okra rice, because sometimes you have to do something different

Okra Rice
Ingredients:
1 pound bacon
1 large onion, chopped
3 cups sliced okra
1 cup blended tomatoes
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 cup uncooked rice
1 1/2 cups water

Directions:
Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain grease and set aside for later use. Crumble bacon and set aside.

In the same skillet, saute onion in a small amount of reserved bacon grease over medium high heat until tender, about 3 minutes. Add crumbled bacon, sliced okra, blended tomatoes, and chicken stock. Reduce heat and simmer until okra is tender and falling apart, about 15 minutes. Stir in rice and water. Cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until fluffy.

I like it with this rice best:

food transparency makes us happy

The calendar says summer is officially underway and farmers markets across the country are once again lively and bustling places—now more than ever, apparently. According to the USDA, farmers markets have grown 17 percent in the last two years.

One major reason why: people like the idea of eating local, and perhaps more importantly, knowing where, exactly, the food comes from that they’re going to be putting on the family table. This concept of knowing where one’s food comes from is becoming known as “transparency,” and more consumers today are demanding it from their food sources—in both grocery stores and restaurants.

The recent food contamination outbreak in Europe has undoubtedly helped to further ratchet up people’s desire to know as much as possible about what they’re putting inside their bodies.

hmmm cooking :-)

pasta made easy...

garlic scape pesto, make some today!

Ingredients

6 garlic scapes, chopped
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Asiago cheese
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Place the garlic scapes, Parmesan cheese, Asiago cheese, lemon juice, and pine nuts in the bowl of a food processor. Drizzle the olive oil over the mixture. Blend until the pesto is a brilliant green color and smooth in texture. Season with salt and pepper.

I like it on homemade raviolis... like these:

Mushroom Ravioli Filling

3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1/4 cup prosciutto, chopped
4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated
2 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 egg
Salt and pepper


Saute onion and garlic in butter 2-3 minutes.
Add mushrooms and sauté until brown and most of the liquid has evaporated.
Add prosciutto and cook 1 more minute just to heat through.
Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients. Fill ravioli.

use store bought wonton wrappers or make your own pasta from scratch, its fun and easier than you think :-)

Homemade beef ravioli recipe

INGREDIENTS:

***Filling***
1/2 pound ground beef
1 small onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup minced parsley
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
salt
1 egg
water

***Ravioli Dough***
2 1/4 cups flour
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon olive or salad oil
1 teaspoon salt

***Marinara Sauce***
2 tablespoons olive or salad oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 can (16 ounce size) tomatoes
1 can (6 ounce size) tomato paste



PREPARATION:

FILLING: In 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat, cook beef, onion, and garlic until all pan juices evaporate, onion is tender, and meat is browned. Remove skillet from heat; stir in parsley, cheese, and 1/2 ts salt, then egg. Cover and refrigerate ground beef filling.

RAVIOLI DOUGH: In large bowl, stir 2-1/4 cups flour with remaining ingredients to make a stiff dough. On well-floured surface, knead dough until smooth and not sticky, about 20 times. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes for easier rolling.

Cut dough into 4 pieces. On floured surface with floured rolling pin, roll 1 piece into 12 by 8 rectangle. With dull edge of knife, lightly mark dough into twenty four 2-inch squares. Place a scant teaspoon of ground beef filling in center of each square.

Roll second piece of dough into 12 by 8 rectangle; place over filling. Press around filling and along edges. With cutter or knife, cut into 24 ravioli; place in single layer on floured, clean cloth towel. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. Let ravioli dry 30 minutes.

In 8 quart saucepan over high heat, heat 6 quarts water and 2 teaspoons salt to boiling. Add ravioli, stirring gently to separate pieces so they do not stick together; heat to boiling. Reduce heat to medium; cook until tender but firm. About 5 minutes. Drain ravioli; serve with sauce.

MARINARA SAUCE: In 2 quart saucepan over medium-low heat, in hot oil, cook onion and garlic until tender. Stir in sugar, basil, salt, tomatoes with their liquid, and tomato paste; heat mixture to boiling, stirring to break up tomatoes. Reduce heat to low; cover saucepan and simmer 20 minutes to blend flavors, stirring occasionally.

Grilled Beef and Mushroom Burger Recipe

"Hey dad, wanna come over for lunch? We're making mushroom burgers." Radio silence. That's weird. Usually an invitation for free food and the company of his firstborn is met with gleeful enthusiasm. "Don't worry, it's a beef burger, with lots of mushrooms, you'll love it." Bingo, that was it. "Okay, sure! We'll be right over." It used to be, "mushroom burger" just meant a hamburger with lots of mushrooms piled on top. These days it usually refers to a burger in which a portobello mushroom takes the place of the patty. Nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't what my father wanted. A grilled beef patty with melted Swiss, and slathered with sautéed shiitakes and onions? Hard to resist.

So, this one was a big hit with my dad, and with my mom too, for that matter. The things that make it a step up from your typical retro mushroom burger are the dried mushroom powder mixed into the ground meat, intensifying the mushroom taste, and using shiitakes for the topping, which are highly flavorful mushrooms. You can easily skip the dried mushroom bit it you don't have any on hand, and you can easily sub button mushrooms, or any other mushrooms, for the shiitakes if you want.
Print Options
Grilled Beef and Mushroom Burger Recipe

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

We call for fresh shiitake mushrooms, but only because they are so much more flavorful than regular button mushrooms. Feel free to use whatever mushroom you want, buttons, cremini, morels, etc. Although this recipe calls for using a grill, you can easily pan fry them on your stovetop. I would recommend using a large cast iron pan for pan frying.
Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
A 1-ounce package of dried mushrooms (porcini, morels or other mushrooms)
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (add more if you like burgers a little saltier)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 pound fresh shiitake mushrooms (can substitute button or cremini), sliced
1 large onion, sliced thin (about 2 cups)
2 Tbsp olive oil
Salt
4-6 slices of Swiss cheese
Burger buns

Method

1 Process the dried mushrooms in a food processor, or a clean coffee grinder (grind some raw rice to clean out coffee grinds), until ground into a powder. Remove any large mushroom pieces that didn't grind down, a few small pieces will be fine.

2 In a large bowl, use your clean hands to gently mix together the meat, salt, mushroom powder, black pepper and Worcestershire sauce. Mix just until everything is mostly combined, a minute or two. Do not overwork the meat mixture or it will become tough and meatloaf-like. Shape the meat into 3-4 patties, using about a quarter to a third of a pound per patty, creating a slight indentation at the centers of the patties (this will help keep the patties fairly flat when they cook, as the sides tend to contract more than the center).

3 Prepare your grill for high, direct heat. While the grill is heating up, heat a large sauté pan over high heat for 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and dry-sauté them until they release their water, about 2-3 minutes. Add the onions and the olive oil, toss to combine and continue to sauté over high heat 1 minute. Add salt to taste and cook until the onions soften and begin to brown. Turn off the heat and place in a bowl.

4 Grill the burgers to the desired doneness, between 5-8 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the burgers and how hot your grill is.

5 When the burgers are almost done, lay the Swiss cheese over them and allow the cheese to melt. Paint the burger buns with a little olive oil and toast them on the griddle or grill grates. To assemble, put a burger on the bun and top with the sauteed onions and mushroom mixture.

Yield: Serves 3-4.

Chef Ramsey's Heart

I have been watching the most recent season of kitchen nightmares. I am so impressed with his heart. He has a rough exterior, but he gets through to peoples hearts and passions. Some real tough cookies he has gotten through to this season. I wish all of those eateries all the best. Watch and see what I am saying here:

Grilled Peas - Eat them like edamame

Are you familiar with edamame, the salty soybeans often served at Japanese restaurants? I became addicted to them when I lived in Japan years ago; they're the Japanese version of bar nuts, almost always served at bars there, with beer. You eat them by putting the pod in your mouth, closing your teeth, and pulling out the pod which releases the salty beans to eat. (Trader Joe's carries them, by the way.) This recipe is sort of like an English pea version of edamame, that you grill. Okay, yeah it's a stretch, but you eat them like edamame. You take fresh English peas, toss them with olive oil and salt, and then grill them until they are lightly charred on the outside and steamy soft on the inside. Then when you eat them, you scrape up some of that smokey, charred, salty flavor, while the peas pop into your mouth. If you want to add to this symphony of flavors, you can sprinkle some balsamic and chopped mint on the peas before eating.

The trick is to make sure you are starting out with fresh, relatively young peas, the kind that would cook up in a couple of minutes if you boiled them. The first time I made these I used what turned out to be tough old peas. Even when I tried boiling them for 20 minutes they were still tough. Grilling for a few minutes obviously didn't work any better than boiling them. The next time I tried this I used greener, fresher, apparently younger peas. They grilled up perfectly. I grilled a half pound of peas and ate them all happily, by myself. Could easily have eaten another half pound.

got all the tools you need?

You can help decide what we eat for dinner!

But alas we have no funds, you can help with that right here:

leave suggestions and I will blog about it each step of the way :-)

Go cast iron for life :-)

I own three pieces of cast iron cookware, and this item is one of them... and among my favorite cooking implements, period. In fact, I use this skillet most of all, and it doesn't even have a place in a cabinet! I keep it on the stove permanently, for that is how often I use it.

Beware that cast iron is not a quickie-cooking component (it takes time for the iron to heat, and it takes experience to gauge the iron's "perfect temperature" for sensitive dishes), but for dishes requiring steady, even heat and for cooks who require durable cookware with easy clean-up, cast iron CANNOT be beat!

This skillet is going to last forever. Its care is easy: I scrub it with hot water only, and dry it with an old rag and apply a thin layer of vegetable oil while the iron is still hot... a year and a half later, it's still rust-free and delivering the reliable service I have come to expect and admire. No scratches interfere with its performance, as is the case with my allegedly-long-lasting Wearever nonstick cookware set (what a waste of money THAT was!). Heck, I even use my cast-iron skillet for CREPES, and that's saying something! Despite the pan's weight, it's an immeasurably better nonstick crepe-cooker than teflon. In fact, I use my cast iron cookware for everything from french fries to spaghetti sauce to eggs and bacon to french toast! It's a dependable griddle, skillet, grill, and pot, and it goes right from the stovetop and into the oven for maximum versatility.

I am an avid home-chef, and I can say without exception that my cast-iron cookware is the best kitchen investment I've ever made.

apricot chicken

Apricot Chicken Recipe

If you don't have fresh apricots, you can use a combo of dried pitted apricots and apricot jam. Chop up about a dozen dried apricots and add them, with a half cup of apricot jam, to the stock in step 4 (skipping steps 1 and 5).
Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds apricots, roughly chopped, pits removed and discarded
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 pounds skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 to 2-inch pieces
Salt
1 Tbsp unsalted butter (can sub olive oil)
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 chopped onion
2 cups chicken stock or broth (use gluten-free stock if you are cooking gluten-free)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons Tabasco or other hot sauce (you can add more if you like)
Black pepper

Method

1 Place the chopped apricots in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and the vinegar. Let sit while you brown the chicken in the next step.

2 In a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches, place chicken pieces in the pan, without crowding the pan, and brown them on each side. As the chicken cooks, sprinkle salt over it. Once the chicken is browned, remove the pieces from the pan to a bowl and set aside.

3 Add the remaining oil to the pan and sauté the onion until it begins to brown. As the onion cooks and releases moisture, use a flat edged spatula or wooden spoon to scrape off the browned bits from the chicken (called fond) from the bottom of the pan.

4 Once the onions have browned a bit, add the chicken stock and lower the heat to medium.

5 Put about 2/3 of the apricots, along with any juice they have given up, into a blender and blend into a purée. Pour the purée into the pan with the chicken stock and onions.

6 Add the cinnamon, rosemary and Tabasco and taste. You may need to add some salt. Bring to a simmer, then lower the heat and gently simmer for 10-20 minutes.

7 When you are ready to serve, put the chicken and the remaining apricot pieces into the pan and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Serve hot with rice.

Yield: Serves 6.

so wifey wanted soup...

fridge and pantry were looking pretty empty... but i got skillz

found some bacon, carrots, onion, garlic,a few greenbeans, a chicken breast, some olive oil, some wonton wrappers and a packet of soysauce.... oh yeah that can become soup

sauteed the veggies and bacon, added some diced chicken, water and soy sauce to boil, then drop in some strips of wonton wrapper and take off the heat... wow, way better than i could have imagined

How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time

Like most homebrewers, I started out with Charlie Papazian's book "The New Joy of Homebrewing". I had the second edition. It was a good book, but comparing it to this text, it seems hopelessly dated.

With the explosion of microbreweries across the country, lots of people got turned on to GOOD beer - and many of those looked into homebrewing. With so many people trying different methods and equipment, over time, brewing became simpler and much of what was deemed necessary in the earlier days was discarded. Many of the techniques and equipment listed here are the results of years of trial-and-error streamlining by other homebrewers. In addition, there's never been so many resources available via mail order and on the net. Homebrewing really is easy at this point.

This is the best basic brewing text I've found. You can start with it by making extract only beers, graduating to specialty grains in addition to extract, then to all grain brewing and making your own recipes and beer styles. The book is linear, presents the information as you need it and the information ranges from the most basic (like sanitation) to as technical as you could possibly want (water chemistry).

For years I've been an extract and specialty grain brewer. I never completely understood the process of all-grain brewing until I bought this text. It gave me the courage to build my own lautering tun and brew my first batch of beer made completely from scratch. It was a pale ale, nothing exotic, but man was it good beer. Check out the author's website and read the first edition online. The second edition is improved, so if you like the online text buy the hard copy book.

There are other good texts out there (the author lists many of them in the back of the book) but if you only want one homebrewing text, buy this one. It's a shame that Amazon doesn't carry it anymore. Track it down.

DeLonghi EC155 Espresso Maker

I love espresso, and this little baby makes a great cup. Here are a few points that might be useful for you to know:

Good points:
*It doesn't take up too much room on the counter and looks nice with it's silver metal accents.
*The water reservoir is a good size, you can make about 8-10 shots before you need to refill it, which is very easy to do, and there is a clear section behind the basket which shows the water level.
*Fast heat-up time (only about a minute), good frothing wand, no wait time between frothing and brewing (though you do have to wait a little between brewing and frothing).

Be warned:
*Frothing wand is only 3 1/4 inches from the counter top. Not a big deal, I just went and bought a frothing cup that is about that height.
*Distance from grounds basket to tray is only 2 1/2 inches, I usually use a small espresso cup.
*Built-in tamper sucks, buy a good metal one.
*You don't end up with a nice dry puck, the grounds basket is a watery soup after your espresso is made, so I dump it down the disposal.
*You will end up drinking more espresso than you mean to, it's that good!

Seriously, I chose this machine after a lot of online researching, and decided on this one based on its outstanding reviews and great price. What led me to it were the reviews of another DeLonghi, the EC140B, which is an older and less attractive model, but had reviews from people who had owned theirs for 6 and 10 years! I'm hoping that this one will have the same longevity.

Drake's Cakes Funny Bones

Man i miss these, they were my favorite growing up in Maine, i can't find them in Oregon. But at least i can occasionally break down and buy some on amazon!

Norpro Pasta Drying Rack

I love this pasta rack! Before I bought this pasta rack, I was forced to dry my pasta on the counter. I would sprinkle the counter with flour and then begin the layering of the pasta, the towels and the flour. In other words, it was a big mess. But now, since I bought the Norpro Pasta Drying Rack, pasta drying is a cinch and very easy to clean up. As soon as I roll out and cut the pasta dough, I simply drape it over the wooden dowels to dry. No flour, no towels, no mess. I usually make two lbs of pasta and have never run out of room on the rack. I know that the design is very simple and the wood is not the strongest on the market, but it really serves its purpose and serves it well.

growing herbs

Le Pan TC 970 9.7-Inch Multi-Touch LCD Google Android Tablet PC

Who needs a tablet computer? That is what I've been saying to my Apple Fanboy friends since the iPad came out. Honestly, if it weren't for the Vine program, I would not have gotten a tablet.

This thing is perfect for having in the kitchen and following recipes you found online or just reading an ebook while you let something simmer.

My first impression, out of the box is, I'm impressed. It seems to act just like my Android phone. It is very responsive for a 1GHz cpu.

The instructions that come with it are non-existent, a card with where the buttons are. Their support page gives a URL error. Their FAQs has no entries except for the specs.

Cons:
* The sound is very tinny. It is not very good, especially compared to my friend's iPad.
* No rear facing camera. So this is only good for chat. Can't really take pictures or use a scanner app. A little disappointing.
* The auto-brightness doesn't work very well for me. I think it makes the display too dark under all lighting conditions.
* It cannot play trailers from apple.com/trailers.
* The system tutorial in Settings->About Tablet doesn't work. It just returns to the previous screen.
* Android 2.2 is not designed for tablets. Google said this.
* The wireless can use 802.11n but only the 2.4GHz band and not the less cluttered 5GHz band.
* My biggest complaint is that both the on/off and the volume buttons are very hard to use. They are too small or too recessed.

Pros:
* The display is very nice and a good size.
* Price, though I think they could have sprung for more than a 4gb card. Even my phone came with 8bg card.
* Battery life seems real good. I've been using it for over 3 hours over two days and it is at 56%.
* The Android system is a plus. I hope it can be upgraded to 3.0+
* It comes with the Kindle app installed and ebooks look real nice. I do still like my Kindle better since it is so much lighter.
* Touch screen is very sensitive. I find if I press too hard, it doesn't work. But of course that kind of sensitivity can be bad too, because I press things I don't mean to all the time.

Some other notes: I tried Firefox mobile on it. It doesn't feel like Firefox and the password manager doesn't allow for a master password and that made me nervous. Also flash did not work with Firefox, so I removed it. I do not like the generic Browser on Android. So I will be looking for a new one.

I installed the "Hackers Keyboard" from the app store and really like that. No more hunting around for special keys, they are all there.

I played some games that required interaction of the touch screen and the motion detections system. Both worked very well.

You might think from all my cons that I don't like this tablet, but that is incorrect. Most of the cons are nits. If you are looking for a device that you can sit on the couch with, browse the web and check email, this is it. It would be nice if the speakers sounded better (I'm looking for an equalizer app) and if the buttons were easier to use, but this is a very nice device for $350.

Thinking about using this one do to do a little daily cooking show :-)

I've had this camera for about a week now and have been loving it ever since. I've used another "flip" camcorder and the Bloggie Touch puts it to shame.

Pros:
1. Love the quick on and record. Great for spontaneous videos of the little one.
2. The touch screen interface makes it both useful and fun to use the big screen.
3. The still pictures come out brilliant, when the lighting and focus is good.
4. The battery charges up super fast and stays with you for a whole day of shooting.
5. The image stabilization is good. You can take decent video while walking around and panning too. Note that it is not optical, but electronic SteadyShot stabilization.
6. The lens is very good quality and the pictures are crisp.
7. Really like the "snap picture while recording" feature. I find myself using that feature the most. The video doesn't stall while the picture (full 12M resolution) is being taken and since the focus and exposure are usually locked well while you're in the middle of the video, the pictures come out great.

Cons:
1. In low lighting, there is quite a bit of graininess and using the digital zoom makes it much worse.
2. While the lens is good quality, the auto-focus mechanism is really very slow. If you move around the camera too much before focus has locked on, the auto-focus will almost never lock.
3. What I really miss with this camera is a flash. Even a tiny one would help with low light pictures.
4. Minor annoyance: to preview a picture right after you take it, you have to go through at least two clicks. Sony could have designed it so that it always goes to the last picture taken by default, instead of the thumbnail list of all pictures/video on the device.

I decided to purchase this camera over a still camera that can do video because:
1. This one is dead simple. One button to turn on, one to take video and one to take stills. This makes it both easy and quick to use.
2. This one can do 1080p video and 720p at 60fps.
3. Its under $200 and is smaller than your phone.
4. Its got internal flash and USB connector - no more SD cards or cables. 8GB is enough to get you through the day before you can come back to your laptop to dump the pictures.

I decided to purchase this camera over other ones in the same category because:
1. Its got a big display and the touch screen is fun to use.
2. Its got a better lens system than the others.
3. Its got (some) image stabilization.

Indoor Culinary Herb Garden Starter Kit- Start Growing Fresh Cooking Herbs & Spices- Great Gift Idea!- Seeds: Parsley, Thyme, Cilantro, Basil, Dill, Oregano, Sweet Marjoram, Chives, Savory, Garlic Chives, Mustard, Sage

The kit arrived VERY quickly, and I got planting right away. The little peat pellets are a very clever way to start seedlings. I'll be using them more in the spring to start my regular garden. The instructions vary for each different type of seed, and most of my seeds sprouted quickly. There was one that didn't come up, but there is plenty of additional starter pellets and seed to do a second, and maybe even a third planting, so no worries. The little seedlings are growing every day! It's pretty fun ;-)

These were selling super fast, get one now!

The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles

`The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles' by the Editors of `Cooks Illustrated' Magazine is one of those books whose outstanding value is obvious almost immediately upon opening to the Table of Contents. This was surprising to me, as this is not the case with most other `Cooks Illustrated' books. There is just something about the meeting of this subject with the classic `Cooks Illustrated' approach to things which comes up a winner.

The first positive impression is the excellent organization of the chapters into different types of pastas, noodles, and sauces for same. While there are many excellent books about on pasta dishes, most especially `The Top100 Best Pasta Sauces' by Diane Seed and just about any book by Marcella Hazan, Lidia Bastianich, or Ruth Rodgers and Rose Gray of London's River Café, this `Cooks Illustrated' volume organizes our thinking about the sauces to make us all much better at improvising our own pasta sauces. It divides pasta sauces into:

Olive Oil based sauces, both cooked and uncooked.
Pesto and other pureed sauces.
Butter and Cheese sauces, such as spaghetti alla Carbonara
Cream Sauces, such as Fettuccine Alfredo
Sauces with Bread Crumbs
Cooked Sauces with Fresh Tomatoes
Canned Tomato Sauces, such as Pasta Puttanesca and Vodka Cream sauce
Sauces with Vegetables, such as `cabbage and noodles' and `pasta Primavera'
Sauces with Beans and Lentils
Sauces with Meat, such as the classic Bolognese sauce
Sauces with Seafood, such as clam and other shellfish sauces.

Like Seed's book and virtually any other book on pasta and noodles, the subject really is pasta and noodle dishes, although this volume, true to its title, gives as much about actually making a wide variety of pastas. It also covers just about every conceivable form of noodle, including the German spatzle, the North African couscous, gnocchis (the bridge between the Italian and the German forms of dumpling), Japanese noodles (soba, somen, ramen, and udon) and Chinese noodles, especially rice and cellophane noodles.

The book can easily be forgiven for spending more time on the Italian noodle than on any other subject, as this is the primary interest of most English speaking readers. To this end, the book includes excellently detailed tutorials on making fresh pastas, with and without egg, with vegetable and herb additions, spatzle, and several varieties of gnocchi. It does not, however, teach us how to make couscous or any of the oriental noodle types, which is fine with me, as I believe they are techniques which require far more practice and patience than the classic Italian or German noodle.

I love a cookbook that sheds new light on a dish I've made a dozen times and consider `my own'. This is what happens here when I read the material on combining cabbage and noodles in a dish. It reminds me of how to best cut the cabbage, but it significantly adds to my knowledge of how to braise the cabbage and combine it with the noodles at just the right time.

`Cooks Illustrated' tends to squeeze a lot of the `joie de vivre' out of cooking in their articles by starting off with a clean slate, as if no one had ever made the dish they are discussing in an article. Cooking is one of those crafts where centuries of practice have pretty much arrived at the best way to do most things without loading us up with all the paraphernalia of experimental science. But, with this subject, proper respect is given to tradition, and to the recommendations of such culinary sages as Paula Wolfert on couscous and Marcella Hazan on pasta.

Their finest contributions are the sidebarred tutorials on everything from preparing artichokes to opening clams. This makes the book superb for the novices who happen to enjoy experimenting with their own variations of pasta dishes.

So we had nearly nothing left in our fridge or pantry... so this is what I came up with.

So here is what i had
carrots
onion
potatoes
garlic
soy sauce
peanut butter
a little hot sauce

so i just sauteed the veggies added the peanut butter, soy sauce and hot sauce and enough water to thin it out a bit and mix it, let it simmer... freaking delicious!

I like food, especially from my favorite restaurants

I do a pretty good job making versions of my favorite restaurant foods. But they never quite the same. Lately I have been making my own pizzas, I have my favorite ones down. I have been wanting to make my favorite soup from Olive Garden now. The Pasta e fagioli. I finally found a good recipe for it online.

See it here:

Click Here!

making tortillas

i found a recipe, it was fairly simple... flour, salt, lard, water... but apparently getting a good tortilla out if is the hard part. i rolled me out really thin, have the perfect pan for cooking them... but they still are not quite what i would expect... they get kinda crunchy... anyone out there know what i am doing wrong?