Bone Broth

Lately I've been on a cooking kick, stemming from the improvement I've made in seasoning eggs. 

It may seem silly but I've always avoided salt and pepper completely. In college, when I started eating healthier and learning about nutrition, I thought it was best to not get a taste for salt. Because heart disease. Ha!

It's funny now but I was really into putting only the healthiest things in my body. I had already quit Dr Pepper, high fructose corn syrup, and partially hydrogenated oils. I paid close attention to food labels and made sure I was getting enough fiber and protein each day. 

I don't think it's a bad thing to pay attention to your food but for a personality like mine, it can also veer into unhealthy territory- like counting calories and not eating until the specific time allotment for those calories was up... I read somewhere that I needed 100 calories and hour so if I had eaten 400 calories for breakfast, I wouldn't eat for another 4 hours even if I was hungry. Not a good idea!

Once I gave up sugar for 2 weeks (it ended on Valentine's Day and I had cookies and hot chocolate for breakfast....I don't think it worked); and another time I went vegan and gluten free for 2 weeks which coincidentally also ended on Valentine's Day. I was feeling so amazing at the end of those 2 weeks that I ate hummus and veggies for dinner on me and Bean's date- I was afraid I would feel sick if I ate something less clean.

My ultimate goal is a combination of the two. If it were up to me I would eat only veggies and seafood with the occasional meat- I'm imagining days full of ceviche and sushi and roasted veggies. Problem is I like sweets. And I have a family that loves bread and cheese. 

So I'm splitting the difference by incorporating healthy things into foods we all like.

Bean and I decided that he eats food if it tastes good and I eat food if it's healthy for me, even if it doesn't taste that great.

The baby broke out in eczema and I noticed it improved (and so did her sleep) when I gave up dairy. It was hard at first but when I let little bits of it sneak into my diet now, to test the waters, I notice that my stomach is upset. So I'm going to keep up the no dairy for myself. 

I made chicken and dumplings from scratch without any dairy- I boiled the chickens from scratch which gave me lots of extra chicken stock; picked them clean, and made dumplings from scratch without any dairy- the sauce thickened up with just the flour from the dumplings. It came out pretty decent! I like mine with lots of pepper. 

Side note on the no dairy rule- I haven't had an issue with butter or mayo which is such a relief! Mayo is mostly eggs and butter is surprisingly allowed on the No FODMAP diet (yet another diet I went on at the request of a GI doctor- which is also where I discovered my lactose intolerance); so I decided to keep it in and haven't seen any issues with the baby. 

The next week I boiled another chicken and made mini chicken pot pies using crescent rolls (dairy free) as the crust. I used unsweetened almond milk in place of milk and these came out so great that Bean exclaimed, "Yum!" when he took a bite. We froze the extras and have eaten them a few times since then. 

There's nothing I love more than pulling something I made out of the freezer for an easy dinner.

So the point of this post is that I'd vaguely heard of bone broth from an acquaintance who is eating certain foods to help heal her body from lots of issues related to my thyroid issues (she has PCOS, Hashimoto's, and psoriasis, among other issues). Most of the stuff she eats looks kind of gross and seems like a pain to make. 

But I figured if I was boiling chickens and all, I could easily make a bone broth and keep it in the fridge to use in future recipes. 

It was super simple. I just added both chicken carcasses to my crock pot along with any leftover unpeeled veggies from that week (onion and garlic and carrots and some zucchini peels), filled it to the top with water, and put it on low for 3 days. 

It seems like a really long time but it takes awhile for the collagen in the bones to completely release. The point is to get all the really good stuff out and that takes time.

My crock pot doesn't stay on indefinitely; after the maximum 10 hours it switches over to warm, so I had to keep restarting it.

I successfully found cheesecloth at Target (it's in the kitchen gadgets aisle in case you are wondering and yes, I did have to search for that on google)!

After straining the bones and veggies, I was left with a dark brown broth. After chilling in the fridge overnight, I skimmed the fat off the top and now it's ready to use.

I really felt like a homesteader when I poured it into used (and rinsed) wine bottles for longer storage. I'm on the lookout for a great soup recipe so I can use some of this up but so far I made risotto with a combo of the bone broth and the rest of the leftover chicken stock and the whole family loved it. I've made risotto many times but this time Bean remarked that it was really delicious.

He knows flavor, I know nutrition!

Read More

Grilled Polenta with Mushroom Ragout

After all of that fattening stuff, we needed to lighten up a little. All of these fresh ingredients went into it:

Remember the polenta story? How I tried to grill it in college and Bean thought it was nasty? I may have changed his mind with this one.

There are the hunks of polenta, all grilled up. And mushroom ragout is something where you cook mushrooms (LOTs of them) down with tomatoes and vegetable stock. It wasn't my favorite, but I knew we were being healthy by eating 'wild' mushrooms. Here's the final product:

Another blind picture. Let's find out what health benefits we got from this recipe!

Shiitake mushrooms "protect the body from cancer, decrease fat and cholesterol in the blood and flush the body of stagnating toxins". And there's nothing about portobello mushrooms or white button mushrooms. So maybe they aren't that great. But they are a fungus!

Read More

Found it!!

Lasagna is a recipe we can make that will last all week. We made this on Sunday, and still have 2 servings left on Friday. I took it for lunch every day, and we had it for leftovers 2 nights. Usually, I make something and end up eating all of the leftovers by myself so that I get sick of it. Case in point: the Mediterranean Pasta with Greens. I won't ever crave it because I ate it every day for lunch for about a week and a half!!

I got this lasagna recipe from Pioneer Woman. Well, I followed hers as a guideline and changed several things. I used 1 pound of ground buffalo and 1 pound of regular ground beef. And I used noodles that don't have to be pre-cooked which saved me a step and a pot to clean.

Finished product, with bread that Bean made. We made this to watch the series finale of Lost.

Our little skillet was overflowing with the sauce! It used whole canned tomatoes and lots of tomato paste. We didn't cook it the full 45 minutes, but it still came out great!

Another layer used cottage cheese- something I think is so gross. But all mixed in with the meat and sauce and noodles, it tasted excellent!

Hot out of the oven.

Let me also say that somehow my camera screen got cracked so all of these pictures were taken blind. My camera doesn't even have a little window to look through to make sure it's lined up right. So I just guessed, and it looks like they came out ok!

And Lasagna has many variations- we could do a layer of spinach in there, or leave out the meat completely. I can't wait to make it again.

Probably because Bean actually went to the fridge and made himself a plate of leftovers. More than once. It's a miracle food.

Read More

Pioneer Woman's Potato and Leek Pizza

I thought this recipe was going to be a Girl's Night recipe, because I don't know what leeks are. I've never used them. But I was excited to try them! Instead, Bean and I made this pizza one week. We actually had pizza several times that week- once we made a plain cheese pizza with a garlic crust.

Each night we made one, we used Pioneer Woman's dough recipe. It's pretty easy- much easier than I thought! I made her full dough recipe, and divided it up into parts. The recipe makes 2 full doughs, and we even divided it up into 4 so we wouldn't eat as much or let it go to waste.

So here's the pizza all ready to go in the oven:

Bean helped slice up the potatoes really thin. And he convinced me to use regular thick-cut bacon instead of turkey bacon. And the leeks! So delicious.

You can't deny this pizza looks amazing. It tasted amazing too. I mean, you take a bite and YUM just comes out before you realize it. Definitely a make- again. We just have to make it for someone, because it was way too much to finish in one night and didn't taste as good reheated. Still on the hunt for the perfect reheatable meals!

Read More

Pioneer Woman's Linguine with Clam Sauce

Bean and I made this on a Friday night because we needed a night in to just eat fattening food. This did it for us!

I've never used canned clams but I really didn't even know they were there. The sauce was just so good.
We put it in this big bowl because it's more fun. I think we are still on the search for those few recipes that will carry us through when we start a family. Recipes that are fairly easy and make great leftovers. This was delicious for just the two of us, but tasted better the day we made it than a couple of days later. Not bad though. If you haven't seen Pioneer Woman's cookbook, go buy it. I read it like a book when I first got it, and have liked most every recipe I've tried.

Read More

Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls

I grew up eating cinnamon rolls from a cardboard can. We always ate them at my Mom's house over the weekend. Sometimes we would make the really big ones, and sometimes we would make two pans, one of regular cinnamon rolls, and one of cinnamon rolls with orange icing. We used to gobble them up! There would be none left.

Then when I worked at the mall in high school, there was a Cinnabon. I think I've only had one or two Cinnabons in my lifetime because they are so extremely huge. Then in college I saw a calorie count on one of those things and decided it wasn't worth it. They do smell intoxicating though.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided Bean would like if I made him some cinnamon rolls from scratch on a Sunday morning. He was slightly indifferent, but I wanted to try it anyway. So here they are:

Just out of the oven! I had a minor glitch. I didn't have the full amount of regular flour, so I was forced to use whole-wheat flour for half of the recipe (that or go to the store at 7am on a Sunday- NO THANKS!). They look pretty good I think.
And here's the money shot- with the icing! YUM YUM YUM. I followed the Pioneer Woman's recipe, except for the whole wheat flour fiasco, and I left out the coffee liquor from the icing. They were very good and sugary, but they tasted very wheat-y. So we will try these again when we have someone to share them with and I have enough flour.

On a side note, I'm going to stop typing out the recipes to the things I cook. I highly doubt anyone is reading this and getting recipes off of it for dinner, so I'll just cook them and tell you what I thought. Plus it gets my Type-A brain all fired up and stressed because I have pictures of food I cooked weeks ago but haven't posted because I don't feel like typing out the recipe. So look for a new recipe every day for the next several days, because they were all cooked quite awhile ago!

I had another thought...even though I don't post every day, I'm always blogging, taking pictures of things and thinking about how to post them. But sometimes I feel like it's a waste because I don't know who reads this thing! :)

Read More

Mediterranean Pasta with Greens

This recipe made me feel healthy to eat it because it has kale in it. I'm very new to the greens thing. The flavor of this recipe was pretty good, but not something I would crave. It was super easy to make though!
Mediterranean Pasta with Greens (from Clean Food by Terry Walters)
1 pound penne or fusilli
3 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, chopped
1 TBSP dried basil
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 1/2 C. cooked chickpeas- also known as garbanzo beans, hence the reason I can't ever find them at the grocery store, but I digress...
2 C. canned diced tomatoes with their liquid
2 TBSP tomato paste
1/4 C. mirin
1 small bunch kale, chopped into bite-size pieces
salt and pepper
chopped fresh parsley for garnish

Cook pasta according to directions, rinse, drain, and return to pot. Drizzle with 1 TBSP olive oil and set aside.

In large pot over medium heat, saute garlic and onion in 2 TBSP olive oil until soft. Add basil, oregano, chickpeas, tomatoes, tomato paste and mirin. Saute 5 minutes laonger. Add kale, then cover and cook 3 minutes or until soft. Uncover and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper, toss the pasta in, heat through and serve.

If I didn't make it sound appealing enough, kale is "a powerful detoxifier, healer and ally in fighting cancer, heart disease, cataracts, inflammation, arthritis and diseases of the colon". That's what made me want to eat it.

Read More

Fennel and Orange Salad

I figured I should follow that disappointing recipe with one that blew our socks off. This was so amazing, I've thought about it nearly every day since we made it.

I was a bit nervous because I heard fennel tastes like licorice, and it did smell that way. But after going to 3 grocery stores to find it, I had to give it a try. I'm so glad I did. It was bright, sweet, crisp and fresh and tasted excellet next to the fish Bean made with a glass of wine.
The only bad part was that we had to let 2 servings of it go to waste! It's not something that will keep in the fridge for tomorrow's leftovers. We'll just have to invite someone over to share it next time.

Fennel and Orange Salad (from Clean Food by Terri Walters)
4 navel oranges
1/2 small red onion, very thinly sliced
1 fennel bulb, halved, cored and thinly sliced
1/4 c. fresh mint leaves, torn (I just realized we forgot to put the mint on ours!)

Remove zest from 2 oranges and set aside. Remove peels and white outer skins from all 4 oranges. Slice into rounds, or separate into segments.

Bring 2 C. water to boil. Place sliced onion in small bowl, cover iwth boiling water, let sit for 30 seconds, then drain well.

In large bowl, toss together orange segments, fennel, red onion, mint leaves and orange zest.

Dressing:
1 tsp. ground coriander
2 TBSP fresh orange juice
2 TBSP red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp. sea salt
3 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil

In separate bowl, whisk together all dressing ingredients and pour over salad.

Read More

Mixed Berry Couscous Cake

It looks pretty tasty, right?
WRONG.
I've held off on posting this recipe because it weirded me out so much. The pictures make it look so good but it was so not good.

The good part is I now have a springform pan. Now I can make cheesecake. It starts off making couscous but with apple juice and maple syrup for sweetness. It looks pretty good, but I was a little afraid to taste it.

Then you heat more maple syrup and something called Agar powder in a pan and coat the berries with it. The berries look really good by themselves. What a waste.

By the way, Agar powder costs almost $90 per pound. That's correct. Ninety dollars. This is about 4 tablespoons and it cost $6.30.

Then you pour the berries and their agar-powder sauce over the couscous,

chill for several hours, and this is what you come up with:
Notice the gelatinous stuff around the edges. The berries are coated with it. Agar powder is a natural thickener like gelatin but made out of seaweed or something. I was hesitant the next morning, but I decided to go for it. I cut a nice hunk out, put it on a plate, and proceeded to choke down several bites before giving up.

The texture of the berries was too much for me- somewhere between cooked and fresh. The fact that it was cold, sweet couscous sealed the deal for me. Bean woke up and tried a couple of bites and agreed. Neither of us wanted to touch it so it sat on the counter for a day or two before we put it down the disposal.

This was a sad day. All that agar powder wasted! All of those beautiful berries I really wanted to eat fresh! I don't think anyone will want this recipe so I won't go through the trouble. If you do want to give it a go, leave me a comment and I'll send you the recipe.

Read More

Quinoa with Sweet Corn

**Edit: I added recipes to the last few posts, and a few more comments about each one. I cooked them all so close together, then tried to post all of them quickly that I didn't do the best job. So here they are!

This is how Bean likes his 'clean' food: with dabs of butter all over it!

This is how I like mine: plain jane! I really love bland foods.

Here's a big pot of the easiest side dish ever. Just as easy as rice but with more healthy stuff- whole grains, corn, and onions.

Generally, when we use the grill, Bean takes care of the meat and I worry about the sides. It feels good to 'cook together' and then share the meal at the end. Of course this dish was a little bland, but Bean thought it would be extra good with butter and Lawry's.

Quinoa with Sweet Corn (from Clean Food by Terry Walters)

1 C. quinoa

1 1/2 C. water

sea salt

1 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 1/2 C. corn, fresh or frozen (I used frozen!)

2 TBSP chopped fresh parsley

Rinse and drain quinoa and place in pot with water and salt. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer 15 minutes or until water is absorbed. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly before fluffing. Meanwhile, in large skillet over medium heat, saute chopped onion on olive oil until soft. Add corn and heat through. Fold in quinoa and parsley and drizzle with olive oil. Season to taste with salt and serve.

(or add butter to it!)

Read More

Miso Soup

I've never made miso soup before but I always love it at sushi restaurants. I followed the recipe and it was delicious, but had LOTS of tofu and carrots. Usually there are a few strands of seaweed and one or two chunks of tofu. One thing I learned is miso is a living thing and if you boil it, that kills all of the beneficial things about it. So, when making this soup, you boil all of the other ingredients, then add the miso (dissolved in a little water) at the end. It makes me feel really healthy to eat this!

My Favorite Miso Soup (from Clean Food by Terry Walters)

6 C. water

3 carrots, chopped

12 oz. extra firm silken tofu, diced

1- 3 inch strip wakame, broken into small pieces (the one I bought was already in small pieces)

Dash of tamari or shoyu (I don't know what either of those are so I left it out!)

1/4 C. miso

2-3 scallions, chopped

In large pot over high heat bring water to boil. Add carrots, tofu, wakame and tamari, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Remove from heat. In separate bowl, dissolve miso in 1/3 C. water. Ladle soup into individual bowls and stir 1 generous TBSP dissolved miso into each serving. Top with chopped scallions and serve. Serves 4.

I made about half the miso mixture since there were two of us and when I took the leftovers to work I brought my pouch of miso and dissolved it there while the 'water soup' heated in the microwave. That way I didn't harm the living enzymes that make up miso.

Read More

Caesar Salad and Corn Chowder

Kind of a plain meal, but the caesar dressing is made with tofu, olive oil, and seasonings. It was delicious! Of course there was no cheese, but it would have been better with it. The corn chowder was a little boring, but it has tons of veggies in it, it's amazing to think about all of the nutrition that comes in one little bowl.

I also realize that this post will make absolutely nobody want to make either of these dishes. That's ok. Next time you come over to my house, I'll make it and you won't even know it's 'clean'.

Corn Chowder (from Clean Food by Terri Walters)
1 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
1/4 C. mirin
1/2 tsp sea salt
3 1/2 C. corn, fresh or frozen (I used frozen)
5 C. rice or soy milk (I used regular organic skim milk)
sea salt and black pepper

In large pot over medium heat, saute onion in olive oil until soft. Add celery, carrots, potatoes, mirin and salt and saute 3-4 minutes. Add corn and enough milk to just cover ingredients. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes. Remove from heat and puree with handheld blender. Add water as needed to achieve desired consistency. Season to taste and serve.

The main thing with this is all of the chopping involved! I also do not own a handheld blender, so I scooped batches of it into my regular blender, then mixed it all together in a big tupperware bowl to store it so I could eat it for lunch every day for the next week. After eating it so many times in a row I really enjoyed it and looked forward to it. It's very calm and slightly sweet.

Caesar Salad (from Clean Food by Terry Walters)
2 heads romaine lettuce
1/2 C. kalamata olives, pitted
1 C. sourdough croutons

8 oz. soft silken tofu (I used regular tofu because I bought the wrong kind)
3 TBSP apple cider vinegar
3 TBSP lemon juice
1 TBSP mellow white miso (I used brown miso, because I didn't want to buy two kinds)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 tsp. brown rice syrup (I left this out because I couldn't find it)
1 C. extra-virgin olive oil
1 TBSP chopped fresh parsley

Tear lettuce into bite-size pieces and put in large bowl. Top with olives and croutons. In food processor, whip tofu until smooth. Add remaining ingredients and process until combined. Pour dressing over salad, toss and serve.

Some of the ingredients in this cookbook are hard to find. I made several trips to Central Market trying to find everything, and just when I thought I had it all, I'd get home in the middle of the recipe and realize I forgot something. It's fun to experiment with all of the interesting ingredients.

Read More

Polenta au Gratin

The first time I used polenta, I had no clue what I was doing. I read in a magazine it was really healthy, you could buy it pre-made, and you could sautee it, bake it, whatever and it was wonderful. So I bought a roll of it, sliced it up, and tried to sautee it at my last college apartment. It was not good. Bean hated it and said he would never eat it again. He was wrong!

In this recipe, you cut it into small pieces, then cook it with pasta sauce, then mush it up until it's creamy. Then you layer it on the bottom of the pan, add a layer of mushrooms/onions/greens,

then add another layer of the polenta mixture on top. Look! I let Bean help!

This recipe had quite a bit of chopping vegetables. It's a lot of work, but the quantity of vegetables you are getting out of each serving is incredible because it doesn't feel like you are eating a huge plate of veggies. Again, we used regular cheese instead of the weird stuff:

Here's a cross section after we plated ours up:

It's not pretty, but the flavor was excellent! It is a definite repeat recipe.

Polenta au Gratin (from Clean Food by Terry Walters)

1 pound prepared polenta

1 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil

2 C. prepared pasta sauce

1/2 C. water

Cut polenta into small pieces. Heat olive oil in large pot over medium heat. Add polenta and saute 1 minute. Add 3 TBSP pasta sauce and water and stir. Cover and cook 5 minutes or until polenta softens and falls apart. Cream polenta with fork. Remove from heat, cover and set aside.

1 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 large red onion, thinly sliced

1 sprig fresh rosemary leaves, minced

1 C. thinly sliced cremini mushrooms (I think I used a different kind of mushrooms)

1 bunch swiss chard, chopped

1/4 C. grated soy or rice mozzarella or parmesan (I used regular grated parmesan)

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, onion and rosemary and saute until soft, adding water as needed to prevent sticking. Add mushrooms and chard. Cover and cook 3-4 minutes or until chard is soft. Season to taste with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

Lightly oil 8x8-inch casserole and spread half the polenta evenly over the bottom. Cover with half the remaining pasta sauce, the chard mixture, then remaining polenta, pasta sauce, and grated cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake another 10 minutes. Remove from oven, let set 5 minutes and serve.

Read More

Three Bean Chili

Check out that steaming pot of chili from the Clean Food cookbook. Bean and I decided we wanted chili for dinner and I planned to make the Pioneer Woman's recipe since we'd enjoyed it before. Until I saw this recipe. It's vegan and has a strange sea vegetable called Kombu in it, which is supposed to reduce the gaseous properties of the beans. What's funny is that Bean doesn't like beans, but he did like the taste of this chili. I ate it for lunch everyday for a week and the guys at work said it smelled pretty good too.

We made some not-so-clean Jiffy to go on the side, plus we used regular cheese, not soy cheeze. I even tried a real red wine (I think it was pinot noir) instead of the sugary lambrusco I usually like. Since this first recipe from Clean Food came out so good, we decided to try some others.

Three Bean Chili (from Clean Food by Terry Walters)

1 thumb-size piece kombu

2 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 onions, chopped

2 green bell peppers, diced

4 C. chopped tomatoes (I used canned)

1/2 C. tomato paste

1/4 C. red wine (I used pinot noir and had a glass with dinner)

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp cumin

2 TBSP chili powder

6-8 drops hot sauce (I left that out!!)

1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp sea salt (I don't measure salt, just used a pinch)

1 1/2 C. cooked black beans (I used 2 cans, easier than measuring)

1 1/2 C. cooked aduki beans (2 cans again)

1 1/2 C. cooked pinto beans (2 cans yet again)

water or vegetable stock as needed

Place kombu in bowl with enough water to cover and soak 10 minutes or until soft. Drain, mince and set aside. In large pot over medium eat, saute garlic and onion in olive oil until soft. Add green peppers and saute 2 minutes more. Add everything else (including minced kombu), stir to combine and simmer at least 45 minutes. Add water or vegetable stock as needed to thin. Garnish as desired and serve.

Read More

Quenelles

Here comes the first crazy French recipe... I hope you are ready!


Start time: 5:30pm



Step One:
Make a paste out of butter and flour and eggs on the stove. Then put the pot in a bowl of ice and stir continuously to chill the mixture. It doesn't taste like anything. Remember when I said I was going to try and taste as I go?


Step Two:
Let Bean help in the kitchen. Here he is getting the salmon off of the skin while I am continuously stirring the mixture mentioned above. By the way, these recipes are a good arm workout. There's lots of rapid whipping, grating, and stirring.


Step Three:
Start putting stuff in the food processor- salmon, salt/pepper, heavy cream, and eventually that well chilled paste. Blend it up! Make a small tester in your pot of barely simmering water (what does that mean, anyway? I was paranoid to see any bubbles at all!) Then taste and adjust seasonings. I did a test sample, and I tasted it. It tasted like salmon, and since I've never even heard of a Quenelle before, I assume it tasted alright.


Step Four:
Quickly shape the mixture into ovals with two spoons and drop them in the barely simmering water. Let them cook until they easily roll over and have grown twice their size. At this point, I'm so worried about doing it quickly enough that I didn't realize the recipe is for 16 quenelles. I ended up with about twice as many. So I put the leftovers in a lightly buttered dish and brushed them with melted butter like Julia said to save them for a couple of days.

Yum. Poached fish mousse.

Step Five:
Try not to think about what you are cooking. Do not imagine what it will taste like. Remind yourself that it is in fact a fish mousse which can't be all that bad, right? Meanwhile, make a white butter sauce to go over the quenelles. I would like to mention that nonstick pans are not appropriate according to Julia. I should have purchased an entire new kitchen set for these recipes, but I decided to make do. I don't know if we will have teflon poisoning after all of this.

Step Six:

Let your helper clean the cabinets (and the floor) for you.

Step Seven:

Serve your husband hot quenelles covered in hot butter sauce!

Seriously, make sure it is hot because by the time we took a bite of these, they had cooled off considerably. Not even lukewarm. Don't they look tasty? Kind of like uncooked biscuits and gravy. Remember they are fish. Bean said they have the texture of beans. They are fluffy and airy, kind of like scrambled eggs, with a bland fish flavor. The sauce was really excellent, though.

Finish time: 7:15pm

Time we put the quenelles down the drain and had Hershey's kisses for dinner: 7:20pm

Brooklyn did get to taste a bite. She liked them, but then again she also eats her poop.

Next up: Gratin de Quenelles. I'm not ready to give up on these strange French fish balls! Since I have so many left over, there's a recipe where you cover them in sauce, plus cheese and butter and bake them like a casserole. Maybe they will taste better covered in cheese.

Read More

Rapee Morv Andelle: Gratin of Shredded Potatoes with Ham and Eggs and Onions

Since I now have two copies of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and the DVD, and was told multiple times that the depressed girl in the movie who starts a blog about cooking reminds people of me, I decided I would try to become a better cook. I love to cook.

On our first date (we went fishing), Bean showed up at my dorm to pick me up and I was eating french toast. Made with whole wheat bread free of high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils, egg beaters, and sugar-free syrup. He did eat a piece after claiming he was not hungry, then said he was full. Clever. All I could think about was that I took his advice and wore clothes I didn't mind getting dirty, which included a Texas A&M shirt (I'm a Longhorn fan, he prefers the Aggies- I found that out a year or two later). I didn't want to give him the impression I liked the Aggies. I don't know if he noticed that or not, but I'm quite sure he noticed that he didn't like the french toast I made.

I have more cooking stories for another time, but this is the first meal I made that Bean ate, and was literally glad to eat it, and had seconds. Not because he was obligated, but because he really wanted seconds. So here it is.

I made sure to have a french-sounding wine. What I'm most proud of is that the meal is complete- I made a salad with butter lettuce, strawberries, and balsamic vinigrette; plus I made sure to remember the bread. I'm not good at finishing out the meal. I'll make pasta and not have salad or bread or wine.

Here's a close up of the Gratin (by the way, how is that pronounced?). It was quite a process- about an hour total. Grating cheese is not fun. Neither is grating 3 raw potatoes. There's quite a bit of butter and tons of chives in there. I thought there were too many potatoes and too little ham- and it was a little bland.

Don't get me wrong, I like bland foods, but I'm still learning how to season food 'properly'. I don't ever taste food as I'm making it. I'd rather wait until the finished product. Apparently that's not the right way to do it. So we'll see if I can get over that hurdle.

Here's the finished product:
Overall, a delicious meal! Next on my list is Quenelles- basically fish and cream pureed together, molded into balls, then poached and served with sauce. It sounds interesting and strange and what I thought French food was. I have my salmon ready to go!

Read More