Fourrager

French verb meaning to forage.

That is what Buggie and I are doing for two weeks to our kitchens.  As little grocery shopping as possible. As many new, tasty, and essentially free meals one can make in a two week span.

~Day 1~ Amount Spent: $0
Breakfast/Lunch: A lot of leftover quiche from my birthday brunch,
Snacks: Leftover fruit, an almost-gone  box of Wasa crackers, two-week old hummus and an aging yogurt and sorbet bar.
Dinner: Sausage with tomato mushroom gravy over whole wheat pasta. YUM!  I kind of put some random Rachel Ray stuffed mushroom recipe and some pork with tomato gravy recipe together to make this:

Foraged Ingredients:
~ 2 links of leftover sweet Italian turkey sausage that I had in my freezer from the Mother’s Day meal I had cooked for the family
~ A dollop of really old frozen tomato paste
~ Half a carton of sliced crimini mushrooms that are about to turn
~ 8 baby romas that I had bought to make quiche before I knew I was getting garden-fresh tomatoes from Bug’s brother
~ About half a bag of the perma bag of spinach I keep in the freezer
~ Some sprouted wheat pasta from Trader Joe’s that’s been sitting in my cupboard for a few months
~ Some of the 8-gallons of chicken stock that I keep buying forgetting that I already have some on hand

~Day 2~ Amount Spent: $0
Breakfast: Cereal, milk and walnuts that I had on hand
Lunch: Leftover pasta from Day 1
Snacks: Last tablespoon of hummus, three-week old cottage cheese (that I had to toss), applesauce, leftover clementines, and a handful of chocolate chips. Lots of green tea.
Dinner: Some Gruyere leftover from the quiche, garden tomatoes and leftover (but not moldy!) bread

~Day 3~ Amount Spent: $10
Breakfast: Cereal, milk and walnuts that I had on hand
Lunch: ESPN Zone lunch provided by work
Snacks: ESPN Zone munchies and beer provided by work
Dinner: $8.95 in Gazpacho from Tonic Restaurant (Hey, I needed something to eat with the beer so I would not get drunk!)

~Day 4~ Amount Spent: $0
Breakfast: Cereal, milk and walnuts that I had on hand
Lunch: Some soup I found in my cupboard that I probably bought in December. Garden tomatoes and a two-week old tortilla (that I toasted to hide any staleness)
Snacks: Leftover clementines, a green apple, string cheese and some chocolate chips
Dinner: The last quarter of an avocado, a garden tomato and more of the leftover (but not moldy!) bread

I’ve kind of blown my no-spend thing by ordering that gazpacho the other night, but I figure it was for health reasons. I think this weekend and no grocery shopping is going to be the big test though…

Growing Pains

It’s time.

With the Stove’s arrival, it’s time.

It’s time to branch out and start a new blog.

Baby Banana isn’t going anywhere but now there is a new venue for all things Marci bakes.

Ready?

Mmm…BAKED! is the internet’s newest destination for all things oven-made.

Check it out.

Baby Banana Bakes…er…not really

See with all the MKR stuff, baking central is kinda on hiatus. Mainly because of the disgusting nature of my kitchen and also because all baking materials and ingredients are scattered all over casa de Marci…in closets, in the foyer, in the living room, in the dining area, under tables, behind chairs–well you get the drift. If it’s not in the fridge, I am not finding it anytime soon.

But I cooked! Or to be more specific, I threw some ingredients together and survey says it actually turned out pretty good. Good enough to record the throwing of ingredients into an actual recipe.

So here goes. Here is my version of potato salad as made at KC’s abode on Apartment Picnic* day.

Apartment Picnic Potato Salad
Ingredients:
You’ll notice the lack of precise measurements. Well, that’s because I didn’t measure. You can use everything to taste and it will work out fine. I’ll estimate what I used in parentheses.

Baby red bliss potatoes (~10)
Grape or cherry tomatoes (~Half a pint)
Red onion (~Half a small onion)
Garlic (~2 large cloves)
Fresh dill (~3 sprigs)
Fresh parsley (~3 tablespoons)
Non-fat Greek yogurt (Half a cup)
Mustard (cook’s choice) (1/4 cup)
Olive oil (2 tablespoons)
Salt and Pepper

Directions:
Wash potatoes and and cut into quarters, boil in a saucepan until tender. Drain and set-aside.

While potatoes boil, halve the grape tomatoes, finely chop the red onions, garlic, and dill and coarsely chop the parsley. Combine in one bowl, add olive oil and toss.

Once potatoes have cooled, add yogurt and mustard. Stir until mixed. Add the tomato mixture, season with salt and pepper to taste and mix well. Chill until cold. If you are a wino and cannot wait for mixture to chill, you can deep freeze it for five minutes in the metal sauce pan you used for mixing and serve just the cold parts around the edges. I mean, that’s how I roll.

Serves 6

*An Apartment Picnic can basically be defined by the want of three girls to spend some wine-infused time with each other at the studio apartment belonging to one of the group. Since said studio doesn’t necessarily hold enough seating for three, other than the floor, it was dubbed “apartment picnic” and a menu of cold fried chicken and potato salad (and lots of wine, prosecco and cheese) was declared a must. Never mind that none of us really like potato salad (read: the inevitable mayonnaise)–we still deemed it necessary as good picnic food. Hence the throwing together of ingredients (sans mayonnaise) to create the not your mama’s potato salad recipe above.

Our First Apartment Picnic.
What a spread! (Heh.)

sigh

Another dinner of pretzels and hummus, not that I am complaining.

About the hummus anyway, seriously Laura I think I could love you forever just for the fact that you introduced me to….

Yum.

Yo’ mama is so…

Hopefully you said nice things to your mamas yesterday.

I pulled together a dinner on the fly that even I am impressed with and damn glad I have leftovers to partake in this afternoon. After being in Baltimore for three days, grouchily enjoying an evening with my most favorite and most beautiful people and shuffling through a 10K race on Saturday–I was one tired banana, and one without the help of the internet to help plan a fabulous gourmetish dinner for my mama.

Working off the notion that guacamole is one of my Mom’s favorite foods, I headed to the grocery store Sunday morning with nothing but visions of avocados dancing in my head. After spending an inordinate time in the produce section, I left for the baking aisle with the following items in my cart:
*5 ripe avocados
*1 clove of garlic
*Fresh cilantro
*3 limes
*1 cucumber
*A variety of bell peppers
*2 jalepeno peppers
*1 plum tomato
*1 pint of grape tomatoes
*A head of romaine lettuce
*1 red onion
*1 bunch of asparagus
*1 lemon
*1 mango

After hitting the baking aisle, I added:
*2 boxes of instant lemon pudding
*A ready-made graham cracker crust

Then there was some random running around to fill out the still unsure dinner and dessert plans that were scattered everywhere inside my head. So the groceries were rounded out with:
*3lbs of chicken breast
*Taco sauce
*1 jar of chunky salsa
*22 oz. of cream cheese
*Frozen lemonade
*Organic tortilla strips
*2 cans black beans
*1 can black olives
*Honey
*Evaporated milk
*8 oz. of plain yogurt
*1 container of sour cream
*1 tub of Cool Whip

Out of the above, I ended up with a taco salad on steroids. I call it Fiesta Salad.

Fiesta salad goes like this:

Marinate chicken for two hours in a homemade fajita sauce consisting of  salsa, taco sauce, fresh lime juice, red onions, cilantro, jalepenos, garlic and various seasonings.

Then chop, red, green and yellow peppers along with skinned cucmber, avocado, grape tomatoes, black olives and mango.  Add rinsed black beans to the veggies and toss in with chopped romaine lettuce. Drizzle with some homemade Honey-Lime dressing that you kind of just made up–equal parts honey and olive oil, the remaning limes and those various seasonings.

After dicing the nicely charred chicken, artfully arrange it atop the salad and serve with homemade guacamole (that included pureed asparagus and yogurt…tre delish), the remaining salsa, some sour cream and crushed tortilla chips.

After dinner you can serve the I-should-be-ashamed-to-call-myself-a-baker Lemon Mousse Pie which was made by whipping up lemon pudding with the evaporated milk then whipping the cream cheese, fresh lemon juice and zest with the frozen concentrate.  After you combine the two mixtures, just pour into the graham cracker crust and freeze. Serve with Cool Whip.

A mish-mash of a dinner if you ever saw one, but at least Mom liked it!

Ingredients: Potatoes

I am running low on groceries, it’s been nearly three weeks since my last visit to the store and if you’ve ever seen my fridge, you know this is a very long time.

Last night as I rummaged through my kitchen to see what I could fix for dinner, I was able to find enough fresh and frozen ingredients to make my own version of Taco Salad.  Not counting the tomatoes and avocado, my most favorite part of  Taco Salad are the crushed tortilla chips to put on top (because if I count the tomatoes and avocado it would be a three-way tie and then we are not really talking about favorites, per se, are we? So let’s just leave those out and concentrate on the chips, ok?).  Specifically I like Trader Joe’s Spicy Soy and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips.  Well, last night’s dinner used all of my remaining chips, but I did have enough taco-style crumbles, salad mix, avocado, tomato, peppers, salsa and sour cream to make another salad for lunch today.  I figured I’d just run out a buy some subpar tortilla chips for lunch….becasuse it’s not really a Taco Salad without the tortilla chips, subpar or not.

<Cut to lunchtime today>

I head out to go buy my chips, but not being a fan of the Tostito, plain varietal of tortilla chip, I seek out something with flavor, oomph, pizzaz.  I come across MamaZuma’s Revenge Green Chile Enchilada chips. Yum. They sound pizzaz-y, so I drop $1.35 on them and head back to the office.

Heating up the taco mix, I chop and assemble the veggies in a bowl, pour on some salsa and sour cream and rip open my bag of chips.  GASP!  They are POTATO chips.  Not tortilla chips made of corn with midly spicy green chile seasoning coating their triangular shape–as I had imgained them to be. No, they were most decidedly POTATO chips, all round and curly and covered inappropriately in the yummy-should-be-on-a-corn-chip-green spice dust.  Damn you MamaZuma!  Revenge this!  “Revenge what?” I thought. I knew full well that I wasn’t going to head out of the office a second time. MamaZuma got me, she knew it and I knew it.  I ate my Taco Salad with crushed potato chips on top.

Note to Self: You Are No Longer a Hoover Vacuum

Marathon training sure had it’s benefits.

While I sit here (quite literally as I am a good two days removed from any physical activity whatsoever) recovering from the longest distance of my life, I have to keep telling myself that I am no longer training for a marathon. Because if I don’t, I will find myself at the various candy jars stashed around the office mindlessly, gleefully, needingly stuffing assorted confections into my mouth. Yet, I no longer have the caloric burn that goes along with running 40 miles per week to offset such a sweet and gooey intake. What a bad time of year to slow your metabolic roll! With Halloween over, all the parents have inevitably brought in all the candy they don’t wish their children to eat–so the usual one office candy jar has multiplied into eight. Eight jars filled with all the candy you would have died for in a post-Halloween candy swap as a child, just sitting there for the taking.

You are no longer a Hoover vacuum. Enormous amounts of food calories, sweets, carbs and fat will not miraculously melt away into thin air. You must regain control and return to normal feeding habits. Remember you love spinach. You love carrots. You are able to control your sweet tooth. You like being a size six. You are no longer a Hooover vacuum…

(Food) Diary of a Mad Marathon Woman*

*Well, a mad woman training for a marathon. But “mad” only because it takes a certain level of insanity to actually commit to this much running.

There was a comment, or more appropriately a question, made by the lovely Velvet in Dupont the other day when I yet again went on and on (an on) about my running. She asked what I was eating to keep my energy up for those super long runs I do on Saturday mornings. Well the short answer is…pretty much everything. But I thought the long answer would provide some of you who’ve never carbo-loaded or are generally of the non-hungry sort (uh, that’s you Bug) with an interesting glimpse into some intense eating habits. Any of the gentlemen that read may not find this extreme, but I am sure that most of the ladies will be duly surprised/impressed/mortified/nonplussed? Here goes…

BABY BANANAS MARATHON TRAINING DIET
Breakfast #1 (prior to leaving for work)
~A very large bowl of some sort of carb-tastic, fiber-loaded cereal with skim milk
~A large glass of water
Breakfast #2 (while at work)
~Coffee
~Water
~Nectarine or a couple of plums
~Oatmeal with cinnamon and butter
Lunch
~2 glasses of water
~A large mixed green salad with cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, dried cranberries, cheese, walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette
~Protein in the form of tuna, grilled chicken, tilapia or soy protein crumbles (this usually gets mixed in with the salad)
~A large handful of M&Ms
~More water
~Cinnamon graham crackers or tea biscuits
~Sometimes if I am still hungry (this happens more often than I like) I troll around to see if anyone has lunch leftovers. Pathetic, I know.
Snack #1
~Water
~Natural applesauce and cottage cheese
Snack #2
~Green tea
~Brown rice and broccoli with parmesan cheese
~Probably more M&Ms
Snack #3
~Baby carrots
~Apple
Snack #4
~Cheese quesadilla or PB&J
Dinner
~Water
~Grilled tilapia over spinach or squash with 1 very large sweet potato
~usually a second helping of sweet potato or some easy mac-n-cheese
Dessert
~A big glass of skim milk
~Some sort of frozen novelty on a stick, sometimes though I put it in a bowl and eat it with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and walnuts as well. Mmmm.
~Water

Rinse and repeat.

p.s.
Yes, I drink that much water and yes I pee as much as you probably think I do.

Chef — we love you!

Why would a salad consisting of strips of pressed ham and turkey, a bit of waxy shredded cheese, large tomato pieces and maybe some hard boiled eggs and/or croutons be referred to as a chef salad?

I mean, wouldn’t a chef do it up a bit, add some excitement? What with being a professional and all, a chef* should make a better salad than this. I mean c’mon this has to be one of the most mundane salads in the world of lettuce and tomatoes. If I were a chef I’d seek out to remove my title from this bland salad group. Add new, exciting, tasty ingredients. Ingredients like avocado, pecans, dried currants, fresh strawberries, bell peppers, carrots, flavorful cheese like asiago or feta or chevre, chick peas, green peas, bite-sized tomato, broccoli, fresh corn and herbs? I mean not all at once (chevre and green peas?), but mix and match foods that actually taste good on their own, toss, sprinkle with dressing and chow down.

Yum, I am almost hungry for lunch again.

*Chef:
n : a professional cook; to cook, esp. in a skilled or professional mannerSource: Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)Copyright © 2003-2005 Lexico Publishing Group, LLC

I wonder if I am the only one

I wonder if I am the only one that hates the smell of Subway. Seriously! I avoid the corner of 20th and E, that one block on the other side of Ballston Mall and especially the Ann Taylor on Connecticut, all to dodge the odiferous assault Subway’s bread launches upon my nasal passages.