A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Kitchen Tip of the Day: Easy Peasy Butternut Squash Cooking

I love all winter squashes with all their sweet little yellow and orange interiors to scrape out and chow down on. What I do not like is scraping and/or cooking them. The first is a pain in the caboose and the second takes too long for my instant gratification problem.  Sure, cutting them in half, scooping out the insides, oiling or buttering them, and turning them upside down on a cooking sheet and baking for 40 minutes isn't HARD but it's not quick and it's messy.

Behold your microwave.  The squash problem solver. 

This is my new method, as easy as 10 minutes and 1, 2, 3:

FYI--New Search Widget for My Blog

Hi y'all,

Several people have dropped me emails looking for certain recipes of mine that they couldn't readily find. I hear that.  Even when you find the right category you might have wade through pages and pages of posts looking for that one recipe you remember in the back of your mind.  I've installed a search widget called "Ligit". I'm now "legit on ligit".  :-)  It doesn't specifically say it but the navy blue search box is for my blog content only so if you get stuck for a dinner recipe and want to check out how I make it...please help yourself to the search bar. 

Thanks to those of you who mentioned your frustration--I'm flattered and happy for the attention!

Storing Roasted Garlic for a "Rainy Day"

 

I generally prefer the sweet mellowness of roasted garlic to raw garlic in a lot of my recipes but the problem is the extra time, or lack of, it takes to roast garlic prior to making any dish with it.  A couple of years ago I figured out this quick and easy solution: make a big batch and freeze it so it's available to me any time I want to cook with it.

Breakfast Starts the Day off Right. Right? Right! Cornbread Frittata

 

One of the things I've been changing about the way I eat since I've been following the Mediterranean Diet path is the way I approach breakfast.  Like a lot of people I either tend to skip breakfast or eat all the wrong things.  For example, I work the night shift so when I get off shift in the morning I'm starving and ready to eat pretty much anything and everything. Technically, for nightshifters, the a.m. is our dinner time.  We eat breakfast when we get up around 4pm, lunch at 1am, and dinner for breakfast, but I've really been trying to get back into a more traditionally routine eating pattern even when I work, especially since working 12 hour shifts, we don't work a five day work week.

What I've found through experimentation is that when I choose wholesome whole grained foods for breakfast that also contain a serving of fruit and/or veggies I have a much better day over all whether I'm up or sleeping for the day.  We all know basic nutrition.  Whole grains and fresh produce last longer in our systems because they're nutritionally dense and take longer to break down, creating a more even supply of glucose instead of the normal sugar/caffeine high and low of Krispie Kremes, Cocoa Puffs, and Caramel Mocha Coffee.  Weight Watchers call these nutritionally dense foods simply "filling" foods.  I'm experimenting with a lot of different things but I'm finding, so far, that egg dishes with fresh veggies and cereals like Irish oatmeal or Grapenuts with a side of fruit hit the spot and last all morning.

Oh so Politically Correct

(Photos from ecofriend.org. )

Is your child having a birthday party soon? 

QUICK!

Run to this web site: Eco Friend and get tons of politically correct ideas on how to host a "green" themed birthday party.  While you're cutting organic vegan cake you can take the opportunity to "teach" your six-year-old's friends all about rare plants and animals, eco-friendly housing construction, and alternative fuel sources.

OR... you could stop being an asshole and go rent Chuck E. Cheese so the tyke can have a real birthday party with a dinosaur cake to keep his classmates from kicking his ass on the playground.

My God in Heaven, if my mother baked me the organic vegetable garden cake as a child they would have had to pull in a priest in to exorcise me. My head would have spun with projectile vomiting so fast the world would be off its axes now.  What kind of nerdy retard came up with that one? Even Al Gore gave his kids real birthday parties, folks. 

Give me a break.

Quick Baked Potato Post

A couple of people have asked for more details on how to make microwave potatoes that taste like real baked potatoes:

Super easy.  Just scrub the potato and put it in a baggie, freezer bags work the best in my opinion, along with about a quarter cup of water:

Hard to see the water but, trust me, it's in there.

Place in the microwave without sealing the top. Just sort of wrap the top over it so the water doesn't spill out or place the potato flat in the bottom with the bag sitting almost upright but you need to leave a steam vent or it will get ugly.  Again, really. TRUST me on that one. :-)

Microwave on high for about 8 minutes (on mine) and test for squishability.  Microwave longer if needed.

Now here's the really important part. Leave the potato sitting there for about five minutes to steam.  I've found that almost all of the water will be absorbed and leaves the skin nice and moist.

Voila.  Split and dress as usual.

Herbalicious

My entry this week for the wonderful Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen Weekend Herb Blogging isn't so much a recipe as pantry prep for recipes.  Do you ever have the best of intentions but your little projects sit in a drawer or closet gathering dust?  If not, come to my house. I can certainly put you to good work.  I used to faithfully keep my oil bottles filled with all manner of herbs and spices to use in cooking but somewhere along the line they all ran out and instead of being refilled, they just got shoved to the back of a shelf in the pantry.  I think the last one ran dry about the time I went back to respiratory school, so that would be something like two years ago, maybe three.

I decided today was the day to make that change so that the next time I reach for plain oil and think "I sure wish I had some of that infused oil I used to make" I can now grab it.  And the next time I look at the beautifully infused oils at the gourmet kitchen shops I'll know that mine are custom made for my preferences and a fraction of the cost.

From left to right, my flavors are: 

1)  Bay leaf and minced garlic in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

2)  Rosemary and minced garlic in olive oil.

3)  Thyme and minced garlic in expeller pressed canola oil.

4)  Habanero, minced garlic, and minced ginger in expeller pressed canola oil.

Hmmmm....what should I make first?

EDIT:

See this post to explain why you shouldn't actually do this the way I've shown you here.  This might end up being a good lesson for several of us, myself absolutely included.

Weekend Herb Blogging is hosted this week by its creator, Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen.

Fried Eggs: Tip of the Day

This was a fluke but I'm going to do it again. I was in a huge hurry yesterday before leaving for work and when I grabbed a skillet in the stack to fry my egg in it for a quick breakfast, I didn't realize I'd grabbed my wok skillet.  But guess what? It makes  a perfectly shaped fried egg.  I was just a little impressed with myself. It was beautiful!  Hmmm...love it when mistakes turn into tips to keep in mind for the future!

Make Your Own Butter

I started to say "Make Your Own Margarine" but that sounds disgusting.  I haven't eaten actual margarine for years and I hope you haven't either.  It's sooooo bad for you in terms of transfats.  Eating butter by the stick, even being a straight animal fat, is healthier for you than margarine, or "oleo" as I grew up hearing it called.

After Gene had his heart attack in 2003, I immediately ran out and bought The Omega Diet by Dr. Artemis Simopoulos, the ground-breaking diet based on the study of the people of Crete. Published in 1998, it is still what I base our overall daily diet on.  Gene's doing well now and I place a lot of credit to his lowered cholesterol numbers on having taken Dr. Simopoulos's advice and switched to healthier oils in our diet, not to mention trying to always eat as fresh and wholesome as possible. Except when I went back to school and I admit that my schedule and being tired all the time gave me excuses to eat out, order out, and utilize drive-thrus much more than we should have. But that's in the past and we're back on track. 

Not only did his cholesterol number drop, and it should have since he was immediately placed on statins, I'm the proof in the pudding. My cholesterol that was only 160 to start with, dropped 30 points over the first year we tuned up and changed our oil, so to speak.