I don’t have any good excuses. So I won’t try to make a grandiose apology. It’s been too long. I’m coming back!!!
Of course, maybe I should have waited to share a more recent eating/cooking/dining experience. But I’m feeling the impulse, and don’t want to push it off and watch more time go by before I post again.
So… here’s a few pics of stuff I managed to snap along the way in the past two months since I’ve put anything new up.
Strawberry Whipped Cream cake (April 23rd) , from Chow.com which April made for me after I e-mailed her with an “I want This” e-mail 
Super Awesome!!!
And there will be new to come!!! Yeah 3 day weekend comingup!!!
There are of course millions of variations and this is a variation on a Martha recipe. I was raised on a rather simple version of elbow macaroni and grated mild cheddar. Yes that’s it. That’s my mom’s cooking for ya! Simple! To the point!! I still prefer this 2 ingredient version, but instead prefer the small shell over the elbow macaroni. But… this time around the recipe included the Ropp Blue Cheddar cheese we purchased at the Winter Farmers Market 2 weeks ago mixed with a more 
standard medium yellow cheddar from the Devon Market. I started with one of Martha’s many different recipes (this one from Everyday Food) for Macaroni and Cheese and changed it up by of course swapping out kinds of cheese, using low fat milk, whole wheat small shells, whole grain bread and leaving out the ham. Results 2.5 stars out of 4. While flavor was tasty (the blue cheddar gave it a nice pungent kick), it lost that creaminess and had a kind of grainy texture. 
Who knows what the exact cause was, The blue cheddar was a bit more crumbly than moist (as some blues tend to be) so perhaps this was the downfall, or perhaps it was the lowfat milk. Cooking time. Reduction of milk. I dont’ have enough experience to tell you where this went wrong. Hopefully I’ll have better luck next time. Do you have a favourite mac and cheese recipe? Or place to order it?
We tried to take advantage of the beautiful 50 degree weather in Chicago this weekend by investigating a new park with the dog. What was not considered was the amount of meltoff and flooding that would come with the 50 degree weather, considering all the snow and cold we have had up to this glorious weekend!!! MUD CITY!!! Alas, it was a fun adventure. I’m trying to work my way around all the city parks, there are so many of them and the dog loves getting out and about as much as I’m enjoying seeing something new. But anywhoozle. The point here starts then with post dog park mud explorations we were planning on getting some groceries on the way home.
On our way to Trader Joes, we saw a sign outside a Church Building advertising “WINTER FARMERS MARKET : PUBLIC WELCOME” So we swung a right with the car, circled back and went in to check out the goods. I was initially hoping for a larger variety of fresh vegetables and squash and such, but what we found was 40 bucks worth of homegrown goodness such as …
Organic Salsas with no added sugar or preservatives. Eat it up!!! Brought to you by Tomato Mountain Farms in Brooklyn Wisconsin. The smoky one is super tasty!!
Breakfast Sausage and Lean Ground Beef from Arnolds Farm. Note – this guy takes orders for his meat and makes some kind of monthly delivery to the Chicago area. I’m looking into this more as these were some super tasty links!!!!
Buckwheat Flour – Seriously we couldn’t even find this stuff at Whole Foods, the mecca of out of the way “Health Food” flours such as Buckwheat. It’s in a Foodsaver container which is a whole other post to come. April foodsaved most of our freezer this past weekend You can find this one at Ted’s Organic Grainsin Dekalb Illinois. Which ooh, they have a bunch of flours that all look rather spectacular!!! Perhaps we’ll have to try some others
Baby Bella Mushrooms – No pic, but these things were plump and beautiful!!!
Blue Cheddar Cheese – I want to try some Mac and Cheese Recipe for this tasty consumption!!! Know of any?? This one is from Ropp Jersey Cheeselocated in Normal Il. Holla at my Aunt and Uncle!! They used to live in Normal.
Next time I see one of these signs I’ll be sure to be stopping again!!! You never know what you are going to find.
This afternoon I made a snack of popcorn. Organically grown. On the cob. Popped on the stove in a large pan in some canola oil. Topped with olive oil and salt. Simple. Tasty. Old old school. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have popcorn not from a bag. A microwave bag that is. They don’t use a microwave to make you popcorn at the movies, but when is the last time you made popcorn at home and didn’t use a microwave?
In a game of free word association, I’d be willing to bet that when given the word “Popcorn” there would be more than a couple people to say “Microwave”. If you use the on-line service Peapod.com (I used to swear by this service and if it weren’t for the foodshare and the non-single life I now lead I probably still would) and search for “popcorn” you are first made to select between
“Caramel Corn”
“Popcorn Kernels”
“Popcorn Snacks”
“Popping Corn Microwave”
Once you establish that you aren’t looking for pre-popped popcorn or popcorn balls with syrup you can either go with “Popcorn Kernels” – with a whopping 4 choices of kernels, or “Popping Corn Microwave” of which there are 29 different choices!!! I was initially surprised that there were even 4 choices for Popcorn Kernels. Of course one of these choices is the “Jiffy Pop” which is in a different class of popcorn still, but maybe people actually still use this kind?? The microwave version is just so much more prolific! But 29 choices of Microwave popcorn this seems like overkill. “Butter” “Buttery Kettle Corn” “Light Butter” “Natural” “94% Fat Free Unsalted” “100 Calorie Snack Size” “Homestyle Butter” “Movie Theater Butter” “Movie Extra Butter” It’s Popcorn for gods sake. This seems ridiculous. Which is perhaps why I got so excited about the popcorn from the food share.
First the popcorn cobs are small. The largest ones were maybe 5 inches long. And the actual kernels are much smaller than anything you’ll find in the grocery store. 
Just 2 cobs yielded about a bags worth of microwave popcorn. Not bad. A quick read on Wikipedia, lets you know that the popcorn industry considers two factors when producing desirable popcorn. 1. What percentage of kernels pop and 2. How large the popped kernels expand. You want both points to be large!! Big fluffy popcorn and lots of it!!. While the popcorn I made was smaller than something you might get in a bag, only 4 or 5 kernels from the 2 cobs I prepared were left at the bottom when I was done. Not bad by my estimation. And all I had to do was rub the kernels off the cob, add them to a little canola oil, apply heat, shake and wala!!! 
(I know that wala! is not really a word, but I do use it a lot. Perhaps I will see if there is a better slang spelling
But perhaps the best thing about this whole thing is not even the finished product, but the wonderful visual and auditory show that gets put on in front of you. Sure everyone who makes microwave popcorn knows what it sounds like, but when is the last time you saw a kernel burst open and leave a fluffy piece of popcorn in it’s wake. The first few spring to life and look like aliens have landed in the your pot on the stovetop. Out of no-where they spring to life, slowly at first and then it a burst of fury. So you have to quickly make sure the lid is on, or you will have a kitchen full of popcorn. Those suckers burst with a bang!! Lucky thing we have a dog to pick up the free fliers So, if you have the chance to get some real popcorn off the cob. Try it, it brightened my whole afternoon, and gave me a tasty snack
I always used to believe that pizza was best ordered out. Call it my Chicago roots talking but I love deep dish Chicago style pizza. Thick and cheesy. Giordano’stops my list but there are many other places I love a slice at. This is not something you can just make at home either. So with that considered, making pizza at home was usually seen as a money saving opportunity or food adventure by making my own crust and topping it with unlikely items, (like the prosciutto and egg pizza we tried earlier this year). So last nite I was just looking for an easy fix to the problem that we had extra pesto in our fridge and needed a food solution to use it up. Stepping up to the plate was Trader Joes.
Trader Joes sells pizza dough still in it’s raw dough form. You just have to roll it out, top it with whatever you choose and bake for 7 or 8 minutes. It’s fresher and tastier than any kind of Boboli or other pre-baked pizza dough, and it comes in a Whole Wheat version which makes it a little healthier. (I say a little because even at home, pizza is not the prize winning choice for healthy meals. However… last nite it was easy to make, cheaper than getting a pizza delivered, and one of the tastiest homemade pizzas I’ve ever made!!!
Instead of using a red pizza sauce, I used the pesto as the base. I topped it with some pepperoni and fresh mushrooms and then covered it with a part skim mozzarella. In the oven for 8 minutes and wala!!! Heaven. We ate the whole thing. I felt overfull when we were done, but when it tastes that good you just can’t stop yourself. Well maybe YOU can, but I can’t.
There are successes and there are failures. I know that you need one to have the other, but still there is disappointment when things don’t work out the way you think they should. Last nites dinner of crab cakes and salsify was decent. Not a failure, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a success.
Let’s start with the Crab Cakes. Lump crab meat is expensive, even more so when you buy it at Whole Foods. However, they didn’t have it at the first grocery store I had been at, so we stopped by Whole Foods
on our way home from seeing Revolutionary Road (side note, very good don’t see it if you’re looking for a pick me up). The woman behind the seafood counter section showed us to the refrigerated section where they had pre-packaged lump crab meat. $3.99. Not bad. Get two containers, add it with our few other items and we’re ready to go. Until. You check out and each container rings up at an alarming $14.99 a piece!!! Definitely read the sign wrong. What is meant to be just part of our Tuesday nite dinner is now costing us 30 dollars!!! Stop. Return that, get the canned stuff. It’s still not $3.99 a can, but much less expensive. I don’t know what canned crab meat at Jewel or Dominick’s might cost, but crab cakes are being viewed as a treat by my pocketbook right now.
After chopping and cooking onions and celery. Measuring all the spices, sauces, mayo, parsley and mixing it with crab meat I thought. Boy these cakes aren’t sticking together very well. I’m not sure how breading them is going to go. Not well is the case. Gingerly touched, they still fell apart. I was able to place in them in the pan whole for first side browning, but forget flipping them. Crab cakes became crab crunch. Not the same, but April didn’t disapprove. She claimed to like them, although I didn’t find anything super special about the seasoning, and am still working on adding seafood and fish to my diet as something to be enjoyed. My vote is don’t make these again.
Salsify. Salsify is just strange. Maybe more strange because I hadn’t even heard of it before last week. April compared the finished version to french fries, but I won’t be buying this as substitute any time soon. 
I prepared the brown root vegetable per Emeril’s recipe here. #1- Peel the salsify. No problem. Softer than a carrot, peeling was relatively easy but time consuming. What’s strange is that you peel a section to reveal a milky white flesh which immediately starts to brown. Within seconds it is a brownish hue. The ends that I cut also leaked a milky substance, oozing out the top really. Never seen anything like it before. #2 Cook it. Put it on the stove top in a mixture of milk, water, salt and pepper. Bring it to a boil and simmer it for about 15 minutes. Pull it out and let it cool. #3 Coat it in cornstarch and sear it stovetop in olive oil. Kind of looks like a french fry. A duller french fry.
But the salsify didn’t seem to have any distinct flavour. I couldn’t detect an oyster flavour, which had been hinted at in articles I had read. Nothing sharp, tart or tangy. Nothing to push you to either side. Just a cooked root vegetable substance with a little browned coating.
Alone the dishes looked sad in their pans. Blah and unappealing. Which is why there are sauces and garnish. The red pepper and mayo sauce to top the crab added some much needed color, and a sprig of parsley brightened up the plate.
Like I said, not a total failure, but not exactly a success.
I did most of the grocery shopping yesterday at Harvestime Foods. A place extolled by our friends Dan and Anne. Located near Lincoln Square on Lawrence just west of Western this store has great produce, meats and breads. It was a very pleasant shopping experience. Poking around in a new store, checking out their specialty items (in this case lots of pickled vegetables, canned seafood and a variety of Greek and Latin foods) is always somewhat of an adventure. Trying to find all the things you need can initially be a challenge, but looking at all the different food stuffs is something new I am enjoying.
The produce looked quite nice. The berries I purchased black and blue, were found at the low prices of $1.19 and $.99 each. Such a steal!! I was thrilled. They also had some other fun fruits, like pomegranate and papaya. They had a variety of different apples, oranges and pears, and the fresh herb section was especially nice. Fresh basil, dill, parsley, the only one I wanted that they didn’t have was rosemary (this was unfortunate). But the basil was fresh cuts, not just the leaves, packaged up for consumer packaging tastes, but cut, put into bundles and rubberbanded together. Wonderful!!! The only other item I wanted that I left without was shallots. I know they aren’t the most popular item, but I certainly thought they had climbed up the ranks of onion/garlic stocks to be on the shelf.
The meat counter was especially nice. Fresh cuts to order. 1 pound of sirloin and 1 pound of ground turkey. Cut and packaged to order. They did have a small section of prepackaged meats, but most of it was laid out deli style, with a glass case, counter and a butcher waiting on the other side to take your order. Love it!!!
They also had a variety of fresh baked breads. Things made from the simplest list of ingredients. Flour. Yeast. Honey. Water. None of the extra preservatives and colorings and High Fructose Corn Syrup. A Ukranian Rye and Sourdough. Mmm… I purchased a round loaf of Whole Wheat. Tasty tasty toast!! It’s nice to find foods closer to their origins. The list of ingredients on convenience foods moves the item further and further away from actual food, that it starts to become absurd.
All in all I would recommend shopping at foods. If you cook from scratch and don’t require a lot of extra processed items, you will most likely find 95% of what you’re looking for. And other people know what I’m talking about. The parking lot was entirely full. I waited 10 minutes for a spot before giving up and finding one on the street. I don’t mind carrying the groceries a little ways. It’s good for me. So try it out. It’s got the goods.
We picked up our last Winter Food Share this past Thursday. We have been inundated with lots of squash, potatoes, and onions in all the deliveries, plus a variety of other food stuffs. Parsnips. Turnips, Popcorn on the cob. Maybe not standard items purchased at the grocery store, but still easily recognizable. Then there were the roots we were delivered. Upon pulling them out of the box, I declared “Parsnips, except they seem a little brown and smaller” the next item that came out I again thought “parsnips, but wait I declared the last item to be parsnips, so they can’t both be parsnips, so what the heck was the first thing?” After going to the website of the CSA Homegrown Wisconsin (you can sign up for their Summer CSA now!) and checking out the Newsletter I was able to identify the food as salsify. What the heck is salsify you ask?
All the dishes (and there weren’t many) that I found on various sites seemed to pair salsify with seafood. Based on wikipedia, I assume this is because of the oyster flavour ascribed to the root. We are currently planning to try out this new root in the following dish by Emeril Lagasse. Flatiron Steak with Lemon, Herbs and Olive Oil with Sauteed Salsify and Elephant Garlic Chips. The next problem of course being, what is a Flatiron Steak?? While I like to think of myself as a Foodie. I may be misrepresenting myself. I have a lot to learn. I don’t know different cuts of meat or which part of the cow they come from. I’ve never had lobster and Dim Sum was unheard of only a year ago. I’ve come a long ways already, but I have many more miles to go. But I’m willing to try. Bring on the salsify. I’ll see what I can do. Worst of all, you throw it out and order a sandwich.
Check back later this week to see how it turns out
Make a plan and stick to it. This used to be religion. Planning my life and sticking to the plan no matter what was my saviour from depression. You figure out that you’re miserable. You live in it, you let it consume you, you reach that all time low and then you decide to do something about it. I’m not the depressive I used to be, and planning is still a big part of my life. (perhaps at times I need to let go and live a little bit more in the moment. However…)
I present the food planning that happens at our apartment, and perhaps the new heights we are taking it to.
Several months ago April and I ran into our friends Dan and Ann at the local Trader Joes. It was your basic “Hey, funny running into you here” conversation, that is until Dan spotted our shopping list. April and I attack our food plans in a very exacting planned manner. Seven days in a week. Meals for every day, planned out with shopping list to fulfill said dishes. It’s organized, it’s to the point, it gets the job done. Dan thought it was a little crazy.
The Ins and Outs to our food planning.
Plan for Dinner first.
When you are cooking for two there are often leftover. While the above picture shows plans for breakfast lunch and dinner, this is more of an anomaly that a standard practice. If you make a dinner plan, you will often have leftovers such that one or both of you can have food to take for lunch the next day. This saves on money spent at lunch, ensures you will eat healthier than the fast food joint close to work, and if you have the kind of commute I do, it allows you to eat while you work, and spend a little less time at work.
Know that as much as try to plan it, your plan is going to be broken.
You’re going to come home late some nite and not be able to execute the meal you were planning on. This is just how life works. If you can plan this inability to always stay on task (Seriously, this happens to everybody!) you’re going to feel much better about it. It helps to plan to at least one meal a week around ingredients that will keep if you dont’ get around to using them. Therefore on the day that you just can’t get a meal made at home, and you end up ordering in from the local Chinese joint you wont’ have to be upset. It’s as if it’s part of the plan.
Pick things you like.
This sounds too simple, and I am a victim of over thinking it. While it’s fun to experiment and try new things, don’t overwhelm yourself. Choose dished you know how to make and you know you like. Then when things go astray some nites you’ll know you have your favourite meal to look forward to the next day.
We use the method of planning meals and making our shopping plans accordingly. While convenience would like to push us to shop at one location, know that if food is important to you, you will probably have to go to more than one store to get everything you want. Nobody has everything. Rank the importance of certain things to you and shop accordingly. Do you care more about freshness or cost? Would you rather pay more to have something be certified organic, or get a good deal at the local mart?? These are things to consider as you execute your shopping. We shop first at shops that supply organic, local and eco-minded foods. Then what we can’t find there we pick up at our local marts, supporting the local mom and pop operations. If we still don’t have what we want, we move on to the chains.
But whatever you do… Enjoy your food. It’s a huge part of life. You shouldn’t skip over all the wonder it has to offer you.
