There is no sight more promising than a table full of veggies …

Last week, I inaugurated my brand new slow cooker by sort of following this recipe for ropa vieja. I enlisted Erik to do the yucky raw meat part of the preparation …



… while I went to work on the broth:



Erik also helped me chop the rainbow of veggies that we decided to throw in for fun. And then he went to sleep.



I combined everything in the pot …



… and set my alarm for 4:30 am so that I could get up and remove the meat …



… shred it …



… and then return it to the pot for another couple hours to marinate:



Can you guess what I had for lunch the next day??



It was sooooooo delicious … comparable to the meat that my coworker Belkis makes.



(Clearly, I’m almost an authentic Latin American chef!)

The next day, I embellished the stew with some spiralized zucchini:

Mmmmmmm. I rarely cook with meat, so I get really excited when it actually works!

I also made some fresh orange juice with this new addition …



… and then I obviously ate all the pulp:



I hadn’t made fresh orange juice since I was probably five years old. This was incredible!



I also went crazy and finally purchased one of these giant pomelos that I had been admiring at the market:



Since it was so huge, I planned to eat it 1/4 at a time for a little snack …



… but it was ALL flesh in there!



Obviously, I had to eat the whole thing since it was so small 😛

I was left with a big pile of peel and no idea what to do, so I started some googling and found that pomelo peel is excellent candied! I loosely followed the recipe I found (which I can’t locate now) and chopped the peel into 1-inch chunks:



And boiled it in fresh water three times to remove the bitterness:





And squeezed the peels between two cutting boards to remove as much of the moisture as possible:



I ended up with about three cups of peel:



The recipe called for 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup of water per cup of peel. I improvised here thanks to this jar that’s been waiting for a job:



I probably used under 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of water, and the last 1/2 cup of the key lime jam that Wife brought for me when she visited last year:



I whisked everything together in a saucepan over low heat until it was melted and reduced:



Next, I mixed the peel into the syrup until every piece was coated and then arranged it on a foiled cookie sheet to dehydrate in the oven for a couple hours:



I pulled the “candy” out of the oven while it was still a little bit wet …



… so that I could roll it in this:



And voila! Candied pomelo peel:

And super green fingers!

So sure, the peel still tasted like peel a little bit and I’m the only one who is going to eat it … but I still think it is pretty cool that I turned trash into candy 😀

Have you done anything creative with trash lately?

Last week was full of all sorts of tea excitement! It started when Lillian dropped two bags of Eggnogg’n tea on my desk:

I had heard so much about this tea but never had the chance to try it. I added milk and honey and curled up under my desk in solitary eggnog confinement, mmmm.

Next, Deborah brought in fresh ginger tea homemade by her mama.

Wait, that’s not ginger tea! How did that get in there?!!! We definitely did not also eat a whole bag of cotton candy left from the Knicks game her friend attended …

Ahhhh, here’s the tea:

Can you see those giant chunks of real ginger and apples?

It was some of the best tea I have ever tasted!

Tea adventure part 3:

In an effort to avoid the cakes upon cakes upon cakes at my office, I’ve been going grocery shopping next door so that I can keep delicious and healthy snack ingredients — like apple, pumpkin, and yogurt — on hand at all times. This bowl of winter comfort involves a cup of pumpkin microwaved for two minutes with a chopped apple and topped with plain yogurt and …

… the contents of an apple cinnamon herbal tea bag!!! Delicious AND beautiful at the same time 😀 I love how the tea turns the yogurt pink.

All mixed together:

Next up: Mr. Midwest himself (aka Erik) brought back some fancy teas from his trip home at Christmas:

This tea is delicious — it has actual chunks of cinnamon stick and apple in it. I’d show you a picture of the giant chunks of apple … but I accidentally ate them right out of the mix before the camera got there, whoops

Adventures in wholesome beverage-land continued on Saturday when we headed down to Bay Ridge for a Merry-Christmas-to-ourselves massage followed by brunch at HOM:

(Erik is not actually supposed to be the star of that picture.If you look at the board up above his head, you’ll see the many teas listed on the menu. To the right of his tongue, you’ll also see giant canisters of The Republic of Tea teas.)

We ordered a pot of blackberry sage tea:

The tea came with mini apple cinnamon muffins and slices of Mama D’s special currant bread with butter and Stonewall Kitchen wild blackberry jam:

Mmmmmmmmmmmm …

We devoured the plate and I probably would have been full for the rest of the day on just that (especially after eating lots of complimentary trail mix at the spa :-p)!

But there was more! We ordered two brunches to share, and the chef/waiter/jackofalltrades brought the meal to us already split!

We shared pistachio-crusted French toast with bananas, sauteed apples, maple syrup, and crispy crispy bacon:

And a turkey reuben (turkey, Swiss, sauerkraut, and mustard) on marble toast with a cranberry goat cheese salad on the side:

I was pretty stuffed before I ate this, but I was significantly more stuffed after!

Geez, just writing this post made me feel tons of relaxed. Clearly, tea is the solution to everything. And, apparently, I consume copious amounts of it!

What does tea do for you?

I had planned to head up to MA again for the long New Years weekend but decided last minute that I really needed some solid bonding time with my apartment. As a result, this weekend was a complete bonus to me, and I took advantage of the time to do some of the things I haven’t had time to do for months and months and months, like bake bread!

I have this recipe for Irish brown bread that I love, but I haven’t had a chance to make any in over a year! Friday morning, I set about remedying that sad fact:



Every time I make this bread, it is a little bit different. The recipe calls for four cups of flour, but I like to mix it up with whatever random grains I have around. This time, my fourish cups included: 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup whole kamut flour, 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ, 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1/4 cup ground flax seed, 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats, and 1/3 cup caraway (rye) seeds:



All mixed together:



The rest of the recipe calls for 2 tbsp molasses, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tbsp butter, 1 cup fat free plain yogurt, and as much milk as is necessary (usually something less than 1/2 cup) to get the dough to just barely hold together. I knead the dough a couple of times on a floured cutting board, shape it into a loaf, cut a few crosses in the top, and place it on a parchment-lined (yes, I reuse my parchment paper!) cookie sheet:



The bread bakes for about 40 minutes at 400 degrees, until a tester comes out clean:



I love this bread because it is super thick and hearty with a crunchy outer crust and a dense and heavy inside. Because it is such a dense bread, I like to pre-mark where the slices should be so I don’t accidently eat four whole cups of whole grains in one sitting!



Inside:



Mmmmmmmmmmmm!

An excellent topper for the bread has been homemade pistachio butter that I whipped up with this new appliance from my mom:



A real, live nut grinder!!! I’ve burnt out so many food processors and coffee bean grinders in my quest for homemade nut butter, so let’s hope this new guy is man enough to accept the challenges that await!

On Sunday, I went with Gina to see the Who Shot Rock & Roll exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. When we finished, we had to walk for 40 minutes in the bitterly cold snowy wind back to my apartment, so I decided that — at very long last — I should make use of the molten chocolate lava cake batter that has been patiently waiting in my freezer since this event in March!

I greased some ramekins and cut a hole in the corner of the batter bag. What oozed out was less than photogenic …



But it did its job!



With my modem on the fritz, I couldn’t look up the recipe to refresh my memory on how to bake these little guys, so I stuck them in a 375 oven for about 25 minutes. (Side note: Just to clarify, this is the leftover chocolate lava cake batter made by the chef of River Cafe, the fanciest restaurant in Brooklyn and, quite possibly, once of the fanciest in all of New York City!)

When the top of the batter seemed to have solidified into some sort of cake, I removed the tray of olfactory heaven from the oven:



I turned the lava cakes onto small plates and dusted them with cinnamon …



… and crossed my fingers for the big reveal.



Gina bravely broke the surface of her cake with a spoon.



… and NO LAVA!!!!



Grrrrr, those last five minutes in the oven must have turned the whole thing solid. Or else, I had the temp too high. Either way, who’s going to complain about a mound of rich, fudgy brilliance??



Oh.

Theatrics aside, we all demolished our cakes in mere minutes amidst moans of pleasure.



I’m so glad I saved this batter from the trash nine months ago!! Let’s hear it for freezers!

What is your greatest freezer success story?

Dumdeedumdeedum. It’s Sunday night and my modem is broken. What better way to pass the internet-less time than with creating a blog post on ecto?! I have no idea when I’ll be able to press publish, but there’s no harm in working ahead 🙂

Last Thursday marked the final day of work for the nursing supervisor at my agency. She was retiring after 13 years! On Wednesday night, we had a party to celebrate the amazing work she has done at my agency.

We had music, thanks to DJ Jose:

But, more importantly, we had food (obviously, since we cannot have any sort of event at my office without it)!

A couple of things in particular caught my eye, such as this giant tray of roasted vegetables with hard-boiled eggs:

And this stunning dessert selection, including Heather’s pumpkin chocolate chip bread, Pansy’s ambrosia, Pura’s coconut flan, and a special bakery custard fruit tart (my favorite dessert ever):

When we got the go-ahead to dig in, I was not quick enough to be first in line. The boys beat me! But then there was some confusion about who got there first …

… and they had to step away to resolve the dispute:

When the boys got a grip on their drama, I was finally able to fill my plate and park at this elegantly set table:

My plate had roasted veggies, Greek salad, roast chicken, Mediterranean pasta, and maduros (LOVE THEM!!!!!!):

While we ate, we listened to several moving speeches and witnessed the presentation of this retirement quilt. Everyone on the nursing staff decorated a square, and Dorothy put them all together in one quilt. The finished product was a beautiful work of art!

And then dessert was served!

Since I’m working on not dropping dead due to a heart attack/diabetes, I took it “easy”and filled a baby plate with teeny slivers of coconut flan, custard fruit tart, tres leches cake/frosting crumbs, and more maduros:

Mmmmmmmmm, dessert perfection:

There was a ton of food leftover, so we all ate it for lunch on Thursday. After lunch, there was STILL a ton of food, so I packed up as much as I could possibly carry to bring home in this giant H&M bag:

Inside:

The loot included pasta, roast veggies, roast chicken, lettuce, and maduros:

Different angle to better display volume:

I put one container of veggies and one container of chicken in the freezer, and the rest is just about gone! Quite a significant portion actually went to fuel the New Years Eve fun run that Erik and I did in Prospect Park at 11:15 Thursday night. Before:

(I was obviously soooooooooo excited to run three miles in freezing slush in the middle of the night through a pitch black park in Brooklyn. I was maybe more excited to be taking these pictures with the help of my new gorilla-pod, a present my dad gave me for Christmas so I could attach my camera to random things like the back of a chair in order to get a better angle for the self-timer.)

Pre-race support from roommate etc. cheering squad:

We finished the race just in time to gulp down some free hot chocolate (the best thing I had ever tasted) at Grand Army Plaza and watch the dazzling fireworks display as the clock struck 12.

After:

Attempted tough faces because we braved the elements and survived:

I have a hard time with tough …

(Notice the soaking wet attire and beads of melting snow on our hats.)

And that is the story of how I ended 2009 with two of the best things that ever existed: delicious free food and exercise-for-fun.

By the way, do any of you know of someone who needs a spacious furnished room in a gorgeous Brooklyn apartment from now until 4/30 for $700 per month??

It’s been a while since I have posted about my own kitchen adventures! Let’s fix that 😀

Remember when I snagged an ice cream maker at Joey and Nicole’s party?

As soon as I got home from the party, I broke out the instructions and set to work:



Behold the magic globe.



I filled one end with ice and salt and filled the other with my own special blend for pumpkin pie ice cream:



The instructions told me to shake the ball for 20 minutes, but I got bored and had places to be, so I just threw it into the freezer …



… for four days:



While I let my solid block of pumpkin ice cream thaw a bit, I set to work on my other new toy, a gift from step-grandmama:



That’s right, a veggie spiralizer!

I really didn’t know what I was missing all those times I used a carrot peeler to shred things for hours on end.

In went a zucchini …



And out came zucchini spaghetti!



It’s a miracle!



While I was spiralizing zucchini, carrots, yellow squash, and broccoli stalks, I had tofu baking in the oven and slathered with this gift from mom:



I tossed all the “noodles” together in a bowl …



… and then added my crispy tofu, steamed broccoli, and tons of spices and herbs:



Voila, veggie spaghetti!



For dessert, I shoveled out some pumpkin ice cream, made it creamy with the immersion blender, and served it on top of a hot vitabrownie:



That was a fun meal. I’ve missed playing in the kitchen!

What’s your favorite kitchen gadget?