Tag Archives for eat fresh

#lobsterbake2011

Last weekend was the annual lobster bake at the mountain house, a tradition started years ago by a group of work friends, which we were not, that grew to include families of those friends, which we are, and for which we are now tremendously grateful to be a part of.

The weather was practically perfect, unlike past years when the event was held later in the fall – yielding gorgeous photos of snow dusted foliage,

almost the same view of the woods from yesterday, with snow

but shivering lobster eaters huddled inside. (That photo is from #lobsterbake2009)

Avi is a big lobster fan, and much like we’ve had to start getting him his own mussels at restaurants (or be very careful with the rationing lest he eat our entire order), he had his own lobster this year.

He did a pretty solid number on the thing, gamely cracking and twisting to get to the meat and asking for help with the really tricky parts.

He almost gave away his entire tail, deeming the meat “too tough”, but we realized he had some thicker bits from the edge of the body in his mouth and convinced him to give the lusciously sweet tail a second try. Remind me again why we did that?

One of the best things about the lobster bake is the rest of the non-lobster food, a delicious smorgasbord of homemade delights and awesome store-bought crap food (Doritos!) that I don’t normally get to eat. In case I didn’t make it abundantly clear, lobster bakes are solidly in the cheat day category, i.e. 100% NOT x diet friendly!

But x diet influenced our day regardless, as I discovered that it’s difficult to go from one extreme to another, though maybe not how you’re thinking. I made chocolate chip cookies to add to the supplemental food extravaganza. Unfortunately, the thing about baking for real after baking like this is that you may not have all the ingredients in the house that ordinarily you’d take for granted. Like, uh, flour. And sugar. Oops.

My adaptation was a roaring success, however. Enough that I promised the recipe (!) to not one but three different people. Here goes nothing.

(Sort of) Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups coconut flour
3/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup coconut oil
2 cups dark brown sugar (I may have had to stop midway through mixing to acquire this.)
1 cup sugar (This one, too.)
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbs vanilla extract
4 large (good) eggs
1 bar of decent semisweet baking chocolate
oil, spray or butter for coating the glassware

Right off the bat I should note that this makes a lot of cookies. A LOT. But they are done blondie style, so you can control the size of your cuts. They also freeze beautifully.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. I was able to do all three of my dishes of cookies together (more on that in a bit), but you may have to stagger your baking depending on your oven.

Mix dry ingredients (not sugars) really well  in one bowl and set aside. Melt butter then coconut oil into the butter (it helps them combine) and set aside to cool. Stir in brown sugar, sugar, vanilla to the  butter/oil combo. While it continues to cool (seriously, you don’t want your eggs to get funky, do you?) chip apart the chocolate bar. Add the eggs to the wet ingredients, then the dry to the wet. It’s going to be crumblier than your typical cookie dough, but that’s why we do them as blondies. Stir in the chocolate shavings/chips/whatever you managed to do with the bar.

For baking, I used 2 9 inch Pyrex pie plates and 2 small 5×5 glass dishes from Ikea. I baked one of the Ikea dishes at home, then chilled the rest of the dough and took it up to the mountains for the lobster bake. I could have easily fit all four dishes on two racks in my oven, though. There seemed to be no major baking-uniformity issue, either.

Spray or coat the glass dishes with whatever stick-free method you prefer. Press the dough in until the bottom is completely covered – I think most of my cookies were about 1 inch thick.

The coconut taste is so subtle that several coconut-haters were fooled. And the fine texture of the dough due to the coconut flour goes nicely with the irregular chocolate chunky slivers. Seriously, it does!

I recommend East End Fat Gary as the perfect accompaniment to these cookies, but then again, I recommend Fat Gary to go along with pretty much anything. I do not, however, recommend anyone try this at home:

Or else you will be mocked. And subject to inside jokes on The Internet.

What I Love vs. What I Eat, vol. 6.1: MOAR BISCUITS

Wheeee! I made more biscuits! And I totally confirmed my suspicion that the coconut flour (and prevalent coconut flavor) can be pushed in one direction (sweet and delicious!) or another (coconut, what?!) depending on the additional ingredient combinations.

Here’s your starting point.

For savory biscuits, I swapped out the coconut oil for unsalted butter, removed the stevia and doubled the kosher salt. I added a CSA jalapeno pepper (very finely chopped) and some fresh CSA parsley, and baked for 17 minutes.

I also got 13 biscuits out of the batter, and they’re only 45 calories a piece. “Coconut, what?!”, indeed.

Nutritional information for one biscuit, approximate: 45 calories, 4.1 grams fat, 9.4 mg cholesterol, 1.9 grams carbohydrates, 1.3 grams fiber, .2 grams sugar. .5 grams protein.

For sweeter, coconuttier biscuits, I added finely shredded unsweetened coconut to the batter (made with coconut oil) and tiny bit of vanilla. I also topped the biscuits with larger pieces of unsweetened shredded coconut.

Next time I’ll probably use vanilla flavored liquid stevia for the whole batch so I can calculate the nutritional information and ingredient amounts. This was part of a larger experiment (you’re not seeing the complete failure of forgetting to sweeten unsweetened cocoa before mixing it in….right) so I can’t quite do the math with this tiny batch of four. It was just enough to whet my appetite to make some more this evening.

MOAR BISCUITS.

What I Love vs. What I Eat, vol. 6: Egg Salad & Biscuits. (No, really.)

(For more on this once-and-future series, see this post. Or find all the harebrained episodes via tag in the sidebar.)

Alternate title: What I’m Eating For Lunch Today (with homemade gazpacho) That Is Rocking My World.

There’s no need for exposition, the food speaks for itself.

We’ll start with the eggs. Plenty of people have done healthier, non-mayo-based egg salad. Most involve mustard and yogurt, but since I’m avoiding dairy the yogurt is a no go. Straight mustard doesn’t lend itself to creaminess very well, and the dijon mustards all have added ingredients I’d rather not use. I decided to go the mustard route but made two changes to get the consistency and creaminess that egg salad should have. I picked a “creamier” root vegetable, and I added an unconventional liquid.

I may have eaten this yesterday for lunch, too, with heirloom tomatoes and brocolli sprouts.

Very simple. Hard boiled eggs, celery, leeks (the creamier root), cilantro (favorite herb, though your mileage may vary), yellow mustard, kosher salt, pepper and…unsweetened almond milk. Weird, I know. But it worked. I made it for a baby shower and even non-x diet eaters thought it was great. I hard boil eggs almost weekly, and this could very easily be whipped up in single serving portions without the vegetables – though I highly recommend them for the texture. Heck, this may even become part of my weekly lunch repertoire.

But alas, with no grains (they’re an x) it is difficult to eat an egg salad sandwich.

I’ve been baking with raw almond flour, garbanzo bean flour and coconut flour. All have their uses, thought nothing really caught my eye as a suitable staple alternative until I came across this recipe on a gluten free site. I made it as written, with coconut oil not butter, and used this chart to convert to stevia powder. I also made my biscuit drops a little smaller, getting 11 to the batch. Ideally next time I’ll get 12. I prefer even numbers.

Guys, they’re so fluffy! It’s amazing. They taste like bready biscuits!

I think the batter itself will be a wonderful base for further experimentation. It’s very subtly sweet, almost like corn bread, which made me think immediately of adding chili powder or jalapeno peppers. I want to punch up the coconut in a future version as well, maybe with coconut extract and flakes. What a find. High five to Andrea Bijou for the recipe.

Soooooo back to my lunch.

Non-dairy egg salad + gluten free/sugar free biscuit =

daaaaamn close to an egg salad sandwich! And with my chilled soup and ice tea, I can eat like the weather is just warming up for summer instead of cooling down for fall.

As long as I don’t open a window or look outside.

But we were on a break!

Dammit, August. I was trying to simplify. Relax. Enjoy the moment. Stop recording life and try living it.

But then you had to go and be awesome, and I have no record of it for The Posterity.

There was great cooking (despite the so-called x diet), family vacations, beautiful beer money (what?!) and of course, Batman. All in a day’s work.

So here’s August:

I’ve been baking, sans gluten or grains of any sort. Raw almond flour is my new favorite ingredient, followed closely by raw, unsweetened coconut. These are delightful, x-friendly and even passed muster with non-x friends at a dinner party.

I also turned these

into these

with the same raw almond flour. Fried green tomatoes a la x. Or something.

Meanwhile, these came

signifying our official “membership” in the Good Beer Investor Program at East End Brewing Company. We were number 21, if I recall correctly. A good omen? Really looking forward to drinking and spreading the Good Beer Cheer (Scott, that should totally be a thing) with these (dare I say?) beautiful beer monies.

Midway through August was vacation time, but before we left for the  beach we had to deal with the snow in Pittsburgh.

As Batman filmed downtown, we were treated to all sorts of vehicle and star-sightings as well as a lovely dusting of prop snow for several days. I missed most of it because I was on campus, but caught a bit at the end. Crazy weather juxtapositioning, since approximately twelve hours after I took that picture, I got to see this

We had a wonderful time at Bethany Beach again this year, due to the fabulous generosity and awesomeness of family. The weather was mostly perfect

and even when it wasn’t, it was beautiful. Exactly what we all needed before the start of the school year(s), since I indeed came right back to this

and this

(Can somebody *please* explain to me the significance of the panda??)

Avi’s hockey practices with his first official team started this month, also. He is very excited.

No really, he is. And we are, too. SHAHA is amazing.  More than worth the lengthy drive to the South Hills several times a week. Also: my hair is so long. Wow. Also also: I was not driving when this picture was taken. But! I can’t wait to see how quickly Avi continues to develop with this sport his whole family loves. His skating skills are really impressive and we can actually see him putting it all together on the ice. So much love!

Yeah, so that was August. I also took my absolute favorite picture of Avi ever (so far) during this month, so even though I’ve shared it with The Entire Internet already, I would be remiss if I didn’t share it again here. He’s so freakin cute, it slays me.

Told ya so.

Bring on September!

What I Love vs. What I Eat, Vol. 5: “Toastless” French Toast

(For more on this once-and-future series, see this post. Or find all the harebrained episodes via tag in the sidebar.)

It’s a new dawn of eating and food preparation in our household. Cynically I call it the x diet, where x is anything I want but can’t have. Dairy free, gluten free, sugar free. There are other x’s but those are the big ones. Tons of fresh vegetables, many courtesy of our CSA, and lean protein. We feel great, and I can’t begin to express (without digressing more than I have already) how much easier and – dare I say it? – fun this is to do with your partner than attempting it on your own.

But of course I miss fancy desserts and sweet things in general, although honestly not that often. I sometimes crave them in the morning, and an egg white omelet loaded with spinach or kale and broccoli, tomatoes and white beans is pretty solidly in the savory camp. I found myself wanting the spiced, nutty, lightly sweet taste of good French toast – although never with syrup. Gross.

Now, how to capture that cinnamon-y, vanilla-y goodness without, um, the toast part?

Almond Egg White Rollups, or “Toastless” French Toast

1/2 cup liquid egg whites
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
8 drops clear liquid Stevia
1/2 teaspoonish vanilla extract
Cinnamon
2 tablespoons raw almond butter, unsweetened & creamy

Whip the egg with the egg whites and almond milk. Add Stevia, vanilla and cinnamon. Heat an egg pan over low-medium heat (on our stovetop, that’s about 4). Pour a thin, crepe-like layer of egg mixture into the pan. This recipe makes 2, so be mindful of how much you pour.

Be patient. Seriously. You want it to be almost done before you flip it, with no little egg droolies leaking out the sides. And when the time comes to flip, sometimes you do a great job, and sometimes you don’t.

You can usually rescue it when you slide the whole thing onto a plate. Place about a tablespoon of raw almond butter on one side of the egg, or smooth a thin layer across the whole thing. Gently roll it up.

I eat it plain, others prefer a garnish.

It’s just sweet enough to take the edge off, and the vanilla, cinnamon and almond are welcome flavors that I miss in a world of vegetables and lean proteins. The fat content might make you balk, but it’s healthy fats from the almonds so don’t be afraid of that number.

Gluten free, dairy free, sugar free. x diet, bring it on.

Nutritional info for 1 rollup (recipe makes 2): 178 calories, 11.1 grams fat, 46.5mg cholesterol, 3.3 grams carbs, 2.3 grams fiber, 1 gram sugar, 13.3 grams protein.

(It’s especially nice paired with a light kale and bean salad. For breakfast. I know, right?!”

What I Love vs. What I Eat, Vol. 4: Fish Tacos & Tomatilla Salsa

(For more on this once-and-future series, see this post. Or find all the harebrained episodes via tag in the sidebar.)

I love fish tacos. My friends love fish tacos. My friends still eat fish tacos (or any tacos, actually), but alas, I do not. Too many empty calories in the common taco delivery system, be it wheat or corn based.

But! (with a finger pointing, I think)

It turns out what I love about fish tacos is the fresh, crisp flavor combinations inside, not outside, the taco. Authentic delivery system be damned.

Oh, the old lettuce trick, you say. Probably skeptically. But take a closer look: thick, crunchy, stalky lettuce with a nice center rib much like a taco shell. Black beans. Fresh salsa (often homemade, but this time Trader Joe’s did the work for me). Scallops. Homemade tomatilla salsa on top.

Wait a second, you cry. Did you say ‘scallops’?! I did indeed. Lightly seared, and perfectly distributing fish (okay, shellfish) throughout my taco.

Tell me more about this tomatilla salsa, you say. Pshaw, it’s easy. And we put it on everything. Every. Thing.

Tomatilla Salsa

6 or 8 tomatillas (Farmer’s Market)
1 green pepper (Farmer’s Market)
1 jalapeño pepper
1 leek (CSA)
1 small bunch of kale (CSA)
About a half T. Of kosher salt

Remove the papery coverings on the tomatillas and boil them for ten to fifteen minutes (depending on size and quantity). They’ll turn a richer green. Immediately throw them into a powerful blender or food processor and smash them to smithereens. Add the rest of the ingredients, or modify to your liking. Garlic and/or onion is good. Additional jalapeño is, too. Fresh cilantro or other herbs, whatever. Blend the hell out of everything, transfer to a container and chill in the fridge for several hours so the salsa can set.

Enjoy with fish (or shellfish) tacos or anything else you eat. Or just eat it by the spoonful. I won’t judge.

Potato Kugel

Passover happened. Yeah, I know. Old news. Wanna see what I made anyway?

This year I took care of the potato dish, something I rarely make since I’m usually only meh about potatoes. I opted for a potato kugel, and luckily my friend Emily Levenson had a recipe I could use as a base.

The original served 6-8, so I mostly doubled it. I also tweaked here and there, though not much. Emily is a great cook. Here’s what I ended up with:

POTATO KUGEL (serves 14-16)

3 lbs red potatoes
2 lbs fingerling potatoes (I had these from our CSA)
1 large sweet onion, chopped
1 large red onion, chopped
4 large carrots
3 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
4 tsps (or so) fresh chives
6 eggs, beaten (I used gorgeous CSA eggs, which I can’t recommend enough)
1/4 cup oil (unchanged from the original recipe)
1/2 cup matzoh meal
chives to garnish
unsalted butter to grease the baking dish

Peel the potatoes and carrots, then grate together. DO NOT (like I did) UNDERESTIMATE HOW LONG THIS WILL TAKE. Seriously, like an hour and a half. Potatoes are SO annoying. They also get kind of watery when you grate them, so try to drain them or squeeze out the excess juice if possible before you add the onions. Stir in the salt, pepper and chives, then the eggs, then the mazoh meal. Pour into a greased baking dish.

For a batch this large, I just bought one of those aluminum pans at the grocery store so I wouldn’t have to clean it, but I bet a glass baking dish would yield a more uniform result. Bake at 375 degrees for an hour and ten minutes, until the kugel is fully set and the top is starting to brown. Flip to broil for three to five minutes if you’re feeling fancy.

The end result was a creamy and savory potato dish that seemed to please everyone. I started it in the oven too early so it had to sit for awhile on the heating plate, but the texture held up well. I’m interested in trying it again in a smaller batch with a glass dish to improve the crisping.

Thanks again, Emily!

Things I’ve missed

An incomplete list of the things I’ve missed these past six weeks of #cmucarnival domination.

1. Cooking. I can’t actually remember the last time I cooked a complete meal from scratch. Bummer. But since our CSA started last week, I have fewer excuses preventing me from picking up this old habit.

2. Grocery shopping. I guess that should have been the first one, since I sure can’t cook until I restock some of our staples. I can’t believe I’m actually admitting this, but I’m really excited to go to the grocery store with a two page list.

3. Reading. I have a veritable stack of New Yorkers taunting me. Good thing I haven’t had time to keep up with the news, either. I figure if I read them all in order, it’ll be like I never missed a thing. I also figure it will take me until 2014 to get caught up.

4. Reading, part 2. Someone else is doing that a lot around here. I blinked and now he’s reading complete books to himself.

photo.JPG

5. Writing. I’ve missed having something to say other than whining about being busy, both here and elsewhere. I have several proposals for work that I’m looking forward to returning to, not to mention all the casual emails I’ve let slip by that I can finally respond to.

6. Writing, part 2. That same someone continues to provide us hours of entertainment with his reminder notes and shopping lists. It’s like having a personal secretary who never went to grammar school. But it’s way more fun to watch him figure it out in the moment, so now that I’m home before bedtime again I can actually do that.

7. Exercise. Spring Carnival is hard work: moving boxes, lugging event supplies, setting up chairs and tables. I was quite sore when everything ended, especially Saturday night. But it’s not the same as actual planned exercise, which I miss. Even the Wii Fit got uppity with me. I spent so long being exhausted that I forgot that exercise can actually help you re-energize. Now that the weather is nicer, I can’t wait to spend more time outside. And we recently got a treadmill so I can reestablish my running routine. Two steps forward, one step back, but at least that’s a net step forward.

8. You. Seriously.

Burgatory

We tried to go to Burgatory Bar a couple weeks ago. The wait (on a Friday night) was close to two hours, so we passed. The hostess that evening suggested we try a weekend afternoon before 5pm, so on Saturday we stopped by after Avi’s soccer game. She was right: we walked right in (mostly) around 3:30pm, and by the time we left there was a line out the door.

I’m a fan of branding-as-design when it’s done the right way, and I think Burgatory has a lot of fun with that end of things. The message and tone is consistent on everything, and a snarky flow chart on the wall near the front made me laugh out loud. It’s obvious that the attitude/aesthetic was a major priority to the owners, so high marks for that.

Generally, high marks for everything, really. I have some thoughts about the one aspect of our visit that was less than positive, but I’m going to save those for the end so I don’t detract from the deliciousness.

I might as well start by saying that Burgatory reminds me of Fuel & Fuddle, and I truly mean that in a good way. It also has some obvious similarities to BRGR, but I haven’t been there yet so I can’t speak to them directly. For the sake of science, we ordered our standard benchmark, the nachos.

A solid showing, although probably not in the top five (where Fuel & Fuddle comfortable sits). Too much glop in the center so the toppings-to-chips ratio was off. Nice homemade quac, bonus points for the green onions. But we didn’t really come for the nachos, we came for the burgers.

Beef+Farmhouse cheddar+bacon+field greens+tomatoes=

With a small child for scale:

(Pitchfork optional.)

As you can see, the burgers come with a side of handmade russet & sweet potato chips that even this potato-hater found enjoyable. Mine was a bit overdone (I asked for a pink center, but it was definitely medium-well) but quite juicy and flavorful. The brioche was fresh and the cheddar was extra sharp. Less than half the sandwich was consumed on site, however. Consider this your warning that these burgers are huge.

The other reason to come to Burgatory are the shakes.

Yes, you read that right: the shakes on the left are for grownups only. I tried a Peppermint Pattie.

(Forgot to ask for no whipped cream.) Waaaay too big not to share, and here’s your second warning: you can’t take this puppy home because of the alcohol. Which is a shame, because it was delightful but I’d need about a week to finish it, even if I had gotten it when I ordered it.

And that brings me to my final thoughts on Burgatory Bar, prefaced with the reassurance that we will absolutely be going back.

Our service was terrible.

I know, I know. I hate to admit it, too. But it wasn’t just one person and it did actually impact my enjoyment of our meal. I won’t go into petty specifics here, but I hope it was just an off afternoon at a recently-opened restaurant and not par for the course. Both the host staff and the wait staff were seriously off their game, and in a place like Burgatory which so obviously places a premium on ambience and experience, it was a definite bummer.

So we’ll give them a couple weeks and head over again. I want to try that bison burger anyway.

What I Love vs. What I Eat, vol. 1: Buffalo Blue Cheese

I love food. Duh.

And food loves me. Duh.

(Especially my hips, thighs and tummy.)

So as I re-evaluate, re-establish and re-structure my eating habits, I’m finding ways to enjoy some of what I love without completely going off the deep end. I cook with fresh, whole ingredients so I certainly don’t  like the idea of swapping one processed food for another processed food. That means sites like Hungry Girl – which is all about finding healthier ways to eat the stuff we all really want to, often by way of fat-free or lite versions of pre-packaged foods – aren’t usually my go-to. Instead, I’m trying to really be thoughtful about the *tastes* I enjoy (novel concept, I know) and then find alternative ways to acquire them.

(That being said, I don’t make everything from scratch. As you’ll see below, condiments are one area where I’m usually fine with starting with a purchased product. Especially if it’s full of magic.)

First up, what I love: boneless buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing.

I’ll be honest, I’m really picky about boneless wings and I don’t eat regular wings at all. Ever. I guess it would be more accurate to say I’m very picky about chicken. I’m a white-meat only kind of gal.

But I love LOVE the buffalo bites at Sharp Edge. Please do not ever take me there during a Penguin game because they’re only .40 a piece and that’s just cruel. I also like the boneless wings at Mad Mex quite a bit, although I recently discovered that it’s actually the dressing that I really LOVE. Seriously, I could eat it with a spoon. (Side note: this is awesome. Kudos to Big Burrito.)

Anyway, the dressing. It’s blue cheese with buffalo sauce, basically. Same combo as my favorite bites flavor. So why not take what I have at home and recreate it?

I’ve written about my dressing before. Bolthouse Farms Yogurt Dressing Chunky Blue Cheese. Why aren’t you buying this stuff yet? It’s magically delicious. AND! No preservatives, no artificial anything. 50 calories for two tablespoons. It still Blows. My. Mind.

Add some Sriracha hot chili sauce (negligible caloric impact). Serve with pulled chicken.

So, what I eat:

Nutritional information for 3.5 oz pulled chicken: 164 calories, 4 grams fat, 0 carbs, 31 grams protein. Plus the 2 tablespoons dressing: 50 calories, 4.5 grams fat, 1 gram carbohydrates, 1 gram sugars, 1 gram protein.

Total savings: about a million calories and two million grams of fat. At least.