by JP Esq | Jul 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
When I was a kid, I was allergic to wheat {among a LONG list of other things that had potential babysitters running far away from my siblings and I for fear of being held responsible for a food-related death}. Apparently, when you approach 30, your body reverts to it’s childhood ways. For me this means new patches of eczema and a swollen life at least three times per month.
I’m allergic to fish and shellfish {which are different}, soy {found this out by eating TOFU and nearly dying}, nectarines, tree nuts, I have a peanut sensitivity, and until my 21st birthday, strawberries were definitely out of the question. I used to be unable to touch raw potatoes {this is a foodie nightmare}. The reaction for most of these = anaphylaxis. Translation: two shovel scoops from death. I can’t even be around fish/shellfish as it is cooking because there are proteins released in the steam which cause severe reactions {had to exit stage left at my little cousin’s birthday dinner because of this}.
I own multiple EpiPens and should probably be part-owner of Benadryl’s parent company because I keep them in business for sure.
So today, I write you in devastation as I have to now remove whole wheat from my diet. Things containing wheat flour don’t seem to bother me as much, but I sit here writing you as my tongue and lips are painfully puffing up.
Because of my serious near-death experiences, I am definitely a fan of labeling everything. I don’t eat at pitch-ins. I rarely eat at receptions because the poor servers never know what is in what they are passing. It makes my life in food quite an interesting one.
As I bid a fond adieu to whole wheat, I’ll be spending the weekend finding something else to love.
If I look the way I feel, then Quasimodo would be a sight for sore eyes.
by JP Esq | Jul 15, 2010 | Uncategorized
Sounds amazing, right? Yeah, I thought so too. Let’s be honest, not every kitchen experiment ends in glory. Sometimes, you have disasters – that you are forced to eat anyway because there are starving people somewhere in the world and you really should not throw away food.
Let me explain how this started. I purchased a skirt steak earlier in the week and knew I wanted fajitas at some point. But, regular ol’ fajitas are boring to a true kitchen experimenter. So, my brain started working. I sat at work thinking…”what can I do to this fajitas to make them special…” My thought stream went a little like this:
-I love cilantro always, but especially in summer.
-I rarely use sour cream but always use nonfat plain yogurt in place of it.
-I did buy all of those peppers on sale this week…gotta use those.
-I wonder if I could make some kind of cilantro cream sauce.
-Oh wait – cilantro and lime.
-Hmm, cilantro-lime yogurt sauce? Check.
-Cumin…gotta have cumin.
-Rice on the side? No corn. I could put cilantro in the corn. Or I could put cumin in the corn.
-What about green chiles. Oh wait! Chipotle. Yes, chipotle corn.
And there begins, the kitchen experimenters dream. So I made a list of what I thought I needed, went to the grocery store and slowly walked the aisles for more inspiration just in case. Perhaps I should have known that I’d meet my match at some point. Just didn’t think it would be something so simple that would do me in.
Before you continue, think back to the time where I told you that I don’t measure stuff and that I don’t post exact recipes – just an inspiration and recounting of what I did. Perhaps you should remind yourself on my ABOUT page. This is one of those moments kids. Please, don’t try this at home…
Ingredients
Skirt Steak
Lawry’s Caribbean Jerk Marinade
Lemon Juice
1/2 pack Taco Seasoning
Adobo Seasoning {with Cumin}
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Orange Bell pepper
1 Candy Onion
2 Roma Tomatoes
Lime Juice
1 Bunch of Cilantro
2 Garlic Gloves
NF Plain Yogurt
2 cans Sweet Whole Kernel Corn
1 can Chipotle Peppers
Corn Tortillas
The Meat
This little adventure started off well. I marinated my skirt steak overnight in the Lawry’s Caribbean Jerk Marinade and a few shakes of Lemon Juice from the bottle. In case you haven’t noticed, I love anything Lawry’s.
I cut the meat into thin strips & then again in half so that I could get at least 2 dinners and lunch out of this shenanigan. With a little Olive Oil in a warm skillet I threw the meat in and let it cook. One thing I can’t stand is tough fajita meat, so I always cook my meat over a lower temperature for a longer period of time.
The Veggies
Still had bell peppers from that grocery fiasco, so the Red & Orange Bell Peppers would find a home in this dish. Chopped those up along with a Candy Onion I had left from the Farmer’s Market. Added those to the meat in the skillet. All appears to be going well.
Until now.
Near Disaster #1
So, those roma tomatoes. My thought was, I could use a tomato sofrito-type base for this and add it to the meat & veggies. My pantry was void of tomato paste for the first time in 5 years, but I had tomotoes so I could make my own tomato paste and it would be more fresh right? WRONG.
Sidebar: Because I live in a 1BR apt my parents seem to think that I have room for every kitchen appliance on the planet. While I would love nothing more than to be the Mocha version of Sandra Lee, with a matching set of appliance & a kitchen-aid mixer to match every outfit I own, I can’t do that in a 1BR apt. Fact: My parents live in the “As Seen on TV” house. This means that when my mother purchased the ENTIRE Magic Bullet system, she didn’t buy one … she bought three. And I was the lucky recipient of one of those huge boxes of parts. I’ll admit because I have a freaking BLENDER {yes, I’m yelling}, I’ve never found a need for the Magic Bullet. Then my blender broke during my morning smoothie marathon and here I was mid-experiment and wanted to blend up some stuff…namely – tomato paste.
Raise your hand if you know what tomato paste is? {crickets … crickets} Yeah, we all should know that it is very thick & concentrated and can’t be made from two lousy Roma tomatoes that some silly girl sticks in her Magic Bullet. Allow me to just say that the result of this was a watery, pink mixture that looked more like toddler puke than a sofrito foundation. But I used it anyway.
At that point I threw in some Worcestershire sauce & a 1/2 packet of Taco Seasoning I found. I added quite a bit of Adobo with Cumin and little water and let that puppy simmer for a little over 30 minutes on low heat. I will gladly admit that at this point I was scared.
Complete Disaster #2
I love corn. Corn is the easiest thing to cook. How could you possibly mess this up? Add chipotle … that’s how. I thought I was a fan of chipotle peppers {this one might have been in adobo or something}. I chopped them up and threw them into the canned corn that was simmering on the stove. At that moment, I realized that the wretched smell radiating from my kitchen was in fact those chipotle peppers I just ruined my corn with. Threw in some extra cilantro, a little salt, pepper, and butter to save my precious corn. This did not help. Because I vow to eat everything I cook {or at least taste}, I knew I was going to have to eat that corn, so for the moment, I just ignored the fact that it smelled like Novocaine laced truck tires and moved along to my next trial. The cilantro-lime yogurt sauce.
We Can Save This #3
I love cilantro. Did I already say this? So, perhaps in my adoration for the stuff I may or may not have stuffed the entire bunch I purchased into my Magic Bullet {as you can see above} in preparation to make a lovely cilantro-tinged yogurt sauce to use in place of my sour cream. I minced the 2 garlic gloves, added some nonfat plain yogurt, lime juice, salt and pepper. You want to know what happens when you have WAY too much cilantro and not enough yogurt and possibly a little too much lime juice? You get a very GREEN, very runny liquid that doesn’t resemble sour cream at all. What in the world have I just done? Oh well, must try it.
So here I was in my apartment looking at what could turn out to be a total disaster. I browned my corn tortillas in a dry skillet, added my meat/veggies, topped it with a little Fat Free Cheddar, and then poured on that GREEN liquid that just came out of my magic bullet. Reluctantly, I added that foul smelling corn to my plate and began to pray. “Lord, bless the hands that prepared this food – my hands – because I quite possibly might have just created the worst meal ever. Amen.”
And then…I bit into one of those fajitas.
And that garbage was FREAKING FANTASTIC. It tasted SO good. Perhaps it was the slightly sweet taste from the Caribbean Jerk marinade, quickly followed by a warming sensation from the cumin & taco seasoning, which both added just the right kick. And then that GREEN junk, that lovely awesome green stuff, was so divine and so tasty. {Hey, maybe it could be a really good salad dressing}. My joy was slightly over zealous as I reached over for a forkful of that corn. That stuff was gross. It tasted like it should make my mouth numb from eating it. In other words, it’s not fit for human consumption.
Rather than continue my meal, I took a quick break to go throw out the entire pot of that corn. And then proceeded to smash my fajitas…all four of them.
You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you just break even.
by JP Esq | Jul 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
Anyone who knows me knows I spend just as much time in Chicago as I do in Indy. I love Chicago and threaten to move there every time I visit, but you can’t really beat the cost of living in Indy, so…yeah.
This trip, most of my time was spent in Lincoln Park. Bailiwick Chicago is running a production of AIDA at American Theatre Co. {which happens to be the first Chicago revival of the production post-Broadway}. Tiny theater…big impact. My sister is cast as Amneris, so of course the parents and I made the journey for the opening night performance.
Sidebar: I really have no interest in traveling with my parents ever again. I say this every time I take a road trip with them. I’m smart enough to book a hotel room on a separate floor if I can, but I think my first new thing to do in my last year as a 20-something is to stop these crazy road trips. Case in point: we were in Chicago for 2 nights. My parents had enough luggage/coolers/crap to be gone for 2 months. That is not ok.
Moving on…
I love to eat. {Surprise!} Isn’t Chicago a fabulous place for eating?? And in case you forgot, I certainly have a love-love relationship with Empanadas. If I can find one…I’m gonna eat one. {This almost got me in trouble in the middle of a shaky area in Cancun when I was tempted to eat one from a guy on the corner. The pigeon playing in the bucket of water he was using to cook/clean/drink & the crazy long line at the nearest hospital definitely changed my mind. Smelled good though.}.
That brings me back to Chicago. Lincoln Park. LITO’S Empanadas. We all went to Golden Nugget Pancake House for breakfast, so needless to say I was full. As we made our way down Clark St to browse & be nosey, we stumbled upon a little self-serve frozen yogurt place. I don’t remember which one, but I wasn’t thrilled with it. But, my impulse said – “it’s hot – get frozen yogurt”. I would have much preferred Ms. Impulse to say – “it’s hot – but wait because across that next block is an empanada shop and you know how you are so put the yogurt down and keep steppin’ missy”. She didn’t say that, so I was 27% into my frozen yogurt when I gasped loudly, frightened my parents, and stopped sidewalk traffic to oogle and drool over some empanadas. It’s a personal problem. The fatty in me said “do it…”, but I’ve learned to silence her by reading nutrition labels and reminding myself of my 6-months-ago BMI. Mental note: we’ll be back tomorrow. And we did go back.
We ordered 1 Beef & Rice Empanada and 1 Vegetable Empanada. They were deep fried to order, but made right in the store. I love a good entrepreneurial story. Carlos, the owner, is Colombian and moved to Ohio with dreams of one day having his own business. He and his wife realized this dream in 2007. Now, if I could only convince him to pack up and move to Indy that would be fabulous.
I don’t know how any one could not love anything deep fried in a pastry-like dough. Definitely added to my list of forever pit stops I make on every visit.
So yummy.
by JP Esq | Jul 7, 2010 | Uncategorized
Well I promised an update to include the Burgers I made at my parents’ impromptu BBQ this week. Good news is – I’ve got the experiment. Bad news is – there are no pictures. Why? Because I was too into the process of throwing stuff into a bowl and mushing my hands in it that I forgot to take pictures of the process. Then, not long after, I proceeded to SMASH said burgers {as did everyone else} and there was no remaining evidence of which pictures could be taken. I do apologize.
Here’s the thing you need to understand about my family. We over-do everything. Every event, every meal, ev-er-y-thing. Our regular BBQs generally include burgers, hot dogs, brats, ribs, pork chops, steaks, chicken breasts, chicken with skin & bones, mac & cheese, baked beans, potato salad, corn on the cob, greens or green bean casserole or both, etc. Get the idea? We cook alot of food. This Fourth of July I wasn’t feeling it. I’m still recovering from the Father’s Day meal I prepared. So I convinced my Mommy to let me keep it simple. Burgers & Hot Dogs.
The Burgers
I always make burgers from freshly ground beef. No patties here kids. I buy 4% fat {96% lean} beef. Every time I make burgers they taste different…why? Because I just throw some stuff in & pray for a miracle.
With most basic meats, I start with my favorite Fab Four:
Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
Garlic Powder
Ground Black Pepper
Worcestershire Sauce
The Experiment:
I opened my parents’ spice cabinet and then just began grabbing whatever I could find. That ended up as:
Dried Onion
Butter Sprinkles
Cajun Seasoning
Curry Powder
Ground Mustard
Pour the junk on the meat. Massage it up until it looks well seasoned {remember those Southern roots? Somehow you just know…}
Grill it & kill it.
The End. Those lower fat burgers were so juicy and ridiculously good. They were gone in a matter of minutes {along with the cheesy fries I made to go along with}.
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