Category Archives: Home cooking

If it’s good enough for Bayless…

Posted by sarah3030 in cookbooks, cooking, Home cooking, Out of a cookbook and tagged with , , ,

It’s good enough for me!

Two summers ago I went to a book signing/food tasting with Rick Bayless.  His new book Fiesta at Rick’s had just been released.  I love me some Rick Bayless.  I tried to get a reservation at Topolobampo in Chicago for my 30th birthday.  Six weeks out I tried and it was already booked.  Bayless had just won Top Chef All Star, and Topolobampo was noted as one of the Obama’s favorite restaurants when they lived in Chicago, so it was a hot ticket, even so, I thought six weeks out I may have a chance!

Back to the tasting two summers ago – Rick made a guacamole inspired by a BLT.  Which was pretty  much his standard guacamole with some crumbled bacon.  I had one piece left from the cheese stuffed date adventure, so I crisped that up and added it to my guacamole.

Sadly, it was not delicious.  This is not Rick’s fault.  It’s the fault of over ripe avocados.  They were probably about 2 days past their prime.  I also added lemon juice instead of lime juice.  Rick told me that could be an option in guacamole.  I favor lime juice.  I am having fun experimenting with guacamole.  The corn-crab guacamole of a couple of weeks ago and the bacon addition this time.  I also had some mango-pineapple salsa that I put on the fish tacos I made, and smooshed some of that into the guacamole also for a few bites.  Excellent!  For sure the next time I’ll try that with a bigger batch.  Yum!

Also, fish tacos are fantastic!  I maintain that I don’t cook fish well, but this was okay.  I just squirted some lime juice and jerk seasoning on the cod before throwing it on my grill pan.  Then I put something from every color of the rainbow on the tacos.

bacon guacamole! ::photo from seriouseats.com::

Colorful tacos!

Summer of 2010, mugging with my new cookbook about to be signed

A little private photo op with Rick Bayless. No big deal.

This was such an exciting moment for me that it made my 2010 Christmas card. Ahh, summer of 2010 – you were a good one.

Random food comes together

Posted by sarah3030 in cooking, food, Home cooking, random and tagged with , , , ,

I follow some blogs that make “throwing” dinner together seem like an art form.  I’m trying to embrace more spontaneity in my meal prep and using the so much food I have in my pantry.  I also am trying to use ingredients in more dishes than I may have originally intended them for.  I buy more than my fair share of specialty ingredients for a particular dish and the remains of that ingredient hang out in my fridge until it’s gone bad.

So, here are some random dishes from the last couple of weeks.  Most pictures were taken with my phone, so it’s not great photography, but it has been pretty good food.

Corn Crab Guacamole
I was in Cleveland last December and found a restaurant recommendation through Yelp.  The restaurant was Momocho and it was known for it’s guacamole variations and taquitos.  Sounds good to me!  I ordered a Blue Corn Crab guacamole and it was fantastic.  So, on a recent trip to Whole Foods, I splurged on some claw crab meat.  My plan was to add the crab and some corn to my standard guacamole recipe.

This may have been one of my greatest ideas ever.  I used frozen corn and just microwave the 1/4 cup that I needed.  I’m sure it could have been better with roasted corn, but I still have no complaints.  I made this for dinner 3 nights last week.  Only one of those nights did I make actual food to go with it. And that night it was tuna with a pineapple mango salsa.  I do not cook fish well.  I overcook it or undercook it.  And I love it so much, I wish I did this better.

But seriously, make this guacamole.  Next time I think I’m going to add the pineapple mango salsa to the guacamole…

 

 

Overnight oats is all the rage among the fit chick blog circles.  It’s taking oats, some kind of milk, nut butters, etc and letting them sit in the fridge overnight so it’s all ready in the morning.  I have not tried this yet.  I think it sounds like it could be a great idea, but I don’t know.  I like oatmeal – do I really want cold, mushy oatmeal?

Not this morning, I don’t.  I topped my hot, steel cut oatmeal with a sliced banana, walnuts and a drizzle of Nutella.

Another genius idea on my part.  How good is oatmeal topped with a bunch of stuff?!

 

 

 

 

 

And then there is this.  For the 2nd day in a row, this is what I made for lunch.  And it’s awesome.  Saute some spinach in a skillet so it wilts down.  Add two beaten eggs, 1 chopped tomato and 1/3 cup black beans.  Cook, stirring often, and you have a very delicious scramble.  But we’re not stopping there.  I heated up two whole wheat tortillas and sliced up an avocado.  Divide the scramble in half and place on each tortilla.  Top with avocado.  I added a tablespoon of plain fat free greek yogurt to each one as well.  Greek yogurt is my new go to for everything – with cereal, on eggs, in a smoothie – it’s perfect!  I tried to roll them into a burrito, but they were too full, or my tortillas were too small.  Whatever, I ate them as tacos and they were still the greatest.  I love Mexican food and this Mexican inspired dish hit the spot big time after my two workouts this morning.

 

 

 

 

So there you have it.  Random food yields delicious results.  I didn’t take a picture of my snack just now, but same concept.  Chopped up apple, tablespoon of almond butter, 1/2 cup greek yogurt, granola and another drizzle of Nutella.  (I have a lot left over from the day I made crepes at work AND it’s in a convenient squeeze bottle.  I see a drizzle of Nutella making an appearance at weekend breakfast Sunday as well.)

Copy cat burgers and strange conversations

Posted by sarah3030 in cooking, Crazy., food, Home cooking, random, relationships and tagged with , ,

I follow Iowa Girl Eats and her recipes have started making it into my rotations pretty frequently.  I don’t cook all that much these days, so when I say I made two of her recipes in the last month, that’s heavy rotation.  Around 5pm or so I saw her post on some chili lime burgers she made based on a Trader Joe’s burger and I thought I had enough ingredients on hand to riff something like that and dinner was decided!

::photo from Iowa Girl Eats blog::

 

I had ground turkey instead of ground chicken.  I didn’t have cilantro and it would have been cooler if it did.  Otherwise, I followed her recipe pretty close and it was delicious!

photo by me!

I even made the asparagus-tomato side dish.  Yummy!  Thanks Iowa Girl Eats!  Click on this link for her complete recipe.

Meanwhile, I was working in one of our grocery stores today when one of the assistant managers asked if she could ask me a personal question.  I said sure, braced myself, and then all she asked is if I was married.  That was an easy one.  I replied no, that I had been at one time, but not any longer.  Then she and another store manager spent a solid 10 minutes telling me all the reasons they wish they weren’t married and that if they had to do it all over they would do it completely different.  How all they want in the world is to come home and have some alone time.  That they are so tired of taking care of other people.  That they resent the people who ask them for help.  Granted, one of them had some tough stories, a disabled husband and son that needed a lot of care.  And she did it.  And she was miserable doing it.

Yikes.  Just a classic case of the grass is always greener, I suppose.  I miss taking care of someone.  I want there to be someone at the end of the day.  Someone to spend 42 years with, or 12 years with.  Do I think a lifetime with someone works?  I sure don’t know.  I find that coming home to two cats wonderful sometimes.  And sometimes it leads to patterns of enabled laziness.  I was obsessed with the movie Shall We Dance for a while and there’s a scene where Richard Jenkins and Susan Sarandon are talking about why people get married.  They say, “we need a witness to our life.”  I agree.  If there’s no one to see it – does it happen?

There are moments that are so great alone.  But I believe they are better with a witness.  I’ll never forget this one night where I was still married, but ex husband was traveling all the time.  I was working through all the seasons of Grey’s Anatomy like a fiend.  The farmer’s market had started and it must have been early because asparagus was in season.  I found out how to “borrow” television shows from the internet and had downloaded the rest of Season 4 because I couldn’t wait for it to come out on dvd.  Which means I had to watch the shows from the computer room because we didn’t have all the internet on tv stuff that I do today.  I also had the MOST uncomfortable office chair.  Picture it…I had a few drinks, decided to make an asparagus/rosemary/goat cheese tart for dinner and then a strawberry vanilla custard tart for dessert.  I do this and then decide, in a mostly intoxicated state, to drag a living room arm chair into the office so I can settle in and be more comfortable while I eat and watch my show.  If you could have seen me drag this chair around the corners of the hallway and office door.  This is one of my most ridiculous nights.  I laugh and laugh and laugh at myself when I think about it.  And there wasn’t anyone to witness it.  Is it as funny as I think if there’s no one there to witness it?  Those are the nights I think I’m so innovative and funny and easy to love.  And there was no one there to see it.  Even writing this story – it isn’t funny!  You really had to be there.

When I told my grandparents I was going to get married, my grandmother told me to proceed with caution.  She thought I was too young.  Grandpa, on the other hand, told me I could still do things that I would have done single – but now I’d have a partner.  And things were better with a partner.  I’m with Grandpa on this.  Love should give you wings, like they say Red Bull does.  I don’t know, I’ve never had any.

Red Bull, that is.  Not love.

 

 

Big lunch Tuesday

Posted by sarah3030 in Christmas, food, Home cooking, My food creations, work it out and tagged with ,

Late workouts = big lunch!

Many, many years ago I used to eat at Rainforest Cafe.  When I lived in Orlando and worked for Disney my friends and I seemed to end up there a lot.  They had a chicken dish there called Typhoon Chicken that was pasta with grilled chicken and a corn/black bean/tomato relish on top of it.  That may have been my first experience with black beans ever.  I loved it.  Of course, as if often the case with my favorite item at a restaurant, it did not make a menu revision a couple of years later.

Today, while thinking about what to make for my big lunch, that combination came back to me.  It came back to me for the following reasons:

  1. I made black bean burgers and pico de gallo last night for dinner and have some leftover and I like to repurpose food.
  2. Meg left me a bag of salmon fillets in the freezer.
  3. I had exactly one portion of whole wheat linguini left in my pantry.

Done.  I took the salmon fillet, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and then spooned pico de gallo on it.  I put this in a foil package and popped it in a 375 oven for 20 minutes.

Before cooking - salmon with pico de gallo salsa in foil pack

Meanwhile I boiled my linguini.  When fish and pasta had just a couple minutes left I popped a black bean burger patty in the microwave to heat up.  These had black beans, corn, garlic, chipotle pepper, oats and bread crumbs in them.  After everything was finished I assembled.

Pasta with crumbled black bean burger

Salsa'd up fish on top

So good!  I maintain that I’m not a great cook, but I am an excellent copy cat.  So, thanks to Rainforest Cafe for inspring today’s lunch.  My run and Zumba workout thank you.

(Okay, and as I was typing I just got a phone call offering me an ACTUAL final interview for this position that has been courting me since September.  I’ve had 4 other interviews.  I thought the last one was the final one.  I was mistaken.)

(Also, I’m watching Enchanted as I put up my Christmas decorations.  It’s such a cute movie.)

 

 

…and calm returns

Posted by sarah3030 in cooking, food, Home cooking, My food creations, photography, work it out and tagged with , , ,

There are things that always work for me when I start spinning as fast as I was a couple of days ago.

  1. Go for a long walk with good conversation.
  2. Write it out so I can put it behind me.
  3. Take pictures of food.
I’m not always rooted in rational and linear thoughts.  You know how if you thrust a stick into a spinning bike wheel everything comes to a halt?  Sometimes I need somebody to be a stick.  Take a 4.5 mile walk with a good friend (who also told me to leave figure skating with Scott Hamilton on The List 2.0 - why not?) who thinks you have valuable opinions and perspective on items outside of your own head and I’ll show you how to feel better immediately.  I appreciate all the kind comments after my spazzing out two nights ago.  All of you offered perspective and helped to calm me down as well.
As for taking pictures of food – let me show you what I made for lunch.  Tuesday nights are my longest work out nights.  I do a 30 minute run/walk on the treadmill and then a 60 minute Zumba class.  I try to time it so I can do some arm strength training in the middle of the two workouts.  by the time I get home it’s after 9:30pm and I don’t like to eat dinner that late.  Typically I’ll make a smoothie and just drink a lot of water.  When I can, I make a bigger lunch on Tuesday afternoons.  This gets me through the evening without feeling starved at 9pm.  Todays lunch was salmon and tomato orzo.

Risotto-like Orzo

I make this orzo all the time.  It’s really versatile and flavorful and is a quick and tasty substitution for time consuming risottos.  I start by sauteing a shallot in a tablespoon of olive oil.  Once the shallot has softened I add 2 cups of vegetable broth.  You can supplement some of the stock with water or white wine if you’d like.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Today I added some grape tomatoes I had in the fridge.  I wanted them to burst while everything cooked.  Here’s the super easy part- bring to a boil, put the lid on it, turn to a simmer and let cook about 10 – 12 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed.  No need to drain anything and all the flavor of the stock or wine is in the pasta.  I like to add fresh spinach in the last couple of minutes of cooking and put the lid back on.  The spinach wilts really nicely into the dish.  After it’s done you can add some grated parmesan to increase the creaminess of the dish.

I splurged by starting with butter.

My salmon is super easy too.  Pat dry the fish filet and sprinkle with salt, pepper and dill.  I add two very thin lemon slices to the non skin side of the fish also.

Fresh lemon is so good with salmon.

After the flip.

I put my salmon into the melted butter with the skin side down first.  After about 6 minutes I flipped the fish with the lemon slices still in place over.  The lemon cooks and lemon juice steams it’s way into the fish filet.  I just love salmon like this!

After the cooking.

Lunch is served!

There you have it.  How I come back down after a minor meltdown.  Walk it out.  Write it out.  Take pictures of food.  A fairly fool-proof 3 part plan.  Add my favorite work out night to the mix and today is going to be okay.

*insert chicken noise here*

Posted by sarah3030 in cooking, food, Home cooking, My food creations and tagged with , ,

I cannot make great chicken dishes.  I attribute this in part to being married to a gentleman who doesn’t eat chicken (for no good reason- he ate all other meat, just not chicken) and then dating a vegetarian for over a year.  I’ve never needed to make chicken dishes in my adult life.  I have two dishes I do that are consistently successful – both involve taking a chicken breast and pounding it really flat so it cooks quickly and evenly.

Tonight I set out to make chicken drumsticks with biscuits and tomato jam, courtesy of Food Network.

Photo from FoodNetwork.com

Doesn’t it look good? Everything was going well.  The tomato jam smelled delicious and had a great texture.  I pulled the chicken out of the oven.  I made a plate.  I went into my living room to eat while I watched Modern Family.  I use my fork to pull apart some chicken and it’s still mostly raw.  Oh dang it.  I put it back on the stove.  I eat two biscuits with tomato jam while I wait.  It’s phenomenal!  This is going to be my new condiment of choice for dinner parties.  After 6 minutes or so I check on my chicken.  It looks better.  I bite into it.  I’m still not sure it’s done.  It goes back on the stove.  I eat another biscuit with more tomato jam.  Finally, I have fully cooked chicken.  And while it was tasty, I’m not sure it was worth the wait.

Also learned: don’t try to eat chicken drumsticks from your lap while on the couch.  This is more of a table meal.  Messy.

But make the tomato jam.  Excellent and so easy!  I may go have some more.