Cooking Mag Mommy

The last two months of my Gourmet project have been pretty crazy. First, I thought we would leave in mid-April for a business trip so I rushed to finish April's recipes. Then, I found out the trip was postponed until May 10 th , giving me those last few days of April and the beginning of May to finish the recipes of May's Gourmet. It was a lot of work and at times, Richard thought I was obsessed but I finished all the recipes of April and May. May's recipes taught me some new and valuable lessons. The first and most obvious lesson was that I need to become familiar with ingredients before using them in dishes. My experience with the Peruvian pepper sauce, aji amarillo , reiterated the fact that a good cook knows what they are using in a dish and uses that ingredient appropriately. I also learned that I am a very determined person. I've mentioned that I do not get paid a cent to write this blog and truth be told, very few people even read it. I am writing this blog pri...

Everybody has heroes. For some, it's athletes like LeBron James or Payton Manning. For others, it's those who combine talent and fame like Bono of U2 or actress Angelina Jolie. Me, my heroes like food and follow their own path like Jane and Michael Stern. Jane and Michael Stern are the authors of the Roadfood books and travel the country reviewing local restaurants that cater to the "everyman". For years, I've used their book and companion website to find great eats across the country. I don't know if I've mentioned that Richard and I are highpointers , members of a club that encourages and commends people who travel to the highest points in the United States. Together, we've been to 40 of the the U.S. highpoints and some more than once. As you can imagine, this hobby takes you to out of the way parts of our country and nothing is better than a great local restaurant. We began Richard's business trip in San Diego, California, and nothing says ...

When posting my reviews of each month's Gourmet recipes on this blog, I've tried very hard to be timely about writing my reflections so I don't forget how a dish really tasted or what my initial impressions were. However, I made the final recipes of May's Gourmet over a week ago and I am just now writing my review. There is a reason though, besides just general laziness. I made the last three recipes on Saturday, May 9 th and flew out for a 3 1/2 week business trip with Richard at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 10 th . Basically, as soon as I finished cooking that night, I started cleaning and packing and never had time to sit down and write about the recipes I had just made. Today, I am sitting in a hotel in Las Vegas after an action packed week where we have stayed in 5 different hotels, visited a large portion of California and several National Parks, and gone to 2 different Major League Baseball stadiums. Today is the first rest day of the trip and other than some qual...

Today was the first day while doing the “Gourmet” project that I’ ve seriously worried that I might be tipping over the edge into obsessive. The day after tomorrow we leave for San Diego (finally!) and I have only 8 recipes left to make from May’s Gourmet. Two of those recipes are great for lunch but tomorrow we are meeting friends to take the kids to McDaniel Farm Day so lunch tomorrow is out. So I made two lunch dishes today for Eyrleigh and me. I know she’s not a fan of fish and sardines seems a real stretch so I made the Spaghetti with Sardines and Dill on page 80 for me and made the Egg and Tomato Stir-fry on page 107 for her. I think I made a good decision. Eyrleigh ate the Tomato and Egg Stir-fry with enthusiasm. I was a bit disappointed at first that an article about the best Chinese restaurants in L.A. would be a ccompanied by such a simple recipe. Was this really the best L.A. had to offer? But in its defense, this recipe, though not fancy, could be a real mainstay for a...

On Monday, when I made the Peruvian menu from this month's Gourmet, Richard looked at the amount of food and asked how many people I had asked for dinner. I had reduced the size of the recipes when possible but there was still way too much food for only 2 and a half people. So I decided to split the other large menu, from the article " Cucina Paradiso " over several days to allow us to enjoy the flavors without having an unbelievable amount of food in one night. With thirteen recipes in this Tuscan-inspired meal, we couldn't possibly really enjoy eating anything if we had to save room for another twelve food items. After giving this tactic a try, I found I was able to taste every component of this large menu and really enjoy each part. I split the menu up into three days. For the last two days, I've made a tasting menu to go before our regular meal, using 3 appetizers from the Cucina Paradiso menu each night. Tonight, I completed the menu by making the final 7 ...

The most challenging thing about the project of making every recipe in each month's issue of Gourmet is not making the recipes at all. It's finding all the ingredients required to make those recipes. I primarily shop at 3 different grocery stores each week to find the items I need. Let me give you some reasons of why this is necessary. I've mentioned that Super H Mart is my local Asian grocery that also has an extensive Hispanic foods section. This store is great for produce and hard to find ethnic ingredients. It is not good for cheese or other dairy products and has a limited pasta, cereals, and breads. My closest grocery store is Kroger and is good for cheeses and other dairy products and has pretty good produce section for commonly used vegetables and fruits. Publix is another local grocery store that has lamb, something rarely carried at Kroger, and a much better bakery. Sometimes I've just got to search at all three. For example, for last month's Rhubarb Oran...

Today is the 5 th of May but since there were no Mexican recipes left to make in May's Gourmet, I celebrated the color green. I actually didn't realize the predominance of green in tonight's menu until I began to plate dinner for the pictures but it sure did make dinner pretty. I made 2 recipes from this month's Gourmet, the Pesto Pea Soup on page 73 and the Mussels in Watercress Cream on page 79. The Pea Soup was simple and quick. It also did not have the heavy wintry taste of traditional split pea soup but instead, tasted bright and fresh. I think the pesto was the key ingredient to this flavor and was a wonderful addition. I love mussels but I don't think I've ever made them at home. What was most surprising was how cheap they were, only $3.99 at Super H Mart. I tend to assume things I eat rarely are more expensive and this project has gone a long way toward debunking that thought. Watercress is a very mild flavor. I thought the cream was pretty but so lig...

I have decided on a new rule of cooking. If working with ingredients I am unfamiliar with, I need to taste test them before liberally putting them in a number of dishes. Here's why. Tonight I made the dishes in May Gourmet's article "Hot and Sweet", a menu of Peruvian dishes that starts on page 108. I've heard a lot about Peruvian cuisine but I've never eaten or made an entire meal of Peruvian dishes. I found every ingredient in this entire menu in the extensive Peruvian section at Super H Mart. Four dishes called for either aji amarillo or aji misasol paste. I found aji amarillo , a rather innocuous looking yellow sauce. Looks can be deceiving . This stuff is hot! I could handle it but poor Eyrleigh started crying and grabbing her tongue. I felt terrible. I take responsibility for not testing this sauce before putting tablespoons, sometimes several tablespoons, in each dish. I am surprised, however, that Gourmet's test kitchen did not at some point...

In June of 2008, Gourmet magazine added a regular column called "Cooking Club" where each month, a cookbook is reviewed and a sample recipe is given. This month's cookbook is "Falling Cloudberries : A World of Family Recipes" by Tessa Kiros . The cookbook-cum-memoir intertwines the story of the author's life and travels with recipes. I'm sure this book is a bit more academic than my favorite cookbook of the world but I wanted to share the cookbook that inspired me to begin cooking. When I was about nine years old, my mom gave me a cookbook "Meals of Many Lands", compiled by Miriam Loo, and written specifically for kids. The recipes weren't particularly authentic but they were easy for kids to make and used common ingredients, exposing me to the wonderful flavors of other countries. I still have this delightful little cookbook and I will someday make the menus in it with Eyrleigh . I hope she has as much fun making them as I did and they le...

Often throughout this project of making every recipe in Gourmet every month, I've found that a skill or recipe that intimidated me really wasn't that hard at all. Today, I found a kitchen skill that really is difficult and I'm pretty sure I would need to practice for a very long time before it looked anything like a restaurant. I could not wrap the Spring Rolls with Baked Tofu and Sweet-and-Savory Sauce on page 81. I was hoping that the Kitchen Notebook section at the back of the magazine might have some instruction but other than a recommendation to overlap the wrappers, there was no other instructions. I was on my own and as you can probably tell, it wasn't pretty. Thankfully, the visual appearance had not affect on the taste. My spring rolls tasted like those at a restaurant, even if they looked nothing like them. This recipe was excellent, messy, but excellent. It was impossible to keep the counter clean with eight separate components to a dish but it was worth it...

I wish I could get paid to do this. I'd follow recipes from each month's Gourmet and write reviews. I wouldn't ask for much money, maybe just $25 per recipe plus a stipend for groceries. That would be so cool. I don't know if that job even exists but if it does, I want it. Today I would have made $125 and I would have saved over $150 on groceries, not bad for a day at the office. Last Saturday, I asked Richard if he wanted me to make the Maverick Grits on page 55 for breakfast. He shares my opinion of grits and was less than enthusiastic so I didn't make them then. I made them today for lunch for Eyrleigh and me. I'm actually glad I saved this dish for lunch. I'm not sure I would have liked shrimp at breakfast, or at least smelling them while I peeled and deveined them at 9:00 in the morning. This was a really good lunch, though. It was pretty heavy on the meat so it was a bit greasy in my opinion but the creamy grits tempered the fat. It took almost no tim...