Down Time

Aloha All!


Sorry about not posting. Recently I have been having technical difficulties and have not been able to keep up with my blog. My computer with many of my delicious photos is down right now and I am waiting to get it fixed. I hope to have it fixed by the New Year. Anyway, please be patient with me. Until next time,

Cheers!

Jahkotta

Just some suggestions...

Here are a few tested yummy ways to liven up some classic favorites:

1). Add some diced fresh green bell pepper to your tuna salad, it adds a nice sweet crunch.
2). Steam some vegetables and dip them in warm peanut sauce for an easy, healthy delicious dinner.
3). Spirulina is good sprinkled over soup.
4). If you add a bit of nutritional yeast to scrambled eggs it makes them taste buttery without adding butter.
5). Use a green papaya instead of a squash to change it up a bit.
6). Olive oil on your baked potato is just as tasty as butter.
7). An apple on a green salad is a nice way to change it up.
8). Add a wee bit of wasabi into you next batch of mashed potatoes. It gives them a real kick!

Hope these ideas were interesting. Until next time, cheers!

Happy Holidays!

Aloha all, just wanted to say Happy Holidays! Hope you all are eating well. I think I will enjoy these battered golden delicious shrimp with a light, crisp beer. Until next time, bon appetit!

Sookju Namul!

Aloha all! Sorry about not posting for a while, but I was visiting family and friends in Hawaii. I had a lovely time and took pictures of all the delicious food I ate. My visit to Hawaii has inspired me to dedicate my next few blogs to local food. Today I want to talk about mung bean salads. Mung beans are slender and white in appearance with a yellowish dense leaflets on one of their ends. They are used in Korean, Chinese, African, Indian and various other cultural dishes. They work well as a garnish in Thai food and taste yummy in crispy golden spring rolls. I really enjoy Korean Mung Bean salad or Sookju Namul.

My visit to the Hawaiian Islands a week ago had me munching Sookju Namul throughout the day. This mung bean salad is a perfect snack because it's light yet flavorful. The crunch of the sprouts coupled with its earthy sweet flavor contrasts nicely with the savory flavor of sesame oil and sweetness of cane sugar. Try a Korean mung bean salad instead of a traditional green salad next time you make dinner. For a recipe, check out this site: http://www.whats4eats.com/salads/sookju-namul-recipe

Until next time, eat a mung bean!

Korean mung bean salad. So ono!

Banana Apple Bread

Recently I have been on a baking stint. Perhaps it's the cooler weather we have been experiencing in California, but baked treats have been appealing to me as of late. The other day I had a hankering for banana bread and so I feverishly searched the web for a good recipe. I found what I was looking for at this link: http://awhiskandaspoon.com/2008/04/20/moms-banana-apple-bread/ .This recipe for banana bread utilizes apples instead of nuts and is extremely moist and decadent.  Here are some photos of my banana apple bread loaf. Enjoy!

Banana bread with chunks of camalized apples!

Golden brown, moist slices of heaven!

The Mighty Kabocha!

Fall in California brings an abundance of squash and pumpkins. Orange orbs dot agricultural fields and await their part in the upcoming holiday seasons. I really enjoy dishes that showcase pumpkin as their main ingredient, but I have to admit that I am quite partial to squash. My favorite squash is the Kabocha squash. Kabocha squash resembles a pumpkin except that it has a green exterior when its ripe. The interior of the Kabocha is bright orange and its seeds look like pumpkin seeds. Its heartier than your typical squash, yet smoother, richer and more flavorful than your typical pumpkin. I would even venture to say that if a pumpkin and butternut squash had a baby, they would produce a Kabocha!



A kabocha squash

 Kabocha squash are very versatile. You can make curries with them, pies, cookies, stews, chips, and soups. They are great roasted in the oven with a wee bit of olive oil, salt and pepper or boiled and mashed to replace mashed potatoes. I personally love to make a beautiful bisque with this lovely squash. It's perfect comfort food and it's fun to eat creamy, orange deliciousness! Here is a recipe for my Kabocha Bisque:

1). Peel and cube one large Kabocha squash
2). Peel two cloves garlic
3). Cube one tablespoon fresh ginger
4). Cube half of a Maui sweet onion or a regular
sweet onion.
5). One can coconut milk.
6). One quarter cup nutritional yeast
7). One table spoon hot chili oil
8). Salt
9). One teaspoon honey.

Boil the Kabocha and ginger together until the Kabocha is soft. While the Kabocha is boiling, use a frying pan to cook the garlic, onion, and honey together. Once the kabocha is soft, remove it from the flame and add the cooked onion, coconut milk and the rest of the ingredients. Stir and let sit for a few minutes. After it sits, blend the chunky broth in a blender. Add a bit of cilantro if you like. Put the blended soup back onto the stove and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add salt to taste and enjoy your bisque.

Kabocha Bisque!

Hot Days and Cool Grinds

I hate eating heavy meals when it's hot. Temperatures of 109 especially make me furious and I tend to lay on the floor naked cursing the Sun and crunching down popcicles. Refreshing food is important when temperatures are soaring during the summer and early fall months. Melons, shaved ice, popcicles, grapes are a must in my house. There's nothing more refreshing than a slice of cool cantaloupe on a sweltering day! I typically forgo hearty breakfasts of eggs and potatoes when its hot outside and instead settle for a cup of cool creamy yogurt. For hot summer dinners, I like to chow down on cool baby greens, lush red tomatoes and tuna salad. Or if I feel like something a bit more heartier, I will make a pot of rice and a simple stir fry of vegetables and tofu. I use fresh ingredients and keep the flavors light and fresh. Ginger, sesame oil, and lemon grass are nice cool flavors for summer and fall. Try this menu the next time there is a heat wave in your area:

Breakfast:

Cubed Thai water melon, chilled grapes and blended ice water with a mint leaf and a slice of lemon.

Snack:

baby carrots and cup of yogurt

Lunch:

Large salad of mixed greens, diced tomato, diced celery, diced green apple, can tuna, diced green pepper and a light salad dressing and fresh lemon juice.

Dinner:

Jasmine rice with toasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top.
Tofu Vegetable Stir fry (see recipe below)
Cup of mango juice with ice

Stir Fry Recipe:

Dice two cloves garlic
Grate one tablespoon ginger
Dice one table spoon fresh lemon grass
Dice two table spoons cilantro or Chinese parsley
Cube two cups tofu
Two cups snap peas
Cube one zucchini
Slice one cup button mushrooms
One teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
One tablespoon sesame oil
One tablespoon sesame seeds
3/4 cup sweet onion
Soy sauce to taste

Heat a wok and coat it with oil. Once the oil is heated, add the chili pepper flakes, garlic, ginger and lemon grass. Add a pinch of salt. Add onion, and cook for a few minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the cilantro. Stir. Add soy sauce to taste and a pinch of sugar. Cook until vegetable glisten and there is broth in the wok. Add cilantro and remove from stove. Serve immediately with rice and diced avocado.

Stir fry for a warm night!

Yum!

A Short Work of Food Fiction: My Husband

I am on the deck, sitting and staring out at the pearl of a moon. Spanish olive trees sway in the distance and for a moment, I think I hear them whisper soft songs of yesterday. My husband is in the kitchen, humming to himself, the tune, I do not know. It's comforting having him here again, in my life that is. I think that I was ill without him, that somehow having him here, cooking us supper and humming that tune had brought back the essence to my life. We have been married for 40 years, a lifetime for some. There have been hard times. Times where I thought that our marriage was a mistake. There have been times when his drinking led us to marriage counseling. Times when I had been tempted to have a fling with the silver haired Adonis that lived three houses down from ours. There have been good times too. The birth of our daughter, the long walks on the beach in the evening. Laughter in the shade of our garden and the comfort of one another's arms.

 There was a time when I thought these good times would never return, never grace us with their presence. Last year my husband left me. He said that he needed time to think about his mortality. Time to find himself. I told him he was having another midlife crisis. He said I was probably right, but that did not change the situation. He went to some island in the Pacific. He ate coconuts and sent me postcards of aqua blue beaches and emerald green shores. I sulked. I spent my days watching "The Bold and the Beautiful," and ate quarts of chocolate ice cream. My girlfriends said to leave him. My mother said to give him time. "Men need their caves. Let him have his cave Dear," she would sniffle over the phone and promptly start to fuss about her garden. I listened to my mother and threw myself into my work. I went out with the girls and drank wine on Sundays.

My husband called me on a Wednesday. He sounded rested and happy. He asked how I was doing and told me he loved me. I listened as he told me about his surf lessons, how the sun had tanned his skin, how he had lost 8 pounds eating fresh fish and guavas. He also told me he was learning to cook. " Learning to cook?" I had asked surprised. My husband never cooked anything besides toast and eggs our entire marriage. He explained that he discovered this new hobby in my absence. " You always cooked for us Yvonne," he reminded me. We got off of the phone.

My husband was gone for three months before he returned to me. I picked him up from the airport and wore my best dress. He looked good and I told him so. He smelled of sand, salt and island and tasted of tobacco and something sweet when I kissed him hello. We went home. We made love. As we lay in the bed, I felt angry. Angry that he had left me, but happy that he was back. A strange unsettling combination. "I am sorry," he said as he studied my confused face. Then he got out of bed and proceeded to the kitchen naked.

The aromas that greeted me later that evening were warm, reactive and captivating. Chili oils, gingers, and lemon grass danced in the kitchen as delicately as a ballet. My husband cooked for me. He cooked a meal finer than anything I had ever made for him. We ate in silence, slowly as if this meal was our last. At the conclusion of of grilled chicken, jasmine rice with saffron, ginger lemon grass soup, and coconut tapioca, I spoke. "Thank you." He spoke. "I will never leave you again."

Tonight, as I admire the full moon, I hear him humming. I hear him chopping and stirring and tossing things. I close my eyes and picture the expression on his face. Lips pursed, eyebrows slightly knitted and head cocked slightly to the left. Occasionally he smiles at his genius, revealing deep dimples. Other times he curses as he accidentally burns the tips of his fingers. He is my husband. He is Tom.

Brunch at Morro Bay

What a view!

My fiance loves breakfast. If he had a choice, he would eat breakfast for lunch and dinner. I enjoy breakfast, just not as much as him. My fiance's love of morning vittles makes him a brunch lover candidate. Brunch is pretty neat because it can be so eclectic. This is perfect in the case of my fiance and I;  he can have his bacon and eggs and I can have lunch food. We actually went out for brunch the other day and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I had a lovely dark green salad with slices of sugar sweet strawberries finished off with a toasted focaccia grilled chicken breast sandwich. Yum! If this sounds like your sort of Sunday meal (brunch is traditionally a Sunday ritual), try out The Inn at Morro Bay. They are nestled along the Central Coast of California and provide not only a fine dining experience, but a beautiful view of the Morro Bay. Bon Appetit!


The Inn at Morro Bay
60 State Park Rd
Morro Bay, CA 93442
(805) 772-5651    





Toasted foccacio bread, grilled chicken breast, baby greens, avocado, tomato, purple onion
fresh mozzarella and herb spread.



The Ambiance





Baby greens, fresh strawberries, carrots, celery, sweet onion, tossed in a
creamy avocado vinaigrette.



The Flavor of Home

Teriyaki chicken with pine apple salsa, rice and kimchee slaw!

I am from Hawaii. I ran through guava forest and swam along coral beds swarming with schools of tropical fish. I ate mangoes and drank down coconut water to wash down the saltiness of dried fish. I marveled at avocado trees pregnant with green orbs of delicious cream. I eagerly peeled the red sea urchin skin of rambutan and suckled their white watery flesh. I dug my fingers into the stringy tangy meat of the sour sop as I spent lazy days at the beach. I dipped my fingers into the viscous purple velvet of poi and coupled it with chunks of sesame flavored poke. Need I go on? I miss Island food. Don't get me wrong, great food is everywhere, but there is something special about the food you grow up eating. Perhaps it's the memories associated with food you grow up with. One of my fondness memories is associated with island food. I remember playing on the kitchen floor as my mom spent hours making okara burgers and hibiscus tea. Her head was wrapped up in some colorful cloth, she wore a colorful island themed skirt and she smiled when she passed me my burger. Good times !

Sometimes I think about the time I had gotten out of a grueling anthropology theory class and promptly bought a bag of poi (mashed taro root), cut a tiny hole in the bottom corner crease, allowing me to squeeze the contents into my mouth for rejuvenation. Sooo ono! (so delicious). Now that I live in California, I often miss my island vittles, and on occasion I whip up a meal to remind me of home. I was missing home just the other day and decided to make one of my favorites: White rice, kimchee cabbage, and teriyaki chicken with pineapple salsa. As I sat looking at the pink sunset, I imagined that I was at my sister's house eating this fine meal, and just for a moment, I was home.

My teriyaki chicken with pineapple salsa

Quick meals

Rotisserie chicken, sliced Roma tomato, avocado slivers, fresh green grapes
baby carrots and chopped romaine lettuce with Greek dressing.

I am a new mom. I wake up several times during the night to feed and change my beautiful baby boy. I love being a mother. I love the challenges and the rewards that I experience and receive every day. When my baby boy smiles at me, I know that there is right in the world and that I am doing right by him. Being a mom is tough, I never realized just how tough until I had my son three months ago. I wish I could give my mom a trophy for her patience and commitment to her family. She had seven children, all of which are two years apart. Wow...

One of the challenges I have faced as a new mom is the act of eating. My son has had colic for the last two months. It is subsiding now, but man was it interesting around dinner. Luckily I have my fiance's family to help. We would eat in shifts so that my son would have someone to soothe him by marching back and forth through the house. I basically inhaled my food through his periods of fussiness. Forget about making a curry or even mashed potatoes for dinner if the in-laws were out. I figured out that quick dinners were key. This brings me to my point which is: quick dinners can be tasty and good for you!

What is a quick dinner? Well, I consider a quick dinner to be something you can put together in five minutes or less. Ten minutes is pushing it, but can qualify as a quick dinner. Salads are great because you can add proteins to them and they are healthy. I love making salads and adding a can of organic garbanzo beans as a finishing touch. Sliced vegetables and tomato soup is also a winner as is cuts of rotisserie chicken served with green grapes, slices of avocado, tomatoes, diced Romaine lettuce and a chunk of sourdough baguette. Yum! What's your favorite quick dinner?

Avocado Affair

Haas Avocado

What's green and creamy and delicious? The fabulous avocado! I consider myself to be a connoisseur of sorts when it comes to this wonderful fruit. Yes, it's a fruit, a fruit that I can't resist. For example, in the summer of 2001, I gained 15 pounds from eating avocados. I am avocado greedy and shameless about my addiction to what folks in the south refer to as the "Alligator pear."  My favorite way to enjoy this fruit? On everything! I love to cube bits of this creamy green ambrosia and sprinkle it over spaghetti, curries, lentil soups, chili, and ramen. Sounds bizarre, but you have to try it if you love, love, love avocado. The rich velvety texture of the avocado compliments just about anything. However, if you aren't as adventurous as myself, try this different spin on a classic: Olive oil guacamole!

          1). Cube two large avocados into
          bite sized pieces.
 
          2). Cube two Roma tomatoes

         3). Dice a tablespoon of cilantro

         4). Dice two tablespoons of purple onion

         5). Squeeze half of small lemon

         6). One tablespoon olive oil

         7). One teaspoon black pepper

         8). Salt or spike to taste.

Mix ingredients together and serve immediately. The olive oil and avocado creates a rich guacamole and goes well with corn chips and beer, preferably a light beer. Enjoy!

cheers

Jahkotta

Poke!

One of my favorite things to eat in Hawaii is Poke (pronounced Pokay), a flavored raw fish dish. Raw fish has the tendency to scare non-islanders, but really, when done correctly, it's fantastic! The bedrock of this dish is of course raw fish, preferably raw ahi tuna or marlin. Typically poke is flavored with shoyu (soy sauce), sesame oil, green onion, red pepper flakes and seaweed. There are numerous flavor profiles for this dish, ranging from mild to kimchee hot! If you are ever in the islands, pick up a tub at the fish market "Suisan" located in Hilo. Or try the spot shown in this fellow's video. Cheers!                                 

Sandwich Standards

Turkey sandwich at Gus's!

My favorite food as a little girl was sandwiches! Okara sandwiches (Okara is a tofu by-product which can be made into fantastic little burgers), tofu sandwiches, veggies sandwiches, hoagie sandwiches; I liked it all. My passion for goodies stuffed between bread slices continues today! I love how versatile a sandwich can be, how they needn't be dull. I have had curried fried potato sandwiches, beans on toast, grilled eggplant paninis and sauteed poke (seasoned cubed fish) sandwiches. When I visit a new city, I always keep my eyes open for a good deli or sandwich shop. I am especially drawn to sandwich spots with interesting names like the "Giant Grinder," or "Mary's Jumbo Submarines." I also look for dumpy looking spots or holes in the walls. I have found that these sorts of places seem to produce really tasty, messy, enormous sandwiches. That brings me to the criteria of an awesome sandwich. Here is my list of Sandwich Standards:

1). It has to be huge. I am sorry, size does matter in this case!

2). It needs to be messy! When you bite into it, excess goodies and condiments need to make you look like a two year old learning to eat.

3). The bread can't be too hard or too soft. If it's too hard, you spend most of your time wrestling the bread and not enjoying the rest of the sandwiches' components. If it's too soft, well, who likes a sandwich that looks like Rover the Dog got to it before you did?

4). It needs to taste fresh! The lettuce should be crunchy, the bread freshly baked, the tomatoes must be
firm and the meat freshly sliced!

5). Finally, the condiments should not overpower the filling. What I mean by this is that your sandwich should not taste solely of yellow mustard, unless you like that sort of thing.

I'm not a sandwich snob. Sandwich construction and ingredient ratio is just really important if you want that perfect sandwich. Speaking of perfectly scrumptious sandwiches, here is a list of my favorite sandwich shops:

1). Gus's! Gus's makes my favorite sandwich: turkey on a Dutch crunch roll! This quaint sandwich shop and deli is located in the lovely city of San Luis Obispo, CA. They have a wide variety of sandwich choices and offer three different sizes. They have a small, regular and large but I always get the regular because it really is rather large. Their sandwiches come with lettuce, tomato, pickle, cheese, sprouts, purple onion, pepperoncini as well as a generous portion of meat on artisan quality bread! They also sell beer!

2). Manono Mini Mart and Deli. This deli has been around forever and is located in the small town of Hilo on  the Island of Hawaii. Their sandwiches aren't fancy and their bread isn't gourmet, but they are satisfying! I  love ordering a garden burger with Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, sprouts and mayo and eating it in a park near this deli.

3). Island Naturals Market and Deli. Island Naturals is a health food store located on the Island of Hawaii. Their deli offers made to order gourmet sandwiches, my favorite being the teriyaki tofu sandwich with avocado, sprouts, smoked Gouda cheese and sliced tomato.

I've told you some of my favorite sandwich shops. What's yours? What's your favorite sandwich? Until next time, cheers!

Jahkotta

Thailand Eats!

A meal in Thailand

When I went to Thailand three years ago, I photographed the food that I ate. Curries, noodle dishes, fried morning glory and delectable papaya salads, this is how I ate my way through Thailand. I think that it was the only time in my life where I ate five times in one day. I just couldn't believe how affordable and delicious everything was and so I couldn't pass anything up. Forget any ideas about trying to stay slim. I guzzled Singha beers and ate spring rolls like J. Wellington Wimpy from Popeye! I found myself photographing my meals before I consumed them, and to this day I admire them with salivating satisfaction.

Thai food is so full of flavor. It inundates your taste buds with a symphony of perfectly blended spices that personally makes me want to sing in an operatic voice. Perhaps this description is over the top. What can I say? I love Thai cuisine! The dishes I ate in Thailand were intrinsically more flavorful than their counterparts  in America. This is often the case when eating from a cuisine's home country. I have to say, when I got back to the States, I had a hard time eating Americanized Thai food. Americanized Thai food is often too sweet and lacks real heat. You can't find fried morning glory ( I absolutely loved this dish) and you never see crab papaya salad. However, there are some places that do taste pretty authentic. If you ever happen to find your self on the Island of Hawaii, try the Thai Thai Restaurant located in Volcano Village. Their papaya salad is to die for and they make a mean green curry. If you are on the West Coast in the city of Sebastopol, try the Thai Issan Restaurant. I love their Tom Kah, a traditional coconut soup with hot pepper and bits of galanga and vegetables.

I like to cook just as much, or perhaps more, than I like to eat out. I love working with fresh ingredients, the therapeutic nature of chopping stuff and the sizzle of the wok or frying pan. And when you cook a good meal and everyone smiles at its conclusion, the feeling is priceless. The first time I attempted to cook Thai cuisine was when I was 12 years old. My mom is a cook book collector. She had boxes and boxes of cook books scattered throughout our home. I remember looking through one of these boxes and happening upon "Keo's Thai Cuisine," and thinking, "I want to eat everything in this book." If you have never cooked Thai food before, check this book out.

Thanks for reading my blog! Hope it was enjoyable and not too corny! Join me next time when I'll be talking about sandwiches and my personal favorite sandwich shop of all time!

cheers!

Jahkotta

Welcome to Food Stop!

Coconut green curry!

If you are a person like me, you love food. The idea of a well rounded meal excites you. Texture, smell, plating, flavor and balance are important to you. When you go out to eat, or even when you prepare a meal for yourself, you put thought into what it means to eat something delicious. Whether its delicately roasted walnuts sprinkled over fettuccine in creamy white sauce or fresh papaya salad with crisp mint and fresh tomatoes topped off with a wedge of lemon, you ENJOY food! The purpose of this blog is to talk about food. I will keep you updated on places to eat, recipes that are fabulous, foodie adventures and more. Enjoy!

Jahkotta