Food in France

• Wine.
• Coffee.
  
• Bread.
  
• Pastries.
  
• Cheese.
  
• Nutella everything.
• Beer. (but only Belgian or German, because French beer is gross, even though we're so close to the border in Lorraine.)

Also, meat is really expensive here, so I pretty much just eat lentils all the time. THE FOOD OF THE GODS.
Since we're into posting recipes these days, here's my recipe for mujadara, my standard midweek meal. But I do something different every time I make it, so your mileage may vary (mine does).

Mujadara (Aromatic rice and lentil pilaf with caramelized onions)

Ingredients

2 + 2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 onion, sliced
3 cups chicken stock or water
2 cups green lentils, rinsed
2 bay leaves
2 + 2 tsp cumin, divided
2 cups rice
1 bouillon cube (optional)
2 tsp five spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cayenne pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Directions

Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a small frying pan. When the oil is hot, turn the burner down to medium / medium-low. Add the onions. After 5 minutes, add a little salt and sugar if you want. Caramelize the shit out of the onions. This should take about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile, in big pot, bring the stock or water to a boil. Add the lentils, bay leaves, and 2 tsp of the cumin. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

If the onions aren't caramelized after 20 minutes, take the lentils off the burner and keep cooking the onions until they're done. Try not to eat them as they're cooking (I am bad at this part).

If you removed the lentils from the burner, put them back. Add the caramelized onions, the oil they were frying in, the rice, and (if you used water instead of stock) a boullion cube. Bring the mixture back up to a simmer, cover, and cook for another 10 minutes.

In the meantime, rinse out the pan you used to caramelize the onions. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp of the oil on medium. When it's hot, add the remaining 2 tsp of cumin, five spice, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. Cook the spices for a minute, then add the garlic and cook for another few minutes, until the garlic is golden. Add the cooked spices, oil, and garlic to the lentils, stirring well.

If the rice is not done or the liquid isn't mostly absorbed, cook longer. If the rice isn't done and the whole thing is starting to burn, add a half a cup of water and keep cooking.

When everything is cooked and no liquid remains, take a bite and salt / pepper to taste. Glop a bunch onto a plate (it ain't pretty) and eat all of it at once, you fatty. If it's gross, change something and do it again. I've seen recipes that call for adding caramelized onions or yogurt as a garnish. Get to it.

Two Things

The First:

Apparently it isn't your fault if you don't like cilantro. But I'll still be uncomfortable with the prospect of making soup for you if you don't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?ref=dining

The Second:

I made a chocolate, no-egg cake from scratch last night. It was delicious. And probably the best cake I've ever made. Recipe to come. Kari's baking this weekend so maybe we'll have a CAS double feature or something.

I am addicted to soup.

So, we all know I'm broke. Because I talk about it a lot. But I like to cook. And I like to eat. So I've discovered this wonderful New Idea.

It's called soup.

You take something tasty and you put it in water and you boil it forever and you end up with something delicious. Sometimes, you screw up and it's terrible and you cry but more about that later.

The point is, I like soup. I like Pho. I like chicken noodle soup. I like chowder. I like stew. When Jordan and Killpack Jr. and Kevin and I went to B'roo last summer, we inhaled a box of cuban black bean soup. Did I mention I really like pho? I even like crappy box ramen.

One day, when Kevin's mama was sick, we went and picked up some chicken soup from this Mexican place in Smyrna (Mexico Lindo). It was pretty clear broth and shredded chicken and it came with tomatoes and jalapenos and avocado to add when you ate it. It was pretty much the soup of the gods, y'all.

So, every time I've made chicken soup since then, I've been trying to imitate this soup.

And this is what I've got.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

canola oil

half a medium white onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

3 chicken breasts (with the bone, with the skin)

1 box of chicken stock (just use decent stock. Kroger's organic is surprisingly good)

2 cups of water

½ cup rice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

½ teaspoon of cumin (to taste)

¼ teaspoon chili powder (to taste)

some corn tortillas, cut into 1/8-inch-thick strips

1 large-ish avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, and diced

2 jalapenos, seeded and minced

1 ripe medium tomatoes, chopped

2 limes, cut in wedges

at least 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Directions

Skin the chicken. Place the breasts in a large stockpot and cover with the stock and two cups of water. Add half the cumin. Cover and bring to a boil. Skim the “muck” off the top. Boil for fifteen minutes, then reduce to a low boil (we're talking bubbles here, but you don't want to turn the chicken to leather) for a half hour or until the chicken is cooked through. Skim some more nasties off the top as you go. And then turn off the pot.

Once the water is cool enough for you to handle, remove the chicken and set aside to cool. Strain the broth and set it aside; there's going to be some nasty bits and it's better for all of us if you get rid of it. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull the meat off the bones and shred it.

Now back to the stockpot. Turn your burner to medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the onions and the garlic and cook until translucent (just don't caramelize them, guys). Add the stock, season with salt and pepper and cumin and chili powder. Add the juice from a quarter of one of those limes. Bring to a boil and then add your rice. Simmer for fifteen minutes or until the rice is almost cooked, and then add the chicken (something I just figured out) and let the rice finish up.

At some point while your rice is getting happy with the broth, heat a few tablespoons of canola oil in a pan. When the oil is hot – think, about to start smoking – add the tortilla strips in batches. Fry until crispy, and then drop them on a plate covered with a paper towel. You'll probably have to add oil as you go.

When your rice is cooked, things get exciting. Ladle the soup into a bowl. And add jalapenos and tomatoes and avocados and those tortilla strips that gave you so much trouble. Add cilantro. Squeeze some lime juice in there. If you're me, add even more tomatoes. If you're my friend Nataya, add half a jalapeno and more chili powder.

And then, if you weren't aware what blog you were reading, you eat it.

The Real Chow Baby

Okay, so technically The Real Chow Baby doesn't fit our requirements for a Culinary Adventure Squad outing. One of us had been there before, and it's arguably a chain. However, there's only two locations, so I don't know that that's really a chain. Either way, Vidur and Hal and I went last night and nom'd.

Basically, the Real Chow Baby is a stir-fry place. You go through the line, pick out what type of noodles/rice you want, then add any vegetables or nuts or various other yummy things. Next, they've got a dozen or so sauces you put on. These all go in a big black bowl. You then pick up a smaller red bowl and put your protein in it: scallops, beef, chicken, pork, and a few more choices. Then you can add seasonings, hand them off to the staff with a tiny wooden paddle with your name and table number written on it, and sit back at your table.

Maybe 15 minutes later: voila! Stir-fry!

The website definitely explains the process better, as well as giving you a list of the different ingredients (though I did not ice there was some variation between what they had on the website and what they had on the line).

I had:

Lo mein noodles
Bamboo shoots, a ridiculous amount of bean sprouts, broccoli, carrots, and snow peas
Green onions and garlic
An egg
2 scoops or red thai curry and 1 scoop of coconut curry sauce
Beef with a ridiculous amount of garlic powder on it (there is no such thing as too much garlic)

It was great.

It wasn't ridiculously spicy, but it wasn't the sort of "I'm just saying that this is a spicy food so that I can sound hardcore but really it's not spicy at all" spicy either. It was make-you-mouth-and-tongue-tingle-pleasantly spicy. Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I didn't grow up eating a lot of spicy food, so my definition of spicy isn't as high as some peoples.

The beef and noodles were both cooked well, I loved the sauces, and my vegetables were delicious. I only had two complaints. First, the egg was a bit undercooked for my tastes and was in very large pieces (I think only four before I cut it up). I would have preferred if it had been fried a bit longer and distributed more evenly throughout the stir-fry. Second, I ended up with bits of other people's stir-fry in mine: a piece of either chicken or pork, a jalapeno, and a mushroom. It wasn't the biggest deal in the world, but depending on your preferences, pickiness, and/or allergies, it could be a problem.

I'd definitely go back. It was a bit expensive for an everyday sort of meal for me (12.95$ with tax), but not so expensive that I can't ever afford it. Our waitress wasn't particularly helpful either, and asked if I actually needed change from my 20 (sorry, sweetheart, I'm not giving you a 7$ tip for a 13$ meal) as well as not bringing back my nickel in change (I would have left it for her anyways, but it's the principle of the thing). Those are really minor quibbles, though.

I'd recommend it for just about anyone, as, since you can make your own thing, you can eat whatever you want so everyone's happy. They've even got nifty suggestions and recipe cards (like one for what to put in your bowl for fried rice).

Oh, AND it's all-you-can-eat. And if you only go through the line once, you can take home any leftovers you have for free. Which I did, and just ate for dinner. Even microwaved, The Real Chow Baby stir-fry is still delicious.

Our On-Going Absence

Jordan has abandoned us, crossed the Atlantic and ended up in France for the semester. We know not when she will return nor what kind of food shenanigans she will have with out us, but God bless you, Jordache, oh fertile crescent.

I am broke. Not the cute kind of broke where you don't get to go out and eat as much as you like or the kind where maybe you don't go to the farmers market anymore. The kind where you're bank account is in single digits and the wait for your next pay check is terrifying. That kind.

And Vidur and Kari are off in the ether never to be seen or... okay, so I don't see Kari and Vidur as much as I like. Every so often Vidur and I send each other cruel or threatening or creepy text messages and then promise that food adventures will come if we'll only wait. Months ago I promised frozen yogurt -- not shitty fro-yo, mind, but the good kind. the kind that makes you go "oh, that's right. frozen yogurt is food" -- and we still haven't gone. Kari and I watched Dr. Who and made half-hearted schemes a while back.

We are at a terrifying place, friends.

So, I'm going to try to start blogging again -- not that I was ever good about it, anyway, but still.

About cooking, because I'm actually cooking on a regular basis. And about Kevin's mom's cooking, because she's getting pretty damn adventurous for a lady who left cooking to Kevin's dad for so many years.

And probably about the food-crush I've got on my new house-mate's groceries. More about that later.

The point is.. We're working on it. See you soon