Emily Bloss

Mmmmm. I just had a delicious dinner of a veggie pita and I want to remember what was in there so I can make it again. I think it would be good for a picnic, too. Or breakfast. Amounts are approximate.

oat bran pita bread
1/3 c feta cheese
1 green onion
1 slab roasted red pepper
1-2 leaves baby bok choy (or any leafy green that happens to be around)
1 leaf romaine lettuce
1-2 springs parsley
black pepper

Warm pita in microwave for 10-15 seconds. Put cheese in and leave a minute to warm up. Then put in veggies, dust with pepper and enjoy!

I tried a new breakfast today, after reading about how turmeric is very good for you. I took about half a cup of plain yogurt, added a good bit of turmeric (maybe 1/4 teaspoon?), a dash of onion powder and some salt and pepper. Mixed that all up and then added some veggies… super-thinly sliced carrot and celery, diced tomato, a little yellow bell pepper, a green onion and some parsley. It tasted delicious! I bet it would make a good salad dressing. I’m going to try and find some recipes where I can use it, like this one for Sesame Braised Chicken & Cabbage. Sounds yummy! Anyone have suggestions?

Every time I see the name of this delicious spice, I think of the Tumeroks on Asheron’s Call (a multiplayer D&D-type game Trav & I used to play). Tonight Bleys picked a pilaf recipe that turned out quite good, after we spiced it up a bit. He says pilaf is normally bland, so I can see why it’s not a dish I would remember.

Anyways, while we were cooking I was wondering about turmeric and found this page:

World’s Healthiest Foods: Turmeric

Apparently it’s really, really good for you. So I’m going to try a breakfast of plain yogurt mixed with turmeric, onion powder, salt and pepper. Then I’ll cut up and mix in whatever veggies I can find – probably carrots, celery, radishes, tomato? Should be interesting! I’ll let you know how it turns out.

We discovered tonight that red curry is milder than green curry. The other night we had red curry shrimp and it was delicious. Tonight we had green curry chicken, and I used the same amount of green curry paste as I did of red (the recipe was the same) and boy, was it HOT! A little too hot for us… next time I’ll use maybe a little more than half that amount.

While researching curry heat, I found this really cool kitchen gadget – I want it!!

Coconut Shredder

When making coconut milk, I wonder if it would be better to use the coconut water or just plain water? I suppose both would be needed to get enough milk for a recipe. I would definitely like to try making our own coconut milk, that would be very cool. I’ve recently discovered that fresh coconut is one of my favorite foods – probably in the top 10. Mmm!

My mom sent this today – I just love this stuff!! I had been looking for ideas on things to make in addition to Cream Cheese Penguins, and here it is. Thanks, Mom!

What Chefs Do When They Are Bored

I think the next time I have to bring a dish somewhere, I’ll try the frogs and sheep. Also be sure to check out some of the links below the pictures… there’s some funny stuff on there!

Drumroll, please! Here are the dishes we’re planning this week…

• Steak Marsala with Pieroges
• Shrimp Scampi
• Italian Chicken Soup
• Sassy Sausage Soup
• Mixed Greens Salad with Italian Herb Crusted Chicken
  
• Chicken Enchiladas
• Grilled Marinated Steak

The other day I bought some naan bread as an adventure food (we ate it with Tandoori Chicken) and there was some left, so I made some hummus to help use it up. And I found another good recipe which I’ll try after this batch of hummus is gone… Spiced Sweet Roasted Red Pepper Hummus. Mmmm!!

Wow, this week is filled with soup because it’s been really, really cold. We had a hard freeze last night – it got down to 27 degrees. I hope our lone pineapple is OK! I haven’t looked yet because everything will be covered until tomorrow, when it starts to warm back up again.

Anyways, here’s our list for the week:

• Sassy Sausage and Black Bean Soup
• Spaghetti and Meatballs
• Japanese Stir Fry
• Italian Chicken Soup
• Taco Mac and Cheese
• Stew
• Scalloped Potatoes with Ham (experimental recipe)

We have at least one new recipe to try out this week… yummy! Plus I’ll be making the macaroons for a treat.

• Lamburgers
• Steak Marsala
• Skillet Lasagna Florentine
• Pizza with Pepperoni, Mushrooms and Onion
• Japanese Stir Fry
• Mixed Greens Salad with Italian Herb-Crusted Chicken
• Chicken & Shrimp Fried Rice

I’ve decided to post our weekly menus online so all in the house have easy access. Someday we’ll set up an RSS feed so Trav can display it on his site, too. For now, it’ll just be a regular ol’ post. Here’s a list of our meal choices for the coming week:

• Salad (romaine lettuce, 2 kinds of cabbage, bok choy, radishes, carrots, parsley, green onions and that red & white stuff that’s kind of a cross between cabbage and lettuce… what is that?)
• Chicken Marsala (Ate this tonight, with Panera sourdough baguette and perogies)
• Buffalo Chicken Wing Soup
• Beef Enchiladas
• Sausage, Noodles, Onion & Tomatoes (SNOT)
• Sassy Sausage and Black Bean Soup
• Mama’s Tuscan Spinach Rice Soup (experimental)

I’ll let you know how the Tuscan soup turns out… I can’t wait to try it!

Being prepared in advance is kind of strange!! I feel like I should be busy, running around the kitchen preparing large quantities of food. But here I am, sitting at the computer, feeding rice to hungry people and then pacing around the kitchen, noshing on pumpkin seeds and hazelnuts while we wait for everyone to arrive. We’re going to eat around 3:00.

The turkey is coming along nicely. The stuffing turned out really good – I think it’s going to be almost worthy of my Dad’s.

In one of my newsletters, I got a link to a very cool site… Grocery Guide. It allows you to check out the specials at your local stores, and to compare deals. It’s still in beta so it may not have all the stores in your area, but it looks pretty cool!

Time to go baste the turkey.