Eggspectations

When i first moved to New York my fabulous friend Rachel bought me a book all about eggs. How to make basic stuff and how to make real fancy things. Really she knew how much i loved poached eggs and wanted me to learn to make them at home. Well i have that under my belt and last week i decided to try out a few new ones. Pretty much we ran out of food, but had lots of veggies and thought scrambled or omelet or something along those lines. WELL i am not done with my testing food thing so i figured i'd give a Frittata a go.

This is what the book calls a Frittata....i call it a poorly constructed omelet. Gross as it looks it was really delicious.
ingredients= tomatoes, cold smoked salmon, onion and zucs



Last night the same deal. Forgot to unfreeze some meat and had lots of farmers market veggies to consume. This is my interpretation of a souffle. it was super yum and easy to boot!!
Ingredients= 5 eggs, some milk, lots oh parm, and cherry tomatoes.

For all the kale i must give him and my stomach something rewarding

With all the kale (and other nutty foods) i've been making i needed to reward joe and my tummy with a "healthy" chocolaty dessert. I decided chocolate dipped peach slices were easy and healthy for me and delicious for us both. Finally here is something proud to display. Oh and it was RIDICULOUSLY easy...minus the part of getting the peaches onto the tray without it being too obvious how i got them there. There was nothing involved in this recipe except for semi-sweet chocolate (highest percent of cacao) and a organic local peach. How much better does it get!?


Sorry joe...such an unflattering picture...what else was i to do?

there is always goign to be the dud

As i mentioned when i started this cooking section of my blog that i have a huge pile of recipes stored up. I'm sure you've got something like it "oh this looks so good, i'll try this next time i (fill in the blank, have company, eat/cook, have 3 months of free time to waste)". Enter in the recipes from the New York Magazine. I should have known this wouldn't work out b/c usually this section is filled with stuff that i look at and think geez that looks good and who has the time for this? so many steps and is much too complicated. WELL cookies seem so easy that i thought F'it, i'll give it a go!

Here is what they expected




Here is what i got. No need to examine these closely they are as flat as they seem. The height is due purely to the mounds of almonds compacted in a sugary bunch.



My parents are probably laughing because i was that kid, no wait teenager, no wait grown up who would miss an ingredient or add too much um salt or molasses, as two memorable occasions, into a recipe. I swear i didn't do anything wrong with this. i double checked!!!

For any of you who want to give'r a go here is the recipe. Oh and be sure to tell me how much better yours turned out (photos are always great!).
ps: i threw out the recipe along with most of the cookies!

http://nymag.com/restaurants/recipes/inseason/45991/

Kale chips

Oh the joys of kale... full of so many good things for you and yet it can taste sooooooooo bad (and smell so bad)...especially if done wrong. Joe is being such a good sport because not only did i force him to eat a salad concoction of kale, beets and pumpkin seeds (which i may add was really good), but he's now smelling kale almost daily as i find new ways to incorporate this hearty, fabulous and plentiful vegetable.
I had read/watched this video on ways to make kale chips (a replacement for potato chips and even the "healthy" veggie chips) and it seemed soooooooooo easy i decided to try it myself. pretty much you tear up the kale, massage with olive oil, lemon juice and salt (and pepper in mine) and place in the oven for 20-40 minutes, depending on your crispy factor. Here is what i got.




This is definitely NOT what the cook online had made, but hey i'm an amateur and as i've said before...just learning! As much as i ohhhh'd and awwwww'd over how yummy the chips were, Joe wouldn't try one. The stink of healthy goodness was too much for him. Oh well, more for me!

Kelp Noodles

What the heck are these little noodley buggers? People i've been reading say they are the insides of kelp...the sea vegetable. I went on the hunt for them. I tried my local organic grocer (because kelp noodles are a "raw" product)...no luck. I tried the specialty store...no luck. I tried the Japanese market where no one spoke English....no luck. Okay let's google. Well apparently kelp noodles are HUGE on the west coast...who's surprised there? The company provides the noodles to almost all the Whole Foods in LA and San Fransisco and then a few extra health related stores (i swear they have at least 45 or more stores selling kelp noodles) and New York has ZERO! count'm ZERO stores selling kelp noodles. Oh wait i lied, in Buchannan, NY, Flushing, NY and Pine City, NY there are stores that sell them.
Because we live in a world where i CAN get anything i want, i went online and ordered them. Well here's the annoying part, the company who makes them "Sea Tangle" only sells them in cases of 12, so the search continued until i found a small raw/vegan/organic store that sells them. They arrived in that fancy packaging that i already wrote about and here i what i created.

I call them Asian inspired noodles.


You rinse the noodles and they are ready to eat. The thing is they have NO taste. It's so strange, they are ridiculously crunchy, but have no taste. I'd say they are kinda like a cucumber, but even cucumbers have a taste. Because of the lack of taste i added some other yummy thing.


I added some tofu for protein, carrots, and later some cucumber. For sauce i made a peanut butter, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, toasted sesame seed and cilantro mixy deliciousy thing. I swear i could drink this concoction!
And Voila....an up close and personal shot of my lunch.


HIGHLY recommend at least trying them. You can't loose in this one. no taste, lots of crunch and ridiculously good for you!

What DO you do all day?

I'm sure many of you are wondering what I do with all this free time i've got since i'm still unemployed. Now that i'm all caught up on sleep...that was about 20 years of backed up exhaustion I now have time for other things i like to do. Other than search daily for jobs i've been doing A LOT of reading and cooking.

The cooking thing did a bit of a skyrocket thing when Joe and I moved in together. Cooking for more than one person is so much more enjoyable and i like learning all these cool new recipes and new products available. Also there are a bunch of farmers markets near by and seeing all the local and organic produce just makes me want to get creative.

I'm not exactly sure how this all started, probably something to do with all my stored up recipes that i never tested out, and a link sent to me from a friend of mine, but i started to learn about organic, nutritional cooking. The idea of more healthy, whole grain, fruit and veggies in and processed food out. I'm a good eater as it is. I have variety in my diet, but sadly produce is where i would cheap out. I've never been a person who eats a lot of pre-made frozen foods, but who doesn't like convenience? With all my reading I started to learn more about why i should buy local, eat whole grains, why i should cut down on my meat intake (that's the hardest one for me) and why organic is better for us. I'm not going to start on you guys to change....but i did want to show you some of the stuff i've been doing! These foods are probably old news for some of you, but for me, it's exciting and this is what i do all day. Read about crazy things and then try to make them.

A message before i finish. I have never called myself a cook, nor do i believe that i create beautiful things, and Joe can attest to this i'm very critical of my cooking always wanting to make my recipes better. So when you look at my food don't judge on the presentation, just know that it's a learning experience (because how else do you learn to cook?!?!).

Have you ever experienced anything so cool?!

So this has nothing to do with my life in new york...well i guess it does because this is happening while i'm here, anyways i digress. To the story: i received some packing popcorn in a box to protect the kelp noodles i had shipped to me. The kelp noodles thing i'll explain later. All this packing popcorn arrived...i hate packing popcorn. It gets everywhere, sticks to everything and it's impossible to dispose of. I had heard rumors of this dissolving packing popcorn and i thought there is no way an organic/raw/eco friendly store would send me styrofoam packing popcorn. So i stuck it underwater and in a matter of seconds it dissolved.

SUPER COOL!!!

Because i wanted everyone to enjoy my amazing discovery i documented it. so enjoy...if this is totally lame and you are starting to notice that my unemployed days are being used for nutty things...well yes you're right. what else can i do with my time while i'm not hunting for jobs! i'm open to suggestions.