daily diet
Breakfast, no bed
Posted by chris on Feb 19th, 2009 add a comment
I rarely eat breakfast food in the morning, but whenever I pull an all-nighter with work, I get the craving for it. So today, I made scrambled eggs with crème fraîche, topped with fresh chives and black truffle salt. Along with a ham croissant, that I mainly made to test out my new bread knife.
I’ll write about my latest kitchen gadget acquisitions later. Right now, I must get back to work… See you soon, World.
miscellaneous, recipe
Serious Salmon & Quick Asparagus
Posted by chris on Feb 12th, 2009 add a comment
My dinner tonight: salmon poached with lemon & lime slices, pinot grigio and minced shallots. The white wine made me feel like a grown up, but I’m not totally sold on the idea of poached salmon, yet. It tasted great, but I don’t think there was a lot of difference between poaching & other cooking methods. I’ll give it another shot sometime.
The sauce (pictured below) was created by reducing the liquid I used to poach the salmon. With some added juice from an orange, brown sugar and honey.
Asparagus. Quicker.
Ready?
- Turn on your broiler
- While you wait for it to heat up, toss asparagus with olive oil, minced garlic, salt & pepper — you must get your hands dirty, don’t try to fight it
- Get baking sheet. Add aluminum foil. Add asparagus.
- Place the asparagus 4 inches away from broiler’s heating element
- Cook for 8 minutes, rearranging asparagus half-way through
Much better than all the boiling/steaming nonsense (which I’ve tried plenty of times). I’ve cooked asparagus several different ways, but this is the method I’m going with from now on. It’s faster, easier and tastes better. [resists urge to add something vulgar]
recipe
Chicken, my hero!
Posted by Ana on Feb 10th, 2009 3 comments
This was dinner last night. I have realized now that having a whole chicken in the freezer at all times it great for backup. You can’t ever go wrong with baking a whole chicken. You just marinade it and pop it in the oven! I followed this Roasted Garlic Recipe and it came out soooo good! Very easy to make too! My husband loved it. His eyes rolled to the back of his head when he took the first bite so that tells ya something! hahaha
ps. Sorry about the sucky picture quality. I took it with my cell phone.
miscellaneous
Best Jewish Deli
Posted by annie on Feb 8th, 2009 1 comment
The honor of Best Jewish Deli in my humble opinion goes to Manny’s Cafe and Deli, a cafeteria located in Chicago. They receive quite a bit of attention for their latkes and pastrami sandwiches, and even Barack Obama has been there!
The last time I was there, I had short rib beef stew and a side of mac and cheese. The mac and cheese was merely decent, but the beef was Proustian.
recipe
Mango this!
Posted by Ana on Feb 3rd, 2009 add a comment
Everything is going my way (as far as the kitchen goes) this week. I’m not a very organized person at all. That includes the kitchen and food menu in my house. Every day wonder, “What am I going to cook today?” Guess what usually happens? We always end up eating out. So we end up spending more money, obviously.
This weekend I decided it was time for a change! Time for me to get organized in the kitchen and be a good cook! I sat down, and made a menu. My sister had mentioned this site called Simple Recipes by www.elise.com to me on IM a few weeks ago. She showed off to me a picture of her honey glazed chicken over iChat. Ummm… yes, she actually took a picture of her nekid cooked chicken and showed it off to me. It looked so good! She’s very organized in the kitchen and she cooks delicious. She inspired me so I decided to try that recipe myself. It was good! So when I was making a food menu this weekend, I decided to refer back to the same recipe website and pick some more recipes to include in my menu. This was one of them. The Mango Chicken Curry. My husband and I love Indian Food and since we don’t have an Indian Restaurant here in town, this is as close as it’s going to get. It was very easy to follow and it turned out great! OMG, the smell of the ginger… the curry… the garlic… Oh gosh! I swear I think I burnt my nose hair just sniffing that stuff simmering in the pot! LOL
My husband loved the Mango Chicken Curry. So much so, he growled at me when I went to serve myself seconds! He wanted to make sure I was leaving him enough to take to work for lunch the next day. haha I can already tell this recipe will be a favorite in this household. Mmmm…
miscellaneous
Happy Chinese New Year
Posted by annie on Jan 30th, 2009 6 comments
A friend of mine said that she loves Chinese New Year because it isn’t about “getting wasted, kissing people, or making resolutions that you’ll never keep,” and I’m inclined to agree. Because when those things are out of the picture, you get to focus on the really great stuff: family and food!
Actually, even on any other day of the year, Chinese people are crazy about food. Whenever I visit my relatives in Shanghai, I notice that they go grocery shopping (at the open air market, always) at least three times each week. Freshness and variety are priorities on a daily basis.
And then when this holiday rolls around, meals become extraordinary! I’ve always wanted to visit China during this season, because I hear people’s lives just revolve around food for fifteen days (the length of the holiday).
On this past Chinese New Year’s Eve, I had dinner with my parents and some family friends. Here is about half of what we ate:
It would take hours to describe all of these dishes because many of them were very intricately prepared. For example, in the bottom picture, one item inside the stew required the cook to stuff a ground pork mixture into fried tofu balls by hand without breaking the shape of the tofu or cutting a hole too large, lest the ground pork falls out during simmering. And let me add that the pork mixture itself had to be prepared with many ingredients through a series of steps…
review
Breakfast burrito, literally
Posted by chris on Jan 29th, 2009 3 comments
Rose Donuts & Cafe is the only place I know of takes an entire diner breakfast and wraps it in a tortilla to create their breakfast burrito. If you dare to finish the whole thing, it will surely put an end to whatever plans you’ve made for the day. Stuffed with eggs, ham, bacon, a sausage link, hash browns & cheese, it’s a giant pill of unproductiveness.
Highly recommended, as long as your affairs are in order.
Aside
I’m not sure why I bought this today. My fridge is so full right now, when I want to eat something, I have to take out 10 containers to access the food I want. Then play a game of Tetris to fit everything back in. I feel like I’m repacking a suitcase before each meal.
review
Baklava: It’s what’s for breakfast
Posted by chris on Jan 25th, 2009 10 comments
Thanks to my homie, Bilal, at my local Farmer’s Market I scored the last of his baklava tray for five bucks (regular price would have been $14). Every week, he hooks me up with a super deal on his food. And all I had to do was be a loyal customer for a year — an easy task.
A quick story
A while back, Bilal was telling me how his sales were low that particular day. We talked for a while and I bought $15 worth of food, paying with a 20 dollar bill. After talking some more, I asked for my change. Turns out, I had accidentally given him a 10 dollar bill, shorting him $5.
Yes, I can count. But I’m usually half-awake (or as the pessimist in me wants to say, I’m half-asleep) when I stumble into the Farmer’s Market each Sunday morning. So I wasn’t thinking very clearly. Thing is, he didn’t even mention my mistake until I brought it up. He was prepared to silently take the $5 hit, even after a dismal day of sales, just to keep me as a loyal customer. Dude is a class act.
If you ever visit the Blossom Hill Farmer’s Market, don’t leave without visiting the Afghan booth, next to the (also great) cinnamon bread stand. Bilal, a young guy in his 20’s, will be there with his usual lively banter, giving you enough free samples to skip breakfast. Unless I buy everything first.
Related post: Grocery list #2 – Where I talk about some of the other food Bilal sells
food link
Caffiend
Posted by chris on Jan 17th, 2009 5 comments
My resolve to cut out caffeine lasted about a year, but now I’m back in the game — again.
It’s a helluva drug
New York Magazine has published an interesting piece on the differences between caffeine & it’s not-so-distant cousin, cocaine:
Cocaine and amphetamines essentially do the same thing, only they create not just a pleasant feeling but outright euphoria [...] But the higher a drug’s highs, the lower its lows, which is why a crack user needing a fix might rob an elderly neighbor at gunpoint while a coffee drinker might simply get snippy with co-workers.
Full article: The Coffee Junkie’s Guide to Caffeine Addiction
miscellaneous
Healthy eating postponed.
Posted by Ana on Jan 11th, 2009 6 comments
So as Chris mentioned, I agreed to lose weight to take his money! LOL I was all for it. I was pumped! I even convinced my hubby to do it with me! But then guess what? We go to the store with our grocery list and dayummm! Talk about expensive! We realize that (thanks to this horrible recession) we can’t afford to eat healthy or try to lose weight by changing our diet. Sad, but true. So even though I haven’t changed too much of my diet I am trying to eat less. I am also trying not to eat after 5pm. So far so good. I have slipped a few times. (Ok… more than a few times!) But I’m making an effort! I know there’s no right time to start but hopefully next pay check we can afford to. I know it sounds like a lame excuse but oh well. I’m trying…
On another note, well I kinda cheated today. A lot. I had the same thing Chris had for breakfast the day before yesterday. Only, my pancakes looked more like this. grin
I heart pancakes!
miscellaneous
Tamales: A Mexican Holiday Food Tradition
Posted by Ana on Dec 15th, 2008 4 comments
In Mexican Culture it’s tradition to make Tamales around this time of year. It usually means you have to make over a hundred of them because you can almost have guaranteed, everyone and their momma’s will be over your house eating tamales. This is the first year I made some. Ok, wait. I’m not going to take all the credit. I mean, buying the maza (corn dough), meat and spreading them on the corn husks count, right? haha. But honestly, my Grandma cooked the meat and we bought premade Maza a few days before we actually made them. However, it was a lot of work! It paid off though. They came out delicious and I’ve had them twice today. Reheated tamales are the best!
Is there a certain food you make around this time of year or for any certain holiday?
daily diet
Crap, I ate half a loaf of bread today
Posted by annie on Dec 9th, 2008 1 comment
Sheepishly, I must admit that today I ate half a loaf of Trader Joe’s potato and rosemary bread within a span of two hours.
I had some with salami and I had some with cheese, but mostly I just kept taking bites out of the loaf.
See for yourself. Hmm… I guess it was more than half a loaf.
daily diet
Thai food
Posted by annie on Dec 7th, 2008 2 comments
All I had today was Thai food from Wat Mongkolratanaram, which is a Thai Buddhist temple that serves brunch on Sundays. Besides the yummy and authentic thai food, the experience of eating there is fun too! You trade money for tokens, and then donate tokens for food in a buffet style get-up. Seating is outdoors in the temple’s courtyard, right next to their lovely garden.
I had yellow curry with potatoes, carrots, and chicken over rice, and sticky rice with mango. I was so eager to eat that I forgot to take a photo of the curry until I only had two bites left. Oops!
miscellaneous
In the mood for…
Posted by annie on Dec 6th, 2008 add a comment
Banana stuffed french toast with bacon and maple syrup from Public
daily diet
The Man Who Put a Smile on the Face of All Who He Met edition
Posted by chris on Dec 6th, 2008 2 comments
- Pepper cheesesteak with white american cheese from Amato’s
- 4 toffee crunch cookies from Whole Foods (Don’t judge me.)
- Fiberful natural dried fruit from Trader Joe’s
After my trip to Whole Foods at 9:45pm, I decided to see if Amato’s Cheesesteaks was still open.
Luckily, I got there a few minutes before they closed up shop. A girl was sweeping the floors and cleaning the tables. I hate to be That Guy, who comes in right when you think you’re done working, but I was craving a good cheesesteak after a day of running errands around the entire city.
Some reviewers on Yelp have said the girl who works at Amato’s has a bad attitude, but I’ve always found her pleasant. Even this night, when I’m coming in as she’s trying to leave, she says I have plenty of time before they close. Judging by the lack of customers and chairs on top of the tables, I’d say she was lying to make me feel comfortable.
I got my order to-go (chickening out at the last second and ordering White American cheese instead of Whiz). When my food was ready, I got up, pushed in the chair I was sitting in and headed for the door. As I left, the girl said, “Thanks for coming in, man. And thanks for pushing in that chair — nobody does that!”
I live to please… My selfless act of kindness that will no-doubt encourage further betterment in the world, is surely deserving of a handful of cookies.
And that is how I gained a pound overnight.
