Week In Food: May 28
May 29th, 2012 § 1 Comment
Finally back to the spreadsheet after the crazy couple weeks kept us from sitting down and planning our weekly dinners. In that time, we learned a couple things:
- If we’re going to the farmers market on Saturday morning, it would behoove us to plan our week before we are actually at the market.
- Attempting to plan a week’s dinners while I’m man-struating or heat-cranky or whatever the case was for me this past weekend is the opposite of productive. The conversation was basically Britt asking me, “What do you want Tuesday?” and me saying, “I don’t know. What do you want Tuesday?” and repeating that for pretty much every day of the week.
This week got a little wonky. We had a plan, then had to deviate last night, then had another plan, and given some more plan shifts, are deviating again. But, I think this accounts for all the crazy that’s come about.
Monday: We were going to do biscuits & gravy, but had to opt for frozen pizza due to a milk shortage.
Tuesday: Pasta & Meatballs w/ Tyler Gobble
Wednesday: Grilled salmon salad (w/ greens fresh from the garden!)
Thursday: Farro Risotto
Friday: Leftover-meatball subs before First Friday Art Walk
Also, if all goes according to plan, I’m carving out the afternoon this Sunday to actually cook something for a PIIYF post again. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had the time to do that.
Wilbe! Right back!
May 23rd, 2012 § 4 Comments
I’ve been a bit inattentive to PIIYF the past couple weeks, because I’ve been out livin’ like a boss. It’s spring/summer here in Indianapolis right now, so pretty much all my free time has been spent in my backyard getting blisters and sunburns.
You see, it all started with Britt’s decision that a 9ft-by-9ft section of our driveway needed repaired because evidently, someone buried a giant squid beneath it, and it grew so big, it cracked and pushed up the aforementioned section of our driveway about 8 inches from where it should have been. So, I sledgehammered the all hell out of that concrete, grabbed a shovel, and with the help of my dad, brother, and a chainsaw, hacked the beast free.
Squid Root.
Then came about a month of intermittent prep work of digging and leveling and filling in with base rock, and finally last Sunday, Dad, my brother, and my pal Tyler came, and we poured the fresh slab.
I went out last night, and dug the hole for the final fence post, which we were waiting until we had the driveway patched before installing. I concreted that fucker into the ground, and tonight, I’m going to tamp the dirt back around it, and hang the last 2 sections of fence, which completes the major backyard projects for now.
The last post is set.
I’ve been spending the last few days strutting around my yard feeling like a grown ass man having done stuff like poured concrete and hung fence and you should see how my garden is growing. I AM MAN OF THE EARTH! My masculine ego right now is about as phallic at that last fence post sticking out of the earth might suggest.
Anyway, soon, my ego will grow flaccid when I remember I’m a dude with a food blog (a hobby on the complete opposite end of the masculinity scale as “pouring concrete” and “killing animals for sport”), I’ll grab my camera during magic hour, and shoot some good photos of my newly-minted backyard and all the fresh goodness growing from it.
I’ll also get back into my weekly food planning, and perhaps I’ll even take some time this weekend to cook something so I can post a recipe here again.
Wolf Pack In the Woods 2012
May 9th, 2012 § 6 Comments
Two weekends ago, I went into the woods with 3 of my newly closest friends, Tyler, Ashley, and Layne. The 4 of us comprise what we affectionately and only half-ironically call “The Wolf Pack.” We were a group of friends born of a trip to the magical Akron, Ohio last January, which you may recall hearing about here at PIIYF. This year, Ashley turns 25 years old, and she has a list of 25 things to accomplish before she turns 25, things she’s never done before. One of those things is camping.
Mississinewa is a little state recreation area in northern Indiana, a campground where Tyler spent a decent part of his childhood, and not all too far from where the 4 of us live in Indianapolis, Muncie, and Elwood respectively. So, to check yet another bit of goodness off Ashley’s list, we all piled into my Montero Sport, and went north into the woods.
“Well, there wasn’t any overt racism here.”
On the way there, we stopped in Swayzee, IN (no, not like Patrick Swayze; Tyler will fight you about this) to get dinner at Social’s Cafe. As you might imagine, Ashley is particularly attuned to identifying the precursors of a possible racial altercation while venturing out into tiny-town Indiana, and flags were raised when upon walking in, there were numerous Palin 2012 stickers still bedecking the door and many of the booths. Luckily, aside from some mean-mugging from a particularly old and codgerly looking man, we got by unscathed, though my pork tenderloin was more of an air bubble than a meat patty, and Layne was unable to finish a turkey club the size of her head.
We arrived at Mississinewa, set up camp, built a fire, and spent some chill time around the fire drinking and talking and repeating repeating. It was mostly uneventful for anyone other than us. We have plenty of things to laugh about from that night, but they are all of the “you had to be there” variety.
The next morning, we hung out together in a tent until the rain subsided, and decided to head into a nearby town for lunch and so I could pick up some beef and perishables for the nachos we’d have later that day. Upon seeing the sign for Mr. Weenies, we couldn’t pass it up.
Weenies had a formidable menu, to say the least. They sold a variety of hot dogs, as you’d expect, along with Weenie Burgers, which were 1/3 pound and thus the opposite of weenie. They also sold “panties.” It was on the menu, I swear.
I don’t know, man. Merchandising, I guess.
We ate, my pork tenderloin making up for the bogus PT at Social’s the night before, and putting down a chocolate malt that owned my life. And my stomach. I really need to start acting and eating like I’m lactose intolerant.
I bought beef and nachos were made that night.
Beefy nachos were beefy.
There was more chicanery involving fire and laughter and a particularly friendly raccoon. I won’t bore you with our inside jokes. I’ll make with the bacon and egg breakfast supplied by Ashley and Layne the next morning.
Due to cooking over the camp stove and its inability to turn down to anything below what most rangetops would consider medium-high heat, I ended up frying the bacon at a much higher temperature than normal, and it turned out perfect. Normally I cook it slow, let it render and then crisp, but it tends still to be rubbery and tough in spots. Not this bacon. It was straight crisp and bacony. I’m going to have to try this method at home and see what kind of results I get. I think I’ve been cooking bacon all wrong…
Anyway. That was breakfast. We packed up. We turned south. The quiet drive home. The knowing that we’re spending our summer far from one another, that starting in late May, Layne leaves for North Carolina, Tyler leaves for a 2 month road trip. Ashley is moving closer, to Irvington, and we’ll likely hang out, likely talk constantly about how much we miss Layne and Tyler, how much we can’t wait for them to come home. Before then, we’ll see each other once more. We’ll laugh at the things I didn’t mention here. We’ll maybe cry about them, too, we’ll maybe cry. We’ll maybe cry. We’re a Pack.
Scullery Skills: Peeling an Apple (Like a Boss)
May 2nd, 2012 § Leave a Comment
In the immortal words of Montell Jordan, this is how we do it.
Enough said.
(HT: Pivot Marketing‘s weekly newsletter)
A Week In Food: April 30th
April 30th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
This week is hella busy, so there’s really not much to report on for our meal plan.
Tonight, I’m speaking to a creative writing class at a local college, then leaving from there to go directly to Muncie for a book release celebration for my chapbook The Fullness of Everything, a collection of 3 chapbooks by Brian Oliu, Tyler Gobble, and myself.
Thursday, I have another meeting with local author Andrew Scott and his wife and editor of Engine Books Victoria Barrett at La Escollera, an amazing little Mexican joint in Irvington on the east side of Indianapolis.
Lastly on Friday, I have to whip up a quick dinner before rushing downtown to set up my Vouched Books table for this week’s First Friday Art Walk at the Murphy Building.
Basically, it leaves Tuesday to do anything at all besides eat on the go. Busy’ness abounds.
Monday: Dinner in Muncie with pals
Tuesday: White Chicken Chili (we were going to do this last Friday, but plans changed due to my leaving for a camping trip earlier than expected)
Wednesday: Margherita Pizza
Thursday: Dinner meeting at La Escollera
Friday: Tomato Soup & Sandwich
Did Deez Call Last Night: Candied Walnuts
April 26th, 2012 § 8 Comments
It’s going to be so hard not to giggle like a middle schooler throughout this entire post. I’m going to do my best to refrain from the obvious jokes, but I make no promises. Sometimes I can’t help myself.
Do you remember the salmonella peanut butter outbreak a few years ago? I remember, I was driving home from work one day during that whole news cycle. NPR was doing a piece on it, and the reporter used the phrase, “tainted nuts” at least a dozen times. I think I peed a little. I was laughing so hard. It was stupid and immature and completely wonderful.
That summer/fall of the tainted nuts I was moonlighting as a wedding bartender at a resort just outside Indy. The chef at the resort, Lois, made batches of these candied walnuts and kept them on hand in the kitchen, and I swear I ate at least 2 gallons of them over the course of that summer.
Here we go.
| What You’ll Need | How Much |
|---|---|
| shelled walnuts | 1 lb. |
| egg whites | 2-3 |
| brown sugar | 2 c |
| cinnamon (optional) | 1 t |
What You’ll Do
1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9″x13″ aluminum baking pans.
2) In a large bowl, whisk egg whites until white and frothy, like so.
3) Stir the brown sugar and cinnamon into the frothy egg whites until well incorporated.
4) Fold the nuts into the candy mix. (I recognize as a man the phrase “fold the nuts” is inherently painful.)
5) Pour the nuts into the two baking pans, and spread evenly.
6) Bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until the nut mixture is a light golden brown.
Golden brown nuts.
7) Remove to cooling racks, and allow to cool completely. The candied mixture will become brittle enough to crumble into clumps of nutty goodness.
8) And, the moment we’ve all be waiting for: put deez nuts in your face!
Makes a little over 1 lb. of nuts.
Store them in canisters, or go to Whole Foods and ask where they keep their nut sacks, usually in the bulk section. This is a type of sack specifically made to keep nuts at the perfect temperature and humidity for optimal shelf life and taste.
Scullery Skills: Homemade Brown Sugar
April 24th, 2012 § 17 Comments
I’m never buying brown sugar again. Period. There’s no need. It’s sugar and molasses. That’s it. Well, it’s also a kick ass song by The Rolling Stones, but that’s neither here nor there.
You can save that other canister where you were keeping the brown sugar (which, let’s face it, unless you do more baking than the average person, your brown sugar has probably just dried out into a mass of crusty junk), and use it instead for coffee beans or tea bags (giggle) or candied walnuts.
I’ll concede that it would be good having a half cup or so around for general use sprinkling on oatmeal or grits or whatever. But I’ve come to realize there’s no use keeping around entire 1lb bags of the stuff except around the holidays when you’re doing a lot of baking. Otherwise, make that goodness fresh. Fresh goodness is always better than crusty goodness.
So, today’s Skullery Skills is also kind of a recipe post that I’ll link back to whenever I post anything that requires brown sugar. Let’s get to it.
| What You’ll Need | How Much |
|---|---|
| granulated white sugar | 1 c |
| molasses | 1 T (light brown) 2 T (dark brown) |
1) In a medium sized bowl, use a fork or hand mixer* to stir together the sugar and molasses until completely mixed. There shouldn’t be any lumps or streaks of molasses left.
*Update: my friend Mel recommends a pastry cutter.
2) Done.
Put it, not in your face, but in whatever your recipe calls for. Or, scrub your body with it? People baffle me, man.
Makes the equivalent of 1 cup fully packed brown sugar.
Pro Tip: If your recipe calls for more than a cup, I’d suggest using a hand mixer, unless you got the arms for it.
A Week In Food: April 22nd
April 22nd, 2012 § Leave a Comment
First week of meal planning down, and I’ll okay, okay: it’s awesome.
Don’t get me wrong, I tend to like flying by the seat of my pants in most cases in life, but weekly dinner it turns out is not one of those cases. When I was living by myself, I gave no shits about planning. All I had to please was myself, and hell, I could subsist on the same meal for days at a time if it was a good meal.
Britt, though, likes a bit more variety. So, coming home from work everyday, I’m thinking, “Shitshitshit, what do we have to make for dinner? Salmon. Cool. Wait, no, we had that a few days ago. Stir fry? No. That was Monday.” You get the picture.
So, this is relieving some stress, which is unexpected. I thought it’d add stress: every weekend having to plan what we’re going to have, having to take stock and go grocery shopping for what we’ll need. Too much structure.
But nope. It’s actually the opposite. Who’d've thought? (The answer is, “Probably everyone but me.”)
Anyway, here’s the coming week in food. Nothing too snazzy. You might recognize the Cheater’s Gumbo from its February debut here at PIIYF.
Monday: Red peppers stuffed w/ couscous, veggies, and goat cheese
Tuesday: Taco bowls w/ ground turkey (using rice as the base, not tortillas)
Wednesday: Possible pitch-in w/ friends, if not defaulting to a healthy frozen pizza
Thursday: Cheater’s Gumbo using leftover rice from Tuesday
Friday: White Chicken Chili
*
Awesome Life Update
Yesterday, I made the unexpected purchase of a new (to me) bike: a Raleigh Port Townsend. I’ve been riding my Swobo Sanchez for the past 4 years now, and while it’s a fast, slick, trusty bike, I’m not racing alleycats and zipping around downtown anymore. I’ve grown out of that, it seems, and of late, I’ve been wanting something more adapted to simple, everyday commuting. Enter this beauty:
I found her on consignment at Bicycle Exchange, a rad new’ish bike shop here in south Broad Ripple. I’ve been saving up to buy a Port Townsend new, so when I saw this, I jumped on it. The previous owner is evidently the lead wrench at Performance Bike, and it’s obvious. It’s in great shape, and even has some upgraded parts like some slick Nitto touring bars, a Forte cutaway saddle, upgraded wheels, etc.
I’ve already installed a rear rack on it, and snagged some panniers to haul all my crap around. I can’t wait to go grocery shopping on this baby.
Boof Chow Wong, Peanut Chicken Chow Mein
April 19th, 2012 § 2 Comments
My wife still has friends from elementary school, friends she keeps in regular touch with. Like, we just had dinner with a few of them last week so one of them could spring on us a grainy photo of what looked like a peanut growing in her belly. I don’t even understand it (how she’s maintained these friendships for so long, not pregnancy, though I often fail to understand pregnancy, too.).
These friends of hers, they were a trifecta, and they had names for each other: Boof, Chow, and Wong, respectively. My wife was Boof.
This is a huge digression. I wanted to talk about peanuts. Not the kind that grows in bellies, because there are laws against cooking those. At least, I think there are. I hope there are.
Peanut sauce was one of the greatest inventions of Thai-kind. You can put the stuff on next-to-anything and it’ll be immediately better than it was before. It’s like ketchup, but better, which is weird. In this recipe, I cheat. I’ll admit it. I use a pre-made sauce, all Sandra Lee style, and I hate that bish as much as you do (except my friend L who for some reason loves her Halloween specials), but when I’m just trying to get down with the get down and put something in my face, a sauce in a bottle works just fine. But if you insist on being bougie about it, fine. This peanut sauce recipe looks pretty legit.
So let’s get it on.
| What You’ll Need | How Much |
|---|---|
| Udon noodles | 8 oz |
| Asian stir fry oil | 2 T |
| boneless, skinless chicken breast, chopped into thin strips | 1 breast |
| red bell pepper, chopped | 1 c |
| Crimini mushrooms | 1 c |
| carrot, julienned | 1/2 c |
| broccoli, chopped | 1 c |
| onion, chopped or diced (optional) | 1/2 onion |
| peanut sauce (bottled is fine, haters gonna hate) | 1/4-1/2c |
What You’ll Do
1) Mise en place. Seriously. Do it. This is a stir fry. Get your shit together. This includes boiling the udon noodles according to the instructions on the package.
2) Heat a wok over medium-high. Add the Asian stir fry oil. Take a second to nurse the aroma boner you get when that infused gingery smell hits your nose.
3) Add the chicken. Stir like a mad (wo)man until the very surface of the chicken has begun to looked cooked.
4) Add the red pepper, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, and onion.
5) Stir, stir, stir. Seriously, if you let those things sit on that heat for longer than a few seconds without stirring, I will smack your mouth. Stir fry for 3-5 minutes, or until chicken is just done. You’ll probably be 2nd-guessing whether you’ll get salmonella, but you won’t (I’m legally obligated here to say that you assume all risk of eating undercooked meat, and don’t ride a bike without a helmet).
6) Turn the heat down to medium, and add the cooked udon noodles and the peanut sauce. Stir to coat all that goodness with peanut sauce.
7) Serve it piping hot into your favorite noodle bowl, and put it in your face.
Should feed 2-3 faces.
(Please forgive these photos; they’re actually pretty old, from before I really started trying to learn food photography.)
A Week In Food: Failing to Plan and All that Crap
April 17th, 2012 § 4 Comments
Last night, I stood in front of the mirror and pinched at myself. I said, “Dammit.”
On the road with the dudes in the South a couple weeks ago, I had no shame. I lived large. I ate large. I got large. In the span of a week, I put on 5 pounds. Legit pounds, too, pounds that stayed on past the couple days after I got back and started eating better again, and shed the water bloat and colon guilt of vacation eating.
I’m running again, building my base mileage to start training for the Monumental Half-Marathon in November, which I wussed out on last year. (I actually just registered for it, like, I took a break while writing this post to go register for it.) I’m riding to work again more consistently.
This is all fine and good.
But last night, Britt and I sat down, and she was like, “You talk about being fat a lot.” And, I was like, “Yeah. It sucks.” (For the record, I know I’m not “fat,” but I’m 30 pounds heavier than where I was 3 years ago, and not nearly as healthy, and that sucks.) And she said, “We should start planning meals. At least our dinners through the week.” And I said, “Okay,” and I probably sighed a lot, because I’m a pain in the ass and don’t like things that make me feel like a grown up. But, she’s a real believer in that, “If you fail to plan, then you should plan to fail,” thing that I think Abe Lincoln said.
So, we sat down and made a list of all the things we normally have for dinner that we consider “healthy” or at least “not pizza.” And dug through some cookbooks to find new things we want to try. And I found a pretty rad Weekly Meal Planner template that I imported into Google Docs and shared with Britt so we could both have it handy.
And I feel like maybe it’d be a cool feature to try to remember to post these weekly meal plans here so you guys can see what I’m eating and stuff, even if I’m not taking pictures of it. Plus, if you see something that looks interesting, you can say, “Hey, can you do a recipe post about that?”
So, here’s the first of A Week In Food, our weekly dinner plans. Weekends we are going to leave free form. I’ll likely use those to have “cheat days” or whatever, especially because my long runs training for the half-marathon will be on weekends, giving me plenty of room to suck the meat off a rack of ribs or something without remorse.
- Monday: Turkey burgers, leftover roasted red potatoes, asparagus.
- Tuesday: Pot-luck pasta (basically a mix of whatever vegetables we have on hand: onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach: all sauteed and tossed with some sort of pasta and olive oil)
- Wednesday: Britt’s having a turkey pot pie; I’m having a garlic sausage from Smoking Goose that I bought at last week’s farmers market (not the healthiest, but I’ll be riding to work), and probably some grilled asparagus. Thank god it’s in season right now. I love me some fresh asparagus.
- Thursday: Basil Parmesan Chicken w/ spinach and apple salad.
- Friday: Maybe going out to eat with my dad after we finish some work in the backyard that he’s helping me with, so it’s up in the air.
So there you have it. Nothing too extravagant, though the basil Parmesan chicken salad we are having Thursday is something new we found in one of our cookbooks.
