Vegan Vittles

That was the hammer on my food story a week ago. Today's New Era will feature Da Vinci Little Italian Restaurant, but I'll wait until it's published before I blog, so as not to scoop myself. :-) So for today, let's talk about The Little Teapot Cafe in Bradford Square:
I had the "Chick" Tetrazzini with a side of peas, fresh all-grain bread and some kind of soy butter.

Salmon Pattie Salad

My mom was nice enough to give me a bunch of canned salmon... another good way to get some affordable omega-3s in our diet. I made my patties with Italian style bread crumbs, and some salmon seasoning mix, chopped onion and 1 egg. I pan fried them in olive oil and served them over fresh spinach drizzled with honey mustard.

This is just a random picture of what I think is some really beautiful sushi from Tokyo Sushi in Paducah. I loved the generous sprinkling of green caviar...it looks like fat colored sugar crystals. There were also some fat orange fish roe inside... tobiko?

Peanut pumpkins

I've been back at the New Era part time since the middle of September. Being out of the house more puts me in contact with more blog-worthy food topics, but it also eliminates my time for blogging.
I was checking out the area's fresh markets for a story and came across this stand at the Dew's place on Pembroke Road. I had interviewed them back when I was features editor about some 80s McDonald's Playland equipment they were refurbishing for their grandkids. It caught my attention to see the Hamburger jail and Grimace in their yard. Well, the equipment is gone, but there's this wonderfully stocked farmstand instead. Eldridge had quite a few unsual pumpkins... Peanut Pumpkin, Fairytale and Long Island Cheese among them

Cashew Chicken with Bean Threads

My mom gave me a bag of Trader Joe's unsalted, roasted cashews recently and I'd been thinking about the cashew stir-fries I enjoyed in Bangkok a few years ago when my friend, Priscilla, and I met there for a mini-vacation.

So this was my best approximation. I served it over bean threads simmered in the leftover juices.

Start with 1/2 cup cashews, heated in a little oil on medium heat until toasted. Add 8 ounces of white mushrooms, halved or quartered depending on how big they are. Chopped red and green bell pepper, sweet onion, and chopped garlic come next. Add a tablespoon of oyster sauce, a splash of soy sauce and rice vinegar, and maybe a tablesoon of sugar along with garlic powder to taste. Last, add 1/2 a chicken breast, cubed and cook until done.

Reserve the juices to add to a little water to simmer two bundles of mung bean thread noodles until translucent and soft.

Joe's birthday

On Oct. 7, we went out as a family for Joe's 34th birthday to Outback Steakhouse in Clarksville. We don't go there very often...but Joe had a coupon and it was his day :-)

Joe ordered rack of lamb and I shared my salmon with steamed vegetables with Stephen. They were nice enough to cook my vegetables extra-mushy (as in mushy enough to eat with 2 1/2 teeth) on request. The portions weren't huge, but everything was so well salted that I felt very full. The salmon was perfectly cooked and crispy on the edges. Joe like his lamb so much he even at the fat. If you know my husband's aversion to grissle, you'll understand what a big compliment to the chef that was!

Lil' Punkins

Joe and I started a family tradition when we bought the anthropomorphic cushaw squash a couple years ago. We decided every autumn we should buy an unusual gourd. We also felt we had to get Stephen his first pumpkin. A little pie pumpkin for baby, turban squash for mom and dad.
I'm looking forward to making these into something... I just haven't settled on the right recipe yet.

Whiting po'boy

Since Joe's been student teaching, I've been looking for ways to feed us as cheaply as possible without giving up the four food groups. I found Aldi's bag of frozen whiting filets, at $3.49 for 24 ounces, are probably the cheapest non-fishstick seafood available in Hoptown. But that's excluding whatever lurks in Little River.

So, since The Po'Boy closed, I've been craving a grilled fish sandwich. The whiting cooks nicely in the oven or skillet, either breaded or plain. It wears lemon juice, garlic powder and herbs well. And the unpleasantly fishy odor disappears once it's been cooked. Joe has to peel off the skin before he can eat it, but other than that, these fillets are ready to go. I served mine sauteed over garlic baguette, with garden tomato, a sprinkling of sweet corn and lemon juice.

Phyllo dough meaty samosa

I just found this photo of something I concocted way back in August when Tatiana was still living with us. My phyllo had been hiding in the back of the freezer from some time, so it had that sharp past-its-prime flavor. Also, I think this would have been much better with some thick greek yogurt for dipping.

I don't remember what I put in it... just that it was ground chicken, cauliflower, curry powder, garam masala, cayenne and probably some garlic and onion. Then I wrapped it in three sheets phyllo, rubbed with oil, then baked until crispy.

September cooking

I do still cook. Not as much as I'd like, but even the busyness of two jobs and motherhood doesn't keep me out of the kitchen for long. I've been holding on to these photos for a while now...
Spinach quiche with homemade oil crust. I followed a recipe that called for milk in the crust. I don't think I've got the touch to make a flaky oil crust, but it did taste good. Stephen was crazy about this stuff. I made two pies, and he pretty much ate half of one by himself.
A simple chickpea salad with cucumber, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, onion and tomato. I love chickpeas in most forms, so I liked this dish as well.
Coconut veggie curry. I took a can of coconut milk, some chinese curry powder, garlic powder, splash of fish sauce, juice of a lime, salt, a little sugar, canned carrots, broccoli and cabbage and simmered it all until tender. I served it over some Vietnamese noodles. A few weeks later I tried the same thing but used sweet potato, white potato, cauliflower and broccoli and served it over rice.

A couple of bones to pick

Oh, Hopkinsville. I always try to give you the benefit of the doubt, but here you go annoying me again.

OSAKA JAPANESE RESTAURANT
Many of us were ecstatic when we saw the old Skinny's Diner/Chicago Style Grill building on the boulevard morph into Osaka Japanese restaurant. Hopkinsville, I'm told, used to have an excellent sushi restaurant until their chef returned to his homeland and the place shuttered it's sprawling plantation-style building. The classy building eventually reopened as a smokey sportsbar that felt (and tasted, in my opinion) more like someone's ugly basement than a restaurant. I digress.

Knowing that the owners were Chinese, and the restaurant was no where near bodies of water that contain fish commonly used in sushi, I wasn't expecting it to offer the cuisine of it's namesake city (where Joe and I were unable to even afford the sushi when we visited.) However, I would expect the staff to be a little bit familiar with their menu offerings. And how to pronounce the word "tofu." And for the chef to prepare dishes according to the menu description.

Suffice it to say, my mom and I were dually unimpressed. And our comiserating probably ruined it for the rest of our party... sorry, guys. We moody foodies can't help ourselves. I was really wanting to like the restaurant, too. I've been longing for a sushi place to succeed here, especially since half of the clientele at Yamato's just across the state line have Kentucky plates. But I have little hope for this newest eatery.



Stephen did enjoy the corner booth... at least until he threw up tofu and a cup of pool water all over daddy's lap.

INCREDIBLE SHRINKING BARGAINS
My next "bone" isn't exactly Hopkinsville's fault. From reading this blog and my old New Era columns, you might have picked up that I'm a Kroger grocery store fan. I do force myself into Aldi from time to time because it's supposed to be cheaper, but I think I find the best deals in the little orange "manager's special" stickers at Kroger. Plus, it's gotten to where I know their sale cycle... namely the beloved "10 for 10" sales. They come around every 5 or 6 weeks-- and I can get boxes of pasta, frozen vegetables, brownie mixes, good hand soap and other kitchen staples for what I consider reasonable prices. I'm the girl in the self-check out with 15 bags of frozen Brussels sprouts, lima beans and chopped spinach. And at 16 ounces each, the bags supply 15 dinner's worth of veggies to cram into my freezer. But as I eagerly awaited 10 for 10 week this past month, I noticed some snazzy new changes in my freezer aisle: lights that dimmed until a customer activated a motion sensor, doors that were completely fogged up and more stylish packaging on the store's generic frozen vegetables.

That's when it hit me. Prettier packaging... but smaller bags. No longer can my George Washington get me 16 beautiful ounces of cauliflower... rather just 12 skimpy ounces. I squinted at the price label. Sure enough, it read 10/$10.00, 12 oz. Cauliflower. My eyes raced along the shelves holding an expanse of swanklily packaged produce. 12 oz. 12 oz. 12 oz. Surely, this makes it so there's no savings at all.

In an effort to cheat the system one last time, I dug behind the puny bags and unearthed the remaining 16 ounce packages in their dowdy white wrappers, and pitched them into my cart. To my temporary satisfaction, they rang up at a dollar each. But my days of feeling like I got a good deal are coming to a close. I suppose stores and producers across the country have been sneeking in ways to give the consumer less for more. But it burns me that while burger and soda sizes have increased exponentially over the years, my humble but wholesome sack of veggies is dwindling.

Date Night in Paris

OK, I didn't really go to Paris. But Joe and I did get to have a date night on our 8th anniversary in Franklin, Tenn., at the Viking Cooking School. On the menu with Chef Jamie: Coc au vin, salad with chevre, tomato tartlet and crepes suzzette.
As is often the case in these Viking classes (Joe and I have Thai cooking, Morroccan and Superfoods under our apron strings) I was completely lost for most of it. The recipes in the packets barely coincided with what the instructor was doing. The droplets of oil leaping from the pans stung my hands. And it was sometimes hard to tell the little ramekins of salt from the sugar or the walnut oil from the honey... a mistep that could have be disasterous, or at least a little disgusting!

But when it came to crepe making, I was a pro. :-)

Getting my fill of ethnic eats

For those of you that keep up with the Daily Munchie, this post is going to be old hat. But I had some photos from our trip (beginning of the month) to Chicago and some opinions as well.
Sushi Ya- a newer Japanese restaurant close to the Schaumburg Township District Library, where my mom works.
Chicken bowl for Stephen
He was being a bit of a pill trying to escape his high chair and stuffing too big of pieces of chicken in his mouth when no one was watching, but I think he enjoyed it too.
And we ordered the "Schaumburg Roll" just because I think it's cool to order sushi rolls named after towns. It was good- no cream cheese or anything gross. Just softshell crab, eel, avocado etc.

Saffron - An Indian restaurant in Schaumburg off Wise Road.
Despite the exotic sounding name, Saffron's decor was kind of like a hotdog place or a sub shop. It also seemed to be run by one person (maybe there was someone else hiding in the back) and our food took a long time to arrive. Or maybe it wasn't really that long, but Stephen was again up to his worst restaurant behavior so it seemed like an eternity. Thankfully, there's a great fresh market with an extensive Indian food section a couple doors down from Saffron, and it served as a good diversion for fussy baby and frazzled parents.
The food was a mix of what I can only assume is authentic- like the peppery hot birani rice dish- and east meets west like "Tandoori pizza" which was actually one of my favorite dishes. The samosas were great... but had more black pepper than my tongue could handle. I've got a pretty decent tolerance for chili pepper hot and wasabi hot, but black pepper really does me in. Munchie also turned bright red when we tried to let him sample some chicken from the pizza. Poor kid!

Pork chops and rice

Our friend and house guest, Tatiana, treated us to Southern-style fried pork chops and rice Sunday night.


I have to say, I've never known pork chops to be especially tender or tasty, but this girl's chops turned all my pork misconceptions on their heads. The key, she says,is in double-dipping them into a mix of flour, cayenne and season salt, then frying both sides in oil about an inch deep. What doesn't taste good fried in oil?
She also served cheesecake and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. The veggies in the photo were my doing, of course.

Korean ramen and fishcake soup

Summer doesn't seem like the best time for a steaming bowl of fishball goodness, but it's been cool here this week. So why not?

I'm hooked on "healthy" ramen noodles. You probably didn't know that they made those curly instant noodle bricks without all the msg, fat and sodium that have endeared them to budget conscious college students. I had been buying "Smart Choice" ramen at Kroger, but they stopped carrying them a couple months after I discovered them. They're great because they cook in boiling water in 60 seconds and have 3 grams of fat per brick as opposed to the 20 grams in the real stuff. They also taste good. Granted, you can tell they don't have all the hydrogenated oil of the original, but it's nothing a dash of sesame oil or canola oil can't cure.

I was moping about my discovery and subsequent deprivation when my mom came to the rescue, in usual fashion, by finding them in the Chicago suburbs and buying all 50 packages on the shelf. I'd been living off those noodles for a better portion of the year, but finally finished them last month. This last visit, she brought a new kind of "healthy" ramen... called HooRooRook. I don't know if that's some kind of Korean onomatopoeia or what, but these noodles are even better than the Smart Choice. They've only got a gram of fat and they come with a packet of seaweed and other tasty seasoning bits, a better flavored soup base and a tiny packet of (sodium rich, I'm sure) brown pasty stuff to stir in at the last minute. Smart Choice came in beef and chicken noodle flavor and I usually threw out the packet and just dressed the noodles in teriyaki or soy sauce and a little bit of vegetable oil or toasted sesame seeds.

If you get your hands on some HooRooRook, or any instant noodles, I recommend boiling them with some chopped cabbage and frozen assorted fish cakes for a quick and satisfying meal. Mmmm. I kinda want some right now.

Pancake team