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April 3rd, 2006
08:34 pm - 30 minute meal a la Julia Child
I decided sometime last week that I want to start delving into my cookbook collection a bit more. I have quite a few cookbooks, which I generally use for inspiration, but really a lot of times the meals come from magazines or TV shows (or my head). Recently, a friend gave me a bunch of old cookbooks that someone in her family was getting rid of. There were a couple of the expected Church recipe collections, which aren't bad, just ... well, they all start to seem the same after a while. They are fun to look at though! Overall, though, the collection was quite nice. I got some James Beard, Julia Child, Fannie Farmer -- the classics. This weekend, I tried something out of the French Chef Cookbook by Julia Child.
For some reason, I feel the need to break the flow of this to tell you that I actually already owned this book, and passed the copy found in my friend's collection on.
After quickly glancing through the book, I decided to go with "Veal or Pork Dinner for Four in Half an Hour", which consists of Vichyssoise a la Russe, Saute de Veau (ou de Porc) aux Champignons, Braised Rice, Green Salad, and Poires au Gratin. Julia also recommends a Bordeaux wine, and really, who am I to argue with her? My first thought was, "Ok, so we'll be going with pork" and my second thought was "How in the heck does she make this in 30 minutes?!?!" Well, when looking more closely, I realized that the Vichysoisse (The final s's are pronounced as a 'z', people, do you hear me?) recipe called for canned Vichysoisse. Also the champignons were in fact canned mushrooms. Well, there wasn't going to be any of this canned stuff in my Julia Child dinner, so I decided to skip the a la Russe (canned beets and sour cream) portion of the soup and make the Vichysoisse from scratch the night before, and of course, to use real honest-to-goodness mushrooms. Also, the pear gratin called for 3 stale macaroons. Not having stale macaroons on hand, and loathe to either buy or make macaroons with the intention of letting 3 go stale, I opted for some coconut sprinkled on top instead of the macaroons.
The "braised rice" was basically a risotto with less stirring, and using your average white rice, no arborio. This was very flavorful, which both Andy and I found to mean "quite filling", I think just because of the richness of the flavor.
The pork with mushrooms was really nice. Again, quite simple. A very short ingredient list and a minimal preparation. The sauce was what really brought this up to amazing. It was meant to be a Hollandaise kind of sauce complete with egg yolks, meat juices and 6-8 Tablespoons of butter, but I must admit to only putting in one T. of butter and adding some stock to enhance the amount. Despite the lowering of fat, this was still a very good sauce.
The Vichysoisse was lovely, but then I do like a good Vichysoisse. I sort of made up a recipe based on Julia (she has a recipe in the book, just not for the 30-minute meal) and on the Joy of Cooking. I thought that cooking off the leeks ahead of time would give some nice flavor, which is where I strayed from Julia for the most part.
I really liked the pear gratin for a nice, easy, light dessert. Next time I would probably actually follow the instructions and peel the pears, or I would not use the Ya Pears, or whatever they were, and would go for a Bartlett or something. The pears were glazed with an apricot and wine sauce with a sprinkling of the aforementioned coconut, and a few dots of butter. Excellent in the simplicity.
All in all, a tasty meal. I'm definitely going to keep trying to make some of these and other "classic" meals for a while, to help me sort of ground myself in the traditional methods and flavors. This particular meal was such a hit that Andy and I are planning on inviting a few wine friends over to show how nicely that 2003 La Chenade LaLande de Pomerol goes with this meal.
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January 29th, 2006
10:04 pm - Breaking the silence
I don't want to make any promises or anything, but I really must start writing. Therefore, take two at food journal ...
Today we made Chiarello Chocolate Chili con Carne from Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello on Food Network. Often when we make recipes we make quite a few changes to the original to meet our various dietary restrictions. You see, A is on a low-salt diet and allergic to shellfish, and I am allergic to carrots. To deal with the salt issue, I tend to go heavy-handed with the spices and often add some low-sodium chicken or beef boullion to liven up favors. For the carrot issue, I usually replace carrots with celery. So instead of a mirepoix, I just have celery and onions.
In the case of this chili, I didn't really need to change much other than to not add salt, and just add a bit more of each of the spices. I also couldn't find masa harina at our local grocery store, which I found bizarre. This is Northern California, and I know that I used to be able to find it at my local grocery store in Chicago. I used cornstarch instead.
When the initial preparation was done and it was time for the hour and a half of simmering time, I'll admit I was a bit skeptical. I had to keep in mind, though, that I had just poured the beer in, so it was kind of overpowering at that point. Also, beans and chocolate were to be added at the end.
In the end, the whole thing came together quite nicely. The chocolate and the cumin were quite nice together, I thought. The beer had completely mellowed, and the beef was nice and tender. The chili went very well with a cabernet, probably because of the chocolate. A noted that this recipe tasted very similar to a Michael Chiarello recipe he made last year, which was a pork loin with a chocolate spice rub. We liked that a lot too, so it was no surprise that this chili met with our approval.
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November 10th, 2003
05:04 pm - time for soup!
I cooked, cooked, cooked all day on Friday, skewering lots of veggies and cutting up a lot of chicken breasts. All went well, except for a slight couscous mishap. Does anyone have a good tip for avoiding clumping in couscous? I myself just think clumps are natural, but H will not take that as an excuse and thus I ended up feeling up couscous for about an hour. We added some oil, which I hate to do and I just rubbed it around with my gloved hands and a large plastic fork forever. Perhaps making 7 ½ cups of dried couscous at a time is a bit too much to avoid lumpiness, as all I can find on the web is the detailed instruction of “fluff with a fork”. No kidding, I hadn’t thought of that.
Last night, I made a lovely fennel-spiced chicken salad at home based on Michael Chiarello’s recipe from his Casual Cooking. Love that cookbook; nothing in it has been bad yet, but maybe I’m good at skillfully avoiding the bad stuff. Anyway, so that required poaching a whole chicken, which means I have a nice vat of chicken stock. I think that I will make chicken wild rice soup with it, as I have been craving that for about a month but have been too lazy to do anything about that at all. But from chicken stock it's just a hop, skip, and a jump, I think. I'll have to look up that recipe when I get home.
Went to Maggiano's yesterday for lunch and tried out one of their sandwiches. It was pretty good, it had pesto chicken, arugula, and tomato. And some really good fresh-made potato chips.
Also, we went to P.F. Chang's today for lunch (what's with me and the chain restaurants recently?), and it was quite good. Our waitress was a bit of a mess, but the food was good enough to make up for it. I had the cashew and almond chicken, which was nice, had lots of nice veggies, and as always, their brown jasmine rice was excellent. Mr. K. had the chicken salad. Both were fairly low in salt and rather yummy.
We're contemplating driving up to Napa or Sonoma for Veteran's day, but someday we'll have to slow down on the money spending as we have none. But I'm a sucker for good food. It's my hobby! And according to Mr. K's fortune cookie today, anything in excess becomes a vice (not a fortune, but I'll deal), so I guess food is my vice. Woot to that!
Currently reading: Fast Food Nation. Almost done with it, too.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/sad.gif) hungry
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October 13th, 2003
10:42 pm - Warning! You may not want to read this if you're a vegetarian!
Last night, I made ribs for the first time. This idea was spurred by our making ribs at the catering job on Saturday and then I wanted ribs so bad, I had to learn to make them. They turned out really well; I made a spice rub for them, cooked them for a good hour or so under low heat in the oven, and then put sauce on half of them (got to have the low-salt for Mr. K.) and let them cook for another hour. The only thing I would have done is kept the ribs wrapped in the foil for longer to keep them tender and cooked them for a bazillion hours longer so they would be falling off the bone. Sorry to vegetarians and vegans out there.
They were good. Mr. K. also liked them very much. I will be making ribs again. I served them with garlic glazed broccoli and mashed potatoes. Did I mention that the bbq sauce was made by my friend T? She did a wonderful job, it was quite good. Next time I will make the low-salt bbq sauce for which I have a recipe. Mr. K. is very excited about that prospect.
On a going out to eat note, we tried to go to Maggiano's on Friday, and the wait was OVER TWO HOURS. I mean, I love that place, and I wanted to spend my $50 gift certificate, but that was just absurd. We went to the family-owned Italian place much closer to home. We love that place too, and haven't been there in a while since discovering the best Mexican food ever. I had penne with eggplant, tomato sauce, and ricotta salata. Yummy. Mr. K. had the special linguine with shrimp and asparagus which I didn't like much. It tasted like weed smells to me. Blech. For dessert, of course, the "chocolate salami". I know, it sounds gross, but it is really very good. It is "a terrine" of slightly coconuty cookies and chocolate formed into a log and sliced like a salami, served on a bed of melted chocolate. It's very nice, and goes well with coffee. Yum.
Also, if you have a theme party, keep the food with the theme, it's a lot more fun. I worked a "luau" the other day. I was forced to wear a Hawaiian shirt while serving beef tenderloin and a potato gratin. Hello? That is just strange. And then the appetizers were all over the place and hard to eat, all at the same time. These people were there for a fundraiser. It was almost as bad as Bush serving hot dogs for a thousand bucks a piece.
I'll try to update more frequently so I don't have to get all crazy 3 stories at once and a lot more in my head on y'all.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/pengies/yawn.gif) sleepy
Current Music: none - watching Cribs because I can't find the remote and I'm lazy
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September 24th, 2003
12:23 am - non-food related entry
I dyed my hair fairly close to my natural color. I think. It's dark brown. Woot!
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September 16th, 2003
05:11 pm - A visit to the CCA
I’ve been toying with becoming a cook full time for quite a while now, but given my prior commitments (just a small thing called a PhD program), I’ve sort of put the whole idea on hold. I do some catering on and off for a smallish company based in the town that I live in, and I couldn’t really ask for better bosses or a better company to work for, other than the limited number of hours that I/they have for me to work. If I did quit graduate school to cook, I would definitely have to find a more permanent place of employment, which is part of what has stopped me from quitting graduate school to pursue a cooking career.
( More behind the cut tag )
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September 15th, 2003
12:18 pm - Whoa
Okay, first of all, I have to admit that it took me more than two clicks to figure out how to update my journal. This seems like a bad thing, but I'm not sure if it's due to a) the fact that I haven't updated in, like, months b) The fact that livejournal is all different or c) the fact that I am a moron. Perhaps it's like we often find in psychology, a combination of all of the different theories you can come up with. (Up with which you can come?)
I've been reading some really interesting stuff of late, and it is what has inspired me to actually write in my journal. That and the fact that I really want to work on improving my writing and since sitting down and writing about psychology daily sure as hell ain't gonna happen, I thought maybe writing in my LJ would help. As you can see, my writing needs a lot of work.
Back to the interesting stuff I've been reading, it's all been stuff about food and cooking and such-like. I read a really great book called "Becoming a Chef", and amongst many tips is the idea that one should keep a food journal (which I sort of already do) and also do a lot of reading from food-writers. So I think my LJ is going to become about me trying to write things that a food-writer would (not exclusively, but in part) as well as about food I have made/eaten recently in shorter than food-writer essay format. If you don't like to hear about food, you may want to delete me from your friends list (all 7 of you that have me on their friends list, that is); this is just a warning that this may be what I'm about to become.
My first full essay may be about visiting the California Culinary Academy and my thoughts on that, but we'll find out about that soon enough. I have to go eat lunch now, but that's just more for me to write about later!
As a small food-related tidbit: I have recently tried Peet's coffee's new sugar-free vanilla syrup in decaf nonfat lattes, and I highly recommend it.
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March 18th, 2003
08:30 am - Here goes ...
Ok, so it's about time to update my journal. Here's what's been going on in my life.
The most time-consuming thing (also, most painful, and most annoying): I sliced into my finger on Super Bowl Sunday, requiring 7 stitches after a 7 hour stint at the er. Let me tell you, there was no Noah Wyle there, though I felt that I was one of those patients on the show that accidentally gets forgotten repeatedly, because what the hell? it's just a few sutures! Ah, yes, but that's not all! So then, a week later, I went to the Stanford hand clinic and was told that I needed to have surgery to reconnect the nerve in my finger. So I went to some hand therapy and a week later had surgery on my finger. I had to be completely knocked out and everything! I wore a cast after that for two weeks and now I'm back in hand therapy ... the stitches are all out, I've got some (3) nasty scars on my finger (2 from the surgery, one from me). So there's that. I wsn't able to type much for awhile there, so at least I have some excuse for not having done any updating.
In other news, classes are over for the quarter, so it's just cleaning up all the mess -- have to get my students' grades in and whatnot. Blah. Already graded their test and everything.
Also! Going to Hawaii for Spring Break. Woot!
[Trying to pretend that there won't be a war this week, I'm sorry. I'm still in the denial stage]
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October 31st, 2002
10:38 pm - Happy Halloween!
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October 27th, 2002
10:15 pm
So I watched Alias tonight. Thanks to PT's summary of the show, given to me about 8 months ago, I thankfully was not completely lost. I liked it! But I do have one question ... are there always so many needles?
In other news, I finally joined the gym tonight and I tried the newer elliptical trainers they had there. Woot. They have the tvs on, but being Sunday at 7, my options were, um, let's see ... World Series or Providence. Actually, A Bug's Life was on, but not on my side of the gym. Grr. Had I known that, I would have used the tried and true elliptical trainers. Well, there's always tomorrow. Tomorrow the plan is to go running in the morning and then maybe go to the gym again at night, so we'll see what happens with that -- I won't have much to do at the gym, I'm thinking. I don't want to go nuts, you see.
I think the host of the show I'm watching on Food Network has the host from the Discovery Channel show -- what is it? The one with the girl that was Miss America? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure this is the cohost.
That's the world of tv tonight. :)
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October 15th, 2002
01:42 pm - Today is the greatest ...
Ok, not really true with my title, but when I tried to think of a good title, that's what came into my head.
Currently, the UCSC lecturers union and clerical union are on strike. While I am not a member of those unions, my union (I'm an auto worker! UAW-GSE) has asked that we not cross the picket line. Hm, let's see, you want me to NOT go to school? Hm. Ok, I guess I could do that. But don't ask me to NOT do any TA-related work! What's that you say? I shouldn't do any TA-related work? Fine.
I hate to sound all flippant about it, but really, it's pretty easy to honor a strike when you're me. I guess if my profs were a little less understanding I might actually have to fight for this, but no.
In other news ... well, there isn't much other news. I'm working on my qualifying paper and my paper for class and ... yeah.
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October 8th, 2002
09:37 am
I'm really working on more frequent updates. I need to get back into writing so I can write my "qualifying paper" as they call it. I'm supposed to qualify in winter, so I need to get my butt working on that.
Things are going a little better at school. The class has quieted down -- we've gotten rid of most of the hangers on, so now it's just keeping track of all the grades, which is fine. We're getting rid of one last girl today, and there is the possibility of a lawsuit, so I'll keep you updated.
Currently I'm watching Live with Regis and Kelly (I love this show and I don't know why, must be Kelly), and it's Jennifer Love Hewitt, and she's singing. First of all, they're making this big deal out of her singing, like no one knew she sang, which really doesn't say much for her other album does it? And she's a good singer and all, but I can't get past her being ... um, yeah, I just can't deal. Let's just leave it at that.
But next up is Taye Diggs! er should get him on the show, as they seem to be trying to pull in attention-grabbing actors. Though I guess he didn't help out Ally McBeal any, but that show was losing it and it wasn't really his fault.
Yes.
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October 2nd, 2002
12:59 pm - we invented ...
Ok, so I liked "I need a girl", I really did. I'm not even sure *why* I liked that song. It was sort of cute, and it made me feel bad for mr. p. diddy, so whatever.
But really, I know "they" invented the remix and all, but this THIRD one is just the next step in an ever crappier spiral of ... um, crap?
People, it sounds like Samantha Mumba's "Baby come on over", and really, the world doesn't need another one of those either, even though, once again, I bow down to p. diddy's superiority at the remix.
***
This was much more clearly thought out in my car, but really, I need to start writing something again, even if it's just a rant about a bad song, so I decided to start using my lj for a lot of rants. I'm really not this cranky of a person.
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September 12th, 2002
10:29 pm - I keep meaning to update ...
So as pinktyrant mentioned, we had a very good weekend, we went and saw Coldplay and just generally enjoyed seeing each other. I miss living in the same city (the same apartment even!), but this was the first time that she left (or I left), that after the leaving happened I didn't cry a lot. I guess I'm getting used to the leaving portion of the trip. It's just every time she's here, I realize that I don't have any close friends here, and that I'm lonely and being old and crotchedy as I am, I don't really see that changing, especially as it's been about 2 years now.
But enough about that, you can read PT's entry if you're at all interested in what we did this weekend. I purchased the Demeter Garden Tomato fragrance that I've been coveting for about 2 years finally, and I love it, and it smells really good, but it wears off really quickly. Or I just get used to it really quickly. Something. So that's my part of the story that corresponds to her eyeshadow shopping.
Anyway, yesterday was a weird day.
Mr. K and I had planned on starting our new exercise regimen (which is: run 6 days a week [or as often as our schedules allow] at 7:30 am). Well, we got to our running place at 8:30, but at least we got there. But then! About 1/4 mile into the jog, Mr. K said something in his back starting hurting. So after I ran for a while longer we went home and he basically couldn't really move.
So then I went to Santa Cruz and talked to my new labmate, which took way longer than expected, but was good ... we need to get to know eachother, after all.
Then! I called Andy on the way home, and he went to the doctor and they told him that he had probably "jarred a kidney" which sounds really painful, but they said was no big deal. Claimed he would be fine by today. He's not.
So then, after supper, he said he wanted to go see a movie, and we saw one hour photo. Normally, he's not that excited about movies, but he really liked this one, and I thought it was good, especially the parts with the cute little man (apparently he plays vaughn? on alias? he's cute, and not really that little in general, although there was a full frontal nudity brief shot, and it was really difficult to know what was going on, because it really appeared that he was a eunuch. Maybe that was to stay within MPAA guidelines, and they blurred it? I digress) -- on the whole, a good movie, but wait to see it on video.
That's about it for now.
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August 19th, 2002
10:37 pm - FINE!!!
here, click on the damn thing yourself.
It's Mr. K-Rock.
While we were in Vegas this weekend.
There.
http://psych.ucsc.edu/grads/kmwade/andyarcdetriomphe.jpg
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10:30 pm
That last entry was supposed to contain this pic, and some words. No more words.
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August 14th, 2002
09:58 pm
I forgot --
for all you speech perception lovers out there:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20020814/D7LD9MU00.html
Interesting, eh?
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09:53 pm
So today was an interesting day.
Mr. K-Rock this morning decided to play a little guessing game with me: How Much Money Did Stanford Housing Charge For the Cleaning Fee?
Answer?
$627.
That's right, that's a lot of money. Money I do not have.
I freaked out.
So, he called Stanford housing and asked them what those charges were for ... turns out they claim there was a stain on the carpet (which we never saw). So we're contesting some of that. Seeing as they claim they had to replace some of the carpet due to a stain that we did not cause ... but then they have pictures! Picture of the stain. And it is a stain. Huh.
Really, we did not do this.
In other news, went to the library and got 2 cookbooks, 1 quilting book and some fiction. Also picked up the Out Of Sight dvd they were holding for me.
Other than that, just errands for our trip. We're leaving tomorrow morning! Yay!
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August 13th, 2002
03:58 pm
I went to Ikea today! Whoopah!
I was good, I only bought $30 worth of stuff. I got the cutest napkin holder, you all need to get on of these napkin holders. Who knew that I could get this excited about napkin holders?
I went with one of my friends from the catering bidnay which was fun, because I've never really seen the catering folks outside of work. It's good to get to know new people, you see. This is what I'm told.
In other news, I'm finally done with my Java class, and now I'm starting to realize that perhaps it would be best if I had something I needed to program, so that I could keep up my Java skills. I actually kind of liked programming this time around, which may be because my brother helped me out, so I wasn't at a complete loss.
There's an apt. available in our building, and I want to call and see how much they charge normal folks ... I bet it's less than what we're paying with the subsidy from Stanford. Grrr.
That's all.
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