Spent Grains Teaser

Good morning.

I've alluded to this project in previous posts... the spent grains project. I believe in this post.

The Grains.

Supporting Ingredients.

There's no formal recipe yet, but I will tell you this: it involves beer by-products (aka "spent" grains), water, YEAST, some salt and honey.

It's packed with protein and vitamins. It's so flavorful, you're not sure you're eating bread. It's satisfying, and contains no high fructose corn syrup.

Stay tuned for more to come from this evolving bread. It's my little side project (one of 100) to make use of things that are wasted, and to fill a gap where adequate nutrition is lacking.

We all get tripped up on PI day sometimes

Dear nerds of the world wide web.... HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PI DAY...YESTERDAY! I wrote this post yesterday, but blogger's server wasn't letting me publish, so here it is, a day after Pi day, and what follows is a frankenstien post about the saddest pizza ever made on Pi day.

From yesterday: "I'm sure there are about 100 million other websites that say the same thing, but I am joining them.

How many digits can you recite? I can only do 3.141592... which isn't very far, but I type the number "3.1415" on a regular basis, so I feel good about that."

Incidentally, myself and my brother and his friend all made a pizza. It is not round. We cannot calculate the arc length of our crust in radians, because I don't have a pizza stone. Aw. But ooo is it good. edit: terrible! ( Actually, I'm lying, I don't know yet, because it's in the oven and I'm planning ahead for a speedy post. I gotta catch PI day while it's hot.)
After it came out of the oven:
This was the worst freakin pizza ever. The saran wrap came loose during the rise, and the dough dried out, and it never rose. We were hungry and thought, "hey, flatbread pizza?"

NOPE, WE MADE A BRICK PIZZA. I JUST ATE A BRICK.

The toppings were awesome: fresh basil, fresh mozzaralla, half pancetta, cracked pepper, TJ's pizza sauce. Too bad the dough was like playdough. Yuck.

But we ate it damnit, because we made it. Now do you trust me? I'll try again soon.

What other food bloggers blog about their failures? No too many. It's kinda sickening actually, every post is like "ooo look how amazing and delish this is!" Give me a little credit for showing you that crafts in the kitchen aren't always a shining success.

Edit: The next day, I went to go reheat some mashed potatoes. I opened the door of the microwave, and -much to my chagrin- I found this little bowl of yeast:
I put it in the microwave during the activation of the yeast to keep it warm and prevent air from blowing over it. We all had a pretty long laugh when we realized that we never added the yeast to the dough... NO WONDER it didn't rise. haha

Winter Harvest Part 2

Last but not least, the squash. Squash is one of those words where the longer you look at it, the funnier it is. SQUASH. umm, Winter squash is often labeled in the store as just 'winter squash', but 'butternut squash' or 'spaghetti squash' are other common varieties. They can be prepared many ways.

Here, I doused a halved spaghetti squash with olive oil, maple syrup, onion. I roasted in aluminum foil for about an hour, then raked out the insides with a fork.
Below is spaghetti squash topped with some almond butter, a sweet potato and roasted garlic, and some fried tempeh. Yeah, that weird vegetarian stuff that I still don't really know how to cook so I just make it hot.

Another wintertime favorite: the kale.

Kale IS rubbery and squeaky when you eat it raw. And because I have this weird acquired taste for raw foods, sometimes I just chew on kale stalks like a freakin rabbit. But YOU don't have to go through such trauma. I know I've talked about preparing kale salads before in this post. But now I have a new variation! See, i get these REALLY bomb pickles from the market around the corner. They're not your average Dill pickle with the stork on the front. So much so that I put the leftover pickle juice on my sandwiches or whatever happens to be going in my mouth. It's so good! But then one day I realized a lot of what goes into pickling is vinegar... which is what I used to "wilt" the kale. Boom! Into the kale salad goes the pickle juice. It's baller. Try it. Seriously. Or come over and I'll make you one.

Anyway, kale doesn't have to be rubbed with vinegar to make it taste good. You can saute it, bake it, or make salty chips out of it!
This was a kale salad rubbed with pickle juice, topped with leftover pan seared salmon, local goat cheese, and salted pumpkin seeds. So, kale is a great wintertime leafy green that is 10 times more nutritious than romaine or iceberg, and it can be insanely tasty if made right... or you can always eat it like this guy:

Winter Harvest Part 1

Hello reader! This post got long, so I'm breaking it into two parts. Because let's be honest, no one spends more than 5 minutes on a webpage...unless it's facebook, of course.

So it's almost spring, but there are still days in Philly when I could wear my winter jacket. And although my agricultural knowledge is sparse, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to see a single local berry, cucumber, tomato, or peach anytime soon. The picture below is my illustration of winter time. Does it work for you?


Stereotypically, winter harvest is SUPER un-sexy. Let's see... would you like some roots yanked out of the ground or some tough leafy greens that make squeaky rubber sounds when you chew? Well, I'm telling you that this is just the stereotype, and not the truth! Winter foods can actually be quite exotic and enticing. Don't roll your eyes. I saw that.

Below is a "blue potato". Can you believe that it's purple on the inside?!

I used it in this big, chunky soup and it carried a wonderful flavor. This soup also featured some heady carrots. I do solemnly swear never to eat another baby carrot again. Seriously, they're always slimey, too hard, require some sort of ranch dressing... and you know what? They're not really baby carrots... they're just shaped like that by a machine. Screw that. Check out these colorful, tender, non-slimey carrots below:



Next up, the little sweet potato. So, I've done an informal survey, and I've found a strange pattern. Most girls are crazy about sweet potatoes, but most dudes just could care less about the tater. So, for all the chicks out there... here are some sweet potatoes roasted with olive oil, garlic, fennel and cumin. This is the easiest thing in the world to make: just slice the potatoes, sprinkle your spice of choice on top, wrap in aluminum foil, and bake at 350 in a toaster oven (if it fits) for about 45 mins. Sorry dudes, you're missing out.

There's a lot of reasons why eating local, seasonal food is really good for you and area in which you live. And I try to support that. (I DO sometimes cheat and get citrus fruits, because let's face it, PA is just never going to grow a grapefruit. But Texas and California will be exporting them all year round.)

Anyway, I recommend trying the seasonal produce, but make sure it's from a local farm. Buying a super-sized potato from the supermarket WILL taste like nothing (without oodles of butter/sour cream/etc.) But try a small, sexy potato from the farmers' market, and I think you'll be surprised.
Next time: the squash and kale.