Pad Thai

Today my husband and I drove up to my parents house in North Mississippi for a short visit. We were greeted with dinner, which is always welcome. My dad made pad thai for the first time; he felt that it needed tweaked, but I really enjoyed it. He also made some condiments to go with it that I didn't photograph, such as a vinegar/sugar/pepper sauce. The recipe came from here.

North African Bean Soup

Todays soup is from the New York Times, as has been the theme this week. It is good, although I do have some comments about it.

I am not sure I like the noodles, at least as many as I added. I only added them to the bowl I was eating tonight, and so I may just leave them out as I thaw the soup. Also, it got pretty thick - it is more of a stew than a soup, I would say. Maybe it needs more liquid. I vote yes to the lemon wedges, and no to the cilantro/mint garnish. I was very light on the cayenne, and I kind of wish I had added more.

I used the extra squash just as a roasted side dish with cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar. Oh gosh, it was good. I need to do that more often.

That peeler is awesome, by the way. It made short work of the squash.

Lentil Soup

I made this for dinner tonight. I doubled the recipe, and I used 8 cups of water and 2 cups of chicken stock because it tasted a bit weak to me. I also threw in some parmesan rind. It was really good, and I am glad I doubled the recipe.

Continuing the tradition of eating what I want instead of what goes with a meal, I had beets -and- sweet potatoes. Double yum. The beets were peeled and sliced and roasted with olive oil.

Farmers Markets

I watched this last night during a moment of insomnia. It was pretty disheartening. It reminded me a lot of The Corporation, only not quite as watchable. In a nutshell, big money-hungry food corporations own almost all of the food supply and don't give a hoot whether it is safe or not. It certainly made me want to shop only at my local farmers market.

I have yet to find a market I like here as well as the one way out at the edge of North Lamar in Oxford, Mississippi. It had a pretty decent variety of fruits and vegetables, although I never seemed to buy their fruit much. They also had bulk grains which I like to use. However, most importantly to me, they had Stan's Meats. On a student budget, my husband and I never ate much meat, but we would splurge for this. Plus, you could get two 1" pork chops for a fraction of the cost of a steak, and it was just as satisfying. And it was local meat! That is a biggie, and I have no idea how to go about finding a similar place here.

I never was big on the Mid-Town Farmer's Market because I tended to sleep away my Saturday mornings. I am a late afternoon shopper, and I liked being able to go whenever I wanted. I have seen fruit/veggie stands here, most notably the one that is always on Napoleon. I somehow never have cash for it. I also have visited the Hollygrove Market, which has a box food program where you get a whole lot of veggies in a box for 20 bucks. Again, though, it is a Saturday morning thing. The Crescent City Farmers Market is uptown on Tuesday mornings, but how in the world am I supposed to get there at that time?

I hope to find a solution to all of this sometime soon. In the meantime, I am trying to be picky about what produce I buy. The movie sure made me feel guilty for putting out of season zucchini in my minestrone earlier this week.

Comeback Sauce

Something I have been doing but not posting about is eating salad. I really wanted to make some Comeback Sauce, and with some guidance from my dad I ended up using a recipe that was posted here, although I can't seem to find the actual post.

It isn't quite right. I have to do more thinking on this. I would really like it to taste like the greek salad dressing at the Mayflower in Jackson.

Cauliflower Soup

This soup ended up a little odd. I like it, but it is more of a side dish than a main dish. I suppose the reason why is that it is so heavy and rich; you can't eat a lot.

They had these really beautiful cauliflower at Whole Foods. I wish I had photographed it before I cut it up. I also added a few dashes of Tobasco to the recipe.

I was glad that I roasted some sweet potatoes to go with it. They didn't really go with the soup, but I wanted them so I went for it.

Minestrone

I am on a soup kick and as a result looked up some recipes on the New York Times website. I have this idea that I am going to make soup everyday for the next week or so and freeze a lot of it for when classes start back up in mid-January. I picked a bunch and went shopping. The ingredients all came from Rouses and Whole Foods on Magazine.

This recipe is from here.

I really regret not photographing this one, because it was pretty darn good looking. And so tasty! I made stock earlier in the week with the usual suspects: chicken parts, carrot, celery, onion, leeks. It is a really easy soup, with the most annoying part being cutting the vegetables. I ended up with 9 single dinners, 8 of which I froze.

New Years Eve Bolognese

I am going to attempt to blog what I am eating this year in New Orleans. Today is the first day!

For New Years Eve, my husband and I decided to make some bolognese and homemade pasta. Yum! The veggies were from Rouses and the meat was from Whole Foods on Magazine. The sauce simmered slowly for the entire afternoon and I ended up with 9 dinners for two total, one of which we ate, one I gifted to my brother, and the rest are in the freezer.

Our evening ended with a crazy trip to the French Quarter for some fireworks.