In Search of Self

My Favorites - Tuesday's Take 5 - Week 8

1. What is your favorite food scene in a movie?
Hard choice! Food fight in Animal House? Escargot scene in Pretty Woman? Or maybe the spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp :)

2. What is your favorite breakfast food?
Probably coffee cake, especially my grandmother's version!

3. What is your favorite ethnic cuisine?
Another hard choice! I swing between German, Thai and Indian. Right now I'm on a German kick cooking jager schnitzel tonight and sauerbrauten this weekend...

4. What is your favorite thing to snack on?
Usually something salty like popcorn

5. What is your favorite kitchen gadget?
Probably my food processor, although I'm on a bread machine kick right now too

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

Posted by Christi at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

St. Patrick's Day Tuesday Take 5 Week 7

1. have you ever made some thing a certain color for a holiday (i.e. green cookies for st. patrick's day)? Yes, sure. Especially when we were cooking for church fellowship meals
2. what is your favorite green food? Asparagus! Love it!
3. what is your favorite irish dish to make?Colcannon and Barmbrack, just not necessarily together. Also like reubens, but I guess corned beef isn't actually irish...
4. what is one irish dish that you have always wanted to try?Dublin Lawyer sounds good to me!
5. have you ever had green beer?Nope. Don't like beer...I've had several green drinks though

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

Posted by Christi at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Take 5 Tuesdays Week 6
1. What was the last meal you ate out? Lunch at the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls on Friday for lunch on our way to Grand Prairie.
2. If your partner or friends could take you to any restaurant you wanted (their treat), which one would it be? Bohanan's Steakhouse in downtown San Antonio
3. Buffet, take-out or sit-down restaurant? Prefer sit-down most of the time, but occasionally the noise and crowds are too much and then take-out
4. What restaurant do you eat at the most? Sarika's Thai Cafe in Boerne
5. What type of restaurant is missing from your current town? German! We're a town with a German name and a German heritage and no German restaurants! Would also love to have some Indian and a good Italian place...

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

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Posted by Christi at 8:27 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Ok, so today's tip for those who are interested, is meatloaf muffins... We started doing this when we were cooking for a large group at our church on Wednesday nights. It allows the meatloaf to cook quicker and is much easier to serve. Just make your favorite meatloaf recipe but instead of making a loaf out of it, form extra-large meatballs and bake them in a muffin tin. This is also very helpful when, like us, you have several toppings you like. You don't have to choose! Just top the meatloaf muffins differently. So, in the photos, you'll see first the "unadorned" meatloaves in the tin, then the "adorned" version with my ketchup and mustard toppings. This works really well for left overs as well. Freeze them and just take out one or two for an individual meal or several for the family. And slices are perfect for a hamburger bun for a meatloaf sandwich! Hope this idea is helpful to some of you out there!

Labels: food

Posted by Christi at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

1. what 3 ingredients couldn't you live without? salt, butter, sugar
2. what food reminds you of your childhood? quiche, it was the first dish I cooked all by myself
3. what was your last cooking disasters? a cake I was making to decorate that just fell apart when I tried to work with it
4. what makes you a foodie? I'm interested in where my food comes from, how it's prepared and ways to make it taste better
5. what is the last meal you cooked? sloppy bbq joes with steamed vegetables

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

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Posted by Christi at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

1. what are you currently trying to learn/master with your cooking? bread
2. where do you go for ideas for new recipes (cooking shows, cookbooks/magazines, experiment in the kitchen)? I'd say a combination of all of those plus my recipe program, MasterCook, where I collect recipes
3. what is one thing that you make, but you don't eat? rhubarb pie, hubby like it, I don't
4. what is your biggest guilty pleasure with food? definitely chocolate, the darker the better
5. what is one thing that you mom (or who ever taught you to cook) can make better than you? chicken paprikash!

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

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Posted by Christi at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

1. what surprises you most about your cooking? how I go through spurts of ingredient use, sometimes I get on a kick for one ingredient and work with it a bunch or perhaps a technique that I'm loving, such as bread making
2. what is the one thing that you have mastered cooking (that you could not cook when you started)? cakes
3. who was your biggest inspiration to start cooking? my grandmother
4. what is your favorite thing to make? anything sweet, especially chocolate
5. what is one recipe that you are known for? my chicken salad

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

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Posted by Christi at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

1. what is one food that you refuse to try? guinea pig!
2. what is the one food that you like to eat, but won't make? sushi (but willing to try making it, just haven't yet...)
3. what is the farthest you've traveled for a meal? 45 miles
4. what is the most creative/exotic meal you've ever made? Thai food
5. what is scariest (i.e. hole in the wall) place you've eaten at? a little place over the border in Nuevo Laredo

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

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Posted by Christi at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

1. what is your favorite food/cooking website? Over all, http://Foodtv.com but current fav is http://crockpot365.blogspot.com
2. do you prefer to watch cooking shows or read cooking magazines? depends on my mood. I like both, but more often watch than read.
3. are you more adventuresome in what you cook or in what you eat? eat. I tend to try things that are prepared for me before trying to prepare them myself.
4. what is one ingredient that you have always wanted to cook with, but never have? Foie Gras
5. what is the one thing that you can not cook without?salt! The universal spice

Labels: food, tuesdaytake5

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Posted by Christi at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

So I decided to participate in the "Grow Your Own" blog event this month after reading about it on the "Is My Blog Burning?" blog. GYO is an event held each month where bloggers post recipes, photos, etc. of things they make using ingredients they grow. This month I decided to use our dinner from tonight, which incorporated some freshly grown thyme. Actually I had planned the dinner before I decided to join the blogging, so it just worked out right. I had some sweet yellow onions that needed to be used up, so there you have it.

So, here's the recipe and a few pictures to get your appetites going :)

Christi's Caramelized Onion & Goat Cheese Pizza

Ingredients:
4 large sweet yellow onions
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
2 tbsp olive oil
3 packets Splenda sweetener (if needed)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp (or to taste) fresh thyme leaves
8 oz crumbled goat cheese
1 premade pizza crust (we used a Boboli thin crust this time)

First, we caramelize the onions. Start with a large saute pan over medium high heat. To this add 1 stick of butter and 2 tbsp of olive oil. Now, to prep the onions. To do this, top and tail your onions, peeling off the outer dried layers. Then cut them pole to pole (from root to stem end). Now slice them into fairly thin (1/4 inch or so) slices. Separate the layers into half moon shaped pieces and add to the melted butter and oil in the pan. Allow the onions to cook, stirring occasionally, until they start to wilt down. Add the salt and, if your onions seem strong (ie. not sweet) add Splenda or a pinch of granulated sugar. Toss this through the onions and then allow them to cook, undisturbed, until you start to smell browning or see it in the pan. Don't worry that there is some fond developing on the bottom of the pan. Once you see this, stir the onions well, which will distribute the fond and clean the pan bottom. Do this three or four times, allowing the onions to cook undisturbed between stirrings. You want a caramelized color throughout the onions and for them to be very soft and almost sticky. They will form a sort of creamy sauce on themselves which is great for this pizza. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and place your pizza crust onto a pizza pan (or preheat your pizza stone if using one). Add the fresh thyme to the caramelized onions at this point and stir to incorporate. You should smell a slightly thyme-like perfume, but it should not overwhelm the onions. Turn off the heat on the onions and spread about half the onions over your pizza crust. Sprinkle the goat cheese over top and slide into your preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the cheese gets golden brown and melted. Allow to cool for 6-8 minutes before cutting and serving. Freeze the remaining onions for your next batch!

So here is a picture of the onions after caramelizing but before use:



And here are a couple of shots of the completed pizza:





Enjoy!

Labels: food, GYO, recipes

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Posted by Christi at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post