Tag: food

You WILL like tofu and brussels sprouts

Caramelized Tofu Recipe – 101 Cookbooks

Here’s how it came together: a quick survey of my kitchen revealed tofu and a cluster of brussels sprouts. There was also a vibrant bouquet of cilantro tucked into the refrigerator door begging to be used. I scanned the cupboards and pulled down a small bag of (already toasted!) pecans and the remnants of a once full bag of my favorite sugar. Garlic? Check.

I know that a lot of people have a very strong reaction to brussels sprouts and tofu. Kind of like my reaction to Hillary Clinton. But the wife LOVES brussels sprouts, and so when I saw this recipe, I tried it out. It’s really excellent. If you don’t enjoy caramelized tofu with pecans, you’re crazy. Or allergic. And not only is it delicious, but it’s also made in only one pan (Two if you cook rice with it, which I recommend) so it’s pretty easy to clean up. Anyway, you should try it. I didn’t bother toasting the pecans this time (I did the first time I made it), and I didn’t notice a difference.

Eat Well DC hires new chef – Washington Business Journal –

Eat Well DC hires new chef | Washington Business Journal

Eat Well DC Restaurant Group has hired a new chef to oversee the company’s four D.C. restaurants. Branden Levine, who was formerly chef and owner of The Tavern Restaurant in Heathsville, Va., replaces Sal Del Rosario, who was with the company for 18 months.

This is interesting news. I’ve been to Merkado once, and to The Heights numerous times (How smug are we about being there opening night?). I have no idea what’s going to change with a new chef. The food there is good, although I liked what I had at Merkado better than most of what I’ve had at The Heights. There’s something about the food at The Heights that knocks it down a notch. It’s not that the food is bad, because it isn’t. It just feels like they could tweak some recipes just a little bit and be much better. So, we’ll see what happens.

Someone stole my cherries!

I had some frozen cherries in the freezer at work to eat with my oatmeal in the morning, and someone stole them.  I was looking forward to oatmeal with cherries today.  But they’re gone.  Now I have to eat plain oatmeal.

A coworker tells me they sent out a notice a long time ago that they were going to clean the fridge, but I never saw it.  So I suspect that those jerks threw out a half a package of organic frozen cherries just because there might have been a little bit of cherry juice on the bottom of the freezer.   I hope they’re happy with themselves.

Bread is delicious

So, the bread I made last night was fantastic. It’s the kind of stuff you can just sit and eat. We haven’t even tried toasting it or putting butter or anything else on it. I’m all ready to go out and find a good recipe for some fancier bread. Some 100% whole wheat, maybe some grains and other bits of goodness. Maybe some raisin bread, although the wife doesn’t love raisin bread.

I would recommend that anyone who is disappointed by the quality of bread in the grocery store (Or the omnipresence of everyone’s favorite, high-fructose corn syrup) try baking his or her own. Yes, it helps a lot to have a Kitchen Aid mixer, and I know these are not cheap, but you don’t HAVE to have one, and it’ll probably save you money in the long run if you actually bake your own bread regularly.

The instructions for baking, incidentally, are very detailed and easy to follow.  We had to look up how to prepare the yeast, which wasn’t explained, but that wasn’t too hard.

Doing a little baking

The Simple Dollar » Homemade Bread: Cheap, Delicious, Healthy, and Easier Than You Think

It does take time, but once you get used to it, most food preparation doesn’t take much more time than going to the store, buying it, taking it home, popping it out of the package, and following the directions.

Bread!So I’m baking bread tonight. I found the above link somewhere, Lifehacker I think, a while back. And it seemed like a good idea. So here it is. It smells delicious. We have to wait until it cools to slice it, apparently.

I’ll tell you all how it tastes tomorrow.

Meat and potatoes for dinner

Tomorrow, my seafood-and-vegetables-only-eating wife is going out to dinner with a friend.  I think I’m going to take this opportunity to cook some french fries and a large slab of red meat for myself.  Not that she opposes me eating red meat and I have to do it while she’s not home, but it seems silly to cook two dinners.

Anyway, I’m not sure how to prepare it.  I think we have some four-year-old steak seasoning in the cupboard.  But that’s not really exciting.  What’s an interesting and not too complicated way to prepare a steak?  My cooking skill level is a bit above average, I think.  I can follow a recipe, and I can do a little experimentation outside of a recipe, but I’m never going to be on tv for my cooking skills.

Mmm. . . delicious cupcakes

Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted With Hedonism – New York Times via Accidental Hedonist

“Punk taught me to question everything,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “Of course, in my case that means questioning how to make a Hostess cupcake without eggs, butter or cream.”

Should we be eating animal products? I mean, you can’t tell me that it’s nice to the animals to kill and eat them. I think it’s a natural part of life – human beings evolved as omnivores. But it’s not a necessary part. I like the attitude here that the focus shouldn’t be on meat substitutes. Some of the best vegetarian stuff my wife cooks doesn’t have any meat substitutes.

I don’t know that I could give up meat, though. I’ve pretty much given up red meat and poultry at home (I was never that crazy about chicken anyway), sticking to vegetables and seafood. But could I give up the occasional bacon cheeseburger at a restaurant? Could I give up sushi? I don’t think I could.

But tasty vegan cupcakes? I’m happy to eat those.

Genetic eating habits

I always thought I was weird because, no matter what, I want lunch at 11:30.  People always yell at me at work because I want lunch early (partly that may be because I get in at 7-730, and many of them get in after 10).  But I found out yesterday that my sister is exactly the same way.  Even if I eat breakfast at 8, a snack at 9, and another snack at 10, I’m still hungry.  And it’s not that I eat bad snacks, because my sister is the same way, and she’s a health nut.  So while I may sometimes eat bad snacks, that is not the root of my problem. It’s comforting to know that it’s not me being weird, it’s something genetic.  I don’t get hungry like that in the afternoon and evening.  It’s just the morning.  I wonder if that’s related to the fact that I’m more of a morning person, and generally more productive in the morning.  It probably is.

What do you want, a cookie?

Accidental Hedonist – Labels and Standards

In essence, what they’re saying is that food companies don’t get a bonus credit for leaving out an excess of salt, sugar or fat, because it’s something they should be doing anyway.

I love this post. It reminds me of the Chris Rock skit about the guy bragging that he’s never been to jail, that he takes care of his kids. Rock, appropriately, responds, ‘You’re not supposed to go to jail.” If you haven’t seen the skit, you should. It’s probably on YouTube or something.

What we’re looking for is “good faith” healthy food.  That is, not something that’s had just enough fat or salt or whatever removed to meet some minimum guideline.  Stuff that’s labeled “healthy” should actually have healthy ingredients.  It should have a reasonable amount of sugar (natural sugar, not the cancer-y stuff), minimal fat and sodium, maybe some protein, some whole wheat flour . . .

While it’s nice that it’s getting easier every day to find stuff labeled “organic” at the grocery store, there’s more to it than that.  And most people, myself included, aren’t going to go research the company they’re buying from and make sure the labels really mean what they imply.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I hope someone does.

Halloween is going to kill me

A coworker brought in two giant bags of candy. Apparently he didn’t get as many trick-or-treaters as expected.

What makes it worse is that it’s good candy – Heath bars, Butterfingers, M&Ms;, Nerds . . . I’m going to need to jog home for the next week, I think.

So, both a complaint, and an anti-complaint.  Because candy is awesome, but thousands of extra calories from fat are not.