Oops

It's been a while, but I just haven't got an appetite, nor the energy to actually cook. I've been bringing home prepared foods from Whole Foods Market almost every night because it's easy (current faves: Quinoa Carnival Salad and Gazpacho).

In the mean time, please take the time to read this article, and go see Food, Inc. this weekend if it's in your city. This is important stuff and more people need to be educated about where their food comes from, and what it means to be nutritionally beneficial.

Pasta

Spring is my favorite time of year. I love the weather, the new grass and leaves on the trees, all the blooms, I can even tolerate the allergies. I also love the food. Morel mushrooms, fiddlehead ferns, spring onions, asparagus...bring it on I say.

I wanted to make a little ragu of morels and asparagus to go with some scallops the other night, but I couldn't find any fresh morels around town. So instead, I went with some dried porcini in my cabinet.

I reconstituted them in warm water, then chopped them up along with some of those tiny asparagus in the last post, garlic scape, shallot, garlic and olive oil. I added some of the liquid from the mushrooms, and a tablespoon of half and half at the end, and tossed that sauce with some fettuccine and topped it with a couple of seared sea scallops. A 12.5 pt dinner and it was outstanding.

That night, my phone was frozen and my camera dead, so you get no pictures. Instead, look at a morel. Mmmmm.
Another thing I picked up at the farmer's market on Saturday was a fresh chicken. I can't remember who the vendor was because I don't normally hit up the Sunset Valley market. I roasted that sucker up using the usual method, and made a rice pilaf with mushrooms, garlic scapes and asparagus. Is there anything better than just a simple roasted chicken? I'm not sure there is.

I could easily eat this whole thing just standing at the counter.
As you can see, I ate the skin off that breast up there before snapping the picture.

Instead, I just ate that nice little portion (and the skin from that breast up there...)

Last Weekend

For some reason I haven't been able to find the charger for my camera so I've been taking pictures on my phone lately. Also? I'm not a photographer, and quite frankly, I do love looking at other peoples' photos, but I'm not that great at it, have no desire to be, and don't want my food to get cold while I take pictures. So don't expect some food photography here to get you drooling but rather, just to show how a recipe or something looked.

Also, I'm an Art Director, so it's not like I don't know about composition and lighting and Photoshop and all that, but it's my day job and this blog is for fun. So no, I'm not going to correct much, I'm just going to post the images here.

First, let's start off with my haul from last week's Sunset Valley Farmer's Market:
Those are, quite possibly, the thinnest asparagus on the planet. Also, candied jalapeños, garlic scapes, spring onions and dino kale.

This is not my usual Farmer's Market. Usually, I go to Austin Downtown, but with the arts festival, the parking was a joke and it was so crowded I wanted to beat someone with a large stick. So I turned around and headed south.

The dino kale was wilted in the first day and I ended up not using it, which kind of pisses me off. I'm new to garlic scapes, but quickly falling in love, more about them in a later post. The asparagus have been awesome, again, more about them in a later post. The jalapeños are searingly hot and I am no wuss. The spring onions haven't been used yet, but hopefully will be tomorrow.

Let's talk about where I ate brunch last Sunday...Paggi House. Now, I've been to Paggi House for happy hour many times (awesome setting, half price wine and other drink specials, as well as some half price appetizers), but never for a meal. When we found out they'd be doing brunch, well, my lady friends and I jumped on the opportunity!

For $39, we had bottomless mimosas and bloody mary's; endless bread baskets with coffee cake, banana bread and jalapeño corn muffins (served with fleur de sel butter and a grapefruit spread that was amazing on the banana bread); choice of cold starter (I had shrimp and crab cocktail); choice of entree (I had the chicken and waffles); and beignets for dessert.

The chicken and waffles consisted of a waffle topped with fleur de sel butter, a fried boneless chicken thigh, and maple syrup with a piece of sausage on the side.

I stole this picture from Paggi House's Facebook Page, it seems
it may have been taken by Becky Fondren.

I want to east this all the time. I'd be the size of a house, but holy hell I'd be a happy house. Also, I'd be a poor house as the Sunday brunch is $39. But, the service is wonderful, it's a lingering brunch, no one rushes you at all, the DJ was from Thievery Corporation (I guess he lives here in Austin?) so the music was great, and I had 2.5 bloody mary's so I think it's a fair price really.

After brunch, I ran by Whole Foods to pick up some sea scallops for dinner. I figured with all of the points I'd just blown on brunch, seared sea scallops with asparagus would be a good, low point dinner. Of course, I never did get hungry again, so I saved the scallops for the next night.

More to come later today...

Thai Red Curry

One of my to to staples used to be Thai Red Curry. I almost always had the ingredients on hand to make a batch of this at least once a week. I must have burned out on it because I didn't make it for a while. Now it's back in the rotation (with the spotting of lite coconut milk on sale at Newflower Farmer's Market where I stocked up on it). This is sickeningly easy to make, just follow the directions on the side of the Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste. You could make your own curry paste, but I'm not that ambitious any longer.

Thai Red Curry
Serves 2-4
6 thingies per serving (not including rice) if you do 4 servings
if you don't know what that means, then don't worry about it!

1-2 Tbsp Thai red curry paste
1 14 oz. can lite coconut milk (you can use regular if you so choose)
1-3 Tbsp fish sauce
1/4 c. chicken stock (you can use veggie or just plain water too)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 small red bell pepper, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 small zucchini, cut into bite-sized chunks
1/2 lb peeled, de-veined shrimp (I also remove the tails)
1/2 lb bay scallops
1/4 c. chopped fresh basil

In a 3 qt. saucepan, over medium heat, combine curry paste (I use 2 Tbsp, but I like it hot) and coconut milk, continuously whisking, for about 5 minutes. Add fish sauce (I use 3 Tbsp), stock and brown sugar, along with veggies and simmer over medium for about 10 minutes. Add shrimp and scallops and simmer until just cooked through. Serve over brown rice and top with chopped fresh basil.

You can change this up a lot with different protein sources and vegetables. You can also use the same recipe for green curry (just get green curry paste, see how easy that is?). I was hungry the night I made this, so I got about 3 servings out of it. It's great leftover as well.

Out of Town

Sorry, but I've been out of town since I posted last week and haven't been cooking. I've also got company and my place is small so I'll be back in the kitchen this week and posting some new stuff including a really good farro and summer squash salad.

And We're Back...

I'm a bit more inspired lately. Did you know that there are a few food bloggers in Austin? Well, honestly? I didn't. But I found out that there are, and I've spent the morning catching up with them (see new blog roll at right) and got inspired.

Spring is here, and as you know if you've read this blog for a while, it's my favorite time of year for cooking, so between that and the new crop of locals, I'm back and I'm here with a bit of a new focus. Yep, keepin' it local and healthy.

I still love food, but I'm not as obsessed as I once was. Still, I want to share and encourage eating locally and healthily (is that even a word?) and what better way to do it than right here on Food Porn?

Lately, I've been focused on whole grains. For some reason, I'm picking up the habit of grazing rather than full meals through most of my day. Making a big batch of a grain-based salad and keeping it in the fridge allows me to scoop out a bit and nosh. It takes the edge off my hunger, contains healthy ingredients, and most of all, tastes good.

This recipe is now one of my favorites. It says it serves 4-6, and I ended up getting about four 1 cup servings out of it (plus or minus a bit).

I totally stole this image from the Whole Foods website, but since I'm on the team that does this, and I'm crediting it, I figure they'll forgive me (or greet me in the office with my desk in a box and a deactivated swipey card).
I'm such a huge fan of kale (specifically, Dino Kale...the curly kale insults my weird texture preferences), and for God's sake who doesn't love salami? In this recipe, I used a pretty basic Genoa from Whole Foods. I can't remember the brand.

For the bulghur, I used a #2 from Phoenecia Bakery and Deli on South Lamar because I am Lebanese, and when making Tabouleh (specifically, my dad's Tabouleh which is the best you'll ever eat in your life and that's not hyperbole, just the truth dammit), you use #2 to get the right texture. My dad taught me lots of things, and that's just one of them (some of the others include "booger booger booger, sittin' on my lip, booger, booger, booger, oops it's gonna slip, booger, booger, booger, tastes like candy but it's not").

Next up, something with Farro I think...

Dinner in a Wrapper: FAIL

So I didn't get to do dinner in a wrapper with my friends seeing as how the GD weather in the ATX is hot one day (as in, 75-80º) and then cold the next (as in, 35-40º) and is making me sick as a damned dog. Screw you weather, pick a temp and stay there.

Anyway, the cooking as of late has been of the boring low-fat protein, whole grain and a veggie variety. Think lots of quinoa, fish, and roasted cauliflower. There've been a few soups including one that I'm going to show you in a minute, as well as big ol' salads.

For Christmas eve, I'm staying in and cooking a nice, light meal because I'm saving all my points for Christmas dinner. Christmas morning I fly to Atlanta and get in just in time to drink a bottle of wine before we eat the standing rib roast, cauliflower and brussel sprout gratin, roasted potatoes, and caramel cake (among other things).

Tonight, for Christmas eve, I'll be making myself this and some roasted cauliflower. And really, I just make the sauce for that fish and steam it because I don't really care about the rest of the stuff.

One of the soups I've been making that I'm in love with is this:

14 oz Contadina Crushed Tomatoes With Roasted Garlic
28 oz canned tomatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion(s)
3 clove(s) garlic clove(s)
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp fresh oregano
1 tbsp fresh sage
32 oz fat-free chicken broth
18 oz canned white beans
4 serving(s) Applegate Farms Chicken and Turkey Italian Sausage
2 oz cooked trimmed pork leg

First brown the onion, garlic and herbs in the olive oil, then add the sausage and saute that as well. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for about an hour. Yum.

Mmmm, soup.

So that's all the food news over in these parts. And oh yeah, if you're not reading the other blog, then know this. It's working this time and I'm down 6 lbs. in 4 weeks. So yeah, I'm pretty freakin' happy about that. I hope it continues because so far, this isn't really that hard.

Gone, but not forgotten...

For some odd reason, I'm just not too interested in food lately. Perhaps its the fact that I started Weight Watchers in the height of the holiday season? While I realize this is probably ridiculous to some, I couldn't wait any longer. I'm up 15 lbs since January of this year. That can't be contributed to the chemo. That's just fatty-mcfattersons eating too much and not exercising enough. I wasn't about to let the holidays see me packing on even more, so I started the WW and I'm down 3 lbs. in two weeks. Maybe this time it will work better and I won't get frustrated and quit again? We'll see...

As for my foodie friends and our cooking thing, we're supposed to do "Dinner in a Wrapper" on Tuesday night. I'm still at a loss as to what I'm going to do. I need to go through the things I've bookmarked and see what I can find. I know I had a really good idea a while back, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was.

Until then my dear foodie friends, I bid you adieu...Happy Holidays!