HUGE HUNK OF GRANOLA

I feel like all-caps is the only way to convey the size of this granola bar. It had to be a pound and a half. It was ridiculous. But it was delicious, $3 and locally made by a goat farmer. A friend and I went to a wonderful garden faire in Valrico last weekend. It was a shame I didn't bring a camera. We ate wonderful raw zucchini pasta and macaroons and a vegan sweet potato spring roll with coconut curry dipping sauce. I bought some raw onion "bread" which is a favorite among local raw restaurants (don't know if that is true for everywhere too), some organic lavender, locally made soaps and this huge granola bar. It took me almost a week to eat it all, but it was so good I didn't even mind the raisins.

And this is probably 1/8 eaten already!

In other food news, npr has another fun food story up. It reminded me of a wonderful professor I had, John Kupetz, who was always sending us emails and waxing poetic about Chaplin. Reminds me how important food is to many movies. (And while you're there, check out the new site-- totally re-vamped, and in my opinion, it looks awesome!)

Also- another potluck is coming up tomorrow! Check back soon for delicious foods (I've heard rumors of either coconut cream pies or pecan pies [vegan, of course]).

Camping Cookware

I apologize from my recent Tastyface absence. I recently got back from a camping trip in Northern Minnesota (and am headed to be a camp counselor this week), which got me thinking about outdoor cooking. When I was little, my family went camping a lot, and my mom always made great tasting food with very few supplies. So I scouted out some great camping cookware gadgets for your next expedition.

Nonstick Corn Grilling Basket - [$14.99 @ Cabela's]

I love me some roasted corn. This is a great way to easily grill four cobs at once.

Percolator Coffee Pot - [$37.99 @ Dick's Sporting Goods]

This is so necessary when camping. It's an easy way to have a cup of coffee even out in the woods.

Extreme Mess Kit - [$29.95 @ Wildnerness Dining]

Comes with a 1 qt. pot, fry pan, pot gripper, bowl and cup all in a cute little mesh bag. Aw.

Two-Burner Propane Stove - [$69.95 @ REI]

My family had a stove like this for years, and it was extremely useful for cooking everything from pancakes to burgers. Plus it folds up nicely for carrying.

E-Z Table Bar - [$21.20 @ Outer Sports]

Stick this on a picnic table to save space, hold a lantern, or air dry dishes. Groovy!

Sugar overload

My friends and I have this little restaurant that we always end up meeting at. It was the last place we ate together at before we all went our separate ways for college. Today my sister and I took our nana to the Wildflower Cafe. Lunch was wonderful as always, but today I got a cupcake to go. I usually don't like cake or cupcakes, but it was lemon raspberry, so I couldn't resist. It was amazing, and amazingly sweet. I think I'll be full of sugar for the next few days. Totally worth it.

Honeyed Spare Ribs

I had the pleasure of eating some delicious Shanghai Spare Ribs off the appetizer menu at Koi in Evanston, IL. Marinated in sweet honey sauce. I can also attest to the tastiness that is Chen's Chinese & Sushi in Chicago (same owners?).

Nom.

Ah two posts in one day!

Okay I know I already posted today. But I was reading an interview with Jonsi (of Sigur Ros) and Alex, known as Riceboy. They mentioned something about the fact that they are very into raw foods and that they were going to make a recipe book available. Well, they have indeed done that and more! There's a great (and adorable) instructional video as well as a downloadable PDF of their recipes right here!



Their CD was also just released today, so definitely check it out!

Trip to the Asian Grocery Store

One thing I enjoy about being home is not having to shop at Whole Foods. In my area here there are a ton of ethnic groceries from Mexican to Asian, from Indian to Mediterranean. It's always fun to explore and find new foods that are typically lots cheaper than what you would find in a chain grocery store, like Publix. I finally made it out to My Lan(d) Asian Grocery and found some fun things. Now I wasn't ready the labels too closely, so the mochi ice cream does have some ingredients I don't usually eat, but it's tasty and I have to finish the package. But my loot, which only came out to about 10 dollars included:

Lychee jelly cups
Sweetened Matcha Powder (To use to make mochi, and honeydew smoothies :) )
Green Tea Mochi Ice Cream
Mochiko (to make my own mochi again!)
Strawberry Soymilk Bubble Tea Drink
Canned Lychees











The Lychee jellies are cool because I don't eat Jell-o (due to gelatin), so I hadn't eaten anything jell-o like in years. They are basically just sugar, seaweed (to make it jelly) and lychee.

The Strawberry Soymilk Bubble Tea Drink was my feeble, lazy attempt at appeasing my cravings for Joy Yee's bubble tea. I always get the strawberry milk tea flavor. This canned version though just doesn't cut it. The tapioca pearls are tiny, and the milk is very artificially flavored.

It's really not that hard to make yourself, though. All you need is some strawberries, your choice of milk variety, some sort of sweetener (I suggest agave, it's easier to mix in cold things than honey) and finally tapioca pearls (mine are colorful!). You can find these for pretty cheap at Asian groceries. All you have to do to prepare them is boil them in water for a few minutes and then let them cool. Just blend all the ingredients in a blender and add the tapioca pearls when that's done. I'm sure you could alter this recipe to use whatever fruit you prefer.

Purple Peppers and Granola Bars

So as I previously mentioned, I found purple peppers at the Saturday Market last week. I hadn't ever seen or eaten one before, so I decided 2 for a dollar was a good price for some experimenting. (Reminds me of this old poetry book I have from when I was a kid called Talking Like the Rain. There was a poem about a purple cow in it.) I cooked the first one on the 4th of July. Sadly, they turn a rather dull shade of light grey/green when cooked, which is the color of their interior. But they are pretty brilliant when raw.


And on another note, I made granola "bars" a few nights ago! It's super easy, and very loosely based on an Alton Brown recipe my dad found a few years ago. The ingredients (that I didn't measure) included:

(For the gooey binding mixture):
Agave Syrup
Honey
Brown Sugar
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Cardamom

(For the Oaty Part):
Oats
Oat bran
Sunflower seeds (de-shelled, of course)
Dried cranberries
Crystallized ginger

Basically all you need to do is: Toast the oats and oat bran along with the sunflower seeds. While that is happening, pour all the gooey ingredients into a pot and warm it until it's just started to bubble. Then just pour the gooey and oaty mixtures into a big bowl, adding the cranberries and ginger, and mix until completely covered. Grease a glass pan (like one you would bake brownies in) and pat down the mixture so it's flat in the pan. Put it in the oven for 10 minutes or so at 350, and there you go! It won't stick together well if you eat it immediately out of the oven, usually cooling overnight will do it (if you make it at 9pm like I do). I call them "bars" because they never really stay together well, but little granola pieces are just as good in my book. I think it's a great recipe because you can really use whatever you have. It's easy to substitute different nuts or dried fruit for different flavor combinations.



PS- Check out this great video made by one of my classmates/dormmates! It's about the Evanston Farmer's Market. Wish I was there now!

The Dining Hall is a Wasteland

Oh Tastyface, I've missed you so. Would that I had some delicious treat or recipe to post on here... alas for I do not. The entirety of my food experience these past three weeks has been "Hmm, what in this line disgusts me least?" and "Guys, Jello is for eating not for slapping!" (True story.)

During the normal school year, the dining hall is bearable, and at least there is always fruit or something to be creative with. But the summer dining hall is like a desert, with grease instead of sand and stale hamburger buns instead of tumbleweeds (though it may be difficult to tell the difference). It's difficult to set an example for the campers when the only fruit available is a bruised Red Delicious apple that tastes less delicious and more like a dry erase marker. I actually get full quicker now because I eat less and I think my stomach has shrunk a bit.

The only real food I've had lately was a trip to Cozy Noodle on my day off and the free samples I've pilfered from Whole Foods when meeting Nathalie and friends there at lunchtime.

So this is the reason for my blatant absence from blogging, although if you really want, I suppose I could do an Upton Sinclair-esque expose on whatever vaguely chicken based product I'm sure to end up eating tonight.

The Easiest Cookies You Will Ever Make

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

1 3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 c. softened butter
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c peanut butter
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbls milk
1 Bag of Miniature Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (unwrapped)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F


2. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda, set aside.

3. Cream together the butter, sugars, and peanut butter until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and milk. Add the flour mixture; mix well.

4. Shape into balls and place into ungreased mini muffin pan. I used three pans, so 36 balls.

5. Bake at 375 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. I started with two of the pans on the top rack and one on the bottom, and switched them about half way through. While these are in the oven, start unwrapping the mini Reeses cups. When time is up and the centers are soft but not mushy, remove from oven and immediately press a mini peanut butter cup into each ball. Cool on wire racks and then carefully remove from pans.





I generally let them sit out in the pans for 5-10 minutes to cool, though the Reeses will be melty in the middle. At this time, I pop them in the fridge and wait for the candy to set. You can then take them out of the pans. If you get aluminum mini-muffin pans, just push up on the bottom of each muffin-section...if they are cold enough, the cookies should pop right out!

Nothing like a strawberry muffin in the morning

Some near gone strawberries were sitting in my refrigerator yesterday and I happened to be checking yelp for coffee places in DC and a fateful thought combination came together. There is a really awesome place in Georgetown called Baked and Wired, and apparently one of the favorites there is the strawberry cupcake. Because I am attempting a diet I decided that it might be a smidgen healthier to have muffins, so this morning I got up and made these delicious little guys that I found on Real Mom Kitchen:


I didn't change anything in the recipe really, and it was quick easy and delicious. Highly recommend!

Patriotic!

So this is kind of late, but I can still be patriotic now I guess. Our 4th of July was kind of a fail. We had a lovely dinner, but our plans for post-dinner festivities were thwarted when, the fireworks were set off on July 3rd. Silly Dunedin! So then we thought we would just go to the ice cream place anyway and not watch fireworks. Nope, they were closed! Oh well, I was too full from dinner anyways. I ended up watching far away fireworks through my window instead. But here's what we ate!

It was just a morningstar farms veggie burger with romaine, grilled onions and stone-ground horseradish mustard all on Ezekiel sesame bread. On the side was roasted potato and sweet potato wedges along with grilled zucchini, yellow squash, purple pepper and vidalia onion (more about the purple pepper for a later post).

In other food news, I've finally made it to the Saturday market, and hopefully I can go again this weekend. Got lots of wonderful things that hopefully I will eventually photograph. Things I've been making but not photographing:

- Moby's Lavender Lemonade! It turns a great shade of pink. Basically all you have to do is steep a tablespoon or two of lavender, juice three lemons, dissolve some sugar in water and there you have it!

- Molasses Scones! From: Franlife. It's supposed to have dates, but I was out, so I just left them out. Mine never seem to have as thick of a batter/dough as it says, but I just plop them on the cookie sheet and it all tastes good in the end.

Orzo Salad - Or How to Eat for a Week

Yay for first post! This is one of the best recipes my mom has ever taught me: it takes no more than twenty minutes and will provide you lunch for about a week.

ORZO SALAD
1 12-ounce Box of Orzo
2-3 Red Peppers
12 Ounces of Crumbled Feta

Start by boiling a pot of water for the orzo - remember to add salt so it will boil faster! While your water is heating up, you can start cutting your red peppers. Chop these up first into strips and then into medium-sized squares. I really like the taste of the peppers, so I normally make the pieces pretty big :-)

When the water is boiling, add your orzo. Give it a good stir and then add a couple teaspoons of olive oil - this will help prevent the pasta from sticking to itself. The orzo should cook for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking to the bottom. While this is happening, take out a strainer with holes small enough that the orzo won't fall through. If you don't have one, you can be super ghetto and put a piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil over a bowl and strain it that way.

When the orzo is ready, strain it and rinse it with cold water. After it drains, return it to the pot. Add your chopped red pepper and feta and mix it all together. It's ready to eat! Store it in the fridge in a big tupperware bowl; you should have enough to have a small bowl every day for a week.

Enjoy! Yay for easy (and healthy) college food!

Food is funny, even to news anchors!

Found this funny video on gawker today. Silly how some veggies can make grown people giggle like middle schoolers.

Photo by viZZZual.com on Flickr licensed under Creative Commons.

On an even more food-related, and similarly gawker-related note, everyone is aware of foodgawker, right? The photos always make me want to immediately go out and cook or bake whatever it is they are showcasing. Everything looks delicious, but I think the first thing I will try is the black bean hummus. There's a local brand that makes a really good black bean hummus that used to be impossible to find at the health food store near my house. I could only find it when I was here in Indian Rocks Beach. However, those times have passed and I can now buy it at home, but it would still be fun to be able to re-create it on my own.

Unfortunately no real interesting food being made over here. I've had a crazy schedule with the internship and ended up skipping some meals to work :(. Hopefully something blog-worthy will be made soon, though.