Last night we ended up having some friends over--so I threw together the randoms of my cupboard to make food for everyone. I used Girlichef'sCurry recipe. Verdict? Excellent! Not particularly photogenic, but the entire batch was eaten by the end of the night.
Potatoes and onions... Coconut milk, curry spices, chickpeas, peas and some spinach that needed to be used up.
Served over basmati rice, always nice.
Jeremy and Jeremy discussing Jeremy's costume.
Tavo helped with the fitting...
Tonight--had to make pizza. It's delicious. I make it all the time, but you know I never get tired of it ;) I used a honey wheat recipe for the dough--pretty good, but with all the toppings, the honey in the crust was lost. I'll probably stick to regular wheat dough next time.
Jeremy, the Duct Tape Avenger! (nice moustache...)
With Tavo, the Mariachi.
My costume isn't much, I just kind of tried to match. The hat helps..
In no particular order, here are some favorites from this month:
1. The Submarines
2. Squash Casserole--cheese and ease of preparation win. This is before cooking, because isn't it nice to just come home from work, toss a casserole in the oven and be done with it?
3. Oven fries--keeps the kitchen warm so you don't have to turn on the heat...yet. 425 degrees for 15 minutes on each side.
4. Photography--it's fall! Great colors, lighting, sexy men..
5. Pesto. Our basil is on its way out...bulk harvest. Once again, for some reason I have the "before" photo. Rest assured this did go into the broiler to melt that cheese.
I made the bread--it was challah, so I had to stretch the dough to braid it. This is my very secret technique. 6. Delta Spirit--another great band we hear on the "Signs of Life" program on 1690 am
So, I saw this post and this post a while ago and read the NY times article and thought...hey! I can do that too. I have always been a fan of exorbitantly expensive granola, and it was time to save some money and make my own.
Here's Beck's tribute to my species, "Nitemare Hippy Girl":
The idea of homemade granola came from the restaurant up the street, Stone Soup. I used to have Thursday mornings off, and I went there after my morning jog. Walked in and was FLOORED by the delicious smell...they had just pulled the granola out of the oven. I ordered some with fruit and yogurt and kid, it was STILL WARM. Yum!!
So here is my version, based on about 6 different recipes. I used canola oil here, but will probably try the olive oil versions at some point. This is actually really easy! It makes your house smell wonderful and is a great thing to make on a chilly fall weekend while drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper :
Lini's adapted homemade granola:
2 cups rolled oats (not instant) 1 cup pumpkin seeds (inner part) (or sunflower seeds or any kind of nuts, etc) unsalted 1/4 cup sesame seeds 1/2 cup honey scant 1/4 cup oil 1 cup dried fruit (I used cranberries, but feel free to try raisins, apricots, anything)
**all nuts and fruit are fluid--mix and match, you can also replace the honey with maple syrup
1. Mix the oats and nuts in a bowl 2. Measure and pour oil into bowl 3. Measure honey in the same, unwashed cup. The oil helps the honey exit the cup. 4. Toss everything together and put in a pan with sides
5. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, turning it with a spatula once or twice during cooking.
6. When it is finished cooking, let it cool a bit, then add your dried fruit. Stir a few times to make sure it doesn't clump too much. 7. Store in an airtight container (and enjoy!)
I used Emeril's Recipe. It was pretty good--had one gal from New Orleans over, and she said it was good but a little different...
We are a member of the site, Couchsurfing and we are hosting this week. Two girls on a tennis scholarship to a southern university, and they're traveling :) Kathi and Lisa are from Germany and Réunion, respectfully.
Some more friends came over...
...and we played cards. "Cucharita" was the game, and surprisingly, one Colombian was out fairly soon--but Tavo hung on for a bit longer. Liz was the winner, followed closely by Lisa!
Below, witness the losers...and we're quite happy about it!
and after all this fun on a Wednesday night, some Colombian coffee ended our evening. Happy Thursday, folks!
In the Detroit area, quite a few of my favorite restaurants are run by Greeks and feature Greek recipes. This is my... "in process" attempt at one. Still working out the kinks.
I absolutely adore lemon rice soup. In all the recipes I found, it was suggested to stir an egg in...this isn't how I remember eating it, but please feel free to try it if you like. The recipe I wrote below was one of about 20 I found that I'd tried out during college in my attempts to recreate the PERFECT lemon rice soup. This recipe is pretty simple--I even get to cheat. How do you cheat, Lini? Well, I just used this vegetable soup packet. I'm sure that regular broth would work just fine, but you would want some veggies to throw in there besides onions. We're at those last few days before the paycheck and the grocery trip...so we're eeking out the contents of our cupboard. Here it is--I have whole pieces of rice in there, but they all settled at the bottom when I went outside to get parsley. This would probably be good with chicken, too. Make sure you don't puree everything--you really want a good bit of whole rice in here. Happy Monday everyone!
More potato soup. I have not been very inspired recently, so its all potato soups and grilled cheese, apparently.
Tavo has been growing out his hair. He fulfilled his Marine Corps duties in May--so for the first time in six years, he can actually have a haircut that differs from "high and tight"
and we are continuing to just kind of...continue. Still waiting on some furniture, but most of our fire upheaval has settled back down. 2009 has been a crazy year. Shoot, most of it has been documented here. Fires, remodeling, jobs, love, youth and aging. I don't know. I think the change of season has grasped me...I'm not quite ready for winter yet.
Here's some Van Morrison for those who are so inclined. Embedding disabled, so just click on the name.
Yours truly, looking quite gorgeous after running a half marathon on Sunday. I've previously made the disclosure that I look HORRIBLE when I run...this continues to be true.
My coworker suggested that I should be on the cover of Wheaties. Indeed! Thanks, Ryan :) (please ignore lousy photoshop skills)
..and here's at home after a shower, chilling with my medal.
I still have one more post to do from Bogota, but I thought I'd take a break and give you guys a little food. We had a potluck on Thursday, and it turned out quite well. Great food, good friends and the music was perfect. Don't you love those nights? Song to set the mood...
I made a potato leek soup and used a new caramelized vegetable broth. Just to let everyone know...this makes your soup brown. Seems like common sense, but I was a wee bit dismayed looking at my brown (yet delicious) potato soup. Luckily...after people tried the brown goop, they agreed that is WAS quite tasty and the night continued in good fashion :) Heather brought the only alien themed dish :) A stirfry with the red (pepper) spaceships landing by the little green (pepper) men.
baguettes, fried chicken... antipasto! YUM gotta have fruit burgers on the Nature's Pride bread we received. Muchos gracias, FoodBuzz!!
Happy Halloween!
