Cabernet Sauvignon.

Oh wait... is that not a food?

It truly SAVES me for NaBloPoMo that this month contains THE FOOD HOLIDAY and if you haven't gathered by now... I'm all about the food. If that doesn't interest you... Bye! Leave now. Come back tomorrow, maybe I won't be talking about food...

Now. I want to know about Thanksgiving TRADITIONS! This year it's just me, my mom and dad and Michael for our Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it. We all have our tasks:

My dad is Chief Executive in charge of Turkey. We don't care how he cooks it, as long as it gets done. He usually cooks it outside on the grill, although he's been known to finish in the oven... or maybe start in the oven. Not sure, don't care, it's always good no matter what he does to it.

My mom is Vice President in charge of Dressing. We don't stuff our turkey, we make dressing and in true Southern tradition, it's cornbread dressing. My dad makes the cornbread from scratch the day before.

I. I am Secretary of Everything Else. Hahaha! Well, I usually make the turkey stock that we use to moisten the dressing and to make the gravy (and I make the gravy). It's no small feat, making turkey stock. It takes all day. It's not expensive, except in sweat and time. But it's well worth it and I'm in charge of it because I'm the one willing to go to the trouble.

I'm also making our side dish, which this year, for Thanksgiving, is going to be roasted brussel sprouts, mushrooms and onions with mustard sauce.

I'm also in charge of making cranberry sauce. I make ours from a recipe I got from Martha Stewart who got it from someone named Sara Foster and what makes it great is that you put jalapeno jelly and fresh herbs in it. It's just... it's outstanding and more than almost anything else, I cannot wait to have it!

We're also going to have avocado and grapefruit salad with poppy seed dressing, but that's... that's not a cooking thing. You just put it together and my mom even thinks she's already got some poppy seed dressing in the freezer.

We also buy our rolls. We buy the butterflake dinner rolls that are more like croissants in roll form. My dad used to make those yeast rolls and they are good, but they take up a stupendous amount of time and counter space in the kitchen to make and it seemed like WAY too much work for something that is very much... not the focus of the meal. So we buy them, we like them just as much and don't have so much leftover.

We always debate about dessert. It's SO not the focus of our Thanksgiving celebration and none of us ever wants too much leftover. So we discuss and argue. This year we've decided on pumpkin pie because we've never had it since Michael's been old enough to enjoy the meal with us and as it turns out, he loves pumpkin pie. So we're having that. I'm going to make it.

My mom told me her mother had traditional things she always made. She always made the cranberry gel salad that had like... it was a cherry jello with cranberries, celery, pecans, waterchestnuts and pineapple in it molded into a ring and served on a bed of lettuce. I know. It sounds vaguely horrifying. I think it's good, we had it for many years and maybe I'm just used to it. We don't fool with it anymore, though, and haven't for years. It's a lot of trouble and there are too many other things we'd rather spend our time and digestive real estate on.

Apparently they also always had to have Waldorf salad and Ambrosia. Ew. I am NOT a big fan of either of those. I could eat them, but definitely, definitely NOT something I'd really want to waste precious stomach space on. No way. Give me my dad's turkey, my mom's dressing and my gravy. YUM!

We're a kind of an alcohol-centric family so whenever there's a holiday and we have the opportunity to drink all day... we do! It is tradition in our family to drink milk punch in the morning while preparing turkey and dressing. Milk punch is basically... sweetened milk with nutmeg and some bourbon.

This year, I think I'm going to go for my modified mimosa. Which is... champagne, orange juice and a little splash of pomegranate blueberry juice. Yeehee! I can't wait!!!

So? Any one else want to share about their Thanksgiving traditions?

I'd head straight for the produce section and spend my three minutes there grabbing up as much salad and/or salsa ingredients as I could... and some fruit. Our produce section also has lots of fresh shelled nuts and good dried fruit so I'd grab that, too.

The bakery is right next to the produce section so hopefully I'd have a little time to grab up a few loaves of their fresh artisan bread... some ciabatta, french bread and pumpernickel.

Yes, I know... I haven't managed to keep up with NaBloPoMo. But that's okay. I will still post about food whenever I can. And today is the day!

I made a great breakfast today.

I started with a World's Largest Bloody Mary.


The food portion of this fabulous weekend breakfast is a toasted "everything" bagel topped with frizzled brown sugar baked ham, a fried egg and smoked provolone cheese.



Note the golden, oozy egg dribbling out of that. YUM!



I think this might've been slightly improved with a little schmear of green olive cream cheese on the bagel and then after the cheese melted, a thin slice of cold, rich, ripe tomato. But I didn't have either of those things... it was still delicious. Next time, though, I'll plan to make those two additions.

Also, I have to post this because last night I bought some truly perfect roses. These are so gorgeous I can hardly stand it. Texas is famous for roses in summer. They grow them up near Tyler and you can get achingly perfect roses for anywhere from $6 to $9 per dozen. They don't smell like much but they're so beautiful they make your heart melt.

I usually prefer the peach colored roses with the red edges, but these pink roses with the red edges were too gorgeous to pass up. And this whole dozen cost me only $9. Worth EVERY penny.

We ate lunch a new sushi bar and grill this afternoon. The food was wonderful. I had miso soup that was extremely tasty and then a bento box lunch with teryaki salmon that was also delicious. It came with a little cabbage salad, some rice, California rolls and some tempura. The tempura was beautifully cooked. It was super light and crispy and the sauce they served with it was salty and a little bit sweet... delicious!

Unfortunately, the service was just dismal. It was really too bad because I'm pretty sure the little girl who waited on us wanted to do a much better job, but the restaurant was extremely busy and she didn't seem to have much experience. She apologized a lot but it was still difficult to get things like soy sauce or my dad's beer.

Apparently this is typical of this town. New restaurants open and EVERYBODY goes but the talent pool for wait staff is very small so the service is never good. Such a shame... it mars an otherwise wonderful meal.

I did make the mistake of wearing a white shirt today, though. White shirt + soy sauce = brown spots on white shirt. I swear, it wasn't even that I dribbled! The shirt JUMPED out towards the soy sauce. Really!

I don't have a picture to post of my dinner tonight because I didn't eat any... but that's not interesting.

Michael had swimming today with his daycamp and between that and the past two nights he hasn't gotten to bed until 9pm, he was EXTRA tired today. He fell asleep in the car on the way home almost instantly. So I wanted to get him fed, bathed and into bed quickly tonight and since I knew I wasn't going to be eating anything, I just got him a dinner from Sonic.

While we were there we saw a taxi at one of the bays. There was a girl in the backseat of the taxi. Apparently this girl wanted to eat at Sonic so badly she'd called a taxi to take her there. Wow. I like Sonic, I particularly like certain of their items and drinks. But I'm pretty sure it's not worth calling a taxi over.

It wasn't a very special dinner, nor was it artfully prepared or beautifully garnished. But it was extremely tasty and I didn't have to cook or really do any dishes beyond rinsing out the cup I ate my soup in and putting it in the dishwasher.

And it was healthy and mostly fat-free. It was not meat-free, though. There's ham on the bagel. But it's low fat deli ham and only four thin slices, so it barely counts and doesn't count at all as far as my stomach is concerned. Which is now pleasantly full.

I think I might've gotten a bit too much salt in the soup... with the cheese blend on it it's quite a bit too salty. I still love it and still eat it, but after eating only a tiny bit I had to glug down two of giant glasses of ice water.

This dinner was so vegetarian I'm pretty sure it's vegan. Well... maybe not, but very, very close. Either way, it was extremely tasty. Way tastier than it even looks, believe me!



And, look! No tomatoes! No avocados! I know!

Okay, the soup is garlic, onion, celery, carrot, fresh corn, crimini mushrooms, vegetarian broth, white wine, ditalini pasta and TONS of flat leaf parsley... topped with a sprinkle of three cheese blend. Supporting role here from an extra toasty piece of my dad's homemade, extra sour sourdough bread and lovely glass of Kendall-Jackson Zinfandel which is just heavenly.

This was a better meal than a Monday deserves, but the good news is it made a TON and I can eat this soup all week and not have to cook any more. Which is good. Because it doesn't look like I'm going to have time anyway.

Tonight's dinner was back to vegetarian.



On the left is a beet, blue cheese and walnut salad. I cheated and used pickled beets, but that's okay, I love pickled beets. I put down a bed of spinach and added in some mushrooms... 'cause... I had them. I drizzled the spinach and mushrooms with homemade red wine vinaigrette. I think some hard-boiled egg slices might've enhanced it a bit, too, but I didn't think of that until later when I was looking at the picture.

The item on the right is a whole wheat tortilla with the spicy vegetarian bean mixture from last week topped with some leftover roasted vegetables (potato, carrot, squash) and then sprinkled with jack cheese. It was okay. Good use up for leftovers, but nothing special. I should've put some good salsa on it.

The salad was the best part.

We didn't end up eating at home on Saturday. Michael spent the night at the neighbor's and ate breakfast there. I didn't eat anything... can't remember why.

In the afternoon, we went to see Wall-E, which was very sweet and adorably cute... typical of Pixar... and afterwards we had an early dinner at Chili's. I just had a hamburger and a beer and Michael had a cheese pizza which he only ate three-quarters of (barely) because he ate an entire bag of M&M's while watching the movie. I'd gotten a medium bag of popcorn for myself and you'd think since I hadn't had anything to eat I would've gobbled up every scrap of that popcorn, but I only ate a little of it; kind of a waste actually. It just wasn't hitting the spot. Someone somewhere around us ate one of those giant pickles, though, I could smell it. I didn't think anyone ever really ate those, but I guess so.

Anyway, Chili's was good, their burgers never disappoint. I've been really CRAVING beef the last few days which I had sworn not to eat! But I guess it makes sense... I'm needing the iron. I should've taken my supplement. The burger didn't upset my stomach, though, so it was okay. Well... much, anyway.

Later in the evening we went back out and got sundaes at Sonic. I had told Michael we'd go to Marble Slab Creamery but we were both too full right after dinner and later... meh, it was easier to go to Sonic and Michael NEVER finishes what he gets at Marble Slab anyway.

He got a little chocolate sundae and I got a little caramel sundae. Vanilla and caramel together is my top favorite thing ever. What was funny, though, was on the way home, Michael said, "I thought you were going to get a beer float?" Ummm... ew. I said, "Oh you mean, a rootbeer float? Yes, I was going to get that, wasn't I?" And I explained that I should have because the rootbeer float is really the only thing at Sonic that's good. Everything else just has too much of a synthetic flavor. You just know they get giant foil pouches of their dessert sauces that have been created in some factory without the addition of any naturally occurring substances. And yes, the caramel tasted like that. It was TOO buttery and TOO sweet without any other flavor. I know that hardly seems possible, but it definitely lacked that rich, deep caramel flavor.

I told Michael, now I know better and I will always get the rootbeer float because it's the only thing they have that's good.

Since Erik doesn't like hot dogs... we ate some for him.

These are the all beef kosher hot dogs I mentioned. I think they taste way better than any other hot dog, with the exception of bratwurst which is really sausage and not a hot dog except that you eat it the same way.

And yeah, I went ahead and ate them even though I haven't been eating meat. Which just means... I have been. But it's okay. My stomach thought these were kosher, too, and didn't have a fit.

No, I didn't eat all three of them... one was for Michael.



Happy 4th of July!!!

I haven't really had dinner tonight or even... any kind of meal at all today. I've eaten some things. It's been a crazy busy day.

I had my usual noodles for breakfast and I had kind of thought we'd be leaving work early today, which we did... but not, lunchtime early. So by about 12:30pm I was starving and still had a long way to go. Luckily I had some leftover mushroom ragout and soft polenta in the fridge at work so I had that.

Then, we did leave work a little early, although, not very early. But we went to Chili's for cocktails, although, early cocktails. I had a gin martini. I shared a plate of Chili's Southwestern Eggrolls with my friend. I didn't even realize how hungry I was until I'd quickly inhaled half the plate of the eggrolls. Because, they're brilliantly delicious for one thing and also, apparently I was pretty hungry.

Later, I had a glass of wine. More of what I had last night.

Then we came home, VERY late for us and I fed Michael some chicken nuggets, cheese, orange juice and... he ate some chips, too.

It's nearly 11pm and I roasted some vegetables for myself, but so far have had only smashed up grapes in a glass for dinner. I WILL eat some of the vegetables before I go to bed, though, because I've already learned that wine for dinner makes for a MISERABLE following day and not in the way you think. My stomach, more tempramental than Naomi Campbell AND John McEnroe put together, simply will not tolerate me drinking my dinner, no matter how much I'd like to from time to time.

We got home kinda late tonight because we had to go all the way across town to Target to get Michael some new swim trunks. Yesterday was water play day at school and he managed to come home with everything he went with... except his swim trunks. Which wasn't a huge deal because those trunks were very nearly too small for him. It's better that he remembered to bring home his expensive Crocs than the outgrown swim trunks. But he needed new ones tonight because tomorrow he's going to spend the day with his favorite babysitter and she has a new pool in her back yard. I'm hoping she'll let him swim ALL day; I'm going to hand him over to her tomorrow morning with a full can of spray sunblock (50+).

So since we got home so late tonight, I wasn't in the mood to cook, and certainly not anything noteworthy. I could have had leftovers and I should have... but my avocados are more quickly spoiling so I just whipped up my favorite: avocado smashed on a toasted Everything bagel.



The Kendall Jackson Zinfandel really jazzed things up, though. Heavenly.

But even though my dinner wasn't very fancy, my dessert was. Well, first of all... the very fact that I even had dessert was pretty fancy because I never do. But these strawberries looked particularly luscious. And I had an idea for just how I thought they'd be tastiest.



I made the cream from cream cheese, ricotta cheese, heavy cream, honey and lemon zest. I masserated the strawberries with sugar and a splash of port wine. I served it with three little vanilla cookies and a slice of lemon.

Refreshing and sweet, creamy and a little bit tart. Perfect summer dessert.

Michael's dinner:



This is oozy, gooey, buttery Muenster cheese between two buttered and toasted slices of my dad's homemade sourdough bread (that is extra sour) and some spiced ziggy fries. I cooked it in my contact grill so I'm calling it a panini... as opposed to a grilled cheese sammitch.

My dinner:



This is oozy, gooey, tangy Swiss cheese, smoked turkey breast, sauerkraut, homemade roasted red pepper vinaigrette and spicy brown mustard artfully arranged between slices of extra sour homemade sourdough bread and toasted panini-style. Plus a little dish of left over super tangy gazpacho with an avocado that was mere hours from going bad, but that was actually creamy and tasty.

If I'd known July's NaBloPoMo topic was going to be food, I would definitely have thrown over June's home theme to do this one. But since I didn't complete June's NaBloPoMo, I guess it doesn't matter. It's not always such a stretch for me to post everyday... well, I know, there were days when my content sucked because I was just posting to post. But food! My God, I could talk about food for a month at least. One of my MOST favorite topics. This blog is practically all about food as it is and it's very handy that I'm currently on a meat-free food adventure. So!

Segueing nicely from June (where I posted about food half the time anyway) into July which IS all about food, I end and begin with: FOOD.

Tonight's recipe: Mushroom Ragout with Soft Polenta

I'm sorry this picture is kind of lurid because of all the meat-free things I've made recently this was the most delicious.



I'm not sure which to say is the best part, the polenta or the ragout. The polenta is soft and creamy and outstandingly delicious. The ragout has very rich, deep, slightly tangy flavor that compliments the creaminess of the polenta beautifully.

The recipe is from the April 2005 issue of Cuisine at Home magazine. They present their recipes in a very particular way, so I'll just do it their way.

Mushroom Ragout with Soft Polenta
Makes 2 C. Ragout and 2 C. Polenta
Time: 40 minutes

For the Ragout
Saute in 2 T. Olive Oil:

1/4 c. shallots, sliced
1 lb. assorted mushrooms, sliced or quartered (4 cups)

Add; Finish with:

3/4 c. tomatoes, diced (I just used a one can of diced tomatoes in sauce)
1/2 c. vegetable broth
1/4 c. dry sherry or Madeira (I didn't have either, I just used some Chardonnay I had leftover)
2 t. balsamic vinegar
1 t. tomato paste
1 T. chopped fresh parsley
1 t. minced fresh thyme (I used some dried oregano instead)

For the Polenta
Bring to a boil; whisk in:

1 c. vegetable broth
1 c. heavy cream
1/2 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
Pinch of white pepper (I went ahead and used black pepper and plenty of it)
1/2 c. yellow corn meal
2 T. cream cheese, cubed (I used a reduced fat)
2 T. Parmesan cheese, grated (I used three cheese blend I already had)

For the Ragout: Saute shallots in 1 T. oil in a large saute pan over medium heat until soft. Increase heat to high, add half the mushrooms and saute until browned; remove from pan. Add additional T. of oil to the pan and saute remaining mushrooms, then return the reserved mushrooms to the pan. Add tomatoes, broth, sherry, vinegar and tomato paste. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Finish with herbs and seasonings.

For the Polenta: Bring broth, cream and seasonings to a boil in a saucepan. Whisk in cornmeal; reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes stirring often. Fold in cheeses before serving.

It sounds like a lot of work and having two pots going at one time might seem like too much going on at once... I thought so when I set out to make this. But it's not really that big a deal if you get all your ingredients out first and you buy sliced mushrooms. It's easy enough to make the polenta while the ragout simmers and then they're both done together and both hot.

There's not a lot of variation in texture in this dish... it's all pretty soft. But no moreso than spaghetti or lots of other pasta dishes. Crunch could be added with some toasty garlic bread.

We visited at my mom and dad's for Father's Day. We don't need too much of an excuse to really fix some high-order food and we sure did today.

We started with... my mom was craving some smoked salmon with sour cream, green onion and caviar on baguette and I had seen something last week on TV about mussels, so I brought a pound and a half of mussels and steamed them with a ton of garlic, shallot, butter and white wine. That was ALL GOOD.

For dinner we had my dad's brisket cooked the RIGHT way this time which was just heavenly. HEAVENLY! Mom made baked beans and I brought broccoli salad. All of it so good we ate way too much.

But we still had to eat banana pie. My dad's favorite. And I totally made up the crust. I put vanilla wafer cookies, toasted pecans and brown sugar in the food processor and ground that up, then drizzled in some melted butter. I pressed that into a pie plate and blind baked it and chilled it over night. I lined the crust with about two and half sliced bananas and then poured in banana creme pudding/pie filling. When we served it, I whipped fresh cream with sugar and Mexican vanilla. It was gloppy and rich, buttery, sweet and very, very banana. YUM!

We also had some great wine and I had just one glass too many because now my head hurts.

Off to bed to start a new and exhausting week early tomorrow!

It's probably more accurate to call this maki, although, I did put shrimp in the rolls... it is cooked shrimp. And, btw, yes... they are extremely tasty!

Plain plate of sushi.


Sushi in a little dish of tamari with a dab of wasabi.


I made a salad out of the leftover shrimp and vegetables and put ginger-lime dressing on it.


The sushi has a piece of cucumber, grated carrot, shrimp and avocado.

I can always tell when my little kid is growing because he eats so much I can't believe it. Tonight for dinner he had four baked chicken nuggets, a handful of green beans, a piece of 2% cheese, a cup of mandarin oranges and a cup of calcium-fortified orange juice. Then for dessert he had TWO brownies and a cup of 2% milk. Wow.

For myself I made Chicken Helper fried rice with just vegetables. I hadn't thawed any chicken so I just added in some frozen corn and peas. I had two chicken eggrolls with it.

My stomach is in a SORRY state. I had three glasses of wine on Saturday night late. It was WELL after dinner before I even had one glass of wine but I guess having three glasses was too many because then Sunday when I got up and had a glass of juice it immediately sent my digestive system into a maelstrom of discomfort that has lasted all the way until now. It's made studying incredibly difficult.

I can't seem to fix it. I've taken Alka Seltzer, Pepto-Bismol, Mylanta and numerous Rolaids. I'm still miserable.

I purchased a bottle of pro-biotic dietary supplements today, if those don't help me feel better VERY quickly I'm going to the doctor. Actually I think I may go anyway. It would make sense to just avoid things that seem to cause me a problem, but it's getting more and more difficult to know for sure what that is. Besides, I'm not anxious to just give up wine. I've already given up fried foods, barbequed ribs and pulled pork, if I have to add wine to that list I'm REALLY going to be unhappy. I'll probably have to anyway. *sigh* As things stand today I'd agree to a total removal of my entire digestive system. I need the medicinal equivalent of RidX or Liquid Plumber or something. Jeesh.

Stole this food meme from blogfriend, Sari! Thanks, Sari!

Favorite Gourmet Item: Spicy shrimp sushi and summer rolls from the Sushiya stand in HEB+ OR dark chocolate covered espresso beans

Favorite Snack at Home: Gardetto's Garlic Rye Chips

Favorite Fastfood item: Super Sonic Breakfast Burrito or chili cheese tots with jalapenos

Favorite Food When Driving: Eating and driving not good.

Favorite Food With a Beer (or other libation - please specify): Grilled bratwurst with carmelized onions with a beer or prime rib with dusty dry cabernet

Favorite Food for Invoking Romantic Intentions: Oysters on the half shell

Least Favorite Food: Eggplant

Food that Conjures a Childhood Memory: Chicken fried steak with cream gravy over white rice and canned spinach with lemon juice.

Food that Conjures a Sad Memory: Well, first of all, food isn't sad. That's why the Food Network is the greatest TV channel ever. But if I have to pick something: I was eating a sausage soup I made once and broke a tooth that then cost me a bunch of money to fix. That was kinda sad.

Food that Conjures a Happy Memory: Brisket, potato salad, baked beans