Getting my fill of ethnic eats

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

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

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

Bluebirds fledged

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?

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

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

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

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

Italian stuff at Sam's

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

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

Aladdin's

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

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

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

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

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

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

 
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

Words forthcoming!

Birthday food part 2

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Words to come... quinoa pic also forthcoming.

Odds and Ends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.