Sunday Supper

On Friday, I stopped at Trader Joe's on my way home from work and bought all sorts of crazy stuff. I went in looking for yogurt, and came out with bagels, frozen tamales, plums and a box of quinoa (keen-wah.) When I unpacked my spoils at home, my mom insisted (well, asked nicely) I make dinner one night this week using some of my new ingredients. We decided on Sunday, and it was quite the feast if I may say so myself.

The quinoa turned into Easy Quinoa Stir Fry, which was the recipe featured on the back of the box. Cooked quinoa mixed with sauteed onions, bell pepper, garlic and fresh basil. To serve, we topped it with some parmesean cheese.

Flavorful and filling! Plus 10% of daily iron!

The main dish was salmon on the grill, which my dad was in charge of. Wild caught. Yummy.

And we had two sides from the garden! I picked a zucchini, sliced it and brushed it with a combination of Garlic Garni, olive oil and pepper before handing it to Dad to grill. Definitely an excellent way to enjoy zucchini.

Also from the garden, the first watermelon! I really wasn't sure if it was ready or not, but it hadn't changed significantly in size for over a week, so I thought I should bring it in and try it. When I first sliced it, it was kind of pinky-yellow, so I wasn't sure it was "done" yet, but flavor wise it tasted pretty good!!

Plus, it's oh so cute!

That's my petite watermelon on the left next to the gigantic one from the store. Ha ha .

Food Obsessed

There was a really interesting piece on NPR's Talk of the Nation last Thursday about how we perceive/keep time. A few people called into the show to share the unique ways they kept time, and what time meant to them.

Had I not been driving to work and felt the need to call in, I would have said that I measure time by meals and food. Is it lunchtime yet? Will I be able to make it to dinner without a snack? At night, when I start to get hungry again after dinner, I know it is probably time for bed.

And had I called in, I would have been totally alone in my observation/time keeping methods. Breaking up the day with meals seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. Am I really that much more into food than the average person?

Signs point to YES.

Pretty Pickles

When the garden gives you a bunch of really bitter cucumbers, it's time to make pickles! I had never made pickles before, but once again, allrecipes came through and provided me with a simple, highly rated recipe. Really, the reviews are just as important as the actual recipe.

There are the cucumbers, mocking me by looking good and tasting pretty awful.

About to meet their match!

Fancy, crinkled cuke chips.

Bright yellow bell pepper for extra crunch.

Waiting to be doused in pickle juice.

Sterilizing the jars. Makes a nice sound.

Vinegar, a bit of salt and lots of sugar get boiled until the sugar dissolves and the liquid is clear.

Poured onto unsuspecting veggies...

...and ladled into the mostly sterile jars. I did use tongs to handle them. But then I probably breathed on them inadvertently.

In less than an hour I had a nice row of very attractive looking pickles.

Pickling worked wonders on the less bitter cucumbers, but the bitterest ones still have a bit of bite to them. At least that was my experience with my first taste test. Hopefully they will sweeten up the longer I leave them in the fridge.

To-may-toe, ta-mah-toe

Regardless of how you pronounce it, these are some nice lookin' ones! Not from the backyard sadly...those are all still green.

That knife in the background didn't stay idle for long!

These lovely slices became part of this week's make ahead lunch dish: Fiesta Black Bean Salad! (name totally made up by yours truly.)

While the black beans were draining in the sink, I layered the other ingredients in a large container; frozen corn, tomatoes, fresh basil, green onions and avocado. The recipe also called for fresh cilantro and jalapeno pepper, but I didn't have any on hand.

The dressing is lemon juice, olive oil and a bit of sugar, and salt & pepper to taste. After tossing it all together, I took a bite and then added some red pepper flakes to make up for the lack of jalapeno.

This can be eaten with chips as a chunky salsa or over a bed of greens, more like a taco salad. I also think it would probably be pretty good in a quesadilla. One salad, three ways!!

Boy Genius

Andrew's home for the weekend and for dinner tonight he made the family another delicious meal--Greek Turkey Burgers.

Served on pita bread slathered with hummus, and topped with feta and sauteed spinach, they were every bit as good as his past creations.

He has only two more weeks of summer school and his internship to finish up, and after that who knows where he will be off to. He's particularly interested in working for a design firm in NYC, which on one hand means I would probably finally make it to the Big Apple (yeah, been 1/2 way around the world, but never to New York City) but on the other I would only be able to enjoy his cooking a few times year, should we both be home for the holidays.

Funny how I didn't think a whole bunch about leaving my family behind to move to Japan, but now that he's old enough to move far away, it bothers me a bit. Must be getting sentimental in my advanced age :-P

Lunch on the Go

Will I ever eat lunch at home again? As I embark on my 7th day of work this week (the result of having 2 jobs), the answer is not looking too good. Maybe at the end of July, when I wrap up both of them, I can actually eat my mid-day meal off a plate again instead of digging it out of a plastic container. How civilized!!

But, right now it's mid-June, so meals that can be packed up are where it's at. This week's concoction was pasta salad, so I boiled up some cheese tortellini...

...prepped garlic for mincing...

...and made the dressing in the bottom of the large container that would house my week's worth of salad in the fridge at home. The dressing is simple and refreshing: olive oil, white wine vinegar, some water, garlic, salt & pepper and le piece de resistance, fresh basil. The picture below hardly does it justice, since it's not scratch-n-sniff.

While the pasta drained in the sink, I sliced up mushrooms and red bell pepper and added them with several cups of lettuce and spinach to the dressing in the container.

The tortellini was the last ingredient to get added to the mix. Look at those lovely layers of goodness.

I put the lid on and gave the whole thing a few good shakes.

Unlike other pre-dressed salads, this one didn't get overly soggy as the week went on. The greens got a bit stuck together, but the dressing is light enough to keep everything tasting fresh. I think there is one more serving for today, then I will have to come up with something new for next week!

I like to oot, oot, oot...

...Ootmeal in the moornings. I like to uut, uut, uut uutmeal in the muurnings. Hopefully, you get my Raffi reference. If not, you are undoubtedly really confused.

But really, there isn't much simpler in the morning that putting 1/2 cup of oats in a bowl with 1 cup of water and putting in the microwave for 2 minutes. I got on my current oatmeal kick after becoming a regular reader of this fantastic blog. When someone else loves something enough to have page after page of photos of it, it's kind of hard not to get a little excited, or at the very least try some.

Monday morning's bowl with daily cup of joe. Yeah, those are ice cubes on the top. Warm oatmeal and hot coffee are a bit too much on mornings when it's already reached 80 F by 8 AM.

Quaker Oats topped with 1 Tbsp strawberry greek yogurt, blueberries, 1/2 of a peach and some Trader Joe's trail mix granola cereal.

A wonderfully satisfying blend of textures.

Feast for the Eyes

I am three weeks into a summer long digital photography class. I was a bit hesitant to write about here, lest readers expect a giant leap forward in the quality of my photos. Not likely, since my little point and shoot camera seems to be chugging along just fine and hopefully won't have to be replaced anytime soon (knock on wood!) So far, I have learned that my camera shoots in a 4:3 aspect ratio, but all of our photos for class should be printed in a 3:2 format. Amazing what you can learn by actually reading the camera manual! I have also been informed about white balance and how I can make my food photos (esp the dinner ones that lack natural light) look less yellow.

Anyway, despite a slight initial shock when the instructor said we should take 75-100 photos a week, I have really been enjoying it. The first week's assignment was to take photos of our favorite subject, so I headed out to my garden. These are two of the three photos I had printed in 8" x 12" for class.

It was my mom's idea to put Lego people in the garden for some scale. Actually she suggested Barbie's, but they are all in a box at the top of my closet, and would have required some serious brushing/accessorizing, so Lego it was. This picture was a pretty lucky shot with the light cutting right across her face. She's pushing a baby watermelon...I don't know why it's so fuzzy. Two and half weeks later, that watermelon is the size of a softball!

Our second assignment was still life, and I really loved the variety of subjects and compositions everyone in the class used. There were a couple of lovely arrangements of wine and grapes, one woman experimented by taking pictures in the dark with only a flashlight on her subject, which came out really cool. Another woman had an old fashioned key on a chain hanging from a garden bench from several different angles, which was very Secret Garden. I did a few with costume jewelry and a book, but since I blog about food, I couldn't really ignore it as a subject.

Nice colors, but the focus isn't incredible. I didn't end up printing this one, or any of the ones I took in my first round of photos.

I did print the next two, and they were both well received. The class liked the one with the yellow background better, but I am fond of the blue one because that color is nothing like the color of the wall in real life. It is much more of a sage green than turquoise. Amazing what a different light filter can do.

During introductions the first week, I mentioned that I was taking the class in part because I had a food blog and wanted to improve my photography skills. Yesterday, a classmate asked if the zucchini/cucumber pictures were on my blog, and there didn't really seem to be a good reason for them not to be. Thanks for the idea!

Fearless

Rugby players must have a certain level of courage to go out onto the field despite the knowledge they will spend the next 80 minutes being battered left and right. Or maybe they just lack sound judgement.

Keizo exhibits similar characteristics off the field as well. For example, he's dating me! It takes courage to enter a multi-cultural/lingual relationship; but people with slightly better judgement might seek companionship with someone who actually lives in the same country as they do.

Keizo also shows courage in the kitchen. He's been preparing his own meals for almost a year now, since moving out of the player's dormitory. And he's come a long way in a relatively short period of time; remember the pie with lattice top crust?!

Last month, he saw these slimy things on sale at the grocery store and bought them (brave? I am not so sure on this one...but it's nice to know that rock hard shells and pungent aromas don't deter him)

They lived in a bowl of salt water in his fridge expelling sand from their tiny guts for a few days before he figured out how to cook them. He ended up steaming them with some cooking sake in a large pan and eating most of them just like that. A few got mixed into pasta too.

Overall though I got the impression that they ended up being a lot of shellfish for just one person to consume, but live and learn. Plus, I wouldn't have helped him with any of them even if I had been there. I don't much care for briny and slimy and I find cooking almost any animal "meat" kind of intimidating. If vegetables are under cooked, there will just be a bit more chewing involved, but if meat is under done, all sorts of unpleasantness could occur.

I will stick the veggies, unless the meat is pre-cooked! I was perusing food blogs while chatting with Keizo on Skype the other day (right after my dinner mind you) and wanting to eat almost everything I looked at. Especially the following from Joy the Baker, which I shared with Keizo.

Look what showed up in my email inbox the next day!

Keizo the Cook's very own interpretation. He's not afraid of recipes written in English either! There's no stopping him, which is great news as far as I am concerned.

Hopefully his game today goes just as well!

Sack Lunch

This week's lunches are all variations on the theme of salad; and thanks to Costco, they are a snap to make!

Inspired by a fruity salad my Mom made on Sunday, I have been using the 5 ingredients below for delicious, done in 5 minute lunches:

Step 1: Fill plastic container about 3/4 full with spinach (pre-washed!)

Step 2: Wash grapes, blueberries and strawberries. Slice gigantic strawberries into more manageable pieces.

Step 3: Dump berries and grapes on top of spinach.

Step 4: Break up pecans with your fingers and sprinkle on top. Cover with lid.

Step 5: Put dressing in small container (creamy seasame or raspberry vinegarette work equally well) on the side and place in lunch bag with other yummies.

And voila! The hardest part is actually waiting for my 30 minute lunch break to dig in.

A Saturday Salad

With Memorial Day passed, it's starting to feel a lot like summer! Which means the reality of moving across the country to start graduate school in August is also starting to sink in, and wow, there is a ton to do to get ready.

But posting about my lunch is more fun than chipping away at the awful to-do list occupying a full sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper on my desk.

I woke up around 9, which was glorious in and of itself. But after breakfast, it was down to business, working on things for my photography class, creating aforementioned to-do list, clearing out a bit of e-mail, exercising and getting cleaned up for the day. After my shower, it was definitely time for lunch, but when I opened the fridge, there was a not a leftover to be found. I did see 1/4 can of garbanzo beans, feta cheese and black olives and went from there.

Thankfully, there was a bunch of spinach in the crisper drawer, which formed the base of my lunch. To those ingredients I added the last of a backyard cucumber, some tomato, avocado and 1 salad pepper.

I dressed it with some of the Blueberry Pomegranate Vinegarette, poured some raspberry lemonade, put some crunchy pretzel sticks in a cup on the side and sat down to eat.

These pretzel sticks are really satisfying to eat because they require a lot of chewing. They were a nice contrast to the soft veggies in the salad.

I guess it's time to get back to work now since it is somehow mid-afternoon already.