The Memories of Fall Part One

It is that time of year again when food and family will be on the minds of all individuals.  I love the fall and the many fun food traditions.  The first major tradition for me is pumpkin carving.  My brother and I are quite good at carving pumpkins, usually he draws the picture and I spend the countless hours carving it.  In fact we won a pumpkin carving contest for about three years.  I wish I had a picture of those pumpkins!  It has been a few years since I have lived close to my brother and my pumpkins has struggled as a result.  I am not an artist.  Here is a picture from the last pumpkins my wife and I carved from 2009.  I hope this year, since I now live close to my brother again to do a legit pumpkin with his help.... I guess we will see.

A New Direction ?

So a lot has been happening both in my personal and food life, believe it or not I have had a change of heart about food...  It all started when I went to a community event that was also potluck and I watched as people were pushing and running to get to the free food, it looked like pigs at a trough, I also witnessed people stacking food on top of other foods so deep that they might as well have had a chum bucket and a straw.  The icing on the cake was the 14ish year old, fat girl swirling ranch dressing all over her plate until it turned white.

Well that was enough for me something snapped inside, I decided that I was going to evaluate the way I eat... I came to a few conclusion which I am going to share, 

1.  I was eat too much meats and fats.

2.  I was eating too much processed foods

3.  I was eating too much cooked foods

4.  I was not getting the nutrition I needed from my diet

So, I made a choice, I was going to go Vegan Rawish for 2/3 of the the day meals and snacks, this means that before diner I eats like a vegan and all foods are uncooked.  I have been working towards this for about three weeks.  I now feel great and I have lost a substantial amount of weight.  

I am now going to give you an idea of what a meal might like like that I would eat and its nutritional values

This meal included Romaine lettuce, one tomato, one cucumber, Homemade Raw Kale Chips, 5 figs, 1 pear, Pecans, and a olive oil/ rice vinegar dressing:

 Here is the nutritional info for this         

Total

592 Calories

20 Fat

0 Cholesterol

55 Carbohydrates

16 g Dietary Fiber

31 mg Sodium

45g  Sugars

8 g Protein

 107 mg Calcium

1201 mg Potassium

I Can Be Your Wingman Anytime

What is it about Buffalo Wings that say amazing!

It is my opinion that wings are a love/hate food, this means that you either love them or hate them.  The most common reason I have heard that people hate wings is because they have a bone, very little meat, and are messy.  Also depending on the sauce involved some people hate the flavor or the assumed spiciness.

As a foodie I love wings, to me they are like a meat rocket to deliver flavor to your tongue.  I love to experiment with new and original sauces all the time and find the wing the perfect place to do that.  Here are some of my latest concoctions

I call these traditional buffalo wings, half bottle of Franks red hot, 3 TBS butter, dash of Tapatio, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce

Alabama White Barbeque Sauce Wings 

South Carolina Mustard Barbeque Sauce Wings

Served up with a salad and fried pickle 

Super Spicy Honey Barbeque Wings, made your mouth tingle   

I am often asked for recipes for my sauces, truth be told a lot of them are made up and impossible to recreate ever but that's ok with me I will always have the memory of that Picasso wing that for one moment happened, blew my mind and was never seen again.  It is that special moment of sauce Zen that makes me hungry to explore new and different directions

Dr. Strangeprotein or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Soylent Green

Soylent green is not people but rather Organic Hemp Protein Powder.

I have been working out at the gym and although your body certainly need to eat better and more calculated in order to be health and for the exercise to work, there is a horrible myth in the U.S.A.  that people need to eat protein bars and shakes or large amounts of meat protein in order to be healthy after a workout.

Meat protein has its own problems (which I will not get into) and most manufactured protein is of the lowest quality and might be worst then some fast food (I said some). 

So the quest, to make a healthy homemade protein bar, with about 25 grams of protein and 30 carbohydrates that can keep in the freezer for about 3 months and makes about 24 bars has about 300 calories, and comes to about .50 cents a bar...

Here is what I made...

Homemade Protein Bar

Like a thick Fruit Cake

 Ingredients

1 cup Organic Hemp Protein Powder

1/2 cup oat bran

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups almonds

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup dried cherries

1/2 cup dried blueberries

1/2 cup dried apricots

1 (12.3-ounce) package soft silken tofu

1/2 cup unfiltered apple juice

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 TBS molasses

2 large whole eggs, beaten  or proper amount of Natural Egg Replacer

2/3 cup natural peanut butter

Canola oil, for pan

Directions

Line the bottom of a 13 by 9-inch glass baking dish with parchment paper and lightly coat with canola oil. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the protein powder, oat bran, wheat flour, wheat germ, and salt. Set aside.

Coarsely chop the almonds, raisins, dried cherries, blueberries and apricots and place in a small bowl and set aside.

In a third mixing bowl, whisk the tofu until smooth. Add the apple juice, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, and peanut butter, 1 at a time, and whisk to combine after each addition. Add this to the protein powder mixture and stir well to combine.

Kind of gross at this point but that is normal

Fold in the dried fruit. Spread evenly in the prepared baking dish and bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 205 degrees F. Remove from the oven and cool completely before cutting into squares. Cut into squares and store in an airtight container for up to a week or freeze for three months

In with the nuts

The end result look like baby poop but matched all of my previous criteria and taste like a less sugary, somewhat health, fruit cake.  I call it a success and better yet I know everything went into it, so here is to your health!

Homemade Baby Poop!, I swear it is good for you

Extreme Couponing Report

So, I know that I have not written for a month, but I have been busy trying out something that I would now like to report on.  I have been working on the art of extreme couponing, which is defined as the systematic shafting of your local grocery store through the use of superior organization, patience, and manufacture's coupons.

 

After one month I have learned a lot about this art and here is my check list to test if you are ready to do this.

1.  Do you know thy grocery self:  it seems easy enough, but it is not.  In order to really make savings and make this count in an extreme way, you have to be committed (not the straight jacket kind) and love grocery shopping.  Do you know the "normal price for food" and could you spot a good deal?  The truth is that over the month I averaged 72% saving on all of my grocery trips.  When I was sloppy or lazy it was more like 50-65%, and when I was really trying I got as high as 79%.  Here the thing if you are not committed and hate grocery shopping, the chances increase that you will spend more money and start eating worst because of the need to use your coupons.

2.  Is time really money?  To do couponing it takes time, I mean lots of it! Time to get coupons, cut them, organize them, look through the ads, match up deals, and then go to all the stores.  I spent at least an extra 3-6 hours messing with the grocery shopping.

3.  Do you have the storage?  I filled up all of my free storage space in a month, freezer first then on from there.  It's a lot of work to coupon right and if you do not have the space it might be wise to choose wisely what you buy.

4.  Are you flexible?  Buying food only when it is on sale and couponed means you must be flexible in how you eat.  Will this drive you crazy?  I can promise you there are very few, if any, coupons for organic and specialty foods. 

If you feel comfortable with your answers at this point let's get to the basics of couponing

1.  Sign up with all of your local grocery store's web pages, club cards, and make sure you get their ads.

2.  Get coupons, for Sunday's paper and online.  You will need a lot of them, I found 4-5 for each product worked well with the coupon policy at my stores.

3.  Know your stores coupon policy.

4.  Get a coupon binder with coupon holders (I used baseball card sheets).

From here you are ready to begin

The next step is to get the ads and create a list, then go shopping.

Here are a few rules and tips I learned along the way

1.  Never forget or mix up your binder ( I did this twice) :(

2.  Resist the urge to buy things you normally do not buy.

3.  If a deal does not feel sweet enough do not do it.

4.  Find a coupon friend, I did not do this but would like to in the future.

5.  Be willing to wait and cut your losses.

These are all I can think of for now.  I hope this was helpful, if not I am ok with that.  I can tell you this much, there is a really and somewhat disturbing rush you get when your bill is $102 dollars, and you think, "I can't pay for that" then you give them your club card and coupons and the bill drops to $30 dollars and the casher says," that was like $26 dollars in coupons, you should teach a class about this" that it all feels worth it and you feel like a drug junkie out to get their next fix. 

Happy Couponing!!!!!

Share a Blog: My Open Mind: A Bite About Food

I decided to share another blog this week that wrote about food, I thought it was fun and insightful

My Open Mind: A Bite About Food: "I love food. To allow that part of my mind a little air time, I will share a memory and a guilty pleasure. When I was growing up, one of ..."

Inter-Culinary Competency

It is funny when you travel that there arises two types of eaters that fall along a continuum.  On the one end there are the safe eaters, only eating at the national chains or things they have eaten at before.  I am not sure if these people have just had a bad experience or if they just enjoy the predictable.  The kind of souls that eat a McDonalds in Thailand.  We move up the scale to the "that looks safe" group.  These are the people who eat at a place because it looks similar to a place they know or has high reviews on the internet.  Next, we move into the "let us try something new" group.  These people are willing to try some new food but will likely order the safest item on the menu.  Finally, there is the food adventurer.  This person will not only try everything but seek out these experience.

So, what is my point in bring up this food continuum?

Well, it really sucks when all (or a few) different types of eaters try to go out to dinner together.  Case in point.  This week I traveled to Harrisonburg, VA with a small group of people.  We wanted to go out to eat and try something new.  We decided to use Yelp to look up highly reviewed restaurants in the area.  There were three that were highly reviewed. 

One of these restaurants was Blue Nile Ethiopian Cuisine which sounded good by the reviews.  All in the group agreed that they had never had Ethiopian food before and it would be fun to try.  Then to interesting events happened

1.  The dining experience was described as," Be prepared to eat family style with your fingers".

2.  A Yelp member had posted this picture:

As a result of these too events members of the group quickly changed their minds about going.  I asked one party member why they did not want to go anymore they stated, "I do not want to sit in a circle on the floor, taking turns feed each other baby crap with our fingers!"

I guess family style to them meant that you feed each other food and not yourself, and I admit the picture was not the best. This moment demonstrates what happens when individuals lack Inter-Culinary Competency which is the ability of successful eating with food of other cultures.

Andrew Zimmern has a phrase, "If it looks good eat it" but I have decided to add to that "if it looks good in person eat it"

1.  Can we just admit that picture are not the best gage of the quality of a food.  In cookbooks food and photos are doctored up like high end fashion models.

2.  Can we not be scared of difference, eat with your finger!

I was robbed of a new experience by people playing it safe, and such is the sad story of all food explores who eat in non-exploring groups.  I will add that the steakhouse we went to was probably one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had at a restaurant.  So, I am not bitter, if fact it taught me an important lesson, sometimes in my quest for the completely different meal I miss the subtle differences that local restaurants can have.

P.S. If you are ever in Harrisonburg, VA eat at the Local Chop & Grill House and get the ice cream sampler for me

Hot Potatoes...Save Money

As food prices continue to increase I often ponder how I might be able to feed my family well and save money.  I have many cost saving methods, the first is that I conceptualize all of my meals in terms of starch, vegetable, and protein.  I plan to explain this further in later post. 

For now let's talk about a money saving starch: Potato

They are usually pretty cheap at the store, I have paid as little as 97 cents for 10 lbs, and easy to make and not mess up.  I usually include them once a week in my meal planning, twice if I am eating a sweet potato or yam.

I also try an mix up the type of potato I eat each week: I generally see about three kinds that are cheaply priced: Russet, Yukon Gold (yellow potatoes), and Red Potatoes.  

How many ways do you know to cook potatoes?  

So Russet I use in two ways, the most obvious is bake potatoes but I also do oven wedges with them.  I have found that Bake Potato night is a great cure for lazy Thursdays (which I find to be the hardest night of the week to cook).  Here is my baked potato check list (it changes each time and is never all of them):

Broccoli
Bacon or chili
Cheese
Butter
Sour Cream/ Ranch Dressing
Salsa
Olives

 Most of these items I have on hand at all times and all of them, except Bacon or chili, require little prep work or cook time.

So yellow potatoes I love to mash, I will leave it at that

Red potatoes are my favorite.  One dish I like to make with them is Parsley Potatoes

Cut red potatoes in 1/4" slices

Boil potatoes till done, drain water

Throw some butter in that pot, enough to be delicious to you

Throw in fresh/or dried parsley (as little or as much as you like) toss it around.

I will talk about sweet potatoes another time

One last point I not sure what your feelings are about dried potato flakes but I love them for their cheapness and quickness for making mash potatoes in a pinch when you are too tired to cook.  Remember fatigue is the enemy of a family budget and increases your chances of eating out.   

Introduction

So, the question for today is why a food blog?  

I will come right out and say that there little chance that I will blow your mind with new recipes.  I am not a professional chef, I am however a foodie who search for the best recipes and methods like monks search the bible.  I apply my weird love of food to help me live well.  I have been poor for much of my adult life and have always eaten well.

There is a method to my madness.  Many people can only work from recipes and have very little flexibility in planning their weekly meals.  With food prices increasing, flexibility will become the name of the game.  I am here to explore that game as one topic of this blog.

Food is life, it is the sensory rhetoric of our childhood, our greatest moments, and failures.  Most people can name "that meal" they want on special occasion, that cookie that reminds them of love, or that meal that reminds them of the dark moments when the world could not get any worst.  The relationship between food and life is another topic of this blog.

Finally, food is taste, it is experience.  Poor people, like myself, travel with our taste buds.  I have never physically traveled to far away exotic lands but my tongue has tried.  The experience of flavor, the amazing phenomena of imagination that goes into combining raw ingredients.  The experience of food is another topic of this blog.

It is my hope that sharing together will make you hungry... to play the game, live life, and experience food. 

I am a Turkey

I take food very seriously.  One area that is of important concern is Turkeys.  A Turkey done wrong is the bane of the table. A dry barren dust bowl lacking all flavor.  That bird needs love.  The question becomes what is the message of a juicy turkey?

The turkey speaks... epic meal... even better left overs!
So... what do we do to get this mouth watering turkey, two ideas.


1.  Give that bird a bath... er in a brine
  

For the brine: Adapted from Good Eats

• 1 cup kosher or sea salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 gallon worth (Knorr cube) vegetable stock (I use Knorr blocks because they add more salt to the brine, the salter the better)
• 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns (optional)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons whole allspice berries (optional)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger (optional)
• 1 gallon heavily iced water

Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Early on the day or the night before you'd like to eat:

Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.

2.  Learn to use a probe thermometer!

the old math equations about weight and time are wrong and will always result in a dry crappy turkey

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F.

If this seems like a lot of work, well I warned you that I take food seriously, do everyone a favor and don't cook turkey