100 Foods

Like the book list I did a few weeks ago, but for the foodie in me! Sidenote, I think this list is definitely geared more towards the British than Americans.

 A Very good Taste ’s list of 100 things that every “good” omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. Bloggers are encouraged to copy the list and bold items they have indulged in.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB& J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Weekend Project- Herb Garden in a pot

 

I have never had a green thumb, in fact other than an odd aunt here and there, no one in my family is gardening oriented at all. My mom was never a gardener and my dad didn’t even mow our lawn, we always had someone else do it! J always screams at this info in horror with “Oh my God, how UnAmerican.” Unamerican but true!

I married a non green thumber as well, J and I are just not good around plants, we really can’t even manage to keep house plants alive. This is really not an exaggeration, my mother will testify about the number of her prized potted plants that have met an early death, just because I was house sitting.

But all that is going to change, this weekend, I am going turn a new leaf ( snort* ha ha…get it) and start my own herb garden. This is something I have been meaning to do for a while and I am going to start this sunday with my very favorite herb- Cilantro and if all goes well, by the end of the summer, I might have Basil, Dill and Parsley as well…but I’m getting to ahead of myself.

I found this method here that I am going to try , so lets hope this works!

A Movies Weekend

This was the weekend of movies. On sat I watched Sex and the City and on Sun, J and I watched Iron Man. What can I say, we love to support our local theaters.  Other than movies, J and I have perfected our Bloody Mary recipe, well actually mostly J worked on the recipe and I worked on drinking them. Also we bought some new RAM for the computer. On to the movies:

Ironman: Pretty good Super Hero flick! Never thought I’d like Robert Downey Jr. in anything, but he was actually pretty good! Also Gywneth Paltrows black dresses and heels look uber fab!

Sex and the City: It was everything I wanted it to be- a 2 hour episode of the movie. Some parts were good, some were brilliant, some were just boring, but overall, despite the tepid reviews, I thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed the fashion eye candy- SJP out did her self and there were definitely looks that I want to steal- Argyle Knee socks and oversized graphic tees= awesome.  And of course the female bonding was at its best! I was more upset about Carrie and Miranda’s quibbles instead of Carrie and Big’s problems.

Really, As much as I love J , I wouldn’t know what to do without the women who keep me sane! Boys are good, but girls are better

The Anti Cosmopolitan

 

 

Now that Sex and the City has officially driven a certain group of women into harried frenzy, I was thinking about one of the major points of the show -Drinking.

The women are all fabulous, so of course they go to fab bars and drink fab drinks and one of the drinks which became synonymous with the show and all things girly was The Cosmopolitan. In my opinion, the Cosmo isn’t usually very good because most bartenders tend to make it cloyingly sweet, but I’m sure it suits a lot of people’s palates. More info on the origins of the Cosmo and its supposed evolution from a Gimlet can be found here.

I was discussing going to see the movie with some friends the other day and someone mentioned that not drinking Cosmos at a little pre party would be borderline blasphemous. Although, I didn’t say anything at the moment, I think I disagree. Carrie Bradshaw, who is supposed to be the one to popularize Cosmo actually doesn’t tend to drink Cosmos throughout the show. In the last few seasons her drink of choice is usually Scotch on the rocks. Its funny  though that Scotch on the rocks never became a popular drink for women. I guess I just love Scotch and I think Scotch is much more fab than a cosmo, probably because I come from a long line of Scotch drinkers and also married a Scotch lover, but still there is nothing  more fab than ordering a Scotch on the rocks, while wearing a sparkly dress. Maybe Carrie Bradshaw learned that later in life as well.

But thats just my opinion, Here’s me raising my glass to good liquor in any form! Cheers!

 

 

photos: google images

Limoncello Cocktail

I guess I have been all about the citrus lately! Another liquor that I adore at the moment is Limoncello. It is an italian liquor made from the rind and zest of lemon. It is really sweet and really alcoholic- almost as high as vodka or rum. Although, this is a traditionally drank either on ice or plain as an apertif or as a dessert drink, I prefer mine with champagne.

It is essentially one part Limoncello with three parts champagne. Its bubbly, sweet, citrussy and boy will it give you a little rush! Its also especially delicious with some raspberries and blueberries thrown in.

The other thing about Limoncello is that it can be quite easy to make at home so J and I are going to attempt to make our own one of these weekends. Will post more on that later!

***photo: google images***

Fresh Lime Soda

One of my favorite drinks in the hot muggy weather of Kolkata is Fresh Lime Soda. It is a universal drink, made from soda (club or any other fizzy ale) fresh limes , salt or sugar depending on your preference. This drink is widely available , from roadside stalls to fancy five star restaurants and is liked by most people. When we were in Kolkata last December, J got a taste of it and now its his favorite drink too! Anyway, ever since we’ve been back we’ve been having our American version of this drink frequently, and now that the weather has started getting warmer, we have it at least every other night. Also, on the weekends we’ve started making them alcoholic as well, and it works really well as a cocktail!

Our recipe is suited to our extra salty palette, but it can be adjusted easily by adding some sugar instead , however using sprite or any other citrus soda, doesn’t really work that well. It needs the bitterness of seltzer or club soda.

Fresh Lime Soda w/ Gin :

2 limes ( or 1 lime and 1 lemon)

Seltzer Water ( Club soda is second, tonic water - a distant third)

heaps of salt (or sugar, or a mix of both, if you don’t like salty drinks)

a pinch of black pepper to make it interesting

Gin

Lemon wedge for garnish

Its best to make the lime soda first and combine one parts gin with 3 parts of the soda.  Howevr, with the sweeter version light colored rum works better than the gin.

***photo: google images ***

A Whole Lotta Food

As I was scrolling through my old posts, I noticed I haven’t done a food related post in a while, which is really a shame, since it has been rather eventful in my food life recently. So here’s a quick update.

I made meatloaf for the first time last week. I don’t really like meatloaf so I never cook it, but I found an awesome recipe that sounded so delicious that i just had to make it. It is a southwestern flavored meatloaf, that is stuffed with pepper jack , colby and prosciutto. And the recipe doesn’t call for ketchup…yeay!

 This weekend I tried a brand new dish called Menudo , which is a mexican soup/stew that is made with cow stomach or tripe, but unlike just one part of the stomach it is made with all 4 and each has very distinct textures. The soup is spicy and really heavy but it is super tasty if you wash it down with some pina agua or pineapple drink. Some of our really good friends took us to a little hole in the wall mexican place on Alston Ave. but it was definitely as authentic as we were going to find in Durham NC. I also went a little nuts and had some of my fave pastor tacos and an asada quesedilla. Fun trivia about Menudo, according to my friend Y- In mexico they have the 4 different stomachs up by the counter and you can chooose which ones you want in your soup. We went there after our pretty crazy friday night and apparently Menudo is good for hangovers!

I am also pretty excited because I just read somewhere that one of my favorite low brow drinks - Jack and vanilla coke is now an official drink named Blackjack! I have such weird tastes in drinks, I have been spoiled because I know all these awesome bartending gurus who have introduced me to cocktails and liquors that I had never even imagined- What would my life be without the Millenium Cocktail or a Sazerac or even just a classic martini, but Jack and diet coke is still my favorite drink ever.

Everything in Excess

Thanksgiving is one of the few days that its absolutely okay to be as indulgent as possible. In fact, at Thanksgiving dinner, after I gave thanks, I raised a toast “To excess.” I know , I know, excess isn’t really a positive value , but every once in a while , I think it is absolutely okay to be indulgent, especially in our current day culture of all pervasive guilt. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the guilt actually stops anyone from bad behavior- we still consume too much, waste too much, want too much, dirty up too many dishes, have too much clutter, etc, etc. And most of the time, I really do try to be a better human being and I feel guilty about all the ways my existence is damaging the planet and corrupting society and bloating our society but it is nice to have a day to indulge without the guilt. Really, isn’t that the spirit of Thanksgiving - to thank the world for its shower of bounty and all things good in life. So, that is exactly what I did on thanksgiving- ate too much, drank too much, used too many ingredients in my recipes, simply because I could and most of all, I had too much fun.

J stuffing mushrooms, while giving “Layla’s pathetic face”

Anyway, that was my rant and onto the fun stuff. For Thanksgiving this year, J and I spent the morning and afternoon cooking up our contributions to our Potluck thanksgiving dinner. We had decided on a non traditional thanksgiving menu so my contributions were.

Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms>>>>>Recipe

Green Beans with coconut>>>>> Recipe

Smashed Eggplant w/ Malaysian Roti ( Baigan Bharta)>>>>>>Recipe

Catfish in Yoghurt Sauce ( Doi Maach) >>>>>> Recipe

Around 5:30 we headed over for dinner and started on our night of drinking. There was about 10 people and there were nearly 20 bottles of wine, which I am happy to say were all consumed by the end of the night. As for the food, there was Goat Cheese with Fig sauce, my mushrooms and Eggplant and spinach dip for appetizers. For our main entrees and side dishes we had Turkey with Mole Sauce, mashed potatoes, asparagus with pinenuts, brussel sprouts, green beans, mustard greens with Kielbasa, sweet potatoes and so many more dishes. For dessert, we had homemade sweet potato pie and chocolate pecan pie.

It was a great thanksgiving. 

Recipes

Here comes the holidays!

Thanksgiving is definitely one of my favorite holidays ever! This year we are going to a pot luck at our friend DS’s house and we are required to bring one dish and one bottle of wine per person, so 2 dishes and 2 bottles of wine for me and J . But I’m in a cooking mood, so I’m thinking I’ll actually make a few things.

So far, my menu ideas are

Stuffed mushrooms- appetizer

Shepherd’s pie- entree

green bean casserole - side

or

green beans with coconut-side

I might also make some sort of potato dish. Also, I feel like I might cook a bigger meal later into the holiday week, b/c J wants thanksgiving turkey leftovers, so it might be fun to have a random big meal a few days after thanksgiving.

In other news, I am leaving for India in less than 3 weeks and my Mom has already left to get things ready for the weekend. I am starting to get really excited.

Leaving on a Delta Plane

Okay,so technically we are flying American Airlines, it just didn’t sound cool as a title.  So we are leaving in 16 hours for UT. I can’t believe it, its been so stressful lately turning stuff in for school and I am really excited to not think about it for a while. I’ll deal with the consequences when I get back.

 Its been a busy couple of days and its going to be super busy the next couple of hours! I got my dress back yesterday and it fits beautifully, thanks to all that extra weight I gained. Oh well!

 This week, I also dealt with the case of the missing cake lady and got another one to do my cake instead. Also, I decided I didn’t like the flowers my mom wanted, so I’ll be making my own bouquet! We also finally have all our food finalized and it place and we hired the people I originally wanted. J and I also finally managed to find a tie for him that will look good with his suit! ( He looks hoooooottttt! )

 I am so excited, hence the crazy rambling of superflous details.