E is for Eats

Craig likes his popcorn with butter, sriracha and nutritional yeast Popcorn used to be one of my most favorite snacks. When I was a little kid in the 80's, everyone had one of those air popping machines at their house (do you remember those? They were always yellow and white, and they had a little compartment to melt the butter). I loved watching the popcorn pour out of the spout and then pouring melted butter over the whole bowl. Then, of course, came microwave popcorn. No cubicle filled office is complete without the smell of artificial butter wafting from the kitchen area. Unfortunately, we haven't had a microwave for years, so no popcorn for us. But! Did you know that you can make popcorn on the stove top, with just a big pan and a lid? Yeah, you probably did. I think everyone knew about this but me. We made it last night and I was giddy with excitement. Craig looked at me like I came from another planet. Just in case you are the only other person who didn't ...

The veggies at this week's greenmarket As you may have heard, the east coast got hit by a freak October snowstorm yesterday. Usually I look forward to the first snowfall of the season like a giddy school girl looking forward to her first school dance. But that's also usually in December! There were nothing but grumbles all around yesterday when the snow hit. And the poor farmers at the market - they looked cold and miserable and all of the produce was covered in snow. Needless to say, we ran through the market as fast as we could, grabbing produce willy nilly. The only plan in mind was the plan to get back to our warm apartment. When we got home and I surveyed what we bought, we actually did pretty well. Between the left over veggies from last week's meals that never were , we had the makings for a delicious week. Here's what is planned: Meal 1: Creamy mushrooms with polenta, green salad Meal 2: Turkey sausage and potato hash, collard greens Meal 3: Butternut...

We were so bad this week. Really, I was the instigator of our naughtiness, but Craig was a willing participant. I set a perfectly lovely menu for the week, but somehow we managed to eat out three times. Not only does this fly in the face of eating from scratch, home made goods, but it's a serious drain on our wallets as well. Truthfully, it was a very busy week at work for me - most nights I wasn't home before 9. The last thing I want to do at that point is cook dinner. Excuses, excuses, I know. But if I can identify why I end up eating out instead of making dinner at home, maybe I can plan around it. Anyway, here's how we did last week. Meal 1: Pot Roast, boiled potatoes, steamed romanesco, green salad Yes! I spent most of Sunday afternoon making the pot roast. I mentioned that I was new to the world of roasts and would be looking for a good recipe. I ended up using Bittman's recipe from How to Cook Everything . I followed it to a T, not changing a thing. And holy hel...

This is only my second summer canning and pickling, but boy did I go nuts. I think we spent at least one day each weekend in the kitchen. So I have pint after pint of different pickles, relishes and salsas. It can be a challenge to think of new ways to eat the same thing over and over. This weekend we went to our friend's birthday party. We were asked to bring something for a potluck and I knew that I wanted to bring sandwiches. I also knew that I wanted to use some of our bounty from this summer. One of the sandwiches that I decided on was a pickled beet, arugula and goat cheese sandwich. It was simple, but so good! Pickled Beet, Arugula and Goat Cheese Sandwich Baguette 4 oz goat cheese, peppered 1/2 cup baby arugula 1 pint of pickled beets Take one full baguette and slice lengthwise. Don't cut all the way through the bread. Hollow out the insides a bit (and save those yummy pieces for breadcrumbs later!). Spread each side with goat cheese. Layer the arugula a...

If you are trying to get away from pre-packaged, processed foods, salad dressings are the easiest place to start. Any dressing can be made at home, from a simple vinaigrette to a creamy blue cheese. My current favorite is a red wine vinaigrette. This couldn't be easier to make and I always get a ton compliments on it when I serve it to guests. Here is a rough guide (it's not exact enough for me to really call it a recipe - adjust the amounts depending on how much dressing you need at the moment). Red Wine Vinaigrette garlic, one clove roughly chopped salt dried oregano dried basil fresh ground pepper red wine vinegar olive oil The trick to making a yummy salad dressing is starting with a garlic paste, using a mortar and pestle. Place the chopped garlic and a few pinches of salt in the mortar. Using the pestle, grind into a paste. It should look something like this: Once you have your garlic paste, put in whatever container you are going to use for storing and serving the dressi...

I'm a little late in writing this, as it was back on October 8th that I actually started making the jelly, but hey, better late than never - right? For a few weeks our market was overrun with concord grapes. The grapes were so sweet and so potent that they were covered in bees, greedy for their nectar. We bought a few pints with jelly in mind. I was a bit nervous, as my first foray into jelly making last year almost resulted in a kitchen fire. But I was determined to get over my jelly phobia and I was looking forward to a winter full of grapey goodness. Of course, I turned to my trusty copy of Sherri Vinton's Put 'em Up!   to find the perfect recipe.  You are probably sick of me saying this, but really, this is a great canning book. Out of respect to the author, I won't reprint her recipes. But, once you buy the book, turn to page 207 and start making some jelly! There are really just a few steps to making the jelly. Here are some of the highlights. Bringing th...

Again, nothing to do with the post, but pretty all the same! Now that you know how we did last week , it's time to list what's on the menu this week. This week is the first time it's truly felt like fall, with temperatures dipping into the low 50's. With the beginning of fall, I always feel like roasts and stews, so we picked up a few pounds of top round from Rexcroft Farms at the market yesterday. I'm still relatively new to the world of roasts, so I tend to follow recipes pretty closely. I'll let you know how it comes out in our weekly update. And if you have any pointers, please share! Keeping with the autumnal theme, we also picked up a butternut squash. My usual go to for butternut squash is soup, but our meals have been pretty soup heavy lately ( here , here and here just to name a few!). This week I think we'll keep it simple, and just stick with simple, roasted squash. Meal 1: Pot Roast, boiled potatoes, steamed romanesco, green salad...

It's been a busy week and the numerous posts in my head never made their way to the keyboard. How did we do with our weekly menu though? Actually pretty well. Usually our biggest challenge is Monday night - that's the night we have our French class and we don't get home until 8:30. At that point, the last thing we want to do is cook. I kept that in mind when I planned out the week, and planned the pork chops for dinner that night. Firstly, it was a super quick and easy meal (I think dinner was on the table within 45 minutes of getting home) and secondly, how can you not look forward to pork chops for dinner? The only night we missed was Thursday. I ended up going out for dinner for a friend's birthday so we skipped it (and since I had way too much wine that night, the next day called for greasy fried chicken. I did say that I would confess when I gave into a craving for Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich....). Meal 1: Red lentil bake, radish and corn s...

Craig took this when we went apple picking. It has nothing to do with the post, but it's so pretty I had to use it. A fairly straight forward way to keep yourself on track when you're trying to change your eating habits is to plan ahead. It sounds easy enough, right? Truthfully, it can kind of be a pain in the rear. And you know what they say about making plans (actually, I don't know. I tried to google it, but couldn't find anything...). Anyway, I've been planning out our weekly meals for a while now. I plan the dinners, generally 4 to 6 servings each meal and then we take leftovers for lunch. Sometimes we stick to it, more often than not we don't. As we try to get further away from convenience and prepackaged foods, I thought it would be helpful if I published our menu every Sunday (I'm clearly off to a late start this week). Then at the end of the week, I'll check in and let you know how we did. If there are any recipes that we loved, we'll ...

A few weeks ago, we went apple picking and came home with 50 pounds of apples. I had a few dishes in mind that I wanted to make, and this was one of them. I made pickled apples last year, and loved them. Of course, I didn't note the recipe or the source of the recipe. I searched high and low, but every single recipe I found used red hots (yup, the candy) as a flavoring. Well, that kind of goes against everything we are trying to do (not to mention, it sounds kind of gross), so I kept on looking. Still, no luck. Using the red hot recipes as a guide for safety, I paved my own road. Ok, more like repaved a road that many had previously traveled, but still.... The final product turned out great, taste wise. I had a very difficult time canning these suckers though. The apples just did not want to stay put. I'm talking serious float. I haven't been canning that long and I'm still super clumsy when it comes to canning fruit. It seems like no matter what I do, it all floats. U...

Our stovetop yesterday morning amused me, so I had to share (don't judge me for the dirty stove top, we were clearly busy). On the front right burner, I was cooking up some concord grapes for jelly. On the front left burner, Craig was making mint syrup for sodas. On the back left burner, I was making turkey stock and on the back right burner was our nearly empty coffee pot. If only we had two more burners, we could have been making breakfast at the same time.

It's been a while since our last post, as our friends Gabriel and Tracey were visiting from San Francisco last week.  They are two of our most favorite people; smart, funny and fun to be around. If you get a second, you should check out Tracey's blog, warm as toast . She writes tidbits about her life and things that inspire her. It's the first thing I look for when I log in to google reader. While you're at it (and while I am shamelessly promoting my friends), check out u-dot music to listen to some of the music Gabe has worked on. Gabe and Tracey love food as much as we do, so we spent the better part of the week drinking a bit too much and eating way too much. To counterbalance the week of excess, I was in need of something nutritious, earthy and easy. The answer: mushroom soup and green salad with red wine vinaigrette (if you are looking to move away from packaged/processed/pre-made foods, salad dressings are the easiest place to start....more on that later). I...