Potato, leek, and spinach spoup with tempeh crutons

I made this last night. It was based on the recipe in The New Basics Cookbook, but I changed a few thinks. Basically, I added proccuitto, white wine, carrotts, and parmesean cheese. The tempeh crutons are really tasty and add the necessary protein. To make the tempeh crutons, just cube the tempeh and fry it up in a very hot pan with a generous amount of olive oil.

1 lg onion, chopped
3-4 leeks, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1/4 lb proccuitto
1 tsp salt

Sautee the above ingredients in olive oil

5 cups veggie broth
1/2 cup white wine
4 potatos, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped

Add the above ingredients to the pot and simmer. Cook until potatos are tender.

rosemary, tarragon, fresh parsley, oregano, sage

Season (to taste) with the above ingredients, or whatever you want. I used lots of rosemary, and a bunch of parsley. Reserve some of the parsley to put on at the end.

1 package frozed spinach, thawed and drained
1/4 cup shredded parmesean
1/2 cup milk (or cream)

Remove about half of the soup and process it in the food processor. Proccess the spinach too. Mix it all back together. Add the parmesean, milk, and remaining parsley. Garnish with the crutons, and parmesean cheese.

Why I din't update the blog for awhile

I've been busy. This picture probably implicates me in a number of safety violations, but there really isn't anyone reading this anyway. I've been working straight through most weekends and this shot was taken the Friday before St. Patty's Day. The next day I came in and worked up a reaction which contained 25 grams of tetrakis(trifluoromethyl) 1,3-dithetane (a stinky compound). My hood stopped working mid-way through the workup, and the stink made its way all the way down the hall and into the other building. After completing the workup, I had to run another one of these columns right away to purify the compound. I felt pretty lousy by the time I was finished, since I never really enjoyed the solvent high. Anybody who likes huffing ether is easily amused. I went home, opened a beer, and made Jamaicain Jerk pork and rice for dinner. Either the Jerk sauce was little too hot, or the pork was on its way out, because the next morning I wasn't feeling so great. All in all, it would have been better for my health if I had started drinking at noon and had a giant plate of corned beef and cabbage for dinner.

My sweet new bike

Well, I've been working towards my previously stated goal of eating fewer hormone-infested foods and "leaving a smaller footprint" as my friend Rivka likes to put it. I got some extra cash yesterday, so figured it was high time I got myself a bike, for commuting purposes. I heard of this place called Bikes Not Bombs in JP, where they take used bikes and personalize the components according to your needs. In addition, they have all sorts of community programs, like the Earn-A-Bike program for neighborhood kids. It is basically an after-school program where kids learn how to fix up bikes and learn about bike safety; presumably they get a bike out of it too. They also send bikes (and their programs) off to developing and disaster-struck places, like Ghana and New Orleans. The notion is that a bike can provide an affordable means of transportation, which may help a person get out of whatever rut they are in.

The cost is $250 for the basic edition, which includes a new chain, seat, handlebars, pedals, grips, tires, and I think they replace the brakes and such too. My bike is about $450 because I got a nicer frame, for which they charged me an extra $100. I also got a front and rear fender, a new gearshift, a rack, and front and rear lights. It takes about 2 weeks for them to do the work. Oh, the bike comes with a free tune-up after 30 days, 10% off new components for a year, and a sweet bikes not bombs T-shirt. The nice part is that I got to choose all of the above-stated components. This really saved me money because I wanted a mountain bike with street tires on it, and a larger-than standard seat, of course. The bike is going to be totally cool because it is purple and has bright yellow fenders. I want to paint flames on the fenders, but we'll see how long it takes for me to do that.

There were about 3 or 4 high school students helping out, and I'm guessing that they will be fixing up my bike. There was also a younger kid running around and playing hide-and-seek with Subbu. He made sure we knew that his dad owned the shop and that I was riding around on his dad's bike. It felt pretty good to be there, like these people had really made a nice place for kids to hang out and be proud of themselves. It is a bit scary putting my faith in these kids, but there is no possible way it is any shadier than my auto mechanic. I am far from worried about it, and $450 is way less than my mechanic's screw-job.

So, after picking out my bike, I did my grocery shopping. While this is less exciting than picking out a sweet yellow and purple bike, it is something I am looking at differently. At this point, I am just testing the waters and thinking about how to change my eating habits. Last time I went shopping I noticed that lots of items have natural-sounding names, but do not actually make any claims that separate them from generic brands. I think they may have just been more expensive. Many of the organic vegetables were wrapped in cellophane or came in plastic packages, which is somewhat counterproductive from the environmental standpoint. It will just take a little time to navigate the change. Ideally, I'll start doing my shopping a little earlier in the day and not get stuck going to the 24-hour grocery store all the time.

This time I decided to stick to vegetarian items, just so that in the future I am more familiar with how to use them. I bought a few flavored tofu's and some tempeh, along with some fancy cheeses. I also bought some tea, to slowly reduce my caffeine habit. Rivka told me that coffee just sucks all the nutrients out and it is harder to replace them without meat. My bill was less than normal, probably because I didn't purchase meat. For dinner, I sauteed a bit of tempeh and put it on a salad with cranberry cheese, cilantro, vinegar, and oil. The tempeh tasted like warm crutons that were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, so I was pretty happy about that.

Overall it was a good day.

I'm bored of being sick

I've been sick for 2 weeks now. There's this stupid cough going around, which makes its way into a headcold after about 4 days, then returns to being a spasmatic cough for at least two weeks. I tried resting for awhile, but got bored of that. Basically, I can't fo anything but work or rest, cause I can't go to the gym or a bar and I'm not going to go outside for a liesurely stroll (it is wicked cold and windy). With dank writing his thesis, resting is very boring, so I might as well work. The worst part is that I'm still waking up several times in the night with a violent cough. Maybe I'll go to CVS and see what kind of drugs they sell for this. That will at least make rest more exciting.

8 Eggs, 16 Yolks

Last night I wanted to test my top secret recipe, so I ran down to Johnny’s Foodmaster for a few things. Normally I don’t trust Johnny’s for much of anything, but I figured that since I was going to use the stuff right away, it would be OK. Among the items I needed was an undisclosed number of eggs. I cracked open the first egg and it had two yolks. I wasn’t too surprised, though you don’t see that every day. I cracked open another egg and it too was a twin. I didn’t want to use it because I’m trying to optimize the recipe, and don’t know how the number of twin eggs will correlate to normal eggs. I cracked open the next one, and it was another twin. The next egg was normal, but it was followed by a triplet. The rest of the eggs in the carton were doubles. I thought maybe it was an omen, like my recipe was cursed or something. Then I thought maybe all the eggs came from one very fucked-up chicken. Maybe they’ve started doing IVF treatment or something to have the chickens produce more eggs. More likely, they have pumped every type of hormone into these chickens.

This was something of a breaking point for me. I don’t really want to be bearing children with extra body parts, so I don’t think I should eat eggs from Johnny’s anymore. I don’t want to eat from a contaminated food supply anymore. I have no problem going to Charlie’s for a double mega burger every once and awhile, but I’m going to start buying organic foods. It isn’t just the food supply, it is everything. Yesterday it rained all day, but it should have been a snowstorm. The only time I needed to shovel this winter was during the ice storm we had a few weeks back. The stock market crashed this week, despite many companies (especially oil) posting record profits. Oh, and then there is this war in Iraq. Our school system is crap and don’t even get me started on healthcare.

Perhaps I am arriving at all of this now because of where I am in my own life. I’ve got about a year left on my PhD, and dank is writing his thesis right now. I am thinking about what is next in my life. I’ve come to think that I am not going to have a normal job, but rather find a way to play a role in some of these issues. I’ve thought about this before. There is no way that I will work for a pharmaceutical company, and I do not want to be an academic. The only way I can see staying in research is if I work in a government lab. This is kind of taboo in the science, since we are all supposed to want to run our own research labs. I thought about patent law, but it seems like I’d just be carrying a briefcase for the same people I don’t want to work at the lab bench for. I want to do something important with my life, but I am not sure how to approach it. Maybe it won’t be about the job I have, but about how I live my life. I just don’t know yet.

My Top Secret Recipe

The success of the tunnel of fudge cake got me thinking; can I make up a recipe that is worth one million dollars? I was poking around on the Pillsbury website, and yes, that is the prize for winning the bake-off. The thing is, it has to be an original recipe and it has to involve the use of pillsbury ingredients. It must involve the pop-open biscuits, their jams, etc. I decided to aim towards the Old El Paso category, since I make lots of Mexican food. The problem is, I never use Old El Paso stuff. I mean, you aren't going to find a recipe for 180 tamales on a bag of taco seasoning. At any rate, I invented something that is original, easy, and very Tex-Mex.

This weekend I made it twice, each time experimenting with the exact conditions. My taste-tester seemed satisfied by it, but I think he'd prefer I continue testing it. I don't think either test was up to snuff, but it tasted good. At any rate, it was fun to just take the weekend making food and living the American dream. You can't come up with anything more wholesome than testing recipes for a bake-off. You can't come up with anything more American than bastardizing Mexican food for money.

I'm going to try it one more time, and then send it off for peer review. (I'll have my mom and sis make it in their test kitchens.) Once I'm resonably satisfied with it, I'll submit the recipe. The deadline isn't until April 22nd, but I really don't can't imagine making this too many more times before then. I guess I'll wait until after the deadline to post it, cause I don't want anyone stealing my million dollar idea.

cucumber and radish relish

A couple of years ago I made ceviche and discovered that cucmbers are a fantastic compliment to mexican food. (I sprinkled them with ground red pepper and salt and served them with the ceviche.) I made this relish last summer to go with a bbq, but last night I served it over broiled striped bass. This can be used in any setting where you might want a relish, salsa, chutney, or dip. The cucumber/radish/heat combo is the secret, and is amenable to other herbs or flavors.

1 cucumber, chopped
6-8 small radishes, chopped
handful cilantro, chopped
juice of 1-2 limes
1-2 jalepeno peppers, roasted, peeled, and finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic very finely crushed/chopped
cumin, salt, pepper, red pepper, olive oil (to taste)

mix it all up and let it sit for half an hour, then eat.