Bento

My first attempt at a bento for Roo:

• 3 onigiri, filled with bits of sausage and topped with toasted sesame seeds and wrapped in nori (they are in 3 fun shapes, too).


• hard boiled egg with a nori smiley face


• salad with butter lettuce, romaine, grape tomatoes and baby cucumbers, oil and vinegar dressing on the side


• dessert is a sliced up prickly pear - nothing else, since this is not a fruit that plays nicely with others

This bento 'box' is what I'm using. Eventually, I'd like to have a collection of boxes of various shapes and sizes - there are 4 1/2 years of school left!

Death Star!

I have not forgotten about the cake - well, maybe I did forget to post pictures. . .

Here is the Death Star cake, rendered in chocolate raspberry and fondant, by the incredibly talented and creative Chef Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes and soon to be seen on Ace of Cakes. I can't recommend his work highly enough. Working with him and his manager again has been yet another great experience. And in a month or so, I'll be contacting them again to do a cake for my parents' 40th anniversary in December. We're thinking about doing an air hockey table, since the two of them love to compete against one another.

Keep in mind that my lightsaber is 14" long. This cake was about that tall and that wide. As we carried it from the lobby, where it was dropped off by a very pleasant Charm City Cakes employee, to our room, we received many "that's CAKE?!" exclamations. You could smell the sweetness (fondant will do that) - and that drew an actress from Farcape into the room - I had to be told later who she was. Oops. Maybe I should watch the show.

Anyhow - onto the cake!





A photo of the chocolate and raspberry cake. Dark enough for the Death Star, wouldn't you say?



Sha proves that the best way for the Jedi to beat such darkness is to consume it. With a smile!



The cake was a huge hit and we were loathe to cut into it. But, as you can see, we managed to get past that and enjoy every bite!

And back yet again

Yes, I have posts to put up! We're back from Otakon, and recovering from the crowds. Now that cons are done for a little while, I'm going to try to catch up here. Though, of course, I'm not really done - there's preparing for the exhibitors' hall for U-Con in November. And, of course, there's always renfaire on the weekends from now until October.

For now, though, just a few shots from McCormick & Schmick's Grill at the Inner Harbor, from lunch yesterday. It's always a bonus when we can be seated without anyone giving a second look at any costuming - Roo actually received compliments instead on the black and red ao dai she was wearing, even though she added an obi, which she used to hold her sword. Ah, kids today!

First: My mixed greens salad. That's really all it was. Just... mixed greens. Mixed greens that looked and tasted suspiciously like the packages in the supermarket.



Roo was much happier with her French onion soup:



Our entrees came. I have been in a tilapia mood lately. The flavors were nice, at least what I could tell under all the salt that was used. I know I'm strange, though, and have a low tolerance for salty things, so this was probably very good:



Roo loved her chicken parmesan:



But most of all, she loved the creme brulee. She's such a little fiend for the stuff.



On the whole, not a bad tourist-area type meal. Not something I'd be in any rush to get back to, but I understand they're highly recommended.

I did not take photos of our dinner at J. Paul's since I had forgotten I had it with me. They steamed the crab with garlic, which was an unusual, but very interesting flavor. The rockfish I'd ordered came swimming in a buttery salty sauce that I just couldn't handle. Now, this was definitely MY fault for not reading the menu thoroughly. Had I realized it was a buttery sauce, I would have ordered something else. The server asked why I didn't touch the fish, only eating the vegetable and some of the rice and I did tell him. He whisked it away and insisted on taking it off the bill, even though I took full responsibility for the fact that I didn't care for it. I was the one not being observant, it certainly wasn't the kitchen's fault.

We sat outdoors, there, too, and enjoyed people watching. Watching the mundanes watching Otakon con-goers was a LOT of fun, too.

I still have to post photos from when JT and I went to Sole Food in Philadelphia. And, of course, tomorrow there should be pictures, depending upon where my husband wants to go for his birthday dinner.

Oops

No, I haven't forgotten this blog. What I have been is dealing with a WinXP crash that ate all the pictures, files, etc., that were sitting in my computer. This means that any fun food pictures bit the dust along with it. Argh.

However, heading to Philadelphia this weekend, where there WILL be food and blogging to go with it! Then, while JT heads north to Boston, Roo and I will have a day at home before heading to Baltimore. That will be mostly crockpot meals in the room (less searching for restaurants means less time away from Shore Leave and from our planned geocaching excursion - and healthier meals anyhow!) but we'll see what we think of Crackpot Restaurant at least one night.

Oh, and then there will be The Cake from Charm City Cakes. I can't wait to see how the Death Star gets rendered in chocolate raspberry!

I'm not eating around -

But JT is.

My husband is working in Bangalore at the moment. He's in India for a couple weeks with work and I told him I wanted food pictures, especially. He spends his evenings/my mornings on IM with me, telling me how WONDERFUL all the food is and getting me jealous. It's downright mean of him to tell me things like, "This is how cucumbers will taste in heaven" and "I haven't had mango like this since I was a kid in Mexico." Sigh. So I'm eating vicariously through him. I have to admit, though: fewer calories this way!

This morning for him, breakfast started with papaya, pineapple, melon, bacon, a rice cake that was made with rice, nuts, spices and vegtables, and then a sweet cake.



(The photo is clickable and leads to a ton of other pictures, only a few of which are food related, the rest are images from the trip. Food shots are on Day 3.)

Catering is phenomenal and, from everything he has said, I need to dig out my Indian cookbooks and get cracking!

On the road

Out here in the Kansas City area, hanging with friends. I have, unfortunately, continued to forget my camera every time we leave the room.

We had brunch at Blue Bird Bistro in Kansas City a couple days ago and oh, was it ever good! Darana has often commented on the place, so I was looking forward to trying it. I was not at all disappointed. I wish we had a bistro like this in Lancaster.

Pictures... eventually. I hope!

Cake!

Reviewing my posts, I can't believe I never posted about the cake Chef Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes did for Roo's 13th birthday back in January!

She fell in love with Phantom of the Opera when we took her to see it in NYC. So, she asked for a Phantom Theme for her 13th. Easily done, especially with the movie version having come out. So we did the rec room up with stars and giant film strips and had individual bags of popcorn for the girls to go with movie munchies. Finger foods they could snack on while watching PotO on DVD. But.. the real star of the party, after the birthday girl, was the cake. After much discussion and research, Roo came up with the design she wanted for her cake, basing it off of a musical figurine:



She decided she wanted a mask and rose on the gondola, which Chef Goldman used in place of Erik and Christine. She was so thrilled with the cake that she wanted to save it for posterity.



Since *everything* on this was edible, except for the wire stem in the rose, that didn't happen. I can assure you, the cake was delicious.

It was so good and dealing with Charm City Cakes such a pleasant experience, that I have another order in for a Death Star cake for a small party at Shore Leave in July. I can't wait!

Why it's better to eat at camp

I've been neglectful, but I have good reason - I've been watching what I eat. HOWEVER - what that means now as I've started to get into the swing of things is that I'm realizing that food cannot be bland or boring. It must have flavor to satisfy me.

Recently, we traveled to Cherokee, NC. Lovely area. We camped, ate a roast done over the fire and sipped wine while stargazing. One afternoon was spent riding horses in the Great Smokies. Afterwards, of course, we were famished. So we left the peace and quiet of the mountain and headed into Gaitlinburg. We stopped for dinner at a little restaurant in town that was supposedly a great place to eat. You be the judge.

I'm not a big catfish eater, but it was on the menu as an appetizer. What the heck, we said, so we ordered it.

Bland. Bland. Bland. It had no flavor or even texture at all. But, I perked up. I'd ordered lobster bites for dinner. That had to be better, right?

It was as boring as it looked. Seeing a streak, we skipped dessert and left. We really didn't want to chance their coffee there! Not after how spoiled we've gotten with the good stuff, which seems to be even better cooked in the old campfire coffeepot we use. We walked through town instead, where we saw a great deal:

I had to wonder how they were seasoned! Hopefully better than my lobster bites.

The BEST meal we had that we ourselves didn't prepare was at Grandma's Pancakes and Steaks. A little restaurant with vinyl tablecloths was where we chose to have our Easter morning breakfast. It was homecooking, well prepared and, unlike our sad dinner, it didn't cost an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from that, as I'd left the camera back at the campsite.
Lesson learned, though? In touristy areas, stick to small, out of the way places or prepare it yourself if you can. Less fattening and more flavorful!

Oops!

I made the mistake of not shooing JT and Roo out of the room while I settled in to watch Food Network. Before I knew it, they were begging for something chocolate. I finally gave in and found a vegan chocolate cake and an easy chocolate frosting recipe to do while I played.

The cakes - well - one didn't finish at all and the other was just slightly underdone. I noticed that as I went to flip them back over. Oops. Okay - out went the totally gooey inside cake. I could have made it into a pudding type dessert but I was so not in the mood to fuss with that and I still had 1 9" round that was just really really moist.

Next - the chocolate frosting. I get it all together and I realize that I was out of cornstarch. Oops. Okay, throw a little flour in and hope for the best, right? Hah! It was not a spreadable consistancy at all. Pourable. Okay, fine. I poured it over the cooled round and cut a couple slices for them. Spooned a little more of the 'frosting' over their slices and finished off the plates with some whipped cream.

Apparently, it was a success. I wonder what the recipes will be like when I do them RIGHT?

Christmas Morning

Yes, it's late for a Christmas post - I have been amiss in updating the blog!

Since I married JT oh-so-many-years-ago, every Christmas morning, I pop a casserole into the oven and serve it with fruit salad. It's simple, it's easy to prepare, and I don't have to worry about it. The casserole goes into the oven first thing, we open gifts and, by the time we're done, breakfast is ready to be served.

This year, I decided to add a sour cream coffee cake that sounded just incredible. It was from the Barefoot Contessa and I made just a couple minor changes in the recipe, to suit my family.

The cake came out very well, though the top could have browned a wee bit more:



However, the flavor didn't seem to be at all affected. My daughter decided she liked the coffee cake *far* more than the sausage and egg casserole or even the fruit. Between her and my husband, this did not last very long in our home.

Here's our little table, all set for Christmas morning. I never did get the candle to sit straight, it kept wanting to fall over!



I hope everyone had a holiday that was as wonderful and joyous, full of family, love and good food, as we did.

New Blogs

Check out Accidental Vegan and Recipe Collector, both new food blogs from friends that I think people will find very interesting.

Christmas Eve traditions

Growing up, we would go to our grandfather's house or to Vince and Mary's home after Christmas Eve service. There would be fish. Lots and lots of fish. Octopus, squid, shrimp, fish in many forms, just lots of seafood. We would be there until the wee hours of the morning. The kids would run around. The adult women would talk and the men would play poker with the coolest cards I'd ever seen. I loved my uncles' Italian card decks, they just fascinated me.

Now that I host Christmas Eve, I no longer do just fish dishes. But I always try to give at least a nod to the traditions I was raised with. With that in mind, this year I made cioppino, to go with the beef tenderloin, goose and all of the side dishes.


The measurements are all pretty much approximate. I didn't really measure much.

1/4 c oil (more or less, I never measure)
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1/3 c chopped fresh parsley (again, more or less)
5 cloves garlic, minced

Heat oil in large pot. Sautee onion, pepper, parsley and garlic about 5 minutes.

Add:
2 - 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
1 - 15 oz can tomato sauce
12 oz dry red wine
1 bay leaf
1 Tbl dried oregano

Bring to boil and then cover. Simmer 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, add:

12 littleneck clams, scrubbed and cleaned
2 lbs mussels, scrubbed and cleaned
1 1/2 lbs small shrimp (50 ct per pound), peeled and deveined
1/2 lb haddock, cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 lb tilapia, cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 lb orange roughy, cut into bite sized pieces
3/4 lb bay scallops

Bring to boil. Cover and simmer another 20 minutes, until clams and mussels are open and shrimp is opaque.

Thanksgiving Sides

Mom asked me to bring something 'different' to dinner tomorrow. Now, different for her isn't exactly what I consider different. My husband laughed when I told him, since he seemed to be sure that whatever I would consider different would go uneaten by the rest of my family.

He's probably right.

So, in an effort to be a little different, but not too much, I decided on two simple recipes. Corn pudding and a spinach/brown rice casserole. The corn pudding was ridiculously simple (and, I think, ridiculously sweet), and it used canned creamed corn and whole kernel corn. A couple cans of each, some milk, some flour, eggs and sugar and it was done.

The spinach and brown rice casserole took a little more work only because of the steps involved. And because shredding two pounds of fresh spinach can be a bear of a task! Getting all of that to cook down was pretty funny. All I kept thinking of was the shavings we used to use in the rabbit's cage.

I used a recipe from The New Moosewood Cookbook and changed it a bit. I used the four eggs the recipe originally called for and left out the optional prepared mustard.

It seems like a lot when you're first mixing everything together, but it really isn't:



The press pot was for the coffee I realized I desperately needed and isn't something that goes into the casserole, just into me!

I'm not the neatest person when I cook, obviously. If you do make Ms. Katzen's Spinach-Rice Casserole, be sure to use the biggest bowls you have.

It did all come together very nicely and the sunflower seeds on top make for a pretty accent.

Once everything was ready, into the oven it went for 35 minutes. It smelled wonderful as it cooked, making my stomach rumble, reminding me that oh, yeah – lunch is a good idea.



But first, there were dishes to do:



I'm sure I used more than was really necessary. Still learning how to streamline what I do in the kitchen.

And here is the finished product, sitting next to the corn pudding. I'll rewarm both items very gently tomorrow before tucking them into an insulated bag for the drive over to my parents' home.



Happy Thanksgiving!

Meatballs

Dear Alton:

Yes, real Italians do, too, simmer their meatballs in 'red sauce' (or gravy, as I grew up calling it). What we never did in my family was waste time with the searing or baking, we let the flavors meld together in the pot.

Please watch with the generalizations. Thank you.

Love,
A First Generation Sicilian-American fan

Hooray for fall!

I can tell fall is coming - I mean, beyond the fact that it's been raining for 2 days and nights now and it shows no signs of stopping and we've been told to keep an eye on the Little Conestoga. Ick. Flooding.

Anyhow, how do I know fall is coming? I want to cook. Bake. Chop things. Simmer things. The house right now smells of curry and apples and pumpkin and soon, I'll add a roast to the olfactory sensations.

Dinner tonight: apple-butternut squash soup, roast with carrots and potatoes and a crustless pumpkin pie. Beef is defrosting now for a hearty stew tomorrow, to be served, I think, in acorn squash halves. That really depends, though, on what time we get back from the baby's baptism.

Photos will come soon. Right now, though, I'm content to sit here, sipping my coffee and savoring the scents of the season.

20:14: And here are the photos. I put absolutely no thought into plating the meal, because my husband had just come in from driving close to 10 hours in the pouring rain and he seemed to be a weeeee bit hungry.

Beef, potatoes, carrots and beer bread with a bowl of apple-butternut squash soup:





And we were quite content, even with the splenda in the crustless pumpkin pie.

Tuna salad or wheatberries... not a tough choice!

Today was one of those days where I ended up doing a lot more than I expected. About 12:30, I was in the city when I realized I still had to do my grocery shopping and I had yet to eat more than the three brazil nuts I have every morning for the selenium they contain (it helps stave off seasonal adjustment disorder... but that's another post).

Happily, Central Market was open, so I decided to duck in there and grab something quickly before hitting the supermarket. I did find a small organic produce stand - everything looked lovely, but I didn't stop to look for long, since I had a schedule to keep. Most of the stands were jammed with people on their lunch breaks, so I found a smaller one that was fairly empty. No wonder. The choices were rather limited and, since I didn't feel like wearing tuna salad in the car, I went with the wheat berry, pecan and grape salad.



It was actually quite good, but it could have done without quite so many green onions. They overpowered every other ingredient in there, including cilantro! Bits of red and green peppers were flecked throughout and the grapes added a happy bit of sweetness to it. I'm trying to find a recipe at least somewhat similar to this, but I think I'm going to have to eat a lot of experiments to figure it out. Poor me, right?

Not a bad lunch to grab on the go, though I will admit to eating it mostly at long red lights. I know, I know - not good. But at least I wasn't text messaging!

Tamale Pie

Back to more cooking with the family. My husband loves making tamale pie. He and I tend to putter around in the kitchen together for about an hour or so, preparing it, chopping, dicing, sauteeing and baking. It's always been very enjoyable. Now with Roo's new interest in cooking, we decided to make it a family affair. She did well with everything until the onions, but even then, she chopped through her tears.

Here it is, cooling off after coming out of the oven. We use a roasted corn meal for that dark color and the taste is amazing.



We modify the recipe more than a little, adjusting it to our heat levels. American cookbooks tend to be on the lower end of the heat scale and that just doesn't work for our family. What most consider hot, my husband doesn't even notice.

After years of making this, I think we've gotten the mix down pretty well, but we're still always changing this, that or the other thing. It's never quite the same, and that is part of the fun.

Why isn't it fall yet?

Normally, I love this time of the year. It starts to cool off and I start really getting back into cooking and baking. It was 90 degrees at the faire yesterday - that is NOT baking weather!

However, I have a stash of pumpkins, acorn squash, butternut squash and spaghetti squash all begging to be made into something. Little by little I've been cooking the pumpkin down and preparing it for bread and pies, though I think the one pumpkin will be saved to serve stew in.

Having picked up corned beef the other day, I decided what the heck, let's try this... corned beef, 2 bottles of Harps Lager, some water, green onions, carrots and two sliced up acorn squash, in the crockpot since just before 7 am this morning. It SMELLS good so far. We'll see how it tastes!

Now, if only autumn would hurry up and get here!

edited to add: Well, it sounded like a good idea and everything sure smelled good, but the lager, combined with the acorn squash, made everything far too bitter. It was too strong for the rest of the meal. What a bummer. It sure looked pretty!

Spaghetti and meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs - a mainstay in most homes and certainly in the home I grew up in. Everyone in my family had a slightly different sauce that they used and the meat that sauce contained ranged from cuts of pork and beef to sausages to meatballs.

Tonight, Roo made spaghetti and meatballs. On her own. For the first time.

The meatballs she did make reminded me somewhat of Nonna Angela's, with the soft white bread and the fennel in the sauce.

All in all, I would say she's a success. Dinner was certainly well received and I'm looking forward to her taking a turn now and then and getting a meal on the table without my guidance.

Cottage Pie Cravings

My husband came home from his trip with a craving for a shepherd's pie. Well, I didn't have any lamb defrosted, but what I did have was leftover roast from last night's dinner, so cottage pie it is.

I diced the meat, browned some diced onions and a red bell pepper and added the meat. To that, I added the beef broth from last night and some flour to make a nice thick gravy. I topped that with some cut up cooked carrots and broccoli and some shredded cheddar cheese. I made some mashed potatoes with the last of the potatoes, leaving them in their jackets, from last week's trip to the farm and spread that over the top. I mashed them by hand for a more rustic texture, instead of whipping them. So far, so good, see?



I'll cook it for about 20 minutes or so at 400* and see how it turns out.