Ghosts of Bad Food Past

My daughter, Helen, read my last entry and called to lecture me on the need to simplify my menu a bit and told me how she gets a bag of frozen fish fillets at Costco and bags of ready to steam vegetables. She probably also keeps little ziploc bags of cooked Japanese rice in her freezer just like me. I had to chuckle and tell her that I know very well how to make simple food. After all, she as my firstborn child back in the last 70's should remember well the way I cooked for her. I reminded her of the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with Oscar Mayer beef hot dog dinners (that was when I didn't care about nitrates!) or the fried bologna, egg, and rice. What about the fish sticks and french fries? Or canned spaghetti-o's? Nearly everything I cooked came from a box of frozen prepared foods or boxes of ready made mixes like Rice a Roni or Shake and Bake. I'd almost forgotten those days before my food snob ways took over my life. Simple was not so bad though. I went to my shelf of now well over a hundred cookbooks and looked for my early cookbooks. I had 3 cookbooks! I can't believe I only used those 3 cookbooks for years. Betty Crocker, Good Housekeeping, and a 2 part set of Better Homes and Gardens
Oh, make that 4, I also had The Joy of Cooking too. In the Betty Crocker cookbook I found a clipping of a newspaper recipe of a cheese ball covered with Amour dried beef. Yuk, did I really eat that? I remember making the same things over and over and relying on those handy mixes that I no longer buy--the ones I banished from my pantry a couple years ago, you know the "spaghetti seasoning mix", "taco seasoning mix", "meatloaf seasoning mix".
Now I have to research the dish I want to make by browsing my vast collection of cookbooks, binders of recipes, and Internet recipes before I get started. I prefer to use fresh ingredients, toast my spices, grind things in the spice blender, on and on... So although it's not so simple I have to admit my food is soooo much better now than when the kids were young.
But, Helen, every now and then I make a simple meal of fried rice, not with bologna, but a little leftover chicken, scallions, and scrambled egg with plenty of soy sauce and I remember the simpler times.

Be Your Own Personal Chef--or NOT

I had this brilliant (or so I thought) idea the other day. You see, I am trying very hard to lose a few pounds which is hard when you love to cook, eat, entertain, and go out to dinner (and lunch).

I want to exercise every evening after work and have done pretty well. Typical day--get up 5:30, make healthy breakfast for Steve, get ready for work, make healthy breakfast and lunch for myself and leave for work at 7:00. I get home at 4:45, unless there is an errand to run on the way home. I start walking of the treadmill at 5:00, walk for 1 hour, get in the car, drive 5 minutes to the gym, the Body Exchange. I work out for around 30 minutes, get home at 6:30.

There is still dinner to prepare so I usually have something in mind, and the problem is my mind is on preparing the dinner all the while I'm working out. I'd rather be cooking, truthfully, but I also need to take care of the body too. Being preoccupied with what I still need to do to get dinner on the table is a pain, and then getting all the stuff out to cook after the couple hours of working out is not much fun. I make a big mess because, of course, as chef I have to make a really good dinner with fresh vegetables, etc. By the time we eat dinner at 7:30 or so and finish up it's after 8:00, clean the kitchen, 8:30 and then I'm too tired to do anything else except sit on the couch and stare at the TV. I'd rather be working on the blog, website, reading, working on my photo album project, catching up on Facebook, etc.

Back to the "plan". I thought, hey--if I can be a personal chef for others, not that I've ever done this, but the concept of going to someone's home and preparing 5 entrees for 4 people during a "cook date", leaving everything neatly packaged with heating instructions, and cleaning up the mess is something I figured I could do in the future, why can't I do this for myself. I would spend a "few" hours on Sunday preparing all the meals for the week! This way I could come home from work, exercise, then instead of being preoccupied with the meal situation I would merely heat up the delicious, gourmet Chef Julia food.

I started with the menu development part. Easy enough. I've been wanting to make some new dishes out of a new book, 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer. Here's my menu for the week.
Note, the dishes would also be used for some of my lunches and my college daughter would take some meals with her back to the dorm.

Monday:
Chunky potatoes with garlic and peanuts
Roasted bell peppers and lentils
Chicken with red chiles and coconut milk

Tuesday:
Grilled salmon with citrus sauce
Carribean rice pilaf with cilantro, pineapple, tangerine, and toasted almonds
Iceberg wedge with Gorgonzola cheese and bacon

Wednesday:
Arugula and field greens with Asian pear and Gorgonzola cheese
Balsamic dressing
Crab cakes

Thursday:
Pan fried halibut with remoulade sauce
Oven roasted potatoes


Friday:
Chipotle beef tamale pie


So, I bought ALL the ingredients for the above on Saturday. Sunday at 10:15 AM I started cooking. I managed to make everything on my menu, except the fresh salmon and halibut, however I did cut it and wrap it in individual portions. I cleaned the kitchen as I went along so the mess wasn't too bad, but without taking any breaks, I finished at 4:00 PM. That's 6 hours!
I was exhausted--not a good way to spend Sunday.

Although the food looked and smelled wonderful I can't help but think this is not something I can do every week. I've got to come up with another plan and it can't be going out to dinner or getting take out, which is always my husband's solution--very expensive and very fattening.




Well at least for this week we'll eat well.

Beef Fried Rice

Years go by and you forget, but the other day Amanda, my son's ex and mother of his child (my gd Kyndal) reminded me that food memories have a life of their own. I offered to make her a cake to cheer her up and she asked for red velvet cake (not the cake I like to make but have made it for people by request). Then, she said what she really wanted was the beef fried rice I used to make her. I'll bet the last time I made her that rice was 5 years ago or more! I make all kinds of fried rice, being part Asian and all. I had to think back for a minute to remember the particular rice she was thinking about. Then I remembered--it was the Thai style rice I made to copy the long since closed Mithsampun Thai restaurant in Azle.
I decided I would make not just good, but great fried rice. I started with 3 cups of rice, my best Hitomebori new crop Japanese rice, cooked in the fuzzy logic rice cooker with exactly 3 cups of water, soaked for 20 minutes beforehand. I then took the rice out of the pan, spread it in a sheet pan and put it in the frig to chill. Chilled rice is essential to make unsticky fried rice.

3 cups Japanese rice, cooked and chilled
3/4 lb rib eye steak (or any good steak), sliced thin in strips measuring 1/4" X 2 "
2-3 T vegetable oil
2 carrots, small diced, steamed in microwave for 1 minute
1/2 small onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
3 eggs, scrambled, set aside
sauce:
2 T Tamari soy sauce
1 T Oyster sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
Mix above together, set aside
Add 1 T oil to medium hot skillet or wok. Add onion, garlic, and carrots and cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove and set aside. Add meat and cook until pink is gone being careful not to overcook. Remove and set aside.
Clean pan and and heat again. Add 1 T oil and 3-4 cups rice. Fry the rice over medium high heat until all grains are separated. Try to brown some of the rice.
Add the onions, carrots, meat and sauce. Cook 2 minutes, blending all together. Add the eggs and mix well. Taste and add more soy sauce to taste. Sprinkle with sea salt and serve.
For extra spicy rice, serve with a little sambal or srichracha.

This rice was really, really delicious and I know Amanda enjoyed it.
Next time I'll take a photo......
By the way, the red velvet cupcakes were also a big hit. I used the recipe from a Food Network Throwdown--never go wrong with that recipe.

Curried Shrimp

I was craving curried shrimp this week like the shrimp I had during a trip I took to Ruidoso, New Mexico over Christmas. I was there for a deployment to work on the Mescalero Apache reservation and we were staying at the Inn of the Mountain Gods. While the inn was nice enough, the food was limited to the big buffet with so many choices nothing could stand out, although they did have a nice spicy basil seafood dish. There was also a pub back in the casino with some pretty good sandwiches and such and I managed to finally order something good–a chicken quesadilla, but nothing compared to the taste of the curried shrimp at a Chinese restaurant in town. I would never order something like curried shrimp in a Chinese place since I would normally eat curried foods in Indian restaurants or make my own version of Japanese curry, so when Maurice Sheehan ordered it, and asked for it extra spicy, I tuned it out. When my dish,“ants climbing a tree”, or noodles with meat, arrived it was shiny with oil and rather gloppy, too much, too cooked, too salty. Maurice was kind enough to share his dish with the rest of us and I was surprised to taste a light, very spicy, just enough curry, and plump, tender shrimp with slightly crunchy pieces of onions and peppers. I wanted to eat the whole thing, but it was his dish so I refrained. I knew when I returned home I would either order the dish at my local Chinese restaurant (and I even looked on the web to see if it was on their menu and it was), or make it myself. I’ve been home for three weeks now and finally getting back to normal somewhat, at least back in the kitchen cooking nearly every night. I searched around the Internet for a basic Chinese curried shrimp recipe and found one I could use to get started. With my pound of excellent gulf shrimp, purchased a few days ago, on special at Central Market in Ft. Worth,cleaned and coated with a little cornstarch, salt and pepper, I proceeded to cut and prepare the other ingredients. With stir-fried food it’s important to have everything ready to go. I chopped onions, pepper, sliced ginger, and measured out ingredients for a sauce. The sauce consisted of chicken stock, Chinese wine, soy sauce and a little sugar, and then a mixture of curry powder combined with water into a paste. After cooking the shrimp by itself with the slice of ginger, and setting it aside I was ready to saute the onions and peppers. After cooking the shrimp in the curry sauce, plating it, and finally sitting down to taste it, I was so happy. It tasted just as good, if not a little better, than the curried shrimp I ate in New Mexico. The sauce was so tasty my husband scraped his plate to get every last drop. Although this recipe uses “curry powder”, it’s still a fine way to enjoy a spicy, healthy, and delicious meal in a short period of time. A food snob might scoff at the use of the already blended curry powder but I found an organic blend that is quite acceptable. This is a quick, weeknight dinner and time is of the essence.

Curried Shrimp (or use any protein you like–tofu, beef, chicken, pork)
1 lb. Peeled, deveined Gulf shrimp (or fresh as you can get it)
1 tsp cornstarch
½ tsp salt
dash of pepper
Combine above and cover shrimp with it, set aside.
Sauce
½ c chicken stock
2 tsp Chinese cooking wine (or sherry)
2 tsp Tamari (dark soy sauce)
½ tsp sugar
medium onion, large dice or sliced
large carrot, large dice, or sliced (par-cook by steaming or in microwave)
bell peppers, red, yellow or green, large dice, or sliced
(can also add peas, chunks of potato, any vegetable) (par-cook potato in microwave)
1 T canola oil
1 slice ginger
2 tsp Chinese wine
2 T curry powder, the best you can find, I use Morton & Bassett
Sambal, Sriracha, or crushed red peppers
Preheat skillet or wok on high heat, add ½ T oil, add ginger and cook for 2 minutes. Discard.
Add shrimp and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes, adding the wine during cooking. Remove and clean
wok or pan.
Add ½ T oil, add onion and curry paste, cook 2 minutes. Add carrots and other vegetables, add
shrimp, add sauce, return heat to high, bring to boil and cook for 3 minutes, stirring. Add
Sambal or crushed red pepper to bring to heat to your taste.
Serve with rice.
You will love this!

Eating Adventures in New Mexico

I'm back in Texas finally! Our team spent a hectic last couple days when one of our members, Maurice, became ill. He had to be hospitalized for dehydration and we spent our last evening with him in the hospital. We're not sure what happened but he suspects it was food poisoning. I won't mention the last place we had a meal, but suffice to say it was the only restaurant on the reservation. For the most part, it was a food wasteland in Ruidoso, New Mexico and it shouldn't have been. Just a few hours away in Santa Fe is some of the best food I've ever eaten, but Ruidoso is strictly for the tourists/skiers who must be satisfied with quantity, not quality. We had a pretty decent meal at The Great Wall, a Chinese & Sushi place, except for one diner. He made the mistake of ordering Kung Pao Chicken but got Kung Pao peanuts. When he complained the owner told him the traditional method of preparing this dish was to use 6 ounces of chicken but truthfully I think he got about 3 ounces. She gave us a certificate for a few appetizer but we won't be back. The Log Cabin and Cornerstone Cafe were good breakfast/brunch choices but no dinner places were as good. And I don't miss the Inn of the Mountain Gods buffet!!! It was so good to get back to Texas and a smoke free home. By the second week of our deployment the inn was crowded with New Years skiers and gamblers and the smoke level went say up. Even though I had a smoke "free" room and the entire floor was supposed to be smoke free it wasn't. People smoked in the hall and the smoke from the casino infiltrated the ventilation system.
On the way home we stopped at Sushi Axiom and I had some outstanding sushi, stopped at Central Market, my favorite grocery store of all time, and picked up some flank steak, peppers and onions, tortillas, and avocados for dinner. We were going to have my youngest son's family over to celebrate Christmas and I didn't want to have another dinner out or even have a take out meal. I marinated the flank steak in a fusion sauce (soy sauce, olive oil, red wine vinegar, brown sugar, ketchup), made some guacamole, and my son grilled all the peppers, onions, and meat. We had an excellent dinner and the best part was being with my family again.

Julia, Kari, Maurice, and Guy

Back to work tomorrow after being gone since mid-December. I miss my new friends, Maurice and Kari, and my old friend Guy. We spent so much time together we couldn't help but get close.

Out of the kitchen for two weeks

I'm away from home on a deployment to Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. It's been a break from cooking and unfortunately, a break from good eating. I'm staying in the Inn of the Mountain Gods, a beautiful lodge with two restaurants--a huge buffet affair and a fancy steak house. One meal at the buffet was enough--not bad food but too much of everything and nothing is great. Food is not the focus of this trip anyway--this is all about my real job, mental health services, so I was not expecting to have great food experience anyway.
I did find one great place to eat, El Comal, a very small place on Sudderth in Ruidoso, a few miles from the inn. Only a few tables in this tiny place where the chips are cooked after the customers come in and order. Homemade salsa, homemade tortillas, and everything fresh, fresh, fresh.
The mole was the best I've ever tasted but it was ordered by Maurice, one of the deployment team members. I ordered chicken fajitas but they were kind of boring compared to the mole.
Also, the chicken tortilla soup was very tasty and well seasoned. I have to go back again.
Other meals at chain sandwich shops are fine and a soup/salad at Cattle Baron Steak/Seafood was fine, but after 4 days away from food I'm starting to wish I could make some spicy Thai food or have simple Japanese meal. I am enjoying a break away from the kitchen though and my hands are so soft and smooth, a nice side effect.

Chef at last! No more Culinary School Chronicle

Kyndal, my 6 year old granddaughter jumped in at the last minute.

My children call me Chef Mom and could care less if I have a culinary school diploma, but they were all there at my graduation, including my daughter, Helen, who drove all the way from Houston. I had such a great time with all four of the children and my two granddaughters here at the same time. We don't all get together that often now that they are out on their own. The simplicity of waking up every day to your own children in the house is not to be taken for granted. The time passes very quickly and suddenly they are gone (or should be gone--always the boomerang child, Glenn at home.) Having the culinary diploma may not be a big deal to some but I believe it's an accomplishment to have stuck with it despite working full time, having a part time private psychotherapy practice, deployment training, on-call duties, and a home to run. I will start taking on cooking jobs now and actually have a few paying prospects. For one, I have sold a few pounds of my pecan brittle to some of my husband's friends. This vanilla, butter pecan brittle is really unique and I learned to make it from my 80 something neighbor, Dorothy Short.
I have two people who want sushi classes for 6 or 7. At $50.00 a person I will actually earn some money for being a chef! I think that's pretty exciting and I'm looking forward to it.

Before I do anything else, though, I am going to make a LOT of goodies for the Chef's Holiday Pantry fundraiser coming up in a few days. I'll miss the actual event because I'll be flying out to a deployment for two weeks.

I'm going to make pecan brittle, ginger molasses cookies, pumpkins bread and my famous blondies. I'll give some as gifts and send some over the the fundraiser.