what is this?

I finally got back in touch with our organic vegetable farmer and we're back to the "What on earth is this?" weekly exercise.  Actually that's not true, for the most part I've been getting a ton of various types of cabbage (I can't say we don't eat enough green leafy vegetables, If I never see another Qin Cai after we leave here it will be too soon) and root vegetables.  The past two weeks have seen a bumper crop of carrots and radishes.  Tell me internets what do you do with a pound of radishes?  Especially since DH and Babes aren't too fond of them.  I might have some pickling in my future....
Anyway, we've also received these things, which kind of look like broccoli, kind of look like cabbage, and kind of look like Brussels sprouts.

Not knowing what to do with them, and since they look too fat to stir fry (I stir fry just about everything I get in that green bag) I roasted them.

Roasting works well for Brussels sprouts, but not for whatever this was... or maybe I roasted them too long.  I'm going to try steaming next, and also the Google image search to see if I can't figure out what they are.

Temple fair pt 2 -what to eat (picture heavy)

One of the main things that Chinese people like to do is eat.  I think that might be one of the reasons that I like China so much. They take food and eating seriously and there are so many different types of Chinese food that you can eat for a week on nothing but Chinese food and still not eat the same thing twice.  Temple fairs are just an extension of this love.  The street food available at a temple fair is wide and varied.  There are bugs and sea creatures on a stick, sugar juice, rice balls that are thrown at a peanut powder, fried things, noodles, meat on a stick, and so on....And while I did not sample a great variety of things while I was there, I did take lots of pictures....  Enjoy!

Vegetables!

Summer is here and our weekly vegetable delivery has gotten a lot more exciting!  There has been green beans, beets, cucumbers, some tiny tiny tomatoes, corn and a lot of eggplant.  This week I was on a mission to find something to do with the corn, which despite the freshness was rock hard.  I've been told that only American sweet corn is soft, sweet and delicious, corn every where else is hard and chewy.  That being the case, corn on the cob was out.  I made corn fritters last week, Babes and DH liked them, but I was underwhelmed, the amount of work, and the frying involved didn't seem worth it.  This week I tried out Corn pudding.  I got the recipe out of the all-new ultimate southern living cookbook. I have found that I really like this cookbook.  I have it because of their chocolate cake recipe, which is awesome, 3 layers with a whipped cream like filling, covered with a dark fudgey chocolate frosting, so good!  But I have made a bunch of stuff from it and it has all been very good.
I even liked the corn pudding, I was surprised to find it a little like corn bread.  In my head, I thought it would be more of a savory pudding with a vanilla pudding like texture, but it was not at all.  It was dense and chewy, not as grainy as cornbread, but not creamy like vanilla pudding.  Anyway, I used my yellow and purple corn in it and the kernels almost softened to my liking.... I wonder if I soaked the corn overnight....
Anyway, I also have TONS of eggplant, so I made some feta eggplant rolls to go on the side.  I don't think the meal really went together, but it was a sort of use up the delivery before the next vegetable delivery came.
Here are some pics... I really should figure out how to take food pics, these don't really look all that appetizing. 

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

Chutney and baby booties

It's been awhile since I've done a what I'm cooking post.  Mainly because the farm subscription has been boring.  I understand it was winter, things don't really grow in the winter, but MAN did I ever get tired of greens.  However, two weeks ago I got a two handfuls of long green hot peppers (I looked it up and this was the best name I could find), which gave me pause.  In the past, hot peppers would not have been a problem, I would just chop them up and add them to everything.  But since Babes has been with us, I can't take the heat, and she can't either.  So what's a woman to do with the hot pepper bounty?  CHUTNEY!  I don't think I've ever had chutney before this winter when NY galpal and I went to do a cooking class at Camaje.  In the class we did a whole Indian menu, and most of it was pretty simple, and Chutney is SO good.  Which is what I ended up doing at home too.  It started off as "well let me make chutney with these hot peppers"  And then since it was vegetarian night I thought I would make Eggplant fritters with the eggplant in the fridge, but instead of making them Italian like the recipe called for I added a barrage of spices to turn them into Curried eggplant fritters.  Add some random stir fried veggies, and curried Indian chickpeas and you have this:

From Blogger Pictures

In other news, I have been knitting a flurry of baby related items.  For my new niece (Welcome to the world Niecey!), And for two little boys that are due to arrive in our community before the fall.  So just for the awww factor, here are a some baby booties for your viewing pleasure.  All were knit with local self striping yarn.  I love this stuff, except for the tendency for the stripes to not knit out the same.   From Blogger Pictures From Blogger Pictures

Lemon Tea Bread Muffins

Just to keep posting. Here's some pics of muffins I made from the Lemon Tea Bread recipe in the Southern Living Cookbook. Very different from my usual muffins, but it has gotten me thinking.... Lemon leftover oatmeal muffins? While searching around I also came upon strawberry muffins... Lemon Strawberry Leftover oatmeal muffins? Stay tuned for more experimenting.

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

The only thing is I think I over mix my muffins. I rarely get the rounded top.... I'm going to have to do some research...

Pasta Pasta!

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

This week in an attempt to cure my doldrums on returning to post I decided to finally crack open the pasta making attachment I got for Christmas this year.  And I have to say WOO HOO for the proper equipment!  I made pasta by hand once a long long long long long time ago, but the resulting mess was horrible.  The noodles were thick and spongy and just generally unappetizing.   Plus it took FOREVER!  With that in mind I blocked off a huge chunk of time for pasta and sauce making, but swish swish!  I was done in half the time.  I LOVE MY KITCHENAID!  The pasta making attachment zipped the dough through in no time, and then lickety split cut up the pasta into thin noodles.  I am so excited!  We can have fresh pasta all the time!

Spiced Oatmeal Pumpkin Muffins

From Blogger Pictures

Thanks to Halloween and our regular vegetable delivery I have found myself with an over abundance of pumpkin. I cooked some, pureed it and stashed it in the freezer and I'm going to put some in Chili tonight, but this morning for breakfast I decided to try to spice up my regular oatmeal muffins and combine it with a pumpkin gingerbread recipe that I found on the internet. The result was very good, if I do say so myself. Here's the recipe:

Spiced Oatmeal Pumpkin Muffins

• 1 C flour
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 1/2 C pumpkin puree
• 1 C leftover cooked oatmeal
• 1/2 C molasses (I'm wondering if this could be reduced to 1/4)
• 1/2 C raisins
  

1. In a large bowl combine dry ingredients
2. In another bowl mix together eggs, pumpkin, oatmeal, molasses and raisins
3. Add to dry ingredients mix until just moistened
4. Spoon batter into lined or lightly greased muffin cups
5. Bake at 350 until muffin centers are slightly firm.

Enjoy!

This week's bounty

From Blogger Pictures

So this is what came in our bag this week. Not as exotic. Lots of potatoes and greens. But it's good that we like cabbage, especially fried up with garlic.


Although, is this grass? The closest thing I can come up with is wheat or barley grass.
And of course the ever mysterious:

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

In other news I've been playing around with Picasa and blogger and trying to work out how to post pictures on the blog without tearing out my hair--the great firewall makes it very hard to post pictures to blogger (blogger being blocked of course) but Picasa is not and so far this seems to be working. We'll see.
I am working on a travel post, so pictures of Xian and Beijing to come!

Purple sweet potatoes!

As previously mentioned we are part of an organic farm co-op and last weeks delivery bag held a bunch of potatoes.... or so I thought. I was all geared up to make mashed potatoes or something when I washed them.... imagine my surprise, then when I started peeling them and discovered this.

From Blogger Pictures

That's right, these bad boys were bright purple inside. I was put out for a minute, but I had actually purchased a few of these from the store and was able to look up the chinese name online. These are called chestnut sweet potatoes. In English they are just referred to as purple sweet potatoes (an english search for chestnut sweet potatoes yields squat). They are apparently popular in Filipino cuisines.

From Blogger Pictures

I looked around for a recipe that would not require too much effort as dinner time was fast approaching. I decided on making a sweet potato Gnocchi with walnut cream sauce. The purple sweet potatoes have a much milder flavor than regular sweet potatoes, even though they are bright purple.

From Blogger Pictures

I think it might be cool to serve this to guests, after all how often do you get purple gnocchi?

food glorious food!

Today I finally got around to cleaning out my refrigerator to see what was in there. It turns out that I still had quite a few vegetables? in there. Our weekly delivery from the local organic farms has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand I am able (forced) to try out all sorts of new and unusual vegetables that I wouldn't necessarily have the courage to try. On the other, I usually have no idea what the things are that arrive in our weekly bag. Also, while some of my experiments with winter melon have proved edible, winter melon is by no means something I want to eat all the time, yet we get a LOT of it. Anyway, here is what I found in my fridge. Some of these things are obviously some sort of potato. I think they might even be sweet potatoes not of the orange variety (I even have purple sweet potatoes but more on that later). I have no idea what the big thing in the middle is. I think it might be bamboo.... but I could be completely wrong.

From Blogger Pictures

There were also some really big radishes included, but I can't find the picture, and I want to post this!
We also bought some tiny bananas. I have been told that they are super sweet, but I will of course, never try them since bananas of any type make me gag (I have only just recently been able to contain my revulsion enough to be able to make banana muffins, but it's still horrible!)

From Blogger Pictures

But they are really cute.
Anyway, I am going to stop here so that I can post this tonight. Coming up Buddha's fist and Purple sweet potatoes.

Random slice

Today as I was walking home from Babes' school I passed a man who was wearing a bright purple track suit, blue and white tennis shoes and carrying what could have been a Louis Vuitton man bag, while smoking a cigarette. I REALLY wished I had my camera because I would have figured out a way to surreptitiously take a picture of him. There was something quintessentially
foreign about the way this man was dressed, because really, except for his shoes (and I have to say those were a little outdated too), he did not have on one single thing that an American Man would wear. Be it the track suit, the man bag, or more and more recently, cigarette.


In other news, we picked up some weird fruit at the store this weekend. It tastes a little bit like an apricot mixed with a cantaloupe with the texture reminiscent of a watermelon. I wonder what these things are?



And finally, yesterday in a fit of baking I made a pineapple upside down cake. I used to hate these when I was a kid, but now I love them! I think I'm finding my southern roots as I get older. First sweet iced tea, now pineapple upside down cakes.... Next thing you know I'll be frying up chicken and biscuits!

Leftover Oatmeal muffins

The crock pot oatmeal recipe makes TONS of oatmeal and nobody really likes to eat leftover oatmeal (even though with the sturdier oat groats you totally could), so after a little searching I found this recipe for leftover oatmeal muffins. Which makes a really great breakfast muffin. I even cut the butter and sugar in half and it was still Yummy. I think I'm going to tweak it a little and see if I can come up with my own recipe. Anyway, they turned out great and look like this:

the weight wait

I have finally admitted to myself that something needs to be done. I think because I've NEVER had to worry about my weight that I just assumed that one day I would bounce back to my college body. Without having to lift a dumbbell, or ride a bike. But I was out at Forever 21 on Friday and I saw myself in the mirror surrounded by people who can shop at Forever 21 and I realized that something needs to be done. It didn't sink in right there. I got home and looked in our mirror all by myself and it didn't look as bad, but in the back of my mind I knew it was a LIE!
This knowledge has been building for some time, hence the giving up of elevators for lent, but it has been battling against my natural laziness. I HATE to exercise! Which is partly why I love Yoga so much, I get the full body workout without the horrible feeling of sweat, and without gasping for air. But I think I'm going to have to add a cardio, or something. Yoga alone is not going to cut it.
Of course, as I thought this to myself this afternoon, I was eating a candy bar, and after Babes went to bed I ate a huge bowl of pudding topped with extra whipped cream. I know it's no justification but there was a lot of screaming today and a VERY grumpy, VERY destructive toddler, sometimes chocolate is in order.