Foodmomiac

Looking back at the Food Challenge of 2006

Yesterday after work, I headed over to a local nail salon to get a pedicure for our spring break trip. While there, I passed the time reading People Magazine. There was an article in there about Matthew McConaughey, and for some reason, he brought up a list of life resolutions that he created when he was much younger. It was a list of five items, and I was somewhat shocked to read that he had accomplished all of them. 

I have to say that reading that made me feel a little bit lame. This is because the other night I was reading back some of the earliest posts on my blog. I'm not sure why I took this journey back in time, but it was actually pretty interesting. One of the posts I found included some food resolutions. It was the 2006 food challenge. I was horrified to realize that I hadn't accomplished any of them. I'm thinking it might be time to revisit this challenge. Here is the blurb:

Here are my five:

1. Use my mandoline to do anything. I got a gorgeous stainless steel mandoline for my birthday a few years ago and used it once. It scares me. I look at that thing and get instant gory visions of slicing off a finger.

2. Use my mandoline to make waffle fries. These seem impossibly difficult to make.

3. Use the pasta roller I bought on eBay to make homemade pasta, preferably a stuffed pasta from the eGullet eGCI stuffed pasta course.

4. Make bagels. I just read about homemade bagels on eGullet this morning (yes, I'm addicted), and now I need to make some.

5. Make homemade jello with real fruit juice. I also read about this today (in The Wednesday Chef)and it sounds awesome. I think Dylan would love to help.

 

Do you guys have any cooking resolutions? Anyone want to help me get over my mandoline fear?

Mystery House Mystery SOLVED

Well, folks, nearly a year after I put the mystery out there, I have finally solved it. I finally know what is going on with the mysterious glass house on my block.

On Saturday at about 12:45 pm, Dylan got picked up by a friend to go to a birthday party. As I walked her out of the house, I noticed multiple police cars and some cops standing on the street. I assumed that one of the cars parked on the street had been side swiped, but then Dylan's friend's babysitter pointed out a giant 'ol hole in one of the windows of the glass house:

All day Saturday, the kids and I speculated on what had gone down. Max's guess was that someone punched it really hard. Dylan decided that someone threw a brick through it. I assumed it was a projectile as well, but thought that it had been thrown from the inside out, as there was a lot of glass on the cement outside the house.

Yesterday afternoon, I took the dog out for a walk and decided to snap the above photo. The woman who lives next door to the glass house saw me and came over to say hi/commiserate. Turns out, she know all about the tenants of the house! I nearly hugged her as she spilled it.

The house is being rented, currently, by a somewhat trashy cougar-ish woman who dresses way younger than she is, and is living with her boyfriend (possibly husband - sounds like he is a lot younger than she is). She also has three teenage sons. The mom is rarely home, and the sons have apparently been given free range to party as much as they like.

This past Friday night, that partying got totally out of control. At about 3:45am, there was a ton of shouting and screaming out on the street. Four cars had their tires slashed (all four on each car!), and then one of the giant blue planters was thrown through the window (you can see the sister planter still sitting in front of the house in the above photo). The cops that I saw Saturday afternoon were dealing with the tire slashing.

The lovely neighbor and I chatted a bit on the sidewalk, and we came up with a few next steps. She is going to talk "mom to mom" with the trashy mother. I am going to attempt to email the owner of the home. I don't think he has any clue about what has been going down in that house, but as owner, I think it is his responsibility to step in and try to resolve things.

What would you guys do??

Well, folks, nearly a year after I put the mystery out there, I have finally solved it. I finally know what is going on with the mysterious glass house on my block.

On Saturday at about 12:45 pm, Dylan got picked up by a friend to go to a birthday party. As I walked her out of the house, I noticed multiple police cars and some cops standing on the street. I assumed that one of the cars parked on the street had been side swiped, but then Dylan's friend's babysitter pointed out a giant 'ol hole in one of the windows of the glass house:

All day Saturday, the kids and I speculated on what had gone down. Max's guess was that someone punched it really hard. Dylan decided that someone threw a brick through it. I assumed it was a projectile as well, but thought that it had been thrown from the inside out, as there was a lot of glass on the cement outside the house.

Yesterday afternoon, I took the dog out for a walk and decided to snap the above photo. The woman who lives next door to the glass house saw me and came over to say hi/commiserate. Turns out, she know all about the tenants of the house! I nearly hugged her as she spilled it.

The house is being rented, currently, by a somewhat trashy cougar-ish woman who dresses way younger than she is, and is living with her boyfriend (possibly husband - sounds like he is a lot younger than she is). She also has three teenage sons. The mom is rarely home, and the sons have apparently been given free range to party as much as they like.

This past Friday night, that partying got totally out of control. At about 3:45am, there was a ton of shouting and screaming out on the street. Four cars had their tires slashed (all four on each car!), and then one of the giant blue planters was thrown through the window (you can see the sister planter still sitting in front of the house in the above photo). The cops that I saw Saturday afternoon were dealing with the tire slashing.

The lovely neighbor and I chatted a bit on the sidewalk, and we came up with a few next steps. She is going to talk "mom to mom" with the trashy mother. I am going to attempt to email the owner of the home. I don't think he has any clue about what has been going down in that house, but as owner, I think it is his responsibility to step in and try to resolve things.

What would you guys do??

Max rides a bike!

At the risk of sounding sexist, teaching a boy how to ride a bike was 400 times easier than teaching a girl. This might have more to do my actual kids (and I'm sure it does), but teaching Dylan was traumatic for all involved. There were tears, there was shouting. It was horrific.

Teaching Maxie? Actually, I didn't even have to teach Maxie. I put him on the bike, he started pedaling, and I let go. Done and done. The video below is from his third try. We still need to work on starting and stopping, but I'm pretty proud of us.

 

Friday Night Ritual

I am about to put my computer down for the day, but I thought I'd share a bit about what goes down in our house every Friday night. The kids (especially Max) hold us steadfast to this ritual, and throw a total shitfit if we even suggest changing it up. We used to go out to dinner on Friday nights, but that is no longer the case. Our NEW Friday night ritual is Chinese food delivery. And it can't be just ANY Chinese food delivery. There are some very specific requirements:

• The food must be ordered from Silver Seafood.
• Max needs an order of seafood potstickers all to himself (I forgot to order these last week and was rewarded with crocodile tears and heartbreak).
• There shall always be Orange Beef and BBQ pork fried rice.

The above requirements offer little room for branching out. Silver Seafood happens to have an extensive authentic menu (as opposed to the American Chinese menu that hosts all of the above items). I usually try to order at least one new dish to accompany the standards, and my family bears with me, with just the occasional rolled eye.

Off to order the food - have a great weekend folks!

Quick, Cheap, Yummy Dinner: Tostadas

This is less a recipe than a method, but everyone loved it, so I had to share. Over the weekend, we watched the Rick Bayless show, Mexico, One Plate at a Time. Cooking shows are one of the few things we all enjoy watching, and this was a great one to watch together because it also was about travel and culture, and the kids were tickled that Bayless lives in Chicago.

Tostadas are so easy to make. We are lucky to live in a city with a big Mexican population. It means that fresh tostada shells are available in the supermarket. If they aren't available near you, you can make your own by frying corn tortillas until crispy.

I heated some oil in a pan and added mashed garlic and some chopped green pepper. Once fragrant, I added 2 cans of black beans and mashed it all up a bit with a potato masher. That got pushed to a back burner and left on low.

The next piece is protein. You can use shredded leftover chicken or steak, or you can do what we did tonight and just cook up some chorizo.

Take a tostada, spread it with the beans, top with the meat, and then garnish! Our garnish was sliced avocado, shredded cheese and some lettuce that was tossed with sour cream and hot sauce.

What have you all been eating this week?

Featured ingredient: Quick bacon crumbles

It's well over 60 degrees today in Chicago, and in honor of that, we are grilling steaks outside. I decided to make some twice-baked potatoes to accompany the steaks, and since we have lots of bacon in the fridge, bacon crumbles will be a key ingredient.

That said, I didn't want to fry up the bacon on my stovetop or bake it in the oven (my usual go-to method). Grilling should decrease the number of pots and pans in my sink, and the thought of bacon grease stinking up the house wasn't appealing. My answer? The microwave.

I lined a plate with a paper towel, topped it with four slices of bacon and put another paper towel on top. This was microwaved for four minutes on high (one minute per slice). The bacon came out crisp as can be, and all of the grease was absorbed into the towel. I quickly crumbled up the bacon, and it is now sitting on my counter ready to be put into my potato dish. Easy, easy, with no bacon smell at all.