Makdous

Across the street from the building where I work, a new Middle Eastern market opened.  My company recently moved to the new location as well so we definitely wanted to make friends with the folks who own the market…you know, being neighborly.  The guys who own it are super friendly and a lot of fun.  A co-worker and I were in there the other day and one of the owners took us around through the store and showed us a lot of the goods they sold.  We talked about different foods and cooking and a little bit of everything.  As we were talking, he opened a bottle of olive oil and a bag of bread and another of green za’atar (which I learned, is wheat, thyme, sumac and sesame).  We dipped our bread and ate way too much standing around goofing off.

A bag of green za'atar Awesome hummus

Our friend watched us eat every bite, trying to tell if we liked it or if we were about to run out the door.  He suggested some spicy pickles and awesome hummus and all sorts of other things.  We loaded our baskets with all sorts of things.  I think we passed the test because he finally took us over to the jars of makdous (check this out…Arabic for makdous: المكدوس‎   It’s sort of pretty.  I love wikipedia).  I am not sure if you folks have ever seen a jar of makdous but it looks as if it belongs in a biology lab.  I could only describe it in fairly crude terms which I won’t directly mention…hmm…let’s just call it the dead things in oil.

Jar of makdous Jar of makdous

Our friend showed us one brand and said that we could bring them back if we didn’t like it.  I am not one to shy away from much of anything so we bought a jar and headed back to the office.  I read the label and makdous is in fact, eggplants stuffed with walnuts and spices and packed in oil.  I ate the pickles and the hummus and za’atar.  Finally, the makdous was calling to me.  I tried one…and then I had to have another…and then another.  Holy moley, makdous is awesome.  Not everyone in the office who tried the foods that day liked them, but I think that was to be expected.

Homemade tabbouleh

Not much tabbouleh left...

I went back the next day to buy another jar of makdous and my friend smiled.  He said that he and his business partner debated after we left whether our tongues would be suited to their foods.  Jar #2 sealed the deal that I was adventurous and interested.  I went in again on my favorite holiday of all (Groundhog day), and my friend called me over to the cooler.  His wife had made tabbouleh and he brought a container for me to try.  I ate the entire container for supper tonight (along with hummus and all sorts of other things).  I want to take him some uniquely American dish that he might not have had.  I suspect that we will have lots of fun sharing food and conversation!  It’s bad to have a food place right across the street though…both my tongue and my wallet may be pushed to their limits!

 

6 Comments

warren, February 3rd 2012 | Tags:
Posted in Food

Warren and Betty

It just doesn’t have a ring, does it?  We watched Julie and Julia the other night and it just has a ring that makes it perfect.  But forget the ring.  I really really liked the movie.  Now don’t tell my guy friends but I might even buy a copy of the video for my collection.  I am not sure what made me like it so much but I have been walking around the house talking like Julia Child.

Goofy Eyes

Warren & Betty Crocker

There were all sorts of neat things that Julie and Julia made in the movie but one thing in particular stood out to me.  I guess I needed to shoot for my something in my ability range but I really liked the scene when Julie was trying to make poached eggs.  Unlike Julie, I have eaten a lot of eggs in my life but never have I had a poached egg.  Julie struggled cooking poached eggs so I thought the challenge would be fun for me.  So, I consulted Betty Crocker and followed her recommendations.

Making Poached Eggs

Betty and I are like peas in a pod I guess.  We even had the exact same custard dishes that she used in the pictures in the cookbook.  Perhaps I channeled Betty but the steps seemed pretty simple.  I boiled 2 inches of water, cracked my eggs into custard cups and poured the eggs (quickly..that’s the secret) into the water.  They foamed a little bit but I let them boil for 4 minutes and scooped them out with a slotted spoon.

Making Poached Eggs

Making Poached Eggs

Making Poached Eggs

I didn’t have any trouble like Julie did and I am so glad.  Poached eggs are a lot like hard boiled eggs without the shell except they aren’t quite hard boiled and they do seem to taste a little different to me.  I am not sure why but it was a good taste and I will definitely make them again!

Eating Poached Eggs

Eating Poached Eggs

So, after eating my poached eggs, it occurred to me that there are probably other things that are kinda well known but that I have never cooked or eaten.  I started making a list but I would really like it if you, my friends, could suggest some stuff that I should cook and eat that are sort of famous…I am going to make Eggs Benedict next.

Eating Poached Eggs

Yosemite Sam always used to say, “Sufferin’ succotash” and it occurred to me that I have never had succotash.  And then I got to thinking about fancy stuff that people are supposed to know about…like bananas foster and cherries jubilee.  I have never made ratatouille either…it’s a cool movie for sure but I have no idea what it tastes like…not like the rats/mice in the movie I hope but I am willing to try.

Eating Poached Eggs

Anyhow, I promise I won’t go down some cooking-blog-road (not that there is anything wrong with that) but can anyone help me with some more things I need to make?  I am not trying to find myself or escape from my job like Julie was, but I could probably use a new excuse to sample a little wine and eat too much. Help!

9 Comments

warren, January 16th 2012 | Tags: ,
Posted in Food, Thoughts

The only reason I go there

There are many places I go to that really only have one draw.  If not for one or two things, I would never go there.  I am sure we all have those sorts of places.  In recent experience, two places in particular come to mind.

Walmart used to be a fun place to go and look at the latest and greatest stuff I would break and throw out in the next  few months.  I enjoyed looking at people and buying donuts or a bargain movie.  Lately when I go, however, I feel like I am in a Mad Max movie, only with long lines and even worse personal hygiene.  Walking through the parking lot really is dangerous now too.  In frustration, I guess, folks whip around illegally parked cars and older folks in electric scooters and put everyone at risk.  Cutting across lanes and general craziness make me hesitant to get near the place.

Sometimes, though, I have to go to Walmart.  We need this or that and the only place that has it is Walmart.  I have found a new stress-less way to get through.  I stroll past the lines that stretch for miles, find my item and then head for the ammo counter.  I own guns and like to shoot so buying ammo to plink at targets is fun anyhow.  I don’t like when folks check out at specialty counters if they are not buying items from that area so I always feel obligated.  Doggone it, I hate to buy ammo for my plinking habit, but in the interest of preserving check-out etiquette, I always buy a box of some ammo.

Emily needed a Valentine’s day gift last year, she got a frying pan and a box of ammo.  Kids need notebook paper, they get a bonus box of ammo.  I need a box of ammo, I get a bonus one to go with it!  See, it’s perfect!

Ok, so the other place like the ammo counter is the ball park.  Ever since my time as a little leaguer, I have hated baseball.  Really, I didn’t hate baseball until the one year when a preacher in town was the coach.  By association, I learned to hate baseball.  So, last night, my company went to the local minor league park and we all watched a baseball game.  The WV Power played some other team.  ”We” lost so I don’t’ even care who it was.  Come to think of it, I don’t care even if “we” would have won.  Anyhow, back to the story.  Abigail and I went to the game and we both had the same mindset.  We went to the game for the junk food…nothing else.  She had a hotdog and Dippin’ Dots and I had nachos and vinegar fries…and a half-gallon of Mt Dew.  When the food ran out, our patience did too.  We hung around awhile but 5 innings was all we could take!  The only reason I go to a baseball game is for fries with vinegar or a box of nachos.  If they had an ammo counter there….

I guess everyone has places that the go to that are less than awesome.  I just like to find things to make my time there bearable, if not pleasant. And with ammo or nachos as a reward, I have found much patience…

8 Comments

warren, August 31st 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Family, Food, Fun

Green beans. That is all

We love to plant a garden and watch as everything shoots up through the ground.  I don’t think much is any prettier than a recently plowed garden with loads of young plants poking up all around.  We eat a lot of our meals out of the garden in a typical summer.  I am a fairly new vegetarian of the year-round sort but we are all pretty much vegetarians in the summer.  Well, most summers.  Not this summer.  We got off to a rocky start with the near constant rainfall that we had during the planting season.  Stuff was late going into the ground…everything but the weeds.  They thrive no matter what.  Couple all of that with the incredible heat and dryness now and we have found the garden to be pretty pitiful.

Just part of the haul

I guess if I had to pick one thing that would succeed in the garden though, it would be green beans.  I love green beans and could almost live on them and mountain dew.  Luckily, the green beans and corn are doing exceptionally well this year.  We picked and canned 34 pounds of green beans last weekend.  It was a marathon canning session ending somewhere around 2 am…a mere 4 hours before the kids usually get up.  Anyhow, we are in the beans this year for sure.  There are tons more following the ones we picked so it will be another busy weekend.  Of course, it can’t all be smooth and easy.  We planted a bag full of bean seed clearly marked tenderette bush beans.  I have no doubt that some of the seeds were in fact tenderettes.  The majority of the beans, however, are some other sort of runners.

Ain't they purdy?

Bush beans grow in a somewhat compact bush where all of the beans can be picked from individual plants.  Folks usually do not have to manage the plants in particular which is one of the reasons we like them.  Runners, on the other hand, send out vines and are meant to be trellised or otherwise tied up.  Thinking we only had bush beans, we didn’t pay any attention to the beans growing like mad in the garden until it was too late.  So, instead of having nice individual rows, we have a freakin’ blob of bean plants chocked full of beans.  With machete in hand, one can venture into the bean jungle and harvest, but it isn’t easy or fun.

They are prettiest in the jars waiting to go into the canner

There is still plenty of growing time left so we may yet be surprised with what the old garden will produce.  It’s all good though.  Even on my deserted island of a garden, I have to one thing I could not bear to do without…Jack Sparrow needed rum…I need green beans, savvy?

 

9 Comments

warren, August 3rd 2011 | Posted in Canning, Food, Garden, WV

Thank you berry much

We have been busy as cats in a sandbox and it seems that we haven’t had time to do anything, much less anything interesting.  Every now and then, though, we get a chance to take a few minutes to do something simple.  Since it’s July (holy cow!  It’s July?!), something simple means berry picking for us.

 

We have an excellent raspberry patch at the house so I can stumble out in my pjs and grab a handful of berries.  Our patch makes many more than a handful though so we pick and freeze berries every day.  Our raspberry patch is pretty interesting.  Of course there are berries, but the new feral kittens hide out in there too (anyone want a kitten?  Energetic.  Free to a good home).   I have seen all manner of bugs and spiders also.  Honestly, our raspberry patch is a biology lesson (in a good way) waiting to happen!  I love picking berries just to see what will pop out next!

Black raspberries...not the same as blackberries

By the way, did you know you can spread berries out in a single layer on a plate, freeze them, and then put them in freezer bags.  The individual berries remain intact so you don’t end up with a berry blob.

Blackberries!

Anyhow, raspberries are easy for us.  It’s the blackberries that are painful.  I think they have to be that way for folks to appreciate their awesomeness and I am willing to let Emily make the sacrifice.  We all pick them actually.  By “we”, I mean Emily and I pick them.  The kids always seem to wander off into the woods at our secret blackberry location to “look for more berries”.  Uh huh.

Sweet reward! Blackberry pie!

So, blackberries are especially good right now and I love blackberry pies more than any other pie (except maybe Emily’s strawberry pies).  I have an excellent wife who not only helps pick the berries, but also makes me pies!  Thanks you berry much!  You are my favorite wife, Emily!

6 Comments

warren, July 13th 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in Food, Nature

It’s gouda stuff!

I was wandering through the grocery store the other day (which is really the only way I ever experience the grocery store) when I passed by the cheese area.  A certain joy overtook me as I saw that delectable red wax wheel covering, what I remembered to be, the cheese of the gods.  When I was a kid, my parents used to get a wheel of gouda cheese every now and then.  My brother and I waited patiently as mom and dad unwrapped the cellophane and sliced through the wax to cut out our wedges.  It was a bit of a delicacy when I was growing up so we got a fairly small piece each time so we could make it last several days.  I remember enjoying that whole experience so much.

That was supper one night

So, I bought a small wheel of gouda cheese the other day and did the routine, opening the wrapper, cutting the wax, doing all the stuff like when I was a kid.  You know what?  It was almost as good as I remember.  My tastes are probably a little more exotic now than they were when I was a kid but I think my “taste memory”  kicked in and made it taste far better than it really was.

Now I am no longer bound by rules of sharing or making it last or even letting anyone know I even bought the stuff.  It’s weird maybe, but I wanted to sort of keep it to myself a little.  Isn’t that weird?  Anyhow, I plowed through that wheel all by myself.  It was the first I had in a long time and was just sort of cool.  I think I will buy another wheel of gouda cheese though, and this time, I may just share small slivers with the kids.  We may try to make it last and talk about how special gouda cheese is.  I think my kids need to develop a “taste memory”.  I don’t know if they will ever have the love affair with gouda that I do, but I can try!  After all, not too many other foods can describe themselves…it’sa gouda!

Anyone else have a “taste memory” for something from when you were a kid?

6 Comments

warren, May 13th 2011 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Family, Food, Thoughts

Make whoopee pies, not war!

I got a wild hair on Sunday and decided to bake.  It’s not often when I feel a deep need to bake, but it happened this weekend.  I searched through stacks and stacks of newspaper clippings and cookbooks and websites…well, not really.  I pretty much had a hankering for whoopee pies, an old favorite my Mom used to make.  I am pretty sure Emily was taking a nap and the kids were doing…whatever it is that my kids do when their Dad is baking.

I cracked my Mom’s homemade cookbook and started adding ingredients.  About half way through adding stuff into the mixing bowl, I discovered that I was actually making a peanut butter ball-whoopee pie hybrid.  Being a food pacifist, I decided to press on man, you know, live and let live man…it’s all groovy man.

I just added a bunch more stuff to the bowl and pressed on through.  Did you know that flour and cocoa and a Kitchen-Aid mixer can rocket clear to the ceiling?  Anyhow, I got stuff all mixed up and baked and then Isaac and I shared the remains of the icing on the mixer and the bowl and the ceiling.

I was pretty so-so on them when they were warm but the next morning, yesterday morning, I ate more than one for breakfast.  Now that, my friends is when they are good…and good for you too!

In case you feel a need to journey with me on my quest for health-less-ness, here’s the recipe:

Pies

1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup sour milk plus 2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups flour

Mix together then add 1 cup of hot water.  Daub big goopy spoonfuls onto a slightly greased baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes in a 400 deg oven.

Icing

2 egg whites – whipped (and beaten…and taunted)
2 Tbsp vanilla
4 Tbsp flour
4 Tbsp milk
1 cup powdered sugar

Mix and add 1 more cup powdered sugar and 3/4 cup shortening.  Once the pies are cool, spread the icing between like sized pies and hide from your children!  Oh yeah, cats seem to like them too…

8 Comments

warren, November 16th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Food

Punkins 2010

Is it a regional thing for people to say, “punkin”?  I can’t decide where all I have heard people say pumpkin that way.  Anyhow, we carved our punkins/pumpkins this weekend.  The kids are super squeamish when it comes to…well, about everything.  Abigail assured us that she could not continue the carving (or even start it really) without nitrile gloves.  Neither kid could bear to actually put their hands into the pumpkins to remove the stuff in fact.

Just to assert my awesomeness (and to remind the kids that I am not mentally stable), I grabbed a handful of the goo and pretended to eat it.  In fact, I did eat some of it which really sealed the deal for the kids!

They did a great job carving their pumpkins.  I saved a bunch of seeds…some for roasting and some for saving to plant next year.  We’ll see how both endeavors turn out later…

I have never seen seeds sprouting inside a pumpkin before but this year, we found several seeds which had good sprouts developing within the parent pumpkin.  I guess it is possible that the pumpkins we got were cannibals but I figure it’s just that the seeds got impatient and started to grow.

So, we lit the jack-o-lanterns and had big fun making spooky sounds and such.  I tried taking pictures and was able to get a few good ones.  I looked at the ones where I moved and believe that they may be even cooler…they sort of have a bit of spookiness to them, don’t you think?

I moved a bunch on purpose…I think it looks like they are leaking fire or something

8 Comments

warren, October 27th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Family, Food

The iron age

My parents were in town this weekend for a visit.  They come from someplace north of the Mason-Dixon line where it’s cold and where Yankees live.  We never cook at the house when we have guests…not sure why but it just never happens.  Typically we eat all sorts of snacks as well and then we fall asleep on the couch – just like Thanksgiving.

Anyhow, when I do cook, one of my new traditions is to cook eggs for the kids and Emily as they prepare for school/work in the mornings.  You may remember awhile back when I got Emily a frying pan for Valentines day.  It seemed like a reasonable gift to me but it didn’t end well.  I think I have learned my lesson though.  You see, for her birthday this year, I got her a cast iron skillet.  The frying pan was clearly too light and flimsy to suit her…why else would she not like my gift?

I used to cook eggs in the non-stick valentines day pan but I didn’t really like cooking in it.  Is it weird to analyze what sort of pan one likes to eggs in?  I thought so.  Alas, it has to be done.  So, I no longer use the valentines day pan for eggs.  I tried cooking eggs in the cast iron the first day and it was just absolutely marvelous!  It heats so evenly and I can control the temperature just right.  If the President ever needed an eggs-only chef, I could do the job!  Well, I could do the job if the President only ordered scrambled eggs.  Anything else and I am out…

After I cook the eggs, I like to play short order chef…”eggs are up!” I holler every morning.  It doesn’t matter if everyone is right beside me.  I channel Mel from Mel’s diner every time.  It’s cool to clean up too…I just wipe out the pan, add a dollop of butter and put it back on the heat to melt so the pan stays seasoned.  The cats love to lick the butter (found that one out the hard way) so I always have to watch the pan and store it in the oven when it cools some.

Aside from the race with the cats, I really like to use Emily’s cast iron birthday pan.  As long as I use it, she doesn’t feel the need to place it along-side my head!

9 Comments

warren, October 25th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Food, Fun

Irish cream + ice cream = goodness!

Ok, I know I said last week that I am eating a lower fat, lower cholesterol vegetarian diet…yeah, yeah, yeah. I still gotta live a little! It’s all about portions and frequency. You see, I discovered Ben & Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide ice cream. It’s really unhealthy and all but dang it tastes good.

I am determined to eat healthy but this treat is a nice diversion now and then. I eat a spoonful here and there and I have found that it’s enough to curb my sweet-tooth…plus Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is sooo expensive that I can only afford to eat this sweet goodness now and then anyhow!  It sort of keeps me in check because, above all, I am a cheap-skate!

I found some great news about my new diet too.  I have been on blood pressure medicine for years.  I have tried a few things here and there to try to get my blood pressure to change but nothing ever seemed to have an impact.  Lately though, I started feeling light-headed and dizzy a little too often.  In consultation with my doctor, we decided to go off of the medicine and see what happened to my blood pressure.  After two weeks off of the meds, I went back and found that my blood pressure was great (I had been monitoring it at home too and consistently found the same thing)!  I am off of blood-pressure medicine!  I can only attribute it to my dietary change as nothing else is different!

As much as I might like to go and gorge on Ben & Jerry’s after finding the news, I think I will go get a tofu burger instead!

8 Comments

warren, September 21st 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Awesome, Food
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