January 2010
38 posts
Real Food Q and A with Michael Pollan →
Journalist Michael Pollan has been reporting on where our food really comes from for more than 20 years. When it comes to eating, his approach is simple: “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” Michael answers the most frequently asked questions about how to reduce the amount of processed food in your diet and start incorporating fresh foods into your daily life.
Shredded Pork and Sweet Potato Fries
A while ago I posted a recipe for shredded pork. You know, the kind you cook for hours and hours, and it comes out moist and falls apart at the very touch of your fork. Well, when we bought the pork shoulder, we got it at Costco and it came 2 to a package. So yesterday, Andy decided to cook the 2nd one.
He altered the recipe a little bit. He added more cumin, used shallots instead of onions,...
Creating a Recipe Book (?)
I get most of my recipes online. Who am I kidding, I get all of my recipes online. That said, I have a couple pounds of food magazines that I still need to read. So my question is - what’s the best way to store the recipes that I see in the magazine? Should I just look them up online and bookmark them? Or create a sort-of a recipe binder/notebook and rip out the pages (kind of a sin but not...
Buckwheat
I love buckwheat. I grew up eating it. It’s a typical Soviet side dish and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I remember, growing up, eating buckwheat kasha - buckwheat, butter, and milk. It’s the Soviet version of cereal. It was a staple in my parent’s kitchen, along with potatoes, and rice.
On Sunday, I made a huge bowl of venegret. I ate a bunch for lunch...
Breakfast →
I’m a little bit obsessed with my new breakfast routine. Was there an old routine? Yep! First I used to bake oatmeal and eat it at work. Then, I started making granola and mixing it with low-fat vanilla yogurt. Now, I take a small orange/large tangerine, peel it, cut all the slices in half and mix them with a cup of low-fat, Australian style vanilla yogurt. So delicious!
Caramel Popcorn Clusters
Seriously, this is the most beautiful food I’ve ever made. I’m so excited about how this turned out. The ratio of caramel to popcorn was perfect and popping popcorn in a pan was a tiny bit exciting.
Look at it. The stringy caramel goodness. A bit of salty nuts. And some uncovered parts of popcorn. So easy and so delicious!
While at Whole Foods on Saturday, I picked up a box of...
Venegret
(a.k.a. vinegret, venigret)
After Saturday’s heavy meal, I really wanted something light today. So I made my favorite Russian salad - Venegret. First, a warning. If you don’t like beets, stop reading. Now.
I grew up eating venegret. When my mom made it, it was in large batches and so I ate it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don’t now, of course, but I could. I make this...
Sour Cream Pancakes
After my bout of vertigo yesterday, I decided to take it easy. After I woke up I was craving pancakes. This morning, while checking my email and, by complete accident, I ended up on Smitten Kitchen’s website and saw sour cream pancakes recipe as the most recent post. I don’t know if it was fate or not, but you can guess what happened next.
The pancakes were so incredibly light...
Chocolate Mousse
In my previous post I mentioned that Andy cooked the majority of the meal last night. Chocolate mousse is included in that as well. A strange thing happened. I went into the kitchen to start making the mousse and got out all the ingredients. As I bent down to get a bowl, all of the sudden I felt light headed. Then my head started spinning. I thought it might be a head rush but when it didn’t...
Stout Braised Short Ribs
My friend Masha and I planned to spend the day together (Saturday), so I offered to make dinner. Unfortunately, through a series of events, Andy was amazing/gracious/understanding enough and made the majority of tonight’s meals So now I find this post a bit hard to write since I wasn’t really involved in making the deliciousness that was our meal. Fortunately, the main course was...
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No-Time Bread
Confession - I really really really suck at making bread. I tried making challah a long time ago and it came out hard as a rock. I’ve since successfully made dough for bread rolls, piroshki, pretzels, and cinnamon rolls but to make a delicious loaf of bread is still something I really want to do. So, when I saw a recipe for No-Time Bread I knew I had to try it. So, while the soup was...
4 tags
French Lentil Soup
I’ve been eating lots of crap lately. Lots of meat and lots of baked sweets. A couple of weeks ago, bought lentils. I saw a recipe for lentil soup and quickly forgot all about it. This morning I decided that today was the day I was going to make the soup. I usually only make soups on the weekends because they take a while (well at least the ones I make) to cook. Not this. Somehow, I had all...
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Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onion
Yesterday, I planned to roast a couple of chicken breasts and add a side of green beans. That didn’t happen. The chicken was spoiled and I had no idea what to make. Lucky for me, I saw a recipe for the tomato sauce the same day and had a large jar of whole tomatoes to boot. Andy really likes bolognese sauce, so he cooked up some ground beef and added it to the sauce at the very end.
While...
Making Pickles and Jams
While browsing through my nearby Goodwill store I saw a bunch of Ball Jars for sale. Unfortunately, they didn’t come with lids so I didn’t buy them. Upon seeing them, though, I rememberd my (and Andy’s) desire to learn to make our own pickles. I like them, how do you say it in English (yes, I still sometimes struggle), half-pickled? The kind where they’re still pretty green...
Wild-Rice Pilaf with Pecans and Cranberries
Ok, here’s the deal - Wild Rice isn’t rice at all. It tastes nothing like rice. Before cooking it, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. All I could say is that it tastes….interesting. Andy described its smell as “organic”. I describe the taste as “earthy”. Surprisingly, my dad liked it. Oh and my mom finished it, so I didn’t even have to worry...
I really didn’t feel well tonight. I had grand plans to bake some chicken breasts and make a black bean salad. Instead, I had a grilled cheese, carrots, and drinking chocolate milk.
Get Organ-Damaging Monsanto Corn off the Market →
The first-ever public study of the health effects of genetically modified corn shows that three patented crops developed and owned by agriculture giant Monsanto cause liver, kidney and heart damage in mammals.
The FDA has approved all three varieties for sale and consumption in the U.S. and all three are in our food supply right now.
More shocking, the raw data used in the study was from...
Pan-Seared Tuna with Cumin Cabbage Slaw
Tonight I’m tired. I planned to make my seared tuna steak last night, but didn’t have enough time to find a side salad to go with it. I knew I wanted to make a slaw but nothing I found worked. I just didn’t want anything wasabi/Japanese inspired. Finally, I saw this and knew that it would be the perfect pairing with my tuna. As my love affair with cumin continues, I made Cumin...
Sushi Bowl Recipe →
I’m a sushi fanatic. So this is a perfect recipe! Also, toward the bottom of the page, you’ll see recipes for seaweed risotto and wild seaweed salad.
(photo from 101cookbooks)
Soba Noodles with Bok Choy and Tofu
Today was a long day. I was starving before I even came home and planned to have leftover chili for dinner. (Andy makes some mean chili.) But then I came home, remembered that I had an almost-expired bok choy, a couple of packages of Soba Noodles, and a pack of Tofu. Perfect for dinner, right?! Right. Except I had no idea what to make. I know most people would know how to cook all three, but not...
Peak-Season Map at Epicurious.com →
This is pretty incredible. You can use epicurious’ map to see what’s fresh in your area. Plus, you can find ingredient descriptions, shopping guides, recipes, and tips.
Chicken Tikka Masala
I originally saw this recipe this morning, while flipping through a Martha Stewart magazine. The recipe called for shrimp, but I wanted to make chicken. So Chicken Tikka Masala I made. The great thing about this recipe is that it’s fairly simple, quick, and healthy. I usually buy pre-made masala sauce at Trader Joe’s, but I wanted to make it from scratch. Since I did the weekly...
Cinnamon Rolls
I have to admit, I planned for this day for about a week. I have no idea how I came up on the recipe but, let me tell you, I’m glad I did. I have never had home-made cinnamon rolls. I usually get them from Cinnabun or a store. Honestly, I don’t even remember the last time I had them because I find the store-bought ones far too sweet.
Usually, when I see a recipe that I want to make,...
Cumin Chicken with Black Beans
Lately, I have had a mini obsession with cumin. I add it to soups, stews, and rubs. So when I gave Andy this recipe as one of the choices for tonight’s dinner and he picked it, I was a little giddy with glee. Just a little.
So after work, through a foot of snow, I drove my tiny car to the store to get the ingredients. Thankfully the store is close to the train station and close to my...
Baking Powder
A co-worker told me yesterday that Baking Powder has aluminum in it. Was I just completely oblivious or is this a not-such-a-well-known fact? She said that there is aluminum-free baking powder but, honestly, I never even noticed it. I have bought 1 or 2 tins of baking powder in my life. I use so little of it that, I don’t even know when I’ll have to buy more.
Is there really that much...
Slow Your Role: Slow Cooker Chicken & Sweet Potato...
nutritionista:
A few nights ago, my sister and I broke out our slow cooker for the first time to make Chicken & Sweet Potato Stew from Eating Well.
Slow cookers are almost too good to be true: Throw some raw ingredients in there before you go to work or whatever, and 5-8 hours later, you have a delicious feast. You can buy them for as little as $25-30. As long as you put in a little prep...
How many (fish) meals are safe to eat per month? →
My friend Irina sent this to me and I found it pretty interesting. Mainly, because I eat eel almost everytime I have sushi and mackarel is commonly found at my parents’ house and at a Russian dinner table.
Click on the link to find out which fish are considered safest to eat.
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Crunchy Wasabi Salmon with Lime
New Year, New You. Right? Well, Andy and I vowed that we’re going to eat a lot more seafood at home. We used to eat salmon once or twice a month and then just sort of grew out of love. I was never crazy about cooked salmon, but I’m hoping to change that soon. My goal is to find lots of great recipes for different fish and seafood.
This recipe was a spur of the moment type of find. I...
Turnips! →
A few days ago I bought a couple of turnips. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I wanted to cook them. Here I was, ready to look for recipes to use up the turnips when I saw this post that suggested stews. Of course! I’m think beef stew is in order for this cold weather we’re having, so the timing is just perfect.
4 tags
Banana Bread
I have never had home-made banana bread…at least not that I can remember. I usually buy a slice at Starbucks with coffee and always regret it. I find that the store-bought banana bread is always far too sweet and tastes nothing like banana. So, when I heard that banana bread can be made with old/brown frozen bananas, I was sold. I froze some overly ripe bananas and when I collected 3, I was...