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Author: Livia N

Have another food list – Mexican Corn Soup

food I have
Produce
1 grapefruit
oranges
2 tomatoes (1 urgent)
3 roasted bell peppers
2-3 bell peppers (yellow & red)
broccoli
mixed small lettuces

Dairy
3/4 container of sour cream
1% milk
1/2 pint heavy cream
goat cheese

Starch
1/3 loaf of brown bread (ETA: just heels left)
1/2 round of pumpernickel
small amount of leftover white rice

Protein
carnitas
some leftover cooked chicken (from the breasts marinated in peaches & cowboy rub)

Miscellaneous
some prepared enchiladas that need to be baked
sauce to go with them

meals
Tuesday, February 19 *done*
take 1 link of turkey sausage from freezer to thaw.
take container of small cut pork from freezer to thaw (with black bean & pepper sauce?)
put enchiladas into the freezer
Make a sandwich with chicken leftovers, tomato, and lettuce (and goat cheese?)

Wednesday, February 20 *done*
make a “bread pudding” with some of the pumpernickel bread, eggs, cream, cheese, tomato, and grilled turkey sausage with onions and peppers. Possibly bacon, too. With a little side salad, of course.
*freeze some of this for lunches*

Thursday, February 21 *done*
stir fry of pork, broccoli, onion, and peppers over rice.

Friday, February 22
leftover rice needs to be used up. So do carnitas. Would it be sacrilege to dump them together with cream of chicken soup? Probably. So it would be slightly more respectable to… make burritos! with lots of cheese and sour cream – and maybe a zucchini. And all the rest of the lettuce.

plus bonus recipe – Mexican corn soup
Oh, and I almost forgot to give you the recipe for the soup I made the other day.

If you remember, I had some stock with tomato paste mixed in (let’s say a 3-4 cups of stock with 1/2 a little can of paste).

I also had some liquid I had drained out of the carnitas at the very last minute because I didn’t have the nerve to see what happened to my cooking pot, if I let the pork get completely dry. This was only about 1 cup of lovely pork/citrus/spices essence.

So I went looking in my Mexican cookbook, and found a recipe for corn soup I could use as a starting point.

So I boiled the stock/tomato paste mixture for 20 minutes to kill any bacteria.

Then I combined in a blender:

  • 1 onion, cooked down in some of the fat skimmed from the pork liquid (there wasn’t much, really – I was using pork loin instead of the fattier cuts the carnitas recipe recommends) and then seasoned with paprika
  • 1 can of corn, drained
  • 1 tomatoes, peeled and seeded
  • enough stock to make everything juicy and blending smoothly

In a saucepan, I think combined:

  • everything from the blender
  • the rest of the stock
  • salt & pepper

If I were following the recipe, I would now add 1/2 a cup (a whole cup? I don’t remember) of heavy cream. But since most of this would be going into the refrigerator and getting reheated, I decided to add the cream right before serving. And then I found that lumps of sour cream were more satisfying than cream.

I also considered adding chicken at that time, but I ended up also just adding cut up chicken to the bowls while reheating so that I could have the option to swap in carnitas instead of chicken (though I never for around to trying that). It was also a good soup without meat.

It has been a while since a food list

food I have
produce
1/2 pt fermented peaches soon to die of oxidation
3 wintery roma tomatoes
butternut squash
2 jalepeno peppers
1 yellow bell pepper
4 roasted red & yellow peppers

dairy
I need to buy milk and/or heavy cream
cream cheese
sour cream
goat cheese
parmesan

protein
a little bit of leftover roast chicken (1 sandwich worth)
2 chicken breasts marinating in onion, fermented peaches, white balsamic, and cowboy rub

meals
So I need to go ahead and make the chicken, but I haven’t decided whether I’m just popping it in the oven, or whether I want to cut it up and saute it and turn it into real food (maybe fajitas, and that would use up the bell pepper, too. Oh, and a tomato.).

I also need to go ahead and make the butternut squash. I think I want a soup, and I have thousands (slight exaggeration) of butternut squash soup recipes, but I’m not feeling inspired about it yet. I think it’s that I’ve been wanting food I can chew, lately.

I’d been looking for something to do with the bits of fermented peach after I’d strained the liquor off… I thought of making little tarts with peaches and goat cheese, but if I don’t make it either tonight or tomorrow morning, I think the peaches will end up in the compost, instead. I’m wondering whether a little dab of tamarind sauce would make those tarts even better, but I won’t know unless I get off my ass and try.

I’ve been eating a lot of mexican (inspired) food lately. I had tasty carnitas quesadillas (and I still have half the pork left in my freezer), mexican corn soup, a few trips to the mexican restaurant, and I’ve also been making some of my sleazy cheezy dip.

Is it a date date?

Tragically stuck without a D&D game for the evening, I decided to have a look the the classifieds on Craigslist.

1) Apparently there will be a Frida Kahlo exhibit at the art museum. Woot! So going. But I bet the guy looking for someone petite to accompany him wasn’t looking for me.

2) I might be meeting some other random guy for coffee.

3) I did meet up with someone looking for appetizers & drinks tonight. It was… odd.

So he left me a voicemail (because occasionally my phone just doesn’t feel like ringing) that said something like, “I will be on time. I am wearing [generic colored] pants, a shirt with [some bland pattern], a green corduroy jacket, and a [some color] vest.” So I left him a voicemail saying, “I am wearing a bright orange shirt.” Because, really, that’s so much easier. And, yes, I did change out of a beige shirt into the orange shirt – but not just for easy recognizability, but also because I spilled tea on the beige shirt two seconds before leaving work.

We went to a nifty place that Philadelphia Magazine mentions frequently: SnackBar. Sadly, (or happily?) despite the crazy avant garde foams I’d been promised, their menu was a bit creative, but basically solid.

But first – let me talk about the random date guy. He mentioned that he’d been having a rough week. I mentioned that I’d had better weeks, too, and that I wanted something fun to do over the weekend before my birthday. So we got together, if not to be romantic, at least to bitch in luxury.

Man, he totally wins for stress. He’s working on Clinton’s campaign. So he spent the entire time (while talking a mile a minute) trying to figure out whether his team was going to have to fly out that night to Virginia or whether they’d be going tomorrow. Mind you, I get off work at 9pm, and we met up at 10pm, so he finally arranges for the charter to leave at 11:30pm and had the driver pick him up at 10:45. Shortest date ever.

Yet oddly, not a total loss.

We went through a lot of politics. He (accidentally) evened out one of my concerns about Obama. We talked about the difference in payroll between Democratic and Republican campaign workers (Democratic campaign workers are paid 5% off the top of the funds spend, including funds spent on television ads, so they have to raise that much more money off the top. Republican workers are paid largely in a victory bonus, if the campaign is successful.) He talked about how incredibly boring it had been to be on staff (instead of just trying to get elected) for [a local politician]. He’s been working on political campaigns since, I think he said, Al Gore’s presidential bid. And right now he’s a grad student in economics – he’d been hoping to write his dissertation in the space between March and September, but it’s not looking like the election will give him any free time.

Freakishly, he even managed to be interesting when talking about economics. He recommended two books he has read lately – one about the manufacture of a t-shirt, but he couldn’t remember the title (maybe this book?), and the other was The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, which he claimed was economically solid and contained actionable steps.

And we talked about how if the democrats don’t win, we might consider emigration (as you do). He suggested Montreal because being bilingual would mean they’d have twice as many books for the library (yes, we did find time to talk about me, too). I mentioned that that would be no use, since I am pants with French. And then we started comparing Toronto and Vancouver… and he mentioned Battlestar Galactica being filmed in Vancouver. I was all ready to discount the geek quotient since I’d already primed him with the knowledge that I was a wee bit geeky, but then he added that the entire bit on Caprica had been filmed on a local college campus. And I have no idea, but I am well pleased that he thought that was worth knowing.

But with being all stressed, he wasn’t at all prepared for a relaxing evening. Despite having clearly stipulated that we had to go somewhere with a liquor license, he ended up only having ice tea. I, on the other hand, had some house cocktail with apple cider and stuff that went down easy but wasn’t particularly noticeable. And since I wasn’t going to try a new restaurant without trying anything on the menu, I got the brussel sprouts small dish. OH! It was wonderful. It was thin slices of brussel sprouts with sweet apple and big chunks of rustic bacon with a coarse mustard sauce. Mmmm! After that was so successful, I was tempted to try the salmon with bok choi and stuff, but my date had already left and the price was a little much – besides, with just one dish the restaurant had a great record going – a shame to break that.

All in all – far from the worst date I’ve ever had.

Hot Chocolate

In the ongoing quest for really good hot chocolate nearby (since the best I’ve found in the city so far is either from Walnut Bridge or Naked Chocolate, depending on the type of hot chocolate you want, but I’m not popping over to either on a quick break)…

Anyway, so in the ongoing quest for nearby hot chocolate, I used a coupon for a free cup of Milky Way brand hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts (the closest external hot chocolate source. So even though I have never heard of this unholy combination, who am I to pass up free stuff I want anyway?

So it’s hot chocolate from a machine. With caramel flavor. And it’s pretty damn good. I think this might be the best hot chocolate I’ve had on this quest. And by far the cheapest.

Week of Indulgences

So last Sunday was Dim Sum and a movie, and tonight I went out for Restaurant Week, but I figure I can lump those together into a single post.

Joy Tsin Lau is the most well known Dim Sum place in philly’s chinatown, but after the third visit with mostly the same food options, it might be time to try somewhere new. Especially since we have vegetarians in the group, and the last time we went there was mostly pork and this time there was a predominance of shrimp.

I did try some new dishes:

  • Chicken feet – I’d seen some reviews online raving about the chicken feet here, so they’d been on my list since the last time we went. Sadly, the taste wasn’t all that exciting and the texture… I’m guessing it could have been crispier. The little bones weren’t too much of a problem, if I had wanted to be all day about eating one foot. All in all, not exciting.
  • Jellyfish – there was a big mound of tentacles, and they were tasty but didn’t quite suit the dim sum nibbly mood. They were sort of a cross between seaweed salad and cellophane noodles. They were served on a bed of half-round of red stuff rimmed with white. GeeksDoItBetter tried that part and declared it not unlike lunchmeat with unevenly distributed fatty bits. I trusted her on that.
  • Chicken buns – tasty. Very bready, but tasty.
  • pork and peanut dumplings – these were so good and tasty, but sadly they only came by after we were mostly already stuffed.
  • eggplant stuffed with shrimp – good but could have been hotter. I need to take [redacted], who also loved them (if I remember correctly) to my current favorite asian restaurant, Sang Kee Bistro, to have an even more amazing version of this dish, only made with pork
  • fried shrimp – as in whole shrimps breaded and fried – these would have been better hotter, but inexplicably they set the tray out while they were steaming and tempting, but they only put them on the cart after they were cooler. On the other hand, they were tasty and it was rather fun munching straight through the shells and eating the wiggly legs and heads (though we did keep trying to avoid the eyeballs)

Huh – that’s a lot of new dishes. Maybe the selection wasn’t as repetitive as I thought. Anyway, the plan for next time is to try Kingdom of Vegetarians.

~*~

Movie: Juno was everything people promised it would be: a wacky and crazy feel-good romp through unwanted teen pregnancy. I was a doubter, but that was some amazing script writing. And I think I want the soundtrack. YAY! I loved it so much. Vern Schillinger makes the best dad ever. It should win all the Oscars.

~*~

Amada for Restaurant Week was wonderful.

Amada is a lovely tapas place that I went to once before when I was killing time before a movie and was starving – that time I had wonderful food and amazing service from the bartender (who made me one of the best cocktails I have ever had, but which sadly doesn’t seem to still be offered there).

First course (choice of two) – I had

  • Melon con Jamon (Serrano Ham & Melon) – OMG! This was amazing. The honeydew melon (juicy even in the middle of winter) had a sugar crust on it like a creme brulee and the ham was like prosciutto. The waitress recommended this one from among the four I was waffling over, and I am so glad she did.
  • Pulpo Gallego (Spanish Octopus) – there was weird cognitive dissonance here because they had rounds of fingerling potatoes cooked in with the octopus, and you couldn’t tell the difference by sight (well, the octopus tended to have a smaller diameter and a more irregular edge, but that wasn’t reliable) so it was all a matter of how it melted on your tongue. The spicy seasoning was oddly familiar and quite tasty.
  • honorable mention goes to the garlic shrimp, which smelled amazing and I totally should have lobbied to swap out one of the second course options so that I could get three from the first course. Unfortunately, the really luscious garlicky smell was less exciting while I was eating my dessert.

Second course (choice of two)

  • Costillas de Ternera Coca (Beef Shortrib Flatbread with Horseradish, Parmesan and Bacon) – Amazing. All of the flavours were perfectly balanced, the dish was slightly gooey and sinful, but still able to be eaten with danty, dignified fingers. Even the tiny portion size was perfect because I was just able to savour every bite in the duration it was abl to hold its heat.
  • Chorizo Grilled a la Plancha – the only off note of the night. The sausage was a bit chewy, and it ended up tasting as though it had been finished off with a light buffalo wing sauce. Yes, some of that was a limitation of chorizo, but usually they are brilliant.

Third course

  • Manchego Mousse (Sheep Cheese Mousse, Pistachio Shortdough, Apple Crumb, Apple Cider Sorbet) – So good. The sorbet was tart and went with the crumb, and the mouse was a bit like a cheesecake, only much much lighter. You could definitely taste the sheep’s milk, but it was mellow and well balanced with the rest of the dish

Again, I had wonderful service, and it was really a wonderful night. If I were rich, I would eat here every month.