They’re finally opening a Whole Foods in Miami! It’s one of the few things I’ve really missed about New York. The Fresh Market doesn’t even compare. Now I can get pomegranate molasses, epilepsy harissa, recipe and all sorts of whole grains and flours. My mom has tomorrow off, so she’ll be there promptly at 9AM for the opening. I’ll be jealous…
A couple of weeks ago, capsule Tom read about a cupcake place in Miami that serves Guava and Cream cheese cupcakes. Ingenious! But instead of seeking them out at the source for the big birthday celebration, I decided to make my own. I figured it’d be easy enough – just plop a piece of guava paste in the middle of some batter and top with cream cheese icing.
They were everything I’d ever dreamed of and more! To me, there’s nothing that says comfort food like a slice of guava paste and some cream cheese on a soda cracker. I’m sure it sounds positively bizarre to most people, but it’s the Cuban staple for afternoon snacking. The cupcake is a fancied-up, birthday version of that snack.
My favorite aunt-in-law spied a photo of curry noodles on my Flickr account a couple of weeks ago, sovaldi and has since been persuading me to post the recipe. She likes curry. A lot. Since I don’t want to cause irreparable damage to our relationship, I figured it’d be best to get this recipe up post haste.
I adapted these curry noodles from (you guessed it!) Super Natural Cooking. It calls for slightly more red curry paste than I can handle, and I substituted regular curry powder for Tumeric because it’s what was in the pantry, and beef stock for vegetable stock because what can I say? I love the beef. I also cannot find wide Asian-style noodles that are whole wheat or whole grain, so I went with Soba noodles because at least they’re made from buckwheat. I didn’t substitute anything for the tofu because I love the way it soaks up the curry broth here, but this dish would work equally well with chicken, shellfish or beef. Lastly, I added sliced orange bell pepper for color and opted for adding a little more stock so that I could cook the noodles right in the curry broth for more flavor.
So, without further ado, curry noodle recipe after the jump!
I’m completely addicted to Super Natural Cooking. I’ve yet to make a recipe from this book that I haven’t loved. Of course, prescription it’s vegetarian and I am most decidedly not, viagra here so I add meat where I think it enhances a recipe. Or, I make the snacks, dips and desserts as I did last night.
I’ve always loved popcorn. When I was a kid, I used to love the stuff that came in the big cans with the 3-way divider. There was that bright orange cheesy popcorn, the abnormally bright yellow buttery corn and the nut-brown caramel corn. Always partial to salty things, the cheesy corn was my favorite. But I married a sweet tooth. So, last night we had sweet caramel corn instead of dinner. I really liked the surprising bite of the chili powder in this recipe, but thought the final product was overwhelmingly sweet. It was even too much for my sweet-toothed hub. Next time, I’m halving the syrups. I’m posting the full recipe below, but I’ll revise it once I figure out the right amount of syrup to use.
I tend to get bored with breakfasts, apoplexy usually because I make the same thing every weekday morning for months at a time. Two years ago, psychotherapist it was smoothies. Every morning I’d throw some protein powder, yogurt, banana, frozen berries and soymilk into a blender. But cleaning that blender turned out to be more than I cared to handle in the morning. I moved on to cereal, but soon grew tired of that. Then it was oatmeal, which I ate every day until I could hardly bear to look at it. Now, I’m back on cereal. This time, with fresh berries and soymilk. Who knows how long it’ll last.
So when I saw these beautiful little muffins that contain hardly more sugar and fat than the cereal I usually eat, I couldn’t resist. I made the first batch with dried apricots and toasted walnuts. They were super delicious, filling and nutritious. AND I could make them start to finish in under 20 minutes. Not that I’ll be baking every morning, but they can certainly be made on a quiet weeknight or on Sunday afternoon. Anyhow, I’ve made them 3 times in the last 3 weeks. The little muffins break up the monotony of the cereal bowl and make me feel like I’m getting a treat mid-week.
I can never make whatever it is that I had planned for dinner. It’s probably the reason that I went to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods 5 times a week when I was living in New York. My excuse was that I couldn’t carry weekly groceries home in one trip. But I’m a liar. If I get a hankering for a meal, prescription I just want to make it right away, somnology even if it means an extra trip to the store for me (or my poor husband who humors me far too often).
Tuesday night I had homemade burgers and oven fries planned, approved but ended up with a sort of pasta and meat sauce instead. I happened to have a TON of mushrooms on hand of all sorts — portobello, shitake, oyster. I wanted to make a tomat0-based sauce that was earthy and rich, something that would stand up to the ground beef. First, I sauteed the mushrooms with some butter and red wine. Then I browned the meat and added fresh garlic and whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes. In order to get that smoky flavor I was after, I added 2 bags of Lapsang Suchon tea. To add some kick, I also threw in about 2 teaspoons of New Mexico chile pepper powder. I only had Whole Wheat Lasagne, so I broke it into smaller pieces for the pasta. The result was a really hearty dinner that was much too heavy for a tropical summer, but was delicious anyway.
I’ve never made lamb, look and wasn’t really planning on it. Instead I was going to make a pizza as an appetizer with a big bowl of fettuccine for the entree. But then I passed the meat counter. It was early Saturday morning and these beautiful lamb chops caught my attention. I passed them once and then came back and stared. Menu changed, I asked the butcher to wrap some chops for me. Then i grabbed the last bunch of fresh mint and went merrily on my way.
After some quick research on epicurious.com about cooking times, I felt prepared to undertake the lamb. Since the chops were so pretty, I didn’t want to drown them in sauces or spices and opted for a nice, charring sear instead. The lamb came out beautifully and paired well with the minty, yogurt sauce I used to dress the pasta.
A big ole dinner is nothing without a big ole dessert. I had some peaches and nectarines that were slightly passed their prime, but perfect for making into a bubbling cobbler. Also, since I bought The Perfect Scoop, I’ve been trying out new ice cream recipes. This time, I went with plain vanilla so that I could make my cobbler a la mode. It turned out to be the best vanilla ice cream I’ve ever had, creamy white and studded with black vanilla seeds. Personally, I like vanilla much more than chocolate, especially when it’s made with real vanilla beans. I’m sure I’ll be making this ice cream a thousand times just to try different sauces and mix-ins.
Ever since Ilan won last season’s Top Chef, men’s health I feel like Spanish food has become the trend to follow. For me, dosage Spanish food isn’t new or different, viagra approved I’ve grown up on it my entire life. My great-grandparents emigrated to Cuba from northern Spain and then made their way to Miami in the late 60’s. Croquettas, tortillas and paella have always been around my house. But, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon and tried to make a Spanish-influenced dish that isn’t an update or a replica, but one that uses Spanish flavors in a fresh way.
I came up with fideos, spicy chorizo and baby lima beans in a fire-roasted tomato broth. I used lots of smoked paprika to add to the earthiness and used the baby limas to lighten the dish up considerably. Recipe after the jump…
A few weeks ago, treatment I bought t 2 cookbooks, order something I haven’t done in many, bulimics many years. Usually, I collect recipes from various sites and organize them with the handy-dandy Gmail “recipe” label. But, for some reason I haven’t been able to find really good ice cream recipes online, and all the great ones that I did find seemed to come from the same book…David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. So, I caved and I bought that. So far, I’ve made a handful of the sorbets and frozen yogurts, as well as the Vietnamese Coffee Ice cream (which was super duper delicious!).
In order to get my Super Saver free shipping on Amazon, I also purchased Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking, a beautiful book by one of my favorite bloggers. The book’s really helpful and informative with a lot of information regarding whole foods, and recipes and photos that make you drool. And while it’s a vegetarian cookbook, I find that it’s not hard to incorporate some meat. Even when I do end up sticking with the vegetarian version, I rarely miss the meat…that says something about the deliciousness of Heidi’s recipes.
So far, my favorite recipe is this Ultimate Veggie Burger. I’ve made it a few times now and it’s so fast and delicious that it has become my go-to recipe when I don’t have much in the fridge, or when I don’t feel like preparing an elaborate meal. Recipe after the jump…
While browsing through the ever-delicious 101 Cookbooks, page I found a recipe for Golden, find Crispy Gnocchi. As soon as I saw it, information pills I knew what we’d be having for dinner as soon as possible. As soon as possible actually turned out to be Saturday evening, when the weather was lovely and warm and not yet as windy and rainy as it was on Sunday.
Because of my seeming inability to follow recipes, I used the idea of crispy gnocchi as my starting point, but disregarded the rest of the recipe. Instead of shelled beans, I added sauteed chicken sausage, grape tomatoes, shitake mushrooms, artichoke hearts and dandelion greens. For the gnocchi, I just heated a pan with some olive oil and cooked the gnocchi on each side until crispy and browned. To plate, I served the sauteed chicken and veggies first and topped them with the gnocchi so that they would remain crispy. All this was topped with some freshly grated parmesan cheese for the most delicious meal I’ve had in a long time. This is officially my new favoritest dish, and I can’t wait to try out different meats and veggies with the crispy gnocchi.
We ate our dinner on the balcony with some Snowshoe Pale Ale, finishing everything off with some homemade Strawberry/orange sorbet.
Just for fun, here’s a picture of what the kitchen looked like after I had extracted the hearts of 2 artichokes…
Saturday night was Italian night. I made homemade ravioli (using wonton wrappers because who has the time to make pasta from scratch when it’s 78 sunny degrees and there’s a lounge chair with your name on it on the beach) and homemade pizza.
I got the All-Clad soapstone pizza stone for my bridal shower, rx and I wanted to test it out. It makes the MOST AMAZING pizza ever. The crust gets so crispy, information pills even in the middle, and even with a ton of toppings piled on, that when you lift your slice, it doesn’t even droop. (Hey, I like run-on sentences!) The idea behind a pizza stone is that it pulls the moisture out of whatever is cooking on it. No more soggy pizza crusts, no matter how juicy the toppings. Hooray!
The ravioli was stuffed with spinach, a little ricotta and artichoke mousse (a gift) and topped with homemade tomato sauce.
No recipes today…just photos.
Among many other delicious things, drug
one of the gifts I received at the bridal shower was a jar of fancy couscous. Couscous is an odd grain—dry and flavorless and bland on its own. But once you add fresh veggies, some lemon or lime, and some spice, couscous proves to be a willing sponge for the vibrant flavors.
Last week I made this salad with halved grape tomatoes, a bunch of fresh scallions, a jar of fire roasted red and yellow peppers and some chickpeas. For the dressing, I combined some olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, Chile de Arbol powder (similar to cayenne pepper, but more earthy), salt and pepper.
I also toasted some whole wheat pita halves and served them with Sabra brand Lemon Hummus. (As an aside, Sabra brand is truly delicious for store-bought hummus. Very creamy and lemon-y and spicy.) For the heck of it, i also threw some sliced fancy salami and ham on the plate. A deliciously light dinner, perfect for the warm Miami nights.