Yucca Pun Intended Last Letter and Ingredient of the Year

My final challenge of the year was yucca.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to really figure out what to do with it and with back to back business trips after Thanksgiving, it made it increasingly difficult to put the yucca on the plate.

I wasn't able to get a picture of the boyfriend's plate before he started eating this less-starch like root vegetable and so to that, picture unavailable.  I sauteed the yucca in some butter and salted it.  To add a little bit of flavor and color, I added some turmeric.

The results were well, tolerable on my end but the boyfriend liked it.  I'm almost starting to think he's being a bit too generous in likes this year.

As a result, it made picking our top dishes of the year rather difficult.

In the year 2013, I set out to do 52 different ingredients for each week of the year.  With the number of issues we faced, the boyfriend's apartment getting remodeled due to mold and a quick move, and new job of mine having to travel virtually every other week, we completed 34 of the 52 ingredients.  We narrowed it down to our top 10.

Want to know what our top 10 were? Well, that's a going to be for another blog to close our the year in style and to help us ease into a new challenge for 2014.  The theme of 2014 will be reveled at that point too.

Meanwhile, my final challenge of the year: cooking a belated Christmas lunch/dinner for my parents.

Eggnog is an Egg Not

Southern Style Eggnog from the American Women's Cookbook 1938

Thanksgiving came and went after getting back from a business trip and I found myself with the challenge of preparing Eggnog.

I have never been a fan of eggnog but since it was part of the challenge, I had to make it.  I found a recipe out of one of my vintage cookbooks (The American Women's Cookbook) that I thought I'd experiment with and to say I actually have used my investment in American culture.

That's one thing I have learned about American culture that I can truly appreciate.  There are many things but this is one of the things that I really value.

I'm an avid reader and when it comes to reading about this hobby of mine, I am overwhelmed with the amount of information that is out there.  I am also amazed at how much of the American culture is overwhelmed with the release of food trends.

In any event, written record is a great way to get an indepth look at a past culture.  I couldn't say the same of my Indonesian roots so any time I see a book designated specifically for Indonesian cooking, I'm in, but for now my shelves are filling up with American and various other cookbooks.

Blast from the past. The result of the eggnog round one was a lot better than the round two I tried to prepare for the boyfriend's brother's in-laws.  We all determined it was a bit too egg-y and too much brandy.  I also told the boyfriend I don't intend to make eggnog again due to the stress involved.  Separating eggs just ever so slightly only to get them to come back together, eh, not exactly the most least-stress involved recipe.

Twist without Stain

Pomegranate Relish

For this week's challenge, pomegranate came to mind of the boyfriend.  We still had a couple of left from our first Farm Fresh to You delivery and we thought, why not use them for the challenge.  Besides, what is there to do with a pomegranate aside from just opening one up and eating it.  That's normally how I handle my fruit, no matter how complex it is.  Pomegranate on my list of fruits that I enjoy but dislike in getting into.  Simply because when you open a pomegranate you face it staining things.

I have ruined a few things from opening up a pomegranate but it doesn't stop me enjoying one.  The juicer they are, the more trouble they are.

Anyways, as far as the challenge, it wasn't enough to just get one open and call it a day, so I found a recipe that didn't require much in terms of preparation or extra ingredients.  I also figured, it is getting close to family food gatherings so I better see what I can prepare to satisfy even the most picky of tasters.

For this pomegranate relish, it took only a shallot and some cilantro to add an extra boost of flavor to the pomegranate.  It also was a relatively quick dish to "cook" once all the pomegranate was extracted from the fruit itself.

Hopefully the challenges for the remainder of the year will be one of less mess.  Fortunately, the mess of this dish was minimal since the pomegranate was just under full ripeness and wasn't too juicy.

We've All Gone Bananas!

Roasted banana with brown sugar walnut glaze

In the spirit of the return of the weekly food challenge, the boyfriend picked the magical ingredient: banana.  I could have done banana bread or banana walnut muffins, but I wanted to go beyond the standard banana fare of taste.  I also wanted to keep the dish light since it was also the night the boyfriend cooked.  He is known for at least one dish: pasta with pasta sauce.  Fortunately for me, and for him, he didn't cook his standard of when I'm out of town or before I moved into his life.

He prepared chicken with shredded carrot and mushroom served over mash potatoes.  Now before the carbohydrate police get onto me about the amount of carbohydrates the standard amount of mash potatoes, he put the remainder of the leftover low sodium vegetable broth from my experiment of broccoli cheddar soup (broccoli and spinach with minimal cheese, gluten free and vegetarian) instead of cream or milk.  See, we can be healthy when it comes to certain foods.  Especially now that I'm gone nearly every other week and my choices of "fresh food" come close to nil.

Anyways, for the banana.  I chose to do a roasted banana and roasted walnut brown sugar glaze dish.  The low amount of brown sugar was quickly masked by the amount of lemon juice and minimal butter coating the roasted walnuts.  The roasted banana also heightened the sweet taste factor, so if you were to do this recipe, make sure the bananas are ripe but not ripe enough to want to make banana bread or banana muffins ripe.  The banana should be firm not overly squishy since it has to hold up to 450 degrees for 5 minutes.

Farm Fresh to You: apples, pears, grapes, oranges, kiwi, pomegranates 

This week was also the first week our "Farm Fresh to You" delivery showed up to our door.  I picked out the smallest box, and since the delivery date doesn't come around until Wednesday, we opted for the fruit box.  I just didn't expect as many apples in the box.  Either way, about a 1/4 of the contents within the box is already gone.

My $9.99 do-it-yourself brew kit

What's also cool about this box is that there's a recipe within the box for one of the contained items in the box.  Maybe upon the next delivery, I'll try out the recipe and it can be part of the challenge of the week.  We shall see, what the boyfriend decides, because he's still the guinea pig in all of this.

On another note, the boyfriend took my parents and I to brunch last weekend.  Which was a nice "welcome home," and it also meant no dishes for either of us to do.  It takes a bit to get my parents to get out of the house during the 49ers football season, or at least my dad anyways.  We also had to meet the mom's friend's daughter later in the day in Oakland so we decided to make a day outing.  Between brunch and the bookstore, the boyfriend and I had to get back to the apartment to take care of the pups.  But before we headed back, we all hopped into Beverages and More.  I picked up a beer brewing kit.  Now before I have the anti-drinking wagon on me, hear me out a little.

I enjoy my beer and wine on occasion and my brother took up the hobby within his one bedroom apartment.  My brother-in-law and sister decided to open a hard cider brewery.  So perhaps it is in the blood.  Though my taste buds on beer isn't that refined compared to the boyfriend or the brother or the brother-in-law, so I refused to invest so into a kit when I'm not so sure if I had the gene or the blood to do it.  The average 6 pack of beer costs $8-9 USD, so I took that into consideration when buying the brewing kit.  The listing price was $42.  Absolutely RIDICULOUS if you ask me!  So I am happy to announce this Do-It-Yourself kit was only $9.99 for Beverages and More Club members!!!!

So, I figure, why not?  It will take 2 weeks to brew, and if I put it to set tomorrow (Friday), by the time I have to leave on Tuesday, it'll be ready to set.  Who knows, maybe by Thanksgiving we'll have our own IPA microbrew to present to the families...to be continued.

Farm Fresh to Begin Soon

In spirit of keeping things fresh, local and in challenge requirements, I finally signed up for a service that should be fun: Farm Fresh to You (http://goo.gl/clbMZV).

I ordered the smallest possible fruit box for both the boyfriend and myself.  I also ordered it for the frequency of every other week since I'm still learning a new job and not always around to enjoy the fruits of my labor (pun intended).  This doesn't mean however that the challenge halts, just makes it even more challenging, I think.

Budget wise, I think it will be okay since I don't spend a lot of superfluous or access on stuff.  At $25.00 every other week, I think it is going to be a nice treat and bargain.

Progress not Perfection

Since moving into a new place, I have been trying to get everything organized to where I know where things are, including my numerous spices.

The OCD of Spices, err, I mean my spice collection thus far

I tried to label them with masking tape, but the masking tape didn't quite stick very well to the jars on hand.  As a result, the boyfriend bought me some dot stickers to put on top of the spices.  Fortunate for the both of us, I have the small and neat handwriting.  At the same time, my OCD took over me a little with the multicolored dots. I almost wanted to say, the purple mean this type of spice, the yellow this type and the green another type.  Sadly, my OCD didn't kick into overdrive.  The different colors don't signify any difference in spices, just the labels themselves.  If you look carefully, the writing is actually legible.

Cornstarch Pudding Pie

After about a two month forced break from the food challenge of 2013, I think we are back.  I was to do lychee before the whole mold and moving apartments fiasco, but by the time things got settled within the new apartment, fresh lychee became nonexistent here and canned lychee was not a favored option to me or the boyfriend.

Cornstarch Pudding Pie

As a result, the boyfriend sent me his grandmother's cornstarch pudding pie.  I have to admit, cornstarch pudding doesn't exactly entice me much.  If we added a little bit of rum, I think I would've been okay with the taste of it.

The results of this brought back a number of memories for the boyfriend.  Which I think is ultimately the point of the food challenge.  The memories he has growing up in the Midwest before moving to Washington D.C. for Graduate School then back to the Midwest to now the San Francisco Bay Area, result in him opening up a little more.

We are both onions when it comes to our emotions.  Every layer that is peeled is every layer exposing our inner selves.

Either way, the food challenge of 2013 is back for the remainder of the year.