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This week’s experiment…

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Feb. 1   Leave a Comment  

My husband loves Chinese food.  If I were to want to make his year, I would simply have to tell him that I wanted to go to a Chinese Buffet for lunch or dinner.  To make his week, I’d just have to suggest we order Chinese takeout.  He’s such an uncomplicated fellow.

For my wedding shower I received this GORGEOUS Chinese cookbook.  As anyone who has experienced a wedding shower followed by two moves will understand, I just found the cookbook.  And I fell in love again.  This time I fell in love so much I decided Sunday would be Chinese day.  My mom and I made dim sum.  My husband and I made Lo Mein.  It was delicious and fabulous.  Thanks to leftover ingredients I was able to stretch Chinese Sunday to today.

 

If you think this fried rice looks delicious, it’s because it was.  Lately I have not become emphatic over many things, but this rice made my day.  I hope it turns my husband into a lover of Chinese food at home – it’ll be safe for all of our digestive systems.

Emily’s Chicken Fried Rice:

2 medium sized chicken breast, sliced into thin strips

Slice the chicken breasts.  Season with salt and pepper.  Fry in a hot wok with a few tablespoons of oil.  The chicken should be done in a matter of minutes.  Remove the wok from the heat.

1 cup of uncooked rice

Prepare the rice according to the package directions.  I typically purchase plain white rice.  Boil 1.5 cups of water.  Add the cup of rice.  Lower the heat between low and medium low and cover.  The rice will take about 20 minutes, giving you plenty of time to prepare the vegetables.

1 Tablespoon Garlic, minced
1 Cup Snap Peas
2 Scallions, sliced
4 Carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 Head of Nappa Cabbage, thinly sliced
1/2 Cup of Bean Sprouts

Add all of the vegetables to the wok with the chicken.  Heat the wok, stirring regularly.  Add the rice.

1 Tablespoon Hoisin Sauce
1 Tablespoon Rice Vinegar

Add the sauce and vinegar to the wok.  Cook for a few more minutes, stirring by gently tossing ingredients.

Serve the dish with soy sauce for a little added flavor, and try not to fall in love with Chinese food at home too much.   

 

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Monkey Business

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Feb. 23, 2011   1 Comment  

monkey monkey monkey

I dream in food.  It just comes naturally.  So when I was working on a project for work and it involved monkeys, I dreamed about monkey bread.  You know that goopy cinnamony doughy bread that pulls apart into perfect bite-sized pieces.

The first time I ate monkey bread I was probably 11 or 12.  I was over at my cousins house and their other grandparents were there.  Probably means it was one of their birthdays.  Anyway her grandma brought monkey bread.  I ate one piece and I didn’t leave my place by the side of the table, hoping no one would notice that I was eating more of the monkey bread than anyone else.  I was so sad when it was all gone, and monkey bread had a special place in my heart from that day on.  Who would not LOVE bite-sized sticky buns!

When I started dreaming about monkey bread, I really knew I needed to relive this childhood favorite.  Matt and I went to the grocery store, bought a four pack of Pillsbury biscuits – I know real dough would work just as well, but I wanted something quick.  I cut each of the biscuits in half and mixed 1/2 cup of sugar with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.  Matt tossed each biscuit piece in the cinnamon/sugar and plopped them in a greased 9 inch square pan.  I melted 1/2 cup of butter and added 1 cup of brown sugar.  I poured the butter sugar mixture over the biscuit pieces, popped it into the oven at 350 F.  It was about 40 minutes before it was completely done.  I flipped it out onto a plate and patiently – I burned my hand because I was being impatient, so I quickly decided to become patient – waited for it to cool.

Sometimes it’s nice to know that despite the monkey business and craziness you might experience, warm sugary doughy treats will always be just as delicious as that very first time.  And I do love that now that I’m a grown-up I can eat as much as I want without worrying about anyone catching on.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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The Christmas Fudge

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Dec. 12, 2010   Leave a Comment  

my favorite Christmas treat!

I just love the movie Eloise at Christmastime.  Eliose is just such a spunky, nosy little thing – just like everything I strive to be.  And on Christmas Eve, her and Nanny eat their fill of Christmas fudge.

There are so many wonderful things about the holidays, but arguably one of the best things are the treats only eaten once a year, like Christmas fudge.  It is terrible for you, and Michelle Obama might not approve; but eating this fudge makes Christmas so much sweeter.

My mom always made her fudge a few weeks before Christmas and packed a lot of it up to give to  Sunday School teachers at church.  When I moved to Boston and started attending Emerson, I began a holiday fudge making tradition of my own.  I made the fudge for the office I was a work study in before I left for Christmas break.  The first year I just dropped it off.  Last year everyone’s plates were full of fudge and pizza at the Christmas party.  This year – my final year -  I am again bringing the fudge to the Christmas party.  And because I just adore my classmates in my Online Publishing class, I’ll be bringing some fudge to our last class this Thursday night.

Fudge is just such a happy Christmas tradition and, while I just adore Eloise, I am not a fan of that sick-I-ate-too-much-fudge-feeling, so I am a big fan of sharing my holiday fudge.  Of course I only make my mom’s recipe, because it is the best.  Did I mention it makes a great gift too?  You should probably go make fudge now.

Peanut Chocolate Fudge

4 cups of sugar
1 large can of evaporated milk
1 stick butter

Combine in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook to soft ball stage. This means when you drip put it into a bowl of water you can form a soft ball. Most candy thermometers have the stages on them, but if you don’t have one just try the water test, or it will be about 8 minutes after mixture comes to a full boil.

12 oz. bag chocolate chips
7 oz. jar of marshmallow crème
20 oz. jar peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Add the rest of the ingredients, remove from the heat, and stir until smooth.  This part is easier with a helper, so one person can scoop and pour and the other person can stir.  Pour the mixture into a 13×9 greased pan. You can add walnuts or pecans on top. I personally like it without the nuts.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Macaroon appetite

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Dec. 7, 2010   Leave a Comment  

toasted bundles of coconut

Friday night, after gathering content all day for my capstone class, I had this serious craving for coconut macaroons.  So I came home and made them.  I ate one before bed, and was so happy.  The weekend was going to be chalked full of homework, and I knew the macaroons would be a great treat throughout the days.  Then Saturday happened.

Saturday morning I woke up kind of sniffly.  I kept sneezing and much as I tried to ignore it my throat was getting more and more sore.  I knew it was a cold, but that didn’t make my body ache any less when the fever started.  Sunday I slept most of the day.  When I got up to make some lunch I looked at the container of macaroons in the fridge and actually felt my stomach churn.  I had absolutely no desire to eat them, which was rather unfortunate because I hadn’t really bought extra snacks to nibble on during homework.

Today I had to dress in real clothes and face the land of the healthy.  Either everyone is lying about the freezing cold weather, or my fever has decided to stick around, because everywhere I went today felt like 80 degrees and humid.  I’m guessing it was the fever after watching the snow fall on my walk home tonight.  Either way my desire to eat those macaroons has not changed.  I may have to pawn them off on someone tomorrow, so they get eaten.  And somehow I doubt anyone being enthusiastic about eating cookies from a Typhoid Mary who is carrying around a whole box of tissues in her bag.

I feel like I would eat the coconut macaroons if sick me offered them to healthy me.  But that is mostly because only healthy me appreciates coconut macaroons for some reason.  Sick me is SO over them.

Either way it is high time you made your own coconut macaroons.  They are terribly delicious, super easy, and naturally gluten free.  This makes them great for Christmas parties, where possible allergies are present.  Here’s the link (link) to the recipe I used.  I’m not a fan of chocolate dipping an already sweet cookie, so I just ignored that part of the recipe.  Otherwise they turned out delicious; at least healthy me thought so.

I hope you are all staying healthy and avoiding the horrible colds that prey on poor susceptible college kids this time of year.  Oh and I hope you still have a healthy appetite for coconut macaroons, because they are so delicious.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Happy Hanukkah!

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Dec. 4, 2010   Leave a Comment  

Mexican-Puerto Rican-Jewish latkes

What country are you from has to have been the most memorable question I have received about my heritage.  I think my response was Pennsylvania, which depending on who you’re asking could very well be considered a separate country (there are fainting goats living in my back yard).  I always love the smiles, when I tell people my mom has blond hair and blue eyes and I’m half German.  Even the realization that I’m Puerto Rican does not entirely satisfy most people’s questioning.

“Oh I thought you were Italian.”

I was never quite sure how to respond to that answer, because it was almost as if they would have been happier if I had said, “Oh yeah, just kidding, I’m Italian.”

For the record, I am half Puerto Rican, which I am possibly a little more Spaniard than Native Puerto Rican considering my very olive complexion; and I am half German, Austrian, and possibly English.  My dad likes to throw a wrench into the confusion my mom and he created in my brother, sister, and I and our mutt-like genealogy, by suggesting somewhere down the line we were also Jewish.  See there’s this street in Spain, my dad will tell the story, and it’s named Juertas after a Jewish family that fled there.  And we are related to anyone with the last name of Juertas (it was my grandmother’s maiden name).  I am not sure who it was that told my dad this story, but he remembers it.

If there is any ounce of me that is Jewish, I am sure it is a tiny bit and questionably so.  But one thing I do know for sure, I inherited my dad’s love of culture and every yummy bit that goes along with it.  And ever since the blogs and sites and newspapers have been posting latke recipes, I have been dreaming about their fried potato goodness.  After a busy day of work, I knew it was time for a taste of Hanukkah.

Of course I hardly ever follow tradition when it comes to cooking.  And my good friend’s traditional latke recipe called for grating onions.  I can hardly cut an onion without crying.  Can you imagine how awful it would be if you grated an onion?  So I julienned two onions and fried them in a little oil until close to caramelized.  I then mixed them with about 2 cups of frozen shredded potatoes – I already had them and didn’t want to grate potatoes.  I added 3 eggs maybe an 1/8 of a cup of flour and adobo.  I heated a pan with oil and began frying.  The first batch were eh ok, but once I got going I was getting perfect little potato latkes.  I drained them and lined them on a sheet pan.

I didn’t exactly have time to make dinner tonight, so I knew I had to make the latkes a little more hearty.  I drained a can of black beans and dropped 6 or 7 beans on each latke.  Then I topped them with a Mexican blend of shredded cheese.  I threw them under the broiler until the cheese was melted.

The wonderful thing about being multicultural is that I have a lot of palettes to create new traditions with.  And basing it off of the 5 latkes my roommate tucked away.  I’d say my latkes were a wonderful success.  Just please don’t ask what country they are from.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Oh hey December

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Dec. 1, 2010   Leave a Comment  

now if only I can figure out what to get Matt for Christmas

This morning my status on facebook said “is it really December tomorrow?  I vote for a 2010 redo!”  I then proceeded with my day completely neglecting the fact that my T-pass for November expired today, and I needed to pick up my December pass.  I realized my error as I was sitting on the bus ready to go home.  I guess I was more in denial than I originally assumed.

But December means Christmas – WHAT WILL I GET FOR PEOPLE – and finals and packing all of my stuff and moving.  Those last two things aren’t stressing me out as much as they should.  But Christmas presents, those are really stressing me out.  I hope you are not in the same – I haven’t started my Christmas shopping – boat, but in case you are I thought I’d put together a foodie Christmas list.  It’s probably not going to help any of my shopping dilemmas; but I am totally and completely selfless and would prefer to help you all, rather than actually do something productive like that paper that’s due Thursday.

Glass Teapot/ Tea press:  Any lover of tea will appreciate this beautiful pot.  It will brew a perfect cup of tea and you can accompany the pot with some delicious loose leaf tea.  But the best part of this tea pot is the wonderful Saturday mornings you and the person you are giving this too can spend sitting and chatting with a warm cup of tea in hand.  Here’s the link to a pot on Amazon.com (link).  There are many varieties and price points, but remember to save some of your budget on buying some loose leaf tea to complete the gift.

Knife Sharpener: Do you know a fabulous foodie whose knives just seem a bit dull?  There are a lot of knife sharpeners out there, but the ones used by my peeps in the kitchen the most are the good old fashioned stones.  It takes a little bit of practice to sharpen a knife with a stone, but getting the hang of it will really pay off.  You won’t know what happened to your knives.  Here’s the link to a sharpener at LLBean (link).

Y Peeler:  This will be the stocking stuffer your foodie will never forget.  The Y peeler just works so much better than those other peelers.  It has an easy grip and it is almost impossible to cut yourself with it.  The Restaurant Store is a great place to buy all sorts of foodie finds.  Here’s a link to a Y peeler on their site (link).  Of course you could just visit one in person too, but you might spend more time there than you think.

Torch: Whether your foodie is making creme brulee or just needs to toast some fluff to make the perfect smore Gelato, a torch will definitely come in handy.  They also make a great solution for fruit flies.  Here’s the link to a torch at Williams-Sonoma (link).  You could probably find it more reasonable somewhere else, but Williams-Sonoma stuff does tend to be fairly solid and I’ve picked up a lot of flimsy torches that worry me.

I’m going to have to make this post a to-be-continued, because tomorrow’s December and finals are too close for me to consider them without having a panic attack.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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In our tiny kitchen

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Nov. 15, 2010   Leave a Comment  

individual veggie pot pies

Up until this moment of my life in my tiny apartment, my roommate has had a very confused opinion of my blogging.

“Are you blogging me?”  and “Why do you take pictures of everything you make?” took up most of our conversations around dinner time.

Until tonight.  Tonight my roommate made delicious veggie pot pies and her words were, “you better blog about this.”  I knew she’d catch on sooner or later.  And the pot pies, well they were delicious, and I love sharing delicious things with you.

Vegetable Pot Pies:

1 large onion, diced
1 sweet potato, diced
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 small head of broccoli cut into pieces
2 tbsp flour
1 can vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
Pie Dough

Saute onions and sweet potato in a frying pan.  Add the peas and corn and broccoli.  Add the vegetable broth and the flour.  Bring to a boil and stir until thickened.  Season with salt and pepper.

My roommate used the already made pie dough.  It saved a lot of time and was easier to work with in our 5 square feet of kitchen.  She filled individual ramekins (Walmart had 5 of them for $10) with a bottom layer of pie dough.  She parbaked them for 5 minutes at 450 F and filled them with the veggie mixture.  Then she topped them with more pie dough and a really cute leaf cut-out and baked them for 10 minutes at 450 F.

If you are more of a meat-eater than my roommate (she’s vegetarian), then you could definitely add some chicken or even some beef to these cute little meals.  I honestly didn’t miss it.  Oh and did I mention the meal cost $1.66 per portion?  Yeah she was right, totally bloggable.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Good morning

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Nov. 14, 2010   Leave a Comment  

we've gabbed the whole night through, good morning, good morning to you.

“Good morning it’s great to stay up late and say good morning, good morning to you…”  If I had not spent most of my childhood dancing around my living room to musicals and Disney cartoons, I would not be the mature astute woman I am today.  And I would have nothing to sing to myself when the bus is late and my pants are soaking through because it’s raining.  Do you think people driving past me think I’m crazy?  They may be on to something.

This morning I was trying to get a lot of studying done.  I had to memorize all of the concepts from Global Journalism that I may or may not have learned over the course of the last 3 months. It wasn’t really going well and I couldn’t stop thinking about the frozen fruit I bought yesterday at the grocery store.  I had a recipe for smoothies that was kind of calling to me.  I got out the blender and added about half of the bag of frozen mixed berries, two six ounce containers of vanilla yogurt, and a handful of old fashioned rolled oats.  I let the blender work its magic and poured two large glasses, one for my roommate and one for me.  The oats were a great source of fiber and, because of the slightly sweet berries and vanilla yogurt, I didn’t need to add any sugar.

I wish I could say my studying went as well as the smoothies, what is the significance of the New World Information Order again?  But the smoothie did make my morning a little brighter.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year

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Nov. 10, 2010   Leave a Comment  

stuffed eggplant = such a good impluse eggplant buy!

No it isn’t Christmas!  Despite what every commercial and retail store are telling you right now, there is a holiday before Christmas.  It is a wonderful holiday for most people.  But in the middle of this whole post-recession America there are a lot of people who don’t have the bounty to create a feast for Thanksgiving like maybe they used to.  Yesterday I spent 3 hours at the Greater Boston Food Bank helping to sort 16,142 pounds of cans of tomato products and beverages.  It wasn’t glamorous.  I had to hear Bruno Mars’ song Just the Way You Are 2 times in a span of 5 minutes because of a radio station change.  And I was genuinely tired from sorting cans and lifting the 40 pound boxes and taking them to the person putting lids on them.  But the full time volunteer who was restocking my boxes said I filled more boxes than anyone else – Go me! – and it was really wonderful to help out during this especially trying economic season.

According to the most recent reports, 42.4 million people were on food stamps in August 2010.  And those are just the people actually getting help.  Giving time, by volunteering at your local food bank or soup kitchen, does not cost any money.  But it means a lot.  The Greater Boston Food Bank said the 16,000 volunteers that help every year save the bank $600,000 every year.  Without those volunteers, the food bank would have to hire full time workers.

So go and do your part.  As food lovers, you all know how a great meal can make even the most dire situation better.

Speaking of great meal, tonight I was wandering my local grocery store in search of prices for a story I am doing.  The most beautiful eggplant called to me, so I decided to try a recipe for stuffed eggplant from Michelle Maisto’s The Gastronomy of Marriage.  Her recipe called for two eggplant, but I was only feeding myself and  I only bought one eggplant.

Maisto’s Stuffed Eggplant Recipe (tweeked, because it’s what I do)

1 eggplant (the shiny black one)
Vegetable oil for the frying pan
2 cloves of garlic
2 eggs beaten
1/2 cup of bread crumbs (I used some of the bread I made two days ago that was getting crumbly)
1/4 + cup of grated Parmesan cheese
dry basil
black pepper
Spaghetti sauce

Cut the eggplant in half and cut off the top.  Scoop out the inside of the halves of the eggplants.  I did this by sticking a tablespoon in all around the edge and then worked out the rest.  It was a bit challenging.  Chop the insides into smallish cubes.  Dice the garlic.  Heat a frying pan with oil.  Add the garlic and then the eggplant.  Cook until it starts to break down.  Maisto suggests the amount of cooking depends on the texture you want.  I still wanted eggplant pieces.  It took maybe 10 minutes on Medium heat.

Combine the eggs, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, basil, black pepper, and the cooked eggplant.  I did this in a separate bowl.  Cover the bottom of a pan with tomato sauce.  Put the Eggplants without their middles into the pan.  Evenly scoop the filling into each half.  Cover with tomato sauce.  Cover and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.  Uncover and bake 10 more minutes.  Finish off with some cheese and try not to burn your mouth, because it is going to be hard not to devour this.  Yum and delicious and thank you grocery store for not having icky looking eggplant for once.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Thank you

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Nov. 9, 2010   Leave a Comment  

what are you thankful for?

Today was rainy and disgusting.  My umbrella flipped inside out just as I had to walk onto the bus, leaving me with no option but to close it flipped inside out, and then fix it on the bus with everyone giving me death stares.  I wore jeans, so drying off would require time in a dryer and unfortunately I didn’t have access to one of those.  My show were squishy and I wanted to cry on a few occasions.

And as I started my walk home – the long walk because I missed the ideal bus by 3 minutes – I was in a crabby mood.  Then I looked at my feet and realized how lucky I was to have them.  Some people can’t walk.  As I splashed through a puddle, I was thankful for the boots I found after I walked into three stores praying for reasonably priced rain boots.  The boots were one of two in my size, in the last store I was going to go to before I just gave up.  When I started thinking about the boots, I realized how lucky I was to have the money to buy the boots.  They were $30.  How many people in the world are wondering where their next meal is going to come from, and I had $30 to spend on boots because my feet were wet.  I was starting to feel a little less crabby.

A car had their high beams on as they drove past me.  At first I found myself getting mad for the temporary blindness, then I realized how lucky I am to have a lighted sidewalk.  I would probably fall a lot more if I didn’t have those wonderful lights.  My hands started getting hot from my gloves.

Thank you for my gloves and the energy to walk fast enough to work up a sweat.

Thank you for legs that don’t just quit on me when I have 5 minutes more of walking.

Thank you for food when I get home.

That was my final thought.  My stomach was starting to grumble and I was just about to walk into the apartment building when I remembered the fresh bread and the cauliflower soup waiting for me in my fridge.  I made the soup from this recipe on Saturday – here’s the link – and it was so much better the second time.  It actually kind of healthy, because it doesn’t involve the cream cauliflower soup normally contains.  And it is just downright delicious, especially after such a terribly long day.  I highly suggest giving it a shot.

Word on weather.com is more rain tomorrow.  I guess I’m going to have to start adding to that “thankful” list.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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