My Two Part Approach to my New Year's Resolutions

Being that I'm still recovering from adolescence, my New Years resolutions usually include "being healthy", which is really just code for "losing weight". This year is no different and I'm taking steps in the right direction (I hope!). I'm going to see about a gym membership on Saturday at Curves. I'm a little skeptical, but it didn't seem *too* expensive and it's way closer to my apartment than the UT gym. I've also resolved to start eating better, which includes my snacks. Tonight it was chicken noodle soup, which was basically chicken stock, noodles, chicken, and veggies (this time being carrots, onion, and celery). The other night we made stir-fry with broccoli, chickpeas, and green pepper all foraged from the local Whole Foods. And I can see now that this post is mostly to showcase my horrible camera skillZ AND to keep with my new year's resolution.





Perhaps, one day, I'll figure out how to incorporate pictures into this... but anywho... The other thing that we've been doing a lot is drinking smoothies for whatever reason. I think part of it is that we got a ginormous bag of frozen strawberries from Costco (which, if you're into bulk goods, is a much better choice than Sam's Club).

Mid-snack, it occurred to me that this is exactly the best food to give to sick kids. Who doesn't love soup when they've got a cold? And these smoothies have so much vitamin C that it's a better way to boost the immune system (and to make Linus Pauling happy) than simply taking vitamin C pills. The only thing that's missing is the Vernor's (which is by far the superior ginger ale if you're into that sort of thing). It's revelations like that that make me want to have babies like yesterday.

NaBloPoMo Day Three: Continuous Cooking

I find it amazingly difficult to complete an assignment, from start to finish, in one brutal sitting. Take, for instance, this gasbags homework. It's not that hard and it's almost completely from our notes, but instead I'm playing with garbanzo beans and updating my blog. Fortunately, I have a lot to write in the next week, so I'm using this as an excuse to get me started on the very mechanics of writing things, such that I am better able to talk about my experiences in the world of astronomy. The one downside is that I've been told that my personal statement reads like a cookbook, so I'm not quite sure that the food blogging is helping. ;)

The aforementioned farmers' market veggies sat sadly in my refrigerator, feeling abandoned yesterday. Instead of making the stir-fry I had planned, we went to Chuy's instead, and I had lackluster flautas and watery salsa. I felt that I had to make amends to my delicious veggies and so for dinner last night, I made chicken and veggies, cooked in parchment paper with roasted garlic mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes will be making an appearance at Thanksgiving, so I wanted to practice a bit. I'm still working on perfecting the recipe, so more details to come on that later when I've decided that it's good enough.

Chicken in parchment
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, halved into two congruent pieces
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs basil
1 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
broccoli florets, cut into small, uniform pieces
1 green pepper, cut into small slices
s+p
2 20in sheets of parchment paper, folded in half and then reopened

preheat the oven to 400. mix the olive oil, basil, tarragon, garlic, red pepper flakes and veggies. season chicken breast w/s+p. Set down 1/4 of the vegetable+herb mix on the fold of the parchment + 1/2 tbs of butter. place the chicken breast down on top of that and then place another 1/4 of the veggies and another 1/2 tbs of butter. Seal up the parchment paper to make a sac, much like making an empanada... out of paper that is infused with silicone... repeat. Place the two chicken sacs on a baking sheet and bake for 35+/-5m until it's done. Nom nom away.

Patriotic Dinner Parties

Or not.

I love dinner parties. I decided, at mostly the last minute, to throw a dinner party for the 4th of July. It's not normally one of those holidays that I celebrate, but I mostly didn't have anything better to do and I hadn't had a dinner party at the apartment yet, so I was itching to host one again. My friend Chris is in from EL to visit us and so between the two of us, we put together quite a feast. Yay food.

It began with the impulse buying of a baguette to match with the tiniest bit of brie I had left from a previous impulse shopping trip. I kind of forgot about it, so it was good and crusty and so I cut it up into cubes and made croutons.

The Impetus:

most of a baguette, cubed
1/2 c EVOO
1/3 c grated parm cheese
2 tbs dried parsley flakes
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

mix the EVOO, cheese, parsley, garlic. toss the bread cubes in EVOO mixture. bake in an oven at 350 for awhile and turn half way. (I'd check after 5 minutes)

Austin is home to the world's largest urban population of bats. They mostly reside under the Congress St. bridge, so we went to watch one night. It was okay, but the real highlight was a trip to Six Flags over Whole Foods (which is apparently the flagship Whole Foods store for the brand.) which was just down the road. I sort of impulse shopped my way through, getting amazing tomatoes and some mozzarella. This led directly to bruschetta.

The Impulse

1 large salmonella-free tomato, seeded and diced
1/3 c finely chopped basil
3-4 tbs olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, pan-toasted, minced
1/3 c fresh mozzarella diced

toast the garlic with the skin on in a pan until it softens and the flavor mellows. mince. combine everything and toss it. let it sit for awhile so the flavors all combine.

The initial dinner party was at Kyle's and was mostly devoted to deep fried foods. Whilst completely delicious, it was, alas, quickly approaching one of the Seven Deadly Sins. To repent, we planned a "healthy" party themed "Atonement"; I suppose this was it:

The Penance

2 chicken breasts
some amount of italian-like dressing

marinate the chicken for like a day. pan sear.

lemon-shallot vinaigrette
(combine everything below, shake){
3/4 c extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tbs Dijon mustard
}

some amount of spring greens
impetus croutons
Parmesan cheese

toss everything. eat.

In the day leading up to the party, I was browsing the good old inter-mo-tron and The Minimalist put out a list of 101 quick'n'inspired picnic dishes. This, of course, meant that there was more food blog reading to transpire, so after salivating over tastespotting for awhile, I found a pasta-salad recipe that included items that my guests wouldn't eat (broccoli) and I couldn't afford (pine nuts)... so that sort of morphed into a cous-cous dish with items that my guests would eat (asparagus) and I could purchase without signing away the rights to my first born child (pumpkin seed). This mostly involved some amount of asparagus being pan fried with garlic, shallots, and olive oil until it was just barely tender, toasting the pumpkin seeds and then adding all of that to plain cous cous (that I must admit was made from one of those instant box things.) We also oven roasted corn from Whole Foods because I have yet to see it in any capacity at the farmer's market.

The event concluded with dessert, which chris made, which was mostly the following:

1 bag frozen berry fruits
1/2 c water
2 tbs sugar, more to taste
splash lime juice

boil h2o, berries, sugar in a pot and let it thicken. taste. when it's like oh-holy-crap too sweet, add in a bit of lime juice and then when you add too much, add in a bit of sugar and let it thicken still. Serve over some cake like thing (I used my corn bread recipe) with home made whipped cream.

1 c heavy cream
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

mix until soft peaks form.

nom. nom. nom.

Arrivals

It's extremely possible to drive from Michigan to Texas in one day; however, it's extremely unpleasant to do so. Colby and I left Stockbridge, MI at 5:00 AM on Friday morning and arrived in New Boston, TX at 10:00 PM, a mere eighteen hours on the road later. (No, that's not a miscalculation: Texas is on central time.) We got up bright and early the next day to finish the trip. I got to drive from Dallas to Austin, which was only slightly terrifying. I only thought we were going to die about 10% of the time, though, so that's a plus.

Since then, we've acquired an apartment (okay, we sort of had that one in the bag), a couch, television (like the last CRT TV available in all of Texas), washer/dryer set, a rice cooker, and a new-found independence that's really frickin' weird. I'd describe it if I could, but it's almost straight from that pool scene in Garden State (when your home is not really your home), but different. I guess this is the beginning of the terrible ordeal known as "growing up".

The kitchen in my new apartment isn't by any means spectacular, but it's a major upgrade from my old apartment. I've finally got counter space. It's amazing how much simpler everything becomes when there is room to work. The inaugural meal was stir-fry with rice noodles and after that we've been good about trying to cook every day and whatnot.

The other night, Kyle came over and we had mustard chicken with pasta dish, which went as such:

marinate chicken (aka let it thaw in the fridge) in spicy brown mustard+olive oil+honey+lemon juice mixture with some salt and pepper. It should probably be 2:1:1:1, but that's mostly a guess on my part. Pan fry. Eat. The pasta sauce was just a roux with cheese+sauteed mushrooms, garlic, s+p which was poured over 1/2 lb of penne with some steamed broccoli. Yay for fake attempts at being healthy!

Today, we're going to the farmer's market in Triangle Park and later on, I'm making dinner. I'm thinking risotto with tomatoes, spinach, and yellow squash, with fresh corn. Yay summer!

Spring Cleaning

I've come to the point of no return with my kitchen where I'm beginning to use up certain items and not replace them. I just used up my last bottle of stir-fry sauce. It was, however, a tasty tasty meal that converted well into a single bowl dinner for Colby and me complete with the Sports Night DVDs that I got for my birthday. Muy excelente!

My dad put down a down payment for the hall for the wedding. It's exciting. I'm a little bummed that I didn't get to try out caterers, but I guess it'll be okay. I'm just looking forward to getting a new, bigger, better kitchen in Texas. I think. Maybe South Carolina. Not sure, but either way, I hope to have a stand mixer by the end of the year. woo hoo wedding registries.

Refrigerator Pie

So I went to DC over New Years to visit Kate, and during one of my hangover recovery periods, I watched a whole bunch of Good Eats on my computer. One of the episodes was Egg Files II - Man with a Flan and Alton made quiche, which he dubbed refrigerator pie. It was super easy. I took a store-bought pie crust (yes, I know, I'm lazy) and then put a royale mixture in it and then stuff.

1 pie crust

royale mixture:

2 eggs
1 c heavy cream
2 pinches salt

fillings

Preheat oven to 350. Beat eggs and cream and then beat in the salt. Put your fillings in, but leave open spaces for the royale mixture to go. I used mushrooms sauteed in butter and garlic salt (I ran out of garlic. :( ), broccoli that I had pre-cooked a bit, and some white cheddar cheese with herbs. It has a name. I don't really remember it, though.

Don't fill everything up to the top. Bake for ~45 minutes, or until the filling is set to the consistency of jello.

It turned out really well. I was surprised by that. I had enough stuff left over to make flan, which actually seemed rather easy to make, but I don't own ramekins and upon further reflection hate flan, so I decided against it.

Stir Fry part doo + schwam, with quinoa!

I think my new obsessions are stir-fry and KT Tunstall --stir-fry because it's easy and KT Tunstall because her new CD has some really sweet jams (in Michaelese). So today I went on a gigantic grocery adventure and came back with, amongst other goodies, quinoa, which is a grain initially cultivated in the Andes.

Side note: I started this post about a month ago and never finished it because i got way too busy, but i feel like it's time to update this thing for my own sake.

Quinoa is starting to become popular in vegetarian/vegan food circles. Actually, it isn't starting to, it actually is popular and since I live in the midwest, I haven't gotten around to trying it until recently. It's small and round and actually a seed, so it's not exactly like rice. You cook it in much the same way you cook rice, with 2 cups of water per 1 cup of quinoa. Simply bring to a boil and let it soak up the water for about 15ish minutes.

My first (and sadly, only) attempt with it was really as a rice replacement. I made stir-fry with a store-bought stir-fry sauce and just put it on the quinoa. It was actually pretty good. I'd say that it bridges the gap between white rice and brown rice in how nutty it is. I like it. I'm going to make more of it soon, especially since I've replenished my broccoli supply.

Home cooked goodness

So if Kyle and I end up at the same grad school, we're going to room together and it's going to be amazing because we're going to come up with incredible culinary creations. We made a home-cooked meal the other day and it was amazing. I discovered how easy it is to fake like an adult and Kyle discovered that chicken doesn't have to be completely bland. Yay for instant mashed potatoes and meat rubs!

chicken
random meat rub
olive oil

2 tbs flour
2 tbs butter
2 c milk
broccoli
mushrooms
more butter
garlic salt
cheese (in this case, we used mild cheddar... shredded sharp cheddar seems better)

water
mashed potato mix

We made the chicken by covering it in some voodoo rub and then just putting it in the pan with a tiny bit of olive oil (just enough so that it wouldn't burn) and then cooking it until we didn't die. The broccoli with mushroom-cheese sauce bit was slightly harder, but still a learning experience. Boil the broccoli until it turns bright green, sautee mushrooms in butter and garlic salt (since they seemed so sad and plain) until they darken a bit, and then make the cheese sauce, but probably not in that order. I'm the queen of run-on sentences. Melt 2tbs of butter and then add flour whilst mixing vigorously. Add in warm milk and keep stirring until it thickens. Add in cheese. Preferably enough. Also, you probably want to halve the amount of sauce that we made because it was too much and the sauce ends up being too bland because there's just too much roux-like substance. Pour this over drained broccoli and tasty mushrooms. Finally, the hardest bit (at least for Kyle) the instant mashed potatoes: boil water, ADD TO DRY POTATO MIX, stir.

It all came out lovely and homecooked-like. It was kind of exciting. Also, we made cookies and those came out slightly too well done, but still okay. Someone needs to calibrate their oven. *ahem*. I think that I want to experiment with making my own rubs because it was a little voodoo. It was also delicious, so it's some sort of balance between being in control and not. It's probably also a waste of time, especially from now til November 3rd.

dun dun dun.