Heart attack grill!

Hello folks! Howz everybody doing? I'm doing okay. I must say I really like the travel channel a lot. Why? Because its mainly travel and food! two of my passions! But that being said- some shows really gross me out. Like there was this show about places to pig out in America. One of the places was 'Heart Attack grill' in Chandler Arizona. This place was started by Jon Basso in 2005. He was inspired when he was writing a thesis about fitness training studios where he learnt about clients cheating on their diets. This restaurant was created with the intent of serving 'Nutritional pornography'- food so bad its shocking. Aptly described 'Taste worth dying for' he serves 8000 calorie burgers with 4 burger patties, cheese, onions, no lettuce, buns with lard on them, french fries fried in lard, whole sugar cola. He calls himself 'Dr Jon, chief surgeon', the waitresses are called nurses, folks over 300lbs are given free burgers and fries. Its like 'here you want this? take it! all the stuff you've been craving for! Most of the people in his restaurant were HUGE! the patrons are called patients, the menu is called prescription and people are actually given wrist bands just like in the hospital

Here's a sample of their menu...



Notice the absence of lettuce and veggies..
jeeeez!!!!!

I am nursing my first 'Pink Eye'. Boy its annoying! First I had a sore throat/cold, the next day I see mucous building up on both the ends of my eyes and hazing out. I wipe and its back!!! Golly! I don't wish pink eye on anyone! (except rapists and murderers!)
I listened to 'Walk the line' on radio one day and I liked it so much that I wanted to watch the movie. It was nice for a one time watch..but the song is lovely!
Yesterday was Freddie Mercury's 63rd B'day. I really dunno why I like him so so much but he gets me!
Seems like everyone is having a great time..which is great!
I'll end my post here. Enjoy remaining Sunday and Monday everyone!
Lots of love
Smitha

Hello again!!

Hello people! Its been such a long time. Sorry I've been so quiet but when your nose is in the grindstone and pedal to the metal....well you get the picture. Phew!!! I finally defended my thesis on 12th June and submitted my thesis to grad school on June 19th. I tell you I've never done so many all nighters before. One day I was surprised myself when I was working till 7:30 in the morning and even then I wasn't supertired but I felt I should be and slept for an hour. It's interesting how we are so wired to sleep at night. But I never forgot the blog and kept taking pictures to post coz there have been so many good eats that I have to tell you about it. So brace yourself, this post is gonna be looong. Feel free to read it in sections. I'll proceed in the sequence in which they were made. Then there's our blooming garden which is a source of so much pleasure..ooh let's start!!



First, Jamie made this Cawliflower with almonds and lima beans. It was very good. But the flavors are so subtle that it took some zen meditation from me (whose taste buds are spice hardened) to appreciate the hint of flavors. This recipe is from a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey. This is what went in:

Approx half a cawliflower
1 cup lima beans
1.5 tsp cornstarch
1/2 cup whole blanched almonds
2 cloves of garlic- fine chopped
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp dry sherry
2 quarter sized fresh ginger
11/4 tsp salt

Put cawliflower in cold water for 0.5 hour. Add lima beans to boiling water and cook them for 5 minutes and then drain. Then mix cornstarch, sherry, sesame oil and 2 tbsp water. Heat oil and saute almonds. Stir fry garlic and ginger in the same oil. Then add cawliflower, lima beans and almonds. Add 2 tbsp water and cover with a lid. Cook until cawliflower is crisply tender. Remove lid and add the cornstarch mix made earlier. Saute for 30 seconds and its done. Jamie made pasta with this- shell pasta with tomato sauce topped with bread crumbs.



This is another dish with orzo pasta, sauted broccoli, mushrooms pine nuts, a red chilli, julienned carrots and salt and pepper. Its been such a long time since I made this- I don't completely remember the recipe, but its about 7/8 right.



OMG!Don't judge a dish by the way it looks! When we were making it, both Jamie and me were like this is gonna be a disaster, but it turned out to be soooo good. This is sweet and sour tofu
I made the sauce Jamie fries the tofu.
Make a paste by mixing 1/4 cup cornstarch with approx 2 tbsp water.
Cube extra firm tofu (This is where we went wrong, we chopped it too small)into 1 inch cubes and fry them in 1/4 cup oil.
For the sauce, 3.5 tbsp white vinegar,
1/4 cup water,
2.5 tbsp sugar,
1tbsp soy sauce,
1tbsp ketchup,
1 tbsp brown sugar,
1/4 tsp ginger powder,
1/2 tsp salt,
11/2 tbsp corn starch mixed in 2 tbsp water.
Mix everything except cornstarch on medium heat and add corn starch after everything has dissolved. You have to keep an eye after adding cornstarch coz the sauce thickens and can burn.
Mix the sauce with fried tofu and garnish with toasted sesame seeds. My mouth is watering even when I'm writing about it...mmmmm
We had it with garden fresh bok choy. This was a first. I'd never had this leaves before. We grew them in our garden

In the garden.....



On the plate...



Bok choy has a cabbage like taste. It has a pungent flavor which I did not expect..like parsnips.Anyways, we made stir fried bok choy. Take a tbsp of oil, 1 clove of garlic- fine chopped, 1 tsp ginger, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp sesame seeds and we used about 2 heads of bok choy. It turned out to be really good with sweet and sour tofu.

and here's the salad....



One of our dinners was a garden burger. Jamie bought the patties from the Clintonville farmer's market. It was awesome. The ingredients in the patty were so unusual- I'd never have thought to combine these ingredients for a burger patty. It had spelt berries(wheat), black beans, carrots, onions, oats, kale, apples, garlic, ginger, balsamic vinegar, thyme, salt and pepper. I first thought this is store bought patty- nothing much to write about, but then I had a bite..my eyes opened wide and I knew it had to come here..



I love eggs. These are so good when you're busy- they cook fast, good source of protein and you can season them in so many different ways. We made Koo Koos. This is from a recipe book. There's no way I would've thought of pairing together cawliflower and eggs.



Take a couple of cawliflower florets. Put them in boiling water for a few minutes. Then under cold water. Give it a fine chop and saute in oil with a dash of salt and pepper. Meantime, beat eggs with a pinch of baking soda, add salt and pepper and the cawliflower mix. Pour it in a pan. Cook it covered on low flame for 20 minutes. We had it with fage yoghurt.



Have you folks ever had tempeh? We got some from the Indonesian store. I did not like it very much. Maybe because it is fermented soy and it doesn't have a very good smell. We fried the tempeh after coating it with a mix made of 1/2 cup water, 11/2 tsp coriander seeds powder, 2-3 cloves of garlic and 1 tsp of salt. We had it on top of salad made of bok choy, cawliflower and boiled eggs with gado gado dressing( remember? the peanut based Indonesian dressing?). Doesn't even sound appetizing, does it? Well, I think tempeh is an acquired taste.



Deviled eggs! I love it. Jamie makes these. When I was a kid, I hated cold eggs. Now I can eat them. She boils eggs, cuts them in half, takes the yolk out and mixes it with mayonnaise (to taste- if you want more creamy, add more and vice versa), salt and pepper, blends the mix with a fork such that there are no lumps and spoons it on the egg white. For decoration she sprinkles some paprika on it. They were absolutely delicious!

I'll end this section of recipes with a dessert. Since there was a lot of cake around my B'day, we decided to make this cake when we didn't have any cake in the house. This is Low fat tiramisu, totally made by Jamie. Frankly, this is so so yummy, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference from the original and yet it's so low in fat. The recipe is from heart healthy cookbook. The picture is a tad hazy, but I'll give you the complete recipe

Cherry Chocolate tiramisu
You'll need
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp instant coffee granules
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 ounces ladyfingers
8 ounces fat free/low fat whipped topping, thawed
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
16 ounces frozen unsweetened pitted dark cherries; thawed and undrained
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup slivered almonds, dry roasted

In a small bow, stir together water, 1/4 cup sugar, coffee granules and vanilla until sugar has dissolved.
To assemble, dip ladyfingers (sugar side in coffee) in coffee sugar mix prepared above and make a layer of this in your dish. Spoon whipped topping over it, covering evenly and sprinkle with cocoa powder. Repeat. Cover the dish with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8-24 hours.
Meanwhile, halve the cherries(Jamie had bought fresh cherries, she froze it, cut it in half and threw the pits)add 2 tbsp sugar and cornstarch until cornstarch is dissolved. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Boil for a minute stirring constant. Remove from heat and cool it. Stir in almond extract and store in refrigerator until serving time.
When serving, spoon cherry mix over individual servings. Sprinkle with toasted almonds too.
Nutrients/serving: Calories: 246. Total fat 2.5gm, sat fat 0gm, polyunsaturatedfats: 0.5gm, monounsaturated fats: 1gm. Carbohydrates: 51 gm. Sugar: 32gm. Fiber 3gm. cholesterol 4mg. Protein 3 gm; sodium 69mg.
Okay, the sugars are still high, but hey this is a dessert and if you work out and eat this, I'm sure the sugar won't get stored as fat.

Our garden is really growing well. We harvested bok choy, radicchio lettuce so far. Radicchio was very crunchy but very bitter. We made a salad and I had to take bites of bread in between to mask the bitter. Cucumber vines are spreading with yellow flowers, cabbage is growing. We had to get harvest all of radicchio to make room for the spreading cucumbers, tomatoes? look at them!!



Our single strawberry harvest..

..

Jamie got this cute Cleveland Browns grill from home..isn't this cute? We plan on grilling some portobello mushrooms and corn on this.



I got a noodles and company menu from RPAC. Plan is try some of their recipes at home. Will let you know how it turned out. I'll end here. Hope everyone is having a great summer! Cheers everyone!

Smita

I love Summer!!!

Hey People! looks like everybody is having a nice time. Yay!!! me too! I have been reading, writing, cooking and playing.
Yesterday, Jamie wanted to use RPAC. So she bought a guest pass and we worked out. One thing that was new for me though was I used the swimming pools in RPAC for the first time. It was so much fun! Since we'd already worked out before we headed towards the pool-I just did a lap in the lanes. Even though I had the energy for more laps- I did not want to tire myself out as I had to get back to writing. It had been at least 3 years since I stepped in a pool and boy was I glad that I was able to swim ??yes!!! though I still am not very comfortable with my face in water- on my back its heaven! then there are the shallow play areas with a shower of water and finally the warm jacuzzi!!! Both of us rode our bikes home. On the way, we saw turtles/tortoises (I don't know how to distinguish between them) on the bike path! Iwas quite pleasantly surprised since I did not expect them there. Damn cute- they immediately slid their head in the shell when they saw us approaching.

This is how our garden looks like now- with all the saplings planted. The white tabs seen are a reminder to us about what we planted. We will have to wait for a month or two before we savor anything. But meanwhile, regular irrigation goes on. If you look carefully, there's a strawberry plant on the top left. It has small green berries at this time. I hope we get them.


Foodwise, its been great too. We had Indian bread, spiced green beans and boiled mung beans. The good thing about this Indian bread (called roti/chappati) is that you can knead the dough and keep it in the fridge. It stays for a week at least and you can make fresh bread everytime you eat.
Everything is quite easy to make took me 40 minutes to make the whole meal.
For green beans- Take 2 tbsp oil in a pan, add a tsp of mustard seeds, 1 green chilli, a dash of lentils ( roasted lentils add crunch to the dish), then add frozen green beans. Let it cook. Finally add salt and fresh coconut (I get a frozen bag from the Indian grocery store).
Mung beans were super easy too. I boiled it in a pressure cooker ( a pressure cooker is a must have in an Indian kitchen- you won't find many Indian households without one). Seasoning was heat 2 tsp oil, add a tsp of cumin seeds, grate some ginger, 1 green chilli. Pour this on boiled mung beans, add the juice of 1 lemon and mix. Salt to taste. Very yummy and filling.

Since its been a while since I wrote, I guess I've taking pics but not posting it. This is stir fried rice- one of Jamie's creations. Oil, carrots, peas, onion, salt, pepper soy sauce and rice.

Remember the spinach, sprouts and beets salad I told you about, well we made it again and this is how it looks like. I wish I had a better pic for the last two. But bad picture aside, ain't this colorful?

Today was one good day. A guy in a truck was handing out free samples of Glaceau Vitamin water. This new one is orange flavored and touts itself to be just 10 calories. But it has quite a variety of natural sweetners- 1) Crystalline fructose, 2) Erythritol ( never heard of this one) and 3) Rebiana (extracted from stevia) and 4) 3 gm sugar. Tastes like, well, Vitamin water. Can make out that it has sweetners.The moment I saw 10 calories- I knew it was going to be there.

So long folks.

Take care and have fun

Smita

Chipotle inspired Chappati Burrito and banana pancakes

Good morning everyone! How are you guys doing this Sunday morning? I, for one am feeling very good because I had really nice deep sleep after a long time last night and am feeling very fresh. I apologize, I haven't been as regular as I want to, but, my lab work takes up a lot of my time and I get exhausted at the end of it. I need to improve my stamina!
But, even though its been busy, me and Jamie have been having some good stuff. I love living with Jamie. We cook together, she's as conscious of healthy eating, she's a huge supporter of all things new and creative and last but not the least we clean the kitchen at the end of our cooking so there's no dreaded pile of dishes later. I can really appreciate this, because with my ex boyfriend- the pattern was I cook and he cleans. He waited to clean till the pile got on his nerves and finally did it. It used to bother me initially, but I learned to tolerate it- coz there's no way I'm doing everything..:)
Anyways, for dinner last night we had chappati Burrito. Chappati is a versatile Indian flat bread. You can eat it with vegetables on the side, stuff it with vegetables and what not. Making it is easy. Take wheat flour, add a dash of salt and knead the dough with water. The quality of the bread depends on good quality wheat flour and good kneading. Jamie really really likes it. I taught her how to knead the dough and she really makes an elastic soft dough now. And now she wants to do funky stuff with it. Last time, we kneaded the dough with crushed avocado, water, cilantro, salt and garlic. It was okay by itself, but way more tastier in burrito form. Another good thing about this dough is you can knead it and keep it tightly sealed ( otherwise the dough dries) in the fridge for a week at least.
Yesterday night I wanted something filling. So I thought of making burritos with chappati. We had a little bit of leftover rice too. Here's how we made it.

Salad spinach leaves
Sauted corn and sliced onions
carrots cut in strips
Cucumber cut in strips with the soft insides taken out
Leftover rice ( we had about quarter cup remaining). Season with fine chopped cilantro, salt and lemon juice.
Tomato salsa ( one tomato, one green chilli, fine chopped cilantro, a little bit of fine chopped onion, lemon juice and salt and pepper)
Kidney beans seasoned with lemon juice ( canned, Black beans will work perfectly as well, in fact preferred)
Sour cream
Cheddar cheese
Indian wheat bread.

Using a rolling pin, flat out some avocado dough and cook it on the griddle. Then take the bread, spread some sour cream on it, place sauted corn and onion in the middle, pile it on with rice, cucumber, kidney beans, carrots, cheese tomato salsa, spinach leaves and wrap it like a burrito ( okay , at least try to wrap it like the professionals- for one our bread was not as huge as the tortilla in chipotle). Keep some salsa on the side if you want some and enjoy! We really liked it a lot, it is very filling and a good way to use up leftover rice.

Today morning we had banana pancakes with chocolate chips and maple syrup. We made the pancakes the regular way- but instead of all purpose flour we used wheat flour- way more healthier. Very yummy- almost like dessert.

Okay I gotta get back to writing my thesis. Sigh! I wish my thesis flowed as readily as this post! Have a great day everyone, be outrageous, be creative, or just relax by trying not to be anything and have fun! love from Smita.

P. S. We went to see Emily in concert on Friday! She rocks!