Quick and Easy Recipes

Yes, I love food. Yes, I love complicated and exotic foods. Yes, I wish I could cook complicated and exotic foods all the time. However, a combination of extreme frugality and lack of time prevents that. When I see recipes with ingredients that I don't regularly buy or could not easily get (note: lack of car for grocery shopping), I basically chuck it. That doesn't mean I eat crap though. Case in point:

Olive Tapenade

Real olive tapenade is made with a mix of nice olives, capers, anchovies, and the like. Ki and I have been wanting to make this for sandwiches, wraps, etc. for a while now (the muffaleta at the Taste of Champaign was our final straw). Unfortunately, kalamata olives are not cheap. But even though we used the everyday manzanilla olive for this recipe, the tapenade was still delicious.

• 1 7 oz. jar of manzanilla olives
• 3 strips of roasted red peppers
  
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 3 fresh basil leaves (from Benjamin, our basil plant)
  
• 1 Tbl. of lemon juice
• 1 Tbl. of olive oil (we found this wasn't really necessary)

Directions: Drain the olive brine and rinse the olives in cold water. Remove excess water. Put it all in the blender and give it a whirl. How smooth or chunky you want it is up to you. To store it just return to the jar of olives. I would really recommend getting a jar of roasted red peppers. In this tapenade they add an extra dimension of flavor, slightly sweet, and a great orange color. In general, though, they are a great ingredient that I can always use in sandwiches, pizzas, and salads.

Pasta Salad

Pasta salad is super simple and very versatile. Ingredients can be swapped, added, or removed to build your own unique salad. This is just one, delicious, example. I don't specify amounts because that is also up to you.

• cooked whole grain rotini pasta- cooled
  
• walnuts- chopped
  
• grapes- cut in half
  
• gruyere cheese (or any cheese that's not too hard, not too soft)- chopped
• chicken- cooked, cooled, and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• balsamic vinegar- drizzle on and taste as you go
• lemon juice- just a bit, you don't want a lemon-y taste
• salt and pepper

Directions: Throw it all together and adjust the dressing and seasonings to taste.
You can play with this recipe, trying new combinations and flavors. Try to keep a pasta, a fruit, a nut, cheese, and maybe some kind of protein. For example, you could use chopped apples instead of grapes, or go for a saltier flavor with olives and tuna instead of grapes and chicken. This is perfect for picnics.

A Meal for a Kiwi

Ki and I realized that it had been a while since we actually cooked dinner. We usually make a big batch of something (veggie chili, chicken curry, etc.), store it, and eat it througout the week. Anyways, I found a recipe online for tandoori chicken that I wanted to give a try. I decided to make it a three course meal for Markita.

Appetizer- watermelon cubes

We just cut up a big watermelon, so I was looking for some recipes to use up the fruit while it's still fresh. This one is interesting...

• watermelon cubes
• lime juice
• balsamic vinegar

Directions: Carve a small hole in the watermelon cube and put in a few drops each of lime juice and balsamic vinegar.
Ki was definitely apprehensive of this one after I told her it had balsamic vinegar. Even I was a bit weirded out. But in the end I felt it tasted pretty good. The sweetness of the watermelon and the strong vinegar taste were blended together by the lime. I wasn't very precise about the lime to vinegar ratio, which does make a difference. I would recommend a few extra drops of lime. I might try this again, but I think Ki will stick to plain watermelon.

Entree- tandoori chicken

I'm a sucker for Indian inspired dishes. I say inspired because I doubt any of the stuff I make would pass for acceptable Indian food. Nonetheless, I keep my spice rack stocked with curry, tumeric, cumin, cinnamon, etc. for recipes just like this one.

• 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Pinch of ground cloves
• 4 bone-in chicken thighs

Directions: Stir together yogurt, onion and garlic in a shallow glass dish. Add lemon juice, cilantro, paprika, cumin, turmeric, ginger, salt, pepper, cinnamon and cloves. Add chicken and coat well. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 500°F. Coat a wire rack with cooking spray and set itover a foil-covered baking sheet. Place the chicken on the prepared rack. Bake the chicken until browned and no trace of pink remains in the center, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve hot.

So of course I modified the directions a bit to suit me. First of all, all we had was one big boneless, skinless chicken breast, no cilantro, and no ginger. Also, I didn't want to make a big mess in the oven, so I just sprayed a baking sheet with cooking spray and put the chicken on that. I heaped on all the yogurt marinade, creating a dome for the chicken. By the end the yogurt turned into a nice, creamy sauce. I was a bit worried during the cooking process because the edges of the yogurt burned, but it all worked out in the end. It was delicious, and super easy to make.

I paired the chicken with a side salad (mixed greens, grapes, roasted red peppers, a dollop of cottage cheese, and some balsamic vinaigrette) and fresh corn. Fresh corn is the easiest vegetable to cook. Just remove the husk, place it on a plate with a little bit of water, cover it with a second plate to trap the steam, and cook it in the microwave for about 3-4 minutes.

Dessert- baked bananas and ice cream

Dessert was about as easy to make and healthy as the rest of this meal. I could do this any night of the week (and probably will).

• banana
• cinnamon
• ice cream

Directions: Slice the banana in half lengthwise and once again into four pieces. Spray a baking sheet (I used a toaster oven) with cooking spray and place bananas face down. Sprinkle cinnamon on top and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Flip over and bake for an additional 5 minutes. The point is just to get the bananas warm and gooey. Serve with ice cream.

It was sort of like a lazy man's version of banana's foster. I've seen recipes that use sugar or honey to sweeten the bananas, but honestly I thought they were sweet enought themselves. I think the cooking spray is necessary to help caramelize it a bit.

Taste of Chicago

Oh how excited I was about the Taste of Chicago. If I had to rank my level of excitement, it would probably fall somewhere below free sample day at Harris Teeter and finding a $100 dollar bill, but above a trip to Disney World, a new bike at Christmas, and the future birth of my first child. So we planned our trip to Chicago early on in the summer, but then began hearing whispers about the Taste being a total rip-off. And you know what? It was. Not to say the food wasn't amazing. I was tempted by several options: grilled plantains with peanut sauce, samosas, tamales, empanadas, mango-cumin dusted fries with chutney, etc. etc. (notice how most of them are ethnic). But when you get down to it, $2.10 for half a plantain and a teaspoon of peanut sauce is not worth it. The Taste wasn't a total waste though. We got to oogle other people's food, and had tons of free samples dumped on us: cake, drinks, granola, and a shit-load of aspirin.

Luckily, this wasn't the Taste of Podunk City, so there was other things to do once we high-tailed it out of the crowds at Grant Park. I had heard of an Arab festival going on that day, so Markita and I decided to check it out. As far as festivals go it was pretty minimal, mostly just booths selling belly dancing outfits and hookahs, and some live music. We did, however, find a great deal for lunch: for $7 we got a sfeeha platter. Sfeeha? What? Neither of us had ever had sfeeha before, and we had to ask. It is kind of like a Mediterranean meat pie, and consists of ground lamb and beef cooked with spices and baked on a pita. The flavor reminded us of something we'd eaten before but... well we couldn't think of what. It was nothing out of this world, but was still really good and interesting to try. The platter came with hummus (blended chickpeas with tahini), jerusalem salad (cucumber, tomato, and onion witha lemon tahini dressing), tabouli (bulgur and parsley with lemon dressing), baba ganoush (blended roasted eggplant with tahini), grape leaves (leaves stuffed with ground lamb and spices), and a pita for dipping. It was delicious! I'd had baba ganoush before and was kind of putoff by the strong smoky flavor, but this one was more mild. Ki and I were looking for some ethnic, new foods, so this dish hit the spot. It was also light and flavorful (apparently Mediterranean diets are the healthiest. I can see why), which was great since it was so hot outside. The festival had a nice tent set up where you could sit on the floor and eat your food on raised platters. So even though the screachy music in the background wasn't the best, the overall environment was nice.

From there Ki and I went to the beach, etc. etc. Yes, it was nice, but lets talk food here. We ran into a restaurant Markita had been to called... something Barro. Anyways, she said it had some authentic hispanic food and that we should split an entree for dinner. We check out the menu and are outraged (no, this emotion is not too strong for the context) to find that it cost $4.50 just to split an entree (it's the same amount of food! same amount of labor! ugh!). Aaanyways, we decide to stick it to the man (or in this case the very nice woman working the register) and work around this inconvenience. We bought two appetizers at the front and ordered it to go. A block away we had a picnic next to the bean. Ha! Can't beat that.

So onto the food. We had some of my favorite food-memories from my trips to Venezuela. First, arepas with cheese and guacamole sauce. Arepas are dense cornmeal patties, usually fried. They can be an aquired taste, but even though it had been a 9 year hiatus since the last time I had an arepa, I still loved it. I wasn't used to eating them with guacamole, and I prefered them plain. Next we had fried platanos with ropa vieja, sofrito (a tomate sauce), and guacamole. Ropa vieja is actually a cuban dish, consisting of shredded meat cooked slowly in its juices with spices. I remember eating this in Venezuela too, and I actually associate it with Venezuelan cooking. It was like a hispanic take on bruschetta. You would take a platano and top it with ropa vieja and the sauces. Amazing! These dishes were plain delicious, but they also brought me back. Ordering appetizers also let us sample many flavors for a smaller cost ($10 total). Take THAT Taste of Chicago. For the price of two ticket booklets we sampled a bunch of delicious foods.

So in conclusion, we came, we ate, we conquered.

Taste of Champaign

How appropriate that my first post is from the Taste of Champaign, a weekend food festival in Champaign, Il that is similar to the very popular Taste of Chicago. The word on the street is that it's cheaper and all around better than the Taste of Chicago. I'll be the judge of that next weekend, when Kiwi and I go up to Chicago for the day. Meanwhile, here's the lowdown on what we got for 18 tickets (10 dollars).

1. Saltena
We made a beeline for the One World Pizza booth. And we came back for seconds, too. This place is probably the only restaurant in the state that sells saltenas, a very popular Bolivian pastry. Similar to the empanada, it's baked with a stew-like meat, vegetable, egg, and potato filling. You can also buy a veggie saltena, which sounds kind of weird to me. A saltena is inherently meaty, but maybe I should let my stomach do the judging. Anyways, saltenas require a spoon to eat, or else you'll just end up spilling the juices everywhere and burning your hand. So it was kind of hard to eat without a spoon, but nonetheless delicious and totally worth the burn. The liquid had the distinctive red tint from a spice called palillo. Ki and I made these for our mom, and they're pretty hard to make, requiring at least two day of preparation: one day to make the filling with gelatin and allow it to firm up over night, and the next to bake it at a high temperature. Good thing we can buy them for a relatively good price in Champaign (although not Raleigh, unfortunately). Even though the saltenas in Bolivia are better, with pieces of beef instead of ground beef, mini-eggs, and olives, beggars can't be choosers. And when you're looking for saltenas in the middle of a giant cornfield (i.e. Illinois), you are certainly a beggar.

2. Crab Rangoon
The single crab rangoon was a pretty small portion, but still good and worth the one ticket (if only we'd been tipped off that 1 ticket items are typically a rip-off. More on that later.). No picture of this one, but that doesn't mean it wasn't good. The wrapper was nice and crispy, and the filling was very creamy. Unlike other crab rangoons I've had, the filling didn't just taste like cream cheese, but actually had the taste of crab and herbs. It came with a syrupy sweet and sour sauce. Typical american-chinese fare, but who doesn't like a little fast food?

3. Muffaletta
Ki and I had this huge New Orleans sandwhich (think the width of a small pizza, the height of a chocolate cake, and the soul of a burly Italian man) when we went to New Orleans. We loved the soft bread, mix of deli meats (salami, ham, etc.), and best of all, the salty olive tapenade. Even though neither of us are big on meaty dishes, the overal combination was great. Plus, it reminded us that we must finally make that olive tapenade we've been talking about for a month. McAlister's was offering a taste portion for 2 tickets, and it was also well-worth it. The picture isn't great, but the sandwhich was stacked with meat, a slice of cheese, and a mix of olives.

4. Samosa
Euro-mart isn't really a restaurant, but actually an international specialty food shop. They do, however, offer a few snacks in their deli, and we got to try one of them. I love indian food, so I definitely loved the spices in the veggie samosa, which was filled with potato and peas. Markita wasn't crazy about all the potato, but I felt that it carried the flavor well. My only qualm was that the guy microwaved it before serving, so the dough on the outside had some mushy parts. I realize it's difficult to maintain quality at an outdoor festival, but it would have been better if they'd stored them under a heat lamp to maintain crispiness. Still, it was good, and again, the picture doesn't really do it justice

5. Chicken Pad Thai
Pad thai is another favorite of mine, and the sample portion Ki and I got was definitely worth it. Probably not as authentic as I would hope, it was a good fast-food type dish. I noodles were greasy (in a good way) and had plenty of peanuts. Some pad thai's don't have enough peanut flavor, but this one definitely did. I also have a picture of the chicken basil with rice. Apparently it wasn't all that great, and a little too spicy. Seems like Ki and I picked the good one. Booyah.















6. General Tsao's Chicken
So this was the first real disappointment of the Taste. It was one of the few items that only cost 1 ticket, and I was expecting the taste portion to be on par with the taste portion of the pad thai. Not quite. The sample size reminded me of when I used to walk by the foodcourt at the mall to grab a free sample of chinese food on a toothpick (ok, fine, I still do this). It tasted ok, nothing special. A little too much grizzle for my taste, but that was kind of expected. I added the fork to make it look more paltry. And Ki's smile is a frown in disguise.

7. Kettle Korn

Yum! I love sweet and salty combinations such as chocolate covered pretzels and trail mix, so I knew I would like this ketle korn. It would have been better warm and fresh from the kettle, but was tasty nonetheless. And for a taste portion, Ki and I got a pretty sizeable bag-full.



8. Chocolate Dip n' Dots
This stuff reminds me of trolling the mall back in middle school, trying to look cool and shopping at Limited Too. This mall food staple made an appearance at the Taste. When they're still frozen they stick to the sides of your mouth and you can't really taste anything. However, once it starts melting, the ice cream gets really creamy. I hear they have Dip n' Dots ice cream cakes, which I'm really curious about.

9. Chocolate Dipped Pineapple
Disappointment number 2 at the taste. We had one ticket left and decided to go for something refreshing. It was basically a bite-sized piece of pineapple with minimal chocolate coating. It's as if they were trying to rip us off. I'm surprised the vendors could sell this to me with a straight face. If I were them I'd probably start laughing about how much of a sucker these people are. Oh well, even though it was a disappointing end, the overall experience was great. Lets hope the Taste of chicago is just as good.