My grandmother used to eat two fried eggs for breakfast every day. However, about 15 or 20 years ago, when her doctor told her to ease up on the cholesterol, she made the switch to oatmeal and never looked back. While she adored her oatmeal, every now and then she would get tired of eating the same thing every day. She started getting really creative with the toppings she put it in it. She would throw in whatever she could find to mix things up a bit. “Everything but the kitchen sink oatmeal” is what I called it. Well, her fondness for oatmeal rubbed off on me, and I eat it nearly every day as well (I even eat it for dinner sometimes). And like her, I like to try different combinations of toppings to keep things interesting.
Today I made one of my favorite combinations. It had half of a chopped up granny smith apple, almond milk, some dried cherries and cranberries, some chopped pecans, cinnamon, nutmeg, a pinch of brown sugar, and a splash of vanilla.
There’s a Farmers’ Market every Thursday during the summer by my office. If you show up a few minutes before it closes, you can get some great deals. I couldn’t pass up a huge bag of peaches for $3. I think I got about 15 peaches. A few nectarines snuck in there as well.
When I got home I had a bit of buyer’s remorse. I was thinking that there is no way Kyle and I can eat all of these before they go bad, and in my experience, peaches go bad pretty quickly. In an attempt to use up as many peaches as possible, I decided to make a gigantor peach crisp!
I cut up several peaches (probably 5 or 6) and placed them in a baking dish.
For the topping I mixed a 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, a 1/2 cup of oatmeal, a 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 5 tablespoons of earth balance, and about a tablespoon or so of cinnamon. I sprinkled on the topping and baked it for about a half an hour or forty minutes on 375.
It was so easy to make, and quite tasty!
I added a couple of scoops of vanilla frozen yogurt to mine.
I just went to book my King Lear tickets and I found out that the only time it will be showing when we’re in London is at 1:30 in the afternoon. I was really hoping we could see it at night. Lear is just one of the those plays you want to see in the dark! Oh well, better Lear during the day than no Lear at all. However, I still wasn’t able to book our tickets. Something is wrong with the website. I’ll have to try again tomorrow. Damn, I really wanted to check that off of my list…
I do, however, have some things to add:
17.) Make British Invasion soundtrack.
18.) Notify the bank of trip out of the country so they don’t freak out if I buy a cup of coffee in London.
In other news (if you can call it that), I made a delicious Asian “Ficken” salad tonight:
I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com, but I made some slight alterations to suit my fancy. Instead of bok choy I used cabbage and I added red bell pepper and cilantro, and subtracted the water chestnuts (gag!). And of course I replaced the chicken with “ficken” (just as good, and cruelty free). We didn’t have any soy sauce for the dressing either so I just put in some Asian sesame marinade goop that we had in the fridge. It turned out pretty well. It was nice and fresh and crunchy- plus, there are leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch!
Supposedly each major civilization has a version a thin, flat, flour based treat. South Americans are widely know for the tortilla. In Russia, one might enjoy a blintz, and in India, a dosa. Americans like myself are quite fond of the pancake. But it is perhaps the French that are most famous for their version of this universal and versatile food that is known to the French as the crepe.
Saturday morning Kyle and I attempted to replicate the crepe, and in doing so made quite a mockery of the food that is so much a part of the collective unconscious.
I faithfully followed the recipe as espoused by Alton Brown, who is widely known by food nerds the world over. I refrigerated the batter for an hour as per the instructions. Meanwhile, I did the dishes and read the news and then obnoxiously woke Kyle. He wasn’t thrilled when I woke him by hopping around on the bed, but when I told him I made crepe batter and that all he had to do was cook the crepes, he quickly perked up.
Cooking the crepes was not quite as trivial as I may have made Kyle believe. One must note that the most essential quality of the crepe is its thinness. Now, putting the correct amount of batter in the pan is a reasonably easy task. However, what one does next with said batter proved to be quite difficult. Despite a generous lubing of our new Teflon pan with butter, the crepes clung onto dear life to the bottom of the pan, as if they were trying to say (in their best French accents), “Screw you silly Americans! You have no business making crepes!” Since they were sticking to the pan in protest, they were impossible to flip. Kyle tried to salvage whatever was in the pan by turning the crepes over as best as he could. The result was a big glob of greasy goo in the middle of the pan.
We discovered our fatal flaw was finding the ideal temperature. However, after much trial and error Kyle finally found the correct temperature and even perfected his flipping technique. I think by the end, Kyle produced two decent looking crepes. He kindly gave those to me and he ate the huge glob of crepe goo.
We poured a little bit of maple syrup on them and sprinkled them with powered sugar, and they were quite delightful. They may have been a bit unorthodox, but they were tasty and we had a lot of fun making them.
I think authentic French chefs shed a tear for us that day, but come on, it was our first try! Perhaps the only thing we can do to perfect the delicate and complex art of the crepe is to keep practicing. That’s totally fine with me, as long as Kyle is willing to eat the mess-ups.
Earlier today Kyle and I realized that it was Memorial Day so we decided to have a little barbeque. We made portabella burgers and corn on the cob. I made a marinade with garlic, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper and olive oil. I also made basil mayonnaisse with a little bit of garlic and lemon juice. We topped the burgers with pepperjack cheese, red onion, tomatoes and lettuce. They were juicy and delicious.
For dessert I made delicious barbequed fruit. I chopped up some pineapple, apples, peaches and bananas, put them on skewers and sprinkled a little bit of sugar over them. We put them on our barbeque and then I glazed them with a honey-lime glaze (about 5 tablespoons of honey and 1 or 2 squirts of lime juice). They were heavenly! The bananas tasted like toasted marshmallows! I’m not kidding! They are a great alternative for marshmallows (since marshmallows are made with gelatin). I bet it would be delicious to toast bananas over a fire and eat them with chocolate and graham crackers. I know it sounds absurd but I bet it would be great!
