Another week, another book review. Oh no, wait, I just did a book review yesterday, didn’t I? That’s ok, too, though, because the book I am reviewing today combines two of my favorite things. No, not knitting and cook, though that could be interesting. Except that I already do that, don’t I? Hmm, that bears thinking about. But the two things combined in today’s book are cooking and history. Let me introduce you to The Spice Merchant’s Daughter. Her name is Christina Arokiasamy. She grew up in Malaysia, and her mother was a …. wait for it … spice merchant.

Now I am the first to admit that I don’t know much about spices. I tend to think in terms of salt, pepper and garlic, the end. I only recently started adding paprika “for color”. I think at least part of that is due to the years I spent as a smoker. It deadens the taste, you know. I could only taste very strong or very hot spices, and so the more subtle ones escaped my notice. By the way, paprika is good for more than color. It has a sweety hot taste, kinda smokey, but not a lot. And it’s good on popcorn (thanks Ang.). But let’s get back to the book.

Ms. Arokiasamy precedes each chapter of recipes with a vignette of her childhood life. I could almost see and smell the people and spices as she opened up these windows into another culture. I I do plan to try a few of these recipes, particularly the sambals, which are served like a condiment, so the children can take it or leave it without it being a big hairy deal. I don’t cater to my children when I cook, but I do like to consider them. It seems only fair, after all, since most of them can’t cook yet

I made and took pictures of this chili some time ago. It is just so good! I make a large batch of it, and we eat it as a main meal with corn chips or tortillas, and then I freeze the left overs in 2 cup or so containers to use as a condiment for other Mexican foods. Yumm! I got the original recipe out of Colorado Cache Cookbook, and their more complicated version is a signature dish for La Bola in Denver. Shh, don’t tell anyone that mine is easier and just as tasty.

Green Chili

You’ll need:
2-3 pounds of pork stew meat, or chopped shoulder or, you know, pork
3 28 ounce cans of diced tomatoes
garlic powder or minced garlic to taste
21 ounces of canned diced green chilis
1 ounce of hot peppers if desired (I skip this so the kids can eat it, too)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1.5 tablespoons of salt

Brown your pork and cook it until it looks dry.

Pour off the grease if you need to, but if you used lean meat, you probably won’t have too. Add the tomatoes, chilis and seasonings.

Stir it together and let it simmer for at least an hour, OR as long as you can stand to wait.

Serve alone or over burritos.

P.S. Like most chilis, this one is even better the next day, so make it in advance if you can.

I have something a little different for you today. Instead of a recipe or book review, I am going to review a site for you. I’ve spent the bulk of the day sorting and stashing crafty type stuff, and I can almost see the light at the end of my personal tunnel of crafty doom, but I just don’t feel like messing with a lot more pictures right now. If you look at the stash page, you will see exactly what I mean. It’s looking perky over there, ya’ll, but my brain is just about fried!

Anyway, back to the subject. At ketingredient.com, you can search by recipes based on the (surprise!!) Key Ingredients. And girls, you should see the shrimp recipes! And the pancake recipes. If I wasn’t feeding the family a lasagna from the freezer so I could deal with Mount CraftMore behind me (relax, I made it myself), I might be having to make the Shrimp and Scallop Saute. Over Angel Hair.

As it is, they will eat the lasagna, I will saute myself a no-sat-fat chicken breast and then I will continue with this:

Don’t you envy me?

Thankfully, it doesn’t look quite that intimidating anymore, because I have been working on it all day. Except for that quick trip to Wal-Mart.

I have a recipe for you today. I made it the other night, and it was so good! It was also quick to put together, and fairly light, which is a great thing for summer cooking, don’t you think?
When I made this, I really thought I was going to end up with shrimp lo-mein, and I suppose you could get that if you used oriental noodles, but the lime flavor really lightened the taste, and gave it an almost Mexican flavor. I’m not sure this really qualifies as a recipe, it’s so easy. But then most of the stuff I cook is pretty easy, and none of us are needing to lose weight.

Let’s have a note about the seafood: I used shrimp and scallops, because that is what I had on hand, but you could really cut the cost of this meal by using imitation crab meat for part of the seafood.

Seafood Delight

2 packs of shrimp-lime ramen
one bag of Asian vegetables
1 pound of seafood

Cook the seafood in a bit of bacon grease, just a tablespoon or so. Once you have that going, cook the ramen, and start the veggies steaming in the microwave. Spoon them all into a large bowl once they are done, then mix the seasoning packets in to the juices left in the seafood pan. Mix it all together and serve. Contains 224 calories and 3.16 grams of saturated fat per cup.

Did I mention easy? But the presentation makes up for it!!

Have you heard of the Eat Local Challenge? Well, Outstanding in the Field is the cook’s guide to how to do just that, plus. Jim Denevan drives across the country each summer, setting up outdoor dinners right in the fields where food is grown. He prepares and serves it with the help of his staff, and most of it comes from wherever they are. How cool is that?

The cookbook has got you covered from appetizers to dessert, and there are several menus listed in the back. Interspersed with the recipes are stories from places he’s been and meals he’s served. The recipes range from fairly standard fare such as cider braised pork shoulder to more exotic stuff—did you know you can eat stinging nettles?

The pictures alone are enough to make my mouth water, and are also the source of my one complaint. There are several that appear without a recipe beside them, and I can’t figure out what they are. I’m a very visual cook, usually deciding from the picture rather than the ingredients if I want to cook something, and of course, those are the recipes I want to try. Guess I’ll be reading the recipes this time, since it’s mentioned in the info if the picture is elsewhere in the book.

Of particular interest to me is the recipe for Green Tomato Marmalade. I have long loved fried green tomatoes, and one year my mom and I made green tomato jelly (you flavor it with jell-o of all things). The children wouldn’t eat it because I made the mistake of telling them what it was, but this recipe is loud and proud with green tomato pride, and it looks mighty tasty, too. I may have to make some to serve with salmon or pork roast.

There is a website that you can check to see if Jim and his team are headed to your area. They’ll be near me this fall, but the event is already sold out. And also, a blog, where you can read about dinners and see pictures.

Hey ya’ll! I’m still slogging through that book back log. Seven and a half inches to go! It seemed appropriate though, since the next book up dealt with food, to go ahead and relaunch the weekly Cass in the Kitchen segment. I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy my foodie self, and I missed dishing about dishes! Today’s book, though….it’s something else.

If diet is a four letter word, then this book could embarrass a sailor. I felt my arteries clogging just looking at it. I have to be right up front, and tell you that having been told to watch my cholesterol, I only allow myself 20 grams of saturated fat per day. Now, I can bank those grams, if I don’t use them all, and I do that quite regularly. You may remember that my family eats hot dogs every Saturday, and so I bank for that day and other grand occasions ;). And now, I bank grams of saturated fat for this:

You would, too. Right? Right.

I tell you, I could just cry! See, I think baking isn’t baking without real butter and real cream and real eggs. I like my cool whip now, but nothing substitutes for real cream. Nothing. I know there are recipes out there that employ less-than-full-fat-and-flavor dairy substitutions, but they are just that–substitutions. And I know butter is outrageous spendy, but when it comes to a perfection of cookie texture, butter flavor shortening doesn’t even compare.

The recipes here run the gamut from Chocolate Rice Crispies (surprise, not made with chocolate cereal as I had always imagined) to Chocolate Marshmallows to Chocolate Pecan Tart to the 18 layer (I counted in the picture, ya’ll) Gateau de Crepes with Green Tea Cream. But if I could make any one thing in this book tonight, it would be the Trio of Chocolate Mousse Cake. It’s umm, three different mousses frozen in layers, and ya’ll……….I love me some mousse. Made with cream. And eggs. And chocolate. I’m thinking I may need to forgo the hot dogs for a couple of weeks and cash in those grams for some of this.

In the back of the book are some great tips like how to brown butter and a simple sugar syrup (useful for iced tea and coffee as well as desserts) and how to temper chocolate (that’s what makes it shiny and gorgeous.

You know what? Ya’ll get ready and come on over. I can start that Mousse Cake, and when you get here, we can all have just a few bites, and my mouth and my arteries will both be happy. AND, I won’t have to wait so long to taste it!

I think we all know that nothing beats the taste of home cooked food. It’s just better if your hands have been in it. You know I am right! You may be giggling, but you are also nodding in agreement; I can practically see you! However, sometimes, it just doesn’t work that way. You are rushed, you are tired, or something you want to do comes up, and there you are, needing a quick dinner fix. So today, I thought I would critique some frozen foods for you, and let you know which are picks and which are pans.

Picks:

Stouffer’s Macaroni and Cheese. Seriously cheesy, seriously good. Serve with salad and you are done. Unless your husband is like mine and demands MEAT. In that case, serve it with leftover something or other.

Stouffer’s Vegetable Lasagna. This one is so satisfying that you can skip the meat.

Stouffer’s Chicken Parmigiana. Not as good as mine, but a fairly decent second. Add a veggie.

Stouffer’s Three Cheese Ravioli with Meat Sauce. Yumm! Rich and cheesy and just about perfect.

Gourmet Dining’s Seafood Medley. I don’t usually care for frozen seafood, but I can tolerate this one and ask for seconds. The fam loves it.

Gourmet Dining’s Shrimp Linguini. This one is good, too, but I prefer the Medley.

Bird’s Eye Viola Shrimp Scampi is good, but it is not as rich and decadent as mine. Of course, it costs about a quarter of what I pay for ingredients for mine, too.

Bird’s Eye Viola Garlic chicken is good, too, and it has plenty of garlic for most folks, but a little extra is good, too.

Pans

Stouffer’s Chicken Enchiladas with Cheese Sauce & Rice. Something just went wrong here. We’ve tried it a couple of times, but the texture of the tortillas is just …. not right, ya’ll.

So, I was looking at my family the other day, as they were eating, (Haha, nine people live here, so someone is ALWAYS eating.) and I really started thinking about what I feed them. I am back to using the food pyramid for myself, because I just feel so much better when I eat that way. It’s plenty of food and I don’t end up feeling bloated, and I have energy– stamina– the ability to keep on going like the energizer bunny. And yet, I let my family eat however, whatever. Yeah, cause I am smart, and I thought it would seem like deprivation to them if I “made” them eat a little healthier.

So, anyway, I talked to dh, and we decided it would really benefit the whole family to have a healthier diet. It will be better for our hearts and lungs, our immune systems, and hopefully our tempers and ability to concentrate. But that health thing is a biggie. Do you know that sudden cardiac arrest kills 900 people per day? That’s just crazy, because it’s mostly preventable through diet! St. Jude’s has put together a website that explains abnormal heart rhythm and there are a couple of videos as well. Sudden Cardiac Arrest and The Human Heart (hey, that second one would be great for science for the younger kids– we may watch that on Tuesday).

Oh, I don’t think the kids will be suffering too much. We’re camping this weekend (yeah, and I am in here on the computer, because…………I am silly, that is why), and we’ll be having hotdogs for lunch. Ha, nothing new there, we eat hotdogs every Saturday. This week, though, they are coming with a little surprise–instead of 2 hotdogs, we’ll have one hotdog and some carrot sticks. Because, do you know how much protein we need a day? Six ounces. Do you know how much we were eating? Twice that. Easily. I love these guys, I want them to live long, healthy lives, and enjoy eating every day of those long healthy lives. That means I need to teach them about good food choices NOW.