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How to choose a husband

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Nov. 7, 2010   Leave a Comment  

a source to feed my addiction

He owned a breadmaker.  It was pretty much everything I was not.  I went to school to learn to shape and fold and understand bread.  The breadmaker does all of that in a boring mechanical wonderful way.  Yes I just said wonderful.  When Matt moved away from me, I asked him for the breadmaker.  I was the first one to test it out after he had let it sit in his parent’s house for a couple of years.  And my addiction to bread suddenly felt like it had found its source.

Don’t get me wrong, I love making bread.  The rising and the kneading and the folding  and then the eating, I really do love making bread.  But I hardly ever have the time to make bread.  And all I ever knew was that bread took a lot of work and time.  While breadmakers were all the fad in the 90s, my mom really wasn’t a fad kind of gal, so the beauty of the breadmaker was lost on me.  And then I started dating Matt.

Matt bought the breadmaker at a yardsale for $5.  He is always good like that.  He buys things cheap that actually turn out to be extremely useful.  And he lets me steal them for a while.  I love that about him.

Anyway tonight I decided to dig out the bread maker.  I threw in three cups of flour, 1 tsp. of salt, 2 tbsp. sugar, 1 cup of warm water, and a packet of yeast.  2.5 hours later I had a beautiful loaf of bread.  And I thought to myself, this is why I am marrying this man.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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My newest obsession

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Nov. 1, 2010   Leave a Comment  

Pumpkin and Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles make my life happier

I find extremes frightening.  In food people often live in extremes.  It’s no carbs or no fat or vegan.  The latest diet fads tend to capitalize on extremes.  But lately extremes have erred on the healthier side.  Trying to eat local or seasonal are not terrible things in and of themselves, but living by it as a rule gives me the creeps.  I like to eat strawberries in the middle of February sometimes.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to eat seasonal every now and then.  And right now squash are all over the place and CHEAP.  Pardon my excitement, but vegetables are expensive and to my student budget sometimes completely impractical.  This of course makes me sad, because I know I need all of the good stuff in the vegetables.  So it being the peak of squash season and squash being less than a dollar a pound may have caused me to suddenly be fond of squash.  Yesterday I introduced you to the pumpkin gnocchi.  Because I had extra roasted squash after making that recipe, I decided to make this recipe for pumpkin beef goulash.

My mom makes a delicious beef paprika, which she serves over egg noodles.  And I always buy the Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles, so to say I was sold on the recipe at the egg noodles would not be an understatement.  Look to the recipe for the specifics (here’s the link in case you missed it) but I started by adding the paprika, salt, and pepper to the beef cubes.  In order to get a perfect sear, I heated the pan over medium high heat then I added the oil and let that heat up.  Hot pan then hot oil opens the pores of the pot so the oil can fill the pores and the meat won’t stick.  Anyway next I added the beef cubes, searing them.  Instead of following the directions on the recipe, I removed the beef and added the onions.  I am not a huge fan of onions, but I do like them when they are cooked down a little.  So I cooked the onion till it was just about to color.  Then I added the chicken broth, cup of pumpkin or squash. (Squash is sooo cheap right now, so why not roast a few in a pan at 400 F till a fork slides into them.  Scrape out the squash stuffs and store to use in recipes instead of canned pumpkin.)  I also added the garlic, and I added rosemary since I couldn’t find sage at the store.  Then I let the whole thing simmer till the meat falls apart and I removed the meat and onions.

I tried to let the sauce thicken like the recipe said, but it wasn’t really cooperating so I mixed about a tablespoon of flour to a couple of tablespoons of water.  I added this to the sauce and it thickened up nicely.  I could have done the same thing with cornstarch, but I always wanted to do the flour/water thing like my mom does and the opportunity finally presented itself.

This recipe tastes like fall.  You probably will have to tell the person eating it there is pumpkin in it.  It is such a wonderful melding of flavors even the pickiest eater will have trouble finding issue with it.

In case you were wondering, I’m starting to love this new squash thing.  It is kind of a bonus that I’m on season with my obsession.  And don’t worry I’ll still be looking for baby spinach in the middle of January.  I wouldn’t want to be extreme or anything.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Pumpkins anyone?

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Oct. 30, 2010   1 Comment  

a little too much butter, but a deliciously soft gnocchi

First, a scary thing  I heard this week.

“I haven’t eaten butter in two years.  I just don’t want it.” – my evolutionary biologist professor.

EEEEEK AAAAAAAAAAAAH this was honestly scarier than any one of Matt’s horror movies.  Can you imagine it?  Being happy without butter in your life.  After hearing this I decided this woman and I would never see eye to eye on the subject of food.  She went on to talk about how salads are a concoction of her dreams and expressed the word sugar like it was the dirtiest of words.  And then I watched Bones last night and realized who my professor reminds me of.  She is a Temperance Brennan, of sorts, eating what is the most logically and scientifically founded and abhorring the rest, lacking any sense of loss at not enjoying these “bad” foods.  If you don’t watch Bones, you should and if you ever consider giving up butter you will be dead to me.  The end.

Well not quite.  In honor of Halloween I decided to capitalize on the overabundance of cheap squash in the grocery store.  I bought a long neck pumpkin, cut it in half and half again and roasted it at 400 F till a fork slid in without any problem.  I peeled off the skin, which was really easy after it was roasted, and chopped it into chunks.  I used a blender to break up the pieces after unsuccessfully trying to do it with a fork.  I then pulled up this recipe from the Steamy Kitchen.  The recipe called for canned pumpkin, but I felt like having the option of using fresh was just nicer all around.

Like the recipe says I mixed the 1/2 cup of ricotta, 1/2 cup of pumpkin, 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, 1 egg yolk, and 1 tsp Kosher salt.  I then started to slowly add the cup of flour.    I can honestly say I have never pan fried gnocchi, but I followed the directions, rolled out the gnocchi, chopped it into pieces, and heated a pan with 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp of olive oil.  The gnocchi crisped beautifully.  I couldn’t find sage so I made a brown butter sauce with rosemary.

Between frying the gnocchi in butter and pouring on the brown butter sauce, the gnocchi tasted a little salty to me.  I doubled the recipe so I have another batch of dough waiting for me to experiment with.  I may try a lemon sauce or a brown sugar glaze.  I am not quite sure yet, but I will certainly let you know.

So while giving up butter would be worse than me running into Freddy Kruger, it takes a butter lover to know when butter might not be the best option with a dish.  The pumpkin gnocchi were amazing and made me want to test out different kinds of squash, but it just deserved a less buttery finish to highlight its delicate flavors.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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A single meal

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Oct. 27, 2010   1 Comment  

a combination made in heaven, or single living

I am reading The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto.  It is like the bridal magazines I bought obsessively, only not so full of tulle and all things wedding.  Maisto opens the book with the story of how her diet changed when she got married.  She describes her meals of fried eggs, a salad, and a piece of bread, and I began to remember my own foray with the protein packed meal.  They were normally desperate nights.  A little egg, some cheese, some adobo.  My roommate found it funny.

“An omelet for dinner again?”

I simply smiled.  Sometimes I would add bacon I diced raw and fried up before adding the eggs to the pan.  The secret was to use only one pan, and for the dinner to only take about 5 minutes from start to eating.

I can’t say I ever ventured to the salad side of these meals like Maisto remembered enjoying.  The more I considered it, the most I needed it.  I took the wrong bus home, because I life just doesn’t fit into the bus schedule.  During the walk to the apartment, I debated dinner.  Salad, but what salad? Eggs, fried or scrambled?  For some reason I thought of Ramen.  My mom makes a delicious Ramen noodle salad with dried Ramen noodles and homemade dressing and napa cabbage.  Here’s the recipe.  I didn’t have the energy to recreate my mom’s salad, so I created my own.

Ramen noodle salad (quick version):

1 package of Ramen noodles (broken up)
Almonds (slivered or sliced)
1 tbsp Butter
1 head of napa cabbage (cut in half and sliced width wise in small pieces)
Raspberry Walnut Dressing (or any dressing your heart desires)

Heat the butter in a frying pan.  Toast the Ramen and the almonds.  Watch carefully or you will burn them and that would not be tasty.  Slice the cabbage, a sort of thick julienne.  Add the Ramen and almonds and cabbage into a large bowl.  Add the dressing.  Fry an egg or grill a steak or broil a chicken breast.  Serve the salad next to whatever protein your heart desires.  The nuttiness of the Ramen and almonds paired with the milky flavor of the cabbage creates such a wonderful side to almost anything.

I am not sure how my meals will change when I am married to Matt.  He is a big fan of eggs, but prefers them scrambled, oh and you must whisk the egg with milk, not water.  Matt is not a big fan of green, and really neither am I.  I tend to forget about lettuce and salads and such.  But here’s to trying harder and eating omelets for dinner, while I still can.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Quick Comfort

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Oct. 12, 2010   Leave a Comment  

some warm stoup, don't worry there is EVOO involved

I know there is an intense hatred of Rachael Ray out there.  She’s bubbly and a little too much sometime, but the woman is popular and somehow has gone from serving samples in a grocery store to being a talk show host, cookbook author, and cooking show personality.  I feel like somehow she could care less about the haters.

Rachael – we’re totally on a first name basis because she’s knows I’m not one of the haters – created this recipe for Stuffed Pepper Stoup, which my mom’s good friend gave to my mom and which I am now going to bestow on all of you.  It will change your life in all of the best ways.  Rachael doesn’t like using normal words for things,  EVOO being a prime example.  So if you’re wondering what stoup is and thinking it sounds like something you sit on while watching the traffic go by(does anyone remember the stoop kid on Hey Arnold?), stoup is a soup stew mixture.  It’s a little thicker than soup and a little less hearty than stew.

The recipe for this dish can be found here.  I was having one of my days, so I may have forgotten to add the onion and also may have added more than a cup of the orzo noodles.  Despite my personal challenges, this dish is comforting on so many levels.  First it is quick.  From start to finish about 30 minutes or so.  I was doing dishes and prepping the meal at the same time, but from the time I started the meal to the time I sat down to burn my mouth on the first bite I think it was 45 minutes overall.  The dish is also comforting because it is warm and filling.  I love stuffed peppers, but this dish almost has them beat.  There is nothing to chop and very minimal mess for the flavor of a stuffed pepper.

Did I mention that the stoup is warm; I probably should have said it’s hot.  I might have burned my tongue on the first bite.  I was being impatient and underestimating the amount of time everything boiled till the orzo noodles were cooked.  I also may have made enough for a family of 5, so I’m thinking I’m going to make sure I pick up some more Tupperware containers tomorrow so I can freeze some of the stoup for a night when I am in need of some comfort and running low on time.  If you are cooking for one or two maybe break the recipe down a little so you don’t have quite so much leftovers, unless your a fan of eating the same meal for a month.  Then go for it!

I love the food my mom makes that can take hours to cook, but sometimes I don’t have hours.  So it being comfort week and all I felt the need to make this stoup and remind you all that comfort food can be quick.  And if you’re still cringing at the fact that this is Rachael Ray’s recipe you can just say you got it online.  I won’t tell.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Comfort week

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Oct. 12, 2010   Leave a Comment  

just grab a spoon and dig in

Because it is finally going to be nippy out, because I am watching House and he’s telling a woman she’s a liar, because Matt is awful nervous about starting a new job tomorrow, and because I just ate a plate full of apple cobbler I am naming this week Comfort food week.  We all need a little comfort in our lives and I think it is time for me to start putting on some winter weight.  Don’t you?

So to start the week off I made baked mac and cheese.  I know there are recipes and sorts of snobbery involved with baked mac and cheese, but I prefer to make it the Emily way.  The Emily way involves digging around the refrigerator for whatever ends of cheese I may have left.  I avoid the moldy ones.  I then cook off some mac and cheese, today it was a whole box in honor of starting comfort week, and add the cheese (lots and lots) and some milk and some butter (just a couple of tablespoons) and some salt and pepper.  I pour the whole mixture into a pan (large 8×8 tonight) top it with a layer of Parmesan cheese then a layer of bread crumbs.  I had a brilliant idea today after the mac and cheese was in the oven, so if you want to make this super cheesy maybe try crushing Goldfish and topping the mac and cheese with that instead of bread crumbs.  I may have to make baked mac and cheese again this week to give this a try.  It sounds so delicious.

But anyway I dotted my mac and cheese with some more butter – just call me Paula Dean this week ya’ll.  And I put the whole thing in the oven at 350 F for 20 minutes.  I didn’t have aluminum foil or I would have covered it for the first 15 minutes.  Remember this is Emily’s mac and cheese so if you don’t have aluminum foil don’t fret just maybe add a little extra milk so it doesn’t dry out.  When everything is all goopy and delicious pull it out of the oven and enjoy every last bite of it.  I needed this dinner so bad.  It was delicious and filling and warming, pretty much the definition of comfort.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Day 2 and I'm already feeling the creativity juices flowing

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Sept. 29, 2010   Leave a Comment  

a fairly brilliant idea, if I do say so myself!

It is day two on my quest to see if I really do or don’t have time to make real food.  I am finding that this whole project creates a constant dialogue in my head.  It kind of goes like this:

“What are you going to eat tonight?”

“I don’t know, but I have eggplant and pizza dough and cheese”

“Maybe I’ll have eggplant parm, or maybe I’ll have zucchini pizza.”

I am not sure at what point my conversation with the voices in my head thought of eggplant Parmesan pizza, but I do love those voices.  They are brilliant.  This pizza was super easy, but it took longer than I had hoped.

For the eggplant part, I cut the top and bottom off a cute little eggplant I bought at a farmstand in Rhode Island over the weekend.  I peeled the eggplant by standing it up and cutting down the sides.  I then sliced it into thinnish circles.  I cracked 3 eggs into a bowl and poured some bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese into another bowl.  I beat the eggs with a fork.  I tend to ruin frying things by not waiting long enough for the oil to heat  up so I started washing dishes to force the patience.  I then Dipped the eggplant into the egg and then the breadcrumb mixture and then into the oil.  I let it fry a few minutes on each side till the eggplants were crispy and good then I drained them on a plate on a towel.  Once all of the eggplant were fried I pulled out the pizza dough I bought a few weeks ago.  I know this sounds like a cop out, but the frozen raw pizza dough tastes better than my hurried attempt and has a lot less preservatives than the prebaked crusts.  They also tend to be a lot cheaper.  I bought the dough frozen for a little over a dollar.

Anyway now that I explained my use of frozen dough – please please please don’t be judging – I spread out the dough and put some pizza sauce down.  I spread some of the eggplant on the pizza, covering the whole pizza as best I could.  I then put a little sauce on top of the eggplant so they didn’t dry out.  I topped it with enough cheese to make me happy, lots and lots of cheese, and threw it in the oven at 375 F.  All of that was done in 15 minutes.  The baking part was the part that started taking too long.  I checked it and checked it and 30 minutes later it was FINALLY done.  I was starving and burned my mouth on the first few bites.

The slightly cooler piece tasted a lot better.  I must say making eggplant parm pizza was fairly brilliant, and because it was my idea I’m going to say I must be slightly brilliant, just slightly.  Now if only the conversation in my brain would start thinking about the Global Journalism proposal I was supposed to finish tonight.  But planning my next meal is so much more fun!

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Crying on the subway

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Sept. 28, 2010   Leave a Comment  

Monday's meal - yummy soup!

As promised tonight I made dinner, real dinner.  And because the sky was whimpering all day and I almost broke down in tears on the subway on my way home, I needed a little bit of real comfort.  Luckily for me I cut the prep time for this in half by making most of it yesterday.  I chopped 2 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, and a small onion and threw them into a roasting bag with a 3 pound chicken.  I baked it at 325 F for an hour and 20 minutes and threw it all into a pan and in the fridge for today.  I must have known today was going to be indescribably awful.  Why so awful?  I can’t describe why; that’s why I called it indescribable, duh!

When I got home tonight, I picked the chicken and threw all of the juice and veggies and chicken into a pot with a little bit of water.  I let that come to a boil and boiled some water for noodles.  I added adobo, granulated garlic, and 5 leaves of fresh basil.  I tasted it a couple of times just to make sure it was good and was happy I only added about a cup of water in the beginning, because the intensity of flavors complemented the soup wonderfully.  I drained the noodles, added them to the soup, and tad-da meal!   From start to finish the meal was done in 30 minute.  It was delicious.  It warmed me up.  Unfortunately after cleaning everything up and organizing my life by the time I ate it was almost 1.5 hours after I had gotten home and I was starting to get tired.  The cooking was the easy part.  It took practically no effort yesterday.  And today effort was equally minuscule.  Success?  I’m a little too tired to judge, but my tummy is full.  And there was nothing processed in the meal other than noodles.  I think making my own noodles might have put the whole meal a little over-the-top effort wise.

And as for my bad mood, Matt ran out and bought me a Hershey’s bar.  He loves me, a lot.  And we both agreed soup is the new pizza.  It just tastes better with a little bit of soda.  So maybe that wasn’t the healthiest part of the meal, but it did bring a smile to my bad mood face.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Momma said there'd be days like this

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Sept. 26, 2010   Leave a Comment  

Tomorrow I’m going to make real food.  I have a menu.  You will all be so proud.  But before all of that can begin I am spending time doing homework.  It sounds just awful doesn’t it?  When I have to do awful things, I like to have a little comfort food.  This morning I threw a chicken roaster in the oven with onions and carrots and celery, but I just wasn’t feeling like eating it for dinner.  Really I was feeling like apple crisp for dinner, but my-oh-so-wonderful fiance doesn’t have a very extensive pantry and is missing a few ingredients that are totally necessary for the crisp.  So I went old school.

I must preface this meal choice with the fact that my mom really was a good mom and did not feed us this every night or even every week.  But every now and then when dinner needed to happen in 15 minutes and everyone just needed a little dose of awful food we had some Kraft Mac and Cheese and hot dogs.

comfort food at its possibly most awful

I don’t want to know how much sodium is in this.  I don’t want to know the multitude of hotdog cancers I could get from eating it.  I just know this feels like love to me, because when my mom was at her busiest she still made a dinner for us and showed us that we came first even if it meant spending the only 15 minutes she had so we were fed.  Aren’t mom’s the best?

a plate of comfort

So tonight I’m going to make a toast to a new beginning – real food for dinner – and old favorites – all of the things that make me warm and full and happy.  I’ll see you all tomorrow for some fast food and hopefully apple crisp – I have baking powder in my pantry.  I love you Matt!

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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Scary new food

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Sept. 19, 2010   Leave a Comment  

It is not every day that I walk down an aisle at Target and see something entirely strange that I just need to try.  Okay maybe it happens more often than I would like to admit, but I am addicted to strange food products that probably should not exist.  I see them and I just need to buy them.  It is a problem.  I will work on it.  But until I do, I’ll just introduce you to the strange and inane in the food world.  This week meet frosting in a can.

This product, marketed right next to the matching funfetti cookie mix, scares me a little.  It was $2.89, so a little more expensive than the tub product.  According to the can, one can will frost a  13×9 inch pan or up to 24 cupcakes so it does contain a good amount of frosting.  It clearly states to not refrigerate the can and it says you can remove and clean out the tip, if you want.  This whole non-refrigeration thing means it is perfectly shelf stable, which means 3/4 of the ingredients are words I have never seen before in my life.

It took a little bit of force to get the frosting to come out of the can.  The frosting was a beautiful consistency with a nice shine, and the taste wasn’t actually that bad.  It tasted like store bought frosting – just a little too chemical to be butter, powdered sugar, and milk – but it wasn’t terribly sweet.  Oddly it was a lot of fun.  You could, of course, have the same fun with pastry bags and tips, and the pastry chef in me hates to admit this, but the frosting from a can was so much easier.

Of course I am still horrified that this canned frosting exists and I would like to say that despite the ease of the canned product the real product can be just as easy and is very much better for you.  Powdered sugar, butter, and milk and maybe even a little cream cheese and you can be set with some delicious easy frosting.  But just like it is fun to go to McDonalds and eat a bad hamburger every now and then, buying a can of frosting and just having a little fun with cookies or cupcakes or whatever is just a fun way to enjoy food without all of the work and mess.

So in the end hairspray probably does not have to worry about its place as one of the few aerosol cans I purchase on a regular basis.  I can’t honestly say I will ever buy a can of frosting again, but I’m glad I tried it.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily

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