Sunday, February 27, 2011

3 Good Food Highlights From This Week

1. A good reason to have fruit in the freezer at all times.....

Homemade Blackberry Syrup
We ran out of maple syrup and really wanted buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. Nate had just gotten these organic blackberries from the store and didn't have any plans for them, so he cooked up a syrup. A very yummy and decadent meal!


2. Yummy Comfort Food

 Cauliflower Soup
The beautiful organic cauliflower that I got on sale inspired me to make this creamy comfort food. I topped it off with our homemade croutons. Yum! I easily found an amazing recipe on another food blog. Follow the link to get it: Cauliflower Soup Recipe from Pioneer Woman. So, her blog is much more professional than mine, as she is a published author and photographer.. but it's very inspiring!

3. A tasty birthday cake for Jeni


My First Homemade Carrot Cake
I made this pretty cake for my friend and coworker Jeni's birthday. I got the recipe for the cake and icing from the cookbook of my favorite Athens restaurant, The Grit. A fun but very time consuming cake. I got more than one "best carrot cake ever" comment, which made it worth every minute!

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Your feedback is welcomed! Please let me know if you want a recipe or have any suggestions for posts. This blog is as much for you as it is for me! Thank you for your support and please share with your foodie friends!
  

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Healthy Comfort Food

Last night's dinner is one of my wintertime favorites. One of the best things about it is that we can usually have this meal any time; we always have the ingredients on hand. We just have to get a crusty baguette for the side and that is not even completely necessary.





Tomato and Rice (or Barley) Soup


Nate found a delicious recipe for Tomato and Rice Soup, which we have modified several times. We use our home canned stewed tomatoes, chicken stock and either rice or hulled barley. It gets topped with our homemade croutons and fresh grated parmesan cheese. I have become a believer that if you have a well stocked pantry, you can come up with a delicious & nutritious meal anytime. This meal is a very good example. The hard work done at the end of the summer to can several quarts of fresh local tomatoes, pays off when you can enjoy it all year long. We have also started saving stale bread and baguettes in the freezer for making large batches of croutons. We freeze the croutons once made and we now have those on hand most of the time. Grains like brown rice and barley and vegetable or chicken broth should always be in the pantry too! We make our own stock and store in the freezer, but more on that in a future post.....

To make it:

Cook your rice or hulled barley (1/2 cup or more if desired) in at least 2 cups of stock (from a 32 oz container). Once boiling, cover & cook for about 30-45 minutes. It's nice for the rice to be on the soft side and the barley will take closer to 45 minutes. You don't want the grains to absorb all of the liquid, so add more stock if it's getting too dry.

Once the rice or barley is cooked, add several cloves of minced garlic, about 3 tablespoons of olive oil and as much salt & pepper as desired. Stir and as soon as it begins to simmer again, add 1 quart of canned tomatoes. Ours had large pieces of tomato, so I used a smasher to break them up. Rinse the empty tomato jar with stock & dump that in.  Stir in the remaining stock and bring it to a simmer before serving.

Top your bowl with croutons & fresh grated parm. Garnish with celery greens, if you want to add some color. Serve with warm, crusty bread.



As pretty as it is TASTY!!
Nate added black olives to his bowl this time. Pretty tasty!



Friday, February 18, 2011

Sharing the cobbler love...

Mmmmmm Cobbler!
Besides eating raw, this is the BEST way to enjoy fresh fruit, in my opinion. Fresh local peaches... blueberries... even with my homemade apple pie fillin'. I'm new to the cobbler game, but the experimentation has been very fun! 

I did some online research, combined a few of my favorite recipes and made it my own. This time I added some oats to the dough. It was crispy on top, soft & gooey on bottom. I enjoyed this summery treat with the frozen blueberries we picked at Graveyard Fields* this August.

Of course, it's best enjoyed with fresh vanilla ice cream .... dreamy!

You asked for it.. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour   
3/4 cup sugar (for batter)
1/2 cup sugar (for fruit)
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk
4 cups fruit (be creative!)
A few tablespoons of brown sugar & cinnamon (for topping)


Melt butter in a 2&1/2 quart baking dish, in a 350 degree oven.
Combine flour, sugar (3/4 cup), baking powder & milk.
In a separate bowl, combine sugar (1/2 cup) with fruit.
You can add 1-2 cups of water to the fruit if you want a moist cobbler. 
Now for putting the stuff in the buttery hot pan to bake. You have 2 options:
1) Spoon the batter into the pan, mostly covering the bottom of the pan. 
Then cover with the fruit, finally sprinkling the brown sugar & cinnamon mix over the top.
OR...
2) Add the fruit to the buttery pan first, then cover with the batter & top with brown sugar & cinnamon.
This has been my method of choice. The results have never disappointed!
Bake in (already) 350 degree oven until it's browned to perfection. 
Time varies with the moisture of the mixture.. maybe between 10-15 minutes.

I love the seemingly endless ways I can modify this recipe. There are so many varieties of fruit that you can use to get the 4 cups it calls for! The oats I added (as pictured) made it nice and crispy and gave it a more complex flavor. I also like to think it made it more healthy! I hope you can have fun with this one too. Please, let me know what you come up with!








Sunday, February 13, 2011

Fun Food Finds & What's For Dinner

Today's Fun Food Find comes from our awesome local discount grocery, Amazing Savings. You can find some of the weirdest food products with super low prices. Questionable expiration dates don't deter us most of the time. Has anyone ever tried this one? In can or not? Comments are welcome!


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What's for Dinner?

Craving comfort food, we got out some of our homemade vegetable stock from the freezer to make chicken noodle soup. We had leftover chicken, so I pulled it off the bone, chopped up some celery & carrots and added some frozen corn to the stock. We added a little parsley, celery greens and a teaspoon of Organic Chicken "Better Than Bullion" for some extra flavor. Egg noodles would have been perfect, but the tiny Fideo noodles will have to do. (It's like the noodles in cup o' noodles, so it works.) I love it when a cozy meal like this turns out to be so easy & and cheap!


Saturday, February 12, 2011

Some thoughts on food..

Food is love. It means life & health to our bodies, structure to our day and a meeting place with those that we care about. Its very creation is exciting, challenging and sometimes complex. Cooking with or for the ones we love can be one of the most rewarding parts of our lives. Memories are created, with flavors and smells permanently burned into our hearts and minds.

-I wrote this on the evening I created this blog. I spent so much time trying to find the perfect words for the blog description and I ended up writing a lot more than I needed. The blog description ended up being just one sentence. I surprised myself with this little (kind of) poem. This blog is going to be fun, revealing things about myself, to myself, in addition to my readers. Exciting!
Thanks for the support... and inspiration!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Good Food, Bad Photos... And What's For Dinner

Nate & I have a collection of food pics that prior to deciding to blog, I had never thought to share with anyone other than our friend Mikell (the chef) or our Moms. The quality of the pics are definitely NOT up to my standards... especially since I have a degree in photography. I haven't done much food photography and I have heard that it can be challenging to make real food look as beautiful in a photo. As my blog develops, I hope to improve my food photo skills. We have been using either a camera phone (for easy sending) or our point & shoot cameras. I haven't pulled out the fancy SLR yet although I have been seriously thinking about it. I need to master the crappy lighting of my kitchen. I plan to refine the practice... but until then, here are a few memorable dishes from the past 2 years or so.....


 Nate's first loaf of bread. Hand kneaded, baby!


 Nate's homemade dill pickles.. freshly made from our home grown cukes.


 My first cobbler.. local peach & blueberry. Amazing!!! 
I have used this recipe several times since, and it never disappoints!


 My first apple pie. So pretty, all I wanna do is make pies!



 May River Blue Crabs, trapped by Nate & Mikell.


Nate's May River Oyster stew. One thing I truly miss about living by the sea!     







My first try at filo dough.. An apple tart. An hour and a half of butter painting fun!
   
 
      The payoff for the hour & a half butter painting party. Apple tart a' la mode.





 
My hand rolled sushi. Yes, that's masago.. we went all out!




Salmon, Asparagus, Cream Cheese yumminess!


Not just any chicken pesto.... Pesto with fresh basil from our garden. It's like gold!


Quite possibly the best brunch.. Smoked Salmon Benedict.. with my dreamy smooth hollandaise.


My first homemade corn bread. Made my Momma proud!


Spinach, Mushroom & Parm stuffed fish, w/ Tomatoes.. Not sure what kind of fish at this point, but it sure is pretty.


Our first homemade calzones w/ our home canned sauce.. I'm sure there were lots of shrooms, spinach & ricotta in there. 





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What's for dinner, you ask?

Tonight it was.. 
Balsamic & Olive Oil Marinated Portobello Burgers, 
topped with melted provolone cheese, fresh spinach & tomato*, 
on a locally (and perfectly) baked bun. 
 On the side, Baked Sweet Potato 
& Sauteed Chard with Garlic and Olive Oil.

*Disclaimer: We try our best not to get out of season foods, like this tomato. 
It wasn't a pretty or exciting tomato, but a sandwich just isn't a sandwich without one. 



Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A little bit of history...

I have always loved being in the kitchen. I spent many childhood summer days, carefully studying my mom's 1960s Betty Crocker cookbook and trying my luck at chocolate cake and brownies from scratch. I loved to bake and although I was a pretty picky eater, I enjoyed helping prepare meals with my mother and grandmother. I can't say that I spent my entire childhood in the kitchen, but I definitely have many fond memories of trying and miserably failing at making things like sweet tea and scrambled eggs on my own. I enjoyed the challenge and always aimed to please.

Fast forward to my college years, after my palate finally became more refined and I actually started eating and enjoying all kinds of vegetables. My college roommate Stephanie and I started cooking up food in our dorm room together. Illegally using our toaster oven and hot plate, we made what seemed to be gourmet meals, compared to the crap they were serving up downstairs. When we moved into our apartment the next year, we really started experimenting. She had the advantage of being Greek and Italian and I was highly motivated to eat healthy and find as many good recipes as possible. We made significant efforts to cook and eat well, as much as possible.

After college, being single and a workaholic, I slacked off in my efforts to cook and eat healthy all of the time. It is so challenging to shop  and cook for one, and not waste food! I still enjoyed cooking, but I didn't make as much effort, since I was rarely home. Working so much did put a few extra bucks in my pockets, so I spent it eating out at many of the wonderful restaurants in my area. No fast food. I ate pretty well, but looking back I cringe at how much money I wasted!

Finally, after a couple of years of eating out way too much,  a little cooking competition between friends sparked my interest and LOVE for cooking again, in a whole new way. It started as a small Lasagna cook-off,  between 3. After a a few more friends got involved, it became a competition between 6 Lasagnas. Sadly, I did not win, but the instigator of the event announced that it was the first of many more Cook-Offs. We would have a second competition next month, Chicken would be the theme and whoever wins, hosts the next one & decides on the theme. It was exciting! The competitions got more intense, with the # of entries growing at each event. There would be so much food, you could hardly try it all to vote on it! I would put a lot of planning and effort into my dishes and although the competition part was fun, it was being with friends that brought me the most joy. It was shortly after I met my boyfriend Nate that we had the Hawaiian Luau Cook-Off.  It was our first competition together, a joint effort which won us the cup for our "Aloha Chicken Luau." We took an internet recipe and added our own personal touches which made the dish come together, with distinction. We hosted the next event at my house, a Latin food theme and won again with Nate's "Jade Shrimp" tacos, with my homemade salsa and guac. Hosting again, we chose "A family recipe" as the theme. To my surprise, I won with my Great Grandmother's Chocolate pudding pie. We smoked 3 different Cook-Offs and had fallen in love in the process.

  Our first Cook-Off win.


  Announcing our win for the Latin Cook-Off. 
I swear, we didn't count the votes!

Great Grandma Bryant's Chocolate Pie. The meringue was a flop, but still a hit!

Meeting Nate made a difference in my life in so many ways. As my relationship with him grew, so did my relationship with food. Cooking became our courtship. We did not live together yet, but we planned meals, went to the store and cooked together, even after our very long, 12+ hour work days. When we moved to Asheville together, we became very excited about how our new home town would allow us to eat what we really want to eat... Fresh, healthy, local, organic-as-much-as-possible, in-season food. It is so readily available, less than a mile from our home, we have the WNC Farmer's market and within 5 minutes, our favorite grocery, Earthfare. We grow our own food, from spring until winter and even try to keep the greens going through the winter. It is so easy to eat well, in fact it's what we indulge in more than anything. It has been a financial struggle, starting over in a new town, but through it all, no matter what, we eat VERY well.

I am proud of the food that Nate and I create together. We make beautiful, delicious and interesting dishes together and for each other.  In our moments of pride, we like to photograph our creations. We didn't know what to do with all of these random photos we have of food. We would often send the pics to a chef friend to see if we could impress. The quality of the images was never that great, but we are still often compelled to photograph our food. I decided that we needed an outlet for these photos. All I seemed to photograph anymore was our cat and our food and I started to wonder what I should do with these pics. The kitty is probably not as interesting to others as she is to us, but the food... that is definitely relate-able. Nate's mom often asks about what we are having for dinner and it becomes a drawn out conversation, noting every special detail of our ingredients and what impressive meal we had the night before too. I started thinking about this and with the photos, I felt I might have something that could be interesting and fun to share.


I like being proud of what we eat, where it comes from and how pretty it looks on the plate. I feel compelled to share it. I want to inspire my friends that think they can't cook. I want to show them that cooking is fun, it can be easy and so very rewarding. I don't know how this blog will evolve, but I plan to share my experiences with food, my photos (even the bad ones) and recipes. This blog is a commitment and one that I am very excited about. I am happy to Share the Food Love and I hope that you will also Share the Food, Love.