April 2008 Archives

As I said to Matt, I like having someone to cook for. It gives me the opportunity to make things that I would never make if I were cooking for myself. Like fish. This was the first time I went food shopping with the intention of buying fish fillets. In fact, it's the first time I cooked fish at all. I'm happy to say it was a success. I got the recipe from epicurious, but changed it a bit and added a lot more flavoring. I used halibut, which was great with the lemon and tarragon seasoning. I served it with Trader Joe's Brown Rice Medley, which I cooked in homemade vegetable brothhomemade vegetable broth.


» Recipe for Lemon-Tarragon Fish Fillets in Parchment with Asparagus

Incredibly hungover this morning but I still managed to be productive. It ended up being a waste of time and energy because although I didn't forget the butterforget the butter this time, I think I over-baked it. Maybe the oven was too hot.

I went back to my usual 4.5 oz cups of flour and the batter was still pretty dry. Could have been that the bananas were smaller than recommended. I suppose I should have measured them and altered the flour accordingly.

I also added 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of freshly ground nutmeg.

» Recipe» Recipe

The first "trial" from my new home.

This granola is delicious. I really love the flavor from the applesauce. It reminds me of the juices that seep out of an apple pie and get caramelized. When I was cooking the apple, the water cooked off and it browned a bit too much while I wasn't paying attention. Luckily it didn't burn and I think the flavor improved because of it. I added more water, scraped up the browned bits, drained it a little, then added a bit more water while it finished cooking.

The finished applesauce ended up being a little bit more than 1/2 cup, but I used it all anyway. I baked the granola for 45 minutes and when I spread it out to cool I noticed it was still pretty moist, so I returned it to the oven for another 20 minutes, watching it to make sure it didn't get too dark.


» Recipe for Quest for the perfect granola: Part 2

Looking around for something quick to make for dinner I found half a bag of Trader Joe's Harvest Grains BlendTrader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend, some asparagus that I almost forgot I bought, and a lemon.

I cooked the grains in vegetable brothvegetable broth and steamed the asparagus until is was just tender. Tossed it all with some lemon juice, a little extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper, and grated some parmesan cheese on top.

Yum.

A note about the harvest grains blend - it's best freshly cooked. Leftovers just become a solid mass that doesn't want to break apart very easily, and reheating over-cooks it.

I was craving lentil stew. That's how good it is. It's my new comfort food. I like to eat it topped with some chopped hard-boiled egg and a piece of whole wheat toast on the side.

This time I tried it with spinach instead of kale. I think I could have simmered it a bit longer though. The tomatoes didn't taste fully cooked.

I've added this to the recipe archives.

» Reciperecipe archives.

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