Recipe for Renovation . . .

This is not a food post. This is not really a blog.
But it is a space and I am here. Oh, and this is a reflection. . .

On the state of my living working quarters. Two weeks ago, we did a major home office renovation via IKEA with much help from my parents. It was long in coming. We'd been talking about it for almost two years. Anything I talk about for two years has one of two end scenarios. I eventually vow to never speak of it again and don't or I jump on it all at once and get it done. Nothing happens in increments. . . which actually seems very a sensible.

I was truly at the make or break point this year when I started to get the itch to move. Which was completely ridiculous. We love where we live. Despite that I was coming up with all sorts of reasons we could and should move - I event got a poor Realtor involved and dragged him around to see apartments for a month. But eventually I confessed to both myself and Todd that all I really wanted was a change. Secretly I thought moving would give me a chance to re-invent my workspace - which I felt was cramped a quickly closing in on me.

We set a budget, got on IKEA's website and spent about three weeks mixing and matching, measuring and putting things in the cart and taking them back out. We went around and around, it was like a giant puzzle. One thing would fit here but then that wouldn't fit over there. In the end we replaced almost everything and kept very little of our original furniture - even though that was not the original plan.

My parents offered to drive to New York for the weekend to help us with assembly and the provision of power tools. So for efficiency sake I decided that it would be worth the cost to have IKEA deliver the furniture to our apartment since the bulk of what we were buying was large bookcases. We've carried them before and I hope to never carry them again. Never did I imagine that I would order the wrong size pieces - but I did.

So the configuration we thought we were building did not arrive at our apartment and we spent a night on laughing, crying, shouting, pouting and deep breathing while we tried to figure out what to do with the wrong furniture that we both decided we could not carry down the stairs and back to IKEA (not to mention my parents were here to help build it - with the tools my dad accidentally forgot to bring. Which is why I am now the proud owner of a circular saw and set of power tools!

All that said - we made it work. We are very happy with our not quite as we expected it renovation. My mom made me new curtains, which you'll see in the pictures really make the light beautiful in the apartment (thanks mom!!!!).

Below are a few before and after picture of our two work spaces before and after our renovations.

I think you'll agree it was time. Sometime you need change - even if it's just pushing the furniture around!


This is Todd's work area.

Todd needed more book cases.
Todd needed a home for 400 records.
Todd needed a new chair.
Todd needed a new couch.

Todd got all this and more!

Here's another picture of
Todd's work space.

It's also our guestroom and the new couch has a great guest bed (hint hint you out-of-town always threatening to visit people) Oh and my Dad fixed the door so it actually locks the cats out!



This is Laura's work space.

Laura needed a bigger desk.

Laura needed a place for her printers and scanners.

Laura needed a spot for all her art stuff and all of Todd's drawings.

This Wall was the biggest part of our renovations. All the extra bookcases and ledge for our large Epson has really cleared a lot of floor space and make the room feel much larger.

It's hard to find anything space efficient that holds a 43 inch long printer. We turned an 58 inch tall IKEA bookshelf on it's side and it's working great.



In this photo you can really see how much a difference my mom's new curtains make in the brightness of the room. They seem to collect light!

I chose red as my accent color and bought red carts for each side of my drafting table to hold all my art supplies and for the scanner cart under my desk.


That's all, maybe in a couple years well do the other side of the apartment. But for now we feel this was more than enough change to get it out of our systems. Sorry it took me so long to post these for those of you who were asking for a peek.

Those on you in NYC come by and those out of town
book your stay in the newly renovated guestroom!!!

Reflection 10

For the love of lentils.
I'm not going to tell you how wonderful lentils are. Really they're not. They look gross boiling in the pot. They look even worse pureed. But humans have been eating lentils since the dawn of time (since the Neolithic period to be more specific) and were still eating them.

Why?

I'm sure all the vegetarians in the bleachers can readily espouse the virtues of lentils, but for those of us who will choose to buy lentils on a whim at the grocery ; here is the truth about the lowly lentil.

As plant go - lentils are an incredibly good source of iron. They contain a high level of proteins and include most of the essential amino acids. Lentils also contain dietary fiber, Vitamin B1 and minerals. Red (or pink) lentils have been selected as one of the five healthiest foods! So eat eat you lentils. They won't break your piggy bank and they'll do your body good. They take very little time to cook and best of all can be made into lentil soup! A great fall/winter lunch dish.

Ingredients

• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 pound lentils
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 cup greek plain yogart
  
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Bring chicken stock and lentils to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in garlic and onion, and cook until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 3 minutes.
3. Stir onions into the lentils and season with cumin and cayenne. Continue simmering until the lentils are tender, about 10 minutes.
4. Carefully puree the soup in a standing blender, or with a stick blender until smooth. Stir in yogurt cilantro and lemon juice before serving.

Reflection 9

Couscous. A food memory.

The first time I had couscous was my sixteen birthday. My grandparent took my family to the Checkerberry Inn, in Goshen Indiana. It was a gorgeous european style country inn on 100-acre wooded private estate amidst Amish farmland. I remember we played croquet with my grandparents, on the lawn out in front of the inn on that golden August evening. But truely one of the most memorable thing about this evening was a food item we were served. No one at the table had ever encountered it before and there was to ensue much discussion as to what it actually was. Was it a pasta? Was it a grain? Well what ever it was it was good and served tossed with sauteed wild mushrooms. It was couscous.
My family soon sought to make couscous a regular part of our diet in the Vila house hold. To the extent that my brother came to dread it . My mother would roll her eyes when it showed up again and again at the dinner table. But neither my father or I (the cook and the shopper) ever tired of the miraculous couscous.
Now I stated the location of my first couscous experience and should state the year (1996) this predates the appearance of the Near East brand couscous in the Midwest. If you were living in Indiana in 1996 and had never lived anywhere else the likelihood that you would have experienced the wonders of couscous was practically nil. And the distance you had to go to procure it - from where we lived would have at least been the next town over.
Today couscous is popular. It is carried in grocery stores from coast to coast. But I still remember the first time I ever saw it and the novelty of it has never worn off. It is a grain. And incredibly versatile as to the innumerable ways you can dress it up, which is why today I am still eating lots of couscous. It can accompany an amazing variety of cuisines from Middle Eastern curries to Mediterranean vegetables. You will find it a perfect side for Kenya styled braised chicken or tossed with feta and mushrooms. The list goes on and on but the couscous remains!

Plus it cooks in less then 10 minutes!

Here is out household favorite couscous dish:

Mediterranean Couscous Toss (Serves 2)

1 box of Near East Couscous (garlic and oil version)
Cook as package directs - I throw mine in the rice cooker
for ten minutes and it comes out perfect every time!
toss cooked couscous with the following:
measure to your liking . . . .
sun dried tomatoes
feta cheese
crimini mushrooms
fresh basil
shallots
jalapeno pepper
fresh baby spinach
diced pan seared chicken or pork.

Mix it up - use whatever you have what ever you like.

The strongest flavors will be the basil and feta. The sun dried tomatoes will give it a smokey bright flavor and the peppers will give it a kick! spinach and the meat just fill it out to make more of a meal out of it. They can easily be left out and this dish can become vegetarian or a simpler side dish to serve on the side.

Reflection 8

The ubiquitous Mac and Cheese, a perfect cold weather comfort food. Now before you say: I would never eat That! Just imagine the calories!!! I ask you this; if I had a mac and cheese recipe that had half the calories and twice the flavor AND no low fat, skim milk, skinny on the anything in it- would you try it? Hmm. You don't have to answer out loud. Just think about it. Now I have always had very high standards for macaroni and cheese, and that is my grandmother fault. A a child I was most disappointed by the many glutenous dished that were passed off as mac and cheese. I saw powder packages that with a magicical stick of butter could turn into neon orange sauce. I saw the Velveta tube cheese that would take the form of any container you saved it in. And last but not least there was the dreaded cafeteria white sauce mac and cheese (that looked like glue and tasted worse) But I had been spoiled as a child. Fed by my grandmother, mac and cheese that actually had cheese in it. Not butter, not velveta and definitely not glue. And she also put jalapeno peppers and a dash of paprika in her mac and cheese. Then she baked until the noodles turned chewy on the top and edges and that was my favorite part. That WAS mac and cheese. And as an adult what I find so amazing about my grandmother's mac and cheese is that it has half the sodium and calories of most traditional mac and cheese recipes. It has about half the amount of cheese, no butter and hardly any milk. The trick is to use extra sharp cheddar. For me mac and cheese is all about flavor and texture. It should have a sharp kick from the cheddar and peppers and a warm smokiness from the paprika and an almost dry and chewy texture.

Here is what goes into my
macaroni and cheese:

Fills an 9x6 baking dish. (2-4 servings)

8 oz. Fusilli (100% Durum Semolina)
.25 lb Cheddar Extra-Sharp
1 Jalapeno pepper
1 Tsp. Paprika
1/4 cup Milk
3 Tbsp. Bread Crumbs

That's it.

How To:
Shred cheese. Dice pepper.Boil water. Add pasta, cook till al dente. Drain the pasta and set aside. melt cheese and add milk and paprika to melting cheese. Once the cheese becomes melted toss pasta and dices peppers into pot. Stir until mixed well. Pour into baking dish. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake at 425 for 30 to 60 mins - depending how chewy/crunchy you want it.

200 calories per serving

Reflection 7

If I was only allowed to eat one food on the face of the earth - it would be Pad Thai - hands down. Not restaurant Pad Thai, definitely not Pad Thai from a packaged kit. And if you feel insulted because you like either of the aforementioned, let me tell you the truth about Pad Thai. There are restaurants that make great authentic Pad Thai using all native ingredient (we'll get to those in a minute) but these restaurants charge you a lot of $$$ for the lowly dish called Pad Thai. Which if you know about Pad Thai is absurd. In Thailand Pad Thai is cheap street vendor food. No expensive ingredients, no years of grand culinary school are require to perfect this dish. I do contend that the right ingredients do matter and many of them will not be found in you local grocery store. I order a lot of my Thai cooking ingredients online from ImportFood.com . They are incredibly reliable - even with fresh producc which I order every other month or so. They also have great free videos of Thai street vendors making traditional dishes, which are great to watch for learning how to cook dishes. This is where I found the video of a street vendor making Pad Thai. The Pad Thai recipe I'm sharing is off the Import Food website. They have at least 150 great recipes.
The three must have ingredients that are a bit hard to come by are the Kaffir Lime Leaves, palm sugar and tamarind. They are not expensive ingredients, but unless you have a specialty Asian food store in town they may be hard to come by. I made Pad Thai for a long time without these three ingredient, and when I finally got them - it turned Pad Thai into a completely different dish. Palm sugar is is much mellower that cane sugar, closer to maple sugar or honey in taste. Tamarind is a must have for all kinds of South East Asian cuisines. It is a tart fruit paste. It can be found in pulp form and as a concentrate. I recommend the concentrate, it's easier to work with. You may have an easier time finding the pulp (also the pulp is cheaper) but you have to boil and strain it. Kaffir lime leaves I discovered when learning how to make Tom Yum Soup (a story for another day . . ) the leaves when fried in cooking oil with give off a citrus fragrance that masks much of the fried oil smell from the dish.

I make Pad Thai for lunch about once a week.
Prep time 20 mins Cook time 10 mins.

First, prepare your Pad Thai Sauce:

Ingredients for Pad Thai Sauce

1/4 cup palm sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce
4-6 tablespoon tamarind concentrate
1/4 cup Sriracha sauce

Method for Pad Thai Sauce

Put tamarind concentrate into a measuring cup, and add enough water to make 1/4 cup, stir, this is your tamarind juice. Combine shaved palm sugar, fish sauce, tamarind juice, and sriracha sauce. You can make this Pad Thai sauce ahead and put in a jar in the fridge up to a week.

Ingredients for Pad Thai (makes 2 servings)

1 egg lightly beaten
1 cup fresh shrimp or chicken (optional)
1 tablespoon sliced shallot
1 handful rice stick noodle
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
1/4 cup fresh scallions
2 tablespoons chopped unsalted peanuts
vegetable oil for frying
2 Kaffir Lime Leaves

Method
Boil water, once boiling turn off and soak the rice stick noodle in the water for 15 minutes, leave noodles in water while you prep and cook. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok at medium-high heat. Add egg and cook it quickly, scrambling into small pieces. Remove, set aside. Add 2 tablespoons of oil in wok. Add shrimp/chicken and cook until done. Remove, set aside. Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the wok. Add shallot and Kaffir lime leaves fry until aromatic. Increase the heat of your wok. Add a handful of soaked noodles. Stir-fry this mixture for until the noodles start to get soft. Add 1/4 cup of Pad Thai Sauce and mix well. Add cooked egg, bean sprout, scallions and cooked shrimps. Stir well for another 1-2 minutes until everything blends together. Turn off heat, transfer to serving plate with sliced fresh lime, roasted peanuts.

Reflection 6

There were not posts over the weekend because I was out of town and did not cook. Do you know what happens when I do not cook? It's like being on vacation and all my rules and good behavior goes right out the window. Mostly for conivence and sociability sake. But really why do I do this? It is not like there aren't healthy options. I watched people eat healthy things all around me all weekend. but here is what I ate:

Saturday
2 large coffees
1/2 packaged croissant
McDonald's breakfast burrito
pint of clam chowder
1/4 lb cheese burger
1/2 vanilla Sunday

Sunday
3 large coffees
1 waffle
1/2 chicken sandwich
1 piece of fried breaded cod w/ fries
McDonald's Angus burger

Ugh.

Admittedly, this puts me in the Eater's Hall of Shame and in no position to do anything but continue to cook for myself and stay home. Sigh I really will try harder next time I say that even knowing that thanksgiving is coming just a week a way - but that is a food topic for another day.

Reflection 5

Who doesn't love pizza? I love pizza. My husband loves pizza . But I love my husband, so I don't let either of us give into our pizza cravings very often. A great compromise is to say to one's self, if I really want pizza I will make my own. This almost guarantees that it will be healthier that the pizza at your local pizza shop. I will concede that homemade pizza is not a cheap meal or quick to make, but if pizza is what you are craving then it is well worth it to take the time and make it yourself. In our house we are great fans of the personal sized pizza. Rather than dough we use pitas for the crust, it's a pretty good substitute and will crisp up when baked. Homemade pizza has very different rules and expectations from pizzeria pizza. When I go to a pizzeria, I'm looking for quality cheeses, tangy flavorful sauce and an incredibly light crisp crust. Homemade pizza is an entirely different food as far as I am concerned. I do not have a brick oven or a multi-generational sauce recipe. What I do have is a corner vegitable market - and that's a great place to start for making homemade pizza. Fresh ingredients are the key to making pizza at home. fresh tomatoes, basil, and real cheese - not processed. Unlike the pizzeria where every topping adds .99 cents to you bill, when you make pizza at home you can afford to indulge in toppings and what you do use up can simply be co-opt for another meal. The grand master of pizza at my house is Todd, so I'm sharing his pizza recipe with you today. (shown above)

Basil And Garlic Personal Pizza

Serves 2

⅓ lb Fresh Mozzarella
4 Fresh Garlic Bulbs
1 Red Onion
2 Baby Portabello Mushrooms
1 Cup Of Organic Marinara Sauce
1 Vine-Ripened Tomato
1 Red Pepper
3 Sun Dried Tomatoes
1 Fresh Basil Stalk
2 Pieces Of Rounded Flat Bread
1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper
1 tbs Olive Oil
1 tsp Oregano
2 tbs of shredded Romano cheese

Dice your veggies to size, lightly crush and finely chop your fresh garlic. Shred your basil and Cut your mozzarella into thin slices

Drizzle your olive oil over the flat bread and spread with a spoon until evenly coated. Now spread a light coat of marinara sauce over your bread, mixed with a little bit of fresh garlic and basil.

Lay your mozzarella out evenly over your pizza. Generously top with red onion, portabello mushrooms, sliced fresh and sundried tomatoes, red pepper, and fresh garlic. Sprinkle with crushed red pepper and oregano to taste.

Cook on low heat in a frying pan lightly greased with olive oil until bottoms are crisp. Then bake in oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, until cheese is lightly browned and veggies crisped. Take out and let cool for 5 minutes, and top with the rest of your fresh basil.