Life Eaters

Thick, Hearty and God-Damn Delicious

So I just finished making (and eating) what is probably the very best stew I’ve ever had in my life. I made this once last winter for an ice fishing trip, and after a year I was wondering if maybe my fond memories of the unbelievably delicious, hearty flavor were a figment of fading memories and associations with the fun times I enjoyed my last batch in. So I remade this recipe (which happens to be inspired by one of my favorite cookbook writers, Cresent DragonWagon) and the truth of the matter is that it really is as God-damn good as I remembered it being.

It’s not so easy to make a good hearty vegetarian stew, because typically the thick, rich liquid is made by the simmering of some sort of beef or fill-in-your-flesh-of choice and pulling out the juices. I’ll save you the details of the recipe, but the base of this one is made with veggie stock, tamari and red wine, with a little plum vinegar. Add some saitan and root vegetables an some time on the stove (and some secret ingredients!) and you’ve got yourself a dish that will warm up cold show-shoveling or car-window-scraping minnesotan.

The icing on the cake is that the wine that’s leftover from the recipe is naturally a perfect pairing for the finished dish

Eats soup

Swedish-y Meatballs: the grown up version of Gramma's delight. That sounded bad.

So, as 30 approaches, I am finally understanding what people mean when when they say, “I can’t eat like I used to.”  It’s true!  On one hand, I will NEVER sacrifice flavor for the sake of a smaller belt notch, but on the other hand I am realizing that I simply can’t expect to eat the richest, cheesiest, creamiest dishes every night of the week and not feel like wearing my pajama pants to work everyday.  So, in the spirit of compromise, I am researching ways to mimic my favorite rich dishes in a more healthy, non-artery clogging, heart-stopping way.  It’s a lesson in food science.

Tonight I made one of my favorites: Swedish Meatballs.  Traditionally, this dish comes with a few cans of Cream of Mushroom soup.  Instead of that, I used milk, veggie broth, butter and flour.  Add some nutmeg and all-spice and when I closed my eyes I was almost back at Gramma’s house eating meatballs and being called a schiester while Grampa cheats at a game of  cribbage.  Ah family.

I also used ground turkey instead of ground beef or pork.

Meatballs:

2 slices whole wheat bread, in small pieces (soaked in 1/2 c. milk)

2 lbs. ground turkey

2 eggs

1/2 c. breadcrumbs

nutmeg and allspice

Sauce:

3 T blsp butter

1/4 c. flour

1 c. milk

3 c. veggie/chx broth

spinach

nutmeg and allspice

Eats TAT

What says comfort food like chicken pot pie?!?  Biggest Loser AND chicken pot pies!!!  One of my favorite food-ventures lately has been the chicken pot pies Sarah and I made for TAT #2.  As you can see, they were out of this world.

Chicken Pot Pie: Chicken, peas, carrots, celery and delicious gravy (snatch that gravy up!) baked inside of a buttery crispy crust. YUM!

The recipe can be found on one of my favorite blogs, smittenkitchen, here http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/11/chicken-pot-pie/.

After a few attempts at figuring out how to make and affix dough to a tin foil mini pie tin, we got it down and now have a freezer full of the homemade food version of a mom hug.  Yay.

Eats TAT

Poached egg on cheesy toast with truffle oil and tomatoes

Okay, so this was just over a week ago, and with Dunchfest and SantaCon and lots of other great adventures distancing myself from this wonderful brunch, I’ll just keep the details short and sweet and let the photos speak for themselves.

Alyssa woke me up the morning of my birthday last Saturday with promises for something wonderful for all of my senses, one of which was an incredible, delectable Saturday morning home cooked brunch. On the menu was pesto twice baked potatoes, lemon ricotta crepes with blueberry topping and bananas, and an amazing truffle-cheese toast with a poached egg. Seriously, I was in heaven.

Eats brunch

Feta Cheese Stuffed Roasted Red Pepper and Rosemary Turkey Burgers with Crispy Prosciutto and Pesto Toppings with Rosemary Roasted Potatoes and Yellow Tomatoes with Cottage Cheese

Sarah instigated Tuesdays are Taken in an effort to never again let a whole week go by without seeing each other…we live under that same roof afterall!  So for this season of TAT, we are watching The Biggest Loser and cooking anything and everything that will get us on that show eventually.  Tonight we fired up the grill for these delicious turkey burgers.  Tuesdays are Taken are also fast becoming the night of the week that I get to cook with meat.  🙂  These burgers were as good reheated as they were the night of.  Turkey surprisingly makes great burgers and meatballs too!  It has the same texture of ground beef, but seems to absorb the flavors of the complimentary ingredients better than beef.  It also doesn’t feel like a greasy brick after scarfing it down.

Sarah gives the meal a “best burgers I’ve ever eaten, but didn’t like the prosciutto as much 8.7”

Alyssa gives it a “9.4 for the turkey burger surprise sneak attack and an extra point for the bacon… bacon always gets an extra point.”

Eats Burgers, TAT, Turkey

Pickled Green Beans

When I woke up this morning I found a mountain, literally, of canned pickled green beans.  With the help of Sarah and Nicki, we were able to can 22 jars of delicious organic spicy green beans, with the plan of giving them out for Christmas to our friends.  At this point though, I’ll consider it a Christmas miracle if they last that long sitting on my counter.  God they look amazing.

Absolutely gorgeous. The jars all stuffed and ready for the brine!

Brine, bring to a boil:

2.5 c. water

2.5 c. vinager

1/4 c. salt

Each jar had green beans, onions, julienned carrots, garlic cloves, thai and jalepeno peppers, dill, peppercorns and mustard seeds.   MMM.  Let’s hope we didn’t just brew a batch of botchulism….

Eats Canning

We started out with one big batch of this, throwing in lots of carrots, onion, chiles and loads of coconut milk, then we split it up and did half with fish and half with mock duck. the fish we may have overcooked a little bit as it was a little dry, but the mock duck was spectacular.

If we were to do it again, maybe add a little more spice, and some sort of zing, maybe lemongrass or thai basil. I’m really really looking forward to the leftovers that are in my fridge right now.!

Eats curry

Orgasmic Mac and Cheese

Inspired by the mac and cheese I made last week, Alyssa and I decided to make one one of the mac and cheese recipies from one of our new favorite food blogs (what we’re eating .com). And hot damn, this was good. We included lots of baby portabella mushrooms and drizzled some truffle oil over the top. The wole recipe can be found here.

We substituted rigatoni for the run-of-the-mill elbow noodles that the recipe called for because, well, it was just a good idea. The cheese base was basicly a Bechamel sauce (flour, milk, herbs) with lots of cheese added in. We tried to sneak the goat cheese past Nicki, but it didn’t work, she detected it right away.

Eats Mac and Cheese, Pasta

Apple, Butternut Squash, Endive, Pomegranate Seeds, Dried Cranberries and Blue Cheese Salad with Lemon and Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing

For our magical dinner party when Dania was in town for only one night.  Followed by those deliscious parm cups full of creamy cheesy goodness and then the rock your face off fish tower of splendor………

And then a delicous Apple and Persimmon Crisp to finish it off.  I don’t even remember eating this, maybe due to the copious amounts of wine consumed over dinner.  Way to go Camp Fox!!!!  And thanks for visiting Dania!  It was pure magic.

Eats Fish, Salad

Well. Here’s the first posting in our blog. Still a lot of things we need to do with it, but I’ll get to that. In the meantime. Here’s what I made on Sunday night. I didn’t have the heart to spend the extra money on the Creme Fraiche or the cave aged Comte cheese, so I substituted with a mix of Gruyere and Fontina for the Comte, and Creame Cheese and a little extra heavy whipping cream for the Creme Fraiche.

Baked Mac and Cheese with Cauliflour, Gruyere, Fontina and Cream Cheese

Eats Mac and Cheese, Pasta