Emily Bloss

Last weekend we went up into Brooksville to do a little shopping and discovered a new produce market. Much to my delight, I was able to get not one but TWO adventure foods! They had a section of Middle Eastern foods, so I got kefir cheese and green za’atar – a spice mix of roasted thyme, ground sumac, sesame seeds and salt. It is soooo good. I’ve been mixing it up in the kefir cheese and dipping veggies in it – an amazing breakfast!

The kefir cheese tastes like a cross between yogurt and sour cream, firm and a bit tangy. The most common use for the za’atar is to sprinkle it on bread, or put it in oil and dip your bread into it. I can’t wait until our challenge is over so I can make some bread to put it on!

When I took the picture, I noticed it says “No salt” on the front of the za’atar package. But the ingredients include salt. I wonder which is right?

On my quest to find non-hydrogenated lard, I stopped at a little Cuban market the other day, and I saw a sign in the window… goat, $2.35 per pound. We haven’t had adventure food in a while, so I bought some and tonight we had stew. It was good, but not so unique or different that I would run right out and buy it again. It was very tender, and a little gamy like venison. The guy there told me they have it on Saturdays, cooked, so I might go up there some weekend and get some, to see how they prepare it.

And there’s one other thing about eating goat… Trav kept saying “Sorry, goat!” because he had goats as pets when he was a kid, and he was making this sad face… I don’t want to see that frown again anytime soon. We had a discussion about eating things you once had as a pet… I guess it would be kind of weird to eat dog or cat meat. But we decided that because fish don’t have fur and they don’t love you, that’s OK.

Boy, I sure have come a long way from the teenage vegetarian, eh?

I could have mulled beer! It sounds very interesting but I want to wait until it gets cold again to try it. It just doesn’t seem right to drink hot beer while the air conditioning is running!

How to Make Mulled Beer at WikiHow

Our forecast for this week is high 70s during the day and in the 50s at night. Maybe next week…

Bleys found this neat list of 100 things to eat before you die. There’s only one thing on there I don’t think I would even try – road kill. Ugh! I’ve eaten 40 things on the list, or maybe my count should be 39. Does the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle count as “whole insects”? Ewww. I suppose I could get some of the crickets they have on sale at the mall candy store. They did have bacon-flavored ones… hmmm…..!

Bleys has eaten 39 things, too! How about you?

Remember that commercial for Beggin’ Strips? I love that one. And I love bacon… it’s one of my top 3 favorite foods. The other day I found a fun blog that has an interesting recipe:

Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

I definitely want to try these. I wonder if I can find canned biscuits without hydrogenated oil in them? If not, I guess I’ll have to do it from scratch. Nummy nummy num!!

Tonight I made an experimental batch of sushi and it turned out really good! This recipe came from the Delicious Living magazine and I definitely want to make this again. The magazine calls them Three-Minute Sushi Rolls but they took a bit of work to prepare (maybe half an hour). I suppose if you only count the actual rolling up, maybe that’s three minutes! They were very yummy and I’m looking forward to the leftovers for my breakfast. mmmm…

Sushi Rolls

2 nori seaweed sheets
16-20 spinach leaves, washed and patted dry
4 oz. thinly sliced smoked salmon
3 tablespoons cream cheese, plus a little more for sealing
1/2 avocado
1 small carrot, sliced into matchsticks
1/2 small cucumber, sliced into matchsticks
Soy sauce, for dipping

Lay nori sheets on a dry, flat work surface. Lay spinach leaves in a single layer over the nori, leaving a 1/2″ gap at the top of each sheet. Allow about 1/2″ or so of the leaves to hang over side edges for a decorative effect.

About 1″ from the bottom of each sheet, lay salmon in a horizontal row on top of spinach. Spread cream cheese over salmon. Thinly slice avocado; just above salmon, arrange avocado in a horizontal row. Make a row of matchstick carrots and cucumber just above the avocado.

Spread a thin layer of cream cheese across the top 1/2″ of each nori sheet to help seal. Starting from the bottom, roll each sheet snugly to make a long, tight roll. Slice into 1″ pieces with a sharp, serrated knife. Dip and eat.

Speaking of eating out of the yard, this week we had the opportunity to sample sulphur shelf, a fungus that grows on both live and dead trees. Here it is, growing on an oak tree, just before I harvested some of the tender edges:

It’s also called Chicken of the Woods. It does have a pretty meaty texture, like portobello mushrooms, and it’s delicious! I found some ideas on what to do with it at the Birdchick Blog. First I soaked it in vinegar water, rinsed it, then cut it up and simmered it in chicken broth for 30 minutes. Today I threw some into my miso soup:

There’s a little bit left, which I plan on eating for breakfast tomorrow – wheat toast slathered with artichoke dip and topped with the sulphur shelf. Nummy!

MmmMmMMMMMmm!! Last night we had the Spicy Lamburgers and they were delicious. We all agreed to rate it a 5 on Allrecipes, because we would be satisfied if we got it in a restaurant. And for breakfast this morning, we had Curried Rice Pilaf, and everybody liked it! Definitely a keeper recipe to go into the book. Thanks, Mom!

Oh and speaking of restaurants… it turns out Taco Bell is not intended to be Mexican food (like we all didn’t know that already, hah!).

Mmmmmmm, I found what looks like a really good cookie in Aunt Susie’s “Cooky” recipe book (I think my parents have this book, too). Hopefully I can try them soon. Of course, it being so close to Christmas, we have a ton of treats in the house. But these don’t have any flour in them and almonds are good for you. Plus I’ll use either fresh or dried cherries with no added sugar. The recipe calls for blanched almonds but I’m not going to do that because the skin is good for you and nobody but me really cares about how the cookie looks, as long as it tastes good! Here’s the recipe:

Cherry Almond Macaroons

5 oz. slivered almonds (blanched, if preferred; about 1 1/4 cups)
3/4 C. sugar
3 egg whites
1/4 C. chopped maraschino cherries (or fresh or dried?)

Grind dry, crisp almonds through finest blade of food grinder/processor. Mix nuts, sugar and egg whites in sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, 8-10 minutes or until a path stays clean when spoon is drawn through. Remove from heat, stir in cherries. Drop level teaspoonsful of dough on 2 greased and lightly floured baking sheets. Let stand at room temperature until cool (this insures rounded macaroons).

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Bake about 20 minutes or until delicately golden on exterior but soft and moist inside. Remove from sheets immediately. Makes 2 dozen.

We tried out this new soup recipe on Sunday. We’ll keep it, but it’s not so delicious that it will be added to the regular rotation. It’s one of those “it’s good once in a while” recipes. I thought it tasted like something out of a can, but Bleys said it was much better after adding salt, pepper and a little garlic. We’ll try spicing it up a little more next time. I wish when a recipe says “pepper to taste” they would give some kind of starting point… are we talking a teaspoon, tablespoon, or … ? I’m never quite sure.

I like to make new dishes strictly by the recipe for the first time, so we can tell if it’s good as is, has potential, or just isn’t good. It drives me insane on AllRecipes, when people do a review and they say something like, “I substituted this, and added that, and did this differently, and I didn’t like this recipe.” Well DUH!! If you followed the recipe maybe it would have turned out better.

With this recipe, I was wondering about how the rice was going to affect the soup part. On the rice package, it calls for 1 cup of rice and 3 cups of broth. The soup recipe had 3/4 cup of rice and 6 cups of broth, so I was wondering if the rice was going to suck up half of the broth… and it did! Maybe risotto rice and arborio rice are two different things? I used risotto rice. The next day, there was no broth left, it was just chunky veggies and fat rice. Still tasted good, though.

So I’m now looking for the next great adventure food. Any suggestions?