Spring is a time of new beginnings

I have a number of things on my mind and going through my life right now.Spring semester is nearly finished and I only have a few more assignments in each class. I have 3 tests and a paper about a neuro-degenerative disease in A&P and then my final argument paper in the writing class. Surprise surprise my paper is about food. I had to write an impartial paper on the current arguments about GMOs and now I have to pick a side and write about it again. Needless to say I'm fairly anti GMO. What surprised me was just how many good arguments the other side has...until I looked at the funding of all their research and reports and found out that it all came from Monsanto...At any rate, in order to pretty much be guaranteed a spot into the program I want, I have to get a 98% in all 6 prerequisite courses. I currently have a 99% in both courses so hopefully I will continue to keep going and studying every night.

I would keep in mind that anything in a box that has corn, soy, canola, or items derived from those products on the ingredients list or any fruits/vegetables with a PLU sticker code that start with an 8 are GMO items. Just so you know, because they aren't required to label GMOs in America.

Foremost on my mind right now is a good friend of ours online who just had a stroke 2 days ago. I hadn't been online in about two months but I had to renew my subscription and talk to everyone who was affected by the whole situation. I hear that he is talking now but we are all still worried about him, his wife and young daughter. It's a difficult place to be in. All I can do sadly is send them cookies and love. It is one of those unfortunate consequences of having friends who live so far away. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Another huge happening in our life is the possibility that we will be buying a house some time soon. Incredibly, there are houses in Indianapolis that are very cheap. Probably due to the fact that Indianapolis is not exactly a prime destination for most people and the area is extremely depressed. It works out in our favor simply because with a mortgage payment that will come out under our current rent amount by quite a lot and my excellent credit, it looks like that dream will come true. The struggle is obviously finding a house that is not going to take a ton of work to fix up or maintain. A lot of the repossessed homes we have been looking at are less than ten years old. In fact, the one we are most interested in is a 2007. At any rate, if all this works out, it could be the best (or worst) thing that ever happened to us.  :)

One of the houses we saw recently had a kitchen similar to one of my favorite cooking shows, Bitchin' Kitchen. Basically bright red walls and black and white checked floor with some retro curtains and padded cabinets. So yeah, that is what I would love to have my kitchen look like. The skull would NOT be in my kitchen but John would probably think it's funny. We bought a black and red sign for our kitchen that says I <3 Bacon. I think it will be a good start to my decorating scheme.

With my thirtieth approaching this fall, a major goal of mine has been to get in shape. John and I have been walking just about every day for the last 3 weeks. I am starting to run a little bit on our 3 mile route but my knees are still a bit week so I try to keep it slow and steady. It definitely helps to have my ipod on the route when John is too busy to come with me. I've downloaded a few books of Thai. I've really wanted to be able to communicate with my sister-in-law, Tu and it gives me something to look forward to during the walk/run. It's not just about exercising either sadly. It is about eating a vegetable with each meal and cutting out snacks. Due to my research on CAFOs and GMOs, I have been a bit more inspired to try to limit those items in my cooking as well. It feels as if I'm cutting something out every week and soon all we'll be able to eat are BEANS! Ugh.

Anyway, we already eat hardly any meat to begin with but when you start buying humane meat, it's $10+ for 3 chicken breasts and you start thinking that perhaps you should have more meatless days a week than just Monday. Organic tofu is only $3 for 4 portion sizes and I'm learning some great ways to cook it. I found Deborah Madison's Vegetarian cookbook at Half Price Books the other day and I've been cooking from Vegan with a Vengeance. We are going to try a horseradish crusted tofu with wasabi potatoes tonight. Sounds tasty! As we are transitioning into the spring/summer, the farmer's markets are opening up. Unfortunately this year we don't have the cash to buy a CSA share but I am going to attempt to get out there each Saturday when my classes are over and pick up some veggies and fruits. Not everything is organic but there are so many causes to root for, it's good to at least hit one of them. Either get something organic, something locally grown or something from a small business.

Well this has been a bit rambly. I have a lot on my mind and now to leave you with one more thing. I got another book from Half Price Book call Cute Yummy Time. It is based around bento boxes and how crazy some Japanese moms go to make their kids' lunches look adorable. I bought it because I want to make myself adorable lunches but now Gavin has commandeered the book and is just going crazy over all the cute bunny eggs and elephant pancakes. I am curious if I make him something from the book if he'll actually eat it. Currently he eats peanut butter toast, fruit, some cereal, chips and chicken tenders and fries. That is it. And his clothes are falling off his skinny skinny frame. I am hopeful that "kawaii" will make him interested in eating! Here's a pic of some bento ideas from Aibento.

Finally, Earth Day is this upcoming weekend. Visit the Earth Day website or your local one like Earth Day Indiana to do a little sumpin sumpin for your planet this year.

Have a great week!

P.S. Gavin is watching the Backyardigans right now and they have a song about this robot who "has a screw loose." Lol

Making caramels and a cooking whirlwind

This week we were doing some spring cleaning at the house. I am a huge fan of magazines and I clip recipes from all the cooking magazines I come across. During the spring cleaning, I took my enormous oversize purple binder and got rid of all those silly things I would never end up making anyway. Lets face it, I will never make a recipe for steaks because we simply don't eat beef. Also, why on earth do I have 200 spinach dip, mac n' cheese, and cheesecake recipes? One will do quite well thank you very much! And when it comes to standards, I always turn to the Joy anyway.

Anyway, I was cleaning out my binder and found a recipe for caramels by Ina Garten, clipped from Food Network magazine. That and a recipe for chocolate truffles by Jacques Torres have been taunting me for months. I thought I was woman enough to step up to the challenge of making caramels so I did it....

...or tried to at least.

I put sugar, water and light corn syrup in a pot and boiled it up to a rich golden color. Then I added the melted butter/cream mixture and heated it up to firm ball stage on the candy thermometer. Poured into a pan lined with parchment paper and let set in the fridge for 2 hours.

The caramels looked gorgeous but there was just one problem. They were as hard as a rock! I popped the sheet of caramels onto the table and tried to go at them with my cleaver but it didn't do any good. Slightly pissed off at wasting 3 hours I went online to see where I went wrong. People were talking about temperatures so I went back to the drawing board and made another batch. I heated it to firm ball stage and then added the cream, then back to firm ball, testing in ice water.

While waiting for batch 2 to set, I decided to try to rescue batch 1. I googled that melting the caramel back down and adding more cream would soften them right up. I melted down batch 1 and added about a half a cup of milk because I was out of cream. Being a supremely daring and careless chef I decided to add a large amount of cocoa powder into the mixture just for the hell of it. Put those up to set in the fridge and went back to batch 2.

Batch 2 was just as hard as batch 1. I have no idea how to make these caramels soft the first time! I could google for more information or read another recipe but to be honest, who really wants a bunch of batches of fatty delicious caramels sitting around all the time???

When batch 1 redux was done I was pleasantly surprised. The caramels were soft and chewy, if not a little bit TOO soft and chewy. They were chocolatey and delicious. Like a cross between a caramel and chocolate fudge.

Om nom nom!

I did eventually melt down batch 2 again and add milk to make it soft. Now that batch is WAY too soft and in my freezer firming up until I get around to slicing and putting it in wrappers.

I would definitely make these again but probably only as a Christmas gift for someone. Unfortunately most other people I know do not crave caramels like I do. Also, these won't ship well...sadface.

Adventure into bread part 1 did not go well. I've made bread only a few times in the past and it never seems to get the air I want in it. Granted I was making wheat bread which is heavier. I think the 6 or so hours I put into caramels is probably enough major cooking for the time being but I'll definitely be back to it since homemade bread is the most heavenly thing on the planet.

Also our Meatless Monday is going well. This week we had roasted veggies on rotini with parm (hey it's not vegan Monday!). Last week we had a chickpea spinach curry from my new vegan book which was blah. My hope is to find some good options that are not soups or salads. I would really love to get some good Indian curries down. Also, a simple stir fry with marinated tofu can be heavenly.

Speaking of Asian food, we've been frequenting our local Asian mart a lot more often recently. Compared to the supermarket they have the freshest and best looking veggies in town. I have also been eating a lot of Glica's Tomato Pretz sticks which are almost identical to Pringles Pizza Stix. They are a wheat stick cracker with flavorings on them and I just know I could make these at home. But that is for another adventurous day.

I know my sister-in-law Tu will probably make fun of me but this product - 

-tastes like the green curry we get at Thai restaurants. It is hot, spicy and all you need to do are add veggies of your choice and chicken. We bought some mini corns and some green beans to simmer into the sauce. Simply amazing! Also they have this organic, gmo free rice that comes in a vac pack 10 lb. bag. Man, fresh rice is so incredible. There is such a difference from old rice that's been on the shelf forever and fresh stuff. The final find I found :) was a vac pack of lotus root. I ate these a lot in Japan and I'm not sure what to do with them.

I believe I had them sauteed with a sesame sauce but I can't remember. All the google links say I should just bake them into chips or roast them. That doesn't sound very Asian to me! They are sitting in my fridge and hopefully I will find a way to use them before they go moldy.

Well I hope that was enough food news for all of you. Everything else is going swimmingly.

Off to watch Bitchin' Kitchen!