To Thine Own Self, Be Food

SUBTITLE: I HAVE NEW TECHNOLOGY.  SEE THE BOTTOM OF THIS ENTRY! Remember this post ?  In which I complain about eating too much and feeling crummy?  In which I resolve to keep foods simple and close to the source? Yeah.  That lasted three days.  Less than that, actually.  But that's neither here nor there. I'm a hypocritical idealist.  Sue me.  I see the world in a certain, simple way...and figure that it's a matter of a practical course of action that will get me there.  But reality has its own ways and means as well. Aaah well, there's always tomorrow to get on board with the right kind of eating.  Whatever that means, really. So.  The husband took down the Christmas tree today and my kids began to clear out the holiday detritus.  And what's good for the (Ryan) goslings is good for the goose.  My kitchen pantries are in need of the same. Hence, these muffins I made today. With the holidays come holiday b...

A full 24+ hours has eclipsed since Christmas Day, and I am now ready to recap the Cratchit Christmas Dinner. I feel that post-holiday letdown moreso this year than any other...and it definitely has less to do with the lack of presents under the Christmas tree and more to do with no big holiday menus to plan for and execute. Anyway, pictures and commentary and highlights: It was a rather quiet Christmas, with the Nelson 5 and my parents.  Going off of context clues in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , the menu consisted of roast goose, mashed potatoes, applesauce, sage and onion stuffing, and a Christmas pudding.  The point was to keep it simple and sparse. Oh yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaah. This is what a Christmas Pudding looks like.  I made it the Friday before Christmas day...but I read recipes that talked about keeping it in a cool, dry place for up to a year. Whaaaaaaaaa...?  That's a ServSafe violation if ever I saw one. But, that's why the recipes a...

Okay.  I know I've got a Cratchit Christmas Dinner to recap and illustrate for you here, and I have every intention of doing so. But, first...something that's on my mind: food. You're shocked, yes? I happen to be on a short hiatus from school and work, and I admit, I have the tiniest desire to be working or studying right now.  I mean, someone to crack the whip at my back.  It is all so easy to fall into a lifestyle of sloth during this holiday season. I spent last weekend at my in-laws house.  They live in the country + painful below-zero temps = no exercise.  There's a fair amount of sitting on the couch, watching hunting shows or basketball games.  I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, preparing the evening meals (and by golly, I was glad to do it).  Also, my husband's mom firmly believes in three hearty, plentiful meals a day...hard to get my crowd excited about stuffed pork loin when they've just gorged on ham balls and cheesy potatoes. ...

My thermometer reads -16.  That is staying-inside-the-house weather, people.  Today will be a day for cleaning house, catching up on laundry, prepping for tomorrow's dinner, and watching Christmas movies (today will be "Grinch" and "It's a Wonderful Life", tomorrow "A Christmas Carol"). And speaking of movies, I took my three kids to "The Hobbit" last night.  In 3D.  Watching movies "based on" books I absolutely love is usually painful for me.  For example, Keira Knightley's version of Pride and Prejudice was horrid, but the 1996 Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version is wonderfully spot-on.  The Harry Potter movies give me fits, and even the 'Lord of the Rings' series is missing key scenes from the books. However, I keep going to these movies, so the discrepancies must not be enough to ruin the experience. I am still trying to sort out how I feel about the certain "mistakes" in this film.  Usually, I n...

Two days without my Internets.  While I was at the in-laws.  It was rough. The in-laws let me be in charge of menus for the Saturday and Sunday night dinners, and I had two very willing sous chefs at my disposal (my brother#1-in-law and his wife).  The challenge was to class it up a little, but keep the foods recognizable for my father and mother and brother#3-in-law. Enjoy. A Triple-Pork Pork Loin... pork stuffed with ground pork, spinach, apples, and mushrooms, and then wrapped in prosciutto. Standard Au Gratin potatoes (I was heavy-handed on the cayenne.  I won't apologize for it.) The Chocolate Silk Tart.  As you can see, I scored out eight slices.  I should have done 16.  Very rich.  Finished pork loin with its unsightly marks from its time in bondage. You can tell here that I didn't quite butterfly my loin right...the bottom is too thick.  But still...tasted delicious and not dry at all. All this above m...

Because I will ruin your dining experience, likely. Unless that's what you're looking for...in that case, I'm free most evenings of the week and willing to drive just about anywhere. You all know I'm in my 6th term (or, penultimate, if you're looking to boost vocab) of culinary school...and since week two of the entire program, people have been asking me if it's difficult to eat out because I can't helping critiquing.  And I've usually responded in the affirmative because yeah, knowing what I know about the foodservice industry...? I know all the shortcuts.  I know that lots of people around here aren't terribly discerning in their tastes...and lots of food-type products get passed off as 'gourmet'. Case in point, my husband's pork roast lunch. The pork slices were juicy, but otherwise rather flavorless, which made me wonder if it were pre-prepared or what.  The mashed potatoes, although they had green flecks of something in them,...

I can hardly resist the magazine aisle at any grocery store/Walmart/gas station.  The explosion in culinary magazines available to everyday readers like me is pretty exciting stuff. Whole magazines devoted to wine.  To wine with food.  To cookies.  To healthy eating.  To gluten-free eating.  And on and on and on.  Invariably, I leaf through the pages, drool over the food photography, read the articles and tear out any recipes it was likely I'd try. Erm.  Let me clarify.  I BUY the magazine and take it home first...and then do all that I listed above.  I do not, as a habit, vandalize periodicals I have not paid for. Sometime earlier this summer, I'd purchased a magazine titled Eating Well.   And I'd clipped out this recipe: Strawberry-Rhubarb Quinoa Pudding I mean, I like strawberry and I like quinoa.  AND - I have a half-bag of it in the pantry that I need to use. What better time to try it, yes?  I knew you'd ...

November is over (okay, alright, you sticklers, it's been over for two days now), and I shall take today's blog opportunity to recap the month. Another NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is in the books, and I wrote another novel.  Every year I try to write in a different genre (Mainstream, Chick Lit (x2), Young Adult) and for 2013, I tried my hand at a murder mystery.  Since I'm not much of a murder mystery reader, it was rather difficult to write.  However, it is done, and I think it came out a little like a Janet Evanovich hybrid or something.  I reckon I ought to begin editing it soon. It's also time to catch up on my reading as well.  Right now, I am working on A Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln , and I've got Bram Stoker's Dracula and Shelley's Frankenstein on the list next (I've just recently watched the movie Van Helsing , can you tell?). Food-wise, the Christmas menu planning is well underway.  For those tuni...

Everyone knows how Thanksgiving works, right? You make too much food. You eat too much food. You try to send home too much food with all your guests. You still have too much food in your refrigerator even after that. At this point, you either get creative with the leftovers, or you eat them straight up as is, or you throw them away.  Usually, here at Chez Nelson, we go with the second option until we just can't stand it anymore and then we do #3. This year, though, I've got different ideas. This is a Sweet Potato and Turkey Pizza.  I made the dough from scratch, rolled it out to a 1/4" thickness, and used the rest of the Savory Garlic Philly Cooking Creme from the galette for the "sauce".  Had I not that, I would have probably gone with a seasoned olive oil brushing on the crust instead.  I don't think traditional tomato-based pizza sauce would go as well. My father-in-law had brought me some garden-grown sweet potatoes and I diced them up and...

My alarm went off at seven-thirty this a.m. because it was time to turn this... into this... For the record, I should think about employing a professional part-time photographer...like my 14-year-old who...doesn't really know much about my Nikon.  By the time I remembered to get a picture of a dish, the pan had been cleaned out.  Also, I didn't get a picture of the entire spread...and who doesn't do THAT!? Keeping that in mind, here's what I did get for photos. The first picture is what's left of the Spinach-Artichoke Galette.  Along with a vegetable relish tray, taco dip and chips, and deviled eggs, this was part of the first course. The middle photo is the finished Lemon-Cranberry Bars, with a dusting of powdered sugar.  I think this one is a definite keeper, and I have been mulling over changes I'd make in the future. The bottom photo is the Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with a Whiskey Caramel Sauce...which has my nomination for Best Dessert of...

You know, dear readers, that I love what I'm doing, right?  That I love four afternoons and nights this week of chopping, stirring, baking, mixing, puréeing, boiling, melting, squeezing, zesting, brining, whisking, and combining for tomorrow's Thanksgiving Feast? IdoIdoIdoIdoIdoIdoIdoIdo. Tomorrow will begin early, only because of the turkey, but otherwise, I will be quite at my leisure.  My parents are arriving at 10 a.m., with their huge 12-cup capacity coffeemaker.  My in-laws (parents, two brothers, sister, and three small children) will arrive around 11, and the first courses will begin at 12. And I will be ready. Again, I've loved every minute of the prep process.  I've looked forward to coming home, getting out my knives, doing my mise en place, and working my mojo.  Things are winding down.  For example, today's task list consisted of. 1. Wash all plates and serving dishes and utensils. Dust ceiling fans.  Vacuum.  Sweep. ...

It has been a long day.  And by long I mean on my feet.  So, my dear mother came over tonight for Day Two Prep...and I will say, she is extremely efficient in the kitchen.  She can multitask like an Olympic acrobat. 1. Make and refrigerated Bacon and Mustard Mashed Potatoes. 2. Thaw brioche for Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Bread Pudding. 3. Make and chill galette dough for Spinach-Artichoke Galette. 4. Roast squash and puree for Butternut Squash Soup. 5. Make cranberry puree for Lemon-Cranberry Bars. 6. Make graham cracker crust for #5. In short, 1. Make and refrigerated Bacon and Mustard Mashed Potatoes . 2. Thaw brioche for Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Bread Pudding. 3. Make and chill galette dough for Spinach-Artichoke Galette. 4. Roast squash and puree for Butternut Squash Soup. 5. Make cranberry puree for Lemon-Cranberry Bars. 6. Make graham cracker crust for #5. Tomorrow, school lets out early.  Plenty of time to complete Wednesday's prep list before th...

Thanksgiving is a mere three days away.  The food preparation begins now. The menu planning began four weeks ago, and the to-do list was sorted out two weeks ago. And now, my mostly American (and one Russian) friends, execution is key. I must admit, I sort of expected a lot of people to ask me what I'm doing for Thanksgiving.  But surprisingly, not many have.  Don't people want to talk about menus like I do?  Don't people want to know what a chef-in-waiting is going to prepare for, like, the biggest food feast of the year? No?  Oh, the hubris.   I shall soldier on anyway. My to-do for tonight included: 1. Make mashed potatoes and freeze. 2. Make cranberry chutney. 3. Make caramel sauce for vanilla bean bread pudding. But first, the filling of four dozen pumpkin whoopie pies for my son's Boy Scout banquet tomorrow night took precedence, and that set me back 45 minutes.  By my account, Item #1 was the most expendable...so making mash...

A new school term started today, and you know how those first days are...exhausting and uncertain. All I really wanted after supper tonight was something a little sweet.  A little chocolate, a little dessert, a piece of my kids' Halloween candy...but no, turns out there was nothing.  No chocolate, no banana cream pie, and the candy had long since been run through my kids' digestive and excretory systems. So, what - I mean, I gotta do everything around here or what? Necessity is INDEED the mother of invention, because here's what I did.  Toasted a piece of whole wheat bread, buttered and cinnamon-sugared it...then sprinkled it with mini-chocolate chips. As if that weren't awesome enough, I remembered suddenly that I had a bottle of Port in my wine cooler. Double booyah!  Port is a sweet, fortified red wine normally produced in Portugal.  It's heavy duty stuff, not for the Boone's Farm drinkers in the crowd...will warm your insides right up in a pinch....

*Warning: Post contains references which may make author seem older than she appears. Who here remembers phone booths?  Not in relation to Doctor Who, but those mostly-glass boxes on street corners that would more often than not have no phone book and a telephone that did not work?  I remember them too, but I never used one because by the time I would have had somebody important to call, they'd gone obsolete (the phone booth, that is.  Not the person I wanted to call). Apparently, waaay before my time, it was a fad to pack as many people as possible into a phone booth.  It looked something like this: Photo courtesy of www.mortaljourney.com. I can't think of anything I'd rather do less than cram myself (along with 20-30 people I don't know very well and who probably haven't been tested for diseases) into a space that is designed for one person, maybe two, and a decent amount of oxygen.  This here is NOT the choice way I'd spend my crazy college weekend....

I have never ever been a fan of referring to Wednesdays as 'Hump Day' for the following reasons: 1. 'Hump' is a weird word that conjures up mostly animalistic imagery for me.  Dogs and rabbits in general.  Don't get me wrong...I don't mind dogs or rabbits or humping.  At all.  I just don't want them associated with the middle of the week.  That's all.  2. Hump Day seems to imply an action that everyone should be doing, instead of being productive work citizens and contributing to the GNP.  And not humping by a dog or rabbit, but by another member of your species.  That's a lot of pressure.  I mean, some Wednesdays it's just about all I can do to get out of bed and crawl into a hot shower...much less try to hump or get humped. My own personal linguistic preferences notwithstanding, I had a pretty kick-ass Wednesday.  My fifth term of culinary school ended yesterday, and so us students are on a little end-of-term break until next Mon...

Today, I want to talk about work.  My work autobio, more specfically. With the exception of the months that I birthed my three children and took my subsequent maternity leave, I have been a member of the active labor force since 1999. I graduated in 1998 with a Bachelor's degree in English and a teaching certification for grades 7-12.  My husband, who'd graduated six months before me (that scoundrel), took a software engineer job at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota...and he who gets the well-paying job first gets to call the shots. Spencer was born in April of 1999 and I started teaching 7th and 8th grade Reading that fall.  And I taught there through the spring of 2004.  I'd also managed to get my Master's in Education just before Elliot was born in August of 2004.  My plan then was to take a year off from teaching to be with my three children, who at that time were 5, 3, and infant.  That year off lasted until December, when I decided to take a long-term...

Today's entry title is brought to you by all those northeasterners who have a strong Jersey accent. Try it yourself.  Channel your inner Snooku or The Situation or Jonny-B (what happened to real people with real names, eh?) and say the blog title out loud. Then, you'll get the rhyme. So, it's November, right?  That means it's National Novel Writing Month (just over 10k words here, btw), not to mention the month of, like, the biggest feast of the year.  The greatest chance for people like myself to showcase our skills, wow the crowds, and dream of being able to modestly address our adoring families and friends with words like, Oh, it was nothing!  I just whipped it together in a couple of hours.   Etc., ad nauseum. Now is the time to begin planning your Thanksgiving meal menu.  Actually, last month was the time to start planning it, but those days are gone by, and we must focus on the now. What I've got here is a fun little hors d'oeuvres that...

What is this? If I had a decent camera on my cell phone, this picture would look like below: ............. Um. Damn.  Google failed me there.   I couldn't find a really super-duper professional Glamour Shot of the exact poached pear dessert I did for a pasta dinner Friday night.  Which, now that I think about it, makes me happy...that means not many people out there are doing what I do. Well, they probably are, but they are a.) not taking pictures or b.) are beyond the first couple of pages of Google hits. So, let me 'splain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up. (One million spacebucks if you can tell me what movie the above three lines come from) A firm pear, cored and peeled, poached in a bath of really sweet red wine along with a couple of cinnamon sticks and some vanilla.  I only filled the pot halfway up the pear because I wanted the gradual red fade into the natural pear color.  Then, I whipped up a saba...

Sundays are beautiful, glorious days of the week.  A time for leisure and work, the promise of success and fortune lie right at Sunday's feet.  Anyway, it's almost November.  And you know what that means! Or...maybe you don't? NaNoWriMo!!!  Wheeeee!  One month of craziness, scaryashell laughs and fist pounds as me and millions of other writers across the planet try to pound out 50,000 words of unadulterated crap in 30 days. As if I don't have enough to do.  I know.  But as Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) says in The Shawshank Redemption , Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'. That's about damn right. I'm on year five, and I've won all previous years (winning = hitting 50k+), so I expect this year to be the same, except... my genre of choice this year is "Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense", which sounds great, but a.) I've never written a mystery before, and b.) I don't read a lot of mysteries. But hey, I'm not...

Two weeks of unrelenting and uncompromising cake decorating ended today in the bakery. And while I'm rather relieved that the ordeal is over, I admit to being a little sad about its conclusion.  Here's what I've learned... 1. Cake decorating is art.  Anyone who tries to argue that it's not knows nothing about its processes and procedures. 2. It will make you cry.  Check that, it will make me cry. 3. It will test your limits of patience. 4. You'll find out how much of a "satisficer" you are (at which point you say meh, good enough ) 5. It will make you feel like you really accomplished something, when it's all said and done. 6. Some people just walk in the light, you know, when it comes to this form of artistry.  Accept it and move on.  You won't be good at everything. 7. Cake decorators (the good ones) are totally justified in asking for hundreds (thousands) of dollars for their wedding cakes. 8. Marshmallow fondant is easy to mak...

Today marked the penultimate day of Cake Decorating...and it was by far the most stressful of the last three weeks...and I mean, to quote the youth, I was a hater . But, that time is done and gone.  Here's what happening right now: A glass (which may turn into a bottle) of a Riesling I have not had in quite some time (read about that here ), and a episode (or more) of AMC's The Walking Dead . Let me clarify...quickly because TechMeat's got the Netflix cued.  School friends of mine went on and on about this TV show, so I got nuts one night and watched the first episode (with Brent, natch)...and now, we're kinda interested.  We're on episode 4 of Season One, so yeah, a long ways to go to catchup. Honestly, the last time we had this much interest in a TV show was Spin City and Dharma and Greg in the early 2000s.  For real.  We don't do a lot of TV around here.  Movies, yes.  TV, no. I'm going now.  To recover my strength and gear up for t...

Today we say hello to the one reader in the United Arab Emirates.  Thank you for your (accidental, likely) readership.  I am ashamed to admit that I didn't know where the UAE was until I Googled it. Which brings me to today's blog post.  My ignorance and and subsequent Google search, that is.  But really, I have something far more scary to talk about. Apathy.  Many of the people I go to school with and are very much in contact with are afflicted with this particular disease.  Of which there may be no cure.  Richard Yates, author of Revolutionary Road , has perhaps said it best, "It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little Goddamn mediocrity.”  I would amend Mr. Yates's statement by attaching two words to the very end: "...and entitlement." By nature, I am not an optimist.  I have rather high expectations of people, and naturally, they d...

Cue your 'Footloose' soundtrack, readers!  Get that Mike Reno cranked up loud! Almost Paradiiise...we're knockin' on Heaven's door... Blahblahblahblah....how could we ask for more....? I know that Mike and Ann (Wilson) was talking about Lori Singer and Kevin Bacon, but the moniker applies to my adventure. Des Moines. Farmer's Market A chilly, sunny (mostly) October Saturday morning. Yep.  You probably know where I'm going now.  Fresh, local produce.  Free samples.  An general goodwill camaraderie of like-minded people.  Free samples.  And the vegetables!  Vegetables, I tell you!  Vegetables that became my dinner. Iowa pork chops.  With a salt, pepper, and sage dry rubs.  Grilled until yummy! Parsnips.  Peeled, cubed, and boiled...much in the same vein as potatoes.  Butter, milk, chives, and garlic added to the puree. Brussel sprouts (Spencer seen scoring in the background) that would later be pa...

I've been chronicling my cake-decorating adventures in the bakery here at Be Food. And it's been interesting and riveting, to be sure. Today, however, I find is not a day for words, but instead, pictures.  Today I achieved a great milestone, and I will trumpet my joyousness here on the Internets through pictures. We've had a guest in our bakery class, a professional wedding cake designer and maker.  She's shared some recipes, tricks of the trade, as well as her tools and skills.  And today, for the first time ever, I covered and decorated my first fondant cake.  This has always been a daunting thing for me. Fondant has always seemed scary.  Until today. Probably hard to tell, color-wise, what exactly is happening here.  A bright yellow fondant-covered cake, purple fondant pearls there at the bottom, purple and yellow fondant flowers on the sides. I had my daughter, Kirby, in mind when I did this, and she will turn 13 (I know, I know, next ...

Let's jog the ol' memory tonight. Nah...let's more like shake the crapness out of my memory until it wets itself and surrenders any and all information I ask it for. If you read between the lines (not the Blurred Lines) on my Kenny Rogers-related post, you'll get that my childhood family meals were pretty Amurican.  Beef stew, pot roast, pan-fried pork chops.  I do recall cans of La Choy Chop Suey and chow mein noodles, and in the later years, tacos (and that was ethnic food at our house).  But, for the most part, Hamburger Helper (and this was long before Tuna, Chicken, or Asian Helper) and Swanson's made up the bulk of my childhood eating. And here's where things get even more murky: What in world did I eat for lunch when I was a kid? Take a moment to ponder this very question for yourselves.  Are you having as much trouble as I did answering this question?  Or am I just getting old?  Or have I repressed it? I know I did not get the cafeteria ...