Rachel is the new Julia Child....time to make Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs!

Ok. So Rachel is obviously outdoing me here! I've gotta step it up! :)

The truth is I haven't been much in the mood to write lately and I'm not sure why. But one of the great things I love about food is being able to share it with others - and not just the eating part...the cooking too! A few months ago, my friend Tricia came over to watch the Oscars. I thought, "Hey! What a great excuse to cook dinner!" Now, Tricia does not cook but I wanted to show her how easy and delicious a meal can be so off to Trader Joe's we went. On the menu for the night? Whole wheat spaghetti, homemade marinara sauce, turkey meatballs, and garlic naan. Now really, the only actual cooking was making the marinara sauce. Easy enough, right? This is the recipe I used:

Marinara Sauce by Giada De Laurentiis of the Food Network:

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 small onions, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 (32-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes

2 dried bay leaves

In a large casserole pot, heat the oil over a medium-high flame. Add the onions and garlic and saute until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the celery, carrots, and 1/2 teaspoon of each salt and pepper. Saute until all the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and bay leaves, and simmer uncovered over low heat until the sauce thickens, about 1 hour. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Season the sauce with more salt and pepper, to taste. (The sauce can be made 1 day ahead. Cool, then cover and refrigerate. Rewarm over medium heat before using.)

Now, I read in the user comments on the Food Network website that you should really blend or "process" the vegetables so that your sauce doesn't turn out super chunky. So that's what we did. And you know what? They were right and the sauce was super good! Once we had that going and the pasta was boiling in some olive oil, we threw the awesome frozen turkey meatballs from Trader Joe's (which are SUPER good, healthy, and easy!) into the sauce. All that was left was to take some whole wheat Naan, spread some crushed garlic on it with some spices and toss that into the toaster oven. Within minutes we were ready to eat. And boy, was it delicious. I even had enough left over for another couple of meals, including a meatball sandwich! Yum, yum, yum. TaaDaah!

Tofu Stir-Fry

So I know I've been kinda bad and haven't posted each of my meals with my cost analysis. The truth is that sometimes I figure people must get really bored looking at food. The other truth is that I got lazy, especially with all the calculating! Plus, my dinners last Sunday through Tuesday were all pretty similar to other meals I've posted. Here's a little recap:


Sunday Night I made another awesome whole wheat pasta dish. This one was whole wheat angel hair, and it had 1 can of tomatoes, spinach (super good!), onion, mushrooms, garlic and Italian parsley. Since we only had 1 small can of tomatoes, I added some extra olive oil, red wine vinegar, a couple splashes of Tempranillo, plus salt and pepper. Jeremy added more of his Jamaican sweet sausages to his plate. We ate it with some red leaf salad, and a side of Desperate Housewives and the Pacific.  
Cost: $5.73 for two (not including Jeremy's sausages)

Monday Night I pulled out all the stops and made another roasted chicken with vegetables. (The chicken was pasture raised of course!) For the vegetables, I had carrots, celery, onion, turnips, and potatoes. This time, I roasted the potatoes in a second pan since there was so little room in the pan with a chicken. They took a little longer and didn't have the poultry fat-juice on them, but the were still quite good.
Cost: $10.79 for two

Tuesday Night Jeremy took over the kitchen for me, which was awesome since I was tired. He made the other two catfish fillets we had stored in the freezer, plus some sauteed carrots, snow peas and mushrooms with white rice. I told Jeremy to set aside raw carrots for me because I hate cooked carrots unless they are roasted or stewed in something. (My whole family does, so I think it's genetics not pickiness!) But later, I polished off the remaining cooked veggies as a second helping and the cooked carrots were great! I don't know if it was Jeremy's magical culinary touch or if it's because we got the carrots at the Farmer's Market (stems and all--the kind Bugs Bunny would eat), but they were just fine sauteed. Jeremy also cooked the fish really well. He put just the right amount of seasoning and the texture was nice and soft...hmm I think I might have to commission him for all future fish dishes.
Cost: $8.92 for two

Wednesday Night we went simple and made a tofu stir-fry. I sauteed some organic firm tofu, the remainder of the snow peas and the last orange bell pepper. We also had some lovely organic roasted potatoes (again, courtesy of the Farmer's Market) and red leaf salad. I was really satisfied with this simple dinner. Here's my plate, minus the salad:

Cost: $6.62 for two (I don't know how much the potatoes cost; I conservatively estimated $3.00.)

Weekend Pizza!

On Saturday, I decided to try to create a pizza from some Trader Joe's pizza dough that I bought two months ago (seriously). Don't worry, it was in the freezer and I defrosted it in the fridge the night before. I split the whole wheat pizza dough in half because I didn't have a baking sheet large enough to hold a full-size pizza. This worked out, though, because Jeremy decided to add sausage to his pizza. So we each had our own little pizza.

First, I chopped up the veggies: mushrooms, a bell pepper and spinach.

Then I sliced into small pieces both Spicy Pepper Jack Cheese and New York Chedder. (Jeremy defrosted his Sweet Jamacian sausages, which he got at the Farmer's Market. Yay for local, organic, and free range meat! I'm proud...)
While I was doing this, the dough was resting on the counter with some flour.
I couldn't take a photo of myself tossing the dough for obvious reasons. The first half came out pretty well--it was more of a roundish rectangle than a circle. The second half of the dough was a little trickier. I think I put too much olive oil on it while I was shaping it, which caused it form lots of holes. I managed to get it into a decent shape though. I topped each dough with half a can of diced tomatoes and the toppings. I baked them for 15 minutes at 450 degrees and this is what came out:

my pizza

half of Jeremy's pizza

The pizza turned out really well. The only problem was that the dough in the middle wasn't as baked thoroughly as the rest of the crust. Next time, I'll take Ashley's advice and bake the dough a bit before adding the rest of the toppings. I can't wait to make another--homemade pizza is cheaper and healthier!

Fish, Curry, Fish

Hello everyone (or the only two people who read this blog)!

I'm continuing on my plan to make delicious, inexpensive dinners from the foods listed on that fabulously long receipt. In other words, my goal is not to waste any food, while also enjoying scrumptious dinners.

Wednesday Night's Dinner was more fish. The menu: Baked dover sole, sauteed long choy, and white rice with soy sauce. I forgot to take a photo, but I think I've already posted quite few photos of the fish-bok choy-rice combo, since it is a favorite standard of mine. The cost was $5.34 for the sole and $1.49 for the bok choy. We bought a massive bag of rice from Costco, so I really don't know how much the rice costs. Similarly, our soy sauce bottle is one of those supersized containers that really should only be bought by people with 20 kids to feed. So dinner came to about $7.00 total for two people ($3.50 each, in case you can't divide by 2 right now).

Friday Night, we enjoyed even more fish. This time we had catfish--another A list fish according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Guide. We seasoned this fish with the Pike Place Seasoning that Jeremy got in Seattle. That stuff is good and a little spicy! I think a little goes a long way, although we still put a lot on, haha. This time we had potatoes and organic red leaf salad as our sides. See how much salad is in that bowl? That doesn't include the first servings on our plates.



Simple leaf salad is one of the easiest ways to get your greens!

This fish dinner was about $8.75 for two. Jeremy and I shared a catfish fillet since they were so big. We did get a little hungry later and snacked on some mixed nuts.

Now I'm going to backtrack to Thursday's Dinner, which involves a bit more storytelling. I had planned to make omelets, roasted potatoes and salad for dinner. However, when I revealed this menu to Jeremy, he informed me that he has an issue with eggs. The issue? He doesn't like them. WTF? Who doesn't like eggs? I eyed him suspiciously for awhile because I could recall a few situations where he consumed a couple sunny-side ups. But I don't believe in force feeding anyone, so I decided to make a vegetarian chickpea curry. I had diligently bought curry powder, coriander and canned tomatoes in order to make a curry during the week, but I had forgotten coconut milk. I decided to wing it without the milk anyway.

I decided to create my own recipe based upon these two different recipes: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chickpea-curry/detail.aspx and http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/saras-secrets/vegetable-curry-with-chicken-if-you-want-recipe/index.html.

My recipe ended up something like this...

Ingredients:
2 medium red potatoes
3/4 an onion (I happened to have 3/4 in the fridge.)
1/2 an orange cauliflower
2 carrots
2 1/2 celery stalks
1 small orange bell pepper
A few broccoli flowerettes (I had them in the freezer and needed to get rid of them somehow.)
1 large can of diced tomatoes
1 can chickpeas
1/2 cup of light coconut milk (more on this later...)
4 small cloves of garlic (or 3 large)
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
2 Tablespoons ground coriander
2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 Tablespoons tumeric
1 1/2 Tablespoons curry powder
1 Tablespoon red chili flakes (I had saved mine from pizza deliveries. I used about half of the little container.)
Salt
Olive oil

Directions:
1. Chop up the potatoes into small cubes. Microwave until soft.
2. Chop up the other vegetables. (Note, the smaller you chop them, the faster they cook.)


I noticed that my vegetables were the colors of Ireland's flag. Here's orange (gold).


green


and white

3. Heat some olive oil in a pot. I also added a slice of butter since I didn't have coconut milk.
4. Add the cumin, coriander, cinnamon and onion. Saute until the onions are soft and become translucent.
5. Add the tumeric, curry powder, chili flakes, and garlic. Stir in with the onion.
6. Add the canned tomatoes and stir up.
7. Add in the vegetables--I added the carrots, cauliflower and celery first since I knew they would take longer to cook.

About this time I started to panic about the texture and taste of the curry and decided I needed coconut milk. It probably would have been fine (albeit different) without the milk, but I really didn't want to f*** things up too much in this experiment, so I ended up running out to buy some.

When I got back, I discovered that the veggies were way cooked aka almost burnt! I left Jeremy in charge of stirring and checking the temperature, but I don't think I was very clear in my directions. Oops. Anyway, I added half of the can of coconut milk, which definitely helped. I then added the can of chickpeas (drained), potatoes and broccoli. (The broccoli was frozen and I had nuked it for a minute to get it soft.) After some good stirring and simmering, the curry really came together. I had only used about half the amount of the spices listed above. In other words, I had used 1 Tablespoon of cumin instead of 2. But after some tasting, I decided to amp up the flavor and added another measure of each of the spices. Note, though, I don't actually have measuring spoons. This is my idea of a tablespoon:


Finally, the curry was done. Add some white rice and here's what you get:


Plus Jeremy's plate, plus leftovers in the pot:


I have to say I was surprised at how good it was. I think I used just the right amount of spices. It was spicy but not too hot. I'm definitely glad I microwaved the potatoes to cook them a bit before adding them to the pot, otherwise they wouldn't have cooked all the way. In the future, I think I will also try to cook the carrots a bit beforehand, as they were a little crunchy. I love raw carrots, but when all the other veggies are soft, I prefer them to be soft too. The chickpeas were a good and different source of protein--but feel free to use tofu, beans, or a meat if you prefer. The light coconut milk brought the dish together.

I'll have to calculate the cost of this on my next post. I think this novel, I mean post, is long enough.

Tuesday Dinner: Veggie Pasta (money continued...)

Here is a continuation of my meal-planning this week. I'm trying to put all these Berkeley Bowl goodies to an economical yet delicious use. I decided to freeze some fish and a whole chicken for future use, so that we wouldn't have to use them up quickly in the first few days. Freezing fish, meat, and tofu is a great way to preserve your protein. The texture of the fish and meat do not change when you defrost them. The tofu's texture does change a bit, but the new texture actually allows the tofu to hold together more firmly and absorb sauces better.

So instead of fish two nights in a row, I decided to make a vegetarian pasta. I made my own sauce, since I didn't want to spend $3.50+ on a jar of premade pasta sauce. Plus, this gave me an excuse to get creative with plain ol' pasta.

I made just over a pound of whole wheat penne pasta ($2.44 from the bulk section). I added a lot of canned tomatoes ($1.45 + $0.85 + $0.89 for 1 large can and 2 small), because Jeremy and I really like them. I sauteed half of a defrosted package of organic tofu ($0.75) and chopped up a bunch of mushrooms (about $1.35), throwing them into the pot. I also added some Italian parsley (probably less than $0.10) and fresh rosemary (free!). Finally, I added 3 cloves of garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, with salt, pepper and grated cheese to add on top. I guess you can calculate $0.50 for all of those.

Total: $6.98 and a yummy tummy

I would say this comes to $3.49 per person, but the reality is that this could have fed like six people. Jeremy had two plates the first night, and there are still leftovers. I ate some for lunch today and will probably polish it off for lunch tomorrow. So that's really like 6 helpings of pasta--or $1.13 a plate.

Furthermore, not to toot my own horn, but it was delicious! Whole wheat penne is the way to go--it filled me up more quickly than white pasta and I like its slightly nutty and grainy flavor. Plus the shape of the penne helps hold the mushrooms and tomatoes. The defrosted, sauteed tofu came out (surprisingly) really well! Jeremy said that the texture was so good, it could be mistaken for fish. Ok, now I am tooting my own horn. But hey I don't have a car, so I like to honk when I get the chance :)

Money, Money, Money...MONEY!

On Monday, I went a little nuts at the grocery store. I usually shop at a co-op store called Berkeley Bowl, where produce is cheap and abundant. Seriously, major newspapers have even done articles about the store. I don't know if I suddenly felt the need to buy the entire store because I was realizing just how much I'll miss this place when I'm in graduate school. That might have been it. Sometimes, though, I'll take it as a personal challenge to buy as much as I possibly can and port it back home without a car. So that might have been it. But more likely, I had been reading lots of other food blogs and seeing delicious looking dishes left and right. So, I decided to up my game and ended up spending $109.65 at the store! Gah! First time I've reached triple digits on a grocery receipt (not including at Costco).

However, considering how much I got, I think it might end up being a steal, or at least economical. The trick is I must not let food go bad! So, in order to avoid wasting, I'm going to try to plan my dinners. This way I'll know what food to use up more quickly and what to store/freeze for future use. I don't actually like being so rigid with my cooking and eating. However, I really want to save money. And truth be told, I kind of want to put my energies into this instead of stressing out about work, graduate school, and the future, which I tend to do.

Furthermore, it's the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and cooking at home is better for the environment (provided you don't waste your food)!

Here is what I made Monday night from my groceries galore. I've tried also to calculate an average of how much the meal costs:

Monday Night
Baked trout with shallots and Pike Place fish seasoning
Organic green leaf salad with Mom's secret homemade dressing
Roasted potatoes with olive oil, Lawry's seasoning, salt and pepper

Cost:
Trout - $5.88
Potatoes - $0.65
Shallots - $0.25
Organic green leaf lettuce - $1.79
Plus $0.25 to account for the costs of olive oil, seasonings, and ingredients in salad dressing, which probably isn't even this much.
Total: $8.82 for two people or $4.41 each. Not bad. Plus doesn't it look good?



For the record, there was a massive bowl of salad next to this plate, so I had a lot more leaves than what this shows. I also had to surrender some delicious potatoes to Jeremy since I was so full.

I'll keep you posted on how the future meal-planning goes. If anyone has any tips about storing and preserving food or cheap recipe suggestions, let me know!

Baking with beau!

Hello food lovers--

Last night, I did something I hadn't done in a long time--bake! I rarely bake for a couple reasons. One is that I started cooking because it was required. In college, I needed to feed myself and cooking was the cheapest way. Baking, though, isn't really required. I don't need cookies or cakes or pies. Another reason why I rarely bake is that you can't usually "wing it" or not follow a recipe or directions, which is what I tend to do when I cook. Many of my cooking skills have been learned through experimenting, not something you can really do with baking.

But some time ago, Jeremy suggested that we bake chocolate chip cookies together. Now, something you all need to know is that Jeremy was born without a sweet-tooth. In fact, he's basically a salt-tooth. Not only does he prefer the savory to sweet, he will shun any dessert offered and instead go through a gallon of soy sauce. Seriously, here is a photo of our respective desserts on Valentine's Day:



But Jeremy can go for a good chocolate chip cookie now and then, so I was happy that we could make and enjoy one dessert-type food together. Plus, I kinda love doing anything with Jer Bear, even if chocolate or cookies aren't involved. :)

Anyway, back to the baking. I tried to find the most basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, since I'm bad at following too many directions. I ended up using this recipe from allrecipes.com (minus the nuts): http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies/Detail.aspx

Instead of white sugar, I used only brown sugar. And when I realized that the recipe made about 4 dozen cookies, I decided to halve it. (Jeremy and I don't quite need 48 cookies.) I also didn't have a measuring cup or measuring spoons. I know this is blasphemy when it comes to baking (another reason why I hardly bake), but I decided to just be as standard as I could by using the same small mug to measure cups and two different size spoons to measure teaspoons and tablespoons.

I started off by softening the butter in the microwave and then creaming it with the brown sugar. (I actually had to look up what "creaming" is exactly.) I was proud of myself that I managed to do it the old fashioned way with a wooden spoon.


No electric mixers here!

Then I beat in the egg and vanilla extract. I separately mixed the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Then Jeremy used his manpower to stir these dry ingredients into the mixture, plus the chocolate chips. After that, we rolled the dough into balls and put them in well butter-greased pans.


Here's one pan. We had three pans, for a total of 18 cookies. The recipe calls for baking it at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. However, our cookies ended up needing about 12-14 minutes. I found that the cookies baked more quickly in our medal pan (rather than the sheet pan shown here), and those need no more than 10 minutes.

Here are all of the cookies cooling on a plate (no cooling rack needed either!).


We didn't have milk on hand, but the cookies were still delicious with a cup of lemon rose tea. I thought they were so good and I was a little bit proud of us. ;) They were great to have after a spicy Indian dinner, and they were rich enough that I only needed two. Mr. Salt Tooth ended up eating six cookies! I thought that was quite the sign of success.



Now, I have to get all mushy and dedicate this post to Jeremy. Even though he doesn't have a sweet tooth, he is one of the sweetest people I know. When we began dating, "sweet" was the word that summed him up. I know this is a public forum, but I will admit that we have had some hard times lately and have had to deal with pressures and difficult decisions. Sometimes I haven't been the sweetest person myself. However, every day I look forward to making dinner with Jeremy. It's always the highlight of my night, even when I'm tired and don't feel like cooking or cleaning. One thing I love about Jeremy is that we've grown to be each other's sous-chef. He's never left me to do the cooking and cleaning just because I'm a female. He's always been a willing participant (even when he's tired too). Although he's mentioned before that I taught him how to cook, the truth is that we've both taught each other through experimenting together. (He officially makes the best potatoes!) I love our routine of having dinner together throughout the week (we're sort of homebodies I might add), but I also love doing any little new thing with Jeremy too. Baking chocolate chip cookies was something new, and now it's a sweet memory I can cherish (yes, I'm going to keep punning on "sweet"). I know that when he goes to law school and I to graduate school, we won't necessarily have our dinners together. But I know we'll find a way to start new traditions and there will be different things I look forward to doing, besides simply making dinner. But for now, I can take comfort in the fact that I'll at least be able to mail him a care package of chocolate chip goodness. (I know you'll need the sugar rush in law school, my love!)

Cheap Eats (with no meat)

My last two posts have been about sustainable chicken and fish, but there are other foods that offer eco-friendly and animal-friendly deliciousness. One such meal that I love to make is beans and rice.

Beans and rice make a great meal because together they make complete proteins, but also have lots of fiber and no saturated fat (if you don't add fats to the beans). Best of all, it is a very cheap meal! I use dried beans to save money (and I don't want to lug the weight of cans since I don't have a car).

Dried beans are easy to make as long as you remember to pre-soak them. I usually get a mixture of different dried beans and lentils. Soak them overnight or for a day. I usually put 1 to 1.5 cups of dried beans in a pot and cover them with a good amount of water, about 3 cups of water to 1 cup of dried beans. (Too bad I didn't think of taking step by step photos so you could see the dried beans soaking.)

I start soaking the beans in the morning before I leave for work (around 8 a.m.) and then start cooking them once I get home (around 6 p.m.). Strain and rinse the beans and then put them back in the pot, covered in water. Once the water comes to a complete boil, I take the pot off the stove, strain the beans again, and put them back in the pot with fresh water for a second boil. Doing this makes the beans softer and more digestible (ahem, less of a "magical fruit"). Use about 3 cups of water to 1 cup of beans, so that 1 cup of dried beans will become about 3 cups of cooked beans. This is one reason why it's so cheap!

From there, the beans will take about 1-2 hours to cook. I like to add different herbs and seasonings to the beans. Tonight I added chopped celery, rosemary, onion, garlic, chili flakes and black pepper. After the beans soak up most of the water, I add in a can of chopped tomatoes and some olive oil. Note, do not add salt to the beans until the very end of their cooking.

And then viola! You're done. Cooking beans from scratch is time consuming, but it isn't labor consuming. You really just put everything in a pot and check on it now and then.

I had these beans with white rice (brown rice is good too) and sauteed orange peppers. Tasty, healthy and easy on the wallet.

Sustainable Fish

As I mentioned in my last post on chicken, I've been concerned lately about the seafood I eat. Overfishing has caused a huge depletion of fish species, environmental destruction, and harms other sea life, such as turtles, dolphins, crabs, and many other critters. Not to mention mercury poisoning! Unfortunately, I eat a good amount of fish (3-4 times a week); so what's a pescatarian to do?

While planning a weekend trip to Monterey, I came across the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Guide. This guide is awesome because it lists fish that are best to eat, others that are good alternatives, and those that should be avoided. You can choose your guide according to where you live: http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1185489398155820307. I'm definitely no longer eating any fish on the avoid (red) list and hope to eat off of the yellow list only a few times a year (if at all). They also have a guide to use for sushi dining. Both guides can be downloaded to your phone as well.

I further recommend using their seafood search, where you can look up reports for each species of fish. I found this helpful for looking up tuna, since there are different types that often go by different names (Ahi, for instance, can be used to refer to Bigeye or Yellowfin tuna).

Here are some photos of fish dinners I've made with such sustainable fish:

Rainbow U.S. Farmed Trout with potatoes, mushrooms and onion. Yum. Trout is also usually cheap and easy to cook.


To be honest, I forgot which fish this was, but I believe it was wild Mahi Mahi. Troll/line caught U.S. Mahi Mahi is a Best Choice and longline caught U.S. Mahi Mahi is a Good Alternative.


Wild Tuna Steak. Can you tell that I love pairing fish with bok choy with rice?

Return to Chicken

Last night, I decided to buy and make my own Rotisserie Chicken. Now, let me explain why this was a big decision, besides the fact that I have never roasted a chicken.

The summer before my junior year of high school--almost 8 years ago!--I decided to give up all meat besides fish. I wanted to give up fish too, but my parents were too worried that I wouldn't get enough protein. (Plus, I really liked sushi, so that made my parents' demand pretty reasonable.) I still eat fish, but in the last year or so, I've learned about how a lot of fish are over-fished, which endangers their species as well as harms the environment. Plus, there are concerns about mercury poisoning and commercial fisheries using practices that end up hurting other sea life, such as turtles and dolphins.

One reason why I ended up giving up meat was because of the meat industry's damage to the environment as well as their cruelty to animals. So I decided I couldn't keep eating fish if this was true of the fishing industry too. But rather than go full vegetarian, I decided to see if I could buy a sustainably and humanely raised chicken to eat. (This decision was mostly influenced by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and because Jeremy eats chicken too. Note, I do still eat fish, but I try to avoid the "bad kinds," which I will do another post on later.)

I ended up buying Mary's Organic and Free Range Chicken. Now, let me break down what these terms mean in regard to chicken. Organic means that the food the chickens ate was organic (aka not grown with pesticides, fertilizers, or other chemicals). Free Range means that chickens had access to the outdoors and were not kept in battery cages. However, I'm not really satisfied with the idea of free range. Why? Because free range means that chickens only had "access" to the outdoors. This means that chickens can be packed together in a barn, with a little doggie door opened up now and then to allow them to wander out. This door might lead to a tiny concrete porch, not necessarily a grassy pasture. Now, this is still a lot better than living in a battery cage, but I'd prefer if the chicken was pasture-raised. Pasture-raised means that the chicken was mostly raised outdoors--they actually had access to fresh grass where they could graze and stayed indoors when necessary (i.e. when they sleep and are young). Mary's Chicken didn't say "Pasture-raised," but other writing on the package indicated that the chicken was most likely pasture-raised. I also did a little research on the brand and visited their website: . I was pretty satisfied with their description of how they raise their chickens, and I was happy that the farm was fairly local. (I suggest watching their video too!)

Now, let's get to the cooking. I decided to copy this woman's recipe, which she got from Emeril, who got it from Julia Child: http://canyoustayfordinner.com/tag/chicken/
(it is the roasted chicken and vegetables recipe). I basically followed her exact instructions with a few minor changes. My chicken was also just over 3 lbs, not 4.

For the vegetables, I used 3 medium yukon gold potatoes, 1 big golden sweet potato, 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks, and half an onion (no parsnips). I put the celery leaves and onion in the chicken cavity, along with salt and pepper. I seasoned the outside of the chicken with olive oil, a little butter, salt, pepper, crushed garlic, and some dried thyme I had in my pantry. Also, when I basted the chicken for a second time, I drizzled a little mix of olive oil and red wine (tempranillo) over the chicken and veggies.


I thought it turned out really good! It was delicious and healthy, and I was proud that my first time roasting a chicken wasn't a disaster. :) I think in the future, I will experiment with different seasonings. I am sure adding rosemary would be really good and maybe a bit more of the garlic or wine, as well as salt and pepper. It fed Jeremy and me well with the wings and some breast still leftover.

Finally, at the end of this long post, I want to thank the little chicken who gave up his or her life to feed Jeremy and me. And I hope that its own life was happy on Mary's farm.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A lot of people hate Valentine's Day but I really like it. I get the chance to make little gifts and goodies for my closest friends and family to make sure they feel extra loved. How awesome is that? I even picked myself some flowers. Happy Valentine's Day to me!

xoxo,
ashley

Happy New Year!

Well Rachel finally guilted me into posting....It's New Year's Eve with less than an hour to go until 2010.

When one talks New Years, the conversation quickly turns to resolutions. Well, I haven't quite come up with my resolution yet. Oh wait, I got! Write more on the blog! Yes, that's it.

So far, it has been a quiet night at home for me with most friends out of town or working. I've spent most of the evening in my new Snuggie and sipping on some champagne. Yum. I hate drinking alone but hey it's New Years so who cares, right?

Part of my reason for my lack of inspiration to post here is that on September 1st, 2009, I fell down some stairs at a restaurant and broke my foot in 7 places. Yes, you heard that right: SEVEN! I've since been unable to walk on my left foot. As you can imagine, that makes cooking quite the impossible task. I do try to cook occasionally because if I don't, my dad certainly won't but it just takes so much out of me to do tasks that were once so easy and taken for granted. Luckily, I have surgery next week and my screws come out...meaning I should be rejoining the walking and standing world soon. So until then, my cooking will continue to take place in my dreams!

Cheers! Happy New Year!! Here's to a FABULOUS 2010. Gosh, it has to be better than 2009 right?

Apple Pie

I know that it's been a long time since I (or Ashley, uh hum) posted. Way back in July, I made an apple pie with Margaret. This was my first apple pie since I made my very first apple pie when I was 10 years old in England on my aunt's farm--so in other words, my only-second apple pie.

Of course, I do not have the recipe on hand, so I will have to get Margaret to post it. But I do want to say that it was delicious, especially with vanilla bean ice cream. A homemade pie just beats out anything store bought. And having it warm from the oven makes it so much more satisfying than a cold slice you get in a cafe. The dough was homemade too, although Margaret had made a batch beforehand, froze it, and then thawed it for this particular pie. (A nice idea.)

Anyway, enjoy the photo. Recipe to come soon!

Penguin's Frozen Yogurt

Hey! So this isn't Rachel, but her sis, Mariah. I just wanted to share with you all my favorite frozen yogurt shop! I like to think of myself as a fro yo connoisseur so to speak. If I was only allowed to eat one food for the rest of my life it would definitely be frozen yogurt, I would never get tired of it! I've tried every fro yo chain as well as many small family owned places. My favorite place in LA is Penguin's. The one I frequent is in La Canada but they have a couple others in the LA area. The reason why I love it sooo much is because it has the BEST kind of sugar free fro yo out there! It's so hard to find a sugar free option, let alone a tasty one! And its only a mere 8 calories an ounce!!! That means you could have a whole pint and it will only set you back 128 cals (if you do the correct math haha). The other reason I love this place is because their flavors actually taste like their descriptions! For example, the other day I got sugar free white cake batter and I could literally taste the flour in it haha! All the flavors are lovely and creamy. So if you're into the tart stuff this isnt the place for you. Penguin's also has great toppings.. an array of different fruits as well as yummy crushed cookie options, sprinkles, chopped candy bars, a variety of nuts, etc. Another great thing is they change all their flavors every 3 to 4 days so if you eat fro yo more than once a week (like me) you have lots of variety. In addition to fro yo, they also sell smoothies, parfaits, coffee, and ice cream. The prices are also relatively cheap compared to chains like Pinkberry and Yogurtland. The employees are also very nice and always smiling. The only downfall of this place (for some people) is that it's not self serve, which seems to be the new trend. However, I like the fact that it isn't self serve because I usually over load when I'm at a self serve shop and end up spending like $5 or $6 for just a regular size! So for myself (someone who doesn't have much self control when it comes to fro yo) a non self-serve place is best haha

Jeremy's Vegetarian Invention

Jeremy invented a new, quick dinner to make, and surprisingly, it's a vegetarian dish (gosh!). We wanted to make something easy, that wouldn't require a lot of dishes to wash afterward either. Here's the very basic recipe:

Rice
Salsa
Tofu
Egg(optional)
Vegetables (we used onions, shallots, and red bell peppers)

Start cooking the rice. Cut or dice the tofu however you like (I cut small rectangles) and whisk an egg in a bowl. You'll also want to prep the veggies by dicing them up. Add some olive oil to a pan (or a superduper cast iron skillet!). When it's hot, dip the tofu in the whisked egg--as you would bread for french toast--and fry it in the pan/skillet. Jeremy and I decided that we liked the tofu more soft than crispy, but cook it however you prefer. Once it's done, remove the tofu and keep it warm in the oven. (Just warm, don't bake it!) Then saute the diced onions, shallots, and red peppers. Once that's done, time to mix it all up. Add the rice, tofu, and vegetables to your plate and then pour salsa on top. Mix everything up and you have a tasty, and pretty healthy, meal.

Note: Jeremy and I used a lot of salsa, cause it was good. Real good. Also, I'm still rethinking about how I cooked the tofu. Keeping it the oven kept it warm, but might have dried it out a bit. I think next time I might cook the vegetables and tofu in the skillet together.

Try it and let us know how it turns out!

you are looking at one of my favorite things to treat myself with:
Cherry Cokes from Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, CA

they are just the best...made the old-fashioned way with coke and cherry syrup and shaved ice!!

LA fare

So I know it's been forever since I put up a post. But I did move, take two work trips, have a job interview, go to LA, and am now looking for jobs on top of currently still working. I think that's fair, right?

Anyway, as I mentioned, I was back in good ol' Glendale for the Fourth of July weekend. I ate out for almost every meal. So I thought I'd give a little update on the places I ate and things I tried. I'd been to most of these restaurants before, but in case anyone hasn't, here's a little info.

Friday: Dinner - Blue Fish - Montrose
Mary and I headed to Blue Fish in Montrose for some yummy sushi. I thought the food was great, but the waiters DEFINITELY pushy. Don't come here anywhere near to closing time, cause they will rush the heck out of you (as well as confuse you in the process). But in terms of sushi, we tried new rolls. One was the Thai Shrimp roll, which was delicious.. It's basically like having Thai food in sushi form. The peanut butter inside was so good. We also had the Marilyn Mon-roll (hehe), which is basically a bunch of spicy fish--albacore, scallop, and something else, with pinkish sauce. I have no clue why it's called the Marilyn Mon-roll, except for maybe the pink sauce? We also had edameme for an appetizer and strawberry and coffee mochi for dessert. I highly recommend the latter.

Saturday: Lunch - Amici - Glendale Americana
For Fourth of July lunch we tried Amici, a new Italian restaurant at the Glendale Americana. We sat outside which I liked, and I thought the food here was great too. The waiters were the real deal--authentic Italian accents and lots of "appa fourth of july-ah." I had a salad with shrimp and blood orange, interesting combo but very good. I also had some mushroom pizza, and tried a bit of Ashley's "Amici" pizza. (I think that's what it was, right Ash?) Ashley's was interesting, but it didn't have any tomato sauce, so I think the mushroom pizza was the winner in my book. Both were Neopolitan-style, very thin crust with fresh ingredients.

Sunday: Lunch - Blue Fish (Again) - Montrose
So my cousin Melissa was in the mood for sushi, so I ended up going back to Blue Fish with her, my sister, and my dad. There's not really a need to post about this restaurant again, but just wanted to say that the Samurai roll was also good. And again, the waiters were very pushy because we came at the tail end of lunch time. So basically, only go right during the middle of the their business hours!

Sunday: Dinner - Frida's - Glendale Americana
Back at the Americana for dinner, my mom, sister, aunt, and I went to Frida's, a sort of upscale Mexican restaurant. They had a large Marachi band, which I thought was really good. (Apparently when my sister went with my dad a time before, my dad's song request was "a short one." Nice.) I ended up going with the soft fish tacos, which were made with tilapia and had pinapple in the salsa. It was definitely good, although, Mariah's dinner looked better. She started with a soup, which was basically vegetables, chicken, and a little rice. And then she had the ceviche-- I think she had the one with shrimp and avocado. I tried it and it was good. Oh I also got Sangria there, and they give you this HUGE drinking glass. I could feel a buzz coming on after only drinking half. They add vodka and a couple fruit juices. I prefer just wine and one juice, but if you'd like a large drink, I'd recommend it.

Okay, well I could discuss places I got drinks, dessert, and breakfast on Monday, but I'm running out of time, and I think this post is long enough! Enjoy. :)

my lunch is missing something

Rachel and I have been friends since freshman year of high school where we attended Mayfield Senior School, an all-girls school in Pasadena, CA. In fact, (and I may be wrong here....) my earliest memory of Rachel is having lunch together on our school's terrace. Over our four years there, our group of friends owned that lunch spot on the terrace. Nobody else dared to sit there!

These lunch hours together were some of the best times of high school. Our school didn't have a cafeteria or anything like that so we all brought our lunch from home. It was always exciting to see what everyone had packed in their lunch. Now fast forwarding to today, I'm sitting here in my windowless office at my new job in Culver City (still "working"....I promise!), eating my homemade lunch reminiscing about those old times. Lunch just has never been the same! Sure, the food I've packed is wholesome and delicious but I'm left yearning for more.

And I know just what is missing...that pinch of friendship!

the girls on graduation day....minus mary!

Dinner Party!

So I had this awesome dinner party on Tuesday night. We made vegetable curry with brown rice, plus some salad and two bottles of wine. Thanks to Margaret who not only helped with the shopping, but also took over the cooking. She really made the curry super delicious! Connie brought the rice, which was really tender for brown rice (she said she used a special rice cooker...hmm), as well as the Napa salad from Amanda's in Berkeley. And Jeremy, well, he washed the wine glasses and poured wine, haha. See these cute photos?

This one is with our mood lighting haha.

This one is with flash. Sorry Connie looks a little drunk. She wasn't though. Oh, and I cannot forget we had cherries, blackberries, and chocolate-hazelnut sorbet for dessert. So good? Margaret, what was the name of the ice cream brand? Anyway, I recommend a vegetable curry if anyone's looking for a good dinner. Even Jeremy, who loves meat, liked it. I'll end with a two more photos.
connie & margaret

The Perfect Sunday

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! My Sunday was awesome. I took my mom out to lunch at one of our favorite Sunday restaurants, Market City Cafe in Burbank, CA. They are an Italian cafe, serving pastas, paninis, pizzas, and tapas. On Sundays, the restaurant brings in a four-piece string quartet to play during Brunch from 11-3. So essentially, you get a free concert while you enjoy a great meal! It is quite a deal. The quartet takes requests and uses a HUGE book of sheet that includes everything including classical favorites, legendary movie scores, and popular music. My mom always requests music from her favorite musical, West Side Story.



The other reason I love this place is a litte random and out of the ordinary. They have the BEST ice tea. Seriously...it's the best I have ever had. The hot bread isn't bad either! Just look at the presentation.

We shared an appetizer of caprese and for my main course, I had my usual -- the lasagna. Lasagna isn't usually a favorite of mine but for some reason, I just love it here. They gave me such a huge portion that I got two very decent sized meals out of it!

The meal was amazing, complete with great company and music. I highly recommend the Market City Cafe if you are ever in Burbank of a Sunday afternoon. The prices are very reasonable and, hey, you get a free concert!

That's all for now,

ashley