What a Surprise!

From teaisfun — Blog by Quinn Losselyong

February 20, 2009

Just like every fall we let our carrots and beets take care of themselves underneath the soil and it seems to work out very well. This year I was thinking it was going to be different because of all the Holiday snow we received and particularly how long it stuck around. In my head I was thinking that the beets and carrots were goners just like the kale and chard were. Well, it’s a few months later now and the sun is shining bright and I start thinking about what to plant in my garden, so I wander back there and start imagining a garden full of carrots, beets, corn, peas, tomatoes, onions, eggplant and plenty of herbs. While I am imagining this wonderful bounty, I see an orange spot in the garden and start wondering if in fact the carrots had survived the great snow storm of December 08. They did, and they are delicious and sweet. Lucky me. So if you haven’t checked your garden since last November and you planted some beets and carrots last year, you might just want to wander back there and see if you have an early, early spring surprise.

Pho’ Losselyong

From teaisfun — Blog by Quinn Losselyong

January 7, 2009

I’m sure almost everyone who went through college, ramen noodles became a staple because they were easy to make, temporarily filling and most importantly they didn’t mess with your beer money. I ate my fair share of ramen noodles during college and when I graduated I was so determined not to eat this college food ever again. Well, now that the economy is struggling and the price of food is increasing, I like to have an inexpensive meal a few nights a week. Now, my taste buds have changed drastically since the college days as well as my cooking skills so I wasn’t going to just make plain old chicken top ramen straight from the package, the one that is loaded with MSG and a bunch of other ingredients I don’t know and trust. I also decided that cooking inexpensively doesn’t mean that you have to use poor ingredients. So this is a version of my kicked up Top Ramen we like to call Pho’ Losselyong. I will put the full recipe in my queue, but here is the basic idea. I like to use a store bought roasted chicken that I cut up and use in the soup. In a 4qt soup pot saute’ some sliced yellow onions, chopped celery, chopped carrots and quartered crimini mushrooms until they are al dente. Then I add water until pot is 3/4 full. Now open the ramen noodle package and immediately throw away the seasoning packet and reach for the BETTER THAN BOUILLON chicken version in the fridge and add 2-3 tsp to the water. Make sure it is all mixed in and that the water is at a full boil, now add the 2 packets of ramen noodles and set the timer for 2 1/2 minutes. Meanwhile I like to dice up some chicken and put it in the bottom of a nice big bowl (like you get at the Pho’ restaurants). If you like kale or chard, slice some up and add that to the boiling water with about 1 minute left on the noodles. Timer goes off and you are almost done. Evenly ladle the noodles, broth and veggies over the chicken. As far as sauces to add after I like an even mixture of Hoisen, siracha and that nice hot chili in oil sauce. Toast a baguette for dipping and enjoy. The coolest thing about this recipe is that there are a million different variations. You can use anything that you have in the fridge or the garden. I welcome more ideas for this recipe if you can think of any.

• if you have some frozen pesto from last summers harvest, a cube added near the end is extremely delicious!

Beef Bourguignon is dreamy and last meal worthy!

From teaisfun — Blog by Quinn Losselyong

January 5, 2009

My wife Katherine made us Beef Bourguignon for dinner on New Year’s Day and it was one of the greatest dishes I have ever had. It was so good that it made me immediately think of that last meal question. Well, I would definitely choose this dish prepared by my wife as my last meal if I am so lucky to choose. She got the recipe out of “The New Basics Cookbook”. Now I think that the meat you use makes the dish. We bought a full on vacuum sealed tenderloin for Christmas Eve dinner so we had all the beautiful trimmings from that. We also used a nice bottle of Pinot Noir which seemed expensive at first, but produced the creamiest of sauces ever. It was served over egg noodles with a few slices of a fresh baguette on the side.

If you had to choose one last meal, what would it be?