extra! extra!

Alright the web chat was so great… EXCEPT.. somehow the forces of nature and God decided that I wasn’t worthy of sitting in on the chat in its entirety and the internet connection was sabotaged. It was cloudy yesterday so I’m going with that.
Anyhow.. Aida Mollenkamp was so knowledgeable and sweet and answered 3 of my questions – which not to put anybody down who participated – but I thought were really great questions! Too bad that’s all I could get in…. ugh.

You can view the whole chat by clicking HERE: (password: California)

To read my short report about the contest and Aida, click HERE.

Thanks for reading! (35 of you thought I was read-worthy yesterday, for me, that’s incredible! haha. Thank you!)

enjoy your meals…
C

asking aida

‘

I’m in the live chat as I type and she’s already answered 2 of my questions. 🙂

crawfish boil of the century

As some of you cultured Southerners would know, its crawfish season. In Texas, I know they had the Crawfish Festival in Old Town Spring through weekends in April. And… people would throw crawfish boils at their houses or whatever. Well, I haven’t seen a crawfish in like 4 years… none in Nashville and they don’t know what the hell a crawfish is in Chicago. (Sad). So when my sister-in-law told me her best friend is straight from the bayou in Louisiana and she throws a crawfish boil almost every year, Shayne and I pretty much decided we were going. Before we were invited. Crawfish, crawdads, whatever you want to label these pain-in-the-asses, they are a down-home treat. The lovely lady, Tonya and her husband, Chris had the crawfish shipped to Orlando from the Gulf. It was uh-mazing. And I am a big fan of the spicier, the better… for when you suck the juice out of the head cavity… 🙂

The set up was just grab as many as you want and the batches just kept comin’. We all crowded around a wooden table and grabbed, nabbed and peeled crawfish the whole afternoon. Thank you Tonya & Chris for an awesome day and yummy eats!

…enjoy your crawfish while they last!
C

the video aftermath

In the wake of the little-video-that-could, cmyfood is doing well! No serious backlash.. so I think it’s official. More videos to come! I figured out how to shoot it, upload it and finally embed it into the blog posts so, home free! But the videos have to be super short. It literally took me 2 hours to get that p-o-s uploaded. 😦 Anyone offer suggestions with that? (Website….. or… something?)

We survived another night of spin class. My butt is hurting from the inside out (muscles that is…..) but we can actually finish a whole one hour class without stopping! Our first night we both stopped a couple times and almost fell off the bike. Only thing is… spin is during dinner time. 😦 We’ve opted to eat before but that makes me crampy and sick as I’m cycling. So now we eat after. Which is probably for the best… You’re not supposed to eat before you workout, right?

I went to Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market again yesterday on my way home from the meat market where we go to get our dog’s food and bought more great yellowish tomatoes, couple of red ones, a jalapeno and some other yummy produce.

As I was perusing the aisles… I was dreaming of a juicy stuffed tomato… kinda salty, kinda sweet, kinda spicy…..

And made these! Served with a skinny slab of veal and rice pilaf with pecans. But, I ended up pushing the veal to the side.

Fresher than a Farmer’s Market Stuffed Tomatoes
(give everything a small dice)
2 yellow tomatoes (or get a really ugly heirloom), tops cut off and insides removed and diced
1 red tomato
1 jalapeno (use 1/2 if you must)
1/4 sweet onion
1 (small) cucumber
1 avocado
juice of 1/2 a navel orange
juice of 1/2 a lime
generous drizzle of honey (I don’t know? 2 tablespoons?)
2 tablespoons olive oil
s+p to taste

In a mixing bowl, combine the red tomato, onion, jalapeno and cucumber with citrus juices, olive oil and salt and pepper, let marinade in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Go to spin class and upon return, dice the avocado and toss with honey. Shove a heaping mound of the produce medley in the hollowed yellow tomatoes and marvel at how gorgeous they are. Then enjoy. 🙂

As I was inhaling this, I was telling Shayne mid-bite how many different ways we could serve this in the future. “Veggie tacos!” “On top of fish!”  Which in hindsight, I would’ve rather served with fish but… whatevs. We’ll get ’em next time.

Like my *new* rectangular plate? 🙂 TJMAXX – $3.00!

Today I start a baking marathon. For the next 3 hours I will be whipping up 2 dozen chocolate chip and pecan cookies and a red velvet cake for a crawfish boil this weekend (SO EXCITED!). Its a good day to have a KitchenAid Mixer. 😉

enjoy your meals…

C

video killed the blog

I don’t want to scare off the 12 consistent readers I actually have going right now but I made a video..
Well, more like an introduction… I’ll get into the good stuff like prepping and showing off my sad kitchen later. Our kitchen was an absolute disaster when I shot this so I am leaning on my cutting board that is on our kitchen table (ugh, so ashamed to call myself a cook..) however, I wanted to try out this blog’s video potential. 🙂

I saw a recipe for BL(FG)T -Bacon, Lettuce (Fried Green) Tomato sliders on Rachael Ray’s daytime show. ‘Cuz ya know.. I’m all unemployed and stuff and I get to watch her show now………. So she fried up the tomatoes and put them on mini burgers with a sour cream and chive sauce. Looked pretty good and super amateur. Only problem is we’re like trying to be healthy and all… and go to the gym and whatnot but I have this weird feeling that sometimes you just feel like a burger… I dont know. Call me crazy. (and then the get the I-hate-myself feeling after you EAT the burger sets in. So.. there’s the conundrum).

Shayne got the burger fever yesterday and wanted me to fix them. And I confess, I LOVE fried green tomatoes. Even yellowish/lime greenish ones. But on a burger? Eeesh. I don’t know. The final verdict? = way greasy and ridiculously messy but the tang of the sour cream and tomato was refreshing in a salty, deep-fried kinda way. I would just have liked the tomato and sauce. The burger made my tummy hurt… (big surprise…)

..Hmm.. what to do with leftover chives and half used lemon? Ta da!

Without further annoyance… HELLO HANDFUL OF READERS!!!! 🙂

report card

I don’t go out of my way to be an ass when I go to restaurants. I just wait til the check comes and I get snooty about the tip. Because I think that the tip should reflect the quality of service to send a message. How else can I send a more clearer message that “your waiter sucked” than to screw with their tip.  So what, call me a jerk and passive-aggressive.

Obviously if you’re walking away every night with $20, you have a social problem and should find another job.
I don’t get attitude with the waitress (and let me clear something up – I’ve been in your shoes! I’ve waited on snooty people but I am also self aware and know when someone is being snooty just because their life sucks and when I am being a senseless bimbo waitress. THERE.) So anyway.. I don’t like giving dirty looks when they haven’t cleared our table but the “I’ve-been-there-and-had-to-clear-many-tables” part of me sometimes gets the better.

Exhibit A:

Shayne made me do it. He was all, “Give them a D minus on the receipt!” OK, and then I’ll write them a note. That’ll teach ’em!

I mean, who does this?!
We do. We’re jerks.

The waitress totally bounced and didn’t even say anything! On top of that – charged us too much for 2 of our salads.

So that place sucked. It’s called Two George’s and its in Boynton Beach. The service sucked and so did our $22.99 seafood combo meal. Ugh. There’s no pussyfooting around about this joint… I let ’em have it! (The place has probably been around forever and will be around for the next century but whatever.)

Everyone hates a critic.

enjoy your meals! 🙂

C

healthy baking

What a week! My mom and aunt have been running us into the ground 😉 Eats to be shared…

My last personal training session was Monday and of course I wanted to dazzle her with a homemade treat for all the wonderful training, ass kicking, motivating and mixer she just showed up with at the gym one day and gave to me. So, I sat down with my old baking and pastry textbook to find something yummy. Remembering her previous comments about vegetables and not eating sweets, I assume she’s a vegan… maybe vegetarian. I dont know. Either way, I couldn’t make her a flourless chocolate cake with ganache. I mean, she probably would have had a seizure smelling it. Its no wonder I never saw the “Healthful and Special Needs Baking” section before! There’s a crap-ton of recipes that are gluten-free, reduced fat..yadda yadda… I found the perfect one for inspiration. I used almonds instead of the walnuts and couldn’t find any dry buttermilk powder so I 86’d that right outta the recipe. Oh well. I still thought it came out beautifully:

Have you seen anything more healthy come from a KitchenAid?! “Reduced Fat, No Sugar Added Apple-Almond Pound Cake”
I made a quick bun glaze since I didn’t have cream and sprinkled the almonds on top.

We drove my mom and aunt up and down South Florida’s coast. We stopped in Miami last weekend and went to Gloria and Emilio’s place, Larios on the Beach, on Ocean Drive for some Cuban food.

Tostones with shredded beef, ham croquettes, Cuban-style stewed pork and pork-filled tamale. Pork, pork, pork! This is my blog so I’m gonna say that this was not a great meal. The tostones were good – the beef was great. But, I don’t really care for bacon flavored tamales……  The pork and onions would have been great if the meat wasn’t giving us all cotton mouth. Oh well. My mom had to get her Cuban sandwich and my aunt opted for the Medianoche – the Cuban on different bread. And you can’t really go wrong with a shrimp appetizer…

But this was by far the highlight:

cravings from the gym

My mom and my aunt are in transit to South Florida! I have been a busy house wife… cleaning… and cleaning… and wreaking of bleach. It’s not clean if it doesn’t smell like bleach.

While they’re here we plan on doing a lot of eating and hopefully beachin’. I’m so happy SOMEONE is coming to visit us! I mean, hello, besides living in the geriatric center of the universe… we do live in South Florida = beautiful beaches. If not for us, come for the beaches!

I was on the treadmill yesterday and I started craving potato salad. I don’t eat before I go work out so in the midst of my intensely-focused-staring-at-a-spot-on-the-far-wall-workout I start thinking about food. No kidding. I get really into a workout… I start thinking about what we’re doing for dinner. And lunch the next day… and maybe breakfast Saturday morning. It’s like when you’re totally starving and you go to the grocery store and you just wanna buy everything and sit down in the middle of aisle 6 and tear open a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos because you couldn’t fathom waiting until you get home to eat. We get those feelings a lot. And fantasize about eating our way through the aisles.

Well we didn’t have potato salad because Shayne was having a craving of his own: fish tacos.
So yummy, so easy… did I mention YUMMY!? Please someone take this recipe and make it, I swear it will not let you down!

Tilapia Tacos with Avocado Slaw
2 tilapia fillets
1 avocado
1 lime, cut in half
1/2 white onion
1 jalapeno, seeds removed if desired
1 tablespoon creme fraiche*
2 garlic cloves
1 cup broccoli slaw (refrigerated produce section)
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
3 drops of hot sauce
cilantro for garnish
4 whole grain crunchy taco shells
optional, 1/4 tomato diced for garnish
2 tablespoons olive oil
s+p, to taste
*you can substitute sour cream

Preheat a grill to medium. Squeeze half of the lime juice on the fillets and season with salt and pepper, let marinate for 5 minutes. Grill for about 4 minutes on both sides.

While the fish is marinating – prepare the avocado slaw by combining the avocado, remaining lime juice, onion, garlic cloves, creme fraiche, jalapeno, olive oil and salt in a food processor. Pulse until smooth.
In a medium bowl, combine slaw, vinegar, hot sauce, salt and pepper and 2 tablespoons of the avocado dressing. (You can use the remaining for dipping chips/tortillas!)
Preheat oven to 175 and place taco shells on rack. Warm for about 3 minutes.
Nestle the grilled fish in the shell then avocado slaw and top with cilantro and/or diced tomato.
Serve with black beans or rice and remaining slaw.

So good. Shayne’s a master on the grill and grilled this little fishy perfectly tender and moist.

May not be potato salad but it sufficed.

enjoy your meals!
C

the new brag

A lot can happen in a week (and a few days)…

I quit my too-far-away-from-home-and-$20-in-tolls-a-week desk job and am now a full-time unemployed writer. Yes! I can finally get back to what I do best: job hunting. I’ve become quite good at it the past couple years. I’ve had lots of practice. I may have found a part-time gig at a Whole Foods but… we’ll see. Wouldn’t that be too good to be true!?

Among other things… I plan to write more and cook more, especially now that my amazingly fit and fantastic personal trainer (who’s also helped me lose 10 pounds and tight glutes) just GAVE me her KitchenAid Mixer…!?!?! WHAT?!?!

I know, I know. INSANE. But, really, she insisted she never uses it and gets more use out of her Jack Lalane juicer than the monstrosity that is now boasting amazingness on my counter as I type. (on my new Mac might I add!) You’d think after quitting a job, I wouldn’t deserve all this wonderfulness.. but as they say, can’t have the sweet without the sour.

Enough gloating for one post.

My new best friend and trainer tells me I can’t eat 2 hours before I start training. I am ravenous and almost eating my empty Publix water bottle by the end of our session. I usually get in the car and can’t wait to get home and woof down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (’cause thats what I’ve been craving after workouts). Last night I was hungry for beef… mushrooms… red wine…. all those hefty flavors and protein. I found an awesome little recipe from the recent Rachael Ray magazine and thought, hmmm…. I’ll make something like that! It was called “Steak with Red Wine Sauce” by food contest extraordinaire and multi-winner: Christine Riccitelli. Thanks for the inspiration Christine.

Post-Workout Skirt Steak with Red Wine Sauce & Spinach and Herb Couscous
1 lb. skirt steak
4 oz. white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1/2 cup red wine
about (as Rach would say, “eyeball it”) 1 cup chicken broth (or beef – I only had chicken)
1 shallot, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon dried rosemary
1 box herb couscous
1 hefty handful of baby spinach
s+p, to taste

Steak:
Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet and drop in the shallot. Heat the pan to medium and let shallots cook until tender. Add one clove of garlic and cook until fragrant. As the shallot and garlic are infusing the oil and rendering,cut the steak into bite size pieces (remember: against the grain!) and lightly season with salt and pepper. In a medium bowl combine the flour, rosemary and season heavily with salt and pepper and combine. Toss the steak in the flour and shake off excess flour before adding to the skillet with the shallot and garlic. Let the steak brown on one side before adding the chicken stock and red wine. Bring to a boil, put a lid on it and turn the heat back down to medium. Add the mushrooms and let simmer for 10 minutes.
Couscous:
When the steak is halfway done, prepare the couscous according to the directions. Add the remaining garlic and before serving, toss the spinach and just let it wilt slightly. (It should be bright green).

Quite lovely!

Easter dinner was a nightmare. I don’t even want to bother. Let’s just say I have tried and tried and I cannot make cheesy, hashbrown casserole. But I wanted something semi-sweet afterward to lift my spirits and threw together these little monsters:

Had some leftover croissants and semi-sweet chocolate chips and voila! 🙂 (I don’t pretend to be a culinary genius).

And finally, my husband is like totally amazing. He’s such a… I don’t even know. He’s more domesticated and neat and tidy than I am and loves to do little things to make me happy, never wanting in return. While I was washing dishes the other day he started putting together a little window-box herb garden right outside the kitchen window so I can pick fresh herbs while I’m preparing feasts 🙂 Complete with chives, parsley, basil and these flowers I don’t know the name of. He does.

enjoy your lovely Spring days! (and your meals)
C