Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Posted by terrepruitt on April 27, 2013
You might have gathered from my posts that I am not a fan of beans. Beans are great for fiber and protein, but I just don’t like them all that much. I was sometimes ok with garbanzo beans/chickpeas, but that was it. I didn’t like any other type of bean, but I went to a friend’s house and she had this yummy two bean salad. So I decided that I am ok with red kidney beans and garbanzo beans in this salad. Then I came across a recipe that had kidney beans it in and I decided to use half kidney beans and half garbanzo beans. This recipe is one of my husband’s and mine favorites. I also like roasted garbanzo beans. Recently I was in the area – after teaching a Nia class as a sub in south San Jose – of a store that I have been hearing a lot about. It is called Sprouts. The name is “Sprouts Farmers Market: Healthy, Natural & Organic Grocery Stores”, which I don’t really understand, as it is NOT a farmer’s market and not everything is natural nor organic. They have the produce section kind of set up like you might imagine a market on an actual farm in that nothing is in nice neat rows and it seems kinda hodgey-podgely put together . . . but that is it. Their organic section of fruits and vegetables was no larger than the one at my “regular” grocery store. But whatever, I digress (WHAT? ME? NO!) . . . my post is actually about that fact that I bought some dried garbanzo beans.
When I first discovered the Red Beans and Rice recipe my friend and I were talking about dried beans and we wondered if we could buy dried garbanzo beans. Later she reported back that she had seen some in the store. I had asked my chef friend about them and she gave me some advice on how to process them. And of course I forgot what she said. But anyway . . . I finally was in a store that had them when I remembered to look. So I bought some.
When you look up how to process dried beans on the internet you will probably come across two different methods. There is the long soak and then the quick soak. My idea was to do both and then report the results on my blog in one post. But funny as it sounds, I have not had time — more accurately, I have not made time — to do the quick soak method. I know, you would think that would be the easiest and fastest one to do. But to me it was much easier to throw the beans in a bowl and let them soak for 13 hours and 45 minutes. I’ve read they should soak for at least 4 hours. Mine just turned into 13 hours plus.
Since I have not yet gotten around to doing the quick soak method I will report on what I found with the long soak method and then when I do the other one I will post about that.
The “long soak” method has no cooking involved. I was interested in not cooking the beans. Everything I read said that they double in size. I don’t recall that happening. NOTHING I read told me they would pop! I kept hearing this odd sound and wondering what it was. If you have a pet you might do as I do and the first thing I do when I hear something unfamiliar is I blame my pet and find her first to see if she was responsible. But when I heard the pop she was right next to me. So, I kept thinking it was coming from outside. Finally it dawned on me that it might be the beans and I stood by the bowl until I heard one!
I had decided to split the bag in between the two methods. So I got a huge bowl and put half of my beans in it. Then I filled it with water. I did this at 11:00 am on a Friday. I changed the water twice. I rinsed the beans both times. My report is that beans themselves have gas. My kitchen smelled gassy the whole time the beans were soaking. I kept lighting a candle. I drained the beans at 12:45 pm on Saturday. I decided I was going to roast them. So I drained them to let them start to dry out.
I roasted them. They were gorgeous. I like them because they seem less “mushy” than the canned beans. And for me “mushy” is part of the reason I don’t like beans. So I really liked this dried/soaking method. I left the beans in the oven a tad bit too long. I was doing too many things at once and when I took them out to check them I forgot to put the timer on when I put them back in. I realized my error when I smelled burning beans. So . . . . they are ok, but not as I would have liked them.
The verdict in regards to soaking beans is good. I am going to do that. I have a feeling that soaking them will turn out to be easier than the quick soak method. We will see.
The questions I have been thinking about though is . . . . the canned beans I buy say “Organic” whereas the dried ones I bought did not. So really which are better? I will look for organic dried beans, but I am not sure where to find them. I know I didn’t see them at the “Farmers Market” that claims to have healthy, natural, and organic food. 🙂 Well, at least I didn’t see a sign that claimed the dried beans were organic.
Do you used canned beans or dried?
Posted in Food | Tagged: bean salad, chickpeas, dried beans, exercise classes, farmers markets, Garbanzo beans, healthy, Natural & organic grocery store, Nia, Nia San Jose, quick soak beans, Red Beans and Rice, red kidney beans, San Jose Nia, soaking beans, South San Jose, Sprouts | 3 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on April 18, 2013
When I go grocery shopping I like to have a list otherwise, I spend too much! Too much time walking up and down the aisles and too much money. What happens is I see something and get an idea then have to run around the store to get all the ingredients. With the running around the store I end up seeing other things and it just snowballs into way too much! Yet having a list equates to not always seeing the new products that come out. And there are ALWAYS new things coming out. One day after my Tuesday morning Nia class, I was in the store and I was looking for a spice so I was on the spice aisle and I saw these packages. These could not be new to the market but they are new to me! I really think this is a cool idea! These packages contain all the spices you need for a particular recipe and yes, of course, the recipe is on the back.
I showed my husband the picture and he said it was all a marketing ploy. Well, DUH! Of course! These packages are probably really expensive if you were to use them all the time to make the same recipe over and over. But they are BRILLIANT. I love this idea. I mean, sometimes I want to make something but I don’t want to invest in an entire bottle of the spice I don’t have that I need to make the recipe. And this is the perfect way to try it out. I can buy the package and then if I like the recipe then I can buy all the spices that I actually need to have on hand when I want to make the recipe again. And, of course, you can make any changes to the recipe after you try the original recipe.
It is difficult to tell, but you may have noticed in the background of the photos, there are several different packages for different recipes.
As I said, I know food manufacturers come up with new stuff all the time, but I thought this was really cool. I think it can be really helpful to people. There are so many reasons. You could just be in a rush and you don’t want to have to measure out all the spices or as I said before you don’t have that ONE spice you need to complete the recipe. Maybe you are a new cook and just need a little help.
Plus the recipes look really easy.
I imagine there are many of you making faces and saying, “Oh, I would just use FRESH garlic, onions, oregano, and cilantro.” I get that. But again, there are a lot of reasons a lot of people could benefit from this nifty little package.
I know a lot of people who could just use this as a starting point. They often share that they want to learn how to cook . . . this is a great start.
Ok, I am not often impressed by our food industry, but this I like. It is not like a package of all the spices mixed together. I think of this more as an educational tool, a starting point, a little push to get people started cooking and making their own food.
What do you think? Have you seen these spice/recipe packages?
Posted in Food | Tagged: educational tool, grocery shopping list, marketing ploy, Nia, Nia class, pre-measured spices, quick recipes, recipe card, recipe packages, recipes, spice packages, spices, Tuesday morning Nia | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on April 16, 2013
One day I was having my Chai Tea Latte (you can check out that recipe I got from a fellow Nia Teacher here: Venting Gets Me Good). Even though the tea needs to be stirred constantly, the spoon I was using to stir the tea ended up on my plate with my turkey sandwich. Some of the ginger from the tea came off the spoon and I ended up taking a bite of sandwich with ginger on it. “Oooooo!” I thought. That was good. So I got up and sprinkled more ginger on my sandwich. Right now the lunch meat we have is sliced turkey breast from Costco and it is a sweet flavor so it was nice to have the little bit of spicy from the ginger. I don’t know if other sandwich meats would taste as good.
Since then I have been making our sandwiches with ginger on them. I don’t know if my hubby has even noticed . . . .well, in all fairness, I have not been doing it on his everyday lunch sandwiches. Just on the weekend sandwiches. I know the poor guy eats a sandwich every day for lunch and then on the weekend I make him yet ANOTHER sandwich. Ahh, but yes, thank you for the reminder (I heard your future thoughts, he COULD make something for himself). But since I am making a sandwich I just make two so we can each have one. With each sandwich I make I get a little more bold and add more ginger. So far I have not made it too hot or spicy for me.
I really like the little drama that the ginger adds to the sandwich. This is really funny to me because two years (maybe about that long) ago if you would have asked me if I like ginger I would have said no. But then again, I always thought of that pink slimy stuff that comes on a sushi and sashimi plate as ginger. I mean, it IS ginger, but it is PICKLED ginger. I hadn’t known that fresh ginger or even powdered ginger can add just enough of a zing to food to make it a nice change of pace.
Like many things I post, some people might be reading this and wondering why I am doing an entire post on adding ginger to my sandwich and it is for the others saying, “Oh, I would have never thought of that. I bet it IS good. I’m gonna give it a try.” I can’t take for granted and/or assume that everything I know other people know. That is ridiculous. And just because it is simple doesn’t mean that it is not worth sharing.
And here is a picture of my lovely half eaten sandwich. There is turkey, cheese, mayo, bell peppers, and ginger on the sandwich! Pretty good.
Remember that ginger is a digestive aide and can help relieve nausea. It is also considered an anti-inflammatory root/herb/spice. So in addition to adding a little zip to your sandwich ginger could add some health benefits!
Are you a ginger fan? What do you put it in? Have you tried it on a sandwich?
Posted in Food | Tagged: anti-inflammatory, bell peppers, Chai Tea Latte, digestive aide, drama, ginger, ginger root, health benefits, lunchtime, Nia, Nia Teacher, sandwich, sashimi, sushi, turkey sandwich | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on April 9, 2013
My cat has been on a “bland diet” of beef and sweet potatoes. I keep thinking “today is the day” — meaning, today will be the last day, but until “things” have gotten back to normal I am not comfortable putting her back on her cat food. Part of the prescription of the bland diet was “very lean” beef. So I am feeding my cat lean beef. One day I was about to cook two dinners. One for my cat and one for my hubby and I. Then I realized I could just cook one. So I put away what I had originally planned for my hubby and I and just cooked up some beef for us too. As I was cooking the meat I was thinking of what veggies I had in my fridge . . . yeah, my door note does not always get updated. Of course I couldn’t remember but when I opened the door I spotted the mushrooms . . . cool, I decided to put the meat on/in tiny tortillas with some mushrooms and cheese. Then, I decided that in addition to mushrooms I would add some garbanzo beans. As I was putting something in the fridge I spotted the zucchini and I decided to grate some of that into our mushrooms. I was making this dinner up as I was cooking it! (I can do that when I don’t have a Nia class.)
I have to cook the cat’s meat without flavoring, so I figured I would just salt the meat after and put some raw onions on it. I figured that would be enough flavor. But then I took hers out to prepare it and I left ours in the pan and I added cumin and garlic salt. I am starting to add cumin to different things now. Ever since I used it in my adjusted version of Bobby Deen’s Red Beans and Rice recipe. It was not a spice I was accustomed to cooking with. I like it.
We ended up with a pretty tasty dinner, I think. I think the raw onions on the topping it all off really gave it the perfect finishing touch.
Beef, Beans, Mushrooms, Zucchini, And Cheesy Tortillas
small wedge of onion, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
four shakes of garlic salt
half of a zucchini, grated
four shakes of garlic salt
1 can of garbanzo beans
four shakes of garlic salt
1/4 of a pound beef
four shakes of cumin
four shakes of garlic salt
10 small thin slices of cheese
five tiny corn tortillas
Heat the oil and onion (save some for garnish), then put the mushrooms in, add garlic salt. Cook them until they are almost done, then put the grated zucchini in, add garlic salt. Cook until it looks done almost done, then add the beans and the garlic salt. In a different pan, cook the beef with the cumin and garlic salt.
When the mushroom mixture and beef are almost done, heat the tortillas, melt the cheese on the tortillas. Spoon the beef onto four of the cheesy tortilla, then spoon the mushroom bean mixture. Top with raw onions. (One tortilla was meatless!)
I had to cook the meat separate because of my cat, but if I were just making this for us I would cook the mushrooms first . . . I like my mushrooms caramelized, then I would add the beef . . . and I would use more so that it would work for all five tortillas. I would add the cumin to the meat. Then I would add the zucchini, then the beans. I don’t like the beans to get to cooked so I add them last. With each ingredient I would add garlic salt.
I have an electric grill/panini press I used for the tortillas. I grilled them.
This was very good. I will be making this again. But since we rarely have ground beef (we are only eating it because the cat is!) I will use our regular ground turkey.
I like cooking with cumin!
I know I don’t come up with very inventive stuff, but we like it and sometimes all you need is an IDEA of what to cook for dinner. Maybe this will help you.
What do you think? Any ideas on what you might add?
Posted in "Recipes" | Tagged: beef, Cheesy Tortillas, cumin, easy recipe, Garbanzo beans, mushrooms, Nia, Nia class, quick dinner, zucchini | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on April 2, 2013
So in my post Venting Gets Me Good I explain how my complaint about Starbucks’ Chai Tea Latte landed me a great Chai Tea recipe AND cardamom, one of the spices used to make it. Well, the original recipe calls for “pinches’ which didn’t seem like enough to me and is difficult to translate in a recipe. So I decided that a pinch would be about an 1/8 of a teaspoon. I felt that made a bit of a weak tea. So I have increased the measurements and changed the water to milk ratio. Also, lately when I have been in the mood to make this tea and have actually had the time and the milk I have not had fresh ginger so I have been using ground ginger. It works for me and I am not left chewing on ginger. While my fabulous Nia friend who gave me the recipe pointed out I could use a tea strainer to get out the ginger and the cloves, one reason I like to drink the tea is to drink the ginger and get the benefits from it.
Like many recipes SOMEONE has to have created it. Then others morph it into what works for them. I keep telling one of my friends about this recipe and that I made adjustments. She seems excited to try it so she says, “And you put the adjustments on your blog?” I had not so that makes it difficult for her to make the tea with my adjustments when I have not noted them. So I decided to do it. Plus it helps me. I use my blog as my recipe book and when I have to keep remember to adjust it is not as helpful as when the measurements are just documented accurately.
Here is the recipe I have been using and I think it is very lovely.
Terre’s Favorite Chai Tea Latte:
2 cups of water
2 tea green bags
10 cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 (heaping) tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 cups milk
Boil the water then add the tea bags. Let simmer for a few minutes. (Here is where you decide how long according to how strong you like your tea). Squeeze out the tea bags and remove them from sauce pan (or whatever you are using to make the tea). Then add all the spices. Allow it to sit and simmer a bit. Then add the milk and let it simmer gently. Add sweetener of your choice. Serve and enjoy!
The original recipe said to use “2 tea bags (black, green, redbush, etc.)” so I it seems you can use whatever you like. If green does not agree with you, then don’t use it.
I think this makes a very yummy tea. And I call it Chai because that is what the recipe said when I first got it. One thing I do like to do while drinking this tea is stir often. I want to drink the spices and get their flavor. When all the spices end up at the bottom of the mug it is not as flavorful a cup of tea. Plus in order to get the benefits from the spices you need to drink them.
One day when I tweeted out that I was making Chai someone responded that she makes it every day and she adds fennel. I have yet to try that. I don’t see why you can’t add anything you want. This is just a starting place . . . .
So . . . . . tell me what you think? Do you like it? What changes did YOU make to make it “Chai Tea Latte For You”?
Posted in "Recipes" | Tagged: black tea, cadamom, chai tea, Chai Tea Latte, chai tea recipe, cinnamon, cloves, complaint, flavorful tea, ginger, green tea, how to make chai tea from scratch, Nia, Nia friend, nutmeg, Redbush, Starbucks, tea recipe, Venting, yummy tea | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on March 16, 2013
My last post was about how I have two late Nia classes in San Jose so I use my “Time Bake” feature on my oven. I think something that would be GREAT to put in the oven to have ready when I get home is the Rantings of an Amateur Chef’s Crispy Smashed Roasted Potatoes. I made these this week for the first time and I don’t think I will make potatoes any other way again.
Basically you boil the little red potatoes in salted water. Then you drain them and let them cool. Then you smash each one individually only so much as to make them a bit flat, but not so much they break apart and end up mashed. Then you put them on a pan that is covered in aluminum foil AND parchment paper. Oil and salt each potato and bake them.
I only used 8 potatoes. The recipe instructions include placing the potatoes on a towel to dry and covering the potato with a towel for smashing, but I am not sure that is necessary. I did it that way because I was thinking the towel helps soak up some of that water and less water makes for a crispier potato. Plus I usually follow instructions when trying a recipe for the first time. I will try it without the towel next time because I don’t need the extra laundry. I will let you know if the towel is imperative.
The initial cooking time (boiling) was longer for me and I didn’t turn it to simmer. “Simmer” on my stove is almost off so I left it a little below medium and boiled them for about 40 minutes. I used the foil and the parchment paper as per the recipe. But my potatoes took a bit longer than 30 to 40 minutes. BUT . . . . I also put asparagus on my pan. The pan I was using is so large it takes up an entire rack in my oven and I didn’t want to put another pan on the rack above or below, so I decided my asparagus and potatoes could share a pan. They both came out GREAT. But the potatoes needed a few more minutes than the asparagus.
I was so excited to eat the piping hot crispy gems that I forgot to take a picture of them once fully cooked. Not taking a picture was due to my excitement AND the fact that we were already eating the rest of dinner and so I was in a rush to get them from pan to plate! But they were delicious.
The smashed potatoes would be a perfect thing to put in the oven on Time Bake. But . . . . maybe not, huh? Parchment paper. That stuff kind of freaks me out in the first place. I mean it is PAPER in the oven. I don’t know that I would want that baking with me not home . . . . .
If you like potatoes these little smashed potatoes are GREAT.
Do you like potatoes? Can you imagine these little crispy nuggets on your plate?
See comment below for an alternative way to make these — all bake, no boil!
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: Amateur Chef, Crispy Smashed Roasted Potatoes, Nia, Nia at night in San Jose, Nia class, Nia San Jose, oven baked potatoes, parchment paper, roasted vegetables, San Jose Nia, Smashed potatoes, The Foodie Smash | 15 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on March 5, 2013
I had received fennel before in my organic produce box. I didn’t know what to do with it. So I did what I always do with vegetables. I roasted it. It was really good. I was surprised. I might have received it another time after the first, but I am not sure. In my last produce box I received another fennel bulb. I was going to roast it to go with dinner. I had taken some ground turkey out of the freezer to defrost. When I went to cook the fennel I realized I didn’t have anything to cook with the turkey. If I am cooking ground turkey to put in something, like a tortilla, I don’t mind it being just cooked meat. If I don’t have something like that to put it on or in, I liked to add something to it. So I decided to cook the fennel in a pan, then add the turkey to it.
I didn’t have any onions so I used those dehydrated kind. Normally my flavor is onion, as in I use the onion to flavor the dish, but this time I wanted the fennel to do it so I didn’t use a lot of the onion. Had I had a fresh onion I would have used about 1/4 in order to allow the fennel to be the main flavor.
You know I love to cook veggies and ground turkey. It is one of my “staple” menu items. This combination turned out really well.
I didn’t measure as I cooked so I am guesstimating as I type:
Fennel Turkey
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 bulb fennel, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
package of ground turkey
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp season salt
1/2 tsp thyme
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 bunch kale chopped
2 turns of pepper grinder
Pour olive oil in pan along with the chopped fennel and onion. Cook until tender. Add the ground turkey, the garlic salt, the season salt, and the thyme. Stir the fennel and meat while cooking. Add some salt (not all of it). Cook until the turkey is almost done. The idea is to just wilt the kale so make sure the turkey is done enough. Then put the kale in the pan and add the rest of the salt. Cook only until the kale is wilted. Then add the pepper.
We had this for dinner this week. We ate it will pasta. I like linguine. I put my fennel turkey on the side, whereas my husband piled his on top of his pasta.
I really enjoyed the flavor of the fennel. So much so that when I was in the grocery store the next day I almost bought some more. Then I remembered I am going to get more in my produce box this week. Yay! I am happy that I have received a few things I would not have just gone out and purchased. And I am happy that I have learned I do like these things enough to now go out and buy them. Fennel is really good!
Tonight we had the leftovers in a tortilla with cheese. You know me and leftovers! Awesome. Leftovers really help when I have a late Nia class. Currently my evening Nia classes are late, so being able to have dinner on the table within 15 minutes of getting home is necessary. I grilled my tortilla. It was really good. Fennel has a nice flavor.
Have you tried fennel, the vegetable? If you cook it, how do you cook it?
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: evening Nia classes, fennel bulb, Fennel Turkey, ground turkey, leftovers, Nia, Nia class, organic produce, quick dinner recipe, roasted vegetables, tortillas | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on March 2, 2013
For those of you that cook dinner every night you might understand what I am about to say, “Cooking dinner is difficult.” Ok, more accurately coming up with ideas of what to cook for dinner is difficult. I actually have it very easy because my husband would be fine eating the same thing all week then switching to something else the next week. As long as it was not a vegetarian dish three days in a row. But I am not happy with that. As you know if you have read any of my posts about food, I love left overs because they keep me from having to cook or at least keep me from having to start from scratch. The other night I was really at a loss as to what to prepare for dinner. It was a Wednesday so I really should have been thinking in terms of cooking for Wednesday so that I could have enough left over for Thursday when I have a late Nia class. But I couldn’t think “two nights” I just wanted to get through the one night and use the portion of a piece of chicken I had from the night before. I came up with something that I didn’t even think about being enough for leftovers but it was. It carried us through two nights. Asparagus, beans, rice, and chicken.
Another thing you might know about me if you have a read a few of my posts, I LOVE asparagus. I mean, love, love, love, love. Once I was asked what food I would want to have given to me free every day and I said asparagus. But even though I love it, I won’t buy it when it is $8.99 a pound. I don’t even like to buy it when it is $4.99 a pound. I might buy it when it is $2.99 a pound, but I like the $1.99 range. But knowing how much I love it my hubby bought me some recently. I didn’t ask how much it was. I just had five pounds of asparagus to eat. 🙂
I often use three servings of meat to make four servings of dinner. Usually my husband has a serving and I have a good portion of one. The next night I will use the third serving along with my smaller portion to make another meal. Well on this night I was using just my left over portion because we had only cooked two servings the night before. So to me it would be a vegetarian-ish dish. As it would have way more veggies than meat.
So here is my “recipe”
Asparagus, beans, rice, and chicken
—1 tablespoon olive oil
—1/2 of an onion, chopped
—asparagus (2.25 pounds) chopped
—2 teaspoons minced garlic
—1 3/4 cup cooked rice
—2 tablespoons of butter
—3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
—1 15 1/2-ounce can garbanzo beans/chickpeas, drained and rinsed
—3/4th of a LARGE chicken breast, cooked and chopped
—Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
—Garlic Salt, to taste
Heat the olive oil and the chopped onion. Add the asparagus. Cook only slightly (because the rice takes a while to heat up). Sprinkle garlic over asparagus. Stirring it and allowing it to cook. Add the rice breaking it up and letting it get soft. Use the butter to help the rice get moist (might need to use a bit of liquid too). And the cumin. When the rice is soft, add the can of garbanzo beans. Then add the chopped up chicken. Add pepper and garlic salt to taste.
Since asparagus doesn’t take that long to cook and everything else is ok to eat as is, it is really the rice that needs the most amount of time. If you are using freshly cooked rice then this would take minutes. As a note the chicken I used had been seasoned when cooked the night before so that is something to keep in mind when flavoring your dish.
For me it is the beans and the cumin that is “new”. I have done dishes like this before using other meat. I think this would also be good with left over pork.
I was thinking of the Red Beans and Rice recipe when I did this, using the beans and the cumin.
We liked it. What do you think? Sound easy? Sound like something you would like?
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: Asparagus, chicken, chickpeas, cooking dinner, cumin, Garbanzo beans, Nia class, olive oil. left overs, Red Beans and Rice, Thursday night Nia class, vegetarian dish | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on February 26, 2013
Have you seen this stuff before? Doesn’t this look as if it is a vegetable from another planet? The first time I saw it I was at a farmers market and I asked the vendor if I could take pictures. This vegetable made me laugh. I thought it was one of the funniest vegetables I have ever seen. I thought she had called it an Italian Cauliflower. She had me believing it tasted like cauliflower. I am not really a fan of cauliflower so I wasn’t interested in buying it and trying it. But lo-and-behold I received some in my organic produce box that I have delivered. Yay! AGAIN, I received something that I would not have bought. Often times I don’t think about somethings so I don’t buy them, but this particular vegetable I was once faced with buying but declined because I didn’t know what it was! So here I had some delivered and so I “HAD” to try it. Well, I actually received two. One head on one delivery and another head the next. Yeah, that is kind of long for vegetables to sit in the fridge, but . . . sometimes even though I get it delivered I am still not all that enthusiastic about trying it. Plus, I am still trying to get my new schedule down. I have just started teaching Nia classes two nights a week and so I need to have my cooking schedule down and when I don’t know how to cook something a night I am rushing off to teach is not a good night to experiment. So, I received a new bunch just this past delivery. Plus I still had the first bunch. So I decided to cook them both at once.
I bet you know how I cooked them . . . . you got it. I chopped it up and put it on a pan with olive oil and garlic salt and I roasted it. I decided to cook it a little later than I normally would have started my roasted veggies – meaning the rest of dinner would be done really quick – so I really cranked up the heat. I started it off at 450. I cooked it for about 10 minutes. Then I turned it down to 400 and cooked it for about 10 minutes. Then I think I turned it off and cooked it for about 10 minutes. It seemed to cook faster than both broccoli and cauliflower. It browned very nice.
I thought it would take a long time because it seems dense like cauliflower. Well, it seemed to cook up faster. Yay!
Well, I was very surprised at the sweetness of it. It tasted really sweet. It was very funny having that cornucopia shaped veggie on my tongue. It is pokey. It has a mild flavor. A little sweet. Well, I have to say that I like it.
Here is what Wiki says about it: “Romanesco broccoli, or Roman cauliflower, is an edible flower of the species Brassica oleracea, and a variant form of cauliflower. First documented in Italy . . . ”
I am unable to find nutritional information on it. Maybe as it gains popularity the nutritional information will start showing up on the internet?
Have you seen it? Have you tried it? What do you think?
Posted in Food, Vegetables | Tagged: Alien vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, Farmers Market, Italian cauliflower, Nia, Nia Classes, Nia schedule, organic, Roman cauliflower, Romanesco broccoli, vegetables from another planet | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on February 19, 2013
My husband claims he can only cook three meals. The three things do not include him cooking meat and veggies on the grill. The meals that he will cook are beef stroganoff, taco salad, and curry. On special occasions I will request that he make dinner. When I first met him I told him that I would not cook dinner every night. And if I were still working a 40+ hour a week job OUTSIDE of the home, I probably would not. But as my current 40+ hour a week job has me at home more often than not, I have been cooking almost every night. But you know how I love leftovers so I do take advantage of that when I can. For Valentine’s Day, Birthdays, and wedding anniversaries I usually request that he cook. Most often I prefer that rather than going out. The past couple of times that he has cooked I have asked for curry. To me I only know curry the way he cooks it and serves it. He buys beef and cooks it with curry seasonings. He makes rice and we put the meat over that. The best part is all the toppings. And one of the reasons I like when HE makes it is I don’t have to chop up all the toppings.
For our curries we use raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, carrots, bell peppers, brocoli, mango chutney, cucumbers, onions, and coconut. I don’t put peanuts or coconut on mine, but he puts it on his. On the plate pictured I didn’t put onions, but on the next night’s plate I did. The meat was cooked with onions so you still might see some in the photo, but not the raw ones.
The rice and the meat are hot (temperature) while the vegetables are raw. I love to add a ton of vegetables to my plate. It is so interesting because every bite is different. You never get the same thing. I like the veggies chopped up really small so that I can get a bite with rice, meat, and a bunch of veggies in my mouth. If the veggies are too big then you just end up with rice, meat, and ONE veggie and that makes it seem like a regular meal, not a curry dish.
I don’t know how other curry is served but that is how my husband does it. Also, the poor guy . . . he LOVES hot stuff, especially curry, but — if you have read a couple of my posts about food, you know I cannot tolerate spicy heat at all. So my hubby makes our curry meat totally mild. There is NO HEAT AT ALL. But the flavor is really good. I feel bad that he does not get to experience the spicy heat. Maybe we can make up a separate dish of HOT curry sauce and he can put that on his curries.
Another thing I love about curry is that there is usually enough for at least one more meal. If you’ve read a couple of my posts about food, you know I love to have leftovers so I can alleviate at least one night of cooking a full meal.
I really like curry. Maybe I should request it more often. Not just on special occasions. Then on a special occasion I can request of his other specialty meals. 🙂
Do you like curry? Is this how you eat your curry with a lot of different toppings piled on it?
Posted in Food | Tagged: Birthdays, brocoli, coconut, curry, curry dish, curry meal, curry seasonings, mango chutney, special occasions, specialty meals, spicy hot, Valentine's Day, Vegetables, wedding anniversaries | 4 Comments »
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