“Casserole: A dish or pot made from a material such as glass, cast iron, aluminum, or earthenware in which food is baked and, often, served. The word, which may also refer to the food itself…is from the French and was first printed in English in 1708….Cooking in such dishes has always been a part of most nation’s gastronomy, but the idea of casserole cooking as a one-dish meal became popular in America in the twentieth century, especially in the 1950s when new forms of lightweight metal and glassware appeared on the market. The virtues of easy-to-prepare meals were increasingly promoted in the women’s magazines of the era, thereby supposedly freeing the housewife from the lengthy drudgery of the kitchen….By the 1970s casserole cookery took on a less-than sophisticated image…”
—The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p.59)

Here’s to bringing sophistication back.  I like making casseroles because they a) are easily transported (if you are gifting someone food) and b) make awesome leftovers. I’ve been modifying this one for a few years.  Here is the latest adaptation.

Ingredients:

• 1 can Progresso Lentil Soup (I bought the 99% fat free one but it doesn’t really matter)
• 2ish tbsp of unsalted butter
• 1/2 package of Central Market Whole Wheat Gemeli (CM’s WW pasta is the bomb)
• 1 tsp “better than bouillon” (vegetable)
• oregano, salt, and pepper to taste.
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Par cook the pasta (to avoid sogginess).  I boil it in salted water for about half the recommended time.  I drain off the water but I don’t rinse the pasta (rinsing is bad).  While the pasta is cooking I put 2ish tbsp of butter in a pan medium heat.  Some say to whisk it, I got lazy and decided that stirring in the walnuts counted as whisking.

Once melted the butter will foam up a bit, then subside. Watch carefully as lightly browned specks begin to form at the bottom of the pan. Smell the butter; it should have a nutty aroma. Remove from heat and place on a cool surface to help stop the butter from cooking further and perhaps burning. Stir in the bouillon, spices, and soup.  Place the pan back on medium heat until the sauce thickens.

Stir in the pasta. Remove from heat and place on a cool surface.  Cover the pan and allow the pasta to finish cooking and absorb the excess liquid.  I usually pack it away in a container at this point.  Casseroles are always better the second day.

When it’s a cold, wet, rainy day, I want soup.  So I made some.  I acquired some red lentils when I “bitched” [We gave it a thorough cleansing and purging] Yenta’s kitchen.  I had whole clove garlic and canned tomatoes on hand.  Most importantly, I had my handy immersion blender [no more transferring hot soup into the blender or food processor].

Ingredients:

• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 2 cans tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes
• 1 cup dry red lentils
• vegetable bouillon (I highly recommend the “Better than Bouillon” that comes in a jar.)
• 8ish cloves of garlic (i cheated and used the peeled garlic

I cooked the lentils with (more…)

Several of my friends have just now resolved to eat in more and brown bag it for lunch.  This is not a foreign concept for me so I decided to post my week in vegetarian (minus milk and cheese) living or as I prefer to call it, vegan plus butter, eggs, and honey.

Saturday: mad crazy cooking day.   I try and get ahead by prepping things when I have time.  I made whole wheat quinoa biscuits, a vat of Spinach lentil Curry (to be heated with couscous later in the week), 4 servings of curry pot pie ( the rest of the curry for to-go food), Brown rice (for stir fry during the week), pizza dough for Saturday dinner ( the rest was frozen for friday nights in).

Here is how I did: (more…)

Everyone needs a little adventure in their life.

M, The Jew, and I had planned a trip to Chicago back in May (I think).  When I say planned, I mean M and the Jew were drunk and bought tickets using M’s leftover Southwest credits.  The real plan was to stay at M’s Parents place for a week and eat, drink, and sleep to our heart’s content.

As the date for the trip drew near we were no more prepared than we were in May.  Seriously, things have been a bit of a train wreck lately (more on that some other time).  We recklessly packed our things (including some dirty laundry) and managed to get to the plane on time (we also managed to squeeze in shots of bourbon before hopping in the cab).

The flight was horrible. Turbulence and poorly behaved children.  We hoped that it wasn’t foreshadowing of things to come.  I had planned to sleep through the entire flight (It’s been a rough week).  No such luck.  After 20 minutes I woke up.  I put in earplugs but they weren’t enough to drown out the voices of the kids behind me.

When we landed in Chicago it was pouring.  The luggage coming in at baggage claim was soaked.  Then yet another delay,  the ramp was closed due to lightening.  They were holding our luggage hostage.  Then M’s dad was stuck in traffic and wouldn’t be able to pick us up.  Three sad faces.  We were tired and needed a snack.

Things eventually came together.  Our luggage and our ride showed up.  We arrived at M’s parents place safely.  We were fed and put to bed.

Day 1:
We woke up rather early. There are routines at the Parents’ house that interfere with sleeping in.  The “plan” for today was to go to the Korea street festival and go out for indian food on Devon Ave. Done and done.  Bonus: a cool picture of M with a 40 of Sake and a straw hat.

We roamed around the mall after our food crawl.  The Jew needed sunglasses.  No sunglasses, but people watching and heckling was in full effect.  When we got home I went swimming in the sweet “R” shaped pool.  Then it was a quick LAN party to upload pictures from our adventure on to the FB.

After dinner we wanted to go out and see some Chicago nightlife. It was fairly uneventful.  Apparently Chicago’s version of Hipstertown had been overrun by yuppies.  We plan on going back to the last bar of the evening.[get name from M]. Since M was driving, the Jew and I were drinking.  I came home drunk.  The Jew was somewhere in between drunk and tipsy.  Needless to say we needed food.  The Jew wanted White Castle for some strange reason.  Thanks to the iPhone we made that dream come true.  I had indian leftovers at the house (Excuse me, why can’t more places serve veggie hashbrowns?).

Day 2:
Up at 11am.  Yes, we got to sleep in.  I don’t know what time we came home and passed out. The menu for today was Chinese and Thai.  M and the Jew actually went running this morning.  I do not run <strike> (I will probably swim later)</strike>.  We got a late start leaving the house. Today’s menu was Chinatown.  We went to lunch at Joy Yee’s (4pm is now lunch time).  Then we roamed around.  Sunday night is “family” dinner at M’s parents so we ended up making a small feast in their kitchen (I love the accessibility and granite counter tops).  We stayed in the rest of the night eating and drinking.  Needless to say, we slept well once again.

Day 3:
Today I was up at 8:30 for some strange reason.  We made it out of the house by 11.  We hit the field museum.  DINOSAURS! Then it was off to fancy dinner at Custom House.  The food was ok.  It was well thought out but poorly executed. The textures were off.   We ended the night dancing at Fizz.

Day 4:

Today was a full day.  After our usual breakfast of leftovers we headed to the Art institute.   We split up to cover more ground and I ended up seeing the whole thing (I could spend days in there). We made plans to go out to for tapas at Emilio’s with M’s family.  Yet another feast.  I was tired.  I passed out after dinner.  M and the Jew went out for drinks.  I didn’t even hear them come home.

Day 5:
The Jew’s last day in down.   Not so much food grazing today.  We had a low key day.  Chicago Safari.  Frank lloyd wright houses, Oz park, and   Licoln park.  M and I have dinner with an old friend.  Surprisingly decent indian food for the suburbs.

Day 6:
Lazy day.  M and I slept in.  I had to scan some paperwork to refinance my house.  we hit the Costco and the H&M. Then it was Green Zebra for dinner.  My favorite fancy dinner so far (there will be pictures).  We drank A LOT at dinner. Then we met some friends for drinks later.  Chilling out before driving home was a must

Day 7:
We went back to Uru Swathi for brunch.  We got to go orders of samosas and aloo gobi before leaving Devon ave.  We had planned to lounge by the pool before leaving but it was looking pretty dreary.  We ended up packing and chilling out.

Overall it was a great vacation.  I spent more money than I intended but at the end of the day, you can’t take it with you when you go.

2.0 and I went to the farmers market yesterday.  The food looked super awesome.  Everything was really pretty and fresh.  We ended up taking home rillete, hummus, grass fed beef, a baguet, and some colby cheese.  I think we’ll make a more regular habit of the farmers market.  It’s just too good to pass up on.

—Synonyms
1. gourmand; gastronome; chowhound.

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This is what I did the other night.  I have a friend in from Seattle.  He’s a real chef.  Much better than the likes of me.  I would argue that he has almost as good taste as my father. (I still think he’s the best cook there is.)

Anyhow, whenever he comes to town, we go to what-ever’s the newest thing.  He’s just at that point where every time he comes back to visit, he thinks about opening a place here.  So we consider our outings to be “research” and the like.

Last time he came back I took him to Justine’s.  If you didn’t already check, Jen blogged about it but didn’t say the name, she was afraid it would blow up.  Thing is, no amount of us keeping our mouths shut would keep people away from our little hideaway on the east side.  It’s just too fantastic, one person found out about it, and now there’s always at least a 3 hour wait.  I’ll be going again in the future, I don’t mind the wait for food that awesome.

So, back to the story.  My dude was in from Seattle, and he wanted to go to Uchiko.  It’s not even open yet.  They’ve been having a “soft-opening” for the last week or so.  I guess I don’t know any cooks or restaurant people anymore, I called around to everyone I could think of and no dice.

We were in luck though, b/c a friend of his had been recently and told us that we could sit at the bar and nosh there.  So his friend met us there, who is consequently the sous at Mulberry.  (Still haven’t been there yet, planning on that soon.) And we ate.  We ate, and ate, and ate.  Then we decided to go to Uchi, just for comparison.

We got to Uchi and they boys were almost wanting to bail.  I’m a trooper, the wait wasn’t that long, 45 mins or so.  So I made them stay.  I’m glad I did too, was a super fun evening with tons of food, correction, tons of really great food.

I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a food snob, you guys know that about me, and for the past few years I’d been staying away from Uchi.  I like what Tyson started with and all that, but I think it needed some new energy in the menu.  The thing that tipped me over the edge was when my dude said that Uchi got a new chef b/c Tyson was busy at Uchiko.

I gotta say, I’m a fan of the new guy.  I heard, read: have not done research on this to check my sources, that Ben McBride (the new chef) used to work at Parkside with Shawn Cirkiel.  I’ll get back to you on that.

In the mean time, here’s some of the pics I took of the food at Uchiko and Uchi.  It was beautiful.

Image from Creating Passionate Users

You know how M and I decided that we were going to enjoy men like we enjoy food, well it would be nice if they had some sort of expiration or “best if used by” date.  Last night we had CSA Friday with Owen’s dad and the scientist.  [As usual, we made a mountain of insanely good food.]  Anyways, the scientist had requested hummus and we had a long debate over the shelf life of tahini.  It had been living in the fridge for over a year since it was opened, but it smelled fine (Believe me, rancid sesame is not a good smell).

This morning while I debated the need to stay in bed vs. the need for coffee I pondered the whole, “How do you know when it’s over?”  There’s no expiration date, bad smell or curdling to look for.  There’s no pop up timer, or life meter (or game over for that matter).

Any suggestions or signs to look for?  If any of you says, “you just know,” I will send one of my people over to kick your ass.

This was year 6 of volunteering my way to platinum. I have been on vacation for the past 2 weeks and living at M’s house.

(You should go back and read the daily recaps. I put this stuff out on the internet for you, little readers)

Total # of bands: ~24  ( City Riots, Best Coast, the DJs from the Hood Internet, Le Loup,  Typefighter, Sondre Lerche, Vivian Girls, Death Set,  :papercutz,  Oh Snap!, Rogue Wave, Miike Snow, Fucked Up, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings,  Hole,  Frightened Rabbit, Minor Mishap Marching Band , Mayer Hawthorn & the Country, Passion Pit (DJ set) , The Pains of Being Pure at Heart,  Broken Bells, Ezra Furman and the Harpoons ,Everybody was in the French Resistance…Now!, and  Diplo.)

Total # of movies: 6 (The Runaways, Tiny Furniture, Canal Street Madam, Barry Munday, the Freebie, Kick Ass)

Total $ spent: ~$115 In comparison to last year, I spent more money and came home with less loot (Recessioned!).

Things that vastly improved this year’s SXSW experience:

• Being a Crewchief: (Thanks to the Real Jew) I worked a ton of pre-conference hours and was done by Sunday afternoon of SXSWi
• New sidekicks
• Nap time

With the bikes downtown, and bad weather for walking around (cold and windy), M and I decided to take the bus ($1). We headed to the Brooklyn Vegan/M for Montreal Showcase at Galaxy but left when we couldn’t find a posted schedule.  The next stop was Maggie Mae’s for the Aussie BBQ.  Plenty of food for opportunivores but not vegetarians.  I had a beer and we stayed for City Riots and Best Coast.

M and I braved the cold and headed to LoveJoys for the DC does TX showcase.  They were supposed to have free beer and Le Loup was on at 3.  By the time we got there, the beer was gone.   We decided to stick around anyway.  The music was good and we were out of the cold.   Yenta showed up at the end of the set by the band we don’t have a name for [edit 3/22: The name of the band is Typefighter.  They were a last minute sub for Title Tracks.].  We stayed for Le Loup and weren’t that impressed (it was Saturday, maybe they were tired)

After the show, Yenta headed to a movie and M and I made an attempt to see Thurston Moore at the Mog Show.  The line was wrapped around the building so we opted to hit the Under the Radar/Jansport Party. No beer but it was warm.  I stayed for Sondre Lerche [singer/songwriter, did the Dan in Real Life Soundtrack] and Vivian Girls [imagine what it would sound like if Au Revoir Simone rocked out]  M left to meet up with the Jew at the Hypemachine party.  My the time I got there Death Set still hadn’t hit the stage.   Once they got started, I wasn’t impressed.  I decided to bail and head over to PureVolume to see who the Special Guest was.

We aren’t sure if the random girl from OK was the Special Guest.  We hoped it wasn’t.  But at the same time, we couldn’t stand there to find out.   M, the Jew, and I decided to grab fancy dinner at Annie’s around the corner.  The food was ok.  A bit overpriced (I think we were paying for location). I had Arugula and Lemon Chevre with a glass of Prosecco.  We ordered 2 carafes of the house red (they were out so they gave us the Cabernet).  They have one veggie entree listed.  I probably could have asked them to make me something off menu but since it was SXSW, I decided on the Vegetable Risotto (they made it with caramelized onions, asparagus and a balsamic reduction.  The three of us split the ginger creme brulee for dessert.

After dinner, M and I decided that our wine drunk selves should go to Prague to check out :papercutz.  Sadly, the soundguy didn’t do them justice.   We left 5 minutes into the set and headed for Karma Lounge to dance it out to  The Hood Internet.  We got there early and caught Oh Snap! They made our SXSW 2010 highlight reel with their performances of “Rich Kids” and “I’m too fat to be a hipster”

After the shows, we decided it was too cold to walk/bike and decided to hail a cab.  We tried for over 30 minutes and had no luck.  We were close to the Stephen F. Austin Hotel, so we asked the valet to hail us a cab.  They worked their magic and we were in a cab home in about 5 minutes.

M decided to ask the cabbie if he had any tips on nights like this for hailing a cab.

1. Taxis don’t like picking up large groups.  They will pick up one or two people over a group of 5.
2. Do not try and hail a cab when you are smoking or have food/drinks.  Cabbies don’t want to deal with that.
3. If possible, hold up cash.  Cabbies like paper, not plastic.

Cost for the day: $10 for cab,$1 for the bus, $4 for M’s beer, $50 for fancy dinner.

Free: 1 beer

My volunteer gig didn’t start until noon, BUT I promised the hungover kids a ride to the convention center.  I wife’d up some coffee and breakfast tacos to go in 15 minutes.  There are more M stories but that will be part of her recap.

I biked to the convention center for my shift (after wife-ing up some of my own coffee and breakfast).  After my shift I biked home for food and to let out D.  I provided get away car service for M and Major Thom after their shift was over.

Sunday night was pretty low key.  We went to dinner at Hai Ky (we were getting tired of eating the mountain of pasta  with veggies in the fridge).  We hit the Google party and found out there were no more free drinks (FYI, if a party starts at 8, do NOT show up at 10 expecting free drinks).  We ended up leaving and hanging out at the Gingerman.  I ended up having some sort of strange allergy/nausea thing and ended up bailing and walking home.

M made a few friends while I was off sick. … more on that later.