Archive for June, 2007

Washington DC readers – dinner, drinks and a good cause!

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
washington-dc-readers-dinner-drinks-and-a-good-cause

Found out about this one via DCist – the first annual Brainfood Grill Off!

It’s this Thursday, 6/28, and there are still tickets available. $75 for dinner, open bar and “entertainment” (which may be the kids setting the kitchens on fire, who knows.)

Brainfood is “a non-profit youth development organization based in Washington, DC. Brainfood has been a community presence in the Columbia Heights neighborhood for several years, and in the fall of 2007, a second Brainfood site was established in Chinatown. The Brainfood kitchen is a place where young people come to have creative, constructive fun. We believe that supervised, fun activities are a young person’s right, not a privilege, and we have found that most of our students do not have access to such opportunities.

In keeping with these beliefs, we have created after school and summer programs that allow kids to be kids, while also challenging them to develop new skills and raise self-expectations. Brainfood is a safe place for teens to try new things, make mistakes, and grow. We reach young people through a positive approach based on one of the oldest and most universal of human traditions: food. Through listening, reading, shopping, measuring, chopping, whisking, roasting, cooling, collaborating, presenting, eating, cleaning and volunteering, Brainfood students learn life skills and have fun.”

Well, damn, I am certainly down for that. Even got little bro hooked in for it. (Which makes me think that maybe the Swedish Meatballs tonight didn’t turn out as well as I thought it had.)

Posted in Local, Youth and Food | No Comments »

Swedish Meatballs

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

Yes, we did hit a high of 91 degrees today and yes, I did make Swedish Meatballs for dinner. I’ve wanted these for about a week now, but have also been on some antibiotics that have been doing a fantastic job of making me feel horrid, so I held off until I *knew* I’d feel good for dinner. And today I feel great, and still wanted them like nobody’s business. So, there you go.

My Mom used to make these with a packet mix from McCormick or Lowrys or one of those folks. Now, it was always tasty so I certainly can’t complain by any means. But, I’ve kind of gone a personal crusade for “packet-free food” – I truly think that just about anything you can make with a seasoning packet can be done just as well (if not better) on your own. The big hurdles I got over were chili & spaghetti sauce. (Don’t laugh!) Well, once I got those to a point where I was pleased with them, I decided it was time to tackle the Swedish Meatballs.

In scouring recipes across the internet, I found there are as many recipes for Swedish Meatballs as there are stars in the sky. (And I am still convinced if you asked someone from Sweden about them, they would look at you as though you’d lost your mind, the Ikea cafeteria menu notwithstanding.) My first go at it, I used this recipe from allrecipes.com, and of course had to make some variations on it…

It wasn’t bad by any means, but it was just ALL WRONG. I seem to recall throwing in a bit of beef stock in the sauce instead of water, and overall the sauce was just too “beefy” – like I said, not bad, but certainly not what Mom used to make. My brother ate it but readily admitted it just didn’t cut it for what we used to get. (And isn’t Mom always the yardstick by which we measure so many comfort foods?)

That night, I had the “OMG, I am such a dumbass” moment. Mom’s (and McCormick’s) sauce was a thickened *cream* sauce. I remember looking at my brother and saying, “Good lord, it’s nothing more than another variation on red-eye gravy, and I can do THAT.” I felt like an idiot.

So, tonight, it was me vs. the Swedes again. :) I stuck somewhat to the original meatball recipe I’d found, with more variations (it’s almost my meatloaf recipe, sans the 57 sauce, LOL.) and then when it came time for the sauce, it came out MUCH better than before, and damn close to what I remember my Mom making. Gotta love that. My brother says it’s not quite there, but very close, but neither one of us can quite figure it out (and I can’t find a damn McCormick package to see what other spices I’m missing in the sauce.)

So, here we go – Swedish Meatballs after the jump:
(more…)

Posted in Appetizers, Beef, Main Dishes | 1 Comment »

Omelet!

Thursday, June 21st, 2007

If you have trouble with omelets, get hold of Alton Brown’s Good Eats episode on the subject. I’m serious – I think that helped me more than any cookbook, cooking show or anything else. (Sadly, no pics. I was too busy being astonished and then too hungry to do anything but sit down and eat.)

I’d pretty much resigned myself to a lifetime of scrambled eggs and frittatas as my omelet skills had not proven themselves up to the task, but today I got a wild hair and decided I wanted an omelet for lunch.

I pulled out my “perfect” omelet pan (who knew the cheapo nonstick I bought years ago would be great for omelets? And the perfect size for 2 egg omelets.) and started with cooking up some bacon and reserved some of the grease for the omelet. (OK, I know butter is the norm, but IT’S BACON GREASE! I don’t have it that often! It’s yummy!)

Poured my two eggs into the pan and shook, swirled, and scraped appropriately. It actually was looking like it did on TV! Tossed a little bit of cheese in the middle. Couldn’t do a tri fold cause one side got a little messed up, but it worked fine for just folding it in half.

Had to help it out of the pan a little bit with the spatula, but no disastrous sticking at all.

Not only did it LOOK like an omelet, it TASTED like one, too!! (As opposed to the “scrambled eggs with cheese” I so often end up with.)

Only thing I think I did wrong was I had the heat a touch too high cause the outside was a little browned (but not burned) so I’ll remember to turn it down a touch next time.

Funny how the little things can put such a big freakin’ grin on your face.

Posted in Breakfast, Eggs | No Comments »

Chicken Salad Wrap

Sunday, June 17th, 2007
chicken-salad-wrap

My very favorite way to have this chicken salad is on criossants, but I couldn’t get hold of any today, but little flour tortillas did the trick. It’s ridculously easy.

Toss some boneless, skinless chicken breasts into a deep skillet, cover w/water, put on med to high heat. Bring to a boil (~10 mins), cover, cook 10 minutes, turn over, cover, cook 10 more minutes.

Put chicken in fridge to chill (just makes it easier to cut up. If you prefer shredded, then go at it)

Dice chicken, slather in sauce, chill, eat. It’s carb friendly to boot.

Sauce:
~2 parts mayonnaise
~1 part Country Dijon Mustard (the kind w/the seeds)

Mix to taste, mix with chicken until it looks like you’ve put a little too much on it – as the chicken sits, it will soak up some of the sauce.

Things you can add that are good:
- chopped celery
- chopped walnuts
- chopped apples
- finely diced onion

Since you can’t see the filling when it’s all wrapped up…

Dinner!

Posted in Chicken, Main Dishes, Sandwiches | No Comments »

Bacon-wrapped Scallops

Saturday, June 16th, 2007
bacon-wrapped-scallops

Just doesn’t get easier than this. Scallops, bacon, lemon juice drizzled over, and I went wild and tossed a bit of ground pepper & parsley on top. The scallops were a bit on the huge side, so I ended up slicing them in half. To be honest, next time I’ll cut them in thirds or even quarters, as they were still pretty big. 15-20 minutes @ 350 degrees, just depends on how long for the bacon to cook through. Also discovered that my cookie sheet warps in the oven.

My brother is going to kill me when he finds out that I made these when he wasn’t around. Damn, just have to make them again, I suppose.

Posted in Appetizers, Bacon, Scallops | No Comments »

Disaster…

Sunday, June 10th, 2007
disaster

Well, at least it LOOKED good. Having not made shrimp satay before, I snagged some beef to marinate as well just in case the shrimp didn’t go well – it did go well and so tonight was beef satay. Awful. WAY too much citrus to it – I thought the shrimp was a touch too citrusy so I added some more peanut butter & soy to the beef marinate – didn’t work at all. So, next time I know to cut back some on the lime juice – weird cause it didn’t seem that way when I did the chicken version of it. Also flaked and got a half-sirloin instead of flank steak, so not only was it too limed out, it was tough as hell, too. But, it looked nice.

Posted in Beef, Thai | No Comments »

Shrimp Satay

Saturday, June 9th, 2007

Thai meat on a stick! I’ve done chicken & beef, but decided to give shrimp a go this time. Usually it’s served on the skewers, but I have bad luck w/the bamboo skewers – no matter how long I soak them for, they have this tendency to catch fire.

1# chicken, beef, cut into strips (can also use flank steak), or shrimp

Marinade:
2t creamy peanut butter
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. lime juice (lemon can be used, lime is just a little better)
2t curry powder
2 cloves chopped garlic
1t hot pepper sauce (I just use thai chili sauce, could pretty much use any hot sauce)

Combine the marinade ingredients, dump in your protein of choice, cover and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours.

Put chicken/steak on skewers, grill on high heat 5 minutes on a side. (Same if using broiler inside.) Shrimp, 2.5 minutes over a low fire.

Posted in Appetizers, Main Dishes, Shrimp, Thai | 1 Comment »

Hell’s Kitchen

Monday, June 4th, 2007
hells-kitchen

OK, never saw it the first time around, so I’m late to the party on this one.
Now, I absolutely LOVE Gordon Ramsay and really enjoyed The F Word, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep up with this one given that I already want to punch all of the “contestants” in the face. (Pretty much why I don’t watch much in the way of contest type shows.)

ETA: My brother assures me that my initial reaction is completely normal.

Posted in Food on TV | No Comments »

Is it really that hard?

Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
is-it-really-that-hard

The launch of Oscar Mayer’s newest convenience product (and one of their older ones) has me scratching my head and wondering why some things have apparently become too hard or time consuming for folks. I’m talking about the new “Deli Creations” hot sandwich kits and “Lunchables” which have been around for a while. (Not even linking to the Lunchables site, it’s nothing more than a flash game for kids with ads smashed in.)

Looking at the various options you can get w/Lunchables, it seems to come down to this: Some crackers, deli meat, cheese, a juice box of some sort and sometimes dessert. The Deli Creations are deli meat & cheese on a sub roll with special microwave packaging.

Granted, I am self-employed and work from home so I have a little more time on my hands than some of my contemporaries, but does it REALLY take that long to put together a cheese/meat/cracker bento for kiddo’s lunch? Toss in a juice box or 50 cents for milk money and you’re done. You could easily have the same variety and more quality control over what your kid is eating (or OK, trading to someone else) for lunch. It just can’t be that difficult, and yet these suckers seem to be incredibly popular given how many different varieties are available in stores.

On the sandwich kits – if you want a hot sandwich for lunch, when did it become too difficult to put together a sandwich the night before, wrap it in some tinfoil and then pop it in the toaster oven at the office? No toaster oven? OK, so you go with the microwave, some parchment paper and be willing to experiment a bit on times. But still, it’s not that big I deal, is it?

I’ll admit, I’m a fan of fast and convenient – who isn’t? But these just seem to be a touch over the top. Maybe that 7.5 minutes spent in the kitchen making these up could be relaxing. Could be something fun to put together with your kids. Are we really that strapped for time?

Posted in Products | No Comments »