What? Again?!

So I made dinner...and did not take pictures because I wasn't going to blog about my dinner again. So ummmm how about that local sports team, I hear there were scores involved and rules and sports equipment. Super exciting action during the sports part, huh?

Ya, so I made falafel wraps today. And yesterday. Today's wraps turned out better than the one I made yesterday though. And because I am amazing I will now field your questions: But why did I make falafel wraps? Don't you put falafel in a pita? Wait, a wrap? How did they fit? What is falafel? You made falafel? Waffles? Are you a vegetarian? WOW, you have many questions my 3 loyal blog readers, and coworkers, and roommates who wonder what the heck I am eating. Or they just guess. Today I opened my lunch container, containing stuffed grape leaves, and my coworker asks "Seaweed tamales?" Um moving on...

To answer the questions you didn't really have:

• Wraps are tasty!
• Whole wheat tortillas are cheaper than pita bread, comes with more in the package and is more convenient when I eat egg and avocado burritos. (One day I will share the recipe, it's amazing and there are only three ingredients!)
• I sliced up my falafel.
• A falafel is a middle eastern food, made with chick peas (also called garbanzo beans), salt, stuff, and herbs, is then shaped into balls and fried. And in my case, put in containers, sealed with plastic, and sent to my local membership warehouse store, where it jumped into my cart! True story.
• By the afore mentioned store with acrobatic products, you can safely assume I grew the chick peas, I harvested the chick peas, I grew the plastic, I harvested the plastic, I built the store brick by handmade brick...
• I like my waffles with honey.
• Only on the days I don't eat meat. ;)
  

What made today's wraps better was I sliced my cucumbers with a knife instead of a veggie peeler because I found a cutting board. The thicker cucumber added a nice crunch to the wrap. Also I put all my veg on half of the tortilla and used less, thus enabling me to actually "wrap" my food instead of some weird tacurrito hybrid with veg and falafel falling all over the place.

Building your falafel wrap:

Put whole wheat tortilla on plate
Spread tahini all over the top
Place a few cucumber slices on half the tortilla, a quarter inch from the edges
Top cucumber with a leaf of romaine lettuce
Sprinkle chopped up kamala olives on top
Add thinly sliced red bell pepper
Now thinly sliced tomato
Slice falafel and place on top
Now with the food covered half toward you, fold up the sides slightly, now roll the food half all the way to the empty half, keeping the sides tucked in.
Push down slightly letting the tahini act as a food glue, a tasty, tasty food glue.

Enjoy!!

Do Fish Like Carrots?

Hello, yeah, it's been a while. Not much, how about you? I really do miss your smile so posting it is!

I really have been thinking about my beloved blog for a while. I have 2 in-progress posts floating around binary land, plus a third (I hope) locked in the bowels my portable hard drive from when my lap top C-R-A-S-H-E-D. But we will not speak of that dark time. The trouble is I have some great ideas and start to put thought to computer screen but inevitably my mind goes to my trip to upstate New York, or the kitchen, or camping (bad when preforming a show!), or to facebook (and when my mind goes to facebook, it takes my eyes and fingers with it) and I abandon (itchy facebook fingers! Itchy facebook fingers!!!) my post believing I will finish it later. This does not always work out well as some ideas are time sensitive.

And then there is this post. I had the idea for this post when I was googling my dinner (not literally). I needed to use what I had and a quick pantry recon produced the desired herbs and an impulse purchase of a lemon yesterday completed the extras I felt I needed to google a good recipe. (google: Dill and Lemon Tilapia) I would document the preparation and final product of my delightful and healthy-ish dinner (something about moderation is NOT eating a cup and quarter of peas. What?! Don't judge me!).

After I gave a bite of my dinner to my roomie and had a couple of bites myself, I belatedly remembered I wanted to document this momentous dinner for the culinary enjoyment of all the internet. I toyed with the idea of just eating and waiting until some other day, but it just didn't seem right, so I got out the camera for all of posterity. Plus it was way good and I want to make it again, thus permanent recipe storage!

So here is my dinner, and the added bonus of reverse engineered pictures that do not contain a carrot, because I ate it. It was way good too. The recipe is adapted from this site. Doesn't that look FANTASTIC?! (Quiet fish haters!) And now for my

Lemon Dill Tilapia

Why yes that is a slightly artsy picture taken with a point and shoot. I am a master photographer. Really. It wasn't dumb luck I discovered the camera could do that. It was the inner photographer, the natural master that I am, the gre...I'm bored, let's talk about how to make this beauty!

First you will need this stuff, half a carrot, and a fillet of tilapia. Or some other fish from the freezer, or fridge, or local fish monger, or your deep sea fishing expedition this morning. Also you will need some aluminum foil or parchment paper, a knife, a food grater, and a working oven.

Just a note, my recipe is for 1 person, but can easily be expanded.

For those not into the Ikea picture direction for cooking, here is "this stuff" in a more traditional format:

1/2 a lemon
1/2 tsp minced garlic*
dry dill
a pinch of cayenne pepper (called ground red pepper on the jar) (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 a carrot*
1 fillet tilapia

*Measurements are not exact, you can add more or less if you like.

Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C) (just in case I suddenly become popular with international readers).

Next lay out foil or parchment large enough to wrap the fish. Slice lemon and place in the center of the foil. I used 4 slices, but one missing from this picture because it loved the fish so much it stayed with it till the end.

Using a fork, place little bits of garlic around the 4 corners of the lemon slice cluster and sprinkle with a little bit of dill. Placing the garlic by the lemons rather than on the lemons imparts a mild garlic flavor, while still letting the lemon shine through.

Lay the fish on top of the lemons. Season with salt and pepper, cayenne pepper (teeny tiny, next time I don't think I will use it.), and dry dill. You can judge from the first picture, or put on as much or as little as your heart desires. Heck you can shower your fish, your self and your kitchen in dill if you want.

Shred the half a carrot onto your fish. Save or eat the other half of carrot. Mmmm carrot ghgghhghhghgggghhghghgh. Or less if your tastes do not lean toward the carrot encrusted.

Now fold over the smaller sides of foil and bring up the other two sides and crimp down sealing your fish and all it's fishy goodness in your little fishy pouch. If you are using parchment you should follow the directions here. And probably use a rimmed baking sheet, which I did not use because I used foil and just put it in the oven on the rack and waited impatiently for my fish! Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until fish is flaky and opaque.

Oh what to do when waiting for my fish...make PEAS! With a little garlic sea salt and some pepper when boiling...yum yum!


Add a side of brown rice (made in the rice cooker you have just now used exactly twice in ten years) and at the end of your meal the only thing left will be this:

Enjoy!

Bloggy love!

I just finished "Born to Run" by Chris McDougall and I started wondering more about barefoot running and "barefoot" shoes, which I googled. This almost completely presented me with articles, most of the ones I scanned were of the MSN or Yahoo homepage "this guy said this one thing and i kinda agree, what do you think" variety. We all know the type, a page long, half is an anecdote, a quarter is regurgitated info, and the rest is opinion. But then I came across a neuro-anthropology blog (I know blogs...online...journals...knowing the source of info - whatever). This one, this entry, is beautiful. It is intelligent without being esoteric, layman's language without being overly simplistic or patronizing. The information provided comes with references, most from science journals or papers, some from other scientific blogs...and I just really really love the way this blog entry is formed! And, and I want more stuff to find this ideal place of intelligent and informative, without relying on PhD speak, or gotchas. Sigh. Such a great blog entry!
http://neuroanthropology.net/2009/07/26/lose-your-shoes-is-barefoot-better/
Umm the linked one, not this one sounding vaguely like a high pitch "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE" accompanied by amorous looks which can be slightly creepy.

Random Lessons From Clip-On Hair

Ah yes, the first post of the New Year, highly anticipated by those of you following this well crafted, highly intellectual blog. Those who were there for the first post, four posts ago, about junk mail and procrastination, I could not let you down. Nor could I begin my blogging relationship with those new to this blog with an inferior offering. No, you need the best. This post is for you.

With the New Year comes a new beginning; born of discoveries about one’s self, and I am no different. Some lessons are moments that pass with a smile, others have lasting implications, and not to share would be a crime, for in my journey you may find new things about your own.

I sing the bologna song way too much, especially when tired and around a particular roommate (I have no idea why, she just makes sleepy-me want to sing about processed meat with a first and second name). She pointed this out to me one night when she said “You always tell me about your bologna when you’re tired.” But it wasn’t until going to work after a short night and feeling the death rays of an accusing glare from a coworker when he stopped whistling about his bologna abruptly. Then my boss yelling desperately for me to stop when I sung “My bologna has a seventh name, it’s B-O-L-O-G-N-A” when she hadn’t been there for the other six verses, then I realized I have a problem and it’s name is B-O-L-O-G-N-A.

Yet, even with this incident, I have come to the conclusion (because it affects mostly me) that it is ok to have the same cd playing in my car for a couple of weeks strait (has it been more than a month since you last got in my car and this same Bollywood cd was playing? Really? Ummm I have listened to other things in the interim, I swear!). Mostly ok.

Ah but what new year would be complete with out a candy discovery, be it a new candy, the rediscovery of a childhood favorite, or why there is usually candy in the pantry. Recently (this afternoon when buying dark chocolate raisinets) I have come to believe the reason chocolate bars can sit on my pantry shelf for months (which baffles some frequenters of the pantry), and a bag of peppermint patties doesn’t last 2 weeks, and dark raisinets mere hours, is because individual sized candies are easier to devour without noticing, but a chocolate bar takes commitment.

Then there is the odd. Not noticing the odd thing here or there, but noticing something odd – about my hair. Your raising one eyebrow right now, aren’t you? Ya, me too. Actually raising my right eyebrow independent of my left is something learned just this past year, before I had to lower my left brow to make my right higher…anyway my awesome hair. It is curly and there is a ton (from my dad), it’s some where between light and medium brown and has random gray strays though out (from my mom, the color and pattern of graying, not the actual gray hairs), and it is pretty long (from not getting it cut since May…Melissa, my dear friend…). But even with this clear picture of my hair, I discovered something new and strange on Saturday.

I went to a church activity which included a dance, so I painted my face with Covergirl and Almay and did my hair. Since my hair was wet from being freshly washed and hair dryers = frizz, up it went with combs and bobby pins allowing some curls to fall loose down my neck. I don’t know about you, but I can’t see the back of my head. From the front my up do looked pretty good, or I thought so anyway. When I asked a friend how my hair looked she hesitated and then said “good”. Clearly I needed find out what the back of my head looked like. And so when I got home I took out my camera phone and found out it’s hard to take pictures of the back of my head, as evident by the picture of the bathroom shelf you see here.
I also (more importantly) discovered the color difference between the darker hair closest to the scalp and the blondish hair at the tips, coupled with lots of curl, actually looked like clip on hair. GUHH?!?!?!?!
Ok, now there must be evidence that the hair in the curly mass was actually my own and not some ten dollar mall kiosk offering. So 80 bobby pins and two combs later, my still damp hair cascades in curls down my back and I get a picture.

Ya, it could be mine.

A Mouse is not a Moose

One of the only complaints I have with vegan foods is when they call things cheese, its well, not. As an omni, I am intimately acquainted with the “real” flavors of cheese, pepperoni, and cake. I am delighted by the textures, flavors, and consistencies of non-vegan foods. But I am equally delighted by new recipes, inviting me to experience a new part of my culinary world – so long as you don’t call a mouse a moose.

Take for instance vegan macaroni and cheese: really? Vegan? When you hand me a plate of your animal free epicurean experiments and call it cheese, I will eat it and hate it. If however the word cheese has been exiled and it is called something non-dairy soundingish, I will eat it and give it a fair shake. Why? Because I will not be expecting the rich, creamy, slightly sharp taste of cheddar that won’t be there.

So Vegans, know when I try your mac & “cheese” recipes, I will re dub them yellow pasta, or baked pasta, or Reginald, anything else really. Boring and lame, but there is a much better chance at success, and if it fails, it will not be because of unrealized expectations due to a misnomer.

Soup mix

Today I will take you on an adventure!!! And adventure in soup. Oh yes, soup. I love soup. Love, love, love. Soup is glorious to behold, to smell, and to taste. It is warm, hot, cold, sour, sweet, savory, spicy, chunky, or smooth. The textures are wide and varied, sometimes in the same bowl; flavors are uniform or complex, robust, or playful, delicate, or forceful. It can be a comfort, to warm the soul with a hearty winter vegetable soup, or cool and refresh the palate with a chilled summer fruit soup. To put it simply, the shades and tones of soup, and the making thereof, are a representation of life.

And as is true with life, the whole of soup, its nature, history, and the nuances of connection cannot be fully realized in one lifetime, let alone one blog post. So we will explore one soup, and my connection, my journey, with this particular soup.

This voyage will take you two places simultaneously. The first place is to the world the cook book wants you to go, where the recipe is leading. The second place is wild and unfocused as I traverse the list of instructions and ingredients, and try to follow the recipe to a delicious meal (please oh please make it delicious, or at least palatable, please, I have guests coming and there aren’t enough cookies for everyone to eat for dinner if the soup doesn’t work), exposing my tenuous relationship with recipes and offering insight into the inner workings of Kitchen Rachel. My words will be italicized, and those in plain text will be the words of “Ribollita”. The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Soup. Ed. Debra Mayhew. New York: Barns & Nobel Books, 2003. 125.

Let the adventure begin and thank you Barnes & Nobel for not suing me for reprinting your recipe without your permission.

Ribollita (pronounced rib ryb um Not-Minestrone)
Ribollita is like minestrone, but includes beans instead of pasta. In Italy, this is traditionally served ladled over bread and a rich green vegetable, although you can omit this for a lighter version. (Or out of fear and laziness)
Serves 6-8 (really, cuz I don’t believe you)

3 Tablespoons olive oil (sure, that looks about right)
2 onions, chopped (tears of joy)
2 carrots, sliced (I will use all five carrots I have in my fridge, *crunch, chomp, crunch, crunch, yum* I will use these 4 carrots I have left)
4 garlic cloves, crushed (right, good thing I have a garlic press to do this. Wait! I will use some crushed garlic from this jar here in my fridge.)
2 celery stalks, finely sliced (yes, 4 celery stalks, finely sliced)
1 fennel bulb, trimmed and chopped (check)
2 large zucchini, finely sliced (I will buy 3 and eat one…I will use all 3 zucchini in the soup, minus the slices that accidentally fell into my mouth) 14-oz can crushed tomatoes (GAH! They only have 28-oz cans of the crushed tomato, every other kid of canned tomato known to man in the smaller can, but not crushed! Stupid local grocery store conveniently located next to my apartment complex, hence the reason I will continue patronizing your store. Now I will double the recipe, but I will neglect to go back to produce because I can only think I want to go home and have dinner.)
2 Tablespoons pesto, either homemade or store bought (or 3 heaping Tablespoons of purchased homemade style pesto. Hurray for Trader Joe’s! Why aren’t you the store next to my complex?)
3 ¾ cup vegetable stock (how about 2 four-cup boxes of vegetable broth, which I am told is different than stock, and all I have, because that’s what Trader Joe’s sells)
14-oz can haricot or borlotti beans drained (Ummm. Not found at next door grocery store (is anyone really surprised?), nor my beloved TJ’s (what?!)…Ummm, I know! For a different soup I use canella beans, I will use two 14-oz cans of canella beans!! )
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (*an hour after soup has been consumed* Oops.)

To Serve: (or not to serve, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…what? You know you thought it too.)
1 pound young spinach (I don’t wanna)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil plus extra for drizzling (mmm Old Town olive oil tasting)
6 to 8 slices white bread (or have a friend bring wheat French bread and let folks have it on the side with butter. Mmm wheat French bread and butter ghghghhhgghghhghghg)
Parmesan cheese shavings, optional (Recommend, especially if *ahem* someone forgets the salt, or um wants individuals to salt according to taste…uh yes, that’s it, according to taste.)

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan add the onions, carrots, garlic, celery, and fennel and fry slowly for 10 minutes. Add the zucchini slices and fry for 2 minutes longer

1. Heat oil in 12 quart stalk pot on too high heat, add onions, carrots, celery, fennel and garlic cut the night before. Stir like crazy and turn the heat down. Laugh and question that whole “slow frying” thing because the vegetables are a couple of inches deep in the pot. Stir occasionally anyway for like um ok it’s probably been 10 or 15 minutes, sure. I hope these onions weren’t supposed to change color, you know, “frying” in the liquid from the veg. Add zucchini and stir. I guess for 2 minutes-ish.

2. Add the crushed tomatoes, pesto, stock, and beans and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes until all the vegetables are tender. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

2. Add the pesto, stock, tomatoes, beans, cover and bring to a boil. Now bite nails because guests are late, which is awesome, but the food will be later, which is not awesome. Read simmering part of directions, look at clock, turn down to medium and hope it doesn’t simmer too long before it goes back up to an unattended boil. Completely miss salt and pepper thing. Seriously, that wasn’t there before. When carrots are done-ish, serve the soup.

3. To serve fry the spinach in the oil for 2 minutes, or until it wilts. Spoon over the bread in the bowls and ladle to soup over the spinach. Serve with extra olive oil for drizzling onto the soup and Parmesan cheese to sprinkle of top, if liked.

3. Put bread and butter on the table, along with Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Enjoy soup, friends, and conversation.

Meaning in Freedom

Originally this next post was going to be about shopping bags (stay tuned), but my outlet for procrastination has, itself, become something to procrastinate. :) Rather, today I wanted to share something a little more personal and a little bit more serious than normal, something I rarely do, and never in a public forum. Some folks may not know (because I don't share) my brother and cousin are both over seas in the service, serving in the Army and Marines respectively. Their names have been in temples, and on our lips as we pray countless times. When my 4 year old nephew helps me pray (one word at a time), he always remembers Uncle Kevin. I know my family experience is not unique, nor could it ever be par for course. It does however, bring a different meaning for me on this day. The sacrifice and bravery of our service men and women was always abstract, distant thought that I could intellectualize but could never connect with. Today, my freedom is connected to lives, with people, with family. I hope I can keep this testimony, if you will, of the cost of today's picnic, tomorrows worship service, my outrage in politics, my choices in life. I want to grow this new understanding, now in its infancy, of what the 4th means, the original meaning of our holidays honoring our veterans, and the fallen, who gave the last full measure of devotion for each of us. But most of my hope is for my brother and cousin. Happy independence day.