One Bite at a Time

Moving Day!

2009-08-09T19:55:00.002-04:00

It's still a work in progress, but One Bite At a Time has officially moved!

Please join me at www.spiceaholic.com

Don't forget to update your bookmarks, Google Reader, and RSS feeds, etc.!

I look forward to seeing you there!

An on the go kind of day

2009-08-06T10:34:00.002-04:00

Wow, I didn't even realize how close I was to 150 posts! I guess they add up when you post more often. :P

I'm probably going to be moving this blog over to my own domain soon. I had an earlier version of this blog over at www.spiceaholic.com and for some reason felt the need to start over here with the same name. I'm just going to move this one over and combine the two. You can go check out the old stuff if you want, it'll all still be there. Plus that URL is a heck of a lot easier to remember and type, isn't it? For some reason when I started this I thought your URL had to be the same as your blog name. Silly, innocent me.

But I'll let you guys know when I officially move over.

Anyway.

Yesterday I was out and about for most of the morning and early afternoon. I had an eye exam in the morning and then I was supposed to meet up with some former coworkers for lunch since I was in the area. I had planned to eat breakfast before my appointment but as usual I dawdled way too long getting ready and ran out the door with only a Coke Zero. Breakfast of champions indeed.

Afterwards, I killed some time at Dunkin Donuts. I got an iced coffee with Splenda and got a couple of chocolate Munchkins. I love the donuts there, but felt like having just a couple Munchkins would give me the taste I wanted without doing too much damage. I just read a little while I waited. We were supposed to be meeting for some Chinese food, but while there I got a text saying one of them had restarted her diet and wanted to go to F20 instead. Not really my kind of place, but I agreed to meet them there.

I got there early and since there was a Costco in the same parking lot decided to kill some time there too. Now I've told you before how I'm probably the only person I know who buys cookbooks there as often as food. I headed straight for the book section as usual. Found a new mystery out by an author I discovered a few months ago, but I'm on the waiting list for it at the library so ignored it. The cookbook section at Costco has regrettably diminished quite a bit in the past few months. No, not because I buy them like crazy. Anyway, I saw a new Cooking Light one that looked good - Eat Well, Live Well or something like that. I managed to convince myself it'd still be here in a few days and I could get it later if we came back to buy stuff. I also checked Amazon to see if it was there, but it must be one of those special prints they do for Costco because I've bought a few there and don't see them on Amazon for sale. I also took a quick looksie to see if there's anything I wanted to come back for this weekend. Might do so.

By now it was time to meet them for lunch so I headed over to F20, which stands for Fresh To Order. Now, I've only been here once, but it just didn't do it for me. I'm really not a salad kind of girl, and I'm actually pretty picky about my salads. Write me off if you must, but I do not enjoy goat cheese, bleu cheese, Gorgonzola, balsamic vinegar, candied nuts, dried fruits, and sweet dressings, etc. on my salad. Sorry. And it seems like there's a lot of that there. I know you can make substitutioins, but having had such a skimpy breakfast I wanted something more substantial than leaves and veggies.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised this time. Yes, they did have the tons of salads and stuff, but I saw some sandwiches that looked good too. I'm wondering if the time I went last time I was trying to be "good" and that just made it harder to order what I wanted because I felt restricted. Today I felt no such compunction. I ordered exactly what I wanted -- the Chicken Ceasar Panini with no avocado (allergic, how tragic) and a side of apple slices.

My food took longer to come out than everyone else, but it was worth it. I had chosen ciabatta bread and it was oh so good. The grilled chicken wasn't phony and processed, but real breast meat. It was very good and I was so hungry I ate the whole sandwich and didn't feel guilty. I had a few of the apple slices afterwards but they were starting to make my mouth itchy so I stopped and just enjoyed the company.

Thus vigorously fortified, I set off to run one last errand before going home. I had to return a library book but since I was nearby, I also popped into a natural foods store that opened up a few months ago. I'll drop in now and then and buy a couple things, but their selection isn't really that great to be honest. I found some PopChips and a vegan lemon cookie and got those.

After the library, I figured since I was out I might as well hit up the used bookstore that was nearby. It's a lot smaller than the ones I usually go to, but it's such a cute little store. I used to work in one when I was in college so these cozy places hold a place in my heart.

Now I was finally done running around and was able to spend the rest of the day just relaxing and watching old shows.

And yes, I finally have some food pics for you.

I felt snacky a few hours later and had some SunChips.

When I realized it was close to dinner time, I defrosted some tilapia I had in the freezer and cooked it up with some Berbere seasoning I got at World Market a while back. It's an Ethiopian spice mix that contains a lot of ingredients found in Indian cooking. I also cooked up some couscous and spinach and added some Ras-el-Hanout seasoning that I'd also bought at World Market. This stuff is a blend of spices from North Africa and the Middle East. Again, it has ingredients found in Indian cooking, so it tasted good to me.

After dinner we wanted something sweet, so I broke out the cookie I'd bought earlier. I liked the taste, it was very lemony, but the texture was not cookie-like at all. More like a dense cake. It worked for me, but Mr. Spice wasn't too crazy about the texture.

We watched more tv and still wanted something sweet so I had some ice cream and got into some Hot Tamales as well. I finally made myself stop before I did too much damage. I know it's because I didn't have a proper breakfast to start me off right. Lesson learned. Time to move on.

She's a coaster freak, a coaster freak . . .

2009-08-05T16:09:00.003-04:00

I know, I'm a dork.

Oh and I'm not talking about the coasters that you set your glasses on.

Before we get to all that, here's yesterday's eats:

I hereby dub these "Fiesta Fried Eggs." As you can see, I like my eggs on the well-done side. Not a huge fan of uber-runny yolks. Anyway, I just wanted to jazz them up a little and think I did a pretty good job of it.

Sorry for the blurriness of this pic, none of them turned out that good. Although I'm not a vegetarian, I do enjoy trying various Morningstar and Boca products. I saw a grilled "chikn" patty by Morningstar and decided I'd give it a try. I didn't really like it in the wrap, probably because everything else was kinda bland. I'm going to try these out with some buffalo wing sauce or barbecue sauce to see if they taste better when doctored up. And I'm sure if I cooked them in a pan or on a grill they'd taste better too - I was in a hurry and nuked them.

As far as pictures for yesterday, that's all folks. The rest of the day was unplanned and I didn't have my camera with me.

Oh right, I was talking about coasters before, wasn't I? Yes. Well, I thought it'd be fun for Mr. Spice and me to get out and actually do something rather than just going to stores, movies, coffee shops and hanging out at bookstores. He doesn't always want to do the stuff I would like to do, but I convinced him on this one. We had buy one get one free coupons for Six Flags over Georgia and since neither of us had been and we both love roller coasters, I thought we should go. We timed it so we got there a little after 5, so it wasn't as crowded and hot. I'm mad we didn't do this sooner, it was so much fun! The lines weren't too horrible and after we went on the scarier looking coasters, we took a break and just people-watched for a while. If any of you ever go there, I really recommend the Goliath -- that was hands down (or up!) the BEST roller coaster I've been on. The first drop is soo high and we were literally up out of our seats for most of the ride. If the line hadn't been so long for this one I would have gone again.

On the way to Six Flags (which took all of 10 minutes), I had a couple Quaker granola bars and Mr. Spice had a nut and dried fruit mix. That held us over pretty well for the few hours we were at the park. Afterwards we were both starving. We've been trying not to eat out too much during the week, but I didn't have anything at home that was going to be quick and ready to go so we decided to grab something on the way home. We ended up at Five Guys since we hadn't been there in a while and burgers just sounded REALLY good right then. Now, I've learned my lesson about ordering food there. I always get a little hamburger or little cheeseburger -- the regular size has 2 patties and that's just too much. And now we just split an order of the regular-sized Cajun fries since they dump a whole bunch in there anyway; even then I think it's enough for more than 2 people.

And that's about it for yesterday!

Self-conscious eats

2009-08-04T10:04:00.003-04:00

Somehow during July I managed to lose about 5 pounds. I'm still trying to figure out how it happened, but I also don't want to lose the momentum. I didn't exercise, so it's not that. I know I cut down on my Coke Zero addiction and I wasn't taking one of my medications, but I don't know if those had an effect. I'm honestly trying to remember what I ate differently, and this is one of those times where if I'd been food journaling I could look back and see.

Anyway, I decided to log my eating in SparkPeople again -- I was just going to log as I went instead of pre-planning everything. But knowing I was logging my food made me very conscious of what I decided to eat. And I don't know if that's a good thing, because then I start into my all-or-nothing "being good" routine and that always sets me up for a binge later on. I wish I could just eat normally and not obsess over every bite I had or didn't have.

So here's what I ate yesterday:

I started the day off with some Honey Nut Cheerios, strawberries, and vanilla soymilk. I'm usually not a cold cereal for breakfast kind of girl, but got into the habit while visiting my parents. We'll see how long it lasts.

For lunch I had a sandwich with roasted garlic hummus, pepperjack cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. And some baked Cheetos on the side. I've seen other bloggers doing the hummus and cheese combo as well and I actually like it!

Mid-afternoon I was hungry. I needed something that would tide me over a few more hours until dinner. I know from past experience that I do better eating more protein so I nuked up a frozen spicy chicken patty and had that. If you like the Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwiches, get the Tyson Spicy Chicken Breast patties, they definitely take care of that craving!

I felt like Indian food for dinner, so I puttered around and made a green bean and potato bhaji. I browned some onions, then added mustard seeds, then dried red chili, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and salt. Finally I added the veggies and let them all cook together until done. Wasn't too bad, I usually suck at making veggie dishes.

We have gotten into the habit of eating basmati rice every time I make Indian food, and I'm afraid we've spoiled ourselves. I bought some plain long-grain rice from Publix this weekend and cooked it last night. There's no comparison - this stuff is sticky, bland, and bleh compared to basmati.

I heated up some of the frozen chicken seekh kababs that I get from our Indian store -- these are pretty good and help make a quick meal. Too bad they're so pricey -- 4 big kababs for a little under $8. Sometimes if the wife of the store-owner is up front she'll give me a discount if I buy a few. These kababs are pretty big and though the box says 1 and 1/3 kabab is the serving size, that is way too much. We'll just have 1 each and even then that's a bit much sometimes.

Now I have to be honest here -- I took seconds of the rice and veggies, but didn't take a picture. I did log it into SparkPeople though. So there.

After this huge dinner, I was full the rest of the evening and entertained no thoughts about dessert.

Where did the Sunday go?

2009-08-03T14:11:00.003-04:00

Lately a lot of my days are just zipping by and I don't remember what exactly I did, probably because I didn't do anything.

It probably doesn't help that I've been staying up late and getting up late. I'm no young'un anymore and it really messes me up the next day. Plus starting next week I have to go back to the grown-up world. Boo hoo.

The tricky thing about breakfast on weekends is that I get up much earlier than Mr. Spice, but sometimes I'll have just had breakfast when he decides he's up and is ready for lunch. I guess just because he wants lunch when I just had breakfast doesn't mean I have to eat with him, but we don't get lots of opportunities to eat together during the week. Anyway, so yesterday I just had some yogurt to calm down my rumbling belly so that if we ate lunch within a couple hours my appetite wouldn't be spoiled.

Of course it turned out that I ended up eating lunch alone anyway since I was hungry and he wasn't. Just some leftover chicken and a tortilla.

I got hungry again a few hours later and decided to break into the baby carrots I'd bought the other night. I had this with some light Southwestern ranch dressing and a few slices of turkey. See how I used one of my little prep bowls for the dressing? This is the smallest one in the set and measures 1/8 and 1/4 of a cup. If you look closely you can see I had just under 1/8 of a cup. or less than 2 tbsp.

After spending the rest of the afternoon watching tv, I realized it was almost 8 and we should probably think about dinner. I had some sliced baby portabella mushrooms that needed to be used up so I sauteed some in garlic, olive oil, and some other seasonings and then wilted some fresh spinach towards the end. Had some of that with some pasta, sauce, and some shredded parmesan/asiago/romano blend. This was really good and I really could have gone for more, but I wanted dessert.

And dessert I had. Just for curiosity's sake I had entered my food intake into SparkPeople and the tally after dinner was just under 900 calories, so I had quite a bit of calories to play with. I decided to go for it and have 2 servings of ice cream, so my total for the day was just under 1300 calories. Not too bad! This is another one of that set of prep bowls I've been using for portion control. This one held 3/4 cup and 1 cup. It turns out my ice cream scoop measures in 1/4 cup increments, so it all comes in pretty handy.

Movie Munchie Madness

2009-08-02T10:27:00.004-04:00

Yes, I'm rather fond of alliterative titles.

Yesterday wasn't one of my best eating days, but it certainly wasn't my worst.

I had plans to go to a friend's house around noon to watch Coraline with her and some other girlfriends. She was taking care of the sandwich stuff and we were bringing whatever else we wanted.

First things first -- if you go grocery shopping when you haven't eaten, then you're asking for it.

Anyway, so here's the lunch spread. I brought the Sunchips, the dark chocolate Reese's cups, and the coconut M&Ms. By the way, those last two are officially my favorite candies for this week.

Now don't be fooled by the plate I took. I had another half sandwich later on and we all were chowing down on chips and chocolate.

Later that afternoon a couple of us went to go watch The Ugly Truth. I liked it -- very predictable, but it was fun to watch. Along with the eye candy on-screen, I had some Hot Tamales.

After the movie, I went grocery shopping and got lots of good healthy food for the week.

I've discovered that if I eat a heavy meal around lunch time/early afternoon, I really don't feel like eating the rest of the day. That was the case yesterday. I didn't get hungry again until after 10, while Mr. Spice and I were watching some tv.

Didn't get a picture of it, but I had a Trader Joe's Veggie Masala Burger on some light bread, with some achaar for taste. Then I had to make one for Mr. Spice since he thought it smelled really good. I was still hungry so I had some Sunchips. Okay and then a couple cookies later. I swear I'm going to freeze the rest of the cookies.

Anyway, so like I said, not one of my best days but not one of my worst either.

Today's plans are up in the air, but I do need to do my assignments for a QuickBooks class I'm taking online and I need to fill out some paperwork. See you later!

The cookie monster strikes!

2009-07-31T22:58:00.005-04:00

I think I'm starting to remember why I don't bake that often.

It's because I can't stop eating what I've baked. :)

Anyway, today was another day of shopping and I did quite the damage. I went over my budget, but that was because I saw 2 really cute purses at Kohls. And don't worry, my usual buyer's remorse will set in shortly and I will be off returning stuff. That's my shopping M.O. -- buy first, then question later. If I see something I like in my size I snatch it up because chances are if I wait too long it'll be gone.

So after spending a few hours shopping, I came home starving for lunch.

I finished off the last of the turkey keema I'd made a couple days ago, along with half a tortilla and two of those innocent-looking but evil cookies. See how they lurk in the back like that? Last week Kroger had ground turkey on sale -- $1 for one of those 1-lb tubey things. And it was light turkey too. I went and bought $10 worth so I could stock up on them for easy meals later. Always thinking ahead.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the internet. And then after I posted that wedding video, I was sending messages back and forth to my cousin on Facebook about some Bollywood videos we'd loved back in the day and then I started getting nostalgic and began watching them on YouTube. I'm sure my husband thought I'd lost my mind again when he saw me glued to the computer watching all that cheesiness. Good stuff though.

Don't worry, I did manage to tear myself away to get dinner going. I had some chicken drumsticks thawing in the fridge that I needed to use up. See, those were the result of yet another good sale a few weeks ago -- chicken drumsticks and thighs were $.99/lb so I stocked up. Of course at that low of a price they came with the skin on, which I hate dealing with. Anyway, I figured a good way to use up the drumsticks was to marinate them in one of those bottled marinades and then bake them up.

No evil cookies here, just chicken and some lettuce and tomatoes.

We decided to watch a movie as we were eating dinner -- we have had some movies from Netflix for a few weeks now and really need to watch them. We watched RocknRolla, which is a crime flick, not really my type, but it wasn't too bad.

Oh but we decided to snack a bit as we were watching. There might have been some Sun Chips that made their way into my tummy but managed to avoid being photographed.

Look who decided to show up!

Those darn cookies keep showing up everywhere like those travelling gnomes.

That's it for tonight!

A little Friday fun!

2009-07-31T17:31:00.001-04:00

Okay I know this video has been all over the interwebs this past week, but I couldn't resist putting on here. I love it!

Enjoy!

The Un-Omelet

2009-07-31T09:45:00.002-04:00

I've been having cereal for breakfast quite a bit these past couple weeks and thought I'd change things up a bit and do a veggie omelet today.

Does that look like an omelet to you?

Hmmph.

I think the mistakes were using only 1 egg, and then not beating the egg enough before pouring into the pan. Once I tried flipping it and it tore, I figured I might as well do my version of scrambled eggs, which seem to resemble smushed up omelet rather than scrambled eggs.

Oh well, it tasted really good! I sauteed some fresh mushrooms and spinach in cooking spray before adding the egg. Then I added a little chopped green onion and cheese. Once on the plate I added more green onion, a little bit more cheese (all for presentation, of course!), and some salsa. I think I will try to sautee mushrooms and spinach to keep on hand for impromptu omelets or to go with lunches and dinners.

So I decided I'm going to do my best to document my food each day, depending on where I am and who I'm with. For now I'm going to hold off on tracking calories or points -- I just want to see how I eat when I know I'll have an audience. :)

A spicy dinner and monochromatic dessert

2009-07-30T21:24:00.004-04:00

So we did end up seeing the Monet exhibit. Though I like Impressionism and Monet's work, I have to admit I was very disappointed by the exhibit. It took up all of 2 rooms. I would have loved to have seen more and would gladly have spent hours soaking it all in. We ended up spending 20 minutes max. It's a good thing we took advantage of a special the museum was running where they offer 50% admission on Thursdays from 4-8 pm, otherwise I would have felt even more upset. Anyway, at least we got to inject a bit of culture into our week!

After we were done, we were both getting hungry. Now, we were in the Midtown portion of Atlanta, which is where I used to work a few years ago. There are so many great restaurants in that area, but a lot of them were just a bit too pricey for us right now. We tossed around some ideas and were going to go to a Bangladeshi restaurant when Mr. Spice suggested we get some Caribbean food. I thought of a place a former coworker loved going to and highly recommended. It was a bit of a drive from where we were, but it was way after rush hour so the highway was clear.

It wasn't until we had the menus that we realized that this place was also a bit out of our price range considering our current situation, but we decided once in a while was okay and this would just be our once in a while. :) There were so many good choices, and I was wavering between quite a few but I ended up ordering the curry chicken/jerk chicken combo and Mr. Spice ordered the oxtail/curry goat combo. I really wish I could have taken a picture of my plate to show you how much food there was, but you know how Mr. Spice is about taking pictures of food in restaurants. Le sigh. But I did the next best thing and took a picture of the leftovers I brought home!

Starting from the top left: rice and beans, steamed veggies, and then the good stuff -- Jerk chicken on the left and curry chicken on the right.

The food at the restaurant was pretty good. The jerk chicken could have been spicier, but it was still good. I liked the curry chicken, but that's probably a given since I'm used to eating Indian food. Oh and I even tried some of Mr. Spice's oxtail and goat curry. Now this is a big deal since I don't like eating goat meat or lamb. The goat didn't have that "goat-y" taste that I usually find when I've tried it at restaurants or other people's houses. I'm not saying I would order an entree of goat meat, but I would try a bite here and there. The oxtail is really beef, and it was good -- very rich and meaty tasting. Again, I wouldn't order it myself as an entree but I would sample it again.

I was good about not polishing off my food, but that would have been hard to do anyway since they served so much food. But I was still careful not to let myself get to that stuffed point that's so easy to do when the food tastes good. I knew I wanted some ice cream when I got home, so that helped me stop when I had enough.

Now then, onto my monochromatic dessert.

I probably should have put this into one of my cute little prep bowls, but I guess it worked out after all.

I don't know if you guys have tried Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk ice cream. If you haven't, please do so. It's so good. I usually go for the all chocolate-type ice creams, but this is definitely up there in my favorites. It's a cinnamon-y ice cream with oatmeal cookie chunks and chocolate chunks. So good. Well when I saw that Publix had come out with their (significantly cheaper) version of it, I had to give it a try. The main difference is that the ice cream here is a honey ice cream with cinnamon swirls in it, but the taste is pretty dead on otherwise. If only someone would make a low-fat version of this!

But most importantly, don't you love how the ice cream matches my bowl? It even kinda goes with the counter-top!

Bargain Hunting Thursday

2009-07-30T14:30:00.002-04:00

How on earth do you guys think of new titles every day?

Anyway, today through Sunday is a sales tax holiday in Georgia for school supplies, clothes, shoes, and certain other items, all subject to price limits. I was just concerned about the shoes and clothes -- anything under $100 is exempt from sales tax.

Without jinxing myself, I have some good news on the job situation! So I decided to treat myself and get some new things.

I really really needed some brown dress shoes for work, so I hit up DSW to see what they had. I saw some cute pointy-toed shoes, but my feet are weird and wide at the top so those shoes tend to not be so comfy. Then I saw some cute kitten-heeled round-toed pumps. These were actually pretty dang comfortable! I found them in black and brown, and the black ones were 40% off. Score! Oh then I hit the clearance room and found some brown wedge pumps kinda like these that were also 40% off. All together, the total for the 3 pairs of shoes was under $90!

I did plenty of wandering around after that, looking around in Macy's and New York and Company, but nothing really caught my eye. I decided to go to the Gap to see if I could find any jeans -- although they tend to cost more than I'd like, jeans from here just fit me better. I managed to find a pair of jeans in my size on the sale rack, but the others were all priced at $10 and these were much more. I went ahead and tried them on anyway. They fit perfectly, but were a little long. For being such a shorty (4 ft. 11 and 3/4!), I have long legs and short/petite lengths are almost too short for me and the regular length is a bit too long. I figured with heels or boots I could get away with them and decided to suck it up and get them. Well imagine my surprise when they rang up as $10! Wohoo! I'm so glad I didn't put them back! So even if I go get them hemmed, they'll still cost way less than what they usually do.

My feet started hurting after a while so I decided to call it quits for now. When did I get so old? Still need to look for some work clothes, but I have 3 more days to look!

And look what I did. I spent most of this post yakking about shopping when I was supposed to be posting what I have been eating today.

So here we go!

I started off this rainy gloomy day with some Honey Nut Cheerios, vanilla soy milk, a few blueberries, and some orange juice. Can you believe that glass only has 1/2 cup of juice in it? Imagine filling it with orange juice, you're looking at at least 1.5 cups. Good thing my little cereal bowl is actually a measuring/prep bowl, helps to keep the portion sizes in check.

After I got back from the mall, I was starving for lunch. I quickly put together a wrap with turkey, pepperjack cheese, horseradish mustard, green leaf lettuce, and tomato on a Flat-Out wrap. Oh and there are some baked Doritos in the background!

I was still hungry after lunch so I decided to have a couple of the chocolate chip cookies I made yesterday. Don't those look so good? This is my sister's top-secret recipe which she divulged to me, but made me promise not to put on my blog. It's a heavy price to pay, but for cookies this good it's worth it. Sorry guys!

That's all for now. Dinner's up in the air -- we're thinking of hitting up the Monet exhibit at the High Museum of Art this evening so we might eat around there.

July Book Club

2009-07-29T17:57:00.004-04:00

As you all know by now, our monthly book club get-togethers are just a thinly veiled excuse to eat!

This month we all read The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I highly recommend it! Not to give too much away, but it takes place primarily in North Africa, which is often culinarily lumped together with the Middle East . So we decided to have a North African/Middle-Eastern themed potluck.

Our lovely hostess did the amazing chicken/veggie kababs, as well as provided pita chips with hummus and baba ghanoush. I did couscous, and our friends brought mango key lime pie, the ingredients for fruit salad, and sfouf, which is a Lebanese cake.

All ready to eat! Except the sfouf, which was baking away.

Chicken and vegetable kababs

Couscous with herbs and spices -- olive oil, parsley, mint, turmeric, paprika, cumin, za'atar, and some other stuff I don't remember. Sorry for the crappy blurry picture, I must have been excited about the food!

The BEST fruit salad -- raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, nectarines, and plums, all mixed with honey, lime juice, fresh mint, and cinnamon.

Mango-Key Lime Pie -- soo good!

Sfouf - semolina turmeric cake. Fun to say, fun to eat!

Anybody want some cookbooks?

2009-07-28T13:10:00.002-04:00

If you've been reading this blog, you know how I am about buying cookbooks. It's a compulsion.

Well, I've decided it's time to weed out ones that I was a bit too compulsive about buying or that I just no longer want. I'm also doing this with other books and movies we own. It's ridiculous how many piles of books there are around the house. They just seem to pop up out of nowhere. Okay, so maybe I have something to do with that!

Anyway, I'm debating whether to put them on Ebay, Craigslist, etc. If you have any suggestions, feel free to pass them on. If it's too much of a hassle I'm just going to donate them.

If you're interested in some cookbooks, let me know as well. I'll post a list or picture of the books shortly.

Saying hello to an old friend

2009-07-24T13:44:00.005-04:00

I know what some of you are thinking. What on earth are ketchup flavored chips??

To answer this query, I will tell you that they are precisely what they sound like they are. Potato chips with a ketchup flavoring. Sorry, flavouring, since I first had these on a visit to Canada many many years ago when I was a kid.

I remember being excited when we would go visit relatives there because it meant coming back with a few things: ketchup chips, Weetabix cereal, and the "good" British chocolates like Aero bars, Twirl bars, Cadbury, etc. The novelty of these chips didn't escape me even back then. I also remember other flavors like "everything" chips, and pickle-flavored chips, among others. What can I say, I'm always intrigued by the different flavors of chips that are found in different countries. When we were in Toronto a couple years ago for my cousin's wedding, I made it a point to inspect the nearby grocery store to see what other flavors I could find and yes, I did buy different ones to try.

I always just figured that these were treats I would only be able to have once in a while if we were ever visiting Canada. But sometimes, I would find packets of these chips in Walmart and once more I could taste the memories of my childhood. And for a brief wonderful period of time, Lays sold dill pickle-flavored chips here in Atlanta, tasting just like the Canadian kind we'd had long ago. To me they have the same appeal as the salt and vinegar flavored chips -- the sharp tang of the vinegar, the salt crystal on the chips, the rawness of my tongue from the salt and vinegar after devouring the chips. The same aroma that draws me to them repels my husband, who just mutters something about how it must be a weird woman thing to like those chips. While we were driving to Memphis a couple weeks ago, we had to stop for gas somewhere in Alabama and I spotted a bag of dill pickle flavored chips. I was spiteful enough to take pleasure in the fact that he would be stuck in the car with me as I ate them. :)

But back to my ketchup chips. These too have a tangy smell as you open the bag, but not as sharp as the salt and vinegar/pickle chips. This smell is tempered by a sweetness from the no doubt fake tomato flavoring. The chips are dusted with an almost angry red powder that stains your nails hours after ransacking the bag for all the salty little crumbs. When I saw them a couple days ago, hanging out at the end of the aisle in Walmart, I saw that the ketchup chips were not alone. Nope, there were also steak-flavored chips and green onion-flavored chips, other flavors I remembered seeing long ago. But I only had eyes for the ketchup chips.

I brought them home and showed them to my husband who again rolled his eyes at the weird things I like to eat sometimes. Whatever, it meant the bag was all mine. I did enjoy that bag. I especially enjoyed the first chip, my mouth watering in anticipation of the taste and in reaction to the memories that the bag invoked -- of long car trips years ago, the excitement of discovering something new, and of being a kid on summer vacation with no cares or worries in the world.

Quick update

2009-07-23T16:20:00.002-04:00

Hey, sorry I haven't been on in a while!

I'm back from visiting my parents, everything went well last week. Anyway, I'm settling back in here, so I'll be back posting shortly.

Stay tuned for more yummy eats!

Slight change in plans . . .

2009-07-13T14:43:00.004-04:00

The wedding was absolutely beautiful and it was great to see all my family, even those who traveled all the way from Bangladesh to be there. Loved it all.

Mr. Spice and I drove up to Memphis from Atlanta on Friday and got there a few hours before that night's pre-wedding ceremony started. Saturday night was the wedding and we had the whole day to ourselves. We ran some errands and then set out to have some Memphis barbecue! One of Mr. Spice's friends had recommended a place, but it looked like a lot of driving, so we wanted to find somewhere else. I am a huge Food Network dork and love watching Down Home with the Neelys -- they are so cute! Just for kicks I looked up their restaurant and it turned out one of the locations wasn't that far from our hotel. Off we went. I didn't take pics because you know how Mr. Spice is about taking pics in restaurants. But I can tell you it was pretty dang good. Mr. Spice got the pulled pork and I got the smoked turkey. Both of our plates were piled high with food and we didn't make a dent in them.

Anyway, so the original plan was that we'd drive back to Atlanta on Sunday. However, I found out last week that my dad has to have some tests done on his heart later this week to test for blockage. I tend to worry about everything anyway, but I asked my mom if they wanted me to come out to help out and all that since I'm currently not working. They both said they would like that, so I ended up driving back home with my parents to Kansas yesterday. Not sure how long I will be here, at least a week though.

I was kinda hoping I'd get to do some cooking with my mom and learn some new stuff or even cook for them, but it looks like they're both on a health kick and aren't really cooking a lot. Pooey. But at least it'll help me stay on track food-wise! We stocked up on fresh fruit, veggies, soy milk, veggie burgers, etc. And I might as well post some of my daily eats while I'm here, so I'll start us off with today's lunch:

In the little bowl: fresh blueberries and strawberries

On my plate: sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, Boca Chik'n patty on 2 slices of Nature's Own Double Fiber bread, a slice of pepperjack, and some sriracha. The plate is from my poor grad school days, but my mom keeps it around for me to use when I visit. Gotta love that Corelle! :)

If I get a chance to cook anything yummy, you can be sure I'll post it!

Just a little something I threw together . . .

2009-07-09T11:37:00.005-04:00

So I told you my phupi (dad's sister) and her family were in town and were going to visit us last night. I was really looking forward to it -- it's fun to have my relatives come and visit me at my house, since I always enjoyed visiting them.

Anyway, I think I went a little crazy with dinner last night, but it turned out pretty well in the end. Thankfully I started cooking some of it Monday and Tuesday so that yesterday I just had to do the rice, dal, and salad and reheat the other stuff I'd made. I miss having our cleaners, but I think Mr. Spice and I did a serviceable job of cleaning up. That is definitely something we'll have to start up again once I find a new job.

I took pictures of everything but the rice and salad, since I did those after they got to our house. These were taken just before they got here, so they aren't in their final prettied up version. Here's what we ate last night:

Chicken and Potatoes cooked in Whole Spices -- this is a variation of the White Chicken Curry recipe I posted a while back. No fresh green chilies though. And I added green cardamom, black/brown cardamom, bay leaves, a cinnamon stick, and dried red chilies. I tossed in some garam masala powder and some Kitchen King Masala powder just for kicks.

Salmon in Caramelized Onion Sauce -- this is a recipe from Ajanta: Regional Feasts of India, by Lachu Moorjani. I've already tweaked it a little and hope to do some more before I feel comfortable posting it. I do feel that this is a keeper in my dishes to impress arsenal. It's sweet, hot, and a little tangy and I feel that salmon goes with it perfectly.

Lemon Moong Dal -- I posted a variation of this a while back too, except that version had garlic and spinach and used masoor dal instead. Very simple, very good.

I'm unofficially calling these my "I don't remember what I put into these but they're damn good" kababs. This was one of those instances where I just pulled out a bunch of spices and went to town. I actually do remember most of what went into these, but I'd rather develop a more reliable recipe before I post it. Just trust me, these were good. My two cousins kept saying they liked them and the younger one said they were just like restaurant kababs! The dish looked much better when I served it -- I garnished it with red onion slices, some green onion slices and a few sprigs of parsley. Cilantro would be traditional, but I cannot stand it, especially when it's fresh.

Oh there's more.

I even did breakfast for this morning. I really had to restrain myself from going all out, but I did it. They needed to get going this morning so they could get to Memphis for the wedding this weekend. We're driving up tomorrow. Anyway, I did a lighter version of a traditional Bengali breakfast, which would normally include omelets, parathas (flaky breads), and what I'm calling Bengali-style hash browns (aloo bhaji), among other items. I just did the omelets and aloo bhaji and pan-toasted some tortillas to stand in for the heavier parathas.

The omelets were simple -- sliced onion, sliced green chilies, salt, and pepper. We do our omelets on the well-done side. I think I finally mastered aloo bhaji. This is one of my favorite Bengali breakfast dishes, it goes so well with parathas, or pooris (deep-fried breads), and even tortillas. Instead of laboriously shredding potatoes, I use frozen shredded hash browns, like most people I know. At it's simplest, it's just browned onions, a whole green chili if you want, the potatoes, and salt and pepper. And the teeniest bit of turmeric for color. I upped it a bit and put in some nigella seeds, which I put in hot oil after the onions started browning. Very subtly flavored, but oh so good.

Confession: I totally staged this plate for a photo after they left. Mr. Spice very happily ate this after I was done taking pictures. I think he secretly likes me being home and being a good little Bengali housewife. :P

Anyway, now I have to finish packing for the wedding this weekend. If I don't post again this weekend, have a good one!

Ooops!

2009-07-06T15:17:00.002-04:00

Sorry, I didn't realize it had been over a week since I last posted! Must have lost track of time, I've had so much stuff going on!

I have another crazy week this week, so I will try to post if I can. My dad's sister and her family are in town and will be visiting us Wednesday night, so I've been trying to clean up and figure out what to make for them. We are all going up to Memphis for a wedding this weekend, so I've also been trying to get ready for that -- consulting about sari and jewelry choices, going to the bank to get jewelry, going to Indian stores to pick up last minute things, etc.

Anyway, I've been trying to keep up with my Google reader, so even if I'm not commenting, I'm still reading! I hope it calms down a little once we get back next week and that I'll have some stuff to post!

Hope to see you around!

Presto Pesto Pasta Salad

2009-06-28T14:50:00.003-04:00

Say that five times fast!

I have been quite the social butterfly this weekend! I had book club Friday night, Bunco last night, and this evening we're going to a barbecue with some of Mr. Spice's friends. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly our weekends get filled up in the summer.

Anyway, it's been nasty hot here in GA so I thought I'd bring something that could be served cold. Pasta salad was my first thought and I looked around at some different recipes. And then I realized I was making this WAY more difficult than it needed to be. I have a tendency to do that.

As you know, I'm all about saving time and taking shortcuts when I can without sacrificing on taste. I think you'll agree that not only does this go together really quickly, but the flavors all go together as well. I didn't really measure anything here, so adjust quantities as you want.

Presto Pesto Pasta Salad

1 box pasta -- I used tri-colored rotini
pre-prepared pesto -- I used Classico pesto
Mozzarella cheese, cut into tiny cubes
sliced black olives, cut into halves
fresh tomatoes, diced
fresh parsley for garnish (optional)

Boil pasta in salted water. While pasta is cooking, cut up cheese, tomatoes, and olives.

Drain pasta and immediately rinse in cold water until pasta cools off. Put in large bowl.

Add pesto and coat pasta thoroughly. Add pesto as needed to taste. Then add cheese, olives, and tomatoes, and toss to combine. Sprinkle parsley if using. Refrigerate for a couple hours before serving.

You can play around with this however you want to. Add more veggies, add meat, whatever you want. I made this without meat since I wasn't sure if there were any vegetarians coming tonight, but next time I might add some grilled chicken or chopped salami. If you want to make your own pesto, go for it, but you know how lazy I am!

Mini Nutella Swirls

2009-06-28T14:19:00.005-04:00

What's the best way to win over a group of people you've never met before? I think I discovered it yesterday when I experimented and made these.

A former coworker of mine has been trying to get me to come to Bunco night for the longest time, but I always seemed to have something going on whenever they met. Well, our schedules finally coincided and I got to go last night. In case you've never heard of Bunco, you can read about it here. Anything that doesn't require skill is my kind of game and if it involves food and friends, then all the better! Anyway, everyone was supposed to bring something to eat. I had been tossing around this idea for a week or so and figured I might as well try it out.

I should have known that trying to work with refrigerated crescent roll dough wasn't a good idea in a warm kitchen and I messed up my swirls the first time around. I finally got them to come out right and Mr. Spice happily ate up the mess-ups. Okay, I had some of the mess-ups too. And licked the Nutella-coated spreading knife when I was done. You really can't blame me though.

I was a little nervous about last night, just because I'm really shy around people I don't know. But everyone was really nice and once we started playing, it got a bit rowdy and after a drink or two I relaxed a little and really started enjoying it. We ate in between rounds and I am proud to say everyone ate up all the mini Nutella swirls! Oh and I ended up winning a little cash -- I had the lowest score in the second round and walked away with a little over $3. :)

Anyway, these are relatively easy to make and I guarantee if you take them to a party there won't be any leftovers!

Mini Nutella Swirls

2 cans refrigerated crescent roll dough - I used reduced fat
Nutella

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with foil. Line your working area with parchment paper.

Open crescent roll dough -- they come in sheets of 2 triangles loosely joined into a rectangle. Keep them like this, and pinch the dough and seal where the two triangles meet so that you now have a rectangle of dough. Seal as best as you can. Spread Nutella over one side. Start rolling up the dough from one end, keeping the ends as neat as possible. Pinch and close the seam at the end of the roll. Put this roll in the fridge to chill for a few minutes as you work on the next roll. I kept the unused dough in the fridge as well since our kitchen was really warm and the dough was starting to come apart.

Once you've made all the rolls and chilled them all, take them out and cut each roll into 5 or 6 pieces. Place the pieces on the baking sheets with one of the cut edges down -- so when you look down at the pieces you see one swirly cut edge on top.

Bake for 11 minutes or until dough is golden brown.

Try not to eat them all at once!

Recipe Review: French Yogurt Cake

2009-06-24T20:33:00.003-04:00

This cake is so French -- simple yet elegant. There, I said it.

I'd heard of French yogurt cake before and found a recipe for it in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours that I had intended to try, but I ended up finding an even easier version on Recipezaar. Why I even bother buying cookbooks when I usually end up finding something online is a mystery that remains to be solved.

Anyway, even though we have been sweltering here in Georgia for the past week or so, I got bitten by the baking bug. Since the recipe looked easy enough and I had all the ingredients already, I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. I was also hoping that if it turned out okay then I could make it for this Bunco thing I'm going to this weekend.

I think this recipe and I are going to become good friends. It's so versatile. All you have to do is change the flavor of yogurt you use and put in whatever additions you want and you have a new cake! What makes it even better is that if you use a 4 oz. yogurt container then you don't need a measuring cup for this cake! C'est très facile! (It's so easy!) There are quite a few versions out there, this is the one I ended up using.

French Yogurt Cake (Gâteau au yaourt)

4 oz. yogurt - I used blueberry pomegranate flavored YoPlus yogurt
1 cup sugar - can use less if you use a sweetened yogurt
1.5 cups flour
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil - I used 1/2 stick of butter
2 tsp baking powder
flavorings/add-ins of your choice - I used 1/2 cup frozen unsweetened raspberries

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Take a 9-inch baking pan and spray with cooking spray or cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan like I did (I'm so fancy!).

Combine the yogurt and sugar in a bowl. Add the flour in 1/2 cup batches, combining after each batch. The batter will be stiff. Add the eggs, oil, and baking powder, and combine. Add any flavorings or add-ins you want. Carefully put batter in pan -- the batter is very thick so you may have to smooth it out towards the edges.

Bake for 50 minutes. Let cool and then slice.

Makes 8 servings.

I suck at cutting cake, but here is 1/2 of a slice:

I would say this cake tastes almost like a light pound cake. The next time I make this, if I use a sweetened, flavored yogurt I might cut back on the sugar a bit. I may even try subbing applesauce for the oil/butter to see if I can get this to not be so point-y. But I think this cake lends itself to tweaking quite well so have fun experimenting with it!

Something sweet, something savory, something sweet

2009-06-24T19:32:00.004-04:00

That pretty much sums up the rest of my eats for today!

I had some errands to run this afternoon and was hungry when I got back. Cereal sounded quick and good. I had 3/4 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch, 1/2 cup Fiber One (to try to pretend to be healthy), and 1/2 cup fat-free vanilla soymilk. You can't tell from the picture, but the bowl is actually a prep bowl! I found a set of these at Ross for under $5 -- there were sizes ranging from 1/4 cup to 2 cups. Instead of using them as measuring cups, I'm going to use them as portion-control bowls. I used the 2 cup bowl and it seemed to work pretty well.

Yes, those are curly fries in the back! I find that if I totally cut out stuff like junk food and fast food that it comes back to bite me later on, so I'm just going to try to work them in. Arbys has been doing this Wednesday Freebies thing for a couple weeks around town and I thought we should give it a shot tonight. Today's deal was a free regular roast beef sandwich if you purchased a soft drink. I got one of the new diet blackberry iced teas to try out, a drink for Mr. Spice, our free sandwiches, and an order of curly fries to split. I'm weird and eat my roast beef sandwiches open-face -- I think I started doing that in high school when I was scary obsessed with dieting to make my food last longer. Anyway, I sliced some fresh cucumbers and tomatoes to go along with my food just so it wasn't all junk. Usually we each get our own fries, but I was satisfied with the 1/2 order, probably because I bulked up my sandwich with veggies.

What's that piece of cake doing there? For some reason, even though it's in the 90s here, I felt like baking. I remembered a French yogurt cake recipe I read about in one of my cookbooks, but wanted an easier version. A little searching and I found one! I'll post the recipe separately. I ran the recipe through the recipe builder on the Weight Watchers site and saw that each serving was 6 points! Oh la la! No problem, I just had 1/2 of a serving so that I didn't totally decimate my points for the day. Oh and the plate was another Ross find -- it's from a set of appetizer plates. You already saw one at breakfast. I'm a sucker for anything colorful, cute, and small and I saw that these were another good way at controlling portion sizes. All these mind tricks I play on myself!

So I've actually managed to document a whole day of what I eat! I still don't know how you guys do this every day, but it's fun! I may not do them all the time, but expect to see more of these.

Good night!

A Boca-licious Lunch!

2009-06-24T12:02:00.005-04:00

Boy was I happy when I saw a bunch of Boca products on sale at Publix for 5 for $10! I stocked up on the "chicken" patties, crumbles, and a couple others, such as the Savory Mushroom Mozzarella patty. So good, so easy, and so healthy!

Anyway, the most productive thing I've managed to do all morning is to exercise. I have had Jillian Michaels' 30-Day Shred dvd forever and have only done the level 1 workout a few times. I'm determined to graduate to levels 2 and 3. For only a 20 minute workout, it's pretty intense! So not surprisingly, I worked up quite an appetite for lunch.

I cooked up a lot of pasta the other night, so I had plenty of leftovers to work with. I know the bowl doesn't look so nice and pretty, but I was starving! So I have 1.5 cups of vermicelli pasta, 1 big handful of spinach, 1 Boca Savory Mushroom Mozzarella patty, 1/2 cup Classico Spicy Tomato & Basil sauce, some crushed red pepper, and some shredded Parmesan cheese.

So that's it for now. I need to find something else productive to do this afternoon -- snacks and dinner are undecided yet, but we're doing a movie night at home so definitely something quick.

Have a good afternoon!

Cool as a Cucumber Breakfast

2009-06-24T09:07:00.002-04:00

I can't help but be impressed by those of you who consistently post pictures of each meal almost every single day. I think that a photo food journal is more effective than just tracking one's food online or on paper because you now have an audience to keep you accountable. And I know that if it were me, that would motivate me to make more of an attempt to eat healthier foods knowing that others are going to see what I eat (and possibly judge, let's be honest!).

Hmmm, maybe that's not a bad idea?

Okay so maybe I'll give it a shot for a few meals and then let's see how it goes.

So let's start with breakfast today.

Today's breakfast is an actual attempt by me to have some fruits and veggies to start off the day, unlike the past couple weeks.

So, I have a Weight Watchers English Muffin, some light chive cream cheese, thin slices of cucumber, and the cutest little clementine ever. It really is adorable -- if I get back into bento-ing, these will most definitely be part of them.

Okay I also have a couple things to confess.

As some of you know, I'm an inveterate Weight Watchers re-starter. I lost 25 lb. on it 7 years ago, but due to life/laziness/whatever I've put it all back and a whole lot more since then and have really been struggling with the weight loss game. I have a wedding to go to in a few weeks and although I can still barely squeeze into my sari blouse and although I know I can't work miracles, I really would like to drop a few pounds before then. So I'm hoping if I try to post some meals here I'll keep myself accountable and not do something stupid like having pizza rolls and baked fries for dinner like I may have done last night. What? I said I had a couple things to confess!

See you at lunchtime!

I'm not ready for this heat!

2009-06-23T10:21:00.005-04:00

Wow, it's been insane this past week. The heat and the humidity combined have forced me into hiding out inside the house with the AC and fans running.

It used to be the heat didn't affect my eating, but more and more I'm noticing that when it's oppressively hot, I want to eat light or not at all. I probably shouldn't admit this, but there was a night last week where we opted to have ice cream for dinner. The perks of being an adult! :)

Well I've realized that eating ice cream for dinner is NOT the solution, and though the thought of cooking over a hot stove or baking something in the oven is not appealing, we do have to eat. I've been resorting to meals that take the minimum amount of time to cook (so not a lot of Indian food lately) or that require no cooking at all.

So where does that leave us in terms of meal options the past few days?

Cereal and milk
Hummus, pita, veggies
Ice cream (ahem)
Tacos/taco salad -- I used Boca crumbles which don't take long to cook
Pasta -- I used angel hair, which doesn't take long to cook either

I want to come up with some more options that I can rely on. I should also mention we're working on a budget since there have been some changes to our household, job-wise.

Okay so here are some other ideas that work for me, may not work for Mr. Spice:

Sandwiches/veggie burgers
Couscous salad
Pasta salad

Notice how I haven't mentioned actual salads. I'm not always in the mood for salads, I prefer cooked veggies. But I may not have a choice with this weather.

Time to think of more options . . .

What are some of your hot weather meal ideas that require little to no cooking?

Dinner is served!

2009-06-15T20:42:00.005-04:00

It didn't quite turn out as I'd planned, but I certainly had no complaints once I started eating.

Okay, so what exactly am I eating?

Starting clockwise from top right:

Egg and potato curry

a big blob of spicy mango pickle (achar)

Okra with cumin and tomato

whole wheat paratha (flaky Indian bread)

Originally, I'd planned to make khichuri, which is a dish made from rice and lentils that can be made gloppy like oatmeal or dry like a pilaf. I make it the second way. After making the okra and egg & potato dishes, I was too hot and lazy to make khichuri.

Egg and potato curry is one of the easiest curries, in my opinion. However, I don't know what I did, but the gravy didn't come out how I wanted, both in texture and taste. I was just tossing in stuff and it didn't work out this time. I'll work on it and then post a proper recipe sometime.

Spicy mango pickle is a staple in our household.

The okra dish was something I made up as I went along and it turned out pretty good. I heated some oil, tossed in some cumin seeds and let them start popping, then threw in some chopped onion, then some frozen okra, then some salt and salsa (my secre sub for tomatoes).

The parathas were the frozen kind from the Indian grocery store. I've never made these from scratch, nor do I have the time and inclination, especially when someone's already done the work and all I have to do is cook them in a hot pan. I try not to eat these too much since they are pretty rich, but we do buy different brands and flavors and keep them on hand. I'm even ashamed to admit we've just had parathas and achar for dinner a few times. But don't judge too much, it tastes damn good.

Have you guessed by now I'm lazy and take help where I can get it? :D

A Short and Sweet Treat!

2009-06-12T13:08:00.004-04:00

Don't those look so tempting?

I'm not much of a baker and when I do bake, it tends to be from a mix. It's pretty hard to mess those up, but I have managed to do it a few times!

Anyway, I felt like making cookies the other day and while I had the ingredients to make them from scratch, I was feeling lazy as usual. So I did a little searching and found an EASY recipe using a cake mix. I know the ones from scratch taste better, but these are great because they go together so quickly and can be customized for whatever flavors you feel like.

Mix and Match Cookies

1 box cake mix, any flavor - I used dark chocoloate
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
water, optional - I didn't use it this time around
whatever mix-ins you want - I used a bar of pomegranate-flavored dark chocolate that I chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take two cookie sheets and line with parchment paper.

In a big bowl, combine the cake mix, eggs, and oil. The dough will be very dense, add water if needed. Add your mix-ins.

Chill mix in fridge for a few minutes.

Using a spoon, scoop out dough and roll in your hands until you make a ball about the size of a walnut. Place dough balls on cookie sheets. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, then take out and let cool.

Most recipes I saw yielded about 24 cookies. I got 32, but my cookies were on the small side.

Enjoy!

DC Food Gluttony Re-cap - Part 4 - The End

2009-06-10T21:23:00.006-04:00

I had to save the best for last.

To be perfectly honest, Sunday brunch was the one meal I had been looking forward to all weekend. When you see the pictures you'll understand why.

When my sister sent me the link to a restaurant called Co Co. Sala and mentioned it was a chocolate lounge and boutique, I was immediately intrigued. Once I saw the Sunday brunch menu, I knew we HAD to go there. Hello, who wouldn't want to have S'mores french toast stuffed with dark chocolate, among other amazing looking eats? Our fate was sealed and brunch reservations were made for the Three Musketeers, our cousin, Aunt #1, and her friend.

Now this place would definitely be a great place to hang out at night, but I'm telling you, brunch is the way to go here. You have the option of ordering of a prix fixe menu or a la carte. The prix fixe menu gives you an amuse bouche, an entree, and then dessert, and since we were all feeling indulgent we all ordered the prix fixe menu.

The amuse bouche consisted of a warm chocolate fritter that tasted like a fresh chocolate doughnut hole, served with a warm caramel sauce with pecans. Sadly, the light was being funky and I didn't get a good pic of this. For my entree I got the French Toast S'mores, which was made with cinnamon brioche, stuffed with dark chocolate and marshmallows. On the side were warm bananas in some kind of sauce (I'm allergic, so I didn't sample) and some graham crackers with chocolate mousse. We all sampled each others entrees and I think everyone had a winner. Despite Mr. Spice's protestations, I had to capture my brunch:

By the time we had finished our entrees, we were all pretty stuffed. Oh I guess I should mention my sister and I ordered some chicken sausages on the side to balance out the sweetness of our french toast. Soo good. Oh and a few of us might have indulged and ordered a cocktail. I don't drink a lot, but this cocktail was worth it. It had pear vodka, lychee puree, rose water, and lime juice. We quickly figured out a way to make it non-alcoholic and vowed to recreate it for the dinner at Aunt #1's house that evening.

Right, so here we are stuffed after our entrees when the waitress comes by with the dessert selections. Believe it or not, I had about hit my chocolate limit for the day. Sacrilege, I know. We were presented with four options and could choose two: a peanut butter and banana parfait thingy, an espresso brownie, a ricotta tart, and a pistachio chocolate thingy. Here's what I chose:

My selections were the espresso brownie and pistachio chocolate thingy (my term not theirs). Both were good but I was so full already that I could only take a couple bites of each. Well, I had room to sample a couple bites of the ricotta tart too:

I really should have ordered the ricotta tart instead of the espresso brownie, it was light and citrusy and didn't taste as heavy as the other choices. Live and learn.

Once we managed to heave ourselves away from the table, we decided to walk around a bit to walk off some of the damage from brunch. Then we came back to our hotel and collapsed onto chairs, the bed, and the floor to recover.

We still had more eats on the way, since we were due in a few hours at Aunt #1's house for dinner, which she was having catered. We stopped on the way to pick up fresh berries, some ice cream, and the fixings for the virgin version of the cocktail drink we'd had at brunch. We found pear juice to sub for the pear vodka, lychee juice, limes, and some pomegranate lychee white tea I like that I thought would go well with everything.

Never mind that we were still stuffed from brunch, once my aunt started serving dinner, the spicy smells of Bengali food wafting from the kitchen was enough to entice us. I didn't take pictures because she had other guests over and I didn't feel like explaining what I was doing. The food was from a Bengali restaurant, but really it was so good it tasted like home-made food rather than restaurant food. I was particularly focused on the beef curry, which tasted almost exactly how we had it growing up, and the mixed vegetables. I'm very envious of my aunt, cousin, and sister, who all get to eat the leftovers.

As for the drinks, well let's say the alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions were equally popular. Once I figured out the ratio of lychee juice to pear juice, it was easy to put together. Expect to see the non-alcoholic version sometime in the future on this blog. It's such a perfect summertime fruity girly drink, exactly what I like.

And that, everyone, ends the story of my weekend of food gluttony. I'm sure everyone feels the need to go walk for an hour just after reading all that.

The End.

:)

DC Food Gluttony Re-cap - Part 3

2009-06-10T18:28:00.004-04:00

To make up for the lack of pictures in the past two recaps, there will be LOTS of pictures in this one.

Now in order not to bore everyone with details of the family stuff, I will skip over it. This in any way does not diminish the memories of seeing everyone that day, but since the majority of you have not met me or my family or are not members of my family, then it doesn't mean the same to you. Just trust me that there was lots of squealing, giggling, hugging and all that. And Mr. Spice has it all captured on video.

The plans for Saturday were to meet Aunt #1 and my cousin in Georgetown and walk around a while and then we were going to drive to Maryland to have dinner at Aunt # 2's house. Thankfully the weather had cheered up from Thursday and Friday's rain and it wasn't too hot, which was perfect for all the walking we did.

All of us were still quite full from the various breakfasts we had, but when I spotted a frozen yogurt place, nobody resisted. Well except for Mr. Spice and Aunt # 1's friend. For some reason I thought this place was the one Sweetie Pie talked about a few times, but it was a different store. Hers was Tangy Sweet and this place was IceBerry.

Anyway, since we'd had a huge breakfast and an even bigger dinner was on the way, I opted to get a small chocolate frozen yogurt topped with raspberries. If they'd had a kid-sized I would have ordered that, since the small was the size of a small vat. That still didn't stop me from finishing it off, but whatever.

Oh and I managed to sneak a pic of it while Mr. Spice wasn't looking. Tee hee.

Doesn't that look so refreshing?

So anyway, we walked around more, took pics, and then headed back so we could get ready for the drive to Maryland. Thank goodness I was following my aunt and her friend, because I think the directions I printed off Google maps would have taken us longer to get there.

Skipping over more family fun, let's get down to dinner. Aunt # 2 really outdid herself. I seriously think she spent the whole day cooking. I wish I could have taken more and better pictures, but we were all starving and my camera battery chose to die at that point. But here goes.

First we have a lovely salad, cut up by moi:

Now some chicken kababs:

Then some tuna kababs (this is what they look like when properly deep fried):

And then some beef curry (notice the lovely bowl, which was a present from me!):

Unfortunately, the main attraction, which was chicken biryani, didn't get photographed on me because of my stupid camera dying. Trust me, it was very good.

Oh and how could I forget dessert? I didn't even remember to take pictures of it! We stopped en route to dinner and picked up a cheesecake sampler, an ice cream pie, and my sister brought her chocolate chip cookies. Don't worry, I tried a little bit of everything! :)

And so endeth day three of gluttony. Day four is coming up!

DC Food Gluttony Re-cap - Part 2

2009-06-10T13:10:00.006-04:00

So when we last left off, we'd kicked off our food gluttony weekend pretty well.

Friday was the only day we didn't have plans with all our family, so we Three Musketeers decided to spend the day at the Smithsonian. I hadn't been there in ages and neither had Mr. Spice, so we were really excited about it.

Our hotel was chosen for two main reasons, other than price: it was close to a Metro station and it was close to my sister's apartment. This made coordinating plans pretty easy.

But before we could start, we had to have a nice big breakfast to fuel our day. Oh what a perfect breakfast it was! We headed over to my sister's apartment where she had breakfast ready to go for us: blueberry pancakes, fresh macerated raspberries and blueberries, hash browns, sausage, and orange juice.

Trust me, this was as yummy as it looks.

This absolutely filling and delicious breakfast filled us up and lasted us for quite a few hours as we explored the natural history museum and Sackler gallery. Only afterward did we succumb to hunger and have some hot pretzels while hiding from the drizzle.

I'm very ashamed to say that dinner was wolfed down and escaped the camera. We took advantage of the Delivery Doctor service to have some great sandwiches delivered from Tarbouch, a Middle Eastern restaurant. I was of course waffling between five billion choices and in the end decided on the tried and true chicken shwarma sandwich which came with a very garlicky sauce. I took bites of my sister's chicken tabbouleh sandwich and Mr. Spice's sandwich which I can't remember the name of but contained beef and lamb sausage. Both were good, but I liked mine the best.

For dessert we got to snack on some fresh chocolate chip cookies that were being made for the next night's dinner at my aunt's house. So so good. The recipe has been sworn to secrecy, but I will be making these at some point.

Stay tuned for the Saturday and Sunday recaps!

DC Food Gluttony Re-cap - Part 1

2009-06-09T14:43:00.005-04:00

I was afraid they'd have to roll me onto the plane back to Atlanta, that's how much food I had this weekend.

It was all so worth it though. I got to reconnect with a cousin I hadn't seen in over 10 years and hang out with my sister, aunts, and other cousins. Food, family, and fun, that's the best way to sum up the weekend.

I tried to document as much of the food as I could but was foiled a few times by dying batteries, bad timing, and some forgetfulness.

Let's start with Thursday evening, when we got into DC . . .

After we got checked into our hotel room and had settled in, we were STARVING. Luckily, my sister was coming to meet us for dinner. We just needed to figure where. Last time I visited, she kept telling me about this place that served pupusas, which are a type of filled flatbread that seem to be native to El Salvador. We didn't get a chance to eat them then, but I remembered them and suggested trying them for dinner that night. As it turns out, we were pretty close to a string of restaurants and shops in Arlington and there was a place that served pupusas. Off we went.

We arrived at Mexicali Blues to find that there was a long wait, but we decided to tough it out and eventually got a table in the bar area. I had of course been drooling over the menu as we'd waited for our table, and I knew exactly what I was going to have. We had decided to order a couple pupusas to split as a quasi-appetizer and we got one filled with beans and cheese and one just with cheese. I ordered the enchiladas and got to choose three fillings -- I chose beef, potato, and spinach & mushroom.

I guess I should confess here that no pictures were taken of our food. Mr. Spice is not too keen on me taking pics of food in restaurants and I didn't feel like arguing with him.

Anyway, when the food came out, I noticed that the pupusas looked like stuffed pooris, which are a fried Indian bread. My favorite kind are dal pooris, which are pooris stuffed with spiced lentils. The pupusas were a dead ringer for them, which was a good sign for me. I wasn't as enthused with the bean and cheese ones, but the all cheese pupusa was pretty good. The cheese was gooey and salty and a perfect foil to the sturdiness of the pupusa.

The enchiladas were okay. Keep in mind we'd already polished off two baskets of chips and salsa while waiting for our food, so I was already a bit full by this point. The fillings just seemed too bland for me, but I did enjoy novelty of the potato and spinach/mushroom fillings.

After all this, my sister and I were still ready for some dessert. We headed further down the street and hit up Boccato Gelato & Espresso. I was starting to wish I'd saved even more room or even that I'd forgone dinner so that I could do full justice to the selections there. I immediately zoned in on a chocolate gelato, but decided to try some of the fruit-based ones instead. After sampling the blood orange, mandarin, and mango sencha flavors, I settled on mango sencha, which was a mix of mango and sencha tea. So good and refreshing after our salty and heavy dinner. The mango hit me first, and then I got the undertones of the tea. I tried a bit of my sister's pineapple basil gelato and enjoyed that as well. We tried to entice Mr. Spice with a gelato or an espresso but it didn't work. I looked at their latte menu and saw they had mandarin chocolate, which sounded so good, but I was beyond stuffed by this point. Next time.

Stay tuned for the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday installments of this food gluttony recap!

Out for a few days

2009-06-04T08:05:00.003-04:00

I know I don't have the most consistent posting history, but just giving you a heads up that we're leaving to go out of town for the weekend, so it's very very unlikely I will post.

Just where are we going off to? DC! We're off to visit some of my family. Poor Mr. Spice doesn't know quite what he's getting into, especially given that I will be having a reunion with a cousin I haven't seen in over 10 years.

I hope you guys have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week!

Bye!

When life hands you samosa filling and salmon . . .

2009-05-31T11:55:00.009-04:00

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. I think it can also be argued that having leftovers is also the mother of invention.

After our book club lunch, I was left with quite a bit of the samosa filling, as well as some of the salmon we'd made. Yes, I could just make more samosas or use put the filling into puff pastry sheets to make Bengali-style patties, but I wanted to do something else with it. And so I did.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with tuna cakes or salmon croquettes. Well it's probably not a surprise to learn that we have our versions of those too. Except we call them tuna or salmon kababs. I'm sure to many, the word kabab makes you picture a skewer with meat and veggies on it. That is definitely a type of kabab. But the type of kabab I'm talking about today is patty-shaped and made from a mixture of cooked fish, spiced potatoes, and some binding ingredients. These are usually fried, and I've shallow fried and baked them with equally good results.

After this past Thanksgiving, my mom took leftover turkey, our mashed potatoes, stuffing, and some Indian spices and resurrected the leftovers as kababs. It's a very versatile and forgiving dish, and this was what I had in mind as I looked at the leftover samosa filling and salmon.

This isn't a proper recipe, so there aren't any measurements. Think of this as a template for you to use up leftover potatoes and meat.

I took the salmon fillets and flaked them with a fork. Next, I added some of the samosa/potato filling. With my hands I crumbled the two together in a bowl. I added more potatoes as needed. Then I added some extra spices to punch up the flavor a bit. I added an egg and made sure to incorporate it thoroughly into the mix. Finally, some breadcrumbs to help bind everything.

And then for the fun part. Using both hands, I'd scoop up a bit of the mixture and roll it into a ball. Then I flattened the ball into a patty shape and smoothed the edges so that the kabab wouldn't come apart when it cooked. After that, all that was left was to cook the kababs.

So in a reasonably minimal amount of time I was able to utilize my leftovers and create an entirely new dish. Not a bad trick! Also consider the fact that Mr. Spice was ehh about the salmon in the first place, now that it's been doctored up there shouldn't be any complaints.

May Book Club Lunch

2009-05-31T11:32:00.009-04:00

Now if you've read earlier posts, you know that some friends and I have our own book club and try to meet each month. We started last May, so this month's meeting marked our 1-year anniversary! While we haven't met every month due to life getting in the way sometimes, we have met most months. I do have to admit that as time has gone on, the amount of time spent discussing the book has gone down and the amount of time devoted to the food at our meetings has increased!

Since we started our inaugural meeting with a book by a Bengali author, we felt it appropriate to come full circle and center this meeting around another South Asian author. We ended up choosing "The Hindi Bindi Club," by Monica Pradhan. Not only did the whimsical title catch our attention, but the book also contained recipes! How fun to read the book and then make some of the recipes out of it!

So that is exactly what we did. After reading the book (ahem, 2 of the 3 of us, that is), we made a list of all the recipes in the book and picked 3 to prepare. Since we pretty much followed the recipes as written, I'm going to be a tease and not post the recipes here. Plus the book is good and you should read it! We ended up making Preity's Goan Shrimp Curry, Saroj's Famous Samosas, and Uma's Shorshe Salmon Maach. What are all these dishes?

Preity's Goan Shrimp Curry is pretty much what it sounds like, a shrimp curry with a South Indian touch by way of tamarind, curry leaves and coconut milk. Now I'm normally not a fan of curries made with coconut milk, but with all the different flavors going on, the coconut taste was in the background. We made this one without any tweaking.

Uma's Shorshe Salmon Maach was a Bengali-inspired salmon dish. It used paanchphoran, which as I have mentioned before is best described as a Bengali 5-spice mixture. The salmon fillets were coated with mustard oil, another Bengali staple. The paanchphoran was supposed to be ground into a paste with water and dried red chilis, but my mini chopper doesn't seem to like spices, so they remained whole. The fish was supposed to be grilled, but since we needed the stove for the shrimp curry, rice, and making the potato filling we baked it instead. I have to say of all the dishes we made, this one didn't turn out as I'd expected. That was probably because of the spices not being ground into a paste.

I've talked about samosas before on here! So I don't need to explain Saroj's Famous Samosas in great detail. We did tweak the ingredients a bit because we felt it needed a little extra "something." And because we were a bit short on time we didn't make the samosa shell from scratch. I'd wanted to use refrigerated pie crust since it's ready to go, but we ended up with crescent roll dough instead. No matter, I just rolled the dough into circles using a glass as my makeshift rolling pin, cut each circle into halves and we made the samosas out of those, baking them instead of frying them. These turned out great and we scarfed down most of the batch.

Next month's book club pick has to do with zombies, so it'll be interesting to see how we plan our food around that!

One more giveaway!

2009-05-28T08:07:00.003-04:00

I don't know how I missed this one. If you love candy bars, then you CANNOT ignore this one!

One Frugal Foodie is giving you the chance to win a box of all natural candy bars from Go Max Go. Who doesn't want to eat Milky Ways, Snickers, 3 Musketeers, etc. guilt-free? Check it out for your chance to enter!

Wednesday Fun!

2009-05-27T09:12:00.004-04:00

Nothing like some giveaways and contests to liven up your Wednesday!

Mara is giving away some fabulously cute food blogger jewelry! Don't miss your chance to win one!

Hangry Pants is hosting an Element Bar Giveaway. Check it out and have fun creating your own bar!

I know it's been a while since I've participated in a BSI, but don't forget to check out BSI Corn, hosted by Burp and Slurp!

Have a great Wednesday!

Double-header: General Tso's Chicken and Veggie Lo Mein

2009-05-26T16:39:00.004-04:00

I think it's safe to say that it's no surprise that two of my favorite things to order in a Chinese restaurant are also two of the most fat and calorie-laden choices. It's nice how things work out like that.

Given those circumstances, it's also fairly safe to say that these two items are high on my list of things to master cooking and to lighten up. :)

As you know, I have the cookbook collecting bug and have recently been trying to make actual use out of the ones I have rather than letting them taunt me from the bookshelves with their glossy pictures and their "someday" potential.

I dug out one of the few Weight Watchers cookbooks that I've actually cooked out of before -- Take-Out Tonight, which is an excellent source of . . . you guessed it, take-out favorites.

There was a recipe for General Tso's Chicken in there I wanted to try, since I had decided I was going to cook dinner for my friends when they got here Friday night. I found the recipe and was promptly paralyzed by the list of ingredients. And then, as if the book had anticipated my anxiety, the "clever cook's tip" box at the bottom of the page told me I had a quick alternative -- bottled stir-fry sauce. Yay! So using their shortcut method and what I had at home, I came up with a version of General Tso's Chicken that meets my weeknight dinner criteria -- quick, versatile, and flavorful.

General Tso's Chicken

Adapted from Weight Watchers Take-Out Tonight: 150+ Restaurant Favorites to Make at Home

Serves 4-5 people

1.5 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
1.5 tbsp cornstarch
3/4 cup stir-fry sauce -- I used a spicy Szechwan sauce
1 tbsp. canola oil
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tbsp minced garlic
3 scallions, chopped
2-3 cups of your choice of veggies -- I used broccoli florets and shredded carrots
1-2 tsp. dark sesame oil
soy sauce to taste

Take the chicken pieces and add to 1 tbsp. cornstarch and 3 tbsp. of the stir-fry sauce, mixing thoroughly and letting chicken marinate for at least 5 minutes.

Combine the remaining stir-fry sauce, cornstarch, sesame oil, and soy sauce in a separate bowl and set aside.

Heat a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Add oil, once heated add ginger, garlic, and scallions. Cook for a minute or so, then add the chicken and marinade and stir-fry for a couple minutes, until the chicken begins to brown. Add the vegetables and stir-fry until crisp-tender. Now add the sauce ingredients and stir-fry as the mixture comes to a boil and thickens, about 1-2 minutes. Make sure chicken is cooked through!

And now for the lo mein . . . which is one of my throw some stuff in a pan concoctions

Veggie Lo Mein

Serves 4-5 people

NOTE: all measurements are approximate, adjust for your personal preference

8 oz. angel hair or vermicelli pasta, broken in half
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
1-2 tsp ginger paste
3 scallions, chopped
approx. 2 tbsp soy sauce (more if needed)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp teriyaki sauce (optional)
3 cups veggies -- I used frozen Japanese blend veggies and fresh coleslaw mix
2 tsp dark sesame oil
1 tsp cornstarch

Boil water for pasta. While this is going on, heat the oil in a large nonstick pan. Then add garlic, ginger, and scallions and stir fry for a minute or so. Add the veggies and stir fry for a minute. Add sauces and keep stir-frying until veggies are crisp tender. Set aside.

Cook the pasta, and drain. Reheat the pan with veggies and add the pasta, making sure to combine all ingredients thoroughly. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

Take the cornstarch in a small bowl and add water until you get a slurry. Add this to the pan and stir to coat and heat through. Add the sesame oil at the very end and toss.

The Girls Are Back in Town!

2009-05-22T08:55:00.003-04:00

Oh, I'm so looking forward to this weekend!

My girlfriends from back home in Kansas are coming to visit me for a much-needed girls' weekend!

After I moved to Atlanta, they would try to come out to visit me for a few days once in a while and of course I would see them when I went home for visits.

This year we were trying to do something different and all of us would meet somewhere for some fun, but with schedules and life getting in the way we decided to do the tried and true thing and just have them come to visit me!

Where will Mr. Spice be during this estrogen-fest? Well, he will actually be away at a computer geek conference starting this Saturday for a whole week. So it all works out. :)

We've already got lots of fun thing planned -- we're getting massages tomorrow, then going to Agatha's, which is a murder-mystery dinner theater. Very excited about that! There has to be some shopping involved, as well as some junk food and movies.

I do hope to post a little during this long weekend, but if I don't I will see you next week! Have a great weekend!

A berry good breakfast!

2009-05-21T10:40:00.005-04:00

*snicker*

I was goofing around this weekend and saw a recipe for a low-carb cheesecake that looked decent and thought I would try it out. I'm not much of a baker, but felt compelled to try it out. The end result is not low-carb, but makes for a decent substitute for those Cheesecake Factory cravings. Of course given a choice I would go for the real thing, but if I consistently chose the real thing I would be the size of a cheesecake factory. :P

Anyway, I thought this would make a fun breakfast this morning -- especially with some fresh berries on top to up the healthy quotient.

I'm going to tinker with the recipe a bit more before I feel comfortable posting it here, so sorry to be such a tease!

Keeping it simple and sane

2009-05-18T23:44:00.011-04:00

I'm very good at complicating things and making them into bigger issues than they really need to be. This applies to most facets of my life, but especially when it comes to food.

If you ever saw the madness that is my cookbook collection you would think that I cook many different things. I aspire to do so, but I think having so many options has resulted in a paralysis of sorts. Instead, I flip through cookbook after cookbook, drooling at recipes but rarely trying one. Someday, I think to myself, when I have all the ingredients on hand and all the equipment. And a bigger kitchen. And more time.

Trying to be healthier doesn't escape either. I frantically plan out meal plans that would make a nutritionist proud. I collect exercise dvds so that I always have options if I can't go to the gym. But when push comes to shove, I don't stick to any of it. I might stick to my rigid eating routine for a couple days but then something will always trip me up and it all comes crumbling down. As for the exercising, I'm lucky if I get 2 days in a week. Those dvds sit collecting dust.

This need to have it all right all at once is my downfall. I make it all so perfect and complex in the beginning that I think there really is no where to go but failure. It's not realistic to expect so much at once. I'm beginning to realize that it's okay if I don't plan and eat flawlessly healthy meals every day. Just making an effort and doing better than eating junk food and fast food is a step towards progress in itself. So maybe I rely more on healthy convenience food like veggie burgers, frozen meals, etc. in the beginning. So what? If it helps me get in a good groove, then that's great. Once I've built a foundation, then I can add on and improve on it. The same thing with exercising. I don't have to get 5 days of cardio and 3 days of weights right off the bat. Just walking outside in the beautiful weather a few times a week is better than me sitting on my ass watching tv.

So what I've been trying to do the past few days is to keep it simple. Instead of having 5 billion options for breakfast and lunch, I've been sticking to 1 or 2 options. I've been trying to be active in some way at least 2-3 times during the week. And when I faced temptation a couple times and gave in, I wasn't as hard on myself like I usually am because I hadn't set up ridiculous expectations for myself. I can't fail if I don't set myself up for failure. The less insane I make things, the easier it is to accomplish them. What a revelation, right? :)

Lightning Fast Fried Rice

2009-05-16T12:55:00.006-04:00

I was STARVING after I got back from the gym today. I knew I needed something fast and filling or else I'd start gnawing on limbs.

Having leftover rice ready to go is the key to keeping this recipe quick and dirty. We had Chinese takeout a couple nights back, so this was a great way to use up leftover rice.

Why lightning fast? Well, it goes together just like that and we've got some nice thunderstorms going on right now. Way to take advantage of the situation! :)

Lightning Fast Fried Rice (1 big serving)

1 cup leftover cooked rice, straight from fridge
1 cup shredded cabbage (I used bagged coleslaw mix)
1 cup raw broccoli florets
cooked protein of choice (I used a cut-up 97% ff hotdog. Don't judge, the Chinese use sausage in their fried rice!)
1 tsp canola oil
1 tsp sesame oil
minced garlic (I used jarred)
ginger paste (I use the jarred or kind in a tube)
soy sauce to taste
any other seasonings to taste (I used Szechwan stir-fry sauce)

Take veggies, place in bowl with about 1 tbsp water. Microwave for about 3 minutes. While this is going on, heat up a nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Heat the canola oil, then add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry for a minute.

Add the cooked veggies and protein and stir-fry a couple minutes. Add the rice and soy sauce and stir-fry to warm rice through. Once everything is cooked through, add the sesame oil and any other seasonings. Combine thoroughly and dump in a bowl.

Enjoy.

Note -- I didn't use an egg because I'd already had one for breakfast, but feel free to quickly scramble one beforehand and then add into the mix with the rice.

Weekend plans?

2009-05-15T14:56:00.003-04:00

HUGE confession: all the partners at our firm have been gone since yesterday at a retreat and I haven't done much since then. Most of us have been sneaking in late and sneaking out early. Shhhh!! :)

Well this morning I had a good reason to be late, I was at the dealership getting 2 new tires for my ZoomZoom and then they had to replace the cabin air filter. Those tires were already going to cost me many a pretty penny and then the air filter just added to it. Bleh. At least now I don't have to worry about my tires blowing out while driving around Atlanta. If you've driven here, you know how much that would suck.

I did manage to get some work done and finally made some progress on this return I've been working on for what seems like forever. But now I'm seriously thinking of leaving early . . .

What's going on this weekend? We're planning to see the Star Trek movie tonight. Tomorrow I'm supposed to meet my trainer and that's all I had planned. I really need to clean up around the house and clean out my car. Some girlfriends from back home are coming to visit me Memorial Day weekend, so this is all in preparation for then.

What are YOU up to this weekend?

I've been good about not buying tons of cookbooks lately, but was lured by the low prices at Costco the other day. I think I'm the only person who goes in solely to buy cookbooks there. I got some looks as I walked around with my 2 cookbooks. Oh you want to know what I bought? I ended up buying the 10th anniversary edition of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and got suckered in by all the buzz about the new Hungry Girl cookbook. I have the original version of How to Cook Everything but heard the new one had new recipes and had been reorganized -- and I don't mind having 2 versions of a good classic. I also have the first Hungry Girl cookbook and was a little underwhelmed by it, to be honest. It just seemed like pretend food. So I was skeptical about the second, but when I flipped through it I saw it had more "real" recipes, if that makes sense. I'll let you guys know if I make stuff from them. :)

Well, it seems like there's just 4 of us left in the office, so I think that's my cue to get out of here!

Have a great weekend!

My first "green" smoothie!!

2009-05-13T06:41:00.007-04:00

I finally did it! I've seen these all over blogland and have been intrigued from day 1 but never got around to trying one. Until today.

Why "green" vs green? Well as you can tell from the pictures, it's more of a mauve smoothie. :) I took baby steps and didn't go too crazy with the spinach this first time, but I'll keep adding it as I make more of these.

Raspberry Mango Spinach Smoothie

1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup frozen unsweetened raspberries
1/2 cup frozen unsweetened mango chunks
1/2 cup fresh baby spinach
1/2 scoop vanilla whey protein powder

Put ingredients in blender in order listed. Pulse until blended to your liking. Enjoy!!

Verdict? This was great! I did have to add a little Splenda to sweeten it, but I most definitely did not taste the spinach. If anything, I tasted the protein powder, so I might nix that next time, since I'm already getting protein from the milk. The consistency was very thick, almost like a milkshake, so I've been eating this with a spoon.

Now I definitely know what I've been missing out on! This is a great way to get some dairy, fruit, and veggies knocked out, so expect to see these more often.

What's your favorite green smoothie concoction?

Back from the in-laws and a giveaway winner!

2009-05-11T09:22:00.003-04:00

Hey guys!

We are back from our weekend with Mr. Spice's parents in Florida. I have to say, this weekend wasn't bad at at all -- got lots of relaxing and I got to shadow my mother-in-law in the kitchen. I didn't take pictures like I wanted to, just because then I'd have to explain about the blog and I really didn't want to get into it with them since they wouldn't get it. Anyway, lots of good eats and we got a huge big bag of food sent back with us! :)

Anyway, I'm feeling a little under the weather today -- I think it's from being on the plane -- so I took today off to recuperate a bit. Can't wait to catch up on some blog reading and get some alone time.

But I did promise you a winner in my 1ooth post giveaway! Thanks to everyone who entered!

As promised, I used the random number generator at www.random.org to select the winner.

Congratulations to . . . . NICK aka The Peanut Butter Boy!!

Nick said...: I have also linked to the giveaway in my latest post here:

Beer Braised BBQ Chicken; May 4, 2009 5:38 PM

Nick, if you will email me when you get a chance, I will be more than happy to send your prize!

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day Weekend and I will see you soon!

Cutting it close

2009-05-07T10:18:00.006-04:00

Man, last night was all about rushing around at the last minute.

I had some time after I left work before I met my trainer, so I headed to the mall to New York & Company since I had some CityCash to use up. I found a lot of cute stuff but lost track of the time. For some reason I thought my training session was at 7:30. Mr. Spice called while I was trying on clothes to remind me he was doing a podcast that night. I checked the time and it was just after 6:30. I then remembered my session was at 7. Crap!! Luckily I was able to put everything on hold and was able to make it to the gym in time.

After getting tortured, I headed back to the mall and was very pleased to find out how much I saved. I had CityCash to use, which was $15 off every $30 in purchases, plus a lot of the stuff in the store was on sale buy 1, get one 50% off. I ended up spending just under $80 total taking all that into account -- not bad for 2 dresses, 1 skirt, and 5 tops! I looked at my receipt and it said I saved over $128! My kind of deal!

Then I had to make it home before LOST started. I made it, don't worry. :)

We're flying to Florida tonight to visit Mr. Spice's parents -- we've become very bad over the years about not packing until the last moment. Last night was no exception. I think we weren't even positive about the time our flight was, so we found that out then had to decide how to coordinate getting to the airport. I hadn't even thought of what to pack by then. So I spent another couple hours frantically making a packing list and getting stuff together. It's only for a couple days, but I get anxious about my clothes since they're on the conservative side and even a normal v-necked shirt might look too slutty to them. I solved the problem by packing ethnic kurti tops, which look like these (that is NOT me in the pics). Once the clothes were done, I had to figure out jewelry (my MIL likes me to get dolled up for her) and books (I read voraciously, especially on trips). Done and done. Phew! Time for bed finally!

This morning I just had to pack toiletries and shoes and now I'm set for our trip. I'm actually looking forward to it because this time I plan to shadow my MIL in the kitchen and take notes on what she cooks so I can hopefully recreate it later. She and my mom are similar in that they're intuitive cooks -- they don't really measure stuff, they just add stuff and know when to put it in and how much. So as you can see, trying to get a recipe is a bit challenging.

And that my friends is how I spent the last 16 hours or so. Rushing around and around. Basically my life story! :)

Remember, tomorrow night is the deadline for entering my Cookbook and Spice Kit giveaway!

Hope you guys have a great weekend and a Happy Mother's Day for all the moms out there!

Digital camera recommendations?

2009-05-05T19:03:00.005-04:00

Hey guys!

Currently Mr. Spice and I share custody of our digital camera, but since I've been blogging and taking pictures more often, we've been talking about getting a camera just for me. This way if he has computer geek plans that require the camera and I'm cooking something I can still take pictures for the blog!

The one we're sharing right now is a Canon PowerShot SD1000, which I'm pretty comfortable with. There's a newer version of this camera out, so that is our default pick, but I thought I'd ask you guys for some recommendations. I'd prefer a point and shoot camera so that I can be more spontaneous and plus I'm kinda lazy. :)

Sooooo what kind of digital camera do you use and do you recommend it?

Thanks in advance!

And don't forget, my 100th post give-away is still going on! You still have until this Friday to enter to win my Cookbook and Spice Kit!

Tangy Salmon Cakes

2009-05-03T19:24:00.006-04:00

Remember the Lemony Salmon with Yogurt-Dill Sauce I made a couple weeks ago? If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out. Anyway, I had plenty of dill leftover afterwards. It's kinda been hiding out in the veggie drawer of our fridge, awaiting an uncertain future. Since we know how well dill pairs with salmon, I wanted to find another way to combine the two. Then I remembered I'd bought some canned salmon recently and came up with this:

Tangy Salmon Cakes

1 15-oz can salmon, skin and bones removed
1 egg
2 tbsp bread crumbs
2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp. fresh dill
2 tbsp. chopped onions
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp canola oil

Place all ingredients in bowl and mix thoroughly. Form mixture into 9 balls, then flatten each ball into a patty shape.

Take a nonstick pan and heat over medium-high heat. Add oil and heat.

Once oil is hot enough, lightly fry salmon cakes 4-5 at a time until golden brown on both sides.

As you can see, mine got a little more than golden brown, but they still taste good!

REMINDER!! My Cookbook and Spice Kit give-away deadline is this Friday!

"You have some knife skills!"

2009-05-03T09:37:00.004-04:00

Recently, a good friend and I have been trying to take cooking classes here and there. Nearly all have been demos, like the ones at Williams-Sonoma and at Cook's Warehouse, but we wanted something hands-on.

We finally found some classes that are held at a couple Whole Foods stores in the Atlanta area and booked one for yesterday where we would be preparing a New Orleans Brunch. On the menu were Pain Perdue (French Toast) with Berry Compote, 3 different types of Eggs Benedict -- one on a mushroom cake and tasso hollandaise, one on a grit cake with shrimp and asparagus and a veloute sauce, and the last on a corn cake with ham and a mornay sauce -- and finally, fried green tomatoes with a crab ravigote. Oh and how could I forget the cafe au lait and mimosas? Doesn't all that sound sooo yummy?

Anyway, when we got there we filled out some paperwork, then everyone got aprons and name tags, we washed hands, and were split up into 3 stations. My friend and I were assigned to the mushroom cake station, where she was tasked with slicing fresh herbs and scallions and I got to slice mushrooms. Ahem, not to brag (although I already did in the title), but we were complimented on our knife skills! Thank you, Food Network!

Once all of us finished prep work, we all came to the cooking area where we were going to start off making the fried green tomatoes and the pain perdue. We all got to take turns coating the tomatoes and frying them, and then we moved on to the pain perdue. Once we finished those, we got to take a break and eat the first round of our creations. The fried green tomatoes were good, the crab sauce that was on them was okay though -- there was something in it that I didn't care for. The pain perdue was to die for. Literally, because it had whole milk and cream in the batter and we cooked them in honey butter.

After we were done eating, we got started on assembling and cooking our bases for the eggs benedict. Note that so far we had done zero clean-up. There were assistants helping out that took care of all that. Now if I didn't have to clean up I would most certainly cook every day. Anyway, so we divided back up into our groups and set to work. Our mushroom cake mixture smelled and looked divine with all the fresh herbs and vegetables in it. We had some trouble forming the cakes and having them keep their shape because the mixture was a bit on the too-wet side, but they ended up doing fine. We also got to make the hollandaise sauce -- we took turns whisking the eggs and lemon juice over a double boiler, and then melted butter was added in at the end. I don't know if I could do it on my own, but it was cool to see it being made.

So all the groups made the sauces first -- we were busy with our hollandaise, so I didn't really get to see the other two being made. I just know they both used roux, and that the veloute had broth mixed into the roux while the mornay sauce had milk and cheese mixed into the roux.

Once all the sauces were done we cooked up the bases. The mushroom cakes somehow held up and smelled great. Once these came out, I added sauteed spinach and a dollop of our hollandaise on top. For the grit cakes, the grits were spread out onto a sheet and refrigerated to firm up, then they were cut into hearts using a cookie cutter and these were then dipped in flour and fried up. On top went some poached shrimp and grilled asparagus, then the veloute sauce. The corn cakes were cooked just like pancakes and the grilled ham and mornay sauce were put on top.

The assistants had already pre-poached eggs, so these were revitalized with some boiling water, and then we were ready to eat!

We ate SO much. I already told you about round one with the fried green tomatoes and pain perdue. Now we got to try each of the eggs benedict bases and then got 1 egg. I hadn't been able to finish the first round and most certainly couldn't finish this second plate. I would say my favorite by far was our mushroom cakes. Not necessarily because we made it, but it just seemed to have the most flavor of the 3. The cakes had fresh oregano, basil, and thyme, as well as fresh chopped peppers and garlic to add lots flavor. The hollandaise was creamy and tart, and the spiced sausage we used in lieu of the tasso gave it some bite.

I don't mean to tease you by telling you all about it and not having recipes or pictures to show how great it was. We got a packet in class that gave us the recipes for each of the dishes we made. Now I don't know if we're allowed to post them, but be assured you will see some variation of the mushroom cakes in the near future!

All in all, I had a great time. I really loved the hands-on aspect of it and it was just great to have this communal sense of accomplishment as we all finished our parts and then ate together. And I will definitely keep practicing my knife skills for next time! :)

It's here!! My 100th post and a give-away!

2009-04-29T19:43:00.013-04:00

Wow, 100 posts! I started this blog in the summer of 2007 when I was just discovering the world of cooking and food blogs. I took breaks here and there when work was really busy or while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with this blog, but here I am today!

Don't worry, I'm not getting all emotional or anything. I promise.

Anyway, I think this past year is when I started taking it more seriously and started participating more in the blog community. It's been great getting to know more of you and I hope to continue to do so.

So enough of all this mushiness, let's get down to the goodies!

As you can tell, a lot of my food posts have a definite slant towards Indian/South Asian food. That's because that's what I grew up eating and as much as I love discovering or recreating favorites, I also like to share them with you guys.

I know a lot of people who like Indian cuisine but are often too scared to try it on their own. Believe me, I've been there. It seems so complex with all the different spices, but really once you have a good stock of the basics, you'll find that most recipes rely on some key spices in varying proportions.

So with the hopes of luring more of you into trying your hand at Indian food, I give you Spiceaholic's Cookbook & Spice Kit:

That's right, I'm giving one lucky reader:

A copy of The Everything Indian Cookbook, by Monica Bhide, which is a great intro to Indian cooking.

A few basic spices so you can start cooking! Starting at the top left and going down are ground cumin seed, tandoori seasoning, and garam masala. Starting at the top right and going down are panchphoran (a Bengali spice blend), ground coriander, and turmeric.

A packet of my favorite lychee-flavored gummy candies (that's just for fun!).

Sound good to you? Can't wait to start cooking away? Wondering how you can be the lucky winner? Here are the different ways you can enter:

Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite Indian dish is or what dish you want to try.
If you have a blog, please link back to this post and clue your readers in to this give-away. Then leave me a new comment telling me you've done so and with a link to your site.
If you don't have a blog, send an email to spiceaholic80 @ gmail dot com with "Spices" as the subject line.

You have until midnight on the evening of Friday, May 8th to enter. I will be out of town that weekend, but will announce a winner no later than Monday, May 11th. The winner will be selected via the random sequence generator at random.org. Due to shipping costs, I do have to limit entrants to U.S. and Canada residents.

Good luck everyone! Hope to see both new and familiar faces. :D

Shopping is fun!

2009-04-29T13:11:00.002-04:00

Since I'm on the verge of post #100, I figured it was time to gather the rest of the goodies I'll be giving away in my next post.

I hit up World Market because I wanted to see if I could find anything to bring for my mother-in-law when we go to Florida next weekend. Yes, I'm such a good daughter-in-law. :P

I swear World Market and Target are like crack for me. I go in there for a purpose and end up spending WAY more than I intended. I found something for my MIL, I also spotted a mirror I want for the house and a cool carved jewelry box that would be perfect for my ethnic jewelry. I held off on the mirror and jewelry box for now.

I did find some of the Cadbury Crunchie bars that Sweetie Pie was teasing us about the other day, so I got one to try and stocked up on some other chocolates.

Don't worry, I got exactly what I wanted for the giveaway! You'll just have to wait until tomorrow when I post about it! But I think quite a bit of stuff for me found itself into the cart that I didn't really need but I bought anyway. Sigh.

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday! Tonight is the 100th episode of LOST, so you can bet I'll be glued to the TV tonight!

For some midweek cheer, check out all these cool give-aways going on:

Tina at Carrots 'n' Cake is giving away a Flogg Daily planner

Sweetie Pie is giving away some of her favorite treats in honor of her 100th post

The Fitnessista is giving away a great-looking vegan cookbook (and some cookies!)

Kelly at Happy Texans is giving away some awesome treats

See ya tomorrow!

Red Enchilada Chicken

2009-04-26T19:47:00.004-04:00

This recipe really could not be any simpler. And it's so versatile -- if you're watching carbs you can eat it with salad or veggies, if you're not watching carbs then you can serve it with rice or in a tortilla. Oh and it looks so colorful and pretty, so there's really no reason not to try it!

Red Enchilada Chicken

12 oz. thinly sliced chicken breast (this equaled about 3 slices for me)
1 cup red enchilada sauce
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1/3 cup sliced green onions
additional seasonings for chicken (I used fajita seasoning)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take baking dish and spray with cooking spray. Spread half the enchilada sauce on bottom of baking dish. Season chicken breasts and lay in dish. Pour remaining sauce over chicken. Sprinkle cheese and green onions on top. Bake for about 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Here's a closer shot, in case you needed more convincing! :D

Spicy Supreme Pizza Pasta Sauce

2009-04-26T18:57:00.003-04:00

The idea for this sauce came to me at the most random moment -- as I was in the middle of my torture session at the gym yesterday. Weird, I know.

Anyway, I'd bought some hot Italian turkey sausage a few days back and was trying to figure out what exactly I should make with it. I had pretty much settled on doing a baked ziti type dish, when I thought of a supreme pizza inspired sauce. I envisioned crumbled Italian sausage, turkey pepperoni, olives, green peppers, mushrooms, onions, and sauce. Yum. At first I thought it'd make a cool baked pasta dish, but then realized it could just as easily be a regular pasta sauce or the makings for a pizza. Here it is!

Spicy Supreme Pizza Pasta Sauce

1.5 lb hot Italian turkey sausage, casings removed
2 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped green pepper
8 tbsp sliced black olives
24 slices turkey pepperoni, halved
1 cup sliced canned mushrooms
2 cups pasta sauce
2 tsp olive oil

Heat a large deep pan over medium high. Add oil and heat. Then add onions and garlic, cook until onions begin to turn translucent. Add the sausage and break up into crumbles, stirring constantly. Once sausage begins to brown, add green pepper, olives, and mushrooms. Add the turkey pepperoni and heat through. Now add the pasta sauce. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for about 20 minutes.

This made about 5.5 cups of sauce. You can always add more pasta sauce to increase the total amount, especially if you're using the entire batch for a baked pasta dish.

I figured about 1/2 cup per serving, since it's pretty rich from the turkey sausage.

Happy Friday to You!

2009-04-24T15:00:00.002-04:00

Happy Friday to you, Happy Friday to you, Happy Friday dear whoever-you-are, Happy Friday to you!! :)

In case you can't tell, I'm glad it's Friday! This week has been deliciously slow at work -- lots of people took PTO to recover from tax season, nobody except the managing partner expects us to get any work done, and the weather has been lovely. I haven't done much work -- first half of the week I was busy helping coordinate the surprise office lunch we planned for Administrative Assistant's Day. Since then I've been happily perusing the internet, clearing out my recycle box, cleaning off my desk, and slowly getting to my post 4/15 to-do list.

As for weekend plans, tonight I'm meeting some girlfriends to watch The Haunting in Connecticut (we're suckers for scary movies), then tomorrow I have a torture session with my trainer and then an afternoon tea party. Sunday is free for now, will probably be my usual groceries, cooking, and tv/cuddle time with Mr. Spice.

I've been enjoying catching up on food blogs too and have noticed more people posting their daily eats. That's probably a great accountability tool plus it's a fun way to get new ideas. If I ever manage to get my act in gear I may have to start that too. The only sticky part for me is if I go out to eat -- not sure I feel comfortable taking pics of my food in restaurants yet. Do you ask permission before snapping pics or do you take stealth pics? I know if I'm with Mr. Spice I can't get away with it, he's pretty adamant about it. Pfft.

I'm so excited about the give-away I've planned for my upcoming 100th post! I think this is # 95, so just a few more to go! Hope you guys enjoy it!

That's it from me for now, have a great weekend!

Recipe Review - Lemony Salmon with Yogurt-Dill Sauce

2009-04-21T07:51:00.005-04:00

Doesn't that look soooo good?

I've talked about my cookbook buying obsession before on here. It was pretty bad last year -- I don't even want to think about how much I spent! Well, I figured it was time I started cooking out of them. And since I'm back on the healthy eating wagon, a good place to start was with my Weight Watchers cookbooks. I wanted something that was easy to put together after coming home from work and that didn't taste diet-y. I think I picked a good one!

Lemony Salmon with Yogurt-Dill Sauce

From Weight Watchers TurnAround Program Cookbook, pg. 106

1 lemon
1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)
1 tbsp fresh chopped dill
salt and pepper to taste
1 lb. skinless salmon fillet, cut into 4 pieces

Zest lemon so that you get about 1/4 tsp. Cut lemon in half and juice one of the halves and reserve other half for later.

Combine the zest, juice, yogurt, dill, and some salt in small bowl.

Take remaining lemon half and squeeze over salmon fillets, then sprinkle salt and pepper over them. Heat a large pan over medium-high heat -- I heated about 2 tsp of olive oil, but cooking spray can be used instead. Add salmon fillets and cook until opaque in center, about 4 minutes each side, or to your degree of doneness.

Serve salmon with sauce on the side.

Makes 4 servings.

I steamed some broccoli and tossed in olive oil, salt, crushed red pepper, and some garlic and served with the salmon.

Another big thanks to Mr. Spice for taking the picture of the salmon -- I might have to make him my food photographer!

Bring on the bentos!

2009-04-19T19:14:00.002-04:00

Wow, it's been a while since I've done a bento post! I'm hoping to get back into it so hopefully you'll see more of these! Let's see what I packed for tomorrow at the office . . .

The left container has 4 of the mini frittatas I posted about earlier. When I said mini, I wasn't kidding! These are about the size of a quarter! I plan to have those with some oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow. I also have some cucumber slices and a Laughing Cow wedge. The right container has some leftover lemony spinach couscous with parmesan and some garlic shrimp I cooked up to go with dinner last night. Just need to figure out an afternoon snack and I'm set!

I also want to remind you that my 100th post is coming up -- this one is #93! I plan to do a give-away of some awesome stuff like spice mixes, maybe a cookbook or two, and maybe a couple of surprise items. Intrigued? :)

Getting back on track . . . and a BSI entry!

2009-04-19T17:37:00.004-04:00

Ahhhhhhh, what a nice break I had! Got lots and lots of relaxing done and although tomorrow is the start of another work week, at least it will be a normal work week.

Tomorrow will also mark the start of getting back on the weight loss wagon for many of us who were thrown off during tax season! I don't have a formal plan for this, since I don't want to get back into my all or nothing mindset and set myself up for failure yet again. I haven't decided yet whether I will go back to Weight Watchers or count calories instead. I think that I will focus on making healthy choices and watching my portion sizes for a couple weeks to ease into things.

I think where I do need a formal plan is for exercise. I met with my trainer this past weekend and he said if I want to see progress I really need to be doing cardio 4-5 times a week and strength-training 3 days a week. That sounds like a lot to me right now considering I haven't been doing much, but it's something to work toward. So I'm thinking about aiming for 3 days of cardio and 2 days of strength-training for a couple weeks and then moving up from there. Once I'm set on exercise I think the eating will follow.

Anyway, that's enough of that for now! Let's move on to the recipes. :)

First up are some mini sausage, spinach, and cheese frittatas I made for breakfast this week. I'm sure everyone's seen some variation of the mini egg quiches that South Beach Diet devotees swear by. This is mine, inspired by the egg muffins featured on Kalyn's Kitchen.

Mini Sausage, Spinach, and Cheese Frittatas

3 Jennie-O fully cooked turkey sausage breakfast links
1/2 cup fresh spinach, shredded
1/4 cup shredded cheese, any flavor
1/2 cup egg beaters
seasonings

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Take a silicone muffin pan and spray with cooking spray. I used a mini muffin pan that yields 12 mini muffins.

Heat up breakfast links in microwave, then cut each link into fourths. Place a fourth into each muffin well. Divide spinach and cheese among the muffin wells. Add whatever seasonings you want. Pour the egg beaters into each muffin well so that each is filled up about 2/3 of the way.

Bake mini frittatas for about 20 minutes or until egg is cooked through and cheese turns golden brown.

This makes 12 mini frittatas - I figured 3 servings of 4 mini frittatas each.

Next up is my submission for this week's BSI contest. This week's ingredient was lemon and I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to make. In the end I decided to tweak a tried-and-true recipe I've made a few times for a lemony couscous salad. I found the original source of this recipe via the WW message boards, which in turn came from this article. My first tweaking of the original was to substitute parmesan cheese for the feta cheese that was called for. For this week's BSI I thought about tweaking it a little more in order to get . . .

Lemony Spinach Couscous with Parmesan

1 cup uncooked whole wheat couscous
1 cup fresh spinach, shredded
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Combine shredded spinach with dry couscous. Add 1.25 cups boiling water, stir, and cover. Let sit for about 5 minutes, then fluff with fork. Add lemon zest and olive oil, and stir to combine. Allow couscous to rest and come to room temperature. Now add in lemon juice and Parmesan cheese. Add salt and pepper as necessary.

This makes about 4 servings and tastes great cold or at room temperature.

A big thank you to Mr. Spice for taking this picture!

Yay for 4-day weekends!

2009-04-16T11:05:00.002-04:00

I did it! I survived another tax season! This one really didn't seem as horrible as past ones, but working 55-60 hour weeks and working on Saturdays will still wear you down.

Didn't get to sleep in much this morning thanks to my allergies -- I woke up sneezing up a storm but thankfully the Claritin-D seems to have finally kicked in.

I'm not quite sure what to do with all this time off. I'm seeing my trainer today for a much-needed torture session. I ended up putting on some more weight this tax season and really need to get my butt kicked into gear. Tonight I'm meeting a friend to go check out this photo exhibit at Emory about Bangladeshi women. Sunday I have my massage and facial. That's it as far as planned activities. I'm very tempted to spend the rest of my time watching tv and reading. Very tempted. But I have a feeling I'll get pulled into doing stuff around the house that have been neglected these past couple months. Like cleaning. Blech.

One thing I will do this weekend is do a submission for this week's BSI contest! I've been so out of the loop the past few weeks so it took a while before I was able to get up to date on this week's host and ingredient. Krista of Krista's Kravings has chosen lemons as this week's ingredient. I'm very excited about this and can't wait to see what everyone else submits.

When you have a few days off do you go into couch-potato mode or do you keep yourself busy?

The light at the end of the tunnel

2009-04-15T09:36:00.003-04:00

I'm counting down the hours until our office closes up early so we can head out to our well-earned 4/15 party. Of course what makes it better is that I'm on the events committee so I have to leave a little early to make it to the party site. Nice planning on my part, right?

We get tomorrow off as a office holiday and I'm taking Friday off so that I get a nice 4-day weekend out of it. I'm sooo looking forward to it. I plan to sleep in and be lazy for most of it. There's even a facial and massage planned for this weekend.

But what I'm really looking forward to is getting back into blogland. I missed it so much these past few weeks. I tried to read a little when I got time, but definitely wasn't able to post or cook like I wanted to. So do look forward to some posts from me again. And keep an eye out for a give-away in the next couple weeks as I head towards my 100th post!

And remember to get your tax returns in!! :)

Spicy French Toast

2009-03-29T12:48:00.005-04:00

Sunday mornings are a good time for me -- I get to sleep in a bit, have some quiet time for myself while Mr. Spice sleeps away, and I usually end up making us both breakfast, which is something I never get to do during the week.

This week's BSI is being hosted by Mark at Training Fuel, who chose eggs as the ingredient. Once I found out, all I could think about was making french toast for breakfast on Sunday. But this is no ordinary french toast I was dreaming of.

I've always preferred salty/spicy tastes to sweet. So is it any wonder that I prefer my french toast on the salty/spicy side? It really isn't that much of a stretch -- it's just a spicy omelet batter that you're dunking the bread into rather than a sweet batter. There are no powdered sugar and syrup toppings on this french toast -- I used sliced green chilis and spicy mango pickle to adorn my spicy, golden, eggy triangles.

Intrigued? Read on!

Spicy French Toast

Ingredients

4 slices bread
4 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp. sliced green chili
1/2 tsp. dried minced onion -- I was too lazy to chop up fresh onions today
1/2 tsp. ginger paste
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
salt
paprika
curry powder -- one of my few sanctioned uses for curry powder, as a flavoring not a spice

Combine eggs and everything below on list. Heat a nonstick pan over medium-high.

One slice at a time, soak bread in egg batter on both sides, then cook in pan until golden brown on each side. Make sure egg is cooked through all the way, or else you'll be putting it back into the pan to cook more like I had to!

Slice each piece diagonally and top with spicy ketchup, hot sauce, or hot mango pickle if you have any.

Serves 2-4

This eating thing

2009-03-26T07:06:00.002-04:00

Sooo you know how quite a few posts back I announced I was giving up dieting and learning to accept myself? Yeah, bad idea during tax season. Somehow in my mind, not dieting became license to binge. That is not what I intended, it was meant to develop a healthier relationship with food. I took it seriously and even started up a "feelings" blog to help me do this, which I would like to keep up with.

But like I said, bad idea during tax season. I need to remember not to start anything new during tax season.

At work we've had a resurgence of what someone accurately deemed "born-again nutritionists." They were the ones who you KNEW were dieting because they announced it and talked about it constantly, analzying what they ate and how much weight they had to lose. Keep in mind, I wouldn't consider any of them overweight to begin with, so it got pretty old for me. Couple that with the self-policing amongst them and I think that I began eating crap out of spite. As in, yeah look at you depriving yourself, but I get to eat whatever I want, neener neener! But of course, the scale is having the last laugh.

I don't know if I mentioned it here or in my other blog, but I've been dieting on and off for almost half my life and while I know deep inside it's hurting more than harming, I'm torn. I'm so used to it being in the background that to give it up would feel like something's missing. But on the other side of it, if I'm so used to it then why can't I just do it and follow through?

Someone whose opinion I value greatly regarding this journey suggested that maybe I do need to go back to dieting for a while, that it may be part of the process I'm undertaking to go back several times. And I'm strongly considering it.

My natural reaction is to go back to Weight Watchers, since I lost about 25 pounds on it about 7 years ago. I've of course gained it all back and then some but that's all my doing. I figure it worked before, so I'll do it again. And so I've dutifully gone back many times since then but can never regain the magic. I've never been able to get that freakin' 5 pound star they give out. I've come close, but I keep yo-yo-ing and then just give up. For some reason in my mind I can't commit. It's the same with other diets too -- eventually I feel like I don't like the rules and that I can't and won't go on.

This lack of commitment is a familiar thing for me. I start projects with gusto but never finish. I've started to write many stories but never finish. I started knitting projects, but they languish in a corner of the guest bedroom. I even started the 31-day yoga challenge out here in blogland earlier this month but only completed the first week.

It's like I have a mental block against success.

But that's not true either -- I studied for my CPA exam a few years back and passed it on the first try (shameless bragging). I made it a priority, giving up a social life to concentrate on this very important thing. So why is it I can't apply this dedication to my health?

Let me ask you -- how many times did it take before you were able to stick to it and find success? What was different for you this last time?

Less than 4 weeks to go!

2009-03-19T07:35:00.004-04:00

The tax season countdown is still underway! Four more weeks to go, which is good and bad. Only four more weeks of long hours and being too tired for anything else. But only four weeks left to get a lot of stuff done -- we're probably extending a lot of returns as it is, but you still need to know if people are going to owe. The joys of being a CPA. :)

So this is why I'm being sporadic about posting. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to cook as much as I'd like, let alone pack lunches in my bento boxes. I try to keep up on everyone else's blogs during the day for some sanity breaks, so at least I have that to look forward to!

Reminding you (and me) of this week's BSI, being hosted by Christina at Dinner at Christina's -- cabbage!

Hope everyone's having a great week!

Having fun with my oatmeal

2009-03-17T08:30:00.000-04:00

I see so many of you in blogland happily eating your delicious oatmeal concoctions and I've been inspired.

I don't have a picture of this, but just imagine how good it tastes.

Chocolate Raspberry Almond Oatmeal

1/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1/4 cup frozen raspberries
Splenda or other sweetener
1 Dove dark chocolate

Let oatmeal, almond milk, and raspberries sit overnight in fridge. Cook in the morning, add splenda, more almond milk if necessary, and chocolate. Let chocolate melt into oatmeal and savor.

BSI entry: Sweet Strawberry Samosas

2009-03-15T19:04:00.003-04:00

When Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom announced this week's BSI ingredient was strawberries, my mind immediately went to work on ideas. I had so many I wanted to try, but knew I needed to pick something that was fast and reasonably reliable.

I immediately thought of a sweet samosa. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of eating a samosa, I'm sorry for you. Imagine a rich pastry dough stuffed with savory fillings such as potatoes and peas or spiced ground beef, which is then fried to a golden goodness. The varieties are endless. Think of the Indian equivalent of an empanada and you'll get the idea.

Anyway, when I make samosas, I don't make the dough from scratch because I'm too lazy. I've experimented with eggroll wrappers, phyllo dough, refrigerated pie crust, and puff pastry sheets. I also don't like deep frying, so I end up baking my samosas. Not 100% authentic, but it definitely hits the spot. Of all these methods, I would have to say the refrigerated pie crust produces the best result, but I noticed after happily scarfing these down that they tend to contain lard, which I try to avoid. Puff pastry doesn't produce the traditional look, but it's easy for me to use. Plus there are some Bengali snacks called "patties" that use puff pastry, so whatever. See my October Book Club Tea post for examples of "patties" and how from-scratch samosas look. My friend Lopa has perfected the dough for the ones from scratch, although she makes the Bengali version of samosas, called shingaras. Yes, I know I'm being confusing, sorry!

So back to my BSI entry. I have been toying with the idea of making sweet samosas for a while now. I figured using strawberries as the filling was the perfect opportunity to experiment. I was initially going to use phyllo dough but it's so fiddly, so I went to my reliable puff pastry dough. I thought of adding some chocolate to the filling because what goes better with puff pastry than chocolate? Think of pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants) and you'll see what I mean. The results were good. Very good. I may have to take the leftovers to work tomorrow so that we don't scarf them all tonight.

Sweet Strawberry Samosas
1 sheet puff pastry
1.5 cups strawberries, rinsed, hulled, and sliced
2 tsp. honey
2 tsp. sugar, separated
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. orange extract

Thaw puff pastry for 40 minutes.

While puff pastry is thawing, take prepared strawberries, and add honey, 1 tsp. sugar, and orange extract. Mix well, and let sit for approximately 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

After puff pastry is thawed, cut into 9 squares. Take strawberries and drain any remaining liquid. Add chocolate chips and combine.

In each square, place approximately 1 tsp. of strawberry mixture in center. Fold up corners diagonally to form a triangle. Press edges shut. You may need to adjust filling amount as necessary so samosas are not over-stuffed.

Once all samosas are made, lay on cookie sheet. Spray more cooking spray or spray butter on tops and sprinkle remaining tsp. of sugar over samosas.

Bake approximately 20 minutes or until pastry is golden.

Let cool and drizzle chocolate syrup over samosas if desired.

Now as you can see, I definitely over-stuffed my samosas, since they burst open at the sides while baking. However, I still think they looked good this way, since now I don't have to cut them open to show the filling! :)

Happy Pi Day!!

2009-03-14T10:23:00.001-04:00

So this morning I walk into the break-room at work and notice some pies on the counter. Then I open the fridge to get my almond milk for my oatmeal and notice more pies in the fridge. I'm puzzled for a minute or so. I know one of the partners here has a big birthday coming up and he likes pies, so I thought it was part of a birthday thing.

Then I realize what today's date is -- 3-14. Pi! It's Pi Day, so we're clearly having pies at some point today! Me so smart, and this was BEFORE my ritual morning Coke Zero! :)

Make sure you have some pie today to celebrate Pi Day!

Sleep the impossible sleep

2009-03-11T09:52:00.004-04:00

I seem to be having a hard time with this time change.

I haven't slept well at all the past few nights. Yesterday I felt like a zombie at work. This morning I somehow woke up at 3 am and tossed and turned until about 5 am. That's when I decided I might as well get up and do some yoga, since I missed the past couple days. I did about an hour and went back up to bed and managed to fall asleep finally, waking up in a panic around 8:30 because I'd forgotten to reset my alarm clock! Oops!

Anyway, I'm awake and at work now!

Has anybody else been having a really hard time sleeping lately? How do you stay asleep or go back to sleep if you wake up?

I hope to have a dinner picture for you guys tonight. I've been so tired from work I haven't been cooking much, let alone taking pics.

Here's a couple things going on in blog-land:

Laura at Hey What's for Dinner Mom is hosting this week's BSI

Heather at Heather Eats Almond Butter is hosting a Turtle Mountain product give-away

Missy at Missy Maintains is hosting an Erin Baker's give-away

See ya for now!

Who wants to be a BSI winner??

2009-03-09T12:26:00.007-04:00

I do apologize for the lack of pics lately -- I've been posting from work, so no camera here.

Anyway, on to business! :D

As you know, I was waiting in anticipation for the submissions and I was not disappointed!

Here was the line-up:

Mara at What's For Dinner: Basil Chavrie-Stuffed Burgers

Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough: Sunny Basil Orange Salad

Beadie at What I Ate Yesterday: Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Shells

Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom: Pesto-Glazed Vegetables over Feta Infused Polenta

Brandi at BranAppetit: Basil and Strawberry Scones

You guys did a great job with your recipes and I cannot wait to try them all. It was very hard for me to choose, so I enlisted some outside help (husband, a couple coworkers, a couple friends).

Everyone had at least a couple favorites, but in the end there was one clear winner.

And yes, I'm dragging this out on purpose!

Who is the winner?

Drumroll . . .

BRANDI!! Brandi's entry of Basil and Strawberry Scones definitely drew everyone's attention because of the intriguing and creative combination of ingredients.

Congratulations! Email me when you get a chance so we can get details hammered out.

Wait!!

I'm not done yet! I still have to pass on the BSI torch!

Please join me in congratulating Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom. Laura's blog is a pleasant new discovery for me and I love her focus on healthy but delicious foods. I'm excited to see what she picks for the next BSI contest!

Congrats again, Brandi and Laura!!

Weekend plans and BSI reminder!!

2009-03-06T18:26:00.002-05:00

I actually have some hint of a life this weekend, yay!!

Tonight, Mr. Spice and I being all intellectual and catching a foreign film at the High Museum of Art -- we'll be watching Africa Paradis. It's in French but has subtitles, which is good since my French is a bit rusty now. Le bwahahaha.

Tomorrow I'm at work for a few hours and then we're going to try to watch Watchmen depending on how tired and brain fried I am. I would like to enjoy some of the nice weather we're supposed to be having this weekend. It's supposed to be near the 70s. Remember, last weekend was the weekend of thunder snow. What huge swing in temperature!

Sunday, don't have much planned, which is just how I like my Sundays. :D

Oh and of course I have to remind you about getting those lovely BSI submissions in! Midnight Sunday evening is the deadline!

What are YOUR plans for this weekend?

Reminder about BSI: Basil!

2009-03-05T20:32:00.002-05:00

Sorry, don't have much to talk about today, work wiped me out.

Just wanted to get in a reminder about this week's BSI contest -- I've already received a couple submissions and look forward to more!

Yet another busy day

2009-03-04T11:06:00.002-05:00

I'm well in the middle of tax season right now, but there is an end in sight! I believe it is EXACTLY six weeks until April 15th! Wohoo! It's going to be a rough six weeks, but I will be sooo happy once it's over. The firm gives us the 16th off and I'm strongly considering taking the 17th off and just having a much-needed 4 day weekend.

In the meantime, I try to keep myself sane by taking frequent trips to blogland during the day. By doing so I have discovered some cool contests going on! Who doesn't like free stuff?

Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough is celebrating her 50th post by giving away some yummy looking snacks here.

Alisa at One Frugal Foodie is giving away a HUGE variety of goodies like breakfast cookies, brownie bites, granola, and mini cookies here.

Katie at Chocolate-Covered Katie is giving away an entire case of Jocolat here.

And of course, this is your friendly reminder about this week's BSI contest! Your lovely basil creations are due by midnight on Sunday, March 8th. I already cannot wait to drool over the entries.

A long delinquent lunch post!

2009-03-03T12:07:00.003-05:00

After seeing all the yummy oatmeal combos people keep posting, I was inspired to do one this morning. Last night I took oatmeal, vanilla almond milk, cherry Craisins, and some slivered almonds and put it in the fridge to soak overnight. This morning after yoga, I heated it up and proceeded to add some brown sugar and some orange marmalade.

Sounds good so far, right?

All that anticipation as I was making it, and after I took a couple bites I just didn't want it. It tasted fine, but I was running late for work and for some reason I changed my mind about the oatmeal. So it's sitting in the fridge for tomorrow. I forgot to take a picture of it too.

Part of the reason I was running late was that I was packing my lunch and since I haven't done a bento pic in a while I was busy taking pictures and then uploading to Flickr.

Not only have I not done a bento post in a while, but I haven't used my little sandwich box in forever! I forget how handy it is!

Today's lunch is a turkey, havarti, and spinach sandwich on whole wheat bread. I have a small campari tomato and some strawberries on the side. Not pictured are some peppercorn ranch Sunchips and the last couple squares of my dark chocolate with orange peel.

Hope everyone has a great day!

P.S.

Sweetie Pie was kind enough to remind me to remind everyone about this week's BSI, which is BASIL! You have until midnight on Sunday to submit your creations, which I look forward to drooling over.

The perfect weekend . . . and a special announcement!

2009-03-02T09:48:00.014-05:00

Can I just say how perfect this past weekend was? Minus having to come into work on Saturday for a few hours, of course! :)

Saturday afternoon after I got back from work, I relaxed a little and dozed off for a bit. Then Mr. Spice and I attended a Thrashers hockey game -- we haven't gone to a sporting event in a while. It was great! We splurged and got seats that were in the middle section, which I felt made a difference, since I was actually able to see what was going on! The energy at the game was great and what made it even better was that we managed to win during the last minutes of the game.

Sunday as you know, we had a bit of thunder snow to liven up the day. It was the best kind of day to stay in and do absolutely nothing. I cooked a little and watched a LOT of TV. I also did some yoga and felt fabulous afterwards, I'm really glad I decided to take part in the 31-day yoga challenge at Carrots 'n' Cake. I'm looking forward to getting back into yoga and hopefully being more consistent with it.

Oh right, I promised you a special announcement!

I was very pleasantly surprised and honored when Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough asked if I would like to host the next BSI! I've just recently begun participating in BSI and it's so much fun! What a great way to challenge one's culinary creativity! Not to mention it's a great way to discover other people who love food as much as I do.

It was really hard deciding what ingredient to pick for this week's contest. In the end, I decided that this week the ingredient will be BASIL!

Basil not only smells and tastes great, but it is also good for you! I did a little research at The World's Healthiest Foods site and was surprised to learn that:

The flavonoids in basil provide DNA protection and may also have anti-bacterial properties

A component of basil's volatile oils may have anti-inflammatory effects that may provide relief for people suffering from such problems as rheumatoid arthritis or IBS.

Basil is a good source of vitamins A, C, and K, as well as a good source of iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium!

Here are the rules for this week's contest:

You can use basil in fresh or dried form

You can use basil seeds

To enter the contest:

email your recipe and photo to spiceaholic80 @ gmail.com OR

post the recipe on your blog and email me a link

The deadline to sumbit an entry will be midnight, March 8th -- which is also when we start Daylight Savings Time, so I guess that means that's one hour less to submit an entry!

I'll update this post with submissions as I receive them -- please check back for updates!

The prize will be an assortment of Indian spices as well as a surprise!

I'm really excited to host this week's contest and cannot wait to see what everyone submits!

Sorry for the lack of pictures -- I'm typing this up at work. Shhhhh!

** Like I promised, here are the current entries for this week's BSI contest:

Mara at What's For Dinner: Basil Chavrie-Stuffed Burgers

Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough: Sunny Basil Orange Salad

Beadie at What I Ate Yesterday: Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Shells

Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom: Pesto-Glazed Vegetables over Feta Infused Polenta

Brandi at BranAppetit: Basil and Strawberry Scones

Thunder snow and some good eats

2009-03-01T12:48:00.003-05:00

Yes, thunder snow. As in it's been snowing this morning and now I'm hearing thunder. How odd. Even growing up in Kansas, home of weird weather, I've never experienced thunder snow.

Anyways, I decided to snap a pic of the snow to document it since it's such a rare occurrence here in Georgia.

Today's been one of those perfect hang out at home days. I slept in a bit, then did some yoga since I'm participating in the 31-day yoga challenge at Carrots 'n' Cake.

I also decided to putter around the kitchen a bit today. For reasons still unknown to me, I decided to buy some produce at Costco last week when it's only the 2 of us and the fact remains that I have tendencies to not go through fresh veggies fast enough before they go bad. So that's why you've seen a lot of spinach and tomato in my recent posts. I thought I'd better cook something that would make good use of them since they're still doing pretty good in the fridge.

I wanted something colorful, healthy, and spicy to counteract the blechhyness going on outside. Looked in the pantry and cabinets and spotted some chickpeas and potatoes and realized it'd been a while since I've made a good veggie dish.

Spicy Chickpea, Potato, and Spinach Curry

2 tbsp. canola oil
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 green chili, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. ginger paste
1 cup tomatoes, chopped

1 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp. red chilli powder (this stuff is HOT, use regular chili powder or paprika)
salt to taste

1 medium potato, chopped into small pieces
1 can chickpeas, drained

3 cups fresh baby spinach

1/2 tsp. garam masala

Heat oil in large pan over medium high heat. Add onion pieces and cook until they start to brown. Add green chili, ginger, and garlic, cook for a couple minutes. Add tomato, cook a minute more.

Now add the spices and combine thoroughly, adding water as necessary. Add potato and chickpeas. Add about 1/4 cup water, bring mixture to a boil, then lower heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir and add water as necessary.

After potatoes are cooked through, add baby spinach, and mix everything so that spinach begins wilting. Cover and let steam for about 10 minutes. Once spinach is wilted, taste for seasonings and adjust as necessary. Finally, add the garam masala, stir, and let sit for 10 more minutes for flavors to mingle.

Playing with your food can be fun!

2009-02-28T07:39:00.003-05:00

Especially when it leads to something yummy to eat!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I planned to participate in this week's BSI contest, hosted by Nicole at Just Sweet Enough. This week's ingredient was black beans, which I happen to like quite a bit. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to make. I figured there would be a lot of submissions for soups, burgers, dips, etc. which all sound great, but of course I wanted mine to be different. I thought long and hard and finally came up with something! Go me!

I know I yak a lot before I get around to the recipe, but I like to explain the background and thought process. So keep reading if you want or skip ahead to the recipe.

What I decided on was like an homage to and a slight twist on a childhood favorite of mine (it's still one of my favorites). I have always loved what we called Aloo Chops, which are breaded cutlets made of out of spiced-up mashed potato and usually encase a filling of ground meat. Sometimes they were made without the filling. This seems to be a popular Bengali snack food and has also made appearances at dinner parties. It's really good, trust me.

I've made straight up aloo chops before, so I knew the procedure. I first thought about using black beans for the filling, but decided that since the ingredient for BSI was black beans they should have more of a starring rather than support role. Then I came up with the idea of using mashed black beans and potatoes to make the chops and forgo the filling. Now I was on to something!

So last night after work I stopped at the store for some ingredients and set to work. The playing with my food part was as I was gleefully mixing everything up with my hands and forming the chops. It was so much fun, it reminded me of when I used to play with Play Doh. Don't worry, I refrained from making little animals or whatever it was I used to make.

I have a hard time coming up with titles for stuff, so I wasn't sure what to call this recipe. If I just wanted to be simple I would call it a black bean aloo chop, but that doesn't sound very glamorous, does it? How about this?

Spiced Black Bean and Potato Cakes

1/4 cup chopped onion
1 green chili, thinly sliced (do not use jalapeno or bell pepper, only the thin or serrano peppers)
1/2 tsp ginger paste or minced ginger
1 tsp. minced garlic

1 can black beans, drained, rinsed, and coarsely mashed (you want some identifiable chunks)
1 large potato, boiled or microwaved, peeled, broken into large chunks

2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. paprika or chili powder (use cayenne if you really want it spicy, but use less)
1 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. amchur (dried mango powder, substitute lemon juice or omit)
salt to taste
bread crumbs

canola oil

Heat about 2 tsp. of canola oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the green chili slices if using, then the ginger, and garlic. Cook for a couple minutes, adding water if needed.

Add the coarsely mashed beans and potato, and combine thoroughly. You'll end up mashing the beans and potatoes a little as you combine, and this is fine. Add water as necessary to keep the mixture from drying up.

Take a large bowl, and add the bean and potato mixture. Add the spices and use your hands to mix everything up. Taste and adjust spices as necessary to your liking. Add water as necessary to keep the mixture from drying up and to incorporate the spices. You are going to end up with a wet dough at this point. Add bread crumbs as necessary to stabilze the dough so that it doesn't fall apart.

Now for the fun part. With your hands, form the dough into a large ball. Divide this into eighths. Take each eighth and form into a large ball, working to make it smooth. Then take the ball in one hand and use the other to flatten it from the top. Don't make it too flat, you want these to be thick and substantial. Use your hands to smooth the edges. These will look like hockey pucks when you're done -- see picture below.

Once you've made the cakes, let them sit on a plate for about 20 minutes to set up.

You can cook these a few ways:

If you want to make them like traditional chops, you can dip in egg and bread crumb and then fry. I didn't want to mess around with all that.

You can also bake these.

If you fry them, you have 2 options. You can take about 2 tbsp. oil and heat and then fry, but be careful since the cakes soften considerably when they fry in the oil, so be careful when turning them over. The second option is the one I ended up liking the best -- just "dry" frying in a hot pan so that they got a nice brown crust.

The verdict? I liked these a lot! They tasted like the aloo chops of my childhood, but the beans added a new dimension to them and made them more substantial. Mr. Spice ended up liking them too but suggested I make them more spicy next time. I have to confess to eating 2 almost as soon as they were out of the pan. Since I liked the way the dry fried ones looked, I used those for the final photos. :)

Enjoy!

Just a quick hello

2009-02-27T11:06:00.001-05:00

I'm here, I'm here! Just really busy with tax work and trying desperately not to get sick.

No yummy sandwich concoctions the past couple days. Wellll, I take that back. I did make one at work yesterday that involved spicy 3 pepper hummus, fresh spinach, red onion, and tomato. But I was at work and no camera and I think people would think I'm weird for taking pictures of food at the office, so you'll have to visualize the yumminess of the sandwich on your own. Maybe I'll recreate it this weekend.

Oh and stay tuned for my entry in this week's BSI contest, hosted by Nicole at Just Sweet Enough.

On a sandwich roll!

2009-02-25T15:45:00.005-05:00

Hahaha, I'm so clever!

Last night, I came home from a long day of tax torture and all I wanted was a sandwich on that heavenly pepperorn-asiago bread. I even had the whole thing planned out -- the bread, pesto, turkey, fresh mozzarella, spinach, tomato, and red onion. And some baked garlic fries. Sounds good, doesn't it? Too bad I waited too long to use the mozzarella and it was past the "eat by" date. So I had to make do with some string cheese.

Mr. Spice just wanted turkey on his sandwich and only wanted a teeny sandwich. Wuss.

I ended up grilling our sandwiches on our grill pan -- I need to figure out a better way to keep my sandwich from falling apart. They turned out really well though and I think I'll be doing more sandwich concoctions during tax season!

Be very jealous of this sandwich!

2009-02-23T22:01:00.003-05:00

I think that I need to make pesto salmon again just so that I can have this sandwich again.

So simple but so good.

It's just some asiago-peppercorn sourdough bread, a light layer of pesto, some leftover pesto salmon, and then sliced fresh baby spinach, campari tomato, and red onion. That's it. And some baked fries on the side.

Yum yum.

Pesto Salmon

2009-02-22T18:17:00.003-05:00

This has got to be one of the easiest recipes ever. Which is why I decided to make it! :D

I bought some fresh, skinless salmon yesterday at Publix and wanted to make something I could take for lunch tomorrow. Possibly even in a bento (don't hold your breath!). We have some lovely pesto in our fridge just screaming to be used. I even bought some fancy pants asiago peppercorn sourdough bread and some fresh mozzarella from Trader Joe's in the hopes of making a fancy pants Italian-style grilled cheese sandwich with it. All in good time, my darlings.

For now you'll have to be happy with this oh so simple yet yummy salmon.

Is there even a point in typing this up as a recipe?

1 lb. of salmon fillets, skinned
pesto in a jar (I used Classico)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil, spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with some salt and pepper.

Lay the salmon on foil, take a fork and stab the fillets a few times. Take the pesto and slather on. Use as much as you want, I just took a big glob and spread it over the two. So precise I am.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until salmon is done to your liking.

Tada!

Note -- it's really hard to take good pictures of food when all but one of the overhead lights in the kitchen have gone out and the surface light on your stove is really yellow-y and the sun is starting to set. I did the best I could, and let the auto-fix Picnik feature on Flickr take care of the rest.

Panchphoran Potatoes and Kale

2009-02-21T18:58:00.006-05:00

I've been doing a lot of lurking on food blogs recently and have noticed various contests going on and thought it'd be fun to participate in one of them. One of the contests is BSI, which stands for Blogger Secret Ingredient. So particpants prepare a dish based on that week's secret ingredient.

Beadie over at What I Ate Yesterday is hosting this week's BSI contest and has chosen kale as the ingredient. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try my hand at one of these contests. Plus I've never eaten or prepared kale before, so that makes it even more interesting!

Since kale belongs to the same family as cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli, and I like all three of those vegetables I felt good about trying it out. I thought I'd stick to somewhat familiar terrain and prepare it with Indian spices.

Panchphoran is a typically Bengali spice blend that consists of five spices -- hence the name, since "panch" means five. The spices that make up panchphoran are fenugreek, cumin, mustard, fennel, and nigella. The spices are in whole form and are mixed in equal proportion.

In our family, we didn't use it a whole lot as far as I can remember. My mom would make a few vegetable dishes with it. When I started cooking, the first time I used it was to try a recipe for Achaar Gosht, which is beef cooked in Indian pickling spices -- the spices all happened to be ingredients in panchphoran so I used that.

Anyway, I've recently tried to make the vegetable dish that my mom made that used panchphoran in it. In our family we typically called most mixed vegetable dishes "bhaji." The last couple times I've gone home I've watched my mom make it and wrote down what she did and tried to recreate it, with no success. For some reason I couldn't get the hang of tempering the panchphoran properly. You have to get the oil hot enough so that the spices crackle but you don't want to burn the spices and everything else that goes in the pan.

When I decided to prepare a bhaji today using kale, I didn't have high hopes given my past success rate. But surprisingly, it turned out pretty good! I ended up buying a small bunch of kale at Publix since I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. I had some leftover baby yukon gold potatoes from last week's Valentine's Day dinner, so that went in as well.

I've called the recipe Panchphoran Potatoes and Kale, but you could use any kind of vegetable you want. If I were talking about this dish with my family, I would just call it an aloo and kale bhaji.

Panchphoran Potatoes and Kale/Aloo and Kale Bhaji

2 tbps. canola oil
1 heaping teaspoon panchphoran
1/2 onion, finely sliced
1 tsp. minced ginger paste
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
salt to taste
1 cup potato, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 small bunch kale, rinsed, cut into small pieces

Heat the oil in a large pan over high heat. Toss in a spice or two to see if the oil is hot enough -- the spices should sputter and pop. When the oil is hot enough, add the panchphoran, and stir, letting it sputter and pop for a few seconds.

Reduce the heat to medium high and add the onions, stirring constantly. Be very vigilant so that the spices and onion don't burn - reduce the heat if necessary. Cook until the onions begin to turn brown, then add the ginger and garlic. Keep stirring, add the ground cumin.

Carefully add the potato and kale, stirring to combine thoroughly. Add some salt, then add about 1/4 cup water so that the vegetables and spices don't stick to the pan.

Lower the heat to about medium low, cover, and let cook for 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Check every now and then to stir and add water as needed. Once the vegetables are done, taste for salt and adjust as needed.

Makes 2-4 servings, depending on how much you like veggies!

Enjoy!

Thinking about stuff

2009-02-21T10:50:00.002-05:00

No no, nothing depressing or heavy, don't worry!

I've had this feeling for a while that I want to change my blog up a bit. I took a step by changing the template and that helped superficially.

But I want to do more with it. When I started this blog, I purposefully kept the focus on bentos and cooking because I didn't want it to be all over the place. I've been lurking on a lot of foodie blogs lately and I'm discovering that the ones I like don't have specific purposes and are all over the place, but in a good way. Yeah sure, the theme might be eating healthy or whatever, but you'll see pics of what the blogger ate that day, recipes, random musings, etc.

I had an earlier blog at www.spiceaholic.com that had more of that format and then when I got interested in bentos I thought I would start over here. And now it seems like I want to go back to the other format so I'm wondering what to do next -- somehow merge this current blog with my former one or just create a new one altogether?

I've also been thinking about moving my blog to wordpress or getting my own domain. As you can see, I'm all over the place!

One thing I will promise is that no matter what I decide, I won't try and be pretentious about what I write. What you see on my blog is what you get. I'm not trying to be witty to impress people, I'm writing what I feel. And I'm going to quit caring that my site may not get as many hits or comments as others. If you like it, fine, if you don't, whatever.

Another thing I have to "confess." I recently made the decision to quit dieting and to learn to accept myself as I am while living a healthy lifestyle. To that extent, I did end up starting another blog that deals more with that journey. I was trying to keep the two blogs separate at first and even went so far as to create a different username for myself on the new one. I don't know why I did that. I think at some point the two will have to converge, given the path I'm on. But if you're interested, my "feelings" blog is www.honoringmyhunger.wordpress.com.

So to get to the point, stay tuned for some changes! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2009-02-14T20:42:00.001-05:00

Yum yum! Hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day!

Some questions for you

2009-02-12T08:10:00.005-05:00

When I started this blog it was because I was all excited about bentos and cooking. I still am. I've also gotten into taking fun pics of my food. You know I like my food and writing about it.

But I don't know if you guys are into it. I would love to get more comments from readers. I also want to know what it is you like or don't like about my site and if there's anything you want to see.

I'm still keeping this a food-focused site though, so that won't change.

So I'm asking you to please speak up with comments you have -- you've heard plenty of what I think now it's my turn to hear from you!

:D

What do you think of the new look?

2009-02-10T21:55:00.002-05:00

I thought it was time to change it up a bit last week. I got so sick of the boring brown background. It reminded me of generic Indian curry. :P

This template seems a lot more cheery.

I'd love to read what you think!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

2009-02-01T18:21:00.004-05:00

Mmmmmm, buffalo wings and pizza. No doubt one of the classic junk food pairings, although at our house we usually don't order both at the same time. I'm pretty sure it was just a matter of time until some genius decided to combine the two. No, it wasn't me. I've found quite a few variations of this online, but this is my quickie version. And my apologies in advance, but I didn't measure anything when I made it tonight.

Ingredients:

1 pre-prepared pizza crust like Boboli (I used Boboli thin-crust)
Hidden Valley Spicy Ranch dressing
Frank's Red Hot Wing Sauce
pre-prepared grilled chicken strips (I got frozen)
shredded cheese (I used reduced-fat Mexican and Italian)
green onions for garnish

Preheat oven to 45o degrees. Line baking sheet with foil or get out a pizza baking stone and place the pizza crust on the sheet or stone.

Spread the ranch dressing over the crust -- I left a dressing-less edge on the crust.

Sprinkle some cheese over the crust.

Heat up the chicken, then pour wing sauce all over, coating evenly. Now add the chicken to the curst, making sure to spread evenly.

Sprinkle some more cheese on top.

Sprinkle with chopped green onions for color.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes. I might have accidentally not heard the timer go off, so ours looks a little well done.

Enjoy!

As you can see, there are myriad variations. You can use regular ranch or blue cheese dressing instead. You can use whatever kind of chicken you want -- I've used shredded rotisserie chicken before, or you can bake chicken coated in wing sauce, or even use buffalo chicken tenders. Play around with the cheese. Be more adventurous than me and use the roll-out pizza dough or make your own. Instead of green onions use red onions. Whatever you want!

Potato-flake fried chicken

2009-01-27T19:23:00.007-05:00

I LOVE fried chicken, but hate how greasy and nasty I feel afterward. It still doesn't stop me from getting cravings every few months or so and hitting up Popeye's or KFC!

Anyway, this is a recipe I found many years ago on the Weight Watchers message boards. I've also seen the recipe floating around online a few places.

It's very easy, requires less than 5 ingredients (not counting seasonings), and tastes like you're cheating.

A few things though:

I only use boneless skinless chicken thighs. I tried it with breasts once and it didn't taste as good.

If there is a little bit of fat still on the thighs after I buy them, I don't trim it off. I actually think it's important to the recipe. It contributes to the "fried" effect.

I've never used the same seasonings twice. This is a very versatile recipe and can be adjusted for whatever your taste-buds are craving.

Now on to the recipe!

1.5 lb. boneless, skinless thighs
1 packet instant mashed potato flakes (I like to get the flavored ones, like garlic)
"butter" spray (I Can't Believe It's Not Butter)
whatever the hell kind of seasonings you want

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with nonstick spray.

Take a deep dish or plate, empty potato flakes into it, and then dump in whatever seasonings you're craving.

Spray both sides of each chicken thigh with butter spray (maybe 1 or two sprays per side) and then dredge through the flakes.

Put the flaked thighs on the baking sheet. If I have leftover flakes I'll sprinkle them over the thighs. Then spray cooking spray on top of the thighs.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until cooked.

Makes about 4 servings.

Tonight I used Cajun seasoning, rotisserie chicken seasoning, and paprika.

I feel like chicken tonight . . . chicken tonight!

2009-01-13T21:43:00.004-05:00

That was from an ad in the 90s or something, wasn't it?

Whatever, chicken is quick and easy to make during the week and lends itself to different flavors. One combo you will NEVER find on my table is fruit and chicken. That's just ew.

Tonight's dinner started off last night when I marinated some boneless skinless chicken breasts in a spice paste made of ginger paste, minced garlic, a huge heaping spoon of tandoori masala and a just-as-heaping spoon of some new spice mix called "Kitchen King Masala," which looks like a nice yummy mix of different Indian spices.

Today after got back from getting my hair chopped off, all I had to do was preheat the oven to 400 F, then bake the chicken on a foil-lined baking sheet for about 25 minutes. These breasts were huge (get your mind out from the gutter), so I had to check a few times to see if they were cooked through.

Result? Not bad at all, although next time I need to make slashes in the chicken so the marinade permeates through some more. And add some salt. A few squeezes of fresh lime juice really made everything taste great. As you can see, I was attempting to be good by having some salad and a low-carb tortilla on the side. Which is fine, except that I ended up scarfing a bunch of my husband's Cheetos later on while watching TV. *SIGH* Oh and next time, I think just half a breast would be enough for me, since these were mutant-sized pieces.

First bento of 2009!

2009-01-02T10:49:00.003-05:00

It has been wayyy too long since I've done a bento!

I packed some yummy leftovers from yesterday's New Year's lunch -- can't wait to eat!

Left: whole wheat mini-pita on bottom, tossed salad of green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion slices.

Right: chicken seekh kabab, potato samosa, red onion slices and lime wedge

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T10:40:00.004-05:00

Hope everyone had a great holiday season!

We had our 2nd annual New Year's Day lunch yesterday -- lots of good food and fun with our friends. The picture looks a bit weird because I had to stand on a chair to get a pic of everything on the table. :)

Starting from the top left corner and going clockwise: baked chicken eggrolls, haleem toppings (minced red onion, minced ginger, limes, minced green chilis), naan, chicken seekh kababs, potato samosas, salad, sausage rolls (chicken andouille sausage encased in puff pastry). Not pictured is the chicken haleem, chocolate chip cookies, and mango pie.

The lunch was a potluck, I did everything but the naan, samosas, and desserts. The kababs and eggrolls were store-bought, so won't take credit for them!

"White" chicken curry

2008-11-26T18:41:00.008-05:00

I've made this recipe at least 4 times now, including once for my in-laws and once for my family, so I think this has been taste-tested enough to be worthy to post here!

This is a truly simple but delicious recipe I found on the another subcontinent forums. All it calls for is onions, green chilis, garlic, ginger, salt, a cinnamon stick, and chicken. This is the original recipe.

However, as usual I made a couple tweaks, but VERY minor: added a sprinkle of garam masala at the end and added some fresh lemon juice to enhance the flavors of the dish.

I've also made a couple variations: 1) add potatoes and 2) add bay leaves and cardamoms

I feel like with variation #2 the dish is actually a step away from being a simple korma -- maybe just add some yogurt.

So here is how I make it:

2.5 lb chicken -- I like using boneless skinless thighs to save time
2 small onions, chopped into small pieces or thinly sliced
2-3 "finger" chilis, finely chopped
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp ginger paste
1 cinnamon stick - I use a whole stick, use less if you want
2 tbsp. oil
salt
garam masala
fresh lemon juice

Heat oil over medium-high heat. You can blend the onions, chilis, garlic, and ginger together into one paste if you want, but I add them separately. If you're adding separately, put the onions in first, and cook until they turn translucent and almost golden. Add the chilis, ginger, and garlic, cook a few minutes. Add the cinnamon stick, cook another minute or so until you can smell the cinnamon.

Add the chicken pieces, try to brown all pieces. Add salt to taste. The mixture in the pan should be mostly dry now, and theoretically the onions and chicken should release plenty of liquid while cooking. I add a little water so stuff doesn't stick -- 1/2 cup at the most. Lower heat and cover, cooking until chicken is done -- about 20 minutes or so.

Once the chicken is done, see if the gravy is thick or thin enough for you. Sprinkle some garam masala and squeeze some lemon juice to taste. Keep adjusting salt, garam masala, and lemon juice to taste until you like it. Let sit so the flavors all combine.

Lunch!

2008-11-02T20:40:00.012-05:00

Just can't think of a cute title today. Might have to resort to something boring like dates.

Cooked up a storm with a friend this weekend, then cooked a little more today. I'll post pics from Saturday night later.

For lunch tomorrow -- starting on the left is a green bean and potato dish from Saturday night, then some beef korma I made tonight (cheated and used a Shan mix), then some leftover white rice (not basmati, unfortunately). On the right are baby carrots and grape tomatoes. Probably should have made it look prettier, but oh well.

Doctored-up leftovers

2008-10-30T21:42:00.003-04:00

No funky photo formatting today, I promise!

It's been hard getting my motivation back to start making dinner each night. Flipping through my cookbooks and exclaiming "oooh! This one looks good" is apparently not enough to produce a dish on our table. I must shamefully admit to succumbing to pre-prepared frozen items or having fast food more often than I should. Somewhere, the good little weight watcher in me howls mournfully at this setback.

Anyway, so surprise surprise I was too tired to cook tonight so we decided to eat out. Now in my defense I did work out with my trainer today, so I will blame my laziness on that. We thought we'd try this new Greek restaurant nearby, but as we pulled into the parking lot we were informed the restaurant didn't open until Monday. Scratch that idea. We ended up at Copeland's instead, which is a Cajun/Creole type of restaurant.

For once I decided NOT to throw all caution to the wind and order something fattening and eat it all. Nope, not today. I ordered Shrimp Creole, which was served over steamed rice and came with a very yummy biscuit (okay so that wasn't so healthy). The dish was basically shrimp in a spicy tomato-y sauce. Not bad at all. I even managed to make myself stop halfway through and have the rest boxed up to go. Wohoo!

Then on the way home I began thinking of how I could make it look all purty in my bento for tomorrow. Clearly a sign of madness, as I was even debating which color would best suit the food. Oh and then I got the bright idea to add some turkey kielbasa to the leftovers to make it more substantial for tomorrow. And of course I had to pack raw veggies to make it all look healthy. Do you like the dried parsley flake garnish on top of the food? I do! It makes it look all fancy-like.

And I just realized that nobody probably really cares that much about my leftovers, so it's time to shut it. :)

October Book Club Tea

2008-10-26T22:11:00.008-04:00

NOTE: excuse the funky layout of the pictures. I suck at formatting with multiple photos. If you have any tips, I'd love to hear them!

We've been doing this book club thing for a few months now and it's turning out to be a lot of fun -- and a nice excuse to cook yummy foods and eat!

This month's selection was "The Palace of Illusions," by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, who just happens to be a fellow Bengali. Perfect excuse to make this month's tea-time theme a Bengali tea party!

Among the yummy selections to nosh on were keema patties (my contribution), potato and veggie shingaras, muri, and aloo tikkis. What exactly are all those?

The keema patties are pretty self-explanatory -- spiced ground turkey filling inside puff pastry sheets. The keema can be made from chicken, turkey, beef, whatever. You can even make it with potato, but I like keema the best. Very easy, very indulgent, very yummy. Oh and you have to say "patties" with an exaggerated Indian accent. That's the rule, okay?

The shingaras are very similar to samosas, except in my experience the crust is thicker and the fillings are vegetarian only. I may be wrong about this though. Either way, these were excellent!

Muri one of my favorite Bengali-style snacks. You make it with puffed rice, mustard oil, chopped onions, chopped green chilis (optional), and channachur. We also added some ginger to round things off. This stuff is addictive and I am ashamed to admit I went for multiple helpings of this and ended up finishing off the bowl. :(

Aloo tikkis are spiced fried potato patties -- can't go wrong with that combo! They can be made plain or with fillings. The spices used to season them can vary, our friend used a spice mix that had a very intriguing tanginess to it that made them irresistable to me.

And of course, there were some cookies and mango sorbet for the sweet side of things, although we forgot to eat the sorbet because we were so full.

We'll have to skip November because none of our schedules work out, so stay tuned to find out what we cook up for our December meeting.

NOTE: I probably should have said that the descriptions of the food are in order of the pics. But apparently the pics show up as a square in edit mode and for some people and then in a straight vertical line when I view it as a page. Okay, so the rectangular thingies are the patties, the triangular thingies are the shingara, the stuff that looks like puffed rice is the muri, and the round discs are the aloo tikkis.

Falafel and veggies

2008-10-26T21:58:00.003-04:00

They're baaack!

It's been so long since I've packed a bento nicely for photo ops and I didn't realize until after I was done taking pics when I was trying to close everything up to put into the fridge that I messed up and the veggies and falafels should have switched places. Needless to say, the bento that is waiting for me tomorrow doesn't look as nice as this one. Oh well!

So lunch is going to be grape tomatoes, cucumbers, and baby carrots with some Tzaziki sauce for dipping, as well as some falafel balls I found at Costco last week. I pulled them from the freezer, which is why they look a little frosty. We were out of pita bread, which sucks because I could have had mini falafel sandwiches for lunch. Next time.

Pot Roast!

2008-10-17T06:13:00.002-04:00

It's one of my days off and I should be blissfully sleeping in, but apparently my body thought otherwise and awakened me at 5 am. Ugh. But this means I get a head start on blogging today!

Now that it's fall and supposedly getting cooler (yesterday being an anomaly, at 85 degrees), I start wanting warm, comforting foods -- pretty normal. Since I'm just barely easing out of this last round of tax hell, I'm not quite ready to get cooking as soon as I get home, but I'm also really sick of eating out and eating crap. Solution? Drag out our crockpot and actually try to use it more than once this year.

For some weird reason I've been craving pot roast recently. I don't know if it's because I'm just in the mood for big hunks of tender beef, or I've somehow associated it with fall and our crockpot, but there you go. Luckily Publix had chuck roast on sale this week and luckily there were plenty of recipes for pot roast. Now you'd think with my billion-plus cookbooks lying around, at least 2 of which are devoted to slow cookers, I'd start there. Nope. The problem was, I didn't know how reliable those recipes were. If I go somewhere like Recipezaar or Allrecipes then I can read the reviews and decide if I want to try a recipe. So what's the point of me being obsessive and buying cookbooks like crazy? Ummm, that's a very good question. But that's a post for another time.

So anyway, without too much hard work I found a few recipes that looked easy-peasy and had good reviews. I picked this one and went grocery shopping for ingredients.

And just to change things up a bit, I'm posting pics of my pot roast journey.

And of course, since I have to tweak recipes when I try them -- I used a 3-lb chuck roast, used 1 can of roasted garlic-flavored cream of mushroom soup, a can of beef broth, a packet of beefy onion soup, sprinklings of dry rosemary, and I added a ton o' veggies to the bottom of the crockpot.

The results? Very very meltingly tender beef. The flavor? Mehhh. But what do you expect when using canned condensed soup and an onion soup packet? It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't spectacular. For comfort food it was fine, but it just didn't have enough zip for me. I would say I would make it again, this time using a different recipe that didn't call for processed ingredients. But it also could be that this is just supposed to be a comfortingly bland dish and I'm just used to a spicier palate. Doesn't mean it's a bad recipe, just maybe not for me.

My first cookbook

2008-10-16T20:41:00.008-04:00

So I bet you didn't know that I was first "published" while I was in first grade. :)

I found this the other day while attempting to clean up the disaster zone otherwise known as the guest bedroom/my office. Now keep in mind, this was about 22 years ago (God that makes me feel so old!), but I vaguely remember our teacher sitting down with us and ask us what our favorite recipe was and to describe how to make it, all while she took notes. Then our parents were supposed to submit their version of the recipe.

It's pretty cute flipping through this little book. There were lots of recipes for pizza, french toast, and fried chicken, so I guess those must have been popular with 6 year-olds in Kansas in the mid-1980s. I will have to admit that I probably wouldn't try most of the parent-supplied recipes, and of course I am biased, but I do want to try my mom's recipe that she submitted.

Oh and I know I've been very neglectful and not posting recently, but we recently had the 9/15 and 10/15 tax deadlines and I was slammed at work. So now that we've made it through, my unintentional bento and cooking hiatus is over!

The easiest chicken curry evah!

2008-09-06T13:42:00.006-04:00

This is a recipe request from my little sister, who wanted me to do a recipe for chicken "like Mom makes." Tall order to fill! :D

When I'm doing one of my recipe recreations or experiments, I'm never quite sure how to name the dishes. I hate just using something generic like "chicken curry" because it sounds like a cop-out, but my Bangla skills aren't up to par enough to create a cool sounding name for the dish. I could be a smart-ass and just call it "cheecken" because that's probably how we just referred to it at home. :P

I will also admit that when she first asked how to make the chicken I totally did the recipe the desi way and told her what to put in it and how to cook it but without the measurements -- invoking the art of "andaaj." So here is my attempt at making chicken like we had at home and writing it all down so anyone can do it.

Some notes/tips:

1) I like to add a couple spoons of hot salsa to the gravy just before you put it to simmer -- it adds a little body without making the gravy too tomatoey.

2) Once the chicken is finished, sprinkle a little garam masala and some dried methi (fenugreek) leaves. Just a little. Adjust for salt and let the flavors meld.

3) Don't add too much water or else you'll spend the last 6 minutes with the lid off and heat on high, frantically boiling off the excess water so the gravy isn't watery.

4) You can add less turmeric to lessen the "Indian manicure" effect if you eat with your hands desi-style.

5) Feel free to add some potato chunks before you simmer -- maybe tinker with the spices a bit more in this case.

Chicken Curry

2 tbsp. oil
1 onion, finely sliced
4 cardamom pods (optional)
1 bay leaf (optional)
1 tsp. ginger paste
2 tsp. minced garlic (I use the kind in a jar)
2 chili peppers (serrano or finger chilis, optional)
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/4-1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
1/2 tsp. cayenne powder
salt to taste
1.5 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into chunks
1 tbsp. hot chunky salsa (optional)
garam masala
dried methi leaves

Heat a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the oil and heat for a minute or so. Add the onion slices and stir constantly for a few minutes, coating with the oil. Spend about 10 minutes or so monitoring the onions and stirring -- you want them to start browning and cooking down a bit. Now add the cardamom pods and bay leaf. Add the garlic and ginger, stir for a couple minutes. Add the chili peppers.

Take the ground spices in a bowl and slowly add a little water at a time so that you have a thick paste. Add the spice paste to the pan and mix.

Now add the chicken pieces and raise the heat a bit more, trying to coat the chicken pieces with the spice/onion/garlic/ginger. Add salt -- maybe start with 1/2 tsp. Now add the salsa, combining everything. Add about 1/2 -3/4 cup water and bring heat up to high. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Towards the end, check the pan to see if it needs water or if you need to cook off the water. Taste and adjust for salt. When chicken is almost done, sprinkle the garam masala and methi leaves, combine, and cook a couple more minutes. Taste again and adjust salt or seasonings as needed.

Lemon Garlic Dal with Spinach

2008-08-30T16:46:00.004-04:00

This is a really simple dal that my mom makes and that is one of my favorites. I request it every time I go home to visit. I have a strong feeling that this isn't how she makes it, but this is how I've attempted to make it a few times and it tastes pretty close.

The name of this dal is a bit misleading, as I found out after countless attempts to find lemon leaves at the Asian grocery stores. You need lime leaves to make this dish. If you ever find some, buy them! I was lucky enough to find lime leaves and fresh curry leaves one day at Harry's Farmers Market here in Atlanta and bought them, freezing whatever I didn't use immediately.

Lemon Garlic Dal with Spinach

1/2 cup masoor dal, rinsed
salt to taste
3 fresh lime leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
1 handful fresh spinach leaves

Place rinsed dal in a saucepan and add 1.5 cups water. Bring to a boil, then add lime leaves. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes. Add garlic, salt, and spinach. Add water if dal is not liquidy enough for you. Simmer another 10 minutes to let flavors mingle and to wilt the spinach.

Beef cooked with whole spices

2008-08-24T13:59:00.004-04:00

Forgive the pun, but lately I've been working on "beefing" up my Indian cookbook collection. I'm in one of those gotta-have-it moods and this just happens to be the theme this time. So expect some more experiments when I get the time.

I've always regarded Madhur Jaffrey as THE Indian cookbook authority. It probably has to do with the fact that hers were among the first cookbooks I learned to read for pleasure. My mom had a copy of "An Invitation to Indian Cooking," and I used to read it like a novel. Jaffrey just has a lovely way with words and the way she describes little vignettes from her life intertwined with the recipes is just very engrossing.

Anyway, so even though I have quite a collection of Indian cookbooks, I have to admit whenever I want to try a new recipe, I tend to head straight to Jaffrey's books. I do dabble with and drool over other books, but whatever I've tried from her books have been reliable. Today's recipe is no exception, although I admit I had doubts at first.

I decided to try her recipe for Khare Masala ka Gosht because I was feeling very lazy today and didn't want the bother of slicing and browning onions, ginger, garlic, etc. This recipe is very simple, just calling for meat, oil, lots of aromatic whole spice, salt, and garam masala. When I first looked at the recipe, I was a bit concerned that even with the whole spices and salt it would be bland. I'm used to cooking my beef with lots of garlic, cumin, coriander, etc. But I decided I would try her recipe and try to keep the tweaking to a minimum. I did add a couple shakes of garlic powder and dried minced onion, but that's it! Oh and I had to add potatoes to the beef, nothing better than tender potatoes that have absorbed the essence of the dish. And don't do like I did and go upstairs to check email and forget to check on the beef so that when you do come downstairs you've almost burned the beef. Luckily I was just in time and didn't ruin it.

Khare Masala ka Gosht

Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's "An Invitation to Indian Cooking."

2 tbsp. oil
1 2-inch piece of cinnamon
20 peppercorns
15 cloves
10 cardamom pods
2 bay leaves
1 whole dried red pepper (I used 2)
1.25 lb beef stew meat
1.5 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tsp garam masala
2 small potatoes, cut into eighths
garlic powder (optional)
dried minced onions (optional)

Heat the oil over medium-high heat, then add the spices in the order listed. Stir for a few minutes, until the pepper darkens, then add beef, salt, and garam masala. Stir to brown all sides of beef, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup water, cover, lower heat to low and cook for 1 hour, checking every so often to stir and add water as necessary so meat and spices don't burn. After an hour, add the potato pieces and add more water if necessary. Cook 30 more minutes until potatoes and beef are tender. There won't be much of a gravy, but if it's too thin, just cook the water down a bit or if you want a bit more of a sauce then add a little water. Taste for seasonings and adjust as necessary -- I added a bit more salt and garam masala.

Should serve about 4 people, but the hubby and I will more than likely eat most of this. :D

Serve with rice or bread, dal, and veggies.

Book Club Tea Time

2008-08-16T19:59:00.005-04:00

This month I got to host our book club meeting and we decided to do a tea time theme. As usual we made too much food for just 3 people, but it was all yummy. We had spinach and artichoke dip served with mini pitas, curry chicken salad wraps, mini quiches, fruit salad, chocolate chip cookie bars, and of course, tea!

Recipe for the chocolate chip cookie bars follows below. I originally got these off the Weight Watchers message boards, which is ironic since these babies are quite fattening. On the boards they are known as chocolate chip crack and pervert bars. Take your pick as to which name you like!

Chocolate chip cookie bars

Adapted from WW message boards

2 tubes choc chip cookie dough
12 oz bag semi sweet morsels
14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk (fat-free)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Smoosh 1 tube of the cookie dough into the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan, making sure to get as even a layer as possible. I break off in chunks to make it easier.

In a large bowl, combine the chocolate chips and condensed milk. Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after each interval until chocolate chips are melted. It usually takes me 1 minute or less of cooking time.

Pour chocolate chip and milk mixture over raw cookie dough, trying to smooth out over pan.

Take remaining cookie dough and crumble over chocolate mixture. You can use the entire remaining tube of dough, I usually use half.

Put pan in oven and bake for 30 minutes or until top cookie layer is golden. Cool, then slice.

Note -- these are really really really rich. I can usually only handle 1 piece max.

As for the fruit salad, it's just cantaloupe and strawberries. Easy peasy.

Kicked-up Keema

2008-08-05T20:46:00.003-04:00

Sorry about the cutesy title!

FYI for those not in the know, keema is just the South Asian name for ground meat.

Anyhow, although I don't cook beef that often, when I do it tends to be ground beef because it's quick and it's very hard to mess up. If I'm cooking it desi-style, I usually don't make it the same way twice, I just dump in whatever sounds good. Lately I've taken to poshing it up with frozen "southern-style" hash-browns because I'm too lazy to chop up potatoes as well as adding frozen peas and carrots for some color.

Tonight I added the veggies and then took the opportunity to use up some leftover Chicken Jalfrezi spice mix that had been hiding in my fridge. Weird notion to use chicken spice mix in ground beef, but all it contained was red chili powder, black pepper, salt, and turmeric and I was in a hurry tonight. I added some ground cumin, chili powder, and garlic powder and that was it.

Decided to jazz up the rice today by adding some Patak's curry paste to it before I added the water. Didn't add much flavor but it added some color.

Since we actually had leftovers and I haven't done a bento in forever, guess what I did? :)

Book-club Brunch!

2008-07-19T23:40:00.010-04:00

The girls and I were having our monthly book-club meeting and decided to do a brunch pot-luck along with it. I was wavering between making blueberry muffins and cheesy hashbrown casserole, since both seem to be easy enough to make. So to make things more complicated for myself I just decided to make both!

Any previous experiences with making blueberry muffins up until now have been limited to various boxed mixes, the most recent being the fat-free kind from Krusteaz. Since I've been on this random baking kick since last week, I figured I might as well try my hand at making blueberry muffins from scratch. Plus I have some blueberries I bought a few days ago that just aren't getting eaten! Crazy, I know!

The original intention was to try a recipe for orange-berry muffins from Dorie Greenspan's book. Alas, the local Kroger yesterday had some very anemic and questionable looking oranges, thus messing up those plans. I went through a bunch of my cookbooks to look up basic recipes for blueberry muffins and finally decided to try the one in the 75th anniversary edition of The Joy of Cooking.

Blueberry Muffins

Adapted from "The Joy of Cooking - 75th Anniversary Edition"

2 cups flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk (I used fat-free vanilla soy milk)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place paper liners in muffin tin.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, combine the eggs, milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix lightly just until all the dry ingredients are mixed in -- there should still be lumps and clumps of flour.

Add the blueberries and stir as little as possible. Fill the muffin tins almost to the top with batter.

Bake for 20 minutes. Once muffins are done, remove from muffin tin within a few minutes.

Verdict: we all felt that the muffins weren't sweet enough. I don't know why this particular recipe only called for 1/3 cup sugar when other ones I looked at called for more. I don't feel comfortable enough yet with baking sweets to just tweak amounts of ingredients so I tend to follow them as written. I think though that next time I make these I will tweak the sugar. Or better yet, try another recipe! That being said, the muffins weren't a disaster.

Next up is the cheesy hashbrown casserole. Doesn't that sound so good? This is another recipe from "Teens Cook." It's a very simple, basic, and dare I say bland recipe. So of course I tweaked it!

The picture doesn't look as good as the one in the cookbook, so I think next time I'll add a top layer of cheese and green onions to make it look even more indulgent than it was!

Cheesy Hashbrown Casserole

Adapted from "Teens Cook"

1/2 stick butter, melted
1 cup sour cream (I used fat-free)
2 cups shredded cheese ( I used reduced-fat Mexican cheese)
3 green onions, sliced
30 oz. bag of frozen hashbrowns, thawed

My additions:

salt
chili powder
garlic powder
Adobo seasoning

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the butter and sour cream in a large bowl. Add the cheese, onions, and spices and mix. Add the hashbrowns in batches, making sure to coat with the butter/sour cream/cheese mixture.

Place mixture in an ungreased 9 x 5 baking pan. You really have to pack it in densely, but everything fits in the pan. Bake in oven for 1 hour.

Verdict: everyone loved it and was incredulous at the fact that the original recipe called for no salt or seasonings.

This was the spread at today's brunch! It was definitely as yummy as it looks! Clockwise from the top we have macadamia nut Belgian waffles, then mixed veggie omelet with turkey bacon and turkey sausage, fruit salad with a kick (cayenne pepper), cheesy hashbrown casserole, and blueberry muffins.

Naturally we stuffed ourselves silly and went back for seconds (and thirds of the potatoes, ssshhh!). I seriously don't need to eat anything else for the rest of the day!