breakthesky.net » Food

Blackberry Grunt

Manda — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:20:51 +0000

When I said that I would be making my most ambitious dish yet this week, I lied. Not intentionally, but it was a lie all the same.

I thought making a blackberry grunt would be difficult. A grunt is the New England variation of a cobbler, and it certainly looked at least a little challenging. It had a stewed blackberry filling and globs of dough that formed the grunt topping. However, it was actually really, really easy. Like, incredibly easy.

That’s not to say it wasn’t delicious; it was very tasty. The dough-like grunt topping had a slight tang thanks to the buttermilk, and it was great to eat a glob of the grunt with the blackberry filling. It was kind of like eating a buttermilk biscuit with blackberry jam. It was delicious; my family devoured the blackberry grunt in less than two days!

I’m a Pretty Capable Cook

Manda — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:24:02 +0000

This past week, it’s been my job to keep house while my mother recovers from surgery. Even though my cooking skills are nowhere near as superb as my mother’s, I am definitely a pretty capable cook. Here’s a sampling of this past week’s menu a la Manda (with all the savory dishes served with a side of pasta or rice):

Spaghetti bolognaise
Garlic lime chicken
Broccoli stir fry
Lemon pepper salmon
Thai green curry
Variations of eggs and toast (comfort food!)
Caramel apple upside down cake
Chocolate chip cookies

I’ve been unusually behind the ball when it comes to taking photos of my culinary creations, so you’ll just have to take my word that the food served in my kitchen this week has been incredibly delicious! I do, however, have my most ambitious dish yet on the menu for tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled for the documentation in the coming week. If anyone can guess what it is, I’ll send you some ;D

Homemade Ravioli and Tomato Sauce

Manda — Sat, 08 May 2010 15:05:28 +0000

Inspired by my success with making fresh pasta, I decided to try making homemade ravioli. The pasta making process is the same with both fettucini and ravioli dough. The only difference is that when I roll the dough out in the pasta machine, I just roll it out in sheets rather than in fettucini strips.

I used Alton Brown’s ravioli recipe for both the pasta and the filling. The filling was incredibly tasty as there were so many spices that went into the mixture. To top it all off, I made a simple tomato sauce by the incomparable Jamie Oliver. I didn’t really want to “brown” the ravioli in sage butter like Brown’s recipe suggested, so I used a tried-and-true Jamie Oliver recipe for the last touch.

It turned out amazingly! I made so much ravioli that I froze what my family couldn’t eat for dinner. Gone are the days when I buy boxed fresh ravioli from the store… I have my own homemade ravioli now!

A Crepe, Books and Froyo Adventure

Manda — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 18:32:44 +0000

One of my good friends and I decided to go explore DuPont Circle in search of brunch this morning. Washington, D.C. has a huge amount of well-known and delicious restaurants, but my friends and I have the tendency to go to the same ones over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, the restaurants my friends and I frequent are awesome, but it’s nice to change things up every once in a while. So, armed with nothing but the desire for good food, my friend and I set off for DuPont this morning and began our search for tasty, delicious food on this slightly overcast Saturday morning.

After some exploration around the Circle, we ended up having brunch at Crepes-a-Go-Go, a wonderful crepe restaurant I had never dined at before. It was absolutely delicious! I ordered a savory crepe with cheese, spinach and green onions; my friend ordered a sweet crepe with strawberry and kiwi that was drizzled with honey and cream. I particularly enjoyed how the atmosphere reminded me of a Parisian crepe restaurant I dined at when I did my high school exchange to France.

Next, my friend and I hit up Kramerbooks to check out the travel section for guidebooks about China. Attached to Kramerbooks is Afterwords Cafe, which is one of my absolute favorite restaurants in the D.C. area. The food is excellent and the desserts are to die for. However, my friend and I weren’t really up for pie after eating crepes, so we perused the guidebooks and came up with a tentative list of places to visit in China next year.

Once we were done checking out the book selection at Kramerbooks, my friend and I explored DuPont Circle some more. We stumbled upon Du Froyo, a frozen yogurt place that not only sells froyo but smoothies and bubble tea as well! The place is really lovely; it has a lot of natural light and a lovely color scheme with the walls and furniture. There’s a cozy area upstairs with two loveseats and some chairs, which made for a really nice area to sit in while enjoying froyo and good conversation.

For an impromptu morning adventure, this morning’s food findings in DuPont Circle were incredibly successful. (They didn’t hurt my bank account that much either, which is always a plus for a broke college kid!) I wish I had taken pictures of my food (both the crepe and the froyo) but I didn’t have my camera with me. Oh well, the memory of the successful exploration is more than enough. And let my morning’s success be a lesson to all: go out and explore to see what the area you live in has to offer!

Sign Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Petition and Help Make a Difference

Manda — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:55:09 +0000

It’s no secret that I am a massive Jamie Oliver fan. I’ve been following the news regarding Jamie’s latest endeavor, Food Revolution, and the petition involved in the project. Therefore, I’ve decided that this blog is the best place for me to plug for an incredibly worth cause.

You don’t need to have watched Jamie Oliver’s show “Food Revolution” to realize that the state of cafeteria food in U.S. public schools is appalling. When French fries are considered a better source of vegetables over a veggie stir fry, you know there is a serious problem. Unfortunately, the combined factors of lack of funding, interest, and/or care regarding food served to children in U.S. public schools means that this problem has gone unaddressed for far too long. Jamie is hoping to create a food revolution in the U.S. to bring back healthy food in schools, but he needs all the help he can get to make the difference.

By signing the petition and supporting Jamie’s cause, you agree to the following:

I support the Food Revolution. America’s kids need better food at school and better health prospects. We need to keep cooking skills alive.

What are you waiting for? Sign the petition and help make a difference today!

Peepshi

Manda — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:24:09 +0000

I discovered the concept of peepshi last weekend, right around the time the amount of Peeps sold go into overdrive because of Easter. A quick trip to the grocery store and before I knew it, my friend and I were settled in our lounge, getting busy making peepshi.

They’re not hard to make at all; the only things you need are Rice Krispie treats, Fruit-by-the-Foot, and Peeps. Peepshi are very sticky to make (so much marshmallow is involved!) but the disgustingly hot lounge may have been a factor in all the stickiness, as a floormate was using the oven to bake cookies at the same time. Still, the peepshi were lots of fun to make. The nigiri peepshi were a lot easier to make because I didn’t have to roll the Rice Krispie into a circle and stuff extra Peep filling inside, unlike the maki. Also, the maki required me to decapitate various Peeps :P

As fun as they were to make, eating them was a total sugar overload. I personally only managed one, as did my friend whom I made the peepshi with. We gave out the rest of them to the floor by offering them to people we bumped into as we made rounds in the dorms!

My Love for Jamie Oliver

Manda — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:03:20 +0000

The first time I ever saw a Jamie Oliver show was when I was thirteen. It was The Naked Chef, and it was the name of the show that caught my eye. However, soon I started watching any and all Jamie Oliver shows that aired on TV. Jamie’s Kitchen, Jamie’s School Dinners, Jamie at Home… if it was a Jamie Oliver show, you can bet that I’d be watching it.

To fully illustrate my admiration and respect for this man, I should share a story that occurred last summer (August 2009). I discovered that the Food Network was airing episodes of Jamie’s show Jamie at Home every Friday at 8:30a.m. However, I only found this out in time to watch an episode of Jamie at Home on the very last Friday of my summer vacation. I set my alarm and dragged my groggy, half-awake self to my couch, where I watched Jamie at Home episode titled “Peas and Broad Beans.” Have I mentioned that I don’t even like peas or broad beans? Still, anything Jamie cooks is something worth watching!

I just love his energy, his cooking style, and his obvious talent. The man is a genius and can make everything look (and I assume) taste incredibly delicious. I have one of his cookbooks that I absolutely swear by (I use his mac and cheese recipe) and I have never, ever doubted any of his recipes. I’ve never had reason too; everything I’ve ever made according to his recipe has turned out wonderfully. I also wish him the very best of luck with his campaign for healthier meals at schools, as everyone knows the standard cafeteria menu is filled with more junk than nutrients.

If I ever go to London, I will be making a reservation at his restaurant, Fifteen. I don’t know if I’d be able to contain my excitement and anticipation at the idea of eating at Jamie’s very own restaurant!

53 Grams of Sugar in a Bottle

Manda — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:14:33 +0000

I usually get a bottle of Lipton’s Iced Green Tea with Citrus whenever I have to buy lunch on a day that I intern. However, while I was halfway through the bottle the other day at my internship, my eye fell upon the nutritional information on the back of the bottle and I almost choked on my tea.

These are the nutritional facts that Lipton outlines for the Iced Green Tea with Citrus on their website:

Serving Size: 8 fl oz
Servings per 20 fl oz container: 2.5

Amount Per Serving
Calories 80
Total Fat 0g
Sodium 70mg
Total Carbohydrate 21g
Sugars 21g
Protein 0g

If there are 21g of sugar in one serving size of 8 fl oz and one bottle is 2.5 serving sizes… that means for every bottle of Iced Green Tea with Citrus I drink, I am drinking about 53g of sugar! My God, no wonder I have been noticing a slight weight gain recently¹.

I am most definitely bringing a water bottle to work now. I can always treat myself to bottled sugary drinks in the future, but I am not going to drink them regularly anymore. So long, Lipton Iced Green Tea with Citrus!

Of course, I’m not saying that any possible weight gain is directly caused by Lipton iced tea. But hey, it could be a factor.

March Madness Cake vs Pie Bracket

Manda — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:11:54 +0000

Meg posted her bracket in the March Madness Cake vs Pie Tournament, so of course I wanted to fill out a bracket too.

It was a lot easier to decide the cake half of the bracket than the pie, which probably means that I enjoy eating more kinds of pie than I do cake. Wedding and birthday cake confused me because there are so many kinds; in the end I interpreted wedding to be white cake and birthday to be yellow. I had a very hard time picking between pound and bundt and went with pound in the end only because I’ve eaten it more than I have bundt.

In the pie side of things, it was difficult because my favorite pies were pitted against my all-time favorite: apple. Lemon meringue is my second favorite kind, so it was very sad to see it go down against apple. I would have liked to put blueberry and cherry against each other, but cheesecake beat out cherry. As much as I love cherry pie, it can be kind of a hit-or-miss depending on the cherries used.

I am very pleased with my Final Four and the results of my bracket. Obviously apple and red velvet would face each other in the end (anyone who knows my dessert eating habits well would have known that from the start). As much as I love apple, there’s just something about red velvet that gives it a little edge over apple. It’s probably because I’ve never had a bad slice of red velvet in my life, whereas I have encountered some mediocre apple pie before.

Go team Red Velvet!

I’m an Awesome Big Sister

Manda — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:19:48 +0000

My brother is taking the SATs for the first time today, so I baked these chocolate chip cookies for him as my way of saying good luck. How many other big sisters do you know that perform such acts of kindness for their younger brother?

I know he will do fine; in fact, I’m pretty sure he’ll get a higher score than I did on my SATs (his ACT scores are already higher than mine were!). Still, I wanted to do a little extra something for him as my way of wishing him luck. It was either bake him his favorite cookies or get up at the crack of dawn to wish him luck when he left to take the test. I might be an awesome big sister, but I’m not willing to forgo sleep in my pursuit of sisterly awesomeness!