Beef Stroganoff the Bittman Way

Alright, so I don't like to be the kind of person that beats a dead horse. I don't like to do things over and over again. Part of why Tony and I started branching out with food is because we got tired of having the same old things over and over. So I'm sure you're asking yourself why I'm writing about beef stroganoff again. This will require a bit of explaining.

A few weeks ago, Tony and I sat down to watch Food, Inc. Of course, we were aware that it might make us a little bit upset, but I don't think that I really had an accurate idea of how upset it was going to make me. The food industry today has become unfair to workers, animals, and consumers. It's all about profit and not at all about health.

That said, Tony and I have decided to make some different food choices. We're buying local meat and produce from our farmer's market. We're buying organic products. We're making the effort to eat vegetarian until 6 PM (the Mark Bittman way. Have you noticed a theme here? I'm a Bittman fan.) to reduce our meat consumption and try to make healthier choices.

Given our change in eating habits, we've been finding new ways to create the foods that we enjoy. Since we were in the mood for beef stroganoff, we consulted--you guessed it--Mark Bittman. My father bought me an edition of his book, How to Cook Everything, which is where we found the recipe. It can also be found on Mark Bittman's website.

The interesting thing about this recipe is that it calls for both Dijon mustard and tomato sauce. Neither of those flavors are easily picked out from the taste of the dish itself when finished. In fact, you can't really taste them at all. They lend themselves to the overall flavor of the dish, but they are not such an overwhelming component that they are discernible. For me, the mark of a well-written recipe is a list of ingredients that mesh so well together that you can't tell what they are when you eat the dish itself.

The most prevalent flavor in this version of beef stroganoff, other than the beef itself, is the creaminess of the sour cream. The onion is present, the butter, the mushrooms, they all contribute. But the main flavors, the ones that you just can't ignore, are the beef and the sour cream. I think that's part of what I like so much about this particular dish. It's flavors seem, on the surface, so simple. Yet, omitting any of the ingredients would significantly alter the taste of the dish, and I feel it would be a negative alteration.

The amusing thing about this is that it was actually easier to make than the ground beef stroganoff. That dish was easy, too, but it was nowhere near as satisfying as this one. I dare say I actually put less effort into mixing and babysitting this particular version than I did its ground beef cousin. It also bears noting that the actual finished product was immensely more satisfying than the previously discussed version.

I guess this will serve as a lesson to me. Time and effort are not necessarily indicative of good food. Fresh ingredients lacking in chemicals really make the difference. Food that I can actually feel good about is more satisfying in the long run than something that is allegedly weeknight dinner friendly. This whole process has definitely been a learning experience.

Pasta e Fagioli and Baguettes

Tony and I used to love to eat out. Before we had financial and life goals, we enjoyed spending our money on a good meal at a restaurant. The truth is that we still enjoy doing that, we just don't do it more than once or twice a month now. We spend a lot more time eating at home, a lot more time cooking, and a lot more time on our couch. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's going to eventually help us procure the kind of life that we want, but for right now the compromise sucks a little bit.

The only thing that I can do to offset the general suck of being responsible adults is to make sure that the meals that I produce are amazing. So I go out of my way to make sure that when either of us has a particular craving for something or another, we can still have it. We just have it the home way rather than the being-served-by-someone-else-and-not-dirtying-all-of-our-dishes way. (Compromise is hell, folks. Hell.)

Tony told me not long ago that he had a craving for pasta e fagioli soup, Olive Garden style. It's his favorite soup at Olive Garden. I found a copycat recipe on Pinterest. Since soup is nothing without bread, I decided to make baguettes with a recipe I'd been meaning to try from Cooking Channel as well. I know it's weird and sort of strange to make an Italian soup with a French bread, but I ignore rules and do what I want.

I started the bread before the soup since it's a double rise. Then, while it was on it's first rise, I started the process for the soup. During the simmer time on the soup, I shaped the bread and started the second rise. When the second rise was done, in the oven they went with the recommended ice cubes. The nice thing was that the soup and the bread were both done at just about the same time.

The soup was everything we had hoped it would be. It tasted just like the Olive Garden version. Tony loved it! The nice part about making the soup for ourselves was that the vegetables were still a little crisp instead of being mushy. Tony said it tasted fresher than it's restaurant cousin. The bread was delicious. The outside got crusty because of the steam from the ice cubes. The inside was still tender. The texture was somewhat different from a usual baguette, but I'm thinking that may have been because I ended up using bread flour rather than all purpose flour since I only had about a cup or two left and the recipe called for more than that. The bread was very delicious even despite the change. It was perfection with a little bit of butter.

The soup is definitely going to be something I make again. It was precious little effort for the payoff. The baguettes were so good that I have another batch on it's second rise right now. We loved them. I do plan to experiment with making them with all purpose flour to see if the texture ends up being different, perhaps somewhat chewier is my prediction. I'm excited to give it a try. In the mean time, there's a few pieces of bread and some leftover soup calling my name right now.

Return of the Mac (And Cheese)

Ok, so I'm not so great at keeping up with things. I work pretty hard and I juggle a lot, and then one day, it all just turns into, "Nope, nope, nope." A little part of me shuts down. Much like Allie Brosh, I fail at being an adult. I was reaching critical mass on the fail part, when I finally hit my vacation. I had eight blissful days in a row of not having to go to work or be responsible for anything more than my personal hygiene and feeding myself and Tony. It was amazing. And it was very needed.

Here's the failure part: I made some awesome food that I in no way blogged about. I didn't even take pictures of it. I enjoyed my time doing nothing and lazing about. It was marvelous, but I missed some really good opportunities. To my credit, this is usually where my projects die. I hit the adult fail, critical mass, total meltdown point and then I just never go back to the things that I was doing before the breakdown. This time, I'm still trying. I came back! This is how you know I'm really trying to commit to this, internet. This is how you know! So I give you the post I meant to write before vacation about macaroni and cheese.

My very generous father recently sent me a copy of Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. It's a fantastic cookbook. It has wonderful notes on technique. It includes tons of variations on recipes. It's a great cookbook. The only thing I regret is that I don't have a food processor to use to fully appreciate the full scale of the cookbook.

I was craving macaroni and cheese. Since I'm the only one here who can really appreciate the joy of macaroni and cheese, I decided to make it for myself while Tony was at work. I opted to use Mark Bittman's recipe because it is a very simple recipe and incredibly easy to follow. It basically involves producing a bechamel sauce, adding cheese to it, pouring the mix over slightly under-cooked pasta, and baking with breadcrumbs on top.

It tasted phenomenal. I opted to use sharp cheddar, but I think it would be fun to experiment with other cheeses. I also used tricolor rotini because I like the extra flavor that particular pasta brings to the dish. The breadcrumbs gave a lovely addition to the texture. I think the only thing I would do differently is to perhaps add a little bit of garlic next time, since I pretty much love garlic in everything. I think the combination of the creaminess of the bechamel and the sharp cheddar would be wonderfully complimented by just a little garlic.

Sadly, I don't foresee myself making this particular dish very often. It makes quite a bit of macaroni and cheese, which I'm the only one eating. It would be a great dish for me to take to a potluck or party, though. I think that's what this recipe will become. It's simple and cheap. It's fairly quick to throw together. All in all, not a bad way to have dinner. It's just too bad no one here can appreciate cheese like I can.

Pizza

One of the best things that my father makes is his homemade pizza. When my twin brother, John, would come home from his college days at Purdue, my dad would always make pizza for him. My father likes doing things from scratch. He makes the dough, he lets it rest, he shapes it. He selects his sauces and his toppings, he seasons with herbs, and he bakes. It's a very methodical process.

Tony shares my brother's love of pizza. In fact, pizza is pretty much Tony's favorite food. It's the food that he claims to never get tired of. I, on the other hand, tire very quickly of pizza. I can have pizza maybe once a month. More than that, and I just feel gross. It's a food that for me is more of a treat than a regular meal.

What I share with my father is a love of the methodical process. I like having a plan, a system. I like playing around with a recipe and tweaking it until it's right. That's how I've been approaching yeast-based breads and dough. I've been experimenting with yeast and breads, and I've been using a KitchenAid cookbook which came with my mixer to try some new recipes. When Tony came across the recipe for pizza dough, he got really excited to try it. How could I say no?

Thus far, the recipes I'd tried from the KitchenAid cookbook had been relatively unsuccessful. I was a little skeptical when I was making this dough since it didn't come together very well. First, it seemed too wet. Then, it became too dry. It took longer to mix than the direction said that it would, so it was a lot more glutenous than it should have been. When I let it rise, the outside of it got a little bit strange, like a crust sort of developed. I did cover the dough while rising, so that shouldn't have happened.

I told Tony I was concerned about the potential results, but we decided to give it a shot anyway. I managed to spread the dough out over a cookie sheet, though it did tear a few times. We coated it in pizza sauce and toppings. Half of it had a little less cheese for Tony. We baked it for about 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

It actually ended up being pretty good. The dough was not exactly as good as I'd hoped. I have found another dough recipe to try on Pinterest, and I don't think that I'll be trusting the KitchenAid cookbook anymore. That said, you could do worse than some fresh pizza. And since even bad pizza is still pretty good, it ended up being okay. Next time, though, a different dough recipe would probably make a better result. Since this dough was a little bit bland, I'd also like to experiment with adding some herbs to make it a bit more flavorful. All in all, not a bad first run. Homemade pizza was not as hard as I thought it would be.

The Revelation of Risotto

My parents always encouraged my brothers and I to try new things. We were told as children that we didn't have to like everything, but we did have to try everything. I think this mentality served us well because we're able to enjoy so much more in the way of foods than so many other people. My brothers and I all enjoy a little bit of kitchen experimentation, we all enjoy talking about some great new place we found or some awesome new dish we made, and we all have a great time trying new things and branching out at restaurants. It is my firm belief that we have our parents to thank for this.

My parents approach food in the same way. They have a desire to try new things and new tastes. Lest you should think that we have no dislikes, my mother's aversion to peas and green peppers has limited her at times. However, in the name of trying something new, she has been willing to pick out these items and eat around anything to which she is averse. There are so many people that I see that completely refuse trying this or that just because they have a history of not liking those things or even just some of its ingredients. Tony, historically one of those people, is learning what it means to be open to these things, even if he would usually say no. To date, he has yet to regret it.

Despite my openness for food, it shames me to admit that I had never--until last night--tried risotto. I'd had opportunities at restaurants, but I always passed them up for other things that seemed more appealing. (I tend to latch on to a menu item and cling for dear life--not because I'm afraid to try new things, but because I get in the mood for something and it's all I want! It's something I'm working on.) Lately, since I've been watching videos and scouring cookbooks and websites for new cooking ideas, I've come across risotto technique and realized that it isn't so much of a pain as people make it out to be. It's just that no one has the appreciation required for fine foods that take time anymore. The advent of the age of 30 minute meals is upon us (sorry, Rachael, but it's true!), and it takes away from delicious dishes that we put aside for the pursuit of the faster and easier. I, too, am guilty of this way of thinking. Shame on me! Shame on us all!

Last night, in the pursuit of both trying something new and using up the mushrooms that I bought on sale, I made mushroom risotto. As the title says, it was a revelation. The natural starches in the rice release and make this dish so creamy. The flavor of the garlic and mushrooms pervade and meld with the white wine for an inexplicably delicious compilation of tones and undertones. It has an incredibly delightful mouthfeel. The garlic and onion sort of just melt into the rice, but the mushrooms maintain their sauteed texture, which greatly compliments the texture of the rice. Rice cooked in the risotto method has a different texture than regular rice, and it's actually really pleasing.

The risotto I created was sort of a cobbling of technique and recipe from several videos and sources, so it's uniquely my own in that I did not measure or keep a recipe out. I just recalled technique and went to town. Here's what I used:

• 3 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Half of an onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• About 12 ounces white mushrooms (it was what I had left)
• About a cup of medium grain rice
• About a cup of white wine
• About six cups of chicken stock
• Parmesan cheese, to taste

First, I heated two tablespoons of the butter and the olive oil together in the pan. Then, I added garlic and onions until they got a little golden. Then, I added the mushrooms, tossed in a little salt, coated them in the fat, and let them cook down until they were a good color. At this point, I added the rice, coated it in the fat as well, and let it toast for a little while. Then, I added the white wine and let it cook until it was completely absorbed. At this point, I began adding the chicken stock in a couple of ladles at a time, stirring until it was completely evaporated and adding more. It took all of the stock to get the appropriate texture. I added another tablespoon of butter and served the risotto with the Parmesan cheese.

Tony and I were both somewhat surprised by how hearty and deep the flavor was. I think this would be great as a first course at a dinner party, but it also stands as a meal in and of itself. It would compliment a red meat very nicely. Tony suggested that the next time I make this, we serve it with steak. I never turn down a chance to have steak! While the process of making the risotto was marginally laborious because you do have to babysit it and stir constantly, the technique is simple and the final product is well worth the effort. I plan to keep this in my arsenal to impress guests with in the future. Let me just say, I'll be pissed if we don't have this again.

Asian Food Sick Day

Today and yesterday, I've felt like total crap. Bad enough, even, to call off of work. My only solution to not feeling physically well is, of course, to spend the whole day on the couch watching TV or in bed watching something on my laptop. The only exceptions I will make to this are food-related. Yesterday, since I was basically useless, I figured I could at least throw together some food.

I'd gotten out ground beef to make Korean beef, so I pretty much had to use it since I'd already thawed it. The good thing about that recipe was that it was pretty easy. I wanted something else to suit my Asian theme, though. So I also handmade some potstickers, which were not as easy but not as hard as I thought they would be. The Korean beef I made just before serving it. The potstickers were made a few hours in advance, and over half of the recipe was frozen for future Asian nights--Tony and I just really don't need that many potstickers in one sitting. I made the potstickers while sitting on the couch and watching bad 80's movies on HBO Go, so I didn't really completely give up on my couch TV routine.

I should also apologize in advance for the lack of pictures for this post. Since I felt so awful, I didn't really manage to take any pictures of the food I made. Probably we should all just take a moment to be impressed with the fact that I made any food at all. I could have just had Tony pick something up on his way home, but I felt somewhat bad that I hadn't really done anything all day. Since Tony and I had kind of been fighting, I wanted to do something a little bit better and create a sort of date night atmosphere. We ruined that a little bit with our choice of movie, which both of us disliked and did not finish, but at least the food was good.

The only thing I ended up leaving out of the Korean beef was the red pepper flake, but only because we didn't have any.  The potstickers only had one omission, and that was Sriracha, again because we just didn't have it. I also substituted white mushrooms for Shiitake just because I hadn't been able to find fresh Shiitake mushrooms when I'd done my grocery shopping. White mushrooms were on sale, so I bought white mushrooms.

I found myself surprised at the quickness with which this meal came together. The making of the potstickers was the most labor intensive part, and I did that while sitting on my butt! They fried surprisingly quickly, and the meat inside cooked more quickly than I had thought that it would. I think next time I might include the Sriracha for a little extra kick. The website I got the recipe from suggested serving them with soy sauce, which Tony and I both found necessary. We both agreed that next time we would put garlic and ginger in the soy sauce for dipping to give it a little more dimension.

The Korean beef was another dish that Tony said he would be pissed if we didn't make again. It had a really great flavor.  In retrospect, I think adding the red pepper flake would have added a little element of heat to this dish that would have been incredible. I'll be picking up some red pepper flake before we make this again. I would also consider amping up the ginger, since that flavor got a little bit lost in the soy sauce at the end of the cooking process.

The green onions are really what make the dish complete. The pop of freshness and flavor of the green onion added to the sweetness from the brown sugar and the umami of the soy sauce just brought everything together. The crunchiness of the scallion adds the perfect element to the texture of the dish as well. This dish was fantastic, easy, and cheap. It's a great go-to for busy people because it cooks so quickly. And if you pair it with Minute Rice, like we did, it makes for a dinner that's ready in under a half an hour. It's a no-excuses, real food kind of meal, which is the embodiment of everything I've been looking for lately.

It's nights like last night that really embody what I want out of a cooking experience lately: something fast and easy that doesn't disrupt my life. It want it to be quick so that I'm not wasting my life away in the kitchen, and I want it to be real food. I don't want hamburger helper and canned vegetables. I want to create a real meal. I don't want any excuses to keep from providing actual nourishing food to myself and the people I love. Last night's food was exactly that! If only everything could be so simple!

Italian Beef Sandwiches

In my last post, I said that my crock pot and I have become friends. Two days ago, I used my crock pot to create something that made us so much more than just friends. It really solidified the kitchen bond that we have together. Crock pot + Jessica, forever.

I'd seen a few recipes for Italian beef on a few different websites. They were all a little varied, but more or less the same. So I made and executive decision on ingredients and technique as cobbled together from the various recipes I'd seen. This is what I used:

• 3lb bottom round roast
• 2 packets zesty Italian dressing mix
• 1 cup of water
• 1 16oz jar of banana peppers

I poured everything together and let it go all day while I was at work. It was on a low heat setting for 10 hours. By the time I came home with the rolls to serve it on, it was pretty much falling apart. I used a few forks to flake it apart into uniform pieces, and then we served the beef as sandwiches.

Tony was apprehensive about the peppers. I, on the other hand, completely love banana peppers. I used to get them on pizza and on sandwiches. We discovered that with all of the time and heat, the banana peppers more or less just disintegrated into the meat. Tony was initially really upset because he had just intended to pick the peppers out. This was not to be. But true to his word to try new things, he persisted and tried it. 

Even for all his protestations about the peppers, Tony really loved the sandwiches. When I asked him if we should make this again, he said, "If we don't have this again, I'll be pissed." The only thing I would do differently is to serve the Italian beef on a hard roll. I had intended to buy a crustier bread, but there was only softer bread left at the store. I'm completely certain that this would be awesome with a crusty bread. We served it with chips and dip because I didn't feel like making sides or salads. And, really, the best way to have an Italian beef sandwich is with chips. 

The flavor of this beef was incredible. It was tangy because of the vinegar in the banana pepper brine. The seasonings coupled with the pepper flavor and meshed really well. The meat was tender and having the extra juice to put on the sandwich was really great. This is easily the greatest creation my crock pot has ever given me. 

Ground Beef Stroganoff

Part of the search for making more food at home for Tony and I was also searching for foods that would be easy to make after a long day at work. As I've mentioned before, I work ten hour days now.  Interacting with people--sometimes very unhappy people--all day can be really taxing. Sometimes after a particularly long day, I just want to come home and drop.

It's because of that need to have things fast and still tasty that we've been perusing busy-family type recipes. Easy mom foods that can be put on the table relatively simply for the days when I don't feel like slow cooking a whole roast all day and eating it for a week just because I didn't feel like making dinner after work. Soccer mom food. It's not what I love because these foods, I find, can rely a little heavily on canned soups and other such crap. However, in a pinch, it puts a cheap and easy meal on the table and saves us from fast food hell.

We found a recipe for ground beef stroganoff on Pinterest (it's always from Pinterest, isn't it?) that pretty much embodied what we were looking for in an evening meal. It was simple and fast to make. The ingredients were more or less on-hand already. It was filling and delicious. When we made this recipe, it fed four of us, since we included our friends Melody and Stacie in the meal. We also had left-overs that I took to work later in the week.

We served this over egg noodles, which was a great way to go. I wish that we had incorporated more of a vegetable with this meal because it can be a little bit heavy without something to kind of offset the creaminess of the stroganoff. That said, there was nothing about the recipe itself that I would have modified.

Also, let's just take a moment to talk about kitchen failures. I've been playing around with breads, as I've mentioned in past posts. I decided for the stroganoff to try to make some quick biscuits using the recipe that I found in the cook book that came with my KitchenAid. They were disaster. They were hockey pucks. When they were warm, they still tasted good; when they cooled, they were hard and terrible. They were more trash than contribution to dinner, so the trash is where they ended up.

Even despite my biscuit failure, I'll try again to make biscuits. I think it'll be easier for me when I have a food processor. Right now, I have to make them with either the mixer or by hand, and I feel like biscuits are generally more successful with a food processor--at least, that's what all the recipes and the YouTube videos seem to say. The food processor will probably be my next kitchen purchase, but I'm not sure when that will be. Right now, I'll just do what I can with what I have and try not to get discouraged if it doesn't always go the way I plan. That's the best I can do!

Honey Mustard Chicken

I've mentioned in past posts that I have mixed feelings about mustard. Tony, on the other hand, really loves mustard. In fact, he loves spicy mustard. During our aforementioned scouring of the internet to find good recipes for us to try to keep us from fighting about dinner, we came across a recipe for honey mustard chicken. I love chicken and he loves mustard, so we thought it might be a good one to try.

Let me just say that this recipe is definitely a hit. The only thing that I did differently was to omit the rosemary sprigs in the baking process, which I only did because I didn't have any on hand. The chicken and it's sauce would probably be even tastier with the infusion of rosemary. The honey gives it a natural sweetness which isn't cloying and provides a nice balance to the tang of the mustard. The coarsely ground mustard adds an element of texture, and the onion and garlic base really add some wonderful flavor.

I cooked my chicken in a 9 x 13 casserole dish which I covered with foil for the first 20 minutes of baking, as required by the recipe. The cooking process keeps the chicken tender and the extra step of basting helps to keep it from drying out. Overall, this dish was a really wonderful combination of flavor and texture. I was initially a little bit worried about there not being enough sauce for the chicken, but there was plenty. In fact, you can see in the picture that there was more than enough sauce to be had.

I paired the chicken with sauteed green beans and potatoes. I tossed the green beans in olive oil and garlic powder before sauteing them. The potatoes I tossed in olive oil with salt, pepper, and minced garlic and baked along with the chicken. I kept them in for the same amount of time as the chicken, and they turned out perfectly.

I think this recipe was a really nice balance for us. We both really enjoyed it for our different reasons. The greatest triumph here was that there wasn't any part of the meal that Tony was opposed to. It was a really delicious recipe that I didn't have to spend any time modifying to suit his tastes, and that's a pretty big win for me. We will definitely be making this again.

Fried Rice and Catching Up

Sunday used to be a work day for me. Since I have switched schedules, Sunday is back to being a relaxed day for me. This morning, since I didn't wake up in time to go to church, I made some coffee and decided to get down to business with catching up on blogging. I think it bears noting that I'm still enjoying the spoils of my earlier kitchen endeavors. And since it's Sunday, rather than having the usual kale smoothie for my morning, I opted to enjoy the fruits of my labors and chose my bread with some apricot preserves and yogurt with honey. It's become apparent that the effort is worth it when the results are so enjoyable, but, to be fair, neither of those projects were really that much effort. (Because I'm lazy! Are we seeing this theme yet?)

I've found that keeping up with the blogging when Tony and I have been trying so many new things is sometimes a little difficult with the schedule I keep. For a while there, he and I were in a bit of a food rut. We got sick of all the things we'd been making that were just cheap and easy fixes. All of it had culminated in a large fight, a night of Taco Bell, and a scouring of Pinterest together to find recipes we both agreed on to have a meal plan in place. Really, we should have been doing that anyway to keep our budget in line. Food boredom just happened to be the thing that motivated us to do it more than money. The point is all of it has resulted in a great deal of food I want to write about and not enough time do it. I try to blog in bursts and schedule them out or take my days off--like today--to catch up.

That said, I made fried rice on Friday. Tony really enjoys fried rice. Sometimes when we go out for Asian food, he simply orders chicken fried rice. It's such a simple dish that it's sort of a no-brainer to make it at home. The great thing about it is that it's a perfect day-after food. It can be made to use up left-over rice when you just don't feel like putting in that much effort. If you're like me, you can also do the rice the lazy way and use minute rice, which produces the same food in less time and effort. It may not be quite as tasty as regular rice, but it speaks to the laziness that lives in my soul. (If you're wondering, I comfort myself with the knowledge that, lazy as I am, I do still take the time to cook for myself and Tony. It's more than I can say for some of my peers who don't even really know how to care for themselves.)

I find that the difference between a delicious fried rice and mediocre one is in the oil. Sesame oil produces the best flavor. It has a nutiness to it that just adds tremendously to the rice. I find that fried rice that hasn't been made with sesame or peanut oil often has a blander flavor.

The fried rice we had on Friday was a joint effort. Tony had pre-made the minute rice and chopped the vegetables when I got home, so all I had to do was assemble and cook. We included the following:

• Four servings of minute rice according to the package (we buy off-brand because we are lazy and cheap!)
• 1/2 cup chopped onion 
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 cup chopped carrot (we approximated the veggies because we're also too lazy to accurately measure)
• 1 6 ounce package precooked Tyson oven roasted chicken chunks
• freshly grated ginger to taste
• soy sauce to taste
• 1 egg
• 1-2 green onions.

I coated the pan with sesame oil, sauteed the vegetables first, and added the ginger and chicken chunks just until the chicken warmed up. Then, I added the rice and soy sauce, adding a little bit more sesame oil and evenly distributing the oil and soy sauce. Once it was all a uniform color, I added the egg. I mixed it all around until the egg was fully cooked and pieces of it were visible in the rice. I garnished it with the green onion. I drizzled a little more sesame oil on top of mine, and that was that! We had dinner.

I find that this a really great dinner for nights when intensive cooking is not called for. I had no desire to spend the majority of my day in the kitchen Friday night. So we made something quick and ate in the living room while watching gardening and cooking shows on Hulu. Secretly, Tony and I are really in our 60s, we just live in the bodies of a 32 year-old and a 28 year-old, respectively. Occasionally, we have nights like Friday where this is incredibly evident to both of us, and Friday was one of those nights. At least we had some good food.

Yogurt the Easy Way

Recently, I found a recipe on Pinterest that detailed how to make yogurt at home. Since I spend a great deal of money on Greek yogurt, I thought perhaps this might be a fun little project. I enjoy yogurt, but here's the caveat to my relationship with it: I really only like yogurt when it's thicker and creamier. My challenge with making my own yogurt was to make sure that it would be thick enough for me to actually like it. Sundry challenge to making my yogurt was that I'm super lazy. Like, seriously, really very lazy. It's almost embarrassing how lazy I am.

The process of making one's own yogurt really is just a process of heat and some time--as a lazy chef, I'm inclined to like it already. The nice part about a food like yogurt is that the bacteria really do all of the work for you. You just have to set up an environment for them that gives them the things that they want. I looked for methods that made that easy for me, and I found a technique using a crock pot to make yogurt that seemed perfect.

 I'm a busy person, and I do like to have a little time left in my day to enjoy a book or a movie with Tony. When I'm on the hunt for a recipe or technique, I like to rifle through various YouTube videos looking for something that's easy and appealing. When I can actually see the process, I can decide if it's for me or not. I used this recipe, which I found simple and user-friendly.

The start of the process--milk in  the crock pot.

Basically, you pour your milk into the crock pot and let it heat up to 180 degrees. It seriously could not have been simpler. I was a little surprised that it took as long as it did to heat up, and it did built up a skin that had to be skimmed off. For the most part, though, this really didn't take any effort on my part. I checked the temperature every now and again, and when it was up to temp, I turned it off. I let it cool back down to 115 degrees, added my store bought yogurt, placed the lid back on, wrapped it in a towel, and put it in the oven for overnight storage. It was pretty much as simple a process as it could be. When it was done, I spooned the yogurt into a paper towel placed over a strainer to give it a thicker consistency, placed the strainer over a bowl in the fridge, and let time take it's course.

After sitting for around ten hours, this is what it looked like. Yogurt!

I made my yogurt plain because I thought it would be nice to have the freedom to use it as a substitute for sour cream if I wanted to. However, given this recipe, it would be incredibly easy to add flavoring. It was so much better than store-bought alternatives than I ever could have imagined. It had a more pure, milk-like flavor. Because I took the time to drain out a lot of the whey, it was creamy and not as tangy as regular yogurt. (That's a big part of why I like Greek yogurt over traditional yogurt. It has a much milder flavor.) My crock pot yogurt was perfection with a little bit of honey, and I have a feeling that almond slivers would make it even more enjoyable since I love a little crunch with the smoothness of yogurt.

I purchased these jars specifically for yogurt storage.

I stored the yogurt in some 8 ounce Ball jars I bought. I also set aside a starter for my next batch. If I keep it up, I'll never have to buy store bought yogurt again, which would be just fine with me.

Yogurt and honey, a delicious combination!

This process was an incredible success. The texture and flavor of the yogurt I made were far more enjoyable than the yogurt that I've bought over the years. It's almost enough to make me wonder why anyone even bothers with store bought when making your own is so simple. If there's any project that I would encourage people to try of the kitchen projects I've done so far, it's definitely making homemade yogurt. The work was minimal and the product was of a superior quality considering what little work was put in. I will definitely be doing this again.

Crustless Quiche and Brussels Sprouts

Wednesday and Thursday are my days off from work, so those are the days that I like to spend experimenting in the kitchen. I spend a lot of my down time looking at new ideas on Pinterest. I'm always looking for a freezer meal to make my life simpler or a super quick dinner I can throw together after a ten hour shift at work. Wednesday was my experiment day this week.

I suppose it was a little less of an experiment for me and more of an experiment for Tony. He had never had a quiche before, and they make such easy and affordable meals that they were always a go-to recipe for when we were growing up. In fact, I don't think that I ever truly appreciated my mother's Quiche Lorraine until I was an adult. Quiche is great because it's just an egg pie with various and sundry other ingredients. It's a great way to use up extra ingredients like ham from a major holiday--Easter ham, anyone?

The recipe I used was one I saw several years ago on NPR's website, found here. I'd made it before pretty much exactly as the recipe recommended with great success. Since Tony has some different tastes, I modified this just a little bit. I left out the cheese for obvious reasons and omitted the nutmeg because I didn't have any. I used a 10 ounce package of spinach instead of 16 ounces. I also added two extra pieces of bacon into the mix since there was no cheese and less spinach than the recipe called for. The lovely thing about quiche is that it gives you the leeway to make any modifications without ruining the general flavor that you're looking for.

I also made a quick saute of Brussels sprouts with balsamic and bacon. I only had frozen Brussels sprouts, but I wanted Tony to try them a different way because he told me that he doesn't like the way they taste. He had said that about asparagus, and I was able to change his mind about that. I wanted to be able to repeat that. Ideally, I'd have made this with fresh Brussels sprouts that I'd oven roasted before sauteing them with the balsamic and bacon, but it wasn't going to work out that way last night. And, to be honest, I just kind of wanted Brussels sprouts.

So I threw the bacon in the pan. I'd cut it into about one inch pieces with scissors, and just lightly sauteed it until it was done. It wasn't crispy. It was at that slightly rubbery stage. At that point, I added the steamed Brussels sprouts and the balsamic vinegar. I let that all cook together until the balsamic had been turned into a little bit of a glaze and had been absorbed. It had a lovely flavor, but the texture left a little to be desired because those frozen steamed Brussels sprouts can tend to be a little mushy. Tony liked the flavor, but he agreed that the texture wasn't great. It's good to know that he enjoyed the taste because now we can repeat it with fresh Brussels sprouts that we can buy from the farmer's market.

Between making bread and making dinner last night, I threw some cookies into the oven. They're just the usual Tollhouse recipe, but that's great for me--it's printed on the bag, so I'll never lose it. I made about half of the batch last night, and I froze the rest. I froze them in the appropriately sized scoops on a cookie sheet and then transferred them to a freezer bag. That way, when Tony and I decide we have a craving for something sweet, we can just make a few cookies rather than revisiting last night. (Last night, I made about a two dozen cookies, and we ate them all before the night was over.) Perhaps just making enough will help us practice moderation.

So last night, we had quiche, Brussels sprouts, homemade bread, and cookies for dessert. Tony really enjoyed the quiche. The only thing I might do differently is look for smaller pans so that we can make two. One for him and one for me with cheese since I did really miss the flavor that the cheese adds to the quiche. I think I'll be experimenting with making more quiche in the near future. It's pretty simple and fairly cheap to produce, and it makes a nice dinner. There are plenty of left-overs, which makes my life easier. I'd call yesterday's kitchen experiments a success, which makes up for the fact that dinner tonight will be leftovers since I have a horrible headache and a lack of motivation. I'll make up for it on Friday.

Yeast Bread

Bread is incredibly intimidating to me--not the eating of bread, of course, but the baking of bread. I confessed my fear of yeast in my post about beer bread. Yet, despite my love of being able to store-buy all the bread I want, I wanted this blog to be about trying new things and cooking things I love for the people that I love. Tony's food love has always been bread. (I'm pretty sure that if Tony had to choose between me and bread, I would need to be afraid.) So it only seems like a natural progression that I should begin making bread.

There are two things about making my own bread that I always found intimidating. First, the yeast. The process of not killing the yeast seems like a delicate balance. The water should be warm, but not too warm. It should bloom, but not too much. It just seems like such a tenuous stasis to maintain. Second, the kneading. Over-kneading can cause the bread to be tough and inedible. It just seems to me as though there are so many ways to screw it up.

Somehow, I came to the conclusion that making Tony feel special by making him fresh bread was more important than letting my fear keep me from trying something new. Love makes you do crazy things--like experimenting with yeast. I should confess that I still did this a little bit of the lazy way. I decided that since I have the serious, professional series KitchenAid, that I might as well use that to my advantage. I found a bread recipe that allowed me to use my mixer without really requiring me to do any kneading. You can find the recipe that I used here.

I was actually a little bit surprised at how hands-off this recipe really was. It was just a matter of making sure that I stayed on track with my time. I used the KitchenAid as recommended in the recipe and watched diligently for the ten minute mark to make sure that I wasn't  going to be over-kneading. The recipe mentions that you may need to add some extra flour, and sure enough, I did. I probably added about a quarter of a cup, and that was just the perfect amount.

This recipe called for a double rising process. So it rose initially, and then it was punched down, separated into two loaves, and rose again. Then, I baked it.

I was a little bit nervous because the rising processes didn't seem to create as much of a rise for me as it did for the blogger that I got this recipe from. I suppose I just figured that the worst that could happen was that I screwed it up, and that was pretty much what I was expecting from making bread anyways. The good news is that I proved myself wrong and ended up making some really delicious bread!

The bread ended up being a really moist and spongy bread. It was a little bit sweet since it's made with honey and coconut oil. It was easy to cut, and though it looks dark brown on the outside, it did not develop a crunchy crust. It was heavenly with a little bit of butter, and Tony and I ate it with dinner. Tony actually said that it's one of the top three breads he's ever eaten, which is high praise from the King of Carbs.

This experience really changed my mind about making bread at home. It turned out really wonderfully, and it wasn't a difficult recipe to follow. I'm not saying that I'm going to embark on a three day croissant-making endeavor or anything, but I'm not afraid to use yeast anymore. Tony has expressed an interest in making baguettes, and I think I'm finally ready to try that with him.

Healthy Breakfast Smoothie

I hate morning. I literally hate it. I have a hard time getting out of bed, motivating myself to put on makeup or even clothes. I don't even have the strength to make coffee. I do, however, understand the importance of eating breakfast. And the problem with my current morning routine is that it involves going to a gas station to buy coffee and purchasing something crappy and terrible for breakfast while I'm there because I'm hungry. Yes, I am aware that I fail as a responsible adult and at making good life choices.

Right now, I'm trying to focus on the things that I can do to try to make my life a little easier. I don't think that I can ever make myself a morning person, but I can try to find breakfast solutions that will make my life go a little more smoothly (see what I did there?). I ended up taking my search to Pinterest again because who doesn't use Pinterest to solve their domestic conundrums? It's like an index of everyone's best ideas. As lazy as I think I am, there's always someone on Pinterest who's lazier and got the job done in three less steps than I was willing to max out at.

I was intrigued by the idea of overnight breakfasts, and I've been looking at freezer presets for my week to try to make my life easier after ten hour days at work. Of course, in my search, I stumbled upon an idea of presetting green smoothies in freezer baggies, then just adding them to a blender with the rest of the ingredients that couldn't be frozen. It's brilliant!

So here's what the baggies contain:

• 1 T almonds
• 1 T chia seeds (bought in bulk at Whole Foods--we priced them other ways, but this was the smartest way to go)
• 1/4 cup quick oats
• generous handful of frozen fruit (my baggies alternate. I bought frozen peaches and strawberries and bananas. I just threw them in each so that I'd have a mixture and a little bit of variety. It's whatever you like. Just having the fruit is the important part.)
• a large handful of kale from which stems have been removed

In the morning, I remove the baggie, stuff it into my single serving blender, and add a scoop of protein powder and a cup of vanilla soy milk.

It's not exactly pretty, but I was actually really surprised at how delicious it was. Mine is a little brown-looking because the only protein powder that we had was chocolate flavored. Had I known that before going shopping, I'd have purchased a different protein powder. Tony got this powder as a Christmas gift, but he hasn't really been using it. So now it's more or less a matter of just using it until it's gone so that I can buy something that isn't pre-flavored. I did taste the smoothie before adding the protein powder, and it was still really delicious.

It's the flavor of the almonds that comes through the strongest, which I found really surprising. I've been drinking this for the last two morning, and it's been good both times. The first time, the fruit was banana, which gave the smoothie great flavor and texture. This morning, it was a peach smoothie, which was good too. The kale is almost non-existent in the flavor profile, which is good because, up until this point, I haven't much cared for kale.

There are two things I've discovered along the way so far. First, chia seeds can get stuck in your teeth. And when chia seeds meet moisture, they develop this odd, slimy exterior. It's not so fun to discover this for the first time in your own mouth. Second, frozen peaches do not blend particularly well. I'm contemplating my next round not being quite so inclusive of the peaches. I'm not really impressed with their contribution to the smoothie process.

I have two major goals this year: become more frugal so all my extra money can go to paying off debt and saving for a house and get more comfortable in the kitchen to help accomplish the first goal. Obviously, I want to be more kind to my body, but that's more of a subgoal at this point than a main goal. I want to tie that subgoal to the second main goal. These smoothies fit in to all three. This is a cheaper breakfast than stopping at a gas station. It's more nutritionally significant because it's full of fiber and healthy calories. These will also help me cut down on my caffeine intake. It was something Tony and I could do together because he helped me set up two weeks worth of baggies and prep them for freezer readiness. I'm really hoping that I can find more projects that will be as rewarding as this one. I'm really excited to see how I'll feel in two weeks after having consumed these for a while.

Turkey Burgers

Recipes and I are sometimes friends. I say sometimes because I can tend to be a little editorial with the recipes that I'm using, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. I have common sense about it. I don't omit or modify any recipes I'm baking with because we all know that that can devolve into disaster waaaay too quickly. But when it comes to just creating a dinner, I pretty much just do what I want and let the recipe serve as a general guideline. When cooking for Tony, this is kind of a necessity because there are so many things that he just doesn't like.

In my recent search for recipes to keep our kitchen interesting, I've been looking at methods just as much as I have recipes. If it's something that I can take a general idea of and modify to my own tastes or purposes, I give it a try just based on that method. It was using this technique that I created last night's turkey burgers. They consisted of the following ingredients:

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1/2 a medium-sized onion, chopped
• approx. 1/4 cup basil, chopped
• 1 egg
• Italian breadcrumbs, added until correct texture achieved
• garlic powder
• salt and pepper

I just kind of threw the ingredients together in a bowl, mixed until it was the texture I wanted, and the formed them into patties. 

I wish that I had a grill and could have grilled these. Since I didn't, I just made due with pan frying them in a little bit of olive oil. They were still good this way, but I feel like they might have been better if I could have even just thrown them on George Foreman grill or something. Alas, we do not have one (Generous benefactor round two?). I feel like despite this shortcoming, they turned out really great.

They had a really wonderful texture. They stayed moist and didn't dry out, even despite the pan frying. The flavor of the basil paired really well with the turkey, and it came through really strongly even with all of the other flavors happening there. It surprised Tony, and he almost didn't recognize it in there because it was so unexpected that he couldn't place it. The only thing I would do differently is to use a food chopper to get the onion chopped a little more finely. It added spectacular flavor that we definitely wouldn't want to lose, but the pieces were still a little big (as you can see in the picture of the burger patties) so it detracted a little bit from the texture. 

This was the first time we've experimented with mixing and pattying out own turkey burgers, but it's an experience I think we'll be repeating. The results were positive. It's a healthier alternative to eating processed burgers from a chain or even using ground beef which can be a lot more fatty. Since it was relatively inexpensive to produce, we will be adding this to our dinner rotation.

Leek Soup, Beer Bread, and Deviled Eggs

Wednesday was my day off, and I wanted to cook. I felt like making easy things and using some ingredients before they went bad. I don't really think there's a great deal of continuity to the food that I made, but it was food. Since this is a blog about food, I figure it works. I don't know that there's a great deal of pride on my part in what I made, but it was something to do.

First, let me just say that this blog has had me scouring Pinterest to find interesting recipes. Tony and I have a tendency to be bored pretty easily by food. In my search to find interesting recipes for our dinner routine, I've also realized that I need to probably step up my game if I'm interested in writing about what I make. Tony has a deep and abiding love of bread, but I've been historically been afraid of making bread that involves yeast. The rising and punching down and kneading process is pretty intimidating to me. I plan to branch out and try making something new next time I have a day off. For now, I'm sticking to my comfort zone.

In light of the fact that I'm a big yeast wuss, I decided to try making beer bread that I found a recipe for online. The recipe was fairly simple, and we had some beer that's been in our fridge since we moved in (calm down, we've only been here for six months) that we were probably never going to drink. It was really easy to make, and it turned out to be a really good bread. It was sweet and the outside was just a little bit crunchy, while the inside was still moist and soft. I still have two cans of beer left in my fridge that will probably also end up as bread, and it's probably the best future I could give them at this point.

I found myself really craving deviled eggs, so I made some of those Wednesday as well. This is what I mean when I say that there's no continuity with the foods I made. Those eggs had nothing to do with the dinner I created. I just wanted them, so I made them for myself. Maybe it's just the time of year. This is the first year that I find myself without Easter plans, and we always have deviled eggs for Easter. As deviled eggs go, these were simple. I only made them with mayo and mustard, no relish. In fact, I have never really seen the perk of adding relish to deviled eggs, and I don't ever plan to start.

They tasted better than they looked.

For dinner, I decided to get rid of the leeks that had been just waiting in the fridge. If you haven't put two and two together yet from the forgotten beer and previous posts, our fridge tends to be the place that left-overs go to die. I had almost forgotten that I had bought leeks to make leek soup, so I was a little bit surprised that they were still in usable condition. Either I have a really great fridge or modern science has done amazing things to leeks. I prefer to attribute it to the fridge because I don't really want to know what kind of chemicals are required to keep produce from spoiling indefinitely.

My leek soup consisted of chicken broth and leeks. I boiled the leeks in the broth until soft and pureed them together. This turned out, somehow, to be a harrowing experience. I discovered in the process that my blender's base piece has a giant crack and is leaking all over the place. I managed to get the soup taken care of, but I lost some soup along the way. As it turns out, I'm in the market for a new blender. Any generous benefactors out there? (Is anyone even reading this?)

I almost forgot to take the picture before the bowl was empty!

Leek soup is a really good soup for a light meal. It's not too heavy, and yet it manages to be satisfying. The soup had that light onion flavor that only leeks have. It doesn't overpower, like onion itself often can. Much as I love a good French onion soup, it can be a little intense and it's definitely not for everyone. Leek soup is like French onion lite. It tastes fresher and brighter.

It's pretty clear that I'm no Martha Stewart. There was no connection with my dishes on Wednesday. It's probably good that these endeavors are restricted to the internet and my tiny apartment kitchen because otherwise some TV chef would be screaming in my face about my inadequacies. That said, I was satisfied with everything I produced, and that's really the main idea in cooking for oneself, isn't it?

Chicken Piccata Revisited

Tony's mother and stepfather came over on Monday. It had been a while since he'd seen them--the last time they came over was when I made the Dijon pork roast in January--and since his mom likes to maximize her time with him, we invited them to stay for dinner. We'd planned to make chicken piccata again, so we just made more of the chicken this time. Luckily, I had pulled out the whole bag of chicken from the freezer already on the assumption that I'd make a portion of it for piccata, put the rest in the fridge for the next day, and use the rest for Tuesday's dinner. Tuesday we just had something else instead (in fact, that's a long story for my next blog).

This time, I managed to take a picture!

Unlike the last time his parents came over, they really liked this dinner. Marcus, Tony's stepfather, would probably be satisfied with eating just about anything that we'd give him. Pam, Tony's mother, is not so easy. Tony comes by his picky ways honestly because he gets them from his mother. Last time, when they came over for our pork roast, she said the meat was too tough. Needless to say, when I entertain, I put a great deal of effort into the food that I prepare. It was a big blow to hear that. This time, dinner was enjoyed by all parties, so this was much more of a success.

We paired the piccata with asparagus and salads to make sure everyone would have enough to eat. Pam had never had capers before, and she found them really enjoyable. It was really rewarding to watch people dip spoons into the serving dish to douse their chicken with more sauce and capers. Pam had also never eaten asparagus that she actually liked before because it usually tastes like dirt to her, but she was fond of the way I prepared it. My asparagus was coated in olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder, oven roasted, and then tossed in lemon juice and Parmesan. I thought that pairing the lemony asparagus with the lemon in the piccata would work really well together and it did. All in all, my Monday night dinner was a success.

I will say the most amusing part of the whole process actually happened at work for me the next day. I had told my coworkers that his parents were coming for dinner. The next day, I was telling my coworker, Brandon, that I'd made piccata. His response was, "So, you made dinner? Because you worked." I nodded and Brandon said, "My wife sits at home all day, and she doesn't make dinner. You work a ten hour day, go home, make dinner for him and his parents. I just can't."

That's right. I'm amazing. Be jealous of Tony.

Pork Chops and Dijon

Before we begin, a confession: I had every intention of writing this last night. Somewhere along the way, my brain died. I got a paragraph written before I finally accepted the fact that the rough day I had yesterday slaughtered my creativity. To be fair, it was the kind of work day I dread. I'm a customer service representative for an insurance company, and to say that the level to which people do not understand the services that they pay for is astounding would be the understatement of the year. I have a rare opportunity to educate people into being better consumers, but sometimes it comes at the price of all of my patience being spent by the time I walk in the door, drop my purse, and greet my dog. So now, coffee and breakfast in hand (Yes, it's avocado toast. Yes, I am a one-trick breakfast pony. Judge me now.), let's begin

One of the most fabulous combinations on planet earth is Dijon mustard and pork. Dijon mustard has been one of my father's favorite compliments for pork roasts for a long time. We had a great deal of memorable Sunday pork roasts that began their short lives as Dijon mustard, herbs, and several delightful hours roasting away. Dijon and pork have history for me, so it's surprising that it's taken me this long to utilize it in cooking. In fact, I had not even purchased Dijon mustard as an adult until earlier this year!

Here's the thing about my relationship with mustard: I don't always love it. I like certain kinds of mustard in moderation and on certain foods, but the tanginess can often make my tongue hurt a little bit. As you can imagine, this makes me somewhat picky about the when, what, and how of my mustard consumption. Before you ask, yellow mustard is always in my fridge, and I do include it on the usual mustard-bearing foods (hamburgers, hot dogs, tuna salad--if you believe in the New York way, which is the right way, just to be clear). I just tend to prefer that it be used sparingly. Some mustard combinations make no sense to me at all. (Pretzels? Really? No. A soft pretzel begs for cheese, you heathens.)

That said, I made a successful pork roast back in January that was Dijon glazed, so I thought that last night for dinner, I'd repeat the process but with pork chops. I wanted to have the flavor combination that comes with rosemary, Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, garlic powder, pepper, and parsley again, but I didn't want to make a whole pork roast. It's just not practical for us to make large roasts since our fridge is a veritable left-over oubliette. So I opted to experiment a little bit and just use my mustard mixture on pork chops which I then cooked over medium-high heat in a pan. There wasn't really any measuring--a lot of my experimentation with foods is more intuitive. I threw together a mixture of the aforementioned ingredients, tasted it, liked it, used it.

The results where actually really good. The mustard mixture ended up looking slightly lumpy from the heat in the pan, but it tasted wonderful. The interesting thing about this mixture is that the vinegar tends to keep the meet from firming up in the way a pork chop normally would when pan-frying, so the texture ends up being just a little softer. I'm actually quite fond of it because one of the things I look forward to in a meal is a variety of textures. 

We had our pork chops with boxed rosemary herb potatoes, similar to au gratin style boxed mix, and salad. Like I said, by the time I got home yesterday, my creativity had been sapped from me. We're lucky I manage to feed myself at all on days like the one I had yesterday. I will say that coming home after a long day and spending a little time in the kitchen creating something does help to take some of the stresses of the day away. It was nice to unwind by creating something that I could enjoy. This is what I understand about Julie Powell and Gabrielle Hamilton. This solace that can be found in cooking. It's good.

Kumato Tomatoes and Simple Creations

The simple things in life are always the best, aren't they? A night of doing nothing with the people you love. A cherished moment of peaceful silence. Standing in the warm rain. The same is true, in my opinion, of food. Complicated recipes and ingredients that I can't even pronounce have no business in my kitchen. I have a busy life, and I just don't have time for things like that. I'm a big fan of fresh veggies and fruit because if I don't have to cook it, it saves me time. (Yeah. That's right. Laziness as a motivation for healthy eating. You heard it here first.)

The really great thing about my relationship with Tony is that we motivate each other to try new things. He eats new things, I cook new things. It's kind of a win-win scenario. Since Tony's a little picky, it can be hit or miss. Recently, we had a miss.

Let me explain. Tony dislikes tomatoes. I feel like this is a terrible thing because tomatoes are one of my favorite foods. Sometimes, I like to just eat sliced tomato with salt and pepper. Tony's jihad on all of the foods I like can make it tough for me to cook (I repeat: HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE CHEESE!), so I recently got him to try tomatoes again. He'd only ever tried one variety, so I thought maybe if we tried it again with a different variety, he could change his mind.

I chose Kumato tomatoes. I'd had them at a dinner party a few years ago, and I loved them. They had such a unique flavor. I remember being really impressed about them. Being such a tomato fan, I was eager to find a way to use them in my repertoire, but they can be expensive so I was never really able to justify to myself their purchase. Until now. So I'm not entirely sure if choosing Kumato tomatoes was for Tony's benefit or for mine, but either way they were going to be consumed.

He was nervous when he got a look at them, but to be fair, Kumato tomatoes do look a little unconventional for tomatoes. They've got this sort of green/red/purple hue. The packaging for the tomatoes that I purchased describes them as brown, but I don't know that I'd say they're brown. The thing I like about them is that they're a little bit sweeter than your average tomato. They have this extra little dimension of flavor. The thing about some kinds of tomatoes is that they can be quite bland if you have them on the off-season--or even during the regular season, if we're being honest. Kumatos are still really flavorful because they're just a more flavorful variety of tomato.

The way that I served Tony Kumato tomatoes was in bearing the principle of simple foods often being best in mind. He only like mozzarella cheese, but he's only had the shredded kind. So I thought we might try killing two taste birds with one stone, and I made him a Kumato caprese to go with the frozen skillet pasta meal we were having for dinner. (Don't judge me! We are busy, lazy people, dammit!)

It was your standard, run-of-the-mill caprese salad. Fresh mozzarella that I sliced and layered with slices of tomato and basil. I then drizzled on some olive oil and balsamic and added just a dash of salt and pepper.

He didn't care for the caprese, but I'm happy to report that it wasn't because of the tomatoes. He seemed a little bit surprised that he didn't hate the tomatoes, actually. The downfall of my foray into the world of caprese with Tony is that he didn't like the fresh mozzarella (he prefers the dried out, shredded, terrible variety), and he doesn't care for balsamic vinegar (which I didn't know). The sweetness of the Kumato tomato was what he really enjoyed. It adds an element to caprese that's really pleasant because it meshes well with the other flavors.

While it didn't work out this time, the simple act of having a meal with the man I love was really what I enjoyed about this experience. It's that kind of simplicity that I think people need more of. Or maybe that's just me. It's definitely that kind of simplicity that I need more of. And, to make a case for simplicity in food, I'm going to just leave this picture of my avocado toast right here...

Multigrain toast, avocado, Kumato tomato, lemon juice, salt and pepper.