National Grilled Cheese Day

April 12th, as some of you may, or may not know. Is the day of Grilled Cheese. Now when I think grilled cheese two flavors come to mind. The first is the horrors of plastic American singles slices on nutrition less white bread slices. This appalling tragedy seems to be a common placed food for American children, and truly I pity them and my past self. I remember going to expensive fancys venues as a little girl, and seeing my mother eating exquisite delicacies, and having a plate of badly baked fries and a this pathetic excuse for grilled cheese on my plate.

Later in life my family decided to get healthy. The only bread we bought was crunchy wheat bread that tasted like saw dust. This bread is NOT CONDUCTIVE TO GRILLED CHEESE. It should never be used for this purpose. My mother also was only buying provolone(ass) cheese and sawdust and ass should NOT be mixed.

There are good memories of grilled cheese, to counter the bad, fortunately. My work place 'The Natural Cafe' in mid college served delicious grilled cheese... or at least when I ordered them for myself they were delicious, topped with grilled onions and red bell peppers ^_^.

My creation for this holiday was surprisingly delicious as well! Taking a few slices of roasted garlic bread from Cosco, and a couple gobs of fresh Tillamock cheddar cheese from this very valley, and the right application of time on the forum grill, this grilled cheese sandwich was D-licious. The cheddar was cooked long enough to seep out the sides a bit and get crunchy. Perfect grilled cheese combo. A++

"Fudge" Popsicles

Further adventures in Popsicle making... This time we have CHOCOLATE!. I think I used too little chocolate because my Fudgesicles came out weird and cracked looking. I also think my chocolate chips were not real chocolate. They refused to melt properly in my double boiler. Sometimes I really wonder what I am doing making these Popsicles. I am making them in a very anti-intuitive fashion. I never would imagine HEATING ingredients to make Popsicles. Because... I am going to freeze them... and it takes longer for hot things to cool down. So maybe my mistake was pre-making the hot part of the batter before hand. On taste, it was very sweet and milky, and you could almost taste the caloric overload explosion in your mouth. At 140 calories each, their taste was just not worth it. Never again.

Candylude 1:Andes Mints

As a little girl, my Grandad on my Fathers side, Roy, use to give me Andes mints when I would come talk to him. He was an artistic, yet stubborn man, who died before I was a teenager from lung cancer. He is actually the reason I am so adamantly against smoking, but my political opinions really do not belong lingering in this blog. These mints remind me of sticky days, in smokey rooms listening to the sound of an oxygen machine, the Price is Right playing on the television screen.  Later in my life, they would remind me of long boring evenings sitting at a Mexican food restaurant listening to my parents talk to friends.

These little chocolates have a smoothe mint flavor, unlike many mint candies, you can still taste the chocolate in them behind the mint flavor. I have always been a fan of eating the chocolate layers first, then the mint layer. But I am a strange flower.

These little candies have an elegant feel, and make a normal night just a bit more classy.

Strawberry Banana Popsicle

Well, last night I tried my 2nt Popsicle in my fancy Popsicle maker. At the request of my boyfriend, I made 'strawberry banana' Popsicle. The recipe used really made it taste like a smoothie on a stick, mixing a bit of milk and yogurt with fresh strawberries really makes a delicious flavor. The banana batter was a bit too thick to pour correctly into the mold, and banana flavored things are really just NOT my cup of tea. Overall, it is still a better Popsicle than a store bought one, but just not as good as the strawberry shortcake one I made earlier.



Recipe:
Strawberry 'Batter'
1 Tb Sugar
2 Tb Milk
1 T vanilla yogurt
1.25 cups strawberries

Banana Batter:
2 Tb sugar
2 Tb Milk
3/4 cup banana

Curried Mac Bake

So as anyone who cooks often knows, the way you learn is by making mistakes and experimenting. Today for lunch I experienced failure in more than one way.

My friend Nate was suppose to come over this afternoon, and being too poor to go out I decided to make lunch for when he was here. My Aunt had given me a Mac&Cheese cookbook for Christmas, and last night while looking through it I had found a recipe for 'Curried Mac Bake' being a fan of curry I decided to make it.
My first mistake was using honey-wheat bread instead of the called for sourdough to make a topping. My second was burning the topping.

In the end my curry tasted like burned bread and had a aftertaste of burned bread and curry which just did not taste good (I could barely finish a bowl for myself and I did not want to not eat any of it and waste a box of mac and cheese)

The other failure was that Nate had my address wrong and ended up a few miles away knocking on some other apartments door to be greeted by a large black man who did not know who 'JoDee' was. Poor Nate, at least he did not have to eat this terrible food >.<

Mung Bean Noodle Thai Stirfry

 So one of my favorite healthy meals to make is Mung Bean Noodle Stir Fry. Mung beans are a low fat and low glycemic index noodle made from of course, mung beans. They are used in most Asian cultures and can be found at Asian grocery stores and sometimes on the Asian isle of normal grocery stores. Low in price, they do not require boiling in hot water to soften, and thus take less energy to prepare. They are pretty much tasteless, so it is required that the person preparing them understand basic flavoring to give these noodles substance.

So my 'Recipe' (it is hard to have recipes when you cook on the fly with what is at hand.)

3 chicken 'tenders(half a large breast), 1 package of mung bean noodles, half a bag of mung beans, 2 onions, 1 red pepper, 2 carrots, a handful of cilantro, 1 T vegetable oil, 4 T soy sauce, 1.5 T Fish Sauce, 1.5 T Rice wine vinegar, 1/2 a medium cabbage, 1/2 cup flour, 2 T cornstarch, T pepper and Salt, 3 cloves garlic, 1/2 cup chicken stock

Writing this down I am starting to realize that recipes I consider 'a breeze' are more complicated that I realize >.>

To start, open your mung bean noodles, and put them in a bowl and cover them with water and set aside, after 15-20 minutes, pour them into a colander and let the water stain off.

After this, you dry your chicken (thawed!) off, then mix the flour, cornstarch, pepper and salt together, and coat bite size piece of chicken in the mixture. Set a wok/large and deep frying pan up with the vegetable oil, and brown the chicken until it is about 90% cooked. Remove the chicken and place in a covered container/plate on the side.

Next you cut up your onions and red pepper and cook them down, then add the garlic and cabbage and chicken stock(which helps steam the cabbage) and cook until the chicken stock has mostly cooked down and the cabbage is starting to wilt down. Now it is time to add your noodles and mung beans, then once you have them stirred with the vegetable, add your sauces (fish, soy and rice vinegar), and re add the chicken (it will have finished cooking because of its own steam if you had it covered, and if you cooked it all the way before hand it is going to be dry and chewy) and then cook for another 3-5 minutes on medium heat to get all that flavor soak in.

Now all that is left is putting the food on a plate, and adding finely chopped raw carrots and fresh cilantro to the top.

This meal has a very heavy 'health' flavor to it. The carrots add crunch and there is a plethora of textures and flavors from all the veggies. You can easily make this vegetarian as well by deleting the fish sauce (:(), and chicken and substituting mushroom/vegetable broth.

Oh yes and on a final note, the drink in the top picture is one of toms and my favorites. It is a sour blue raspberry soda. You take about 1.5 ounces of Rosas cocktail mix blue raspberry, a few small squirts of raspberry agave nectar(to sweeten!), a few drops of lemon, and top with soda water and you get a first class sour blue raspberry soda.

Strawberry Shortcake Popsicle

So my good friend Ali(another member of this co-op) got me a fancy Zoku Popsicle maker for my Birthday a few weeks ago. This thing is amazing in that you just keep it in your freezer and it instant freezes popsicles in under 8 minutes. (wut!)

Anyhow. Decided to try it out today. So I made 'Strawberry Shortcake pops' (I used the recipe from the book that came with it, I know, super creative, but that is what recipe books are for!).

The vanilla part is made with 2 vanilla pudding cups, 3/4 cup water, 3 T sugar and 1 T vanilla extract all whisked together. While the strawberry layer is frozen strawberries I microwaved pureed with 2 T fresh clover Beaverton OR honey, 3/4 T water and 1/8 T vanilla.

Calorie Count: ~75 calories each.
You can buy tons of 'low calorie' snacks that taste far worse that this that market themselves as '100 calories each!' or you can make your own for less money, and better flavor. I am sure you can make these in ice cube trays or cheap popsicles makers as well, and just leave them freezing over night.

My boyfriend, Tom commented that 'normally Popsicle are watery and lacking in flavor and suffer from this, and they(the ones I made) do not' I was reminded of a creamsicle and margaritas myself.

So there you have it, my first adventure in Popsicle making.

Candylude 1:Nerds Rainbow Mix

We all love candy right? Ok maybe not everyone does. But I definitely do! I figured between main posts, I would write some 'Candyludes' interludes about candy I try.

Nerds
These Wonka treats have been around since as long as I can remember. According to Wiki they have been around since 1983, which would be why they have been around as long as I remember. I am happy to say the rainbow nerds pack NO LONGER INCLUDES WHITE (my nemesis and hated flavor). Nerds are tangy and sweet and a perfect treat for a long road trip or eating while you watch a movie. I tend to obsessively eat all my least favorite flavors out of the pack, then separate the large nerds from the small. I eat all the small ones first, saving the tasty large ones for last.
I found this package at the Dollar Tree.

Flavors:
Yellow: WHAT flavor is this. Pineapple? I think? IDK but I am really not a fan.
Green: Watermelon. Nom my favorite flavor for candys!
Ornage: Ornage (duh!)
Purple: Grape, pretty average here too.
Pink: Strawberry.

Wait... where is the cherry(red!) :(.
Well I guess I will take an lack of cherry to not have whites... but yellow might be the new white.

This has been a candylude!

Oven Roasted Mini Peppers

Bought a bag of these Mini-Sweet peppers. Having no real plans for them, but not wanting them to go to waste in my fridge and mold. I scoured the internet for a good recipe.

I am not a fan of overly complicated dishes, or using too many expensive ingredients. What if the dish comes out bad? What if I do not have the talents to execute the proper steps to make top dollar peppers! The horrors of my over active imagination.


So instead of risking them to a recipe I did not have at hand, and instead of wasting time cooking all night. I continued reading my current book and instead, cut off the ends and cleaned them out. Arranged them haphazardly on a tray. Gave them a spray of butter (because butter is the only flavor of canned oil I have right now, Olive oil would have been better) and then dusted them with garlic salt.

Instead of making an elegant meal to serve them with, I ordered a few pizzas from Dominos(who happened to be having a 5.99 for medium two topping pizzas deal). and placed these on top of them. Dinner.

P.S. I don't take the skins off, I happen to like the flavor/texture the skin provides.

Starting a new blog

I cook, a whole heck of a lot, but I seem to forget to chronicle it, so here is to hoping I can have the remembrance to keep up this time.

Edit:
I have decided to open this blog up to my friends and a few other people who, like me have lives and don't post constantly. I am hoping that in combination all of us can make this a great place to come read about foodventures of varied people with varied backgrounds and tastes.

For note. I am JoDee. Admin of this blog, and lover of food(as my wasteline shows adequately). I am 25, and I almost wrote 22, that is how off I am on the real world. Graduated in 2011 from University of Hawaii at Hilo with a bachelors of Art in Marine Science. I have a love for eating and making good food, that no one can really equate this love  to my upbringing. I remember my first lover expressing how food is for passion just like love and feeding me delightful new foods that brought out new tastes to me. Foods I had never tried, such as curry, avocado, hummus and lychees suddenly revolutionized the boring world of food my parents had given me. Since then I have explored multiple cuisines, pondered and discarded the idea of being a chef and even been paid for my food. While rarely beautiful, I like to think of everything I cook as flavorful.