The Gift of Ragù

Today's plans have been put on hold due to a massive fucking headache. I'm trying to not call it a migraine, despite the fact standing up makes my head rush so hard I feel like I'm going to black out and I'm kinda nauseous... Which sucks because this weekend is my mom's b-day celebration and there was much planned.

For starters, I made pasta dough last night (tipo 00 flour- only three dollars from an italian market! and eggs - two dollars from a farmers market for 24 eggs!) I need to send it through the machine today and make up a ragù bolognese sauce I have mulling about in my brain...

Minced pork (loin)(will grind myself so I know what I'm getting and slabs of meat are cheaper at costco)
Minced sofrito (onion/celery/carrot- although debating if I should sub leek for celery)
Milk (an italian method to cook meat in milk for extra tenderness... I wanna try it)
Olive oil/butter (haven't decided, probably olive oil)
Half bottle of white wine (probably charddonay... cheap charddonay)
Crushed aleppo pepper (which I'd have to go to Penzy's spices to get, which I don't see happening now...)(so I guess normal red crushed pepper)
Paprika (to sub for aleppo flavor)
Fennel pollen (I grew fennel this summer specifically to harvest the pollen... don't look at me like that!)
Black pepper
Tomato puree (Would like to use fresh from a garden, otherwise a can)

I'm pretty sure it's going to work... I just need to get my brain to stop trying to ooze out of my ears. As for those frugal recipes... I'm still eating that tortilla soup, but it's still next on my list!

Frugal Fooding!

So I've been pretty busy with work lately and I haven't had the time to update this as much as I would like... but! I'm still riding my bike, still cooking, and still making stuff up and calling it cuisine. Lately I've been focused on thrifty eating, which means no eating out, no wasted food, and most importantly- no pre-packaged food.

Pre-packaged food is a tough one. I mean, as we speak I'm cooking a tortilla soup from a mix I got a world market... but it's also the end of the week and I have nothing in my fridge, so I'd rather eat a six month old soup mix than go buy take out. So... I guess what I'm saying is everything in moderation? Or something like that.

Which brings me to the actual intention of this post... frugal fooding! The economy is tough out there right now, but I don't think one has to sacrifice delicious and healthy food while maintaining a budget. I've recently took a pay cut in order to make a progression in my career (Oh, modern economics, how I hate you) and found myself having to rethink how I buy foods. Here's what I did:

1) Find someone with a home garden. I've never known someone with a home garden who wasn't thrilled to be able to give away spare those tomatoes, zucchini, citrus, etc that they had in abundance. They don't want to see it go to waste, so ask around! I've managed to live this summer off of free tomatoes and swiss chard- working them into nearly every meal. (Plus, ahem- swiss chard is one of those power foods along with kale and spinach, but hasn't taken off in the health crowd yet. Be a chard hipster!)

2) Shop where it's cheaper. Obviously, Whole Foods is right out. I used to like to go there for a few minor über-health foods like kelp noodles and passionfruit yogurt. Not anymore! I've since scouted out korean supermarkets that carry shirataki noodles and kimchee for a fraction of the price. Check out your local Japanese markets, Mexican markets- I've fallen in love with these places, it's hard to want to go to a national chain grocery store. (Except Trader Joe's. I freakin' love that place!)

3) Eat at home. Duh. If you really need a pizza- buy one frozen and add your own toppings to it. Less fat, salt, and money! Don't forget to bring your lunch to work either! I pack my swiss chard salad (tandoori chicken, fruit, tomatoes, swiss chard with a drizzle of olive oil) while I'm cooking my breakfast and it doesn't cut into precious morning time at all. Plan dinner to have leftovers so you don't have to cook every day either.

So that's been my summer! Next up- from frugal food recipes!

Nobody Bikes in LA

In my never-ending quest to be healthy, I've decided to try a new tactic to getting into physical fitness. I've tried running, barefoot running, yoga, pilates, swimming, rowing… Nothing really works and more importantly, nothing sticks. Well today I'm going to try something new and to keep myself on top of it- I'm going to blog about it. Yesterday I acquired a bicycle. I'm starting a new job on Monday that just so happens to be about three miles away and I'm going to take it upon myself to bike to and from work every day for the next month.

Ingredients:

Bike

Bike Tire Pump 

Helmet

Gloves (I get sweaty hands... yum!)

Head/Rear blinky lights

Shoes

I'm going to do little things about the neighborhood to get prepped for it... Let's do this!!

UPDATE: Just ran my errands today with my bike- with a trip to the post office and grocery store. A grand total of just under 2 miles. I feel like my legs are going to fall off. It's going to be a long month. 

Beef Stroganoff

Don't get me wrong, I love my mom's Beef Stroganoff. However, the last time I was eating it I found myself thinking about the authenticity of the dish because it tasted like beef gravy over noodles. Sure enough, after a quick google I found that there are two kinds. The American kind (the gravy kind) and the Russian kind (probably not as gravy-like). This dish I also found to have a pretty interesting history...

Once upon a time there was Tsar Peter the Great and he was really keen on modernizing Russia. So he went to all the other European countries and picked what he liked of each one. In France he fell in love with the food so he shipped a bunch of his chefs to France to learn French cooking (and sent from French chefs to Russia) and brought a bunch of new recipes into the Russian cuisine. This was likely the origin of the dish, however the refined (and name Stroganoff) came from Count Pavel Stroganoff's kitchen. He was known for his entertaining and was a known gourmet. The dish in 1891 won the L'Art Culinare, thus putting it on the map of Awesome Food.

Fast forward to the 1950s and suddenly the dish became popular and once again became the dish to serve at parties and in restaurants. It was probably around here that Stroganoff lost it's french touch and became ...well, gravy.

So I've decided to take it upon myself and reconstruct a version of the meal that might have been seen around the late 1800s. Will it be accurate? Who knows! (Unless The Doctor shows up and decides to send me back in time for a taste test...)

Ingredients!
Beef, pounded flat and cut into thin strips
Onion, chopped
Butter, several tablespoons
Tomato paste, two tablespoons
Dry white wine, about half a cup
Beef broth, one can
Mushrooms, chopped thin
Sour cream, about half a cup
Salt/Pepper
Paprika, about a teaspoon
Ground mustard, about a teaspoon
Flour

Instructions!
Salt and pepper the beef, coat in flour. Melt butter in pan large enough to hold all the sauce. Add beef to pan and cook until brown on both sides, careful not to burn. Add onion and cook until wilted. Add tomato paste, wine, paprika, and mustard and let cook for about ten minutes. Add mushrooms and beef broth, cook another ten minutes. The sauce should be thick at this point - if not, mix a little bit of water and a tablespoon of cornstarch and mix to a paste then add small amounts, stirring well, until the desired texture. Add the sour cream and mix well. Allow to cook for another five minutes and serve with the starch of your choosing.

Starch? Well, okay. I love my stroganoff with egg noodles. A lot of folks do. But egg noodles, again, isn't really Russian. They love pasta there, but it was another import. Traditionally this was probably originally served with fried potatoes, but I've seen it served with mashed potatoes or rice- so the choice is yours to make.

Conclusion!
Upon eating, the taste of stroganoff was still very much still there but had a much deeper flavor due to the addition of wine and tomato paste. I would definitely make this version again, and possibly even adopt it as my official stroganoff recipe.

Goodbye, beef gravy!

Pinterest and Baked Eggs

So unless you've been living under a rock without internet, you probably have heard of Pinterest. I gotta say- I tried to resist it, but eventually I gave in and signed myself up. For me it's a place where I can tag all those awesome recipes that I stumble across without having to print them up (and instantly lose the paper and never find that recipe again...) and I love it.

So much so, I'm going to be adding this little button to the blog:



I've managed to make quite a few of the recipes and most of them are pretty good.

And then there are the Avocado Baked Eggs.

This recipe came to my attention after one of my best friends told me she had tried it and the eggs didn't cook. Looking at the recipe I thought it to be impossible to screw up... it's just eggs in an oven! So I decided to do it myself.

And you can see, it went flawlessly.

There are many problems with the recipe. First off, the side of the avocado that will be resting on the dutch oven/iron skillet/whatever should be cut so there's a flat surface so the egg doesn't a) slide out, b) fly out when trying to be rescued. Next, the egg should be watched like a hawk because it's going to over-cook quite quickly and taste like a hard boiled egg in a warm avocado. Finally... it just doesn't taste very good.

What the final product looks like.

How I feel about the final product.

So in short: fuck that recipe.

Popcorn!

As you're reading this, you're thinking about that horrible disco song that you were probably forced to dance to at some point in your life. You're welcome.

I've recently gone into a wild spree of making gourmet popcorn. It sounds silly, but it's so simple and easy that it's really quite a game changer at the ever-popular movie night. I do need to make a disclaimer and say that I have a movie-theater style kettle popcorn machine. I fucking love that thing and up until recently, I was entirely a butter'n'corn type of gal. Now I'm more of a black truffle n' corn type of gal.

For the most part, the concept is simple: melt butter, add spices. The combinations are really endless. And if you don't have a theater-popper, just microwave or airpop some plain popcorn and have at it! Here are my current blends:

Truffle Popcorn: pop corn, melt butter and add black (or white) truffle oil, salt & pepper. Drizzle & toss over popcorn before serving.

Churrocorn: pop corn, melt butter and vanilla extract. Create a cinnamon/sugar/salt blend (easy on the salt, heavy on the sugar) Toss vanilla butter over popcorn and sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar.

Black and White: pop corn, set on wax paper. Melt down white chocolate in a double broiler and add butter and milk if too thick. Drizzle over popcorn. Melt down dark chocolate in double broiler. Drizzle over popcorn. Let cool completely. Break up into pieces.

Currycorn: Pop corn, melt butter and siracha hot sauce. Drizzle/toss srirachabutter over popcorn, dust lightly with curry powder.

…Even as I type this, I'm thinking about making a parmesan/rosemary popcorn or wasabi popcorn. (I might actually make that wasabicorn tonight, now that I think about it…) So gentle readers… what do you wanna put on your popcorn?

EDIT: (5/8/12) Don't do wasabi corn. It's pretty gross.

Apathy & Lotus Root

I was reading an article (http://chronicle.com/article/Tools-for-Living/130615/ ) and the statement about people not knowing how to cook made me grimace a bit. time and time again I find myself surrounded by people who can't cook and I often find myself confused as to why this is such a lost art. Food is an every day occurrence- it's not like it's hard to obtain ingredients, nor do we lack the space to do such magic within our homes. Also, one can get an recipe anywhere and follow it with good success. To me, and I admit it's entirely speculation, the problem lies in apathy. Why cook when I can just buy this burger? Why spend the 30 minutes in the kitchen when I can watch the latest episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia? There is a harsh lack of priority in today's society that we've been growing since the dawn of microwaves and the mighty corporation. Our reward systems are out of whack. And I will be the first to admit, I have no idea how to fix it. I've preached to friends forever about the joys of cooking and the kitchen revolution of healthier, green eating but most can't be bothered or simply get frustrated by the initial learning curve of what it essentially tasty form of chemistry and give up. I've also have several people ask me to teach them cooking, to which I'm always thrilled and eager to help, but it just seems like it's not enough.

So I guess what point I'm trying to reach is… how do we help more people learn about cooking? Do we teach in in colleges? How do we teach it in the home to families? How do we make people enjoy cooking again?

This weeks recipes:

* Kale salad: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/11/kale-and-brussels-sprout-salad

* Crispy lotus root with black truffle oil (sautéed sliced lotus root in olive oil until brown and crispy, sprinkle with parmesan reggiano cheese and drizzle with black truffle oil) A very fancypants appetizer when trying to impress folks without really doing much in the kitchen! I'm starting to develop a deep love for lotus root and may start posting a lot of recipes about this tasty vegetable... It's super earthy and sweet, not to mention beautiful and exotic!

What I want to try next week: http://www.canyoustayfordinner.com/2011/10/03/slow-cooked-sweet-potato-chili/

Coming up next: I bought a food dehydrator. I'm dehydrating EVERYTHING. :D

Greek Lentil & Eggplant Lasagna

I'm a big fan of turning already-awesome foods into healthier, meat-free foods. I find it's a wonderful (and welcomed) challenge to create something awesome (like Greek lasagna) and then turn it around and reinvent it. I've done it a few times (one day I'll get around to posting my beef based French Onion Soup and my vegetarian French Onion soup...) but today I'd like to share my latest creation. Lasagna.

Lasagna, at least in my mind, is one of those "difficult" foods to make that often used for large groups, family meals, gifts*, etc. But it's not so much that it's difficult as it is time consuming to make (hence the quotation marks) - it also freezes well, which is probably also why it's always available in the freezer section of the grocery store. Typically lasagna is made with a meat sauce that tends to be on the sweet side, and with a slight fennel seed taste. It's then layered in pasta and ricotta cheese then baked. Yawn.

At some point in time, I must have seen a magazine article that had a recipe for Greek asagna. I probably followed it and promptly changed it. Today, this is what I use recipe:

Ground lamb (can use cow)

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

large jar whole tomatoes, squished in hand

olive oil

oregano

cinnamon

salt

pepper

- Cook this into a sauce. This is the meat sauce.

butter

flour

milk

parmesan cheese

2 eggs

- Make this as a sauce (typical roux, add cheese) then temper the eggs

In a casserole dish, layer no-boil pasta, meat sauce, parmesan cheese sauce, white cheese, crumbled feta, chopped olives, and repeat until no more room in pan. The goal is to end with feta on top for pretty presentation. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.

-----

Now that I'm trying to eat vegetarian, I decided to mix it up and do this:

cooked lentils

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

large jar whole tomatoes, squished in hand

red wine

olive oil

oregano

cinnamon

salt

pepper

- sauce

butter

flour

milk

parmesan cheese

2 eggs

- other sauce, temper your damn eggs

In a casserole dish, layer sliced and skinned EGGPLANT, lentil sauce, parmesan cheese sauce, skip the cheese, but still use your crumbled feta, and repeat until no more room in pan. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. I forgot the olives on this go around so it's probably optional. I actually preferred the lentil version over the lamb version- although both are great!

*I am reminded of We Bought a Zoo. Although I've gifted food several times, I don't think I've ever gifted lasagna... I should though!

Chicken Tikka Masala & Coconut Kale

This week I attempted one of my favorite genres: Indian. I found myself at my parents house and my brother got dubbed with cooking dinner. My wonderful brother is still in the learning phase of cooking and so I quickly (and eagerly, I might add) stepped up to plate to help him cook something a) amazing b) new c) something I wanted to eat. (I might have had my own ambition here…) and so I pulled one of my favorite cookbooks, America's Test Kitchen, and found their Chicken Tikka Masala recipe. Normally, I'm entirely about the freeform cooking, but for the sake of coaching my brother and being genuinely curious about their recipe, I followed it exactly.

It was amazing. And it was even better the next day, much to my glee! Of course, that alone wasn't enough for me- I needed a veg! For my parents, I had to steam some plain zucchini (they are not spice-crazed like myself) but for me, I decided to recall a recipe I had once found on the internet (wilted spinach with mustard seed, cumin seed, and toasted coconut) and made this variant:

sauteed chopped kale

ground cumin

ground mustard

red chili flakes

olive oil (or butter)

sliced almonds

toasted coconut flakes

This blend is so good… I actually want to try and make this into a whole proper salad add further ingredients. I definitely want to try more combinations with spices that are outside of my comfort zone… mainly anything not italian, mexican, or thai. Indian spices are a good place to start due to their complexity.

And for a bonus round: about Wednesday or so, I was hit on my a semi-celebrity chef. It was sort of a crash and burn awkward, so I'll spare all the details. In short, I'm not going out with him. Mainly because his food sucks. I've eaten at his restaurant several times and I've been sorely let down each time. So after that, I had no choice but to go home and cook something that I knew was better than his version. I present to you…

The "My Turkey Burger Is Better Than Your Turkey Burger!"

Turkey patty - cook in olive oil until done, sprinkle with parmesan cheese at end

Rosemary/parmesan roll- heat in pan with olive oil until crusty brown awesome

Pesto sauce - use as light spread for roll

Wilted spinach, drizzled in truffle oil

Avocado

So there, Mr. Chef.

****

Chicken Tikka Masala recipe: http://www.copykatchat.com/tried-true/49392.htm

EDIT: Orignal spinach dish recipe here! http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/spiced-coconut-spinach-recipe.html

Pumpkinapalooza!!

I love pumpkin. I love savory pumpkin, I love sweet pumpkin, I love pumpkin in Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, etc food. I can pretty much use it in anything. That being said… I think I'm getting sick of the stuff. You see, at Halloween I bought a large jack-o-lantern pumpkin (along with sugar pumpkins that were immediately used up) with the intention of carving it into a Wheatley core from the game Portal 2. (Wheatley is also the name of my cat) Well, October passed… But November is still a pumpkin month! I can carve a turkey! …November passed. A could carve a christmas tree into the pumpkin! …Well, now its January and it was time to remove the pumpkin from my counter. But I couldn't just throw it away. It's a delicious pumpkin! So I cut it open and much to my surprise (okay, childlike delight) the insides were still good and exactly the texture of spaghetti squash. If you've never had a spaghetti squash before, please buy one now. Steam or bake it, just cook it, put some butter on it and maybe some cinnamon and enjoy the fuck out of a severely underrated vegetable. So yes, I had spaghetti pumpkin. Approximately ten pounds of pumpkin, to be exact.

Since the new year I have made the following:

- Singapore noodle style pumpkin

- Sage and brown butter pumpkin with mushrooms and parmesan

- Kimchee pumpkin with walnuts and carrots

- Pumpkin quiche with spinach and leek

- Indian spiced soybeans with pumpkin

And I still have a gallon sized ziplock bag filled with pumpkin in my fridge. I could make a soup, but prior to the holidays I went on a giant soup binge and now I'm rather souped out….

I could make muffins and send them to work. (Ooh… I might do that, actually…)

Anyway, I have a lot of pumpkin right now, which might just make me not want any more of the stuff until the next October rolls around…

So riddle me this, Batman: what are your favorite pumpkin recipes?