Pages

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Cookies!


Long before I was brought into the world, there was a tradition of Christmas cookie baking in my family. My aunt over at Terri's Kitchen has been the keeper of the cookies for many years and I've taken up the tradition over the last few years. The butter cookies started way back with my great grandmother and the recipe has been passed down along through my aunt to me.

My aunt always made chocolate chip cookies, Russian Tea Cakes, butter cookies and booze balls ( which I think I was too young to partake in). For the past few years I've done the chocolate chip and the tea cakes, but this year I took a stab at the butter cookies. I always remember the butter cookies being the most festive looking since they come in all different shapes and have sprinkles and fun colors.

I needed to procure a cookie press, which was more difficult than I expected. Despite the fact that the Target website claimed to have them, I couldn't find any in the stores. Luckily Party City came to the rescue or I would have had to try rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters.The cookie dough is pretty simple to make, although the temperature has to be just right so it comes out of the cookie press right. At first I felt really stupid trying to use the press because according to the box all you do is squeeze the trigger on the side and the cookies come out but nothing was happening. After a few frustrating minutes wondering what I could be doing wrong I realized that the handle has to face a certain way or the press won't work ( actually I looked up the Cookie Pro instructional video which actually tells you how to position the handle, which is something the box leaves out). Once I got that then it was easy as pie... well easy as cookies. I think the cookie press might be my new favorite kitchen toy. You can make so many cookies so quickly and they come out in perfect little shapes. The press comes with 12 different disks to make your cookies in various shapes. I opted for Christmas tree shapes, as well as a few of the other traditional ones I remember growing up


One batch got green food coloring, since it seemed appropriate for the trees. I also decorated with green sugar, red sugar and colored dot sprinkles. With my fancy new stacking racks I got from Target I was able to cool all my cookies out on my kitchen table. Based on the way everyone has been gobbling up the butter cookies I'm pretty sure they're going over well. I don't think there will be any left for Santa...

Dad handled cooking the chocolate chip cookies and I made the dough for the tea cakes at the same time as I made the butter cookies then froze it to prepare in PA. The tea cakes are one of my favorites because they're buttery and covered in powdered sugar. A quick pop in the oven followed by a roll in the powdered sugar while still warm, then another roll in sugar when they are cooled off and presto! Yummy cookies!



So now we are prepared for Christmas, just in time since it's Christmas Eve!!! Now it's time to relax!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Road Raging Pet Peeve


Today I'm an angry driver because gas prices suck! Up here in NY everything is horribly expensive, and truth be told, the prices have actually come down in the last month or so. Today I'm pissed off not so much about the prices, but about the price deception.

I've started to see gas prices drop by 30-45 cents in some places, especially further west, but at most of these gas stations, that is the cash price. They usually don't advertise this fact too well, so when you make a sudden turn into the gas station with the $3.55 price, only to discover that the credit price is $3.79, it's pretty irritating. Now, I never have cash on me, or very rarely have enough to cover a tank of gas, so I really dislike this. Most stations appear to charge the credit price for the debit card, but at Shell the other night, I actually got the cash price for my debit card. Goooo Shell!

I've been told that in other states they've made it illegal to have a discrepancy between cash price and credit price. I'd strongly support New York doing that. So Road Raging Pet Peeve of the Week, Gas Price Discrepancy.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Adventures in Gluten Free

Although I'm sure my Italian family, both living and dead, would likely have a panic attack if they are or were able to read this, I am nevertheless going to write about my experience with Gluten Free Pasta. GASP!!!

I'm not a huge fan of food trends, that is, suddenly becoming obsessed with some type of food for no apparent reason, however as I'm sure I've mentioned before, I have been curious about the anti-gluten craze. Generally speaking, most gluten free is out of my budget and since I haven't been tested and told I'm allergic to gluten, I don't feel the need to rush out and buy tons of it. That said, I've read a bit about gluten and it really is in almost everything we eat. I'm fairly distrusting of the processed foods we eat on a regular basis, so I'm curious about these products, plus I grew up having all kinds of crazy digestive problems, so I find alternative concepts interesting.

I purchased gluten free pasta (gasp!) some time ago and have yet to have the motivation to try it, until the other day. This brand was called Tinkyada and is made of brown rice. Yea, I was skeptical too. How could this possibly live up to REAL pasta? The package claims it will be al-dente and not mushy, which I'm guessing is a problem with some other gluten frees.
As I watched it cook up in the boiling water I was a bit concerned about the residue in the water, which had a different look from pasta water, obviously. It did deliver on texture though. I tasted one to make sure it was ready and sure enough it had the right texture, much to my surprise. Eaten just on it's own without any sauce it tasted a lot like brown rice, but I cooked up a nice mixture of peas and onions to go with my sauce and poured it over the top.





It was good! It really was. I don't think I would have known the difference if someone just handed it to me. I'm genuinely astounded and I'd recommend this brand to anyone who finds themselves in need of gluten free.

As far as nutrition though, it really doesn't differ much from regular pasta. In fact, it has slightly higher sodium, slightly less vitamins and about the same of everything else. So, maybe it won't win any awards as far as ultra healthy, but it is made of brown rice, which can be good in moderation ( or possibly not, as brown rice contains some substantial amount of arsenic apparently. But can't everything possibly kill you?). Either way, it's a tasty pasta alternate, although there doesn't seem to be a tremendous benefit to eating it over pasta unless you have to. Thumbs up gluten free.
Stay tuned for my investigation into the pros and cons of Soy products.

Playing with Fire

I've mentioned before that I had an awesome meal cooked for me, and now I've had two. SWB has kindly cooked me two lovely and fiery meals. I've never flambeed anything in my life so watching two of my meals get set on fire was pretty awesome.

Meal 1: Steak Flambe in Rum with Mushrooms with Banana Chocolate Amaretto Flambe
I sadly didn't think about photos until after the fire was gone, but let me tell you, the drippings, alcohol and mushrooms were one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten. I just wanted a whole carton of mushrooms in that sauce!




This steak of course prompted much singing of the Steak and Eggs song from Family Guy. If you don't know what I'm talking about take a look.


Meal 2: Salmon flambe with mushrooms
I couldn't find tuna so salmon became the fish of choice, and in an attempt to get back the yummy steak mushrooms I chose mushrooms as the 'vegetable' again. It was quite a tasty salmon, rare on the inside, but thoroughly cooked with fire. We still used rum, but it had less of the sweet taste that came with the meat. This time I got pictures!




Playing with fire.... definitely fun!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

The Weekend Update


I traveled to Jersey for the holiday and was rewarded with lower gas prices ($3.20- $3.40!)
I also braved that dangerous post-holiday madness called Black Friday by getting up with the chickens and going to the mall ( no sales tax!). Unfortunately, Bergen County, where said mall is, still has Blue Laws which prevent it from opening before 7am. I was there at 6:15am. Don't ask me how I managed to get out of bed. I don't know.

The roads were great in the morning. Not a soul. The parking lot even had spaces in it. But as the day went on there were more and more people and it became more aggravating. Even worse, I had to go back Saturday because they forgot to take the security tag off something I purchased.

I became irritated by the following things:
1. Why do people have to walk around with iPods etc. in their ears in a mall? First off, how loud does your music have to be to hear in a mall, and second, really, you can't walk around without music for five seconds? This always bothered me on campus as well, especially since it took about 5 minutes to walk across my entire campus. I really think all these sci-fi stories about controlling our minds aren't that far off with all the stuff we have plugged into our brains. Dr. Who was right!
2. Driving around parking lots/ structures is absolutely the worst. People seem to lose their minds entirely. One woman tried to keep edging out of her space when my car was blocking her because I was stuck in a line of traffic. Shockingly it's very difficult for me to move when other people are blocking me. People also get very catty when it comes to parking spots and staking their claim on one. They also tend to drive like lunatics.
3. Why are there no book stores in the mall???!!! Oh right, cause Borders went out of business.

Actually, aside from the parking lots, I found New Jersey driving very tame. I wonder if I'm really becoming a fearsome Long Island girl. I do drive Jeep now.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Milk as Clothes?

My mom brought this article to my attention and I think it is well worth sharing. A designer/ scientist came up with a way to make clothing out of milk. It's organic, uses a lot less waste and money than using cotton or silk and it feels great.

Coming to you from Germany.... Qmilch

Pictures from the Traumatic Winter Storm

I just realized that I have a few photos from the freak snow storm where I slept in the car so I thought I would share.These first two are on the way to Ithaca when the first little bits of snow came down. T-Rex's first snow with me!




Leaving PA the day after I slept in the Jeep...


My Baby went through hell and looks it too...

The Best Berries are Cranberries!

Wow, time is flying by. This is our busy season at work, seeing as we are in the business of giving out food. I doubt I will have much free time until January. I can't even fathom that next week is Thanksgiving! Ahhh! Delicious foodie love must be given to this holiday!

In the world of my kitchen and other food events there's actually a decent amount to report. I've had a delicious meal cooked for me recently, also have been enjoying making different things with my bag of fresh cranberries. YAY! I LOVE cranberries. So awesome. At the moment I can smell my cranberry corn muffins baking up in the oven and it's fantastic!

Last week I made Cranberry Zucchini bread. I'd bought zucchini with the express purpose of making it into bread, because really, what else do you do with it that tastes good? I was trying to figure out what I'd make with the cranberries so it seemed logical to put them together. I checked the interwebs for a recipe and sure enough there were many.

I love the way cranberries look cut up! They have that cool inside that looks like a flower. The recipe was pretty straight forward and didn't involve too much work. Everyone in the house really liked it. I never got to bring it in to the office because it was too good!

The other great part about baking this bread was that I got to use new Super Awesome ginger bread spatula from Target!! I can feel the Christmas spirit.....

Now we have the cranberry corn muffins which are a combination of home made and prepared. I coated cranberries in some light oil and a nice sprinkling of sugar then added them to Jiffy corn muffin mix. I threw in a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg and another pinch of sugar into the batter.

There might not have been quite enough sugar to cut the tartness of the cranberries, but they look gorgeous! The color is fantastic, although I wish the muffin browned up a bit more.



I still think they taste awesome. They could definitely do with a bit of honey or sugar on the butter when you eat them, but it also depends how many cranberries are in each muffin. I already ate two of them, and there are only 8, so I doubt they will last terribly long since I'm eying a third one.
I still have cranberries left so I'm going to make them into something if I feel motivated between now and Thanksgiving. Suggestions welcome! Now let the Holidays begin!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

First Snow and How I Spent the Last Night of My Vacation Sleeping in My Jeep


Those of you located in the North East may have noticed that we got pummeled by a snow storm two weekends ago, before it was even November. I was excited at the first sight of snow, thinking it would just be a little flurry and then pass.

I could have avoided the whole storm entirely if I had stayed in Long Island, but as it happened this was my vacation and I went to New Jersey and Ithaca NY. In New Jersey I stopped and picked up my baby, the new Jeep. I will properly introduce her in another post. Thank God I got the jeep or I would have been in serious trouble in this storm.

On the way up to Ithaca Thursday I hit the first flurries. It wasn't too bad, although it definitely was coming down more than I expected. By the time I reached Ithaca it basically stopped. There was no snow on Friday and on Saturday afternoon I was warned about the storm coming in. I wanted to leave in the late afternoon and hopefully beat it before I got stuck in Ithaca. This apparently was a mistake.

My route home was to go south and west, which means going through PA and then NJ and NY. The snow started coming down not far outside of Ithaca but it was light. The more I went on the harder the snow got. I'm driving a nice big Wrangler now mind you, and it's supposed to be made for rough conditions. At a certain point I realized I wasn't going to make it home that night. I thought about just trying to make it to my parents house in NJ, but then I realized that even that was too far for the conditions at hand. I was 3 hours away from home and 2 hours away from NJ. We reached a point on the highway where it was almost impossible to see and me and the person in front of me were doing about 20 mph or less. That's when I knew it was time to get off the road and find a place to stay. My car actually spun out across the road also, which made me definitely not want to continue.

I found a gas station off the highway and pulled over. The girl inside told me I'd have to go to the Poconos area to find some place to stay. Luckily I have a GPS in my car and used it to look up nearby lodging. The Poconos was considerably farther than the nearest place I could find on my GPS and I did not want to go far and risk spinning out into the middle of the road again. I was hoping for a motel six but instead I found an Inn in Sterling PA. I called them to make sure they had space and they did.I shall let the place remain anonymous.

Getting there turned out to be quite a chore. I became more and more concerned as I started traveling down smaller and smaller roads. Luckily I discovered how to use my 4 wheel drive and then felt much more confident about driving. At least I wasn't afraid of skidding every two minutes. I was a bit concerned that I was heading to the Bates Motel so I let a few people know where I was, just in case anything bad happened. I was almost at the hotel, going down a small hill when my car spun out again. It was pretty terrifying, especially since I was on an incline. I completely spun around on the road. Luckily it was totally desolate.

I reached the Inn, which was hard to find in the now massive covering of snow. I had to figure out where the driveway was because all I could see was snow. The guy I'd spoken to on the phone was there waiting for me. It turned out that the place was pretty nice ( although all the reviews I've read say it's not in good shape but I was far too tired and overwhelmed to notice and there was a ton of snow covering everything). They had just opened for the season but still wanted $100 for a room, which was apparently the cheapest of their rooms. The guy who was behind the desk was actually just watching the place for the owner, so he didn't know a lot about what was going on. He offered to try and bring the price down since I said I really couldn't afford that. He called the owner and was trying to get the price down for me. Unfortunately there's still tax so the cost was $88.

I paid, put my purse down in the room and then realized I had no cell phone reception. I was trying to find a spot where I could make a call so someone knew I was alive. My jeep seemed to be the only place I could get even spotty reception. I went outside to get my bags and to make a call from the Jeep. I was on the phone for a while and when I got out into the snow again to go back inside the door was locked. There wasn't anyone else at the inn, although apparently there were some people across the way at some little houses, but I didn't know that.

I rang the door bell over and over again and banged on the door in the hopes of trying to wake up the person inside. I could see a light under the door inside and down the hall so I couldn't understand why no one could hear me. The place was otherwise deserted. I kept ringing and banging on the door and even managed one phone call to the Inn before my phone died. No one was responding so I decided to search for another way inside. I walked around the house, in 2 feet of snow, wearing only my thin canvass converse shoes and getting my pants soaked up the leg with snow. I could see where the light was on in the back but each door I tried provided no help. There was a back office door which seemed unconnected and another door up a staircase all the way in the back ( I seriously investigated every entrance). From the door up the stairs I could see my room, which made it even more infuriating. I seriously contemplated breaking the glass at one point, but that seemed like a bad idea.

I couldn't even tell where the hotel clerk was sleeping in the house, because I wanted to try and throw something at the window. I walked around and around, tried the front door again was pretty ready to give up. All the way in the back was another building, which I thought might have been more lodging. There was a door, which I didn't expect to be open, since I thought it went to more rooms. Surprisingly it did open, but it opened into some sort of boiler room or heating room. I thought about sleeping there because it was warm, but it was so tiny that I would have had to sit huddled up on the floor and I had already tracked snow in. I figured if I got really cold I could come and warm up there.

By this point my feet were freezing so I just resigned myself to sleeping in the Jeep. I turned the car on, blasted the heater and took off my shoes to try and get warm. Lucky for me I had a whole backseat full of clean laundry so I changed socks and pants and was able to be decently comfortable. Thankfully my mom had given me a heavy jacket before I left so I used it as a blanket and piled on some other clothes and a lighter jacket. I had to turn the car off obviously so the heat went with it. I used a few towels from my laundry to add warmth and it wasn't too terrible. I lay the passenger side seat down and tried to sleep on that. I have slept in my car before, although not the Jeep, so it wasn't a totally crazy experience. The hardest part was staying warm. I woke up a few times and turned the car on so I could have heat, but once the sun came up I slept a lot better.

I wanted to make sure that in the morning when I got out of the car that someone would be there to open the door, because I wasn't really in the mood to soak my shoes again. They had told me that breakfast was at 9am so I figured by 8 or so there would be someone awake. I woke up probably a quarter to 8 and heard voices so I knew I could get inside. I hopped out of the car, not really wanting to explain that I spent all night in the Jeep. The Inn clerk was confused when I showed up at the door and horrified when I explained my experience.

He apologized profusely and clearly felt really terrible. He told me immediately he would refund the money and told me to come in and have coffee and breakfast. I warmed up with some coffee and made myself an English Muffin while he called his manager on the phone. They refunded me the money for the room ( yay!) and let me use the room anyway for a while. I got to go upstairs and warm up and sleep for a few hours on the giant bed. I wasn't keen on staying long since I'd already spent way more time than I wanted to getting home but I really needed the sleep. I headed out as soon as I was rested and found the roads in perfectly good shape.

I was exhausted by the time I got home, but thankfully all in one piece. Since no one at work is ever going to let me live this down, I figured I might as well write about it and share it for all. It's also a lot less energy to write it down than to keep retelling it in all its glory. So that folks, is how I spent my Saturday night sleeping in my Jeep.

OMG PUMKIN SPICE!



There's a whole lot to catch up on, but first I must gush about my new discovery, Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses!!

When Hershey's started adding flavors to their kisses I was totally on board. I think that Hershey's chocolate by itself is pretty boring and not all that good ( yes I know, blasphemy!). Now they have everything from mint to caramel inside the Kisses and they are yummy. This is my first experience with the pumpkin spice ones. I think they are amazing. I don't taste any chocolate, they just taste like delicious pumpkin goodness. This is what I want a pumpkin latte to taste like! Apparently these have been around for a while, but I never knew.

They were on sale at Target in the post-Halloween candy blow out sale and cost me a grand total of 80 cents for the bag. Or you could pay $16 on Amazon and get a bag, but who does that?

The best part about them? They're orange outside! I think there is white chocolate inside, thus the reason they don't taste like real chocolate. They are on the sweet side, that seems to be the main complaint from the world at large, but I think they are awesome.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Awesome Birthday Soup

One of my room mate's birthday is today and so I offered to cook something ( for yesterday cause I had work today). I was planning on going for cupcakes or something dessert related but he requested creamy potato and broccoli soup. He's somewhat lactose intolerant so he asked if it could be made with as little dairy as possible. I'm always up for a challenge so I browsed through a few different types of recipes to get some ideas. I looked at potato leek soup, Panera cream cheese potato soup, non-dairy mashed potatoes and a few others. At the conclusion of my research I had a pretty good idea of how to create a nice non-dairy soup. I think that it came out pretty kickin' considering that I've never made potato soup before. I might have added a little less broccoli and cooked the potatoes for a little shorter so they held together better, but I think overall it achieved success. A little cheese thrown on top wouldn't hurt either.

So here's my recipe for Vegan Potato Broccoli soup: (I didn't measure anything so it's a little vague)
Ingredients-
2 small or 1 large head of broccoli

3 russet potatoes

1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
Olive oil
Plain Soy Milk
Vegetable stock
( or chicken stock if you're not cooking for vegetarians)
Toffuti 'cream cheese'
1 tsp Flour
Sprig of
Fresh Rosemary
Salt, pepper, Onion powder to taste


Instructions:
Peel potatoes and cut into small chunks. Add potatoes and vegetable stock to a pot. Potatoes should be covered so add water if there's not enough stock (ideally all stock would be better but I didn't have enough). Boil potatoes until just tender.

Meanwhile, dice the onion and the garlic and saute in a pan with oil until nicely browned. Chop broccoli florets into halves. Add the onions and garlic to a large soup pot with the broccoli. Add a little oil to the pan and cook the broccoli. After 2 minutes add a few teaspoons of water to the pot to help steam the broccoli.
When the potatoes are tender add half the stock water to the large pot and continue to cook the broccoli. Add all the potatoes. Mash a few of the pieces to release starch and to thicken the soup. Add soymilk until creamy. Make sure you use plain soymilk, not vanilla or the taste will be sweet. The soup will still be pretty thin at this point. Add three healthy tablespoons of tofutti. Add Rosemary for taste. Add salt and pepper for taste. Onion powder can be added as well.

If soup needs thickening ( which I think it does) mix flour in a small bowl with a small amount of soy milk. Stir until mixed thoroughly and add to the soup. This will help thicken it up nicely.

Taste the soup to see if it needs anything. I needed to add a bit more salt and pepper. The soup has a nice creamy quality without having any dairy in it! Of course you can add a nice sprinkle of cheese on top if you want too. Enjoy with a bagel flat!

And what else goes well with a delicious soup? Pie of course! I had a can of pumpkin so I couldn't resist making a nice pumpkin pie. It's insanely simple, except for needing to buy the spices. It's basically a can of pumpkin + sweetened condensed milk +Eggs+ ginger, nutmeg and Cinnamon and a pie crust. Bam! Pumpkin Pie!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Don't Trust the Gorton's Fishermen


Even if the commercials tell you to trust the Gorton's fisherman, don't do it.

It's a rare occasion ( less rare than it used to be) that I actually want to eat fish, but sometimes the mood strikes me, as with the recent tuna post, so I go for it. Meandering down the frozen food aisle, I found Gorton's Breaded fish fillet's. I'd been planning to cook something nice and healthy, but abandoned it on discovering these crunchy breaded fillets and I opted to eat them for dinner instead.

The instructions stated that 17-20 minutes in an oven at 420 would cook them up to golden, crispy perfection. My oven, as I may have mentioned, seems to be extraordinarily hot, so I checked them early. When I went to flip them over, I noticed that they seemed incredibly oily. Thank God I didn't fry them, which is what I thought about doing originally. I let them cook all the way, in the hopes that they would crisp up some more.

Sadly they were still very oily when they were ready to come out. The fish inside was pretty dissapointing too. You could tell that it was an actually fish, which at least was good, but it became very mushy around where the breading was and the overall texture was mush soaked in oil. Overall I found them pretty lame. Despite the fact that they look nice on a plate, I'm giving them a big thumbs down :(

They're heeeeere!


Another Delicious Sign of the Season .... the Holidays are coming. Let's be happy!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Dinner Adventures... Quorn off the Cob


A few days ago I was browsing the fridge for dinner options ( I agreed to cook for my room mate as well) and I decided to use my favorite new anti-meat product Quorn.

I think I may have mentioned these before, and if I haven't then really I should have. Quorn is a meat substitute made from fungus, yes fungus. Mushroom are fungi, however according to the people at Quorn, there are over 600,000 types of fungi. A quick little bit of research indicates that Quorn has been a top seller in the UK and was only recently introduced to the States.

It's made of Mycoprotien, which is a specific type of fungus. The website describes it here:
"Mycoprotein is the main ingredient in all Quorn products. It's made from a member of the fungi family, which includes mushrooms and truffles, and is a high-quality meat-free protein that's naturally low in fat with very few calories."

My room mate bought the Quorn 'chicken' nuggets, which I tried once, and so I bought the 'chicken' tenders, which are supposed to emulate bits of grilled chicken. I have tried a pretty sizable amount of imitation meat products, having grown up in a half vegetarian household, but I think that by far Quorn takes the cake over all of them. The first time I tried it, I literally did a food double-take because I could not believe it wasn't real. Unfortunately, it's also pretty expensive, which is why I've only bought one package so far.

So, now what to do with the Quorn. I pulled some things out of the pantry and off the shelves and wound up browning up the Quorn tenders in a pan with some onions, adding peppers ( the rest of which I roasted and they came out fabulously!) and topping off with a can of tomatoes. It wasn't quite as liquidy as I wanted so I supplemented with a little bit of tomato sauce and a tiny bit of stir fry sauce.

I'd also recently purchased a package of rice vermicelli noodle sticks to try ( I've been getting curious about the gluten free craze going on... but that's for another post). Although the dish was not remotely Asian, I wanted to see how the noodles would mix with my creation. The noodles cook up in just a few minutes and with the help of a little oil they mixed in pretty nicely to the Quorn dish.

Once I tried the dish, I realized that I had made my own version of a dish my mom used to make and that was one of my favorites growing up- Spaghetti squash and veal ( or fake meat). The rice noodles have a similar texture to the squash and her dish also had a tomato base with pepper and of course a protein source. So now I have my own version. I got a big thumbs up from my room mate as well.

I have yet to see too many stores carrying the Quorn products, but hopefully it will become more popular, and perhaps a little cheaper? There are Quorn burgers, Quorn turkey and all sorts of other goodies to try. As with other meat substitutes ( including soy) there isn't a lot of information about what ingesting this type of product can do long term. There have been claims of allergies etc. but so far I haven't found anything serious. Some controversy is surrounding the product because it markets itself as mushroom based, and the Advertising Standards Authority contested that while it is fungus based, it is not mushroom based.

Quorn actually was first released in the UK in 1996 and in the US in 2002. It was originally developed to combat the predicted shortage of food and of protein in the average person's diet. The name comes from a town in the UK.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Tuna Two Ways

When I moved out East, I bought a Foreman Grill at Target because it was ridiculously cheap and it seemed like a fun way to cook things. It was only $15 but it is also pretty tiny, which works nicely for my lack of counter space.

A while back, I also purchased a nice frozen, air-locked 3- pack of tuna steaks from Trader Joe's. I've bought their fish once before and it was pretty tasty, so I figured it's a good thing to have on hand. I rediscovered the fish in my freezer the other day and decided it was time to get them cooking.

The tuna thawed all day in the fridge, which only left me with the problem of what to do with it. I decided to test out the grill, which so far has been sitting in the box, unopened. I wanted to test out a few methods though, so I decided one for the grill and two for the oven. I have had this packaged thai peanut seasoning that I've been wanting to try out as well so I coated two steaks in the seasoning and let one marinate in a ziplock bag with oil, vinegar, onion powder, garlic salt and a little soy sauce.

The grill was a little scary because it was brand new and smelled weirdly of new material. I decided to test it out on a few carrots that weren't in good shape anyway. You can see them there at the bottom in the drip pan when I took them out.
It seemed safe enough to cook so as my tuna steaks with Thai peanut coating were in the oven I put the marinated one on the grill. It cooked up really fast and came out with those pretty grill marks. I think the grilled one came out just perfectly done.

The others were good but I think they could have come out of the oven sooner. I was afraid of under cooking them so I think I overcooked them a tiny bit. They still tasted good, but the grilled one was the perfect texture.

I really enjoyed the Thai peanut coating though. It had a really nice kick to it. The box comes with two packages and I only needed one for the tuna steaks.


I cooked up some frozen french cut green beans to go with my meal and I was done. They were a little underwhelming, but don't they look pretty?