A lovely dinner!

October 4th, 2008

A bit of foodblogging goodness!

Last night, I lay awake last night obsessing about spaghetti squash. That actually wasn’t the only thing I was thinking about. I was thinking about the scallops in the freezer that were beginning to freezerburn. I was also thinking about the fact that I had bacon. Grilled, bacon-wrapped scallops! So, I got up and put those items in the fridge to thaw.

While visiting my hairdresser, we talked about my biking down to the farmer’s market and the spaghetti squash I bought there. She asked if I’d be making it with garlic. WHAT? I can do that? Any time I’ve cooked it before, I filled it with butter and either honey or brown sugar and baked it. Today though, I took the quicker, much more savory, approach. Split the squash in half and cleaned out the seeds. Placed it cut side down on a plate and microwaved for 7 minutes. While that was cooking I started some butter and garlic browning on the stove. When the squash was done, I fluffed it and scooped it into the butter mixture, then stirred in a wee bit of salt.

The green beans came from a can. I just added a spoonful of bacon grease and microwaved them for 4 minutes.

Sparks grilled the skewered scallops and bacon. The one drawback was that they took over twice as long as any of the websites said. This meant that the vegetables were cold by the time we got to them. However, it gave me time to mix up a quick lemon herb sauce.

The first bite of scallop was so yummy that I immediately jumped up and went over to kiss Sparks!

And hey – a picture!

A conquered fear

September 18th, 2008

Last night I finally beat my fear of the flame!

I flambeed bananas foster. Maybe they were a bit better for it, I’m not sure. Now that I don’t have a big greasy range hood, I decided to give it a shot. I started a fire in the kitchen ON PURPOSE and the world did not end.

I’m quite happy with myself.

cook something new day!

September 6th, 2008

More experimentation for dinner. I decided to head to Fresh Market and let it inspire me for dinner.

Braised chicken sausages
Garlic green beans
couscous

and…

roasted brussel sprouts!

Go ahead, get all the icks out. I’d never had a brussel sprout, and honestly they didn’t “look to suit me” as Pop would say. So, I’d recently decided that I wasn’t to at least try one. I figure I’m fairly likely to get decent ones at fresh market.

I looked around online and found this recipe and gave it a try. I only deviated slightly – I added a spoonful of bacon grease in with the olive oil since I’d seen some tv chef saute them in bacon grease. I think I slightly undercooked them, they were still rather al dente, but they were quite tasty. Not going to become a favorite, but not completely out of the question either if I’m craving something different.

Sparks said they were the best brussel sprouts he’d ever had! Woot!

Ysha is great! Made us chocolate cake!

August 21st, 2008

I love me. I rock the house! But damn it, I forgot to make them sing the song!

This morning, I picked all of the chicken off the carcass from sunday’s dinner. I cooked a little rice and mixed in with it, then sauteed up some onions. I dumped in a can each of green chiles and black olives, plus a bunch of cilantro, some chicken broth and part of the leftover chicken gravy. This I mixed with the chicken and rolled them up into tortillas. I took the rest of the gravy and thinned it down a bit with broth and once again added chiles and cilantro. Then I stirred in a scoop of sour cream and poured this over the enchilladas, topping it all with cheese.

I took this down to Salamander’s house since they’re firing the Locomama (giganto train kiln) today and I knew they’d be hungry. Popped it in the oven to get hot and bubbly. I have now added +1 boyfriend and +1 girlfriend to my harem! Especially since I ALSO brought them chocolate cake! The enchilladas turned out quite great. That right there is why I will make an entire chicken when I will only eat the breast off a roast chicken. The rest of that tasty chicken makes damned tasty enchilladas!

Pop fussed the first time I’d made those around him. Nooooooo, enchilladas must have RED sauce! From a can! Back man! I like my green chickeny sauce on chicken enchilladas. He agreed after he tasted them. He agreed again today since I had enough filling to make our large pan and a small one for him which he picked up this afternoon.

He says “write that one down, man!” Pop alla time calls me “man” and it makes me laugh. But how can I write it down when it’s more method than measurement? How much chicken did I use? All of it. Gravy? What I had left. Cilantro? ‘Bout yay much. The only amounts I can say for certain are the things that come in cans, that’s just because I dump in the whole thing.

And that’s how my food turns out best!

Put ze bok-bok in ze pote!

August 17th, 2008

Early this afternoon, I decided that I wanted to make a roast chicken. My friend Mari says that she always does hers in the crock pot and it’s scrumptious. Ok, I’ll give it a shot. But I had to go buy myself a crock pot. I didn’t have one, just used dad’s when I lived with him.

This was obviously the correct day to have this urge. I went to Meijer since they could provide me with both a chicken and a pot to cook it in, plus had pepsi products on sale. We likes the pepsi products around here. I found a 5.5 quart crock pot, normally $40, for $10. In addition to that, chickens were only $0.79 a pound! Whoooo!

I looked at several recipes, plus talked to Mari, then decided to just wing it. Hurr Hurr! I rubbed the chicken with olive oil and dumped in some herbs and salt and garlic cloves then decided to pour in a bit of chicken broth to keep it nice and moist. I cooked it on high for an hour, then switched to low like all the recipes told me to do. *rolls eyes* Gawds, it took blasted forever. 6 hours of cook time and still the juices did not run clear! So, I cranked up the oven to 375F and slid the chicken in for just shy of an hour.

While it was cooking, I boiled up some baby red potatoes with a few cloves of garlic thrown in. We love garlic! I mashed those when they were done. I also boiled some baby carrots and glazed them with butter and maple syrup. From the broth/drippings left in the crock pot, I made a gravy.

Oh my gawd! So worth the wait! But I really wish it had been finished before 11:30 pm. Now I’m sleepy and so full that I think I might barf if I tried to be horizontal. Sorry no pictures, but by the time it was finished we were so hungry that we dived on it like a couple of crazed velociraptors!

Don’t cry for me, intarwebz!

August 7th, 2008

One of my absolute worst habits is the wasting of food. It’s obscene, the amount of food that rots in my fridge while I eat microwave popcorn.

I think part of it is that I have good intentions. One of the things that I wind up throwing away the most of is bagged salads. I buy a bag, eat one salad out of it, then don’t want salad again for two weeks.

Another bad influence on my waste is the farmer’s market. Saturday is the only day to really hit the farmer’s market, there’s not nearly as many vendors there on tuesdays and thursdays. So, I see all of these great veggies that look amazing and I buy more than I can eat that day. Then I forget about my purchases until the next weekend, when they are way yuck.

Tonight, though, I rescued a whole bunch of things that might have been forgotten if not for the fact that I skipped lunch and spent my last hour of work thinking about what I wanted for dinner. Sparks says, “Spaghetti? You can’t do better than that after the great dinner you made last night?”

Don’t mourn for poor Ysha, babies and darlings. This was no sauce from a jar with greyish hamburger.

I started with a package of cherry tomatoes (they were on sale at Kroger last week for a dollar!) and half a bulb of garlic. I cleaned the tomatoes and separated the garlic cloves, tossing them all with olive oil and kosher salt and tossed them in the oven for 30 minutes at 400F. The garlic was soft and yummy, but the tomatoes weren’t done yet, so I put them back for about another 20 minutes while I got started on the rest of my sauce.

I cleaned a quarter pound of chanterelle mushrooms (farmer’s market last saturday) and sauteed them in a tablespoon of butter. Oh yes, Paula Dean fans, we cook with butter around here! I tossed in a little salt and then hit them with a half cup or so of leftover shiraz that I was keeping around to cook with. I mashed the garlic out of the skins and turned it into a paste, which was tossed in with the mushrooms. I also dumped in the tomatoes at the point and squished them with the spatula. I decided the sauce looked a bit dry, so I dumped in a bit of chicken stock (for that simmered all day taste, says Rachel Ray. whatevs, says I.) I boiled up a big handful of angel hair pasta while this was going on and chopped up a big handful of basil leaves (farmer’s market last saturday). I mixed probably 2/3 of the basil in with the sauce to simmer.

When the pasta was done I drained it and tossed it with a tablespoon of butter. Then topped it with the sauce, a handful of parmesan cheese and the rest of the basil.

And hey look! A picture! GET OUT!

I took 8 pictures of a bowl of pasta, just to get one that wasn’t horrid.

Just for reference, that bowl would feed two adults, probably 3 if you threw in a salad and bit of bread. I ate almost half of it before I was stuffed to the gills.

Exhausted and hungry pays off for Ysha

July 21st, 2008

You know I love to chronicle my food adventures when I am out of town. For one thing, it makes Mimi drool and call me bad names. *giggle* Plus, I’m all alone and therefore must turn to LJ for company.

Today didn’t seem that it was going to be a good day. I had a mild headache start in at about midnight saturday. As of this morning, it was still hanging with me. That didn’t bode well for the first day of a PeopleSoft class. I crammed a couple of Aleve down my throat and went on. Oracle University is pretty much catty-corner across the river from here, so it was a nice short walk.

There’s a big drawback to aleve, it makes me sleepy. However, it’s the only thing that seems to work on my headaches, so I still take it. Or maybe the headaches just make me sleepy? Doesn’t matter, it all goes together. By lunchtime, I thought I was going to have to come back to the hotel and forget the afternoon class. However, I’d missed breakfast and was super hungry, so I thought I’d better go get lunch.

I have the same silly flighty instructor for this class that I had for my last class in Atlanta. She’s fun. She listed off several places nearby where we could get lunch and I headed off to find some. I decided to just solo it and not try to find anyone from class to have lunch with, I didn’t feel very social. Amy had mentioned a Dim Sum place nearby, but she’d also mentioned 42 other places right after that, so I was a bit confused. I set off to sort of looking for the dim sum and … oh, hey, sushi! That would be lovely. A little sushi/grill right down on the river walk – Diosa. I had the veggie spring rolls and a spicy ebi roll(shrimp). The spring rolls were absolutely terrific and were served on some pile of green stuff. It was about the consistency of slightly al dente glass noodles, yet was vibrant green. I asked my server what it was – seaweed salad. TERRIFIC!

I headed back to class, figuring I could tough it out and if I couldn’t then “home” was a block away. As soon as class was over, I hightailed it back here and FELL RIGHT OUT! I slept for the next four hours and when I awoke, I seriously considered just going back to sleep. However, I figured that if I didn’t get some dinner, I’d wake up at midnight and absolutely ravage the minibar. I’ve done enough damage to that thing without going all insane! Honestly though, I’m better off with $5 peanuts than when I stay in a residence inn and try to stock enough snacks to suit my constantly changing desires.

I’m hungry, I’m lazy and there’s a restaurant downstairs. So, guess what’s for dinner? I popped down to check out the South Water Kitchen. Regardless of what the booking agent on the phone said when I reserved my room, there was no need for a reservation there. At least not at 8:30 on a monday night. I was seated immediately.

I opted for the halibut and a glass of Edward Sellers Cognito. I had no idea what to expect with the wine, it was one of their featured summer selections, but I liked it quite a bit. This is something that I love about Chicago – I walk everywhere so I can always have a glass of wine with dinner! The halibut was splendid, seared with an herbed butter on top. It was served with teeny thin green beans and twice baked fingerlings. The fingerlings amused me, as they were split open like a normal sized baked potato and filled with chive creme fraiche. For dessert I had their carrot raisin walnut bourbon bundt cake with homemade caramel sauce. YUMMO!

And now, my darlings – I goes back to bed. Tomorrow night – Wicked, and maybe I’ll check out that Garrett’s caramel corn place that had people queued all that way down the block on sunday. Assuming the line isn’t so long this time.

Dinner at Morton’s, in which Ysha is a backward goob

July 21st, 2008

Son, I tell you whut. Being in Chicago turns me into a wide eyed little girl. I walk around gawking at everything in the world and loving this city.

It’s been a very long week, and what I really wanted for dinner was a nice glass of pinot noir and a big juicy steak. When I came back from my neighborhood exploration earlier, I inquired of the concierge(Ryan) where to get the best steak closeby – he sent me to Morton’s, even made a reservation for me. I could do with a concierge in my life all the time, someone to recommend restaurants and take care of the details.

I popped around the corner and into the restaurant at the appointed time and was immediately seated. But the man seating me didn’t provide me with either a menu or a wine list. What the hey? So, I just figured the server would bring it over in a few minutes, but I was still a bit confused.

The lovely Miss Jenn brought me the wine list and asked my preference for the “water service”. *snicker* Source Municipal (as Waiter would say) is just fine for me thanks. Jenn told me that her co-server Angela would be over in just a moment for the “menu presentation”.

The what?

My wine comes and a nice busser drops me a fresh baked loaf of onion bread. Still, no menu. Angela passes by and tells me that she will return momentarily for the “menu presentation”.

At this point, I am expecting a musical number to accompany this presentation. Is a huge dancing bear going to come out of the kitchen and hand me my menu? Are streamers going to float from the ceiling as it touches my dainty hand? This is some serious buildup for a menu, no doubt.

I didn’t have to wonder for much longer. Angela comes over wheeling a cart of food. I say to her, “honey, that’s not a menu! That’s the whole kitchen!”

She laughed and began her presentation. On this cart were several trays of food covered in cling film. She listed off each menu item (they weren’t ALL on the cart) and displayed the various cuts of beef for me. All of the steaks she showed me were huge and promised to be delivered in that size. Then she starts talking about the seafood selections and brandishes a plastic lobster at me.

WAIT ONE DAMNED MINUTE HERE!! THAT’S NOT A PLASTIC LOBSTER!!

Yes, babies and darlings, it was a live lobster. She picked him up and he wiggled at me. I expressed my mild disdain (with a “oh my god! That’s a live lobster!”) and then she finished the presentation. Luckily for those of us with a rather short attention span, she then left me with a hard copy of the menu so that I could consider my choices.

I had already eyeballed them online and knew that I wanted to try their “legendary” chocolate lava cake, so I didn’t go wild on dinner. I ordered the single cut filet (smaller portion) and the garlic green beans. Dinner was scrumptious.

Dessert was damn near perfect, BUT for their signature dessert I expected more. Oh, it was large enough and it was fresh from the oven (I’d had to order it before my meal came since it takes 30 minutes to make). It was nicely oozy in the middle and served with a very good quality vanilla ice cream. But, I dunno, the chocolatey flavor was a wee bit ….. flat. Like maybe it could have used a teeny smidge of salt in the batter.

WHAT? I never denied being a food snob.

Anyway, dinner was terrific and I managed to only act like I just fell off the turnip truck a few times. We won’t talk about the price though – just know that I stopped at the 7-11 across the street and bought a BOTTLE of pinot noir for the same amount I paid for a GLASS at the restaurant.

3 days of yummy dinners

July 12th, 2008

Let’s talk bellyfiller. You know, one of my favorite subjects – food.

On Thursday night, I stopped to pick up some hamburger so that we could grill out. Kroger had some lovely avacados and I thought I’d be sweet to my adorable boyfriend. So, I came home and mixed up some guacamole that he could then slather on his burger (pressing some bacon bits and jalapeno slices into the pile of guacamole. Ysha says yuk, but Sparks loves it.) With the burgers we had fried potatoes (I don’t recommend trying to fry new potatoes, they don’t brown. But it’s what I had on hand.) and sauteed zucchini.

Last night, the boyfriend was working and I was craving Indian food. Big mistake, allowing myself into Tandoor all alone and hungry. I spent $40 on take out and came home for a feast of paneer pakora, papdums, onion chutney, vegetable korma, chicken mahkani, and garlic naan. I barely made a dent in the Vegetable Korma (my favorite) or Chicken Makhani (it looked rather like the “butter chicken” that I’d just watched the recipe for) but they were so yummy. Sparks had some for dinner when he got home around midnight. We’ve got a ton of leftovers, so I could probably eat it for lunches/dinners for several days. But I’d better not get burned out on it, I’m supposed to go back over there with some friends late in the week.

Tonight, I marinated a couple of tuna steaks in a combination of old bay and lime juice, then Sparks grilled them. I also threw together a corn and bean salad and a small bit of couscous. We topped the tuna steaks with the leftover guacamole. This was the best idea I’ve had for a while. It adds a bit of moisture to an otherwise dry fish but tastes better with tuna than tartar sauce. Sparks sat around rubbing his tummy and telling me what a wonderful dinner that was for a full hour after we’d finished eating it.

The death of baking

June 26th, 2008

Since I’ve moved, I really don’t bake anymore.

I love my gas stove. Did you know that it is possible to make cook n serve pudding in the span of a commercial break? It always took something like 20 minutes at dad’s house. Needless to say, I’m trying not to keep so much pudding in the house or I eat too much pudding. But I love it so.

But my oven? I HATES it! First, it doesn’t tell me when it’s up to temperature. I’ve had to buy an oven thermometer. Secondly, there’s no light in there, so I have to pull out a flashlight to read the thermometer. The temperature seems to vary by 50 degrees in either direction depending on the moment. It takes almost twice as long to cook things as in Dad’s electric oven. AND my cookie sheets didn’t even fit in there, I had to swap dad for the smaller ones.

Did I mention that I hate that oven? I try to avoid using it when I can, using the toaster oven whenever possible.

Maybe I’ll experiment more with custards and other stovetop desserts. Once I can get myself to lay off the pudding.