I am!

It was another busy week for us. Last night was a lot of fun though, with a nice birthday at a friend's place to celebrate with good people. Today I'm chillin' and getting some work done. Tonight I think I'll watch a movie.

It's time to dig up another beet out of the garden! They're so lovely sliced and fried in butter and garlic! mmmmm!

Why did I make a Thai curry tonight? Because
a) I had no meat left in my fridge.
b) I wanted something easy that I could simmer until my man got home.
c) I felt like curry.
d) I remembered the Thai basil plants in the garden.

So I found a recipe that I adapted and it turned out even better than I had hoped! It was flavourful without being super spicy, and it tasted fresh and light and sweet with a bit of citrus flavour from the thai basil. My only problem was that the rice was overdone. Here's the recipe because I have to write it down somewhere before I forget:

1 block extra firm tofu
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 cup chopped fresh carrots
6-8 shelled prawns/shrimp 19-24 size
3 cloves minced garlic
1 can unsweetened coconut milk
2-3 tsp thai green curry paste
3 tsp yellow curry powder (Madras brand for me!)
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp coarse salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 sprigs chopped fresh thai basil
3 tbsp peanut oil

1. Rinse the tofu and pat/squeeze dry with paper towels. Slice into 1/2" pieces. Let it sit in a sieve to drain further while you chop the other goodies. You can leave it sit there to drain in the fridge for an hour or more, if you like. The drier, the better.
2. Heat deep skillet to medium heat and add peanut oil. When at temperature, add curry paste and curry powder. Stir until fragrant, 1-2 minutes.
3. Add garlic and tofu. Fry about 3 minutes a side, until lightly browned.
4. Add onion and salt. Saute until nearly transparent.
5. Add coconut milk. Add pepper, more salt if desired, red pepper, carrots. Bring to a boil, then lid and simmer for at least 15 minutes. Taste periodically. You can add more green curry paste if desired.
6. When carrots are soft enough for you, add the prawns. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Stir in fresh thai basil and cilantro.
7. Serve over rice!

See? Easy peasy! Now I have it written down!

The one modification I thought about but didn't try yet:
I was going to add one of the prawn heads to the simmer stage, as I didn't add any of the customary fish sauce. It was fishy enough with the prawn meat, but if you prefer more of a fishy flavour, I would suggest a prawn head or some actual fish sauce to your taste.

Well, tenderloin. As in singular loin.

Yesterday I was at the grocer and I found a nicely sized pork tenderloin for only $4. I don't know what they usually cost, as I've never bought one before, but that seems inexpensive enough to experiment with. So I took it home and threw it in a marinade I found on the interwebs. So far so good.

So today I realized I had forgotten to trim off the silverskin membrane. D'oh. I ended up hacking away at the meat before throwing it in the pan to sear. I turned up the oven to 400F and my cast iron pan to just over medium. Added pat of butter and dollop of olive oil. Seared the tenderloin for 2 minutes each side. It ended up having three sides, as it sat somewhat slouchy. Into the oven went everything!

Here's where I lost track a little bit. I knew the lovely loin should take about 40 minutes. I assumed my nugget potatoes would also take 40 minutes. But they took a bit longer. And I didn't use a timer for the meat, relying instead completely on my potato process. So by the time I rescued Mr. Loin from the oven, he was 190F in the centre. Biting my nails, I let him rest under some foil while I prepped the steamed veggies.

Amazingly enough, although it was well done, it was quite juicy. The marinade was a bit too salty for my taste, but that's easily fixed for next time. Overall I'd say the meal was definitely worth the $4! Easy peasy, says Elli!

Now *you* try!

Obviously the trout didn't come from my garden, but at least the herbs did! My neighbour gifted me with a fresh rainbow trout he caught yesterday, so I had to think up a quick way to do the lovely little fishie justice! Here's what I came up with:

Elli's Pan Fried Rainbow Trout
Heat butter and olive oil (half and half) in a cast iron skillet on medium-low.
From the garden: sage, rosemary, thyme, all chopped fine
Rinse cleaned and gutted fish in cold water, then pat dry with paper towel.
Dredge fish lightly with all purpose flour. Sprinkle on herbs, salt and pepper.
Sizzle fish in butter, about 5 minutes a side.
After both side are done, put a lid on the skillet and remove it from heat for 5 more minutes.

Zucchini and White Onion Sauce for trout:
In half butter, half olive oil sweat 3 tbsp fresh zucchini, diced and 2 tbsp white onion, diced. Once onions are translucent, stir in 1 tsp cilantro, chopped fine, a dash of lemon juice, and 3 tbsp plain balkan style yogurt. Add some coarse salt and a few cracks of fresh pepper if you prefer. Lid the pot and turn off the heat, but you can leave the pot on the element to keep warm. Stir again before serving. Drizzle liberally over fish.

I think I might add some garlic to the fish's saute pan next time. I usually reach for garlic first, but had run out, and I wanted to taste more of the fish than anything else. Now I wish I had taken a picture, but I ate him too quickly. :)

Ok, so it's not so bad. :) I was just scurring you! :)

I volunteered to be a hair model for a friend who took her hairdressing exam today. Little did I know that the exam required her to cut the model's hair to maximum of 12"! But she did it super cute and flirty, so I'm happy. I'll post a pic after. I was going to take a pic of it before, but I ended up having a snuggle on the couch because I had to get up at 6am for the exam, so Elli was tired and mussed up her hair.

After watching "Raw for 30" I've decided to try to incorporate more raw food into our diets. I'm not going to go fully raw, as I simply can't bring myself to stop cooking and I feel that what I do cook is pretty darned healthy. But it sure couldn't hurt to add some more dishes to my repertoire! With the recent heat wave Vancouver has been panting through, cold salads seemed like a great idea. Today was my second bean salad and do you know what? I used to pay $6 for a medium sized container (about two single servings) of bean salad at the deli counter. I can make a huge bowl full that lasts for three days at home for just $4. They usually go together with whatever I have around the kitchen within about five minutes, so I really can't complain.

Today's Cold Bean Salad:
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can chick peas, rinsed and drained
1 green onion, chopped
1/2 orange pepper, diced
1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup diced cucumber
juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
dash of cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp coarse salt
fresh ground pepper to taste

Stir it all up and you're ready to munch away!

New pictures are going online tonight at ElliNude.com so stay tuned!

Oh, and I have a couple baby green tomatoes already! Yayz!

I attempted to do a few too many things today, but miraculously, most of them got accomplished! Unfortunately I started off badly by adding too much butter to my banana muffins, and some never firmed up (despite a second trip back to the oven) and their bottoms fell off as I was removing them from the tins. Sad, I know. So we ate those first, to cover up the mistake. To save face, you see. Broken muffins have fewer calories, don't you know!

My update is going up very soon. Stay tuned. It's sexy.

And very... facially. :)

Unfortunately, my subject line for this post is very true. I was trying to be cheeky, but I came off as an ass. Bad Elli! God, I hate that feeling of having offended people who I was intending to be laughing with, not at. :(

Trying to get the wind back into my sails to finish off my emails before I make fajitas for dinner tonight, or as I like to call them, "Fa-geye-taz." I put extra jalapeno in the salsa, so I hope it's still edible by the time we get to it. Maybe I should dig some back out. Hm...

Today was a crazily busy day, but I got through it alright. I ended up managing to make some chicken broth for soup tomorrow in between running errands, going to the gym, going to an unexpected doctor's appointment, grocery shopping, picking up a paint sample for the bedroom, and visiting the 'rents for a few minutes. Oh, and I did get some work done. We finished off the evening with a homemade pizza topped with leftover greek bbq'd chicken, marinated artichokes, red pepper, red onion, and olives. Mmm, mm good!

I hope you are all staying safe out there, away from the pig flu. Apparently the great flu outbreak of 1918 was a version of the swine flu, so it can be very serious. Be well, everyone!

Elli out.

I just found a recipe on this big internet-thing and adapted it a bit to what I had in the kitchen. It turned out FABULOUS and I just had to share. Please do try this at home and let me know how they came out!

Perfect Zucchini Apple Healthy Muffins

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 22 minutes for regular muffins, 15 for mini muffins, 55 minutes for loaf
Makes: 24 mini muffins

Ingredients
½ cup raisins (or dried cranberries)
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup rolled oats
¼ cup wheat germ
¼ cup white sugar
2 ½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp table salt
½ cup chopped walnuts (or pecans)

3 eggs
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce (2 single serving cups) (I use Mott's Unsweetened)
¾ cup honey
1 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream)
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup shreddded and drained zucchini
½ cup apple, peeled and diced very small

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450F. Lightly grease a muffin pan, then lightly flour it and shake the extra flour out. Flouring it helps the muffins rise better.

2. Place the raisins in a cup and cover with hot water. Let stand for a few minutes to plump.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, including the nuts.

4. In a separate bowl lightly beat the eggs, then add the apple sauce, yogurt, vanilla and honey. Mix well.

5. Add wet to dry, stirring just enough to combine. Don't overmix!

6. Gently fold in the zuccini, apple, and raisins.

7. Spoon batter into muffin cups and pop them into the oven. Immediately turn the temperature down to 350F! This gives the muffins nice risen domes.

8. Let sit in pan for 5 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

We decided to go out for a nice dinner tonight, so we went to a new sushi place. We ordered the "Love Boat" which was very full of sushi love! Delicious miso soup and ebi sunumono salad with oodles of shrimp started us off. Then the boat arrived! She was a beast! Chicken terriyaki was alright, and I don't like gyoza or california rolls, so I didn't touch those. My man handled those just fine. We had two pieces each of sockeye, seared tuna, yellowfin tuna, octopus, scallop, clam, and a few mystery fishes. 4 more pieces of sushi, 2 with ebi, one salmon, one tuna topped us off! Like I said, the boat was sitting low in the water when she arrived. :) Oh, and don't forget the five pieces of tempura!

Now my tummy hurts from eating too much! But it's a good hurt. Back to the gym on Friday!

I did have a very healthy lunch today, you see! I cooked up a shrimp stir fry with a friend and it was lovely! I made two batches of pumpkin muffins, one with raisins and walnuts, one with carob chips and walnuts, but I already gave away 6 mini muffins and 7 regular sized muffins to family and friends. Elli's Family & Friends Program is in full effect! :) So after a low-key dinner of tuna buns and roasted red pepper soup, I think Elli deserves a bit of ice cream. Maybe with some Marzipan RitterSport crumbled on top. Maybe. We shall see what the dessert gods provide.

Happy noms!


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And doing well, I might add!

Although I had a very, very sumptuous meal at Kai in Chandler, Az, I couldn't wait to get back to my kitchen and some real food! I celebrated on Sunday night by whipping up some shrimp scampi with local shrimps. It was my first foray into deheading, peeling, and deveining entire prawns. God, those things are sharp! Even their little feet are like needles! I ended up with tiny splinter pricks all over my hands and far less meat than I had been expecting. Oh well, the flavour was worth it (mostly.) The local ones, even though they had been frozen since the fall, had a much sweeter flavour and more tender meat than the imported Chinese prawns I can buy at Safeway.

Tonight we cracked open the barbeque for the first grill of the season! We had picked up a whole pile of top sirloin steaks for $10.47/kg, which is just ridiculously cheap. The store that's closer to me sells it for $18.99/kg, so I'm very glad I checked this other place! I winged my own steak spice rub, and it turned out ok but a bit too heavy on the pepper. A little too much heat, you know?

Oh, as for questions? That are unneccessary? I noticed a new speech mannerism whilst I was visiting the upstart colony down south. It seems when someone agrees with you, instead of saying, "Oh yes," they say, "Yeah, right?" I had to pause and look at the person before I realized they weren't doubting my statement, but agreeing with it! I'm not sure where this came from or why I haven't heard it before. Has this phenomenon infiltrated your own circle yet? Where did it come from? What does it mean? I'm getting the nagging feeling that I'm too old and that's why I hadn't heard it previously...

It was! To celebrate missing Mexico for far too many weeks, we decided to eat as authentic as we could. I decided on beef enchiladas with my favourite black beans and a mexican salad. I realized that the reason I had gone off enchiladas was the canned sauce. I just can't stand the salty, too-sweet sauce in the cans! So I looked up a recipe worth trying and found one with lots of the use of "authentic" in the reviews. It turned out fabulous!

You can find the sauce I made here! I adapted it though by using only 4 tbsp of chili powder to add some nice heat but not too much. I used low sodium chicken broth, probably about 2 cups, and instead of the chocolate I added about a 1/8th cup of carob chips at the end. Yum!

This is the Mexican Salad I used, except I used canned cut baby corns instead of kernels.

Last night I was forced with a dilemma: there was a bag of thawed boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my fridge that had to be used! Four is a lot for two people, so I wanted to keep the breasts intact in order to save the extra for lunches. Moi, thrifty? Yes. Leftover snobs need not apply.

So I tried to do this recipe for Artichoke and Sun-dried Tomato Chicken, but quickly realized I only had two sun-dried tomatoes left and no pesto makings. So I put on my thinking cap and made do. The results at first were TOO SPICY (and that's hard to do in my house, since we both love spicy curries and salsas!) I ended up fishing out all the canned chipotle peppers I had added, and the sauce was still too hot. So I added 2 tbsp of brown sugar and about 3/4 cup of 10% cream and turned it into a cream based sauce, which made it very palatable. Served over linguine. Yum!

Elli's Spicy (Chicken) Breasts

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 lb linguine
1/4 cup sliced black olives
3/4 cup chopped marinated artichokes
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/4 orange or yellow or red  bell pepper
3/4 cup 10% cream
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 thin slice canned chipotle pepper (optional)
6 sun-dried tomatoes
panko bread crumbs
1 egg
2tbsp milk
Parmesan cheese
coarse salt, pepper, dried basil, dried thyme

1. In a pan heat olive oil on medium heat with 1 smushed clove of garlic
2. Beat the egg and milk together lightly in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the bread crumbs with some salt and pepper.
3. Dredge the chicken breasts through the milky egg, then the crumbs to coat. Add to pan and brown on both sides, about 4 minutes a side. Remove from pan to plate and cover with tinfoil.
4. Add onion, pepper, and other smushed clove of garlic to pan. Saute until onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Add sun-dried tomatoes. Remove smushed garlics.
5. Turn pan down to medium low. Add canned tomatoes, olives, artichokes, chipotle pepper. Stir well. Stir in red wine to taste.
6. Add chicken back to pan and cover with mixture. Turn pan down to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
7. Cook linguine 8 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain and add a dash of olive oil to lubricate. Cover!
8. Taste chicken mixture. If too spicy, you can fish out your chipotle pepper. Test to make sure chicken is done with a meat thermometer. Remove chicken back to the plate and tinfoil. I keep mine in the toaster oven on "keep warm" setting! Nobody likes a cold dinner!
9. Stir in sugar bit by bit to taste if tomatoes are too spicy or acidic.
10. Stir in cream.
11. Serve chicken over nest of linguine, covered in tomato mixture! Yum!

Ok, so the story went that a few days ago I was at the local farmer's market and in their clearance section they had bags of overripe tomatoes. I picked up a 2lb bag for 92 cents Canadian, which is approximately 25 cents US.

So then I had to decide what to do with my bursting red balls of goo.

Last night I decided to make a smoky tomato sauce with a bit of heat. Here's how it went:

Elli's Smoky Arrabiata Sauce

Saute/sweat 1 chopped yellow onion with 4 smashed cloves of garlic in olive oil in large pot over medium.
Peel your tomatoes however you choose. I chose the hard way. Chop them up. I didn't seed mine.
Open a bottle of red wine. Test it.
I just tossed in my tomatoes as I chopped them, so it was a slow addition process over 20 minutes.
To the pot add: dried basil, dried "italian seasoning" blend, 2 good dollops of red wine, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp red pepper flakes, 1 tsp coarse salt, 2 tbsp brown sugar
Stir!
Simmer simmer simmer while you figure out what to actually make for dinner tonight, since the sauce will not be ready in time.
Keep tasting your concoction! Its properties will change as the tomatoes break down. You may need to add more sugar.
After simmering for 2 hours or so, grab a stick blender and mulch it up so it's a smoother sauce.
Take it off the heat and let it cool if you're going to use it for tomorrow night's dinner like me. If not, serve it up!

I had a wonderful visit with a friend this afternoon. She's in town for a few months and it was good to be able to catch up. She might be coming on this weekend's hike, if it happens.

We managed to make a very sexy toy video for the site today! It should be ready for online consumption at the beginning of next week. Just in time for Valentine's!

I made a wonderful chicken penne tonight with artichoke hearts and tomatoes and feta cheese. I had a bit of a panicky moment when I realized we had just purged the fridge of all our (expired) salad dressings, and there was nothing to put on the salad. I did a quick search on AllRecipes.com though, and turned up a lovely honey mustard dressing. I eyeballed the amounts and it turned out great!

mayo
dijon mustard
honey
spot of lemon juice

mix and taste! Then add to salad at will!

It snowed last night! Snowed and snowed and snowed some more!

Yayz!!

That means today I can bake all day and not have any reason to leave the house :)

So what's your favourite winter baking yummy?

San Francisco was a blast! I will blog more about it once I'm back and all caught up for real :) Yesterday was sleepy on the couch day to recover and today was workin workin and making chili day!

About the chili.. my slow cooker was acting up again. The plug that had worked perfectly before was underpowered today! It took 3 hours for the chili to come to a boil. After much thinking, I decided it was because the dishwasher was running and then on heat dry.

We watched Wall-E last night and absolutely loved it. I almost cried twice! Wall-E and Eva.. awwww :)

Huzzah! Is the world coming to an end? Is judgment day nigh? Perhaps. I don't feel like cooking tonight. Maybe once I start I'll get into it. Usually this wouldn't be a big deal, but we've already invited people over for dinner. Meaning we've invited people over for an Elli-made dinner.

I still have no idea what to make. The weather is so nice and I've been cleaning house for what feels like the majority of my waking hours.

I'm leaning towards chicken makhani with some curried chickpeas as a side.

I mentioned that I made pumpkin muffins last night on my Twitter space, and was instantly overcome with people demanding the recipe! So here goes! :) They're somewhat healthy and very easy and yummers!

The original recipe is from my favourite recipe site:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Wheat-Honey-Muffins/Detail.aspx

However, I made some changes, as below.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins

INGREDIENTS 

• 1/2 cup thompson raisins
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 12 cup muffin pan, or line with paper liners. Place the raisins in a cup, and add enough hot water to cover. Let stand for a few minutes to plump.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the whole wheat flour, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mush up the clumps of brown sugar with your hands until everything is finely textured. No lumps! Make a well in the center.
3. In a separate bowl mix the eggs, pumpkin, apple sauce and honey.
   
4. Add the wet bowl to the middle of the dry bowl. Mix just until the dry ingredients are absorbed. Drain excess water from raisins, and stir in along with the walnuts. Don't over mix! Spoon into muffin cups so they are about 2/3 full.
5. Bake for 18 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool in the pan before removing from cups.