Trader Joe's Favorites Number 1 Cioppino

Run, not walk to Trader Joe's and buy this frozen Cioppino!

 Cioppino is a spicy tomato based seafood stew, and Trader Joe's has big chunks of Sea Bass, Scallops, Mussels and Shrimp.

Stock up! Buy 10! It is that good!

It says it serves 2, but don't share!

Eat it with a hunk of crusty Italian bread

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Trader Joe's Lunch

Yummy!

Trader Joe's Chicken Won Ton Soup with tons of veggies and yummy broth and Won Tons!

Try it....

http://www.traderjoes.com/

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Food Funnies

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Italian Salami and Fennel Salad

Italian Salami and Fennel Salad           

1 pound Sliced Salami, julienned

1 large Bulb Fennel sliced almost paper thin

1 Red Pepper julienned thin

1 Yellow Pepper julienned thin

1 Orange Pepper, julienned thin

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2-3  tablespoons red wine vinegar

Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper to taste

Put it all together, toss, and eat  ! Yummmmm!

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The World Famous Preesi Burger

(no, these aren't for dieters)

 

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Cool Sandwich Ideas

Cool Sandwich Ideas

I wrote these all in 1998, most have become commonplace at restaurants nationwide, but I just wanted to post them this AM for a giggle....

1) Prepare a nice simple salad (lettuce,diced tomatoes,paperthin

onion rings) dress it lightly with your favorite dressing and

stuff your sandwiches with it!

2) One of the best parts of summer is fresh veggies! One of the

simplest brightest flavors is a warm, buttery, Veggie Du Jour sandwich!

steam up some fresh veggies of your choice (I love broccoli) stuff a

roll with some and pour on some butter or cheese sauce and eat!

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Cool Salad Ideas

Cool Salad Ideas

I wrote these all in 1998, most have become commonplace at salad bars nationwide, but I just wanted to post them this AM for a giggle....

1) Buy a boxed hard taco meal and fixins, crush the shells,

prepare the meat, chop a few tomatoes, shred a head of romaine

lettuce. put the meat, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, shells in a

large bowl mix some hot taco sauce with some vinegar and pour

over salad. toss, eat.

2) Any bottled sauce can be converted into a salad dressing,

just thin out with a little oil and vinegar, and depending on

the fat content of the sauce you may want to adjust how much

oil you use.

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Lavender Apple Sauce

Several years ago there was this Gossip columnist named Rona Barrett. At the last stage of her career she started going into charity work and thru her love of Lavender she started a business selling Lavender scented and flavored products...

One of these products was Lavender flavored apple sauce.

I never got to taste hers, but I have made Lavender flavored apple sauce myself and its a favorite of mine.

All you need to do is peel, core nd chop a few apples, simmer them in water until soft, drain, smash (I like to leave a few chunks for texture) add sugar and powdered dried Lavender flowers to taste....

Very Simple!

If you want yours to be a pretty lavender hue, perhaps for a luncheon buffet, add a few drops of natural purple food coloring (query Amazon)

Its such a welcome change from Cinnamon...

Try it!

If you get to like Lavender as a flavoring, try it in Lavender DRY SODA

http://drysoda.com/

PS, only buy Food Grade Lavender as other lavenders can have chemicals and pesticides that can make you sick

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Pretty Authentic Gyros

People who know me, know I try to make Ethnic Foods as close to authentic as possible.

If I can I will import ingredients from overseas just to make a recipe authentic.

Gyros are no exception. But I do make them slightly different.

1) Real Gyros are made of sliced meat roasted on a tall upright spit, a spit I do not have nor need so I do make the Greek American Gyro Loaf.

2) Since I can get whole wheat pocketless Gyro Pita Bread I will use it.

My last post was about spices...

Since they stopped selling the dry Gyro mix at the grocery store I wanted to make my own dry mix so when the mood struck me I could make Gyros on the fly...

This is the dry mix I created

    1 Cup Bread Crumbs

    4 T Onion Powder

    2 T Garlic Powder

    2 t rosemary

    2 t oregano

    2 t cumin

    2 t black pepper

    2 t Salt

    2 t marjoram

    2 t thyme

I used 1/4th of this dry mix to mix into 1 pound of lean ground beef and 1/3rd a cup warm water. I put it in a loaf pan and baked it in a 375 f oven  till it registered an internal temp of 150. I then let it rest and cool and sliced it thin and put 3/4th of it in individual vacuum bags for the freezer and ate the rest on gyro bread with Tzazaki sauce, sliced tomatoes and sliced onions sprinkled with ground Penzeys Sumac (the authentic part)

Sumac is a sour berry that is used in Greek and Middle eastern cooking to add sourness.

You can buy it here :

http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyssumac.html

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On The Fly Fish Taco

So occasionally when I stop at Assi Plaza International Market in Noth Wales, Pa Ill buy a tray of Korean Fried Pollack Filets and Ill have some left over the next day and Ill make a yummy giant fish taco with fresh guac, lettuce and a tiny bit of sour cream. SOO GOOD

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Spreadable Cookies!

So about 3 months ago I was at Trader Joes and while I was checking out I saw this at the check out

SPECULOOS?!

SPECULOOS!?

What in the fuck is SPECULOOS!?

I bought it and brought it home to investigate.

The bar itself was non descript and frankly tasteless, BUT after Googling I discovered that SPECULOOS was basically SPREADABLE COOKIES!

Namely spreadable Biscoff cookies that are a delightful European Gingerbread cookie.

AN if that wasnt enough, I found out that you can buy Speculoos in a JAR for spreading on toast or dipping bananas in!!!!!!!!

ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!

LOOK!

I am IN LOVE with this stuff!

SO decadent!

You cannot put the jar down!

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Being the Food Whore I am (shamelessly so) I then set out to create other cookie spreads!

I immediately thought of OREOS!

How yummy would SPREADABLE OREOS BE?

So armed with my Vitamix, Nabisco Chocolate Wafers, Confectioners Sugar and Spectrum Brand

Organic Shortening I got to work.

I pulverized the wafers in the Vitamix, sifted them, and then added 1 cup of confectioners sugar and enough Spectrum Shortening to make a DECADENT spreadable OREO cookie!

I then went crazy and made 3 others, Strawberry Shortbread Cookie Spread, Lemon Dare Cookie Spread, and Oatmeal Cookie Spread...

Here they are

If you wanna make them yourself, I have some tips

1) Pulverize the cookies in handfuls.

2) Use the Spectrum brand shortening NOT CRISCO

3) if using sandwich cookies scrape the creme out and only pulverize the cookie, you can re-incorporate the creme later.

4) Only use dry hard cookies, not chewy style or jam filled.

5) If you want fruit flavored cookie spread pulverize cookies first then pulverize freeze dried fruit then add .

6) Only use confectioners sugar, or you wont get a smooth spread.

7) Add Protein powder to make this more nutritional.

8) Less is more with the shortening, you an add but you cant take away.

9) This is not a DIET recipe!

Also good on cupcakes!

Have FUN!

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Nabe Dinner

Yummy! I made a simple Chicken Nabe with Chicken, Chinese Okra, Green Gourd, Mushrooms, Onion, Carrots, Spinach, Konnyaku and Tofu Puffs. I ate it with a side order of rice and KimChee.
The Chinese Okra is actually a young Luffa (Yes, the kind you wash with!) It was good!
I made a Kabocha "cake" but it isnt done yet...
MMMMMMMMMMMMM!

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Im Crazy!

I made another Hawaiian dish for dinner. LOCO MOCO. Its Hawaiian fast food.
Rice, a fried hamburger patty, gravy and a fried egg... YOU dress it up with ketchup, soy sauce or hot sauce. I used ketchup and soy and some pickled ginger juice (cause it needed an Asian touch) It was good, nice simple comfort food.

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Strawberry Mochi Cake

I havent had anything inventive for dinner recently so I made a Strawberry Mochi Cake today in my silicone pan. Its Hawaiian. Its totally different then the Japanese Mochi candy as its lighter, but still somewhat dense and chewy.
Im making something with Flounder Tonight.
Eating a Japanese-Korean Fusion the past few days Ive shot down in weight (YAY) so I figured it was cause I only ate a TRUE serving of protein at mealtimes. Tonight Ill eat ONE fillet of flounder NOT the entire block, so Ill have leftovers for tomorrows breakfast or lunch.
Yesterday I ate an entire Rice Donut with redbean paste inside, YUM!
And Im still skinny so Ill have a nice slice of Mochi Cake tonight!

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Hawaiian Night!

I dont have alot of time tonight as its Baseball Season, so I made "Chirashisubi" A combo Chirashizushi bowl with Hawaiian Spam Musubi ingredients...

Recently, I purchased several cookbooks from Amazon:

"The Food and Cooking of Mexico, South America and the Caribbean : Explore the vibrant and exotic ingredients, techniques and culinary traditions, with ... recipes and over 1000 colour photographs"
Jane Milton; Hardcover

"Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go"
Naomi Kijima; Paperback

"The Kimchee Cookbook: Fiery Flavors and Cultural History of Korea's National Dish"
Kim Man-Jo; Hardcover

"Sushi American Style"
Tracy Griffith; Hardcover

"Classic Asian Cakes and Desserts (Learn to Cook)"
Periplus; Spiral-bound

"Easy Japanese Pickling in Five Minutes to One Day: 101 Full-Color Recipes for Authentic Tsukemono"
Seiko Ogawa; Paperback

"Japanese Home Cooking (Essential Asian Kitchen)"
Shunsuke Fukushima; Hardcover

"Favorite Brand Name Mexican Fiesta!"
Hardcover

"The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostess"
Leo Gong; Hardcover

I purchased them all Cheap and USED... I still have a few more I want:
Top Secret Restaurant Recipes: Creating Kitchen Clones from America's Favorite Restaurant Chains by Todd Wilbur
Eating Korean : From Barbecue to Kimchi, Recipes from My Home
by Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee

As they come in Ill tell you what I think...

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I made Garlic Squid Rings with Hijiki Salad and Rice and Radish Kimchi.
All delicious!
YUMMY!

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Mochi! MMMMM!

This is all the Mochi I bought yesterday... From left to right...Korean Kinako, Korean Mungbean and Black Sesame Coated, regular Japanese Red Bean Stuffed and my FAVE Melon White An Stuffed!
MMMMMMMMMM!

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Japanese Babyfood

I just thought you'd like to see these two pages of Japanese Babyfoods! Interesting Flavors http://tinyurl.com/lltbg http://tinyurl.com/q2ob3

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Yesterdays Dinner

I bought pike mackeral at the Asian mart today, Im broiling it in Soy and Mirin and Japanese pepper. Took me 30 minutes to fillet and debone!
Me and my son bought Korean pastries at the Asian Mart bakery, I got a Rice ball donut stuffed with red bean paste, and he had mexican churros.
I LOVE that Rice donut! Chewy!

Heres the finished Bowl. Mackeral, Japanese rice w/ chopped scallion and soy sauce and a side of Takuan (Japanese daikon radish pickles)
IT WAS soooo GOOD!
All in all it only cost about $2.00 to make

PICTURE LOST TO THE TINYPIC ETHER

My son had a tray of Kimbab, Korean Sushi w/Takuan and sesame oil seasoned spinach, egg and crab stick for lunch so he wanted American for dinner. This is Taro and Corn and Cheese Ice Cream, The Taro is wonderful but the other is weird. I didnt eat Ice Cream for dessert, I had yogurt and mochi instead...

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