The Only Quarter Pounder I Want to Eat

Confession time: I used to love Quarter Pounders. Every once in awhile I just had to have one. (Which reminds me... isn't it Shamrock Shake season and don't they stop selling them after St. Patrick's Day? Hopefully that means I'll make it through the weekend without buying one!) I loved that grease and that cheese... all of it together was just... mmm. Now, thankfully, whenever I eat one I get sick. So I've come to associate the Quarter Pounder with getting sick and don't eat them anymore.

But I still love burgers. I don't ever want to give up meat because I love burgers so much. During Mardi Gras weekend when my friend Molly was here we went to a bar on St. Claude called Siberia hoping to see a burlesque and comedy show called "Jiggles and Bits," I think. Because it was Lundi Gras, the show was cancelled. But we hadn't eaten dinner and wanted to try Russian food (we'd already had Ethiopian and would have Lebanese the next day) and stuck around to hear the sounds of "Krewe de Peaux," an eclectic lineup of a marching band from Austin, a rock n' roll trio of Japanese guys, and a very odd little man on keyboard (I left when he came on; he just wasn't my style). She got some type of vegetarian sandwich (I don't remember) and I got the Russki burger, a big beautiful burger with garlic mushrooms and spinach, cheddar and Swiss, LTP, and Russian dressing. It was divine. (I also got a side of fries. They were awesome but the burger was so good and so big that I didn't eat many of the fries; Molly didn't eat them either. During the show, a couple guys were like, "Are those your fries?" They'd gone cold but I said yes and that they could have them. The two proceeded to inhale them; it was pretty funny to watch.)

As part of my pledge to eat what I've got in my pantry, I'm also trying to go through what's in my freezer. I had two pounds of beef in there that I just kept forgetting to thaw. Finally this morning I put one pound into the fridge. When I got home it was still mostly frozen so I thawed it in the microwave in 30-second intervals. Then I made burgers.

I was curious about different ways to cook burgers so I made two quarter pounders in the toaster oven and two in the frying pan.

These taste delicious, even though they look like mystery meat. 

The ones in the frying pan looked much better. 

Instead of the usual accouterments (I know that's not how it's supposed to be spelled - it's your fault Google dictionary!), I ate it on a piece of French baguette with Vegemite spread and avocado. I LOVE avocado - love love love. "Where have you been all my life?!?!" kind of love. I had a little cheese and a few cherry tomatoes on the side. 

It was a very filling, very delicious meal. WAY better than any Quarter Pounder. Though I would still like a Shamrock Shake... 

What do you like to eat on your burgers?   

Amazing "Struggle Dough" Sugar Cookies

So I somehow wound up with a 2 pound and a 1 pound bag of sugar, as well as a small plastic container of local sugar that I got as a freebie with a grocery order. I also have a 1 pound bag of confectioner's sugar, but that's lagniappe at this point. With all this sugar and a pledge to eat out of and clean out my pantry in the weeks before I move away from New Orleans (six! waaah), I decided the other night to bake sugar cookies, thinking that they must use more sugar than normal cookies. (They don't.)

Nonetheless, I was feeling a little upset after a stressful day and had to get up early for work. If I had to get up early and do a volunteer project, I figured cookies would at least make the day better. So I Googled simple sugar cookie recipes and found a good one from AllRecipes - Easy Sugar Cookies. Fool proof, right?

Wrong. After putting together the ingredients I realized that the dough couldn't possibly be right - it was very dry and crumbly. I looked at the recipe again and said to myself, "Wait... a cup of butter... is that one stick or two?" I had only put in one.

After I folded in the second stick of butter, the dough looked much better but was still pretty crumbly. (I thought we had a set of electric beaters but couldn't find the actual beater, just the detachable beaters, so I used some arm muscle to mix everything.) But I pressed on (pun intended), hoping that the cookies would magically turn out right. 

I made little lumpy balls and set them on the cookie sheet, then put them into the oven. Instead of baking for the recommended 8-10 minutes, they needed 15 to get crackly and golden brown.

They still didn't look like the pictured sugar cookies, nor like any sugar cookie I'd ever eaten. Instead they looked like a cross between a cookie and a biscuit. They made the house smell AMAZING though... way better than any Yankee candle. 

The first one I tasted was crunchy on the outside with just a little bit of chewiness in the center. 

Because I used 50% whole wheat, 50% white flour, they had sort of a speckled look to them. All the butter made them very rich. 

Soooo good. Although they only used 1 1/2 cups of sugar, they did help clean out my pantry... every bit counts! 

What do you like to bake when you de-stress? 

Ga-What Now?

You can wax philosophical comparing all the different pronunciations of Americanized Polish food. Peh-ro-gis. Pee-your-gis. P'ro-gis for pierogies, the dumplings filled with everything from prunes to potatoes. Then there's the guh-wump-ki. Ga-lump-ki. Ho-lub-ki for golumpki, the cabbage rolls of ground beef or pork stewed in broth or tomato sauce.

Growing up half Polish, I made and ate pierogies every Christmas Eve since I could hold a fork (for pressing the edges together, of course). My grandmother used to make golumpki in the Crock-pot and although it looked funny it tasted amazing. Alas, I never appreciated borscht (WITHOUT beets) until I was an adult. When I spooned that amazing egg-y, salty broth in my mouth with a bite of kielbasa I almost cried with regret. "Where have you been all my life??" My mom's borscht is the best - I must get her recipe (which used to be her mom's, I think). (In fact, borscht is an excellent way to reuse that water you have after cooking kielbasa. Hooray for waste not, want not reusing!)

Golumpki is also one of those recipes that is great for 3T cooking, when you're just throwing things together. Say you have a head of local cabbage, frozen ground beef, and a jar of tomato sauce in the pantry - ta da, you have a golumpki dinner! The other night that's exactly what I did.

The big blue pot used to go inside my Crock-pot, but I'm pretty sure the fuse is shot. I'm afraid to use it. However, for recipes like golumpki, you can use the pot in the oven. It worked very well! 

I'm ashamed to admit I had to consult a recipe, but I shouldn't have to next time. I made about one and a half dozen cabbage rolls that fed me for a good week and a half, eating either two or three rolls for lunch. They're incredibly filling and really quite yummy.

The fun part about this golumpki is that instead of rice, which I didn't have, I used quinoa. I thought it might be kind of weird but it was actually wonderful. I wouldn't say I like it better than rice because rice is more absorbent but it was delicious. I'm so looking forward to having my last two rolls for lunch tomorrow!

And when it all boils down, you really can't pronounce the names with a mouthful of food anyways!

Happy munching!

Sneaux Day Meals

While working from home and not leaving the house (or my pajamas) for two days, I'm cooking up some interesting things. Yesterday I heated up a can of Bush's Baked Beans that I bought on clearance awhile back, but spruced up the meal a little by pairing the beans with cheese and spring onion quesadillas. I'm not a fan of onions, but these are okay in my book. They're very mild and very sweet, recommended to me by my favorite farmer, Nancy. I heated up two tortillas in a frying pan and lay slices of sheep cheese on top of the tortillas. After the tortillas got crispy and just before I folded them over, I sprinkled the chopped onion sprouts onto the cheese. The result was a crispy little pocket of cheese and sweet onion, which I then dipped in the baked beans and ate with fresh cherry tomatoes on the side. It was a really yummy little lunch.

Today, I decided against using the second half of the can of beans. It'll be a quick dinner tomorrow night, perhaps. Instead, I heated up two more tortillas and evaluated my pantry. A week ago, I tried to make yogurt and wound up with thick milk and cream cheese on the bottom of the pot. I had the last of it in my fridge, along with the spring onions, and a couple sweet potatoes in my fruit bowl. (Also - is that comma after onions an example of the Oxford comma?) I roasted one of the small sweet potatoes in my microwave and mashed it with the cream cheese, chopped spring onions, and a sprinkle of dried oregano. Then I spooned the paste into a crispy tortilla like a little taco.

It was creamy and savory, with a little burst of sweetness here and there. The crunch of the tortilla was also great. 

What do you like to eat during cold weather? 

Happy munching! 

Re-purposing Gifts and Leftovers

Remember that Snickerdoodle almond butter I said I bought at Hollygrove Market? I didn't like the taste so instead of trying to eat it on matzo for 20 days I searched "almond butter cookies" in Google. I found a very simple, 5-ingredient recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction and whipped them up. 

I added the rest of the cinnamon spicing pecans from my pantry.  I loved how gooey the dough was, forming into a tight ball in the bowl.

After 10 minutes, the cookies were crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. But, they still taste like Snickerdoodle almond butter - go figure! I put them in the one and half dozen cookies in the freezer thinking I would share them with friends. Instead I ate two for dessert. 

When my dear friend Jess left New Orleans, she gave me some of her pantry goods including dried black beans, canned black beans, ziti, and oatmeal. She also gave me a box of Zatarain's jambalaya. This was definitely better than the jambalaya I made in Philadelphia at a Mardi Gras party last year. (But oh my God the sodium content! I added black beans and the sodium from the albeit low-sodium Zatarain's and the two together took care of a third of my daily sodium intake.)  

Look at that steam! 

One of my New Year's resolutions was to take better food photos, so I was pretty happy that these looked okay. Because of the overhead lighting, though, I have to make sure my shadow stays out of the shot! 

I sauteed spring onions and vinegar-soaked garlic cloves in olive oil. Oh, the smell! I can't even begin to describe the smell but it was delicious. So good. 

Then I added tatsoi, a beautiful Japanese spinach that I started buying from one of my favorite farmers at the Thursday market. It cooks up a lot like spinach and can also be used in smoothies.

   

Yum! Then I had two of those almond butter cookies for dessert... I still don't quite like the taste but how can anyone resist cookies?

Happy munching!

I Made Cream Cheese!

I guess it's been too long since I made yogurt because the other day when I tried to, instead of getting a pot full of yogurt in the morning I found thick milk with a layer of very thick something at the bottom. I used the thick milk for smoothies and drained the stuff at the bottom in cheesecloth. I wasn't sure what it would turn into, but when I tasted it, I found it was cream cheese - or tasted just like it.

I don't have a picture of it when I first made it, but it looked like cream cheese in a watery liquid. I probably couldn't make it again if I wanted to, but I'm trying to get bagels so that I can really enjoy it! 

Now if I could only make bagels... in the meantime I just have matzo. The other spread is Snickerdoodle almond butter that I bought at Hollygrove Market. The only issue with it was the taste, which is why I made cookies. Read on for more, and happy munching!

60% is enjoyed!

In this week's blog I want to wax philosophical a little and talk about a problem I just read about in We Hate to Waste. America throws away 40% of its food; almost half. Okay, you say you don't throw away that much. But think about the food that spoils, the peels and cuttings that aren't re-purposed either in compost, or other edible things like candied orange peels or stock for soup, the leftovers at restaurants (even the butter packets that you don't use - they get thrown out with everything else on the table), and you get my point.

Then there's the food that you don't have control over, like the "expired" food at grocery stores that is thrown out when it's at or near the stamped date. Some food does need to be consumed before a certain time, but others are still perfectly good when they're chucked. (There have been multiple occasions where I had to remove myself from grocery stores when a freezer broke and all. the. ice cream. thawed or not, had to be thrown out. All of it. blijdibiejbhdlkdj Or when I worked at Rite Aid and the milk that had expired the day before was zeroed out and poured down the drain, when it was still drinkable.)

With all this food going to waste, we also have 1 in 6 people who are food insecure in this country. Being food insecure means you're not sure where your next meal is going to come from - picture a pantry that has so little food in it that you can't make a healthy meal for you or your family. Or having no pantry at all.

Shouldn't we be able to divert the still-edible food that goes to waste to those who need it? Ah, but for fear...

A few years ago I was dating a guy who worked at one of the restaurants in a senior center. Each night after the buffet they would throw away trays and trays of leftover food. They always made too much and never tried to donate it. It drove me up the walls knowing how much they were wasting. At the time I was the secretary for the board of a food pantry and tried to work with my boyfriend to get the restaurant to donate the leftover food to the pantry. I know they would have served it the next day or froze it or something to give to the many (many, many, many, and increasing every day) families that needed it. But we were told that the food couldn't be donated - even if my boyfriend drove it over to the center himself - because of the liability. The risk of one person getting sick and suing was enough to throw away all of that food each and every day.

This drives me crazy.

So what do I do?

1) I hardly keep anything in my fridge. When my mom was here to visit for Christmas she looked at my fridge and said, "Wow, what a sparse life." I don't want a stocked fridge. I cook for one person and don't want or need a fridge overflowing with food that's just going to spoil.

2) I keep things in my pantry that I can whip up quickly but I try to restrain myself from buying things just because they're on sale and might be useful "sometime."

3) When I eat out, I take home EVERYTHING. I take the bread, the butter packets if I didn't use them already, the oyster crackers... But I have to be careful of what happened to Dana Frasz in the post from We Hate to Waste, linked above: she said when she started eating her friends' pizza crusts to discourage waste she wound up gaining 25 pounds.

So my suggestion is to only get one basket of bread if you're only going to be able to eat one basket-full at dinner. Or if you know you want to save room for your entree, ask the server not to bring the bread at all.

4) When I cook, I put leftovers either in the freezer or fridge and eat them for a couple days. I might have two entrees in my fridge at a time and alternate them, one for lunch and one for dinner. But if I know I have leftovers in the fridge I won't cook anything else until they're eaten so that they don't go bad.

5) I try to mindful of my schedule for the week. If I know I won't have time to eat at home in between work and meetings or will be eating out a lot, I don't buy or cook a lot of food because I know won't eat it! Or, if possible, I take extra food to eat for lunch and dinner.

6) I go to a lot of potlucks because I like eating with friends. There's usually something in my fridge or pantry that I can whip up and it's a wonderful feeling to bring a dish and know you used something of yours in a fun way. I also try to invite friends to have dinner with me when I make something big, like a pot of chili. I hope I can brighten someone's day by inviting them on the fly.

7) Although I like to read or watch movies while eating, I do try to eat mindfully so that I get the most out of my food. I know that the faster you eat, the less likely you are to feel satisfied. The slower you eat, the more you taste your food and the more time your stomach has to tell your mouth, "OK, I'm good, you can stop now." So I try to listen to my tummy and not be afraid to put food back into the fridge if I just can't eat that whole bowl of spaghetti or whatever.

8) I store foods properly and am not afraid of expiration dates! I go to the Internet before I throw things out mindlessly. I cut the moldy bit off the block of cheese instead of throwing out the entire hunk of cheese. (That's largely thanks to my grandmother, who lived on a farm in Minnesota during the Depression.) Although I didn't make it, I'm intrigued by this recipe for wilted lettuce soup that I found through Google. I love to use my 3-T method of cooking to get creative with what I have in the fridge.

You've got to eat three (ish) times a day - you must as well have fun while you're doing it!

For more information about how you can get involved with Food Shift, please click here.

How do you creatively re-use food scraps?

Happy munching!