COOKED: Sauteed Peas Or I've Got Peas On My Head, But Don't Call Me A Pea Head

Saute! Saute! I think a spice of sorts would have been nice. This is so simple. Maybe some garlic would have been nice too. All I know is that I gobbled this up like there was no tomorrow. But, I'm sad to say that the once infamous Bird's Eye Sweet Peas we used to get when I was little have slowly but surely crept to the dark side of the pea family. The tasteless, boring side. Like a bad joke, that's what these peas reminded me of... in the most metaphorical of senses, to be sure.

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Mushroom Potato Soup Or Mmm Floaty Things In Broth!

If that title didn't entice you then nothing in this post will so you can just stop reading and go check your e-mail again. It was a cold night full of homework and rain. I walked up to my fridge and realised the mushrooms were just about to turn on me. So I souped them. Really, I initially wanted this soup to be smooth, but I don't have many things in this abode that would do that for me so I kept things simple. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the simple broth with the very finely sliced potatos and mushrooms. If only I had had a baugette of sorts.

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Sauteed Maduros Or How I Learned To Eat Really Hot Food On Really Hot Days.

And how did I learn? I was really hungry and the door to the fridge was broken, occasionally held closed with a waxy-from-too-many-little-kid-hands old shoestring. So we cooked. Level two of the plantain is the maduro stage, the ripe stage. It was pretty easy to peel these suckers. Ok so peel, cut thinly and saute. Easy. Eat for lunch. PS that fantastic story I just wrote went down in Nicaragua just in case you didn't catch on. Maybe I'll cook a fish dish for you and remedy your slow neurological connections. Jeez. I've got to do all the work around here. God it's late.

COOKED: Plantain Empañadas Or FRIED FRIED FRIED

Mmm, but how can you resist the temptation frying brings? Quick, easy, delicious and I've made it a point to believe that a quick dunk in super hot olive oil can't be all that bad--hell, I haven't touched the butter in my fridge for weeks now. Hmm. Maybe that isn't something to be proud of. Anyway, these are my plantain empañadas, a rough recollection of one of the plantain dishes I would help prepare during my two months of volunteer work in Nicaragua. There are three degrees of ripeness plantains obtain that I have been blessed to eat. First, the unripe plantains, which I used for this dish. Chop them in half, peel on, boil in water until soft and then mash like potatoes. Once mashed and cooled a bit (burnt hands are not cool guys) take a palmful in hand and smooth down a bit, making an indent with your thumb. Place a bit of cheese, I just so happened to have Queso Fresco, in the middle and bring the sides of the flattened mash up around, thus creating the empañada. Fry. Eat. Fry more. Eat those too. Wish you had bought more plantains right? I did. More about plantains later!



Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Pan Roasted Cauliflower And Spiced Rice Or Shades Of White

The picture of this dish doesn't do it much justice. I used a mixture of spices mixed by none other than mother dearest--http://everydayroz.blogspot.com--to pan roast the cauliflower, and put a bit in the rice as it was cooking. Not a bad lunch! The roasting really helped the flavors of the spices to come out, while the rice kept it all subtle-like. I have a thing about my food being all the same color, which was a bit of a turn-off of this dish. And my plates are white too. But at least it tasted good!

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Baked Potatos and Green Beans Or I Deflowered My Oven!

I hadn't used my oven until this fateful night. It was cold out and I had an episode of 3rd Rock From The Sun sitting all ready on my computer, waiting for a viewer and her food. I want to call this dish scalloped potatoes, but I actually used an egg amongst other ingredients--cheese being one--to pour over the spuds and beans before cooking. I felt pretty healthy. Beats Kraft Mac&Cheese. I suppose for the ultimate diet I could just take a tip from my neighbors the bros and just start a liquid diet of beer. Champions! Anyway if I were to cook this again I think I would blanch the green beans before baking them. They were just on the edge of not being cooked enough.

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Fennel Lime Risotto Or Shut Up Homework I'm Busy

So I went to Lund's and decided to conquer a, well, not a fear but a long held hesitation I've had towards a particular plant: fennel. Something about a vegetable tasting like licorice just seemed so unappealing. So, I took the leap and bought myself one of the pearly white bulbs. But what, I pondered after I had brought it home and put it in the fridge, was I going to DO with it? Salad? Too intense raw. Roasted? Nah, no desire to use the oven. Then it hit me.

I had two options. Either cook a quick meal for myself and get started on homework, or... not. So I chose the latter. And boy, did I win. I thought about meals that took longer than half an hour to prepare and realised that I could make the most scrumptious of meals, risotto. To boot, FENNEL risotto. I cooked and stirred and added and waited unitl finally, my masterpiece was complete. Fennel Risotto. Now, only thing left to do was taste. Wait. Something wasn't right. It was like it was missing some key ingredient, something to bring out the fennel. Something sharp but flavorful. Something called lime peel. I'm going to stop typing because I've got to clean up all this drool.

Chow, Lucia

ETA: This is my original post, which I thought I had lost! So, I had gone to Lund's and decided to face one of the few vegetables that I had never really tried or thought that I would like. Fennel. It always appeared to be beautiful--pearl white bulb, long tender stalks with delicate dark green fronds--yum, right? Only, I'm not a big fan of licorice. That's what scared me the most. Vegetable that tastes like licorice? Heh, white flag flying here.
But I conquered my fears and placed the awkward vegetable in my basket. I came home, unsure what to do with it. Stir-fry? No, too many other flavors...Sauted? No, what would I eat it with? Then I glanced over at my homework, the pile tipping precosioculy and taunting me. I needed a distraction. And something delicious. With fennel. Then it hit me, risotto! Takes a long time to cook, needs attention, is a good base for vegetables, and is insanely rich and great. So, fennel risotto, I decided. The night would either have been a grand waste of my time, or a huge success.
Well, I'm posting about it, so take a guess. IT WAS A SUCCESS. The bite of the fennel slowly turned into a warmed whisper of it's dauntingly raw state. The fronds were used as a last minute flavor burst--not so licoric-y as the other parts. I also added lime zest to the risotto, which worked so well.

COOKED: Yan Fries Part Deux or Damn Those Were Good

So my first attempt at making yam fries went over really well (except for that lack of sour cream, sigh). Why cook them again so soon after? Because this time I wanted more yam, more flavor, more JOY to come out of them. So I cut the strips thicker. What a fun treat this was! Yams make me appreciate taste. And sight. And fried foods. And salt. Hell they make me appreciate LIFE. YAMS=LIFE.

You scoff, say I've gone too far. Never! You'd be this excited after 200+ pages about Energy And Mass Transfers.

The last picture is a better representation of their color.

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Fired Rice Or Something Not To Cook In A Small Space

One thing I'm learning about living in the same space that I cook my food in is that if you're dealing with really hot pans and spurtage and oil is that the damn oil goes everywhere. And I mean, it travels through the air, as if it decided to break up into tiny little micro droplets and settle onto your mirrors.

Either that or the stench seeps into fabrics. Of all sorts. Not to say that my food smells bad, but cooking something in the morning/afternoon and coming back eight hours later, well... that's the stench I'm referring to.

BUT I cooked fried rice and cut my carrots real small and added the frozen peas at the last minute and had an egg in all of it.

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Eggs and Quickie Hashbrowns Or LumberJill's Plate: Where's My Ox?

So, I usually have a pretty basic breakfast of oatmeal... with the occasional shot of milk. Oh and this week I added raisins! I'm going to be such a happy toothless old woman, I can't wait!

But I digress. I got a bit bored with the oatmeal route and decided to actually cook something with flavor (I won't mention that I usually add flax seed to the oatmeal, too ...oh snap). So I took to breaking open a few eggs, scrambling their brains out and melting pepper jack cheese in. So warm, and a pinch of salt. Good stuff. But, who wants just eggs? If they are healthy, I've got to fix them and add some real food. Hashbrowns, baby. Except I had things to do, being a modern girl in this modern world. Things like turning on my computer. So I grated the potatos (takes two seconds, literally) and tossed them in the hot splash of oil. Nothing else.

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Failure

NOOOOOOOOOO

I had just finished a post (a delicious, delicious post, sigh), clicked save and then BAM, it all deleted. How disappointing. I will post soon. I need to go drown my sorrows in homework. As usual.

SNACKED: Candied Papaya, Or Hey What An Autumnal Color Must Eat It

I must be a sucker for color. I waltzed into the new Lund's on Central Ave (which is pretty expensive, but awfully fun) and these caught my eye. They're sold as "Dried Papayas: Low Sugar and NO Sulfur!" but really, these are not low sugar and are instead a delectable candied fruit. The texture of fruit is important, sure, but there's a crystallized sugar crunch that is the more appealing part. In fact, they're so sugary that I only took a few bites before I was satisfied. That was a new experience...

Hey guess what! I caved at the store today and bought sugar. And orange marmalade!

On to the visual stimulation:

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Yam Fries, Or I Yam What I Yam

I get so sick of hearing complaints from college kids about their poor eating habits. They know--well, some of them--that Ramen starts to taste pretty shitty after awhile. But, any of the kids who have stovetops, those not in dorms really, can make good food in a short period of time.

What's with the veggie fear I see in my peers? Why must we forever be restricted? Yams are well priced. They're sweet. You can make them do whatever you want (they're the adoring nerd of the starch family). So I fried them. Hard. You could put sugar on them, but since I don't actually have any of that in my place, I salted them instead. I don't think I missed out on anything. Peel, cut the yam into thin, thin striped and plop into salted oil of choice (I like olive). Leave on one side for a few minutes, flip when browned. I cooked two batched in 10 minutes. And they were well done, too. That's my pref, I wanted them crispy. I think sour cream would go well, it's what my little taste buds were craving. I substituted with goat cheese (Caution: Goat Cheese Frequently Used):

Yum. Need I say more? Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Rice Soup

Look at the clock. 30 minutes before the night class. Only staple foods are inside barren cupboards. Shit. What to make? The flu is coming, or maybe it's just a cold. Either way, warm and fast is necessary in order to presevere through the night class and whatever is attacking your body.

Soup.

Rice (you'll soon realize how often I eat it) cooked in chicken broth with onions and and carrots tossed in. Takes fifteen minutes. Grate parmeasan, let melt, eat. Don't know how much it helped with the illness, but sure tasted damn fine. Here's my little bowl:

REVIEW: Turkish Delight (Creme de Menthe)

And that it is, delightful. A gift to my mom from a friend, I went to my parent's house recently and fell in love with the novel sweet. I had once tried a bite of another type of Turkish Delight a few years ago, but it failed flavor-wise and is worthy only of shunning. Shun shun.

Not this stuff. I think it has to do with the specific flavor of this particular box of it, mint. It just seems to work with the texture of the candy. Each bite is soft, rolled in powdered sugar and melts in indulging mouths. The mint was graceful and the taste lingered, which only spurred me to take another morsel.

Also, this particular brand is packaged in a cute box adorned with quirky figures. Win-win! Here are the photos of this most delightful treat:

By the way, I didn't steal it from my mom. She saw the good-food glint in my eye and slyly nuzzled it into a bag I was taking back to my place. She rules.

Chow, Lucia

COOKED: Rice and Beets

Beets. They get such a bad rap. Sure, they've been canned. Sure, those canned ones taste as bad as canned foods can get. But I think we should give real, fresh beets a second chance. Boiled, they only slightly resemble potatoes (and that's to get you comfortable with them), but have a delicate texture and sweeter bite.

Let me explain. I came home today, after my morning classes, aching for some rice. However, as staple foods go, it can get pretty boring as a side dish. And, as college life goes, you can get pretty low on foods that are edible together. So, I used what I had at hand. Rice, onions, and yes here we go, beets. I cooked the rice as usual, thrown into boiling water with salt, in a bright metal pot. But this time I threw in those beets and onions too. I had a few reason for using the beets.

A. They were getting old.
B. They're an amazing fuchsia color when sliced, and they give up some of that color into whatever they're being cooked with.
C. How could I pass up purple rice?

Turns out that the rice didn't turn purple, or even pink. No. Instead, after 20 minutes of anticipation and the smell of onion enticing me, I took off the lid of the pan, turned off the heat. After the initial steam clouded my vision, there it was. Fire red rice--some grains with tails of orange--and the beets a dark crimson. I stop here to let the pictures speak.

And the taste? Like I said, fresh beets are really good. And, to top it all off, I added a spoonful of goat cheese. That was magical. The only problem I came across was aesthetic. The dish was awfully red. So I added some frozen peas to the mix, and they were gently warmed by the remaining heat in the pot. Christmas-y, but a bit more visually stimulating (and only heightened the flavor). Behold.

If this isn't a foodie's dream, then I don't know what is. I redeemed beets.

Chow,
Lucia