Recent Meals: Frittatas, Pizzas, Curry and Frappucinoes

As you know, I've been busy with finals. I wasn't going to allow myself a real break until Monday after 5 when I finally turned in my 15-20 page term paper. But I decided that was a little draconian and that you all were missing my food writing. Plus, I have 5 pages done so far, I can punch out the rest in a flash if need be.

Anyway, I've been busy and so I've mainly been doing quick meals or cooking the day before. I made a green curry sometime on Thursday night which has lasted through 3 meals so far, probably because Mike won't go near the stuff. Here is a recipe that is easily amendable (I change around the ingredients every time, simply based on what I have on hand).

Green Curry with Chicken
Ingredients:
1 table spoon of green curry paste (you can find a small jar at most supermarkets in the Asian cuisine aisle)
1 can (14 oz) of (light) coconut milk
2 T of (low sodium) soy sauce
1 T of fish sauce (very smelly but essential for the flavor)
1 T of sriracha chili paste (to taste)
1 t of chopped or grated ginger
2 garlic cloves
2 chicken breasts (~7 oz) diced
1/2 yellow bell pepper sliced
1/2 red bell pepper sliced
1/2 red onion diced (last time I sliced a white onion)
1/2 C peas
1/2 C of (frozen) chopped spinach (last time I used whole-leaf baby spinach)

Method
1. Bring the curry paste, coconut milk, soy sauce, fish sauce, chili paste, ginger and garlic to a boil.
2. When the liquid comes to a boil, add the chicken breast and vegetables and allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes. Serve with jasmine rice.

*I'm going to be coming up with a recipe for coconut jasmine rice soon, which I think would pair awesome with this recipe

For Mike, I just cooked a pepperoni pizza, using some of the pizza dough that had been sitting in my freezer. On a side note, I highly recommend buying and freezing pizza dough as it thaws quickly and you can use it make two very quick meals that are also good for getting rid of food in the pantry and fridge: 1) pizza; or 2) calzones (which also freeze well for lunches or dinner)

For breakfast I made a frittata with some spinach, chopped asparagus, gruyere, swiss and mexican blend cheese.

And as I'm sure many of you know, Starbucks is doing a frappucino happy hour from 3-5 pm until May 16th. You can go in and get any frappucino for half price. I, being too cheap to pay and too lazy to walk to the one 3 blocks from my apartment, decided to use my handy-dandy new blender, some freshly-brewed coffee, almond extract, agave nectar, half & half and ice to make my own frappucino happy hour. I topped mine with some whipped cream and chocolate sauce. I have to say, it was the perfect way to beat this DC heat.

And please forgive the sideways picture, as well as the less-than-amazing quality of the other photos. I use my cell phone to take pictures, as I can email them directly to myself, which is much easier than pulling out my camera for one shot. But, I'll be getting a new phone in less than a month (hopefully the HTC incredible android phone or an iPhone) and that should greatly improve the food-picture experience.

Enjoy.

New Theme: Spanish French Toast, Green Curry and Hot Dogs

So after lots of deliberation over the direction that my blog has been heading in, I've decided to change the theme from a radio/travel blog to a food blog. This also lines up with my new found hobby, that being cooking and researching all things related to food. At my university we only have one dining hall for a couple thousand students and the food quality is less than satisfactory. Because of this I decided to purchase the smallest meal plan and then supplement that with cooking my own meals. It has been going very well and I would like to be able to use this as a way to show college students, and others, that it is possible to cook quality food with limited times, limited funds and limitless creativity and resolve. We'll see how long I'll be able to keep this up.


I guess the best way to start this would be to explain what I cooked today.

In my humble opinion, Sunday breakfast is one of the most important meals of the week. Usually it is pancakes day in my apartment but I decided to try something different. While creating my recipes binder (a collection of about 100 recipes, and growing) I came across a recipe for torrijas, spanish french toast made with a stale french baguette. Luckily enough I had a quickly-hardening baguette on the top of my fridge, and so I went about making the torrijas topped with powdered sugar and a side of bacon.

Then for dinner I decided to make a green curry with this paste that had been sitting in the cupboard for an amount of time that I can't publish in good conscience. Because of what I think believe is a result of all of the chili paste and soy sauce, my green curry became a red one, but the flavor is so good that I think I could put Bangkok Bistro out of business. It would also be terrible for me to forget to mention the hot dogs (for the picky-eating boyfriend), tomato-basil-mozzarella antipasto and sundried tomato and basil focaccia that humbly sat beside the curry at the dinner table.

That's all for now. I'll post the recipes and pictures of the results sometime tomorrow, as soon as I get them from my boyfriend's camera.