A Bucket List of Food

If you haven’t seen The Bucket List, you must.

Essentially the idea is to list all the things you want to do before you Kick the Bucket…for me, that list is for the foods I want to try before my Gastric Bypass Surgery.

After surgery I wont be able to tolerate sugar, much fat, carbs or a lot of good yummy things in life. So, I’m curious, what would be on your culinary Bucket List in such a case?

I want suggestions, people! I’m not going to eat pie every day, mind you, but I do want to know what I m-u-s-t try before the big day. We’ve only got about a month; make it good!

Candace

Recipe: French Onion Soup

Don't let the size fool you, this little baby French Oven is full of full-grown flavor. Click the image for another wonderful take on the French Onion Recipe.

Today, in prep for my upcoming gastric bypass, I finally purchased a few of those mini french ovens.

You know, the kind you look at in the kitchen stores and go, “wow, those children’s toys look so realistic!”

In addition to letting Logan play house with them, I can also do a lot with those pigmy-sized covered casseroles! Namely, make adorable looking French Onion Soup.

Because, let’s be honest, French Onion Soup looks freakin’ awesome in teeny tiny casserole dishes with the cheese melted just over the top and sides.

…and, as long as we’re being honest, making French Onion Soup in these little things will also make Matt feel better about buying them…because he loves French Onion Soup.

Mini Casseroles can be used for lots of things...click this image to go to a fabulous blog to find other uses!

This picture isn’t French Onion Soup, and according to the person who created it, it didn’t even taste that super, but DAMN doesn’t it look adorable and yummy anyway?!

Ok, OK, I hear you…”get over the adorable, itty-bitty-baby casserole dishes and on to the recipe, already!”

This Recipe comes from Cook’s Illustrated via Cookography.com . So long as you follow the directions, it is fabulous. For taste, I suggest using butter in place of spray–but, you know, whatever works for you…

For some REALLY great images of the step-by-step process (and some great drama in the comments section!) Check out Cookography’s blog.

For the best flavor, make the soup a day or 2 in advance. Onions can be prepped up to three days in advance.

French Onion Soup

Ingredients:

Soup

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 3 pieces
• 6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices (Make sure you get Yellow)
• Table salt
• 2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (They recommend Swanson Certified Organic Free Range Chicken Broth )
• 2 cups beef broth (They recommend Pacific Beef Broth)
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme , tied with kitchen twine
• 1 bay leaf
• Ground black pepper

Cheese Croutons

• 1 small baguette , cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 8 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)

Directions:

For the soup:

1. Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Generously spray the inside of a heavy-bottomed large (at least 7-quart) Dutch oven with a nonstick cooking spray. Place the butter in the pot and add the onions and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, covered, for 1 hour (the onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Remove the pot from the oven and stir the onions, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. Return the pot to the oven with the lid slightly ajar and continue to cook until the onions are very soft and golden brown, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours longer, stirring the onions and scraping bottom and sides of pot after 1 hour.
3. Carefully remove pot from oven and place over medium-high heat. Using oven mitts to handle pot, cook onions, stirring frequently and scraping bottom and sides of pot, until the liquid evaporates and the onions brown, 15 to 20 minutes, reducing the heat to medium if the onions are browning too quickly. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the pot bottom is coated with a dark crust, roughly 6 to 8 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary. (Scrape any fond that collects on spoon back into onions.)
4. Stir in 1/4 cup water, scraping the pot bottom to loosen crust, and cook until water evaporates and pot bottom has formed another dark crust, 6 to 8 minutes. Repeat process of deglazing 2 or 3 more times, until onions are very dark brown. Stir in the sherry and cook, stirring frequently, until the sherry evaporates, about 5 minutes.
5. Stir in the broths, 2 cups of water, thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon salt, scraping up any final bits of browned crust on bottom and sides of pot.
6. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove and discard herbs, then season with salt and pepper.

For the croutons:

1. While the soup simmers, arrange the baguette slices in single layer on baking sheet and bake in a 400-degree oven until the bread is dry, crisp, and golden at edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

To serve:

1. Adjust oven rack 6 inches from broiler element and heat broiler. Set individual broiler-safe crocks on baking sheet and fill each with about 1 3/4 cups soup. Top each bowl with 1 or 2 baguette slices (do not overlap slices) and sprinkle evenly with Gruyère. Broil until cheese is melted and bubbly around edges, 3 to 5 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

YAY!

My insurance just approved my weightloss surgery. Feb. 23 is the Big Day…or as I told my husband the “last big day-bc I will be smaller every day after it!”

Thank you for your kind thoughts, good vibes and well-wishes! It worked!

Kung Pao Shrimp (Kung-Pow!)

Kung Pao Shrimp from a certain American-Chinese food chain...

I can’t believe I haven’t posted this recipe before!

If you read my blog you know of my love for Shrimp. And Spice. And copying restaurant recipes. Kung Pao (said “pow”) Shrimp hits on all three.

I first had this about four years ago when I ate at a certain large-scale chain specializing in American-Chinese food. It is an establishment with large-scale decor and very high ceilings. And lettuce wraps. You know the one…

I orderd the Kung-Pow shrimp mostly because I thought the name was funny. “Kung-Pow!” It sounds like a bad martial arts movie line, doesn’t it?

“I have you cornered, bad-guy ninjas!(kick, punch) Kung-Pow! (spin flip/kick/punch combo) Kung-Pow!”

Strangely, that is kind of how the food tastes: like a little spicy assault on your tastebuds. But in a good way.

What’s also neat is that Kung-Pow Shrimp can just as easily be Kung-Pow chicken or beef or even tofu. It’s all good.

You will need: a Wok an an oil skimmer or metal “spider”

Special Technique: Velveting: essentially…coat the shrimp in a mix of one part egg whitel to one part cornstarch before introducing to heat. This preserves the tenderness of the shrimp and allows it to hit the hot heat of the wok without becoming gummy quickly. Do this for about 10-20 minutes before you begin cooking.

INGREDIENTS:

Egg white and corn starch for velveting (see below)

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
3 ounces Kung Pao sauce
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
8 ounces shrimp
1 teaspoon chopped green onion
5 whole chile pods
Sesame oil
Peanuts for garnish

(you can add rice wine or red wine to the velvet mixture but it would require less time to velvet as the acid will cook the shrimp)

DIRECTIONS:

Velvet the shrimp for 10-20 minutes before starting to cook.

Heat wok and add oil (you will know the oil is ready once it is smoking), add shrimp cook for 1 to 2 minutes (until color changes–you know!). Do not overcook. Carefully pour shrimp and oil onto oil skimmer or use a metal spider to remove shrimp from oil and then set hot oil aside. Stir fry chile pods and onions; add garlic and Kung Pao sauce in little remaining oil that coats the sides of the wok, stir fry for a few minutes to let the aromatics release their flavors. Add shrimp back, toss, and add peanuts and chile flakes to taste.

Serve over white or brown rice or in large lettuce leaves with rice, rolled up. YUM!

Subscriber Love

Do you remember those episodes of Oprah where she suddenly tells the crowd–her dedicated followers who were happy enough just to follow along with her and were part of the audience out of their unbribed enjoyment of the show–that they’ve won something?

Those were always my favorites. God love Oprah.

While I am by no stretch of the imagination anywhere near Oprah status, I am grateful to have a little loyal following, and to show you how thankful I am, I’ve decided that you are all winners.

No really, you each just won a contest you didn’t even know was happening.

Just. Like. On. Oprah.

I will be emailing you each this week to get your mailing address to send you a little surprise in the mail; its nothing fancy, but it is something that could stand in as a last-minute-gift to someone else if you ever had such a need. Or maybe it is a few of my top-secret recipes that I haven’t posted on here. Or maybe its one of the very cool books I’ve been given to review for this website…each of you will get something, and each those somethings will be different.

So be glad you are a subscriber; I love you guys and will continue to show you that throughout 2010!

Not a subscriber yet? No Worries! Just enter your email in that little box on the upper right corner! The next two subscribers will also get a little prize.

Recipes for Health

I often post more than one recipe for the same dish; today I’m posting more than one recipe for the same goal: Health.

In high school I had a very black and white definition of success: success meant wearing a suit every day, drinking lattes and

Just because you take two different paths doesn't mean you'll end up in two different places. Especially if that fork in the road is a real fork...

talking on a cell phone in line to get that latte while wearing a suit (it was the early 90s…). There may have also been thigh-highs involved.

There was only one way to be a “Success”: my way.

Oh, to be 15 again…

Growing up has taught me much: success isn’t a single definition; there is more than one way to get there; and, perhaps most importantly,  no one should talk on their cell phone while waiting in line to get a latte…. Fifteen years later it just don’t look as cool as it once did.

Today my goals are less about how I want to look and more about how I want to feel–healthy. Energized (sans latte). Confident. After 8 years of diet and exercise, I’ve decided to change recipes and pursue gastric bypass surgery.

My friend and former editor, Chris Steinbach, is working towards the same goals as me–but using a different recipe.

There's more than one way to get to the same place.

Like me, Chris has struggled with his weight for a long time. Like me, Chris is trying to drop about 130lbs. Unlike me, he is doing it the old-fashioned way: diet and exercise alone, no help from surgical intervention. He’s blogging about it with  a journalist’s honesty and an editor’s humor.

Chris has done it before–he lost 100lbs through diet and exercise a few years ago with the help of a mutual friend, nutritionist Jill Skeem. Now he is working to do it again. I am following, and eating it up. I think if you enjoy reading my posts about weight, you’ll love reading his.

Recipe: Thai Stuffed Chicken Wings aka “Angel Wings”

back home in Twin Falls, Idaho, I loved to eat these from Prasai’s Thai

So finally, after A YEAR without them, I’ve found a video on how to make them!

Please enjoy these directions, recipe and fabulous accent!

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-thai-stuffed-chicken-wings-with-kai-242271/

Seafood Laksa (or Baba)

Spicy Distractions...yum! Click this image to go to ecdelicious.blogspot.com for more fabulous recipes!

Spice is, in its nature, a distraction. It demands full attention and center stage. Got the worst news of your life? Forget about it; you have more pressing issues when your mouth is on fire. And soup is always, always, comforting. Spicy soup? Win-win.

So when I’ve had a bad day, I reach for something spicy. When there is something to celebrate, I also enjoy spice. Spice has a way of  punctuating the good while distracting from the bad. This, I think, makes so much sense as to why it has been used as a preservative in hot climates for so long–it covers up the Yuck while still letting you enjoy what is so great about the food.

Today has been an odd day. Chunks of good, chunks of bad, chunks of “I don’t know where the hell this is going…” all mixed in together like a small bowl of soup. All aspects somehow made better just from their being together. The bad news isn’t so bad with the good news thrown in there next to it. The good news is even better news when it comes with  a reminder of how bad things can be. Sweet and Sour; this is my life, this is a bowl of my day. This is everyone’s every day, right? So I want to punctuate it with some spice, bring out the good while distracting from the bad.

I want a spicy soup.

I want Thai food; I want Seafood Laksa.

INGREDIENTS:

8oz dried rice noodles

3 cups canned coconut milk

2 Fish Stock Cubes

3 fresh Kaffer lime leaves

2 tbsp red curry paste (green would be fine, too–just slightly different)

1 bunch of scallions, course chopped

1/2 lb raw squid (CLEANED! and cut in to rings)

1/2 lb  large raw shrimp (prawns?) shelled an deveined

handfull of fresh cliantro chopped

Variations:

swap the red curry paste for the green

add in other seafood, too–like muscles, clams, etc. as you’d like

Add in some tofu–either fried, cut, or soft mixed with the broth

DIRECTIONS:

Soak noodles in a pan of boiling water for 4 minutes; corvered, until just tender. Drain and rinse, then set aside.

Mix coconut milk, stock cubes,  lime leaves, curry paste, scallions and chiles in a large pan and bring gently to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer; stirring a couple times, until the stock paste and cubes and fully dissolved.  Add the raw shrimp and squid and simmer for another 1-2 minutes until the squid has plumped up and the shrimp have turned pink. Add the cooked noodles and cliantro and stir well. serve in soup bowls, garnished with cilantro.

Waiting for News

Send me some good karma, mojo, positive engery--whatever you've got, I'll take it!

We submitted the paperwork for insurance approval of gastric bypass surgery two weeks ago today.

Their answer should arrive any day now.

Please keep your fingers crossed for me for a positive response.

In exchange, I will give you some  FABULOUS new recipes today and tomorrow…think of it as sort of a “Bucket List” of foods before weight loss surgery…:)

-Candace

Adventures of Logan: Forget imaginary friends…

Logan has an imaginary computer.

It is invisible.

It is located on the back of his bed.

He talks to it, asks it questions, types on it, sends pretend emails to his friends with it and uploads pretend pictures to it.

My husband says I really shouldn’t think anything of it.

But when Logan insists it is REAL I get kind of worried.

I’m told Imaginary Friends are fairly normal–about 1 in 2 kids has them these days. But imaginary inanimate objects?

The psych explanation for imaginary friends is that kids want to “try on” different personality traits as they develop themselves…so what on Earth could Logan be trying on an imaginary computer? The kind of software he wants?

This has been going on for months…