Mac and cheese is pretty irreplaceable as far as comfort foods go. Something about the combination of starch and fat hits a pleasure center in the brain like nothing else. There was a three-month depressive period in my life when I made it every week and gained 25 pounds. After that I stopped making it all together and now only eat Grandma’s mac and cheese on rare occasions. In between meals at Grandma’s, I make this light quinoa and cheese recipe. Quinoa Mac and Cheese Courtesy of www.monimeals.com Ingredients 2 tsp olive oil 1 med. leek white and pale green parts halved and sliced (1 cup) 1/2 cup diced tomato, or red/green pepper 1 1/2 cups quinoa, rinsed and drained good pinch of salt a few grinds of pepper 2 cloves garlic, minced 3 cups of water (or stock) 2 large eggs 1 cup soy milk, non-fat milk, or milk of choice 1 1/2 cups grated Cheddar cheese, more for sprinkling Optional- Crushed Red Pepper, Panko Bread crumbs for topping Toppings (optional)- salsa, hot sauce, sour cream, scallions Directions Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add leek and tomatoes; cover and cook 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in quinoa and garlic, and cook uncovered 3-4 minutes, or until grains start to turn opaque.  (They will not fully be cooked yet.) Add 3 cups water (or stock) and season with salt and pepper.  Cover and reduce heat to med-low and simmer 15-20 minutes or until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F. Coat 13×9 inch dish with cooking spray. Whisk together eggs and milk in large bowl. Fold in quinoa mixture and cheese.  Stir very well and let some of the cheese...

Lunch time.  Two words that can spell doom for diets and pocket books alike.  How many of us have sat in our cubicles, willing the minutes to tick by, the hunger growing by the second into a monstrous yearning for the amazing sushi roll, the juicy cheeseburger and fries, the crispy falafel next door?  Day after day of consuming over a thousand calories in the middle of the day and spending 15 to 20$ a pop will take a toll on your body and your wallet, leaving you asleep in your chair and dreaming about where all your money went. Packing a healthy lunch is your salvation.  Balance protein and fiber with your carbohydrates to avoid the three o’clock sleepies.  Try a salad of arugula with avocado, almonds and balsamic vinaigrette.  Throw boiled eggs into the mix.  Sprinkle in nuts, seeds, or craisins.  Or try the following yummy recipe – make it for dinner the night before and pack the extra for lunch right off the bat to prevent eating it all at once. Salsa Rice with Black Beans and Corn (Courtesy of Food Network) Ingredients 1 cup brown rice 1/2 (14-ounce) can black beans, drained 1/2 cup prepared or fresh salsa 1/2 cup frozen corn, thawed 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves Salt and freshly ground black pepper Directions In a medium saucepot, cook brown rice according to package instructions. When the rice is half way cooked, add black beans and salsa, and cook until rice is done. Remove the pot, and using a spoon, stir in chopped cilantro and season to taste with salt and black pepper. Featured image credit:...

How much do you really love your friends?  Sure, you’re willing to cook for them, but do you love them enough to peel dozens of cloves of garlic? John Thorne, my favorite food writer, gives this recipe for chicken with 40 cloves. As a garlic lover, I highly recommend biting the bullet and freeing them of their pesky skins. It’s completely worth it for the unique, luxurious pleasure of eating them by the creamy spoonful. So come on, the smell will wear off…in a day or two.   John Thorne’s Chicken and 40 Cloves of Garlic (courtesy of Spicelines.com) – Serves four Ingredients: 3-1/2 to 4 pound chicken, cut into serving pieces Salt and pepper 40 cloves of garlic (about 4 heads) 1 to 2 tablespoons fruity olive oil A bouquet garni of several sprigs of parsley and a branch of thyme Chapons [crusts] of country bread, toasted in olive oil Method: Preheat oven to 200F. Season the pieces of chicken with salt and pepper. Examine the cloves of garlic. If they are fresh and firm—and if you care to—use them unpeeled. Otherwise, peel them carefully discarding any soft or moldy ones and cutting away any brown spots and assertive green sprouts. Choose a flameproof casserole with a well-fitting lid, just large enough to hold the chicken pieces comfortably. Heat the olive oil in it over medium-high heat and, when it is hot, quickly brown the chicken pieces on all sides. Do this in batches, removing each piece to a platter as soon as it is done. When all the pieces have been browned, put the garlic cloves into the hot oil and sauté these, stirring constantly, for two or three minutes, until they soften begin to brown a little at the edges. Remove the casserole from the...

I love spinach.  And I love it significantly more now that it comes in bags already washed and ready to eat.  Because really, who has time to spend washing sand and grit off their food?  Spinach needs very little cooking to add delicious flavor to soups and sautés.  The less you cook it the more nutrients you keep; it must never be boiled.  Frozen spinach, however, is a thing I cannot tolerate.  Canned spinach is even worse.  Canning and freezing turn the bright green flavor of the vegetable to bland mush and should be avoided at all costs.  Since spinach is so versatile, you can throw it into almost anything you are making.  This is my version of a soup I had at a local eatery in Bethlehem, PA that makes everything fresh and amazingly good, called Hello Burrito.  Check it out if you’re ever in my town. Spinach and Swiss Soup (feeds 2 for dinner with crusty bread) 1 bag fresh spinach (8-10 oz) 1 cup grated Swiss cheese 16 oz broth 1 sweet onion, diced 1 Tbsp olive oil 3-4 cloves garlic, minced Heat olive oil in pan on medium low, then add onions and garlic.  Cook until onion is translucent.  Add broth, Swiss cheese and stir.  Once cheese is melted, add spinach.  Cook just until spinach is wilted and serve. featured image credit:...

Is anybody really normal? Sometimes I think there is such a thing as normal, or even well adjusted, whatever that means.  Other days I think everyone is nuts, and that some people are just better at hiding their crazy while others wear it like a badge for all to see. Those of us with eating disorders generally fall in the latter category. That my personal brand of crazy persistently believes despite copious evidence to the contrary that one may permanently assuage negative emotions like fear and anger by inhaling cookies and French fries will come as no great shock to anyone I meet. It’s the kind of crazy that makes a girl a big fan of elastic waistbands. The problem with using food as a way of dealing with emotional turmoil is that it will kill you, sooner or later. It’s nuts to believe it won’t. This recipe is my way of trying to avoid that most evil and beautiful of very, very bad ideas, the $6.99 Chinese buffet, which is ubiquitous all over the Lehigh Valley region. They are everywhere, they are full of fat and sodium and fried deliciousness, and they taunt me. Hence this sauté: the slivered almonds make the dish special – they give it crunch and healthy protein. And you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, even that dying bag of mixed salad greens hiding in your fridge drawer will work. Slivered Almond and Broccoli Sauté ½ cup slivered almonds 2 cups broccoli florets 1 onion, coarsely chopped 3-4 cloves garlic minced 2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce 1 Tbsp olive oil pepper to taste Heat olive oil in pan on medium low, add onion, sauté for 2 minutes, and add garlic. When onion is translucent add almonds and soy sauce. Stir and sauté until...

My dad always enjoyed plain boiled red beets as a side dish at dinner. He was diabetic for many years, and beets were one of the few sweet pleasures in life that he was not forced to forgo. Until I started cooking red beets for myself, I was unaware of quite how much redness they actually produce. Pickled beets and canned beets you pick up at the store have lost most of their stain producing capacity. But boil some raw beets at home and you might as well dye a king size set of white sheets while you are at it. The idea may briefly cross your mind as you pour out what looks like a vat of fuchsia-red dye. Even if you have no inclination to start an all natural fabric dye cottage industry from home, you can still enjoy the sweetness of beets. Beets combined with garlic and rosemary and chicken broth form the basis of a great pasta dish, which I have adapted from the one given by Laurie Colwin in her amazing and delicious book, Home Cooking. I am not fond of angel hair pasta, so I used macaroni, and instead of Parmesan, I tried feta cheese crumbled on top. Both are delicious. There is one thing, however, that no one likes to mention about beets. I am going to mention it, mainly because some of you may never have had fresh beets before and are unaware of their amazing reddening power. So I will warn you: when you go to the bathroom after eating fresh beets, don’t panic. You are not bleeding internally. There is nothing wrong with you. Everything, and I mean everything, will come out startlingly red and pink for a little while, and that’s okay. It’s a small price to pay for sweet, delicious beets. Beets...

I think one of the main struggles of being human is self-acceptance.  For a long time I wanted to believe that I am not a naturally lazy person who, like a cat, would prefer in general to spend eighteen straight hours in bed or staring out a window. I wanted to believe that I might learn to make a gorgeous fruit and crème tart, knit a scarf or change the oil in my car. Heck, I thought I might even bake bread some day. But as it turns out, I am not that person. I think that the only activity in which I can accept tedious practice and prolonged delayed gratification may be writing. So instead of a carefully detailed recipe for apple pie, I give you baked apples.  And baked in the microwave, no less!  With only three other ingredients!  Can it get any easier?  The bonus is that this recipe is also far healthier than your typical butter and sugar filled pie.  And you may even be saving energy by not using the oven.  I’m not really sure because that sort of information falls into the realm of things I am too lazy to research…is that my bed calling? Raisin-Filled Baked Apple Courtesy of Fat Free Vegan 1 medium apple 1 Tbsp raisins Cinnamon 2 tsp maple syrup (or other sweetener) Place raisins in a heat-proof bowl and pour boiling water over them. Allow them to soak until plump and remain in soaking liquid until ready to use. Wash an apple and remove most of the core, leaving about 1/4-inch of core at the bottom of the apple. Remove a thin strip of peel from around the top of the cavity. Place the apple into a deep microwave-safe baking dish or bowl. Sprinkle the...

If society as we know it broke down and we were all forced to hunt for and kill our own meat, I know I would go vegetarian instantaneously. Unlike my mother who can butcher a chicken in sixty seconds, I am a big hypocrite and don’t particularly enjoy the bloody reality of cooking animals. Raw chicken scares me because of salmonella, pink pork provokes trichinosis fears, and dyed red beef reminds me of mad cow and E. coli. Like many supermarket shoppers, I buy the boneless and skinless version of everything and try to forget where it comes from. This is becoming harder and harder to do, as occasional but inevitable contaminations occur, and more than one documentary reveal the chemical cocktail in most of our meats. And while the smell of red meat cooking makes me salivate, I know it isn’t doing any favors for my heart. Some meat substitutes can be tasteless or odd in texture or color. This recipe for walnut lentil burgers, however, makes a delicious and hearty replacement for a beef patty. Thanks to my vegan pals L and Sherri for introducing me to this yummy entrée. Lentil Walnut Burgers (Adapted from livingnaturally.com) 5 cups walnuts 2 cups cashews 2 cups onion, chopped ½ cup olive oil 2 cups almond butter 1 ½ cups brown lentils, cooked 2 cups bread crumbs 1/3 cup soy sauce 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. black pepper 1 Tbsp. coriander Place nuts in a bowl and soak for one hour. Drain and chop in a food processor. Meanwhile, sauté onions in oil until just caramelized. Chop onions, lentils and soy sauce in a food processor until well puréed. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and form into burgers. Makes about a dozen ½ cup burgers. featured image credit: Alex S....

I love pie, and always have, soggy crusts and all. But due to mounting heath concerns, pie and I are no longer on a first name basis. One way to enjoy all the yummy fruity delights of pie without inhaling the buttery pastry and cups of sugar is to skip straight to the fruit. This recipe makes great use of two of my favorites – ripe peaches and fresh raspberries. It’s wonderful with a little vanilla fro-yo.     Grilled Peaches with Fresh Raspberry Sauce Adapted from Bon Appétit | August 2007 Yield: Makes 6 servings 2 1/4 cups (lightly packed) fresh raspberries (about 13 ounces) 3 tablespoons water 3 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 6 medium-size ripe but firm peaches, halved, pitted Puree 2 1/4 cups fresh raspberries along with 3 tablespoons water in food processor until puree is smooth. Strain raspberry puree through fine-mesh strainer, pressing on solids to release as much liquid as possible; discard solids in strainer. Stir in 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice until blended. Fresh raspberry sauce can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Prepare barbecue (medium heat). Melt butter and brush peach halves all over with it. Grill until tender, about 8 minutes, turning occasionally. Serve with sauce. Top with vanilla frozen yogurt for an amazing summer time dessert. If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do give us follow. featured image credit:...

I have a penchant for reading cookery texts, from M.F.K. Fisher on transatlantic shipboard cuisine in the 30’s to Apicus on Roman cuisine. I enjoy imagining what a paste of stewed calf’s brains seasoned with pepper and cumin, and cooked with broth, wine, milk and eggs might taste like. Foods come in and out of fashion just like modes of dress, and tastes evolve with the inclusion of other cultures. There was a time when the now ubiquitous pizza was considered exotic or when the tiny breast meats of thrushes and other small songbirds were looked upon by many as delicacies and not potential SARS carriers. Today’s modern cooks have nearly unlimited access to ingredients and cuisine, but very limited time for cooking. Luckily fresh garden produce goes from kitchen to table with little or no cooking. My mother, the green thumb of the family, has donated many a zucchini to my pantry. This recipe makes great use of them and also includes fresh basil and mint. Zucchini ribbon salad with ham (courtesy of Good Housekeeping) Ingredients 2 pound(s) (5 small) zucchini, ends trimmed 4 slice(s) (1 ounce each) deli ham, sliced into 1/2-inch ribbons 1 lemon 2/3 cup(s) salted pistachios, shelled 1/3 cup(s) packed fresh basil leaves 1/3 cup(s) packed fresh mint leaves 1 clove(s) garlic Salt Pepper 3 tablespoon(s) extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoon(s) water 8 slice(s) whole wheat baguette, toasted 1 1/2 ounce(s) goat cheese, softened Directions With vegetable peeler, peel zucchini into wide ribbons. Transfer zucchini ribbons to large bowl and add ham. If making ahead, cover and refrigerate up to 1 day. From lemon, grate 1 teaspoon peel and squeeze 2 tablespoons juice. Cover and refrigerate lemon peel. Prepare pesto: In food processor with knife blade attached, pulse pistachios until finely chopped. Add...

This is my favorite Fierce Foodie of 2012 because it utterly encompasses my nerdishness, from my obsessive LOTR behaviors to my love of food descriptions in fantasy fiction.  Plus, it expresses my yearning to be a hobbit.    When I think of nerd food, my mind inevitably wanders past pizza rolls and poptarts to Tolkien’s Middle Earth and the delicious descriptions of fantastic (often hobbity) foods.  I am a LOTR nerd of the first order.  I have read “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy over thirty times, and went to see the first movie, Fellowship of the Ring, nine times (for the nine walkers), The Twin Towers six times and the Return of the King three times in the theater (due to my initial dislike for the change of Faramir’s character, I could go on, but you’d only start yawning). As these movies are all over three hours long, I learned that in order to avoid extreme discomfort it was necessary to stop drinking liquids at least two hours before sitting for the film, meaning that I was practically dehydrated by the end of it. But that is the work of the nerd. I was so nervous that the first film would fail, I felt it was my personal duty to make sure I attended multiple times and dragged someone new every time. Tolkien was the kind of writer that knew the importance of food.  Hobbits love food, especially fresh mushrooms. They eat six full meals a day and snack often.  Merry, Pip, Sam and Frodo are nearly killed by ring wraiths attracted by the smoke of the fire started for frying sausages, bacon, and tomatoes on Weathertop. Sam carries seasonings, pots and pans all the way to Mordor. I did not date until...

My newest excuse for not turning on the oven this summer: it exploded.  We were baking a pizza the other day when we heard a loud popping noise, and looked over to see sparks shooting around our pie.  Big, scary sparks hopped to and fro over the cheesy crust.  Turns out the heating element is shot in this 70s model, and its repair has been added to the list of things to do for my fiancé.  In the meantime, I will return to my first love, my skillet. When I don’t know what to cook, I like to play around with whatver I have on hand. I start by sautéing coarsely chopped onion in a dot of vegetable oil.  If I have been to the farmer’s market recently, I add fresh garlic, diced green peppers, and then chopped fresh tomatoes, in that order.  This is the basis for something yummy.  From there, add cumin, oregano and chile powder to go Mexican, turmeric, cumin, and coriander to go Indian, or basil and oregano to go Italian.  Lately I have been enjoying lots of fresh ground black pepper, cumin, basil and little lemon juice.  This combination works nicely with meat or cannellini beans over pasta or rice.  And if you have squash or zucchini, chop it up and throw it in with the green pepper. Easy Summer Skillet Dinner (good even if your oven did not explode) 1 onion, coarsely chopped 1 Tbsp vegetable oil 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 green pepper, diced 1-2 ripe red tomatoes, chopped 2 tsp cumin 2 tsp dried basil lemon juice and black pepper to taste cooked shredded chicken, cooked ground chicken and/or 1 can cannellini beans serve over rice or pasta Sauté chopped onion until translucent, add garlic, stir.  Add...

I’m living through a sweltering stretch of on hundred degree plus weather right now.  This is the time for ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Air conditioners are going on Craigslist for the price of a firstborn, and if you are like me and have to wear black to work and walk over a plain of burning asphalt, you get firsthand knowledge of an ant’s experience under a magnifying glass.  In light of this, I vowed to turn off my oven until October. But then I saw this recipe that combines ripe apricots and sweet mascarpone.  It sounded so delicious I had to try it.  Of course, I suggest you crank up the air conditioning and run out of the room the second you turn on the oven.  Also, I recommend eating these treats in front of a fan, in your undies if you can manage it. Roasted Apricots, Mascarpone, and Blackberry Drizzled with Honey Courtesy of Proud Italian Cook Wash, dry, and cut fresh apricots in half.  Fill each half with mascarpone cheese, which you have sweetened with powdered sugar and top with a blackberry.  Then drizzle with honey or agave syrup.  Heat broiler to high, with rack set 4-inches from heat. Place the apricots, cut side up, on a rimmed baking dish. Broil until apricots just begin to char, 2 to 5 minutes. Garnish with pistachios. Serve immediately. If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do give us follow. featured image credit:...

This is a recipe from one of my dearest and nearest friends, L. Fusco. For more than four years, L. has been on a heroic journey to remove processed sugar from her life. She has recognized that while other people can eat one or two or three Swedish fish and be happy, she has to eat one or two or three pounds of Swedish fish to be happy. Since meeting the love of her life, Sherri, who also happens to be an amazing vegan cook, L. has embarked on an organic, gluten-free, processed sugar-free, vegan lifestyle and has never felt better. I am happy for her because she has learned the secret to food: eat what you know your body needs.  Some people can handle processed sugars and some people can’t, even in small amounts.  Some people need meat and potatoes and some people need tofu and brussel sprouts. To each is own is my food motto. While I dearly love sugar, I don’t love the inevitable crash afterwards. If you are like me and looking to lower your sugar intake, but still want something yummy in the morning to get you going, try these delicious homemade breakfast bars full of nutty protein and yummy dried fruit. They are easy to make and compared to the breakfast bars in the store, a cost-saver too! L. and Sherri’s Homemade Breakfast Bars of Love 1 lb dates, preferably fresh – must pit before processing 1/2 lb mix of nuts – peanut, walnuts, almonds – all salted, preferably 2 tbsp unsweetened peanut butter (just peanuts and salt) optional: unsweetened dried fruit or fruit leather pieces Process nuts until powdery. Process 1/4 lb of dates at a time until it forms a ball of goop. Scoop out goop and repeat until you have 4 balls of...

I love watermelon, and ever since they have come out with seedless varieties, I no longer have to fear that I will swallow a seed and grow one in my stomach. Many recipes for watermelon drink tell you to add sugar, which I think is unnecessary if the melon is ripe and sweet. Knock on your watermelon. If it sounds hollow, it is probably a winner.  Another variation: watermelon combined with lemonade leaves you utterly refreshed. Just the thing on a hot day! Watermelon Drink 8 cups cubed seeded watermelon (about 6 pounds with rind) 1 and ½ cup water or 2 cups lemonade Lime slices or mint for garnish Directions: 1) Combine half the watermelon and half the water or lemonade in a blender; puree. Pour through a coarse strainer into a large container. Repeat with the remaining watermelon and water. Refrigerate until well chilled, about 4 hours. 2) To serve, garnish with lime or mint leaves. Yield: 10 cups. If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do give us follow. featured image credit: yoko can’t...

I know I have whinged and complained in the least attractive way about my hatred of the heat in almost every summer post I have ever written, but really, it’s horrible in Pennsylvania.  It’s just a pit.  Our weather lately has bounced between three day downpours and unrelenting killer heat, both accompanied by the kind of sticky, sweltering humidity that leaves you instantly moist the moment you step out of the air conditioning.  Ugh!  And cooking in the heat sounds about as appealing to me as running laps around the house dressed in a balaclava, wool long johns and a sanitary belt.  So it’s no surprise that my favorite refrain around 7 pm is “Let’s have ice cream for dinner… Again!”  And even less surprising that I am running out of pants that fit. Instead of encouraging more bad habits, here I offer a recipe that I like because it is delicious and malleable; you can switch out the ground turkey for ground chicken or tofu crumbles, use soy instead of hoisin sauce, or turn up the heat by adding a side of garlic chile oil mixed with rice vinegar, and you will still come out with something yummy.  Don’t get caught up on the exact ingredients; cucumber will work as well as carrot.  You can convert it into a mexican spiced dish with fajita seasoning and add avocado.  Be free!  It’s the cool, crisp lettuce surrounding the spicy filling that is the heart of this dish.  The filling cooks quickly and keeps in the fridge for up to 2 days, so you can cook it during a cool respite and have something good and good for you to nibble on when the heat returns.  Because return it must, just as surely as the earth turns, and a feminine and awesome sweatring graces the collar of every shirt I wear from May through October. Five-Spice Turkey & Lettuce Wraps Courtesy...

Warmer weather makes us lazy as a species. Unfortunately, ice cream for dinner every night will lead to a myriad of problems, such as running out of pants that fit. Thankfully there are some easy and relatively healthy recipes that require no attention to the stove. Someone once told me, “You don’t have to cook cabbage, it cooks itself.” All cabbage on the stove asks is that you add liquid and leave it alone. With a little apple, onion and chicken broth, a beautiful and tasty head of purple cabbage cooks itself into a delightful side dish which is even better cold the next day. This is a bonus because a head of cabbage is not easy to finish in one sitting, no matter how good. This purple cabbage recipe goes very well with another lazy dish: oven cooked pulled pork. The making of this version of pulled pork is less complicated than following the directions on boxed macaroni and cheese. You cut up pork shoulder into large chunks, cutting off as much fat as possible, and put it in an oven safe dish with a whole bottle of your favorite barbeque sauce. I have used Baby Ray’s successfully. Cover with foil and stick in the oven at 250 degrees and completely forget about it for 5 hours. Your nose will remind you. After the slow cooking, the pork will be fork tender and easy to shred. Add a squirt of ketchup if it needs a little tang. Eat this pulled pork with the following purple cabbage recipe, and potato salad if you can get a hold of it. Cole slaw, cornbread and lemonade are other good ideas. Find someone else to take care of the dishes. Purple Cabbage and Apples I head purple cabbage, chopped coarsely 2 small apples, diced, you can...

Lately I have been getting the hungries; I’m like a bear out of hibernation constantly sniffing out yummy recipes.  Everything attracts me, but especially starches.  I hear the call of the potato everywhere.  Although my upbringing was heavy on the rice (Persian father, Filipina mother), I have always had a warm, fuzzy place in my heart for potatoes.  I love them boiled, baked, French fried, hash browned, sautéed, flambéed and any other way they can be served.  This ricotta mashed potato recipe caught my eye because I’m a huge fan of my mother’s cream cheese mashed potatoes.  As I love ricotta cheese and have been looking for a way to use my cute little ceramic ramekins, I decided to try the recipe.  The ricotta adds a nice tangy creaminess to the potatoes, and while the broiling in ramekins is a nice touch, you can opt out if you are a) ramekin-less or b) frankly too excited to eat mashed potatoes to accomplish an extra step. Ricotta Mashed Potatoes From Country Living Serves: 10 Yields: 5 cups Ingredients 2 pound(s) Yukon Gold potatoes 2 teaspoon(s) salt 1 and 1/2 cup(s) fresh ricotta 1/2 cup(s) whole milk 3 tablespoon(s) butter 1/2 teaspoon(s) ground black pepper Directions Heat oven to broiler setting. Peel and cut potatoes into 1-inch pieces. Place potatoes and 1 teaspoon salt in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and continue to cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes more. Drain and return all but 1 cup of potatoes to the pot. Mash the potatoes with a potato masher. Stir in the ricotta, milk, butter, remaining salt, and pepper to blend. Add the reserved potatoes and mash just until combined. Spoon 1/2 cup potatoes into...

Summer is coming early in my neck of the woods in the form of 80-degree days and a swarm of carpenter bees outside my door.  When the temperatures rise, all my million or so sweat glands and I want to do is laze in front of the fan and dream of colder climes and less soggy days.  However, there is the matter of eating.  Ovens are out entirely and the stove is my enemy.  Heavy foods are an invitation to nap, and so this year I plan to make appetizer dinners and dinner salads my mainstays.  I’m sure these easy and delicious bites of mozzarella and grape tomatoes will be a recurring favorite as I mop my brow and dream of blustery winds. Mini Caprese Bites Courtesy of Southern Living May 2008 Makes 8 appetizer servings Prep Time: 20 Minutes Ingredients: 1 pt. grape tomatoes, halved 10 to 14 fresh small mozzarella cheese balls, cut into thirds* 32 (4-inch) wooden skewers or toothpicks 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 6 thinly sliced fresh basil leaves Kosher salt and pepper to taste Preparation: 1. Thread 1 tomato half, 1 piece of cheese, and another tomato half onto each skewer. Place skewers in a shallow serving dish. 2. Whisk together oil and next 3 ingredients. Drizzle oil mixture over skewers; sprinkle with basil and salt and pepper to taste. *1 (8-oz.) package fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, may be substituted. If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do give us follow. featured image credit:...

I owe this week’s short and sweet fierce foodie to my older sister, who took me out for breakfast recently and rocked my blueberry bagel and plain cream cheese world with her sweet and salty discovery. She asked for a toasted everything bagel with honey walnut cream cheese: the perfect combination of oniony and cinnamony, sesame and walnut, garlic and sugar. It sounds a little crazy, but it tastes amazing. It started me thinking.  If this combination works, there must be others!  I am hoping that others out there know some magical duets they can share with the world.  Sweet Lebanon bologna and scallion cream cheese?  Salt and pepper chips dipped in strawberry yogurt?  Tell me your secrets! Sweet & Salty Nirvana Take one everything bagel, slice in half and toast. Liberally apply honey walnut cream cheese. Eat.  Rejoice! If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do give us follow. featured image credit:...

Spring is my favorite time of year, and my favorite soup is perfect for the varying temperatures of the season. Tom kha gai is a Thai soup made from coconut milk, lemongrass, fresh ginger, juice of a lime, chile paste, basil and cilantro. It is hot and sweet and lemony and limey. Just right for spring in the Northeast, when it’s cold and rainy one day and climbing up to 80 the next. The mushrooms should be fresh and not canned, whatever kind you use, and thrown in at the last minute to preserve freshness. Grocery store white button mushrooms are just fine. If you want to get fancy and make sure your chicken is nice and tender, you can pound it flat between pieces of wax paper and then submit it to a process called “velveting.” The point of velveting is to keep the meat soft and juicy. The chicken breast is coated in a mixture of egg white and cornstarch, rice wine or dry sherry and salt, marinated for up to 30 minutes, and then cooked very briefly in hot oil until the color turns to white. It’s a process from Chinese cooking that prevents chicken breast from turning into dry, mealy chunks in the cooking liquid. If you use this process to cook the chicken, add it at the end with the mushrooms. Tom Kha Gai Adapted from myrecipes.com Ingredients 1 can (14 oz.) reduced fat coconut milk 1 can (14 oz.) reduced-sodium chicken broth 6 quarter-size slices fresh ginger 1 stalk fresh lemongrass, cut in 1-in. pieces 1 pound boned, skinned chicken breast, cut into 1-inch chunks 1 cup sliced mushrooms 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice 1 tablespoon Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce (nuoc mam or nam pla) 1 teaspoon sugar 1 teaspoon Thai...

The ancient Spartans saw food purely as fuel, and both royalty and peasants alike ate black bread with a blood and vinegar soup. The Romans, on the other hand, luxuriated in food as a symbol of wealth, and are famous for their exorbitant banquets of rare ingredients eaten lying down and punctuated by trips to the vomitorium. These are the age-old equivalents of living on a spelt and seaweed diet or dining exclusively on truffles and hand fed lobster. Today some people still run to these extremes, but for me, and many others I suspect, food is not purely fuel or status symbol, but comfort. It is no big secret that comfort food is rarely meaty or green. Starch is king in the land of comfort food: sugary donuts, buttery mashed potatoes, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, pancakes with syrup, cherry pie ala-mode, French fries, fresh bread with sweet butter, tater tots, or my personal favorite: white rice, with anything.  Why doesn’t kale or a chicken leg give you the same buzz? You could argue that sugars and starches cause the brain to release the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is responsible for producing a sense of wellbeing and calm. This is the brain chemical that drugs like Prozac and Paxil work to elevate. You could also argue that when you were a kid, and you fell and scraped your knee, your mom handed you a cookie, and not a plate of steamed spinach to cheer you up. So in the spirit of comfort and good cheer, I give you this recipe for baked ziti, or lazy lasagna.  It all get mixed up in your tummy any way right? BAKED ZITI (Courtesy of Simplyrecipes.com) Ingredients 1 pound ziti (can sub penne) pasta Olive oil 1 pound bulk Italian sausage or ground...

The heart is a tough muscle.  Despite the movies that depict a warrior taking a bite of a still beating specimen torn from the chest of an enemy, most cookery books suggest a long marinating in vinegar and red wine followed by hours of slow baking or stewing to render the chewy, lean muscle edible. The irony of how fragile is the heart of a lover can never be far from the chef’s mind. The slightest decrease of attention, the lengthening silences, the decision often made to sleep rather than indulge in other bed time activities, all these are signs of passion that has naturally deepened and become milder with time and trust. Unfortunately, they are also signs of impending doom, and it is often difficult to tell exactly where you are when you are right in the middle of it. So on this Valentine’s Day, and every day, my advice is this: no matter how exhausted you are, how wrapped up in your own cares and troubles, take the time every day to hold your lover’s face, stare deep into his or her eyes, and say the words that make even the toughest hearts melt. Homemade Nut and Berry Bars Courtesy of L Fusco and Sherry Mosovsky These bars are a great source of nourishment and will give you tons of energy to love your mate! Necessary equipment: Food Processor 1 lb dates, preferably fresh -must pit before processing .5lb mix of salted nuts – peanut, walnuts, almonds, or whatever nut you love 2 tbsp unsweetened peanut butter Dried fruit such as apricots or fruit leather pieces Process nuts until they are powder. Process dates .25lb at a time until you have four balls of date goop. Add powdered nuts to dates and process....

For some reason, my mother likes to give me garbanzo beans. To the point where it’s hard for me to get out of her house without finding a can or two tucked in with whatever groceries she wants to send with me. She has tossed them through the open window of my car as I’m backing out of the driveway. She has included them thoughtfully with my dry cleaning. I have found them in my purse. During supermarket sales she hoards these curiously named legumes which have for as long as I can remember reminded of me of tiny butts, and even if I assure her that I have six or seven cans in my cupboard already, her compulsive chickpea smuggling continues unabated.  Luckily, I like them, and luckily for everybody, there’s hummus.  What could be easier and more satisfying with some pita bread and cut up veggies?  There are a myriad of forms; see the recipe below for the original.  Hummus – Courtesy of About.com Ingredients: 1 16 oz can of chickpeas or garbanzo beans 1/4 cup liquid from can of chickpeas 3-5 tablespoons lemon juice (depending on taste) 1 1/2 tablespoons tahini 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons olive oil Preparation: Drain chickpeas and set aside liquid from can. Combine remaining ingredients in blender or food processor. Add 1/4 cup of liquid from chickpeas. Blend for 3-5 minutes on low until thoroughly mixed and smooth. Place in serving bowl, and create a shallow well in the center of the hummus. Add a small amount (1-2 tablespoons) of olive oil in the well. Garnish with parsley (optional). If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do...

When I was seven years old, I ate nine extra-large, perfectly unspotted, starchy sweet bananas in the space of ten minutes.  I’m not sure why I kept methodically eating banana after banana after banana as if I was in some kind of food challenge for kindergarteners, or why my mother made no move to stop me going down what was surely the path to utter self-destruction, but I soon learned a very important and painful lesson, a lesson that has not lost its turgid, sweaty immediacy twenty five years later:  Too many bananas will block you up big time. They will seriously mess you up. At seven I was doubled over in pain, bargaining with god, that’s how bad it was. Maybe it was my abhorrence of any spots on my bananas that made me feel as if I had to eat every one of those beautiful golden bananas in the bunch as soon as they lost the greenish tint and before anything marred their perfect yellow peels. I was, like many children, suspicious of adults who claimed that brown, mottled bananas were “just as good,” even sweeter than the unblemished and firm bananas that I preferred. Spots of gushy rot greeted me when I peeled back the flecked outer covering of a forlorn banana, and my seven year old self found this abhorrent.  Years later, I still find blemished bananas less than appealing. (Ha! Ha! And Ha!) But grown-up Roya has accepted the fact that brown spots happen, that life is too hectic to simply sit and wait for that perfect banana moment, and that sometimes you have to eat the bananas you’ve been dealt and simply scoop out the rotten bits with a spoon.  Banana Bread (Courtesy of Food network) Ingredients 1 cup granulated sugar 8 tablespoons...

Pennsylvania is a weird and wonderful state. Two relatively artsy and liberal cities are surrounded on all sides by mainly conservative folks who enjoy the local wildlife, albeit often on the wall or in a stew pot. Venison was never on the menu at my house when I was growing up. The only thing my father, an Iranian psychiatrist, ever hunted was cashews in the bowl of mixed nuts he enjoyed with his nightly martinis. My mother, a Filipina psychiatrist, would eat octopi ink and fetal ducks over deer meat any day. So after falling for a Pennsylvania boy from the red part of the state, I found myself a little mystified the first night I stayed in a guest room populated with antlers and shotguns. I learned to eat venison in stages. At first the gaminess of venison turned me off. But a little research soon revealed the secret to properly cooking wild meats: garlic, herbs, and red wine. Marinating or slowing stewing venison in a combination of the three removes much of the gaminess while tenderizing this very lean meat. For steaks, I recommend a long wine bath and a short searing on the grill, while stew cuts need 24 hours of marinade and a slow cooking. Here is a recipe that honors both the sacrifice of the animal and the palate. Venison Stew (Adapted from Provencal Venison Stew at http://andreas.com/susan/venstewp.html) Marinade 6 ounces of olive oil 1 carrot, sliced 1 onion, sliced ½ bunch of celery, cut into one inch chunks ½ cup red wine ½ cup red wine vinegar 1 Tbsp tomato paste 4 or 5 stalks of parsley 4 shallots 5 cloves of garlic 1 teaspoon dried thyme 2 bay leaves 1 teaspoon rosemary 6 black peppercorns Salt Heat the olive oil and slightly brown the...

I love potatoes in every form I have ever eaten them. I love potatoes so much it borders on becoming a codependent relationship.  I love potatoes so much that I actually enable potatoes to be less than their absolute best.  Which is to say that even though I truly appreciate good potatoes, I will and have eaten bad potatoes, such as starchy, old, cold, flavorless French fries. Do you see what I mean?  This is a problem, not just for me, but also for potatoes. Yes, okay, fine, sweet potatoes are good too, but they are a totally different form of tuber, and if you ask me, have about as much in common flavor-wise with a white potato as a rutabaga or a parsnip. Which is to say they are not the same at all. Somebody once served me mashed parsnips to eat years ago and I don’t even want to talk about it. How it is possible to overstate the importance of potato love, I don’t know. Potato love is a pure love. Butter and cream, these ingredients just gilt the lily that is the beauteous potato. To prove it, here is a recipe for potato soup that marries the sweetness of leeks and shallots to the creaminess of potatoes with very little added fat. Oh potatoes! How I love thee! Leek and Potato Soup From Lowfatcooking.com Ingredients: 2 tsp canola oil 2 medium shallots, minced 3 medium leeks, sliced (white and light green parts only) 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces 1 cup fat-free, reduced sodium chicken broth (or vegetable broth) 1 2/3 cups fat free milk Freshly ground black pepper Preparation: Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add shallots, leeks and potatoes, and cook on a low to...

Reading while eating is luxurious habit but not easy to accomplish, at least not if you like creamy, yummy treats and the pages of your books unstained and unspotted.  My favorite books to read while eating are books about eating and cooking: John Thorne’s Outlaw Cook, Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking and the complete works of M.F.K. Fisher, all of which bear marks of my habit.  I am not overly fussy about the state of my own books, but as I have started to use the library more frequently it has become necessary to monitor the whereabouts of the Nutella and the tea. I prefer a sweet treat, so the following is a generally book-safe recipe from Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking for an easy and delicious sponge cake: Sponge Cake (Very nice with raspberry jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar.) Cream 1 stick of sweet butter and ½ cup of sugar. (For non-cooks, this means softening the butter to room temperature and then combining sugar and butter with an electric whisk or your muscles and a wooden spoon. I found this out the hard way when I first started baking and confusedly rolled hard, cold butter in sugar.) Beat in 2 eggs (or 1 yolk and 2 whites). Beat until light and fluffy with either a whisk or an electric beater. Fold in 1 cup flour to which you have added ½ teaspoon baking powder and 1 teaspoon vanilla, if you like. (You can actually do without the baking powder and vanilla if you are out of nearly everything but must have cake.  I know, it happens,) Bake in a buttered dish (8 inch square baking tin works nicely) for 20 minutes to a half an hour at 350°. If you liked this post, please do us the further...

I’ve been trying to get in the habit of exercising. This may sound banal to you, but in reality this is like trying to get a feral cat used to full body shampoos.  It’s a process.  After I do my time on the treadmill I want a treat, but the last thing I want to do is eat something that will ruin all my hard work.  But neither do I want to waste calories on some diet dessert that bears more resemblance to wet packing material than food. Hence my search for cake that is both yummy and not made with butter, something I wasn’t even sure existed.  But luckily I have not been alone in this quest, as proven by the following recipe.  It  may help to get you through the dark days of winter without necessitating a shopping trip for larger pants. Dark Chocolate Yogurt Cake Courtesy of Food.com and from Little Corner of Mine.com blog Prep Time: 15 mins Total Time: 1 hrs 5 mins Serves: 4-8, Yield: 1.0 loaf cake Ingredients 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup cocoa powder 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup white sugar 1 cup plain or vanilla yogurt 3 large eggs, lightly whisked 1 tablespoon strong brew coffee 1/2 cup canola oil Directions 1. Preheat oven to 350’F. Grease a 8.5×3.5 loaf pan. 2. In a large bowl, sift in flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Add in salt, sugar. Stir to mix well. 3. Then add in all wet ingredients: yogurt, eggs, coffee and oil.  Whisk everything together until blended. 4. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before taking out to cool completely...

There’s an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants that I have been known to watch repeatedly.  It’s called “Just One Bite” and the premise is that sarcastic, narcissistic Squidward hates crabby patties and all those who enjoy them.  This is all because he has never actually eaten a patty due to the fact that they are greasy fast food.  Shocked and appalled, SpongeBob relentlessly nags Squidward to try just one bite of a crabby patty.  “It’s good for your soul,” says the sponge with tears in his eyes.  “The crabby patty is an absolute good.” I agree.  There are many foods out there whose calories and fat content are less than stellar, who are primarily made up of butter or sugar or cream or even lard.  But not every food that is high in calories is good for your soul.  Some foods just have that something extra that makes the eater feel good to be alive and have taste buds.  Sweet potato cornbread is one of those foods.  Not too sweet, not too rich, just right as a side dish on Turkey day or a dessert on a crisp fall day.  It is an absolute, golden crusted good. Sweet Potato Corn Bread Based on recipe by Judy Roland courtesy of Allrecipes.com 12 servings Ingredients 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 cups cornmeal 1/2 cup sugar 7 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 4 eggs, beaten 3/4 cup milk 1/3 cup vegetable oil 2+2/3 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes butter to grease pan Directions In a large bowl, combine the first five ingredients. In a small bowl, combine the eggs, milk, oil and sweet potatoes. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in....

The eternal American breakfast question is “savory or sweet?”  Do I have a hearty scramble of eggs with sausage or bacon and home fried potatoes, or do I essentially have dessert for breakfast, a.k.a. the tower of fluffy pancakes covered in fruity topping and whipped cream?  Some brave souls have tried to eat both.  Generally such attempts lead one into food comas spanning lunch and dinner and lasting well into the night, causing the victim to awaken bleary-eyed and bewildered, lips still sticky with syrup. Others have gone a separate route.  Could it be possible to combine the essential elements of both savory and sweet and create a new hybrid breakfast food?  Yea, cried some, and the bacon pancake was born.  Recipes abound on the internet; here I include one of the myriad forms of this morning treat. Maple Bacon Pancake Courtesy of AllRecipes.com Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cook Time: 20 Minutes Ready In: 30 Minutes Servings: 5 “A sweet and savory oven pancake with cheese, bacon and maple syrup.” INGREDIENTS: 4 ounces bacon (turkey or pork or soy as preferred) 1 cup baking mix 1 and 1/4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, divided 1/2 cup milk 1/4 cup maple syrup 2 tablespoons white sugar 2 eggs DIRECTIONS: 1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). 2.  Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside. Spray a 9 inch pie plate with non-stick cooking spray. 3.  In a large bowl, beat together baking mix, 3/4 cup cheddar cheese, milk, maple syrup, sugar and eggs until only small lumps of cheese remain. Pour into prepared pie plate. 4.  Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into...

I am a big fan of quinoa, not because it has the “health food” stamp, and not because it’s a “superfood” that sustained the Inca Empire, but because it really is a delicious and extremely adaptable food.  You can make it Indian curry style, Italian style, Chinese style, and the list goes on.  You can serve it with eggs for breakfast, with beans for a light vegetarian meal, or pair it with roast chicken and fresh veggies for a complete dinner.  And best of all, it’s pretty cheap, especially if you buy it in bulk from a health food store. Quinoa has an agreeable nutty flavor and light texture that tastes good hot, warm and cold.  I love how it goes from looking like a collection of tiny pebbles when its uncooked to a light brown translucent mass, with the outer part of the grain separating to form slightly crunchy C-shaped bits. I’ve tried the following recipe hot for dinner, warm with a salad for lunch, and cold with a hot fried egg for breakfast.  All three times, it was yum! Quinoa with Onions, Tomatoes, and White Beans (2-4 servings) 1 cup quinoa 1 medium onion, sliced into medium strips 2-3 cloves garlic, minced 1 can diced tomatoes 1 can white cannellini beans 1-2 Tbsp vegetable oil Fresh ground salt and black pepper In a deep pot with a lid, heat the oil at low/medium heat.  Add onion and stir occasionally until they start to brown.  Do not let the onion burn; turn down the heat if you see any blackness.  After a few minutes, add the garlic. While the onions cook, prepare your quinoa.  To avoid clumping you need to rinse the quinoa in cold water.  This can be complicated with your average...

Dear reader, tonight I am questioning whether I am truly the right person to be writing a food column because darn it, all I want for dinner is cereal.  I love the initial crunchiness, the salty sweetness, and finally gulping down the survivors sopping with milk.  Rather than dairy, I prefer a light vanilla soy to accompany my preferred cereals.  And like a good girl, I always drink up the left over cereal milk, when I am not using it in my coffee. Okay, so I’ve bared my lazy self.  Now you know that if I say something is easy to make, it really, really is.  This is a recipe for pulled pork from my friend Mary, and it is so easy it is criminal.  It is amazing with coleslaw and cornbread.  Please to enjoy! Mary’s Easiest Pulled Pork Ever 2-3 lbs of boneless pork ribs 1 bottle of barbecue sauce, your choice (we like Sweet Baby Ray’s) 1 large onion or 2 medium, chopped Take pork and put in hot oiled grill pan or on a hot grill.  Brush with barbecue sauce and cook until seared on outside, 5-7 minutes per side.  Next, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Take pork and put in a foil lined pan, cover with raw onion and rest of the bottle of barbecue sauce.  Cover with foil and cook for 2 hours.  Remove and pull apart with fork.  Too good to be so easy! If you liked this post, please do us the further boon of Liking the Fierce and Nerdy page on FaceBook. Also, we’re giving great stream on Twitter, so do give us follow. featured image credit:...

Strawberry shortcake has always fascinated me.  The perfect blend of a juicy, ripe summer fruit, fresh cream, and a dense scone or light cake, it can be made the easy way with mainly store bought ingredients, or the cream and cake components can be lovingly prepared by hand.  In either case, I am happy to indulge in the perfection that is fruit, cake and cream. Strawberry Shortcake is also the name of an elfin-like being, a child-like creature with unnaturally red hair, obsessed with strawberries the size of her head, living in a forest cottage and occasionally accompanied by other dessert-themed friends with unusual hair colors such as Blueberry Muffin.  As a child, I loved how the dolls each smelled of their assigned fruit.  Lemon Meringue was tangy, while Orange Blossom was citrus and sweet.  I was also fascinated by the fact that Strawberry Shortcake had a pink cat with patchwork on its side, as if it was an animated stuffed animal. I loved the confluence of food and play then, and I still do.  Today I have given away my dolls, but I still have a collection of San-X stationary picturing such visual treats as Nyan Nyan Nyanko, little kittens who frolic in food, and the Happy Cheese Family, whose members are each a different type of cheese and who regularly cannibalize each other to make fondue.  I also love those little erasers made to look like food.  Not surprisingly, strawberry shortcake looks great in rubber. Strawberry Shortcake (based on recipe from Denyse at Allrecipes.com) INGREDIENTS: 3 pints fresh strawberries 1/2 cup white sugar 2¼ cups all-purpose flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 2 tablespoons white sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup shortening or softened butter 1 egg 2/3 cup milk 2 cups whipped...

Certain foods inspire an illogical revulsion in me. I find mushrooms, for instance, impossible to separate from the fact that they grow upon decomposing matter. Their very texture conjures up images of rotting meat and dead, wet, brown leaves. For my boyfriend, it’s the sight of bone or cartilage; he can’t stand any sign that the meat he is eating was ever part of a dead animal. Raisins are also a deal breaker in his world. I love raisins, but I can imagine that anti-raisin feelings might be related to their cursory resemblance to rodent droppings, or his aversion to all things dried out. I have a fear of undercooked pork and chicken that is so intense that the mere thought of eating it makes my stomach hurt. I have been faced with social situations in which I have been served pink turkey and basically raw pork, and have had to swallow bits of both. While I did not immediately sicken and die as I feared, my stomach cramped before I had even taken a bite and made the whole experience akin to running a gauntlet. Yet, paradoxically, I welcome bloody beefsteaks and pink in the middle burgers. While canned food frightens me because it has been marinating in its metal casket for months, even years, and tastes like iron to me even after it’s re-cooked. Then there is the creeping realization that any number of ingredients in our food may be tainted with toxic chemicals or fecal bacteria. Buying local or organic ingredients would seem the safe alternative, except for the fact that the cost is generally prohibitive. And there is the sad reality that a certain amount of rat fecal matter is allowed in our food no matter what. Food fears are...

During my childhood, dinnertime could be as late as nine o’clock due to my dad’s frenetic work schedule.  I had to have a snack after school to be able to wait for a long simmered Persian meat and vegetable stew over rice.  My mini-meal of choice was Oscar Meyer bologna and Kraft American cheese (always white, never the orange slices) on white bread with a glass of milk.  As part of my preparation I squeezed the sandwich together between my palms so the cheese and bologna would meld with the bread. Years later I read about another young girl who made her own supper: fried bologna served on white bread with mayonnaise.   The description of the bologna curling up in the pan, its fried edges turning brown, triggered a memory.  If we were out of baloney, my mother would sometimes make me a steak sandwich.  The edges of the thinly sliced frozen meat would crisp and darken as she fried them in oil with onions.  Then she garnished the steak sandwich with white sliced cheese and fresh beefsteak tomatoes from her garden. What we ate as children can shape our appetites later.  Taking frozen and prepared foods and making them taste fresher using fresh ingredients is my mother’s talent. Because of her I never tire of learning about kid food, quick food, and canned and frozen food made homemade with a little creativity.  There are few written records for the foods we grow nostalgic for. My Mother’s Steak Sandwich All Grown Up For one: 1 package Steakum or other thin sliced frozen steak 1 fresh hoagie roll 1 onion sliced thin American cheese Grated Parmesan cheese 2 wedges Laughing Cow spreadable cheese – onion flavor 1 beefsteak tomato, sliced 1 tbsp Vegetable oil for...

My favorite piece so far is “Hello Halo Halo,” because I love sharing foods from my childhood that may be utterly unknown or incomprehensible to some readers.  Mung beans and purple yam and palm seeds in my dessert?!  Yes!!  I love to encourage culinary exploration. Originally published 04/06/11 Like so many people, I have a love hate relationship with sugar.  In that I love it but I am fairly sure that it will kill me because my parents are both diabetics.  As a child I loved the Necco wafers my mother carried in her purse.  She would hand a thin sugary circle to me one by one as I waited patiently beside her in the courthouse where she was applying to become an American citizen.  I loved the pink and yellow wafers best, hated the blackish grey ones that were licorice-flavored, her favorite. Every so often my mother would feel nostalgic for her own childhood in the Philippines.  One day she decided to recreate for me the ultimate fun dessert, halo halo, a riotous layered mix of shaved ice, evaporated milk, and sugary, syrupy ingredients like candied mung beans, red and green dyed coconut, creamed corn, chewy palm fruit and crushed young rice.  Needless to say I loved it.  Evaporated milk is basically sugar crack, and it was fun to negotiate the various textures of crunchy, soft and chewy. Nowadays so much sugar in one bowl is a tougher proposition, but not impossible.  Using ice cream in place of the shaved ice and evaporated milk is not just easier but less intensely sweet.  Fresh fruit like chopped mango can form the base in the bottom of the bowl.  A complex starch like sautéed plantain is a great source of fiber and potassium.  Macapuno or...

Recently I was lucky enough to have some truly amazing, flavorful, rich and delicious Chicken Biryani.  Instead of pouring curry over the rice and mixing it before eating it, the maker of Biryani cooks the rice in the curry.  This means that the rice is not just covered but infused with the flavor of the curry, while the meat stays moist and draws in the spices.  The result is pretty much heaven, in my opinion. I’ve included here a recipe that looks really good, but is longer than my arm, so don’t feel bad if you are intimidated.  But understand that the length has less to do with techniques and more to do with the ingredients: many fresh herbs and ground spices, as well as some things you’ll find at an Indian grocer, such as ghee and garam masala.  Ghee, or clarified butter, is butter with the solids removed.  Garam masala is a spice mixture. So whether you are inspired to make this dish immediately, or whether you are inspired to go order it at the best South Indian restaurant in town, I know your taste buds will not be disappointed. SOUTH INDIA CHICKEN BIRYANI Courtesy of Rasamalaysia.com INGREDIENTS: For the marinade: 6 chicken drumsticks Small bunch of cilantro, use leaves and soft stalks ¼ cup mint 2 Tbsp ginger and garlic paste 2 tsp ground cumin 1 Tbsp cream Salt as needed For the Curry: 1 large onion, diced 4 cloves of garlic, minced 2-inch chunk of ginger, minced 1 large bunch of cilantro ½ cup mint, fresh 1 cup thick coconut milk 2 cups water/broth 1 Tbsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground turmeric 2 Tbsp garam masala 6-7 whole cloves 2 sticks cinnamon 6-7 whole peppercorns 3 whole star anise 3 dry...

Summer is road trip time, get in your car and go time, gas prices be damned.  And that means car food, road food, food eaten with one hand.  Since nothing is less fun than biting into your delicious treat and having half of it dribble down your chest, I suggest eggrolls, samosas, burritos and other self-contained yummies. My personal favorite is Vietnamese summer rolls, which are wrapped in cellophane-thin rice paper circles.  When you buy them they are hard and brittle, but once you brush them with water they soften into a pliable consistency that makes them perfect for enfolding the traditional filling of fresh herbs, vegetables, meats, and rice noodles, or alternatively fresh fruits. Rolls filled with fresh mango spears combined with naval or blood orange sections and fresh mint then dipped in raspberry sauce make a novel dessert.  Or you could put the raspberries in the roll itself, if you want to eat them on the run without danger of drippage.  You can keep these cool for a half hour or so, but don’t wait too long to eat them or they stiffen.  Buckle up and eat them fast! Summer Roll Dessert (care of Kara Holsopple) 6 rice paper circles, softened with water 1 mango cut into spears 1 naval orange or blood orange 6 sprigs of fresh mints 1 pint raspberries Put 1 sprig mint, 1 mango spear, 1 orange segment, and 3 raspberries into the middle of each roll.  Fold the top and bottom inwards, then the sides.  Alternatively, leave raspberries out and puree them with ¼ cup sugar to make a tart sauce. featured image credit: Mahesh...

Avocado is a very large berry, has been eaten since 10,000 B.C., and is called Butter Fruit in some parts of India.  They are buttery and delicious when ripe, and if you cut them down the middle around the large seed, the skin slips right off the flesh.   I love a ripe avocado as is with a squirt of lime and some fresh pita.  But if I have the time and inclination to make guacamole, there is nothing better to accompany some crunchy corn tortilla chips.  This recipe, courtesy of Hungry Girl, cuts down some of the fat because, after all, avocados are almost two-thirds fat.  I think you could live off them for a while if you were stranded in the deserts of New Mexico.   Another fun fact: the seeds can be carved into fun and interesting shapes and faces.  Bonus! Holy Moly Guacamole Courtesy of Hungry Girl Per serving (1/6th of recipe, about 1/3 cup): 78 calories, 3g fat, 320mg sodium, 10.5g carbs, 3.5g fiber, 4g sugars, 3.5g protein Ingredients One 15-ounce can early peas (young), drained 1/2 cup avocado (about 1 medium-small avocado’s worth), mashed 1/3 cup chopped cherry or grape tomatoes 1/4 cup finely chopped onion 1/4 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt 4 teaspoons lime juice 1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon black pepper 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin 1/8 teaspoon chili powder Salt, to taste Black Pepper, to taste Fresh cilantro(optional), chopped Jarred jalapeños (optional), chopped Cooking Directions Place peas in a medium bowl and mash thoroughly with a potato masher or fork. Add avocado, yogurt, lime juice, garlic, and seasonings. Continue to mash until blended.  Stir in tomatoes, onion, and, if you like, some cilantro and/or jalapeños. Season to taste with salt...

Eating steaming hot food in the summer is about as appealing to me as drinking liquids at room temperature, as I cannot get over the feeling that I am imbibing my own spit.  In the heat of summer I crave ice cream and any other form of frozen dessert, but also cool, fresh foods like honey dew and watermelon and tiny, sweet cherry tomatoes that explode on your tongue. As for cool summer drinks, I grew up in a Persian/Filipino family enjoying icy watermelon puree, spicy ginger tea (or salabat as it’s known in Tagalog), and watching my dad drink doogh, a Persian salty yogurt drink made with still or carbonated water, flavored with mint and served over ice. So I’m always on the lookout for a new, yummy summer cooler, and what’s cooler than a cucumber?  Try this Jamaican cucumber juice when you want an invigorating and refreshing summer drink. Jamaican Cucumber Juice Recipe courtesy of JamaicaMix.com Ingredients (This will all be strained, so don’t peel a thing, baby!) 6 cups coarsely chopped cucumber (I use English seedless because I like them better) 1 1/2 tbsp. chopped root ginger (fresh root can be kept in freezer for a month) 6 cups water (purified or filtered) 1 tbsp lime juice (fresh, not the stuff that comes in the little green bottle) 1 cup granulated sugar (can be replaced, reduced or increased according to your preference) Directions Place cucumber, ginger and water in blender.  Blend, then strain through a cheese cloth. Add lime juice and sugar and serve chilled.  Note, you can get fancy and use sugar syrup, I won’t hold it against you. featured image credit: Island...

Now comes the summer of our extended montage.  Shiny, dazzling special effects and loud crashy noises will once again distract us from the troubles of this world, as the disembodied voice of a dead but not gone mentor will push our fallen hero to rise up from his/her apparent undefeatable defeat and foil the ultimate “Eee-vill.”  Oh yes, I love the summer movie season.  From May until September, while other people hike and bike and do other various outdoor activities, you can find me in my dark temple, ignoring sunshine and hackneyed plots and poor characterization in favor of sweet, delicious movie magic.  And in honor of dialogue so corny it’s amazing it doesn’t get stuck in the actor’s teeth as they speak it, I give you a yummy, easy cornbread treat that is great for breakfast or a not too sweet dessert. Doctored-up Cornbread 1 box of Jiffy Cornbread muffin mix (At 47 cents, a sheer steal!) 2 eggs, lightly beaten ¼ cup melted butter Handful of frozen corn kernels or fresh, if you have some cut off the cobb Preheat oven to 400 degrees and butter a 9 inch round baking pan.  Make up the mix according to the directions on the box but add the other ingredients.  Pour into baking dish and cook until golden brown, about 10 minutes.  Now cut yourself a slice, top with a little vanilla frozen yogurt and some fresh blackberries.  I know you can do it.  You can do it, goddamn you!  You’ve never given up on anything in your life!!  Now breathe!!! featured image credit: Steve...

I love, love, love gnocchi.  And I love saying gnocchi.  Neeyocki.  Eating these delicious little balls of potato dough feels like eating clouds.  If clouds were made of soft, delicious potato dough, and not condensed water vapor.   One day I will get my shit together enough to make gnocchi from scratch.  I have gone so far as to collect recipes and ponder them seriously.  Especially sweet potato gnocchi, which when put together are three of those beautiful words that I have ever heard.  Until then, please to enjoy, my newest favorite sauce for those little clouds of goodness. Gnocchi in Parmesan Onion Sauce Ingredients: 1 medium onion diced 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp unsalted butter 2/3 cup milk 3 tbsp cream cheese for cooking 2/3 cup grated Parmesan and more to pass around 2 packages of gnocchi, approximately a pound Follow gnocchi package directions for cooking.  After you put the water on to boil, put oil and butter in a separate sauté pan.  Once butter is melted, add diced onion and brown on low to medium heat.  Stir often to prevent burning.  Once the onion is a caramel brown color, add milk and cream cheese.  Stir for 2-3 minutes or until the cream cheese is well incorporated.   If not liquid enough, add more milk and stir.  Add grated Parmesan and stir well.  Once gnocchi is done, strain and toss with sauce.  Serve with extra Parmesan to taste.  Other things to try: a sprinkling of chopped parsley. featured image credit:...

It’s March, I’m in Cape Cod, and it’s damn cold.  It’s another in a long line of puzzling vacations, such as touring the ruins of historic Jamestown in November with four year olds.  Or the time we toured three European countries in twelve days, six of which were spent exclusively in the car.  I have a whole set of “car shots,” pictures taken from the back seat of the rental.  My dad means well.  I guess it’s kind of sweet, the way he plans things so that we spend the maximum amount of time inside a house or car with him. But if there’s one thing that makes the six hour drive from Pennsylvania worth it, it’s a good lobster roll.  Like most good things in life, it’s simple yet extraordinary.  Fresh lobster meat mixed with a touch of mayo, onion, celery, some spices and served on a buttery toasted roll.  As my big sister says, “When it comes to food, there’s nothing better than having something wet on something dry.” Lobster Rolls Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com INGREDIENTS: 1 tablespoon butter, softened 4 hot dog buns or kaiser rolls, split 4 lettuce leaves 1 ½ pounds cooked and cubed lobster meat 2 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice 1 dash hot pepper sauce 2 green onions, chopped 1 stalk celery, finely chopped chopped parsley salt and pepper to taste DIRECTIONS: 1.  Lightly butter the insides of the buns or rolls and line with lettuce leaves. Set aside. 2.  In a medium bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, lime juice, hot pepper sauce, salt and pepper until well blended. Mix in the green onion and celery, then lightly mix in the lobster so it just gets coated without falling apart. 3.  Stuff the lobster filling...

Cobbler is one of my favorite desserts and one of the easiest to make, even for those like me who regard baking as a fearsome and time-consuming art.  Unlike pies that require forging tender, flaky pastry, creating thick crust over chopped fruit requires little skill.  Enter me!  If it’s yummy dessert, and it’s easy to make, I am there. Soon the markets will be filling up with peaches and berries, both of which are excellent for cobbler.  Until then, apples and cranberries make good choices too.  And why not try a strawberry rhubarb filling? You might ask is cobbler for breakfast or dessert? To me, it is an anytime food, but if you feel it needs dressing up for dessert just add good quality vanilla ice cream.  Cobbler’s juiciness means that extra sauces are unneeded, but you can always get creative with a light topping of whipped cream, various fresh berries and a sprig of fresh mint.  It doesn’t have to look messy if you bake your cobbler in individual oven safe ramekins that can be set in front of your guests proudly. Peach Cobbler Servings: 8 Based on a recipe from Good Morning America Ingredients 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 Tbsp vanilla extract 2 Tbsp cornstarch 1 cup peach nectar 1/4 cup pineapple or peach juice (can use juice from canned peaches) 2 cans (16 oz each) peaches, packed in juice, drained, (or 1 3/4 lb fresh), sliced 1 Tbsp butter 1 cup dry pancake mix 2/3 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 2/3 c evaporated skim milk nonstick cooking spray, as needed 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1 Tbsp brown sugar Cooking Directions Combine cinnamon, vanilla, cornstarch, peach nectar, and pineapple or peach juice in saucepan over medium heat.  Stir constantly until mixture thickens...

Despite last minute snow storms, spring is on its way, and with spring comes yummy new potatoes in the market.  Red bliss is among my favorite varieties to eat in a salad.  When it comes to potato salad, I distinguish between two main types: with mayo and without mayo.  For some of us, mayo is a four letter word, but I would argue that even worse is fat free fake mayo.  The following recipe is for a non-mayo potato salad dressed in an oil and acid vinaigrette, which means the potatoes don’t need to be cooled before mixing them with the other ingredients.  This salad takes full advantage of the porous texture of potatoes that absorbs all the flavors of the herbs, vegetables, and vinaigrette. Greek Potato Salad: Patatosalata Recipe courtesy Cat Cora Serves: 4 to 6 servings Ingredients 2 pounds red Bliss potatoes, boiled and quartered 1 medium red onion, halved and sliced into half moons 2 scallions, thinly chopped 24 Kalamata olives, pitted and halved 1 tablespoon finely chopped dill 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano 2 ounces olive oil ½ ounce red wine vinegar 1 lemon, juiced Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper Directions In a medium salad bowl, combine the potatoes, onions, scallions, olives, dill, and oregano.  Do this while the potatoes are still rather hot so they soak up the flavors. In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Pour over the salad and mix well.  Refrigerate until ready to serve. featured image credit: Robert...

You know that song that goes, “I can’t live, if living is without you, I can’t live, I can’t live anymore”?  That is how I feel about dessert.  I love sweet things.  Pastries of every denomination, danishes, pull-aparts, cupcakes, claws, hamentashen, rugala, babka, baklava, jalebi, ensamada, wife cakes, red bean buns, meringues, cookies, brownies, donuts, funnel cakes, cream puffs, crumbles, crisps, betties, cinnamon buns, fritters, dumplings, tarts, cakes and pies, both fruit and cream based.  I love them all.  My idea of heaven is a cup of black coffee and a something sweet to balance it. And yet, somewhere inside me, a tiny voice coughs and raises its hand.  This is when I remember that I am the daughter of two Type 2 diabetics, giving me a 50% chance of becoming diabetic myself.  On top of that genetic luck, I am a good 70 pounds overweight, rarely active and Asian, three more risk factors. So what to do?  If I lose weight and exercise daily, my risk will drop.  But I can’t live without dessert, so I am going to have to start finding recipes for sweets that won’t send me on a sugar high.  The first is inspired by my friend Catherine, who rightly pointed out that pears are the delicious fruit we all seem to forget about. Roasted Pears With Gorgonzola, Honey, and Pistachios Recipe From everydayhealth.com Ingredients 3 pear(s), (about 1 pound firm, ripe Anjou or Bartlett) cooking spray 1/3 cup(s) vinegar, balsamic 2 ounce(s) cream cheese, light, (1/4 cup) 2 ounce(s) cheese, crumbled Gorgonzola, (1/2 cup) 4 teaspoon honey, divided 1/8 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoon nuts, pistachio, finely chopped Preparation 1. Preheat oven to 450°. 2. Peel and core pears. Cut each pear in half lengthwise. Place pear halves, cut...

In the winter, salads are completely off my radar, and yet I yearn for something to counterbalance my mainly meat and potatoes and rice pudding diet.  Wintery greens fit the bill perfectly.  And thanks to the availability of precut and prewashed produce, the annoying prep time for stew-friendly greens like Swiss chard, collard greens and kale has been eliminated. My favorite nutritious leafy green is kale, which has been eaten since Greek and Roman times and has been popular throughout Europe for hundreds of years.  While boiling significantly reduces its nutritional value, sautéing, steaming, and stir frying do not.  The simplest and most delicious way I eat it is steamed in the microwave, seasoned with salt and pepper, and dressed with a little olive oil and fresh lemon juice.  It can also be added to soups and stews, steamed, or stir fried with great results. On top of all that, kale freezes well.  Sautée chopped kale with a little oil, let it cool in the pan, and then transfer it to a freezer bag.  Flatten it out in the freezer so you can break off what you need whenever you are in a rush.  This is particularly good for people cooking for one or two and those who don’t enjoy eating the same thing every day of the week.  Even if it is delicious kale. This recipe for sautéed kale makes a great side for meat or sausage, or you can throw in some cannellini beans to make a mouth watering and simple vegetarian dish. Sautéed Kale (serves 4) Recipe courtesy of Bobby Flay and the Food Network Ingredients 1 ½  pounds young kale, stems and leaves coarsely chopped 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 cloves garlic, finely sliced ½  cup vegetable stock or water...

Good lasagna is a demanding mistress.  She will slide down your throat and have you in a food coma by the end of the evening.  She knows you can’t say no to her layers of noodles and melted cheese.  Her creamy ricotta filling beckons seductively. I fell in love with lasagna at an early age.  It instantly seemed to me a perfect food; the layers of noodles and cheese and sauce perfectly satisfied my cravings for salt and fat and carbohydrate.  I especially coveted the corner pieces where the noodles had gotten crispy at the edges.  Those hardened bits were my favorite part, aside from the creamy ricotta cheese, and I was not above tearing them off and popping them in my mouth before any one sat down to dinner. Making lasagna is deceptive in its simplicity.  It is too often dry and crusty or wet and sloppy.  I myself have been a victim of lasagna soup, and have since learned to follow directions.  Finding a healthier version of lasagna has been a great hope of mine, but difficult as I refuse to take part in anything using fake cheese.  In the following recipe vegetables take the place of meat, adding filling fiber to the wonder of noodles and cheese. HG’s Ez Cheesy Lasagna for Two From the Kitchen of Lisa Lillien Servings: 2 Difficulty: Easy Cook Time: 30-60 min Ingredients Two 1/4-inch-thick eggplant slices (cut lengthwise from a long eggplant), patted dry 1 egg white or 2 tbsp. liquid egg whites 1/2 cup fat-free ricotta cheese (or alternative below) 1 tbsp. chopped fresh basil 1/2 tsp. chopped garlic 1/4 tsp. salt Dash ground nutmeg 1 cup chopped mushrooms 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes 1/2 tbsp. Italian seasoning Additional salt, black pepper, to taste...

Chickpeas, someone once told me, are just blobs of nothing flavor that no spice or seasoning can penetrate.  In curries they float like impenetrable islands of bland, he complained.  The only way to avoid this was to mash or puree them, which is a time consuming and not particularly fun job, with or without a food processor. I agreed with this version of events until I tried these crisp and spicy, roasted chickpeas at a friend’s house.   The blah factor had been conquered!  The seasonings had baked into the little balls of mush, transforming them from expansions of blandness into flavorful crunches.  Try this recipe and you’ll have a fun and healthy finger food to share this holiday season. Spicy Roasted Chickpeas 2 cans (12 oz) of chickpeas 4 Tbsp olive oil 1 tsp salt 1 tsp cumin pinch of black or cayenne pepper 1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Rinse, drain and blot chickpeas on paper towels.  Toss with olive oil, salt, cumin, pepper, and paprika.  Spread out on cookie sheet covered in foil.  Bake for 15 minutes, then shake the pan to toss the chickpeas, return to oven for another 10-15 minutes (25-30 minutes total).  Chickpeas should be crisp but not burned.  Remove from pan and serve in a bowl. featured image credit: Jude...

I love the potato in all its forms: fried, mashed, boiled, baked, scalloped, whatever.  I can truthfully say I have never met a potato I did not appreciate, down to the flaccid, oily French fry at the bottom of the bag.  This is not a love ingrained by my cultural background, however, in fact as a Persian Filipina I have been raised on a steady diet of rice, rice, rice.  This potato love is pure American, borne of fast food fries cooked in lard and school lunch tater tots. My mother and father hadn’t meant to live in the United States, but since they did they went ahead and learned as many culinary customs as they could and adapted as necessary.  The Joy of Cooking formed the basis for my mother’s understanding of American cuisine.  Though our Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys were stuffed with rice, not bread, the mashed potatoes were always present and accounted for.   Boxed potatoes were never used due to their resemblance to detergent flakes.  Instead my mother mashed her potatoes by hand, and we loved each and every lump.  And the secret to its amazing taste and consistency?  Cream cheese.  Makes mashed potatoes that stick to the spoon and taste like a dream. My Mother’s Amazing Mashed Potatoes Ingredients 5 pounds russet potatoes, peeled ½ stick of unsalted butter ½ cup milk, plus more if needed to moisten 8 oz cream cheese – whipped is easier to use, but brick will do salt and white pepper to taste Scrub potatoes free of dirt.  Boil potatoes and then remove skins.  Or peel and then boil.  Or boil and then leave the skins on.  Personally I like the third option because it is more nutritious and easier.  Okay, it’s not really about nutrition,...

I was walking in old town Alexandria, Virginia this past weekend and was lucky enough to catch a street performance by Jamey Turner, a musical genius whose hands literally fly across the mouths of water glasses to create a magical sound somewhere between an organ and a flute.  His table of water-filled vessels ranges from shot glass to brandy snifter size, all of which are weighted down to keep them from moving when he plays.  It’s called the glass harp, and it’s impossible to watch him play without smiling. People immediately gathered at the sounds, amazed and delighted, and some took pictures and video as the glass harp player swayed and leaned over his instrument.  The expressions of wonder I saw on the various members of the crowd made me think about how as children we were constantly discovering new and wonderful things, and how those experiences become rarer and rarer as we get older. It occurred to me (because my mind always comes back to pastry, no matter what) that singing water glasses and holiday cookies both elicit a feeling of delight and childlike joy.  And while talent like that of Mr. Turner is a unique and irreplaceable phenomenon, cookies are a little bit of everyday magic we can all make. Unbelievably Good and Incredibly Easy Pumpkin Spice Cookies (from AllRecipes.com) Ingredients 1 (18.25 ounce) package spice cake mix 1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin Directions Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. In a large bowl, stir together the cake mix and pumpkin until well blended. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before...

I love the fall in my home state of Pennsylvania because of the forests of turning leaves, but also because I love pumpkin.  Pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin butter, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin roll and pretty much every other form of pumpkin dessert there is abound while the leaves are turning red, orange, and yellow.   But my favorite of all is still pumpkin pie.  Which is kind of funny, since I never tasted it until I was a freshman in college, sampling the wares of the dessert table. While I’ve tried every pumpkin pie to come my way, I have to admit the version located on the can of Libby’s is the best.  It produces the classic American pumpkin pie – consistent, sweet and smooth.  I’ve also taken an informal poll of people who have baked their own pumpkin and used the flesh to make the pie filling, and concluded that it’s not really worth the time and energy.  So I did myself a favor and bought the can, and followed this easy recipe for delicious pumpkin pie. LIBBY’S® Famous Pumpkin Pie Recipe Ingredients 1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust 3/4 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 2 eggs 1 (15 ounce) can LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin 1 (12 fluid ounce) can NESTLE® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk Directions Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees F.; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near...

I love stew.  I love the fact that you can throw a bunch of raw ingredients into a pot, let them simmer and a few hours later have something tender, aromatic, and delicious to share.  I love stew because stew is inherently a social food.  There is no such thing as cooking stew for one.  I love that there is a vast variety of stews out there waiting to be tried.  From Ethiopian wat to Persian koresh to French cassoulet, there is a stew for every taste and every budget.  And most of all, I love that stews are hard to screw up.  Simmering is not a complex culinary skill.  It’s just a matter of covering the pot, setting the heat on low, and waiting for the yum to happen. Georgian Pork Stew (from the Republic of Georgia, not our Georgia) 1.5 pounds pork shoulder, trimmed of visible fat ¼ cup balsamic vinegar 2 tbsp garlic vinegar 3 cloves garlic 1 tsp coriander seeds 1 tsp ground fenugreek 1 chopped red onion ½ tsp turmeric 3 tbsp chopped cilantro 1 tbsp red wine vinegar 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped Cut pork shoulder into 1 inch pieces and toss with salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar, and garlic vinegar.  (You can make garlic vinegar at home easily by dropping a few cloves into a glass jar of white vinegar and keeping it in the fridge.  The vinegar can be used in cooking and the garlic can be used in recipes.)  Brown the pork in 1 tbsp each of olive and vegetable oil in a Dutch oven.  (The vegetable oil keeps the olive oil from burning.)  Crush garlic cloves and coriander seeds and add to browned pork.  Stir and cook for a few minutes, then add...

Autumn in Pittsburgh brings gray, rainy days.  On go the sweaters and out come the rakes.  Nothing is better than the smell of something yummy simmering on the stove.   Easy to make and modify (for instance, throwing in some chopped kale would be a great idea), this stew is excellent over mashed potatoes or egg noodles.  Leftovers taste even better the next day, if you can keep yourself from finishing it all in one go, that is.  Delicious enjoyed with a cup of cider. Hearty Autumn Bean Stew 4 servings Ingredients: 1 tbsp oil 1 onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp basil 1 tsp cumin ½ tsp cinnamon 1 can diced tomatoes ½ pound ground pork or beef or loose sausage 1 can of cannellini beans 1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese Heat up the oil in a nice, deep pan or a Dutch oven.  Sauté onion over medium heat until translucent, then add garlic and spices.  Cook for about two more minutes, and then add diced tomatoes with juice, as well as another ½ cup of water.  Continue to cook.  In a separate pan, brown meat, pour off excess fat.  Add the cooked meat to the tomato mixture, along with drained and rinsed cannellini beans and 1 cup of water.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Before serving, add grated Parmesan, and serve with more.  This stew goes well over mashed potatoes on a cold, fall night. featured image credit: Luke...

Sweet potato bread pudding studded with raisins and soaked in a rich caramel sauce is the kind of dessert that compels you to skip dinner and go directly to sweet, heavenly delight.  The addition of sweet potatoes to the already buttery goodness of bread pudding creates an even richer consistency.  The milky smooth caramel sauce further moistens the pudding and effectively kills any intention you may have had of just having a bite or two.  Oh yes, consider yourself warned, people!   Beware this pudding. Sweet Potato Bread Pudding with Raisins (adapted from About.com recipe) Ingredients: 5½ to 6 cups torn potato bread slices, about 8 ounces 1 cup raisins 3 tbsp melted butter 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg 1 cup light brown sugar, packed 1 cup heavy cream 1½ cups milk 3 large eggs 1½ tsp vanilla 1½ cups mashed sweet potatoes Preparation: Butter a 2-quart baking dish. Heat oven to 350° F. In a large bowl toss the potato bread with raisins, melted butter, and spices. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, and brown sugar; add vanilla and blend in the sweet potatoes. Pour the sweet potato mixture over the bread and stir until well blended. Let stand for about 10 minutes. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until set. Serves 8 to 10. Serve this bread pudding with Caramel Sauce (from About.com): Ingredients: 1 cup granulated sugar ¼ cup water 1 cup heavy whipping cream ¼ tsp vanilla Preparation: Put the sugar and water in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes, or until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring frequently, until the sugar turns a medium golden brown color, about 5 to 7 minutes. Carefully and...

Pepper steak is just yummy.  Unless you hate the taste of cooked peppers or don’t eat steak, it is almost impossible not to like this dish.  Summer or winter, spring or fall, it is an easy and delicious dish to feed a crowd, or just a few.  All the picky eaters I know enjoy it.  Even small children will often eat the strips of tasty beef.  My sister’s best friend Elisa was not only kind enough to make it during our Hamadani family vacation, but she generously provided me with her family recipe.  Here’s a picture of her with the yummy fruit of her labors. Elisa’s Pepper steak 1/3 cup teriyaki sauce 1/3 cup soy sauce ½ cup ketchup 1 tbsp tomato paste (or use 1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in cold water to thicken) 2 cups water or beef broth 1.5 pounds thin sirloin top cut beef for braising 3 bell peppers (all green, or 1 green, 1 yellow, 1 red or orange), chopped 1 onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 tbsp cooking oil Cut beef into thin strips and marinate in teriyaki and soy sauces.  Cover and refrigerate.  Sauté onion in oil in large skillet over low to medium heat until translucent, then add garlic.  Add beef, reserving marinade.  Cook until beef is no longer pink, then add tomato paste, ketchup, peppers, reserved marinade, and 2 cups of water or broth.  Cover and simmer on low for 30 to 40 minutes.   Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve over white rice.  Even better the next day, if you have any left...

. a favorite blogumn by Roya Hamadani Roya Says: I picked this entry because it’s a great dish from my Persian heritage, and because I love the idea of bottling leftover cereal milk on a commercial scale. From October 15, 2008 I’ve spent the last three days visiting family in Boston, sharing shrimp toast and candy apples and barbecued ribs. For gastronomic adventuring I can think of no better partner than my sister. One taste and she can accurately predict my reaction – “You won’t like this cannoli, it’s got anise in the cream” – and my visits with her consist of epic culinary tours of all her favorite haunts and newest discoveries. The highlight of this go-around had to be the mob Italian restaurant that served her a mounded platter of seafood and linguini in spicy red sauce that would have fed a family of five. As my sister peered over the tower of mussel shells and squid rings before her, I thought, “There’s no place I’d rather be than right here, right now.” At breakfast yesterday morning my sister’s brother in law asked for his left over cereal milk to be used in his coffee, launching us all on an extended fantasy in which “Uncle Drew’s Own Cereal Milk” outsold every creamer on the market. According to our collective vision the logo pictures a bespectacled Drew smiling in his pajamas, milk dripping off his stubble, with a tagline that reads, “Made only with organic milk, natural sweeteners, and Drew’s own spit.” It all ends in scandal after the emergence of a video showing Chinese factory workers chewing lactate by the handful and eating from huge vats of cereal which pour off the milky dregs into Drew’s bottles. Food love is a special...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Poutine needs to come to America, people.  What is poutine, you ask?  It’s a French Canadian formula for a yummy good time: French fries + fresh cheese curds + tasty chicken or turkey gravy = happiness.  The cheese curds and gravy are added right before serving so the whole thing doesn’t become a soggy mess.  It’s important that the fries are thick enough to stand up to the gravy and that the cheese curds are no more than two days old.  This Quebecois fast food has become ubiquitous all over Canada, served in pizza shops and chains and upscale restaurants alike.  With the right ingredients, it’s not so hard to make your own. Poutine Recipe adapted from Emeril Lagasse, 1999 4 to 6 servings Ingredients 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 2 cups chicken stock Salt Freshly ground black pepper 2 pounds Idaho white potatoes, peeled and cut 1/2 pound fresh cheese curd Directions In a saucepan, over medium heat, combine the butter and flour. Stir until incorporated. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes for a dark roux. Stir in the stock. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and continue cooking for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and keep warm. Peel the potatoes and cut fries, 4 inches by 1/2-inch. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes and blanch for 4 minutes. Remove, drain and cool completely. Fry the potatoes until golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels. Season with salt and pepper. To serve, mound the fries into the individual (16-ounce) disposable cups. Spoon the gravy over the fries and crumble the cheese. Serve immediately. Super lazy...

Summer colds pose a particular problem when you live in a place where breathing in July is akin to breathing through a wet sock.  Mucus and humidity make a winning combination if you think swallowing is for suckers.  Who needs oxygen and food anyway? Drinking tried and true remedies like hot tea and steaming chicken soup under greenhouse conditions feels less like torture if you imbibe them while sitting in an ice bath.  Alternatively, you could make this recipe for a cold, sweet orange juice smoothie, yummy to the well and the sick alike.  The soy milk and banana coat the throat and make the passage of acidic orange juice less traumatic for the afflicted. Summer Cold Fighting Vitamin C Smoothie 1 ripe banana, chopped 1 cup frozen strawberries and/or blueberries 1 and ½ cup orange juice 1 cup vanilla soy milk Put banana and berries into blender and add orange juice and soy milk.  Blend until smooth.  Pour into tall glasses,  and provide a straw for the summer cold sufferer. Photo Credit: PrickleBush (click on pic for more...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani A good dessert is a lot like a hot date: good-looking, delicious and easy.  Three of my top choices are cake in all its myriad forms, pudding luscious pudding, and sweet ripe fruit.  Trifle is a dessert that manages not only to combine all three of my loves in an easy and foolproof form, but tops it all off with whipped cream to make it look pretty.  It’s genius. I have given here one of my favorite combinations, but half the fun of trifle is that it can be made with virtually any combination of cake or biscuit, pudding or custard, and fresh or frozen fruit.  Soaking the cake in sherry or other alcoholic beverage is completely optional, but often quite fun.  Especially if you can get a bunch of your friends together for a trifle party in which everyone brings their own combination to share with the group.  Ah yes, a mass quantity of liquor-laden desserts.  Some time before the guests succumb to sugar/ alcohol induced coma, a vote might be taken to award the tastiest or most creative trifle.  This one would get my vote. Strawberry Banana Trifle Recipe adapted from Cheri Sicard Serves 10-12 1 Angel food cake 2 packets of vanilla pudding mix 1 lb. each of strawberries and bananas, fresh or frozen ½ cup sugar 1/3 cup sherry or other liquor (optional) 1 ½ Cups whipped topping Additional fresh fruit for garnish Prepare the pudding mix according to package instructions, and let cool completely. Quarter the strawberries and slice the bananas into rounds.  If using frozen fruit, thaw it first.  Mix the sliced fruit with the sugar and the sherry if using, or water. To prepare the trifle, use any large glass bowl or...

I am not the kind of person for whom happiness comes easily or naturally.  Give me a good thing and my mind will do its very best to run it into the ground with constant thoughts of anxiety and mistrust.  Negative obsession feeds my insomnia, which feeds my groundless fears.  Whether these behaviors are learned (blame my parents) or innate (blame genetics) makes no real difference to me in the end; my compulsion to look on the dark side is ingrained, immutable. Or so I used to like to think. It’s now that I’m in my thirties, watching my parents age and my sister’s children grow, my inspiring friends making changes and accomplishing life goals, that I’ve realized that it’s too early to give up on myself just yet.  Fear has kept me in a holding pattern, hovering rather than moving forward.  Translated into food, I’ve been subsisting on cold cereal for far too long instead of trying new recipes. Inspiration, motivation, sometimes they are as close as the grocery store or farmer’s market.  How lucky we are to have a sense of smell that can bring back forgotten memories and change our mood in an instant.  The smell of a bunch of fresh cilantro takes me back to my childhood in my mother’s kitchen, watching her chop the seemingly endless pile of greens it took to make my father’s favorite Persian stew.  That and the smell of onions cooking made my stomach rumble, and still does. Lucky, that’s how it makes me feel to cook a new dish and present it to someone I love.  It’s the accomplishing of these small, simple acts that change us, one moment, one hour, one day at a time. Lucky One Pot Cilantro Chicken and Rice (Adapted...

“Rather than the girl boys got crushes on, I was the girl they asked to deliver their messages to the girls they got crushes on.” Click on the pic to read the rest of Roya’s THEN and NOW story over at...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Hobo pie isn’t exactly a dessert name that inspires confidence.  It kind of sounds like some canned fruit thrown into a pie tin and covered with a leftover pancake.  A quick recipe search confirmed my suspicions; hobo pie is generally white bread surrounding a sweet or savory filling and toasted over a campfire.  My recipe for hobo pie is quite different, and far less logical. In Pittsburgh we’ve got a great vegetarian place called Zenith.  Half vintage store and half restaurant, for Sunday brunch they serve amazingly good, creamy pies made with tofu in place of eggs and dairy products.  My friend Missy Kulik helped me recreate their peanut butter chocolate tofu pie with a recipe that goes by the moniker “Hobo Pie.”  Though it’s doubtful that there are too many hobos making animal product-free desserts in the great outdoors. Hobo pie, however misleading a name, may garner more interest than “peanut butter tofu pie,” which makes some people start to shift their weight from foot to foot and look a bit cagey.  Too bad for them if they refuse a taste, and the more for you!  This pie is creamy peanut butter chocolate goodness.  If this recipe wets your appetite, My Sweet Vegan: passionate about dessert by Hannah Kaminsky should satisfy your craving for more animal friendly desserts. Hobo Pie For the pie crust:  Use ready made graham cracker or Oreo pie crust, or take 3-4 tbsp maple syrup and mix with 1 tsp oil, then combine with crushed graham crackers and press into 9 inch pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Puree silken tofu (or use regular tofu with 1-2 Tbsp soy milk) in a blender. Add 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter, 1 tsp vanilla, and...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani The secret of making good iced tea is much like one of the secrets to happiness, namely, the avoidance of bitterness.  Good iced tea isn’t weak, but isn’t bitter either.  Rather than steep the tea longer, use more tea to increase the strength of the flavor.  A good rule of thumb is to use twice as much tea for iced tea as you would for hot tea. Always use a glass container because plastic or metal containers can leach odd flavors and odors.  Nobody ever says, “Mmm, this tastes so yummy and metallic.”  Start by making a concentrate, which you do by steeping with only two cups of boiling water, and then adding the rest of the water after the steeping is done.  Never let your tea sit in boiling water for more than five minutes, as the result will be bitter.  A pinch of baking soda added during the steeping has also been suggested for removing bitterness.  Don’t squeeze the tea bags after steeping, as this also will release bitterness. Let the tea come to room temperature before putting it in the fridge.  In order to sweeten the tea, be fancy and offer drinkers sugar syrup instead of plain old granulated sugar, which will most likely drop to the bottom of their glass like sand.  This simple syrup is made by simmering 1 cup of sugar in 1 and ½ cups of water. Remember, homemade iced tea is lovely, but best consumed within 24 hours or else, you guessed it, it gets bitter. Recipe for Mango Iced Tea after the jump: Mango Iced Tea 6 black tea bags 16 oz mango nectar 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice 1 lemon cut into half slices simple sugar syrup First...

Some foods aren’t just fun to eat, they’re fun to say, like Johnny cakes.  Johnny cakes, Johnny cakes, ooh Johnny Johnny cakes!  I do have good friend named Jonny, but sadly he is not the type of person who would respond well to having the word  “cakes” added to the end of his name. Ah, well.  My interest in this fun-to-say food was peaked when my favorite place for breakfast recently starting serving Johnny cakes with butter, powdered sugar, and whipped cream.  I ordered them once as a lark and was hooked.  Johnny cakes are basically thin fried cornmeal cakes, and when eaten fresh off the griddle with plenty of butter approach the divine.  It makes sense, since it seems as long as there has been cornmeal, there has been Johnny cake, or hoe cake as some call it down South.  Here is a simple recipe for Johnny cakes at home: Johnny cakes (adapted from ifoodtv recipe) 2 cups cornmeal 1 teaspoon salt 2/3 cup boiling water 1 1/4 cups milk Directions: Place the cornmeal and salt in a bowl, add the boiling water, then blend in the milk and mix to a stiff batter. Drop the batter 1 tbsp at a time into a hot well greased frying pan or griddle and spread into 3-inch rounds. Fry the Johnnycakes for 1-2 minutes until the undersides are beginning to brown at the edges, then flip and cook other side for another 1-2 minutes.  Cakes should be golden brown. Always serve Johnny-cakes hot with plenty of butter.  Other possible toppings include maple syrup, apple topping, and powdered sugar and...

I like meat.  Yes, I am a very happy little carnivore.  I like my meat pink, still bleeding, oozing warm red yumminess from its center onto my mashed potatoes, dying them pink.  Some people find this very disturbing.  To them I say, I am sorry.  I am sorry you will never enjoy the sheer bloody goodness of a good steak done rare.  But for those of us who are in on it, a tender, juicy steak is a divine thing.  It is basically sex in culinary form.  Pure, primal, intense and when done well, amazingly satisfying. But if you are like me, you get nervous about buying an expensive cut of meat for fear of ruining it.  Somehow we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking steak must be grilled, preferably with some sort of complicated plan and a meat thermometer.  This, however, is not the case.  Your frying pan can aid you in your lust for meaty goodness.  All you need are a few simple ingredients and some thinly sliced tenderloin and you will be on your way to carnivorous joy. Mommy Hamadani’s Asian-style Tenderloin (for 2 or 1 greedy person) 6-8oz Tenderloin, thinly sliced into pieces no more than half an inch thick 1 onion 1 Tbsp veg oil 1/3 cup soy sauce juice of 1 medium-sized lemon Chop onion in half and slice thinly.  Saute onion until browned in 1 Tbsp oil over medium heat in frying pan.  Set aside.  Saute thinly sliced tenderloin in same frying pan over medium heat.  Cook to desired pinkness, then remove from heat and add soy sauce and fresh lemon juice.  Top with onions and...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani I love looking at photographs of big, beautiful layer cakes enrobed in marzipan and fashioned to look like pill box hats, Kelly purses or ribbon covered presents.  They represent an ideal of human achievement, something both seemingly unreachable and achingly beautiful, like space travel to another galaxy. Once in my youthful naïveté I tried to make marzipan at home.  I wanted to decorate my best friend’s birthday carrot cake with tiny bunnies hopping about in a vegetable garden.  I bought a bag of almonds and tried to grind them up and combine them with superfine sugar and egg whites.  Oh, the agony, and the mess.  What I created was a strangely hard substance that looked like gravel clumped with glue. This is why I love cobbler.  Cobbler is something I can make at home and it’s supposed to look messy.  You cover it with vanilla ice cream and voila!  It’s the dessert equivalent to a date with a guy who looks like Jude Law and who thinks you’re gorgeous and sexy and smart, but who just so happens to cohabitate with a woman with whom he has an on and off open relationship.  It’s called reality.  It’s not perfect; just eat it. Berry Cobbler (adapted from Everyday with Rachel Ray) INGREDIENTS: 24 oz frozen berries 1/3 cup plus 4 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 and 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1and 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces 2/3 cup whole milk 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract DIRECTIONS: Preheat the oven to 375°. Butter an 8-by-8-by-2-inch baking dish. Mix the berries with 1/3 cup of the sugar and 2 tablespoons of the flour. Spoon...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Recently I faced a dilemma of sorts, one that faces most people at some point: the decision of whether or not to make someone else happy at a cost to oneself.  It’s very hard to be honest with yourself and other people about what you want and need, and what you can and cannot do and still maintain your sense of who you are.  It requires a certain level of self-awareness and bravery, and frankly, we’re not all up to the task all of the time.  It is scary.  But when you can manage it, it’s exhilarating to strip back the excuses and be honest and true.  At least that was the case for me. In honor of that extraordinary experience, I give you slow-roasted tomatoes, which are the true essence of sweet tomato goodness.  After 6 hours they are awesome on crusty bread with olive oil, and after 8 hours they are perfect to toss with pasta.  Don’t worry about the oven being on for so long – it’s a low heat.  Put them in first thing in the morning and you will have a wonderful dinner treat. Slow-Roasted Roasted Tomatoes (from Gourmet Every Day Meals) Serves 4 to 6 4 lbs tomatoes, halved lengthwise (plum tomatoes are especially good) 6 garlic cloves minced 5 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Place tomatoes with their cut sides up in 2 shallow baking pans lines with non-stick foil.  Combine garlic and oil and spoon over tomatoes.  Season with salt and pepper and roast 6-8 hours.  The tomatoes will shrink but retain their shape.  Cool tomatoes to room temperature before using for maximum...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Sometimes I wake up so exhausted down to the very marrow of my being that I don’t even want to chew.  I don’t want to hold anything between my teeth, grind it into bits and mix it with saliva and force it down my throat.  I’m so tired and disgusted with the world that basic feeding is just something I am not willing or able to accomplish, and yet I want breakfast.  Specifically I want a warm, sweet, filling breakfast to slide down my throat and let me believe that the day might get better.  What do I do?  I’ll tell you what I do: blend up a fruity oatmeal smoothie. Drinking oatmeal mixed with fruit and yogurt is the sort of thing I never imagined I might enjoy when I was a kid.  Back then I ate Cap’n Crunch and Lucky Charms and Frankenberry and Count Chocula and drank the sugary, colored milk with glee.  Basically it’s a miracle I still have teeth.  But now that I’m older I crave the warm filling comfort of oatmeal without having to masticate its semi-mush consistency.  Oh yes, there’s nothing that tells you you’re getting closer to death like the refusal to chew and swallow what is essentially already slop. Strawberry Oatmeal Breakfast Smoothie (Face it, you’re getting old.) Oatmeal (uncooked), ½ cup Plain Greek or vanilla yogurt, 1 cup Milk, ½ cup A handful or two frozen strawberries Honey, 1 tbsp Grind the oatmeal in a blender until powdery, unless you enjoy gritty chunks in your smoothie.  Add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.  Add milk until desired consistency is reached.  Ponder mortality and pour into glasses.  Serves...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani I don’t care what the groundhog saw, the impassable walls of ice and snow are melting here in Pittsburgh and I am eating arugula. And that means it’s spring. Arugula, or wild rocket, looks like marigold weed and has a rich, peppery flavor that lends texture and interest to salads. It can also be served sautéed with onions or stewed with fava beans; the list of recipes is as endless as its history of cultivation. Like most leafy greens, it’s good for you, chock full of vitamin C and potassium.  Apparently the Romans regarded it as an aphrodisiac, so you’ve been officially warned.  I like it best mixed with romaine or another mild lettuce and combined with creamy goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette.  Add in some toasted pine nuts or pecans and you’re eating like the crocuses are already in bloom. Recipe after the jump: Arugula and Goat Cheese Salad Arugula (one bag prewashed) One romaine heart chopped Goat cheese –at least 2 -3 oz per person Toasted pecans or pine nuts – at least ¼ cup per serving (see recipes below) Dried cranberries – at least ¼ cup per serving Balsamic vinaigrette Grilled chicken (optional) Mix the arugula and romaine and divide evenly among plates.  Top with goat cheese, toasted nuts and dried cranberries.  Serve with balsamic vinaigrette. Toasted pecans Mix raw pecans with melted salted butter (1/2 tbsp butter per cup of raw pecans).  Spread on nonstick cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cool completely before using. Toasted pine nuts Shake raw pine nuts often to prevent burning in dry skillet over medium low heat.  The nuts are done when fragrant and brown.  Cool completely before...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani In my opinion, food is major source of comfort and is sometimes abused as an inappropriate coping mechanism because food, unlike people, doesn’t mess with your emotions, refuse to communicate, or break up with you via text.  For instance, food doesn’t write you an email saying he did not and will not read or respond to any of your reasonable and carefully written emails because, no offense or anything, it is a waste of time.  You may mourn the empty dish after a delicious meal, but unlike the empty inbox, it can be refilled. Nor does food stalk you or back you into a corner, although it can feel that way, particularly in the case of cunningly placed advertisements and airport food courts.  Food can’t instant message you or text you or poke you even after you’ve made yourself quite clear on various occasions that while you wish him all the best, friendship is just not an option when his girlfriend knows how to handle a gun.  Food knows when to leave well enough alone. And so I give you my friend Rachel Schlosser’s recipe for a comforting food, a soothing food to turn to when some of the people around you, unfortunately but unfailingly, begin to suck. Rachel’s Eggplant and Sausage Pasta Cook 1 pound spiral pasta, regular or whole wheat, according to directions and set aside.  Heat 2tbsp olive oil in a nonstick pan.  Add three strands saffron and 2 tsp fennel seeds.  Add 1 pound loose mild Italian pork sausage and cook until no pink is left.  Add 1 shake of crushed red pepper (more if you like spicy) and stir.  Push pork to one side and add 1 eggplant, diced into 1 inch squares...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Yes, it’s a dance, but it’s also a sauce – whose origin some accounts attribute to a chef for Napoleon Bonaparte, forced to produce something fit to serve the tiny dynamo while out in the field on the war campaign.  I simplified it a little because really, who has the time to recreate the meals once crafted for a self-crowned Emperor?  I don’t know about you, but the older I get the faster life goes.  I’m only 33 but I could have sworn it was 1999 like, a couple of days ago.  Wasn’t everybody just stocking up on toilet paper for Y2K?  I asked my elderly dad about this and he told me it only gets worse.  Apparently in your seventies, you can safely expect life to pass you at warp speed.  This explains why the old drive so slowly. My version of this sauce is yummy over rice or pasta, with meat or tofu.  Napoleon liked his with chicken and boiled eggs.  I agree with the chicken part, but what can I say, I find eating mothers and babies at the same time creepy. Easy Merengué (Sauce) Sauté one chopped onion in olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of the pan) and when softened, add 2 cups chopped celery.  After stirring this mixture for a few minutes, add 1 cup chicken stock, 1 bay leaf, 1 tsp thyme, 1 tsp tarragon, 1 tsp dried basil, 2 Tbsp dry white wine, and 1 can of diced tomatoes.  Simmer until liquid reduces by half and celery is soft. Separately sauté chicken breast seasoned with salt and pepper and cut into strips, or firm tofu, or any other white meat.  Add to the sauce when ready and serve over...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Here in Pittsburgh it’s been snowing almost everyday for over a week.  Cleaning the snow off my car day after day after day makes me want a nice warm bowl of beef stew.  To me, stew is a kind of magic created from humble ingredients – inexpensive cuts of meat, onions, and pantry contents – come together to make a sum infinitely greater than its parts. The trick to making a good stew is patience.  To render the beef tender and produce a rich broth, a stew has to be left alone to cook at a very low heat setting for several hours – the longer the better.  Long, slow cooking pulls the fat out of the tough beef and softens the meat.  Using a leaner cut of beef generally results in dry, stringy meat and thin broth, and more expensive, tender cuts are wasted in a stew. One of my favorite recipes is for a Greek version called stifado.  Chunks of slowly simmered, tender beef and onions are flavored with garlic, bay leaf, red wine and tomato.  A marinade of vinegar cuts the richness of the stew and brightens the flavors of the herbs.  Served over little pillows of potato gnocchi, it’s simple and soul warming. Stifado Briefly marinate 1 pound of stew beef cut into chunks with enough vinegar to cover and 2 cloves garlic in non-reactive, glass bowl.  15 minutes is sufficient.  Remove the beef chunks from the marinade and brown them in olive oil in a dutch oven or large stew pot with lid.  Add 2-3 pounds chopped onions, 1 can of tomato paste, 3 cloves garlic, 1 bay leaf, 1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar and a ½ cup of red wine or...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani I know I have developed an unhealthy obsession with a recipe when I make it four times in one week.  This rice pudding is dangerous, people, I warn you now.  One try is all it takes to make an addict.  It all started when my good friend Lisa wrote about her mother’s recipe for rice pudding on her e-blog, Long Way Home.  She and I decided to try and decipher her mother’s typed directions overlaid with hand written notes from the yellowed recipe card.  The result was delicious, as well as nostalgic for my friend.  There’s nothing quite like tasting something that you haven’t eaten since you were a child. Baking gives this pudding an almost cake-like consistency; you can sink your teeth into it.  Besides its utter deliciousness, another reason I love this recipe is that it uses up leftover rice.  This is especially handy of you have at tendency to get take-out Chinese.  I also created my own variation that uses saffron and cardamom instead of cinnamon and nutmeg for a Persian feel.  I like the traditional version hot or lukewarm, and the saffron/cardamom variation served cold.  It improves vastly after a day in the fridge, if you can leave it alone for that long. (Recipe after the jump) Southern Rice Pudding – 2 ways 2 cups cooked rice 2 cups milk 1 tsp vanilla 2 tbsp butter ¾ cup sugar ½ tsp lemon zest (the minced rind of a lemon) 3 eggs ½ tsp salt ¼ tsp nutmeg 1 tsp cinnamon plus more for sprinkling Preheat oven to 325° and butter a casserole dish.  Mix the 2 cups rice with the 2 cups milk, 1 tsp vanilla, ¼ tsp nutmeg, and 1 tsp cinnamon.  In...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Growing up I ate one of four types of koresh, a Persian meat and vegetable stew, at least three nights a week.  There are of course many more varieties, but my father has his favorites, with the result that my mother can now make any of these dishes while blindfolded and with an arm tied behind her back.  One of these family favorites is a flavorful, slightly sour stew that renders celery delicious even to those who abhor the much maligned, pale green veggie. In the United States the bare celery stalk perfectly embodies suffering and self-denial.  Sometimes it finds its way into becoming a glorified garnish for hot wings and the occasional Bloody Mary.  It’s rarely eaten cooked outside of soup or stuffing, where it’s hidden rather than celebrated, diced and pureed to insignificant specks. In Iran, however, celery has been eaten since ancient times, when it was believed it had medicinal powers to calm nerves and cure constipation among other things.  I can’t guarantee any curative powers for this stew, but I can tell you it is very yummy.  Make sure you have leftovers; it’s even better on the second day. Koresh de Karafs (Persian Meat and Celery Stew) Ingredients: 1 bunch celery 1 large onion chopped 1 tsp turmeric 1-2 pounds stew beef cut into chunks 1 bunch fresh mint leaves or ¼ cup dried mint ½ dried lemon or juice of one lemon Oil for sautéing Salt and pepper Cut up celery into one-inch chunks.  Keep the leaves.  Sauté in oil until fragrant.  Remove from pan and put aside. Brown meat in large pot or Dutch oven.  Add onion and sauté until translucent. Add turmeric and stir. Add the celery, mint (dried or fresh),...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Cooking and baking are essentially different activities, and I willingly confess I am much better at the former than the latter.  You have a certain leeway with a stew, it’s not as if one wrong move will give it the consistency of concrete.  It’s possible my fear of baking can be traced to my mother’s horror stories.  She often tells how her first and only attempt at making bread resulted in a substance that could break molars.  Not that this bad experience has stopped her from developing her own tasty and mysteriously dense recipe for banana pineapple muffins.  It’s Sherpa food; you eat one and you’re good for a day. My own baking has been heretofore limited to cookies and cheesecake, neither of which really takes full advantage of the autumn harvest, as I am not a fan of throwing pumpkin or apple into batter willy-nilly.  So I was excited to taste my friend’s super easy recipe for an apple cake. This is an actual apple cake that is really a cake and not a pie calling itself a cake (that’s right, Europe, I’m calling you out).  The ultimate selling point in my view is that you mix the ingredients in the same dish you bake it in – how can life get any easier? {Recipe after the jump} “All-Together” Apple Cake courtesy of Rachel Fielder Schlosser and her mom 1 cup flour 1 cup sugar ½ tsp baking soda 1½ tsp baking powder 1 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp salt 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 3 cups diced apples (suggestion: Golden Delicious) ¼ cup butter, melted (measure the butter then melt it) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Into a 9” square pan, sift the first 6 ingredients.  If...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani I know that fall has really begun when my car starts to skid on the wet leaves in front of my house.  That’s when the hot, stagnant humid summer of Pittsburgh gives way to rainy day after rainy day, and the kind of gusting wind that brings down tree branches.  The tomatoes have finally given over to blight and it’s time to hack away their dead and dying vines clustered with tiny green fruits destined for rot.  The dark red and sunny yellow mums lend what cheer they can on gray days when it seems everything else is fading.  My sandals sit unused by the door, waiting to be switched out for heavier shoes and as I pull out my cardigans my mind naturally turns to pasta, cheese, and pumpkins. Pumpkins are the clowns of fall food.  They come in every weight class, from baby to bathtub size.  They can be carved into bizarre spectacles and be fashioned into cakes, cookies, and pies.  But not only that, they make excellent savory soups, curries, and pasta dishes.  Pumpkins can take on cumin and cinnamon and make it all taste right.  So in honor of the pumpkin, savior of fall, here is my take on a penne recipe utilizing pumpkin puree after the jump: Pumpkin Penne Adapted from Rachel Ray on Food Network Ingredients Salt 1 pound whole-wheat penne 2 tablespoons butter 1 small onion, finely chopped 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ground basil 1 tsp cumin 3 to 4 cloves garlic, diced 1 cup chicken stock 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree Salt and black pepper 2/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano Directions Heat water for pasta, salt it and cook penne to al dente. Heat the butter until over medium heat....

Well, you might have noticed a change in my mood (picture) and yes, that means that I’ve finally finished my big HarperCollins rewrite. I could not be happier about this, and I’m super-excited to get back to the second novel, even if I’m not sure it will sell, since it’s way outside of my first novel’s genre. Ah well, at least I have the stability of your comments here on FaN. Check out our best of from below: HELLO FRIDAY Best Line From A Post You Should Have Read: [If] you look at a pair of tomatoes a certain way, and you cup them in your hands, and you’re maybe a little hard up, you might possibly think of breasts or testicles.  The French did call them “apples of love.” — Roya Hamadani, Fierce Foodie: Nice Tomatoes PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: The Great Wide Betty, in which I wondered what Betty will be like when she grows up. Polly: You can discover a child every single day as they change and grow into a citizen of the world. This is one of the great joys of having a child in your life. Just knowing them is an adventure. OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: NewlyNested: $300,000 For A Miniature House, in which Debra Goykhman lamented shopping for a house Southern California. DebraB: We just bought a house in the LA area and, yeah, it is super expensive. I don’t know where your hometown is, but mine is in middle of nowhere Texas. Yes, I could have gotten a mansion for the price I paid for my modest one story here, but then…I’d be living in middle of nowhere Texas. So, first, you have to stop comparing the market here to anywhere else. Pay more attention to the...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Tomatoes are the world’s most popular fruit, so it is fitting that they have taken over my garden.  A glut of bite-size, pear-shaped yellow tomatoes are ripening in my backyard, clustered on the vine like grapes in bunches of three and four.  They have reseeded themselves for two years running and multiplied from two plants to at least seven.  I missed the opportunity to get them into nice proper cages this spring, and so they sprawl out over my hedges and cobblestones in an ungainly mass of greenish yellow vines. Today there are more than 7500 varieties of tomato available in red, yellow, orange, even purple.  The first evidence of a domesticated species was a little yellow tomato grown in 700 A.D. by the Aztecs.  A small yellow variety first came to Spain via the conquistadors in the 16th century and the first red variety to Italy in the 18th century via Jesuit priests.  Northern Europe was the last to accept them in any color in the 19th century. This reluctance may have been due to the poisonous leaves of the tomato plant, or that when the acidic juice comes into contact with pewter it can leach lead metal into the food, resulting in lead poisoning.  Or the fact that if you look at a pair of tomatoes a certain way, and you cup them in your hands, and you’re maybe a little hard up, you might possibly think of breasts or testicles.  The French did call them “apples of love.” Yellow tomatoes are less acidic than the red variety and so they make for very good snacking and tossing in salads.  However I also enjoy them roasted with a little olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Photo Credit: Beth Taylor Claufoutis.  It’s not a fungus, or a French soccer player, or a river in Belgium.  It is an easy fruity treat and a great way to use up summer’s berries, particularly if you are like me and tend to forget about them until they are a little mushy and overripe.   Claufoutis comes from that family of messy fruit desserts baked in an oven.  It is wetter than a cobbler and contains no oatmeal or streusel topping like a Brown Betty.  It is almost custardy in consistency and is good hot or cold.  Typically it is served for breakfast, but I think it’s also a great summer dessert with ice cream.   The recipe after the jump is adapted from Outlaw Cook by John Thorne, who I consider to be a truly great food writer.  He feels it.  I read his books again and again and again, and sometimes while I’m eating.  It’s food erotica.   Clafoutis   Fruit – approximately 12 oz prepared Zest from one small lemon, grated 2 tbsp granulated sugar plus additional to sweeten fruit ½ cup all purpose flour ¼ tsp salt 2 eggs 1 cup milk 1 tbsp unsalted butter   Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Wash and prepare fresh fruit, such as strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, peaches, cherries, plums.  You can also use frozen fruit, but don’t bother with canned.  I usually slice up large fruits but leave the berries whole.   Mix the lemon zest with 2 tbsp sugar in a small bowl to make lemon sugar.  Set aside.   In large bowl, sift ½ cup of flour with ¼ tsp salt.  In small bowl, whisk eggs and milk.   Add wet to dry ingredients a little...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Yummy Photo Credit: 3Liz4 The funniest food-related thing I’ve seen all summer is a moment from Bruno when the gay fashion commando, defeated and depressed, decides to end it all by ordering everything off a family restaurant menu that comes with whipped topping.  As he gluts his woes with waffles covered in strawberry goo and ice cream swimming in fudge sauce, he exclaims, covered in chocolate, “I am committing carbicide.” Who needs a razor blade when there’s black forest cake?  Why would I reach for a beer when there are frosted donuts in this world?  To me this stuff is like heroin, a cheap, legal and readily available form of heroin that is constantly advertised everywhere to young and old alike. A friend of mine, an avowed carb addict, once ate over a pound of salted caramels in less than 5 minutes.  Then one day, seven and a half months ago, she decided to end the madness and gave up all foods made primarily of carbohydrate or containing refined sugars.  She cut out bread, rice, pasta, beans, and sweets, and is now fifty-seven pounds lighter. I am not the sort of person who can live without carbs entirely, but I am starting finally to realize that my mood swings and urges for cupcakes and milkshakes might somehow be related.   But changing the way I enjoy food has not been easy, especially as I grew up in a rice based house with easy access to cereal at all times.   One way I have been able to cope is to move to brown rice, which is heartier and more filling than white rice, and takes much longer to digest.   Try this recipe with your favorite curry or stir fry. Baked...

  “Thwock” is the sound I associate with cold, congealed pasta plopping onto a plate. Unfortunately summer is riddled with refrigerated pasta salads cemented together with mayo. As a public health professional in training, to me the practice of chowing on mayo on a hot day is akin to eating from a petri dish of agar. That said, I have been known to do it when potatoes are involved. Basically, I eat anything potato-based, regardless of potential dangers. I’d probably eat french fries in a morgue.   But pasta salad is a whole other matter. I love a good pasta salad dressed with oil and vinegar, loaded with chopped up goodies like artichoke hearts and cherry tomatoes, and flavored with herbs and punctuated with olives and parmesan cheese. The secret to avoiding the gummy-pasta-go-thwock effect is to never refrigerate it before serving. You cook the dish the same day you will eat it, let it come to room temperature, and then serve with plenty of grated cheese. All yum, no thwock.     The following recipe is a base to which you can add your own favorites. For a heartier dish, add grilled chicken or perhaps cannelini beans sautéed in garlic and olive oil. Just be sure to let the dish come to room temperature before adding the cheese or it will all melt into a single gummy lump on your spoon. Summery Pasta Salad 10 oz pasta like penne or radiatore ¼ cup oil and vinegar salad dressing or equal parts olive oil and red wine vinegar 1 cup artichoke hearts from a jar, chopped ½ cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped 1 ½ cup cherry tomatoes ¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated ¼ cup pecorino romano cheese, grated 1 tsp basil pesto or...

Oh, man, I’m leaving you in the more than capable hands of slpc next week, but I’m like already missing you guys super big time. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about all these awesome comments. HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Anticipation: June 12-14, in which Ryan Dixon puts forth the theory that you can predict how whether an Eddie Murphy movie will flop by looking at the movie poster — basically if it doesn’t feature children, animals, or a morbidly obese person along with red font, it will flop . He predicted that Imagine That would flop, according to his poster code theory, and lo and behold it only netted 5.2 million dollars its opening weekend. If Eddie ever gets work again, hopefully the marketing people will listen to Ryan this time. KaseyB: The Murphy Code…wow! I never noticed. Of course my disdain for children, grotesquely fat people, and red fonts have been keeping me away from Murphy films for years. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Fierce in Seattle: Indoorsy goes Outdoorsy, in which Kelli Bielema applies her black thumb to her back yard garden. Josh G: Use ladybugs for pest control, they eat many types of bugs, mostly aphids. Also if you have bug problems plant some marigolds and the bugs will eat them instead of everything else. We planted our first garden this year also and these seemed to help. OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: Political Physics: Are Hate Crimes a Form of Domestic Terrorism?, in which Monique King-Viehland argues that the answer to that question is yes. Yolanda: Yeah, they may have just developed the term “hate crimes” in the last few years but a lynching in 1960 was still a crime of hate. I haven’t looked at the statistics but I’m...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani   All I want to eat in the summer is ice cream.  I want it every day, sometimes multiple times a day, in liquid, solid or semi-solid form, in a cone or a cup or a dish or a cookie.  The air in Pittsburgh in the summer gets so thick and moist that it feels like you’re walking around inside a mouth.  It’s hot, wet, and more often than not, smelly.  The only antidote is ice cream. I prefer to get ice cream by the cone, as the tub in my freezer is usually filled with giant Kryptonian crystals.  Somehow, if ice cream lasts long enough to get put back in the freezer, there is a good chance it will stay there forever and grow stalagmites.  For example, my mother’s no sugar added, lite butter pecan has sat in the back since last fall.  So far no ice cream craving has been severe enough to get me to pull the seal off that one.   On a recent trip to Paris I was blessed to taste Berthillon’s ice cream.  All the flavors were amazing, but the caramel with salted butter was by far the most intense and delicious.  It had all the sweet richness of caramel with the salty goodness of the butter, exploding on the tongue in perfect harmony.   I have made ice cream and tasted others’ homemade ice creams; they are excellent but not necessarily better than a high quality commercial product.  Plus, it’s not exactly a quick procedure.  I save my efforts for attempting flavors not readily available, such as durian or chocolate orange.   But what if daily ice cream is not an option due to diet or health constraints?  Well, after the...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani   Recently I visited a friend in Berlin, a place where plate sized pastries studded with cherries and covered in streusel topping can be found every twenty feet or so.  You could use these things for frisbees, that’s how big they are.  The sight of the glass bakery case filled with such frosted treasures made me inwardly shudder with anticipation.  I couldn’t even take a picture before having a bite.  That’s because unlike our pastry which can be tough and bland, the pastry in Berlin is made with more creamy, tasty, fresh butter than is healthy or decent.  And I have a severe lack of impulse control when it comes to baked goods.  It’s a condition, okay?   What I was surprised to discover is that the favorite street food of Berlin is not a confection but a concoction called currywurst.  I guess I never thought of curry and pork sausage as a potential taste combination.  This quick dish of sliced pork sausage, tomato paste and curry powder served in a bun or with fries is so identified with the city that I was even able to buy a marzipan replica complete with tiny fork.  While the street version is a relatively small snack size, the portion I was served at a restaurant was a monster sausage drowning in a sweet ketchup-like sauce and sprinkled with curry powder.  Did I clean my plate?  Do you really need to ask?   It is surprisingly satisfying and a heck of a lot easier to pull off than a streusel pastry.  Check out the recipe after the jump. You can make a quick American version at home using kielbasa. From AllRecipes.com submitted by JenFen Ingredients: 3 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce 1 pound kielbasa 2 tablespoons chili...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani   Fresh mint and beets are two of my favorite spring foods besides petit fours.  Beets combine a full bodied sweetness with the flavor of earth while mint has a clean, bright taste.  Together with chicken they make a flavorful but light stew, perfect over rice.     Photo by phxpma While it takes some time to boil and peel them and then get the red stain off your hands so you don’t look like you murdered anybody, it’s worth it to use fresh beets complete with their greens because they are edible.  Remove the ribs from the center of the leaves and chop them up into pieces about one and half inches wide.  They will cook up nicely simmered for about 30 minutes in a covered pot with about an inch of water on the bottom.  As the greens cook the water will turn red; drain it off before serving.  The greens have a peppery taste that makes a great and healthy side dish for the stew.     Photo by kali.ma Mint is an invasive species which takes over any garden and should only be planted in containers, a fact which I learned after my ex-girlfriend the so-called gardener planted three varieties behind my house and I spent the next two years pulling up their complex interwoven root system and another year recovering from an irrational hatred of mint.  Yet for all its hardiness it is strangely expensive.  In any case, use fresh mint, not dried.  It is the bright taste of fresh mint that compliments the sweetness of the beets and cuts their earthy flavor.  Do not use spearmint or peppermint; these varieties are better suited for tea or toothpaste or freshening up your feet....

So NEXT week, I’m doing another series, which will hopefully be fun. So far we’ve done Money and Kids, and the topic that will be dissected within an inch of it’s life next week is … Modern Love. The novel I’m working on right now is somewhat centered around dating in Los Angeles, so I admit that the topic has been on my mind lately. But before we get into next week, let’s revisit the past five days.   HELLO FRIDAY re: Fierce Foodie: Masala for a Rainy Day, in which Roya Hamadani extolls the virtues of a good Indian food buffet. This next comment really made me want to go to Tokyo: BabySmiling: I love mango lassi; my local Indian restaurant makes a nice version with ground pistachios and a definite hint of rosewter. I’m a mango fan anyway, but it’s also usually the only flavor available. I’ve only been to a few restaurants with flavors aside from plain or mango, and then it’s only one or two others. Except in Tokyo. The random Indian restaurant I went to had literally a dozen flavors of lassi — many were fruits that I’m pretty sure don’t exist in India. One of hundreds of surprises that Tokyo had for me. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Tall Drink of Nerd: Lappy Come Home, in which Amy Robinson laments not backing up her hard drive and therefore losing 8 months worth of pics and writing after thieves stole her laptop. crystal: I came across this article on new software and service that can track your gadget (laptops included) and then you know who has your laptop, iPhone, BlackBerry… wonder how well it really works? http://ca.tech.yahoo.com/experts/tedkritsonis/art… OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: The Order of Good News, in which we discussed the list and...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani   It’s been raining a lot over the past few weeks, and that sort of weather puts me in the mood for Indian food.  Last week I went alone to my favorite buffet in Pittsburgh three days in a row.  Chicken tikka masala and sag paneer are comfort food, my version of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  Perhaps because the flavors are so close to those found in the Persian cuisine on which I was raised.  Apparently the Persians didn’t just steal jeweled thrones when they invaded India, they stopped to get a few cooking tips as well.   What really ties everything together in both Indian and Persian cuisines is the yogurt.  Served as mahst de khiar in Iran, raita in India, yogurt is a tangy flavor enhancer and basis of drinks such as dook and lassi.  Dook is a salty Persian yogurt drink flavored with mint and served over ice cubes.  My father loves this stuff, but I have to admit that I never really got on board with the whole salty refreshing drink thing.   Mango lassi is a pretty well known Indian drink, but a rosewater lassi seems very Persian to me.  In Iran, the celebration of spring is known as No Ruz, a kind of throwback to pre-Islamic times.  An assortment of extremely sweet cookies is made specifically for this holiday and they all taste of rosewater.  The variety is more in the texture in this case.   But I have to admit that much of what I enjoy about Indian restaurants is the preferential treatment I often get, as I look Indian even though I’m not.  Occasionally it materializes as free food, a discount, or even a marriage proposal, but more often it’s...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Quinoa (KEEN-wah) has been called “the super food of the Incas” but to me, that’s really not a selling point.  I wouldn’t pick up a bottle of mead because it was marked “the choice inebriant of the Vikings” or dig into spelt because it’s “the favorite breakfast food of the Bog People.”  It’s not like these populations had a hell of a lot of choices.  I eat quinoa because it is tasty, easy to make, versatile, yummy hot or cold, and pretty cheap when you buy it from a bulk foods bin.  But mainly I eat quinoa because it assuages my epic food guilt.  If you don’t know what I am talking about when I talk about food guilt, you have obviously not been locked in a desperate struggle with food since your preteen days.  For those of us with food guilt, everything we put in our mouths is an opportunity for self congratulation or flagellation.  It goes like this: I ate a cherry tomato, yippee for me!  I inhaled three cupcakes, I don’t deserve to live and no one will ever love me.  That’s where quinoa swoops in to save the day.  Quinoa is one of those rare carbohydrates that contain all the essential amino acids, thereby earning the title “complete food” and making it something people can live off for weeks on Survivor.  It can be eaten as a breakfast food with fruit and honey, or as a savory main or side dish.  Serve it guiltlessly to vegans knowing it is 14% protein.  My favorite preparation uses grape tomatoes, toasted almonds and mild goat cheese.  It’s a healthful food that doesn’t taste like punishment, and that shuts up all the little voices in my head.  Recipe...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani After a long winter of soups and stews, I crave the freshness of crunchy greens.  I have been on a major salad kick lately, enjoying many tasty combinations such as baby beets and mild goat cheese with a little asparagus.  I found iceberg lettuce boring until my sister suggested shredding it with a handful of chopped parsley to give it flavor.  Once my garden returns I plan to try the same trick with fresh mint. Dried cranberries go well with pistachios and feta cheese on romaine lettuce.  Shredded carrot and red cabbage provide a colorful alternative to lettuce, and pair well with a buttermilk dressing.  I am a huge fan of creamy avocado, especially when it is combined with turkey and bacon.  Mango serves this role equally well.  Artichoke hearts from a jar provide great taste and texture as well as salad dressing component over strips of sweet yellow pepper. Some people avoid using fresh fruit in a green salad, but I think the tartness of strawberries combines well with spinach, mild goat cheese, and strawberry vinaigrette.  I also adore mandarin oranges with strong flavors such as fresh grated Pecorino Romano or a sesame soy dressing.  Blueberries also go well with a mild goat cheese and complement the crunch of slivered toasted almonds.  Salty and sweet, crunchy and soft, creamy and acidic, these are the combinations I try to use in a salad to keep it interesting. And I’ve got one really great combination salad for you after the jump: Strawberry Goat Cheese Salad 6 ounces baby spinach 5 strawberries, thinly sliced 1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted 2 ounces mild goat cheese, crumbled Strawberry Vinaigrette ¼ cup honey ½ cup red wine vinegar 1 tsp salt 1 cup...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Arkansas has never been on my list of places to visit.  There’s this X-Files episode about cannibalistic chickens…Anyway, a good friend of mine is based in Fayetteville for her job, and so I decided to make the trek down South.  I didn’t have great hopes for the cuisine.  I pretty much thought I’d be eating barbecue and biscuits, but I was so wrong.  In three days I had authentic Thai, Filipino and Vietnamese food.  You might ask, what’s the big deal?  We have the same stuff in the city.  But I would argue that big city high rents and fierce competition actually prevent new immigrants from getting a foothold in the restaurant business.  In smaller communities, they can get away with plastic utensils and little in the way of frills in order to concentrate solely on the food.  Because my mother is Filipino, I must wax poetic on my favorite of the three places I visited – the Mabuhay.  An Oriental store that serves a buffet on the weekends, the restaurant side has a few folding tables and a huge flat screen TV that plays Fox News nonstop.  But what the place lacks in ambiance it more than makes up for in cuisine: rich garlicky adobo, sweet spicy barbecue beef, shrimp tamarind soup, coconut curry chicken, fresh pineapple and thick sweet cassava cake, chocolate sticky rice, these are but a few of the dishes concocted by the Filipina co-owner.  And even halo halo, a shaved ice dessert with candied hearts of palm, red and mung beans, carrot and young coconut.  It’s kind of a strange but wonderful way to get your veggies.  To me this place represents what’s unique and great about our melting pot country, and makes...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani It’s taken me many a ruined dish to learn to feed myself.  For instance, some spices can be tossed in with abandon while others ruin the whole pot if used indiscriminately.  Fenugreek powder, once overused, cannot be undone, even if you strain the dish, wash the vegetables thoroughly and start the sauce over again.  The cooked items will retain the flavor of ass. As a child I somehow developed an intense fear of the stove and oven.  At the age of twenty-three I was terrified by the gas cooker range.  The bright blue flame brought back bad memories of chemistry lab.  I was convinced that I would blow up the whole building all in the name of a boiled egg. The first dish I attempted alone was a simple broccoli and pasta dish in white wine sauce.  Simple!  Ha!  I had never before cut an onion, so I was unaware of the fact that you could slice it in half first, and thereby avoid the awkward and dangerous task of cutting into something round and roly-poly with a very sharp knife.  Luckily I still have both my thumbs. The dish might have been edible if I hadn’t made the novice mistake of thinking more is better.  Two tablespoons of white wine makes something yummy, a cup of it turns it into alcoholic swill.  And you have to be careful with substitutions.  Fried onions and spinach mixed with plain yogurt make a Persian side dish; vanilla yogurt will not do.  Double check the label, or prepare to be disgusted. When people say they can’t cook, I always want to add the word “yet.”  Cooking is a skill that can be picked up any time and at any age; all...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani In my family there is one food that is kind of like the king of dishes.  We make it for big deal occasions, request it for birthdays and reunions, sing songs and make up stories about it.  One family legend tells of how a young girl once ate half a pan of it alone… Tahchin, pronounced “tah-cheen,” is a simple baked chicken and rice dish, yet it epitomizes everything I love about Persian cooking: the subtle aroma of saffron, the moist richness of yogurt, and the way basic ingredients are transformed into a special delight.  The tahchin-making process takes time, and therefore it is a dish rarely found in restaurants.  It begins by sautéing onions and chicken with a little turmeric, and then letting this marinate overnight in yogurt and saffron.  The next day the yogurt mixture is combined with half boiled rice and put into a deep dish to bake.  After a few hours the heavenly golden crust forms, at which time the cook removes the tahchin from the oven.  Now comes the complicated part, removing the tahchin from the glass dish to be served as one unbroken cake.  My mother does this by placing a platter over top of the tahchin, gripping the dishes together with pot holders, and then inverting the whole assembly onto her head like some kind of hot, heavy hat.  Then she brings it down to the table oh so carefully.  Yes, tahchin is a magical and dangerous dish! The yogurt keeps the chicken and rice incredibly moist while providing the saffron with a vehicle to infuse the entire dish.  The crisp buttery crust contrasts with the soft interior.  If there is a more perfect food than this, I have not tasted...

. a blogumn by Roya Hamadani Can I get a close-up on that cupcake? Have you ever noticed how in the vast majority of movies people never eat?  Or when they do, the plate sits just out of focus as they talk and gesture without actually ingesting anything?   As if we don’t know it’s a plate of mush and condiments.  The absolute worst is when they order the meal and then jump up and knock it onto the floor because of some silly plot point obviously fabricated by someone who has no appreciation for food.  I’m talking to you, John Cusack, of a certain scene in an otherwise perfect Grosse Point Blank.  Although it could be argued that an egg white omelet is not actually a food.  Barring movies about restaurants, many films make the mistake of ignoring food although it can and does serve many purposes.  It can set the scene, as in Pan’s Labyrinth when the heroine is faced with a heavily laden table of eerily perfect foods guarded over by a monster.  It characterizes the eater, such as the lobster scene in Splash where Darryl Hannah bites into the tail shell and all.  It provides a tangible connection to reality in fantasy movies like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where sausages and bacon and rabbit stew pop up as often as furry footed hobbits and pointy eared elves. There are however a few films where food often steals the scenes from the well developed characters doing the cooking and eating: The Scent of Green Papaya, a luscious meditation on pre-war Vietnam; Eat Drink Man Woman, an artfully told story of Chinese food and family; and my all time favorite, Babette’s Feast, in which the last few elderly members of a...

. A blogumn by Roya Hamadani I’ve always been fascinated by dollhouses, especially their miniature kitchens filled with itty-bitty fake food.  A little Googling during a slow work day introduced me a world of tiny food enthusiasts.  These are people who meticulously hand craft miniature foods perfect in every detail, down to the tiniest blemishes.   I’ve marveled over apples the size of peas, frosted seven layer birthday cakes no bigger in diameter than a penny, and pork chops that fit on a thumbnail.  Many of the items were so realistic that a coin was placed in the picture to confirm their one-sixteenth size, proving yet again the amazing ingenuity of people who don’t have sex.  Yes, sublimation rocks! To me the most fun mini-food that you can actually eat is a slider, a cheeseburger appetizer about two bites big.  (Not to be confused with White Castle burgers, which are definitely bigger.)  I can eat like ten of these slider things at one sitting, no problem.  I have no idea how many real cheeseburgers this equals and I don’t plan to find out.  In fact, if you find out, please keep it to yourself because I don’t want to know. Why are they better than regular size burgers?  Some might say the tiny aspect increases flavor or juiciness or something like that, but whatever, I think it’s because they are adorable. Besides the cuteness factor, I think their party food appeal lies in the fact that you get to eat something that far outstrips mini quiche in deliciousness without unfortunate burger grease dripping all over yourself while you struggle to make small talk.  Nobody makes a good first impression sucking cheese off their hands.  So I give to you a recipe for tiny burgers adapted...

. A blogumn by Roya Hamadani Every time December rolls around, I think, “This is the year.”  This is the year that I’ll get my presents and cards in the mail on time, I’ll budget my shopping perfectly, I won’t forget anyone, and every present will be matched to its recipient with a care that shows how much I appreciate and understand that unique and wonderful person.  And yet, every year including this one, ends the same way – presents mailed well after the 25th, in fact I’m lucky if they make it by mid-January, currently I have three dollars left to my name, and cards, what cards?  I still have two nearly full boxes of cards purchased over 3 years ago and they aren’t going anywhere. I once believed that everything somehow depended on a single random decision: if I bought just the right roll of wrapping paper, the whole season would go according to plan, and conversely, if the paper was wrong, I was screwed from the get-go.  Really, I accorded that much importance to snowmen on sleds versus frosted trees.  I would stand in the aisles for hours, contemplating the consequences of choosing an elegant foil design over a brightly colored goofy animal motif, or the pricey paper that came in sheets over the cheap stuff that came in thick rolls and tore like toilet paper.  I had myself convinced that the kind of Christmas I would have would be largely determined by this decision. So, even though I am behind as usual, I am proud of the fact that I finally nixed the paper dilemma this year.  I had a tiny break through and avoided the decision all together by recycling scraps of old wrapping and shopping bags, and decorating...

. A blogumn by Roya Hamadani Some foods fit your insides like a glove.  From the first time you eat them, their biochemical components seem to click into place like Tetris squares to produce a nearly audible hum of satisfaction in your brain.  It’s pure food love, it’s got nothing to do with nutrition and it’s no good trying to deny it.  I liken to the words of that skinny guy they find in Supersize Me who can eat three Big Macs a day and not die.  He smiles into the camera and says something like, “I don’t know, I guess it’s just my perfect food.”  Yes, one man’s liver failure is another man’s manna. For one of my friends her perfect food is buttered egg noodles – a bowl of it sends her straight back to cuddly childhood memories.  For another it’s salted caramels.  I also know someone who loves to toast marshmallows over the gas flame of her stove, carefully licking off the caramelized goo alone in her kitchen.  Okay, I am that someone.  Yes, I wish I could say steamed carrots did it for me, but no, it is my destiny to dance the love hate dance of a carbohydrate addict.  Let me put it this way, I can’t have cereal in the house.  It won’t last an hour in this place.  Unlike marshmallows toasted over an open flame, Peanut Butter Sesame Noodles is one of those foods I can whip up in a jiffy and top with fresh veggies to bring to a potluck.  It always disappears so I make a double recipe.  That way I can leave some at home to eat straight out of the fridge cold the next morning.  It’s like crack to me, people.  Don’t say...

. A blogumn by Roya Hamadani No, it’s not the name of a new indy band you should have heard of.  Nor is it the list of ingredients in an amazing facial mask or foot scrub.  Seaweed and peaches refers to one of the main influences on my culinary tastes, and for better and worse, on my life: my mother. My last blog regaled my mother’s efforts to rehabilitate expired food, like a sort of “Mold Whisperer”.   The fact that she can make something far more delicious out of nearly rotten ingredients than you will find at any Whole Foods is only one of the bizarre and magical things about her.  Another is her exuberant and daring palate. The best place for her to showcase her talents in this regard is the ever present Chinese buffet.  Since I was a small child she has taken me to the Great Walls and Golden Palaces of the world, where the heat lamps shine down on General Tso’s and patrons stick to vinyl booths under giant lighted plastic pictures of far off Oriental scenes.  Over the years such places have added more and more “American” fare to their offerings, i.e., anything smothered in mayonnaise or bright yellow cheese, and their stale cookies, sawdust cake, and the oddly delicious banana chunks drowned in sweet red goop sauce. The buffet is her palette, the plate her canvas.  On it she mixes squid and imitation crab macaroni salad with olives and pickle slices.  Mandarin oranges cavort with fried shrimp and mushrooms stuffed with pork are buried under freakishly pink mussels on the half shell and watermelon chunks.  And of course, the masterpiece duet – seaweed salad and canned cling peaches. It’s not the fact that she never gets sick from...