Soul Food for a Nearly 30 Year Old

Blogging about Bobotie

2012-01-21T16:44:00.000-06:00

Last night for dinner I made Bobotie, a South African dish. It's the first time I've cooked anything South African.

Bobotie consists of a curried meat layer topped with an egg based layer. It smells GREAT when it's baking!

I got the recipe from the BBC Good Food website, but I made some changes. I couldn't find any allspice berries and so I used powdered all spice instead. I didn't use any sultanas as Matt doesn't like them. Finally I used 1% milk instead of whole fat. I added some greek yogurt instead to try and thicken it up a little.

Matt really enjoyed it! I thought it was nice, but I would not make it again for myself. I will make it again in future though, because Matt said he'd definitely like to have it again.

This morning we woke up to about 5 inches of snow on the ground. So we decided that we'd head down to the Cuyahoga National Park for a snowy walk. We stocked up before hand on a breakfast roll. It contained Irish style bacon, black and white pudding.

To be honest, it looks better than it tasted. The puddings were very plain and not at all spiced.

The walk, however, was great! It was so nice to trounce around in the snow through the woods. We did a relatively short walk, we aren't used to walking much of a distance in snow and so the hills that we usually climb seemed a lot tougher!

Delicious Diet

2012-01-12T19:39:00.001-06:00

Now that I've finally unpacked from the move, I have been able to start back up on my low carb diet. It's going great, but I have been craving sweet things (which I don't normally crave, I'm a salty/crunchy kind of girl).
I've really been enjoying my lunches. They consist of tofu noodles, baby bok choy, 2 different types of mushrooms (both from the asia market), soybeans and bean sprouts all in a broth. I then have some greek yogurt for desert (no fat, small amount of carbs and LOTS of protein; 22g per serving!)

I've also started back up on my Chinese. I have my own room upstairs with a little space heater, although I'm not sure I benefit from any of the heat!

My two study buddies seem to hog all the heat!

The big move

2012-01-06T20:54:00.002-06:00

Thursday saw a day that I had been dreaming of for a long LONG time... the final departure from Omaha.

Matt and I had managed to load the rental truck with all our belongings on Wednesday. It took a lot of time and energy, but we managed with just the two of us :)

Thursday morning we said goodbye to our first home together. I'm not ashamed to admit that we both had some tears as the realization hit that we were leaving a place with a lot of memories (both good and bad). I can't speak for Matt, but I felt comforted knowing that we were leaving together to continue our journey together.

We managed to leave pretty much on time that morning. We had rented a car dolly so that we could tow my car to Cleveland. That meant that Matt would be doing all the driving. It was a 13 hour drive but he managed to knock it out safely in one day.

Our two travel companions. They were great!

Today we unloaded the truck. Boxes and furniture felt a lot heavier today, our muscles were still recovering from Wednesday's loading.

For those of you who don't already know, my new year resolution is to adhere to a low carb diet (PCOS) and an important part of that is that I am going to have NO alcohol for the year.......... sigh! My mother-in-law had kindly gotten us some boxes from the local grocery store. More specifically they were from the LIQUOR DEPARTMENT! So today, when I would normally have been looking forward to a nice glass of wine at the end of the tough unloading I had to carry wine box after wine box, all with wonderful quotes as to how great drinking wine is!!!! But I have stuck to my guns!!

The low carb eating however has been harder to stick to these past 2 days. On the road we were limited to fast food. Today we haven't been able to easily locate cooking utensils or space to cook in.

So after all the truck was unloaded we ordered pizza.

Tomorrow will be better and I should also be able to go for a good grocery shop.

I did manage to put together the living room so that Matt could play his new Zelda came tonight. He 100% deserves some time to relax after doing all the driving!!!

Desperately Seeking Soup

2011-12-27T20:00:00.000-06:00

So for those of you who don't already know the story..... St. Stephens night (the night after Christmas) is the biggest going out night in Ireland. It's the time that you meet up with your friends in your hometown and go around the local pubs.
Last year I was in Ireland for Christmas and so when St. Stephens night rolled around I found myself heading out with Eleanor (my sister) and Orela (my best friend) for a night on the town. We had a wonderful night, but the next day I was suffering a little in the tummy. I didn't eat any breakfast and when the dinner bell rang I approached the dinner table with an anxious trepidation.
Mum placed a bowl of soup in front of me and my nervousness increased as the fragrance hit my nose. But, not wanting to be the naughty daughter, I took a spoonful of soup........ IT WAS THE BEST SOUP EVER!
Ever since then I have been trying to find a soup that I like as much. My butternut squash soup came pretty close, but was not enough.

So today, on it's anniversary, I tried to recreate this soup.

I started by sauteing some onions over a very low heat in butter. I then added some chopped carrots (1 cup) and 2 potatoes. After 10 minutes I added 2 bay leaves and the defatted stock from the turkey. When I say 'defatted' I mean I spooned off all the hard fat from the top. I know there is still fat in the actual stock.
I brought this up slowly to a simmer and then added some chopped ham, green lentils (pre soaked and rinsed) and dried thyme. The boys wanted to head out for a walk around the lake and so I let in cook super low for about 90 minutes before serving with some bread rolls.

The final product was a great soup..... but not on par with my Mums soup. I don't think it can be recreated. Matt suggested that maybe my lack of a hangover this year impaired my appreciation of this years soup. I do find that using actual stock from a roasted bird makes all the difference to a soup. I've been impressed with the concentrated tubs of stock (knorr) but they don't match the real thing.

Tofu Noodle Soup

2011-12-14T17:36:00.001-06:00

Tonight for dinner I decided to experiment and I am happy to say that it turned out well.

A while ago I bought some tofu soup seasonings from Cleveland Asia Market. When I went to buy the tofu at my new favorite supermarket (Heinens) I saw that you can get tofu in NOODLE form!!!
It's still just tofu, nothing else is added. I picked up a pack but also picked up a block of regular tofu too, as I had my doubts about the noodles.

I added the tofu soup seasoning to boiling water and then added soup chopped bok choy. I rinsed the noodles well (they stank!) and then threw them into the soup to heat through.

I served with a sprinkling of sliced green onions.

The soup was delicious! The sauce was very flavorful and had a good spicy punch to it. The noodles were surprisingly good too. They don't have the same consistency of regular noodles, but they managed to hold their shape and didn't smush up (I had thought they would turn into mush). I was able to eat them with my chop sticks.

I used the whole packet of noodles (8oz) and I now have a lovely full, warm belly. The calorie count for the noodles? 40 calories per serving, there are 2 servings per bag, so only 80 calories. I am going to try to make spagetti with them some day, as a way to keep the carb count down.

All in all a successful dinner, I'll definitely be making it again soon!

And here is bonus photo, because I think it's just sooooo cute. Here is Penny waiting in the car for Matt in Buffalo. Too cute!

Home Sweet Home

2011-12-02T08:34:00.001-06:00

After more than 2 weeks of no internet we finally have the house hooked up!
It was amazing to see how much of an impact no internet had on my daily life at first, it really threw me for a loop. Even something as simple as trying to decide what to make for dinner became complicated when I had no recipes at my fingertips.

I love the house we are living in now. It's older than any of the places we've lived in over here. It has squeaky floor boards, heavy wooden doors and only one room ever becomes truly warm.

I had to laugh at myself the other day.... I had been sitting reading in the living room (the one room that becomes warm) and walked through the kitchen to the downstairs bathroom. I shrieked when I sat on the loo, the toilet seat was freezing!! What made me laugh is that rather than fret about the coldness, I started grinning and thinking how it reminded me of back home in Ireland, where you can be sure that during the winter months your bum will get a cold kiss when ever you visit the loo. And, just like back home in Ireland, if you want to warm yourself up in the house you make yourself a good cup of tea and head to the living room! I have drank more tea since we moved into this house than I have in the past year, it's great!!! I'm making myself a cup right now! One huge difference is that there is no AGA in the kitchen, so the kitchen doesn't get that lovely warm glow.

In 2 weeks Matt and I will be heading to Omaha for Christmas. We will spend a couple of days getting some stuff in order and then we will go pick Joshua up from Kansas. I haven't seen him since the summer, so I bet he's going to look older already :)
We are going to bring in the New Year in Omaha. We have decided that we are going to try and sell most of our remaining furniture in Omaha rather than bring it all the way here. We don't know where we are going to be or what we are going to be doing after the lease runs out here and so we want to live a little more light weight. There are some things that I am not willing to sell: the tables we got from my Papa and my dining room set, but the rest of the furniture is really rather superfluous at the moment.

We had our first snow on Wednesday. It only snowed for the morning and didn't accumulate much, but it was fun all the same. It was nice to sit at the window in the kitchen and look out at the birds fussing around in the hedges. I am no birdwatcher, but could see that we have several species out there, some with lovely bright blues and reds. Here's a picture of our backyard at the moment...

I am beginning to get used to the area in which we live. The street names are becoming familiar and I am developing a mental grid of the city. We live in a safe enough area, there are several blocks of nice housing on either side of us and so I feel completely safe walking the dogs by myself. However, I am disappointed to see that the homes here are not decorated at the frequency of homes in Omaha for Christmas. I loved walking the dogs around the neighbourhood in Omaha at this time of year, there was a lot to look at (for a change ;)

I have got a job! I will be teaching Anatomy and Physiology at Cuyahoga Community College in January. I am very much looking forward to it, I love teaching and I love the subject matter. What makes it even cooler is that I shall learn something too, as the labs are geared towards medical imaging students and so they will have to interpret various forms of imaging.

Well I think that is all my news for the moment. Now I'm going to go plan the menu for over the weekend :)

Homemade Irish Soda Bread

2011-11-01T19:51:00.000-05:00

I had a request from a reader to publish my recipe for Soda Bread.
So here it is! It is super easy to make and is great with soups this time of year!

You will need:

525g whole wheat flour
A little over 16 fl oz of buttermilk (I use 1%)
a teaspoon of salt
a teaspoon of baking soda

Heat the oven to 400F (200C)

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Add half of the buttermilk, stir and then add the second half. Sometimes I need to use a little extra. Add enough so that there is no dry flour left.
Dump the mixture into a greased bread tin.
Score a line lengthways along the middle of the loaf.

Bake for 30 minutes at 400F (200C) then reduce heat to 350F (175C) for another 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and place tin on wire rack. After about 10 minutes remove loaf from tin and wrap in a clean damp tea-towel. This prevents it from getting to hard on the outside while cooling.

I like to have a slice with natural peanut butter and a good cup of tea!

Enjoy!!

Finally, two firsts.

2011-10-31T10:39:00.000-05:00

Today I finally got to do two things that I have been wanting to do for a while.
The first was to buy and use a Chinese hot pot.
Matt and I went to the Cleveland Asia Market this morning to buy it and some ingredients. I bought several different hot pot soup bases, so I'm looking forward to trying them all.
Today I made a spicy Szechuan broth. To it we added some noodles, bok choy, bean sprouts, beech mushrooms and specially sliced beef.
It was delicious, but very VERY spicy. I think I will only use half a packet of the base next time.

The other first was achieved, finally, when we were out for a stroll. I have been trying to get a photo of the scenic railway train for the past couple of months, but always seem to miss it. Today we were at the station just as the train pulled up...

... and a ticket master was kind enough to wave to us as the train left the station :)

Mexican Stew

2011-10-27T18:16:00.000-05:00

I had a request from a reader to cook some authentic Mexican recipes.
THIS is NOT an authentic Mexican recipe! I am going to do one in the near future, I've always wanted to cook with cactus, but I need to get to a specialty store first to see what's available.

The main part of tonight's dish was an altered version of this recipe. I added black beans and used chipotle peppers in adobo sauce instead of 'chipotle paste'.

I also used fresh tomatoes instead of canned.
I have a secret about using fresh tomatoes in a sauce..... Cut the tomatoes into chunks of various sizes, from small dices to ping pong ball sizes!
I have found that if I cut the tomatoes to approx the same size it doesn't really become a sauce, but rather a mash of hot tomatoes. I think the different sizes allows the smaller ones to cook down quickly while the larger ones remain more 'chunky'.

I also had some potatoes, celery and carrots that I wanted to use too, so I made up a side dish.
The finished product yields 6 generous servings!

Side Dish

5 idaho potatoes
1 onion chopped
2 carrots diced
2 sticks of celery diced
Throw all veggies into a roasting tin.
Season generously with salt and pepper.
Add enough olive oil to to coat potatoes (approx 3tbsp)
Bake at 400F (200C) for 60 minutes, stir every 20 minutes.

'Mexican' Stew

3 large chicken breasts, cut into thirds
1 onion chopped
4 garlic cloves sliced
500g tomatoes chopped.
430g tin of black beans
200g tin of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

In a large pan, fry the onion and garlic in a little olive oil over a low heat until soft.
Add chipotle peppers and tomatoes.
Bring to a gentle boil.
Add chicken.
Bring back to boil and then lower to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Add drained black beans.
Simmer for another 10 minutes.
Remove chicken and shred with 2 forks.
Add chicken back to pan and bring to final boil right before serving.

I became worried after adding the chipotle peppers that I may have added way to many. A google search heightened my fear when I read that 10lbs of Jalapenos make 1lb of chipotle!!!

But I was worrying for nothing. The dish was spicy but pleasantly so, with a lovely smokey finish on the palate.

The potatoes turned out great too. Although this side dish is not a typical Mexican food it still went well with the stew, adding some starch to mop up the juices. Maybe some Mexican seasoning would have made them 'more suited' to the stew.

Stay tuned for some authentic Mexian cooking in the near future!

Seriously Scrumptious Soup

2011-10-18T18:52:00.000-05:00

Dear readers, please listen to me when I tell you YOU HAVE GOT TO MAKE THIS SOUP!!!!

Nothing is better than a good autumn/winter soup that'll warm you up on a cold night. I have found a really REALLY good soup. It's my own recipe, I was making it up as I went along and it turned out absolutely fabulous!

You will need:

1 butternut squash (about 2lbs)
2 small onions finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic chopped
2 tablespoons of butter
olive oil
crushed chili peppers
garam masala
2 bay leaves
3 cups of chicken stock (I had some left over stock, skimmed of fat, from yesterdays roast)
4-6 strips of previously fried bacon. I am had some in the freezer and so crushed it into small pieces while frozen.

Heat oven to 400F (200C)

Peel the squash, remove the seeds and then cut up into dice sized chunks.

Place squash into a roasting tin. Add enough olive oil to coat the squash. Sprinkle with crushed chili peppers and garam masala.

Roast for 30-40 minutes. Stir them every 10-15 minutes.

While the squash is roasting go ahead and saute the onion, garlic and bay leaves over a low heat in the butter. The longer and slower they cook the better!

When the squash is finished roasting add it to the onions and garlic. Add the chicken stock.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low for 20 minutes. We want the flavours to develop and the squash to get nice and soft.

Serve with some homemade Irish soda bread.

I cannot say enough good things about this soup. It was perfect! I still have a lovely flavor in my mouth and it's 2 hours later.

I went to the store tonight and enjoyed being welcomed back to the fragrant reminder of the soup when I returned. The chili pepper gives the soup an extra warmth, which is perfect for this time of year.
I'm really really happy with this soup!! I urge you to try it! I think it would also be great with a small amount of red lentils in it too, but not too many, you don't want to change the consistency of the soup.
It would also be super easy to turn it into a vegetarian dish. Leave out the bacon and use vegetable stock instead. You would probably want the lentils then for sure!

Monday's Sunday Dinner

2011-10-17T17:58:00.001-05:00

As previously mentioned, yesterday I was planning to make a roast dinner, but we were out too late. So I made it for dinner tonight! Roast chicken served with roast potatoes, steamed green beans, broccoli, bread sauce and pepper cream sauce.

Penny and Lucy were both in attendance, hoping for some food....

... after a while, they figured they might not actually get any....

...so Penny started being obnoxious!

The war zone. This was where I did the cooking. It's a lot smaller than what I'm used to and it got very hot.

All flustered ;)

Sunday afternoon walk

2011-10-16T19:44:00.000-05:00

Today it was cold and rainy. I loved it!
We decided to take a drive to lake Erie to walk along some of the shore that we haven't yet been to. When we got there it was still grey and drizzly, perfect beach walking weather :)
Of course, I just HAD to get a shot of the heron for my Dad!

There was a beautiful weeping willow on one end of the beach

Lots of shells to look through....

and some smoothed glass...

And stones to skim....

Here's a shot of downtown Cleveland...

Another heron....

Matt posing for a catalogue ;)

On your marks.... get set...

GO!...

I was planning on making a roast chicken dinner tonight but we spent a lot longer on the beach than originally planned. So we stopped by #1 Pho for dinner. I decided NOT to have Pho this time, and instead opted for a curried squid dish. It was absolutely delicious!!!

Yet another wonderful weekend in the Cleveland area :)

'Fall'-ing head over heels in love with Ohio

2011-10-16T13:14:00.001-05:00

We nearly always have our two companions with us when we go exploring. This time of year they have been confined to the boot of the car, as they tend to get very muddy!

The start of our 11 mile hike

Past goats and chickens

Here's a feel for some of the colour,

Setting off on a 10 mile hike..

This is so beautiful....

Walkabout

2011-09-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

Feeling a little blue the other day I decided to head out for a walk by myself, sans doggies...

The season is changing in full force and I hoped that my pictures would capture it, but they haven't. There is still so much green in them that you don't notice the browns and oranges yet, but they are still pretty so I figured I'd post them.

It was a lovely walk. Leaves were falling in such numbers that it sounded like it was raining.

I call this next photo "Are you there God? It's me..little tree"

There are a LOT of squirrels and chipmunks about at the moment and so Penny has become quite a handful on walks: she pulls constantly.
I have bought a gentle leash which goes around her nose and so when she pulls she's pulling her own head downwards. It's stopped the pulling, but she's getting used to it. We are just going for short strolls around the neighborhood as she gets used to it and so we often look like this

Hopefully she'll get used to it soon, it's rather embarrassing and I'm sure some people think I'm being cruel to her. She is not in any pain whatsoever, she just wants the band off her nose so she can pull where she wants.

Soul Food version of Mac and Cheese

2011-09-27T19:26:00.000-05:00

I decided that as Matt is away I would make a comfort dish that I wouldn't usually make when he's around: i.e a high fat dish.
One of my favorite dishes growing up was my Mum's Spagetti Cheese.
So I decided to do my own version, using gnocchi. I first had gnocchi when visiting my big sister who at the time was living in Udine, Italy.
It's a potato food, that you can use whenever you would use pasta. It's more satisfying that pasta as it has more to it, it's thick, chunky and holds sauces very well.
In my current mood I chose not to follow a recipe, but just to go with what I know: butter+flour+milk = bechamel sauce.
I started by melting some butter (approx 3 tablespoons) with chopped garlic

Then I added about 3 tbsp of flour to get it to this consistency. Remember, the lumps here are garlic.

I added about a cup of milk and when it was all blended I added a good dollop of spicy brown mustard.
Don't skimp on the stirring here. It may get tiring, but think of the those extra calories you get to burn and hence the reduced amount of guilt you need to feel about eating this later ;)

Add 'some' cheese.....I used extra sharp cheddar and extra sharp 'New York' cheddar. I have never seen 'New York' cheddar before, but apparently it's white cheddar.

Cook till melted..... then realize you've made too much sauce. So quickly par-boil some whole grain rotini pasta to supplement the gnocchi. Add this delicious cheese sauce to your gnocchi/pasta

Ah now, see! There's green stuff! In the eyes of my 12 year old Step-son this practically makes it a health food!!

Dump into a greased (haha!) casserole dish

Cover and bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 375F.
Then uncover and continue to bake at 425F for another 10 minutes. Enjoy the smell that greets you when you remove the lid at this time!!! Mmmmmm.

And finally, the finished product... HOT AND CHEESY!

I have got to say that it was soooooo good! The cheese, garlic and basil really pleased the pallete while the density of the gnocchi was satisfying.

On a side note, I've started a "Pinterest" account. It is a website where you "pin" images of things that interest you, or things of your own that you want to display (photos, recipes...) to virtual pinboards. People who follow you can then pin it to their own if they so desire.
It's fun! Check it out by clicking on this button....

Autumn is a comin'.

2011-09-20T07:37:00.000-05:00

This past weekend the weather really started feeling like the year was creeping towards Autumn. I love this time of year, the temperature drops, the cool breezes, the rain....

We took advantage of the cooler weather and walked 6 miles on Saturday and on Sunday...

Here are some of the photos I took, see for yourself how Autumn peeks through!

I wanted to include this photo. Every time we pass this house I tell Matt that this is where I want to live :)

Sunday morning we went to Lake Erie and did some paddling...

It's getting hot and steamy in the kitchen

2011-09-12T17:46:00.000-05:00

"They" say that the easiest way to learn Chinese (or any other language) is through immersion into the culture, to hear native people speaking...natively.
As I cannot just up and leave to China I have been watching Mandarin movies instead. Romances, Indies, War epics, Comedies... the lot! Each movie has a common vein running through it: FOOD.
Watching these movies has not only helped my Chinese ("oooooh he just said 'what?'") but it has made me want to experiment with some chinese forms of cooking.
So this Sunday afternoon found Matt and me heading to a local Asian supermarket. Here we picked up a bamboo steamer, rice bowls, chopsticks, a huge knife and several chinese foods.
Unfortunately I didn't see any Pho, but they do sell it in the little cafe in the store. I will have to try it sometime :)
My first meal using the steamer was made up in my own head.
I used bone-in portions of chicken, whacked them into smallish pieces with my awesome new scary knife and then marinated the bits with some ginger, scallion, shitake mushrooms and oyster sauce. I steamed the chicken for 20 minutes before adding another level to the steamer laden with broccoli.

I always get nervous when cooking meats using a 'new' technique, but was relieved to see that the chicken was desperate to fall off the bone when the cooking time was up.
Sorry I didn't get a close up shot of the Chicken, I was too eager to sit down and eat!!

Matt is off, again, this time to Buffalo NY until Wednesday evening. So today I went to a metro park that I haven't been to before for a walk around its lake (3.3miles). There is a swimming beach which is formed from the run over of the lake.

I chose to do the 'Heron' walk and it really lived up to its name. I must have seen about 6 herons.

The dogs were especially annoying on this walk, darting back and forth like crazy and snapping at passing dogs. I was not pleased, and it made it hard to take photos of the herons. This photo was easy though, because the heron was literally about 10ft away.

Tonight I decided I would experiment with my bamboo steamer again. I opted for chicken and shrimp steamed dumplings.

During this time I found myself singing my own version of this song "On the baby's knuckle or the baby's knee, where will the baby's dumpling be?". Oh I amuse myself!

I finely chopped some chicken breast, prawns, ginger and scallions. I wrapped them in skins that I had made from scratch (very easy, just use flour and water, knead for 15 mins and let sit for 5mins)

They steamed for 20 minutes and I served them with some freshly steamed broccoli and rice. I used some thai chili and ginger dipping sauce.

The dumplings turned out great! Next time I shall use some cabbage in them too.
I have to admit I also tried making some chicken and shrimp steamed buns, but it was a HUGE failure. The special flour for the buns didn't want to make a dough for me. It resembled corn flour and water.
I'm going to have to do some research on what I need to do differently in future.... If any readers have any suggestions I'd appreciate it!!!!

Homemade spaghetti sauce

2011-09-06T18:20:00.000-05:00

Matthew doesn't like spaghetti sauce. I find that insane. I LOVE spaghetti sauce.

So today I decided to make a home made sauce from scratch.

I fried a finely chopped onion and 6 cloves of garlic over a low heat for about 10 minutes before adding some salt, pepper and red chili flakes.

I then added 7 chopped tomatoes, 3 bay leafs, 3 sprigs of thyme and about 5 torn basil leaves.

I allowed this mixture to boil gently uncovered for 90 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

About 10 minutes before serving I added some more freshly torn basil

et voila! I served it with some fresh mozzarella over whole wheat pasta. I thought it was the best sauce I've had in a long time! I'm so excited that the recipe turned out this way. I am definitely going to make this again!!!

And here is Matt, who told me that he also thought it was the best sauce he's had..... but that's not really saying much is it Matt!!!

Don't forget to kiss your cook!!!

Catch-up not ketchup (my food doesn't need it!)

2011-09-01T11:51:00.001-05:00

Starting to teach myself Chinese has been taking up a lot of my time and attention. I'm loving it!!! I have found a great online source, thanks to my sister Roz, that is free to learn Chinese. There is a cost to learn other languages, but I recommend it. It is Live Mocha.

I have still been cooking, walking trails and training myself to run, but have neglected posting about it.

So here is a quick catch-up!

I made a lovely chinese steamed fish recipe. It was all made in one pot. You steam some greens first and just before they are done you add some fillets of your favourite fish with some chopped ginger, garlic and chilli pepper and steam until cooked (about 3-5 minutes)

I served ours with some left over pasta. The dish smelled great, but for some weird reason I was not able to eat it without gagging...... I told you it was a weird reason. I think it might have something to do with the texture. The flavour was great though.

Next I made some chicken chasseur. Another one pot recipe where you throw some browned chicken breast into stock with onions, mushrooms and spices. I served this with mange tout and some whole grain french bread. It was very yum yum and would definitely do it again, it would be a good winter meal served with some mashed potatoes.

I went on a walk around a lake....

and then made spicy mango chicken with rice pilaf. The chicken was AWESOME. I stuffed it with some hot mango salsa and glazed it with garam masala. The result was really fragrant and tasty. The rice could have used some extra veggies other than the onion that was in it.
It was quite hard to stuff the chicken breast because I am now only buying free range chicken products and so the breasts tend to be 'natural' size and so there isn't as much meat as the jumbo force fed chicken breasts.

Another walk through some tree trails....

Along country paths....

Through meadows.....

And I cooked 'fish o'leekie'. A good stodgy rice dish! The rice is cooked with some chopped leaks and then fish is added towards the end.
My guilty pleasure is white rice. I buy whole grain high fiber pasta and bread, but I do like my white rice. So, to increase the protein content I added some boiled egg and edamame.

Here are the photos I pho-got to take ;)

2011-08-21T19:14:00.009-05:00

Dear readers, I want you to know how committed I am to you and this blog. I felt terrible that I had forgotten to take a photo of the wonderful Pho I had at Saigon Grille.

To make up for this horrendous oversight, I had Matt drive us into Cleveland again to have some Pho JUST so that I could get a photo of it. I know, I'm a very selfless person... and I'd do it all again if I had to ;)

In fact, I'm going to be heading back there on Friday for lunch!

So here is the absolutely delicious Pho....

And Matt had Bun Tom ThitNuong Cha Gio ( vermicelli with marinated grilled shrimp, grilled pork slice and crispy eggroll).

Oh, and the waiter already knows me by my first name, except he pronounces it No-mee. When we entered he saw us and had a big smile and told us he was very surprised to see us and how great it was. The other waiter also welcomed us back when we had our Vietnamese coffees for desert.

Carry on Camping... or go home.

2011-08-21T14:07:00.004-05:00

This weekend the plan was to camp for two nights at Portage Lakes State Park. We got to our campsite on Friday afternoon. It was on a nice campground and although some of the campsite was rather muddy we had plenty of room to put up our tent and tether the dogs.

For dinner that night we cooked some potatoes in the fire and served them with baked beans and cheese. We got a little distracted and so the potatoes overcooked and the skins were inedible.
But it didn't matter much because we were joined by Pippen....
.... and his owners Jennifer and Michael. Michael is one of the partners at the company Matt now works with.

After a night relaxing by the campfire Matt and I headed out to explore some of the trails around the lakes. They were rather disappointing, it seems that it is more a park for boaters as the trails were really just paths mowed through overgrowth.

After our walk we headed back to the campsite for lunch.
As the afternoon progressed it became more and more humid and muggy. We could also hear thunder in the distance heading our way. So we decided that we would rather pack up and head home for a date night instead of deal with bad weather and lots of mud.

We went to Saigon Grille for dinner where I had THE BEST PHO IN CLEVELAND!!!!!! It was soooooo good. I didn't take a photo because I was too busy shoving it in my face.

I did manage to take a photo of Matt's Vietnamese coffee, as it arrived before the Pho. The coffee drips into the cup which contains a small amount of sweetened condensed milk. The waiter was very kind explaining what Matt needed to do with the drink. The service there was great and they were very happy when I told them they have the best Pho :) Hopefully they'll remember us the next time we go back.

Matt was so impressed with the coffee that he is presently out on a search for some sweetened condensed milk to use with some homemade percolated coffee :)
This morning we headed out to Cuyahoga to walk a couple of trails (3 1/2 miles). We got to see some pretty neat rock formations

This photo is taken next to 'Ice Box Cave', which lives up to it's name: as you cross the bridge you get a nice blast of cold air from inside the cave.
The trail took us over a couple of bridges
and to an overlook.

For the afternoon Matt is going to work on a talk he wants to give and I am going to do some reading. You know, it's a real shame that I didn't take a photo of that wonderful Pho.... maybe we should go back so that I can get a photo????

OH Pho goodness sake!!!

2011-08-14T16:32:00.007-05:00

This weekend has been great :) I got my Matt back on Friday evening and so early on Saturday morning we headed out with the dogs to show him one of our favorite trails. It follows along a bridle trail and we saw 2 beautiful horses on a ride.

Here are Lucy and Matt crossing a Ford.
After the walk Matt and I headed into downtown Cleveland for lunch to try.... you guessed it, a Vietnamese restaurant. We had some baked salted squid as an appetizer. It was soooooo good, the seasoning was pitch perfect. The veggies were cooked to perfection and the squid had a little bit of a crunch on the very outside, but was nice and succulent on the inside. I also had a papaya bubble tea.

I had ordered some Pho and after the quality of the appetizer I was anxiously hopeful that the quality of the Pho would be the same. I was not disappointed!!!!!!!!!!!!

The broth was darker and more fragrant than the others I have had here. It still isn't on par with Gold Mountain but it was far beyond any of the others so far and I gobbled it up :D I was soooo happy to have found it, I shall definitely be heading back there SOON.

Here is me very happy with a great Pho! I couldn't stop grinning and giggling!

Here is the outside of the restaurant. Right next door to it we saw another Pho restaurant and joked that we should go there for dinner later on in the day.

For the afternoon we went paddling at Bedford reservation

And then when it came to dinner time, WE HEADED BACK TO THAT RESTAURANT NEXT DOOR!
We had some salted fried shrimp for starters and then I had Pho and matt had something else. I don't remember what it was because I was so taken with having my second bowl of great Pho in a day. It too was more dark and fragrant. The other Pho have reminded me of the Pho that I made when my sister sent some Pho cubes over from Vietnam. They just weren't as good as the Pho that she had sent another time. The two Pho I had this day were not as sweet as the others, and more savory.
There was a little shrine for something or other in the doorway into the restaurant.
After dinner we walked around downtown and came across a scene of The Avengers movie that is being filmed in cleveland. Those are New York police cars and taxis. Even the posters on the road work are from New York.

Sunday morning, after a bad night of very loud thunderstorms, we headed out for a bike ride. The bike trail is about a 5 minute bike ride from our house and once onto the trail you will often see deer crossing back and forth. It's really so nice to be able to be so close to nature.
We cycled to Brandywine waterfall.

And then we packed up to take the dogs for a walk and have a picnic. But the heavens opened and so we had to eat in the car. We did take the dogs for a little walk in the rain but we turned around when we couldn't see a clear outline of Lucy, she was shivering so much.
Now we are sitting in a Starbucks, drinking hot coffee and watching the rain pour down.

I have done some thinking about Omaha. I don't have any issues with the city itself, it has great shops, restaurants etc. My problem is what is (or more to point what isn't) outside of the city. I am a country girl and so if I have to live in a city I need to be able to 'escape' into the countryside where I feel more in the presence of God than anywhere else. I was not able to find that in Omaha's surrounding 'country side'. I shall look forward to returning to see friends when we are done here in 2 1/2 months, but I could never EVER live there again. This is not a dig to anyone who DOES live in Omaha, different strokes for different folks, I just realize now just how much more than good restaurants, shops etc I need.

It's been nice to also see that I do like this kind of stuff as much as I thought I did. I had been somewhat worried that I was suffering from some 'the grass is always greener' and that it was possible that when we moved I'd still not be happy. But I am, and I shall cherish every single wrinkle I get from all this smiling :)

I would recommend Cleveland to anyone who wants a holiday of trail walking, picnics, bike rides as an alternative to someplace like Estes Park which gets VERY overcrowded during the summer. Granted, you don't get the mountain views, but the trails here are awesome!!!! Don't forget there is also Lake Erie for swimming etc. And the townships help create a feeling that you are not as close to as big a city as Cleveland.

If Matt decides that he needs to stay in Cleveland area he will not get any tears from me. BUT I am looking forward to trying Maine still :)

Life is an adventure!! This week we are hoping to explore the shores of Lake Erie.

Wednesday is Asian food day!

2011-08-11T22:18:00.005-05:00

Wednesday, after a lovely walk with the dogs, I headed into Cleveland to try a vietnamese restaurant Minh Anh. I got the Pho Saigon, a rare cinnamon beef soup.

It was yummy, but....... not Gold Mountain yummy! I'm beginning to feel that perhaps the Pho that Gold Mountain serves is not 'normal pho'. The broth is darker and less sweet than the other Pho I have had. Any insight readers?? It's called Pho Ta'i. I have found a recipe for it here, I might have to try making it.

The restaurant was in an older part of the town and wasn't much to look at from the outside, but in the back where I parked they had some lovely flowers. I'll try and get some closer shots next time I'm there, they were very unusual looking.I had a very friendly waiter, originally from Ho Chi Minh city, but lived here for the last 13 years. He was very chatty and I'll be honest I didn't understand much of what he said, but I know he loves soccer!

I stopped by the pet store on the way to pick up some more food for Lucy. I saw another 'Mr. Flowers'. He was her first toy and she still loves snuggling with his remains (you can see them at the bottom of the next photo). She was ecstatic when she saw Mr Flowers II and has been giving him lots of love since his arrival.
Penny still doesn't get what all the fuss is about with dog toys!
For dinner I ordered take out from the local chinese restaurant, Smiles. I was uber happy to find that the shrimp chips were indeed prawn crackers, of the multicoloured variety :)

The food was ok, nothing special. I had the hot and spicy shrimp, which had about 23 onions with it and 4 strips of bell pepper. The flavor was great, but the abundance of onion makes me feel like I'm being duped by being giving cheap veggies.
Matt gets back from Utah tomorrow night. If the weather stays nice we're going to go camping on Saturday, so I'm off now to try and research some good campgrounds :)

More walks, workouts and wacky weekday meals

2011-08-09T18:35:00.003-05:00

Baked beans on toast!!!!!!!! Enough said.

Monday, the dogs and I headed to Bedford reservation, a 10 minute drive away. It looked like it might be a good place to go paddling and climbing along rocks. I think I'll take Matt there this weekend and I'll take some photos. This time we stopped at the bridal veil falls trail, which starts following a creek...
... which flows down some small 'falls'.
The trail then goes off into the woodland. I didn't get to go too far, as Penny hadn't eaten ANY of her last 3 meals. I didn't want to overdo it with her. After a good suggestion from a friend I gave her a meal while I was also eating and hey presto she ate :)

Today we headed back to Brecksville reservation (my fave so far) and walked along the top of the gorge cut out by the river.
Tonight for dinner I had Mustgoes (food in the fridge that 'must go').

I started with sauteing red onion, yellow and green squash in a little olive oil and chili pepper flakes. I then added some portobello mushrooms.

Things got a little strange when I added some tuna and.....wait for it...... baked beans!!!

Finally I added some whole grain pasta and a small amount of cheddar cheese and feta cheese. There's something about Tuna which allows you add half the amount of cheese you think you're going to need. It seems to be able to spread it around more, I wonder if it has anything to do with the protein in tuna....

Anyhoo, the final product which looks like cat vomit...
was actually really really tasty! I'm looking forward to having left overs tomorrow. I made a large bulk of it so that I can freeze some for Matt's lunches next week.

As I can't kiss myself I kissed the dogs instead.

Don't forget to kiss YOUR cook!

What a weekend :)

2011-08-08T09:04:00.004-05:00

This weekend started off with some baking on Friday. I made an orange and sweet potato cake. It is a recipe I got from Matt's Dad's wife Katy :)

It's a great recipe! All you do is use a box of orange cake mix, but instead of adding 11oz of oil and 2 cups of water you just add a tin of sweet potatoes with their juices. Add 3 eggs and hey presto you have a cake batter. The final result is scrumdiddlyumptious!! So a big thank you to Katy for giving me this recipe.

If any of my europe friends/family want to try it but can't get the orange cake/sweet potatoes just let me know and I'll send you some: that's how good this stuff is!!!

Friday night Matt took me to the circus for date night :) I think I might have annoyed him singing the childrens song "you've got to be strong to work in the circus"

He bought me candy floss and popcorn. Isn't he the best!

Saturday morning I dropped Matt off at the airport, he's in Utah for the week at a conference. So I found myself driving to a town 30 minutes away to buy some mushy peas, heinz baked beans, marmite and hob nobs! I had this for dinner, it was awesome!

Sunday morning I headed out to the horse show. I don't know how they grade showing over here, but from what I could tell it was a novice competition, the jumps were pretty lame and the riding left something to be desired, but it was fun to be around horses and here the talk of horsey competition going on. It's made me even more excited to start riding again. I found myself mentally urging the competitors to 'get more impulsion', 'have the horse focus on the jump, not outside of the ring' etc....

Today the carpet is being replaced in the bedroom :) Then, when that is done, I'm going to take the dogs out for a long walk through some trails.

Penny isn't eating again and I may have to make an appointment at the vets for her to make sure everything is ok. She has kidney/bladder issues and I want to make sure it's nothing to do with that.

I swear I don't have munchausen by proxy!!!!!!

Less bugs, more birds please!

2011-08-04T20:50:00.004-05:00

I tend to prefer mother nature's soundtrack to man made noises. However I do not find crickets or cicadas, or whatever the heck is making the seasonal noises here, relaxing. I find it downright irritating!

I took the dogs for a walk today on a trail in the Cuyahoga park, south of where we last walked. It was a really pretty walk, as have been the others, but good God the noise the bugs were making was enough to drive me bonkers!!!

I am hoping that when we finally make it up north (Maine) we will have less of the noisy bugs and more of the bird song.

Anyhoo, enough complaining and back to the beautiful countryside I find myself in!

This time we walked past 'red lock'....

Passed several streams....

Came across a picture of an old man who, when I first looked at him, looked like a relative we had on a painting on our stairway growing up (minus the big beard)....

Through meadows.....

Down country lanes...... (being deafened by them damn bugs!).....

Stopped to say hello to a family of turtles.....

And ended up in Boston!!!

Boston is a little village that boasts an old fashion gas station...

and a country store....
There is also a railway station for the scenic railway that runs through the park and it was just leaving as we arrived, so I didn't get to see it this time.

There was a little store that was selling homemade ice cream and cold drinks to the several groups of cyclists on the trail. I shall have to bring Matt with me next time so that I can try the ice-cream. I don't trust the dogs to be tied up outside while I go in, they tend to go bonkers when they see other dogs!

This evening when Matt got home we had a picnic at the village lake and then went for a swim before going to workout at the gym.
Tomorrow the circus is in town and so my mission is to try and find somewhere that is still selling tickets!!

Mushroom Mushroom

2011-08-02T19:41:00.004-05:00

I've had a very busy day!

It started off great; I went for a bike ride after breakfast and had a lovely swim after lunch.

I tried making some scotch eggs to have for a picnic tonight, but they failed miserably. And then I had a run in with the people who run the townhomes we currently live in over a certain carpet still being stained and smelling of dog urine. So by the time Matt got home I was in no mood to throw together a picnic and so we went to Luna's, a local diner, instead.

Afterwards we went for a walk in Brecksville Reservation, my favorite park so far. There is a trail that covers over 1400 miles throughout Ohio (the buckeye trail) and it runs through the reservation, so we decided to walk along that for a little while. I was amazed how many different types of mushrooms were lining the trail....

Oh and yesterday I made an omelette of courgette, yellow zuchini, tomato, olives, feta, onion and parsley served with oven chips. Thanks to Ellie who suggested that I put tin foil over the omelette while it cooked so that there would be no need to flip it and turn it into scrambled eggs. It cooked to perfection!!!!

How is the new font size and color? Any feedback is appreciated! I want to make sure people can actually read the blog :)

Sunny Sunday

2011-07-31T18:46:00.003-05:00

This morning Matt and I awoke and went for an early morning swim. We went to the smaller of the two outdoor pools and had the place to ourselves, so it was perfect for swimming a couple of leisurely laps before heading back home for a breakfast of coffee and croissant with marmalade. Mmmm Mmmm.

After breakfast we packed up a picnic and headed out to Bradley Woods Reservation for a walk around Bunns lake. It was only a 25 minute drive away.

After walking around the lake and following some trails through the beautiful woods we got back in the car and headed towards Huntington Park, another 10 minutes away. We stopped here to eat our picnic.

Huntington Park is right next to Lake Erie and therefore also boasts a swimming beach. The place was very busy towards the lake and, as we had our dogs, we decided that we would head to the beach one night this week after work for a picnic and swim. We haven't yet seen the beach, we assumed that there would be no dogs allowed, so instead we headed back to the quieter area to follow some more trails.

It's really nice to be able to have these areas so close by. They are very well looked after (i.e. the bins are changed frequently, there are recycling dumps in each park and lots of courtesy doggy doo doo bags.). They are also free to get into!!!!

When we got home we had 2 tired but happy dogs who were more than willing to take a nice long nap :)

For dinner tonight we had a Sicilian fish stew.
When he have digested for a while we are going to hit the fitness center for some exercising :)

It's been a great day! We also have a circus and county fair to look forward to over the coming few weeks :)

Hello Lake Erie

2011-07-30T20:03:00.005-05:00

This morning Matt and I headed downtown to the LeanDog boat. Downtown Cleveland appears to be much the same as any other downtown I have visited so far in the states. It was nice and clean and I am sure we will explore it some weekend.

This time we just stuck to the boat. It is an old restaurant boat that Matt's company has converted into a floating office. They have retained the kitchen and bar, and at 5pm every night a 'beer gong' is rang and the employees head up on deck to drink some beers.

This is the view from the back of the boat, looking over lake Erie. I am really looking forward to doing some more exploring around the lake. We were told that there are some islands on the lake with B&Bs that are a nice way to spend a weekend. We shall definitely be giving that a go! And we shall also be renting some jet skis sometime soon while the weather is still nice!

After being shown around the boat we headed to a place I've been wanted to try since we decided we were coming to Cleveland: Superior Pho!!

We were a little nervous approaching it as it was in what appears to be a dying part of cleveland. It was in a back alley and not visible from the street. We felt a little more confident when we saw how full the car park was.

I ordered Pho tai (noodle soup with round steak). It was good BUT it was NOT as good as Gold Mountain's Pho. Gold Mountain has set a high standard for fragrant broth. The other Phos I have had all have a lighter broth. It was still good, but certainly no replacement for my drug of choice ;)

I also had a delicious passion fruit bubble tea.

We met up with an old colleague of Matts for lunch with his wife. There was a bit of confusion as they had gone into ANOTHER Pho restaurant behind the one we were meeting at. That made me very happy, it means there's more Pho to be tried!!!!

There is also a korean restaurant inside the same building as Superior Pho and we will give that a try too :)

After returning from our time downtown we took the dogs to the national park next to us to try out a different trail.
There was a horse trail too. Here is Matt and Lucy trekking down the horse trail :)
Tonight we bought a small dinner table from Target and had some roast chicken with wild rice and veggies for dinner, accompanied by a good glass of claret.

Tomorrow we are going to head out to two of the smaller metro parks with the dogs :)

Hello Ohio

2011-07-29T09:19:00.004-05:00

Well all I can say is Matt gone done good!

He found us a lovely place to spend the next couple of months.

We are in a little town called Sagamore hills and it's right next to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. One of the entrances is a 3 minute drive away and I took the dogs there today for a walk.

It was beautiful, the sky was overcast and raining which made the greens appear super green. We walked for about 40 minutes along a trail that runs by a small river on one side.

There are old locks along the trail, this one was known as 'whiskey lock'

On the way into our town we cross a tall bridge that covers a deep tree covered ravine. The other morning when I was taking Lucy to the eye doctor there was fog gathering at the tops of the trees and it all looked very magical. It was down in that ravine that we walked today.

There is a scenic railway that runs through the park and if you cycle along the trails you can get back to where you started on the train for only $2. I'm looking forward to giving that a go!

I only covered a small portion of the trails immediately available from the location I parked at today. And there are several more parks around the Cleveland area, so I'm going to have a great time exploring :)

You'll have to excuse the quality of the photos I take, I only manage to point and shoot while also walking when I have the dogs :)

Leaving Las Vegas

2011-06-21T12:43:00.008-05:00

I think it's a good thing that I never had time to write my blog over the past couple of days. We have had such an amazing holiday and I'm very thankful to Matt for planning it all for my birthday.

I've lost track of the order in which we did things, but I figure that most people just like to look at the photos, so here we go!

We managed to have some of our favourite pizza every night after the first night. It seriously is sooooo good, it's the kind that flops when you hold it but none of the toppings slip off. The sauce is to die for..... drool.

I wanted to post a photo of one of the bags I got from Briony for my birthday, sent from Vietnam :)

New York New York hotel has an indoor city with lots of eateries and nice places to sit and relax with a drink

Although I loved our hotel and suite it was a bit of a party hotel and when 7 o'clock at night rolled around it was a little bit like a meat market. Matt and I enjoyed escaping the craziness and sitting in New York or Venice. But here I am with a shoe in our hotel..

And here is matt with some friends

You never know who you're going to bump into in Vegas. This old guy wanted to offer me a job, but I said he could just have a photo instead!

I was very popular, apparently this couple is famous. They wanted a photo with me too.

Bumped into Britney, we are practically the same size (I am taller)

Something must have been going down in a casino, 2 James Bonds means T.R.O.U.B.L.E

Speaking of Trouble...... Purrrrrrr!

All my single ladies....... me and Beyonce shook our money makers

Matt chilled with Snoop

Johnny just wouldnt leave me alone. Take the hint Johnny, I'm not interested.

I sang for Simon Cowell, but he wasn't impressed.....

These guys however thought I had balls for a broad.....

He's such a sweet talker

Nick Cage and I were caught in a deep conversation, he's intense!

Love Marilyn!!!

Oprah was actually really interested in what I had to say....

Matt was lucky that I didn't leave with Dwayne Johnson, he is delicious!!!!! Mmmmmmm

I wasn't the only one who met some of my heroes. Matt did too......

After hanging with so many famous people we retreated to Venice...

Where we had some yummy meats, cheeses and wines....

I took a lot of video on the holiday and so will edit it and then post it.

The holiday was great and I'm not ready to head back to the responsibility of telling a certain someone to brush teeth etc.....

2011-06-17T22:19:00.005-05:00

The past 24 hours have been a BLAST!!!

Flights were delayed and changed, but we both got to Las Vegas on the night that we were supposed to :)

The plan had originally been to meet at the airport, check in at the hotel and then head to New York, New York for some of the best pizza ever, which was where this whole trip idea started!

But, due to the flight changes, we weren't able to get to the pizza place in time, it was 'only' open until 1am on Thursdays (tonight it is open till 3am and so we are definitely going to make it!)

So we found ourselves rather ravenous at 1 am local time (3 am for me) as neither of us had been able to get a dinner with our flight schedules.

We checked in at the hotel smoothly and were happy to find out that they did indeed honor Matts platinum status with the hotels parent company. We were switched from a terrace studio to a wrap-around terrace suite. We were also given free champagne breakfast buffets for the length of our stay. When we entered the room we couldn't believe our eyes!!! It was crazy how big the place was (1200 sq ft).

The hotel itself is absolutely beautiful on the inside. To be honest the outside is pretty appauling. I like how the 'old' hotels on the strip (New York New York, Ceasers Palace, Bellagio, Treasure Island) have interesting buildings. Cosmpolitan does not. I is like any non-descript high rise sky scraper and I think it's presence is a sad thing for the strip, as are the other hotels that are going up around it.

But inside it is absolutely beautiful!! There are details everywhere, there is no surface of the hotel that hasn't got something going on. It's hard to find places to take photos (you're not supposed to take photos in gambling areas) but I shall try and find a way to get you an idea of the next couple of days.

Anyway, hungry and tired we headed to the 24 hour restaurant 'The Henry' where I had fish and chips (with malt vinegar) and a Mojito.

Matt had steak and eggs with a seltzer water (BORING!)

This morning we had breakfast at the buffet (photos on facebook, I'm going to start putting them all on here from now on). I'm looking forward to trying some of the stuff I didn't get to today, tomorrow :)

After breakfast we headed to the pool for some sunbathing, swimming , talking and, of course, margaritas!! (my vegas drink). Here I am with my second drink

After a couple hours at the pool we headed out for a walk down the strip. I didn't take many photos as I think that video gets a better feel for the place (stay tuned!). We went as far as Treasure Island and ate lunch at their restaurant 'Pho' where I had, you guessed it, Pho and a margarita :)

Matt had Beef with lemongrass and vermicelli.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel, but went up the opposite side of the strip where we stopped at the venetian.
and Harrahs

All this walking was thirsty work in the desert heat.

Here is our hotel, see what I mean.... nothing special to look at.

Here is a shot of the Paris hotel, I tried to get a photo similar to the photo I got of the actual Eiffel Tower....

Once we got back to the hotel we headed back down to the pool. At that time the sun had lost its heat and it was nice to sit in a breeze and drink (another) margarita.

We are super lucky with our terrace, it is always shaded, has lovely comfy seats and always has a breeze going.

So now I'm sitting on the terrace writing this blog before we head out for the night.

2011-06-16T09:53:00.002-05:00

We are off to Las Vegas today! I arrive there tonight about an hour before Matt flies in from New York.

We'll be staying in the new cosmopolitan hotel

I shall be blogging about our stay :)

Here's a pic from last time we were in Vegas, June 2007

2011-06-08T18:46:00.004-05:00

This summer when Joshua is back in Omaha I decided that I would have him cook a meal once a week. He loves his 'breakfast' eggs, sausage etc and so I had assumed he would choose that for his first meal. He surprised me when he decided to make stir fry.

I thought it only fair that I blog about his cooking too :)

To make his stir fry, Joshua chopped some green bell pepper, carrots and baby sweetcorn into strips.

He fried these vegetables in a little oil

I took a good swing of wine when we were done with the chopping! I had images of trips to the ER with digits in bags of ice....

Josh then added the shrimp to the veggies. He likes his garlic and so we added some garlic powder as the veggies were cooking.

The stir fry was served with some noodles

Penny wanted some!

Here's a shot of the chef!

Empty plates all around! It was very yummy indeed :)

And, as always, don't forget to kiss your cook!

Sunday Dinner

2011-05-22T15:42:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine on Facebook mentioned in their status today that they were cooking a Sunday beef dinner for the family.
I then started thinking of Sunday dinners when I lived back in England and Ireland.
I was never a fan of Sunday as it meant being dragged to church, but I did always love Mum's Sunday dinners (unless it was pheasant casserole or sweet and sour style pork!)

Matt left early this morning for San Francisco and so I decided that I'd make myself a Sunday dinner.

First I boiled some red potatoes with their skins on for 10 minutes. Then after draining the pot I shook the heck out of the potatoes so that they got all roughed up. This part helps make them crispy during the next stage.

I added the potatoes to a tray that had been heated in the oven with vegetable oil on it. When I make these potatoes on Christmas day I use left over bacon fat from the traditional Christmas morning bacon butties, but today I went with the healthier option.

The potatoes are left to roast for 40 minutes. Turn 'em over half way through cooking and spoon some of the hot oil over them, it'll help 'em crisp up.

I then dusted the lamb fillets with some greek seasoning and pan fried them until they were firm to the touch.

During this time I also had some carrots and turnips boiling away on the stove. When they were tender I mashed them with salt, pepper and the tiniest bit of butter.

I threw everything together on a plate and poured over some pepper cream sauce.
I had a boyfriend in high school (Daniel) whose Mum made the BEST roast potatoes and would serve them with pepper cream sauce. I always think of the two of them whenever I have this combo.

The lamb could have been cooked a little longer for my tastes. Speaking of tastes, I actually couldn't taste any of the dinner. I'm still recovering from a bout of strep throat, conjunctivitis and general head cold. 9 days later, with 6 days of antibiotics and I still can't taste anything. So it was a bit of a waste wasn't it!!

I have some left over lamb fillet that I"m going to make into a hot pot type meal tomorrow. There are also left over veggies and tatties, so I'll be able to use them in a recipe too :)

The love in cooking

2011-04-11T15:41:00.003-05:00

I love to cook. But I don't love to cook for myself.

Which got me thinking....

Cooking is an act of love for me.

My friend (who is a therapist, but not mine!) told me about 'love languages'. Apparently it's pretty common that when a couple is going through a tough time they are not tuned into one another's love language.

There are 5 love languages :

Words of affirmation

"I love you!"

Quality time

Receiving gifts

Acts of service

Physical touch

Being in tune with a partner's (or family member's, or close friend's) love language can help you appreciate when they are doing something out of love for you, EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT WHAT YOU YOURSELF MIGHT DO AS AN EXPRESSION OF LOVE.

I know that when I cook for Matt he sees it as a love language and it makes him feel good that I want to do it for him. Even Joshua, who sometimes must hate the healthy stuff I make him eat, has voiced the fact that he likes that I like cooking for him. He too sees it as my way of expressing love.

However, I do not expect Josh and/or Matt to cook for ME as a sign of love. They have their own way of 'talking'; Matt is great at making me feel so beautiful and special by the things he says to me and by verbally acknowledging things I do. He also lets me know I'm not crazy, even when I think I am!

Joshua, well he's a 12 year old boy, but every now and again he draws a picture for me; the last one was a pink sonic the hedgehog character.

I don't really know where I'm going with this blog, maybe I just want to nudge people to think about what language THEY are putting out and what are other people 'saying' to you that you may not be appreciating?

We rarely use plain and simple English to show someone we care, but we often give other signs. So look for it in others actions and let them know that you see it.

If I cook for you, well it's a sign of love..... unless I'm trying to poison you, but I haven't done that in a while ;)

The trend continues...

2011-04-03T19:13:00.003-05:00

.... I didn't cook anything on Saturday either!

We went back to the chinese restaurant for lunch as I really couldn't wait to try the chinese herbal duck noodle soup.

BUT THEY DON'T MAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!

So I had the Roasted Duck Noodle soup instead.

It was good, but no where near as good as the Pho I had the day before.

Matt had steamed flounder with ginger and scallions. He had a lot of fun eating it.

Then in the evening we went to Ryan and Julia's house for dinner. I had grilled southwestern tilapia, Matt had seared ahi tuna steak, Ryan and Julia had bacon wrapped steaks. We all had side salad and potato salad. For desert I brought some of the steamed egg custard buns from the restaurant.

Maybe I'll cook next weekend????

The best laid plans.....

2011-04-01T20:02:00.005-05:00

..... so yeah, my whole "I'm going to cook all meals but one this weekend" thing didn't exactly work.

It all began last night.... We have packed up our king size bed and set up a queen size one in our room as it makes the room look more spacious for potential buyers. Now, on the king size bed I had rights to TWO THIRDS of it and Matt had to keep to his third.

IT'S THE LAW IN THE BARCOMB HOUSEHOLD PEOPLE!!!!

This queen size bed is just not big enough for the both of us and so when matt is home over the weekends I find it really REALLY hard to fall asleep. I got about 5 hours last night and so this morning when I was due to go grocery shopping for my menu I was wayyy too tired and went back to bed BY MYSELF to have a nap.

Therefore, for lunch we ended up going downtown to Jazz, a cajun restaurant that Matt loves. I had 2 pounds of crawfish, which is great for my PCOS diet, but I couldn't resist a side of cheesy grits, and boy were they cheesy! Mmmm.....

The crawfish were hot, spicy and cooked to perfection. I love crawfish, but it doesn't seem like you really have a good meal with them unless you order about 4 pounds worth of it, as there is only about 12oz of actual meat in that weight.

Matt opted for the blackened shrimp with seasoned veggies and dirty rice.

After coming back from downtown we took Penny to the dog park. She is used to going into the 'all dog' area as we used to take her and Bentley there. But the last couple of times she hasn't ventured more than a couple feet away from us and snapped at any dog that came close.
So tonight we took her into the 'small dog' area (less than 35 pounds) and she was off straight away and didn't snap once! She did get a little rambunctious with a boston terrier and starting the playful snapping, but we took her home as she might have been getting too excited.

We didn't get back from the dog park till nearly 7pm, which was then too late for me to go grocery shopping for dinner.

DARN!

So instead we went to my favorite place to eat at the moment, Gold Mountain Chinese Restaurant.

I ordered the pHo Ta'i which is a red beef noodle soup from Vietnam.

Ooooh it was so yummy! Next time I'm going to order the chinese herbal duck noodle soup. I'm already looking forward to it.

I must remember next time to wear some summer clothes. The restaurant is very small and always very busy, so it gets rather hot in there.
Then put a bowl of steaming pho in front of me and allow me to wash it down with Jasmine tea and I will perform "Menopause Monologues" for you free of charge, but please bring extra napkins for my comfort!

Matt, who is on a meat free diet, ordered a variety of dim sum and I got to sample them all.

He had:

Salt and Pepper Shrimp, with head. It took me a second to figure out what kind of head they were talking about on the menu. I must have been hungry.

Chinese cabbage with black bean sauce. But let's face it, it's basically the stalks of broccoli after all the good stuff has been cut off ;)

On the left is curry squid, again it was so succulent and not at all rubbery. On the right are steamed shrimp dumplings, of which the seasoning was a lovely blend of fragrant yet subtle.

Vietnamese shrimp spring rolls.

Pan fried turnip cakes. Not too keen on these, they were very fatty and didn't really have much flavor to them. We both took a bite and left the rest uneaten.

But onto the most interesting part of the dim sum tonight: "Steamed Egg custard bun"

Matt was the first to try a bite of these odd looking buns and was surprised to find that they were sweet. At first we thought that it was steamed egg in a sweet dough ball. But then Matt, the clever one of us, determined that it was in fact custard inside a dough ball that only LOOKS like an egg!!! Genius!!!!

Seriously, we were on the last one when he declared this! They were super scrumptious, whatever they are, and would be something I'd like to look up how to make so that I can take them to a party some time.

Until next time, and as always, don't forget to kiss YOUR cook..... unless you're eating at a restaurant.... that could get a little awkard..... and maybe even end up in an arrest..... so just thank them kindly instead...... unless they are attractive... then try and get away with a little kiss ;)

Weekend goals

2011-03-31T10:43:00.002-05:00

Dear Reader(s?)

I want to share this weekends goal with you.

I aim to cook all but ONE meal this weekend when Matt is home.

I aim to blog about EACH meal, so get ready to hear my thoughts on a cup of coffee and a slice of toast. Beware, excitement may occur from reading over the next couple of days!

Cooking for one SUCKS and so I'm going to make sure that I get to cook when Matt is home rather than go out to eat.

Oooops

2011-03-23T17:29:00.004-05:00

I made home made vegetable soup with cheese and marmite twists for dinner tonight. BUT I forgot to take photos!!! :(

The soup was the best veg soup I've had in forever!

It had potato, onion, carrot, broccoli and cauliflower in it and was seasoned with oregano, rosemary, garlic powder and chili flakes. It was put through the blender on 'chop' mode, which meant there were still small chunks in it, but they were all soft.

The soup reminded me somewhat of a soup I had on December 27th 2010. I remember it well because I was suffering from the night before (boxing day night; it's the biggest night out in Ireland) and I was weary as to whether I could hold anything down. But my Mummy made a soup that I believe had veggies, lentils and some ham in it. It was just the right thing I needed and ever since then I have held it as the best soup EVER.

The twists were made by spreading marmite on a sheet of puff pastry, adding shredded cheese and then folded over into a sandwich. The 'sandwich' was then cut into thin strips and twisted into... well... twists!
However, they untwisted during their cooking time and so I want to try them again but with a savoury scone recipe.

I am going to have left over soup for lunch tomorrow and will take a photo of it then :)

Dim Sum and Then Some

2011-03-04T22:02:00.005-06:00

Tonight Matt and I visited our local chinese restaurant, Gold Mountain. We have been there before but have never gone back as, in my opinion, they did not offer anything out of the ordinary from the standard american-chinese restaurant.

This evening I read a review online about their dim sum and how you had to ask for the menu as it was not given with the 'american-chinese' food. The review also wrote how they serve Pho <3

So off we went! I was all ready to ask for the dim sum menu, but found that they had already added it (and the pho) to the back of the original menu.

Dim sum means 'to touch the heart' and according to wikipedia (which is NEVER wrong) it's origins are found in the tea houses along the silk route in china and is now popularly linked to 'yum cha', drinking tea. Apparently it took a while for the tea houses to start selling food with their tea as it was believed, in that day, that to combine tea and food would lead to excessive weight gain. As time went on people began to understand the digestive properties of tea, and so tea and dim sum were then combined.

First we started with some steamed prawn dumplings, which looked remarkably like jellyfish, and curry squid.

Next was some roast duck. This was delicious, especially the crispy fatty skin, but there were a lot of bones to pick around and I don't really like doing that.

Then we tried some CHICKEN FEET!!

It was very bizarre spitting out chicken phalanges, but well worth it for the flavour of the sauce in combination with the texture of the 'meat' which is basically skin and tendon. Matt was rather wary of trying it but he did in the end, yet commented on how there wasn't much to eat on it. But it was fun to try!!!

Time for a drink of tea. 'yum cha' everyone!

O.K. now on to sticky rice and chicken wrapped in lotus leaves.
This was my favourite part of the meal.
Unwrapping the lotus leaves released a cloud of fragrant steam formed by the combination of the cooked chicken and the tannins of the leaf. Both Matt and I commented on the scent at the same time!
The sticky rice was great, but the chicken inside was awesome!
It was some chicken and mushroom mix and I think there was some egg in there too and also a small amount of some kind of sauce. It was the sauce that was rich tasting and when taken with the rice and the leaf scent it resulted in a very satisfying mouth full. I shall definitely get that again in the future. At the same time as this Matt also had some spare ribs.

Here is a view of the opened lotus leaves

Finally we had fried seaweed wrapped shrimp roll. Again this dish did not disappoint, the batter was light and didn't smother the delicate tastes of the shrimp and seaweed.

All of these dishes led to one happy customer who will be returning in the near future to sample more of the dim sum dishes and the Pho too!! Time for some more 'yum cha'.

And thank you to Matt, for taking the photos and trying the chicken feet :)

Who says there has to be milk in cheese?

2011-02-13T12:16:00.006-06:00

ME!!!

So, part of my new PCOS diet is to cut out dairy. A friend of mine is also on this diet for the same reason and she told me that she has been trying veggie cheese. The next time I went grocery shopping I saw some veggie cheese slices and put them in my shopping basket.
I used them to accompany a tuna and egg sandwich.

I tried a bite of the 'cheese' (cheddar flavoured) by itself and it tasted of nothing.... until the after taste came and then I had to rinse my mouth out with water. On the actual sandwich I couldn't taste it at all and so there was really no point to adding it in the first place. I shall still try some of the grated 'cheeses' out there too, but my expectations are not great.

And here's a thing; are they really any good for you? The current trend in thought is that the less processed food the better. Grains and pulses have been processed so they don't resemble their natural form at all. This, in turn, has led to and increase in obesity and other health problems due to people eating highly processed (high salt, sugar and fat) diets. Switching to a whole food diet, the experts say, will help to maintain a healthy weight, ease digestive problems, reduce chances of cancer..... the list goes on.

So what about these 'cheese' slices? Sure they are made from vegetables (actually its soy based), but they neither look, taste or smell like any vegetable I've ever come across. And the list on the back isn't too promising either; sorbic acid, carotenal, canola oil, rice starch. Part of the problem with the modern processed diet is that it exacerbates the PCOS caused by insulin insensitivity by unloading lots of simple sugars into the body at one go. It may well be that eliminating dairy from my diet is an important aspect of managing my PCOS, but are the substitutes actually any good, or am I returning to the world of processing in a disguised form?

Todays lunch was a much better success, I made seafood Pho.

Pho cubes sent from vietnam were dissolved in hot water with ginger. I then added some bean sprouts and bamboo shoots. The seafood mix, which was cooked inside the pho water, included squid, octopus, shrimp and white fish. This soup was added to bowls that contained some ramen noodles, sliced red pepper and sliced green onions. A little bit of hot cock sauce was added at the table and then came the best part, eating it all up. A great source of protein and only a few noodles. In fact, I didn't even need to eat my noodles as I was full from the seafood and vegetables.

But you're not squash!

2011-02-10T17:10:00.003-06:00

So I'm trying to get better at cooking for one when I'm all alone during the week. The other night I was babysitting for some friends and so I wanted to make something easy. I chose roasted butternut squash with goats cheese I was able to get all the ingredients prepared and in the oven by the time my favorite little boy Owen arrived for the evening.

The recipe was super easy, just roast the squash halfs after scoring and brushing with olive oil and some garlic and herbs. Then roast the veggies too.

As I'm currently trying to move to a PCOS diet I'm cutting down on the carbs and trying to eliminate dairy products. So I used only a smidgen of feta cheese instead of goats cheese, as I had some in the fridge.

Both Owen and enjoyed the meal. I would have taken a photo of Owen eating some, but I had to have him on my lap. He particularly liked the roasted squash.

Killed by Kedgeree

2011-02-06T18:28:00.005-06:00

I had my mother-in-law Sheila over for dinner tonight, and she now thinks I'm trying to kill her!!!

Sheila doesn't enjoy spicy food and so when I decided that I was going to make spicy tofu kedgeree I opted to leave out the cayenne pepper and red chili pepper and instead use a non-hot pepper instead.

Or so I thought.....

Apparently I picked up 2 habanero peppers by mistake and the result was a dish so spicy that even Matt, who adores spicy food, could not eat!!!

It even gave me chemical burns!!!

I wonder if my Sheila will be 'busy' next time we invite her around for dinner?

Catch up time

2011-02-04T11:29:00.004-06:00

Dear readers, I'm sorry it's been a while since I last wrote properly. Getting back from the UK and then being stranded in South Bend has kinda disrupted my writing :)

So this post I'm going to catch y'all up with some of the meals I have eaten recently that are definitely worth a mention.

Ellie and I went down to visit one of our cousins, Helena in Surrey. On the night we arrived she made a delicious pork and bean stew/casserole. The liquid that it was cooked in was divine and I especially loved soaking it up with some freshly baked french baguette. That was 3 weeks ago (i think) but I can still remember the distinct flavour of the sauce. The meats were soft and succulent which, considering the relatively short cooking time, was both a surprise and a relief (I'm not a fan of stews with dry meat. There's nothing more dissatisfying than taking a bite into a stew that has a yummy sauce but meat that you could sole your shoes with!) Helena's meat was so far on the other end of the spectrum it almost fell off!! It was served with a celeriac and potato gratin.

The hearty tangy first course was followed by the sweet creaminess of a home made trifle. Mmmmm blancmange!!!!! Ok, so I'm going to risk sounding really picky again, but I hate it when trifles have too much fruit cocktail and/or jelly in them. My fave parts are the roll, blancmange and cream. Too much of the other stuff just gets in the way. Helena, again, got that right balance and delivered a trifle that declared it's creaminess but allowed that punch of fruit to make it's statement. I had some the next day for lunch too.

Helena's lovely boyfriend Diarra made breakfast the next morning and it was a salted fish bake served with homemade 'bread'. yummy! I think I already wrote about this particular dish from when we were in France, but it certainly deserves some more photo time. Thank you Diarra!

Last week I had Dr. Wilson (now known as Wilson, as I am no longer a student at his school) for dinner. I was going to make
this recipe but made a few adjustments. What I ended up with was a baked curry consisting of chicken bone-in thighs, fresh tomatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, onion and spinach. The spinach was added for the last 5 minutes of cooking time, in order to prevent too much additional water to the curry sauce.

Here is Wilson looking really excited about trying some of the curry!

It was delicious, I have to blow my own horn. I am definitely going to make that again, especially for when having friends over. It'll be good to have thrown in the oven an hour before they arrive.

In south bend I had a horrible experience with a hookah. No, I didn't spell that incorrectly, I mean a hookah pipe. I woke up in the middle of the night, after trying the whole hookah thing, with a headache that would not quit. I have never EVER had a headache of such magnitude. I imagine it's what a migraine is like, there was no escaping it and it made me feel nauseous. Matt, the sweetheart, kept putting cold wet hand towels on my head and that helped a little.

Anyway, the next morning I really wanted some home comfort and Matt was able to deliver by taking me to the Fiddlers Hearth in South Bend Indiana. It was the most authentic Irish pub I've been to here in America. That morning I was able to order a full Irish breakfast that had BLACK AND WHITE PUDDING, PROPER RASHERS AND REAL BAKED BEANS!!!!!! Heaven!!!! And I washed it all down with a pot of Barry's tea.

So impressed was I with the place, that we returned for dinner a couple nights later where I had the Molly Malone Stew (mussels, shrimp, scallops, beef, barley, vegetables) Another winner and toasted to with some more Barry's tea.

update

2011-01-25T17:29:00.003-06:00

Ok I've been neglecting this blog for a while now, but I have some meals to write about and will do so tomorrow. Tonight I'm having a guest over for a meal that I have tweaked so much he won't recognize it as what I told him we're having ;( Lets see how it all turns out....

More meals from Smell

2011-01-04T13:32:00.005-06:00

Yesterday ellie made a wonderful red lentil and chickpea soup.

I sat and drank a beer.

The soup was absolutely scrumptious!!!!

Today Ellie made chow mein.

Greg drank a bulmers

And then helped himself to some food.

The chow mein was yummy, spicy, but not tongue burning spicy!

FIsh cakes, fish cakes, very spicy fish cakes

2011-01-02T12:04:00.004-06:00

Tonight Ellie and I were on our own for dinner so we decided we'd make crab cakes and have them with a salad for dinner.

Unfortunately we couldn't find any crab so we made crawfish cakes instead.

They consist of crawfish, spring onion, birds eye chilli peppers and freshly ground black pepper. After dipping in egg and breadcrumbs they were fried in a little oil till golden.

I couldn't finish my as they were too spicy for me. I felt like my tongue was bleeding and my esophagus is currently behaving like a thermal reactor. Ellie inhaled hers. She thinks that it seemed so spicy to me because I'm getting over a cold. I have NEVER had anything that spicy EVER. I seriously feel like I swallowed a fiery sword.

The cakes were chocked full of lumps of crawfish, which I love, and so I am going to make them again, minus the insanely hot peppers.

Catch-up for my cousin Helena ;)

2010-12-24T13:33:00.004-06:00

Sorry readers, I haven't been great at posting this week but I HAVE been eating.... a lot!!!

On Wednesday Mum cheated and made a cheats casserole. It contains chicken, bacon, pinto beans, tomatoes and some seasoning. It was served with some baby veg (mange tout, sweetcorn, beans and carrots). A lovely warming meal!

Last night, after a couple glasses of wine at a local pub with a good friend, we had a goulash with potatoes and cabbage. Another hearty meal which is perfect for the weather we've been having!

See, told you we'd had some wine:

Tonight was the traditional boiled ham, mashed potatoes, cabbage, carrots and parsley sauce. And it didn't disappoint, it was freaking delish!!! Looking forward to having some cold ham with cheeses etc on boxing day.

Tomorrow? CHRISTMAS DINNER!!!!

Sorry this has been a short entry, things are picking up around here :)

My turn to cook

2010-12-19T14:23:00.004-06:00

So my Mum locked me in the kitchen today and told me I wasn't allowed out until I had cooked something.

Well not really, I offered to cook as Mum and Dad had a late carol service and wouldn't be back till 7ish.

So as it needed to be both a low fat and low carb meal I chose a cajun chicken recipe served with pineapple salsa on a bed of cauliflower rice.

The turkey was fried with some cajun seasoning. The shredded cauliflower was cooked for 6 mins in the microwave and then added to some sautéed red onion and red pepper with kidney beans in a small amount of chicken stock. The pineapple salsa consisted of fresh pineapple, red onion, red pepper, chilli pepper and lime juice.

The turkey was a little on the dry side for my liking. I would cook it in the chicken stock and veg next time in order to make it succulent.

I was pleasantly surprised with the pineapple salsa. I had feared it'd be too sweet, but the chilli gave you a punch in the face after the sweetness of the pineapple and so you were left with spice rather than too much sweetness. A good mix!

Mum and Dad both finished their plates and ate some remains too, so they either enjoyed it or I didn't give them a good portion size ;)

OH and I forgot to put up last nights pictures of our delicious chicken fajitas.

Rupert the cat liked the smell. He hung out with Dad for ages like this:

LAMB, I love LAMB

2010-12-17T16:46:00.003-06:00

Tonight Mum made a greek lamb and lemon casserole. I myself get nervous using any kind of lemon zest in cooking as I've often found that it doesn't soften up enough and I don't like the sudden bite of zest. This meal however did not have that problem as it was cooked low and slow.

The lemon flavour was fresh, without being overpowering, and the crumbled feta cheese added some saltiness that complemented the tang of the lemon.

As for the lamb itself, what can I say? It was succulent and delicious, the sauce did not cover its flavour and the lamb, feta and lemon really went well together :)

I also got to have my first glass of wine since I got here. And I still haven't had any beer, and I'm in IRELAND.... that's just wrong!!

As always, don't forget to kiss your cook!!!

2010-12-15T12:41:00.006-06:00

I write this blog entry feeling pleasantly full after 3 wonderful meals.

This morning I woke up at 3am (due to jet lag) and after 3 hours of reading and resting I decided to go downstairs to have some tea and toast.

When Mum and Dad had their breakfast around 8 I wasn't planning on having any more to eat...... until I heard what Mum was having.

It was a plain and creamy yogurt with blackberries, raspberries and red berries on top. There was also a heaped spoon of a ground up mixture that contained flaxseed, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame seeds and goji berries.

It was a great fresh second breakfast, though a little on the tart side. If I were making it for myself I would probably use frozen strawberries, blueberries and mango.

Lunch was a salad. Just what you want on a cold winters day, it really helped us warm up......ahem!

It was very tasty though and it was nice to have non-American cottage cheese for the first time in several years, it reminded me of why I used to love it so much.

After a 2 hour walk along the beach I was ready for a good dinner. Mum cooked savoury mince served with broccoli. The smell through the house when this was cooking was amazing.

The result (after wrestling with 2 pepper grinders) was a warming (seriously this time) hearty meal. I wasn't going to have anything for dessert.... until I saw a vanilla custard muller rice in the fridge which I then inhaled after heating it in the microwave. Definitely going to pick up some more of them when I am next in the shops.

Tomorrow we are going caroling at a hospital and somewhere else, so Mum thinks we might have stir fry, but we'll all have to wait and see.

Until then, as always, don't forget to kiss your cook :)

Chicken Cacciatore in County Cork

2010-12-14T13:24:00.002-06:00

After 18 hours of traveling I was more than ready to eat some of my Mums delicious home-cooking. How come it always smells, looks and tastes better when your Mum makes it?

Tonight Mum made Chicken Cacciatore, a dish of chicken, sun dried tomato paste, tomatoes, garlic, black olives capers and red bell pepper. It was served with bow tie pasta and fresh green beans.

Mmmmm it was yummy!

A wonderful combination of flavours, chicken that was lovely and moist and the fresh bite of the green beans resulted in a well rounded meal that leaves a gentle taste in the mouth afterwards.

I can't wait to see what Mum puts together tomorrow!!!

Until then, as always, don't forget to kiss YOUR cook, I kissed mine :)

On a side note, I'm going to have tea and toast for supper tonight.... for those of you who know me, you'll know how big a deal that is!

How to Cook Stew

2010-12-06T14:32:00.006-06:00

Find a recipe.

Chuck the meat in a pan with hot oil to brown.

Swap the meat for roughly chopped onion and carrots.

Throw the browned meat and veggies into a slow cooker with some herbs. Add the guinness.

Drink the remainder of the guinness. Try not to think about the fact that it's 1pm on a Sunday afternoon, you're wearing last nights makeup, pyjamas and drinking alcohol.

Let the stew slow cook for 3-4 hours. Try to stay awake while knitting a hat using double pointed knitting needles for the first time.

Bung in some mushrooms during the last hour of cooking.

Get dressed

Serve with mashed sweet potatoes and mashed parsnips.

This is a great hearty recipe if you like guinness. It tasted too much like guinness for my liking.

Don't forget to kiss your cook; unless she's passed out, then just leave her alone!

Tonights dinner was brought you by the colour Orange and the letter Mmmmm

2010-12-04T17:54:00.003-06:00

Although Matt thought I should name this entry "Orange you sad you're not having dinner with us?"

So as I mentioned earlier tonights dinner was a moroccan themed dinner. I made moroccan spiced fish on a bed of ginger mash and a side of moroccan spiced carrots.

The meal was cooked in 30 minutes and was easy to make, but it was non-stop for the 30 minutes.

Another success, the fish with its butter sauce was delish. I had never thought to put ginger with sweet potatoes, but it really went well together. The ginger added some depth to the potatoes without adding more sweetness. Matt has decided that we should add ginger to our thanksgiving sweet potatoes next year.

The carrots were steamed for 12 minutes and still had a bit of a bite to them. The dressing that they were tossed in was quite lemony, but not in a bad way. After the creaminess/sweetness of the mash it was nice to have something with a bite, both in texture and in flavour. Next time I would serve the fish and mash with a non-orange veg. Matt suggested just adding steamed broccoli along with the carrots.

I wasn't able to find any harissa and instead used a hot chilli paste that we use for making spicy sushi and Pho. I could have added more, neither of us were able to detect any hotness.

Tomorrow we are having left over soup for lunch (YUMMY!) and for dinner, before Matt flys back to Indiana, I'm going to make a beef and stout stew with carrots.

Spicy Lentil Soup (said with a lisp)

2010-12-04T14:18:00.003-06:00

I am a big fan of lentil soup. I love how hearty and warming it can be. Over the past several years I have tried several lentil soup recipes and I have always been disappointed. The end result was a soup that was bland, other than the pungent garlic, starchy and not worth keeping for left overs.

My big sister and Mum had both said great things about a BBC Good Food Spicy lentil soup recipe. And so it was a little bit of skepticism that I decided to try once more to make a lentil soup.

I was happy to see that there was no garlic required in the recipe. There must be something about lentils that cause them to react with garlic, absorb the flavour and make it extremely pungent.

The soup was extremely easy to make and took only 30 minutes. I was surprised at how few lentils went into it.

The final product was a fragrant thick soup. In my opinion it was a tad on the thick side, I would have preferred it to be a little more on the 'soupier' side and so will adjust the amount of vegetable stock accordingly next time. A squeeze of fresh lime at the table helped to cut through the starch.

The flavour was wonderful. There was a lot of "mmmmmmmm" and "aahhhhhhh" and "finally a lentil soup that tastes the way lentil soup should!" I think Matt would have preferred to have eaten his soup minus the soundtrack.

What's great news is that there are leftovers for tomorrows lunch!!!!!

As he was tidying the dishes off the table Matt asked "Naomi, why is your bowl so clean?"

I had used my finger to swipe around the empty bowl to get every last delicious morsel of the soup.

If you like lentil soup I cannot recommend this too strongly. It was great! Try it!!

Cooking again tonight, so there might be another post later today. Dinner tonight is a spicy moroccon fish dish with ginger sweet potato mash and moroccan carrots.

Until then, as always, don't forget to kiss YOUR cook.

Ok, so it's not cooking...

2010-11-23T19:01:00.003-06:00

.... but I wanted to post photos of the finished blanket I made for baby Kaiya Horn.

The front of the blanket with God's rainbow as a border

A close up of the cross stitching

The back of the blanket

Upcoming Thanksgiving Dinner

2010-11-23T12:08:00.004-06:00

It's that time of year when American families sit around the dinner table and gorge themselves on a typical thanksgiving meal.

The Barcomb family tends to deviate from the norm on this day. Last year we had Ham (usually a Christmas dish over here) as I want to save the Roast Turkey dinner for Christmas.

This year we are having Lamb! I'm also going to be making roast potatoes (a la Delia Smith), yorkshire pudding, broccoli and gravy.

Then on Friday we are going to be having ham with Joshua.

Trader Joes

2010-11-14T17:23:00.005-06:00

Today Matt and I went to 'Trader Joes' a new 'specialty food grocers'. It's a chain that just opened it's first store in Omaha on Saturday.

The place was PACKED. Matt started to get grumpy about the number of people there until I reminded him that it was just like an Irish supermarket ;)

The store was nice and clean, but I wouldn't really call it a place that sells specialty foods. It was more that it sells off brands of regular food, has a higher amount of organic stuff and very little selection but a larger selection of imports than other stores.. Whole Foods Supermarket is much more what I would term a specialty food store.

Nevertheless, we bought 2 pizzas and a wild mushroom and black truffle flatbread. There are lot of little things I'd like to try from their, but most are foods that I'd serve when I have guests coming over. Then I just want to bung some stuff in the oven, toss it onto a serving tray and get loads of compliments for how nice it looks and how great it tastes ;)

I got very excited when I saw they had a large wall of cheeses, but was disappointed to see that about half of them were just different types of cheddar. Not a wedge of Wensleydale in sight!

Tonight for dinner I made some salad to serve with a couple of slices of one of the pizzas we bought.

The pizza was an organic woodfired sicilian style pizza with red pepper, provalone and peral mozzarella cheese. It also came with a small packet of olive oil with red pepper in it which was applied to the pizza half way through cooking to give it some spice.

The crust was delcious, reminiscent of crusts from France and Italy (the pizza is an import from Italy) but it was a little more crisp that they serve it over there. I think that was my fault.

Now I know you might think "Pizza? I thought she was trying to make her husband LOSE weight!" Well it's all about moderation. If I starve him and feed him nothing but salads he's not going to stick to it and is more likely to binge when he's in Indiana. So we had less than a serving size of the pizza and a huge amount of salad. Peaches were for desert.

So now it's back to 'cooking' for one until Friday, but that gives me time to think about what I can cook when Matt does get home. So I promise to have some great recipes to blog about next weekend!

Until then, as always, don't forget to kiss YOUR cook!

Who says there has to be meat in........ Ahi Tuna??

2010-11-13T19:20:00.003-06:00

Well ME actually, it would rather weird to have an ahi tuna steak with no fish in it.

Anyway, my darling husband needs to lose weight (I do too, but for aesthetic reasons rather than being overweight). Over the years he has been slowly putting on more weight and always plans on losing it.

Well today I lost it!!! I told him that as long as he lives under my roof he can eat the food I make for him with no complaints!!

He does this anyway, but I haven't really been cooking in a way that is most conducive for him to lose his weight long term. Also since he started working out of state (and eating at restaurants twice a day) I haven't been cooking for him over the weekend because we go out for date breakfast, date lunch and date dinner. That gets uber expensive and doesn't help him in the slightest.

So no more!!

Tonight I made a seared ahi tuna steak and served it with a salad .

To dress the salad I used olive garden salad dressing, sImply the bestest salad dressing EVER.

I know I mentioned in the first blog post that I'm not a fan of salad dressings. Well this really is my one exception. It has the perfect balance of all the ingredients and tastes nothing like any other salad dressing I have tried in the past. It makes eating salad fun, and a small bit goes a long way; I used 4 tbsp of the salad dressing for the two of us and it would have been ok with only 2 or 3 tbsp.

The tuna turned out great. It was very easy, I just ground some pepper and sprinkled some kosher salt onto both sides of the steaks. I seared them in a small amount of olive oil for 2 minutes on each side. It was then time for eating! Yum :) The steak was slightly crispy on the outside and beautifully pink on the inside. It always amazes me how different tuna tastes when it is cooked. Raw beef and cooked beef taste very similar, but tuna really takes on a strong flavour when cooked.

Now I have to find something to cook for tomorrow. Matt leaves for the airport at 5.40pm and so I"m going to make sure I have an early dinner ready for him so he doesn't eat at the airport.

So stay tuned and, as always, don't forget to kiss YOUR cook!

Who says there has to be meat in....... chili

2010-11-11T17:43:00.005-06:00

Tonights meal was another entry for the chili competition. This one was sent from Oliver in Wales.

The recipe requires

1 Pack of Quorn mince

1 tin of chopped tomatoes (none of that American rubbish, a nice decent no added anything British tin. Or Tesco Value)

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

Half a tube of tomato puree

Teaspoon of dried mixed herbs

Chilli powder (regular)

Fresh chillis

1 tin of Kidney beans

1 green pepper

Tabasco sauce

Cheddar Cheese (grated) – most important ingredient !!!

I was not able to find Quorn brand and so instead used morning star tvp crumbles. It was served with rice and I also additionally made some cheddar garlic scones too.

Friends came over for dinner tonight to try it. Some of them had also had the other chili I made at Halloween.

The vote unanimous: it was DELICIOUS!!!!
The tvp did not feel like a substitute that was merely acceptable. The taste and texture was great. The bell pepper added some bite to the dish and although tinned tomatoes were used it was NOT too much and therefore didn't have the acidic tang that I associate with tinned tomatoes. Mixing a serving with the rice and cheese at the table provided a really hearty dish, without the fat content of meat. Everything about the dish from the appearance to the taste and smell was a pleasure to experience. I shall definitely be making this chili again.

After talking to the people who had tried the last chili we all agreed that although the Jamie Oliver chili was good, this vegetarian chili was even better. So congratulations to Oliver, some Famous Daves BBQ will be on its way to you after the weekend!!

And, as always, don't forget to kiss your cook!!

finally, news on chili

2010-11-04T14:58:00.004-05:00

And I'm not talking about those miners either!!

I made the first chili for the Halloween party we threw last weekend. It was a recipe submitted by Annalouise and is a Jamie Oliver concoction.

I used all fresh tomatoes (aside from the sundried ones) and I am very glad I did, the final product had a WONDERFUL taste without the processed salty 'tang'. The cinnamon stick, which I have never had in chili, added a certain sweetness to the dish and rounded out the tangyness of the tomatoes.

As it was cooking and before the beans were added I was a little concerned because it looked more like a spaghetti sauce than a chili. But once the beans were added it thickened the whole thing up.

One thing I will say is that I would have liked to have more meat in it and maybe another vegetable to add some 'crispness' and variety to the texture.

All in all it was a success, every party guest who tried it liked it! Furthermore when I took it out of the fridge a couple of days later and reheated some it tasted even better!!!! The flavours obviously had time to mingle :)

Thank you Annalouise for your entry, I will use this recipe again in the future :)

Next chili is a quorn based chili. Looking forward to trying that :D

Chili update

2010-10-17T15:38:00.001-05:00

The first chili will be made on Saturday October 23rd. Watch this space..... again..... :D

Fizzy Mozzarella anyone?

2010-10-08T15:51:00.002-05:00

Dear readers, I have a question for you:

Anyone know anything about fizzy Mozzarella and if it's bad??

Here's my story. I made a dinner for myself this week with a french baguette, tomato, leafy greens and a ball of mozzarella. When I started eating it I realized that something within the sandwich was fizzy on my tongue. After some probably unattractive investigation in which I probed each ingredient with my tongue I found that it was the Mozzarella that was the culprit. It didn't taste bad, but it was fizzy and kind of hurt my tongue.

For some unknown reason, I finished the sandwich, which was quite large. 3 days later and my tummy is still acting rather strange.

I tried looking up information online, but couldn't find anything.

Anyone know anything?

Update on Chili

2010-10-04T22:54:00.001-05:00

Ok so we have the entries in and we have......... wait for it............... (drum roll)......... 3 entries!!!!

I shall do a random draw and cook them in that order.

Watch this space!!!

Some People Too Hot for Chili???

2010-09-23T10:47:00.001-05:00

So far I have only one recipe being sent my way. Come on people, there's some yummy bbq sauce up for grabs..... (I ship internationally!!!)

Chilly Chilly..... Chili

2010-09-20T20:59:00.004-05:00

It's getting closer to that time of year.

What time of year, I hear you ask?

CHILI TIME!!

Last winter I took part in a chili cook-off and came in last. True, there were only 4 or 5 entries, but still, last is LAST. And I know why; I used tinned tomatoes and tinned tomato juice. Very processed tasting, very salty and very acidic. In contrast, the winner of last years cook-off, had a more subtle flavour and a variety of textures.

On a side note: Kyle, the cook-off host, made some of 'the worlds hottest chili' which was so hot it literally blistered my face. I sweated and the sweat left welts!!!!

This year, I am going to experiment from scratch!

So we all know that there are some staples found in chili; beef, tomato, beans etc, but I intend to put together a concoction that will take all that stuff and make it better.

Luckily we have a small crock pot (a slow cooker for my european readers) that we have used in the past to make queso dip. I'll be able to use that to try out combining flavours over a low heat for long hours without making gallons of the stuff and forcing myself to eat it for 2 weeks straight.

We had a lovely cold snap over the weekend, visions of lighting the fire, warming some apple cider and eating bowls of chili sprung to mind. Yet today was back to around 90F (32 degrees Celsius) and so it kind of thwarted my drive to stop by the shop on my way home and buy my first set of ingredients. The rest of the week looks pretty much the same, hot and muggy with thunderstorms, so I'm going to use the time to 'think' about possible ingredients.

So I ask you, my readers, do you have any suggestions for interesting chili ingredients? If I use any of your suggestions I shall make sure to call attention to it when I use it!!!!

Ooooh, here's an additional great idea: Send me YOUR recipe for chili!! I shall cook and blog about the first 5 recipes and my favourite will WIN 2 bottles of Famous Daves BBQ Sauce

Your recipes can be any kind of variety of chili; vegetarian, chicken, bean free.... whatever!!! Just get the recipes to me (njbarcomb@gmail.com) by October 4th for a chance to win some yummy bbq sauce, perfect for this time of year to jazz up your meats!

Also, you don't have to be a follower of this blog to enter, the more the merrier, but remember, only the first 5 will be cooked and blogged :)

I won't use YOUR recipes in any cook-off this year, it'll just be something fun to try, blog about and give a prize :)

Who says there has to be meat in a burger?

2010-09-08T17:24:00.002-05:00

As the fall season approaches it's been so nice to have the windows open throughout the house. I love the smell of an aired house, it reminds me of home.

Matt has some good news, he was offered and accepted a new job!! He is going to be working for Pillar Technology Group LLC as an agile coach and delivery lead (whatever that means!) I thought he was going into the postal service or gynecology, but no, it's software delivery. So for the next six months he'll be flying each week to South Bend, Indiana and coming home for the weekends. After that he'll be flying to wherever the next customer is located. He's super excited about it, looking forward to doing some of the work he has a huge interest in. I'm really proud of him for the way he went about looking for a new job once he decided he was through with Union Pacific.

So in just under two weeks I'll have to find way of cooking well for one person during the week.

Tonight I made portobello mushroom burgers with a tomato pepper salad and cantaloupe.

I love portobello burgers! I just add some water (about 3 shot glasses worth) and oil to a pan, heat it up and then add the whole mushrooms. I let them 'steam' for about 3-4 minutes each side and then serve. They are always so tender and juicy and get a really good flavour from being cooked. I served the burger with sauteed red onions, sliced avocado and a sprinkling of feta cheese. Yummy!

The salad was a quick throw together of tomatoes, yellow onion and yellow bell pepper, a little bit of olive oil and some hot salsa seasoning. It was fresh, tangy, crunchy and contrasted with the tenderness of the portobello burger.

For dessert we had some fresh cantaloupe melon. Mmmmmmm sticky face!

Matt has a conference tomorrow, so I'll be cooking something just for me. It'll most likely have mushroom in it as I have leftovers.

And, as always, don't forget to kiss your cook!

Too many cooks? I don't think so!

2010-09-01T19:04:00.009-05:00

Well since my last entry both Matt and I have cooked a meal. Actually, Matt should have cooked 2 meals, but the first time he went to the store and came back with ready to eat chinese food. Hmmmm, not exactly cooking if you just have to open your fork!!

I had some left over basil from the salsa I made last week and so I used it to make some Summer chicken and basil stew.

I had to alter the recipe a bit. Instead of using 4 chicken thighs I used 1 chicken breast and 2 pork chops as I had them in the freezer and wanted to get rid of them.

It was a simple recipe and the comments from other cooks on the website said it was yummy! It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest.

The flavour was good, but it was missing 'something'. Matt suggested that some big beefy portobello mushrooms would have been good with it and I agree. I don't think I'll cook it again.

Then yesterday I stayed late at school to study for my organic chemistry test and so I emailed Matt asking him to be in charge of getting dinner. Luckily he remember his scolding when last time he returned with the chinese food, so this time when I got home there were 4 pots going on the stove. He made a lovely spaghetti dish with a creamy white wine sauce, scallops, mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes. Then at the table we sprinkled a little crumbled gorgonzola cheese on it. It was delicious!!!!! I could have easily had seconds, but I'm trying to stop that.

I did eat again later though; we have been watching the 1980s A team and so I had some large pretzel sticks while also pretending to be hannibal.

Penny was very confused and spent the whole time sitting on my lap wondering why food was hanging out of my mouth for such a long time!!

It's a wrap!

2010-08-27T17:46:00.003-05:00

Wow, today I had my first physics lab in 11 years! 11 YEARS!!!! I'm getting old. I was in English class the other day and when the teacher asked people to raise their hand if they were too young to vote in the last presidential election, half the class raised their hands. OLD!!!

To rejuvinate myself, and hopefully prevent myself from taking a nap when I got home from school (at 3pm), I put the latino music station on my satellite radio in the car. Which then got me to think about the movie Tortilla Soup. If you haven't seen the movie but you like cooking, it's a good one to watch! Food is quite a big part of the movie and it left me wanting to own a set of brightly coloured dishes.

Feeling so inspired I stopped by walmart on my home and bought the following ingredients: tomatoes, avocados, yellow bell pepper, red onion, lime, whole grain tortilla wraps, fat free refried beans and Uncle Ben's Spanish rice.

With these ingredients, and some chicken strips and lettuce from home, I made some mexican wraps. I made a homemade salsa using the tomatoes, red onion, bell pepper, fresh basil and freshly squeezed lime. I spread that on the tortilla and added the lettuce, chicken, guacamole (made fresh) and a sprinkle of cheese. I served with a side of rice and beans.

Now, I only got the sides so I wouldn't have to listen to Matt complain of being hungry, but he didn't even eat it!!! He felt pleasantly full from the wrap. He did, however, finish his 'other side' the mango margarita!!

I loved the salsa I made, I'm happy there's left overs. I might make a meal around that tomorrow!

Omaha Limited

2010-08-23T17:48:00.005-05:00

There are many things I specifically do NOT like about living in Omaha. One of these many things is that it's very hard to find certain types of food. While it might be possible to obtain 'speciality' ingredients in the city, one would have to literally take a 32 mile roundtrip drive to some of these stores. And that might just be for one single ingredient, now what if there are more and you have to now go 10 miles in the opposite direction? Who has that time???

So unfortunately I am not going to be able to cook all the recipes in my cook book. I simply do not have the time to search the city for (or have the money to pay for ) these specialty items :(

However, I am not throwing my towel in to the cooking arena. One must still eat!

My dear Mama told me about the BBC good food cooking website and I have signed up for that. I am now officially on the lookout for bargain recipe books too.

Tonight, brought to you by the BBC, we had Easy Thai Prawn Curry . The recipe called for tinned tomatoes, but I used fresh tomatoes and instead of a 50g sachet of coconut cream (what is that? Is it a powder? Who does liquids in weights??) I used about half a can of coconut milk.

I also used fully cooked frozen shrimp by accident.

The recipe was super easy and only took about 30 minutes start to finish. I am a big fan of curries that have coconut milk in them, they are creamy and have a distinct sweetness that is able to cut through the spice of the red thai curry paste.

Additional seasoning was required, probably due to the fact that I didn't use canned tomatoes. I wasn't happy with the depth of the flavour in the dish. It required something 'extra', but I don't know what would have done it. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Due to reading my Uncle Ken's cooking blog I half expected my cousin Victoria and her cute children (Poppy and Joey) to pass by. Alas, they didn't.... they live in Wales.

I would definitely make this dish again, it would be a nice one to serve when having guests over as it was super quick, easy and could be offered with a variety of side dishes to help contrast and cool. I often find that when I'm cooking for company I choose things that make me sweat all over, smell of garlic and set on fire!!!

Right, I'm off back to the BBC Good Food Cooking website to look for the next meal!

And, as always, don't forget to kiss your cook!

I guess if there's ever a good time to get a stomach bug...

2010-08-13T15:30:00.002-05:00

.... it's when your husband is away and you only have to cook for yourself!

So other than the olive bread I made nearly a week ago, I have been living off very plain and bland food. Today I went to see 'eat love pray' at the cinema and so I spoiled myself with a tub of plain popcorn. I didn't eat most of it and have brought the remains home with me to munch on when I feel peckish.

My appetite is coming and going at really weird times at the moment. I'll have no appetite during the day and then at 8pm I'm ravenous!! But still only for plain stuff.

So needless to say, I haven't done any of the cooking from my book :(

Hopefully the antibiotics the doctor prescribed will get me back on track and into the kitchen!

I love bread!

2010-08-08T10:30:00.003-05:00

It's so delicious, it can be made sweet or savoury and you can add any number of toppings to it. Versatile as it is, my preferred bread is just bog ordinary white bread; not all sweet tasting, just plain bread with marmite and peanut butter spread on top. Mmmmm heavenly deliciousness!

With Matt being gone for the week I didn't want to stop my cooking and so I figured that if I bake bread from my cookbook then it shouldn't go to waste. So yesterday I made olive bread.

I don't remember ever making bread before where you have to knead it and let it rise. There is some foggy memory from Home Economics class, but I'm not too sure about that. So this was my first venture into true bread making in adulthood. (I have a wonderful recipe for irish soda bread which is soooo easy, just bung the ingredients together, stir and bake!)

As I already mentioned, I'm not a fan of sweet bread (in fact I hate it, I get angry anytime I have plain white bread over here! so freaking sweet, yuck!), so I was happy to see that this recipe doesn't require any sugar :)

2 red onions are fried until soft and then added to 7 cups of plain white flour with 1 1/3 cups of roughly chopped olives, 4 tbsp roughly chopped fresh parsley, 1 1/2 tsp salt and 4 tbsp of dried active yeast. 2 cups of hand hot water are added and the whole thing is mixed with a flat edged knife to form a dough. Then knead for ten minutes.

TEN MINUTES???!!!! Good God! That 10 minutes never seemed to end. My arms were killing me by the end of it.

So after the 10 laborious minutes you place the dough in a clean bowl, cover and allow to sit in a warm place until it's doubled its size (about 45 minutes in my case). Then turn out onto a chopping board, cut in two and place the two halves onto lightly greased baking trays. Cover with oiled cling film and allow to sit until doubled in size again (another 30-40 minutes). Finally bake at 425F /220C/gas mark 7 for 40 minutes.

The recipe made 2 whole loaves and that is too much, even for me! So I'm taking a loaf down to some friends down the street.

I've had 3 slices of the finished product so far and it's pretty good! The olives give it a kind of sweetness, which is ok because this isn't supposed to be plain bread. I think I would have preferred for there to be more onions and seasonings in it. It's a very delicate flavor and I feel it needs just a smidgen more to be perfect!

Other news, I spent the day in the garden; weeding and napping on the hammock. So after the TEN MINUTES (crikey!) of dough kneading I decided that I had earned myself a shower and something nice for dinner. I settled on a mediterranean pizza from Kashi. It has "Spinach, red onions, sweet red peppers, four signature cheeses including Feta with roasted red pepper sauce on a stone-fired kashi 7 whole grains and sesame with flax seed crust.

It was very yummy! Some people might compare the crust to cardboard, but I'd think they'd be doing it a diservice. The crust was whole grain and gritty in a pleasant way and really allowed the flavors of the toppings to be the focus of attention :) I served my pizza with a nice large glass of conquista malbec.

To make a good evening perfect I was able to talk with and see Matthew via Skype for a good 20 minutes before heading to bed. Being able to see someone instead of just talking over the phone makes such a huge difference. There are times when I feel very 'family sick' (no, not OF them, but due to the lack of them!) and so it's nice to be able to actually see them! I'm already looking forward to seeing them again soon :)

And, as always, don't forget to kiss your cook!

Cocina espanola es muy buena y sabrosa

2010-08-06T17:29:00.003-05:00

As today is the last day I shall be feeding Matt, (he's going away for a week to a conference in Orlando) I decided that I would cook dishes that he would particularly like and it turned into a Spanish themed meal with all dishes originating in Spain. Hence the name of the title, which is Spanish for "Spanish cooking is very good and tasty", although there should be a squiggle above the n in espanola, but I don't know how to do that on my macbook!

The Spanish theme also celebrates the fact that I drove to Walmart by myself in Manuel today. Doesn't sound much does it? But walmart is built on a hill and has a 4 way stop sign on the top.... I was dreading it! But Manuel and I did very well and we were so proud of ourselves that we called Matt to eeek down the phone once we made it to the parking lot!

I am not a huge meat eater (no size comments please ;), and when I do cook meat it is usually fish or chicken. Matt loves his pork and sausage and so I chose to make Spanish Pork and Sausage Casserole from the Catalan region of Spain. I was not able to find the special 'butifarra sausage' and had to use sweet Italian sausage instead.

Boneless pork chops, whole sausages, onion and garlic are all fried in a pan to brown before adding white wine, plum tomatoes, bay leaf, salt and pepper. The mixture is then left to cook covered for 30 minutes while filling the kitchen with some wonderful aromas. Just before serving the sausage is sliced and mixed back in to the casserole.

As a side I chose Spanish potatoes, which are new potatoes par cooked then fried in a little oil to crispen up prior to adding a spicy sauce with green bell pepper. The sauce was made simply with crushed garlic, crushed red chillies, cumin, paprika and white wine vinegar. It's not really a sauce in the true sense. It was added with the bell pepper to the potatoes for only two minutes and it really just gives a coating of flavor, no fluid is left, it all clings to the potatoes.

The two dishes went really well together and Matt ate a lot of his with his eyes closed and making some kind of moaning noise. I take that to be a good thing! Either that or Bentley was licking his feet under the table ;)

For desert I made Crema Catalana which is a cross between creme caramel and creme brulee. Milk was boiled with a cinnamon stick and pared lemon rind. Egg yolks, sugar and corn flour were whisked together and then added to the milk. After cooking for 5 minutes the mixture was poured into two pudding dishes and allowed to set and then chilled for several hours.

What is supposed to happen next is that sugar is sprinkled on top and then fired, as is done with creme brulee, but the fire torch wasn't working properly and the broiler (grill) didn't appear to do the job. So we ended up with a soft sugariness instead of a caramelized snap on top. But it still tasted really good and I was surprised how much of a flavor was achieved by just the cinnamon stick and lemon rind.

Tonight we're going to go see Inception at the movie theater, and I'M driving!!!

And as always, don't forget to kiss the cook!

It's good to have contrast on your plate.

2010-08-05T20:08:00.007-05:00

One thing that distinguishes a good dish from a great dish, in my opinion, is when there are foods on the same plate that contrast each other in an enjoyable way (I'm not thinking of strawberries with a mustard sauce!!! ).

Tonight I was able to create such a dish. Polpettes with roasted tomatoes and garlic served with a spring green salad.

First I cut plum tomatoes in half and placed them snugly in a shallow baking dish before stuffing spaces with whole unpeeled garlic cloves and bay leaves. The tomatoes were then brushed with olive oil and seasoned generously with pepper before being placed in an oven at 450F (230C/gas mark 8) for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile I prepared the polpettes. Polpettes are "fried morsels of potato and greek feta cheese, flavoured with dill and lemon juice".

The potatoes are boiled with their skins on and only peeled once they have cooked through. Feta cheese, spring onion, dill, beaten egg and freshly squeezed lemon juice are added to the mashed potatoes and seasoned with freshly ground pepper. I chose not to season with any salt; feta cheese is already relatively salty. I did not miss the additional salt, the flavour with the fresh dill was magnificent!

The mashed mixture is allowed to chill until it is firm. Due to the fact that I spent a good deal of time talking to my Dad and sister Ellie on skype it was pretty late by the time I was cooking dinner. So at 7.30pm after only chilling for about 15 minutes I decided I couldn't hold off any more and proceeded to move on with the recipe. Ideally I think the mash could have stayed in the fridge for another 30 minutes.

The reason for chilling is that once it is firm it is scooped into walnut sized balls, doused with flour and gently flattened into a 'nugget' shape. These polpettes are then fried in olive oil and THIS is where you're going to want to make sure that they are firm, otherwise you might end up with a greasy mashed potato mess on your hands.

Patience is also the key to success here; I left the polpettes for about 4 minutes before turning them over. Turning them over too soon can also lead to a mashy mess and the potato takes quite a while to brown.

Once browned, place on and pat with paper towels to absorb any excess oil. The final product, which is best served straight away, is crispy yet not greasy on the outside while warm and creamy on the inside.

The tomatoes should come out of the oven sizzling and charred around the edges. Timing worked out perfectly for me, I allowed my tomatoes to cool covered for about 20 minutes before the polpettes were ready and this prevented any injuries occuring from hot gushes of water from the roma tomatoes!!! I have had hot tomato juice spray in my face when making bruschetta on more than one occasion and let me tell you, it aint a nice thing!

The spring green salad that was served as a side was an organic blend from walmart. I don't like salad dressings and so I always provide a bottle of balsamic vinegar instead, which Matt is more than happy with. The roasted garlic cloves were squeezed onto the tomato by each person on their own plate.

The contrasting tastes were achieved through the creaminess of the interior of the polpettes flavoured with the dill and the sharp tang that came with the roasted tomatoes. It was really pleasant and I still have a nice taste in my mouth, which I am savoring.

And don't forget... always kiss the cook!!!

Bourguignon your pardon?

2010-08-05T12:17:00.003-05:00

I am still alive! My escapades in my new car (named Manuel) have not significantly decreased my expected life span YET; we'll have to wait and see how the winter here treats me!

I really haven't been doing much cooking recently :( The last couple of days that Joshua was with us I just made some of his favorite food before sending him down to his Moms place in Kansas. And then this week I've been so preoccupied with my new car that I haven't even done my weekly shop and it's Thursday! We are down to one roll of kitchen towel and one roll of toilet paper and Bentley is eating Pennys special urinary tract health dog food.

On Monday however I did cook a beef bourguignon from an erin sachet (kindly sent over by my doting parents). It was delicious, tasted nice and homey and included a glass of red wine which, I'm sure some of my relatives who were in France will be happy to know, was my first glass of red wine since returning from France 9 days earlier! (I drank at least one glass a day whilst in France).

I left the bacon out of the recipe as we are trying to loose weight and instead added extra mushrooms and fresh green beans. I served it with a chunk of Italian bread to soak up the sauce.

My stash of sachets sent over from Ireland is nearly gone, so will have to start buttering up the old folks to send some more ;) Seriously though, it is nice to have some good proper from home meals.

Fingers crossed my next blog will include a recipe from my cookbook!!!!

Eat well, think well, live well.

All is quiet on the cooking front.

2010-08-04T13:01:00.003-05:00

No updates for a while. First my car died and then my laptop decided it's life was also over. So not only have I been doing less cooking due to practising driving manual transmission, the few meals I have cooked I haven't been able to blog. This blog is laboriously being typed on my free I pod touch that I got with my mac book pro! I should be getting my laptop tonight with all my docs from my pc transferred over.

Dinner tonight? Sandwiches followed by cherries that were NOT picked fresh from a tree in France!

All is quiet on the cooking front.

2010-08-04T13:01:00.001-05:00

Back to Homaha.

2010-07-27T07:28:00.003-05:00

No more fresh baguettes, smelly cheeses or red wine for me (unfortunately).

But, I still have my wonderful cookbook to cook through, so on to the next meal..... which last night was Brodetto.

Brodetto is an Italian fish dish made in many different regions with differing variations, but what remains common is the need for a good homemade fish stock.

Onion, celery and tilapia fillets (it should have been fish steak with bones, but due to the hot weather I didn't want to leave my other groceries in the car while buying it) are boiled for 30 minutes to make the stock.

Meanwhile tomatoes are scalded and peeled, more onion and garlic is chopped and fried in olive oil. The fish stock is added to the onion, garlic and tomatoes along with some white wine and saffron threads ($15 for a teeny tiny pouch!). Steamed mussels, squid, octopus, krab, shrimp and the boiled fish are added to the sauce and allowed to simmer for 5 minutes.

The final product was served with a small amount of jasmine rice.

It was yummy! All three of us went back for seconds (minus the rice) and Joshua especially liked to see the sucky pads of the squid :)

Matt compared it to a non salted version of the west indie breakfast Diarra made for the family in France, and I can see what he means. Which reminds me Helena, if you're reading this, can you please email me with that recipe??

The fish steaks would have worked better than the small tilapia fillets, it would have held together better. I also didn't care for the krab, the real thing would have been way better.

Josh followed his meal with a couple scoops of ice cream. I also had one small scoop, but had to fight my way through Matthew to be able to do so. He was quite right though, France has piled on another 6lbs and so I really don't have the room for any special treats yet; not until I meet my first weight loss goal. Don't worry people, I'm not going to starve myself. I just want to get to a place where I don't feel like I'm dragging around extra weight :)

What will I cook next?

Bread, bread, I couldn't get my bread....

2010-07-05T12:15:00.004-05:00

... before I write about yesterdays cooking I have some WONDERFUL news to share!

Those of you who have known me growing up will be aware that one of my favorite food staples is tea and toast. I used to regularly eat 4 to 6 slices of toast with marmite for supper and basically survived on the stuff throughout my college years. Whenever I return to Ireland for visits I eat about 10 metric tons of toast with my youngest sister Ellie.

Over here, in America, the bread is very different; it is super sweet and has a different consistency. So in the past, when I've wanted some tea and toast I have not been able to do so because if I try making it with the bread over here I just end up getting angry at the sweetness and grittiness of the bread.

This morning our good friends Ryan and Julia took us out to brunch at a place called 'Wheatfields' The menu was huge and I finally decided on an Italian frittata with red onions and bell peppers. The menu said that it would be served with some ciabatta bread. The bread that actually arrived looked nothing like ciabatta and I assumed it was just regular sweet awful American bread.

However, being the glutton that I am I still tried a nibble of it and just about started crying!!! It has the same taste and consistency of the bread I have grown up with!!!! I ate my two slices with some delicious jam (another unusual thing to find over here, not a trace of high fructose corn syrup in it!) and then my wonderful husband allowed me to steal his two slices too. If Ryan and Julia's meals had come with the toast I would have had no problem groveling for theirs too, what do manners count for when there is real toast available!?!

To make things even better the restaurant sells their bread in an adjoining bakery shop!!!! Unfortunately they were out of it this morning, but Matt has promised me he will stop by on his way back from picking Joshua up to see if they have made some more.

Oh happy day!

Yesterday was Independence Day (or angry colonists day) and so we had Ryan and Julia over for dinner, games, a fire and to watch the fireworks from the deck.

For the occasion I made spinach empanadillas (anyone know if the dilla is pronounced the same as in quesadilla or do you say the l's?), a tomato mozarella and basil pizza, and goat's cheese and crostini with fruit. I forgot to take photos before serving the dishes and so the photos I am putting up were taken when Ryan reminded me, hence why most of the empanadillas are gone :)

Spinach empanadillas are puff pastry turnovers stuffed with spinach, pine nuts, raisins, garlic and anchovies. They turned out really well and I will certainly do them again as finger food when we have company over. I made them in advance and just bunged them in the oven for 20 minutes when the guests arrived. The good thing about them too is that you can pretty much put whatever you want in them. A great party food and very yummy.

The pizza is a recipe that I've been working on for a while now. It's a very basic recipe where I roast a full garlic bulb and use that as the 'sauce' before adding the mozzarella and tomato slices. Fresh basil is added when it comes out of the oven and it results in a lovely fresh tasting pizza with nice undertones that only roasted garlic can provide. One problem is that the mozzarella I have been using tends to release a lot of liquid when it goes into the over and so it can get rather soggy. I have used a low moisture version, but then the consistency of the melted cheese wasn't what I wanted. Any suggestions??

The goat's cheese and crostini with fruit was a success too. It is basically toasted french bread slices rubbed with garlic, sprinkled with chopped spring onion and then topped with a slice of goats cheese that has marinated in olive oil, walnut oil and sherry (though I just used some Riesling as we had less than a glass left in a bottle). The toasted bread topped with cheese is put under the grill and then served with a tomato orange salsa. I was a little nervous about the salsa (tomatoes, oranges, fresh basil, olive oil and brown sugar) but they went really well together and the combination of the textures was rather pleasing :)

I'm not going to be cooking today, Josh is spending the night at his gramms house and Matt has a meeting this evening, so I'm going to eat mustgos.... food that must go from the fridge. That being said, there will probably be no blog entry until Wednesday.

Until then bon apetite!

Meal ONE

2010-07-04T13:28:00.004-05:00

Due to a heavy brunch yesterday, courtesy of Village Inn, I decided that my first meal from my cook book should be a salad. So I turned to the salad section and made the first salad: Provencal Salad.

Nice and easy I thought to myself, what a great way to start. Little did I realise that this 'salad' would require 3 pots of boiling water and the oven!!!! For a salad?? My aim for the next salad is to sweat just a little less during the intense preparation.

The salad itself consists of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, green beans, boiled potatoes, boiled eggs, tuna, anchovies, olives, homemade croutons and homemade anchovy vinaigrette. It was a rather filling meal, I didn't finish my portion. The homemade dressing was delicious, I usually skip dressings altogether and opt for a naked salad as I feel that dressing can oftentimes be too pungent and/or oily. Yet this dressing (Dijon mustard, anchovy fillets, garlic, white wine vinegar, canola oil, olive oil and fresh ground pepper) was just the right consistency and left a lovely taste on the pallet for the rest of the evening.

I have already run into ingredients problems.... The vinaigrette recipe called for sunflower oil. But nowhere on the 14ft by 7 ft shelf of oils at walmart was there any sunflower oil! After a quick consultation with my HTC hero smart phone I opted for canola oil as a substitute.

Matthew has suggested that I have a system for getting through the cookbook. If I were to just pick things that look the most appealing to me I would inevitably end up with recipes that I don't particularly want to try! So when I decide that we are going to have a meat dish I shall go to the first recipe in the meat section and so on. A great suggestion from Matt, although he began to question himself when I told him there is a recipe of calf's liver with honey..... all of a sudden just choosing what we wanted seemed more appealing to him afterall!! But I do think his idea is the best way to go about it and so I'm going to stick to that.

However, when we have guests coming over (as we do tonight) I am going to pick and choose what I serve, so watch this space :)

Mediterranean Food of the Sun

2010-07-03T12:51:00.005-05:00

Several months ago I was perusing books at a local bookstore and picked up a copy of "Julie and Julia" by Julie Powell. I read the synopsis, quickly rolled my eyes and placed it back in the stand when I saw that it was about a 30 year old girl having some sort of life identity crisis. Blah blah blah I thought to myself, I'm nowhere near that stage of my life and have no desire to read about it.

Now I find myself in a very similar situation; looking for some kind of project that I can take on and gain some enjoyment through. For those of you unfamiliar with Julie and Julia you can check this out.

I used to love cooking! But recently it has become a chore and my meals lack any kind of imagination. I dread sitting down to make the weekly menu and so we have been doing a lot of eating out, which throws money away and results in us eating unhealthy foods. Both my husband and I have gained weight.

Today we went back to the aforementioned bookstore to buy French phrase books for our upcoming holiday. While there I noticed a wonderful brightly coloured cookbook "Mediterranean Food of the Sun: Over 400 vibrant step-by-step recipes from the shores of Italy, Greece, France, Spain, North Africa and the Middle East.."

Hmmmm, maybe I should do something similar to Julie and Julia!?!

I left the bookstore with the cookbook under my arm and a spring in my step :)

So here is what I am going to do: I am going to cook every single recipe in this book and blog about it with pictures! Prepare yourself for Baba Ganoush with Lebanese flatbread, Yogurt Cheese in olive oil, Seafood Soup with Rouille, and Radicchio and Chicory Gratin to name a few of the recipes that shall be cooked.

I may not be able to get all the ingredients due to the fact that I live in Omaha Nebraska and so I may have to improvise when it is completely impossible to find what I need. Other times we may have to go without power in order to pay for the lamb which will be required.

I invite you to join me on this journey through the ambrosial fares offered by the Mediterranean countries.... Bon appetit!