Lemon Bars, or How Many Lemon Jokes Have You Got?

08/31/2009

So this lemon walks into a bar.
Bartender looks him over, thinks about it, says,
“You know, I like you.  You got a lot of a peel.”

What do you call a benefit concert for sick lemons?
Lemon aid.

The local bar was so sure that its bartender was the strongest man around that they offered a standing $1000 bet: The bartender would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glass, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money.  Many people had tried over time (professional wrestlers, longshoremen, etc.), but nobody could do it.  One day this scrawny little man came in, wearing thick glasses and a polyester suit, and said in a tiny, squeaky voice, “I’d like to try the bet.”  After the laughter had died down, the bartender agreed, grabbed a lemon, and squeezed away. Then he handed the dried, wrinkled remains of the rind to the little man.  But the crowd’s laughter turned to total silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and SIX drops fell into the glass.  As the crowd cheered, the bartender paid the $1000, and asked the little man, “What do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weight lifter, or what?”  The man replied, “I work for the IRS.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Chili and Cornbread are the new Hall and Oates

08/28/2009

Dear Chili,

hey.  how ya doin?  It’s been a long time.  In fact, I think the last time we saw each other was the Chili Cookoff at work in March.  That was a great time, wasn’t it?  Remember I had you slowcooking in a crockpot in a corner of the office all morning, filing the room and hall with your gorgeous and spicy aroma, eventually making me so hungry that I almost killed a bear?  Ahh, memories.

It’s good to see you.  We had a good time tonight, you and I and Cornbread.  Cornbread is such a funny, reliable guy.  The two of you together are like a perfect pair and the three of us, well three’s company.  It was great when I diced a small medium onion and sweated it out in a couple good tablespoons of olive oil in my cast iron Dutch oven.  That’s the perfect pan for evenings like this.  You love how nice and hot that pan keeps you.  I know.  And on a rainy day like today, it’s especially excellent.  And then I chopped up three cloves of garlic and a poblano and green bell pepper and added them in with some salt and pepper, finishing out our little magic trinity.  Just that bit made the entire kitchen smell intoxicating. Read the rest of this entry »

The Local Table

08/27/2009

For those of you in the Ann Arbor-ish area, I found this delightful bit of information on the People’s Food Co-op Facebook Feed: a great new program called the Local Table, brought to you by the Matthei Botanical Gardens

The Local Table, a program of classes, workshops, field trips, and events beginning in Fall 2009. The Local Table encourages us to take a new look at where our food comes from. If you’re wondering “Why local?”, there are lots of good reasons. When you buy local you know who grew or raised your food and what production methods they used. Plus, in an increasingly global economy, purchasing food from area producers and growers helps keep them in business-and your dollars stay in the local economy. It’s also a matter of environmental sustainability: buying food from local sources or growing it yourself decreases your energy use and carbon footprint. And thinking locally helps us to better understand our region’s rich food heritage and history.The Local Table has two components: The Local Table passport (your ticket to locavore certification) and the program of classes, workshops, and events. Examples of the program include a field trip to a local winery; a tour of Ann Arbor-area chicken coops, learning how to can and preserve food, stocking the Michigan pantry, the 100-Mile Holiday Dinner, and much more.

I personally am very excited, and already planning on taking the classes on canning, chicken coops, edible garden  planning and the 100 mile holiday dinner.  Check it out!  Even if you aren’t in the area and can’t attend, it might give you some ideas.

The Local Table

Petits Pains au Chocolat

08/25/2009

Little chocolate breads.  How can you not love everything about that fragmented sentence? I mean, really.

I found this recipe on Epicurious and, loving all things French and chocolate as I do, decided I had to make them for myself.  They’re very quick to make, very easy and super customizable.  Josh liked them, and now wants a batch made with jam.  I personally think they’d be better with a bit of cinnamon sprinkled on top as well.  I can see us easily making these on a regular basis for when you just want a little something to pick you up. Read the rest of this entry »

At the kofta, kofta cabana…

Josh and I are trying a new thing this month: not spending half our take home pay in food costs.  Radical, I know.  Especially when there’s only two of us.  Well, and Winston, but he doesn’t get people food, much to his dismay.  But between eating out fairly often (especially lunches during the work week, Sunday breakfasts at Afternoon Delight or Mark’s Midtown Coney Island and the frequent dinner out alone or with friends) and shopping at some not-so-wallet-friendly places just because they happen to be right across the street (coughwholefoodscough) and have an excellent meat counter, we do spend an inordinate amount of money on food.  That and we tend to not eat leftovers, and we buy expensive ingredients because well…we’re foodies.  We like to make and cook food of various types, and we get bored easily so…well, you can see how it lands us into trouble.

Where was I going with this?  Oh yeah.  Economizing.  Busch’s has ground sirloin on sale!  I adore ground sirloin.  So we bought a family pack of the stuff because hey, we eat beef pretty often (can you tell?), we have a ton of plastic baggies AND we have one of the greatest kitchen tools ever–a countertop scale.  We are in business.

And because I had this lovely pack of ground beef, I decided to try something new that would also utilize mostly ingredients I already had in the cupboards: beef kofta.

Kofta, or kefta, are basically Middle Eastern/South Asian meatballs which have variations numbering in the hundreds.  Often you’ll see them shaped like sausages and grilled on sticks.  That’s more or less what I was going for here.  Emboldened by the fact that kofta can be so varied, I didn’t worry about whether it’s truly authentic (I can assure you it’s not) and just focused on making something tasty, easy and quick.

Which brings us, finally, to the recipe. Read the rest of this entry »

Salsa + Spaghetti = Salsagetti

08/24/2009

Inspired by reading over Noelle’s entry about her delicious-looking salsa, I decided tonight to utilize the tomato-y bounty given forth to me by Josh’s beautiful heirloom variety tomato plants growing out on our deck.  But instead of a salsa, a fresh tomato sauce that I could mix in with the whole wheat linguine I got on sale at Busch’s yesterday, and serve it with the boneless skinless chicken breast I had thawing in the oven.  AND it would be a light healthy dish.  I love it when a plan comes together.

The smug foodie in me (I am writing this on a Mac after all) was also pretty proud of the fact that just about all the produce in this dish was locally grown, too.  The tomatoes, thyme, parsley and basil came from our own deck garden (we live on the third floor of an apartment building, but are lucky enough to have a big long deck which we line with various pots containing leafy and delicious products).  And the peppers, garlic and onion came from our farm share.  Delicious. Read the rest of this entry »

Today was a cold, dreary day, so here's some pictures to warm you up

08/22/2009

BBQ 2: Delicious Boogaloo

08/20/2009

Sure we just had barbecue last night and perhaps if we were lesser mortals, we’d avoid doing some version of barbecue tonight.  Ha.  Right.  We’re not average mortals.  We’re superheroes.  Wonder Twin powers, activate!  Form of…bbq beef sandwiches!

Just kidding.  Maybe.

Anyway, I put it to Josh to decide what we were having for dinner tonight, since I decided the last few times.  He suggested pasta.  Mmm.  Eh.  We do pasta a lot. But it made me think of meatballs, so I countered with “meatball sandwiches.”  And then he countered with an absolutely brililant idea–why don’t we get the butcher to thinly slice a pound of roast for us and makes barbecue beef sandwiches like I get at Pizza House? I figured sure, it would be like the cheese steaks we sometimes make, but with barbecue sauce.  Delicious.

So we did.  If you’ve never taken full advantage of having a grocery store nearby with a real butcher in it, you should.  They’re trained to do it, they can do it quickly, and they really don’t mind.  Talk to them.  They have ideas, they know what’s good—and ours today clued us in on an upcoming porkchop sale this weekend…faaaabulous.  Anyway, we asked him to just measure us out a pound of one of their great looking chuck roasts and slice it paper thin. Voila!  Perfect sandwich meat.  Time to get home and get cooking. Read the rest of this entry »

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