January 2012
1 post
6 tags
new years
Jeff came into town and one morning we made Eggs Benedict, except with real bacon instead of the fake Canadian variety. Also, a slice of pineapple.
Unfortunately, everyone had already pretty thoroughly cleaned their plates before I made it in to the living room to take pictures.
December 2011
2 posts
There must be other people who take my money and...
look over here
Walmart’s founding family is worth the whole...
look over here
January 2011
1 post
9 tags
breakfast-stuffed-pepper
Miriam and Dan left this morning to visit San Francisco. They abandoned a fridge full of things nearly rotten. I have to eat as many of them as quickly as possible. It’s a food race!
On the plus side, their food is fancier than my food has been for a while.
This is a breakfast-stuffed-pepper on a bed of fried tortillas. It’s stuffed with scrambled eggs, peppers, onions, cheese and...
December 2010
1 post
5 tags
holliday and hollandaise, a DC experience
I’m spending some time back on the east coast and just visited Washington, DC. While there I made some healthy food, like Eggs Benedict:
And Pizza:
And Donuts.
Also, Jeffrey’s computer deleted all of the music on my ipod.
You can read Jeff’s words about food over at cuis-meme.
November 2010
1 post
2 tags
two tier frozen-pizza with pinnaple stuffing
October 2010
1 post
10 tags
an early taste
I take a little nibble from the corner of the front flyleaf. Mostly by wetting the corner with my tongue and pulling away away a few fibers. It’s hardly noticable. My copy of When You Reach Me is a library book after all. I don’t want to decrease a future library patron’s enjoyment of it.
My level of enjoyment is high. Hardback novels typically are printed on paper that is more...
September 2010
7 posts
7 tags
rendering the fat of a duck
To make the seitan confit I had to have duck fat. And since my missions to purchase duck fat proved so unsuccessful (in chinatown they didn’t understand what I was saying, none of the restaurants that serve duck fat fries would sell me any fat, and the only duck things the second largest Whole Foods in the world had were 3 free-range frozen birds).
So I bought a whole duck and pulled off...
5 tags
how to make a seitan confit
In searching for an interesting way to use seitan I discovered that it’s frequently used as a vegetarian replacement for duck. When I think of duck, I think of duck confit—or at least I do now, because this has been a really involved project of which I am unclear my reasons for pursuing.
Obviously, I decided to make a confit with my homemade seitan. It turned out fantastic, the seitan is...
3 tags
chinese cookies
I don’t know where the Koalas came from when I was younger. They were always a treat and I never could get them often enough
Well, I’ve been on a mission to buy duck fat. This mission took me to Chinatown a few times and I found out the Koala cookies are Chinese.
And I found knock-off koala cookies.
6 tags
some uses of seitan
For some reason I’ve been on a bit of a curry kick. Curry doesn’t make seitan stand on its own, but it certainly makes it taste good. And I have been getting a much better idea about how to make curry (this involves, most critically, red curry paste and milk).
Here is a bowl curry and seitan with rice.
Here is another.
I also have been making a bunch of sunnyside up eggs and putting them...
5 tags
some pictures of friends with food
We had breakfast tacos over the holiday weekend. There was no seitan yet and I don’t remember what was in them.
This is Miriam.
This is Dan.
This is me.
This is a picture from later in the day when Arthur went with Dan and me to get free pizza in exchange for paying too much for beer served out of plastic cups.
6 tags
homemade seitan
Over Labor Day weekend, actually on Labor Day itself, I made seitan.
This doesn’t seem like the most unusual thing for me to do, but upon further consideration—like when somebody asked me why I had done this—I realize most of my reasoning is rather lame.
My most obvious argument is the depressing state of my bank account and that I had wheat gluten in the pantry. Also, that the...
3 tags
interesting work
Last Thursday afternoon my temping agency called. They wanted to know if I was willing to work all night on Thursday and Friday at the same place I’d been working for a week and a half.
Apparently the company needed to make a mountain of copies, a thousand copies of a couple hundred page document, and mail it Monday—the copier would have to run for 50 hours straight.
I was going to...
August 2010
8 posts
3 tags
hard boiled eggs with hot sauce and brown rice
I am out of money again.
2 tags
on food photographs
I believe my food photography has gone downhill.
I realize now that the brief period in which I seemed to be taking good picture had nothing to do with any sort of mastery, instead it was my unemployment which allowed me to cook dinner earlier and take pictures in natural light. Sorry.
8 tags
two-cheese mac and cheese
In which I prove to myself that the components of dinner do not equal the whole of dinner.
I mostly eat single types of food at a time. Some root vegetables, some spinach, some brown rice, a glass of wine—I reason this pretty much equals risotto if all the components are fresh and high quality. This is probably laziness.
I found a recipe for macaroni and cheese in the newest food and...
5 tags
another burger off
These were breakfast burgers, or perhaps brunch burgers. I cooked them in a pan with caramelized onions and mushrooms. I added soy sauce, a bit of terayaki sauce and red pepper flakes to the meat.
They turned out well. Pan cooking in cohort with the soy sauce made them juicy and delicious.
I still have some Dishmans meat left over. I only have ground beef and I’ve been defrosting it...
4 tags
lunch in the loop
I do not do as well with frugality as I ought to. Some days I don’t pack a lunch.
On those days I go to Chipotle. Partly because I like it, partly because there’s one conveniently close by (curiously, this is true just about everywhere except Mexico). There’s a restaurant in the building where I’m working but it’s too pricey, I would have to have a salary to justify...
7 tags
peanut butter and jelly and pbr
Simple, cheap and possibly my favorite summer combination: the roof, a book, a beer and a sandwich. Dan’s little brother isn’t a bad addition.
The peanut butter is organic bulk stuff, the jelly is Crofters. The bread is from Red Hen.
The book is Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which in my personal method of grading books, is a game-changer.
The beer is from a bodega near the Logan...
4 tags
oh no, zucchinis
What can you do with an over abundance of zucchini? You could do what my parents did—make zucchini bread and lie to me about what it is.
In all fairness, when I figured it out, I refused to eat any more.
As a child I would have preferred fried patties. I’m pretty sure I still prefer fried stuff to moist, greenish bread.
Note: I clearly cooked yellow summer squash that may or may...
6 tags
a break
It has been over a week since I last posted, it’s been tumultuous. At least for me.
Aaron Knell stayed with me for a night and I cooked this breakfast of toast, watermelon, and scrambled eggs with almonds. Aaron is biking around on a sort of vision quest. He is also one of the most awesome people in the world. You can read about his trip here. And I sort of became employed. Thus there...
July 2010
9 posts
6 tags
braised kale with hot dog
We periodically eat rather strange food. Dan got some hot dogs at work, they were fancy gourmet chicken wieners.
Didn’t matter, ‘Sausages by Amylu’ actually taste like every other hot dog.
Dan braised kale and leeks with vinegar and soy sauce. I sautéed onions with mustard seeds while defrosting the hot dogs in a pot of boiling water. Then I dried off the hot dogs and added...
13 tags
salmon with pan roasted carrots & a summer...
I am having trouble with the summer. While eating a bowl of whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce for breakfast, I started sweating.
I do love whole grains, I think they’re healthy and pretty much the best way to fill up, but I’m beginning to think my eating habits are wintery. Everything I eat is heavy.
I don’t really know what I am supposed to eat in the summer. I eat a bunch of fruit, I eat a...
4 tags
nutrient mush pt. II
One of the many reasons I enjoy living with Dan is that he has similar eating habits to me. While I move between lentils and rice, Dan has a standby he’s enjoyed for years: yeasty noodles.
This is whole wheat rotini with butter and nutritional yeast. It is tasty, I partake periodically.
2 tags
3 tags
nutrient mush
Miriam referred to this as nutrient mush. It’s what I eat to fill up. Since I ran out of brown rice I’ve has switched over to lentils. These were cooked with leftover chipotle chilies. It isn’t anything special. It just gets me full and stays in the fridge for easy access whenever I need a snack.
Dan’s nutrient mush is yeasty noodles and oatmeal, but since they don’t refrigerate well he has to...
7 tags
dirty chicken
This, I suppose, is my version of Fajouille. I typically like cooking things from scratch but I did have a can of chipotle peppers and a few chicken quarters—bought from the nearby Mexican grocery store in a plastic bag for around 50 cents a pound. I decided I ought to use them in concert.
It really isn’t anything fancy, just some chicken cooked on low heat in a pan with a can of peppers,...
7 tags
peppers and pasta
This meal’s about peppers. Green bell peppers aren’t quite in season in Chicago—the ones depicted aren’t from around here. If you have fresh peppers I’m sure this would be even better. I will do it again as soon as they’re around.
Putting a fork through the caramelized onions and pasta to stab a slice of raw pepper creates perfect bites.
½ lb whole wheat pasta 1 onion, roughly chopped...
6 tags
normal breakfast
I’ve posted a bunch of restaurant eating recently. I like eating at restaurants, especially when subsidized by my parents, but I haven’t been eating the majority of my meals out. And I certainly haven’t been eating the majority of my calories out.
While I like restaurants a lot, they generally don’t serve large quantities of whole grains. I’m convinced whole grains are wonderful and provide a...
7 tags
when the family visits
My parents are here, in Chicago, as I write this. They’ve been here for a while and will stay here for a while longer. Sometimes it seems like a big responsibility. And then the rest of the time it seems fattening.
Just kidding, I rode them around in my pedi-cab for 5 hours yesterday. It’s one of my jobs. I can eat bacon wrapped plums however frequently I want. Seriously, that’s what these are....
June 2010
12 posts
7 tags
back to our roots
Quiche with mashed potatoes. We decided to cook root vegetables. This is a picture of Miriam’s plate. The mashed potatoes are garnished with roasted beets and turnips. The quiche had sauteed beet greens and bacon in it.
I shaved and roasted the beets and turnips while Miriam cleaned and sauteed the beet greens (also know as the part of beets which I typically throw away). Dan made the quiche...
3 tags
local resteraunt
I went out to Longman & Eagle last night with John. The food was excellent. We had the cheese plate to start. The plate came with an amazing cheese, an excellent cheese, a decent cheese and a really compelling apricot side dish (which only went superbly with one of the cheeses).
I had ½ a roasted chicken and John had some seafood dish. The place is dark, the photos are in black and white...
9 tags
open face egg, mushroom and steak sandwich
This isn’t really that pretty. I miss Jamey and his egg assistance. I had some ground beef and I gently hard boiled some eggs. The interesting part of this is the mushrooms and I think I should have de-stemmed something. It still tasted good.
These are fancy mushrooms I bought at the Logan Square Farmer’s Market on Sunday.
I am intrigued by fancy mushrooms. I still don’t know exactly what...
3 tags
7 tags
roasted, shaved hakurei turnips
Roasting shaved vegetables works well with all the root vegetables I’ve tried so far. Turnips are a good choice because of the airy texture in the middle.
This is actually one of the tastiest things ever. I will probably post more examples of this in the future with other vegetables. Maybe a combination of different vegetables.
I was going to use these to garnish a sandwich—but once I...
6 tags
first of the wedding season
On Saturday I attended Newell and Jenny’s wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony. Jen Ferrell catered the reception with grilled shish-kabobs, lentils, couscous and some other tasty things. Awesomenous.
There were lawn games.
I have to question Jenny and Newell’s desire to continue living in Richmond. It was terribly muggy. I was so excited it wasn’t my home anymore I almost puked.
Also,...
7 tags
summer chili
I made this chili because I was tired of eating rice and beans but still wanted to use staples that are in our pantry. I also had a bit of ground beef to use (Dishman’s, of course. Where am I going to find local, sustainable, cheap meat in Chicago? Any ideas?). I know this isn’t chili season, but hey, it was pretty cold last night. The bread is from The Red Hen, the bakery where Miriam works....
6 tags
other things not to eat
Dan had a container of Bacon Salt. We tried some. It is vegan.
I don’t think I will be eating this again. It sort of made whatever it was sprinkled over taste like bacon bits, the fake bacon bits that are vegetarian, the ones you find in salad bars at all-you-can-eat buffets. In short, it was about exactly as gross as expected.
It may seem like I’m suggesting bacon is something not to eat...
4 tags
farming as a profession
In reading to figure out how this urban-farming-as-a-business will work I came across some encouraging words. At least, I found them encouraging. I don’t know if everyone will.
What are some of the adjectives used to describe Farmers? Hardworking? Honest? I grew up with two: Poor and dumb. The 2000 American Heritage Dictionary includes one outrageous definition of farmer: “A simple,...
6 tags
local goat
We were given some goat that was grown by friends. It was a goat shank and was suppose to be tough. We were told to cook it in a slow cooker for a couple of hours. I marinated it for two days and only cooked it for one hour (till it was 165 inside).
We simmered it with tomatoes and served it over rice, the sauce was very rich after cooking with the goat and was excellent on it’s own over...
8 tags
chicago
Chicago! I don’t have enough shelf space for my books so they‘re all in boxes indefinitely. I also have bunches of other boxes to unpack.
But we cooked breakfast this morning anyway. We couldn’t find a pepper grinder so Dan crushed pepper corns with the bottom of a bottle. It was a good breakfast, a fried egg and a piece of thick bacon over sauteed spinach, parmesan and toast.
Jeff, Miriam and...
9 tags
miso béarnaise florentine
This was a recipe Jamey came up with. I have a consuming love for eggs benedict but I’d never made them. I will make them again now, but since I don’t care quite as much about presentation as Jamey does, these might be the prettiest homemade eggs benedict I’ll ever be involved with the making of.
½ onion very finely chopped ¼ cup apple cider vinegar ¼ cup beer Salt 1 tablespoon miso 1...
May 2010
13 posts
8 tags
the final burger off
The last burger-off produced the superiorist burgers (but notice—superior food photography now, this picture kicks ass).
I am trying to use up food in my fridge because I am moving. I also wanted to cook burgers. So I sort of defrosted a bunch of Dishman’s meat.
We put bunches of stuff in the burgers this time. New burger-off lessons:
Putting onion chunks in the burger meat...
4 tags
sorry jj
Jonathan Jenner left his checkbook at my house. For safety reasons I decided not to mail the checks so I lit them on fire in a can on my roof. While we initially tried to hold the checks while lighting them on fire, it didn’t really work until the lighter fluid entered the picture. It sort of smelled like grilling so I ate a bit of the ash. It didn’t taste good. This is the bleeding edge of food...
2 tags
the wheel
It was Tuesday and close to midnight and Rachel wanted to go to the wheel. She ordered a Terry burger and I ordered a Terry burger but she only wanted one of the patties so I took her second one. I’d never had a triple burger before. And all I’d had for dinner were a bunch of grapes.
11 tags
vegan stroganoff and fancy mushrooms
Adrienne brought over her very nice israeli couscous and Jamey and I cooked seitan stroganoff. Really this was mostly in reaction to the fact that I had a bunch of fancy mushrooms and didn’t know what to do with them. Plus I wanted to make seitan again.
This was another rather elaborate meal. It’s May, I don’t have that much work, I’m a college graduate, I can cook all night if I want.
Recipe...
10 tags
mustard potato wedges
Currently in the throes of moving, packing things, spent much of last week in Chicago. Sorry for the lack of updates. Hopefully Chicago will offer better food, maybe eating out sometime without meatwiches.
Last night we had some excellent potatoes—mustard roasted wedges. August and I ate most of them too quickly to take a picture.
This recipe is loosely based on smitten kitchen’s (which...
10 tags
14 tags
chiles rellenos
So far eatfoodmoreoften’s been mostly a food experiences blog. I’m still trying to figure out why exactly people would want to read this.
I mean, the main reason I find food blogs is for recipes and this post is another dish with only vague instructions.
These are chiles rellenos. They’re untraditional, typically chiles rellenos are stuffed with beef and cheese and fewer vegetables. These...