Culinary Cabaret!

Hey guys! Check out the brand-new news from the sister-blog, Two's Company that I share with Sarah! :)

Okay guys! I am thrilled and excited to introduce to you to the new blog series starting here on Two's Company! This series will be called "Culinary Cabaret" after the line in Disney's "Be Our Guest" which runs: "Beef ragout, cheese souffle, pies and puddings en flambe! We'll prepare and serve with flair a culinary cabaret!"Essentially, this series is a challenge you all will be able to link up with any week you'd like! It will run for 52 weeks (hopefully 52 adjacent weeks...we'll see how that works out) which is a year. The idea is that each week I'll post a theme, and you will have a chance to make one new recipe (or a variation of an old one) that fits the theme. Themes could be as simple as "Indian", "Greek", "Italian" or as complex as "Pixar Movies", "Downton Abbey", "Autumn", or, hey, something as crazy as "Oxford don". Sarah and I will chose one new recipe a week and blog about it--and you'll do the same!

And for those of you who are sitting there looking at this post thinking, "Aw, gee, I don't think I can be that creative," all I'm saying is that it is one recipe a week. Not a whole meal. It won't be expensive because, hey, people in India don't always have a ton of money and if you've got some watermelon and some milk and ice you can make a melon lassi that would fit that theme and not cost a dime. And besides--a challenge isn't supposed to be terribly easy. It's meant to be doable though, and I thoroughly believe that one new recipe a week is doable. I will be posting the theme for the week on Mondays and you will have until the following Monday to link up with your post and recipe. Not only will Culinary Cabaret improve your own creativity, but we can serve as inspirations for each other! And remember, linking up once does not mean that you have to do all 52 weeks! I would love to see you anytime throughout the course of the challenge. So please spread the word, and if any of you are wizards with blog buttons, feel free to make and share a button about the challenge. I want to get as many people involved as possible. :)

Looking forward to breaking out my skillz,
                                                          Rachel

The Shrinkage Diaries: It looks like a bird's nest...

Dear Figure-seekers!

If you would be so kind, take a look at the picture below....

This is a severely inauspicious plate of food.

Honestly. It looks like a cross between a haystack, a bird's nest, and what I used to pull out of the garbage disposal when it got clogged up. (That is, before we moved out to the country where we can't have a garbage disposal system.)

Look at it again.

It looks bland at best, I know. But this is pancit, and it is one of the stinkin' best Asian dishes there is to feed a large crowd. My first introduction to pancit was way back at the church where my Dad worked as assistant music pastor. There was a Philippino woman in the choir, and on occasion she would make pancit for us. Then a Philippino couple moved down the street from us, and she made us dinner and lo and behold, pancit popped up again. Then we moved churches and house, and I forgot all about this amazing dinner until we were at a friend's party, and there again was a huge bowl of the stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was at a Narnian costume party to which I went dressed as The Lady of the Green Kirtle. I ate pancit again, and boom! Right back to memory lane. 

The best part about this meal is that it's waist-friendly, (more-so if you use chicken instead of beef) and qualifies as Shrinkage food because there's not a smidge flour or sugar, and it's packed with veggies. Also, it's gluten free, because those are rice-noodles up there, not wheat, which makes them much better. It would be awesome if you could buy brown-rice noodles, but for now these are great.

Pancit is one of those things that is great for feeding large families because it's kind of a catch-all dish. You can use any kind of meat in the dish. (We've used chicken, beef, shrimp, etc.) Really whatever you have on hand. Last night we had ground beef, and I'd never done that before. When I think of Asian cuisine, ground beef isn't exactly the first thing I think of. I knew I'd need to kick the recipe up a notch of I didn't want dinner to taste like a Teriyaki-Burger from a Japanese McDonald's.

Fast Fun Tip: While rummaging around for the best chili recipe for Dad, I had stumbled across a website that I can't find now. The guy writing the article mentioned that most of the time we don't "brown" ground beef, we "grey" it. In short, we put too much meat in the pan at once and it basically boils in the fat without ever gaining that awesome "browned" flavor. This time I took my pound of ground beef and did it in three separate chunks, smushing the ground beef into patties, sprinkling a bit of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, red pepper flakes, salt, and minced ginger over the top, then flipping the patties and breaking them apart. This is THE BOMB and allowed me to impart a vague Asian flare to the ground beef which was lacking beforehand.

Okay. So now that we've established how you have to cook your beef if you are using beef, we can get on with the real recipe. Again, it's a "per your own taste" thing, so the measurements for spices are going to be rather ambiguous. I change it every time depending on what we have on hand and what flavors I'm feeling. 

Pancit

• 1 head cabbage
• 1 red bell pepper
• 12 carrots
• 2 onions
• 3 tbs. minced ginger
• 4 ribs celery
• garlic
• 1 lb. ground beef (or other meat, chopped)
• 1/2 c. soy sauce (and a bit for serving)
• 1/2 c. lemon juice
• 1/4 c. rice vinegar
• 1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
• Salt
• red-pepper flakes
• olive oil or sesame oil
• peanuts
• 2 packages rice noodles (we use Mai Fu)

1. Start by slicing up all vegetables sensibly. The idea is not chunky--it's long strips to match the noodles. I left my carrot round just because they'd go farther, but onions, cabbage, and peppers can be cut into strips. Toss all veggies in a bowl together.
2. Brown the ground beef per my instructions further up the post. Set aside.
3. This is going to get majorly messy, and this recipe feeds a lot of people. A whole lot. Like...twelve of us with leftovers. So you'll need three skillets on the stove. Pour a bit of olive oil into the bottoms of the pans, and sautee leftover ginger and a spoonful of garlic in each man till golden. Divide the veggies into the three pans, and sautee for ten minutes until the vegetables are tender. Dash all your soy/vinegar/worcestershire sauces over the vegetables and continue to cook. Sprinkle with salt and red pepper flakes. When vegetables are done, cover and let steam while you work on the noodles.
4. Rice noodles are really cool because you don't boil them. Your first step will be to pull the noodles apart and put them in the bottom of some great big bowl. Then you will boil a kettle-full of water (a couple quarts) on the stove. When it is at a rolling boil, pour the water over the dry noodles, cover the bowl with a tray of some sort, and let steam until noodles are tender.
5. Drain your noodles, and mix the noodles, beef, and vegetables together. Add more soy sauce to taste, and mix well. This will kill your arms. You may have to chop up the noodles a bit in order to be able to stir.

Serve on plates and dig in! This is a wonderful meal for a party because it's pretty cheap and goes a really long way. Plus, it is delicious, and easy to throw together; you really can't go wrong with seasonings. At different times I have sprinkled in tons of different spices, drizzled a bit of molasses, dabbled in some clam juice...anything you have on hand. Take my word for it. 

Try this recipe next time you are having an Asian-themed party or just a great big family get-together. It's delicious, and everyone will want the recipe. Then it will be your turn to tell them you pretty much did it on the wing, because with pancit you can't go wrong. Plus, your figure will thank you for making life easy.

The Shrinkage Diaries: When the Wallet's Shrinking but you're not

Dear Figure,
       Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
^ Do you hear that? It might look the wail of a small mosquito, but actually, it's the sound I made all this past week as our pantry emptied, we waited for checks in the mail to be able to stock back up, and the choices for healthy eating dwindled. I mean, really. Okay. So I know I haven't been religious in my NOTHING FLOUR and NOTHING SUGAR this past week, but I have been exercising and I have been eating mostly none and none. Yeah. Valentine's day threw me off.
        But anyway, I was sitting on my bed yesterday around lunchtime reading up on Alexsander Solzhenitsyn and generally lost in Communist Russia when Mama poked her head through the door and informed me that she was working on school with the younger ones, and would I be so kind as to fix something alive for lunch because she couldn't eat any more "dead food" if she was a POW in Stalag 13. Or maybe it was "I would throw up if I had to eat any more popcorn." (I've heard it both ways.) I was just stuck in Russia, remember.

"We have...cucumbers, cabbage...some onions...oh! and chick peas."

And then she went downstairs, and Figure? I felt you dancing in high glee because you thought I would have to make something wretched like cabbage soup. I mean anyone who has seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will remember...

"Oh. Well....nothing goes better with cabbage than cabbage!"

But if I made something wretched like cabbage soup, it would appear that your bet was winning, Figure, and you were convincing me that eating healthy tasted like...dishwater. Perhaps it was the influence of Communist Russia that sent me to Google, but I sat down at the computer and typed in "raw salad cucumbers cabbage" not expecting anything to come up. But something did. Something from a Russian cooking website (the sterling truth) and I decided to try it...and what came out was absolutely delicious.

But to feed eleven or twelve people off of a cabbage salad while all right for Charlie Bucket & Co. is a little weak and wimpy and giving-uppish. In all my digging I found that we did have some carrots so I thought to myself, I thought: "Aha. Let us make hummus  out of the chick peas. Oh...but we don't have lemon juice, do we?"

No lemons. Not a juice anywhere. Not even lime juice, which works in a pinch. But I wanted hummus. I really wanted it, and I sat there for a moment, thinking rather harder than usual. Then the proverbial lightbulb came one and I decided I'd outwit our pantry.

No lemon juice?

No problem.

Instead I used red wine vinegar and a generous sprinkling of lemon-pepper seasoning. The result was Mediterranean in the extreme, and an awesome coupling for the Russian Cabbage Salad. Lunch was delicious, healthy, and unique and what's even better--built off a pantry and fridge as emaciated as Alexsander Solzhenitsyn after leaving his Gulag Archipelago. Below I've posted the Salad Recipe for you readers who are also standing victorious over your Figures! :) (I would have posted the hummus recipe too, but that'll have to wait for another post because I deleted the picture I took, and I hate "blind" recipes.)

Russian Cabbage Cucumber Salad

• 1 head cabbage
• 2 cucumbers
• 1 onion
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tbs. vinegar
• 2 tbs. olive oil

1. Slice the cabbage in thin slices, then sprinkle with salt and knead (like bread dough) till the cabbage begins to look a little juicy.

2. Slice cucumbers into quarters, then slice quarters. Slice onion into thin slices. Mix into cabbage.

3. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar (adding more to taste if desired) and mix 'er up.

Makes rather a lot 

Things like cabbage and cucumbers are really cheap in the scheme of things. The other day Mama and I were discussing the fact that Hispanic food and potatoes are always really cheap (though not particularly good for you) because the Irish and the Mexican cultures aren't known for having an overabundance of extra money. But you don't have to have a diet based entirely off of cheap corn and potatoes--there are vegetables that aren't exotic (like carrots, cabbage, cucumbers...even some peppers) that will be fairly easy on the budget, and very easy on your waist, so try buying those instead of more potatoes. :P

                

          With a temporarily stocked pantry at last,

                                                                 Rachel

in love with cheesecake.

The days our wallets are slimmest, our waists are thickest, our cupboards are emptiest and our schedules are fullest are inevitably the days that the cooking/baking bug bites.

Mine bit today.

It bit hard.

It bit so hard I wriggled morosely in my chair before the computer screen as image after image of cool, delicious desserts popped up on the computer screen. I did have a good reason, however, because I decided I wanted to offer cheesecakes and baby-cakes on Coastal again and I needed to rummage up some good summer-style recipes. The only problem was that I couldn't make them today since I didn't have the ingredients. Oh well. The good thing about offering new products is that you have to test them before selling them. (Oh yeah!)

Here are a few recipes that will be coming out of my kitchen in the next few weeks:

Lime Coconut Cheesecake from Our Best Bites...

Lemon Cheesecake from Allrecipes.com...

Chocolate-Orange Cheesecake from LizzyHouse...

White-Chocolate Raspberry Cheescake from Epicurious...

Argh. This isn't good for me. Cheesecake is my one weakness. ;)

In Which She Pretends She Is a Chef :)

I was visiting my grandparents' house last week and I got a chance to envelope myself in the Food Channel now and then. When I encounter these shows I am so glad we do not have cable t.v., for I'd be sitting there watching the cooking shows all day long. ;)

Some of my favorite chefs to watch at their trade are:

Ina Garten on "The Barefoot Contessa" [who I didn't get to see this time. :( ]

Giada De Laurentiis 

Bobby Flay

The Pioneer Woman

And the cooking-competitions "Chopped", "Iron Chef", and "Cupcake Wars." :) I have a silly little fondness for such things. So watching the cooking channel leave me having two desires:

1. To be able to chop that fast and with those knives.

2. To be original with my meals--to make them look amazing and taste superb.

I started thinking of ways that I could dress up the food I make for my family--after all, I spend half the day in the kitchen [literally] and there has to be something I could do differently now and then. :) I am thinking about starting up a recipe-inspiration series--what do you think of that idea? :) For now, here is some Pinterest-inspiration to help you and me along. :)

Frankly, this is brilliant! I have not tried shaping my eggs this way, but I think it would look stunning for a Mother's Day breakfast for really any occasion where you thought a little extra love would not go amiss. (Pity I don't like hard-boiled eggs. :D)

Okay. So this is not exactly food, but I adore this color scheme--it is so...Sicilian or something, with the citrus fruits mixed with the simple flower arrangement! Gorgeous!

Aren't these just so happy?!? Love it. I'm thinking it is Jell-o layered with...yogurt or pudding or something? Hm. Not sure how that would taste, but it's stunning!

Admittedly, I'm a sucker for pretty things. Especially parfaits...

What a cute little chubby pot-pie! I love personal things, and that dish looks simply adorable.

I've decided radishes are not good for anything except decoration. In that category they are irresistable...

And check this out:

Isn't that breath-taking? I love it. So. Much.

While on the subject of flowers I've gotta say, someday I am totally doing this:

There is a surprising array of flowers that are entirely edible--you just have to ferret them out. I had sudden inspiration (while taking a walk with Maryanna after choir) of sprinkling a salad with Violet Wood-sorrel (pink oxalis) which grows in profusion around here--The leaves, stems, and flowers taste like lemon, and so as children we called it "Lemon-grass," little realizing there was already a plant christened that. :D

This is what the wood-sorrel looks like--isn't it beautiful? But back to food.

It is also a proven fact that I am fond of tiny things like appetizers--aren't these adorable?

These are really neat too:

Not sure what they are filled with, but those appear to be roasted squash blossoms on top. :)

Anyway, I was greatly inspired by the Food Channel last week and I hope this post inspired you too. Look out for more neat recipe ideas in the future!