Cheescake

I was going to say this post is over a month overdue, but that's only because I keep thinking it's already September. Oops. Actually, it's only 20 days overdue. I made this cheesecake for July 31st: National Cheesecake Day. I subsequently told Leslie I would post this about 18 days ago. Here it is, FINALLY. Enjoy:





The strawberries look absolutely massive on that slice, but that's because it was a very tiny slice to begin with, and the end of it also broke off. I will say, though, the strawberries absolutely made this cake.



Graham cracker crust:
From The Good Housekeeping Cookbook
-1 cup graham cracker crumbs (8 rectangular crackers)
-3 T. melted butter of margarine
-2 T. sugar

-In the cookbooks it says to mix everything initially in the pan, but I did it in a separate bowl. After all the crumbs are evenly moistened, pour into the springform pan (which should already be ready with the foil--see my note at the bottom of the page) and press it firmly onto the bottom of the pan with your hand. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, and cool the pan completely on a wire rack.

Cheesecake:
Adapted from Mike's Table
-24 oz. cream cheese at room temperature (I actually used neufchatel cheese)
-1 cup sugar
-3 eggs at room temperature
-1 cup heavy cream
-juice of 1/2 lemon
-1 Tbsp vanilla extract
-3 oz bittersweet chocolate
-1 Tbsp cocoa powder

-Beat the cream cheese and sugar until it reaches a light texture. Add the eggs one at a time and beat between each addition. Add the cream, lemon, juice and vanilla. Beat the batter, but be careful not to overbeat since it can cause too much air.
-I divided the batter in half and added the chocolate chips ---EDIT: I remember now that I actually did NOT use chocolate chips but very fancy Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate because I also read it's good to use high quality choclate for cheesecake. I think I read it somewhere on the internet, and I always trust the internet. EDIT OVER---(the original recipe says to microwave, mix, microwave until it's melted, but I always just use a double boiler. I feel like it's easier for me to keep an eye on it that way. Let the chocolate cool slightly before you add it). Then beat in the cocoa powder.
-I added the chocolate batter first, and then tried to add the plain. In my head I pictured perfect layers of two flavors, but the vanilla kind of just sunk in the middle. It still turned out ok, but not exactly how I pictured it.
What to do to bake (I think a bulleted list will work better than actual sentences):
-Water bath
-Oven at 350 degrees, bake for about 50 minutes (just keep an eye on it to see if the edges start to firm, but the center should still be a little jiggly.)
-Once the edges and middle look how they should, turn off the heat, but keep it in the oven for another hour.
-After the hour was up, I still kept it in the oven for another 30 minutes with the oven door ajar.
-Cool for another hour, then refrigerate for at least 8.

I forget where I found these tips now, but a couple useful things I found:
-line the bottom of the spring form pan with foil, then assemble the pan. Wrap more foil around the whole thing to ensure the water bath doesn't leak in.
-tap the pan to make sure you get all the air bubble out.
-make sure when you take out the cheesecake it's in a non-breezy area, and also run a knife around the edge of the cake when you take it out of the oven to prevent cracks.

Banana Nut Muffins

I really like being on a schedule. It seems when I don't have work or school or just a specific place to be at a certain time, I get kind of lost. For example, I used to eat a banana every day during my mid-class break. I don't even like bananas, but they're pretty cheap and transport well if I'm careful. So now I live in Virginia, have no job, don't have class, but still...I buy bananas. Why? Habit. Which brings us back to the point of me not liking bananas. Because I don't like them, and I don't have a reason to eat them, they end up just sitting there, getting over-ripe. At least that's the perfect excuse for banana bread.



This is from my mom's bread cookbook. It's really old. I don't know what it's called or who the author is. Anyway, here's the recipe:

2 c. sifted all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
(1/2) t. salt
(1/2) c. butter
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. mashed, very ripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
(1/3) c. milk
1 t. lemon juice
(1/2) c. chopped nuts

Sift the flour with the soda and salt.
Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar. Mix well.
Add the eggs and bananas and blend thoroughly.
Combine the milk and lemon juice, which will curdle a bit.
Slowly and alternately fold in the flour mixture and the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Blend well after each addition.
Sit in the nuts, then pour the batter into a buttered 9 x 5 x 3'' loaf pan.
Bake 350 degrees for one hour, or until the bread springs back when lightly touched in the center.

This is for one loaf, but since I only had one banana, I halved the recipe and made 9 muffins. My mom says to bake those for 20 minutes, but I actually had them in there for maybe 23-25 minutes. Just keep a keen eye on them because they go from looking just underdone to being just right really quickly. My mom also notes that 1/2 the recipe can make a mini-loaf (bake for 45 minutes) and 2-3 muffins.

Try it! It's good!

Buttermilk Cake

So...



I really do love this cake recipe. I made it last weekend also, and when you have a container of buttermilk, finding little projects that use up the bottle is coming in very handy. Last time I made it with blackberries and it was great. This time I used peaches and strawberries, but I think the sugar in all the fruit, plus the sugar I sprinkled on top, did....something....(chemistry help, Zoe?). Anyway, it's kind of hard to see from the top, but big chunks of the bottom were stuck to the pan when I tried to take it out. Last time that didn't happen, and this time I still used butter, pan spray, and floured the pan. Oh well.



At least that gave me an opportunity to taste it, and mmmmhmmmmm. Divine.



Recipe from Elly Says Opa!
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 stick of unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup plus 1.5 Tbsp. sugar, divided
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup well-shaken lowfat buttermilk
1 cup fresh raspberries (about 5 oz.)

Preheat the oven to 400, with a rack in the middle. Butter and flour a 9″ cake pan (I used a springform pan – I no longer mess around with trying to get cakes out of pans).

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Beat together the butter and 2/3 cup sugar at medium-high until pale and fluffy. Beat in vanilla, and then egg.

At low speed, mix in flour in three batches, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, until just combined.

Spoon batter into a cake pan, and smooth the top. Scatter raspberries on top, and sprinkle remaining 1.5Tbsp. sugar.

Bake until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes. Cool in the pan 10 minutes and then turn onto a rack and cool to warm, 10-15 minutes.

Eggs Benedict. Eh.....not really but kind of.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who, when mapping out daily meals, thinks: "Hmmm. I better eat a real meal now if I want to be hungry for ice cream later." However, I still like to believe thinking like this should be lauded if it leads to something this good.



Welcome to my bastardized eggs benedict. It's true: I was expecting failure. And when I took them out of the water, I thought these eggs were utter disaster. It's odd when you can overcook something in two minutes.

And they probably were a little overcooked compared to other poached eggs I've had, but after I put everything together with Drew's sweet potato biscuits (they were great and thank you) and Morningstar sausage patties, I was delighted to discover that they were DELICIOUS. I can't emphasize that enough, so it gets caps, bold, and italics: DELICIOUS.


(I took that picture to emphasize the disappointing yolks. But then when I started eating them the yolk did break. By that time, though, I wanted to eat, so that part of the actual success gets no picture.)

Then I added some chili lime Cholula I found in the fridge and ohhohohoho...ZOMGZ. So good.

Yellow Cake with Sour Cream Frosting

My dear friend Leslie's birthday is tomorrow, June 1 (Hooray!), but her birthday party was last night, and I thought I would bake her a cake. At first I was frustrated because all I wanted was a recipe for normal yellow cake, and apparently, on the interwebs, this does not exist. Even the simple recipes seemed a lot more difficult than I was expecting. So last weekend when I was at my parents' I looked in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my mother's had for about four decades.

Ah-HA! The very first recipe was for yellow cake and just made sense. Unfortunately, I got batter all over my copy, but I'll try to get it again and post it sometime.



Even though the cake was great, I was a little disappointed with the frosting. First of all, I take issue with the fact that that is called a "frosting" in the first place. It seems more like an icing or a glaze to me. Other than that, the taste was good. I like the idea of a sour cream frosting, so I might try to play around with it a little. I should also point out that the runniness might be my own fault since I melted the butter in the microwave, and that consequently melted everything else, but whatever. I also omitted a bag of chocolate chips that was supposed to be double boiled with the butter, so that probably had something to do with the consistency also, now that I think about it. Oh well. It was delicious none-the-less!

Happy Birthday Leslie!!!!




Sour Cream Frosting
(This is enough for 2 9'' cakes)
1/4 c. butter
1/2 c. sour cream
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt
2(1/2)-2(3/4) c. sifted confectioner's sugar

Melt the butter, and blend in sour cream, vanilla, and salt.
Gradually add sugar for spreading consistency, and beat well.

Chai Tea Latte

This post could almost be entitled, "Treasure Island is a very dangerous place." For those of you not in the know, Treasure Island is a Chicago grocery store called "The most European supermarket in America" by Julia Child. It's amazing, and I really need to learn self-control when I go in there. So far I've come out with wasabi mayo, liquid smoke, 6-packs of Aranciata and Limonata Sanpellegrino, and a loaf of Lithuanian bread that I bought only because I was unfamiliar with the bakery. I almost bought wasabi cheese and korean bbq sauce, but I stopped myself. I'm trying to conserve room in my car when I move.

Anyway, on my last trip to Treasure Island, I grabbed the last thing on my list (organic chipotle salsa, which is what makes me want to try the liquid smoke in normal salsa), turned around, and saw this:



People are very passionate about the chai tea lattes. I first found this out when I was in Caribou and a woman who had just gotten her drink stormed back in--livid--marched up to the barista and said, "This is NOT a chai tea latte. I get one every day, and I know what it is, and this is NOT a chai tea latte." While I'm not as crazy as that miss, I still don't really blink at dropping $5.00 on a small drink. (That's really not an exaggeration since soy milk is 40 cents extra and Chicago has a 10.25% sales tax). So I was especially excited when I found this lucky package.

This is a really long post for something so simple. Really, you just mix 1 part milk (since it's a "Vegan" chai tea mix they say to use soy milk, but really, who cares) to 1 part mix and heat it up.



ZOMGZ. It's good. Really good.

Crustless Quiche

First of all, I want to address something that I was initially concerned about: why is this a crustless quiche and not a frittata? Well, friends, it's not a frittata because it's not in a skillet, and I didn't broil it. Now onto bigger and better things.

I had a pretty lazy day today. I didn't work out because my muscles were killing me. I had Coldstone ice cream around 5:00 because tomorrow is the last day to use the free coupon from my birthday. And as I was lighting the flame to boil my water for my Friday night macaroni and cheese, I told myself, "no." I deserve something that requires effort. Luckily, Joy the Baker's blog has two different quiche recipes I wanted to try: Crustless Quiche with blue cheese, spinach, and mushrooms, and Creme Fraiche Quiche with (obviously) creme fraiche, gruyere, and bacon.

I didn't feel like waiting for a pie crust to thaw, so I went with the crustless quiche, but decided to add bacon (I know..ME! Cooking meat!), mushrooms, gruyere, and I had some red bell peppers, so I added that as well.

Proof of the bacon:


Here's the recipe I followed:

Slice bacon (I used 7 strips because it was hard to cut through the fat and I got frustrated) and fry it. Slice some mushrooms and red bell peppers, and sautee those in the bacon grease. Toss those into a buttered pie plate. Meanwhile, whisk 3 eggs, and then whisk in 1 cup of half and half (I want to point out that I actually almost got fat free half and half, but then I thought about the rest of the ingredient I was using, and decided that would just be stupid). I sprinkled the bacon crisps over the mushrooms and red pepper, topped that with shredded gruyere, and then poured the egg mixture on top.



Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 35 minutes, or until it's browning on top.



I really don't like cooking in my apartment kitchen for some reason, so I was proud of myself for actually making something. Hurray!



It was nice having the gruyere crust on top, but I still think I'd prefer to have it incorporated throughout. Next time I also would add shallots and spinach.

Kuma's Corner

Kuma's Corner
2900 W. Belmont
Chicago, IL 60618


This past weekend was full of really a lot of good eats: Minnie's for lunch on Friday followed by a four course meal at Phil Stefani's 437 Rush for dinner; brunch at Orange on Saturday and then dinner at Fonda del Mar. Now, I'm not saying Kuma's Corner necessarily ruined that trend. It really was good.

I had the Yob burger: Smoked gouda, roasted red peppers, bacon, and roasted garlic mayo.

Here are pictures of my leftovers since I forgot my camera when we went:





Drew had the May special: The Swine flu burger. It had chorizo hash, tortilla strips, roasted green chile, pico de gallo, cilantro, and cream sauce (although we both agreed it tasted like Indian food).

I should point out that I also swayed Drew away from the Slayer: a pile of fries with a 1/2 lb. burger on top, chili, cherry peppers, andouille, jack cheese, onions, and anger.

Yes, the burgers were good. Pretzel bread buns were a nice touch. The appetizer was also good: waffle fries with pulled pork and jack cheese (well, ga-duh these were good. The bbq sauce was just Sweet Baby Ray's though, I'm pretty sure). They had homemade chips, which I always appreciate. But was all that worth waiting (both to get a table and subsequently at the table) 3 hours? Nyyeeeehprobably not.

Looks like DC is 2-0 in the Great Burger-Off with Chicago.

Arepas

Arepas are like a south american corn cake that you fill with whatever crazy stuff you want. In Orlando this place Q'Kenan made amazing Arepas and that's where i was turned on to their badassness. For the Arepa i followed this recipe i found online

http://www.whats4eats.com/breads/arepas-recipe

For the filling i slow cooked some pork overnight in various spices. Also i put some black beans in there with some shredded cheese. On top i put some homemade Crema which is like a south american sour cream. I was trying to emulate Q'Kenan awesome sauce but i dont know how they did it so i just did my own thing. Crema is basically this:

2 cups heavy cream and 1/4 cultured buttermilk. put that in a bowl and cover it and let it sit out on the counter over night. This turns it thick and tangy. Then add some salt and pepper, diced shallots, garlic, cilantro, and fresh papaya. Its very smooth and refreshing like sour cream, and easy to make so i recommend trying it if you're into sour cream.

Blood Orange

Dear Blood Orange,

(Le Sigh).

I really wanted to like you. I was so excited when I saw you at Whole Foods! "I'm not supposed to be able to find you here in the Midwest!" I said to myself. Or, at least, that's what Padma said when she was on The View a few months ago critiquing Stephen the Sommelier from Season One's salad featuring you as its star.

But today I finally cut you open and I saw this:



Holy goats, Blood Orange! I'm sorry, but I just never expected to find your coloring occurring anywhere in nature. It's a bit disconcerting to me, to be quite honest. I'm not sure what to make of it.

But I persevered and tried a few slices. Now, Blood Orange, you look cool--although blood is not necessarily appetizing--but the least you could do is be delicious. Alas, you taste like a bland grapefruit. (Now, someone with the experience of eating a few blood oranges needs to tell me if this is normal, or if it's just a side effect of sitting in Drew's fridge for about a month. Before you judge me for eating an old orange though, you need to see this fridge for yourself. I swear, it has magical abilities when it comes to retaining fruit ripeness).

However, I can't bypass your merits:



You peel with the grace of a clementine.

Good show.

Sincerely,

Katrina

Salmon Potato Chowder

This is a recipe we got out of the daily soup cookbook. it was good. Katrina also did her famous rosemary biscuits. She can post the recipe for that some other time cause i'm not sure where it is.

- Sweat 1 onion, 2 celery stalks, 1 fennel bulb in a large stockpot with butter
- Add 2 tsp thyme, 1tsp fennel seeds, 2 bay leaves, 2 tsp salt and stir
- Add 6 red bliss potatoes 1-inch cubed, 4 cups veg stock, 1 cup tomato juice and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 min.
- Add 2 large salmon fillets 1-inch cubed. Simmer 2 minutes
- Remove from heat and add 1.5 cups heavy cream and 2 tb chopped tarragon

We halved this recipe and it worked out good although we didn't have heavy cream so we used a dash of milk and i think it was a bad idea. It was still good though. I wonder if it's frowned upon to put recipes online from a book you have to actually buy. Luckily no one reads this.

Southwestern Eggrolls

So the filling for these consisted of the following:
-cooked chopped spinach
-frozen baby corn
-chopped red bell peppers
-black beans
-diced jalapeno
-chopped grilled chicken
-cumin
-chili powder
-cayenne pepper
-chopped green onion
-shredded Monterrey jack cheese
-salt/pepper

i don't remember the amounts, that's why the picture is there. memorize the way it looks.

so after simmering all this in the saucepan til its all cooked together, put a heaping spoonful onto an eggroll wrapper. i can't really explain the way you need to angle the wrapper and fold it in words, but it's really important so don't fuck it up. use a little eggwash to seal it up and give it a nice coat on top to crisp it up. we baked these at 450 for 10 min, but deep frying would be taste superior.

i hope you enjoy this final picture because i doubt you'll ever make them yourself.

also we dipped these in a ranch/hot sauce concoction. i suggest you come up with a delicious sauce yourself, dear reader, because experimentation is half the fun. and eating is 80% of the fun. and cooking is 43%. math.

Remoulade

Considering I at first was calling it "ramulade," I'm not sure what exactly constitutes a real remoulade. However, I made something up, and Drew said I should post about it even though we didn't take pictures of the shrimp po'boys we made tonight. This in turn, then, serves a dual purpose of me keeping track of what I did for future reference, and I guess other people can look at it too if they want.

So here's my advice: Take whatever amount of spicy brown mustard and wasabi mayo, mix it with chopped green onions, celery, and minced garlic, sprinkle in some black pepper, kosher salt, paprika, and a couple dashes of worcester, and add a dollop of creamy horseradish, and something good comes out.

Since no post is complete without a picture (or so I hear), here is a completely non-related oldie-but-goodie:

Venison Meatloaf

For the beer pong tournament on Friday we had Venison Jack Burgers (thanks to Justin for the meat. and his friend Beetle or Scarab or something for killing an innocent deer) In those burgers there were black beans, fresh cilantro, crushed up doritos, and venison. They turned out good. The next day we had a bunch of that meat mix left over so... meatloaf time.

I added in a couple eggs, shallots, carrot, fresh garlic, thai chili peppers, and some chili powder

cooked it at 400deg for about 20 min then added a glaze of ketchup, Worcestershire, honey, and cumin.

bam. delicious.

Tamales

I made some delicious tamales. look.

I got Masa mix from Wegman's and found a recipe online. I've always wanted to make these and they turned out awesome. I slow roasted some left over pork shoulder and some dark meat chicken and did two different kinds. Slow cooking the meat took about 3 hours, and steaming the tamales took about 2, so it was a long process. When you consider how many i ended up with though, and how i've been eating them for a week and barely made a dent in the supply, it was worth it.


The pork ones were the best.

Grasshoppers

For the superbowl i decided to make the Morgan family's traditional grasshopper pie but do it in individual little cupcake things. So they're like mini pies. Its just heavy whipping cream, cream cheese, sugar, creme de menthe in an oreo crust with some homemade whipped cream on top.

success.

Chicago in January

I apologize already for not making this post as good as it probably deserves, but if we can remember all the way back to the middle of January, Drew came to visit me. Despite the weather being downright balmy with the windchill into the negatives, we did venture out a few times:

The Bourgeois Pig Cafe
738 W. Fullerton Pkwy.

Down the street from campus is the place where the who's who in pretentious faculty, staff, students, and Lincoln Park moms without Jamaican nannies to take care of their kids get together to enjoy oversized lattes, organic vegan brownies, and (this is why I go there) just really tasty sandwiches. And OF COURSE the sandwiches have to be named with literary themes.

I had the Walden, and thank goodness I remember the name because otherwise I wouldn't be able to refer back to the menu on their website to see what was in it: honey walnut curry chicken salad, tomatoes, romaine, alfalfa sprouts, and red onion on focaccia.



Sadly, I was superbly disappointed in my choice. Normally I get a vegetarian sandwich, and those feature their homemade hummus or pesto usually, but I felt like something different, and the walnut curry chicken sounded good to me. It was a pretty one-note taste, though, and it needed something else like cheese or a dressing to give it another flavor. The bread was pretty dry on this occasion also, which was a real shame. Drew's sandwich, on the other hand, was good, and I'm used to him making better choices in ordering. Unfortunately though, we can't remember the name or what was on it besides "bacon and turkey maybe." The best part was that it was hot, and all you get is a picture:



Boston Blackie's
1962 N. Halsted

So this was also a place I had been before with my parents and I thought it was delicious. It was actually after I ate here with them that I got the idea that Drew and I should do a burger blog, which immediately transformed into a food blog. We went here on a Saturday afternoon with my roommate Abby and her boyfriend Adam, and, as you can see, we ate a lot:



And again, this was a place that was just better when I went before. Drew got some burger that had chili on it. He said the burger meat itself wasn't good. I completely forget what I got (and now you can understand why I already knew before I started writing that this would be a bad post). Let's move on.

Tank Noodle
4953 N. Broadway St.



Let's look past how scary I look. Viet House is BY FAR better. Better broth, better ingredients, better service. But Tank has good bubble tea. We didn't get any this time, but the plum smoothie is delicious, and if you're a fan of tapioca, they give an ample supply.

Tiztal Cafe
4631 N. Clark St.

This was a spur of the moment decision, and the day was sunny and nice enough for us to walk there, which is always a plus to me. We have no pictures, and while the original plan was to only blog with pictures, I just need to at least mention this place. I had eggs florentine, which has completely changed my opinion of poached eggs. The garlic rosemary potatoes were good, and Drew had a chorizo scramble that he wasn't a giant fan of. Or maybe he just thought it wasn't worth the wait? We were waiting a kind of long time, which was a shame, but we did get a little extra oatmeal milkshake for compensation, which was really good and tasty.

Bar on Buena
910 W. Buena Ave.

I also just want to quickly mention this. This bar is down the block from my building, and they had a giant beer list and a very helpful waitress

So I guess that trip was kind of a culinary failure. Nothing really stood out, and the best places were the places we kind of just felt like going to randomly. I guess that's a good lesson for next time though. I don't know how to end this. THE END.

Wakamono

Location: 3317 N. Broadway, Chicago

I'd been looking forward all week to what I hoped would end up being a lonely--oh, I mean, lovely--Saturday night of fancy sushi and wine. I really love fancy sushi, and what I mean by that is sushi that is not from a refrigerated case in Dominick's or from Todai, but rather a more refined establishment that requires a paper transaction of what you mean to order.

I had been to Wakamono one time before with my roommates Abby and Meghan, and good Lord, people. It was delicious. Expensive, yes, but definitely worth it.

Now, keep in mind I ordered take out, and in hindsight I should have at least put it on a plate for photogenic reasons, but that's why it's called hindsight.



On the left is the yo la mango roll with mango wrapped spicy salmon, grilled asparagus, tamago, cucumber, tempura crumbs, and shichimi pepper flakes. That sounded good to me, but it ultimately was just a bit too sweet. The mango also gave it a bit of a slimy quality, and since the asparagus is grilled, there was no crunch or bite factor in the roll, which made it just a bit too soft and, in the end, monotone for my taste. Also, I'm assuming that yellow goo on top is tamago, and let's add that to the list of things I think don't belong on/in sushi rolls along with cream cheese.



That lovely roll on the right is the classic maki roll I ordered, white tuna jalapeno maki. It was good, but I also think it'd be pretty hard to go wrong with just tuna and diced jalapeno. On a sidenote, I wanted it spicier, so I added a giant gob of wasabi. I'm pretty sure everyone has a wasabi story, so I won't bore anyone with details, but I really thought my nose was going to explode for about 45 seconds.

Since my carry out experience with Wakamono didn't exactly live up to what I was expecting, I at least want to mention what I thought were absolutely stellar rolls from when Abby, Meg, and I went before. I had the fire dragon roll: spicy tuna wrapped with freshwater eel, avocado, topped with red tobiko, and unagi sauce. I wish I had thought of this blog (yes, it was ME) three months ago because a picture is warranted for that roll. It looked awesome. Like a real dragon, you guys! Meg had the maki mexicano, which is yellowtail, cilantro, jalapeno, spicy sauce, avocado, and lime. It was good and I thought it was really unique, but I have no idea how that girl ate the whole plate because that spicy sauce was just slightly bearable for me. Abby had what I wish I had gotten this past time because I consider it the best roll I've tried there: kani chung roll. That's king crab, tempura crumbs over spicy albacore tuna, asparagus, unagi sauce, and toasted sesame. Maybe I just really like tempura crumbs, because that and the red pepper flakes were the highlights of the mango roll for me.

I did think it noteworthy to mention the adorable mini soy sauce bottle I got too. I love things in novelty size!



Also noteworthy (possibly only funny to Drew and me): I didn't want to go through the hassle of spelling my first or last name to the person over the phone, so I placed the order under "Morgan." Then the host didn't want to give me my food because (shock of shocks) my name's not Morgan! That was remedied though when I said, "umm, that's my boyfriend's name." Does it really make a difference? Tell me, Wakamono host, who also sarcastically told me not to break the wine bottles the time before, does it matter what name the order is under?

That reminds me, though, the place is BYOB with only a $5 corking fee per bottle, which I think is awesome. It's definitely a place I would consider only going to sit-down in the future, not only because I guess fancy sushi belongs in a fancy setting and not my living room while I'm watching House Hunters International and trying to place a roommate ad on craigslist, but also because just the way they present the food on the plate when you're actually there is great in and of itself.


FIN

Quinoa

I'm always interested in eating foods that are good for you. Whether or not that relates to my diet as a whole is up for debate, but a few months ago I heard about quinoa (I had been saying it "key-no-ah" up until about six seconds ago when I found this site (http://www.quinoa.net/) that informed me it's actually pronounced "keen-wa") and I knew I wanted to try it. I'm obsessed with grains like rice and pasta as it is, but quinoa supposedly is better because it has more protein than any other grain as well as other vitamins and amino acids. So I found some at Whole Foods (even then there was only one brand that they carried, so I'm pretty sure a normal grocery store wouldn't have it) and made some tonight.



It only takes about 15 minutes to cook, which was very surprising. You really just need to let the water boil, cover, and let it sit like rice or couscous, and it turns out kind of looking like little segments of rubber bands almost. Too bad my camera is crappy, or otherwise I'd be able to prove it.



Meanwhile, I wilted some spinach and then sauteed some garlic, which I subsequently burned because I was too busy taking pictures of the quinoa. I salted that and then coarsely chopped some almonds and added that to the pan for a little toss.




After I added the spinach, garlic, and almonds to the quinoa I salted it a little more and squeezed in some fresh lemon juice, then topped it with sliced tomato.



All in all: delicious. I was thinking about adding in asparagus, but that would require walking to Jewel today and it was way too cold. I would also like any suggestions for what else to do with it. It really is so light and fluffy I would think twice about adding any type of sauce, as that might just make it too heavy. I might want to stuff it in bell peppers...I think that might be tasty too.

Sweet Potato Bison Burgers

Made these burgers the other night and thought to myself "I should photograph this and put it on that food blog i just started two days ago!" because I'm a genius. Anyway, the star of this dish was this sauce that i got back in birmingham during the holidays at the new Bass Pro Shop. Yeah that's right, I'm cooking with Bass Pro Shop ingredients, wanna fight about it?

So i cooked some bison patties with a little oil, onions, garlic (garlic powder, chili powder also) and this sauce, which is Mango Ginger Habanero if you can't see it on the label. After they were cooked i allow the onions to caramelize on their own in this sauce and it really made them taste good.

I also microved a couple sweet potatoes at this point, which i ended up throwing in the pan later to crisp up.

When it was all done the burgers consisted of the bison patty, slice of cooper cheese, a medallion of sweet potato, some chopped onions from the pan, and lettuce all on toasted whole wheat english muffins. Turned out pretty tasty. And yes i ate them both. The sweet potato idea was nothing short of culinary brilliance. Did i mention i came up with that? I'm a bastard.

The End.