Recently in eating Category

I cut it in half. I scooped it out. Then I baked it in a covered casserole at 400 for like 30 or 40 minutes. I did not season, salt or oil it, or anything. When it was almost done I took off the lid and the water evaporated off.

OMG, AMAZING. Sweet like candy.

1. Corzo tequila. I had this at Rontoms. I think it was the reposado. Insanely flavorful and smooth. Great sipping tequila. Tequila might be replacing bourbon as my favorite sipping spirit.

2. B & B. Yummy herbal Benedictine pre-mixed with cognac. So warming. Classy or trashy? Who cares?

3. Batdorf & Bronson Ethiopia Natural Limu. Rich flavor, sexy viscosity. As if my job wasn't already awesome enough, Batdorf is our office coffee.

4. Portland Rock Bottom Blitzen (trippel-style seasonal). Banana in a glass. Most people I know would never consider hanging out at this corporate downtown bar, seemingly populated by young office-types freshly released from the frat. But you probably didn't know that the head brewer, Van Havig, heads up the Oregon Brewers Guild and totally knows his stuff. I still don't really want to hang out there, but his beer F-ing rules.

5. Old Peculiar brown ale. I made beef stew with this. Amazing. I really love brown ale. It's flavorful but still light. From La Bodega on Fremont.

More drink geekage, and links to other geeks, at Imbibe Unfiltered.

White jasmine rice
Broccoli and zucchini (over)cooked with the rice
Runny sunny side up egg
Soy sauce
Hoisin sauce
Sriracha
Salt

T-T-T-Totally dude!!!

Zucchini and fake sausage with pasta sauce. Mmm.

For a couple years when I was 9, I thought the funniest thing in the world was that my aunt had once gotten a fortune from a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that said, “You like Chinese food.” I mean, who knew someone with a sense of humor worked at the cliché factory!

I really, really like Chinese food, but it seems to have fallen out of favor, at least in these parts. It seems like when I was a kid in the 80s everyone got Chinese takeout, then at some point in the 90s there was a shift in white and Jewish middle class culture to Thai food, like it made people feel more cultured and daring, and then it was just the standard thing people liked for takeout or whatever. Curry is great and all, especially with beer, but I still like Chinese food. And it seems like you have to go all the way out to 82nd Avenue to get some orange chicken and brocolli beef and fried shrimp. Does anyone know of a good, cheap Chinese restaurant in inner Southeast where I can get some egg rolls and fried rice? I want to be one of those single people who eats leftover Chinese takeout standing up in the kitchen because I can’t be bothered to cook because I’m too busy being single and fabulous. (Or would that be - Single and fabulous?)

Anyway, I got my fix today because I went to a dinner thrown by Pacific Rim winery (they do a nice job with various types of Rieslings – dry, sort of sweet, really sweet, and candy sweet; I was pretty into the sweet Riesling and the Chenin Blanc) and it was catered by Sungari Pearl. We had sesame beef, salad rolls (not deep-fried, but they had duck in them), shrimp (those were deep-fried), halibut, and fried rice. It was hella good. I like Chinese food. Forgot to take a fortune cookie, though.

Saag Tofu from Eating Well magazine. I was surprised at how well this turned out. It was also easy to put together and didn't include any difficult, hard-to-find ingredients. I used chopped frozen spinach instead of fresh, which contributed to the Indian-spinach-mush quality of the dish (that's a good thing, in my book), and used pre-packaged crushed ginger. I am sort of in love with this recipe.

It's nice to get to the point where you know how a recipe works enough so you can do it without sticking with the recipe, and have it still turn out well, with the added bonus of not having to go buy hella things at the store and measure things and stuff.

I made a super rad lasagna last night. It had lots of protein and vegetables. Obviously, you could sub out whatever kinds of protein or veggies you want, and amounts of stuff don't really matter. Lasagnas are really good and don't have to be intimidating. It's pretty easy. And then everyone will be impressed and think you can actually cook.

Power lasagna for mental and physical fortitude!
lasagna noodles
ricotta cheese
ground turkey
mozzerella cheese
spaghetti sauce
salt, pepper, garlic powder, fennel (for the meat, to emulate sausagey-ness)
an egg or two depending on how big you're making it
frozen spinach thawed and squeezed dry
nutmeg

Brown turkey on the stove. Season to taste. Dump in spaghetti sauce. Meanwhile, boil lasagna noodles, and seperately in a bowl, combine the spinach, ricotta cheese, and egg(s), and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a little nutmeg. And grate some moz. Then, make layers with sauce, noodles, spinach, moz. It doesn't matter how many layers but there should be sauce and cheese on top. Bake at 400 F for like 30 minutes for a small lasagna, or longer for a big one. That's it, dude.

I went to visit my grandparents in Maryland. My grandma made brisket. I basically live for the two or three times a year I get to eat brisket. I made a sandwich for the plane home with leftover brisket and horseradish paste on this really dense, moist multigrain bread from Great Harvest. Oh yeah.

I have been trying to eat more protein and less sweets, especially at breakfast. It makes me less of a sugar fiend, plus I want to build muscles like Arnold. I've been eating a lot of eggs and toast, or cheese and bread, or, say, brisket and bread. At Ben's Chili Bowl in DC (Sean, I couldn't find Sparky's) I had eggs with a grilled biscuit and saucy cooked apples on the side before meeting up with my grandma to look at cherry blossoms, the FDR memorial and the Hall of Mammals in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History - all pretty cool stuff. Did you know the Smithsonian museums are free? They're funded by federal taxes and donations.

Anyway, eggs. This morning I improvised a hella budget-style version of chilaquiles, and it actually turned out pretty good. (I've been brainstorming different versions of eggs and toast that don't involve bread since Passover starts tomorrow. Most Jews who observe Passover by abstaining from bread don't eat tortillas either, but I fail to see the logic in including matzoh and excluding equally flat tortillas, just because they haven't been blessed by a rabbi or something. Seems pretty elitist to me, especially since Fred Meyer is selling matzoh at $4.50 a box and they don't even have it in whole wheat.)

Budget Chilaquiles
You need:
1 or 2 eggs per person
1 or 2 tortillas per person
a little oil
a little milk if you want
enchilada sauce, salsa or chili powder

Lightly oil the pan and put it on med-hi. Tear up tortilla and cook it with a little water until it is no longer mushy. Meanwhile, beat eggs with a bit of milk. Pour eggs in with the tortilla and add sauce or seasonings. Scramble and fry until it looks like something you'd want to eat.

I used a Trader Joe's whole wheat and corn tortilla and their enchilada sauce, which is a really good all-purpose Mexican sauce. This would probably also be really good with some green chilis or chipotles in adobo sauce, both of which you can get in a can.

When I was volunteering at Music Fest Northwest, working the door at the teenage punk show at the Hawthorne Theater, the other volunteer was this girl Andra, who gave me pistachios. Now I am really into pistachios, and I especially like them in yogurt with cinnamon and apricot jam. Not only did Andra give me pistachios, but she told me that she worked at Andina and would take me there so we could get her sweet employee discount. It was kind of like being told you'd won the lottery.

Andina is this pretty swanky Peruvian place in the Pearl. There is the restaurant on one side and the more casual bar (which still serves the full menu and is all ages) on the other side and a wine shop underneath. We ate in the bar at a funny little tiny alcove table (which worked because we are both elf-size) and we ordered a salad, fried yuca roll things and this ceviche with mango and prawns and hot peppers that were orange but I can't remember which one, and red onions. It was amazing. They have a whole assortment of different types of ceviches, which I'd never seen before. The heat-sweet-sour combo was really effective. Then we had all these super crazy desserts. They had these Peruvian canoli things with crunchy shells that tasted kind of like cereal and creamy passionfruit flavored filling. And we had three tiny creme brulees flavored like Peruvian things. One was chocolate-clove, which was just really sexy. It was more like pot de creme than creme brulee but hey, who's complaining. One was a tangy passionfruit. And the other was "five spice" and kind of tasted like pumpkin pie. The chocolate clove was the best flavor, but the others were good because they were more like custard. Everyone who worked there was really nice, especially the owner lady, whose name I forget, who came and talked to us. She seemed really sincere and not all fakey-shmoozy. Even without the employee discount, it is still not too expensive to go and order small portions from the tapas menus. I am totally going to go back. Thanks for the good times Andra!

Tonight's menu:

99 cent vegetarian chili with fake meat, embellished by mushrooms, garlic, pepper, and cheddar
home-grown heirloom and cherry tomatoes with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper

It was really good.