Day 43 Big Ideas Sometimes Come With A Little Smoke

My love of food experimentation and jumping in way over my head, started very early. I was ten, when I made my first serious dinner, it was for my parent's anniversary and I was determined to do it by myself. I never once thought about making something easy like a cake, no!  I went big, I wanted to make the most difficult thing, a ten year old had ever made. I wanted them to gasp with surprise and wipe away a tear, while wondering how I, a child had pulled off this feast. My menu was manicotti and garlic bread. I found a recipe and enlisted an aunt to drive me to the market to buy the ingredients. As I picked out each item, she nervously wondered out loud whether I should try something easier, like burgers or spaghetti, no, no, no, it had to be huge, it had to be Italian, and it had to be manicotti. The day arrived and I had one hour, after school before my parents arrived home from work. I set to work, following the recipe to perfection, like a tiny Martha Stewart. I boiled the manicotti, I stuffed the slippery pasta without tearing even one, I covered it beautifully with sauce, and put it into the oven to bake. The minutes were ticking closer to my parent's arrival; everything was perfect, until it was time to broil the garlic bread. The bread began to burn and then smoke, I turned the oven off, but of course the smoke detector blared a nonstop, honking warning. I ran next door, like my hair was on fire and yelled for my aunt to help me. I wasn't so much worried that the house would burn down; I just didn't want to ruin the scene, where my parents came in and cried over my meal, I had to get the smoke out, fast! Of course, just as we reached the front door, my parents pulled up. They were met with a chaotic, smoke filled house, burned bread, and a halfway decent manicotti with a few chewy parts. They were impressed and went on and on about how I hadn't needed any help until the very end; they ate every bite and asked for more. I still consider it one of my biggest accomplishments and appreciate the encouragement and love that they showed me back then. That was 25 years ago this week and I'm still getting in way too deep, but learning a lot. Happy Anniversary!

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Day 42 Tanzanian Potato Balls or Little Bites Of Sunshine

Today, by a stroke of pure luck, I discovered Tanzanian food and thus my culinary salvation all in one fell swoop.  Thanks to a co-worker, who answered the call, when I wondered out loud, "what will I make for dinner?" Somewhere deep in the heart of cyberspace, there was an East African treasure, and I was smitten  by the ingredients, even before my trip to the market. Tonight I made Coconut bean soup and Tanzanian potato balls, which will now be the stars of my recipe box. I'm adding the recipes, from www.celtnet.org.uk with a few variations and tweaks from me.

Tanzanian Potato Balls
3 C. of potatoes
1/4 C. lime juice
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 C. chickpea flour
1 C. Coconut milk
3 C. Water
1/4 cup of fresh grated coconut
Oil for frying
Cut, cube and boil potatoes in water and coconut milk, until soft. Cool the potatoes and mix with lime juice, cayenne, coconut, and salt, form into balls. Roll the balls into flour and fry in oil until brown.

Coconut Bean Soup
1/2 C. of onion (chopped)
1/2 C. Green Peppers (chopped)
1 tsp. curry paste (I used red)
1 tsp salt
3 Tbs. butter
1 C tomato (diced)
2 1/2 C. Kidney beans
2 C. Coconut milk
1/3 C. grated coconut (not the sweetened kind)
3 C. Water
1/2 C. cooked rice
Brown the onions in butter, add green peppers, curry, salt, butter, and tomatoes, when brown. Add beans, coconut milk, water, and rice and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add grated coconut to the top of the soup.

I was so impressed with these two dishes that my interest has been piqued as far as other African recipes and I think I've found what I'm bringing for our office potluck in a couple of weeks. So, here's to whomever is bringing the lil' smokies and  the generic cookies......I win.
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Day 30 Rhubarb Wishes and Horseradish Dreams

It's true, a major snowstorm is headed for the plains, but that has absolutely no impact on my new plans. Weather be damned it's time to start pondering the garden! It belongs to my mother, but I tell her what to plant and this year, I have an agenda. I am going to do everything in my power to reduce my food budget this summer, by eating as many meals out of the garden as possible. So, I just learned that there are a few things, I can plant in February! Rhubarb, Horseradish, Asparagus, and Artichokes were mentioned and I'm so excited...... I just can't hide it! I'm not certain what to do with a Rhubarb, but I'm sure I can turn it into something edible and I have swirly eyes just thinking of all the shinnanigans I can create with Horseradish. Beautiful, crispy, fresh Asparagus for Easter will be fantabulous, and homemade Artichoke dip will be the double bonus, half flip of spring. The rest of the summer planting is an open door, peppers, tomatoes, and squash are a no brainer, but I want to add lots of things I know nothing about! This will be the most experimental garden yet, I'm stoked!
Dinner tonight is a toss up, I have leftover Borscht but I also have an Eggplant, that's just asking to be diced and roasted with Olive oil and tossed with pasta. Perhaps I'll have both, who says I have to stay in one region for dinner? Russia, meet Italy...in my tummy.
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Day 29 A Little Bit of Russia On The Prairie

The day has come to meet the beet, as I write, I am in fact, eating the Borscht. It's actually pretty good, but I think the thing I'm most stoked about is the fact that I'm eating several very colorful vegetables at one time. Well, they're all kind of reddish, but when it's all mixed together, it looks kind of like a sunset stew. The beets of course are purpleish, red cabbage, orangey looking tomatoes, very pretty! The sauteed red onions and garlic, give the sweetness of the beets a little punch. All in all, It's a  warm, filling, fragrant, and healthy soup! I have made amends with the beet, here's to trying dirty things and liking them! On the potato front, I have contacted the Washington Potato Commission to bum some Blue potato seed samples for planting! Hopefully we will embark on adventures in Blue potato salad sometime in the future. Part of my mission, aside from the elimination of fake food, is to ingest as many different varieties of vegetables as I can in the next year, a veritable sea of colors and nutrients that I would never encounter in fast food world.
OK, so I don't generally keep track of my weight with scales, I prefer to wait until a button pops off of my jeans to know that I'm fat or I require a safety pin and some twine to hold them up when I'm skinny. I broke my scale rule out of curiosity and it seems as though, I have lost about 7 pounds this month, that's like a sack of potatoes and a bag of sugar! My little plan is working.....down with the clown.
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Day 27 A Tale of Two Taters

First of all, let me just say that, the cauliflower "potatoes" the other night did not work out as well as I had hoped. They were neither delicious nor amazing, no sort of miracle took place with the first bite, they were simply OK, even festooned with cheese and butter. I'm sure there are many more useful and fun ways to eat cauliflower, making it into something it's not is just unfair, both to the cauliflower and to the eater of the lie. Tonight, I am once again on a potato kick and am baking a big fat sweet potato, which I am going to cover with onions, sauteed mushrooms, and Cheddar cheese, a real po'tater! I am also on the hunt for a Russian Blue potato, I saw one on the Washington State Potato Commission website and am now on a one eyed mission to make fries with it. If I am unable to locate said blue potato, I wonder if the Potato commission will send me one to plant!?!
My challenge of the day, was an optical illusion of some sort, I went into what I believed to be a gas station, only to discover a Daylight Doughnuts. I calmly purchased a water, while being assaulted by the sight and smell of angelic flaky pastries, I watched doughnuts placed lovingly into boxes, surely headed for unworthy mouths and hips. Once again, I summoned my steel plated will and walked away pure and doughnut free.
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Day 23 Apples Shmapples

Today, I returned from the grocery store with something new, apples. I know, apples are as old and as common as the snakes that push them. Apples are new as far as my grocery list is concerned. I do not prefer them and generally just like to look at them or smell them in candles, but this week, I am going to eat them, along with a bunch of other fruit. I am adding fruit to my repetoire and I'm going try and choke some down every morning. Before I stopped eating out, I rarely consumed fruit, aside from the occasional grape or strawberry, but since I am broadening my experiences, I'm going to find a way to make apples enjoyable and edible. I'm thinking smoothies may be the way to go on this one, which means I may have to get up earlier, not neccessarily a bad thing. Breakfast is the one meal I miss grabbing on the way to work, every day I used to have an egg and cheese buscuit from McDonald's, a hashbrown or two, and a big fat Coke, so greasy, so buttery, so full of fizz and sugar. Ok, enough of that! I'm proud to say that I was 5.00 under budget for groceries today, coming in a 95.00 which should last for about 2 weeks! I am rocking the money saving vibe with this project and still had money left from my last paycheck (a new thing). I also attacked the fridge and have a lovely open space for the tons of vegetable projects scheduled for this week....including the one I've been eyeing from afar. So, my goals for this week, face my fear of fruit, create some new recipes, and celebrate my monthlong victory! Only 11 more to go!

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Day 20 Nothing Beets a Bowl of Borscht

I have deep table rage of several foods, oranges, dill, and beets being the top three. I specifically hate pickled beets, as those are the only kind I've ever tried. When I was a kid, my mom would put pickled okra and pickled beets on the table every night for my step-father. I hated pickled okra because when I chewed it, it felt like a glob of vaseline in my mouth, but beets, they were on a whole different level of nasty. Every night, someone plopped a pink gelatinous disk onto my plate, staining the very purity of my mashed potatoes or molesting my bread with it's tacky fuchsia juice. The taste, can only be described as dirt, beets taste like dirt and I know because I have eaten dirt and it tastes better than a beet. So, I have established the fact that I hate beets, but I am going to experiment a little in the next week or so. I am going to tap in to the tiny Russian chef, who lives in my brain and try to make amends with the ominous beet. It wasn't the beet's fault that it was pickled and I'm thinking that could be the wrench in our relationship, so, I am going to make Borscht, which I'm pretty sure is not pickled and traditional black bread. I feel that I must attempt new stuff, during this experiment, because I want to learn as much as I can about creating for myself. If I don't know how to create for myself, then I will depend on convenience and that's just not healthy. Also, maybe I will still hate beets after the Borscht, but maybe I will love them and I'll have another recipe to add to my collection. After that, I may turn my attention to my most despised food, Oranges, that's a whole nother post.
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Beet

Day 9 Snowday Sunday

Today is the PERFECT day to NOT have to go out and forage the Chinese buffet or go out into the cold to gather burritos, it's snowing! I'm holding my breath for a Monday snowday and I have plenty of fun things to cook, if I'm stuck inside. I feel really great today, I had some oatmeal, some avacados, a few grapes, and for dinner, tonight, I'm making butternut squash. My Grandmother makes the best squash casserole, so later I'm going to add it to my recipe list. I feel pretty thrifty too, for every day that I don't eat fast food, I'm saving 5-15.00 a day, that's a lot of school books! http://www.fastfoodboycott.blogspot.com/