Al Dente

My room mate and I recently had a slight disagreement over cooking pasta and what it means to properly cook pasta. As all my Italian relatives will know, I've been raised with the expectation that pasta should be cooked al dente, from the Italian, literally meaning ' to the tooth'. This means the pasta has a little resistance, some spring still left in it.

We often share food, particularly pasta because it is easy to cook a large amount of it and silly to cook a very small amount. It's pretty much impossible to mess up pasta so for a while I was trying to figure out why something wasn't quite right when he made it. I finally realized it was just a bit too soft, a point he emphasized when he complained to me last week that I hadn't cooked it enough. I argued it was al dente and that's the way it was supposed to be, but he insisted it was undercooked. I suppose it's a matter of taste and what you grew up with. Eating some pasta he cooked tonight reminded me to write about it. We could also argue over sauce, but I admit I'm somewhat of a sauce snob so that's not even worth it.

For those who insist on getting their pasta just right, there's even a device to tell you when time is up. I'm not sure if anyone actually uses this but it's good for a laugh. Apparently this singing al dente timer will play opera for you after 7-9 minutes of cooking your pasta.

Yes, his name is Al and sadly he seems to no longer be available. Sad days.

Cooking Marathon

You may have noticed that I like to cook in what I now call cooking marathons, ie. cook a lot at once so I can eat for the week. Today I had a bit of a marathon, which I prepped for yesterday. I've decided it's time to start getting some meat back in my diet; meat that I choose and prepare, not the fast food kind mentioned previously. I also wanted to use my George Foreman grill again since it has been sitting useless in my kitchen since I used it for tuna. For some reason my pictures didn't come out great, probably cause I have bad lighting in the kitchen, but you should get the idea.

The Marinades:
Yesterday I prepared three plastic bags with marinades and put the chicken in to soak up the flavor.
1. Hot Sauce ( First it was chili paste, now I'm obsessed with hot sauce, you know, the kind you slather all over bbq wings. Wow, it's so tasty. Aside from a horrific amount of sodium, there's nothing nutritionally bad about it.)
2. Chili paste and oil
3. Oil, balsamic, garlic salt, onion powder, fresh rosemary, lemon, chopped garlic

The Cooking
As part of the marathon I cooked with three different devices, four if you count a microwave.
1. The Grill- On the George Foreman I cooked up my 3 different kinds of chicken starting with the balsamic. They came out beautifully tender and full of flavor. I think each one was unique and great in it's own way. The rosemary really came through in the balsamic chicken. I also cut up some orange peppers and put them in the bag that had the hot sauce in it, then cooked them up on the grill.

2. The Oven- I've had sweet potatoes sitting on top of the fridge for weeks and somehow never wanted to deal with them. Tonight I finally decided to slice and bake em. Probably it's not the healthiest route, but it is delicious. I sliced them thin and rolled them in oil, salt and rosemary. If you have rosemary on hand, it really is a great flavoring agent. I must say they came out just perfect after 30 mins in the oven. They were beautifully soft and flavored just right. Win!




3. The Stove/ Microwave- I wanted to make some sort of vegetable and discovered fresh green beans that I'd frozen a while back. I thawed them in the microwave then cooked them up in a pan with some mushrooms. The texture was a little softer than I'd have liked, but it was still tasty.



So my meal tonight consisted of chili chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans and peppers. And I have leftovers!

Here's my chicken in order from left to right: balsamic, hot sauce, chili.
'And that's my somewhat healthy cooking. Probably up next is some matzoh ball soup and then who knows!

Am I the only person who just wants to drink half and half sometimes?

I know, it's kind of disgusting, but it's also kind of awesome. I'm not saying I want to down a whole container of it, but sometimes, I'd like to drink just a little. I had a room mate who used it like milk. I wouldn't go that far, but sometimes you just want something super rich and creamy. I generally reserve it for my coffee though, but I'm sure other people must have this impulse on occasion?

Since we're on the topic of things that are terrible for you, I'd like to put in a word on fast food. I've probably mentioned that I've eaten more of it this year than in the past, somewhat for financial reasons and somewhat because I'm lazy and well, let's face it, it just tastes good. In any case, I had to watch Supersize Me in my Foundations of Holistic Health class. It's not the first time I've watched it, but it still is a fairly fascinating and horrifying look at the world of fast food, particularly McDonalds. If you aren't familiar with the movie, it's basically a documentary of a guy in good health who decides to eat nothing but what's on the McDonalds menu for 30 days. Not surprisingly it's absolutely horrible for his health and emotional well being.

Two things occur after watching this movie: 1. I have an inexplicable craving for a fast food burger ( though not Mickey Dees. They're the worst offender.) and 2. I feel revolted by fast food in general.
Both of these occur at the same time unfortunately. I did succumb to a Burger King Whopper the other day out of convenience. I've also learned that if I don't eat before class, or bring food, that I'm tempted to indulge in fast food because it's there and it's easy.

With all this mention of class, I should probably note that I recently, as in two weeks ago, started attending school to become a licensed massage therapist. That's actually a lot more work than it sounds like believe it or not since you have to learn anatomy and all that good stuff. So now I'm employed and in school and trying to promote my jewelry shop as well so I can have more money yay. Oh and trying to stay healthy... I'll write a bit more about that in the next post since this one was devoted to unhealthy stuff.

Soups Galore

Now that apparently it has decided to be winter, it's a good season to break out the soups.
I've also been on the borderline of sick since after Christmas and there's one thing that is always a cure: chicken soup! If you're sick, you have to make chicken soup. My mom always did, but I've never made my own until now.

The process is actually a lot simpler than I imagined. Really all you need is chicken broth, some veggies and some chicken. Of course you could go old school and make your own broth, but let's not get carried away. According to my mom you can either use chicken that's skinned already or use chicken that has skin which will need more cooking time but will also make the broth richer. The second version also requires you to scoop the fat off the top of the soup after it cools.

I tried the skinless version. There weren't a huge amount of choices in chicken pieces, and as I've mentioned before, I'm pretty picky about the meat I buy, when I do buy meat. I bought some fairly thin breast pieces and tossed them in a pot with chicken broth, chopped carrots, chopped celery, chopped garlic, dill, and dried parsley. Everything boils for about half an hour and voila! you have chicken soup. I think for my first try it came out very well.Soup number 2 was based loosely on a recipe for split pea turnip soup, which I think also came from mom. I had looked at the recipe vaguely a few times but it involves a crock pot and dried split peas so I just created my own version using frozen turnips and frozen peas.

I boiled vegetable stock with frozen turnips, frozen peas, celery, garlic and a potato cut in chunks. I also added onion powder, a pinch of turmeric, a pinch of paprika. I boiled it all for about half an hour or so then let it cool off a bit and blended it with the handheld blender or 'motorboat'. I left chunks in it, but I blended the majority of it.

Above is the photo before the blend and below is after the blend.


It came out nice and hearty like I was hoping. It's a great winter soup! Nice amount of flavor and a good texture. Soup for the win!

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!

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.

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.