This Blog Has Moved

After much fussing over the name of this blog, (I was never happy with the name) I have finally found a more suitable name, "Foodiefull".
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Baked Tortilla Chips

 

Sometimes I want  to eat a few chips without having to buy an entire bag.  When there are that many chips around, I will eat all the chips in the bag in 3 days and I don't really want to do that.

Corn tortillas with a little oil sprayed or brushed onto the surface and baked in the oven is the simple solution to this problem.  If you just bake a few at a time like in the above photo, you might not want to make more even if you want more.  It takes a little while for them to bake and you have to put some effort into cutting and oiling so if you are feeling lazy, you will just savor what you have and not make more.  

Guacamole is the perfect accompaniment for these chips.  The secret to adding an extra dimension in flavor to guacamole is a pinch of ground cumin and coriander.  There must be plenty of salt too.  I'm always trying to make my recipes healthy, but without salt, the world is a little too flat.

Super Oatmeal

On days that I feel like making a special breakfast, I'll whip up some polenta with cheese and sausage.  After eating that dish a few times, I wondered how it would be to make a savory oatmeal dish.  Remembering that I always love how bacon or sausage tastes when maple syrup drips down on it from my pancakes or waffles, I decided to try out this hybrid oatmeal:  Stovetop-cooked oats topped with breakfast sausage, maple syrup, jack and cheddar cheese, and a sprinkling of freshly cracked black pepper.  It turned out to be the perfect balance of sweet and savory.

Christmas Dinner

 

Look what we got for Christmas!  Matt's parents got us a cooler full of food from Omaha Steaks.

This was what was inside:

four pork chops

four bacon wrapped filets

four steak burgers

one pound of boneless chicken breasts

four stuffed baked potatoes

four caramel apple tartlets

Matt and I are going to have our own cozy Christmas dinner after we do the Christmas eve and Christmas day rounds.  I am so excited for a bacon wrapped filet and stuffed potato dinner and caramel apple tartlets for dessert!  Yummy food without all the hard work.  I REALLY want a gin martini to go with this dinner.  Dirty with a big green olive and a pickled pearl onion.

Unfortunately, in this economy, I just might have to settle for Simpler Times Lager instead.

Tomato Tarte Tatin

 

A very tasty looking tomato tarte tatin gracing the cover of Bon Appetit's August issue caught my eye.  I didn't read too much about it at first but the photo was enough.  It was only later that I discovered that this is not a savory tart, but a sweet one.

A few times a year, I gather with a bunch of women and we swap our unwanted clothes.  We bring food and wine and it becomes a party.  Surprisingly, I have never witnessed any scratching or clawing over the clothes at these events.  Most everyone is quite cordial save for a few annoyances.  But I digress.

It was at one of these clothing exchanges that I decided that the moment had arrived for the tomato tarte tatin.  The perfect edible to bring to a ladies' Sunday brunch.  It looked easy too because it only required a puff pastry for the crust and I already had one in my freezer.

The recipe was very straightforward even though I almost burned the syrup.  It was still quite runny and not very amber by 25 minutes.  Not very caramelized at all.  So being the impatient person that I am, I turned up the heat and started washing the dishes.  I checked it every so often to make sure it was okay and then it seemed as if all of a sudden, I sniffed a scorching smell. Oh no!!! I managed to save it though, just in the nick of time.  The almost-burnt caramel syrup became my lesson in patience.  I must remember that haste makes waste.  Rushing the alchemy of cooking rarely works.

At the clothing exchange, the tart initially sat neglected by all.  Everyone had more important things to do, which was to make sure they got the best pieces of clothing out of the piles.  Then the tart still just sat completely ignored on the counter.  I started getting little worried.  Were all these skinny girls really that uninterested in eating? I was even afraid that no one would like it because it might catch people's taste buds off guard when they might be expecting salty instead of sweet.  Someone even asked if it was a pizza.  I just kept piping up whenever someone glanced at it: "It's a sweet tomato tart!"

Well all of my worrying was for nothing because the tart was devoured by the time I left the party.  One person tried it and that created a domino effect.  People were intrigued by the sweet plum tomato pastry.  The tomatoes' fruitiness was brought out by the slow cooking and caramel syrup.  I was dubious about including whipped cream for a topping as suggested in the recipe.  But now, knowing what the tart tastes like, I would definitely add a sweet creamy home made dollop of goodness.

It was a very unique dish worth making again.  I'm not going to post the recipe, because it can be found here on Bon Appetit.  Go to the source!

Korean Black Goat Stew at Mirak

 

My friends who have never had goat before and know that I love to eat almost anything, called me up and invited me to try Korean black goat stew with them.  I jumped at the chance because I love goat and I never heard of the stew so this meant a whole new experience.  Pure entertainment!

When we walked into Mirak, we were overwhelmed by the pungency of odors.  It was hot, steamy and the place smelled of goat and herbs.  Mostly of strong herbs that I couldn't put my finger on at the moment.  I wasn't sure what to expect.

Along with the stew, we ordered beer and soju.  My friend Kris, who is Korean said that even though we ordered both, beer is usually served with non-soup items and soju is served with soup.  Makes sense because you don't want to fill up on too much liquid if you are already having soup.  

One of my favorite things about eating at Korean restaurants are the little side dishes, otherwise known as banchan that are automatically served with the meals.  Such a fun little variety of morsels to snack on before and throughout the meal: bean sprouts, kimchi, cucumbers, and dongchimi (vegetables in a brine), just to name a few.  The banchan is always refillable and plenty.

The soup was served on a portable burner, simmering, and topped with fresh raw perilla leaves, green onions, and maybe some other things I couldn't see.  I realized that these greens were what REALLY created that strong, pungent odor when we first walked into the place.  I highly doubt the health claims of eating this soup: able to cure many ailments such as PMS, osteoporosis, bad skin and low libido, but I will eat it for it's delicious complex flavor.  I ate way past the time I was full.  Pure comfort food on a cold evening.  I think that the claims on libido must be for the fact that I saw so many people drinking lots of soju while having this soup.  They must go home drunk and randy from all the booze!

Also served on the side was a tiny bowl of red sauce (not so spicy), sesame oil, and perilla seeds.  You mix this up and dip your meat into it.  The soup was able to stand on its own without this sauce and sometimes I even forgot to dip into it.  

The unexpected highlight and final phase of the goat stew was the fried rice.  The waitress brought over some cooked rice and mixed it into the leftover broth in the hot pot.  A bowl of seaweed and another vegetable was folded in as well.  We had to patiently wait until the liquid had evaporated and the bottom of the rice was crispy.  I looked at the pot and exclaimed,  "That's so much!  There's no way we can eat all of that!"  Well, we did.  I found myself scraping the pot for every last bit of crisp, crunchy goodness.  :-)

Mirak

1134 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(323) 732-7577

What's an Artichoke?

I was at the grocery store check out when the cashier asked the bagger to retrieve a bagged artichoke so that he could rescan it. The girl questions, "What's an artichoke?"

Really???