The Meal with the Built-In Workout

(#10) Master 25 New Recipes

1. Stuffed Peppers
2. Risotto
3. Polenta

The universe was willing me not to make this recipe.

It took us forever to find the polenta. When we looked in the specialty Italian aisle in the store, we found both the instant and the pre-made varieties but I said no way, my readers deserve better than shortcuts! Ronnie used his Ph.D.-candidate-level deductive reasoning skills and looked on the back of the instant polenta to discover that the only ingredient is cornmeal. We were then able to find it in the baking aisle.

Apparently corn meal, corn grits, and polenta are all basically the same thing. Who knew?

Back at home I collected the ingredients (chicken stock, butter, parmesan cheese) and read the preparation directions on the back of the bag. Bring stock to a boil, slowly add polenta, reduce to a simmer...and stir continuously for 30 minutes, or until polenta becomes very thick.

I added the bolding myself to indicate that this recipe was not kidding about those particular words.

If you stop stirring for even a second (say, to check on your side dish of roasted beets in the oven) the boiling hot gloppy mixture will bubble and explode into the air. You can see it starting to happen here while I'm taking this picture:

 And yes it really does take 30 minutes. And by the end it is so thick you're practically kneading dough with a spoon. So...a bit strenuous.

The result was some kind of cross between mashed potatoes and...liquid corn bread. Its not entirely smooth-its made up of tiny grains of corn. But it does firm up kind of like mashed potatoes.

It wasn't unpleasant. But, unlike the risotto, it wasn't work the amount of work that it took to make it. Also unlike the risotto, it wasn't worth the extra carbs.

I'd be interested to try the instant polenta though. Maybe it tastes better if you aren't drenched in sweat from a stirring marathon.

And maybe I'll use the rest of the bag to make "corn grits."

Guilt-Free Pizza- Too Good to Be True?

This doesn't really qualify as a list item but I wanted to share it with you all anyway. You know how much I love talking about food!

This recipe went viral on Pinterest. (And I want to point out that despite Pinterest's reputation, I actually do make a lot of the recipes that I pin!)

http://www.eat-drink-smile.com/2011/04/cauliflower-crust-pizza.html

The idea is to make pizza crust out of smashed cauliflower, without using any flour at all. Sounds too good to be true, right? So of course we had to give it a try and find out.

Basically you grind up the cauliflower in a food processor until it resembles grain, like this:

Then you cook it, mix it with egg and mozzarella, and spread it out on a sheet pan to bake. Then you add sauce and toppings of your choice and put it back in the oven to broil, so it looks like this: 

Obviously mine doesn't look quite like the picture but you get the idea.

The verdict? 

I'd say it wasn't quite a success, but I would consider trying it again with a few tweaks to the recipe above. First, I would at LEAST double the recipe. As you can see, it makes a tiny pizza. It was enough for Ronnie and I to eat with a salad, but the issue is that it is a lot of work for such a small result. Make a pizza-sized pizza for a party or family dinner, and then maybe the chopping and pureeing and all the other steps will be worth it.

Second, I would cut the amount of egg. One egg to one cup of cauliflower was a lot, and the texture of the "dough" came out very eggy and spongy, almost like a crepe. It stayed together very well, and I think it still would with half the egg (or the same amount of egg with double the cauliflower).

All in all its an idea with potential, with some tweaks and trial and error. Though if you think it will satisfy you if you really have a craving for pizza, you're fooling yourself!

The Not-Quite-as-Great Gatsby

(#2) Read 25 Books.

1. Room by Emma Donoghue

2. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tender is the Night is the story of psychiatrist Dick Diver (loosely based on Fitzgerald himself) and his wife-slash-patient Nicole. Dick meets Nicole in a mental institution, and the two fall in love mostly because of Nicole’s illness and because Dick seems to be the only one who can reach her. If you’re thinking this is a bad idea, you are correct.

Regardless, the two marry, and spend years travelling around Europe financed by Nicole’s nearly limitless family fortune.

Things start to unravel about the time they meet Rosemary Hoyt, a young actress who falls in love with Dick. Cracks form in the Divers’ outwardly perfect marriage. The problem, though, isn’t Nicole- its Dick, who seems to become less tethered to reality the stronger Nicole gets.

What develops is an in-depth character study of the two, and a close look at how our relationships affect who we are inside and define how we place ourselves in the world. Like The Great Gatsby, we are witness to a macabre decay of the human spirit and an empty struggle to find meaning in an indifferent world.

Having finished the book, I have a better understanding of its purpose and an appreciation for the journey that it took me on. But I have to be honest- I struggled to finish it, more than I can remember struggling any time in the recent past. And that includes Crime and Punishment.

Maybe my problem was that my expectations were too high. Gatsby is easily in my top ten, possibly top five favorite books of all time, and I wanted to fall just as in love with Tender is the Night.

And it did have moments of Gatsby that kept me reading. Fitzgerald is a linguistical genius, fighting closely with Hemingway in my opinion for the title of the best American writer in history. The way he makes his points, expresses his thoughts, and even describes his characters is unmatched. If you find a single cliché in the entire novel I’d be shocked. His words are his own, and that to me is the mark of an exceptional writer.

After close consideration I believe the difference between the two books comes down to the existence of a single man- Nick Carraway. The narrator of The Great Gatsby. He is the equalizer of that novel, experiencing what we experience at the same time and making the crazy world of Gatsby (and Fitzgerald himself) digestible to the modern-day reader.

Tender is the Night on the other hand throws you into the Jazz Age without a guide. Every character narrates at some point, and all of them are as incomprehensible as Daisy Buchanan. The lack of a single voice sets you adrift through flashbacks, changes of scenery, and changes of mental state without realizing that you have traveled at all.

The result for me was impatience with the book and a frustration with myself for not loving it as much as I had hoped.

So, unfortunately, I can’t recommend this book to everyone. To a dedicated Fitzgerald lover like myself, perhaps. Or to someone looking to be challenged.

That being said, if you still haven’t read The Great Gatsby PLEASE do. And if you read it in high school and didn’t enjoy it, give it another chance.

Also I am super excited for the movie coming out in December. Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby? It’s like I directed it myself.

A "Grain" of Sand

(#13) Taste 25 Foods I've Never Tasted Before

        1. Pattypan Squash
        2. Beets
        3. Eel
        4.Wahoo
        5.Lychee
        6.Quinoa

The next food on my list to try was quinoa. Quinoa is a grain similar in size and shape to couscous, but with a meatier texture like whole grain rice. I learned about it watching the Food Network; like the rest of us, chefs get tired of using the same old rice, pasta, potato starch rotation, so this is a good way to mix it up.

What struck me most about quinoa was that it reminded me of that “magic sand” stuff you see advertised on TV. The package recommended rinsing before cooking (which by the way you need one of those super-fine metal strainers to do) so I did, and was surprised by how it reacted to the water. It turned into a moldable pile of seemingly dry...sand, like I said.

The texture in your mouth after cooking was also surprising. The grains are very small but quinoa retains its texture after cooking much more than rice or pasta, so you can actually distinguish all the tiny quinoas as you are eating them.

It’s not as terrible as it sounds, I promise. But it is distinct from anything I’ve tried before.

I’d recommend trying it! It has more protein than most other grains, a ton of fiber, and reportedly a lot of other health benefits (though who can trust the health fads these days!). Plus it is a great way to get yourself out of a grain rut.

Also, I know I'm super behind on  my book list...a book review is next I swear!

Lychee-tini

I was feeling bummed because I haven’t written in awhile, which means I haven’t done anything on my list in awhile, but then I remembered- I never wrote about my lychee-tini!

(#13) Taste 25 Foods I've Never Tasted Before

1. Pattypan Squash
2. Beets
3. Eel
4. Wahoo
5. Lychee

Last weekend Ronnie and I went to visit a friend who bartends at a local Indian restaurant. You may think, Indian food- there must be something I haven’t tried there, right? But we’ve actually been to this restaurant several times previously and, looking at the menu, I realized I’d tried everything there that I was willing to try. Ie: I was not going to try goat. Sorry readers.

Luckily, knowing the bartender came in handy. He was able to run through a few of the less-traditional drink options available at this particular establishment. The most obvious choice was tamarind. Unfortunately I had already tried this when we brought Ronnie’s parents to this same restaurant and Ronnie’s mom ordered (and hated) a tamarind-based drink.

So Chris recommended the lychee-tini. Lychee is (according to Wikipedia) a fragrant member of the “soapberry” family with a red rind and delicate whitish pulp.

Here's what it looks like in pulverized juice form: 

Since the drink tasted largely of vodka, I did try the juice on its own. To me it tasted…sweet. I guess I should say goodbye to a career on the Food Network, because I don’t know how else to describe it. Maybe my sense of taste was slightly dulled by the fact that this was my third (and final!) drink of the evening, but there wasn’t really too much that stood out about it. It was a cloudy white, so I expected something coconut-y, but I was wrong there.

According to this website, the taste is somewhere between a pear and a grape. I would agree with that assessment, being that like the lychee neither of these things are particularly distinctive-tasting.

Apparently it’s also full of vitamins and a favorite fruit of the Chinese. Who knew?

On another note, I do hope to check another book off the list sometime in the near future. And-spoiler alert!- I bought a Groupon yesterday to help me tackle item#4- take a yoga class. Very exciting.

Happy Fourth everybody!