To Thine Own Self, Be Food

Alas.  Tough lesson learned this past weekend regarding the dangers of testing a recipe in mid-summer...that you clipped the winter past. I was very excited to try this recipe: Beet-Braised Short Ribs .  But, beets are a winter vegetable, and derned near impossible to find in the fresh, natural state in the summer.  I was left with two options: go without or go canned.  Neither was an exciting choice. In the end, I opted for canned, and I'll be frank with how that turned out.  But, first - meat. These are short ribs, English-cut.  Rib bones surrounded by fatty, meaty goodness.  Very, very tough eats, though.  They are located on the part of the cow that gets a bit of exercise, what with walking to pasture, standing in pasture, walking to another pasture, etc.  The muscle is quite lean, which makes for a tough chew if its subjected to direct heat cooking methods (grill, roast, etc.) That's why short ribs are perfect for braising....

Nearly two weeks ago, the Man and I decided it was serious high time to refocus, get in shape, and get our consumption under control. What did that mean?  My husband's plan was, vaguely, this: eat better and exercise. As a former teacher, the problem was immediately visible.  NO measurable means of progress...how would we know we were "eating better"?  What is "exercise", exactly?  The easiest way to measure eating better is keeping track of calories and weighing ourselves regularly.  And for me, exercise would be to be start running again, with maybe eventually the goal being to enter some kind of 5K race in the future. And here's the irony of all this: my husband, who's an IT guy and works with technology all day long, is more likely to just wing it when it comes to portion control, calorie counting, and exercising.  Whereas I dive headfirst into the World Of Phone Apps to find programs that will help me keep track of all this. For eating, I fo...

A trend that I've seen cropping up in my meanderings (and one I think will definitely stay) is that of online grocery shopping and delivery.  Particularly popular and more feasible in big cities, people can fill electronic grocery carts, pay online, and have those foodstuffs etc delivered the next day or the next hour. Great...? There are rare days when, yes, I would LURVE groceries delivered to my door.  Yes, even I tire of looking at and selecting food sometimes.  Endless aisles of food or food-looking products.  Waiting in line to pay, bag, before lugging them home and Tetrising them into the various spaces in my refrigerator and pantry (Lord help me when all my kids finally leave the house and can no longer do this task) is a low-grade fatiguing activity. But exhausting nonetheless. #firstworldproblems Most of the time, though, I revel in going to the supermarket.  To me, grocery stores are rife with endless possibilities.  Not only in what I mi...

Note: There are no references to dogs in today's post.  Sorry. I've been graduated from culinary school for over a year now, and I've wanted to try making a pavlova for, oh, I'd say probably the last two years. Well, I can finally cross it off the bucket list. Our garden's kale crop is phenomenal, and when I put the all-call out on Facebook, one really good super-duper friend responded with, hey, I'll trade ya - kale for raspberries!? KALE YES! A pavlova is a meringue dessert with Down Under origins (New Zealand, I believe, gets the formal credit, although Australia claims ownership as well). Meringues are a confection that consist of mainly egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar.  There's a lot of whipping and adding and monitoring that goes into meringue, and perhaps that's why it's something people don't usually attempt.  It bakes in the oven at a low temperature (200 F) for nearly two hours.  That, in and of itself, might deter ot...

Last night was a first.  I rode Stella, my Island-purchased Biria bicycle, around the 13-mile trail here in town.  I'd never done the trail before, and I was not only anxious to see how Stella held, but myself as well. Two words: sore glutes.  Overall, not a terrible ride, but certainly lower on my list of things I enjoy...underneath browning hamburger and scrubbing toilets. I kept reminding myself that the 13 mile ride was not even twice around Mackinac Island, a jaunt I did often at this time a year ago.  However, I quickly realized that a 13-mile wooded trail running through affluent neighborhoods was a whole lot different than this: A 8-mile piece of paradise, really.  No problem at all to do this loop twice.  Views like these above make the ride go fast.  And frankly, my town's bike trail is nice and all, but I don't get vistas like this. Most of the time I don't miss the Island...except last night.

No. Yeah, it's pretty much over.  But I did have to think about it for a second.  I've been in Texas the last few days, celebrating my brother's retirement from the military.  Since I am considered non-military personnel, I don't normally get to witness such formal events like this, and I admit that the US military, if nothing else, is very much about tradition and formality.  It was a lovely ceremony, and my brother was honored in a very touching way.  I was proud to be a part of it.   But, we arrived home today and I am exhausted from the hours on the road.  And typically, I would have work at the restaurant to look forward (picture me saying that sarcastically)...until I remember that my last day at that job was the day before I left for vacation.  Huzzah! So...what do I have to look forward to now?  Besides a significant decrease in cash flow? 1. Eating dinner with my family.  Every night.  2. Cooking more and trying ne...

Like... - Alphabetize all your spices. - Clear out all expired items from the refrigerator - Organize your pantry - Write an inventory list of all dry goods - Clean out and organize the lazy Susan space - Remove everything from the countertops and wipe all surfaces down Is this not why we have children? With the exception of a couple of years in there when I was in CA school, and then last summer, when I was on the Island, I've been home during the summer.  And summer, for parents like me, is all about productivity and doing stuff and not wanting to yell at your children for wanting to sleep late, lay around, eat, play video games, and go to friends' houses all day long.  Parents like me desperately want their children to understand that "just because it's summer, (Insert Appropriate Child Name), doesn't mean it's a moochfest, free-for-all around here.  We still have a house and yard to maintain, bills to pay, obligations to fulfill." IT...

One of my favorite books, right now, is Ripe (and a bunch of other descriptive title words) .  Not only are the pictures simply gorgeous, the "schtick" is a clever one: organize a bunch of fruits and vegetables by the color of the rainbow and present a couple of recipes/ideas for each.  Oh yeah, and let's be clever and cute in the writing of each as well. I've had success with several of the recipes in the book (others require tweaking, natch).  This morning, it was time for the Spinach and Smoked Gouda Frittata with Tomatoes for breakfast.  The instruction read simple: sauté onions, wilt spinach, add eggs, cream, seasoning, cheese, tomatoes, cook in skillet, finish under broiler until set.  Blah blah blah.  Yes yes yes. But, there was a funny little sentence in there... turn spinach with tongs to wilt...crank the heat and sauté for 5 minutes, until the spinach weeps...moisture evaporates.   Until the spinach weeps?  I suppose it makes sense, ...