bento and food for the college crowd

Lousy Updating Ameliorated

2009-03-26T19:12:00.002-04:00

But, only in the worst possible way... with a survey!

The Very Good Taste Omnivore's 100 List

Rules:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries (well, they were in Gramma's backyard.. but weren't cultivated)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (in both the Clam Chowder capital - Boston - and the sourdough capital - San Francisco... I'm so cultured!)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle (I did work on a play that mentioned this food.. doesn't count, does it?)
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (isn't this a type of clay?)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

35/100... I think I've only ever scored that low on tests in geometry class! Clearly, I need to expand some of my food horizons, though I am happy to say I've never eaten a Big Mac meal.

Expect some more on-target posts in the near future.

Making Butter

2009-01-15T20:56:00.004-05:00

Though they may seem intimidating, making your own dairy products is frequently not that difficult. Some recipes may take a while: yogurt requires about half an hour of heating and cooling the milk before letting it sit for 8-12 hours, but it's certainly not hard. Same with soft cheeses: heat and cool milk or cream, strain, maybe add another ingredient (like vinegar or lemon juice) and wait. Butter, on the other hand, is a more... active recipe.
Instead of heating and waiting, butter is a totally raw food.
Also unlike yogurt and cheese, butter is a good workout.

Step 1: get some heavy cream (I used raw from the farmers' market and I highly recommend it)

Step 2: put it in a container with a good seal (I used a lock-n-lock container)

Almost there in this picture

Step 3: SHAKE!

Basically, you first make whipped cream. When you continue shaking after the whipped cream, the cream gets thicker and then breaks down. Continued shaking results in butter and a special splash: buttermilk!
I didn't get quite as much buttermilk as I expected, but I was ok with that. My recipe called for 1 cup of buttermilk, but I was able to make up for the lack by mixing some leftover cream with water and a squeeze of lemon juice. Ideally, 1 pint of cream, like I had, should yield 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of buttermilk, but I think I got the better part of the deal -- extra butter!After the butter has clumped up, drain off the buttermilk. As you can see, I saved it in a measuring cup and carefully refrained from guzzling it myself, but you might not have the same glorious willpower. You're not done just yet, though.

Throw your butter into a bowl and pour in some water. Knead the butter and dump out the water. Continue this process until the water is clear. Why? You're rinsing off excess buttermilk. If you were to leave it on there, the butter would go off much more rapidly and you'd be left with nasty rancid butter. For my rinsing step, I actually used a colander, but it was a lousy choice, as the picture below demonstrates.

Overall, making butter is easy, sort of fun, and definitely quite an experience. Probably a good science experiment for children, but I don't know the actual science behind the cream to butter process, so I probably won't be using it as a lesson any time soon. Do you know the science behind butter? I've got an interview for Teach for America coming up, and I could use a great mini-lesson. Props are encouraged and I'm sure they wouldn't turn up their noses at some butter time.

Pizza Party

2009-01-12T03:14:00.003-05:00

Earlier this week, a good friend of mine emailed to see if I'd be interested in a weekend pizza party. Transcript of his email: wanna have a pizza party on saturday? ive been experimenting with goat cheese.
My response: [...] I'll make the dough if you bring the cheese!
Clearly, we are a delightful group. So, friend sent out a mass email to other friends and, as the week wore on, said friends grew more and more excited about homemade pizza.

Well, tonight, all our pizza dreams came true, with a few mishaps thrown in for fun.
I spent the day at the farmers' market, church, and CostCo, so I actually had very little time at home. I'd started a poolish with one of Peter Reinhart's to-die-for recipes, but later realized the dough needed yet another day of refrigeration to make it take on full flavor. As I am not willing to waste poolish that's been squandering space in my fridge for a full night, I went with a completely fresh dough, ignoring the pre-ferment pain. And where did I find this delightful dough? No other location than my darlingest food blog, Smitten Kitchen. I found this amazingly simple dough recipe and planned on making it a few hours before the party for a richly risen dough treasure. Of course, I had no flour, so an emergency grocery run and a few distractions later, the party was just getting underway and I was just beginning my dough mixing.

I enlisted a slightly unwilling Boy, and we whipped up this dough (three batches in, oh, maybe 10 minutes), swaddled them in plastic wrap, and shoved them into our goodie bag to head to the pizza party.

We let the dough rise a bit on top of the oven, then the baker-boys took over, stretching, nay, throwing my dough into perfect circles then dressing them from a gorgeous assortment of condiments, from pesto to carmelized onions and back around to raw mushrooms (fresh from this morning's farmers' market) and Kalamata olives. If I remember correctly, we made a total of 7 pizzas, 3 with my dough and 4 with miscellaneous donations from Trader Joe's and another friend's CuisinArt. By far, my dough got the most applause, and that for dough hurriedly whipped up and not even allowed to fully rise . Clearly, this is a spectacular recipe. Allow me to share!

That's pizza in that pan there -- we made many types and shared!

Spectacular Pizza Dough
adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Makes one 12" pizza

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (organic if possible, part whole wheat, if you're adventurous. I used only all-purpose this time, though I'll likely sub part whole wheat next time)
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp active dry yeast (if using other yeast types, adjust accordingly)
1/2 cup lukewarm water (give or take a few drops)
1 Tbsp olive oil

In a large-ish bowl, throw all the dry ingredients, even the yeast, together. Stir them up and then add the water and olive oil. Mix the ingredients together, but don't sweat it if they're stubborn.
Dump the bowl's contents onto a lightly floured counter/workspace and gently knead until the dough forms nicely, about 1-2 minutes. All the extra floury bits should come together at this stage to leave you with a smooth dough.
Lightly (lightly!) oil the bowl and put the dough ball into it, turning to coat evenly. Cover the bowl in plastic wrap. OR Lightly oil some plastic wrap and wrap the dough ball into it.
Let the dough sit for an hour or so until it's risen, then stretch out, place on cornmeal-dusted parchment paper, and top with delicious everythings.
Transfer the parchment paper to the oven, preferably onto a warmed pizza stone, but a cookie sheet works ok and bake on your oven's highest temperature until the cheese is melted and the crust is wonderfully brownish.

Regional Food Affairs

2009-01-09T20:03:00.002-05:00

Occasionally, everyone has affairs. I figure, if Bill Clinton can, why can't I?
Thus, my regional food affair.
Not only am I in love with the food of my countrymen (that's the Pennsylvania Dutch, famous for pot pie and scrapple, and Italians, famous for all good food, everywhere), but I also love the food of other regions, like wherever Brie comes from (I know it's France!) and Mexico (mmm, tortillas!).
Mostly, though, I love food from home, wherever home may be. TheBoy made a particularly apt statement while we visited family for the holidays "back east." He mentioned that we are now so firmly citizens of both the east and west coasts that we can be those annoying jerks who crave foods "from home" no matter where we are. In PA, we sorely missed our beloved In-N-Out, but here in Cali, I can't even begin to tell you how much we miss good pizza, hoagies, cheesesteaks, and, above all, Wawa. ::sigh:: My stomach growls even thinking about all the delicious Amoroso rolls, salami, provolone, capicolla, and vinegar. ::sigh again:: So, when we visited, we stopped by all the best places to get a taste of home. First stop, Wawa, of course!

We got the full meal: lemonade iced tea, an Italian hoagie with oil, vinegar, and all the veggies, and TASTYKAKES. We hesitated between visions of butterscotch crimpets and kandykakes, but had to stick with the latter. Why? Because they had the EAGLES on them!
Only later did we find crimpets with Eagles logos, too. Wow!
Later, we went to Pepper Mill (you who don't know.. I'm sorry) and I got a cheese steak while TheBoy got an Italian grinder. There are no pictures for the same reason there are no leftovers -- too good! Even better about our Pepper Mill trip: a good friend of mine works there and when we "complained" about the food, he gave us a full refund. *wink*

Despite the fact that I love Wawa and everything it serves, I have to carefully balance my cravings with the realization that almost everything that Wawa serves is totally unhealthy, unsustainable, and not always all that tasty. Yes, I am talking about Wawa coffee. Ew.

What I do love, though, is how food becomes such a vital part of a place. I couldn't imagine the Greater Philadelphia area without Wawa or cheesesteaks, just as I couldn't picture Los Angeles without In-N-Out and taco trucks. The feeling of community is irreplaceable.
What food is vital to your region? Share in comments!

Holiday Food Treats

2009-01-05T20:34:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone just had a lovely set of holidays. Around here, we celebrated entirely too much and, well, the cookies were basically endless (future posts about them.. .yeah). How about I ease into the new year, though, and highlight some food/foodie things received.

TheBoy's gift to me was both thoroughly unexpected and wonderful. A FONDUE POT! Now, I will have to become Strongbad in order to lend out my newly prized possession. I imagine my next encounter will somewhat resemble this Homestarrunner cartoon.

One of my very best friends (who happens to be one of my bridesmaids) gave me a delightfully food-filled gift. Now only did she handcraft a delightful pair of onigiri earrings, but she also delivered some intensely sweet powdered ginger drink. She knows of my great love for ginger, and decided to conveniently deliver. This friend, A, then accompanied TheBoy and me to the craft store for some fun times -- A is an artist (chemical engineering major--artist) and I needed some new yarn to satisfy my cravings. While we were there, A decided that she had not delivered a fully spectacular Christmas gift, so proceeded to purchase two packs of Wilton's adorable mini cookie cutters, one in the "romance" theme and one "Noah's ark" theme. Obviously, A knows me too well. In fact, A is the wonderful roommate who first introduced me to bento, mini cookie cutters, and all things tiny, precious, and edible.

There was only one negative to A's fabulous food contributions: that honey ginger drink is entirely too sweet. Like, mouth-curdlingly sweet. So, how did I remedy this situation? Well, I'm adjusting how much of an individual packet I put into my cup of hot water. Unfortunately, the packets are not resealable and I actually really hate cutting open individual packets. So, this morning I took the only logical step to correct this issue: I cut all the packets opened and dumped them into an infrequently used Nalgene bottle. Now, I will be able to use a long-handled spoon to easily pull out just exactly the right amount of ginger powder without wasting half a packet or having to pull out the scissor. A, are you proud of my food engineering?

Do you have any interesting ways of storing powders or correcting for flavor imbalances? Share in comments!

Holiday Lunches, Again

2008-12-23T12:55:00.002-05:00

Over here in LaLaLand, we're all gearing up for holiday hiatus and you know what that means, right? Minimal updates!

Instead of leaving you totally bereft over the holiday season, though, I thought I'd treat you to a second dose of festive food.

Here we have my accidentally festive lunch from December 18th. I justsohappened to use a green box and those wonderful farmers' market-found cherry tomatoes couldn't help but cheer up my lunch. The less exhilarating companion to the green box is a microwavable Lock-N-Lock container filled with the same leftover beef stew we've been suffering from (actually, it's delightful, but I'm glad to see it gone). Inside the green box are some of those tomatoes, some small bite-size chunks of homemade bread, and some unsweetened dried mango slices from the bulk bin -- pretty healthy and awesome, in my opinion. If you notice that I packed the green box pretty lightly, you're right: together, the Lock-N-Lock plus the green sidecar is entirely too much lunch for me, so a mostly filled beef stew and lightly packed side are the perfect amount for a filling, wintertime meal, especially in our arctic office environment. Frigid!

Though the last meal was accidentally holiday-themed, this next bento set was purposefully crafted as a tribute to our Christmas spirit. Taking some of the spicy shortbread cookies that I made and coupling them with leftover spaghetti with sausage, and happy green peppers was a great start. Throwing those delightful cherry tomatoes completed the package in the best way. For TheBoy's lunch, I simply cut slices off the top of a green bell pepper and set them aside. I sliced until the bottom of the pepper was shallow enough to sit in his lunchbox. You can see some of the extra slices plugging a hole next to the "wreath" pepper and, of course, over in my box, covering my leftover lasagna. He also got a layered snack area filled with banana chips, salted almonds, and a single spiced shortbread cookie -- I got the same, just with smaller portions.

TheBoy loved how much thought (he thinks) I put into this lunch and gobbled it up in record time. He loves anything to do with spaghetti and tomatoes and peppers, so this was a huge hit. I also loved my lunch and we both got compliments on our wonderful meals. So, I'll sign off now for the holidays with a clear blog-conscience. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Festive Food

2008-12-17T15:49:00.004-05:00

Because L.A. is so different from my old, cold Christmas home, I've been having some difficulty getting ready for the holidays. So, to help me, I've started making festive food choices. Beginning with my holiday cookie spree and edging into our lunches, Christmas has started to seriously invade the kitchen here.
Let's start with a small example: Saturday night hit and cookie craving set in bigtime. I needed my fix, so I made another batch of Chocolate Rocky Road cookies. These ones didn't turn out quite so beautifully as the last ones, but were delightful, especially when photographed on holiday wrapping paper!

A little bit of red and green has snuck into our lunch boxes in the form of lasagna and green grapes. Let me tell you a bit about the lasagna. First, I started by making the sauce. You can find the recipe at the bottom of the post, but mostly it's a sham-recipe -- I just throw in whatever I have around. While the sauce is bubbling away, I work on the ricotta (following the directions on the lasagna noodles box... too easy!). While both the sauce and ricotta are getting delicious, I'm also, sometimes, heating up hot Italian sausage to mix into the sauce. Then, it's just a matter of throwing all those ingredients into the baking dish and making delicious, holiday lunches with the resulting leftovers. The other defining holiday aspect of these lunches are my Christmas cookies. A recent post dealt with the cookies, so I won't go into too much detail, but... they are pretty festive, aren't they?

How about the naturally red and green produce from our local farmers' market? Swiss red chard is big in my book, I've even blogged about it before. I love how it looks, smells... I even love how it feels. I took some of that fabulous vegetable and cooked it up into a sort of Mediterranean stir fry: Swiss red chard, zucchini, mushrooms, and, of course, garlic and olive oil combined to make MMM the best stir fry I could whip up. And plenty of leftovers for the next week. It's even in the red and green bento pictured in this post.

Chard was not the only festive farmers' find this week. I got tons of great red and green produce there. Take a look at our veggie basket, brimful of bright red heirloom tomatoes, pretty purple onions, and, best of all, a subtly colored and heavenly smelling bunch of thyme. I can't wait to use it in the Parmesan-Thyme Savory cookie recipe I have stored up in my recipe file. This image of our produce basket even has my "rolling pin" off to the side. You can read about my wine bottle rolling pin reuse project over at my eco blog, Light Up My Room.

Homemade Sauce Recipe

1 huge can (smaller than a basketball, bigger than a softball) of stewed tomatoes
1 Tbsp. tomato paste (for thickening. give or take for taste and preferred thickness)
1 Tbsp. fresh, or 1 tsp. dried, basil leaves (or to taste)
1 Tbsp. fresh, or 1 tsp. dried, Italian herbs (I use a dried blend, but you can use parsley, sage, oregano.. whatever)
1-6 cloves garlic, minced (have I mentioned we LOVE garlic?)
Olive oil for the pan
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat olive oil in a tall-sided pot and add garlic. Don't let the garlic brown, just get your kitchen smelling delicious.
2. Add the stewed tomatoes, crushing each one with your hands (OVER the pot! or else you'll make a huge mess!). Crush or cut to your preferred texture; I like chunky sauce. TheBoy calls it "stylish"
3. Add spices and stir well.
4. Let it cook until the tomatoes have started falling apart and the taste is to your standards. It's really up to you how this sauce turns out. If you decide to add meat, especially sausage, make sure you either buy loose ground meat or crumble it up before browning, because it's a hassle if you try to crumble after cooking.

Recipes with Molasses: Cookies

2008-12-12T18:59:00.004-05:00

Imagine Wednesday of Thanksgiving week: the dough is already whipped up and chilling in the fridge. (After much searching for the appropriate recipe, I went with the one on the molasses bottle... find it at the bottom of the post). TheBoy and I went out to find a rolling pin to tame the dough and... no place had one! Well, Target had one for $20, but I couldn't see myself buying a stick with handles for that much money. One extremely unpleasant (though productive) Wal-Mart visit, later, we were ready to head back to Target to pick up that over-priced pin.

Well, there must have been a serious run on rolling pins because there were no absurdly expensive cooking implements left. At all! Commence calling: I called TheBoy's mother (future Mother-in-Law of yours truly) and asked if I could use her rolling pin and oven at Thanksgiving (she said yes, but I was able to avoid that fate, anyway) and TheBoy called our wonderful friend J----- for his help. J----- suggested a floured wine bottle and, voila!, we had our answer. We rushed home to the already-opened bottle of FishEye and TheBoy chugged it down (my Tylenol-cured headache prevented me from joining him) so that I could fill it with cold water, which both added heft to the pin and kept the dough extra cold so I could work with it longer.
Overall verdict: I will likely NEVER buy a rolling pin, I'll just drink more and more Merlot to sustain my baking habit. The cookies turned out delicious (if I do say so myself) and everyone ate them right away.

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
makes uncounted dozens of mini cookies (probably about a gallon, if you must know)

3/4 cup molasses, light or dark (I used dark)
3/4 cup margarine or butter (I used butter)
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 egg

1. In a saucepan, heat the molasses, butter, and brown sugar until the mixture boils, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, cool.
2. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
3. Stir egg into molasses mixture and mix together the flour and molasses mixtures.
4. Put the dough into the fridge (I left it in the bowl, but you might want to wrap it in plastic wrap) for 1 hour or more.
5. Divide dough in half. On a floured surface, roll the dough out to a thickness of 1/8 to 1/4 inch. Use floured cookie cutters to make precious little shapes (I used everything from a mini gingerbread man to a lion).
6. Bake at 350 F for 6-14 minutes, shorter for softer cookies.
7. Remove from pan to cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Recipes with Molasses: Bread

2008-12-08T11:59:00.009-05:00

Well, I made two over-long posts both featuring molasses-heavy recipes... so how about a single over-long molasses post! On better thought, how about a two-part series?

As for the Honey Molasses Whole Wheat Bread, this yeast bread was really really easy and bakes to be ENORMOUS. I was terrified of using yeast... so I stuck to beer bread. But now.. mauahahah! No yeast bread is safe from my kneading and mixing.

I had a wonderful time making this bread. Because I was making it for a special occasion, where more than just TheBoy would suffer if I created a lousy product, I was particularly careful to follow the directions. I measured things precisely and didn't stray from the recipe at all! Let me tell you -- it was a crazy experience. But, my diligence definitely paid off. We came home with only scraps and our host was more than delighted to keep the rest.
My little bread pan was overwhelmed with flavor and expansion. I've always stayed away from bread-baking in the past to avoid the hassles of yeast and the troublesome rising, kneading, and patience required, but this loaf was a pleasure to make: no kneading and only very minimal time to rise. I was really impressed with this easy bread and I will definitely be making (and blogging about) more loaves in the future. Do you have any favorite yeast bread recipes? Please share in comments!

Easy Honey Molasses Whole Wheat Bread Recipe
makes 1 loaf
Recipe shamelessly lifted from ZestyCook. Thanks!

2 Tsp. honey
2 2/3 Cup lukewarm water
4 tsp. dry yeast
3 Tbsp. Molasses
5 Cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 Cup wheat germ (you can forego the wheat germ, but it's so useful that I splurged)
1 Tbsp. Oatmeal (for optional decoration)

Preheat oven to 400 Degrees F.
Stir 2 teaspoons honey into 2/3 cup lukewarm water and sprinkle yeast over the mixture. Set aside for 10 minutes.
Combine 3 tablespoons molasses with 2/3 cup warm water and combine with yeast mixture.
Stir the mixture into the flour. Add salt, wheat germ and 1 1/3 cups warm water. Dough will be sticky. (I mixed all the dry ingredients first)
Pour the dough into a loaf pan -- I grease just the bottom of mine and everything comes out great. Don't grease the sides!
Smooth the top of the loaf with a wet spatula and sprinkle on the oatmeal, if you choose to.
Let the dough rise to the top of the pan, then stick that baby in the oven for 30-40 minutes. The bread will rise like crazy. I had to take the top rack out of the oven to prevent the bread from baking into it.
Cool the bread - in the pan - on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then turn your bread loose into the world. Let it cool down some more (if you can stand to wait!) before slicing into it and devouring every last wholesome morsel.

Thanksgiving Kitchen Adventures

2008-12-01T17:03:00.010-05:00

What exactly did I make over Thanksgiving? Well, to the first Thanksgiving celebration, I brought my now-famous cornbread casserole (extremely simple recipe at bottom), gingerbread cookies, and guacamole + tortilla chips. The future MIL was very pleased with my offerings (^_^) and all the guests loved them, too.
For the second Thanksgiving (on Saturday), I brought the same cornbread casserole (not leftovers, 'cause there weren't any), gingerbread cookies (leftover because I made so freakin' many), guacamole + tortilla chips, cranberry sauce (with ginger and orange; recipe at bottom) and two loaves of bread: beer bread and super easy Honey Molasses Whole Wheat bread (recipes in future post... ahah! now you have to continue reading into the future!). We came home with almost none of the food we brought, but super full and delighted to have spent such a lovely time with friends. I posted a recipe for and wrote about the guac in my World AIDS Day post. Find the molasses bread in a future post about molasses-based recipes.

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to show off my new bread-making skillz. The beer bread is toooo easy and I love that you can add all manner of extras, even though I kept this loaf simple. I'm sure I'll get a little more adventurous with it soon. Despite how easy this bread is, I really messed up my first try at it. Originally, I had thought to make a beer loaf because I had a whole fridge full of almost unpalatable Miller Lite (failed Halloween party, anyone?). Using cheap-o beer, though, didn't really work out as well as using a better beer, so I ended up finding a pretty reasonable lager at Trader Joe's.
Of course, the first, Miller Lite loaf may have failed because I stirred the batter for too long. What happened was I used a small bowl, not the enormous one that I really should have used for mixing up bread. Because the bowl was so small, I had to overstir the batter to get to all the hidden flour deposits. Also, I think months-old Miller Lite maybe loses a little carbonation. Or, maybe that's why it's "less filling" ... because it's less able to rise my bread!

In any case, the loaf I made for SaturGiving turned out great! I was more than pleased with the feel of the loaf and, more importantly, everyone else at the party really enjoyed the flavor and texture. This is a really moist bread and tastes great slathered in holiday leftovers. I'm really super-excited about bread-baking, now. Look for more bread in the future!

Now bread wasn't the only new item on my cooking agenda. Cranberry sauce was a really interesting avenue for me to explore. The future MIL actually requested that I not bring my own cranberry sauce to her Thanksgiving because she wanted to try her hand at it, first. Her sauce was great -- very tart and tasted fantastic on the turkey! So, what did I do? Totally stole her recipe inspiration.
My future MIL is a great lady, but I wouldn't call her exactly adventurous. She tends to find a recipe, maybe tweak it a bit, and turn out a fantastic meal. I am a big-time food explorer, though. Now, I won't buy that $15 package of Thyme when I have nameless-random-spice-of-the-day at home. So, I took the basic cranberry sauce recipe, and combined it with several other sauce recipes to make, what I think, is a superb, fascinating rendition of traditional cranberry sauce.
Well, all cranberry sauce begins with 1 cup each of water and sugar along with a package of cranberries, easy enough. So, I stuck those into the saucepan to get started and then went to town! I peeled a good-size ginger root and just grated the heck out of it, right over the boiling, frothing cranberry deathpit brewing in my saucepan. Then, I got out a great-big orange and zested it to death. All the zest from an orange the size of both of my fists went into my sauce. Admittedly, I have tiny hands, so both fists is still reasonably sized for a citrus fruit. Of course, I couldn't stop with just the zest: I chunked up the orange into little pieces (maybe 3/4 inch, all around) and threw those in toward the end (if I had put in the orange pieces too early, they would have disintegrated, leaving me with a smoother, less stylish sauce).
Ultimately, I think I ended up crafting cranberry relish, rather than sauce, but I was very happy with the results and came home with only a few tablespoons out of several cups that I brought over.

Cornbread Casserole Recipe

1 package Jiffy corn muffin mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 can creamed corn
1 can whole kernel corn

1. Mix up the corn muffin mix batter in a bowl. Follow the directions on the box!
2. Add the creamed corn and whole kernel corn to the mixture (don't drain, just dump in the whole can, liquid and all)
3. Pour the resulting, super-liquidy batter into a 9"x13" casserole dish (or whatever other size you have available; this recipe doesn't rise very much at all)
4. Bake at 400 F until casserole has set (doesn't wiggle when you shake the dish), about 15-20 minutes.

Ginger-Orange Cranberry Sauce Recipe
recipe courtesy of Ocean Spray bag and Martha Stewart's suggestions

1 12 oz. bag cranberries
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 orange, cut into small sections, pith and seeds (duh!) removed
zest from 1 orange
some fresh ginger, grated (make it TINY!)

1. In a large (the taller the sides, the better, because you're exploding cranberries) saucepan, heat water, sugar, and cranberries until boiling.
2. Reduce the heat to a gentle boil and add grated ginger, orange zest, and orange pieces. (Do this at your own pace... you really can't go wrong).
3. Cook until all the cranberries explode and sauce has reached desired consistency, 10-30 minutes, with the sauce thickening as it cooks longer.

Beer Bread Recipe
makes 1 loaf (recipe credit to Farmgirl Fare blog of delight)

3 cups flour (I used 1 cup white all-purpose and 2 cups whole wheat all-purpose)
1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder (unexpired, or else your bread will FAIL)
1 12oz. bottle/can of beer (I used Miller Lite at first, then switched to Trader Joe's Bohemian)

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease just the bottom of a bread pan. (I used an 8"x4" Chicago Metallic one)
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl (you'll need a great big bowl, because otherwise you'll end up overmixing). Slowly mix in beer just until moist. Don't overmix!
3. Pour the thick batter into the bread pan and smooth the top with a wet spatula.
4. Bake until golden-brown and a toothpick (or chopstick!) inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 45-60 minutes, depending on your stove.
5. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then cool out of the pan on a rack another 10-20 minutes. Don't put it in an airtight package until it's all-the-way cooled.

World AIDS Day Post

2008-12-01T12:17:00.015-05:00

Originally posted December 1st, World AIDS Day.

So, I'm a lousy updater.. no surprise. But, today I'm feeling motivated, so I thought I'd make amends. And let you know how important I think World AIDS Day is (even though I try not to let my politics take over the food, AIDS affects everyone).

Let's start with how, once upon a time, I traded food for transportation. Here's the story: I needed a bike for some serious, Los Angeles movement, but I had zero money. So, I posted to Craigslist's barter page "My Baked Goods for Your 20" Bike Frame." And, lo, the responses! The best response was from a lovely man in Eagle Rock who promised a sweet 1980's Japanese bike (along with compliments to this blog!) in return for some grub.
Some negotiation later, I had a slightly-too-large bike without gears in exchange for dinner for the gentleman and his wife. He received: one big bag o' hand-ripped garden salad, one big bag o' sundried tomato-cream sauce penne, one big bag o' cantaloupe/grape/Mandarin orange salad, and one little tray of cheapy peach cobbler.

The bike is a masterpiece and I gained some useful leftover sundried tomatoes to feed to TheBoy when I'm feeling generous. Excellent trade and I look forward to taking advantage of someone else's hunger soon.

What other crazy things have I done with food, you ask. Well, I completely failed to make guacamole. My first time making smushy avocado goodness turned into a complete disaster when I tried to use one ripe and one not-so-ripe fruit. I tried everything from a fork to a shot glass to smash that ornery plant, but nothing worked... so I gave up. That attempt was a waste.
My next attempt, though, pleased TheBoy, a major guacamole fanatic, and one guac-hater. Her opinions have changed! Now, she is a guac-hater with the sole exception of my guacamole-of-intense-pleasure-and-love. Though I posted a recipe for guacamole only a few months ago, I'm going to go ahead and post the actual recipe that I sort of follow to make the guac that disappears at parties. One great idea stemmed from that avocado adventure: serve your guac in the peel to the avocado. Yum and fun!

The resulting sort-of-smushed avocado also made a good omelette filling. Omelettes are great way to use up less-than-perfect leftovers. In fact, we've used not only lousy avocado, but also leftover beef stew (complete with potatoes!), ginger-garlic-mushroom stir fry, and even salad.

Another absurd food adventure? How about the time I made gingerbread cookies from scratch, but couldn't find a rolling pin anywhere... so I made do with a wine bottle? See a future post for details, pictures, and adventure story.

Creamy-Spicy Sundried Tomato Pasta Recipe
Recipe adapted/shamelessly stolen from epicurious.com

1 Tbsp. olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped (don't skimp!)
1 cup chopped drained oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup whipping cream
1 7.25-ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained, chopped
1/2 - 1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 cup chopped fresh basil leaves (I cut them with a kitchen scissor instead of a knife)

1 pound penne pasta
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (you know I used the pre-grated refrigerator stuff)

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. When you drain it, make sure to keep 3/4 cup of the cooking liquid. You'll use it later.
2. While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute 1-2 minutes, but don't let it burn (totally gross).
2. Add tomatoes, cream, red peppers and crushed red pepper; simmer over medium heat 2 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup basil and simmer 1 minute longer.
3. Combine the pasta, the delicious cream sauce, the remaining basil, Parmesan cheese, and enough cooking liquid to moisten in a large bowl.
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste; serve and seriously enjoy (or stick it in an bag and trade it for something awesome).

Cheapy Peach Cobbler Recipe
Recipe adapted/shamelessly stolen from recipezaar.com

1 large can sliced peaches, or 6 sliced peaches
1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon (I used at least 1 tsp., but I'm a cinnamon fanatic)
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. butter (margarine is a fine substitute)
1/2 cup milk (I used vanilla flavored soymilk)

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. In a large saucepan, combine peache, 1/3 cup sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Toss to coat peaches evenly. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to boiling, cooking until the mixture thickens, about 1 minute.
3. Transfer mixture to 8" square baking dish.
4. Make the topping: mix all the rest of the dry ingredients together! Smash in the butter with a fork until the topping is crumbly. Stir in milk just until the topping is moistened.
5. Drop the topping by tablespoonfuls onto the peach mixture and pop that baby in the oven until the topping is golden brown and the filling is bubbly, about 20-25 minutes.

Disappearing Guacamole Recipe
serves 4-6 moderate afficianados or 1-2 really hungry gaucsters (as an appetizer)

2 avocados, smushed by hand (not in a food processor.. break out those muscles!)
1/3-1/2 lime
2-3 Roma tomatoes, chopped (use any kind of tomato you like... but I use Roma)
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2-1 cup grated cheddar cheese (I have no idea how much I actually use... I grate until I'm tired)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Peel the avocados and smash with a fork. Dont' worry about getting the consistency too smooth -- bumps make it extra delightful.
2. Squeeze the lime juice onto the smushed avocados. This step keeps the green guts from turning brown through oxidization. Mix well to coat the avocados.
3. Add all the other ingredients! Stir 'em up and taste frequently (TheBoy bravely suffers through this stage every time). I like to stir using a rubber scraper so I can scrape off every last bit of goodness. Add the salt and pepper last and in small increments -- a little goes a long way.

Dinner Out to Lunch In

2008-11-05T12:26:00.008-05:00

Asian food is a particular weakness of mine. Eating out is also a favorite. TheBoy similarly enjoys Asian food, so long as it is cooked thoughtfully. Consequently, we try new Asian restaurants pretty frequently. Thus, this post. Here we have some delightful Thai barbecue from the fantastic Original Thai BBQ on Hollywood Blvd. at Western Ave. Being nearby, this was a restaurant we were destined to try -- and, now that we've visited, one we'll likely revisit time and again. TheBoy had their yelp-favorite BBQ pork ribs and I enjoyed the Crispy Duck (pictured). We shared a delightful order of (I think) Combination Soup -- served in a soup tureen over a flame. Awesome! We loved the soup and the leftovers made a great breakfast for the me the next day. Back to the restaurant review, though... I love duck, but I'm pretty picky. This duck was moist without being greasy and had the best accompanying sauce. Verdict: A+ TheBoy loved his ribs and we both really enjoyed the accompanying shrimp-fried rice.
About the restaurant, itself: friendly, helpful service in a pretty nice environment. I didn't take especially careful note of our surroundings, but the place wasn't packed, had great prices, and gave us our food quickly. Another bonus: they didn't use styrofoam (boo, hiss!) to package our leftovers. Instead, they used the semi-compostable Chinese take-out boxes that A) take up less room in the fridge and B) make me feel like less of a chump for not finishing my meal.

Our bento boxes also enjoyed this restaurant. While I neglected to picture TheBoy's leftovers, mine ended up accompanying me in high style. I used leftover shrimp-fried rice and leftover brocolli to form my main carb base and popped in some pre-made stir-fry to give me some protein. I made a big stir-fry Sunday night specifically for our weekday bentos. Definitely something to continue into the future, as our jobs are picking up and we're getting busier and busier. Taking the time out Sunday evening to make a quick stir-fry saved me mucho time throughout the week. Though the stir-fry was my main protein portion in this lunch, I didn't think it was enough protein (being vegan, only the mushrooms actually had any solid protein), so I added some rolled up lunchmeat and a container of peanuts to complement. Frozen grapes and a tiny Hershey bar rounded out this fantastic meal. I was so full midway through this lunch that I couldn't finish and I ended up saving a good portion of the rice to compost later. Despite not finishing the meal, I had enough energy to last me through my entire, grueling 5-hour shift of outdoor canvassing in the Hollywood Hills (I worked as a door-to-door canvasser for a political party... guess which one!).

Another Hollywood restaurant we've been enjoying lately is YenYen at the corner of Sunset and Bronson Ave. This tiny little restaurant hasn't been around very long, so it hasn't gained much popularity yet, but I predict that it will quickly skyrocket in the eating polls due to a whole variety of reasons. Number one is its adorable decor (super chic deep orange-colored walls, sleek tables, long padded bench with throw pillows for some of the seating -- ultra hip). Number two is the delicious food (um.. duh) which is a great combination of Thai and Japanese foods ranging from Pad See Ewe (my first dish eaten there) to Spicy tuna with crispy rice. Number three is the price. Totally reasonable prices for this great place -- great food + affordability = WIN.

The meal pictured here is actually from our second visit when I had some Thai fried rice with chicken. Obviously, we like the place -- otherwise, it wouldn't have gotten a return visit. TheBoy had eaten at work before coming home, so he hadn't been terribly hungry during either of our two visits, so he's stuck to sushi while I had a real meal each time. Despite his small appetite, he's a huge fan of YenYen and we'll be going back sometime when we both need a full, afforable meal.

TheBoy's lunch the next day reflected how much we loved my meal -- leftovers! I even kept one of the cute cucumber slices specifically to adorn this lunch box. I didn't have a lot of time when I made this lunch, so I left the leftovers looking pretty plain and only added color on the right side of the box. Some strawberries and celery made me feel like I was feeding TheBoy healthy food while the (hidden) hummus, cheese, and peanuts added an extra punch of protein. A quick and dirty lunch that was as easy to eat as it was to assemble. Easy, but a win in terms of healthiness and tastiness.

In general, I love using leftovers from eating out to make our lunches. They're easy, but they can pack quite a visual and edible punch. These specific lunches don't exemplify how fun leftovers can be in terms of visual appeal, but they definitely shined as far as the eating was concerned. I look forward to using up more out-overs in the future and sharing them with my lovely audience! Do you have any favorite places to take leftovers from? If so, share them in the comments.

French Onion Soup, and Friends

2008-11-03T12:15:00.005-05:00

Once upon a time, a few weeks ago, I made French Onion Soup and forgot to take pictures of the finished product, though I did manage to snap some images of the onion transition from point A, on the left, to point B, on the right.

I'm not really a big fan of French Onion Soup, really, but TheBoy and TheUpstairsNeighbor are, so I thought I'd "sacrifice" for their sake and have a lovely evening with the two of them. Instead, I found a new love for cooked onions and instilled in my loved ones a new respect for my cooking skillz. See the bottom of the post for the remarkably easy recipe.

Alongside newfound respect, this recipe also produced leftovers to feed to TheBoy. Instead of trying to slop soup into a regular bento box, I used a thermal jar (OK, a Campbell's soup thermos that I stole from my mother's pantry) to hold the soup and packed a normally too-small bento accompaniment. I didn't really need to use the thermos for the soup -- I could've used an uninsulated container -- but it was exactly the right size and it's cute, compact, and, best of all, leak-proof. Why didn't I need the thermal capacities? Several reasons:

I pack lunches at night and refrigerate all the food for safety. Refrigerating thermoses is both counter-intuitive and not food safe (because the thermos doesn't keep the food hot enough to be safe, but it does insulate it enough from the fridge to keep it from getting cold enough for safety).
We don't have a microwave! So, heating up the soup in the morning would've been a challenge of stove-heating soup in a pot while it's still to early to see clearly.
TheBoy has microwave access at work and a glass bowl that lives in the cupboard at work for just such occasions that he should have to heat up some lunch.

To accompany this thermos, I sent TheBoy a smallish bento filled with soup-appropriate needs. This bento features some toast to float on the soup, peanuts for added protein, and a tortilla filled with hummus and a lovely assortment of whatever veggies we had on hand (probably sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce). Acting as gap-fillers are a steamed jalapeno (leftover from a taco truck dinner!), a dried mango slice, one mini vegan brownie, and grapes and strawberries. Surprisingly, this lunch ended up as a vegan meal for TheBoy, though it ideally would have contained some cheese to sprinkle on the soup. TheBoy is not at all interested in vegetarianism or veganism, but I sometimes spring lunches like this on him... without any complaints. Overall, a big win and he requested an immediate repeat, though I think he may have to wait until I have the motivation to chop up half-a-dozen onions again.

French Onion Soup Recipe
adapted from Simply Recipes

6 large red onions, peeled and thinly sliced.
Olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of sugar (or just some, like I did)
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups of broth (I made vegetable broth using better than bouillon paste)
1/2 cup of white wine (I used white wine that we would drink... so should you!)
Salt and pepper
Spices (I used Basil and "Italian Seasonings, though the original recipe calls for Thyme and a Bay Leaf... I'm poor and can't afford to by spices just for ocassional use)
8 slices of toasted bread (French bread is canon, but we had wheat on-hand)
1 1/2 cups of grated Mozzarella cheese with a little Parmesan (Gruyere is the standard, but, again, poor! and Mozzarella is fine, anyway)

1. In a large pan, sauté the onions in the olive oil on medium high heat until well browned, but not burned, about 30 minutes. Add the sugar about 10 minutes into the process to help with the carmelization.

2. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the stock, wine, and spices. Cover partially and simmer until the flavors are well blended, about 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. Ladle the soup into serving bowls (if you have oven-proof bowls, like Corelle, as I have. If not, use an oven-safe casserole dish). Cover with the toast and sprinkle with cheese. Put into the broiler for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F, or until the cheese bubbles and is slightly browned. Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6.

Itty Bitty Bentos

2008-10-26T18:32:00.008-04:00

Sometimes, we don't need full meals, but aren't comfortable leaving the house empty-handed. In the past month, I've taken pictures of two instances of itty bitty bentos: 1. my first far away job interview (1.5 hour bus ride, each way even though the location was only 15 miles away) and 2. a trip down to Orange County to visit TheBoy's parents (1.5 hour drive on a small breakfast). The main reason we take snacks with us is because I get very cranky (to put it mildly) when I get hungry. Because I eat every two or three hours, I get hungry pretty quickly, but a small snack will set me to rights again in no time. So, small snacks/meals are really useful for us.
Situation 1, the interview, called for a fairly large snack, since I left too late to have time for a decent breakfast. I started with what we had on hand: tortillas. I spread some homemade hummus on the tortilla and filled it with sliced cucumbers, lettuce, and cheddar cheese. I had to cut the tortilla in half to make it fit in the little box, but that just made the meal easier to eat and made plenty of space for some yummy, colorful gap fillers out of cheery cherry tomatoes. This box is actually a child's bento box -- holding about 450 mL, translated to about 450 calories, with correct packing technique.
The second layer of this bento holds an assortment of snacks: babybel cheese (we bought a bag of 28 for $10 at CostCo... WIN), chili-lime almonds, salted peanuts, red grapes, and a small container of raisins and crasisin. This was a wonderful snack and made me calm and sweet for my interview. The other passengers on the bus looked at me a little funny when I pulled out a tiny burrito while headed toward Compton from Hollywood, but I'm pretty sure I don't mind the looks.

Situation 2, the long drive, had me and TheBoy ready for snacks. So, I made a very simple, very SoCal cheese and grape box. We used a little pink snack box to hold portions of chopped dry jack (best cheese, ever... dry and cheesy and ...just try it). TheBoy was driving and the bite size pieces made the delicious (and fairly pricey) cheese go further and made them very easy for him to eat while still concentrating on the road. The tiny chunks also went perfectly with the grapes -- we just ate a piece of cheese with a single grape... and it was so great! Combined with a great big Nalgene full of water, we had a fairly filling, healthy snack to entertain us all the way to the OC.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

2008-10-25T16:10:00.007-04:00

Yes, I know, Pirate Day was over a month ago, but forgive me.. I'm a busy person! So, allow me to catch you up.
I made us a very special dinner for Pirate Day and, though I didn't enforce pirate speech, I did make us some particularly yummy themed treats. The internets suggested that I make palm trees out of veggies. Well, I did that! We peeled two large carrots, chopped the tops off of two green peppers and balanced them together. I dug a small hole into the center of the pepper top so that the carrot "trunk" would nestle into the pepper "leaves." Fun and easy way to increase our veggie intake. (Incidentally, that's me holding my "trees").
I used the rest of the peppers to make pirate lifeboats -- filled with golden treasure! Well, I guess it was white gold, because the mac and cheese was made with white cheddar. I usually just use the boxed macaroni because it's so convenient.. this was one of those times. Serving the macaroni in the uncooked peppers isn't really "canon" food prep, but it worked out fine and kept the peppers crunchy, just the way we like them.
Now, the real treat in this meal was the funny little shapes in front of the "lifeboat." Thanks again to Biggie, I know exactly how to make really ~~adorable~~ terrifying octodogs. As per her suggestion, I sliced regular (turkey) hot dogs in half, leaving two single legged proto-octo-creatures. Then, I just used a really sharp knife to cut legs into the dogs. I boiled the resulting critter to acheive slightly flaired legs -- worked beautifully! TheBoy was really impressed with them and we devoured them in no time. A huge win for a simple, fun dinner food. If you have kids, or a finicky man/partner/friend/person who likes hot dogs, I definitely recommend this meal. Or, if you just like fun food... go for it!
Overall, this meal really excited TheBoy and was really easy to make, with a total preparation time of, excluding macaroni cooking time, about 10 minutes.

So Busy!

2008-10-24T14:32:00.009-04:00

So, I haven't posted in over a month, but... I have been busy cooking!
How about a quick picture post -- a week of lunches for TheBoy and theMe?

This first lunch has a few old things and a few new surprise successes. The biggest surprise success is the fantastic, smushy looking rice/dill/cream cheese/tomato mixture. Originally posted at Coffee and Vanilla, I had to make a few accommodations. First, I couldn't find any orzo, anywhere.. Los Angeles.. you totally let me down. (Later, I did find some at an out-of-the-way grocery). Check out the full recipe at the bottom of this post. The remainder of this lunch is completed with a simple PB+J (using apricot jam) sandwich cut into autumn leaves and a large strawberry. The shapes are really indistinct because this stale bread didn't cut very well. Since, we've decided to stop buying bread at the supermarket -- we go through it too slowly to keep it fresh. Grapes, a blueberry muffin, cherry tomatoes, and two mystery containers finish the rest of this lunch. The white-lidded container holds dried cranberries and chocolate covered prune pieces (a gift from the future mother-in-law) and the other container holds some delightful lime and chili coated almonds. YUM! A huge win with TheBoy and his officemates loved this to look at this lunch.

I picked up a large loaf of French bread at the supermarket the other day and I used one half to make a delicious French bread pizza (with tomato sauce, mozzarella, etc) and I used the other half to make an equally delicious French bread TACO pizza (with taco seasoned turkey meat, cheddar cheese, and salsa). The leftovers made several bento appearances, first in this bento. Find the simple recipe at the bottom of the post.
The rest of this lunch is a combination of a micro-plum, grapes, and cherry tomato gap fillers, a taco meat and veggie filled soft taco and the same mystery containers as the previous lunch -- dried fruit in the white lid, nuts in the clear lid. Another success and TheBoy can't wait for another round of French bread.
Another dinner utilizing the French bread didn't opt for pizza-izing the loaf, but just kept it as a delicious, garlicky testament to carbohydrates. I piled some mozzarella cheese on top before broiling the bread to make it extra scrumptious. This meal contains all leftovers: the aforementioned mozzarella-smothered garlic bread, red wine sauteed muchrooms, cherry tomatoes, angelhair pasta, and some chopped fresh nectarines. Not a very cute lunch, but definitely a repeatable one due to the ease of eating (TheBoy is a runner for a TV show.. he doesn't have a lot of time to himself during the work day) and the ease of assembly. Using all leftovers and fruit/veggie fillers, this lunch took about 5 minutes to make. A success on all fronts.
This lucnh is another leftover bit, using the same noodles as the previous box. Nestled in the center of the noodles is a small container of Italian salad dressing -- I avoid putting red sauce into TheBoy's bento due to his penchant for spilling and the wonderful way that tomato sauce stains clothes and plastic. The chicken legs are also leftovers -- I surprise TheBoy one night by marinading these legs in Italian dressing all day and then just cooking them in our oven. He loves to revert back to his caveman instincts in grabbing chunks of meat with his hands, so the legs were a particular treat. Taking a cue from Biggie over at Lunch in a Box, I popped some lettuce leaves into the box to cushion the chicken legs. TheBoy failed to eat them, but they made the lunch look more appealing than a greasy piece of meat on blue plastic. Rounding out this meal are the ever-present (he doesn't get bored easily) grapes and cherry tomatoes, and mystery container this time full of green olives and similar treats. TheBoy didn't end up using the dressing for the noodles, so complained about how dry they were. Next time, I might include a little note about the container contents or just give him a quick lunch preview the evening before. Overall, a thumbs up from my favorite judge.

As I'm sure you can tell, I love to use leftovers in our lunches. Not only are they convenient, but they're a good way to make sure that we don't waste any food... something that could become a problem in our two-person, food-adventure household. This lunch is a perfect example: I made guacamole, but even using just two avocados, I quickly overwhelmed our ability to devour the delicious green smush. So, into TheBoy's box it goes! He loves guac, so he didn't need any chips to stick in it, but I snuck a chip-filled pretty pink "sidecar" into his workbag. He ended up appreciating it. The rest of this lunch is just what it looks like: two colors of grapes, cherry tomatoes, and two slices of leftover pizza. We lucked out by being able to pick up a couple of Red Baron pizzas on sale. At $4 a piece, these bake-at-home pizzas are a steal and we can customize them (with olives, for instance), without breaking the bank at the pizza place. Also, California has LOUSY pizza. How I long for a Philadelphia suburb! If you want the guac recipe, just refer to the bottom of the post.

The last lunch for this post (haven't you had enough already?) was a fun one. We didn't really have any leftovers, but we did still have a loaf of bread and some candy. So, I made two sandwiches (one turkey, cheese, lettuce, and mustard; the other PB+J) and used my itty-bitty cookie cutters to cut them down to size. I tried for an autumn them to the sandwiches and I may or may not have failed miserably. TheBoy's coworkers could not decipher the shapes, but they did think this was an adorable and fun looking lunch. The fun, obviously, comes from the grapes, chopped carrots, and silicone baking cup full of tropical skittles (TheBoy brought home a half-eaten bag... I had to get rid of them so I didn't eat them all!) and peach rings. Mystery container holds honey-roasted peanuts and cinnamon sugar almonds. mmmm! Very quick lunch to assemble, even though the bread gave me some trouble by being a trifle stale. So ends our affair with bread! (We haven't had any in the house in almost three weeks... we don't miss it).

Creamy Dill and Tomato Rice

2 cups cooked rice
5 Tbsp. cream cheese
3 Tbsp. (or so) finely chopped fresh dill
4 Roma tomatoes, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook the chopped tomatoes until squishy in oven heated to about 375 (best guess).
2. Mix all the ingredients together.
3. Serve! This recipe tastes best warm, but is also works out just fine as a cool salad with lunch.

French Bread Pizza

wide loaf of French bread
protein to cover (seasoned taco meat, sauteed mushrooms, shredded pork/chicken.. you choose)
appropriate cheese (mozzarella for Italian-style, cheddar/monterey jack for Mexican-style)
appropriate sauce (tomato or pesto for Italian, salsa for Mexican)

1. If the loaf is round, cut it in half so you have two, long flat sides. Save one side for another dish.
2. Smear flat side with garlic and butter (optional).
3. Mix cooked protein and sauce/salsa
4. Cover with cheese
5. Broil until cheese melts (use your discretion and eyes!).
6. Serve to hungry people. mmmm

Guacamole

3 avocados
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 cup of sharp cheddar, grated
1/2 c salsa
1 c chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 c sour cream
1 garlic clove, minced
salt and pepper to taste

1. Choose very ripe fruit -- it should be completely black and yield to a squeeze. Unripe avocados are a travesty! Peel and pit the avocados. Easy way: cut them in half around the pit, then gently twist the halves apart. Use a spoon to pop out the pit and scrape the fruit into a bowl for smushing. Here's a video if my instructions are lame, but I don't recommend removing the pit his way -- too dangerous for uncareful cooks (like me!).
2. Gently fold the lemon juice into the smushed avocado.
3. Mix everything together!
You can play with the amounts if you have a preference for more or less of an ingredient. It will always taste great because there are endless ways to make it.
Thanks future mother-in-law... great recipe!

Mushroom Extravaganza!

2008-09-16T19:58:00.008-04:00

We've finally received a fridge, but we're still eating fungus. Lots of fungus, actually. Mushrooms around here are really inexpensive and, because they're a great source of protein, they have recently been replacing meat in many of our dishes. For instance, I've been on a Mediterranean food binge lately and found a great recipe for lemon-chicken couscous on the back of the couscous package (how clever of them!), but I left out the chicken in favor of some hearty little mushrooms. These generic, white fungi made the perfect palette for the delicately spiced couscous and had a pleasing texture without any of the nasty raw chicken preparation steps.
I bought a 1lb. package of mushrooms, but the recipe only called for 1 1/2 cups of protein, so I took the remaining mushrooms and sauteed them in olive oil with a pinch of salt and a bunch of cheap red wine. The $5 wine imparted a lot of flavor (especially when we drank it!) for only a little money while choosing olive oil over butter for sauteing kept the mushrooms a little lighter and, incidentally, vegan. In fact, the whole meal was totally vegan: lemon-dill couscous, merlot mushrooms, store-bought pita slices, and homemade hummus. The only unfortunate thing about this meal is home monochromatic is was: everything was in shades of brown! If (well.. when) I recreate this meal, I'll add some color to the hummus -- maybe some red pepper flakes and lime zest for a little visual appeal. I'll also probably skip the extra, sauted mushrooms in favor of a small salad or some other greens (maybe asparagus or sweet peas). See the bottom of the post for recipes.

Another recipe that called heavily on mushrooms came in the form of a scrumptious, meatless stroganoff. Served over brown rice (from our new rice cooker!), I combined the leftover dill from the couscous (and another recipe) with some other ingredients to make a smushy, delicious meal. Mine turned out a little dry, mostly because I thought the mixture looked too thin in the pan, so I cooked off more liquid. Bad idea. The mushroom mix definitely continues to thicken after you take it off the heat. It was still great tasting, but I ended up adding a little more sour cream to my served meal to make the texture a little more pleasing. Not a failing, but something to look out for. Despite the small amount of dryness, TheBoy really dug this stroganoff and it went along perfectly with the remainder of the white wine and some steamed, sweetened carrots. The carrots were a sort of last minute motivation: I realized that the meal had no veggie complement, so I used the rice cooker's steaming basket to quickly steam some peeled, sliced carrots. Making the rice cooker multitask served two great purposes -- it helped me to save time and effort (no extra pot to wash, no stove-steaming operation to keep an eye on, etc) and helped to conserve energy by using the energy from the already cooking rice. Yay for no waste!

Lemon-Dill Couscous:
Prepare couscous according to package directions.
With only 3 minutes remaining to cook, add ~2 tablespoons lemon juice and ~1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

Hummus (adjust ingredients to your palate):
1 can chickpeas with some of the juice
~1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
1-2 crushed cloves of garlic
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
Stick it all in the blender/food processor and spin 'til it's smushy and delicious

Mushroom-Dill Stroganoff:
1 lb. mushrooms
enough oil to saute mushrooms
1/3 cup white wine (we used a very sweet moscato because actually enjoy sweet white wine, not the dry stuff that would've been leftover had I followed the directions exactly)
1/2 teaspoon dill, chopped (I definitely used a little more than that! Make sure it's well chopped)
1 cup sour cream
some carb to serve it over (egg noodles are classic, but brown rice, orzo, penne, etc all work as well. Just be sure to choose a short carb, as opposed to spaghetti or linguine, so that the mushroom mixture stays with the pasta)
salt and pepper to taste (duh!)

Saute the mushrooms, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes.
Add the wine and dill, stirring until the liquid cooks down to about 1 tablespoon (it happens fast! look out).
Turn heat to low and add sour cream. DO NOT LET IT BOIL, just stir gently until heated through being careful not to overcook. The mixture will thicken after you serve it.

First Food in the NewHome

2008-08-29T15:10:00.009-04:00

Well, that was a brief hiatus.

Now that I've unpacked as best I can without much furniture (and no fridge, geez!), I can get back to what I do best: making goofy little meals and then telling the internet how yummy they were. If only I could get paid to do it!

In any case, since arriving in year-long-growing-season-land, I've been inundated with tons of perfectly ripe, local fruit at pretty reasonable prices. Without a refrigerator (it's on backorder), though, these goodies need devoured quickly. Thus, we have fruit snacks and fluffy,

blueberry pancakes.

TheBoy works really hard for really long hours, but he doesn't really need to bring a lunch because they typically have catered food all over the studio. Unfortunately, most of that food is take-out style and devoid of veggies

or fruits. So, yesterday, I sent him in with one third of a nectarine, a handful of blueberries and half a banana packed in one of my brand-new Lock-n-Lock containers and a cute little bamboo pick (came in a pack of 200 for $2.99 at World Market in the Hollywood Farmers' Market). He doesn't always have time in the morning for a real breakfast with me (especially since they provide him a free one of instant oatmeal/granola bars/bagels/donuts), but I'm happy to be able to give him some positive nutrition for his hectic days.

Because I'm still searching for a job and reliable transportation, I spend a lot of time in our apartment by myself -- deep cleaning everything, relining all the cabinets with cute new paper, unpacking, and assembling furniture. During this time yesterday, I had a craving for sweets, but I didn't feel like walking

twenty minutes to the store just to pick up some starbursts. But, having tons of fruit,

I filled a coffee mug with some delightful, sweet blueberries and bursting-with-flavor bing cherries. Oh! So good, but so healthy too. Later, I had that same craving, but instead of giving in (no!), I made a happy little orange sun to entertain me and my tummy.

This morning, I used some of our enormous quantity of very ripe blueberries to make some really fluffy, scrumptious blueberry pancakes. I couldn't wait to eat them, so the picture pallet is a little messy, but I think you get the idea. Even though these pancakes look super fluffy and fancy, they're really just the generic Kroger mix from the box. By stirring the water and mix together only just enough to get it evenly moist (very little stirring!) and then letting it sit a few minutes, I gave the batter time to rise. Giving it a quick stir after throwing in the blueberries just made it a tiny bit fluffier before I used a big spoon to drop about 1/4cup worth of batter into my non-stick sprayed skillet. I only turned them each once, because if you turn them more than that, they tend to get tough. I also did not squish the pancakes with the spatula to make them cook faster. It's worth the wait to let them cook slowly.

Unfortunate (for you) Hiatus

2008-08-24T10:25:00.004-04:00

So, I guess I forgot to mention, but.. yesterday, I moved to California.

For now (at least until our NewHome has internet), I'm putting the bento blog on hiatus. (I'm leaching 'netz from my future in-laws right now).

Expect to see tons of delicious Mexican and vegetarian food in the near future, but, in the meantime, check out this killer picture from Ocean City, NJ -- Sesame Street cupcakes! This won't be a long break, promise!

Another Zucchini Post

2008-08-12T11:26:00.004-04:00

I forgot one little thing from the previous zucchini post:

the dog loved it! He devoured the frosting. His subsequent sugar high was.. adorable?

So Much Zucchini from the Cheap Produce Place!

2008-08-09T20:34:00.010-04:00

So, on my way back from the dentist (my mostly sugar free bentos have been paying off!), I stopped at the produce market. Usually, I try to hit the farmers' market, but I haven't had much luck finding one lately, so I took the lesser of two evils (the other evil being the supermarket). Well, that was a great freakin' choice! I got a bag of four zucchini for .99, a pound of green beans and carrots, each for just .99. Not to mention the blueberries, green pepper, and organic black plums (YES!).

Last night, one of those zucchini, the pepper, some green beans, and some carrots found their way into a delicious stir fry. I bought some tofu, but ended up

using chicken because I wanted my family to actually eat it. Overall, I made a tasty meal with pretty minimal prep: mostly just lots of cutting (made quick by using a giant knife for the veggies and kitchen shears for the chicken).

I called up my obligatory Asian college roommate (she was at an anime convention,

no lie!) to make sure that I had all the right sauce ingredients; of course I didn't. So, one quick trip to the store later, I had the essentials: soy sauce, ginger root, and garlic. I used about two whole (enormous) cloves (not heads!) of finely minced garlic, along with about a teaspoonful of minced ginger. I put the ginger and garlic into a cereal bowl and covered them in about half a cup of soy sauce plus a good splash of white vinegar and a little shake of white sugar (great amounts, right?) and stirred 'em up before pouring half the concoction over the chicken in one bowl and the other half over the veggies in another.

I let the mixtures marinade for about two hours while I got jiggy (yes!) with the next project: cake!

Well, after the two hours, I stuck the chicken in a giant frying pan and, once it was more or less cooked, I poured in the veggies, plunked the lid on, and let them go for a bit while I played with the other project.

The other project: another two zucchini had an encounter with the grater and became a zucchini cake! A lot like carrot cake, but more green.

I found the recipe here, but made a few variations. Well, really only two

variations: instead of using a $300 stand mixer for four minutes of mixing, I used a $20 hand mixer (rhymes!) for about two minutes -- same fluffy, eggy result. I also didn't have a tube pan (wtf is that?! sounds like a ...sex

toy!), so I used a bundt pan. So far,

I think it's turned out well -- homemade cream cheese frosting and all. I used whipped Philadelphia cream cheese instead of regular... I don't know if it changed anything at all, but the frosting is sooo good! The lemon extract makes it taste lighter than most cream cheese frostings, but doesn't take away from the rich texture. Ultimately, the cake turned out a winner. Everyone in the family's been devouring it (even the diabetics... yikes!) and I've had entirely too much of it.

One of the best things about this recipe is that, despite the layered flavors and divine taste,

the ingredients are simple and even pretty healthy... I guess.

The zucchini and walnuts help to balance out the sugar. Another great thing about this recipe is how easily it changes from a cake to a bread. Just omit one egg, up to one cup of the sugar, skip the frosting and, voila, bread!

Chicken Nuggets and Home-Cooked Baltimore

2008-08-06T08:33:00.014-04:00

Last week was super busy. Not only did I take a trip to the Goshen Fair with a friend (and had a lovely strawberry mojito after leaving), but I also got a chance to hold a precious little chicken nugget in my hand. Of course, we did the other usual things at the fair: rode the ferris wheel, watched my brother make a fool and a pig of himself at the pie-eating contest, ate delicious funnel cake to support the Goshen fire company.. overall, a great trip and a perfect treat to reward me for skipping out on vacation this year (I'm moving to L.A., but I haven't been to the beach yet this summer).

Though I can legitimately complain about my complete lack of tan, I certainly can't whine about last weekend's awesome mini-trip to Baltimore to visit some great friends (TheBoy's best man and his wonderful wife, along with his brother and our mutual buddy). Because "TheWife" is a vegetarian and I am aspiring to renew my veggie-vows, I had a great

vegetarian weekend: frozen veggie burger lunch (great with salsa on whole wheat bun), gazpacho of delicious Doom (homemade by TheWife as a chilled, perfectly suited-to-Baltimore's-glut-of-humidity soup), cardamom ice cream (are you kidding!? it was so amazing! like cold, creamy chai with a cone and fat and dribbles down my hot little hand). She made the gazpacho without tons of spices to account for varying spice-love, which made the final result that much more exhilarating when we added some fresh cayenne directly from their garden. Oh. Yes.

We had more food, of course, but I thought I'd split the posts into Home-Cooked and Eaten-Out food (though the cardamom ice cream was purchased at the ice cream shop).

Easily the best dish of the weekend was the delightful homemade paella. This was my first journey into yellowy-looking rice + veggies, but I will never regret it. She again left out most of the spiciest bits in favor of letting us spice our own dishes with fresh cayenne -- do I have to point out that I love the interactive idea of cutting my own pepper from a good friend's garden? I love the wholesome idea of knowing exactly who raised it and how they did it,

and there is absolutely nothing tastier than fresh produce -- especially when the produce comes from only 10 yards away. Of course, we accompanied our classy meal with some red wine -- Gnarly Head (I brought down some Funky Llama Shiraz as a housewarming gift, but that was set aside to age more... even on the wine rack that MyBoy and I gave them a

s a wedding present. I felt so appreciated!)

Now, that fuzzy looking green stuff on the plate is a licorice-smelling garnish of fennel (the bulb went into the paella) and that cute placemat came the same day from The Village thrift store (go if you can -- 40cents for placemats? uh, yeah!)

So, the food... wow! I've never eaten such a yellow food that I love so much. For such a quickly prepared and fairly simple and inexpensive dish, paella is beyond delicious and so filling. Arborio rice + turmeric + canned diced

tomatoes + fennel + artichokes (not a lot, though) + magic (um, the stove) = the amazing, creamy-starchy, healthy dish that you see in the picture. Recipe to follow, when I finally get it.

Dear Ben Franklin,

2008-07-30T08:48:00.009-04:00

You were a very wise, though fabulously contradictory, man. Your benevolence in politics (and slave relations.. eee) is renowned, your philosophy is widely read, and your wisdom still rocks the constitution. You made so many accurate statements, but among the greatest of these was when you said that "there cannot be good living where there is not good drinking." Thanks, man, you hit the nail right on the head!

Historical address aside, I love booze. Not in a negative, alcoholic way, but in a fun, OMG-COLLEGE way, though those views are likely not that far apart. See, I turned 21 in Ireland while studying abroad. Awesome, right? Well, not really. The Euro is way stronger than the dollar, so buying the booze was a wallet nightmare. No one carded me because, though I don't really look 21, I definitely look over 18. Also, I had not really drunk before going on that trip (at all, really!), so I had no concept of my tolerances, including, for example.. wine (incidentally, I don't recommend testing your limits by drinking an entire bottle of red while on a beach more than a mile's uphill walk from your flat... oh!)

Now that I've been back in the States for about a month now, I've made a few forays into the bars. First, I went to ArtsFest up in State College. Dive bars, I found, are fun, but in a limited way. Nice bars, on the other hand, are outside my experience. Though I developed a fondness for Guin

ness while in Ireland, it's just not so good outside its homeland. So, I turned to Belgium! Delirium Tremens, a lovely though pricey beer, is a Belgian ale with pink elephants on the bottle. This beer is so classy that it comes with a glass.. this is no swigging brew!

Of course, the best alcohol is that that comes free. Hence, my amazingly tasty, unexpectedly gigantic frozen mango margarita was soo good! See, I went out to dinner with my grampa and, it being only shortly after my 21st, he treated me to not only a delicious ahi tuna and berry salad meal, but also a fabulous, fruity drink. Now, I was not expecting 20 ounces... more like, you know, a reasonable amount like 8 or so. It took me the full two hour meal to get through this drink and, by the end, I was basically slurping it up so we could get out of the restaurant. Whoo! I'm not really sure how I feel about giant drinks.. or menus that don't list the drink size. How do others fall on this issue?

My most recent alcohol experience was in lovely West Chester, bouncing around from the Pita Pit (if you aren't eating there now, GO) to Iron Hill Brewery (raspberry wheat microbrew and taste of a really sour apple martini) to Kildare's (Jameson and ginger ale, fuzzy navel ..

yum!) One of my favorite things about alcohol is that there are so many flavors. Even the raspberry flavors are distinct from each other: my lightly raspberry wheat beer was worlds away from the raspberry framboise that I sipped at Kildare's. Both are valid, nuanced tastes, but completely different. Similarly, the nominally fruit flavored apple martini was artificially sour while my fuzzy navel was satisfyingly sweet and elaborately alcoholic. As much as I love fruity drinks, though, there is nothing quite so perfect as a well-crafted beer. Not overly hoppy or filling, but just the right balance of flavor and foam. Humble though it may be, Yuengling is easily one of my favorite beers for at-home consumption, though I haven't decided what my favorite on-tap brew is.

Any suggestions? Post favorites in the comments section.

Two Dinners with Pita

2008-07-29T22:36:00.005-04:00

Digging through my mother's freezer the other day, I rediscovered an old love -- pita! Though these pitas are a little past their prime and could be much fresher, I've still been enjoying them a bunch. The key to freshening them up is a quick trip through the microwave, preferably with some delicious, moist food inside. Enter leftovers and salsa.

If I had to choose a condiment to reign supreme over all others, if I were stranded on a desert island and had to choose what would inhabit my (highly illogically placed) refrigerator, if .. well, i

guess you get the gist. I freakin' love salsa! So much so that I bought special, hand-crafted salsa from Penn State's ArtsFest

... above all the beautiful art and YARN, I chose salsa. Clearly, you see my persuasion.

So, anyway, I've been trying to creatively use the enormous leftovers this house uses and, with a little cheese and salsa, I've had great luck, especially with the pitas. Take, for instance, the leftover baked chicken breast. Diced and combined with salsa, cheese, corn, and hot sauce, I turned a dish destined for the dogs into a tasty bento treat to enjoy at my new work (tutoring at the local community college).

As with any bento option, my co-workers are extremely jealous. *grin*

Combine the chicken mixture, half a pocketed-pita and microwave to result in a fabulous, Mexican-inspired healthy and yummy treat. Add in some goldfish crackers, kumquats, green grapes, and a cookie (the rocky road cookies that have kept marvelously fresh in their airtight baggy)... and there's your meal!

The next tasty pita dish came just today when I used some leftover London Broil (though some chickpeas really would have hit the spot better) and added in some cheese and.. that's right.. more salsa! I didn't have any lettuce or cucumber sliced as I was rushing to prepare this dish, so I kept it simple with the three ingredients. A quick nuke and some already-sliced celery and fruit later, and I had a super-tasty and healthy dinner for work. YUM!

This meal isn't packaged particularly efficiently. The thick pita doesn't fit very well into my shallow bento box, so I substituted

a glad-ware box from mom's cupboard. The deep design really helped me make the

most of my celery, a pretty bulky vegetable, as well as the pita's shape. Also, it made for a fun layered effect. I even had so much food that I had to finish the celery as a snack on the way home from class (class immediately following work) and I was able to spread some kumquat love with my tutee.

If you haven't tried kumquats, now is a great time to try them (no time like the present?). They're small.. only the size of a grape, but pack a really mighty flavor. You eat them whole, skin and all, which is extra great because the flesh is really really sour, but the skin is tender-sweet and perfectly balances the inside's flavor. They make excellent bento food because they're small and self-contained... great for filling in gaps. Because they have such a strong flavor, a few can quickly satisfy my desire for tasty citrus.

First World Food

2008-07-29T00:03:00.007-04:00

While this blog rarely focuses on first-class food, it really does center its view on food produced and available in the first-world (as differentiated from the third world.. the second world, being the best, is not included in this survey.. yes that's a lousy Candide reference). Normally, I would think nothing of this fact: I live in a "first-world" country, thus, my experience is largely limited to my home. In my attempts to find information about environmentally conscious living, though, I've stumbled across a few very strong reminders of my incredible privilege. Not only can I eat healthy, nutritious, even awesome food, but I have the resources to maintain a blog about it. So, in a cheap effort to attempt to give a little of my time to the developing world, I thought I'd make a convenient post to remind my readers how easily technology can help people to help other people. Please visit Freerice.com to enrich your vocabulary and give free rice (hence the name) to poor people around the world through the UN's food distribution service. If you're not a big word person, how about numbers? HelpThirst.com donates 100mL of water per number correctly memorized (easier than it sounds). Lousy at math and English? How about geography? FreePoverty.com donates up to 10 cups of water per correctly located destination on an unlabeled world map. I learned exactly where Mount Fuji is (it's in the deepest part of the angle of Japan.. you'll see).

Though I strongly believe that a better infrastructure will improve global problems of economy better than simple handouts, people need food in order to figure out sustainable farming techniques. So, give them a hand. These simple sites cost you nothing and are a great alternative to wasted human computational cycles spent on games of solitaire at work (or in class as I do).

If you don't have time for a game, check out the click-a-day sites. Just one click gives a multitude of donation options (depending on the charity).

While this blog will continue to be about fairly frivolous issues (start looking forward to great leftover posts in the future), it does have a conscience above the local.

And, for your entertainment.. some frivolous food! Firefox cookies from March 2007. Bonus, they're not entirely frivolous. Firefox is a great example of the free, open-source movement. And they make a great cookie!

*awesome dessert "bag" courtesy of some killer restaurant in Boston -- we went there for my fiancee's college graduation. The bag was made of delicious chocolate, then filled with rich cream, fresh berries, and a yummy cinnamon twist pastry. My future-sister-in-law and I devoured it, then promptly felt guilty and stomach-achey.

Walnuts and Marshmallows

2008-07-19T12:33:00.007-04:00

After an exceedingly long delay, I've come back to the blogging scene. There's been much action over here in the bentobear land -- finals week came (and went, thank God), college commencement (though I still have classes until August 14th), study abroad in Ireland (zomg!), Arts Fest, and now.. cookies! Oh, I also got engaged. *squeal* TheBoy proposed with a really sweet video that he made for me and that you can view here.

Aside from personal news, there actually hasn't been much in terms of food production. I moved back in with my family for the rest of the summer (August 22 is moving day... YES!), so I've been stuck in a rut of few bentos and even fewer imaginative meals.

Well, today, I broke the cycle. I was in the mood for some cookies, so I decided instead of heading to the wawa (read: best convenience store possible), I made some chocolate rocky road cookies.

I stuck pretty close to the recipe: my family only uses veggie oil spread instead of butter, so I used that instead of heading to the supermarket (probably not a great choice, but they still taste great). I also didn't have mini marshmallows, so I just used a pair of kitchen shears to cut up some regular-sized 'mallows (probably also not the best choice, but worked out fine).

One thing that really surprised me while making this recipe is that I no longer hate walnuts. For years, I avoided anything involving walnuts and replaced them with almonds in any recipe. Well, no more! (unless I'm cooking for my allergic future father-in-law). I used to maintain that walnuts are soapy tasting and gross, but I guess I've outgrown that. These cookies made great use of the nuts to provide a fun texture (though the marshmallow goes a long way into making a good feel) and give this treat a tiny bit of redemptive nutritional value. Yay, nuts!

So, verdict on the cookies: rich and yummy, and just right for a girl who needs some chocolate, but doesn't need to be overwhelmed. Now, if only I had some rocky road ice cream to accompany them!

Edit: Guess who ate the most of these cookies? No, it wasn't me.. or even my little brother.. it was my aunt's bad dog! ::sigh:: I hope she'll be ok -- chocolate is so not good for doggies.

Mini-Lunches: The Sequel

2008-04-10T11:25:00.003-04:00

When I started on my bento fixation, my first box was this little doozy shown in these photos: a slightly too-small-for-a-meal, absolutely adorable green frog bento. For a few months, I used this box almost every day and had very few problems -- except that I returned home ravenous and craving unhealthy food or, worse, that I would end up purchasing snacks out of vending machines on campus. Because I started bento-ing to save money and to be healthier, having a too-small box was just not working out. So, now this box is relegated to shorter days and to extremely long days on which I take two boxes. Those days are the worst!

In this lunch you see a combination of simple veggie-fried rice. The Roommate and I make this pretty frequently using just some frozen mixed veggies (or leftover fresh ones), a single scrambled egg, leftover rice, and some spices -- mostly just soy sauce, sometimes sesame oil, and lots of olive oil. This is a nice, easy way to use up day-old rice and to give a small vegetable kick to my roommate's otherwise bland lunches and my usually veggie-rich, but rice-light meals. The sauce bottle (a fishie!) contains some low-sodium soy sauce to add a little extra to the rice ... nothing fancy.

Beyond the divider, I just rolled up some deli meat (ham, in this case) and topped it with a slice of super-processed American cheese that I quickly cut into cute shapes using my tiny cookie cutters. A great way to add some quick, cute dairy (yay for calcium!)

In the lower layer, I have some peeled, organic baby carrots, a disposable tiny metallic muffin paper full of delicious red pepper hummus and some amazingly fantastic frozen green grapes. Now, there's a problem between me and grapes. I love 'em.. can't get enough of 'em. I freeze them because they're extra tasty out of the freezer. Unfortunately, lunch has taught me that they're not quite as tasty a few hours out of the freezer, which isn't to say that they taste bad.. just not the frozen, delightful treat I'd prefer. To counteract their drippy, warming tendencies, I stuffed a small amount of paper towel under the grapes -- a perfect solution. Though my grapes were still pretty soggy by the time I ate them (easily four or five hours after packing), they stayed delicious and didn't drown my carrots, thanks to the paper towel.

Overall, this made a great meal -- perfectly balanced for me with a good amount of protein, carbs, and plenty of fruits and veggies. I get most of my fruit intake during lunch, so it's especially important that I rethink (read: ignore) standard Japanese bento guidelines that frown upon a lot of fruit.

This was a very good light lunch and I got a lot of compliments on the cute cheese. Definitely a repeat, if I can keep the grapes out of my belly long enough to wait for lunch again!

Mini-Lunches

2008-04-10T10:12:00.004-04:00

Some days, I'm not going to be on campus for very long -- Tuesdays can be as short as four hours in class. For these days, I make "mini-lunches" that pack a pleasant, filling punch without the relative bulk of a guideline-size lunch. As a woman of short-average height, my recommended bento size is about 600-650ml. These lunches, then, are less. The pink box holds only 475ml while the green one, unfortunately not labeled for size, holds a little more.

For this first mini-lunch, I took some leftover rice from the previous night's dinner and put it into a reusable silicone baking cup. The ugly brownish spot on the top is my attempt to make a heart shape out of chili powder. As you can see, I failed ... but it was still tasty. The little blue sauce container holds some low sodium soy sauce, but the rice was so tightly packed that I had to half empty the silicone cup in order to spread the soy sauce evenly. If I choose to do this in the future, I might pack less rice into the cup, or I might simply leave that part of the meal to last so that I could spread out the rice in the bottom of the bento box.

The small metal container holds tulip-shaped slices of alternating cheddar and monterey jack cheese and the heart on top is a folded slice of deli turkey. This made a great snack, especially alongside the carb-heavy rice.

Nestled in among the grapes rests an ugly pink blob: a gift from my mother, "the Easter bunny." She gave me jelly beans in a jelly bean-shaped container that just so happens to fit perfectly in this bento. So, I re-appropriated it. In this meal, it contains a mixture of roasted peanuts and soynuts, the perfect salty snack to make up for my low-sodium soy sauce. Yay for sodium! I really love the jelly bean container idea... not only is it simple, but, for me, it was free and, for others, it's as easy as the clearance rack after the holiday. It kept the dry nuts from getting soggy in the moist environment of this bento and provided a cute conversation piece at work, where I devoured this meal.

Verdict: Definitely a repeat! So simple, even with the "elaborate" shapes.. just a mini-cookie cutter and I had adorable, bento size slices of cheese and meat.

Different Shimp for Different ... Folks

2008-03-22T16:24:00.005-04:00

TheBoy's parents took us to a wonderful Chinese restaurant the day I arrived in California. The atmosphere was lovely, but the food was better. The four of us (TheBoy and I + two parents) shared three meals and that left us with plenty of leftovers -- perfect for bento.

So, that's what we did. The next day's bentos consisted of all three meals: two-flavor shrimp ("aromatic," which tasted kind of like buttered popcorn and "savory," which was more of a barbecue flavor), spicy broccoli (vegetarian and amazing), and the final entree, chicken chow mein (not remarkable, but packed with perfectly sauteed veggies).

What really worked for me was the versatility of each meal: a few pieces of the excellent broccoli worked as a filler for The veggie-hating Boy, while the same greenery filled a large portion of my box. Similarly, he got a huge helping of the shrimp, while I only wanted a teaser (though I did snag one of two of his "savory" shrimp when we sat down to eat). We used the leftover brown rice as a good carb complement and I gave TheBoy the remaining chicken from the chow mein leftovers and only took the greens for myself (he's a growing boy who needs his protein!)

As an added protein for me, I rolled up two slices of deli turkey and included them in one small compartment. I rounded out our boxes with cherry tomatoes as fillers and color-complements and then snuck in some cookies: his in the tiny area at the top of his box, which I can only assume is for secret cookies. I wrapped my cookies in plastic wrap and stuck them on top of my meal -- the lid sits a centimeter or two above the main food compartments, so I just took advantage of that space.

TheBoy was really pleased with how everything turned out -- he loved how compact everything was and how much space is saved by his "brick of food."
Because we had a long drive, the whole bento package shown here has a third, smaller box that contains a snack for us. Look for the next update to detail that snack (he liked it so much that I made a clone of it for one of TheBoy's long shoot days).

FYI: this bento experience comes, chronologically before the Laguna Beach bentos, but that one had such pretty scenery that I had to post it first.

On a Slightly Unrelated Note...

2008-03-19T02:53:00.003-04:00

One of my courses is on American cinematic representations of immigration and the immigrant experience. This "movie class" -- one day of movie watching, one day of movie discussing -- requires that we write the occasional reflective journal based on course materials and how they have affected us as people.
So, of course, I wrote about how one of the materials we read, an excerpt from Ella Shohat and Robert Stam's collaboration, Unthinking Eurocentrism, affects my views on the kitchen and colonialism. I hope you enjoy my highly pretentious writing and a pleasant little break from my glut of pictures.

Here goes:
I love writing and I love to take photographs. The best way for me to combine these two hobbies is to blog – adorning my online habitat with handy quips and poorly composed photographs. Self-deprecation aside, one of the things about which I blog is food, especially when combined with images of the same.

Ella Shohat and Robert Stam also enjoy writing, maybe they even fancy photography. Of course, our potentially similar hobbies are not the topic of this reflection; what they have written about, though, in their Unthinking Eurocentrism, is. Shohat and Stam's keen observations picked up that, though cinema and photography are often coupled with other monumental historical movements, the least talked about pairing couples photography, both still and moving, with colonialism. I have found, through reading their text for this class, that I have been unwittingly a party to a newer, slightly less sinister brand of colonization: that of the kitchen.

Shohat and Stam's assertion that the eye of the camera is the eye of imperialism is really striking to me. Before reading this selection, I had only considered the classic issue of the camera focusing through the male gaze – never through issues of who holds the camera and, thus, power. My epicurean photography has, in a way, held an imperial sway over my kitchen, and, by extension, me. While making an interesting meal, I photograph every step of the preparation. I clean up as I go, stall my chopping to focus neat pictures, and even go so far as to pose my ingredients, commercial-style, to display my recipe components. My use of the camera has forced me into a sort of filmic entrapment, where I must obey the camera's desire for light and exhibit my advances into cooking exoticism.

The most frequent subjects of my camera's eye are my novel forays into cooking. From my tiny, adorable Japanese lunchboxes to my curried winter squash soup, it is most often the foreign foods that highlight my memory card. That I mostly impose my camera eye onto foreign subjects agree with Shohat and Stam's position that the camera typically takes its cues from the Western view.

Reading this excerpt makes me feel as though I need to be wary in my kitchen and not merely photograph the compelling “oddities” of the Orient, but also the, to me, mundane foods of my traditional Pennsylvania Dutch, as Western as possible upbringing. Because of Shohat and Stam, my next blog post is more likely to share focus between my famously simple Dutchy dumplings, and not only that amazing sushi that I had last weekend.

Hahaha! You thought there wouldn't be a picture! Gotcha!

Bento Break

2008-03-18T21:36:00.006-04:00

Now that I have finally, dolefully, returned from my spring break trip to Southern California... blogging resumes!

On only my first full day in California, TheBoy and I took a trip to Little Tokyo, deep in the heart of Los Angeles. While there, we visited our favorite pastry shop, Beard Papa's, bought and drank a bottle of delicious, tangy Calpis water (Calpico in the U.S.), and indulged in a bento-shopping extravaganza.

While I won't show off all my new items today (because I haven't photographed them to my satisfaction), I can't resist posting a few action shots: TheBoy enjoying his brand new box's first outing -- to Laguna Beach, no less.
His box and mine are both very similar from that day: leftover burritos (prepared by REAL Mexicans at Ricardo's in Laguna Niguel). His burrito was stuffed with some yucky, pork carnitas while mine had some tasty roast chicken with rice and beans. Both of our boxes contained salad in varying amounts: his, with the larger space (870ml), held a small salad garnished with chopped orange peppers, while mine (650ml) only held a small pittance of lettuce -- mostly to provide a pleasant bed for leftover salsa and guacamole from Ricardo's. It also made for a yummy, little burrito/taco salad when I mixed the salsa-laden lettuce into the untidy burrito.
TheBoy's box also had some salsa/guac kept tidy through a reusable, silicon baking cup. We both had sliced strawberries and whole blueberries (picked up in inexpensive bulk at Costco, courtesy of TheMom) and temporarily abducted TheMom's silverware for ease of eating the fruits and salads. If we had them, we could have used either toothpicks or decorative bento picks, instead of flatware, but chose the simpler, free method of borrowing from his mom.

We both really enjoyed our lunches and I think the experience has given TheBoy an even better reason to love bento.. aside from its cuteness and tidiness, it's cheap. Instead of succumbing to our hunger in one of Laguna Beach's many overpriced eateries, we chowed down on delicious, hearty leftovers in our convenient boxes. We ate without consulting a menu or waiting in line and we chose our own location -- didn't have to deal with a rude, restaurant hostess or crappy booth.

Italian Vegetable Soup

2008-03-01T19:33:00.009-05:00

When I first moved into my new apartment (first apartment), I thought "man, I'm gonna cook every day and it's gonna be awesome." One full semester later, I had cooked hardly anything fantastic and was feeling pretty down about it.
Flash forward to this semester (last semester in college!), and I'm cooking every day and loving it. Somedays, admittedly, "cooking" means throwing some broccoli into boxed mac and cheese, but most days I make something yummy -- or eat leftover yummies.

One of my favorite concoctions this semester has been a wonderful Italian Vegetable Soup. I found the recipe here at one of the food blogs I read. (I highly recommend her blog, though the recipes tend to be a little beyond my budget for spices and fancy things.. like cheese rinds). I really enjoyed the challenge of a multi-day cooking adventure and I really loved the resulting gallon of soup that graced my fridge, freezer, and roommate's bellies for the next few weeks.

In order to afford this soup, I made just a few adjustments to the original recipe. First, I halved the recipe (good thing, too because my pots are not very big). Then, I omitted the sage leaves. And that's it. Overall, this soup took about two days to cook (probably about 5 hours total work with plenty of "oh man, I could've done those at the same time"s). Costing about $10US to purchase broth, veggies and beans, I'd say that this soup yields a lot of awesome for a very small price.
I also appreciate how healthy this soup is: lots of protein from the beans and tons of vegetable nutrition from the veggies. Lots of variety, too -- your basic celery and carrots complemented by onions, cabbage, Swiss red chard, and Cannellini beans (among other things).

I love shortcuts. It makes me really happy to be able to multi-task or find a simpler way of doing something that could be challenging. On of the things I did in this recipe to make everything just a little easier was that, instead of using long carrots, I used the pre-peeled baby carrots that I buy for snacking. I like baby carrots because, unlike their adult friends, I don't have to waste time peeling them and possibly wasting a lot of carrot material.

Speaking of Swiss red chard... WOW! Who knew that a funny-looking relative of the beet would taste so good and yield so many nutrients? Outside of soup, it tastes absolutely fantastic sauteed in butter with garlic and served over rice. The way I did mine was I chopped the hard, crunchy stem out of the leaves and, after chopping the stem into bite size pieces, sauteed it for about three minutes before throwing in the torn up leaves and cooking the whole thing for about two more minutes. Everything was perfectly edible when done this way -- instead of soggy leaves and too-hard stem. You should treat the stem and leaves as if they were different vegetables.

One downside of this fantastic veggie is that it does not keep well in the fridge -- use it within two or three days of buying it or else it wilts and gets ugly (and probably tastes bad, too).

Even my roommate, who hates vegetables, got into the Swiss red chard that I fed her.
Do you have any serving/feasting ideas for chard? It's my new favorite vegetable and I'd love to get more mileage out of it.

Breakfast Bento 1

2008-03-01T19:20:00.006-05:00

Usually, I will make bento posts during the week and save food posts for the weekend, but since I have a backlog, I'll start with the closest bento and work my way forward.

Assembly Time: about 10 minutes with pre-made pancakes and onigiri, cooking sausages during preparation.

This bento was my first breakfast bento. In it you see all the hallmarks of a delicious, balanced breakfast -- plus some snack onigiri stuffed with red bean paste and covered in sesame seeds.

I made the pancakes the night before using the recipe in my lovely Betty Crocker Cookbook and fried up some breakfast sausage while loading up the box in the morning. To cook the sausages, I put them in a small frying pan with about a 1/2 inch of water and I let the boiling water cook the sausages until they change color and are grey throughout (I cut them with kitchen scissors). After they're all cooked, I drain the water and let them brown in the same frying pan. This way, I make sure that my meat is cooked all the way through without burning the outside.

The little white-lidded container has a combination of raw honey and frozen berries with which to top the pancakes. Great idea, but the honey didn't go quite as far as cheap, synthetic maple syrup and my pancakes went a little dry, so I might go with regular syrup in the future.

The dark spots surrounding all the food is a combination of raisins and sweetened dried cranberries. They provide an excellent extra to the meal and I pack them around all the bento ingredients to keep them from shifting in transport.

This is one of my favorite bentos to make. With preparation the previous night, I had some delicious, share-able pancakes and an enviable lunch. The pancakes were a little dry (though I think that was my failed cooking) and would have been better if they were piping hot off the stove, but they were convenient to eat without a fork by picking them up and dipping in the honey/berry concoction.

My Equipment!

2008-02-29T16:49:00.009-05:00

I have a small bento collection taking up space in my tidy little kitchen. Check it out!

First, the cute green frog bento:

Frog-Bento holds about 550ml in two layers. The top layer is the larger of the two -- slightly deeper. It comes with a removable divider to keep food separate. Both layers have a white lid (hiding, in this picture) that smushes on top and, if the food is hot, suctions down. You stack the layers and, using the clear, frog-adorned lid, hold them together -- the lid has little wings that clip under the lip of the bottom layer. The most charming part of this box is the tiny fork and spoon that came with it. They're so cute and their itty-bitty size makes my food look huge.

Second, the Hello Kitty bento:

Kitty-Bento is a slightly bigger box, holding about 700ml in two layers. The larger top layer has a tupperware-style lid that makes it perfect for wetter foods. Disappointingly, the bottom layer's lid snuggles into the layer and doesn't stay down very well (I think I put it in the microwave once and that ruined it). This box works fine, though, with the addition of a sturdy rubberband to keep it shut.
It's also ideal for bigger or longer foods because it is a long rectangle without dividers.

Other Accesories:

Food Shapers --
Tiny cookie cutters available at Wal-Mart for under $2US, made by Wilton, are perfect for spicing up cucumber slices or making a boring coldcut sandwich adorable. I have them in the "spring love" variety (stolen from roommate's mom) and the autumn pack (bought in a fit of Halloween spirit).
There is nothing cuter than a turkey and cheese sandwich in the shape of tulips and hearts!
Aside from the cookie cutters, this picture includes the onigiri molds that I bought for the roommate for the holidays. Onigiri are shaped rice balls stuffed with yumminess! We usually make the larger, triangle-shaped balls into savory, tuna or salmon lunch treats. We reserve the little ones for sweet rice balls -- usually filled with delicious red bean paste. YUM!

Food Separators --

Mini cupcake papers make perfect separators for dry foods; for oily foods (like peanut butter), I use the foil cups pictured here. You can also use reusable silicone baking cups -- they're inexpensive and you can use them to make cupcakes, too!

Saucy sauce containers are tiny bottles for liquids. I fill mine with soy sauce or salad dressing, but the options are pretty much endless, provided the liquid is pretty thin. They're easy to fill, too: just pour your sauce into a small bowl, put the mouth of the sauce bottle in and squeeze it to create suction.

Hard subcontainers are perfect for small amounts of messy foods like applesauce or my delicious homemade yogurt. Not pictured here is a really tiny tupperware container -- it only holds 1oz.

The Equipment

2008-02-29T16:21:00.004-05:00

Bento, while less expensive than buying daily lunches, has a few start-up costs: equipment.

The basic accessory is the box itself. This can be anything from my adorable Sanrio and San-X boxes to the simpler box that I gave TheBoy for Christmas to the manly Mr. Bento by Zojirushi, a Japanese company that designs high-end (awe-inspiring, magic) rice makers and other expensive toys that I want.
I bought my two boxes on eBay for a little less than $20US, which paid for the two separate boxes and shipping for both from Japan.

The other tool usually considered a necessity with bento preparation is a rice cooker. A countertop rice steamer does not have to be the $200US monster sold by some companies -- it can cost as little as the $20US variety sitting on my kitchen counter.

Past those two pieces, you hardly need any initial investment at all.

College and Costs

2008-02-29T15:56:00.005-05:00

Basic Tenet 1: College is expensive.

Basic Tenet 2: Most college students can't, won't, or don't have time to cook good meals.

Basic Tenet 3: Take-out gets old (and expensive!)

Basic Tenet 4: Healthy eating is important to a healthy lifestyle.

Because these basics are the essence of my life as a hungry college student, I decided to do something about them. At the start of the year, I toted a clunky insulated lunchbox from my mom -- I used tons of ziploc bags and had a hard time managing to pack little enough food in such a large bag (I'm not light eater, per se, but a basic lunch didn't need a cubic foot of space). Then, my roommate introduced me to bento.

Hallelujah! She gave me the perfect solution to my boring, too big lunches that wasted space and time. Thanks, roommate! She sent me to Cooking Cute, knowing that I would be taken by the precious little lunches. She also suggested E-OBento, a Japanese language site dedicated to really complex, beyond-my-level lunches.
Since introducing me to the Bento, roommate has regretted saying anything, but I have thanked her endlessly. And now you can too!

Bento, basically, is Japanese portable lunch. In Japan, you can get bento lunches in train stations, restaurants, and from your mom. In the States, you can get bento at some Japanese restaurants as a dinner option -- usually served in an open-style bento box with separators to keep each part of the meal from each other part.
In my kitchen, bento means cute, tidy, convenient, and (usually) inexpensive.

I use bento to make to easy, healthy meals in my own kitchen -- instead of buying lunch on campus or at one of the millions of restaurants downtown.