The Lady who Lunches

Last week, surrounded by great self-made fanfare, I returned to my blog. Now I am faced with a few harsh realities:

1. days are getting shorter leaving less daylight hours to take photographs of food
2. taking pictures of your food at the work cafeteria makes you look like a weirdo
3. the "Program" the Workaholic insists on following is restrictive (it's a program, not a diet)
4. I spend a lot of time cooking as a result of aforementioned Program

Last week had a few fun lunches that were relatively easy:

• the homemade summer rolls
• a chickpea and arugula salad
• a quinoa and black bean salad
• black bean salad with fresh corn, avocado and tomatoes

The chickpea and arugula salad has been a mainstay of the program. Easy to prepare and it keeps overnight.
Contents:
chickpeas (from a can, then drained)
arugula
chopped tomatoes
chopped grilled eggplant & zucchini
(tip: grill a bunch of things & add to sandwiches, salads or dinner through the week)
chopped red onion
red wine vinegar
olive oil




Part of the pleasure of bringing my own lunch when we have a fully catered canteen is the reaction of my coworkers. When I brought my Quinoa Salad with Black Beans, my lunch date asked me if he could be in the picture. Behold my salad & my coworker:
Contents:
Cooked quinoa
Black beans (dried & then cooked)
parsley
tomatoes
red onions
olive oil
apple cider vinegar

The next day, I had the pleasure of a surprise visit from an old friend. I was so engrossed with catching up, I got back to my desk only to realize, I had no photos. I quickly called the Workaholic and he has happy to oblige. I quickly discovered that the Workaholic is in a much darker environment than I am.

Contents:
Black beans (the dried kind are the best I can find in Germany)

grilled corn, shucked

chopped tomaotes

chopped avocado

lime juice

cilantro

chili

Fruit Salad:

Pear

Blueberries

1/2 Kiwi

Cranberry juice to keep it from looking gross

That's it. A week of lunches. Let's see if I can find anything new this week. While still adhering to The Program, of course.

Daring Cooks - March - Risotto

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

It's been a busy month. I haven't posted, I've been at work instead. I'd rather be posting. Frankly, if I hadn't completed the challenge the day it was revealed, I would have never got around to it. I was in the process of making a chicken soup with leftover chicken scraps from my freezer and I saw that this month's challenge involved making your own stock for risotto. So I cheated a little. It's The Daring Kitchen. I haven't adhered 100% to the recipies to date, why start now? I had the start of Jaden Hair's pho on the stove, from a previous challenge. This stock can be used for risotto, no problems. The thing is, I'm not really into risotto at home. Many people view it as aperfect comfort food - it has carbs, is creamy and warm - but I prefer to make fake risottos. I use quinoa. So 2 cheats. 1, I didn't use the proper stock (but it was homemade) and 2) I used quinoa instead of rice. Nonetheless, I was happy. I managed to accomplish at least one post for the month.

Stuffed Stuff

The markets are the only indicator of summer that I have around here. It's rainy, it's cold & I am not planning any beach vacations *sigh*. I don't deserve any pity though, because I'm still able to get all the fresh goodies that my farmer's market has to offer. This weekend, I went out & got some freakish pepper tomatoes and a round zucchini. They say that the pepper tomato is like a bell pepper, but once you have it, you'll never go back to peppers. That sounded like a challenge. I had a red bell pepper in the fridge, so I decided it was time to take all 3 veggies & make Stuffed Stuff.

Stuffed Stuff
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow pepper tomato (or other large tomato)
1 round zucchini
1 cup quinoa, cooked
200 g mushrooms, chopped finely
1/2 red pepper, chopped
100 g ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, chopped
sprig each of rosemary & thyme, chopped (or use 1/2 tsp dried)
1 c tomato sauce

Cutting around stems, create a lid for pepper, tomato & zucchini. Seed, or with the zucchini, scoop out the inside, and set aside. Save zucchini bits.
Sautee scooped out zucchini, mushrooms, chopped pepper, garlic, onion & herbs until translucent. Add beef & continue cooking until it is cooked through. Mix with quinoa.
Stuff veggies with quinoa mixture.
Place stuffed veggies in baking dish & place tomato sauce around.
Bake at 170° for 30 minutes, or until done.

I loved the fact that the quinoa got crispy. I also loved the tomato. I'm not too sure if it will keep me off of bell peppers indefinitely, but it'll keep me away from bell peppers as long as the tomatoes are available. Given this German summer, that might be 3 more days.

Shopping in Strasbourg - I

While on a whirlwind shopping tour in Strasbourg this weekend, I managed to swing by the supermarket, and in the 40 minutes before they closed, I got wine, cheese, meat, fish & some veggies. The freezer will be full.

I've eaten baby goat, I've eaten snails, I've had oysters, cockles, lamb, quail, pheasant, ostrich; I'm not afraid of eating animals. Normally the rule is: if I'm not allergic, I'll try it. I know that I'm not allergic to crab; I know that I really like crab meat. As I saw the 3 pre-cooked crabs in the fish section, I selected the one with the least amount of barnacles, with the best colour, in short, the cutest crab available. Tonight, I pulled that crab out of my fridge & prepared to turn him into a seafood quinoa-isotto.

After having done my research on the best way to open a common crab, I set to work. But he looked so darn cute. I like to dive and if I saw this guy underwater, I'd stop for a while and look at him, maybe even have a little chat - he's that cute.Now, I know it's a little silly to be remorseful over the same food I was so excited about while in the supermarket.

1. crab is dead
2. if I didn't buy it, someone else would have - on sale!
3. he's here now and it would be wasteful to not use it

Good. I'll take it apart, make that quinoa-isotto I was planning & be more careful of my purchases in the future.

I took the shell apart, breaking the top off allowing me to get into the inside to pull out the meat & buttery bits. At this point, I realized that I was dealing with a female crab. This is the result of my meticulous meat extraction:

This is the plan for seafood quinoa-isotto:

take 200 g squid & 100g shrimp out of the freezer
sautee 1 onion (chopped) & 2 cloves of garlic (minced) in olive oil over low heat.
Add 1 cup rinsed quinoa & stir around.
Add safron-infused chicken broth (I had some in the fridge) bit by bit, allowing liquid to soak. Maybe about 2 cups.
Throw in cut up squid & allow everything to cook for 30 minutes.
At the last minute add shrimp, & both crab meat & crab red stuff (I think it was roe, but I'm really not sure - I was just squeamish).

The result was decent, my girlfriend came over & said it beat the pants off the salad she was about to make herself.

I still have a bunch of meat (& cheese & wine) from the shopping trip - I'll try to post about that as I slowly extract things from the freezer.

Kid Goat, Taken from Mom

Through a series of unfortuntate events, I tried to escape work early after work before a long weekend, and instead found myself at the local goat farm. All I can say is that Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) was not working well yesterday.

Normally, I visit the goat farm's stand at my local farmer's market, but while I was out in the middle of nowhere, why not pop by the farm itself? As coincidence would have it, I was at the farm exactly 1 year ago for a wine & cheese tasting, where I got a tour of the farm. As a life-long city girl, I never really thought about where my cheese comes from. I know that goat cheese comes from goat milk and that mammals produce milk after children are born. Well, in order to ensure that the milk ends up as my cheese, and not as the food for some young kid, the "excess" kids are slaughtered, usually the males, as the females will produce more milk in later years. It all makes so much sense, and had I ever bothered to think about it, I would have figured if out on my own, I'm sure. Really.

Springtime is the time to get the young male kids. I did not grow up in a household with goat, but I have fond childhood memories involving my mother's excitement upon finding goat dishes in the most unusal places. Against my jeuvenile judgement, I tried the goat, and although I never insisted that my mom make it at home, I wasn't turned off by it. My mom is a picky eater, and if it's good enough for her, then it must be good.

The first thing I did after I bought my 600g rack of goat was call my mom. When I was at the farm, I told Stefanie (the lady of the farm) that my mom would be jealous. My mom wasn't exactly jealous, but she had more ideas then I knew what to do with. Ideally, I'll be buying meat exclusivly from the goat farm for the rest of the season. I never really listened to my mom in the first place, but she did give me some good ideas. And I think the next time she'll visit will be in springtime for goat season. If she cooks, I'll certainly welcome her visit.

Roasted Kid Goat
600g piece of kid goat back (loin with ribs - bone in)
1 lemon
1 Tbsp chopped thyme
1 tsp chopped rosemary
2 bay leaves
salt & pepper
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 c french apple cidre (or substitute water + 1 Tbsp honey)
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs fresh thyme

Grate zest off of lemon & set aside. Clean meat, if necessary. Squeeze lemon & wash meat in juice. Salt & pepper meat. Place meat, along with thyme, rosemary, lemon zest, garlic and2 bay leaves in ziploc bag and allow to marinate overnight, or at least 4 hours.

Put goat in pan, add a splash of cidre, along with 2 bay leaves and 4 spigs of fresh thyme. Roast goat at 220° for 10 minutes, then turn the heat to 180°. Add more cidre. After ca. 45 minutes, turn heat down to 150°, and continue to roast. Baste continually (or whenever you remember). Keep the thing in the oven for a total of 2 hours.

I was thrilled with the tenderness of the meat, as well as the slightly sweet sauce I got out of it. To accompany my springtime treat, I made some simple quinoa, tossed in the wild leek pistou my friend gave me. Right now, I'm so content that I've forgotten about yesterday's traffic troubles. I might even pop by the farm again on the way home from work. And, yes, I'll call my mom to tell her how to cook goat.

If I can't speak Spanish...

...then at least I can try my hand at Spanish cuisine. I was watching TV the other day, a show called Cuisines des Terroirs, where they show a family in a small village in Europe; how they live and what they eat. Recently, a Catalonian family was showcased, and the grandmother made Arroz a la Catalana, a dish simmilar to paella but with no saffron or seafood.

Strangely enough, I have never had a good paella in Spain. There is so much other food to savour and most of the paellas in the main areas are frozen. So why not just make a regular "Arroz con whatever"? Well, because I needed a better grain than white rice. I found some quinoa in the kitchen and made a Quinoa con Pollo y Gambas. (This is about as much Spanish as I speak - enough to get through a menu). The phone rang, and the normal Sunday chats with the family followed. My Quinoa simmered away nicely. I wanted to take photos but hunger prevailed and now there are mere leftovers in the fridge.


Quinoa con Pollo y Gambas

2/3 cup washed quinoa
2 chicken breasts, cubed
2 cloves of garlic
1 Tbsp Ghee (clarified butter)
1/2 red pepper, diced
1 1/3 cup hot water
1 pinch saffron
8 large shrimp, cleaned

Sautee garlic in ghee, brown chicken, add quinoa and let toast lightly. In the meantime, add saffron to the water & let steep. Add the saffron water to the quinoa. Let this soak. Reduce heat, stir occasionally, talk with family on the phone. Add red pepper & shrimp, remove from heat & continue speaking to family. While conferencing with parents & siblings, allow shrimp to cook in risidual heat.

I'm having those leftovers tonight.