Been a little lacking on my Monday updates and for that I apologize, my lone reader or three :)
Last Friday (not this past one, but the one before), my roommate and I started receiving a CSA from Growing Power. For those of you who don't know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and is a way to connect folks to local farmers, as opposed to running out to Jewel where your mangos may come from Chile and most of the fruits and vegetables are "seasonless". I have thought about joining a CSA for some time but couldn't justify the cost and amount of food alone, so N and I are splitting the cost and getting a big bag of fruits and vegetables delivered every other week. We're due for our second shipment this upcoming Friday and so I sat down with her on Thusday and was like, "let's do this thing"... meaning plan out our meals for the next week or so to ensure maximum usage of our veggies. She laughed at me and thought it was all too domestic but it's actually worked out pretty great and we've gotten some amazing meals made over the past few days.
Our CSA included a huge head of cabbage that neither one of us wanted to touch with a ten foot pole. I suggested making cabbage rolls, which I had eaten at the amazing German restaurant up on Lincoln with M and her parents after first moving to Lincoln Square. We looked up a recipe on Smitten Kitchen and were not disappointed. With a whole head of cabbage, however, we definitely got more rolls than we bargained for. Guess who's having cabbage rolls for lunch a lot this week? This girl. Luckily the recipe did state that they freeze well, so when we're just about over it we'll probably stick the rest in the ice box.
Amazingly, we still had a few leaves of cabbage left that were too small to roll up. So last night we decided to take the cabbage, shred it, and make fish tacos. Again, this is not something I would readily advocate for. Despite my family's embrace of fish tacos since moving to California I have always been a bit wary. Yet... these were delicious! We actually made two kinds, fish tacos from this book (yeah Martha Stewart!), and black bean tacos from the ever lovely Smitten Kitchen. I also made the other Martha's guacamole :) and we had a very complete and satisfying meal. As N remarked, "It's nice to know that Smitten Kitchen is so consistently good." And I had to agree.
Meanwhile, for those keeping score, I've only mentioned one vegetable out of our entire two week CSA! We also received a bag of spinach, which M and I hardly made a dent in when we made a yummy spinach lasagne. The rest of that will be used in a quiche sometime this week, probably tonight. We also have a head of broccoli and a bag of green beans, used in a stir fry to come, as well as potatoes, mixed greens, mangos, (sadly from Chile, so we're a bit confused as to how they made their way into our bag) and apples. I'm sure there's more but I can't think of it all right now, but be assured that we have had many incredible, easy, homemade meals around these parts lately, which completely curbs the desire to eat out. For real. As the weather gets colder, I am excited to have more and more recipes under my belt so I can leave the house less and warm the kicthen more. Mmmm hibernation. Get excited.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Spontenaity
As I've mentioned several times before, I'm not the best at throwing stuff in a pan and calling it a day. Usually I try to follow some semblance of a recipe but it doesn't get me very far as I can't always seem to read a whole recipe before diving in and finding out I'm missing an ingredient when I'm covered in flour, butter, or what have you.
Last night, however, I had a definite plan in mind for the chicken that was left over from last, last Sunday's potluck (mmm, tasty). I had some zucchini and yellow squash I had picked up from Jewel and the chicken thighs. I also had a $1 can of tomatoes picked up from the Dominick's here on campus. Let me tell you that I do not miss shopping at this Dominick's! It is stressful and small and everyone and their brother's uncle comes to shop here, and they never, ever have more than three check out lanes open... seriously. One time the lady at the customer service desk told me that they're basically the 7/11 of Dominick's, in that they carry just enough of everything but not hardly enough of anything. I think they don't even really have any frozen vegetables. Not that that's a great tragedy or anything, but just sayin'.
So I went home, cut up the squash, cut up the chicken, used the chicken skin to grease the pan (no olive oil! of course) and cooked up the squash, dumped the tomatoes in (I should note that these were special canned tomatoes, garlic and oregano seasoned, yum!)
and threw in the shredded chicken. It was done in about 20 minutes. Maybe less. And it was fabulous. Could even be served with a tidge of pasta. It practically required no thought at all. My roommate ate it with some crumbled feta and lots of black pepper, and some crusty bread, aaaand she had two servings :) Probably because she had just come home from class and was starving, but I like to think it was my awesomeness.
So there you go! Sometimes it does work, this "throwing stuff in a pot on a wing and prayer." Here's hoping to more happy experiments in the future.
Last night, however, I had a definite plan in mind for the chicken that was left over from last, last Sunday's potluck (mmm, tasty). I had some zucchini and yellow squash I had picked up from Jewel and the chicken thighs. I also had a $1 can of tomatoes picked up from the Dominick's here on campus. Let me tell you that I do not miss shopping at this Dominick's! It is stressful and small and everyone and their brother's uncle comes to shop here, and they never, ever have more than three check out lanes open... seriously. One time the lady at the customer service desk told me that they're basically the 7/11 of Dominick's, in that they carry just enough of everything but not hardly enough of anything. I think they don't even really have any frozen vegetables. Not that that's a great tragedy or anything, but just sayin'.
So I went home, cut up the squash, cut up the chicken, used the chicken skin to grease the pan (no olive oil! of course) and cooked up the squash, dumped the tomatoes in (I should note that these were special canned tomatoes, garlic and oregano seasoned, yum!)
and threw in the shredded chicken. It was done in about 20 minutes. Maybe less. And it was fabulous. Could even be served with a tidge of pasta. It practically required no thought at all. My roommate ate it with some crumbled feta and lots of black pepper, and some crusty bread, aaaand she had two servings :) Probably because she had just come home from class and was starving, but I like to think it was my awesomeness.
So there you go! Sometimes it does work, this "throwing stuff in a pot on a wing and prayer." Here's hoping to more happy experiments in the future.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
No escape!
Reposted from Gizmodo:
Just something to think about...
I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this as my food justice class wraps up next week.
Just something to think about...
I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this as my food justice class wraps up next week.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Baking Up Gratitude
Last night was Pumpkin Potluck. Never mind that no pumpkins were actually carved, we all met and the food was good and the company was even better.
We ate:
Roast chicken
Sweet potato and apple casserole
Salad
Salad (my b on delegating veggies)
Bread
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (omg)
Brandy-Spiced Cider/Mulled Wine
Despite the heat in the kitchen, the weather was lovely enough that we could open the door and let the delicious, rain-soaked air drift in and not catch pneumonia. Today it's about 70* out and I just don't even know what to do with myself because I feel like it's summer, part 3, and just seeing sun this late in October is fan-effing-tastic.
Side note, isn't the sun amazing? My friend Micah wrote this a while back:
"Sometimes I like to step back and think about how amazing some things are. Right now: the sun.
Think about it. It's a giant ball of burning gas that not only provides light to things directly in its path, but even the inside of buildings with solid walls and in the shadow of trees and cliffs and mountains. It warms whichever side of the earth is facing it so much during the day that the place is still livable at night when facing away. It somehow provides us with vitamin D. It is basically the way plants breathe. Storms on its surface can completely fuck us. It turns water into vapor. And the damn thing is so hot that, even from millions of miles away, it can burn our skin.
That's fucking amazing."
Okay, back to food.
Yesterday before potluck I also cooked up a batch of bolognese, because I could, completely without a recipe. We'll see how it tastes tonight. The trick in my family is to make a pot of it and then just let it sit in the fridge for one day to fully absorb all of the wonderfulness. This is extremely difficult in that the sauce usually cooks all day and the house smells fab and then we sit down to have dinner, eagerly anticipating and then... we have porkchops. Or nachos. Or... ramen soup.
As another aside, an image search for bolognese pulls up...
For realz?
I also made a pumpkin cheesecake for my lawyer friend. I hope it turns out well. It was so easy I actually hope to make another tonight for my own personal consumption. Hooray for Food and Wine magazine, as well as The Staudt family (my lovely babysitting charges) for providing me with an excellent springform pan.
And since this post is sufficiently long enough, I will return later this week with tales of cheesecake and whoopie pies. (You may know them elsewhere as moon pies.)
Happy eating,
a
We ate:
Roast chicken
Sweet potato and apple casserole
Salad
Salad (my b on delegating veggies)
Bread
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (omg)
Brandy-Spiced Cider/Mulled Wine
Despite the heat in the kitchen, the weather was lovely enough that we could open the door and let the delicious, rain-soaked air drift in and not catch pneumonia. Today it's about 70* out and I just don't even know what to do with myself because I feel like it's summer, part 3, and just seeing sun this late in October is fan-effing-tastic.
Side note, isn't the sun amazing? My friend Micah wrote this a while back:
"Sometimes I like to step back and think about how amazing some things are. Right now: the sun.
Think about it. It's a giant ball of burning gas that not only provides light to things directly in its path, but even the inside of buildings with solid walls and in the shadow of trees and cliffs and mountains. It warms whichever side of the earth is facing it so much during the day that the place is still livable at night when facing away. It somehow provides us with vitamin D. It is basically the way plants breathe. Storms on its surface can completely fuck us. It turns water into vapor. And the damn thing is so hot that, even from millions of miles away, it can burn our skin.
That's fucking amazing."
Okay, back to food.
Yesterday before potluck I also cooked up a batch of bolognese, because I could, completely without a recipe. We'll see how it tastes tonight. The trick in my family is to make a pot of it and then just let it sit in the fridge for one day to fully absorb all of the wonderfulness. This is extremely difficult in that the sauce usually cooks all day and the house smells fab and then we sit down to have dinner, eagerly anticipating and then... we have porkchops. Or nachos. Or... ramen soup.
As another aside, an image search for bolognese pulls up...
For realz?
I also made a pumpkin cheesecake for my lawyer friend. I hope it turns out well. It was so easy I actually hope to make another tonight for my own personal consumption. Hooray for Food and Wine magazine, as well as The Staudt family (my lovely babysitting charges) for providing me with an excellent springform pan.
And since this post is sufficiently long enough, I will return later this week with tales of cheesecake and whoopie pies. (You may know them elsewhere as moon pies.)
Happy eating,
a
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
An Un-Monday Post
I meant to post yesterday but it was a little more hectic than my average Monday. I got to work late after proceedings in the morning, and then there was some sort of summit/conference/mabob thing and that didn't get out until 3, and then I volunteered at 6, so really, no time to update you, my trusty friend. Seeing as no one reads and comments anyway, it wasn't a total wash.
Sunday night, M joined me for a dinner of pork chops. I've attempted to make pork chops before and they have always turned out pretty dry and uninspired. I was worried these would befall a similar fate. Thankfully, Dinner: A Love Story came through in the clutch again :) These pork chops were tender, juicy, and although I've never been a big fan of mustard, actually tasted delicious. I even substituted red wine vinegar for apple cider vinegar and cranberry juice for apple cider, but it still turned out pretty darn good. Substituting is still something that scares me because I'm not entirely confident my substitutions will contain that one ingredient that I think will be fine and then actually ruin the taste. Despite my fears, all was well.
On the side, we had steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes (too creamy because of too much milk, my Achilles' Heel, always) and a salad. All in all, very good meal, easy to make, and didn't take all night, which is always a perk. (As much as I love Julie/Julia, eating dinner at 10 pm does not appeal to me.) Thanks, Dinner: A Love Story! We love you!
Tonight's goal: take the remaining pork chop and make a nice stir fry with it and the remaining half of spaghetti squash... too ambitious? We shall see...
PS:
I know this blog is severely lacking in pictures but we're working on it... hopefully we'll get it all sorted out for next week's pumpkin potluck.
Sunday night, M joined me for a dinner of pork chops. I've attempted to make pork chops before and they have always turned out pretty dry and uninspired. I was worried these would befall a similar fate. Thankfully, Dinner: A Love Story came through in the clutch again :) These pork chops were tender, juicy, and although I've never been a big fan of mustard, actually tasted delicious. I even substituted red wine vinegar for apple cider vinegar and cranberry juice for apple cider, but it still turned out pretty darn good. Substituting is still something that scares me because I'm not entirely confident my substitutions will contain that one ingredient that I think will be fine and then actually ruin the taste. Despite my fears, all was well.
On the side, we had steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes (too creamy because of too much milk, my Achilles' Heel, always) and a salad. All in all, very good meal, easy to make, and didn't take all night, which is always a perk. (As much as I love Julie/Julia, eating dinner at 10 pm does not appeal to me.) Thanks, Dinner: A Love Story! We love you!
Tonight's goal: take the remaining pork chop and make a nice stir fry with it and the remaining half of spaghetti squash... too ambitious? We shall see...
PS:
I know this blog is severely lacking in pictures but we're working on it... hopefully we'll get it all sorted out for next week's pumpkin potluck.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Monday again
I think the best I can hope for is updating once a week. Until I start cooking more regularly. Last week I made some good ones... a night of Spaghetti Squash, not that exciting but delicious poor man's garlic bread on the side.
Thursday I made a recipe from Dinner, A Love Story, a site that M sent me, and I've fallen in love with it. The writing style is engaging and she just seems more like a real person than any of the other writers and her meals are much more realistic for impatient, hungry, resource starved me. The recipe I made was Lemony Chicken and Greenbeans (found here) which I did not make the morning before but rather that night, and it was good, if a bit too lemony, even though I only used one lemon instead of two... but it was still really good and so were the potatoes. I'm a sucker for potatoes and their multiple forms. Mmm.
Friday, my roommate took a page from Smitten Kitchen and made one of the most delicious and tantalizing lasagnas I have ever eaten. I know it's stupid but being the carnivore that I am, I have a hard time taking lasagna seriously if it doesn't have meat in it. This was so creamy and delicious, I didn't even care, and surprisingly, despite it's heft, I didn't want to bust out the fat pants after I had a slice. Paired with a salad and a nice vinaigrette, it was incredibly satisfying.
Tonight I'm venturing to DMK with a few friends from a past life to catch up and get my burger on. No matter how many food justice classes I take I'm still going to be enamored by (grass-fed) beef...
until we eat again,
a
Thursday I made a recipe from Dinner, A Love Story, a site that M sent me, and I've fallen in love with it. The writing style is engaging and she just seems more like a real person than any of the other writers and her meals are much more realistic for impatient, hungry, resource starved me. The recipe I made was Lemony Chicken and Greenbeans (found here) which I did not make the morning before but rather that night, and it was good, if a bit too lemony, even though I only used one lemon instead of two... but it was still really good and so were the potatoes. I'm a sucker for potatoes and their multiple forms. Mmm.
Friday, my roommate took a page from Smitten Kitchen and made one of the most delicious and tantalizing lasagnas I have ever eaten. I know it's stupid but being the carnivore that I am, I have a hard time taking lasagna seriously if it doesn't have meat in it. This was so creamy and delicious, I didn't even care, and surprisingly, despite it's heft, I didn't want to bust out the fat pants after I had a slice. Paired with a salad and a nice vinaigrette, it was incredibly satisfying.
Tonight I'm venturing to DMK with a few friends from a past life to catch up and get my burger on. No matter how many food justice classes I take I'm still going to be enamored by (grass-fed) beef...
until we eat again,
a
Monday, October 4, 2010
Just another manic Monday
So this blog is really, really sad. I think we post about once a month. Obviously our contributions to the world of cooking and baking are not earth-shattering, BAM-inspiring, or food-network-type genius, but darnit, I'm going to update this blog more regularly. I like writing on the internet, even if nobody reads it, because I like food and I like writing, and that's all there is to it.
After a weekend of hardcore partying (truthfully, it was just a string of late nights due to poor movie time decisions and ...babysitting) I woke up quite late on Sunday morning/early afternoon. I walked for a while and toyed with the idea of going out to breakfast but eventually was won over by a place I walked by with a vegan friend of mine a few weeks ago, Chicago's Dog House. (Why we did not go in together should be self-explanatory via the menu.) Lured in by the tantalizing idea of bratwurst (I'm a sucker for meat! this is difficult because I'm taking a food justice class and it just makes me want to go all out vegetarian but to give up hamburgers and bacon and sausage just seems like too much for me right now), I ended up going for a Wild Boar Dog, with melted brie and raspberry sauce, topped with sauteed mushrooms. I went all out and ordered a side of "frips" which are basicaly just pieces of potato curled through an apple peeler corer slicer and fried up (sweet potato frips... mmm) and the side turned out to be an entire basket, which I also devoured in short order.
Since my phone is a piece and I don't carry my camera with me at all times, you'll just have to believe me that this was a phenomenal lunch and completely hit the spot at 2 pm on a Sunday when I should have been eating an omelette or something a little more appropriate. Whatever.
Later that evening I went to potluck at M's and we had delicious chili, cornbread, broccoli slaw, and brownies with Reese's in the middle. It was wonderful. I'm hoping to start eating at home more because it's just ridiculous how little I cook when it's just me, and then I wonder why I feel like crud all the time. Plus, despite what Hollywood tells you, kids, real grownups do NOT go out to eat 24/7.
Tonight I'm hoping to make half a spaghetti squash and maybe some garlic cheese bread or something. It's sunny and the sky is quite blue but it's also a bit colder than I would like, so to tuck in with that sounds like my idea of a nice evening. Ah, not having a television really is quite eye-opening sometimes. Amish country feels closer every day.
talk soon,
a
After a weekend of hardcore partying (truthfully, it was just a string of late nights due to poor movie time decisions and ...babysitting) I woke up quite late on Sunday morning/early afternoon. I walked for a while and toyed with the idea of going out to breakfast but eventually was won over by a place I walked by with a vegan friend of mine a few weeks ago, Chicago's Dog House. (Why we did not go in together should be self-explanatory via the menu.) Lured in by the tantalizing idea of bratwurst (I'm a sucker for meat! this is difficult because I'm taking a food justice class and it just makes me want to go all out vegetarian but to give up hamburgers and bacon and sausage just seems like too much for me right now), I ended up going for a Wild Boar Dog, with melted brie and raspberry sauce, topped with sauteed mushrooms. I went all out and ordered a side of "frips" which are basicaly just pieces of potato curled through an apple peeler corer slicer and fried up (sweet potato frips... mmm) and the side turned out to be an entire basket, which I also devoured in short order.
Since my phone is a piece and I don't carry my camera with me at all times, you'll just have to believe me that this was a phenomenal lunch and completely hit the spot at 2 pm on a Sunday when I should have been eating an omelette or something a little more appropriate. Whatever.
Later that evening I went to potluck at M's and we had delicious chili, cornbread, broccoli slaw, and brownies with Reese's in the middle. It was wonderful. I'm hoping to start eating at home more because it's just ridiculous how little I cook when it's just me, and then I wonder why I feel like crud all the time. Plus, despite what Hollywood tells you, kids, real grownups do NOT go out to eat 24/7.
Tonight I'm hoping to make half a spaghetti squash and maybe some garlic cheese bread or something. It's sunny and the sky is quite blue but it's also a bit colder than I would like, so to tuck in with that sounds like my idea of a nice evening. Ah, not having a television really is quite eye-opening sometimes. Amish country feels closer every day.
talk soon,
a
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