It snowed again.

Again. I hope we're seeing the last of it, though I highly doubt it. At least, it made for a couple of pictures opportunities:





No idea what those berries are, but they have managed to stay nice and red throughout the season. That's brave!

This bridge connects our apartment parking lot with a park with basketball courts , a bike trail and a playground. I played it safe and decided not to cross it.


And here's a tree with the obligatory shoveled snow around it!



I had planned to go straight to the gym afterward, which is why I'm wearing sneakers with this weather.

I'm a happy snapper.

I'm trying to figure out some of the features of the new camera, so here are a couple of pictures I took. The salad (spring mix, beets, almonds, chives and blue cheese dressing), I shot with the "Food" scene option, which is pretty awesome for any still life type picture taken inside during day light.



The glasses now, I can't recall what I used. I snapped a bunch with a lot of different options, and just kept the one that was best focused. I thought of processing it to warm the color some, but I like it this way also.




I think I'm very happy with it. Now, to replace the point-and-shoot so that I can have a nice camera that can fit the purse!

Happy belated Valentine's Day!

I was away for the weekend with a bunch of girlfriends, with the plan to return home sometime Sunday afternoon to spend Valentine's day with hubby.

I did manage to get home on time and was delighted to find standard Val Day fare on the dining table: roses, a nice card and Lindt stracciatela truffles. Which I hadn't had for a while and they were soo preferable from normal chocolate truffles!

Unfortunately I returned home with a pretty bad cold, so we spent the night playing video games and checking my temperature. Oh well!

The other major thing that occured this weekend was that we finally purchased a good camera! Hubby found a great deal for a Nikon D5000 and I'm really excited about taking pics with it!

We watched the features DVD last night and I am hoping we can get out and around for some pics when I'm feeling better. I'd use it for this post, but I think hubby took it to work to shoot around his workplace.

One-pan comfort food

I've been living off soup, crackers and ginger ale these last few days, but today I was able to cook some proper food. Although I really wanted the taste of real warm cooked food, I didn't want the fuss that came with it, so I opted for something that I could do in one pan and would involve minimum effort.

So, I had in hand:

About 1.5 pound pork chops cut in strips
2 jars of mushrooms in liquid
onion powder
garlic powder
dried thyme
1 cup of couscous.
2 oz water (optional)
salt, pepper to taste

Since I still have to be careful of my fat intake, I trimmed all visible fat from the pork, then cut the strips into cubes.
In a large pan over medium high heat, pour the mushrooms with the liquid and bring to a simmer. Add garlic powder, onion powder and dried thyme. Add the meat, toss around, close the lid, lower heat to medium and let it steam thoroughly till the meat is nice and white.

Measure 1 cup of couscous and toss it into the pan. If the pan is too dry (depends on how much liquid your mushrooms jar contained), add a couple of ounces of boiling water. Toss till the couscous drinks the water and cover it for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Next time I'll have to try it with fresh mushrooms as well as red wine instead of extra water.

I have been told I 've not taken pics lately, so this time I remembered!

Some real cooking, finally!

Yesterday I decided that I really had to cook some Real Food (TM) for my poor husband who has been living off falafel from the Middle Eastern joint two blocks away. I asked him what would he want, and his response was "We don't have much of ingredients, so just make some chicken with whatever we have".

I went to the kitchen and the first thing that my eye fell on was the box of fat free saltine crackers on the counter. And the saltine crusted oven fried chicken was born.

4 chicken pieces (we prefer boneless skinless breast)
2 Tsp grapeseed oil
Granulated onion
Granulated garlic
Salt,
Pepper
15-20 fat free saltine crackers
Italian herb mix seasoning, or the following dried: rosemary, thyme, oreganon, basil
1/4 cup flour
1 beaten egg
baking spray

Thaw the chicken if using frozen (which is what I do), then toss it in a ziplock bag with the grapeseed oil and a generous dash of onion and garlic powder, plus salt and pepper to taste. Shift everything in the bag so that the marinade goes everywhere, then put it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

When you take it out, preheat the oven at 350oF. Pulverize the crackers in a blender, or with your bare hands if you don't have one. Make a drenching line with three bowls: One with the flour seasoned with salt and pepper, one with egg, and one with the saltine crackers and the italian herb mix. You can eyeball the seasoning quanitities or adapt them to taste.

Grease a 13x9 pan with the backing spray (i use olive oil flavor which is better for cooking), then drench each chicken piece in the seasoned flour, then the egg, then the seasoned cracker crumbs, then put them on the pan. Bake for 15 mins, turn them, bake 10 more minutes.

I was afraid that the crust would be too hard since the crackers don't have any moist or fat in them, like regular bread crumbs would have. It definitely had a crunch, which was actually quite pleasant. The flour and egg totally helped the crust stay on and not disintegrate or peel off, which is also a win.

I'll definitely do this dish again, with different seasonings.

..and more sweet adventures..

I swear, having to eat the equivalent of hospital food is not fun at all. Yesterday I almost drank chocolate syrup out of the bottle, but at the very last moment I talked myself out of it and went groceries shopping. While getting canned tuna for my tuna/cucumber/mayo sandwiches, my eye fell on a can of sweet potato puree, which is primarily used for pie filling. I checked the label, and apparently sweet potatoes have either no or minimal fat. I like the taste, so I took a can home to see what I could do with it.

Today, it was experiment time. I poured in a small saucepan over medium heat about 1/4 cup of skim milk and the puree. Then, I checked on the pie filling recipe on the can for recommendations on spices, so I added nutmeg, ginger, vanilla in small dashes (about 1/4 teaspoon each), and about 1/4 cup sucralose (you can of course add white or brown sugar if you have it - i had none). I brought that to a simmer and then lowered the heat and let it uncover to reduce a bit. When it had reduced about 2 cm lower than it was when I poured it, I removed from the fire, poured it in another container and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.

When I brought it out, it was still rather runny, so next time I'll just reduce it even more. At any rate, the taste was great, so I folded in about half a container of fat free whipped topping and chilled it some more. Not exactly mousse consistency, but it tasted damn good!

Caring for my sweet tooth

I have been forced into a low fat diet due to some minor health issues. For the most part I've winged it, especially since I like my vegetables and I'm fine with things cooking in their own fat rather than adding some. Desserts are often an issue, and I have to admit I like them a lot. I usually buy fat-free ice cream, but today I was out of it. I looked at the fridge and had a couple of fat free yoghurts, and a bag of half-thawed frozen strawberries. So, a smoothie was born.

1 6oz fat free strawberry yoghurt
1 6 oz fat free vanilla yoghurt
1 pound bag of frozen strawberries, half way thawed (this way you don't need ice for a nice chill smoothie)
1 cup no pulp orange juice

Put everything in blender, blend till smooth. Add more orange juice if you want a thinner consistency.

Makes 2-3 servings, depends on how big glasses you have ;)

..And the real deal..

The whole spread

My plate: rolls, salad, mash, and the port-cherry porkchop

Hubby's plate: Substitute salad for black-eyed peas.

Dessert: Brownie a la mode, Chocolate Amore redaction and cocoa mix sprinkled on top.

The two things I did differently: I ditched the soup, and forgot the bacon in the salad. Didn't miss it in the least, everything is delicious, and we have leftovers of everything, including the porkchops, as we cooked more than two.

Hope everyone's having a fabulous holiday season!

Xmas Eve tentative dinner

We decided to have the dinner on the 24th for two reasons: Firstly, we're not much of religion followers, so any day during the holidays would do, and secondly, we 'd like to spend Xmas day watching Holmes and eating leftovers without worrying about having to cook a nice dinner when all shops around are closed. Plus, it's only for the two of us. So, we went grocery shopping last night for the following:

• Butternut squash soup (just for me, so I 'll cheat and use a ready one)

• Warm salad: broccoli, cherry tomatoes, Gorgonzola, bacon and almonds

• Pork chops in cherry-port sauce (In Greece, pork was the traditional fare of choice for the holidays before the Great Turkey Invasion)

• Red skin mash potatoes

• Bourbon black-eyed peas (we've discussed the Texan significance of this dish..)

• Chocolate brownies a la mode with Chocolate Amore sauce

I still have to think about the wine, since at least 3 dishes of this menu has booze in it. I have a nice sparkling wine but I'll probably keep it for New Year's. Bah, I'll let hubby choose that!

Holiday baking

I had that initial plan to bake 2-3 types of cookies for the holidays, just to have the apartment smell divine, and then ship as many of them as possible to hubby's work and get them out of my diet-induced reach.

I started yesterday with a small batch of lemon cookies that turned out pretty decent. I'm keeping those since hubby likes them and I'm not particularly fond of lemon, so they're safe.





Then, I had to go to downtown Chicago for a couple of errands and ended up walking all the way to Greektown just to see how it looks like. It's mostly restaurants, but it also has a bakery cafe that carries Greek Xmas treats: melomakarona and kourambiedes. The prices were only a bit higher than in Athens, from what my mother told me! So, I ended up getting a couple of each just for the season's sake.



I might have enough ingredients for a simple shortbread, but I'm addicted to shortbread so I don't know what I'll do..

The weekend in photos, Part 2

After the tree was all done and taken care of, I browsed around and realized that I had missed the events I wanted to do in downtown Chicago - both the Lucia event and the German Xmas market were only for the previous weekend. I somehow thought that they were running till this event, but sadly it was not the case. So I looked for happenings closer to home, and I found out that there was a port wine tasting at a wine and liquor store in downtown Naperville.

I love port. I have a modest 10 year Taylor Fladgate still unopened waiting for the Real Cold (TM) to happen. I especially love port with chocolate. There's nothing like coming home from work and relax with a glass of port and a chocolate treat. So, when I got there, I was happy to see that they had a guided tasting, meaning that the ports and other dessert wines were served in a particular order, along with a commentary from the attendant. We tried a riesling, a madeira, two vintage ports, a late bottled vintage and a tawny port, and then a chocolate merlot-based wine and a raspberry one.

The chocolate merlot (which was actually aged like port) is called Chocolate Amore, and damn me if I wouldn't get out of the store w'out a bottle. Feeling just a bit buzzed, I ventured out of the store and into a Starbucks where I had a mini scone and a cup of green tea to sober up a bit.



Having succeeded in not having much of a red nose, I got a call from hubby who would meet me up for drinks and a snack, so I decided to kill some time at Barnes & Noble. It's a bookstore, but what caught my eye while browsing was this magazine tote made of bottle caps and wire:



I drooled over cookbooks but since I had already bought the wine I left empty handed and went to meet hubby at the bar, where I had a glass of massively inferior wine and we shared a serving of really yummy pot stickers. The sauce was very similar to the one served with Peiking duck, so it was both sweet and hot. Delicious.


While at the bar, the discussion as to what to do for New Year's Eve came up, and we decided to make reservations at a Hibachi Japanese restaurant. Nothing says New Year's Eve like a big chunk of meat! When we got home I called them hoping they have a late sitting, which they did. Yay plans! Then, I put my newly acquired wine next to the tawny for some wine rack socializing:


Tomorrow it's football day, but there are some movie plans too. Dear me, I can tell it's holiday season cause we just can't stay indoors. Maybe I should buy more board games?

The weekend in photos, Part 1

Starting Friday, when the cold became just a bit less severe - enough to get me on the train downtown to post my holiday cards. After that was done, I decided it was finally breakfast time. I walked around and when I was afraid I'd have to end up at Starbucks, I found Tangerine Cafe.



There was a lot of breakfast foods to choose from, but I went for a personal favorite: Banana-Nutella crepes and coffee:



I appreciated the personal coffee pot, since I didn't have to hunt the waiter down for a refill. The crepes were delicious. I was positively stuffed by the time I was done, and decided to walk around and window shop to burn some of the calories!

Saturday morning started really late. We slept in and enjoyed every minute of it, then went off to Baker's Square for brunch. I got a butter croissant, poached eggs with sausage and a bowl of fruit, while hubby had a country fried steak with biscuit and hash browns. Can't you tell he doesn't need a diet? I didn't take a pic of the food, mainly because the croissant arrived some later and I didn't want the eggs to go cold, but I did take a pic of the store's pride; the massive variety of pies:



After that, it was back home and tree decoration time.

More snow and more cooking

I really wanted to take the train to the post office and mail my holiday cards, but I decided against it after beholding this:



So, I stayed in, watched a movie and cooked lunch:

1/2 pound pork chop, in cubes
1-2 ounces merlot wine
2 green onions, the white part, chopped
2 dashes parsley flakes
juice of 1 lemon
salt to taste

Heat skillet at medium heat. Drop in the pork and let it white in the outside. Add the wine and let it bubble. Add the onions and parsley. Cover the skillet and let it cook thoroughly. When it looks done, uncover, add the lemon juice and cook uncovered for another minute or two. Serve immediately. I had it with a couple of hash brown patties with lemon and shredded parmesan.

It is still snowing. I think the post office trip will either wait, or I'll order stamps online..

Shopping adventures

This past weekend, the weather was surprisingly cooperative (meaning it didn't either rain or snow), so we decided to hit the Chicago Premium Outlets that are only a short drive from our apartment. Hubby wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it, till we discussed how nice it would be to get some new pots and pans instead of xmas gifts to each other. The ones we currently have are a mishmash of things bought any time during the last ten years, and some of the older pieces are really worn off. Non-stick finish starting to wear off, handles won't insulate heat anymore, you get the idea.

Plus, I wanted a pair of winter boots.

When we got there it was late afternoon and the sun was already down. These outlets are built like an open mall, so we tried to spend as much time between stores as possible. First we hit Le Creuset, but I think I'm not ready for cast iron yet, let alone everything was rather expensive. It'd be nice to have pots and pans in red though. Our budget won the argument though and we went to the much humbler Kitchen Collection, which offered a variety of brands. We decided on a 10 pieces Calphalon set, and we bought one extra pan with lid and one stovetop grill from the same line:




We also got a new Foreman Grill, since the old one had completely lost its non-stickiness. Last time we made burgers on it, they decided to stick on the top of the grill and we ended having ground beef on a bun. Not funny. Here's a website pic of it, since ours is still in the box:





Hmmm.. Making skewers sounds like a good idea right now!

Anyway, after we decided on the purchase, I sent hubby to the Sony store to geek out while I went to Aerosoles and picked up these weatherproof babies. The ankle socks were on sale for a dollar a pair, so I grabbed a couple for my gym sneakers:



I have to admit I'm glad I bought them, because I woke up this morning and this was the view from my balcony:

First Snow..

..made its way sometime yesterday morning. Thankfully it was just a light snow, unable to "catch" on things, since the temperature was over zero degrees. It was quite impossible to capture in a photo; I stood at the balcony trying to zoom on various colored things to catch a glimpse of it, but this is all I could come with:




By zooming in, you might see some flake action. Today it's back to mostly sunny with below zero temperatures, but I'm certain snow will be back with a vengeance!