Archive for May, 2009

I’ve been making my own version of tabbouleh for a few years.  It’s one of the only ways to ensure we’re getting enough veggies in on a regular basis.  This is a great way to use up whatever fresh veggies you have in your fridge and can consist of many different variations.  Mine isn’t really authentic, but it works for us.  We joke that we should really call it “fauxbouleh” instead of tabbouleh.  This is the version I made today.

1/2 cup medium fine bulgar wheat (you can also you couscous if you don’t have bulgar)
1 seedless cucumber – diced in small pieces
2 cups grape tomatoes – finely chopped
1 bunch green onions – finely chopped
handful of cilantro – finely chopped
handful of flat leaf parsley – finely chopped
1/3 cup feta crumbles
2 lemons – juiced
1/3-1/2 cup olive oil (depending on how much lemon juice you get – you want a 2 to 1 ratio of oil to lemon juice)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Salt – to taste
pepper – to taste

1. Put bulgar wheat in a bowl and cover with boiling water and set aside for 30 minutes.
   
2. In the bottom of a large bowl (with a lid…you’ll be putting this in the fridge) whisk the juice of two lemons, olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon zest.  Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.  It should be lemony, but not bitter.
3. Check the bulgar wheat – it should be soft and chewy, but not hard.  Drain it into a small strainer and press down to remove the excess water.
   
4. Whisk bulgar wheat into the lemon/oil mixture.
5. Add cucumbers, tomatoes, green onions and mix thoroughly.
   
6. Add the cilantro and parsley and mix together. (Mint is traditional..use it if you like it)
7. Sprinkle crumbled feta and mix again.
8. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour and serve.  Stays good in fridge for about 3 days.
   

If I have carrots, I will chop them with my food chopper and add them too.  About 1 cup finely chopped.
Enjoy!

It’s Spring, which means it’s time to start clearing out all the dead things in my yard that have collected there since last summer.  This includes the cigarette butt collection from my Deck Goose courtesy of You Know Who (and I don’t mean Voldemort)

I get really overwhelmed by yard projects, perhaps it stems from having to do yard work as punishment when I was a kid.  (Imagine raking a front yard with 11 giant trees every weekend in the Fall.  It would make even a strong adult sob like a baby) I just don’t like digging in the dirt all that much either and I don’t have the patience to weed or prune or whatever else it is people do with their yards.  I like arranging planters and putting flowers in pots, but that’s about the extent of my yard interest.  I don’t like bugs.  Or worms. Or caterpillars. Or dead birds.

This year, I decided I would take a different approach in dealing with the wilderness that is my backyard.  I would divide it in sections and concentrate on fixing up one section at at time. This way I am tackling a “do-able” project instead of overwhelming myself with the amount of work that needs to be done.  Doesn’t that sound like a smart, effective plan?  I’m taking the advice of two people who suggested that I try this with some personal things I’m working through and I decided it was a good plan for the yard too.  As you can see from the photos, I have a BIG job ahead of me.

This is the side of my garage and my plan was to clear out the ugly rocks, pull all the weeds and cut out the roots of the bushes and Rose of Sharon plants that used to be there but died (not my fault. ok, yes it was), place a new layer of the weed guard down and then put new red mulch. Then I thought that mulch just blows around and maybe I should invest in red pebbles or rocks.  My plan is to put a few large planters there with an azalea or a rose (can you put rose bushes in planters??) or just begonias. I really like peonies, so maybe some of those.   I’m choosing the planters over just putting them in the ground because of the digging in the dirt issue.  Is that wrong of me?  Should I just get over it and plant them in the ground?  I do want them to live (that would be a change for me.  I tend to kill all growing things)  Regardless of the “in the ground” or “planter” dilemma, I’m debating between the red mulch or the rocks.  Any input from the peanut gallery?

This is just opposite the picture above and is just around my deck.  Jose cut down a HUGE bush that was about 4 feet tall.  I am doing the same thing here…cleaning up the rocks, weeds and putting new weed guard and a layer or rocks or mulch.  Again, I’ll just put planters or nothing. I like the look of clean, pretty landscaping.  We’ll put some more solar lights out here to light up the yard and it should go a long way in making the back yard more appealing.

I’ll be back with “after” photos soon and then pictures of the next two sections.

Today I decided to make one of the dishes I had in Italy last year.  It was penne with eggplant, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil. It was delicious (as was most of the food we had!) and I’ve been thinking about it lately as a nice, summery meal.  Today I was at the Farmer’s Market and the eggplants looked nice, so I thought it was time to try.

Here’s a photo of the original dish from Capri, ItalyI’m not including the recipe here yet because I haven’t perfected it, but I will give you the details about my attempt.  The first thing I did (and did incorrectly) was to cube the eggplant.  I cut mine into too small cubes AND I didn’t use the skin.  I couldn’t remember if the dish had the eggplant skin so I removed it from my pieces and later when I consulted the photo, the skin was used.  The biggest problem with my version was that I waaaaaay overcooked the eggplant.  Perhaps not having the skin affected the cooking time or I just plain old overcooked it.  Either way, it wasn’t great.

I also didn’t get the lovely, deep color that is shown in the above photo. I think this is an olive oil problem. I imagine the quality of the Italian olive oil is much better than the extra virgin olive oil I’m using. I’m going to look for a high end, really amazing quality olive oil for finishing dishes. Any suggestions on brands?

The last thing that affected the final taste was the use of grape tomatoes instead of Roma tomatoes.  I just don’t like the taste of large chunks of cooked tomato and I LOVE grape tomatoes.  In the end, the grape tomatoes were too sweet and completely altered the taste of the dish. I also added sliced mushrooms because I thought they would fit right into this dish, and they did.  Here’s attempt #1.

See the mushy eggplant blobs (can’t even call them cubes) in this photo?

This sounds all doom and gloom, but the dish was really tasty, just not a perfect re-creation of the one I was attempting. For try #2 I will adjust the size of the eggplant chunks (and cook it LATER in the veggie sauteing process), use Roma tomatoes and find a better quality olive oil.  I also used a smooth penne instead of penne rigate with the ridges.

My friend Stephanie had twins (Jack and Caroline) about 5 weeks ago, and today I finally got to visit them! And hold them. And squeeze them. And snuggle with them. It was a good day. They are great babies, very calm (at least today!) and agreeable and generally good natured.

Here are some photos of the babies:

We also had an opportunity to taste some delicious cupcakes.  A friend of Stephanie’s just started her own cupcake bakery…they deliver to the Chicago-area.  We sampled a few cupcakes:  the ooey gooey (caramel and sea salt), red velvet with creamcheese frosting, everybody loves chocolate wtih a chocolate merengue frosting.  The chocolate one was really good because there was a lot of frosting, but it wasn’t very sweet.  It tasted like a semisweet/bittersweet mousse.  You can browse the cupcake flavors here.

Since I’ve shared pictures of my desk at school…here and here…it’s only fair to show my desk at home.  So here it is.  This is the general state of my desk, too.  Sometimes I have a cup or plate, but this is as neat as I can usually keep it. Don’t you love my use of boxes as a stacking element?

This is my favorite keyboard in the whole world and I’ve had it for almost seven years.  There are worn out spots where the heel of my palm rests.  I’ve been through a few of these keyboards including a black one where all the letters wore off.  After using an ergonomic keyboard for about ten years, it’s really difficult to type on a regular one now.