From the Dining Section to Your Glass with Some Unexplained Minor Changes

August 10th, 2010

I think I live vicariously through the writers of the New York Times Dining Section. They write about the one thing I have a true passion for with a level of expertise that seems to be unrivaled by other publications. Every time I click on the Dining & Wine link (because I do not actually pay for the New York Times newspaper), I always anticipate clever, sweet tidbits in the world of Cooking with Dexter, joyfully watch Mark Bittman in his quick Minimalist videos or read with fervor Melissa Clark‘s Good Appetite articles (someday I will own an ice cream maker!!). And I always end up wondering ‘How exactly do I get to be where they are?’ But until I figure it out or fate throws me a bone to chew on, I take a simple pleasure in making some of the recipes I see. This one was supposed to be a raspberry vinegar, with what I assume to be the consistency of actual vinegar, but somehow my end product turned out to be a raspberry syrup, which is what I am labeling it since any other name would be confusing. I am sure I must have done something wrong. But it was all good and luckily, still tasty.

Recipe: Raspberry Syrup (adapted from the New York Times)

Yields about 1 1/4 cups

1 pint of raspberries

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1 1/4 cup of sugar

  • In a glass bowl (or other non-reactive bowl), add raspberries and red wine vinegar.
  • Cover and let macerate for up to 3 days (1 day is okay…at least that is what I read).
  • Mash raspberries in the bowl.
  • Strain juice through a fine mesh sieve into a saucepan.
  • Add sugar to pan (if you are doubling this recipe, the ratio is 1 1/4 cup of sugar to every 1 cup of juice).
  • Bring up to boil.
  • Lower and simmer for 15 minutes.
  • Let cool before bottling.
  • Refrigerate for up to 3 months.
  • To serve, add syrup to a tumbler of glass and top off with raspberry seltzer (my favorite but any seltzer will do), plain water, rum, brandy or prosecco.

Note: There are other ways to serve the syrup. Click here to view other suggestions.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Condiments & Dressings, Drinks, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

Space Invaders

August 10th, 2010

It’s been an interesting July for me. I started a new job, I have been looking for a new apartment and I have been trying to keep it together, mentally as well as emotionally, while urging myself to get the recommended daily hours of sleep. And then as I finally worked through my exhaustion to update my website (aka this blog you are reading), I realized I was hacked! My files disappeared. My site consisted of nothing more than a one line error message on white, bland infinite space. Of all the things to do in the world and of all the websites to do it to, I was chosen…well my poor blog was chosen. The things people go through to get off still leaves me scratching my head. But thanks to some great help (thanks Mike and Khanh), my database with all my pics and words was restored and backed up. I guess the hackers have another chance to do whatever it was they did with my meager blog one more time or I can just continue to do as I have always done…work with my blinders on.

Posted in Sidebar Photoblog, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Neglected like a 1 year Orphan

July 5th, 2010

Me on my 1st birthday. Look at all the goodies! I am trying to maintain my composure by eating my fingers.

Wow…..so a year has passed, like a few days ago and I didn’t even bother to update the blog. Damn! I have been trying to be the best blog master in history, but bitch has a day job. I don’t know how people do it. My life has been a roller coaster ride. I just got a new day job, which means my life just got a lot busier. Hopefully that doesn’t mean I can’t muster up the strength that are my typing fingers to write something at least, say, once a week, right? I mean, take a picture, post the picture and write!! Simple!! What the hell is my problem? After telling myself I was going to give this blog or experiment or experimental blog a real assessment so that it truly represented who I am as a writer of food, I go ahead and not write anything for months. And to be honest, I tried and landed, again, flat on my face. First off, I need a new camera, which requires money. And now that I have a new job, I will be able to purchase said camera. Second, I need to make time which means I need to rest up on weekday nights after a long hard day so that I have the energy to write thoughtful pieces each week during my time off. Third, I need to be a better planner, which never seemed to be a problem before (ask my friend, Tasha and my sister) since I always over-plan. But I figured too late in the game that my over-planning was not resulting in anything but absolute misery.  Maybe I was taking the whole ‘no plan is now my new plan’ motto a little too seriously. A girl can’t win, can she? So I apologize to those who read and process my words with some kindness. I am trying my best. I am human and not infallible. In fact, I am basically assembled with faulty pieces. Hopefully by the time my birthday comes around this late summer or early fall, depending on what you think early September is, I will be posting regularly and not neglecting something I planned to pour my heart and soul into. See you soon and keep on reading!! Please!

Posted in Sidebar Photoblog, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Simplicity is Usually Best

May 3rd, 2010

This dish should be the basis for building other pasta dishes because it is so simple to make and easy to eat. It can be morphed into these few suggestions:

1) Add grilled shrimp

2) Toss with spinach and mint pesto

3) Add grilled chicken and roasted tomatoes

4) Toss in a nice amount of Parmesan cheese and black pepper

5) Grill up some skirt steak and add chopped baby arugula

Or if you are a purist, make it as is and enjoy the simplicity of it all.

Recipe: Spaghetti Aglio Olio (adapted from Nigella Lawson)

Serves 2 as a side

1/2 lb. of spaghetti

2 small cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

3 – 4 tablespoons olive oil

Fat pinch of dried red chili flakes

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Chopped cilantro (optional)

  • Put a pot of water to boil for pasta. When it comes to boil, add salt and then spaghetti.
  • About 3 minutes before pasta is done, add oil and garlic to a large skillet. Add dried chili flakes.
  • Cool over low flame, stirring with wooden spoon.
  • Once garlic has turn golden brown, add a couple tablespoons of the pasta cooking water.
  • Stir well and turn off the heat.
  • Add cooked, drained spaghetti and toss well to coat.
  • Sprinkle with salt, pepper and cilantro.

Tags:
Posted in Rice, Grains, & Pasta, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

Chickpeas are a hungry person's best friend

April 26th, 2010

I have a great love affair with chickpeas. It’s the potato of the bean world. You can prepare it a multiple of ways and it is a great source of protein. Fry it for a snack, add it to a soup or stew, make hummus, or do this: oven roast it and add it to a simple, easy pasta dish. It is one of my favorite go-to meals.

Recipe: Penne with Roasted Chickpeas and Red Bell Peppers

Serves 2

1/3 box of penne pasta

2 roasted red bell peppers

1/2 can of chickpeas, drained and pat dried

2 large cloves of garlic, unpeeled

1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon red cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

  • Preheat oven at 375 degrees.
  • Put a pot of boiling water to boil.
  • Place dried chickpeas and unpeeled garlic on baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil. Add salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Toss to combine.
  • Roast in oven until golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes.
  • In mean time, add pasta to salted, boiling water. Always add salt once water has boiled.
  • Cook until al dente. Drain. Set aside.
  • Cut bell peppers to bite size pieces. Set aside.
  • In a small bowl, mash up peeled, roasted garlic cloves. Add vinegar and oil. Season with salt and pepper.
  • Mix to combine.
  • In a large serving bowl, add pasta, chickpeas and peppers.
  • Add balsamic vinegar mixture.
  • Toss to combine.
  • Season to taste. Drizzle with more olive oil if needed.
  • Serve room temperature.

Tags:
Posted in Rice, Grains, & Pasta, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

A Quick Trip to the Oven

April 19th, 2010

I shamefully admit that I had my fair share of the Hamburger Helper craze around the same time I was intrigued with the idea of Shake-n-Bake. These meals offered a quick way to get inexpensive meals to the table. Forget the fact that they never delivered a nice serving of vegetables (because apparently you can get a day’s worth from a Manwich…incredible). Busy moms loved it, people low on cash loved it, I loved it and don’t forget the kids. Kids with no taste buds loved it. And it never mattered that Hamburger Helper tasted like utter crap with elbow macaroni that never fully cooked or a cheesy sauce that never really tasted like cheese, but instead flooded your senses with a rendition of watery Cheez-Whiz. It got to the table on time. It fed a handful of hunger mouths. It was needed when nothing else was available. But boy, have times changed. And with it our tastes and food personalities. When was the last time you saw a Hamburger Helper commercial? Not recently, right? Well, cooking a better and dare I say it, an easier version of the classic is part of my recipe collection. Take a gander and let me know what you think. I was this close to adding a cheesy sauce but I need not disrespect the greatness that was Cheez-Whiz.

Recipe: Beef and Tomato Pasta Bake

Serves about 4, I am not that certain. Probably perfect for one hungry piggy, like myself

1/2 lb. ground beef

1/2 large white onion, chopped

1 large clove of garlic, minced

1/3 cup elbow macaroni

1 ripe plum tomato. chopped

1/2 cup of favorite tomato sauce

Dash of dried oregano or Italian seasoning

1/2 cup of shredded sharp white cheddar cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Prep a small casserole dish with a bit of olive oil
  • Cook macaroni in a pot of salted, boiling water until ‘al dente’.
  • Drain and set aside.
  • Heat skillet with a bit of olive oil.
  • Add onion and garlic to skillet with a bit of salt and pepper. Cook until translucent.
  • Add ground beef and a bit of oregano. Cook until just about done.
  • Add tomato sauce, chopped tomato, and macaroni.
  • Stir to combine. Let simmer for 3 – 5 minutes.
  • Add macaroni mixture to casserole dish.
  • Sprinkle with as much or as little cheddar cheese as you like.
  • Bake in oven until top is golden brown and cheese is melted, 10 – 15 minutes.
  • Serve piping hot.

Tags:
Posted in Rice, Grains, & Pasta, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

And They Say Carbs are Bad for You

April 12th, 2010

How can you blame people who do say pasta is bad for you? You know who I am talking about: the fitness gurus, the annoying celebrities who get paid millions to look the way they do and the models who melt away at the slightest glance of real food. They all tell us to limit our carb intake. And as a carb-loving Asian woman, I say, ‘I live only once. I will eat whatever the fuck I want.’ C’mon. Are these people for real? If you are eating pasta everyday, then yes, maybe you ought to cut back and have it twice a week. Let’s call them your ‘cheat’ days. But if you are really passionate about good eating then a good, simple pasta dish can do no harm. Right?

Recipe: Farfalle with Mushroom and Turkey Sausage

Serves about 4

1/2 box farfalle pasta

2 – 3 sweet turkey sausage links

1/2 lb. baby portabella mushrooms (or just grab one of those packages of mushrooms you find at the local grocery store and use all of them in this recipe)

1 cup of frozen peas

Oilve oil

Salt and pepper to taste

  • Put a pot of boiling water to boil.
  • Clean and quarter mushrooms. Set aside.
  • In a large skillet, heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.
  • In the mean time, make slits along each sausage link and remove casing. Toss sausage into heated skillet.
  • With a wooden spoon, make sure to break up the sausage into smaller, bite size pieces.
  • Cook until done. Remove sausage to small bowl.
  • Put farfalle into salted boiling water. Cook for about 10 minutes.
  • While farfalle is cooking, add a bit more oil to the skillet and add the mushrooms.
  • Season with salt and pepper. You should begin to see the water from the mushrooms come out after a few minutes.
  • Cook until browned and water has evaporated.
  • Add the sausage back into skillet with the cooked mushrooms.
  • Save a bit of pasta cooking water before draining the pasta.
  • Add drained pasta to skillet.
  • Add frozen peas.
  • Toss together until peas are defrosted and cooked. About 2 minutes.
  • If the pasta looks dry add some of pasta water and drizzle some olive oil.
  • Add freshly ground pepper and a sprinkling of more salt to taste and serve!

Tags:
Posted in Rice, Grains, & Pasta, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

No Mayo Please

April 5th, 2010

Sometimes it necessary to step away and really investigate what you are eating. And although, no one likes to do it willingly, you really do get a sense of what you shouldn’t be putting into your system. Well, on a recent binge of bacon (hey, I had to eat it before it went bad), my body decided to reject me and shut the door in my face. In other words, I felt fat. It’s no wonder I can’t fit into my regular clothes without 1) struggling and 2) praying that I won’t pass out from the lack of circulation to my extremities. So instead of dousing side dishes with fatty, creamy sauces and dressings, I have been substituting everything (as you have seen from my last few posts) with light olive oil based ‘drizzles’. Here’s one of my recent additions to that family. It takes roasted potatoes (to really enhance the flavor of the salad, in general) and a couple of other ingredients to create a mayo-free salad you can take to a nice warm weather BBQ outing.

Recipe : Roasted Potato and Red Pepper Salad

Serves: 2 as a side

Three medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 large cloves of garlic, unpeeled

1 to 2 large roasted red peppers, diced

1 large scallion, finely chopped

1/2 tablespoon spicy brown mustard

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

4 tablespoons, fruity extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste and season

  • Place potatoes and garlic on a baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
  • Roast in a 400 degree oven until golden brown and tender. About 20 – 25 minutes. Toss potatoes around at the halfway mark.
  • In the meantime, place red peppers and scallion in a large serving bowl.
  • Once potatoes are done, place in the bowl with peppers and scallion.
  • Toss to combine.
  • Peel roasted garlic and place in a small bowl. Mash with a bit of salt.
  • Add mustard, vinegar and olive oil with some salt and pepper to create a vinaigrette.
  • Add as much or as little of the vinaigrette as you like to the potatoes. (I usually make more dressing than necessary).
  • Toss to combine.
  • Eat warm, room temperature, or cold!

Tags:
Posted in Salads, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

Yum Yum, Couscous

March 29th, 2010

As a person who always needs to plan ahead (because I really do have a problem with spontaneity), I must have easy to prepare items in my cupboards for quick meals and snacks (because I really do have a problem with constant hunger). So I must say that instant couscous is on top of my food chain with instant polenta as a close second. Anything with ‘instant’ in its name is basically pitching for my team. Sometimes I just do not have the patience to deal with slow cooked food. Sometimes my body just wants food at the moment it wants food. No waiting around allowed, because by then my mind wanders, my body ceases to care and then I just get hungry again an hour later. See what I mean when I say I have a problem?

Recipe: Orange Couscous

Serves 2 as a side

1 cup instant couscous

1 small clove of garlic, minced

1 medium orange, segmented

1/2 red onion or two small shallots

1/2 small cucumber

Juice of 1/2 lemon or orange

Olive oil to drizzle

Salt and pepper to taste

  • Put 1 cup of couscous and garlic in large bowl and pour enough boiling water to cover by 1/4 of an inch.
  • Cover with plastic wrap. Set aside to steep.
  • Grill or saute red onion or shallots until it is done to your likeness. (Slice onion if grilling and then dice into bite size pieces when done. Dice onion if sauteing).
  • Set aside in small bowl.
  • Peel, de-seed, and chop cucumber into small dice. Place in bowl with shallots.
  • Supreme (segment) orange and chop into about same size as your cucumber. Add to bowl.
  • Uncover couscous. Fluff with fork.
  • Add shallots, cucumber and orange.
  • Add lemon or orange juice (or both!).
  • Drizzle some olive oil.
  • Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Combine and then enjoy.

This dish goes great with some grilled fish!

Tags:
Posted in Rice, Grains, & Pasta, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

A Colorful Nod to Spring

March 22nd, 2010

It is finally here!! After bitchin’ for the last three months about the misery that is winter, spring has arrived with full force and lovely 70 degree weather. I am not only relieved, but I feel myself calming a bit. The sun was much needed after what seemed like non-stop winter storms here in the East coast. I am just overly excited and can’t wait for all the yummy fruits and vegetables that we get to eat in the warmer months. So to celebrate, here’s a recipe that takes little effort and will remind you of what’s to come once we reach the peak of Spring.

Recipe: Corn and Avocado Salad

Serves 2 as a side or 1 if you really want it to

1/2 bag frozen corn

1/2 small red onion, diced

1 small ripe avocado, diced

Juice of 1 lime

Olive oil to drizzle

Salt and pepper to taste

  • In a large skillet, saute red onion in a bit of olive oil until translucent. Season with salt and pepper.
  • Add frozen corn. Saute until a bit golden brown.
  • In a bowl, add avocado, corn, and red onion.
  • Add lime juice and drizzle with olive oil.
  • Toss and add salt and pepper to taste.
  • See….easy, peasy!

Tags:
Posted in Salads, Sidebar Photoblog | No Comments »

« Older Entries