Category Archives: Food

Let there be pork

And there was pork, and boy, was it good.

Tonight’s menu.

Pork tenderloin with a maple glaze
Roasted sweet potato wedges
Roasted asparagus with lemon zest
Brownies

This was my plate.

A plate for someone arriving later.

And dessert, for those who can actually eat bread-y type desserts.

For Saturday, I’m considering spinach and gruyere-stuffed chicken breasts with a lemon buerre blanc. That depends on there being someone around to eat, of course, and I think there will be. Should be good. Those of you in the area…well, you know.

Eating out

During the lockdown sessions in radiation, one of the (many) things I told myself as I waited to get through each session was that when I healed enough, I would return to some of my favorite places to eat, and continue my quest of trying a new place each week.

One of those favorites was Yoshi’s, a sushi restaurant. A dear friend of mine took me out to dinner a couple weeks ago for my first dinner out in public in a year, and my first choice was Yoshi’s. Alas, they have closed, so we went to a backup sushi place instead, which was good enough, but not quite the same.

However, the public dining experience was not altogether bad. This past week, since I have been without a proper refrigerator while awaiting delivery of my nice, shiny, new one, I’ve eaten out several times at Biscotti’s, a bistro-type place near where I used to live. Tonight, once again, I ate there and finally had the tuna tataki I had promised myself during those long months of treatment and recovery. I’m happy to say I finished all of it, plus a cup of soup, and a few tiny bites of a small mocha chocolate-mousse torte with chocolate ganache. I’ve found that really sweet items like the torte kill the fillings on the right lower side of my mouth. I’m not sure why this is, and why non-sweet things do not (although I do experience some pain if I’ve been eating quite a bit and chew on that side), but I’m betting there is some valid physiological reason for it. I suppose I’ll have to ask my dentist about that during the next trip when they see if I can open my mouth widely enough for a real cleaning.

In any case, we (the royal we) are making progress, I think. I am not the patient sort with myself, though, and progress is not fast enough, in my opinion. Since it can’t be changed, though, I suppose I’ll have to keep hammering away at it.

The new fridge arrived this morning. It’s very pretty, and now needs to be filled. That’s my plan for Friday, along with making brownies and a test run at that chocolate-hazelnut tart. Any taste testers available?

Missed opportunity/duty calls

So I missed a chance to cook for some people I’ve never cooked for prior to this point. Something intervened, naturally, and the window of opportunity closed. I’d like to be able to convince people to screw up at more convenient moments for me, but I expect this is a futile endeavor. I think it would have been quite a good meal, even if what popped into my head when someone was casting about for suggestions didn’t actually make it on the final menu. However, it did give me an idea for a menu to make at some point for my steady tasters or whatever group happens to be around at the moment:

Pan seared pork chops on sweet potato pancakes with pan gravy; black bean-mango salsa; roasted asparagus with lemon zest (or haricots verts if asparagus isn’t available); jalapeno cornbread.

I’ve added that to my collection of Things to Cook One Day. I’m hoping One Day will arrive at some point soon and there will actually be people with regular schedules and ready appetites to eat whatever it is that strikes my fancy at a given moment. Otherwise I’ll have to start chasing after strangers on the street, begging them to try the food while assuring them that I’m not crazy or trying to poison them.

Feed me, Seymour!

Party time is creeping up on us. If everyone we’ve invited comes, we’ll have 30-40 people here. What, then, of the menu?

Here’s a rough outline of what I’m planning.

Ribs, rubbed and smoked, with homemade bbq sauce on the side (smoking on Saturday)
Chicken, burgers and dogs for those who don’t like seafood (not many of those people)
Guacamole & chips – a huge batch, which will look similar to the picture I posted down a bit
Homemade salsa
Baked beans (made by someone else)
Potato salad (made by someone else)
Homemade hummus and pita
Coleslaw
Fresh fruit
Homemade pickles (and possibly a try at Wickles as well)
Grilled veggies
Shrimp – boiled and grilled, with homemade cocktail and remoulade sauces available
Blue crab, steamed with Old Bay, assuming we can procure these on a Sunday
Grouper – fried and grilled, with chile-lime butter and a roasted garlic/herb sauce available (both of which would also go well with the shrimp)
Hushpuppies
Salad
Fresh bread, depending on me
Cookies – chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia, madelines (maybe)
Apple tart? Chocolate hazelnut tart? (maybe) – Any voters who would like to cast their ballot for one or the other or both?

Some of these things can be made ahead of the party, of course: pickles (way before), sauces, salsa, coleslaw, desserts, bread, salad, guacamole. The ribs will be done on Saturday before the party Sunday. That will leave Sunday with prep only for the actual grilling and frying. I think it will all come together nicely.

Before the party, though, the painting of the foyer/living room and kitchen must be completed, and we must continue to put the house in order.

I am looking forward to being able to try my ribs for the first time since I started making them for other people. I won’t be able to eat much of them, but a taste will do. The fish will be easier to handle, and I do love some grouper. It should be a great day to be gathered around with everyone. And of course, if you’re reading this, we know you (every if we only have just met you!), and you’re in the area, come on along a week and a half from now. Bring your swimsuit and a towel or two. Eat and make merry with us.

The Last Supper

The last real, home-cooked meal in this house, anyway. This week will be the Week From Hell as we slide toward the move date. Although I don’t hate moving with the passion of a thousand fiery suns, I don’t consider it to be a fun process, either. Along with the moving issues, I also have two followup appointments with my oncologists, one of which will no doubt be ready to schedule another PET scan to see how we’re doing.

But back to Sunday night and the last real meal I’m making in this house. On tonight’s menu, a trio of items requested by one of my sisters.

Blackened mahi (grilled during a very light rain that won’t do much to assuage our current drought-like conditions)
Stuffed tomatoes (as she missed the first round of these zucchini, portabello, and gruyere-stuff beauties)
Brown rice (not very exciting, but what she wanted)

I also made a remoulade sauce and a mango-papaya salsa, as that same sister had not yet carved up the mango and papaya I had gotten her for some kind of fruit bowl she was going to put together. Before they completely disintegrated into mush on the counter, I thought it might be time to throw together something using them.

Here’s a closeup of the mahi with some of the salsa.

I seasoned the mahi the way I used to eat blackened mahi. I neglected to keep in mind that not everyone likes food as spicy as I do, so my sister and her boyfriend got a bit choked up over their first bites. With a couple squeezes of lemon, some judicious scraping off of the seasoning, and some remoulade, they both enjoyed it (and he took the leftovers home).

And then, the tomatoes. I mentioned that my sister had missed them last time (she was ill). This time, however, she ate hers and then took half of mine, when I could not finish it. It’s quite a tasty dish, and I can see this one becoming a most-requested item.

As everything is being packed this week, this was the last full meal I’ll prepare. I’m considering doing a couple of slow cooker recipes, since there would be minimal prep and no requirement of my full attention. Slap it on a disposable plate, and there you have it: dinner. I must say, though, that I can’t wait to get into the new house, especially because it means I’ll have my own cooking utensils back at my disposal. I still need to buy a refrigerator for move-in, though.

Sunday night also marks almost two weeks since I’ve fed anything down the tube but water, to flush it out and clean it. The problem with this, of course, is that I’m generally unable to eat very much at a single sitting and thus unable to consume as many calories over the course of a day as I am by dumping a few cups of formula down the hatch during the day. As a result, I lose weight fairly rapidly. Stepping on the scale at the grocery, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief: 115 pounds, down from 118 just a couple of weeks ago when they weighed me at my surgeon’s office. No doubt Monday will bring with it a lecture from one of the medical oncology nurses when they weigh me in there as part of my followup, and another lecture on Tuesday from the radiation oncology nurses when I have my followup appointment there. But I did have my daily dose of ice cream!

Let them eat…cookies

Something I neglected to mention about the other night’s cooking expedition: cookies.

My mom likes white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. My sister wanted some chewy chocolate chip cookies. I decided to do both.

Everything seemed to go so well. Creamed together the butter and the sugars for each. Sifted together the dry ingredients, and slowly incorporated those into the wet after adding the egg and vanilla to each batter. Chilled the dough.

And yet, something went awry.

In both cases, the cookies spread much more than they should have. Instead of being slightly puffy, nice and chewy, they became flat disks that were crispy instead. Tasty. But crispy. Not what I was after.

I’m not entirely sure why this happened, unless the creaming incorporated too much air into the dough, or the silpat caused the spread. The next batch of cookies is going into the oven on parchment paper, to see if that has any effect on the amoeba-like spread of the dough as it bakes.

Stuffed

Not me. Not yet, anyway. I’m not to the point where I can eaat enough real food at a sitting to reach that point.

Still, coming up with things people can eat – and then creating those things – is great fun and enormously gratifying. It may not be the prettiest food that I’ve ever seen, but it tastes good, and in the end that is all that matters.

Menu from Thursday night:

Chicken with lemon-basil sauce
Potatoes and onions au gratin
Zucchini, portabello, and gruyere stuffed tomatoes

My plate.

From an eating standpoint, the chicken proved much more difficult than the fish from a couple of nights previous. Of course, chicken (beef, pork) is a lot tougher than fish, too. The potatoes were almost impossible for me to eat, as they suck all the available moisture out of my mouth, so I didn’t get very far with those, although they were tasty. By far the highlight (for me) was the stuffed tomato.

A cross section of a stuffed tomato.

This was soft enough and the individual vegetables carry enough of their own moisture that it was much simpler to eat.

The other diners, having none of the eating issues I do, declared the meal a hit, and cleared off their plates.

I’m planning one more meal here, for Sunday, as next week is moving week and it will be rather frenetic around here. Saturday morning is a trip to an annual event called World of Nations. This is an event where about two dozen countries are represented, and visitors to the event can examine crafts and such from the countries, but mostly people go to sample the food. I know I do. I intend to do the same this year, even if my samples are very small. There will be pictures, of course.

A return to eating. Sort of.

For the past week, I’ve been trying to avoid eating through the tube. For the most part, this has been pretty successful: I’ve not had any formula for several days now. instead, I’ve been eating ice cream, soup, and runny mealy foods like grits and cream of wheat.

Last night, highly frustrated with the tube and the associated nastiness that goes with it – such as pieces of skin that pop out from around the incision as it continually tries to heal itself, which cannot be removed until they dry up and separate on their own, for instance – I decided that I really, really wanted it out. As soon as possible. The only way this is going to happen is if I can take in enough calories that I don’t lose much further weight and send myself precipitously toward malnutrition. As faithful readers will know, the tube has been my companion since September of last year, and was the only route of eating for me until just last month.

The problem, of course, is the food. My jaws are not strong enough to eat a number of foods, and the muscles get quite tired very quickly. And then there is the entire issue of my mouth drying out too quickly and not being able to control the food so as not to have it adhere to the top of my mouth or get caught up between gum and cheek. My hunt lately is for things that are soft enough for me to make my way through, moist enough that I don’t need an entire bottle of water to get it down, and healthy enough that I’ll get the nutrients I need without having to fall back on the formula.

Thinking about it in the afternoon, I decided that some fish would be nice. The evening’s menu:

Tilapia filets, pan-seared, with a chile-lime butter
Steamed zucchini
Corn shaved off the cob
Salad (for the others – salad is a bit ambitious for me at the moment)

I ate almost all the zucchini on this plate, about a third of the filet, and some of the corn. Corn presents a challenge because of the skin and the individual kernels that have to be controlled.

My taste buds are still not back to where they were before, most likely because of the continued healing and the granular tissue that covers parts of it. This is why I opted for a spicier butter for the fish, to ensure that something got through. It was all quite good, even with my limited sensations. The filets were dusted with salt, pepper, and paprika on both sides prior to being seared in a saute pan with some light olive oil.

Chile-lime butter:

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
1 jalapeno, finely diced (can substitute almost any chile; serranos and thai chiles would work well)
2 tablespoons of finely diced shallots
2 teaspoons lime zest
Juice of one lime

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly. The butter can be made days in advance. I made this shortly before dinner, then put it in the freezer to firm it up while things were cooking. A spoonful of the butter went on the seared filets as they were plated. The butter would also go well with chicken.

Lighter fare

After the weekend from hell, I decided it was time to rattle some pots and pans with a touch of lighter fare for the rather marvelous change from sort-of winter/spring into kind-of spring/summer. No pictures, alas. I’ll have to work on that a little – it will probably be simpler when I’m actually one of the parties eating the food, since I can just fiddle around with my own plate rather than making someone else wait while the chief chef geek takes pictures of food.

So, Monday evening’s menu was a simple affair: sweet/spicy shrimp, pasta with pancetta, asparagus, and feta, and a nice salad. The shrimp were marinated for about 30 minutes or so in a combination of brown sugar, lemon juice, olive oil, cayenne pepper, lemon zest, and salt. While the shrimp were sleeping in that mix, I boiled the asparagus until it was just tender/crisp, then shocked it in some ice water. I also boiled the pasta – farfalle (bowtie) – in the same water in which the asparagus was boiled. Why waste flavor? While that was working, I rendered some pancetta, tossed in a couple cloves of garlic (minced) and let that sweat, chopped the asparagus and tossed that in, then added the drained pasta plus a couple of tablespoons of the water. After gently mixing all that together, it was time for about half a cup of crumbled feta. mixed – again, gently – and then put into a serving bowl, it looked and smelled pretty darn good.

While that was resting, I added a couple tablespoons of olive oil to a saute pan and quickly sauteed the shrimp in batches – so as not to overload the pan and cause the heat to drop. After all, we want a good sear on the shrimp, not a quasi-boiled, limp shellfish in the end.

Unfortunately, my dear friend and taste tester started feeling bad just as everything hit the table, so was not able to eat anything. For her, a doggie bag with shrimp, pasta, and a few bleu cheese stuffed olives. For one of my sisters and my mom, full plates. They enjoyed it, and I’m hoping that leftovers are just as tasty as the first round was.

Next up: I have a special request for a dish with artichokes. I was tossing around ideas of what to serve with it, since artichokes alone do not a meal make, and decided it is probably time to stuff some of these magnificent boneless pork loin chops. Now, to decide what to stuff in those pockets…