A new year, a new diet.

For the next 6 months I will have a change of diet. I love eating so I can't do that now popular, no carb, lean meat, no sugar, no booze kind of thing. Yes booze...I admit it, I love drinking. I love a glass of white wine in the afternoon or a good mixed cocktail with my fiance after a long day of work and school. I am still eating bread but I am focusing on quality. If it comes in a package with a twist tie, that is a no-go. I can eat a fresh slice of bread from an artisan loaf but it must be a sensible portion and I must not fry it with butter and top it with Nutella and powdered sugar. I am mostly doing a no dessert sort of thing but if I have to have something sweet, a crepe with a fresh blueberry sauce would not be out of the question. This year will be about ingredient-focused food.

I love you Thomas Keller, but in 2011 I'm ditching Ad Hoc and fondling the pages of Around My French Table. O M G is this a great cookbook! I have cooked about 10 recipes out of the book so far and each one is amazing. I have been thinking about if I need to join French Fridays with Dorie. A slice of artisan bread with cottage cheese, cucumbers, and tomatoes paired with the onion, romaine, and pea soup - amazing! Of course, there are a lot of items out of this book that I will not be able to eat until after the wedding but there are a ton of things that I can eat in moderation. In the book, she talks about that sandwich she sent with her husband on the airplane - shaved truffle with butter on fresh bread wrapped and refrigerated for 2 days for the flavors to meld. Such a good story! And guess what I did today. I went to Central Market and got truffles to make this damn thing. I couldn't get it out of my head. Of course, after I got the truffles, I had to get some foie gras. Then I had to get some Italian wine. Then I had to get some Iberico ham. Then some venison pate and blueberry stilton. 200 dollars later, I realize that I have am some sort of a food-a-holic.

Right now, Matt is making a blackened red snapper for me. I am having a cucumber, boursin cheese with roasted shallot dip, and wine snack. After the meal we are finishing up with sliced baguette smeared with a dollop of Normandy butter topped with paper thin radishes and freshly shaved truffle. If lovin this food is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Office Snack

Good thing I ran today. And good thing I will be running again in the morning. Bon Appetit! 

Excuses.

I have neglected my blog lately. Between Christmas, a cold, finals, and working like crazy, I haven't had the energy to deal with my hobbies. However, I am still cooking.

I made my first disaster dish today. I was making a rare-ish roast and I have been sitting around speculating for the past hour where I went wrong. I have made this dish before and it came out perfect. This time, each time I took it out of the oven it was dead raw. I may have not let it come to room temperature all the way. I may have underestimated the sheer weight of the roast. I have literally been sitting around thinking about roast for the past hour. While deep in beefy thoughts, I hear a giant clang in the oven. WTF....my pan buckled! I was making a potato pomme and it was looking beautiful. Then, the pan twisted. I guess the cooking gods are not looking kindly on me today. Luckily, everything is still edible. A quick slice and roast to repair my beef was done by matt. My pomme survived the twist of the pan.

I'm enjoying my potatoes while I can. As of January 1st, I will be on wedding diet 3000. From that point, I will have 3 months until my gown arrives and I am refitted. Goodbye potato...hello tomato.

There's a kid in my kitchen.

Well, not really. But I imagine that if there was a kid in my kitchen, I would have them help me make Christmas Bark. This is so easy and fun, it automatically makes me think about a cook with your kids episode on Food Network.

Basically you just go get some chocolates from a hobby store. I went to Joanne Fabrics. Then just melt down the candies on low heat. Then grab a sheet pan and fill with a solid white layer. Grab some spoons and drizzle on other colors like green and red. If you feel like getting fancy with it, make straight lines then drag a design with a skewer.

Smash candy! Smash some candy cane. Throw on some Pop Rocks. Just grab whatever tickles your fancy. Put it on top of your bark. Let your Christmas treat cool then break it up and put it in your mouth. Don't feel like buying that special someone at work that you like but can't justify spending money on them a gift? Tie some of your bark up in a clear bag and tie with festive ribbon. Don't tell anyone that your kid slobbered on the drizzle spoons. You're welcome.

Del Taco comes to Denton.

A few weeks ago, a Del Taco opened in Denton. Every time I drove by, there was a line wrapped around the building twice. I mean, people were going crazy for this stuff. A couple days ago I took the plunge and got in the drive-thru line. It was so busy they had someone taking orders in the line before you actually reached the menu. I found this to be kind of annoying because I wanted to read the menu before I ordered and the one that she had in her hand had no pricing or descriptions. So I said a quick prayer to the Mexican fast food gods and did the close your eyes and point approach. This is what I ended up with...

Asada tacos. One beef, one chicken. Served in a traditional double corn tortilla. Loved the pico, loved the guac. This was better than any other fast food taco I've had and some non-fast food tacos.

First I would like to say, there is almost no good way to take a photo of a dollar bean and cheese burrito and a 50 cent taco. Both were good. I am a bean burrito lover so I especially appreciated that. This food is good for poor people.

Last was the Del Taco nacho. I believe this was called the macho nacho? Not too shabby. Just needed a touch of salsa. And by touch, I mean I may have added a cup or so.

The other thing I have to admit is that I have one taco missing. I also ordered a chicken taco but it did not survive the drive home. I hadn't eaten since that morning and I saw it laying on the top of the bag. Just laying there....taunting me. So I put the taco in its proper resting place. I got all of this food for 11 dollars. For the quality and quantity, I would say Del Taco is a winner.

Del Taco
1715 S Loop 288 #100
Denton, TX 76208
Del Taco Web

My first curry.

I have a confession to make. I hate Indian food. Matt tells me its just because I haven't had good Indian yet. We went out and I tried once more to like it. I ordered butter chicken and while I was eating it I couldn't deal with the mix of spices and strong smells invading my nostrils. I am blessed/cursed with an acute sense of smell. I can smell what people had for lunch on their breath and when dogs are developing ear infections. So the strong smell of Indian food is so intense, it feels like the temporal lobes of my brain will begin leaking out my ear canals.

As a food lover, it is disappointing to me that I am missing out on such a large chunk of international food. Also, it is Matt's favorite type of food and I refuse to cook it or have it be cooked in my house. Recently he suggested that maybe I start with a subtle, red, Thai curry paste then work my way to a stronger flavor. He showed me the curry ingredients list: red chili pepper, garlic, lemongrass, Thai ginger, salt, shallot, spices, lime. Besides the mysterious "spices", I felt comfortable with this list. I pronounced that I would make a curry, lentil soup. I turned to Bon Appetit to help me through this.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp of olive oil (divided)
1 medium onion chopped
1 carrot chapped
2 garlic cloves (divided)
1 tbsp of curry paste - this is the ingredient I changed original called for 2 tbsp of curry powder
1 cup of lentils
4.25 cups of water
16 oz can of chickpeas
2 tbsp of butter
1 tbsp of lemon juice
green onions and lemon wedges to garnish

Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large pot. Add onion, carrot, salt, and pepper. Cook until onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Add half of chopped garlic. Stir until veggies are soft, about 4 minutes. Add in the dreaded curry and cook one minute.

Add lentils and 4 cups of water. Increase heat to a boil then back down to a simmer. Cook lentils about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, puree chickpeas, lemon juice, 1/4 cup water, tbsp of olive oil, and remaining garlic in your food processor.

Add puree and butter to lentil soup. Season with salt and pepper. At this point you can thin it out with 1/4 cup of water as you like it. I left it kind of stewy because that is the way I like it. Garnish your soup with lemon wedges and green onions.

I have to say...This soup was amazing!! The curry tasted delicious and I think I could have even added an extra tablespoon of it! It really was a filling, beautiful, winter soup. It is easy and vegetarian. I think that this soup gave me the confidence to march further into curry territory and then maybe into the realm of other Indian foods.

You can find more info on this Bon Appetit recipe at: Epicurious

Arg. Finals time

Blogging world, I have not forgotten about you. It is finals time and it is strangling my cooking life temporarily. I have lots of quick recipes that I will try to post asap! Until then, enjoy this picture of a Christmas sweater zip-up vest that I found and will wear every chance I get until the holidays are over.

Double pig pie all the way.

I would like to introduce my first guest blogger. He is a cook from Georgia. He is my BFF and fiancée. I present to you, a guest blog by Matthew Riddle.

So, once in a while, I get to make food. Usually, whatever I make has excessive amounts of meat. Why? Because meat is delicious. Today’s kitchen outing involved using up about a pound of the remaining pork shoulder in the form of pizza. Barbeque pork pizza.

So first, there’s dough. There are a lot of complicated pizza dough recipes, and everybody has one they like, so let’s just say this: Use your favorite pizza dough. The important thing here are the toppings, after all.

If you have a pizza stone, great. If not, use what you have. Pizza stones are good things, though. They’re cheap, and they make your crust crispy and brown. However, that’s not the kind of texture I was after today, thus, no stone.

The first thing you need to do is caramelize an onion. In a pan, with oil. Preferably after you thinly slice it.

After the onions are caramelized, heat the pork in the same pan, and after a minute or two, add in the barbecue sauce.

Coming from the south, I realize that tastes in barbecue sauce vary. Google search “barbecue sauce recipe,” and there are over a million results. So, much like the pizza dough, the kind of sauce you use here really depends on what you like. With pork, I either tend to gravitate towards the sweeter, darker sauce, or, in this instance, a more acidic, spicier sauce. And yes, I will at times make my own sauce, and I understand the virtues of doing so, but for the sake of convenience, I went with a bottled sauce.

His life is in those bottles. It says so on the label. You can’t lie on labels. That’s a scientific fact.

So, at this point there are two approaches you can take. I personally like the balls out, meat attack 3000 approach, where the entirety of the dough surface is covered in pork mixture. However, you can also feel free to take the somewhat more conservative approach, and use the barbecue sauce as a base, and then sporadically scatter chunks of your pork. Whichever direction you choose, don’t forget to toss on the onions. As for cheese, sharp cheddar is a good choice for barbecue pizza. But if you like something else better and think it works, then by all means use that.

We also had some prosciutto, so I decided to slice some of that and toss in on top of the cheese for a bit of extra pork flavor.

Then, bake the whole thing at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15-17 minutes until everything looks done, and hopefully you’re left with something that resembles the porky deliciousness below.