Success again! I made another tortilla de patata with mushrooms and asparagus. Not as uniform in shape or texture, but still a very nice one-dish meal for dinner. I love tortilla de patata! You really should try it.

What to do with all the dill in my garden? I saw a recipe on New Scand Cook that was one of Julia Child's when she lived in Norway. I tried it out with frozen tilapia from CostCo, and it worked wonderfully. If you are not brave about raw fish, this is not for you. It took a lot of guts to eat it, but it was delicious!

Cured Fish -- a type of Gravlax:

Cut fish however you like, I like chunks as in ceviche.
Toss with equal parts sugar and salt, and dried dill. Drizzle a few drops of rice wine over it, to get the curing started.
Marinade for 30 minutes.
Add LOTS of fresh dill.
Eat with crackers or just a fork!

I tried a similar thing with already-cured smoked salmon (lox) and it was not so good. Lox really needs no additions.

Tonight I am going to try mu shu pork for the first time. Good Luck, Jocinda!

P.S. I don't know how to post photos in the right order.

The Great Thing and The Neat Thing

News! I made Tortilla de Patata alla Carmen de las Casas, and it was great! The family devoured it (i.e. no leftovers). I was really surprised at how easy it was for me to flip the tortilla. Success!

In other news, I have been reading a lot about cooking and family. Hungry Monkey is particularly interesting. The great thing is that there is so much out there on the Internet to eat up (no pun intended). And the neat thing is that there are a lot of people out there who share the same values as me, as us. I mean, there's a lot to celebrate about humanity.

For example, Orangette reports on how happy she is to have her grandma's recipe box. I can totally relate to that. She goes on to describe the notes grandma kept, dated notes listing the menus she served at specific dinner parties, and who attended. To me, this is a truly fantastic treasure. And it's cool to know there are others out there who share this love of the little things, the little records that people keep of their day-to-day lives.

In even more news (well, not really news, but just something to share), Ariel and I made cookies today, and as the forgetful woman that I am I forgot to push up her sleeves when she packed the brown sugar, and I forgot to grease the cookie sheet.

Yesterday, I got out of the shower and forgot if I washed my hair. I love being me!

Creative Gruel, plus Restaurant Web Sites!

I have continued to experiment with rice cooked in water. I have made a variety of broths and ingredients for white rice porridge. Deviating from the simple is usually a mistake. I have not tried brown rice (I just think, yuck!) I WILL try Wild rice one of these days. I tried purple rice, which used to be available at the United Noodle. It made a gruel that was delicious, but just kept puffing up and getting bigger and bigger. Too much too eat.

I first had purple rice at Nokomis Restaurant on the North Shore. It was paired with a lake fish in coconut milk. It was so great, that every bite I took, I just relaxed and went, "Ahhh...." I was amazed and delighted. Have you ever been to a restaurant and had a dish that you never forgot? Like, you were just sent to Heaven for a little while and never wanted to leave? Nokomis gave that experience to me. Not only was my food fantabulous, but so was the atmosphere. It was low-lit, and calm, with diners who were vacationing on or around Lake Superior.

I tried to recreate that dish at home, with some success. I wish the chef would publish the recipe. Their website was no help.

Lately, I have been looking at restaurant web sites. Mostly because I want to find good places to eat. Since I don't get to go out to eat very often, and I LOVE to go out to eat, I want to find the places that are going to satisfy me the most. I don't want to do a restaurant review blog, but I'm starting to think there might be a need for a blog that compares restaurant web sites with the actual restaurant.

First of all, what browser are these web sites created with? I know I need reader glasses, but seriously! I have to push Command + about 4 times just so I can read them. And why is it hard to find menus on some sites, and reservations on others?

Plus, as a mom, I have to find out if this place is kid-friendly. PLEASE, people, just state that up-front.

Lastly, the photos on restaurant web sites are always so elegant. And then it turns out the place is just like a diner or food hall.

Oh, well, what do I expect? This is America.

Oh, BTW, I just watched the documentary movies "Corn King" and "Food, Inc." It's no wonder my Grandpa got out of farming.

Carrot Cashew Soup From The Bagelry

Oh, people, I am a bad, bad person. I try to be good, but I am human.

Last night I made a variation on Rice & Tuna: Mixed Sushi. A salad of cold sushi rice, smoked salmon, spinach, soybeans, and carrots. Sounds pretty good, right? NOT! And this is what I paired it with -- (am I crazy?):

Carrot Cashew Soup

OK, so we ate it as a family, and Ariel went to bed peacefully, and then I was HUNGRY! I have unused tickets for pregnancy cravings and postpartum depression, so I asked my DH to get me junk food. I wanted a junk food sandwich. He brought home a Milio's Italian sub and I ate the whole thing. He kept asking me, "Are you going to finish that?" because I would pause and breathe, and enjoy, and he knows I never finish something so huge as that. But I ate ALL of it.

It feels wrong, and it feels wrong. I HATE supporting factory farming of any kind. Weak! I am so weak! My body is speaking for me! My body is having more power than my intellect! I hate that!

Anyway, this soup is freaking' awesome:

CARROT CASHEW SOUP
From The Bagelry in Santa Cruz, California (where I worked for 2 years)

Saute 1 onion, some ginger, and some garlic in sesame oil.
Add some sliced carrots, and broth, and cook until almost done.
Add whole cashews, and cook until soft.
Puree.
Add soy sauce to taste.

The recipe I had from The Bagelry was for about 8 quarts of soup, enough to supply customers for a day. I adapted it for just a family. You do what you think is right. For me, making soup is all about salt content and texture.

Tonight, I'm going to ask my DH to make greasy tacos, filled with ground beef. Ethically-raised beef, of course.

Rice & Tuna

No one knows what they want for dinner. Quick fix!

White rice
Canned tuna
Mayo
Soy sauce
Jalapenos
Tomatoes (optional)

Don't mix it all together!!! Each forkful (or spoonful) should be an individual creation of mouth watering sensation.

We used to eat this dish quite often. Then I read "Bottomfeeder" by Taras Grescoe. It broke my heart. It is very bad to eat tuna. I have too much knowledge about the woes of poor Mother Earth. The ocean is... well, you don't even want to go there. It hurts. It makes you have to make really tough decisions about what you eat.

I have always liked my tuna in a can. I don't really like tuna steak, or tuna sushi, but I can totally go for tiny morsels of seared tuna on a bed of micro greens.

Alas, I found myself at the grocery store just missing my canned tuna so much. I said to myself, "Should all the ignorant people eat all the food that is available without so much as a wince, as the oceans become depleted and our planet is destroyed, while I, with all my stupid knowledge, go without the splendors of seafood on my table?" I shrugged. I bought the evil food.