Where does all that food go?

Several people have asked me a really good question: Where does all that food go once you cook it?

The question is really two-fold. Sometimes, the person inquiring wants to know how I seem to cook and eat so much, without it going right to my hips or my stomach. The answer to that one is about five workouts a week, 40 to 60 minutes each, on the elliptic. On top of that, I try to get in an intensive yoga session once a week and I've recently taken to swimming.

The other way that question comes up is from people wanting to know what am I LITERALLY doing with all that food I'm cooking. My friend Sarah just asked me that question, and when I thought about my efforts to get rid of it found it kind of amusing.

There have been numerous dinner parties, and then leftover dinner parties for the people who could not make it the first round. This is when I shove copious amounts of food in my guests' faces, and then send them off with take-home containers.

Some people don't even have to show up at my place. I bring the food to them, especially those I know to be regular blog followers. This girl Kat I work with got four Tupperware containers from the Middle Eastern Adventure.

Sometimes, as the case with the leftover brownies and tapioca pudding from the Iron Chef party, I just bring it to work and walk around aimlessly looking for people until someone will take it.

A lot of it I bring to work for lunch. In fact, there have been several fairly elaborate picnics with co-workers out on the lido deck at the office.

Part of the fun of this has been sharing. There's nothing like making food for people you love (or at least interact with) and watching them enjoy it. Truth of the matter is, not enough people stop to really appreciate their food. In the age when everything has become super sized and Mc-whatevered, if I can spread some joy with homemade tapioca or ropa vieja, then I'm a happy camper. It gives me satisfaction.

What can't be eaten or peddled right away gets frozen. It's in the cue for those weekends when the cold front moves through and you don't feel like doing anything : ) And now that she's asked, maybe I need to figure out some way to start shipping frozen goods to Sarah ...

p.s. ... on my letter to Guy Fieri

p.s. - Now that I've actually seen the show in Buffalo, I found it incredibly amusing that you introduced a segment of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" from East Amherst, NY. This place has got to have one of the highest property tax bases in upstate NY, and it seems kind of a juxtaposition that there would be anything divish here.

Second, next time you're anywhere near Buffalo, PLEASE consult with me. I didn't think any of the items at Grover's looked appealing. There's probably a reason I've never been there. And to think you were probably within a mile of the suburban location of Jim's Steakout, one of my favorite places to go for late night take out when I'm home. The steak hoagie pairs greatly with Spanish vino.

Anyway, let me help you out next time. That's what friends are for!

p.p.s. - There's a reason it's the people who are "this big" (meaning skinny and little) who eat two of the giant cheeseburgers. It's called bulimia.

Off to SoBe the wizards ... the wonderful wizards of food!

I watched the countdown tick off the minutes, right until midnight this morning.

That's when tickets for the 2010 South Beach Food and Wine Festival went on sale. I've been shut out in years past, and this year I wasn't going to miss it.

Bobby Flay wrapped up his Throwdown as midnight struck and the magical virtual box office opened. Within six minutes I had in my possession (electronically at least) a coveted ticket to the Grand Tasting.

I can imagine it now. Me, on the sandy, white beach tasting the finest of South Florida epicurean fare and rubbing elbows with the likes of Rachael, Bobby and Emeril.

OK, I know it won't QUITE be like that. But the beach isn't going anywhere, and the food will likely be more incredible than I could ever imagine. If I happen to catch a glimpse of one of my favorite stars, it will be all the more exciting.

So yeah, maybe I'm being melodramatic, but this is really exciting - a somewhat nervous excitement - for me. I've been wanting to go to the SoBe fest for years, and finally it's going to happen.

Part of the angst comes from the fact that taxes and all this set me back some cash. But talking to one of my friends in the office today - after she invited me to her son's school International Festival/fund raiser - I realized that times like these when I can somewhat guiltlessly drop money on something like that for myself could be limited.

I might as well take advantage of the opportunity.

Dear Guy Fieri ...

... I wanted to take the time to thank you for visiting Buffalo and bringing some attention to this often neglected city.

I have to say, I was not a big fan of Tailgate Warriors. But I hate football so maybe that's not really fair of me. I do appreciate that you did not, like, pretend to be in a blizzard like Anthony Bourdain did, right before claiming that featuring a chicken wing on the show would be cliche.

Either way, I am hopeful that the episodes for Diners, Drive-ins and Dives that start tonight at 10 p.m. on Food Network will be much better. It's rumored that tonight you will be in my old hood, at Grover's on Transit.

An age of responsibility

Sometimes, being an adult is just no fun.

I'm not even talking about having to get up and go to work and earn a living. I actually like that part. I think it's better than school. There's no homework.

I'm talking about all of the things you have to do that interfere with what it is you REALLY want to be doing. The things you have no choice about. To me the epitome of un-fun adult things is buying toilet paper. You have to have it, you have to spend money on it. But what for? Nothing fun. It serves its routine purpose, then gets flushed down the toilet. Money that once in your life would have been spent on something much more enjoyable because other people bought your toilet paper for you.

I guess there's a certain degree of denial in the fact that I have a tendency to put off any of these adult things if I can help it. For years, there were little pockets of my apartment that went unkempt, as I just closed the doors of closets and the laundry room pretending like there wasn't a mess behind them.

But for some reason, Friday turned out to be a day of reckoning.

I've been driving around for a few weeks suspecting that my car needed new tires. It was starting to do that vibrating thing whenever I went above 60 on the Interstate. I'm not car savvy enough to just look at the tires and evaluate the treading.

I finally brought myself to take the car in for an "oil change" Friday morning. This is my general strategy in car maintenance. To take my car in and hope that if there's something wrong with it they will tell me. I was not surprised when the guy called me about the tires.

"I don't know if you're aware," he said. "But the treading is totally gone on your two front tires.

"Oh," I said trying to sound shocked. "Really?"

I told him to go ahead and replace them.

In the spirit of this coming to terms with my adult responsibility, I decided to spend the better part of my Friday night tackling another area of avoidance - my oven.

Let's just say there was a small pool of something that's been accumulating there for God knows how long. I had no idea what it was (it could have been any great number of things) or how long it had been there. But I've been telling myself that it's an oven, and ovens are meant to get dirty. I figured there was no harm in just leaving it for a little bit longer.

Then a few weeks ago my friend Melissa hurled me into reality when she went to heat some pita bread in the oven at the Iron Chef part.

"Um, Tiffany... I have to tell you something," she said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm really worried about this oven. There's something that looks like grease pooled up on the bottom. It's probably a fire hazard."

"Oh," I responded, trying to sound like this was a news flash. "Really?"

Thus began the party conversation about whether I a) had a fire extinguisher and b) knew how to use my fire extinguisher.

After Melissa brought it up, I started to get paranoid. Yes, it must really be "that bad" if other people were starting to notice. I've been petrified to use my oven. One time I tried it started smoking.

So I vowed that this week I would take care of it once and for all. On Friday, I busted out the kitchen cleaner stuff that is "tough on grease" - I probably went through half a bottle - and the brill pads - went through three of those. At one point I discovered that the mess was caked on there so bad that it was more effective to use a butter knife to kind of scrape it up. Once I got started the obsessive compulsive in me kicked in and I couldn't stop until I got every last bit off.

(I'll take the time here to note I realize this is utterly irresponsible, my mother is probably having a heart attack and I suspect the oven will get added to the list of things that will be inspected on all future visits).

For good measure, I even cleaned the stove and under the burners while I was at it.

I guess the moral of the story is that some things in life need to just be dealt with. Ignoring problems or bad situations will only make them worse, and before you know it you're on the side of the road because your untreaded tire blew out or emblazoned in some sort of kitchen fire. I could have just cleaned up whatever it was in the oven when I spilled it, and it would have been less of a problem.

But now, it's over. I have a nice clean oven that I can cook in.

Now, the homework: to stay on it.

P.S. - I got about halfway through this oven-cleaning project before I finally dipped into a glass of wine. The wine stayed pretty far away from the stove and the grease mess (I know the photo makes it look like even more of a fire hazard). But for a quick photo, it wasn't a problem.

Everything but the kitchen sink

So I'm pretty obsessive about not wasting food, and that's become especially important in these days of marathon cooking. Prepared dishes I freeze, take to work for lunch or pawn off on friends. But then there are always an assortment of leftover ingredients.

Thus the theme of the weekend: cleaning out the fridge. I posted the egg frittata situation earlier today. I also whipped up some tomato sauce and decided to reinvent the filling from the chile rellenos I made for the Iron Chef party into a quesadilla. That's become one of the most fun parts about cooking for me. Getting creative and figuring out what to do with the leftovers.

One sure fire way to maximize the usage on leftover veggies is to make a soup out of them. I made this one with all things in my fridge or freezer, the highlights of which include fresh herbs, white wine and prosciutto. The beauty of soup is that's all it really is, a mish mosh of ingredients that meld together.

So here's what I came up with. May it inspire you to create your own one pot dish out of your own extra ingredients. The basic formula is meat, veggies, herbs, wine and broth. The message is to get creative and not waste anything! And I'll be ready to start restocking my fridge with all sorts of fun ingredients from my international adventures some time this week : )

Ingredients:

2 tbsps. Olive oil

About a half pound of prosciutto in chunks

5 turnips, chopped

About 2 cups of carrots chopped

About 2 cups celery chopped

1 zucchini chopped

About 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

About one half cabbage, chopped

About two cups white wine

2 tbsps. minced garlic

Four bay leaves

About 3 tbsps. fresh thyme

About 3 tbsps. fresh rosemary

Fresh ground pepper

About four cups of beef broth

2 cans cannellini beans rinsed

What to do:

Heat olive oil in soup pot and then add prosciutto. Let cook a few minutes. Then start adding the veggies one at a time in the order given (hardest to softest). Give the harder veggies a few minutes to cook before adding the next (I use this time for chopping). As the veggies cook, make sure to keep them somewhat moist. Gradually add the white wine in to make sure it doesn't get too dry.

Add the herbs and garlic and half of the beans and mix well. Puree the other half of the beans with about one cup of water and add to the pot with the beef broth. Bring to a boil and then let simmer until ready to eat. The longer it simmers the yummier it will be.

Mimosa of the week

At some point (probably during a sale) I decided to step out of my juice smoothie comfort zone and try the Bolthouse Farms Berry Boost variety.

It's been in the back of my fridge going undrunk, usually passed up for my usual fav Amazing Mango. No more. I decided to spike it with some Spanish cava to make a mimosa for this weekend's clean out the fridge project. I have to say, I think I'm on to something.

Baked eggs with mushroom and rosemary

Today's cooking is being inspired by the need to clean out my fridge and freezer. I've really taken to brunch, and ate all of the quiche I made and froze the other weekend. So I decided to see what happens making an egg frittata of sorts with a container of creme fraiche I had in there.

Along with the ingredients in my fridge, the recipe was somewhat inspired by the Next Food Network Star Melissa d'Arabian, who did a baked egg dish during one of the challenges. The result is fluffy yumminess. She told the judges that she baked it because she likes to cook with her little girls and they aren't old enough to use the stove yet. I just thought it looked delicious.

In mine, the creme fraiche takes the place of the cream or milk you might use in any other egg dish.

Ingredients:

2 tbsps. olive oil

2 tbsps. minced garlic

1 package mini portobello mushrooms, chopped

3 tbsps. fresh rosemary, chopped

salt

pepper

6 eggs

1 container creme fraiche (about 7 oz.)

1 tbsp. dijon mustard

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 375.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the minced garlic and let cook for a few minutes. Add the mushrooms and rosemary and cook until mushrooms are soft. Season with salt and pepper.

In a mixing bowl combine the eggs, creme fraiche and mustard and beat until well combined. Stir in the mushroom mix. Pour into a baking dish and bake for about 40 minutes. Serve with little toasts of choice and mimosa for ultimate deliciousness.

A day without a recipe

If you're one of those people constantly glued to the Weather Channel, you probably know that it's been really freaking hot in Florida. Hot and humid. The kind of heat that makes you sweat as soon as you step out of your apartment. The kind of humidity that just weighs down your body and soul, making you feel worn out and tired.

The kind of weather that you can put up with for a few months, but that you're ready to see break around the time everyone else in the country is out looking for pumpkins.

Well, thank God for FINALLY sending some relief to Florida.

This weekend we're experiencing what we Floridians call a "cold front." I don't think the temperature dropped below 70 all day, but that's cold after months enduring temperatures upward of 90. (Although not cold enough that I couldn't go for a little swim ... quite lovely because I was the only one there. Apparently the children who usually inhabit the pool on the weekend aren't so hardy).

Either way, I was having such a lovely time drinking my morning coffee on the patio, looking out over my little retention pond without breaking a sweat I thought "Wouldn't it be great to just spend the whole day like this?"

So I did. Well minus some time for the workout and the swim.

Maybe it was also the universe's way of getting me to slow down a little. As I sat on the patio, I thought back on the past few months and realized not a weekend day has passed that I didn't spend much of my time in the kitchen, quite often much of the day pursuing ambitious recipes under a tight deadline of expecting company.

So today I relished in the art of just laying low, catching up on some magazines and chilling on the patio. Besides, it was also a good opportunity to finish off one of the backlog of dishes in my freezer - the Comoros chicken from a few weeks ago.

Ode to an onion

So Fridays can be tough at work. In our world, we essentially have three times the amount of work to make up for the weekend. An occasional late night is a given.

My frustration must have been oozing out of me this particular Friday evening because my foodie cubicle buddy tried to bring some logic to my problem of the moment.

"You don't understand," I told him. "This is just one layer of it. It's just been layer after layer, like an onion. If it keeps going like this I might start crying!"

Then I felt all clever and got that zen feeling I get when I feel like I've drawn some deep, metaphorical parallel between my life and my kitchen. But recently it's come to my attention that these little stories may seem melodramatic. And this one was way too cheesy to be taken too seriously.

Still, wanting to share my new found incite about the onion on the blog, I thought I'd have a little fun with it. I wrote a Haiku, or rather a series of them, to pay homage to this staple of the kitchen.

Without further ado ...

An ode to the onion

Like every onion

Life's challenges come layered

One then another

Some we cut right through

No problem, we keep going

On to the next one

But the point will come

We've finally had too much

The tears start flowing

Too many layers

A few were fine, but no mas

Too many of them

But ultimately

The great chef will keep chopping

The onion to bits

The little pieces

Toss them in a saute pan

Sweet, yummy, delish

Speaking of Emeril ...

... I thought I'd post this video for the easily entertained among us. I found it over the summer for my cousin, who as it turns out is becoming a bit of a foodie herself. She wanted to watch Emeril Live, more specifically watch him deliver his signature "Bam!"

What's one to do in this day and age to find such a specific video segment? That's right. YouTube came through on this one.

The 10-year-old and I found it amusing. The best is the part with the chocolate torte and powdered sugar.

What isn't on the Internet?

Molto Mario

We all have those nights - sometimes five of them a week - when there's barely energy to feed ourselves. That's the beauty of leftovers.

But what's one to do when the leftovers are long gone? Or we're just kind of sick of them. Or, dare I say in this great age of Atkins, we just feel like a little carb loading.

I've never been big on jarred pasta sauce. I don't remember ever eating it growing up. My mom always made sauce from scratch when we had spaghetti.

Making a quick marinara may be easy enough, but everyone deserves to cheat at something every so often. For me, that usually involves heading to Publix and picking up one of Mario Batali's jarred sauces for a quick dinner of angel hair spaghetti.

(Yes, when I cheat and buy jarred sauce I buy it from a gourmet former Food Network super star.)

I'll admit I've only tried the one, the Arrabiata. I was sold on it immediately. It has a fresh, spicy flavor packed with dried red peppers. It has no preservatives and doesn't have that fake taste you get with other jarred sauces.

Back at it

After my brief weekend of laziness (if one would call preparing four dishes for a dinner party lazy) I've dipped back into the wine bag of fun and pulled out the next two countries.

The two I pulled were the Dominican Republic and Tunisia, so hopefully this weekend I will get to both of those. Stay tuned ...

Battle brownie

Some things just aren't supposed to be such a problem.

I mean, come on. Brownies? All the recipe said I needed to do was melt some butter and chocolate and mix in the dry ingredients.

The problem with brownies is the baking. You might have all the right ingredients and just the right mix. But sometimes it's hard to gauge when they're ready to come out the oven. The top might be deceptively crisped and cracked and looking like they're ready, but deep down inside they haven't quite matured yet.

I've never made brownies from scratch before, but I decided to have a go at it last weekend for my Iron Chef party. I wanted to wow my guests with some sort of goody that had that hot pepper, chocolate combination fairly common in Mexican cooking.

The problem was not so much with the brownies or the recipe as it was the fact I was distracted. I tried to throw my attention into my party spread, staying up late into the wee hours of the morning stirring polenta, simmering red peppers and cooking Italian sausage to take my mind off of it. I should have stopped there, but I couldn't. I figured the brownies were easy enough. I would get those ready before going to bed.

As I've written before, there comes a point in cooking where the distractions of chopping, stirring or mixing are gone. It's like the calm after (yes after) a storm. All you can do is wait, left alone with your thoughts and your brownies.

I sat there on my kitchen counter exhausted and tears welling in my eyes as I dwelled on my problem. The recipe said to cook the brownies for 40 minutes, but by the time they hit 30 I was tired of waiting. They looked done to me. I know the fork test doesn't work, but for some reason did it anyway. The fork came out clean. I put the brownies on a cooling rack. Whatever. I was ready for bed anyway.

The next morning I woke up and cut into them to discover they were soft and gooey in the middle. At first I tried to rationalize that there was nothing wrong. I told myself they were supposed to be like that because they were real brownies made with real melted chocolate, not a mix of dried powder. I took a bite of one of them and realized that despite my rationalization they just weren't working.

I thought I could try to salvage the batch and stuck them back in the oven. When I took them out 20 minutes or so later they were rock hard. I thought maybe they weren't so bad to serve to my guests. I would have plenty of other stuff to feed them, and it's the thought that counts anyway. Maybe I could make some whipped cream to serve with them and no one would detect their dryness.

I went back about my Sunday morning routine, but for some reason in some quick, spontaneous, split decision I just picked up the plate and chucked them in the garbage. Yes, maybe one could settle for brownies that were too gooey or too dry. But not me. I realized I just couldn't live with that. Some things that aren't working just aren't salvageable, and sometimes you just need to start over with something different.

I went back to Publix and bought some more chocolate and butter. I returned to my kitchen and this time with much more focus whipped up another batter. I stuck them in the oven, and waited the appropriate cooking time before taking out of the oven.

This time, they were perfect.

So...

... I'm being totally lazy this weekend. At least as far as the global culinary adventure is concerned. I'm taking the weekend off from exploring obscure foreign cuisines. My focus: My Next Iron Chef premier party.

I designated a chairman and asked him to pick a secret ingredient - peppers, any kind except the ground black kind - and invited some fellow foodies over to watch the premier on Food Network. The goal is for everyone to bring a dish with the secret ingredient.

I've spent much of the past week figuring out my menu for the event. The place to start looking for pepper recipes was obvious, especially to someone who has an autographed Bobby Flay cookbook in her possession.

From the Mesa Grill cookbook, tomorrow I'm going to try making some chickpea stuffed chile rellenos in a mushroom sauce and a tapioca pudding that involves serrano peppers and a mango blackberry sauce. A few weeks ago I saw Brian Boitano make this italian sausage polenta appetizer with red pepper salsa, so we'll be giving that a whirl.

The temptation to whip up some brownies with chipotle chile powder was just too strong. The recipe from Emeril was so easy I figured I should do some of those as well.

So anyway, that's what I'll be doing Sunday. Pepper mania. Stay tuned ...

Tonight, I'm taking it easy. Got some takeout from Bonefish Grill (got to use my free bang bang shrimp birthday coupon) and am watching the first season of Next Iron Chef marathon, getting geared up for tomorrow.

In the interest of feeding myself brunch in the morning I do plan to whip up this quiche from Emeril. The highlight of this quiche is the potato crust, which makes it awesome for breakfast. It's like a complete traditional breakfast in one neat little square. Instead of the salmon, I'm going to use prosciutto to get that full breakfast vibe going. That means I'll also be nixing the dill.