Pages, Pucks and Pantry

The Oscars and Food

I'll be honest with you Marge...there hasn't been a lot of cooking going on in our house. Well...I take that back, meals are being cooked, food is being eaten, but there hasn't been much of trying of new recipes. It's been roasted chicken, shrimp (and crab and tuna and salmon) salads. Crock pots full of mystery meats found in the bowels of the freezer covered with jars of sauce found in the pantry. Leftover roasted veggies tossed together to make a soup. Mortadella (and salami and chicken) sandwiches. It's also been eating out. Food trucks. Restaurants. Grabbing pre-cooked meals from the deli section of our grocery store.

And while work has been kicking my butt for weeks I can't blame that on the lack of culinary experimentation in our house. No, the culprit can be described in two words.

The Oscars.

You see, last year was a bit of a trying year and nights out to go watch a movie (or nights in renting one) were few and far between. Mr. L and I suddenly realized come the end of January that we hadn't seen even one movie of the nine Oscar nominated best pictures. I knew this wouldn't do. So we set out to rectify the situation.

One of the first things we realized in our Oscar movie viewing adventure was that only one of the movies nominated was on DVD or available for download on AppleTV/Direct TV. Which meant going out to the movie theaters* and lots of figuring out movie times that fit into our already busy schedule. This also meant quick meals before movie show times (and with lots of these movies being 2 1/2 hours long meant we really did need to eat dinner first. I admit, I think there was one night where a large buttered popcorn was dinner. I also think quite a few movie hot dogs were consumed. But we managed to get a few good sushi dinners in beforehand too). 

We also, along with the best picture movies, tried to see as many other nominated movies that we could. We spent nights watching Looper and Skyfall. The Pirates! Band of Misfits (we were able to catch  Brave in the theater when it originally came out). We even were able to watch all of the Live Action Shorts (our favorite was Death of a Shadow) and three of the animated shorts (Head Over Heals stole our hearts). And just to add to what we ended up calling "The Oscar Movie Death March" we also watched The Kings Speech since we had failed to see that a few years ago (we still need to see The Artist).

It was the morning of the Oscars that I suddenly realized that though I had seen every single nominated best picture and quite a few other movies, I hadn't really thought about what to make or bring to the annual Oscar party. I had a ton of ideas, I'd even started a list of possible contributions months ago, but time just sort of got away from me. So it was a quick trip to the grocery store before heading to the party to pick up the two items you see in the photo above (we even splurged and bought some European butter to go with the French bread). I think the signs helped.

It was interesting to see all the nominated movies in such a short time frame. I think it made it much easier to compare between all of them (though we hopefully will not be doing this compacted watching schedule ever again). My favorite movie? Life of Pi, but I was not disappointed that Argo won. Least favorite? Beasts of the Southern Wild. Most surprising? Django Unchained (which I thought I would hate but really liked). Amour was extremely difficult for me since I had just watched my mom deteriorate like that. Though we liked Les Miserables, the theater we saw it in had the most horrible sound system, the film was full of scratches and I swear there was only a quarter of an inch of padding in the seat. Not the best viewing experience and I'm sure that affected our thoughts on the movie. The one movie I didn't see that I wanted before the Oscars was The Impossible since my Aunt** said Watts performance was wonderful. 

So, honestly, there just hasn't been much time to fulfill one of my favorite hobbies...perusing my cookbooks and picking out recipes to try. Of course two other factors have put a bit of a damper on my cooking...the fact that every Wednesday a food truck shows up down the street from where we live. Hard to resist just being able to walk to the truck once we are both home from work. And I also have to give big props to Mr. L, who, for the past month or so, has taken up the "food" responsibility every other week (that means he plans, shops and cooks breakfast, lunch and dinners for that week). It's giving me a bit of a breather with my current crazy work life.

Which doesn't mean I haven't still been collecting recipes to try. Cookbooks have been bought, dishes have been pinned, recipes have been torn out of magazines and blog foods have been bookmarked. I've had this insane desire for days to hole myself up and do some baking. It's my week to cook so I think it's time to do some cooking! And maybe watch a movie or two....

*Seriously expensive going out to movies these days. Especially if you add on popcorn, soda and a hot dog. Cost of two tickets was from twenty to twenty five bucks. A large popcorn and soda was another twelve to fifteen dollars. Maybe eight bucks for a hot dog. Yikes.

**My Aunt is a movie watching pro. She goes at least once or twice a week to the theater. When she's home she probably watches at least a movie a night on the TV (between Netflix and the movie channels she says there is always something interesting to see).

The Olympics, London, and Food

It all started four years ago when Mr. L and I sat down to watch the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. We were hungry, so it only seemed appropriate that we had Chinese food for dinner. The fact that we didn't want to miss a minute of the festivities led to us ordering enough Chinese food for at least ten people and feasting on it for days. It occurred to me that with all the Chinese cookbooks I had, I should have been cooking from them during those Olympics. I vowed that the next Olympics, I would use my vast collection of cookbooks to find recipes representing the country the games were held in.

Which led me to the Vancouver Winter Olympics two years ago. Only I didn't own any Canadian cookbooks so I had to go out and buy one. Yes, an excuse to go buy another cookbook. But I managed to find several wonderful recipes during those Olympics: Butter Tarts in Phyllo Dough and Tourtiere Turnovers which came from the A Taste of Canada cookbook.

Which leads us to these summer Olympic Games in London. Now I have never been to London so I don't have any personal recollections of foods like I did from Canada. I've been to British Pubs. Many actually. And I'm quite fond of Black and Tans though I don't like beer (go figure). And there was all that hoopla last year when there was this wedding in London and I went all out with all things British. But I've never stepped foot on British soil. Mr. L has visited. Even my mother has been there. She lived there for several years. Graduated from high school from there actually. She was even there 60 years ago when Queen Elizabeth was crowned! It was fun listening to her stories about that event during the recent Jubilee. And I still have the tea towel my Grandma W gave me from her trip to London the week after Charles wed Diana (I also still have the vinyl recording of the event she bought me at some shop in London).

But when it comes to British food, the only things that really came to mind were...well...bland food. That and Indian Food (not so bland). Cucumber sandwiches. Pease Pudding and Porridge Pie. Scones. No matter, I had plenty of cookbooks from British authors that I could cook from. Nigella Lawson. Jamie Oliver. But when I started looking through those cookbooks, I began to wonder. Is this really British food? Or were these recipes "dumbed down" a bit for Americans? Should I be cooking "authentic" food from the British Isles? And then do I include foods from Ireland? Scotland? Knowing how popular Indian food is in England, do I include that too?

Obviously I didn't know much about so called British food, so off I went in search of some answers. Just what is considered British food?  How authentic are recipes?  Would I ever have enough guts to try Black Pudding? (ahem, that's probably a no on that one). And then I realized I was spending far more time researching about England and food and far less time actually cooking said food. So I decided that during these 2012 London Olympics, I'm going to be cooking from cookbooks by British authors and cookbooks about British food (no matter how Americanized they might be). I'll probably leave out foods of Ireland and Scotland (though I'm tempted to make Scotch Eggs again) but I won't rule out a run to the nearest Indian restaurant to try out a version of Tika Masala.

I did find a very interesting book called Eating For Britain (A Journey into the Heart and Belly of a Nation). Alas I wish I was able to get a copy of it sooner as it's an interesting look at exactly what constitutes British Food. I've started reading it but I have a feeling lots of tv watching of the games will curtail me finishing it anytime soon.

I was completely bummed to find out that the local British store here has closed. As you can see by the photo, when I went there a year ago to stock up for the Royal Wedding, I found quite a few wonderful British items to try. I have a friend scoping out the local Aussie store to see if they carry any interesting British foods I might want to try. I also found quite a few items at my local Cost Plus (World Market) store which we'll be trying over the course of the next couple of weeks

Yes, I did buy a couple of new British food cookbooks to go with the cookbooks I already have. One which has become a favorite...so many things to try...and one which I probably will never cook from as the recipes were from professional chefs in London and a bit more complicated than normal.

Using Eat Your Books, I was able to find British recipes included in many of the non-British cookbooks I own (16 recipes for Yorkshire pudding, one even from my Colorado regional cookbook). Except for a few exceptions, I'm trying to make the recipes that come from British authors and cookbooks and not use recipes from other sources. The big task has been to actually narrow the number of recipes down to a manageable quantity. Who knew I'd find so many interesting British recipes to try!?

Hopefully, you too, have caught Olympic fever. And hopefully, maybe sometime during the next few weeks, you'll find yourself having some British food, even if it's just a spot of tea. Feel free to leave links to any posts you have if you've made some British dish for these games.

All I know, is that in two years the Winter Olympics will be held in Russia and two years after that the Summer Olympics will be held in Brazil. I think I need to start planning food festivities now!

I Pin Therefore I Am

Hi, my name is Mrs. L and I'm addicted to Pinterest.

Of course it's not my fault. Because though I say I'm addicted to Pinterest, I'm actually addicted to recipes. Which made me addicted to Pinterest. It's a vicious circle, I know. Pinterest is just a way for me to easily keep track of the recipes I want to make while also sharing them with friends...or complete strangers.

I had planned on starting a "Cooking with Pinterest" series on April 1st. But then I figured you would all think it was some sort of April Fools joke.  Though I had most of the posts written all I really needed to do was some spell checking, adding some links and cleaning up a bit of the talkies. So I started to finish that chore when, gees this shouldn't be too hard to figure out, I got lost looking at stuff on Pinterest. It was there that I found my post about Pinterest...well, not my post, but the post I was attempting to write about my addiction, Pinterest and how to use it. Only Taste and Tell had done a much better job with much better photos. So I went back to the drawing board, scrapped most of what I was going to say and kinda started over. (You can read Taste and Tell's 12 Things to Avoid When Pinning here. Full disclosure, I'm a huge fan of Deborahs food blog and pretty much pin anything she makes!).

The next few days of posts are pretty much me centric...cuz what you really need to do to understand how to properly pin on Pinterest is check out Taste and Tells post here. I will divulge some of my rantings and ravings though, mostly because it was already written and I hate to waste the writing time. And I really am cooking things I've found on Pinterest (or pinned from the various blogs I follow) so that will be coming up soon too.

The thing is I've been doing my own version of Pinterest for a long time with much less success. Which is why I was so completely taken by Pinterest once I started to use it. So, let me first explain why I'm so addicted.

I collect recipes. When they are in cookbooks, said cookbooks are easy to organize in bookcases. When they are in magazines, they are easy to stack on the floor (for example all Gourmet magazines, lined up, chronologically-lacking floor space you will find them all boxed up in the garage). If they are recipes pulled out of a magazine, they are put in binders by type of food (or would be if I was Martha Stewart which, because I'm not, those pages are basically piled in boxes). But keeping track of recipes that I find online on blogs or manufactures websites? That gets a bit tricky.

At first, I started bookmarking on my computer, all the recipes I found that I thought looked interesting. That started pretty much once I figured how to bookmark things oh so many years ago. In a short time I had a very long list of bookmarked recipes with no way to figure out which one was which. Then I tried putting the bookmarks on my computer in folders by foods. That lasted about a year before again, way way to many bookmarks. Somewhere along the line I was actually writing the web links into a memo book...yeah, that didn't last long either. I then, in a very OCD moment, concocted an excel file, divided it into different foods groups, made columns for the recipe title, what blog it came from, the date of the post and then the url (warned you it was a bit OCD). Since that filled up quickly I ended up with an excel file for each year. So I now have many different excel folders by year, full of recipes by type. Up until Pinterest, that's how I organized recipes I found on blogs or the interwebs.

But it was still hard to really find a recipe. If I wanted to make that noodle dish that had some shrimp and barbecued pork in it, was it under shrimp? Pork? Noodles? And then I would have to go through all the shrimp dishes, hoping that the name of the dish was something like Shrimp and Pork and Noodle Dish. If the name of the dish didn't jump out at me, well then I had to click on a gazillion urls, hoping to find that specific dish that I was looking for. And of course go through each year's excel file unless I could remember what year I had found the recipe. Which of course was never the first excel file I would look through.

Pinterest is a way to bookmark the recipes I'm enamored with and organize them quite easily. Pinterest also lets me organize these recipes by using photos of the dish, instead of the recipe name or the sometimes completely worthless web link. I found that it's much easier for me to look at a photo and remember a recipe and be intrigued enough to try the recipe out than it was just by looking at the name of said recipe (probably why I relate to cookbooks with photos).

Pinterest is just like having a bunch of cork idea boards (bulletin boards) on the walls of your kitchen. You come across a recipe in a magazine for Strawberry Shortcake on a Stick. You cut it out and take a thumbtack (or pushpin) and pin it to the cork board you have designated for food. You might have a separate bulletin board up where you tack up photos of kitchens remodels you'd love to do, or a board where you tack up photos of places you'd like to visit someday. Pinterest just does all that on the computer for you so that your kitchen has more room for all those gadgets you seem to pick up at Sur La Table.

So for me, having a place where I can "bookmark" all these recipes I want to try is like the best organizational gift ever. Now if I'm trying to find that stupid recipe that has shrimp and pork and noodles I can quickly scan the photos on any of the boards that I think I might have pinned it and find the recipe*. If I want to make a chicken dish this weekend, I can scan the photos of the recipes I've "pinned" to my Poultry board and see which recipe fits the bill. And I, along with most "pinners" don't just use Pinterest for recipes. Homeschoolers use it to pin interesting projects to do with their kids. Women getting married might have different boards for dresses they might want to try along with different invitations they've found on the net they might use. I have a friend who collects batman images because he's such a fan, a friend who pins books she wants to read, one who pins scrapbook layouts to use as sketches, and even the friend who pins hot guys that she hopes to meet some day. You can pretty much pin whatever strikes your fancy.

Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board, where you can keep all the ideas that make you laugh, ideas that inspire you or feed your creativity, in one place and Pinterest lets you share all those ideas with friends and strangers. Your favorite blog (be it food or something else) might have a link to their pins, so next time your surfing around, you can find some awesome ideas by checking their Pinterest boards.

You can check out my Pinterest boards here. (and yes, I need to figure out how to get that Pinterest link in the sidelines on my own blog!). I do plan on a few more posts explaining my boards, why and how I pin and what I'm cooking from Pinterest in the next couple of days.

But more importantly, to learn how to use Pinterest correctly, please check out Taste and Tells post here. To learn more about Pinterest in general go here. Need an invitation, just let me know.

Now excuse me while I go see if there are any new ideas to pin on my friends Pinterest boards!

 *As an FYI, that recipe is called Singapore Rice Noodles and can be found here.

 

Hobee's Oscar Breakfast

Oscar Food

I have friends who host an annual Oscar party which I look forward to going to every Oscar season. Sometimes folks dress up (I haven't yet but maybe next year), we play Oscar Bingo (cry winner, cry!) and of course we chow down on a big feast of Oscar related food. Mr. L and I try to contribute a food that references a past movie (we had a sausage pizza delivered reminiscent of Fast Time at Ridgemont High) or a current movie (Balloon Pops for Up). Normally we've seen most of the Best Picture nominees so it makes it easy to come up with some sort of Oscar food idea.

This year though, we've only seen one of the nominated movies...The Help...which meant a complete lack of knowledge about what kind of food might have shown up that we could duplicate. Yes, a Chocolate Pie with a, er, surprise, crossed my mind but I figured since pretty much everyone I know saw The Help, that there might be more than one Chocolate Pie showing up on the table. So I went on a search, looking for some ideas of possible foods I could bring to the Oscar Party.

Below is a list of ideas that I found (just in case, like me, you waited until the last minute). None of these are my original ideas so if you're looking for the recipe, just do a Google search like I did. Some are plays on the title of the movie, some are foods that might have been served in the town or era of a nominated movie, some were foods that were actually served or cooked in the movie.

THE ARTIST
Black and White Food (black and white cookies seem to be the trend)
Smoked Salmon Canapes
A Tart (for The Tartist)

THE DESCENDANTS
Ice Cream
Mai Tais
Slow-Cooker Kalua Pork on Hawaiian Rolls
The Crescendants (something made with crescent rolls)
Spam Mushibi
The Decendips (some sort of dip)
Any Hawaiian food

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE
Fig Newtons
New York Style Pizza
New York Cheesecake
Something Extremely Hot and Incredibly Crunchy
Extremely Cold & Incredibly Sweet
Extremely Green & Incredibly Salty
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Toast
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Roast
Any food that might normally be found in New York

THE HELP
Fried Chicken
Lemon Meringue Pie
Chocolate Pie (sans merde)
Deviled Eggs
Mini bite-sized Chocolate Filled Tarts
Luncheon salads made of aspic
Finger Sandwiches
Hamburger HELPer
Any food that might have been served in the 60's or in the South

HUGO
Croissants and Milk
Petit Pains au Chocolat

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Macaroons
Cheese plate
Quiche
Midnight in Pear-is (something with pears)
Mushrooms in Paris
Any French Food

MONEYBALL
Ballpark Franks
Peanuts in the shell
Beer (poured into paper cups)
Cotton Candy
Cookies or Cakepops frosted or decorated like baseballs
Honeyballs
Soft Baked Pretzels
Pigs in a Blanket
Boxes of Cracker Jacks
Ice Cream Malts
Popcorn
Meatball Sliders (Moneyball Sliders)
Garlic Fries
Twinkies
Meatballs in a crockpot with BBQ sauce (Moneyballs)
Billie Beane Dip
Any food that is shaped like a baseball, might be served at a ballpark

THE TREE OF LIFE
The Brie of Life
The Tea of Life
The Tree of Life (make a broccoli tree)
Pasta Salad starring Brad Pitted Olives
The Tree of Life Cereal

WAR HORSE
English pub style food
Recipes with Turnips (the families failed crop)
Apples and Oats Cookies (what the horse was fed)
Stout Braised Short Ribs
War Horse-Radish Roll Ups (recipe online)
Apple Pecan Crisp (made with apples and Oats)
Something made with War HorseTershire Sauce

Then of course there are foods that are nods to movies that were nominated in other categories:

Girl with the Chicken Hong Sue
Girl with the Pan Fried Tofu
The Girl with the Dragon Fondue
My Week With Marinated ______ (pick your food)
My Week With Maryland Crabs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Marshmallows
Tinker Tailor Soldier Pies
Tinker Tailor Soldier Fries
Turkey Taco Salsa Spy
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy-ghetti
Hamsformers
Pies of the Planet of the Apes
Fries of the Planet of the Apes
Iron Ladyfingers
The Eggs Hangover Easy
Octopus In Boots
Souper 8
Chili Con Carnage
Rice of the Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Grapes
The Ides of Margarine
Red Trail Mix
Gin and Tin Tin Tonics
Margarine Call
A Better Life Cereal
Albert Cobbs Salad
Rango Mango
Pina Colada

Yes, some of the above are pretty esoteric and if you don't know the movie or haven't seen it you might not get the reference. I'm sure the day after the Oscars, you'll be able to find many more cool takes on food that was served at the many Oscar parties that will be held tonight.

What am I making? I've narrowed it down to bringing a dish from a movie that I figure most folks at the party probably haven't seen. If it turns out, I'll post it here later this week.

Feel free to add any of your ideas, or links to Oscar food you made and served in the comments below!

 

Small Plates - August 28, 2011

This showed up at our door this past week.

It was Mr. L's birthday.

No, it did not come from me (though I had been warned Beyonce was on her way).

For those of you that have no idea why this is so hysterically funny, please go here.

And yes, I think we need new towels.

 

Royal Wedding Breakfast

*No, I did not stay up all night to watch the wedding (festivities started at 1AM our time)

*Yes, I did get up early and watch recorded BBC coverage of the actual wedding.

*Yes, Mr. L did get up to watch with me. He actually became human after breakfast and some tea.

*After the wedding we fast forwarded to the kiss

*Mr. L thought the sister looked hot. I thought the same thing about Harry.

*Loved the dress. Classic, elegant, and will hold up in thirty years (unlike Princess Diana's which I loved at the time, but now, not so much).

*I now want to wear hats

*Loved the BBC's coverage...no commercials and no incessant talking over the festitivies.

*Good grief Princess Eugenie of York, do you realize The Fug Girls are going to have a field day with you?

*I didn't get teary eyed until the WWII bomber flew over. I may have to turn in my Royal Watchers hat and get a military one!

*I got a kick out of the Godsons Mom texting me from their vacation in London during the wedding...they stayed far away from all the crazyness but were enjoying the festitivies.

*We will continue the British celebrating with dinner tonight consisting of Shepards Pie, Steak and Mushroom Pie, Bangers and Mash, Mushy Peas, McVities Digestives and some Spotted Dick with cream for dessert.

*We will eat dinner to the six hours remaning of the recorded BBC wedding coverage. Then I will watch the recorded 8 hours of CNN coverage, the recorded 8 hours of ABC coverage not to mention all of tonights  highlight reels and fashion recap shows. Maybe I don't have to turn in my Royal Watchers hat just yet.

*I have a feeling that Mr. L will be very very happy when today is over.

*Photo above taken with my iPhone: Breakfast (way to early in the morning for me): Blueberry scones, Twinnings English Breakfast Tea, Duerr's Black Current Preserves, Somerdale Double Devon Cream. Served on our wedding china.

*Yes, we added a bit of cream to our tea.

 

 

I'm Ready For Tomorrow...

...are you???

Bakesale For Japan

Roy's is my favorite local coffee shop. Stop by and buy some goodies (or donate some if you can!)

Old and New Cooking Resolutions 2010

Sigh. There is a part of me that says "Why even bother"? Cuz this is the third year in a row that I, ahem, didn't do even half of my cooking resolutions. Okay that's not even close. I did one. One out of nine. That's as close as I got. But as this postcard says "Resolve to renew all your old resolves". So I guess I just take the old resolutions and roll them over into 2010. Again. I'll be ecstatic if I complete all of them. Over the moon if I do half. Still dang pleased if I can cross off two. Pretty sure I can complete at least one. Maybe. So here we go again....

1. Cook with Phyllo Dough - This may be the easy one. Have you seen those cute little rounds of brie wrapped in phyllo with a bow? Determined to make one.

2. Make six of the cookie recipes from the Martha Stewart Cookie Cookbook - This originated years ago when I first picked up the Martha Stewart Christmas Cookie magazine. I actually did bake one of the recipes. That means only five more to make in 2010.

3. Make a complete Rachel Ray 30 minute meal - I'm determined to actually only take 30 minutes. I hear it can be done. I hope to prove it either way.

4. Beer Can Chicken - Am I the only one who has never made this?

5. Have a couple over for a formal dinner (complete with appetizers, veggies, main dish and dessert) - I need to get over this fear of having to call for pizza should I mess things up. I just need to find a couple who REALLY likes pizza just in case.

6. Decorate a Cake - I say I get half points for this as I made several birthday cakes last year and at least frosted them. A third of a point? Anything?

7. Cook something with rhubarb - Memories of my first taste of rhubarb in one of my Grandmas Strawberry-Rhubarb pies still haunt me.

8. Make at least one food item as a Christmas present - DING DING DING. Though I kinda overdid this. Lime Meltaway cookies. Buckeyes. Hershey Pretzel Bites. Butterscotch Brownies. Chocolate Cocoa Nib Shortbread. Preserved Meyer Lemons. Honey-Preserved Clementines. And, the pièce de résistance, Bacon Jam. Never again will I try to make so many food gifts at Christmas. Cross this one way off the list. 

9. Better use of leftover fridge ingredients - I made a list of what was in the fridge and in the pantry. Several times. Never used them. There are things in there that have probably been there since the Clinton administration. I will figure out a use for them. Before they take over the world.

10. Make biscuits - Or more importantly, make biscuits that don't resemble hockey pucks.

Not exactly rocket science. I've seen folks put some amazing things they want to accomplish in 2010 on their food resolutions lists. But I know myself and I'm happy with attempting these simple little things this year. Though since I actually did one of the ten above, that means I have to come up with one more resolution. I'm still thinking about that one. Any suggestions?

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