Two new recipes

Hello!

So lent started this week. I decided to give up eating meat (not including fish) for lent. This actually works well for my "new recipes" resolution, as I haven't cooked a lot of fish or tofu, so that should be a fun experiment!

I've got two new ones for you today- Bluefish crusted with chili crumbs and Cream of Broccoli Soup.

The first comes from the Live Longer cookbook. This is a great cookbook that my brother got for me and gave to my mom. We tried a lot of recipes from it when I was in high school, and 2 Christmases ago, my mom gave it to me! That's a good mommy!

This recipe is great, as is typical of everything in this book. I didn't have bluefish, but had picked up some tilapia at the Lobster Shop in Chelsea Market (? I forget what the real name is, but "Lobster" is definitely part of it.)

Bluefish with Chili Crumbs

1 Tbsp. each butter and olive oil

1/2 tsp. minced garlic

1 1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. each ground cumin and dried oregano, crumbled.

1/4 tsp. salt, or to taste.

1 c. fresh bread crumbs

2 Tbsp. minced parsley

4 bluefish fillets (5 oz. each)

2 Tbsp. cornmeal

Nonstick cooking spray

lemon wedges

1. In a 10-in. nonstick skillet, heat the butter and oil over moderately low heat. Add the garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and salt and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. (whoops forgot that step) Add the breadcrumbs and parsley, stir and cook for 5 minutes or until crisp. Transfer the crumb mixture to a small bowl and set aside.

2. Dredge the fillets in the cornmeal. Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel and coat with the nonstick cooking spray. Heat the pan over moderately low heat. ADd the fish fillet, and cook, partially covered, for 4 minutes. Turn the fillets over and cook for another 4 minutes longer. Transfer the fish to warm dinner plates and sprinkle the crumb mixture on top of each fillet. Serve with the lemon wedges. Serves 4.

The Cream of Broccoli Soup is from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I got this cookbook during the same Christmas as the last one, but from my cousin Jen. I haven't tried too many recipes from here, but the ones I have are great. Likewise, it's Bittman... so... we all know it's good.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

About 1 lb. broccoli, trimmed and cut up, to yield about 4 loosely packed cups of broccoli

1/2 c. rice or 1 medium baking potato, peeled and cut up into quarters.

4 c. chicken, beef or vegetable stock.

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste (and any other spices you like)

1/4 to 1 c. heavy cream or light cream or half-and-half

minced fresh parsley leaves or chives for garnish

1. Combine the broccoli, rice or potato, and stock or water in a large, deep saucepan pr casserole and turn the heat to medium-high. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to medium and cook until the vegetables are very tender, about 15 minutes.

2. Cool slightly, then puree in a food mill or in a blender. (You may prepare the soup in advance up to this point. Cover, refrigerate for up to 2 days, and reheat before proceeding)

3. Return to the pot and reheat over medium-low heat. Season with salt and pepper, then add the cream; heat through again, garnish and serve.

Enjoy!

Valentine's Day, and delicious candy

Happy Valentine's Day, friends! And Chinese New Years, and President's Day.

For those of you who I haven't been babbling to about this already, I'm in a show called The Fordham Follies. What you've got here is your basic show where we mock the law school experience at Fordham through song and skits. It's a blast to do, and from what I hear, pretty fun to see as well. (Come! March 26/27 in Pope Auditorium at Fordham, Lincoln Center Campus.)

We have a rehearsal for Follies today, so I thought it would be nice to bring everyone who has to be there some homemade candy. So that's what I spent yesterday doing, which also allowed me to try another new recipe from my collection! This one comes from Chocolate Bliss, which is only partially a cookbook- it has about 16 different chocolate recipes in it that come on these little cards, but also comes with a music CD, which I should still check out. My friend at work gave it to me as a Christmas present a few years back, and I am ashamed to say that this is the first time I've used a recipe. The one I used was Caramel Chocolate Truffles.

Now, what I can say is that my roommate says they're fantastic. But it was no thanks to that recipe, which was about as convoluted as a recipe for truffles can be. The basic recipe for any truffle is: melt chocolate, stir in cream and flavoring, cool, roll into balls, coat in some way. The issue with these one came with the caramel part of the instructions. I have never made caramels before, but I do know that there are two different ways to make them- one which makes them hard, and one which makes them soft. This one made them crazy. Basically, when I added the cream to the caramel (sugar mixture), it seized up, and became this weird hard caramel stringy structure that I then had to melt back into the cream which took about an hour, in order to make what I presume are the soft type of caramels. My assumption is that if the cream had been warmed, then the caramel wouldn't have seized up. If I do these again, I'll try that theory out. The second part is that it tells you to refrigerate it until they can be rolled into balls. With most truffles I've made, that means a couple hours at least. With this, it means, 10 minutes maybe. But of course, as I was expecting these to work like regular truffles, I had left them in over night, and had to warm the mixture up for about a thousand hours before I could roll them into balls. But whatever, they came out delicious, and that's the important part. Here's the recipe:

Caramel Chocolate Truffles

12 oz. dark chocolate, chopped, plus 6 oz., melted

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. water

1/3 c. heavy cream

1/2 tsp. fleur de sel sea salt

Unsweetened cocoa powder (this is supposed to keep your hands from sticking when you're rolling- if the chocolate is a little extra hard like mine was, you don't need it)

1. In a double boiler over simmering water, melt the 12 oz chocolate, or melt in a microwave on medium.

2. In a small, heavy saucepan over high heat, bring the sugar and water to a boil and cool until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Immediately remove from heat and carefully stir in the cream; the mixture will splatter. (and seize up! You forgot to mention that, people!!! You also forgot to mention "after it seizes up, stir it for hours and hours to melt it again)

3. Stir the melted chocolate and the 1/2 tsp. sea salt into the caramel. (oh- I also put in the sea salt with the cream, so the salt would melt evenly throughout the caramel- that's just a taste thing) Cover and refrigerate until firm enough to roll in to balls.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Using a teaspoon or small cookie scoop, scoop out balls of the chocolate mixture; coat your palms with cocoa powder and roll into balls. (at this point, I put them back into the fridge to harden up some more, so they wouldn't melt into the dipping chocolate.)

5. Skewer a truffle and dip it in the melted chocolate; let the excess drip off. Transfer to the prepared pan and sprinkle with seas salt. and let them set at room temperature. Cover and refrigerated, truffles keep for up to 1 week. Bring up to room temperature before serving.

So I made those, but actually made boxes that included 4 candies- one of these, one chocolate covered marshmallow (tip: if dipping in chocolate, stick the marshmallows in freezer for a while first so they don't melt into the chocolate), one oreo truffle that I shaped into a heart, and one orange chocolate truffle (this are REALLY messy- even after being frozen for a few hours, they were still really liquidy, and the butter separated out of the mixture. The flavor is great though- I would suggest that if you have chocolate molds, you use this as a filling for some chocolates). My roommate tested them all and said they all tasted really professional. That's nice to hear! I had some little boxes left over from when I had made truffles for Christmas a number of years ago, so I made them up, with a little written explanation of what was inside, and am about to head over to hand them out. Yippee! Let's hope everyone at rehearsal likes them :)

Update

It's been a while since I wrote- Sorry! School has taken over my life. So here is your basic update:

1) Be Myself: Meh- ok. I had mopey day last week where I had some wrong-headed thoughts, but was able to get myself out of it, especially with the help of my friends.

2) CCs: not much to report.

3) Back in Shape: The game's going well! We may win!

4) Mass: Not this week.

5) Cookbooks: Woot! Superboooowl! My new recipe this week for was said event. I made "Saucy Turkey Meatballs" from Taste of Home's Light & Tasty Annual Recipes 2003. So.... I like them, but they might not be for everyone. They kinda tasted like my mom's meatloaf, but a bit lighter.

Here's the recipe:

Saucy Turkey Meatballs

1 c. old fashioned oats

3/4 c. fat-free evaporated milk

1 medium, onion chopped

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. garlic salt

11/4 tsp. pepper

1 1/2 lbs. lean ground turkey

Sauce:

2 c. ketchup

1 1/2 c. packed brown sugar

1/4 c. chopped onion

2 Tbsp. liquid smoke

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

In a bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Crumble turkey over mixture and mix well. Shape into 1" balls. Place in a baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Combine the sauce ingredients; pour over meatballs. Bake 30-35 minutes longer or until meat is no longer pink.

6) Meditation: Sigh... I really should start working on this...

7) Praying: I've been slacking a little bit on this- I generally pray at night before I go to bed, but my brain's been kind-of go-go-going, making it difficult to concentrate. I'll try being better about that.

8) Organization: Well, the bad part is that I had my first moment this year of not being able to find something. It actually was where I expected it to be- it just had some papers laying on top of it, hiding it. I need to find some time to dedicate to cleaning again.

9) Knitting a Sweater: Well, I've picked a pattern and have started.

10) Volunteer: Haven't come up with my plan yet- I'm assuming that's basically on hold until post-Follies.

That's all I've got right now- back to homework!

Weekly Update: Delicious Resolutions

I realized that I haven't blogged in a while so, I thought I'd do so now. I'm having a relatively productive day, so why the heck not, right?

1) Be Myself: Generally going ok. I've got a great group of friends who really help love me for who I am, so it makes it easier to want to keep doing it. :)

2) CCs: Well, a couple of purchases, but on a positive note, I've been bringing my food to work, so I've been spending less.

3) Back in Shape

: The game is kicking my butt this week. I feel like I'm doing things the way I'm supposed to, but not with the results I want to see. I made a veggie lasagna with the proper proportions of everything for this week (a special type of low carb noodles, light cheese, veggie overload) I'm also trying to add in more crunches during the week, so that's good too. Sigh- I know I need to wait to see results, but as usual- I'm impatient.

4) Mass: I went last week! I headed up to St. Ignatius, which is technically the parish I'm registered with, as it's a pretty well-known church in my area and has some

sort of young-adult group attached to it. That said, it's still not my favorit

e parish, and I'm always on

the lookout for another one. I had found one that I liked, but it's about 45 minutes away, and com

muting out there is just not something I look forward to on a Sunday morning. But I went to St. Ignatius last week, and it was really interesting, because all of the music and all of the readings were basically about how God is present at this moment, which was just what I needed to hear.

5) Cookbooks: I baked my own whole wheat bread today! I got the recipe from Paul

Hollywood's 100 Great Breads. It's yummy- not as good as the Cherry Chocolate Bread I've made before from this book, but it's a decent whole wheat bread. AND it was the first time Betty, the Kitchenaid, and I got to work together- yay!

Whole Wheat Bread

2/3 c. white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

scant 2 1/2 c. whole-wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 oz. yeast

1/2 stick butter, softened

1 1/2 c. water

1. Put the flour

s, salt, yeast, and butter into a large bowl and mix together. Slowly add the water, mixing with your hands until all the flour has been incorporated from the sides of the bowl.

2. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for 5-7 minutes. Put the dough back in the bowl and let rest for 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet. Using a knife, cut a slash down the middle on top of the dough and dust the top with flour. Bake for 30 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

I ate some of it with just a little olive oil and rosemary salt. Delish!

6) Meditation: Um... yeeaaahh... Well, I did a couple minutes of yoga yesterday, does that count?

7) Praying: Doing ok for now.

8) Organizing my room: Not doing great, but not doing terrible- things haven't necessarily gotten worse, other than the fact that I keep on looking at all these cookbooks in my room and they end up getting strewn everywhere.

9) Knitting a sweater: on hold until post-Book 3 Assignment for IPLJ.

10) Volunteer: on hold until post-Follies.

Have I mentioned how awesome my friends are?

I am honestly the luckiest person in the world to have such amazing people in my life. I've had a couple of down days recently- law school taking its toll as it's wont to do, and my friends have rallied around me. My teammate in The Game gave me dispensation to take a snacking penalty (note- I didn't anyway, but it was nice to have it available, guilt-free!) Also, my friends Hillary and Amanda came to the rescue and made me come out of my shell to have dinner and a klatch. That was JUST what I needed today to get back on track. ALSO, Hillary heard about Betty, the Kitchenaid (how, I've no idea. I mean, I've only blogged about, facebooked about it, made every coworker come into the office to look at the box, and made it my gchat status...), and thought what a great idea it was that she wanted to add to the excitement. So my next step in kitchen awesomeness it to head over to Broadway Panhandler to spend this gift certificate from her on an attachment for Betty!!! HOW AMAZING ARE MY FRIENDS!?!?!?! Have I been checking out the website already? Oh yeah, you betcha. Do I go practical and get the splash guard? Or do I go awesome and get the pasta maker? Or do I go in a totally different direction and fill some other kitchen need? (seriously- do I have any more of those? Other than space?) The one thing I know is that I'm (at least for now) sticking to my guns on the "no sausage maker until after graduation." Because, let's be serious. If I have the potential to make sausage instead of study? Yeah..... I'll just fail out of school. On the other hand....

As for the progress on resolutions:

1) Be myself: Well, yes and no. The past few days have been trying, and I've reacted to different stressors in ways that disappoint me. I certainly don't want to be an automaton when it comes to dealing with stress, but I would like to be able to handle it better. That said, I've definitely made some progress over the past few years, when I would get into a funk that I couldn't get out of. I've developed some coping mechanisms that allow me to move past it- at least enough to get through the day. And then my friends are there, being awesome, to help with the rest.

2) CCs: still haven't used them. (sweet!) I also got a kind birthday check from my mom

which, in the past, would have gone out the window quickly. This year, I'm trying to be more measured and thoughtful with how I spend it.

3) Back in shape: Well. We'll see. I've been doing well at The Game- I've actually got a perfect score so far (yeah- all you have to do is tell me it's a competition, and I'll kick butt... you know, unless it's a law school exam), but I'm not sure how that's translating right now. I mean, it's gotta be helping- I just did 150 crunches, which I wasn't doing a week ago, so... that's good. I just have to remember that I won't see change in 1 day, or even necessarily in 1 week.

4) Mass: I didn't go last weekend, I think I mentioned, but I'm making a concerted effort this weekend. In fact, I've planned my Sunday morning around it. I'm headed back to St. Ignatius Loyola, my home parish, which I haven't been to in probably 2 years. Though I am a parishioner there, I know it's not the right home for me. But it's a lot easier to get myself to in the morning than the parish I like that's 45 minutes away. So we'll see how it goes!

5) Cookbooks: I haven't made any new recipes yet- I'm still feasting off the cooking day last Sunday.

6) Meditation: Ok, so again, I'm failing on this, but part of those coping skills that I referred to act sort-of as a structured mediation, so... though not quite what I was aiming for, at least I'm somewhere on the dartboard.

7) Praying: Yeah.... this hasn't gone so well. There have probably been 2 days where I've fallen asleep before I've prayed. And not because I was so tired, but because my mind was so distracted. I will try to work on this.

8) Organizing the room: erm... Yes and no. Probably, no in the bigger ways- clothes strewn everywhere- though- yes in the smaller ways- only clean clothes are now strewn- the dirty ones go immediately in the laundry bag. And when I opened the kitchenaid, I put the instructions right in the instruction folder. And I've put the tape back in the drawer every time. So... progress, just not... ideal yet.

9) Knitting a sweater: haven't started- I finished my hat though. It's pretty great!

10) Volunteer: Haven't done this yet. But I did donate to Catholic Relief Services to help in Haiti. That was actually how I spent part of my birthday money, and it made me happy to do something positive for the world with it. I chose Catholic Relief Services to donate through, as 93% of their funds go directly to the programs, unlike places like the Red Cross who only pass along about 60% to their programs. I'm not passing judgement on the Red Cross or any other aid provider- they're doing wonderful things, and if that's who you feel comfortable supporting, I fully back that decision. They (the Red Cross specifically) are a much larger organization and just have greater overhead costs. I just like CRS. Check out their website to see the projects they're doing in Haiti.

That's all I've got! There ain't no more!

Sleep well, my friends. I hope you have a great weekend!

Game On! Day 1

Hey gang!

Well, I just finished Day one of our healthy living competition,

and scored a FULL 100 points for the day! Now granted, we did give ourselves a little leeway today since we were meeting until later to do any sort of check in. So, I ended up having two of my five meals together in the morning (a smoothie and an egg white omelette), but on future days, they

will be evenly spaced out as they're supposed to be. We picked the teams, and, at random, it ended up that Lori, the other full-time-worker-part-time-student and I are on the same team, so that'll be great. We can whine to each other and urge each other along which will be great!

We also got together and did a bunch of cooking together which was a blast, though we missed Lori who wasn't able to make it. We each went home with some Indian chicken burgers with yogurt sauce and hummus (made by Sara- hummus prep pictured above), tuna salad which was actually much better than any tuna salad I've ever had (made by Alyssa- picture of her toasting some whole wheat bread for us to eat with it), and butternut squash soup (made by Deb- long live immersion blenders!). By popular demand, I made a repeat of the roasted chicken recipe I referred to before. It came out a little differently- I used stock instead of wine, and I tripled the veggies (doubled the meat), so the moisture level was off, so instead of having all the veggies caramelize nicely, there was more of a vegetable sauce (which may have actually been the original intent of the creators). So we're all pretty much stocked for the week with all the food!

Oh! Also, I had a birthday in the past week. It was lovely, though I've postponed the full-on celebration for a while until I'm up for a larger gathering. But my birthday was amazing. My friends surprised and spoiled me by going in on a Kitchenaid mixer for me. It is beautiful and I can't wait to start using her in all of my new recipes! I named her Betty, apparently after a beer I was drinking on my birthday, and because... come on. She looks like a Betty.

I also got another cookbook to add to the list- "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker by Beth Hensperger. It seems to be filled with a lot of really interesting slow cooker recipes which I can't wait to try out. I ALSO got my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan performance on DVD!!!!!!!! I cannot tell you how excited I am about this. It's a stage production of the Mikado done in Canada at the Stratford Festival in 1982. As a child, I probably watched this weekly on a slowly dying VHS. The blow was struck however sometime in late high school or early college, when my mom confessed that she'd accidentally recorded over it. Over the years, I've searched for it, and never found it (or at very least, never found it at a reasonable cost), and somehow, my mom finally found it, and on DVD no less! God bless the internet! And my mom! I watched half of it yesterday, and found that I still know the entire show by heart- choreography and all. If I ever get Alzheimer's, that'll be the thing that I don't forget. Nobody better give me a fan in the nursing home, or I'll start wandering the halls singing "Gentlemen of Japan" and unfolding the fan on cue.

Still no church today, and as I'm fading fast, I'm foresee no meditation today either. Maybe tomorrow.

Remember that tomorrow commemorates the birth of a very important individual who pointed a finger at the invisible line that had been drawn here in America and spoke out against the discrimination that plagued(s) our land. May we all hold his dream in our hearts tomorrow, and henceforth.

Excuses? Gone.

Da**it. So, this healthy lifestyle game that my friends and I are starting- I'm playing with 3 girls in law school, and one other who is also in law school while working full-time like me. I have been giving myself excuses as to why-it-would-be-ok-if-I-couldn't-keep-up-with-Deb-Sara-and-Alyssa, and then went to Game On's website. There's a little bio about the girl who first played this game... who was doing it with a full-time job and a brand-new baby. Well, hell. There go my excuses.