Tag: Experiments

All about the themes

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Realizing I was low on veggies, I ran into the grocery store next door to my office (it’s much cheaper than the one in my neighborhood) to see what I could find. I grabbed a bunch of green beans (to replenish my dwindling supply) and then went a little crazy and also got a pack of fresh okra (it was only $1.50!). I’ve never cooked okra before in my life and probably only eaten it a couple of times, but I thought it would keep things interesting.

When I got home, I chopped the okra into thinnish rounds and put it (and chopped green beans, for variety) in a pan with a splash of water to steam:

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And then the stroke of genius hit. I added a heaping spoonful of homemade Dominican sofrito, an amazing herby and garlicky sauce that another coworker (hi inginia!) gave me when it was leftover from a work party a little while back. Using the sofrito got me thinking about more homemade Dominican food from my coworkers, so I dug into the freezer to uncover the Dominican rice (hi mildred!) I had saved from yet another work function. I mixed it with some of the cooked barley that I brought back from MA to add a healthy whole grain punch:

Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

frozen cooked grains: Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

My plate, topped with grated homemade cheddar:
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How intricate is this okra?!

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It was a delicious experiment that went very well, and I made enough to have for dinner one more night this week, yum!

For dessert, I had the last of the grapenut pudding from MA, another big pile straight from the oven (my apartment is microwave-less, so I do all my reheating in the oven):

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Now the rush, rush, rush to make my 9pm bedtime!

Midnight snack

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My mom was on a roll last night with the cooking. She couldn’t stop (now you see where I get it). After dinner, she started throwing together ingredients for a grapenut pudding recipe she recently discovered.

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The recipe supposedly comes from Paula Deen, but I couldn’t find it anywhere online. As usual (and as is necessary when you’re working with a Paula Deen recipe and don’t want to die of a heart attack tomorrow), mom made several adjustments. The recipe called for four cups of milk — mom used two cups of skim and two cups of light eggnog (to finish the carton, yay!). The recipe called for four eggs — mom used two eggs and two egg whites. Finally, the recipe called for one cup of sugar — mom used 1/4 cup of her mixture of erythritol and xylitol because the eggnog already added sugar and also because no one really needs that much sugar anyway.

A crazy chemical reaction sort of thing happened when she added the ‘itols and the vanilla. The whole mixture started bubbling and swirling, almost like that baking soda volcano you made in 3rd grade:

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Finally, after two hours of baking (mom doubled the recipe, so the custard needed twice as much time to set), the pudding was done!

mmm, perfectly golden brown

mmm, perfectly golden brown

look at all that custard!

look at all that custard!

I had to sample some right away:
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And then I scraped all of the “crumbs” from the baking dish and ate them, too. Soooo good. You can bet I packed some to-go containers of this to bring back to NY with me!

Snowed in (with packaged food!)

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The snow barreling down last night (dad has not yet taken the yardstick out for an accurate reading of inches, but weather.com says it is 8 degrees/feels like -10) was the perfect excuse to spend New Year’s Eve inside in front of the fire with movies, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, and Chinese food! Too bad that I had my heart set on steamed shrimp/veggies and the woman at the Chinese restaurant said they were too busy to steam anything. Rararararr. So I made my own version.

Steaming green beans, carrots, and mushrooms:

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Sauteeing thawed frozen shrimp in olive oil:

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Over whole wheat pasta and topped with pesto from a jar (I know, I’m a slacker) and pre-shredded parm (slacker again):

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Closerrrrrr:

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And dessert:

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The bathroom was the only place with good lighting, so that’s where I took my ice cream cone:

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with dad peeking in the mirror

Dad and Rae Ann did not eat the pint of white rice that came with their Chinese since they also ordered pork fried rice. I couldn’t help myself and did this:

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As midnight loomed closer, dad prepped the TV room with wine and …

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Homemade shortbread cookies (sent from CA by Alice, my dad’s first wife and the mama of my siblings. Hi CA family!):

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Happy New Year!

Mixing, mixing, mixing

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My Christmas shopping budget this year was exactly $0 (you could also say it’s -$28,000 and counting, thank you grad school), so I had to be even more thoughtful (aka homemade) with my gifts than usual. Every year, my dad and stepmom, who run a folk music coffeehouse, host a Pickin’ and Eatin’ New Year’s Day Party. All of their music friends come over, and everyone eats and jams until the wee hours. With this in mind, I presented them with a certificate for my cooking/cleaning services today in preparation for their big party tomorrow.

As soon as I arrived, I turned into a walking food processor.

I made another batch of Rae Ann’s yummy holiday cream cheese spread, the one that tastes like carrot cake frosting. We opted to use regular cream cheese this time, though — wouldn’t want to overwhelm the party-goers with too much health.

Pre-mix, with cream cheese, craisins, orange juice concentrate, orange zest, pecans, cinnamon:

cream cheese, craisins, orange juice concentrate, orange zest, pecans, cinnamon

Post-mix, I had to taste test some on a cracker of course:

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The spread is now in the fridge, chilling into its final ball shape form.

Next, Rae Ann found a can of chickpeas in a cupboard, so I offered to make hummus. Because the house was not stocked with any traditional hummus ingredients, we improvised and added part-skim ricotta, a tomato-bacon cream cheese flavor packet, sauteed asparagus, and other spices. The end result is DELICIOUS (I had to eat a lot of it throughout the whole process to make sure the taste was just right):

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During the cupboard search for hummus ingredients, I also came upon some Belgian dark chocolate-covered poppycock, a piece of which spontaneously jumped into my mouth:

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Finally, I needed to find a use for the remaining 2.5 cups of ricotta since the package was open and had no future commitments. I searched for some pumpkin to no avail, but Rae Ann offered me an even better alternative: sweet potatoes! Can you guess what it is going to be?

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(P.S. I ate all the leftover potato skins since I knew they would not suit what I had in mind.)

Recipes and finished products will come soon!