.005-05:00

Once again, my complete neglect of this blog is resulting in a lame-o post featuring photos of things I ate over the last month but can't remember exactly how I made them. Sorry, friends. I know it seems like I'm saying "Na-na-na-nah-naaah" but I'm not. I wish I could eat these things again too.
This, obviously, is not something I made. Joe and I ate late lunch at a Vietnamese/pan-Asian joint in Green Valley, AZ, after our day at the Sonoran Desert Museum. I always order bun with spring rolls.
My mom and I made kolacky cookies the last time she was in town. These are almond filled.
The highlight of this meal is the quinoa "pilaf" that featured almonds and cucumbers.

Spinach pockets from my East-West Mennonite cookbook.
Homemade Sweet Potato Gnochi with "manager's special" Buitoni Pesto, pinenuts and diced roma tomato.

Brussels sprout candy

2010-02-12T11:08:00.002-06:00

I just wanted to get your attention with that one :)The maple bacon brussels sprouts at Harper House on Main Street in Downtown Hoptown are labeled as a side dish, but they were so yummy that I thought of mine as dessert.

My parents swooped in last Thursday night for my birthday and blessed me with a weekend of great meals.

I know before I swore allegiance to Da Vinci's calamari as the best (only) in town. But the calamari at Harper House really got me talking. It seemed like the squid they used were extra tiny, and the pieces were also very finely cut. The batter was very light and salty. And the whole mess of rings and legs was piled on top of this tomato-sausage-peppercorn sauce that was like a different country in every bite.

So I think Harper House's calamari is my new favorite version of squid. I've got some frozen squid in my freezer and I'm very tempted to try to replicate this dish.

I ordered salmon with the aforementioned brussels sprouts and new fingerling potatoes. It was all "Um-Meee" as Stephen likes to say. We at on the second floor, at a table overlooking main street. Stephen had a blast running up to the window and creating fingerprint art while shouting "Up! Up! Up!" -- I'm assuming because he was excited to be up. There really aren't very many second floors in this town. The wait staff were really sweet and helpful, without being cloying. They accidentally brought out a side of maccaroni for Stephen, loaded him up with colorful straws with plastic fish on the ends, and brought a free dessert to make up for my dad's porkchop being overcooked. Oh. And we accidentally brought home the etch-a-sketch they lent Stephen. I'm bringing back as soon as I can afford to eat there again :-)

There are many reasons to like this restaurant:
1. The food is really yummy. The menu offers mostly "new southern" cooking and enough adventurous choices to give me something to look forward to ordering next time.
2. Harper House occupies a building in the heart of downtown, where we desperately need classy gathering places.
3. They play old movies on the back wall.
4. The staff are personable and attentive, without seeming like their sole motive is to garner a big tip.
7. The atmosphere is just the right balance of sophisticated and warm, bustling but allowing for intimate conversation.
6. They've got deviled eggs on their menu.

Meat and meat

2010-01-22T07:54:00.004-06:00

Joe and I have been on a modified Daniel Fast--- basically a vegan and whole grain and sugarfree diet, except that I'm eating some disallowed foods for health reasons. But I won't bore you with the details. Anyhow, these two dishes were things I ate before the Daniel Fast:

Lemony garlicky lamb with sauteed cauliflower and some really ugly biscuits that I decided not to memorialize. Our friend and fellow foodie, Martha Mills, blessed us by buying and preparing us the lamb. Even though I've always been fearful of cooking red meat, her method was simplicity itself:
1. Soak lamb in salted water to get rid of excess blood/overt lamb-y flavor
2. Slice a medium onion into rings, and slice a few cloves garlic.
3. Layer half of onion and garlic on bottom of glass baking dish, then arrange lamb on top.
4. Spred remainng onion and garlic on top of lamb.
5. Squeeze juice of one lemon over everything.
6. Add about a centimeter of water to the pan.
7. Cover with foil and cook at 350 until the bone separates from the meat.

Thai Meatballs... inspired by a recipe in my East-West Mennonite Cookbook. These are turkey, onion, garlic, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and I don't remember what else meatballs. Oh, cayenne.

Woodlands Indian Vegetarian restaurant

2009-12-31T09:46:00.004-06:00

After a shopping spree at Trader Joe's in Nashville, my mom took Stephen and I to the Woodlands Indian restaurant. It's a vegetarian place, specializing in dosas-- long slightly sour crepe burritos, stuffed with potatoes or other fillings. I could do without the dosas (in the lower right corner of the photo above), but I did really like some of the other foods in the buffet.
Stephen was also eager to eat most of what we gave him. A little too eager in this case. He likes to stick big things in his mouth and watch me have a fit. He doesn't gag like he used to, he just maneuvers it around in his mouth until he's whittled it down to chewable and then swallowable size.

I especially liked one of their dessert dishes... it was made of cream of wheat, bright yellow and flavored with sugar or honey, milk, maybe cardomom and possibly orange zest? The consistency was like a soft polenta and it was studded with cashews and soft dried fruit. I've been craving some ever since... but I don't know what it's called and it wasn't on the paper menu I brought home.

This restaurant is hard to find, we overshot it even with the help of GPS. It's on the ground floor of an apartment complex at the intersection of West End Ave. and Highway 440.

Forlorn Appetit

2009-12-31T09:04:00.002-06:00

This post is very late... but I received my first copy of Bon Appetit, which was to replace the remainder of my subscription to Gourmet. The little card accompanying this magazine assured me that though Gourmet might be missed, I would love Bon Appetit. They couldn't have been more wrong. I felt that this magazine was geared toward people who don't like to read, as hardly any of the pieces were more than a page. And they used the tiniest ugliest little font for their body text, further discouraging those of us who do like to read. Which could be possibly be forgiven if the photos and recipes were much to look at... but in this case, they weren't. It seemed like all of the art was taken in this sort of movie-theater-lighting, all dark, dramatic and starkly spotlit. Completely unappetizing. My huz enjoyed an article about Sriracha... the rooster-adorned hot sauce that has sat on tables in Argyle restaurants for decades. It did have some interesting information about the owner and the sauce's comparison to authentic srirachas in Vietnam, but I felt like the tone of the article made it sound like the writer thought he was so cutting edge to be discussing the Sriracha craze, which isn't new at all. The writer also used a friend's opinion as his sole bit of information backing his ending conclusion that American Sriracha was just like authentic Vietnamese sriracha sauces. So, lazy journalism to boot. Nothing like the great long-form pieces in Gourmet.

Mostly I'm bent out of shape because Gourmet ended in Novemeber, one month shy of their Christmas cookie issue and Bon Appetit delivered January's issue.

Sous foodie

2009-12-19T09:58:00.000-06:00

Guest post from Joe: A pizza pretzel isn't exactly exotic fare but it sure hit the spot while we were hitting the town. Our outing included three hours at Nashville's Adventure Science Center and Green Hills Shopping Center. Walking the mall often puts Emily in the mood for a bite at Auntie Anne's. This time it was me who initiated the snack. I was also the one to document it for Moodie Foodie. Emily called me her sous foodie. There's hope for me yet.

Buona Beef and Tensuke Market

2009-11-30T13:16:00.004-06:00

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Joe, Stephen and I took our first flight to Chicago as a family. Stephen did really well... though he did guzzle about five sippy cups of diluted apple juice in a little over an hour. While we were there, Joe was stationed at a table representing Kuei Shan School for an international Christian school expo held at several Christiain colleges in the Chicago area. Steve and I were free to eat, play and chill out with my mom. We had sandwiches from Buona Beef one night... mine was a chicken artichoke pesto panini, crunchy and compact like a panini ought to be (in my opinion.)
Mom had the egg and pepper sandwich, only offered on Fridays (for meat-avoiding Catholics, I guess.)
We also all went out for dinner at Tensuke Market, a little Korean/Japanese grocery that has a casual restaurant in the back. I got the soba set, which came with soba soup, shrimp and vegetable tempura, california roll, fried tofu squares and salmon chirashi. Yum! This photo combines some leftover udon with one tofu square. Sorry, no photos from the original meal.

Silke's German Bakery

2009-11-14T08:50:00.004-06:00

Joe had the day off on Wednesday, which happens to be our anniversary... We started dating 11 years ago and were engaged 9 years ago on Nov. 11. Those were frigid, gray days in Cleveland, Ohio. But our day was sunny and filled with fall color and good eats, such as this authentic German SPAM :-) with eggs and briochen from Silke's German Bakery in Clarksville, Tenn.
The decor of the bakery was kind of like a garden with plenty of nature art for sale on the walls and little mosaic patio tables. There was even a picket fenced area for children. We sat right next to it so Munchi could play.
I had a melted brie and apple sandwich with honey. We also split an almond croissant and later, a pan au chocolat.

Da Vinci Little Italian Restaurant

2009-11-14T08:32:00.002-06:00

Let me just say that I ate Da Vinci food three times in one week. The first time was for the story, the second two were just because I couldn't get enough of the calamari. :-) Stephen liked his baby pizza.

Italian chef opens North Drive eatery

By Emily Parrino, Special to the New Era
Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 12:53 PM CDT
Pavel Skorpil’s signature Italian salad dressing, marinara sauce and pizza dough are all freshly made. Alexa Becker rattled off the list as though she was preparing for a quiz.

“Pavel, you make your meatballs from scratch?” she directed the question toward the kitchen where her husband was rolling out pizza dough.

“Yes I do,” Pavel fired back.

“He makes them from scratch,” Alexa repeated.

“You didn’t know this?” Pavel shouted from the kitchen, feigning indignation. “You’re fired!”

“Yeah, he makes everything from scratch,” Alexa said. “I am so glad I don’t work in the kitchen.”

The feisty couple are chef and head server of Da Vinci Little Italian Restaurant, an eatery in the former Pizza Roma storefront on North Drive. Pavel is keen on treating the town to authentic Italian, but is also learning what locals like.

Since opening on Oct. 13, they’ve been selling mounds of meaty entrées.

“The first day, everyone wanted meat lover’s pizza,” Alexa explained. “The second day it was all Italian Sausage sandwiches. It was like everyone was calling their friends and telling them to order the same thing.”

Spaghetti and meatballs and lasagna with meat sauce have also been big sellers. Pavel also offers an Italian-style pulled pork sandwich with mushrooms and creamy gravy on foccia. In a town where meat-and-three is a menu staple, Alexa urged her husband to offer traditional barbecue sauce as a substitute to the Italian gravy.

“A lady ordered it the other day,” Alexa said, “and she was surprised.”

“She thought the flavors went well together,” Pavel said.

Pavel, originally from Italy, and Alexa, a German native, met and fell in love at a restaurant in Clarksville, Tenn., where they both worked. Pavel had initially come to the U.S. to be chef of a restaurant in Destin, Fla., before moving to Atlanta and eventually Clarksville. Each time, Pavel cooked a menu according to the owner’s set recipes and specifications.

After the Clarksville venue closed, Alexa urged her husband to be a chef once more, but this time using his own recipes.

“I told Pavel, ‘You should quit working for other people and open your own restaurant,’” Alexa said.

The couple agreed on opening Da Vinci in Hopkinsville, lured by the lower cost of rent and hoping to bring authentic Italy to the locals.

The bustle of business their opening week seemed to heat husband and wife up with the intensity of the Blodgett stone pizza oven that fills Pavel’s kitchen.

“We yell so much,” Alexa said. “But we don’t take it home with us.”

These days they don’t go home very often. The restaurant is open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner, with Pavel staying up, sometimes until 2 a.m. to make his dough from scratch.

“I am always busy,” he said. “I was born busy!”

“He makes dough by hand, using fresh ingredients,” Alexa explained. “One time he put a towel over the bowl and said, ‘Shh! Everybody be quiet because if you’re loud it will sink.’”

Pavel trained at a cooking school in Bolzano, northern Italy, but he learned his favorite dish, lasagna, from cooking under his grandmother in Milan. He still calls his popular recipe “Nona Lasagne,” using the Italian word for grandma.

In addition to the long hours, bringing Italian food culture to Hopkinsville has proved challenging. In Italy, lunch breaks are typically two hours, Pavel said.

“So if you go in a restaurant, the cook will make the pasta and bring it to you fresh, which takes between 10 and 15 minutes to prepare,” Pavel said. “You can’t do this because people here have only 30 or 40 minutes for lunch.”

He also decided to offer some decidedly American items like buffalo wings, deep pan pizza and cheese sticks alongside authentic Italian items like Mussels Alla Diavola and Calamari Fritti.

Still, Pavel is proud to make the majority of his menu from fresh ingredients. He tells Alexa to tell customers he uses specially ordered unbleached flour to make his dough.

“Unbleached flour is much better for your stomach,” Pavel said.

Pavel’s original recipes include Da Vinci Salad with mixed greens, grilled chicken, sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes and feta; and his White Pizza, topped with crème, mozzarella, roma tomatoes, proscuitto and mushrooms.

The restaurateurs say their menu and long hours have won them many compliments.

Several of Da Vinci’s diners early Saturday evening were repeat customers.

“It was delicious again,” a woman said to the server as she left.

“Bye y’all,” Alexa said with a convincing twang. “Have a great day!”

Emily Parrino can be reached at 270-887-3237 or eparrino@kentuckynewera.com.

Vegan Vittles

2009-10-21T08:24:00.006-05:00

That was the hammer on my food story a week ago. Today's New Era will feature Da Vinci Little Italian Restaurant, but I'll wait until it's published before I blog, so as not to scoop myself. :-) So for today, let's talk about The Little Teapot Cafe in Bradford Square:
I had the "Chick" Tetrazzini with a side of peas, fresh all-grain bread and some kind of soy butter.

Here's the story I wrote for the New Era:
Vegan vittles

The Little Teapot Cafe serves up veggie versions of homestyle classics
By Emily Parrino, Special to the New Era
Published: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 1:35 PM CDT
Barbara Neher opened the oven and pulled out pale loaves of all-grain bread. The 72-year-old great-grandma flicked the crusty tops, hoping to hear a hollow sound. Dissatisfied with the response, she shoved them back into the oven.

The galley kitchen where Neher and her husband, Jack, prepared the day’s blue plate special was full of the yeasty aroma that greets customers at The Little Teapot Café, which opened last month at Bradford Square.

The quilt-festooned décor, the spindly furniture, calico cloth napkins and the heady smells from the kitchen conjure up feelings of comfort and coziness. Teapot’s menu includes a daily blue plate special and homey items like potato salad, muffins and chili.

“We get more people coming in who say, ‘I just feel like I’ve gone to my grandmother’s house,’” Neher said of the Teapot’s charm.

But this isn’t your grandma’s cooking.

Every dish the Nehers serve is vegan; free of meat, eggs, and dairy ingredients. Breads are cooked from scratch with an emphasis on whole grains. Baked goods use raw, organic sugar and flaxseed gel in place of eggs.

“They’re all dishes you’re familiar with, but vegan,” Neher explained.

Dishes like “Chick” Salad Sandwiches and Garden Patch Burgers, modeled after familiar comfort foods, are designed to be low-fat and low-cal. To add protein and meatiness, Teapot dishes rely on soy and wheat protein.

And Neher’s spice rack spans one wall of the kitchen.

“I’ve had vegan dishes before that were just blah,” she said with a frown.

“Like sticks and twigs,” her husband chimed in.

“But I like color,” Neher said. “I’m big on flavor.”

At the height of the lunch hour Monday, only a few customers wandered in.

“Two taco salads,” said the Nerher’s daughter, Teresa Ingle, who works as a waitress at the Teapot.

Barbara Neher arranged corn chips, vegetarian chili, fresh vegetables and vegetarian “cheeze” shreds on mis-matched China.

In a town where many restaurant are shuttered before reaching one year in business, the Nehers were prepared to labor long. They see their café as a mission to improve the health of the city rather than a money-making venture.

“We knew there wasn’t any vegetarian restaurants in town and we figured it’d be slow for people to come in,” Nerher explained. “Business has been slow, but we’re not real disappointed on that.This is a self-supporting ministry. The Lord is our partner. Everybody that works here is a volunteer.”

The Nehers are devout in their faith, but say they use the restaurant to spread a message of healthy eating, not religious beliefs.

“We’re concerned about the health of our area,” Neher said. “A lot of people would like to be healthy, but they don’t know how.”

Adjacent to the dining room, the Nehers have set up rows of student desks and a book display with healthy cookbooks.

“We have free health classes, but you have to buy the textbook,” Jack Neher said.

Classes take place at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and the next session begins Oct. 20, he added.

“We want to teach them what power you have on your plate!”

For Ingle, that power allowed her to drop 100 pounds and control her diabetes.

“We also give out recipes,” she said. “We’re wanting people to eat healthier so we share.”

Her mother said the changes her family has made have had great rewards, and that she hopes the café could help people ease into a new lifestyle.

“There’s fanatics everywhere you go,” Barbara. “We try not to be that way. We believe any step toward a plant-based diet is great.”

Neher is no stranger to championing causes. In 2004, she, her husband and Ingle founded the It’s My Very Own: Bags of Love program to provide blankets and toiletries for children who have recently been move to foster care.

With The Little Teapot Café, the Nehers hope to continue their family tradition of ministering to people in a way that conforts them.

“My philosphy is that I don’t want to make people uncomfortable…You don’t have to worry when you come in here,” Barbara said. “It’s all healthy and it’s all low-cal.”

Emily Parrino can be reached at 270-887-3237 or eparrino@kentuckynewera.com.

John's visit

2009-10-16T14:59:00.004-05:00

My cousin, John Tilsch, came for a visit as he was traveling across the country from Chicago to his new home in Colorado. He studied at Vandy, so southern barbecue (meat-n-threes) are familar to him. We got Woodshed pulled pork and plenty of pie.

Salmon Pattie Salad

2009-10-16T14:54:00.003-05:00

My mom was nice enough to give me a bunch of canned salmon... another good way to get some affordable omega-3s in our diet. I made my patties with Italian style bread crumbs, and some salmon seasoning mix, chopped onion and 1 egg. I pan fried them in olive oil and served them over fresh spinach drizzled with honey mustard.

This is just a random picture of what I think is some really beautiful sushi from Tokyo Sushi in Paducah. I loved the generous sprinkling of green caviar...it looks like fat colored sugar crystals. There were also some fat orange fish roe inside... tobiko?

Peanut pumpkins

2009-10-16T14:18:00.004-05:00

I've been back at the New Era part time since the middle of September. Being out of the house more puts me in contact with more blog-worthy food topics, but it also eliminates my time for blogging.
I was checking out the area's fresh markets for a story and came across this stand at the Dew's place on Pembroke Road. I had interviewed them back when I was features editor about some 80s McDonald's Playland equipment they were refurbishing for their grandkids. It caught my attention to see the Hamburger jail and Grimace in their yard. Well, the equipment is gone, but there's this wonderfully stocked farmstand instead. Eldridge had quite a few unsual pumpkins... Peanut Pumpkin, Fairytale and Long Island Cheese among them

Cashew Chicken with Bean Threads

2009-10-16T14:05:00.003-05:00

My mom gave me a bag of Trader Joe's unsalted, roasted cashews recently and I'd been thinking about the cashew stir-fries I enjoyed in Bangkok a few years ago when my friend, Priscilla, and I met there for a mini-vacation.

So this was my best approximation. I served it over bean threads simmered in the leftover juices.

Start with 1/2 cup cashews, heated in a little oil on medium heat until toasted. Add 8 ounces of white mushrooms, halved or quartered depending on how big they are. Chopped red and green bell pepper, sweet onion, and chopped garlic come next. Add a tablespoon of oyster sauce, a splash of soy sauce and rice vinegar, and maybe a tablesoon of sugar along with garlic powder to taste. Last, add 1/2 a chicken breast, cubed and cook until done.

Reserve the juices to add to a little water to simmer two bundles of mung bean thread noodles until translucent and soft.

Joe's birthday

2009-10-16T13:57:00.005-05:00

On Oct. 7, we went out as a family for Joe's 34th birthday to Outback Steakhouse in Clarksville. We don't go there very often...but Joe had a coupon and it was his day :-)

Joe ordered rack of lamb and I shared my salmon with steamed vegetables with Stephen. They were nice enough to cook my vegetables extra-mushy (as in mushy enough to eat with 2 1/2 teeth) on request. The portions weren't huge, but everything was so well salted that I felt very full. The salmon was perfectly cooked and crispy on the edges. Joe like his lamb so much he even at the fat. If you know my husband's aversion to grissle, you'll understand what a big compliment to the chef that was!

Lil' Punkins

2009-10-16T13:52:00.004-05:00

Joe and I started a family tradition when we bought the anthropomorphic cushaw squash a couple years ago. We decided every autumn we should buy an unusual gourd. We also felt we had to get Stephen his first pumpkin. A little pie pumpkin for baby, turban squash for mom and dad.
I'm looking forward to making these into something... I just haven't settled on the right recipe yet.

Whiting po'boy

2009-10-16T13:22:00.003-05:00

Since Joe's been student teaching, I've been looking for ways to feed us as cheaply as possible without giving up the four food groups. I found Aldi's bag of frozen whiting filets, at $3.49 for 24 ounces, are probably the cheapest non-fishstick seafood available in Hoptown. But that's excluding whatever lurks in Little River.

So, since The Po'Boy closed, I've been craving a grilled fish sandwich. The whiting cooks nicely in the oven or skillet, either breaded or plain. It wears lemon juice, garlic powder and herbs well. And the unpleasantly fishy odor disappears once it's been cooked. Joe has to peel off the skin before he can eat it, but other than that, these fillets are ready to go. I served mine sauteed over garlic baguette, with garden tomato, a sprinkling of sweet corn and lemon juice.

Phyllo dough meaty samosa

2009-10-16T13:16:00.002-05:00

I just found this photo of something I concocted way back in August when Tatiana was still living with us. My phyllo had been hiding in the back of the freezer from some time, so it had that sharp past-its-prime flavor. Also, I think this would have been much better with some thick greek yogurt for dipping.

I don't remember what I put in it... just that it was ground chicken, cauliflower, curry powder, garam masala, cayenne and probably some garlic and onion. Then I wrapped it in three sheets phyllo, rubbed with oil, then baked until crispy.

September cooking

2009-10-16T12:50:00.005-05:00

I do still cook. Not as much as I'd like, but even the busyness of two jobs and motherhood doesn't keep me out of the kitchen for long. I've been holding on to these photos for a while now...
Spinach quiche with homemade oil crust. I followed a recipe that called for milk in the crust. I don't think I've got the touch to make a flaky oil crust, but it did taste good. Stephen was crazy about this stuff. I made two pies, and he pretty much ate half of one by himself.
A simple chickpea salad with cucumber, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, onion and tomato. I love chickpeas in most forms, so I liked this dish as well.
Coconut veggie curry. I took a can of coconut milk, some chinese curry powder, garlic powder, splash of fish sauce, juice of a lime, salt, a little sugar, canned carrots, broccoli and cabbage and simmered it all until tender. I served it over some Vietnamese noodles. A few weeks later I tried the same thing but used sweet potato, white potato, cauliflower and broccoli and served it over rice.

A couple of bones to pick

2009-09-05T11:59:00.006-05:00

Oh, Hopkinsville. I always try to give you the benefit of the doubt, but here you go annoying me again.

OSAKA JAPANESE RESTAURANT
Many of us were ecstatic when we saw the old Skinny's Diner/Chicago Style Grill building on the boulevard morph into Osaka Japanese restaurant. Hopkinsville, I'm told, used to have an excellent sushi restaurant until their chef returned to his homeland and the place shuttered it's sprawling plantation-style building. The classy building eventually reopened as a smokey sportsbar that felt (and tasted, in my opinion) more like someone's ugly basement than a restaurant. I digress.

Knowing that the owners were Chinese, and the restaurant was no where near bodies of water that contain fish commonly used in sushi, I wasn't expecting it to offer the cuisine of it's namesake city (where Joe and I were unable to even afford the sushi when we visited.) However, I would expect the staff to be a little bit familiar with their menu offerings. And how to pronounce the word "tofu." And for the chef to prepare dishes according to the menu description.

Suffice it to say, my mom and I were dually unimpressed. And our comiserating probably ruined it for the rest of our party... sorry, guys. We moody foodies can't help ourselves. I was really wanting to like the restaurant, too. I've been longing for a sushi place to succeed here, especially since half of the clientele at Yamato's just across the state line have Kentucky plates. But I have little hope for this newest eatery.

Stephen did enjoy the corner booth... at least until he threw up tofu and a cup of pool water all over daddy's lap.

INCREDIBLE SHRINKING BARGAINS
My next "bone" isn't exactly Hopkinsville's fault. From reading this blog and my old New Era columns, you might have picked up that I'm a Kroger grocery store fan. I do force myself into Aldi from time to time because it's supposed to be cheaper, but I think I find the best deals in the little orange "manager's special" stickers at Kroger. Plus, it's gotten to where I know their sale cycle... namely the beloved "10 for 10" sales. They come around every 5 or 6 weeks-- and I can get boxes of pasta, frozen vegetables, brownie mixes, good hand soap and other kitchen staples for what I consider reasonable prices. I'm the girl in the self-check out with 15 bags of frozen Brussels sprouts, lima beans and chopped spinach. And at 16 ounces each, the bags supply 15 dinner's worth of veggies to cram into my freezer. But as I eagerly awaited 10 for 10 week this past month, I noticed some snazzy new changes in my freezer aisle: lights that dimmed until a customer activated a motion sensor, doors that were completely fogged up and more stylish packaging on the store's generic frozen vegetables.

That's when it hit me. Prettier packaging... but smaller bags. No longer can my George Washington get me 16 beautiful ounces of cauliflower... rather just 12 skimpy ounces. I squinted at the price label. Sure enough, it read 10/$10.00, 12 oz. Cauliflower. My eyes raced along the shelves holding an expanse of swanklily packaged produce. 12 oz. 12 oz. 12 oz. Surely, this makes it so there's no savings at all.

In an effort to cheat the system one last time, I dug behind the puny bags and unearthed the remaining 16 ounce packages in their dowdy white wrappers, and pitched them into my cart. To my temporary satisfaction, they rang up at a dollar each. But my days of feeling like I got a good deal are coming to a close. I suppose stores and producers across the country have been sneeking in ways to give the consumer less for more. But it burns me that while burger and soda sizes have increased exponentially over the years, my humble but wholesome sack of veggies is dwindling.

Date Night in Paris

2009-08-24T21:57:00.006-05:00

OK, I didn't really go to Paris. But Joe and I did get to have a date night on our 8th anniversary in Franklin, Tenn., at the Viking Cooking School. On the menu with Chef Jamie: Coc au vin, salad with chevre, tomato tartlet and crepes suzzette.
As is often the case in these Viking classes (Joe and I have Thai cooking, Morroccan and Superfoods under our apron strings) I was completely lost for most of it. The recipes in the packets barely coincided with what the instructor was doing. The droplets of oil leaping from the pans stung my hands. And it was sometimes hard to tell the little ramekins of salt from the sugar or the walnut oil from the honey... a mistep that could have be disasterous, or at least a little disgusting!

But when it came to crepe making, I was a pro. :-)

Getting my fill of ethnic eats

2009-08-24T20:56:00.004-05:00

For those of you that keep up with the Daily Munchie, this post is going to be old hat. But I had some photos from our trip (beginning of the month) to Chicago and some opinions as well.
Sushi Ya- a newer Japanese restaurant close to the Schaumburg Township District Library, where my mom works.
Chicken bowl for Stephen
He was being a bit of a pill trying to escape his high chair and stuffing too big of pieces of chicken in his mouth when no one was watching, but I think he enjoyed it too.
And we ordered the "Schaumburg Roll" just because I think it's cool to order sushi rolls named after towns. It was good- no cream cheese or anything gross. Just softshell crab, eel, avocado etc.

Saffron - An Indian restaurant in Schaumburg off Wise Road.
Despite the exotic sounding name, Saffron's decor was kind of like a hotdog place or a sub shop. It also seemed to be run by one person (maybe there was someone else hiding in the back) and our food took a long time to arrive. Or maybe it wasn't really that long, but Stephen was again up to his worst restaurant behavior so it seemed like an eternity. Thankfully, there's a great fresh market with an extensive Indian food section a couple doors down from Saffron, and it served as a good diversion for fussy baby and frazzled parents.
The food was a mix of what I can only assume is authentic- like the peppery hot birani rice dish- and east meets west like "Tandoori pizza" which was actually one of my favorite dishes. The samosas were great... but had more black pepper than my tongue could handle. I've got a pretty decent tolerance for chili pepper hot and wasabi hot, but black pepper really does me in. Munchie also turned bright red when we tried to let him sample some chicken from the pizza. Poor kid!

Pork chops and rice

2009-07-28T09:32:00.004-05:00

Our friend and house guest, Tatiana, treated us to Southern-style fried pork chops and rice Sunday night.

I have to say, I've never known pork chops to be especially tender or tasty, but this girl's chops turned all my pork misconceptions on their heads. The key, she says,is in double-dipping them into a mix of flour, cayenne and season salt, then frying both sides in oil about an inch deep. What doesn't taste good fried in oil?
She also served cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. The veggies in the photo were my doing, of course.

Korean ramen and fishcake soup

2009-07-20T14:28:00.003-05:00

Summer doesn't seem like the best time for a steaming bowl of fishball goodness, but it's been cool here this week. So why not?

I'm hooked on "healthy" ramen noodles. You probably didn't know that they made those curly instant noodle bricks without all the msg, fat and sodium that have endeared them to budget conscious college students. I had been buying "Smart Choice" ramen at Kroger, but they stopped carrying them a couple months after I discovered them. They're great because they cook in boiling water in 60 seconds and have 3 grams of fat per brick as opposed to the 20 grams in the real stuff. They also taste good. Granted, you can tell they don't have all the hydrogenated oil of the original, but it's nothing a dash of sesame oil or canola oil can't cure.

I was moping about my discovery and subsequent deprivation when my mom came to the rescue, in usual fashion, by finding them in the Chicago suburbs and buying all 50 packages on the shelf. I'd been living off those noodles for a better portion of the year, but finally finished them last month. This last visit, she brought a new kind of "healthy" ramen... called HooRooRook. I don't know if that's some kind of Korean onomatopoeia or what, but these noodles are even better than the Smart Choice. They've only got a gram of fat and they come with a packet of seaweed and other tasty seasoning bits, a better flavored soup base and a tiny packet of (sodium rich, I'm sure) brown pasty stuff to stir in at the last minute. Smart Choice came in beef and chicken noodle flavor and I usually threw out the packet and just dressed the noodles in teriyaki or soy sauce and a little bit of vegetable oil or toasted sesame seeds.

If you get your hands on some HooRooRook, or any instant noodles, I recommend boiling them with some chopped cabbage and frozen assorted fish cakes for a quick and satisfying meal. Mmmm. I kinda want some right now.

Pancake team

2009-07-15T11:46:00.001-05:00

Bluebirds fledged

2009-06-10T10:10:00.002-05:00

This is a little late in posting, but our family of five baby blues fledged a couple weeks ago and I was in the right place at the right time... so was my flip cam. If you'd like to see the last of the babies fly the nest:

Anyone still out there?

2009-06-09T18:42:00.005-05:00

I don't really deserve to have any followers at this point since I've not been posting for the last few weeks. We have been eating... and I have been cooking. Just not a lot of things that I've been proud of lately. Tonight we had a clean out the kitchen soup and some yogurt bread along with some perfumey-sweet cantaloupe.
The soup:
1 lb chicken thighs, baked and cubed
1 can Italian style tomatoes
1 can sweet corn, juice included
1 can garbanzos, drained
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup mixed veggies from previous meal
water, garlic powder, oregano, canola oil to taste

The bread:
1 cup yogurt mixed with 1/4 cup oil
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup oats
2 tsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 beaten egg for brushing top

Mix dry, then form a well for wet ingredients and blend until evenly moistened. Knead for 8 minutes on a floured work surface.

Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes in a nonstick or greased loaf pan.

Fresh strawberry

2009-05-12T10:57:00.003-05:00

Munchie and I took a drive down 41A today in search of some home-grown strawberries. We missed the first turn off by the flea market and so we kept on driving until we got to another handmade sign near Novadell. A narrow road took us to an even narrower road where we met a half dozen Clidesdales pulling Mennonites on farm equipment. They pointed me to keep going and the road gave way to gravel as I weaved around piles of machinery and horse poop until we got to a little house, several coal burning stoves for sale and a bustling purple martin hotel. A young girl popped out the door when she hear us pull up.

I'm happy to say the berries are sweet, red all the way through and very tender!
Also, they make an awesome sandwich with my new Kroger version of nutella on white bread. It tastes like a pastry!

Pork spring rolls

2009-05-09T19:54:00.002-05:00

I mentioned the never ending pork loin a couple of posts ago, right? Well, this yet another reincarnation.

Pork Spring Rolls
10 Rice paper wrappers
1 cup roasted pork loin, cut in thin strips
1/2 medium cucumber, cut into thin strips
1/2 romaine lettuce heart, shredded
10 basil leaves, chopped
1 cup rice, bean thread or tapioca vermicelli noodles, cooked

Soak one wrapper at a time in a casserole dish of warm water. To fill, place a small amount of each of the fillings in a neat and evenly distributed pile centered about 2 inches from the upper edge of the wrapper. Fold the upper edge over the fillings, then fold the sides inward before rolling as tightly as possible.

Dipping sauce:
I'm sorry, I didn't measure, but I used
Crunchy peanut butter
Thai chili sauce
brown sugar
soy sauce
rice vinegar

Lemon Spice Bread Pudding

2009-05-06T10:23:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the delay in posting the recipe... now humor me and read how this dessert came about:

Kroger is the main grocery store down here (if you don't do all your shopping at Wally World) and they often have "10 for 10" specials on things like frozen vegetables, some produce and this time, loaves of Kroger-brand bread. Usually I buy Bunny Bread Whole Wheat White-- sort of the local Wonder Bread. I like real bread a lot more than the fluffy stuff, but Bunny runs about $1.50 a loaf, and Joe will actually eat it. When I saw that yellow "10 for 10" sticker, like Pavlov's dog, my brain said "10 for 10...Must..buy..."

OK. It was horrible. Joe made a PB&J and the bread was disintegrating as he spread. I told him not to eat any more and I would turn it into French toast or something more palatable.

The bread sat in the cabinet, probably contemplating life as bread crumbs, while I busied myself with a bunch of other foods that needed eating... most notably the huge completely dried out pork loin that we cooked to an internal temp of 165 degrees --5 degrees less done than directed-- for 40 minutes longer than directed, and the rotisserie chicken Joe brought home on one of his impromptu shopping trips, and the sam's club chicken sausage featured in previous posts. Let's just say we had a lot of soups this week.

Then on Tuesday, amid drizzly skies and a day of longing for something sweet, Lemon Bread Pudding popped into my mind. I'd never made it or eaten it before, so I went first to my Amish cookbook. Sadly, no bread pudding recipes. Next I hit my copy of Joy of Cooking, which not only had plenty of versions to choose from, but several paragraphs discussing this history of the dessert. The best part-- the author said bread pudding is like a sponge that can absorb whatever extras you want to toss in. My kind of dessert.

So I followed the basic recipe, with some tweaks, and added lemon zest to satisfy my need for sunshine.

Lemon Spice Bread Pudding
12-16 oz stale bread cubes, crusts removed (this ended up being most of the loaf, minus heels and maybe 1 or 2 slices, I'm sure if you used a more substantial loaf of real bread, it would be less than a loaf)
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
grated zest of one lemon

Joy of Cooking called for 4-5 cups of 1/2 inch bread cubes, my fluffy stuff filled 6 to 7 cups, but I needed that much to absorb the egg mixture.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2 quart baking dish, then add the bread.
Whisk eggs, sugar, extract, zest and spices. Then whisk in milk. Pour over bread. Joy says to let it sit for 30 minutes, pressing bread down with a spatula to make sure bread is thoroughly soaked with egg. Again, fluffy bread needs no coaxing, mine was pretty much beginning to dissolve after 5 minutes, so I stuck mine in the oven directly. Oh, not quite.

Water bath: Place a thin dishtowel in a 9 by 13, place bread pudding on top, set in the oven, then pour in enough scalding hot water to submerge pudding casserole 1/2 to 3/4 of the way in water. Cooking it this way is supposed to help the texture. I liked how mine came out, and I'm not sure what bad things would have happened if I didn't put it in a jacuzzi to cook.

Starry night drank my soup

2009-05-06T10:20:00.001-05:00

Italian stuff at Sam's

2009-05-01T08:59:00.003-05:00

Joe thought these Spinach and Asiago Cheese Italian Sausages were too zesty, but I thought they were pretty good with red pepper on Schlabach's dinner rolls. The links were among many things my mom and I bought at Sam's Club. I'm not a big fan of Sam Walton's big box stores, but when mom comes to town, it's almost a given we'll be making a stop at Sam's. One of the sample stations had this ADDICTIVE bruschetta called Reza. The samples were supposed to sell a giant twin pack of fresh mozzarella, but the tomato-olive oil-basil mixture also came home with us. I've been putting it on everything. Like this sauteed zucchini:

Sorry for the neglect

2009-05-01T08:38:00.001-05:00

There's thunder outside, my son is occupying himself with a plastic cup and I'm feeling the extreme need to blog...

Aladdin's

2009-04-18T08:32:00.004-05:00

Kentucky has been a good culinary experience for me in many ways, but, oh, how I miss me some good Middle Eastern Eat'n! We had dinner at an old college haunt, Aladdin's, after visiting the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. I ordered a tunasteak shwarma rolled. We also shared a pita and hummus appetizer that came with a creamy, garlicky "hot sauce" that reminded me of pimento olives. Joe and I graduated from Case Western Reserve University... henceforth just known as Case after a controversial name change. I think I really started to exhibit my foodie tendencies while I was living in Cleveland. Sure, I grew up loving lots of Asian foods because of my Chinese side. But in Cleveland I got hooked on Shwarma and hummus and soft, thin pitas warm from the oven. I had my first taste of Russian food. First learned about Vietnamese Bun. Enjoyed pizza and cookies in Little Italy. And midnight runs to Presti's for sour cream donuts!
Here's some sweet pics of Munchie and his uncle Jack, who also joined us at Aladdin's. You'll have to excuse my lack of food posts and my lack of good photography. Can I blame it on Stephen? He takes up all my time and my camera's lens!

Baozi from scratch

2009-03-28T21:49:00.007-05:00

My college roommate and good friend, Pamela, introduced me to baozi during one of the weekends when I went home with her (which was most weekends). We'd usually leave late on Friday night after the Christian fellowship we attended on CWRU's campus. Once we arrived at her Westlake home, we'd bypass the upstairs, "American kitchen" and head down to the basement "Chinese kitchen" for a second dinner.

Now I'm half Chinese-- but before undergrad, my main experience with Chinese food was Chicago's chinatowns and my Cantonese grandma's cooking-- the key gastronomic memories being various stir fried dishes, Cantonese bbq ribs (the most ginormous barbarian-sized ribs you've ever seen, crusted in a magenta sauce), fried smelt caught by my dad and uncles from Lake Michigan (we'd eat the whole fish, bones and all), and copious amounts of steamed white rice washed down with some off-brand of orange-aide or pop. Yes, I'm from the Midwest and we say "pop." But I've really gotten off topic.

Pamela is also half Chinese, but her relatives are from Taichung, Taiwan. Her mom, Vicki, is an excellent and inventive cook and there was always several dishes waiting in that basement kitchen. Maybe there'd be beef curry with potatoes and carrots, stew with tea eggs, marinated firm tofu or spicy squid. But one of my all-time favorites were the steamed, meat and veggie-filled buns or baozi.

Years later, when Joe and I moved to Taiwan, we had a dumpling and baozi shop below our apartment, but I never thought they were as good as the buns we ate in the Poland's basement kitchen. The last time I had Vicki's baozi was in August 2001, when I got married-- in the Poland's backyard. I don't know how many she made, but I seem to recall big bowls filled with them. I guess my mind was on a few other things, so the details are foggy :-)

I had a hankering for them again the last couple weeks. So I decided to make some.
Joe's telling me to go to bed (I haven't been sleeping much lately because of Stephen's new and very bad wake-every-hour-after-1-a.m. habit. So I'm gonna post the picture now and post the recipe tomorrow.

Panko crusted catfish nuggets and slaw

2009-03-28T21:36:00.002-05:00

I know I've really neglected Moody Foodie lately :-( But I am still eating and cooking regularly... just not a lot of new and interesting recipes. Earlier this week I found catfish nuggets on sale at Kroger. I don't deep fry-- for one it's not healthy and for two, I've got an aversion to splattering-hot oil. Catfish is great for coating and baking because its oils hold on to the crumbs and keep it tender. I used a mix of panko (Japanese bread crumbs) and cornmeal seasoned with salt, garlic, parsley and McCormick salmon seasoning. I baked the nuggets on a jelly roll pan for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

I also made some vinegar slaw with cabbage (also on sale), carrot, onion, pickle relish, white vinegar, salt, sugar and canola oil. My main inspiration for vinegar slaw since moving to Kentucky has been d. Starnes barbecue restaurant in Paducah.

And... I made up a batch of cornbread muffins- 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 can cream-style corn, 1 egg, 3 tsp baking powder, salt to taste, 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup plain yogurt (should have been sour cream, but I had to use up some yogurt!) and argh I can't remember how much milk... so better not follow this "mess-ipe" They were much better the second day. First day, half the muffin stuck to the paper lining.

Biaggis

2009-03-24T09:10:00.004-05:00

This weekend, Stephen and I met up with my parents in Evansville, Ind., and ate some amazing food at Biaggi's -- a chain that Joe and I always meant to go to when we lived in Champaign. Above are the leftovers from my entree, butternut squash ravioli with a brown butter sage sauce and toasted pinenuts. My first bite of this decidedly sweet and nutty pasta reminded me of my Nan Tilsch's kugel. Biaggi's was nice enough to sub the pinenuts for the original walnuts (I've got a mild allergy to walnuts) and I think even if I could eat them without having irritated gums, I'd like the pinions better. This is a dish I'd travel 90 minutes to have again :-)
Baby beat and arugula salad with chevre, avocado and cherries.

Old Chicago

2009-03-12T13:33:00.002-05:00

Joe had his third semester final on Saturday, so we went to Old Chicago to celebrate. Shown here: my artichoke and spinach calzone and Joe's thick crust pizza.

Two bowls

2009-03-05T20:00:00.004-06:00

Pineapple stir-fry rice bowl
This didn't turn out as I had hoped, but it was edible. Last week I had a hankering for pineapple fried rice, but I didn't have day-old rice on hand, so this doesn't have the right texture. But the ingredients go nicely together: Zucchini, carrots, onion, green beans, shrimp, pineapple and peanuts sauteed in oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, salt and a little vinegar and sugar.
Chicken vegetable soup with dumplings
I felt like the universe was telling me to buy a whole intact chicken rather than the sum of its parts... Gourmet magazine's February issue had a really yummy looking recipe, then March's issue had a whole how-to section on cutting up a whole chicken. A friend recently mentioned how much money it saved and I kept coming across them at the grocery store. But there's few sensations I hate more than having raw chicken fat under my fingernails, a near requisite for preparing a whole chicken into multiple dishes. I set out the store planning to buy a pre-made rotisserie chicken to use for soup. But when I saw that the scrawny birds getting shriveled in the chicken warmer at Kroger were almost $8, I pushed the stroller onward and picked up a raw chicken for about $3.50.

I roasted the chicken whole, effectively avoiding any more contact with raw chicken gunk than necessary, the removed as much meat as convenient before dropping the bones into my soup pot. After making the stock, I added chopped cabbage, sweet potato and a can of Italian-style diced tomatoes. I had planned to add corn, cannelini beans and onions to the mix, but I lost interest in the soup by that point and was running out of room in the pot. After everything was tender, I added the chicken meat back to the soup. We just finished off the leftovers tonight and to make it "new" again, I made some quick dumplings with flour, baking powder, milk, herbs, salt and garlic powder.

Food from home

2009-02-27T08:29:00.000-06:00

I always enjoy an influx of good food whenever my parents come to visit... sorry it took me so long to get these up.

Black bean burgers

2009-02-13T07:35:00.002-06:00

Words forthcoming!

Birthday food part 2

2009-02-07T10:26:00.003-06:00

So I'm spoiled... I got two birthday lunches with my two favorite guys. And as many times as we've gotten Tandoor's lunch buffet, this was the first time I remembered my camera.

Birthday food

2009-02-06T06:48:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I turned 31. Though I got some good eats- like these Ghiradelli chocolate squares with caramel (thank you Emily C.!) all melty between sips of hot camomille, El Bracero chicken tacos for lunch, and psuedo-Japanese food for dinner, I couldn't smell anything. So it was mostly a meal of textures rather than tastes. For my birthday, I'd like a clean bill of health for me and the Munchie. On the bright side, since my baby is extra stinky with a stomach bug I should be glad that I'm too congested to smell any of it.

At last, end of the fast!

2009-01-31T14:14:00.003-06:00

Pigs in pigsuit

This is probably the most unhealthy food that I enjoy (in moderation)... a creation my mom makes for big family functions, bacon wrapped hotdogs caramelized in brown sugar are not for the faint of heart. But with only three ingredients they're a ridiculously easy way to raise your bad cholesterol.

Spinach miso soup

2009-01-31T14:08:00.004-06:00

Normally this soup would have seaweed, but I ran out ;-) I'm actually not joking. I do usually keep dried seaweed for soups in my cupboard but I haven't been to the Asian grocery in a while.

Joe and I enjoyed two soups during our last week of the fast. We supplemented a hearty vegetable stew and this soup with baked potatoes, whole wheat pasta, quinoa and a veggie stir-fry. Oh, and I big tub of chickpea/great northern bean hummus.

Sorry I didn't detail each day's meal. Long days, frigid temps, ice everywhere. It all seemed to run together after a while!

sweet potato gnocchi and eggplant

2009-01-25T07:15:00.002-06:00

Now I've got a proper picture of the stuff! I sauteed cubes of eggplant in olive oil and chopped garlic. The gnocchi are topped with fresh tomato, basil and olives.

Camera working again

2009-01-23T14:56:00.003-06:00

Here is the quinoa photo I promised earlier in the week... I don't have an XD card reader so it was stuck on my camera after the batteries died. Quinoa (say keen-wa) is a an excellent alternative to brown rice. Then again just about anything is an excellent alternative to brown rice in my book.
The South American grain (at least that's what it says on my package) has a slightly flattened round shape with a thin white ring around it. After steaming for about 20 minutes the white ring falls off and the round grains plump up and become tender. The white part has a crispy texture and the whole thing is nutty flavored. I served it plain with sauteed vegetables, but it would have been good with nuts and seeds too.
I also made peanut noodles for lunch several days back. I used a little rice vinegar, lemon juice and natural peanut butter, then sprinkled on some sesame seeds for crunch. Green onions would have been good, but I didn't have any on hand.

Indian meal

2009-01-23T08:04:00.002-06:00

Earlier this week, Joe and I were eating Indian for lunch and dinner. This plate includes: Aloo gobi, spiced spinach, papad, behl puri, tandoori tofu and chapati.

Sweet potato gnocchi

2009-01-23T07:51:00.003-06:00

Camera still not working, so you have to put up with some blurry videos and screen grabs :-(

This morning when I got up to feed Stephen at 4:45 I had a vision of sweet potato gnocchi-- gnocchi are fat doughy pasta nuggets usually made with regular spuds. We already used all of our potatoes in the behl puri and in aloo gobi.

Here's how I made them:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup packed cooked sweet potato (7 minutes in the microwave made it nice and mushy and sweet)
1/2 cup water
garlic powder, lemon pepper, salt and oregano to taste.

Knead the dough until a ball forms, then divide into six balls. roll each ball into a rope with 3/4 inch diameter. cut into one-inch pieces, press lightly with tines of a fork.

drop into boiling water and cook until they float. Serve with fresh chopped basil, sliced olives, salt and olive oil... MMMMM!

Popped it myself

2009-01-20T15:41:00.006-06:00

Last night I made popcorn on the stovetop for the first time...and even though my nose is stuffed and I can hardly taste anything, I can't believe how much yummier real popcorn is than the microwave version I've been living on most of my life.

Oh-- If you're wondering how to make your own popcorn (now that I'm the "expert" ha ha) Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to a 3 quart pot on medium high heat. Add three kernels and put the lid on. Pour 1/3 cup of kernels into a measuring cup and wait until you hear the first kernel pop. When you do, add the rest and put the lid back on and shake the pot gently. Keep shaking until you don't hear any more popping. Remove the lid and let the steam escape for a moment. Then transfer into a big bowl, add salt or seasonings to taste and enjoy.

I think this might be really good with garlic-infused oil or some other flavored oil...

Camera troubles

2009-01-20T06:46:00.004-06:00

My batteries died and I have yet to get out to the store to get some more.
But Joe and I have been eating plenty... here's a really lame-o video of our Indian meal, Behl Puri.

Angel hair & olive crackers

2009-01-17T06:23:00.002-06:00

It's not that I like to eat processed foods, but I've been craving instant meals lately. This isn't one of them, but it's a fairly quick, Daniel fast-friendly dinner.

Main dish: whole wheat angel air tossed with a sauce of canned tomatoes, chopped onions, garlic, olive oil, parsley, basil and oregano.

Side (not pictured): Sauteed chopped spinach with lemon pepper and onions.

Side 2: Whole wheat "crackers" made by mixing 1/4 cup flour with a little bit of tomato juice from the can (or water), kneading it into two balls, rolling them out a little thinner than a tortilla, brushing with olive oil and sprinkling with seasonings and chopped olives and salt. Baking at 450 until crunchy.

Vegetable nut quinoa, simple salad

2009-01-17T06:19:00.001-06:00

Words to come... quinoa pic also forthcoming.

Odds and Ends

2009-01-15T11:47:00.003-06:00

There was one decent creation this week, today's lunch of cucumber, sweet potato and avocado temaki with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds, salt and rice vinegar. If I was ambitious, I could have added brown rice, but since sushi rice is typically short grain and it really requires sugar to taste authentic, I decided to skip it.

These quick wraps worked for me because the sweet potato tricked my tongue into thinking there was the right balance of lightly sweet and tangy flavors that make sushi so refreshing. If I had pencil-thin asparagus, these would have been even better. But I'm not complaining. Especially coming off that big vat of broccoli goop, I mean, soup.

Daniel Fast Day 5: Broccoli soup & sweet tater fries

2009-01-15T11:09:00.006-06:00

It's not very pretty. And Joe warned me beforehand that he didn't like broccoli soup. But for some reason, I just had to make the stuff last night. I poured a bag of broccoli, a bag of cauliflower and a handful of baby carrots into my stockpot and began boiling. In the skillet, I caramelized some of those overly zesty onions (see vegan taco salad post) to try to coax some sweetness out of them. All of this got zizzed by my stick blender until it was the color of your grandma's Osterizer. Like all the colors that your grandma's Osterizer could possibly be: olive green, mustard yellow, burnt orange. Flecks of all those unappetizing hues were whipped into this stew. Despite appearances, it didn't taste too bad, and there wasn't an overwhelming quantity of the stuff. But no, Emily just couldn't stop there. She had to add another bag of broccoli -- to bring it to a prettier shade of green -- and a package of silken tofu, for protein. The end result was a really big pot of lumpy, light green mush with the flavor and fluffiness of baby food (and I oughtta know what that's like since I started making Munchie's meals).

Now I don't know if being sick has got my taste buds and my texture buds and my smell buds all messed up, but this meal just repulsed me. The sweet potato oven fries that were supposed to be my bright and cheery comfort food amid the fast were also misbehaving. We've eaten a lot of parsley, lemon pepper, oregano and basil recently so I thought I'd switch it up and open a new shaker of thyme. For the record, thyme is not good with sweet potatoes. It's great on fish and chicken. But the overt Pinesol pungency seemed to get amplified in the 450 degree oven and was assaulting my nostrils before I even opened the door. And then I didn't add enough olive oil, so my fries had to be peeled off the foil one by one. Bleck.

"Emily, it's not like it's unpalatable," my husband said to comfort me.

So anyhow. That's why it's called the Moody Foodie.

Daniel Fast Day 4: Penne and vegetables

2009-01-14T11:00:00.003-06:00

Stephen and I are both under the weather with cough and congestion... so it's been difficult not to crave some hot chicken noodle soup. Instead, we had whole wheat penne topped with a bag of Kroger frozen italian mix veggies-- Carrots, lima beans, flat green beans, zucchini, red bell pepper and cauliflower. I've never thought of carrots as Italian, but I've never been to Italy and I'm sure there are lots of things they eat in Italy that you wouldn't find in an Italian restaurante stateside... like octopus in its own ink sauce...

Yeah. not feeling well. not making much sense today.

Daniel Fast Day 3: Power porridge

2009-01-13T06:49:00.003-06:00

OK, I think I might have stolen that title from something I read somewhere... if you're out there, I'm sorry for infringing. Joe and I have been eating hot oatmeal with crunchy and chewy toppings and plain soymilk. Today's bowl features flaxseed, pumpkin seeds, chopped dates and chopped apple.

Baked potatoes with sauteed vegetables

2009-01-13T06:41:00.004-06:00

I know this looks an awful lot like yesterday's main meal, but I had a busy day so please excuse me for the cop out :-)

For dinner last night I popped some organic potatoes in the microwave on high for 5 minutes. When they were nice and soft, I split them and piled a nice juicy pile of diced zucchini sauteed with some leftover corn salsa and seasoned with lemon pepper. Yesterday's salsa, with its angry onions, mellowed nicely once it met the skillet.

We had canned fruit cocktail in fruit juice for dessert. And I've been snacking on Ryvita crackers to try to fill my tummy.

Vegan taco salad

2009-01-11T15:00:00.002-06:00

The Daniel Fast has commenced at Parrino's. This morning we had oatmeal with plain soymilk, chopped dates, pumpkin seeds and a little pineapple juice skimmed from a can. I thought it was pretty good. Joe ate his... but he didn't have much to say :)

I had a Larabar at church for a snack while I fed Stephen... it just has dates and nuts. No added sugar. No dairy. No gluten. Just nuts and dates.

For lunch we had taco salad with baked corn chips (Tostitos); broiled tofu seasoned with oil, paprika, pepper flakes, garlic powder, oregano, salt, chives and pepper; a salsa of corn, black beans, avocado, onion, garlic and lime juice; crushed pineapple, chopped romaine and tomatoes.

My only regret is that I used half a small onion in the salsa, and thought the sticker said "sweet onion", the thing must have grown in extremely sulferous soil because it overpowered the entire meal for me. I'm still tasting, breathing and feeling onion. Boo on false advertising. Boo on me for buying three of those stinking onions.

Dinner is going to be a simple veggie stirfy with brown rice.

Australian licorice

2009-01-09T07:10:00.003-06:00

One more thing I won't be eating after tomorrow... Australian licorice is softer and less waxy, less artificial tasting (though I'm sure it's got plenty of artificial in it) and more fruity than your regular Twizzlers. This batch came from Valli's in Schaumburg.

Still in the process of weeding. I just realized my big tub of Korean miso, which I was going to rely on for "umami" (the meaty fifth flavor after sweet, salty, sour and bitter), has msg and wheat in it. :-(

I don't know if the wheat was whole or not when it got fermented into this largely soy-based paste, but I do know that monosodium glutamate is a no go on Daniel Fast. If you wanted to get really technical, I'm pretty sure Daniel wasn't eating soybeans during his fast. But I'm not going to get technical. I'm gonna get me some organic miso... somewheres.

Pantry Purge

2009-01-08T06:46:00.004-06:00

It's not even 7 a.m. and I've already been at weeding the shelves of my fridge and cabinets for an hour.

6 a.m. found me wolfing the last wedge of Christmas pannatone, plucked from its oily paper lining, and washing it down with gulps of guava nectar. Goodbye refined flour. So long friendly little yeast. Adios, pure cane juice. Candied orange peel, 'til we meet again.

Three moldy mozzerella balls went on a trip down the Disposal. A forgotten hardboiled egg went down my gullet, minus the grayed yolk. One piece of dried mango, with its gritty coating of sugar, made it to my mouth, but the rest of the package is destined for Joe's lunch, along with chicken fajita filling and some Swedish cookies.

Why all this madness, and why at such an odd hour? I've got a deadline. All these things need to disappear before Sunday, when Joe and I join our church in a "Daniel Fast" --basically a vegan diet minus refined flour, added sweeteners, caffeine and other chemicals. There are a few versions out there, but our church has decided to allow whole grains, all fruits, vegetables, vegetable oils, nuts, legumes and lots and lots of water.

Joe intends to follow the fast to the letter, but since I'm a nursing mom, I'll probably supplement with egg whites and maybe some fish for protein.

I've been cooking up all kinds of imaginary Daniel-approved dishes in my head these last few wee hour feeding sessions, and hopefully many of them will make it to your screen in coming blog posts.

As always, I'm going to trawl the world's cuisines for variety. I've got a taco salad in the works. There'll be lots of hummus. Hummus on potatoes, hummus in hardboiled egg halves (for me), hummus on crudites, hummus on whole wheat wraps and baked corn chips. Pineapple fried brown rice. Polenta. Portabellas. Pesto. Eggplant. Edamame. Temaki rolls. And TONS of tofu in all sorts of incarnations.

Fajitas without fuss

2009-01-03T07:48:00.005-06:00

I don't know about the rest of you, but I hate having raw chicken fat stuck in my fingernails... something that inevitably happens whenever I have to chop the slimy stuff for a recipe. To avoid that most abhorrent sensation, I try to bake chicken in whatever form it left the grocery store. These fajitas use baked chicken breast tenderloins and tri-color bell peppers. As a bonus, they're easy enough to put together in between Munchie duties.

Chicken:
Arrange 8-10 small chicken breast tenders in a single layer on a foil-covered baking sheet for the toaster oven. Spoon your favorite salsa evenly over the meat and then drizzle with canola oil and salt to taste.

Veggies:
Cut 1 medium sweet onion and 1 each of green, red and yellow peppers into thin strips. Coarsely chop 4 cloves garlic. Heat vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet then add vegetables and cook until onions begin to caramelize, stirring occasionally. Season with red pepper flakes, black pepper, salt and chopped chives.

Tortilla: After removing the pepper mixture, heat flour tortillas, one at a time, in the skillet until browned on one side. Then flip and allow tortilla to bubble.

Add one chicken tender and a scoop of peppers to a tortilla, fold and eat!

Mexican Bakery

2009-01-03T07:38:00.003-06:00

In Salem Plaza, within walking distance of my parent's house, and just a few storefronts down from the ballet academy I used to attend long, long ago, is a Mexican bakery. With shelves stacked high with all kinds of oversized buns and pastries and cookies, it looks like a wonderland for sweet teeth. But actually, Mexican bakery goods aren't very sweet or salty-- the main flavor that comes through is the mild flavor of fat... my guess is lard or someother shortening.

I'm a big fan of "estrelletas" or chunky star-shaped cookies covered in cinnamon and sugar. Unfortunately, the photo I took is on my mom's camera. The picture above is a pumpkin empanada. Instead of the deep fried pastry crust I usually associate with empanadas, it had a bready outside that reminded me of coffee cake. It made a great car trip treat as my mom and I drove from Hoffman Estates to Hopkinsville.

Swedes feed 2

2008-12-30T08:20:00.005-06:00

IKEA has changed their menu a little since the last time I was there. Mom and I both ordered the apple glazed salmon, which came with new potatoes and multi-colored carrots. Yep, all those colorful things are carrots. The orange are the sweetest, the white are kind of firm and turnip-y and the red ones were more mushy. And the yellow carrots taste a bit like squash.

We shared an order of Swedish pancakes with lingonberries for dessert. Stephen had fun gawking at the ground floor from his third-floor vantage point on my lap.