Is it REALLY Thursday?!

A couple of weeks ago I tried the Kale chips that Starbucks carries. I wasn't convinced.

This week I decided to try the Moon Cheese. I don't know what they do to make these cheese things, but the Gouda, which I tried yesterday, wasn't so good. 

Today I decided to try the Cheddar. It's not bad. Kind of like a cheeto, but not as light and airy. At least you can kind of detect that it is Cheddar.

 

MONDAY - Make up for...

Forgetting to post during the weekend!

Indo food baby! I  miss my mom's cooking more and more as I get older. When I was growing up we ate Indo food most nights of the week. I didn't realize then how special that was.

Hobbit Day!

Gandalf & Bilbo sitting down for some tea

Today is Hobbit Day - I stumbled upon this while on my google homepage... Anyway, it's already too late to have Breakfast and Second Breakfast, but there is a whole day ahead of me! There is still time for Elevenses, Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, Dinner and Supper. Time to get started!

Some of the foods that Hobbits are fond of are as follows:

Mushrooms, Mince Pies, Fish & Chips, Blackberry Tarts, Bread and lots of BUTTER, Pickles, CHEESE, Food made from vegetables such as corn, turnips, potatoes and onions, Honey and foods made with honey, Scones - Wine, Beer, Tea and Coffee.

I think that EVERY day should be HOBBIT DAY!

Catching up...

Seems like I run out of time by the end of the day to update this blog. It's not like we have done anything out of the ordinary, mostly the same ol' thing day in and day out...to the gym, to work and then home to collapse. Every now and then we do something a little different...Like make HOT DISH!

This may be the second time - EVER - that I have made tater tot casserole. It's pretty easy, but it doesn't fit into my definition of healthy. So I don't think that we'll be having this again anytime soon. The recipe was pretty easy though, 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef browned, half an onion chopped, 4 cups of frozen veggies (I used beans and corn) 2 cans of cream of chicken soup (98% fat free) and TOTS. Baked at 375 degrees for 1 hour, checking after 30 minutes and adding shredded cheese...OH MY!

Yep, healthy never looked so good!

Island Cafe

We both had the day off of work and it was a perfect day to go and enjoy Happy Hour at Island Cafe...

This digital collage created with Smilebox

Food, Fun & Friends

This past Saturday we met up with some friends for Pizza, Frozen Yogurt and then games. We ate a lot and had a lot of fun together. These friends are so great, love them all! After I got the photos all downloaded I was a little sad that I missed getting a photo of Dani...so I used a photo from last year's pizza & dominoes night. Clever yes?

Good food, good fun and great friends!

This digital collage personalized with Smilebox

OINK

Yeah, I would choose a day where over-eating is almost expected to do a post on pig-candy...kinda crazy that I would even do a smilebox for this taste treat. Enjoy!

Create your own picture collage

Chuck's

My Monday routine for the past bazillion years has been to meet with Robin and Andrew and hang out and drink coffee. Well, it's been a bazillion years and things are just now starting to get a little stale. So now we are diversifying and going to different places for our visits. Here's a sampling - Yo'Licious frozen yogurt, Charlie's Bistro, Starbucks at Esther Short park and this week Chuck's Produce & Street Market.

Chuck's opened last Thursday in what used to be Joe's on Mill Plain. It was a fun outing for the 4 of us (Andrew & Tom came along too) and while I thought they had a nice variety of food stuff, I don't think that it is a place that I would go to routinely. It is a little bit out of the way -  15 to 17 miles to Chucks (depending on your route) while Winco is just about 5 miles away from our house. Less driving is best for me :)

It might be fun for lunch, if we happen to be in that area...which is not that often. At least we have options. 


Got some good photos though...

This slideshow design made with Smilebox

Time to Cook!

I love to cook and Tom seems to like what I cook. So it's fun to try new things and buy cookbooks to explore even more recipes from different cultures. My latest new fave would be Vindaloo from Jamie's Food Revolution...SO good!

Personalize your own photo album

February 9-15, 2009

This was dinner week. It seems like we don't do too badly with dinner around here!

February 9, 2009 - Probably my favorite quick pasta sauce, Tomato Pesto....oh so good!

February 10, 2009 - We tried yet another Salmon Cake recipe this week, this one was pretty good, from Eating Well. February 11, 2009 - I had a dentist appointment this afternoon so I was wanting something pretty easy - Quesadillas with shredded rotisserie chicken and homemade guacamole.

February 12, 2009 - We had lots of salmon left over so more salmon cakes, but this time on whole wheat buns. Tried to make it healthy with asparagus and some fruit. The fruit was not my idea. I don't really like fruit with dinner.
February 13, 2009 - Friday Night is always eat out night. We end up at Sushi Tsunami probably every other week. Mmmmm, unagi...
February 14, 2009 - Instead of going out for Valentine's dinner we made a GIANT lasagna for dinner. After we assembled the GIANT casserole we had enough to make a 8x8 sized one which would probably have been the more appropriate size, but hey, now I don't have to think about what to make for lunch or dinner...or whatever.
February 15, 2009 - We met Kristen & Cameron at Bortolami's for dinner tonight. Matt was out of town with son #1 - skiing. Ciclismo Veggie Pizza and Pink Jersey Meaty Special - oh my, so good!

cuisson française

This last Spring our church had a family movie night and picked the movie Ratatouille. For fun we thought of having a ratatouille tasting. Of course Tom signed up and took a recipe, but really I did most of the work (shopping, prep, etc.) Also, I searched for another recipe to see how close the one that was handed out was. I settled on a "Tyler's Ultimate Ratatouille". Also, I usually will try out a recipe if I have some sort of idea what it should look like so I have an frame of reference - there was a photo along with the Tyler's Ultimate recipe. I got to cooking and did exactly as the recipe directed and thought it turned out pretty good. However, once I brought it to the church, I wasn't so sure that it was actually done correctly - booo.

Fortunately for me, one of the Barista's at our local Starbucks is from France and I had an opportunity to ask him what the heck it was supposed to look like. Turns out it is a side dish that of veggies that are cooked down, but not so much that they are MUSHY (or mooshy), so the veggies are soft, but still hold their shape. So with this bit of information I surmised that I had done it correctly, just wasn't sure on the taste of it - how would I know what it is supposed to taste like? For me it tasted okay, but then it was my first try at it. Also, he asked me why I didn't bring him some...YIKES! Bringing a dish to a person who is from the country of origin for scrutiny...scary!

Last week I had a hankering for ratatouille and decided that I would make some for us and then share some with Stephane. Monday night rolled around and I went to the store to see if he was working and he was so I presented my ratatouille offering and he took a whiff and noted that it smelled right. SCORE! That was enough for me to last a couple of days. As the week went on, I had not seen him and was starting to wonder if I might have made him sick or something...hehe.

This morning I got the final report from him and he said it was "Very good." That is high praise coming from a frenchman and a proper one at that! We visited for a couple of minutes after the rush was over and he said that the fact that the veggies were not so soft that they fell apart made it good. I'm pretty excited about that - I really like to cook food as close to the original recipe as possible and I guess it worked well this time.

I like ratatouille and all, but it is a involved process with cooking each of the veggies separately first and then adding in everything at the end - it doesn't fit into my lets get this food going mentality, but then neither do several other dishes that I have tried out

I think I'm almost ready for my cooking show!

Tamales Part I

Mexican food is one of my favorites, but we don't go out for Mexican around here because I have not found a good place to dine at yet. Actually, if we aren't in Tijuana with YWAM then I won't be going out for Mexican food anytime soon. We love the tacos at Tacos El Gordo located not far from Avenida Revelucion...

Fresh tortillas...oh my...

Besides carne asada I love tamales. It must be the masa because it's pretty rockin' stuff! After a couple of trips to Tijuana and watching the ladies making the tortillas I decided that it really couldn't be that difficult - turns out they are not that difficult and I have made tortillas quite often. Since those days I have been wanting to try to make Tamales. I have yet to find a decent tamale and really any old tamale will do in a pinch, but a really good one is hard to find. The closest I have gotten is at the Vancouver Farmer's Market, even then it was a little bland, no sauce, but really good flavor...it has to be the masa...I love the masa!

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a couple of books on Tamales and have been "studying" the instructions to get familiar with them. There are lots of good recipes, but I'm going to stick with a traditional pork with red sauce tamale to begin with. Since our vacation is coming up in a week I decided that would be a perfect time to make them as they are labor intensive and can be an all day project. I will make them into a project that spans over a few days just to get it kind of right.

I have already begun the process by cooking the pork a couple of days ago and today I will actually make the meat mixture and get it ready to go and perhaps try freezing it to see how that works out. I'll actually form them and wrap them in the corn husks next week - more on tamales later!

Comfort Food

Macaroni & Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Meat Loaf - you name it - comfort food. My comfort food is a little out of reach - my mom's cooking. It's been more than 20 years now since I had my mom's Smoor Kip or Sayur Lodeh, these foods are comfort for me. Our menu consisted mainly of indonesian cuisine. I begged for spaghetti on occasion, but these days, if I had a choice, I would probably pick food from my youth over pasta.

Meal time at our house was always at the table and always together. Dinner was ready at 5pm when my dad arrived home from work. Meals were always home cooked and sometimes, not often, one meal would stretch over 2 or 3 nights in a row - this explains why I do not care for left-overs very much. I miss those meals though, my mom really was a good cook. I learned about cooking and how to cook by spending time in the kitchen with her and watching her cook and sometimes helping out. At 16 I made my first indo dish, Smoor, which turned out pretty well.

This last weekend Tom and I chunked up a pork roast and put the chunks into a marinade of Ketjap (sweet soy sauce), djintan (cumin), onions and salt & pepper. It wasn't exactly like mom's, but it worked. The house smelled just like home and it was heavenly. Last night I tried a recipe for yellow rice. My goodness was that good! The flavor comes from the coconut milk and the color from Turmeric. I found out yesterday that if you get turmeric on anything it will stain...oh well - the kitchen counters are not that special anyway. I have most of the ingredients for the Sayur Lodeh, that may be the next dish I whip up!

Here's to cooking like my mom! The best cook ever!

Here is the site that I found some recipes from...

http://www.rugebregt.com/index.html