Let's Catch Up

Mothers Day Rhymes with Parfait

I think it's about time for us to catch up, considering it's been a few days since I've posted.

Thursday night we had our weekly dinner, and that went quite nicely. We had the Hawaiian Style Chili. It contained both local beef, and local portuguese sausage. We really have to be careful when buying sausages as they often contain some sort of gluten as a filler, and if dairy is an issue too then that's something else to watch out for in the ingredients list as well. If you're still unsure, try contacting the company. The brand I've been eating without any problems is Gouveas, but I've received no response to the e-mail I sent to the company in which I asked about whether or not their sausage contains gluten. This may be a company I need to call. As I said though, I've experienced no symptoms after eating the product, but this is something I need to get better about. I admit it. Sometimes I do take small risks, but I would never cheat purposely.

I read over at Gluten Free in Georgia and Florida that in her book "The G-Free Diet" Elisabeth Hasselback takes cheating very lightly, and in no way do I want to be associated with that kind of thinking.

Channa Masala

Friday night the Nerd and I dined at home on some delicious chickpea curry. It's based on a recipe for Channa Masala on Seriouseats.com. I couldn't find Garam Masala at Foodland or Pukalani Superette, but I do know that it is available in the bulk spices at Mana Foods. However, I think this dish is quite delicious with Madras Curry powder. This dish has a very spicy, comfort food quality that I can't get enough of. Because there is a little lemon juice, the dish also has just a hint of sourness that enhances all of the spices coating every inch of the chickpeas and that have soaked into the rice. Served alongside a nice salad, or some steamed vegetables, this is a delicious and healthy well balanced meal. I do suggest bringing a large pitcher of water to the table, you might need it.

A Delicious Hot Breakfast for Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother's Day. My moms aren't here with me, but I was able to honor the Nerd's mother by getting up early to make a big, beautiful, and scrumptious brunch. I really only needed 2 hours to prepare everything for this breakfast. The Nerd's brother, the Hunter, and his wife CJ came over for brunch as well. CJ brought me a beautiful jade plant, and they presented his mother with a lovely bouquet.

The Hunter said that he normally needs to put ketchup on his scrambled eggs, partly because of how bland and dry they are, but he felt no need to do that with the eggs I whipped up. I made scrambled eggs that I found the recipe for through Food.com and the recipe is from Foodandwine.com. I had never made scrambled eggs over a double boiler, but I think it is now the only way I will do it. I left out the truffle oil and brioche rolls(of course).

Whisk your eggs up in a bowl with some water while bringing a pot of water up to a simmer. Once the water reachers a good simmer, place a metal bowl on top of the pot and add in a little butter or margarine. Let the butter melt and then add the whisked eggs. Drop the temperature just a bit, and use a heat resistant rubber spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl as the eggs cook. Just before they are completely set up, add some more butter. Keep scraping and stirring. The eggs should come together in a curd like consistency. Cook the eggs to the firmness you like, and then remove the bowl from the pot and turn off the heat. Add in your seasonings at this point.

Roasted zucchini, onions, and garlic were also a delicious hit. With a little salt and pepper, they were a nice addition to a savory hot breakfast.

I followed a recipe for buttermilk biscuits from Bobsredmill.com, but they didn't turn out as they should have. I may have rolled the dough too thin, but if I hadn't then I don't believe the recipe would have yielded as many biscuits as it says it will. Despite being thin, I think they worked well with the amount of food served. We topped these biscuits with Poha jam. Pohas are berries that are also known as Cape Gooseberries, Goldenberries, and some other names. I found out from CJ that she's been eating some berries called Incan Goldenberries, and they are highly nutritious and full of antioxidants. She was excited to learn that they are also Poha berries and grow wild here on the island. The jam slightly reminds me of very sweet gold cherry tomatoes with sugar. I will happily eat some more.

It was worth a second shot!

Finally, we had a breakfast "dessert" of strawberry, blueberry, and banana yogurt parfaits. These caused some "Oo's" and "Ah's" from the family. Deliciousness was inspired by the local fruits available at the farm stand. The strawberries, bananas, and blueberries were all local. The yogurt was organic. Mary, at Kula Country Farms, let me run in and buy 2 boxes of berries on Saturday while they were closing up. Thank you for the berries Mary!

To make these tasty treats:

Hooray for Parfait!

AmandaonMaui

• 3-4 small bananas, sliced
• 1lb of strawberries, rinsed and diced
• 1 pint of blueberries, rinsed
• Nonfat vanilla yogurt

Layer 4 slices of banana on the bottom of the glass, top with a few tablespoons of yogurt, add in a couple tablespoons of strawberries, add more yogurt, add blueberries, add more yogurt, top with more strawberries and banana slices.

In fact, here's a list of the food in this breakfast that was local:

Eggs

Zucchini

Onions

Strawberries

Blueberries

Bananas

Poha Jam

Here's what was organic:

Butter

Soy Milk

Yogurt

Sugar

If not for the biscuits, then everything would have been local or organic. That's amazing, and inspiring!

Go out to your farmers market or farm stand and get inspired too!

Thursday Dinner and Breakfast

Fresh Maui Tofu

Last night's dinner was delicious. My Red Curry Tofu was spicy and delicious. None of the vegetarians or vegans showed up, but we still enjoyed it.

I had originally purchased the steak to feed Devin and I later in the week, but another one of the guests requested a piece of the steak. So, I gave away 2/3 of the steak last night, but this morning the Nerd and I are splitting the last piece with our breakfast. More on that later.

Definitely Press Your Tofu for this Recipe

(Yes, it's under there.)

Red Curry Recipe:

4 cups of dry rice, cooked

8 Tbsp Thai Red Curry Paste

Oil (optional)

4 cans of Coconut Milk

1/2 a super sized zucchini, or 1 large zucchini

1 cup of chopped Kale

2 large red bell peppers, sliced and cut in half

1 large block of tofu, pressed

2 cups of water

Sautee the curry paste in a non-stick large pot, or in oil in a standard pot. Then add the coconut milk and stir it up until combined. Watch for chunks of the curry paste and mash them with the back of a large spoon against the side of the pot to break them up. Bring to a mild simmer.

Add in the red bell pepper and cook for about 10 minutes. Then add the zucchini and kale. Simmer for another 10 minutes. Add in the tofu, and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Put all of the water into the pot, and bring back up to a simmer.

Serve this over rice. You'll have more than enough rice, which is great because you'll have some for the leftovers.

The steak I made last night was very well received, and I heard some groans of pleasure. I was paid a great compliment from my friend C who said that for top sirloin butt steak can get very tough, especially since it was a thin steak. However, mine was very juicy. I attribute that to the slow pan roasting and the basting.

To slow pan roast your next steak:

• Heat a pan to medium low
• Put in enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan
• Cut off a small piece of steak to test the heat of the pan
• If the oil sputters or smokes, remove the pan from the burner and turn the heat down
• Once the oil only produces a nice sizzle, then add the rest of your steaks
• Cook on each side for about 2 minutes, if you steak is sticking let it stick for a moment and it will release itself when it is done browning
• Add a tablespoon or two of butter to the pan along with your favorite steak seasoning
• Return the steak to its first cooking side and let the teak cook for about 13 minutes for medium rare
• Test the doneness of your steak by pressing on it with your finger: the more give there is, the rarer the steak, the more firmness the more well the steak is
• Pay attention to the thinnest part of your steak, it will give you a good idea of how the rest of your steak is doing
• Remove the steaks from the pan before they reach the done point you desire as they will continue to cook for a few minutes after being removed from the heat of the pan
• Resting the steak before eating it is important because it gives the steak time to redistribute the juices for a juicier and more flavorful steak
• Enjoy!

(Information adapted from Think Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio, a chef I greatly respect for his knowledge and skills)

Mmm a real breakfast!

Breakfast this morning was the piece of leftover steak, reheated in the cast iron skillet; pan fried and oven roasted sliced potatoes with onions, alae sea salt, pepper, and thyme; a pan fried egg with pepper; and sliced strawberries. It took a while to make. I didn't get to cooking it until 7:45am, and it was done by 9am. In that time I was able to wash up some leftover dishes from last night, and I got some towels washed in the washing machine. Now that I know more of what I like in this meal I could do this quicker, but the potatoes still take a while.

Channa Masala

The Ingredients

I took a picture of the ingredients because it seemed like such a small amount of things were going to come together as dinner. And, then did. There's no rice in the shot, but I already had some rice cooked and waiting.

I didn't have any Garam Masala spice, and I had a moment yesterday when I realized I could have put some together from scratch. However, I didn't. I used the Madras curry powder you see in the shot. It's the center, and the star of the dish.

The whole meal was a spicy, delicious comfort food. It also had bits of zing to it from the cardamom pods. I cracked them open with a knife and scooped their insides out into the pan with the onions and garlic. I don't have a mortar and pestle yet, but if I had then the zing wouldn't have been in such concentrated pockets, and would have lent a great mellow "hrm what's the flavor?" to the whole dish. The cardamom pods were not part of the original recipe, but I saw them used in another channa masala recipe (whole) and so I thought I'd give it a shot in my own way. Since I hated the idea of having the whole pod in my bowl, and having to eat around it, I thought it would be a much better idea to get out the good stuff.

Unfortunately, the food smelled so good, and I was so hungry, that pictures of it were not taken. However, the image on the link below will give you an idea of what it looked like. Mine had more tomatoes (about half a can) as that seemed to be the general consensus in the comments.

So, here's a link to the recipe at seriouseats.com

For my version, as I said above:

Add two cardamom pods, opened up with a knife. Scrape out the insides and into the pan while the onions and garlic are just finishing their cooking.

Add half a can of tomatoes instead of 3tbsp. You'll be glad you did.

Leave out the jalapeno (I did because I didn't have one, but you could put it in. However, the cayenne pepper says that you don't need it, seriously.)

Use Madras curry powder instead (or garam masala, but I don't know the flavor of that in this dish).

Serve over brown rice; and, I recommend serving a salad alongside, or some other simple vegetable. There really weren't enough vegetables in this dish to make me happy, so later I had some salad while I watched Religulous with the Nerd's sister.