And It's a New Year!

As with many, I made a mental list of things I want to do in the new year. Not actually writing them down means no one can hold me to them, cause we all know how much we keep to our new year resolutions.

Honestly I never really made new year's resolutions in the past. They didn't work very well so I don't bother setting myself up for that fall.

But I will reach for low hanging fruit and tick off things I know is within reach (and some already accomplished). So, ok fine, I'm making a resolution list and writing it down. Let's see how well this works.

1. Cook with my slow cooker (check!)
   Made a beef stew with carrots, string beans, bell peppers and mushrooms. I think the key was NOT to be home when you cook it because I was hungry from the smell of the food 3 hours into the 8 hour cooking time. So far a success, will definitely do again.
2. Exercise more
   Ok, this is probably on everyone's list. I'm back in volleyball so that will help, but I think I need to do more than that to undo the damage of the last 6 months. Goal is to be beach ready by March.
3. Take a beach vacation
   As alluded to in the previous item, I want to take a beach vaca in March. A good break from the winter cold and the gray snowy skies. Currently thinking Puerto Rico. We'll see if that pans out.
4. Watch less TV
   and play more piano, computer games, DS games, puzzles, board games, and just about anything else that's not so passive. It's not that I watch a lot of TV. I'm just noticing that I don't diversify in my downtime. TV is so passive and it makes me feel more tired. At least with computer games I'm thinking and moving my fingers.
5. Keep plants alive / grow new plants
   My basil from last summer became a squirrel's bedding. This summer I hope to have a whole lot more than just one basil plant and wish to keep it alive so I can make lots of food with basil in it. meanwhile I need to keep the spider plants in the house alive. The Turkey Mum has finally passed on after a month, but that's probably actually pretty long for an indoor mum. 
6. Eat less acidic foods
   Ok now that's a hard one. I've been putting down relatively simple things to achieve on this list so far. But this one is hard. I love my red sauce, chili's, salsas, and the like. But I have to acknowledge the volume and quantity I take in is probably not good in the long run. So I need to set some kind of limit. For now I'll put the limit at 1 of everything per month. No more than 1 trip to Jose's, 1 jar of salsa, 1 jar of red sauce, 1 home made mexican dinner, and 1 pot of chili per month. Vacations are exceptions.
7. Eat less carbs
   Another hard one, but I think it's a good idea in general. I love my breads, pastas, rice, and potatoes. but I need to reduce the overall intake. And stop eating late at night. 

In reality, 2, 6, and 7 are all supporting 3, so we're really talking about 4 goals here. Given #1 is already done we're really talking about 3. Should be manageable. We'll see.

Happy New Year!

One Whole Farm Share in 3 Nights

There was this one crazy week where I decided I was going to be able to use up  the entire CSA (farm share) that Iris has for the week. Mind you this normal share is meant for 4 people to eat. I managed to cook it all in 3 nights of crazy cooking.

The share of the week consisted of 4 lbs of tomatoes, a dozen ears of corn (of which we only took 10), about 8 cubanelle peppers, 2 zucchini, 2 lbs of potatoes, and 2 egg plants.

On Wednesday night, I made my tomato and corn soup, a giant pot of it. This time I cored the tomatoes first. But I still missed one step - boiling them first to get the skin off. Otherwise it would have been a smoother texture.

Tahini substitute - peanut butter

On Thursday night, I made baba ganoush from the egg plants (double batch), and the recipe called for tahini. But I didn't have any, and after a brief search of the great Tubes that is the Internet I found that I could substitute peanut butter - so in it goes into the lemon juice! :-)

For the egg plant, you needed to roast it first, then let it "drain". I stuck it in a salad spinner to expedite.

Also on that night I made potato and zucchini pancakes (effectively latkes). I didn't quite realize when the recipe says it will serve 8 people, that it meant it would be the entire meal for 8 people with nothing else. So I was frying batter for about 3 hrs. That was a long night of cooking.

To finish it all off on Friday night, we stuffed the cubanelle peppers with chicken sausage and baked them. It was super easy, just remove the raw sausage portion from the casing by squeezing the meat out onto the hollowed half pepper shells and bake. To finish, top with marinara sauce, which I doctored with some fried garlic and onions.

And voila, the meal is served! Thanks Iris for taking all these awesome pics! It makes my food look so much more appetizing than the fuzzy ones I take with my little flip phone's camera. :-)

The final product - basil chicken sausage stuffed cubanelle peppers with apple sauce drizzled potato and zucchini pancakes. Creamy tomato and corn soup to follow. Tortilla chips and baba ganoush as appetizers.

Dinner is Served

Cod fillets with the salsa I made this morning and store bought guacamole, served with the tomato, corn and basil soup. I like the plating part of dinner best. It's the most visual part of all the preparation. :-)

Sunday Cooking Adventure

So it seems my original hypothesis that "if I have a nicer kitchen then I would cook more" is partially true. Having the space conducive to cooking is only one piece of the puzzle. Having ingredients to cook with is the other major piece, if not the larger of the two.

My roommate has a farm share, and every week many green vegetables that I cannot identify show up in the fridge. I try to help make a few things here and there when I happen to know a recipe that will use those ingredients.

This has partially contributed to me not going grocery shopping in very many weeks. I actually would need to check my credit card bills to find out when it actually was that I had gone grocery shopping last.

Creamy Tomato, Corn and Basil Soup
(without any actual cream)

This is certainly not a bad problem to have. I made a tasty soup that came from a need to use up some tomatoes from this week and corn from 2 weeks ago. I added in some fresh basil from my one and only edible plant on my porch (thanks Alisa!) and voila! Tomato, Corn and Basil Soup. It actually came out so well I wished I had more tomatoes and corn. There's only 2 small servings in that pot.

Though being an inexperienced cook does create some interesting results. It's ok, it's all in the name of science. Ok, maybe not really science, but at least it's always a learning experience. =P

Accidentally Pureed Salsa

So as I said, we have tomatoes this week. We also have banana peppers, which I figured I could use as a bell pepper substitute.

There's no cilantro this week, and I had already used up all my lime juice from the half a dozen batches I made before. So I decided to make do with other ingredients instead. The jar of store bought salsa in the pantry lists sugar, vinegar, and garlic as ingredients, so I added those to my salsa. My tomato dicing techniques were horrid, so the salsa was too chunky. But I don't have a food processor so I thought I would just have to live with the super chunky salsa.

Then I thought, why not use the blender to dice it down more? How much of a difference is there between a blender and a food processor anyway? Well, I tried it and learned what the difference was. The blender/smoothie maker I have is made to completely pulverize ice and fruit chunks, so the salsa ended up being accidentally pureed. Oops.

Properly Chunky Salsa

Unsatisfied with the results I tried again. This time I thought, how about I only pulverize the tomatoes and then throw in my regularly diced unions and banana peppers.

It achieved the desired consistency and I was able to put the properly chunky salsa in a jar. It looks almost professional! =D

And last but not least, we had some leftover pita bread, so for breakfast I made some scrambled eggs, and created breakfast burrito / pockets with eggs, salsa, and some store bought guacamole. The leftover pita bread was cut up and baked into pita chips, and now I can snack on the leftover guac and the ridiculous amount of salsa I have leftover.

8 tomatoes, 5 banana peppers, 6 eggs, 2 onions, 2 stalks of corn later, this Sunday's cooking adventure comes to an end with breakfast burritos/pockets, salsa, pita chips, and soup. No ingredients were wasted and my fridge is ready for another batch of alien greens next week. Not bad for an inexperienced cook. :-)