jopesta.com | impressions and reflections » food

thankful

Jo — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 06:08:57 +0000

It is once again that time of year when people share what they’re thankful for. My family has never been strong on this tradition, and even though we take advantage of the holiday and enjoy a dinner together we don’t emphasize the “thanks” portion of the day.

But if I stop to think about it, there are many things I am thankful for. Most of which are rather typical, but true.
A wonderful supportive family who I love.
True friends who inspire me.
Fulfilling work.
A comfortable home.
The ability to test out new hobbies at a whim, and then pursue the hobbies that I enjoy.
Letting interests develop into passions.

Which brings me to one of my current interests: cooking.
And once again I experimented with a recipe which, it could be argued, is not cooking at all but rather the mixing together of raw ingredients. Either way, I tried something new and it turned out delicious. Found in my new Whitewater Cooks cookbook I* put together some Cranberry Salsa. It was a great addition to our turkey dinner. Unfortunately I was too busy eating the deliciousness and not photographing it, so instead I present a photo of the book:

*Dad provided some assistance, predominately in the form of working the food processor. Thank you!

beetroot salad

Jo — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:09:27 +0000

Yesterday I decided that it was time. Time to teach myself how to cook. Not to say that I’ve only been eating microwave dinners up until now, because that’s not true, but I definitely haven’t wavered far from my stir fry staple. This past couple of months I’ve started experimenting with a couple new recipes and yesterday I purchased Cook with Jamie. I then spent all of yesterday evening sitting at the kitchen counter reading through Jamie’s descriptions, skimming through his recipes, and generally feeling inspired. This resulted in me not being very good company to my mom, as I would be off in my own world and then interrupt her quiet moment with some neat fact that I had encountered. (ie. Did you know that when boiling eggs salted water helps prevent the shells from cracking?).

As I already had some beets in my fridge I decided to select a recipe based on that ingredient. The result was this absolutely delicious salad – Crunchy raw beetroot salad with feta and pear (except that I used parent-grown apple instead). In the recipe Jamie suggests adding extra lemon juice to balance the sweet beet and pear, if necessary. I found that the apples from my parent’s garden were actually perfect in this case as the slightly tart taste seemed to balance the sweet beet quite well, meaning no additional lemon juice required.

I was really impressed, and am looking forward to enjoying seconds tomorrow!

wriggle

Jo — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:50:23 +0000

In my list of things that I love about the Stampede, these wriggle chips would be pretty high up there… Can’t go wrong with greasy potatoes, seasoning salt, and a little grass to sit on while enjoying them.

tomato, onion, mozzarella

Jo — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:10:49 +0000

Who knew that a salad made up of so few ingredients could be so satisfying? Apparently my bro and his gf knew, because they made it for me – thanks!!

Ingredients:

tomato
red onion
mozzarella cheese
capers
salt & pepper

Instructions:

Layer ingredients, and enjoy.

Awesome!

kale chips

Jo — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:33:59 +0000

These are my new addiction. I made some on Tuesday and was going to take a photo, but then ate them too quickly and forgot.

So instead, I am linking to a simple recipe for these delicious delicious and mostly healthy chips. Yum!