Fried Okra

These days we hardly eat any fried food. But I remember loving this dish as a kid growing up in Arkansas. This must be a Southern thing, because it's hard to find good okra in the supermarkets around Baltimore. (Most don't even have it.) I've been getting it from Asian grocery stores.

I'm not sure of the official recipe. I just have verbal instructions from my grandma. :) I start with a couple of generous handfulls of okra for two people.

1. Wash okra, trim the stem end off each one, and slice into 1/4 inch pieces.
2. Toss the sliced okra with a slightly beaten egg.
3. Toss the egg-coated okra in cornmeal and shake off the excess.
4. Fry in a shallow layer of your favorite vegetable oil. I use canola oil. Toss the okra during cooking to brown on all sides.
5. Drain on paper towels, sprinkle with salt, and serve with ketchup or other favorite condiment.

You can add salt (and pepper if desired) at any or all stages of this process. I found the more salt, the better it tastes. I haven't timed how long it takes to cook. I'll do that next time and report my findings here. :)

Small Collage Photo Frame

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday.

Here is my second collage project -- a photo frame magnet for Sheu's parents. The photo is Sheu as a baby. :) This took one evening to make, compared to three evenings it took to make the Christmas ornament.

I bought the little wooden photo frame at Michaels for US $0.99. It is approximately 3 x 3". It had an ugly little chain for hanging, but I removed that part. I glued magazine clippings on the surface with regular Elmer's glue. Then I put a large self-adhesive magnet on the back (also purchased at Michaels).

I've considered varnishing these collage items, but the magazine clippings already have a glossy look, so I decided to leave this frame as is.

Beautiful Bento at Vegan Lunch Box

I love checking out the creative lunches over at the Vegan Lunch Box. This one really made me smile:

A Tiger Hiding in the Grass

Soooooo cute! And looks yummy, too. I'm not a full vegan (I eat eggs and dairy), and I don't have a little shmoo yet, but I love getting ideas from Vegan Lunch Box for packing my lunch for work. When I (hopefully) do have a kid, these ideas will be useful for sneaking veggies into his or her lunch for school!

She just came out with a Vegan Lunch Box book, too. I believe it's available on Amazon.com. I definitely plan to get a copy!

So-So Garbanzos

I tried this chickpea snack recipe from the Dec-Jan 2007 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray. It's called Gonzo Garbanzos. NOTE: This photo is not mine! It's the photo from the magazine. The recipe is on the magazine website here:

http://www.rachaelraymag.com/content/31195

The recipe was easy to make, but mine did not turn out quite as picturesqe as the magazine photo! Mine looks like a pile of brown pebbles with burned pistachios mixed in. Some of them were too hard to eat. If I make it again, I might try cutting down the cooking time for my oven. They seemed a bit greasy, too, so I might try cutting down some of the oil.

The flavor is good -- the chickpeas have a smokey, spicy flavor from the cumin and cayenne. The chickpeas actually popped while they were in the oven -- I guess they have to let out some steam. They hopped around the baking sheet, but none fell off. (The popping lasted for a minute or so.)

Soup!

Tonight I threw together a soup (or stew?) with whatever we had on hand. I've had difficulty with making up soups in the past -- usually the broth turns out bland. Tonight I finally achieved a good flavor!

The soup contained:

Generous drizzle of olive oil
Chopped carrots
Chopped red onion
Minced garlic
Equal parts water and vegetable broth
Cubed potatoes
Salt, pepper, oregano, basil, cumin, bay leaf, thyme, cayenne pepper
Petite diced tomatoes (canned)
Lentils (canned)
Green beans (frozen organic, handful from the bag)
Chopped spinach (frozen organic, several handfuls)

I ladled some of the finished soup to a separate pot for Sheu and added boneless chicken breast (sauteed with rosemary and cut into small pieces). He gave it a thumbs up. Yay!

I started buying frozen spinach in bags instead of those solid bricks of boxed spinach. The bagged kind doesn't need to be defrosted -- you can just grab a handful and throw it right in soup, pasta sauce, or whatever! For recipes that DO require thawed & drained spinach, the bagged kind thaws sooo much faster than the boxed kind.

Step-mom's Blueberry Pie

Check out this blueberry pie my step-mom whipped up on the morning of my dad's birthday.

We prepared lots of food for a gathering of family and friends for dad's birthday (everyone brought a dish, too -- it turned out to be a great feast!). I made a devil's food chocolate cake with cream cheese icing, which turned out pretty good. Dad also requested pie. Step-mom made this pie in no time. It's all homemade, except for the bottom crust, which was a premade frozen crust (the kind you roll out and shape yourself). She made the top lattice crust from scratch.

The blueberries were handpicked sometime earlier in the year and frozen. She threw in some handpicked wild rasperries, too. YUM! The recipe was from a Betty Crocker cookbook. This pie was soooooo good... I've never made a fruit pie, but now I'm inspired to try it.

Grandma's Lovely Arrangements

Sheu and I travelled to Arkansas last weekend to visit my family and celebrate my dad's birthday. We spent some quality time with Grandma. I love visiting her for the holidays -- her house is always decked out from floor to ceiling with Christmas decorations. She's 74 years old, but she does all this herself (she did let us help string the lights on the porch). The decorations are so well done -- this year she has a gold and white color scheme.

I really admire her floral and centerpiece arrangements. I think she could have done this for a living if she wanted. Here's a photo of a candle centerpiece she made for her church. She gets the supplies from Hobby Lobby, I think.

Here's another photo of an arrangement she did around the base of a lamp in her living room. This is just a small sampling of the holiday extravaganza in her house! Somehow it never seems overdone. I think she's quite talented at it, so it never looks tacky.

I could fill up this blog with more photos of her holiday creations, but I have to say the photos don't even do it justice.

Collage Christmas Ornament

I've been cutting up old magazines and saving the colors in separate envelopes. This ornament was my first collage project with the magazine clippings. I gave it to my dad for his birthday last weekend. Hopefully I'll find the time to make more.

I bought this cardboard sphere at Michael's for US $0.99. It's light, yet sturdy -- great for a tree ornament.

I spent three evenings cutting up and gluing the magazine clippings to the cardboard form. I used regular Elmer's glue. Hopefully my next ornament won't take so long. There was a bit of trial and error with this first one.

I didn't apply shellac or anything, but I'd like to try that on the next one. I'll also try using more variations in the shades of each color. Here's another pic of the finished ornament:

Almond Tart

My mother-in-law gave me this recipe months ago, saying it was very good but not until I made it the other evening did I realize what "very good" really means: Heaven for your mouth.
(just ignore how much butter the recipe call for)

note: I always use demerara sugar {made with sugar beets by Rogers right here in Canada!}
It affects the end product, making it darker and influences the flavour and texture (like in jam) but we prefer it. So if you want to make this tart how it was originally intended, use white sugar.

Almond Tart
Preheat the oven at 375*F.
Start with a shortbread crust:
~3/4 cup soft butter~1/2 cup sugar (brown)~1 2/3 cups flour
Stir together the flour and sugar then mix the butter in. Press the crust into a pan (spring form but a pie plate will do too) (OR you can use a pie crust)

For the filling:
Beat together:
~1/3 cup soft butter~1/2 cup sugar (brown)
Then add: ~ 1 egg~1 tsp almond extract
Mix in: ~3/4 cup ground almonds~1 Tbs flour

Spread onto unbaked crust and bake for 35 minutes.

----I've included a photo of the ingredients because I thought how weird and antiseptic they looked all wrapped up in cling-wrap. I had prepared the ingredients earlier in the day and wanted to protect them so I wrapped them. I'm not usually that uptight. much. I snapped the flour&sugar photo because I always like the looks of ingredients at that stage. (one of my small pleasures when I worked in a bakery years ago)

Charles loved this tart so much, he ate a second slice and felt sick all evening...all that butter!

easy Curry dinner (lunch)

I made a delicious curry for dinner and when I put the left-overs in a dish, I thought how it would make a perfect lunch.
Curry has to be the easiest meal to make yet tastes like you spent years learning how. My not-so-secret-ingredient is Patak's Original Curry Pastes.

To make this curry, I used Patak's Tandoori curry paste (mild--because I'm a wimp).

You'll need:
~olive oil and butter~a medium sized onion~one carrot~1/2 red pepper~broccoli stems~(mushrooms)~2 chicken breasts~Patak's curry paste (Tandoori, mild)~ground cumin~curry powder~ground cardamom~salt&pepper~milk (whole or if you want it creamier, cream)~flour

Start with warming up some olive oil and butter in a good heavy cast-iron frying pan.
Fry up a chopped medium sized onion, trim and chop up the broccoli stems add it in along with the chopped red pepper, add the grated carrot (chop up the grated carrot, to shorten the strings). Stir that around for a bit and let it sautée while you slice up the chicken breasts (vegetarians can easily skip this part.
Maybe add in some chopped mushrooms to fill out the dish).
Mix in the chicken breast, add a bit of water and cover for a minute or two, while you get out the spices.
Scoop in 2-3 tablespoons of the Patak's, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp curry powder, 1/8 tsp ground cardamom, salt&pepper to taste. Stir this until well mixed.
Pour in about 1/4 cup of milk, stir until well mixed, add enough milk to make a nice amount of sauce so you may need more. It will be too thin so sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons over the curry, mixing well and adding slowly using a small sieve to avoid lumps (but if lumps should form, don't worry, they get lost in the jumble).
~Let all this simmer for about 15 minutes or so, stirring every once in a while, lowering heat.
(make some white rice while you wait on the curry. In a small lidded pot: 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup rinsed white basmati or long grain, 1/2 tsp butter, salt. bring to a boil, stir, cover and lower the heat to minimum. Set the timer for 15-20 minutes)

Takes me 30 minutes to make this meal. Amazing. (but if you have more time: make brown rice {starting it before you start on the curry} and let your curry simmer for as long as you want, adding more milk or water to keep the consistency right. The flavour will be even better)

enjoy!

Grilled Leek with Mustard Butter

About a month ago I bought a huge, beautiful leek at the Korean grocery. I didn't really know what to do with it -- I figured I'd find some potato leek soup recipe or something. The leek sat in the fridge for more than two weeks before Sheu said, "Do something with that thing!" Out of laziness, I decided to try grilling it. (Luckily the leek was still in good shape after all that time!) Grilling it turned out to be easy, and the result was very tasty!

I made it again tonight (with a fresh leek this time!). I more or less follow the instructions for grilled leeks from Joy of Cooking. It's easy with our little George Foreman grill. This could also be done with a grill pan, or on a real grill.

While the grill is heating:
First trim off the root end and the tougher green part of the leaves. Then cut the leek in half crosswise and lenghwise to make four long pieces. Rinse the pieces well in cold water. Open the layers a bit to make sure all dirt and grit is rinsed out.


Pat the pieces dry, then drizzle (or brush) with olive oil. Season with salt & pepper.


Place the pieces cut side up in the grill. We use a small George Foreman grill -- the perfect size for one large leek. Close the grill and let it cook for about 7 to 8 minutes. Done!


This is really good with mustard butter -- just mash softened butter with dijon mustard to taste. Drizzle over the leeks while they're still hot. The spiciness of the mustard complements the sweetness of the leeks. Yum!

The Best Pumpkin Bread!

This Thanksgiving, our friend Vru made the BEST pumpkin bread I've ever tasted! She found the recipe on AllRecipes.com. It's called Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread. Vru made three loaves: one plain, one with nuts (walnuts?) and one with chocolate chips.

This bread has a great texture and flavor. It's very moist, almost like cake. When Vru sent me the recipe by email, she mentioned some suggestions from reviewers for this recipe:

1. sub 1 cup of white sugar with brown sugar
2. add more cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger to make spicier
3. can add different things to each of the loaves (walnuts and golden raisins; chocolate chips)

Here's the recipe. Highly recommended!

Vru also made some yummy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Must ask her for that recipe, too...

Man-made Dinner

Last night my darling Sheu cooked up this picturesque meal:

He got the chinese brocolli w/oyster sauce recipe on the web somewhere. The dish on the left is Three Pepper Game Hen from Martin Yan's Chinatown Cooking (minus the red peppers). He used boneless chicken instead of game hen. I helped him by chopping some of the vegetables. He said it turned out pretty good. (The picture doesn't do it justice -- I need to work on my food photography skills!)

I made black eyed peas & spinach with indian spices for my dinner. It looked like a bowl of brown & green glop, and that's why it's NOT in the picture. But it was yummy.

Gingerbread Crochet Cake

I made this cake more than a year ago, for my friend Christy's birthday. It's one of my very favorite cake recipes: Applesauce Gingerbread from Joy of Cooking (1997 edition). The only change I make to the recipe is to increase the amount of each spice.

For Christy's cake I made a powdered sugar icing with orange extract for flavor. The orange goes well with the ginger flavor of the cake. Christy likes to crochet, so I added a real crochet needle to the top and tried to make the colored icing look like yarn. She got to keep the needle, of course. :-)

I've also made Applesauce Gingerbread with cream cheese icing...verrrrry yummy. It's also good with just a sprinkling of powdered sugar instead of icing.

Myriam has made some AMAZING cakes in the past--maybe she'll post some photos of her creations. hint hint

CakesCat SweetCat

Hi Tenae!

I signed up! :) hey, wow, we can type in colour (or color, for you) heh heh heh

I wonder if we can get some of those annoying emoticons. ;)

What I did that was creative today was.... muffins! (took me a minute to remember) I'm working on improving a (very) low fate recipe but I keep upping the fat content. hahaha. I've added dates, boiled in water to mush them up. I think I'll add more than the 1/2 cup I used this time but maybe that's only because I like things sweet. The recipe makes 12, asks for 1/2 cup sugar; I think that's a bit low but I'll have to compare with other recipes, that are real muffins and not mini cakes, if you know what I mean.

xo
myriam

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