So this post is WAY overdue, but the whole holiday season was filled with family and other commitments. But now I bring you :

I am curious as to what you eat for breakfast each day, or when it's convenient.
I am diabetic, and so can't have sweet brekky stuff...I am rarely naughty, btu when I am, it's pancakes, at home...crepe style with vanilla in the batter and topped with grated sharp cheddar and tupelo honey. -swoon-
So good.
Most days, it's a half bagel from the place areound the corner that makes them fresh, an all-beef kosher bagel dog on special occasions, and frequently cottage cheese and an apple. Num.
My mom used to make me a fried egg and tortilla roll-up.

What do you guys eat?

went to New York. short, sweet weekend. my first time.

you know me. and trips. and food. and pictures of my food.

( i need a new hobby )

RIP, Momofuku Ando. Your invention fueled my college years and--let's be honest--still graces my bowls on a not-so-infrequent basis. And why not? 25 billion servings can't be wrong.

What's your favorite way to dress up ramen noodles? Me, I like to add a scrambled egg and broccoli. If I've got them, white and black sesame seeds on top and a little sesame oil. Mmmmm, mmmm.

A former roommate left a frozen sea cucumber upon his passage. I'm currently trying to use up the stuff in the freezer, so does anyone have any idea what to do with it? I did some googling for some recipes and mostly came up with recommendations AGAINST cooking with it :( Or just about how snobbish restaurants use it. Thoughts? Recommendations?

Thank you very much in advance. :)
Edit: Just realized I was really unclear (fuzzy head today). I've found some interesting recipes, but also articles on preparation and they don't seem to go hand in hand... or they address fresh sea cucumbers and I have no idea how processed the frozen (and packaged) ones are.

This may be a little odd but...

I'm always looking to expand my baking library. I have a basic grasp of German from high school, and a good understanding of bread baking such that I think it would be fun to try and muddle my way through a German book (or two) on bread. I've done a bit of browsing on Amazon.de and have found a few titles, though I'm curious if anybody out there has any particular recommendations. Heck, while I'm at it, any good dessert/pastry books, too?

Thanks!

(cross posted to breadmaking)

I've been trying to eat a little healthier, so here are a few of the things I've made in the past two weeks!

( Read more... )


What are some of your healthy (ish...) New Year recipes?

I have some clients I am hoping to cater their Spring Fashion Show for. Yesterday I did their Amuse Bouche tastings and here are a couple pics:

This is a close up. (From right to left)....You're looking at En Salat (salad) with Mesclun, candied pecans and fresh raspberries in an edible parmesan bowl, mushroom tartlets, shrimp on baguette with sesame dressing, hummus in dill chips and lastly prosicutto and dried fig on sweet polenta cakes:


( one more here ! )

I recently discovered that you can buy these high quality fish filets that are individually wrapped by the bag at Target. As a single gal, watching her diet this has been so great! It is called Market Pantry and I have tried both the salmon and tipalia and been very satisfied. As a lover a fish but with a fear of bones and a love for anything handy, it was a really great find. Also pretty reasonable. The salmon was 7.99 a bag but that was for 6 or 7 filets! For a yummy salmon salad recipe clicky here.

A friend of mine bought this pre-prepared at Whole Foods, and I was so enchanted, I have re-created it at home.

Brie, minus the casing
chopped almonds
fig jam or preserves or spread

Spread the fig jam on the brie to your taste. Sprinkle the chopped almonds generously over the jam. Enjoy with stoneground wheat or other crackers, or baguette. Find yourself rocketed straight to paradise. Repeat.

This is a current food obsession for me. It's SO good.

Newbie question here...
What's so special about sushi rice?
What makes it different to, say, basmati rice?

I'm asking because I'm likely to be starting an elimination diet soon to try and find out what foods are causing some of my illnesses, but I'm determined to eat nice, tasty things and I have been looking at making bentos for lunch. So I'm looking at how to make gyoza and sushi and the such with different ingredients.

Would brown rice be ok for use in sushi?

Since I'm here... what about flours for gyoza dough? I'd have to be on gluten free, would that work as well?

It's time, once again, for "Iron Chef America: the Home Game"!

It's been a bit since I've done this one; the New Year (and a dearth of episodes I'd not, yet seen, are to blame for that). If you'll recall, the idea is this ... watch an episode of "Iron Chef America" when it first airs and, in real time, once the secret ingredient is revealed give yourself 10 minutes to come up with 5 original dishes featuring that ingredient. The dishes must be dishes that you can prepare and should be as original as possible. In my case, this means that since I have no clue how to use truffles and don't know how to make ice cream, I can't -honestly- put such dishes forth as valid ideas. As I've said before, since taste cannot be a factor, it has to be hypothetical taste ... ie, "what flavors go well with each other".

Tonight's show blew me away. I KNOW I could never compete at the level of the chefs who appear on Iron Chef but watching the two who tackled the secret ingredient only drove that point home to me, more than ever before. Also, I'd never seen Mario Batali swear and get pissed-off, before! It scared me!

Anyway, if you're interested in playing along, set your timer and click below for the secret ingredient... You have ten minutes to come up with five dishes...

Ready?

Set...

( Allez Cuisine! )

So, how did I do?

Whatta ya think, sirs?

( Iron Geek Dave's Dishes )

So, thoughts?

Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)

So, to make a long story short, I decided to make pork vindaloo for dinner the other night. It is traditionally made with pork, but I have always used chicken. It generally doesn't have coconut milk in it, but I had seen a recipe in a Madhur Jaffrey book that suggested it, so I tried it out. Instead of vinegar, I used tamarind, which gave a softer, fruiter sour note, and as I do with my chicken vindaloo, I added chunks of fresh mango.

It was really, really good. Hot, complex, sweet and sour and fruity.

Oh, and I garnished it with pomegranate seeds. Just because I could.

Photographs and recipe here.

( 0.5(chicken with 40 cloves of garlic) + latkes )

Last Sunday I finally got around to making latkes, which I do at least once every winter, and a half-sized portion of chicken stew with 40 cloves of garlic, made with the wings and legs from one chicken, two small heads of garlic, onions, carrots, celery, taragon, a couple of bay leaves, and about a third of a bottle of medium beer. I baked it in my new clay pot (which is looking to be one of the better $9 I've spent on kitchen stuff in a while) and the stew came out deliciously fragrant with tender, flavorful meat.

The picture above does not show the truly food-porn-worthy aspect of the meal, in which one takes a clove of baked garlic, smooshes out the inside, and applies the buttery, delicate paste to the latke along with a little sour cream, enjoying the way the latke starts out crispy and soaks up the broth from the stew as the meal progresses.