So Friday was Associate Appreciation day whereupon we were shown appreciation with greasy pizza and jugs of soda. Naturally, I declined the gratuity. However, pizza continued to loom large on my mind and when dinner time rolled around I was victim to a real hankering for a pie. As I typically don’t keep flour on hand I had to decide if I was going to scrap the idea, go out and obtain flour, or figure out something else. I was frankly too lazy to go out and get flour but not so lazy that I wanted to scrap the idea, so I started flipping through my cookbooks and recipes for inspiration.
I found a recipe for oat bread using flour milled from oatmeal and, along with a pizza crust recipe, was able to cobble something together to form an oat crust. Basically I milled the oatmeal in a blender and using some salt, yeast, and honey came up with a nice formula for a crust. I made a rich tomato sauce from scratch and topped the pizza with fresh mozzarella, uncured apple wood smoked bacon, asparagus, onion, green pepper, and broccoli. It ended up being quite delicious and, even in my own self-castigating sort of way, congratulated myself on the creation. I actually found the denser crust created by the oat flour to be far more tart-like than anything, but really enjoyed it that way. It still was very moist, chewy, and extremely resilient to the rigors of heavily topping laden pizza consumption.
Having had a pleasant sleep filled with visions of pizza and bacon, I woke to find the sun shining in, what was, apparently a beautiful day. Both my patio doors and window face the east side of my building, however, which sometimes can impart a false sense of warmth that is easily deceiving. That being said, I broke out my mountain bike and departed on what would become one of the worst rides of my mountain biking ‘career’. First, as I have already alluded to, I set the stage for my ride by being totally underdressed – a fact I realized immediately after stepping out of the car at the shaded trailhead.
My goal was to explore a matrix of fire roads that crisscross over this large plot of land in Southington – part of the Crescent Lake property for those of you who are familiar. Well, not too far in I began to realize that they had started logging the area and were using the other end of the property as their point of entry. Because they were using an alternative entrance their operation wasn’t immediately conspicuous to me, for if it had been I probably would have reconsidered my venture altogether.
Anyhow, the roads, I learned, had been torn up by large logging machinery and were a combination of deep icy muddy ruts overlaid with a bunch of dead fall. Only twenty minutes into the ride I was covered head to toe in freezing mud, trying with all my might to keep my momentum as I pedaled uphill, as the road revealed itself to be a gradual but unrelenting climb in hub-deep arctic mud. The rutting was so deep that the roads were essentially acting as small rivers and thick brush on either side made it impossible to skirt the horrendous mess. However, stubbornness prevailed and I sallied forth instead of turning back. I can’t imagine I actually covered any significant amount of terrain, and yet I was still out for a good two hours. By the time I got back to the car I was fuming, rightfully blaming the loggers for such careless use of the land and for everyone’s eagerness to make a quick buck at the expense of Connecticut’s limited woodlands.
Upon riding back home with a mud packed hubs and an equally filthy visage, I contemplated just how sad the treatment of Connecticut’s land is. Human powered recreation seems to be a rarity around here, often leading to the limited amount of woodland set aside for its practitioners to be summarily overrun by OHV’s and loggers. This is far more commonplace than I care to admit and I continue to find more and more acreage fall victim to this sort of shabby and lowly treatment. As one can imagine, this is an issue that has long plagued me and my outrage only continues to grow with time. As such I am sure that you can expect future posts on this subject in my effort to begin combating the whoring out of our precious few woodlands.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Haste Makes Waste
Dinner last night was a disaster but, frankly, one that didn’t bother me. I got in late from a post-work mountain bike session and found myself with a sink full of dirty breakfast dishes and a very, very ravenous appetite. Instead of washing the dishes and composing my workspace, I decided to jump right into dinner without getting myself relaxed and prepared. Big mistake.
Dinner was supposed to be stuffed peppers along with a cold cucumber soup. I was going to stuff the peppers with black beans and brown rice, amongst other things. When I arrived home I realized that my experiment of leaving the rice and beans in a crock pot over the course of the day was a failed one and found the end product to be a gluey mixture of seemingly dubious origins (I plan to try this next time). To my prehistoric slurry I added some sautéed garlic, shallots, and a few pinches of spices. I realized after stuffing my green peppers with the mixture and sticking them in the oven that I had neglected to add egg, which I had planned to employ as a “binder” of sorts. Although my desiccated rice and bean mixture really didn’t need a binder at this point, I decided to beat up an egg and drizzle it over the top of the pepper regardless. Naturally it coursed right off the top of the pepper and pooled up on the baking pan, and later found it firmed up into a sprawling baked egg (which, though not planned for, was tasty in and of itself).
In the meantime I had started a batch of sweet potato fries as, at this point, I realized how famished I really was and needed something to address my rapidly plummeting blood sugar. Ultimately, it would be only the fries that turned out the way I had expected.
I then moved onto the cucumber soup while everything else was in the oven. I had never made a cold soup before and frankly this probably wasn’t the best evening to start. But I did, and ultimately ended up blending together cucumber, spinach, cilantro, yogurt, a tad bit of roasted red pepper, lemon juice, and a drizzle of olive oil. This slurry (as you can see I had given birth to several slurries on this particular evening) was actually pretty tasty but was far more watery than I had hoped for. I ultimately determined that I should have used the thicker Greek yogurt I had on hand as opposed to the European yogurt that had ultimately found its way into the soup.
Anyhow, the peppers finally did come out of the oven and some sort of dinner began to coalesce out of the various constituents. In my ravenous state everything seemed to be acceptable, although reflecting on the experience casts some doubt on the soundness of my judgment at the time. Once I had finished plowing through the mish-mash on my plate I realized what a mess I had made of things and promised myself that next time I was in need of immediate calories I’d abandon more elaborate dinner plans in favor of something simpler. Experimenting with new ideas, dishes, or techniques is definitely something best approached with ample time, patience, and clean kitchen.
Dinner was supposed to be stuffed peppers along with a cold cucumber soup. I was going to stuff the peppers with black beans and brown rice, amongst other things. When I arrived home I realized that my experiment of leaving the rice and beans in a crock pot over the course of the day was a failed one and found the end product to be a gluey mixture of seemingly dubious origins (I plan to try this next time). To my prehistoric slurry I added some sautéed garlic, shallots, and a few pinches of spices. I realized after stuffing my green peppers with the mixture and sticking them in the oven that I had neglected to add egg, which I had planned to employ as a “binder” of sorts. Although my desiccated rice and bean mixture really didn’t need a binder at this point, I decided to beat up an egg and drizzle it over the top of the pepper regardless. Naturally it coursed right off the top of the pepper and pooled up on the baking pan, and later found it firmed up into a sprawling baked egg (which, though not planned for, was tasty in and of itself).
In the meantime I had started a batch of sweet potato fries as, at this point, I realized how famished I really was and needed something to address my rapidly plummeting blood sugar. Ultimately, it would be only the fries that turned out the way I had expected.
I then moved onto the cucumber soup while everything else was in the oven. I had never made a cold soup before and frankly this probably wasn’t the best evening to start. But I did, and ultimately ended up blending together cucumber, spinach, cilantro, yogurt, a tad bit of roasted red pepper, lemon juice, and a drizzle of olive oil. This slurry (as you can see I had given birth to several slurries on this particular evening) was actually pretty tasty but was far more watery than I had hoped for. I ultimately determined that I should have used the thicker Greek yogurt I had on hand as opposed to the European yogurt that had ultimately found its way into the soup.
Anyhow, the peppers finally did come out of the oven and some sort of dinner began to coalesce out of the various constituents. In my ravenous state everything seemed to be acceptable, although reflecting on the experience casts some doubt on the soundness of my judgment at the time. Once I had finished plowing through the mish-mash on my plate I realized what a mess I had made of things and promised myself that next time I was in need of immediate calories I’d abandon more elaborate dinner plans in favor of something simpler. Experimenting with new ideas, dishes, or techniques is definitely something best approached with ample time, patience, and clean kitchen.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
So What’s Up in Eats?
Well this week has been a bit busy with spring and daylight savings time tempting me to prolonged forays into the out-of-doors. However, I’ve still gotten a fair amount of cooking in despite my limited time at home. Breakfasts, to start, have been pretty typical. Some sort of egg dish, some steel cut oatmeal sweetened with mashed banana and vanilla, and some pan-fried sweet potatoes.
On Sunday I made a delicious vegetable soup from some of the chicken stock that has long been monopolizing my freezer. It was a hasty amalgamation of what I had as leftovers in my fridge at the time – celery, kale, brown rice, tomatoes, black beans, onion, shallot, carrots, and broccoli. Topped with a couple of bay leaves, oregano, basil, salt and pepper and I had a solid soup for a lunch and dinner accompaniment throughout the week.
As for dinner the only standouts (if you could call them that) were:
Monday – Southwest Casserole of sorts. Browned grass fed beef over riced cauliflower with a sauce of tomato, cumin, red pepper, and jalapeno. Baked in the oven and then topped with guacamole, Greek yogurt, green onion, and cilantro. On the side I had some sweet potato chips with a chipotle yogurt dip I had made the week before.
Tuesday – Roasted root vegetable salad (carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, with some cauliflower), vegetable soup, soft boiled eggs on a bed of spinach.
Wednesday – Mussels in tomato sauce (tomato, garlic, shallot, oregano, salt, pepper). Vegetable soup (what a surprise), and for dessert I had roasted pear (with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg) topped with whipped Greek yogurt and toasted sunflower seeds. I put too much hot sauce in the soup and too much pepper in the tomato sauce. As a result dinner was too hot and spicy. Nothing plenty of Greek yogurt on top of the pear couldn’t fix.
On Sunday I made a delicious vegetable soup from some of the chicken stock that has long been monopolizing my freezer. It was a hasty amalgamation of what I had as leftovers in my fridge at the time – celery, kale, brown rice, tomatoes, black beans, onion, shallot, carrots, and broccoli. Topped with a couple of bay leaves, oregano, basil, salt and pepper and I had a solid soup for a lunch and dinner accompaniment throughout the week.
As for dinner the only standouts (if you could call them that) were:
Monday – Southwest Casserole of sorts. Browned grass fed beef over riced cauliflower with a sauce of tomato, cumin, red pepper, and jalapeno. Baked in the oven and then topped with guacamole, Greek yogurt, green onion, and cilantro. On the side I had some sweet potato chips with a chipotle yogurt dip I had made the week before.
Tuesday – Roasted root vegetable salad (carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, with some cauliflower), vegetable soup, soft boiled eggs on a bed of spinach.
Wednesday – Mussels in tomato sauce (tomato, garlic, shallot, oregano, salt, pepper). Vegetable soup (what a surprise), and for dessert I had roasted pear (with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg) topped with whipped Greek yogurt and toasted sunflower seeds. I put too much hot sauce in the soup and too much pepper in the tomato sauce. As a result dinner was too hot and spicy. Nothing plenty of Greek yogurt on top of the pear couldn’t fix.
Food & Change - A Manifesto
I’ve decided to retool this blog a bit and expand its role from merely a pulpit to more of a running journal devoid of the pomp and finish (yeah right) that it’s possessed up until this point. You may ask yourself, ‘stripped of its previous luster, what’s left?’ Well I plan to leverage this blog for allot more ‘stream of consciousness’ type writing, in addition to a forum to house my culinary ventures, minor trip reports, and a repository for self imposed goals and aspirations (thereby making it more difficult to shirk them at a later point in time). Basically, I am going to drop any previous pretense and just use it as a virtual scratch pad. Therefore, from here on out I am sure you can expect an increasing lack of cogency and coherence, giving rise to ever increasing entropy and clouded vision of purpose.
As mentioned above I’d like to use the blog as a way of tracking my culinary ventures. To that end I intend to dispatch with one of the authorial golden rules and write in ignorance of my audience and use this blog (at least in my capacity as an amateur cook) as a means for my personal edification and advancement. However, unlike any other blog posts on food you may have read previously, mine will be devoid of artfully arranged food photography, helpful recipes, and blissful accounts of the preparatory experience. Rather what you’ll find is a candid look at my forays into the world of cooking taking place in my tiny (and ugly) apartment kitchen, replete with blunders, oversights, and occasional poorly lit photographs appearing to have been taken from a moving car.
What calls for this change? Due to my increased attention to my nut & peanut (the astute among you will recognize they’re not the same thing) allergy I’ve found my options to be largely restricted when it comes to eating out. When combined with adherence to my tenets of healthy eating, I find my diet difficult to cater to unless I wish to prepare all of my meals myself. Out of these requirements has been born my renewed passion for cooking which has spurred me on to become a more competent, well versed, and knowledgeable cook, with a genuine appreciation not only for the food, but the act of preparing it.
Seeing that I intend to introduce cooking as a major player in my blog, I think it’d help to paint, in broad strokes, some of the ideals that govern my food and stylistic choices. I’ll refrain from getting into the basis for these decisions in this post and, in all likelihood, future posts as well.
- Food is Life: Food literally IS life. It fuels our bodies and minds and is the basis for our continued existence. Strangely, food in modern America has come to be treated as a grudgingly necessary component of the overly scrutinized input/output system formerly known as our bodies. As a result, food had become devoid of enjoyment and is a main source of our constant anxiety. Food, in America, garners only a miniscule fraction of the average American’s paycheck – a fact further illuminated by the contrastingly large amount spent by those in many other first world countries (and even more so in third world countries). Coupled with this financial deficit is the lack of enjoyment and time that food sees in this country. (It’s for this reason that other cultures don’t have the weight management issues that ours does -- read “Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”…I didn’t, but I understand that’s the premise).
I am trying to buck that trend and once again provide food the central role in my life that it both deserves and should rightfully occupy. I try to make time and expense secondary considerations when it comes to food. To this same end I make its preparation just as enjoyable and engaging as its consumption. Therefore, I don’t do fast food, 100 calorie packs, vitamin water, or eating in the car. I do sit down meals, everything from scratch, and whole afternoons spent on the dinner to follow.
- Whole Food: I strive with 98% success to eat only whole foods or, in other words, foods easily recognizable in their marketed forms. This means no additives, processed grains or sweeteners, canned produce, or factory prepared items. I also don't do low fat. Never.
- Limited Grains: I don’t really do breads (if I do, they’re sprouted), baked goods, or the like. I do use whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, oat groats, and the like on a limited basis. I definitely don’t do processed grains.
- Limited Land Based Protein: For environmental reasons I try to limit myself to only two pounds of land based protein a month. The rest of my protein I try to get from environmentally sound fished or farmed seafood, as well as limited consumption of dairy and eggs.
- Smart Buying (Organic): It’s my informed belief that locavorism and buying strictly organic is not necessarily the most environmentally friendly choice we can make as consumers. It definitely can be, but not always. However, my concern for responsible farming practices often leads me to buy organic foods before making the more environmentally friendly non-organic purchase. Therefore I try to temper buying decisions with a little bit of global altruism married with a little bit of self-preservation.
- Ratios: Ratios may seem like a funny word to use here but I really couldn’t think of a better singular term to describe this aspect of my culinary ‘code’. Besides being a déclassé cook, I am also a committed amateur athlete. The foundation of sound athletic performance and development is a diet well balanced in all the necessary macronutrients - fat, protein, and carbohydrate. By treating this ratio of macronutrients as a formula, many athletes easily achieve their nutritional requirements. However, many of these athletes treat food only as fuel and resultantly become objects of deprivation and self-castigation. I, on the other hand, don’t see a payoff in being an accomplished athlete with egregious deficits in other arenas of my life (see: Food is Life). Therefore, I try to observe ratios but understand that food enjoyed is ultimately the superior ‘fuel’.
- Minimalism: I appreciate minimalism not only as a sustainable means of living, but as an aesthetic one as well. I think doing more with less is a beautiful thing and therefore find I manifest that ideology in just about every aspect of my life. To that end I also employ minimalism in my cooking and am constantly exploring ways to minimize waste, ingredients, and kitchen tools. I think uni-taskers are antithetical to artful cooking and that finding creative ways to do more with less is both a stimulating and gratifying act.
As mentioned above I’d like to use the blog as a way of tracking my culinary ventures. To that end I intend to dispatch with one of the authorial golden rules and write in ignorance of my audience and use this blog (at least in my capacity as an amateur cook) as a means for my personal edification and advancement. However, unlike any other blog posts on food you may have read previously, mine will be devoid of artfully arranged food photography, helpful recipes, and blissful accounts of the preparatory experience. Rather what you’ll find is a candid look at my forays into the world of cooking taking place in my tiny (and ugly) apartment kitchen, replete with blunders, oversights, and occasional poorly lit photographs appearing to have been taken from a moving car.
What calls for this change? Due to my increased attention to my nut & peanut (the astute among you will recognize they’re not the same thing) allergy I’ve found my options to be largely restricted when it comes to eating out. When combined with adherence to my tenets of healthy eating, I find my diet difficult to cater to unless I wish to prepare all of my meals myself. Out of these requirements has been born my renewed passion for cooking which has spurred me on to become a more competent, well versed, and knowledgeable cook, with a genuine appreciation not only for the food, but the act of preparing it.
Seeing that I intend to introduce cooking as a major player in my blog, I think it’d help to paint, in broad strokes, some of the ideals that govern my food and stylistic choices. I’ll refrain from getting into the basis for these decisions in this post and, in all likelihood, future posts as well.
- Food is Life: Food literally IS life. It fuels our bodies and minds and is the basis for our continued existence. Strangely, food in modern America has come to be treated as a grudgingly necessary component of the overly scrutinized input/output system formerly known as our bodies. As a result, food had become devoid of enjoyment and is a main source of our constant anxiety. Food, in America, garners only a miniscule fraction of the average American’s paycheck – a fact further illuminated by the contrastingly large amount spent by those in many other first world countries (and even more so in third world countries). Coupled with this financial deficit is the lack of enjoyment and time that food sees in this country. (It’s for this reason that other cultures don’t have the weight management issues that ours does -- read “Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”…I didn’t, but I understand that’s the premise).
I am trying to buck that trend and once again provide food the central role in my life that it both deserves and should rightfully occupy. I try to make time and expense secondary considerations when it comes to food. To this same end I make its preparation just as enjoyable and engaging as its consumption. Therefore, I don’t do fast food, 100 calorie packs, vitamin water, or eating in the car. I do sit down meals, everything from scratch, and whole afternoons spent on the dinner to follow.
- Whole Food: I strive with 98% success to eat only whole foods or, in other words, foods easily recognizable in their marketed forms. This means no additives, processed grains or sweeteners, canned produce, or factory prepared items. I also don't do low fat. Never.
- Limited Grains: I don’t really do breads (if I do, they’re sprouted), baked goods, or the like. I do use whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, oat groats, and the like on a limited basis. I definitely don’t do processed grains.
- Limited Land Based Protein: For environmental reasons I try to limit myself to only two pounds of land based protein a month. The rest of my protein I try to get from environmentally sound fished or farmed seafood, as well as limited consumption of dairy and eggs.
- Smart Buying (Organic): It’s my informed belief that locavorism and buying strictly organic is not necessarily the most environmentally friendly choice we can make as consumers. It definitely can be, but not always. However, my concern for responsible farming practices often leads me to buy organic foods before making the more environmentally friendly non-organic purchase. Therefore I try to temper buying decisions with a little bit of global altruism married with a little bit of self-preservation.
- Ratios: Ratios may seem like a funny word to use here but I really couldn’t think of a better singular term to describe this aspect of my culinary ‘code’. Besides being a déclassé cook, I am also a committed amateur athlete. The foundation of sound athletic performance and development is a diet well balanced in all the necessary macronutrients - fat, protein, and carbohydrate. By treating this ratio of macronutrients as a formula, many athletes easily achieve their nutritional requirements. However, many of these athletes treat food only as fuel and resultantly become objects of deprivation and self-castigation. I, on the other hand, don’t see a payoff in being an accomplished athlete with egregious deficits in other arenas of my life (see: Food is Life). Therefore, I try to observe ratios but understand that food enjoyed is ultimately the superior ‘fuel’.
- Minimalism: I appreciate minimalism not only as a sustainable means of living, but as an aesthetic one as well. I think doing more with less is a beautiful thing and therefore find I manifest that ideology in just about every aspect of my life. To that end I also employ minimalism in my cooking and am constantly exploring ways to minimize waste, ingredients, and kitchen tools. I think uni-taskers are antithetical to artful cooking and that finding creative ways to do more with less is both a stimulating and gratifying act.
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