Fun With Your Food

I had to do one of these lists. They’re just too much fun for me. Thanks Veggie Girl!
I’m pretty impressed with myself, I’ve tried over 70 of these things. If this were a test, I passed.

Here’s how it works:
Copy and paste the list. Bold the items you’ve tried and feel free to comment throughout the list.

1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble
4. Haggis
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee: 1st time I had this was in Paris. haha, I’m a show off
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Vanilla ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries- upstate NY and upstate CA blackberries/raspberries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans – best combo ever
25. Knish – I worked at a kosher deli for about 5 minutes in college
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper- I’ve had some habinero, pretty close.
27. Dulce de leche
28. Caviar
29. Baklava – food of the gods
30. Pate
31. Wasabi peas
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl – the red or the white?
33. Mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo – I had this a lot growing up
40. Fast food french fries
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl – the next step is to make it myself now
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle – it is bad to admit I don’t even know what this is? haha
47. Samosas
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Tofurkey – not a fan at all… bleh
54. Sheese
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry
65. Durian – definitely an experience
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. Smoked tofu
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can
76. Pomegranate
77. Fauxstess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Savory crepes- again in paris
83. Tings- I really want to try these
84. A meal at Candle 79
85. Moussaka
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and “cheese”
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitan
92. Kimchi
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chili with chocolate
96. Bagel and Tofutti
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta- I had some yesterday
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough

This week we started our fundamentals course, the class designed to lay our base knowledge of Macrobiotics. The first class was on different types of grains.

I think I may make this one this week. Cara bought some millet and we always have frozen organic corn in the house.

Funny thing about this recipe is that every year at thanksgiving I make something extremely similar as my main dish. Who knew I was a macrobiotic friendly eater before I ever took a course?

Q&A time (you provide the A. Haha)

I have a couple of new grains I want to try. Can anyone let me know where I can get them or if you’ve tried/liked them?

Teff (best source of Calcium in a grain)
Amaranth
Kamut

Any advice/recipes would be great!

Teddy

If you’ve flicked through the channels lately you may have noticed that there is a hurricane heading straight for Texas this weekend. Hurricane Ike, if you’d like to give it a name.
Thankfully, Austin is not in the path of hurricane Ike so no need to fret about any of your Austinite friends. However, we will be getting one stormy weekend and tons of evacuees from the more coastal areas of Texas.

How will I be spending this stormy weekend?
Tonight I’m going to see Burn After Reading. Tomorrow I’m going to the Natural Epicurean’s tea party (my school’s first potluck this fall). Sunday I plan to take full advantage of the weather with plenty of blankets, movies and soup.

Below is one of my favorite quick and easy soups (and it’s not TOO bad for you)

This soup has a secret. I love rice vermicelli noodles but buying the vermicelli alone is usually a little costly and I end up getting much more than I need. The secret, Thai Kitchen Noodles. They are the thai version of ramen and at only 89 cents a package they’re dirt cheap. I only use the noodles, not the sodium filled “broth” packet that comes with them. Throw in some veggie broth or miso, tofu and fresh veggies and presto, meal done. (note: after the picture I added some shredded nori as well)

Class was great last night as well, very informative this time. I’ll post about that soon

Teddy

Taking dessert pictures proved harder than I had anticipated in class on Tuesday for some reason. They all came out terrible. This is what I could salvage from the goods I brought home for Mike and Cara.

Caramel popcorn. This was the most entertaining recipe because it’s just fun to make popcorn on a stove. If you haven’t you should try sometime but be careful. It’s fun because popcorn has a tendency to fly everywhere : )

Chocolate topped krispy bars= gooey goodness (as you might be able to tell from the picture)

I didn’t even get pictures of my favorite item of the night- the maple macadamia nuts. I made some yesterday so no worries I’ll be posting a picture soon and a recipe for that one- haha it’s just maple syrup and your favorite type of nut, no secrets really. Can you believe they sell these maple nuts for like 18 dollars a pound at whole foods? They’re only TWO ingredients. Insanity.

Okay I’m late for class folks.

Teddy

I’ve driven by Mr. Naturals practically every day since I’ve moved to Austin. Each time I make a mental note to stop by there sometime. A full month of noting ended this weekend when on a whim, while out grocery shopping with cara, I suggested stopping right then and checking it out. Traffic was backed up because of construction and it was a great way to pass some time.

Mr. Natural is a buffet style vegetarian/vegan eatery. It reminds me of an Indian place back home where you just walk up and point to the items you want and they place them either in a togo container or a plate. I suggest getting the lunch special if your timing is right. It’s probably the most bang for your buck at $6.99 for a whole mess of food; salad, entrée, and 2 sides.

Mexican food and I get along very well and I chose the black bean and tofu burrito, two mini gorditas, and nopalitos (cactus in an amazing red sauce). The burrito itself wasn’t fantastic but the salsa that you can request on the side was killer. I’ve never had nopalitos before and I have to say if I hadn’t been told this was cactus, I would have thought it was potato goodness.

Overall, a good lunch with leftovers but other things seemed a little pricey and I’m not an advocate of buffet style food. I noticed that Mr. Naturals had a large desserts section and asked if the good were vegan or not; they are. I’ll have to go back there and see if the vegan treats are any good.

Tonight is my second Healthier Desserts Class!!

Teddy

Class number 2 for me this week was Basic Knife Skills and I got my new knife!
Reason why this knife is amazing:
See picture below…. Made in the tradition of the Samurai Sword.

Because of this, from now on, I will refer to my knife as my sword.

Well knife skills taught me some valuable things like, don’t chop off your fingers : ). Actually we learned julienne, diagonal, the “owl”, the “flower”, diced, chiffonade and some other types of cuts.

My favorite part of the class was taste testing the raw, freshly chopped, organic veggies (eating is always the best part) and learning how to sharpen the knife with a wet stone. I must admit I’m intimidated by sharpening my own knife but it won’t be necessary for a couple of months.

Do you sharpen your own knives?

Teddy

Tuesday I officially started my Healthier Desserts class at school and I couldn’t be more pleased with how it went. I am partial to baking and sweets myself so it was as if the gods aligned the planets and moons in my favor and send unto me “You will go to school and you will love it”.
Well thank you, Jesus.
I’ve never used agar agar though it is common in many vegan desserts. What if I got it, used it wrong and then came up with a horrible clumpy mess? I am sure not only would I be failing a dessert but giving vegans everywhere a bad name.
Okay maybe that was a bit much but, hey, who likes to fail? Honestly, I’m more than confident now; I’m excited. Probably overly confident considering we just discussed how to make the below:



Vegan Flan- I must make for Cara asap. Flan is her favorite and the maple topping on this is literally to die for.

Lemon bars with cashew cream topping and amasake berry “tart” (that’s what I call it).

Lemon bars, meringue, or anything generally lemon doesn’t score well with me but the combination of these bars and the cashew cream was out of this world. I mean I actually liked it, which I wasn’t expecting. Don’t you love it when you think you know something but then you’re completely proven wrong? I do. It just opens up a bunch of new lemony doors : )

Amasake (which I had never even dreamed of before this class) is a fermented rice drink that is very sweet. It paired well with the tart raspberries but the flan and lemon bars were easily my favorite dishes of the class.

Of course we made/ate more than recipes than this but I can’t give away all the goods; actually I couldn’t get pictures of them all haha. Believe it or not those pictures are from my lap and I just happened to have black pants on. Note to self: always wear black pants to class, it makes for good pictures.

Tonight is my knife skills class then I’m heading out for a free showing of Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

Have a great day!

Teddy

Last night was my first class for school! I absolutely loved it although I am extremely tired today. More on that later because I never posted about the wonderful meals I had all weekend.

A week ago I saw an article on vegetarian summer grilling on MSN. They mentioned sweet potatoes and I’ve been on a mission to make them since. Everyone needs to try these because they are just too easy to make. If you can peel, boil water and turn on a grill you will master this dish (just be sure not to boil them too long or the potatoes will get mushy!)

Cut up the sweet potatoes, boil them for about 10 mins, drain and drizzle in maple syrup (optional) and place on your grill (about 3-5 mins on each side). I like to sprinkle with salt and pepper to give the dish more a little more depth.

Desperate hunger and a small budget always result in a hodgepodge of creativity for me. What resulted this time was oven baked potatoes drenched in olive oil and garlic with some kidney beans and green onion thrown in for the last few minutes. A true garlic masterpiece.

Chop new potatoes, coat them in olive oil and place on baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes or until tender. Add garlic, kidney beans and green onion and cook for an additional 5-10 mins.

Finally the best part- dessert. Grilled peaches soaked in vanilla and maple syrup on top of some vanilla ice cream. Just heavenly.

Coming Tomorrow:

Pictures from my first day of class! Don’t miss out

I start school tomorrow!
It’s pretty exciting and a little nerve racking since I’m not sure what to expect. Getting this next week under my belt will be fantastic. I’ll have a vague idea of how the next 2 years of my life will be going. Also, I may have found a permanent job but nothing’s signed and done so I’ll say no more to be sure not to jinx it.

Hatch chilies

Hatch chilies are EVERYWHERE here (apparently they just had a festival). I nabbed a few and found they were not too spicy but they had enough kick to make them worth the buy. If you’d like hatch salsa, hatch butter, hatch cheese, hatch ANYTHING it shouldn’t be too hard to find right now in Austin.

The best part about hatch chili fever are the roasters outside the grocery store that leave the entire city block smelling of smokey goodness.

Cara and I show our spirit

If you have a heartbeat and live in Austin you know that Saturday was the first UT football home game. Of course ticket prices are sold out before I think of whether or not I can afford to buy them (I can’t afford them at all). Cara, Mike and I decided to go to a local bar to enjoy drinks and the game. When in Rome right??

UT dominated the game and easily steamrolled FL. While UT was kicking some booty we enjoyed some Mexican martinis and Shiner. Mexican martini’s are officially my new favorite drink of Texas. Who doesn’t like a drink that comes with a sword?!

Today officially marks 1 month since I left CA and it seems like it’s going to take another full month to get settled in 100%. I’ll be apt hunting soon and starting school and a new job- busy times for me, eh?

Hope all is well and see you soon!

Teddy