It's Chili in Here

It's almost winter. It's cold out. It's chili season!

Chili is so easy, I don't know why I haven't made it before. I used one of those McCormick's packets, a pound of beef, and then added in canned and fresh vegetables:

Chili isn't really a picture-friendly food, but although it may look gross, trust me--it was good. I made enough to have leftovers, and I'm looking forward to eating the rest tomorrow. Hopefully chili's like soup, and it'll be even better the second time around. 

Update (1/4) - Chili is not like soup.

xo, Kristin

Ginger Binger

Last weekend I went to NYC to visit a friend from study abroad and ended up eating ridiculous amounts of candied ginger. When I got home to Northampton, I decided that it would be fun and cheaper to try making my own.

The whole candying process went OK. I followed this recipe. In the end, my ginger was soft and VERY sweet. Too sweet even though I skipped the step where you roll it in sugar. I think I cooked the syrup too long, because it was really thick when I removed the ginger from the pot.

All that means is that there was a thick coating of sugar on the finished product. I really didn't like how sweet it was, so I ended up washing off the sugary coating and snacking on the semi-sweet ginger bits.

I think I'll try this again. It's something you definitely need to practice to get right, I think.

xo, Kristin

Grandma's birthday

Tomorrow is my grandma's birthday and tonight my mom and I threw her a mini-party with just the three of us. My mom made great steak with mushroom sauce. There was also shrimp, to make it surf and turf.

We finished it off with a birthday cake my mom and I collaborated on: chocolate with peanut butter frosting. Mmmm....

xo, Kristin

Indian Balloon Bread

Today I went to my aunt's for a study party and dinner. My aunt is also doing a masters in teaching program and so it's convenient to get together for study parties to complain about school and eat. This time she made an awesome dinner. I will not try to take credit for her great skills. 

Anyway, she made some kind of thai soup with pumpkin, lemon grass, sweet potato, and coconut milk. She also made Indian balloon bread. It's so funny! I think I'll have to try it sometime. The recipe is simple, mostly flour, butter, and peanut oil.

Then you roll the dough out into circles and pop it in some hot peanut oil. As they fry, an air pocket forms within the dough and poofs them up into "balloons." It was neat to watch.

xo, Kristin

My aunt made the dough, but I rolled them out. You can tell by their oblong shape...

Becoming balloons!

Soup du Jour-ney

I've hit a lot of bumps on this food journey. Most of those bumps consist of studying and lack of time. None of them include food poisoning...so far...

That is why I'm happy to say that today's food adventure had a happy ending. My friend Carly is staying with me and she suggested we do an escarole soup tonight. Through teamwork we made it work!

Paired with beer and Hungry Ghost bread, it was an awesome meal!

It was a take on this recipe.

xo, Kristin

Peppers are pretty

I keep it real simple when I cook. I might tell you it's part of some back-to-the-earth, respecting the ingredients world view, but it's just because I'm lazy. Every night I pick one meat and one (maybe 2!) vegetables, and go crazy with salt, pepper, and sometimes yuzu/soy sauce/miso. Tonight was some meat thing and some peppers! They're so pretty!!

Martin

InBread Eggs

I made bread for the first time! It's for a soup party I'm going to tomorrow in CT. Decided on braided Easter egg bread because I had it before and I thought it looked pretty. I also like how the eggs are peaking through like HIDDEN TREASURES :D

Recipe found here.

Xo, Kristin

Before

After!