Tag Archives: food

Dear Olive Garden

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I would like to preface my letter by saying I’m not cranky due to lack of sleep; I assure you, I took a nap yesterday when I got home from work and I was sound asleep before 10 p.m. last night and slept til 7:00 this morning. I am well rested.

Actually, I’m not cranky at all. I watched Glee last night. It was funny. I laughed. The episode was titled Vitamin D which made me laugh even more (totally a private joke but seriously, the timing was ever so perfect). I boogie-woogie-woogied until I was laughing even harder. Add that to my fantastic sleep, and you have a Happy Mel.

Nope, this letter is written out of general concern for your latest promotion. Can you tell me why on earth you would want to offer a BOTTOMLESS BOWL OF PASTA? Aren’t we fat enough as it is?

Seriously, the original serving of pasta is already like 4 serving sizes…and now you’re offering unlimited refills for less than $10? You do understand that you are dramatically affecting the life expectancy of your clientele with this offer, right? I mean, anyone who will eat a bottomless bowl of noodles, butter, cheese and meat on a regular basis probably only has 1 working artery left. The others are 90% blocked and their heart is working overtime just to help them get oxygen. When they die, they won’t be back. Unless you’re offering this same promotion in your heavenly and hellish locations as well. (Do you have a location in purgatory? just curious…)

Honestly, why? WHY? I just don’t understand.

(I actually don’t understand why restaurants in general won’t serve appropriate portions and just lower their damn prices. It’s such a waste of food & money…but I digress.)

I know my little letter won’t make a damn bit of difference to you. And you’re probably not going to listen to me anyway because I don’t eat your bland food and your over-dressed, greasy salad that everyone seems to love (I do love your breadsticks though) I really wish you’d rethink this Unlimited Heart Attack in a Bowl promotion of yours. You might keep your customers around for a few more years…

Sincerely,
Mel

fever, football, ceiling fans, and Polanski

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I’m at home with a feverish kid today. Have my fingers crossed it’s just a fever bug and not the *whispers* flu. He seems to be okay right now, so maybe it’s just a 24 hour thing…though it did start yesterday when he had a headache that was making him cry.

Sigh.

Don’t you hate it when your babies are sick?

I cleaned off my desk yesterday, my friend Chris came over and installed a ceiling fan for me and I actually got the living room and dining room cleaned.

I also made some damn good chili and watched a lot of football. I love a good rainy Sunday.

Oh, and I caught up on some dvr’d shows. Am I the only one who thinks this season of Hell’s Kitchen sucks? I mean, there’s one dude I like, but none of them seem to be very good chefs and we’re down to the final four? WTF? Also, I was sad Louise got the boot in Project Runway…I liked her.

Today I blogged at Fictionistas about this Roman Polanski bullshit…and I started a list of real people who deserve our admiration. Pop over and add to the discussion.

Did you have a productive weekend? Tell me all about it.

Jr Chef

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My youngest son has always enjoyed helping out in the kitchen. I first noticed it a few Thanksgivings ago, when he was curious about how I make pies: specifically the pumpkin pie which is is favorite. Since then, I’ve been encouraging him to help out when he can.

He’s 11 now and so yesterday I decided it was time for him to learn to cook. We’re going to do a new recipe once a week over the summer. We’re going to shop for the ingredients, discuss any adjustments we’d like to make, and then cook.

For our first lesson, we started out with this recipe from the Whole Foods website: Cheesy Lasagna Rolls

We hit the grocery store, bought the ingredients. Once we got home, we set out everything we were going to need and got started. We decided to add a couple of more cheeses to the stuffing and make it a 3-cheese stuffed roll, decided against adding a meat this time, but think bacon or sausage would be fantastic in this. I’m also pretty sure I would love to add artichokes and may try that next time.

The basic ingredients are spinach, marinara sauce, and ricotta cheese (we added mozzarella and parmesan into the ricotta mixture) And of course lasagna noodles. We used 7.

Rader is adding sea salt to the water to boil our noodles.

When your noodles are al dente, you lay them flat, spread cheese, marinara, and layer some spinach on the noodle.
Then you roll up the noodle

And place it upright in the pan

Once you’ve placed all the rolls in the pan, spoon remaining marinara over each roll, sprinkle with mozzarella (and Parmesan) and bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees or until golden brown

They were DELICIOUS! and so easy.

Cheesy Stuffed Lasagna Rolls from Wholefoods.com

Salt
1/2 pound (8 to 10) uncooked lasagna noodles
Nonstick cooking spray
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups prepared marinara sauce
1 1/2 cups packed baby spinach
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

We added Mozzarella and Parmesan into the Ricotta as well, and made them 3-cheese rolls

Method

Preheat oven to 400°F. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add noodles and cook until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain well and gently transfer to a clean work surface.

Grease a small roasting pan or casserole dish with cooking spray; set aside. Working with one noodle at a time, spread with about 2 tablespoons of the ricotta and 2 tablespoons of the marinara then top with spinach. Starting at one end, roll up noodle snugly then arrange in pan either seam-side down or with the rolls close enough together to hold each other closed. Pour remaining marinara over assembled rolls then sprinkle with mozzarella and bake until golden and bubbly, 20 to 25 minutes.

chef crushes

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Before I launch into my true blog for the day, can I just say, I don’t really have an issue with the host of Top Chef Masters, but honestly, if you’re going to have a spokesperson on a show that centers around good food, you might wanna consider using someone that DOESN’T NEED TO EAT A FREAKING BATTERED AND DEEP FRIED SANDWICH SLATHERED IN MAYO. Girl needs to eat. A lot. I don’t care how acclaimed she is in food journalism, Kelly Choi needs to put some meat on her bones. Is she just chewing the food and spitting it out? Srsly.

Okay, now on to the real topic:

After last week’s Top Chef Masters, I totally fell in love with Texan Tim Love and Frenchman Hubert Keller. Two completely different personalities, two completely different cooking styles, one end result: Twu Wub.

I was already excited to see that Wylie Dufresne was going to be on last night’s Top Chef Masters because I had developed a huge crush on his geeky-sciencey cooking style when he served as a judge on Top Chef. There’s just something about him that totally makes me melt. But last night, I had to share some of my Wylie crush with his friend, Graham Elliot Bowles. One of the other chefs commented that the two pals were like the Mutt and Jeff show–and she was right. And I was totally smitten. I just wanted to follow them around and giggle as they played off each other, and as they played together in the kitchen, while cooking their butts off.

There’s something inherently sexy about a man who can cook. I love watching them slice, dice, marinate, and reduce. I love the fantasy of cooking lessons: him behind me with his big arms wrapped around me, teaching me a proper technique, or feeding me a spoonful of whatever’s cooking so that I can have the first taste. It makes me swoon.

And I love the type of chef who doesn’t ‘fit the mold’ of what you would think a chef would be like. Such as Country Boy Tim Love, Geeky Wylie Dufresne, and Tattooed-and-Goofy Huggy Bear Graham Elliot Bowles.

So now I have three restaurants that I must try: Tim Love’s Flagship Restaurant The Lonesome Dove in Ft. Worth, TX

Wylie’s WD~50 in Manhattan

and

Graham’s Chicago-based Graham Elliot

So, who’s coming with me?

Are y’all watching Top Chef Masters? What do you think?

comfort food

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So did everyone eat their black-eyed peas and collard greens with ham and cornbread yesterday? That’s a huge southern tradition. “Eat poor on New Years, eat fat the rest of the year.”

I haven’t made that meal myself, but my mother makes it every year, without fail. She called me yesterday and admonished me (as she does every year) but I told her I was making my own traditions–which included me not cooking.

Food has always been a source of comfort for me, which is why I have always turned to it in times of emotional turmoil. Eating good food makes me feel better. Period. Now I’m trying to replace that with seventeen-million hours of exercise a week. Sure, I feel good, but damn if I don’t just want to fall into a big batch of biscuits and gravy.

Some of my favorite comfort foods growing up were (and still are)

  • biscuits and gravy
  • fried apple pie (my Mema lived with us for 9 years, this was our after school snack almost every day. It was a seriously good thing I was an athlete)
  • smothered steak
  • salmon patties
  • mashed potatoes
  • fried fish, hush puppies and french fries

Every food listed is accompanied with a great memory. And it is still so tempting to fry a mess of fish, etc when I’m feeling low. Because I was never happier as a kid, than the 2 weeks out of the summer I was at the lake with my daddy: camping, fishing, reading, swimming and flirting with all the boys. I was almost always the only girl there. It was awesome. Also, it was the only time I had my daddy’s undivided attention, which was also awesome.

My favorite memory associated with smothered steak has to do with venison. I hate venison. Have never liked it. And everyone always says it’s because the person who fixed it for me didn’t prepare it right. All that means is that obviously nobody can fix it cuz I still don’t like it. Well, my Mema decided I would like it if I didn’t know it was venison. So she made me smothered venison steak and didn’t tell me. I came home after a basketball game, starving to death. She had my plate already fixed and I sat down to eat it. I nearly threw it up on the spot. It tasted awful but I didn’t know why. Now, I didn’t wanna hurt my Mema’s feelings so when she left the kitchen, I dumped it all into the trash. She came back in and was as giddy as a school girl. She confessed her deed to me with a giggle and claimed victory! I sighed a huge relief and said, “Mema, I just didn’t wanna hurt your feelings. It was the worst thing I ever ate.” Then I pulled out the trash can and showed her. I had finally convinced someone that I did not, nor would I ever, like venison.

What are some of your favorite comfort foods and why? Are they associated with a specific memory?

The Universe has been on fire lately. I’m totally digging the dude right now.

Melissa, today, be the person of your dreams.

See life through THEIR eyes.

Make decisions with THEIR mind.

Let every thought, word, and action come from THEIR perspective, as if you had already arrived, and just watch how 2009 warps into the kind of year you talk and laugh about forever and ever and ever…

Peace, love, and green M&Ms –
The Universe

He even knows I love green M&Ms!

Post-Thanksgiving food hangover

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The turkey was falling off the bone. I’m not sure if it was so moist because of the brine, the oven bag, or a combo of both.

I made my loaded mash potatoes as well. Don’t worry, we had dressing, too. Never enough bread items for our family…
I decided to ‘wing it’ with the cranberries. I did 12 oz of cranberries with 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, cinnamon and orange zest. They were very tasty.
Mmmmm. Olives.

Pecan Pie was a big hit…Rader ate 3 pieces of the pumpkin pie he helped make.
and then my fave–Apple Pie
The table.
Hope your day was as lovely as ours.

fog and food

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It was foggy outside today. But not in my head! I believe I have beaten this stupid cold into submission. I may even go running again today for the first time in a week. Whoot!

Last night, Fishdog and I were chatting away while watching Top Chef (3 cheers for Tom Colicchio!) Fishdog thinks it would be a great idea if we prepared a new dish from a different country each week to expand our palates and our cooking skills.

You know, in theory, this is a great damn idea. In reality, I am not Louisa Edwards. She and Stinger are chef-like entities. I’m closer to Ronald McDonald to their Gordon Ramsay.

Don’t get me wrong, I can cook. I enjoy baking pies and roasting turkeys, and cooking big meals for dinner parties. Hell, I volunteer to host Thanksgiving every year. You don’t do that if you can’t cook. I have the skill, but it’s not a bone-deep love like it is for Louisa and I’m not sure if I’m dedicated enough to trying something new every week because frankly, it just sounds like work. Cooking relaxes Louisa…but it wears me the hell out.

I also enjoy trying new things–especially if I’m the one who prepared the food (that way I know what I’m trying.) But if I’m going to go through the effort of fixing some new cuisine, I want everyone in the family to eat it. And where Rader is pretty much willing to try anything–Nemo? Meat and potatoes. Bacon and eggs. Spaghetti and meatballs. <–see a pattern? So I feel like my effort would be wasted because I have a kid who really won't give anything unknown a chance.

What do you think? Should I throw caution to the wind and start trying out simple dishes from other countries for something new? Or should I save that for special occasions and dinner parties? What do you suggest we try first?

ETA: stop by FatChicksRunning! today. I’m talking about how Size Does Matter…