Tormented Kitchen

A while back, Justin and I took a Thai cooking class. It was astounding how easy it is to make Thai food! You just need to know the ingredients. Many of the ingredients aren't all that strange, but a few really threw me off.  Pickled radish? Tamarind juice? Where do I find those? The answer is at an Asian market. Yes, you need to look outside the boring-ness of Safeway to find what you want. I bought 3 Crabs fish sauce, pickled daikon with chili, a tub of Dragonfly cooking tamarind concentrate, rice stick noodles, jasmine rice, all kinds of tea, lemon grass, skinny eggplant, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, boba, agar-agar dessert mix (like Jell-O), saba bananas...seriously any and all exotic ingredients that you might want for Asian food. For people around Reno, check out 168 Asian Market on the corner of Virginia and Gentry. They are stocked! They have a sister store, Reno Asian Supermarket 803 W. 5th Street, which is just off of Keystone. I go the...

Not too long ago, dear hubby and I realized that we were tired of eating the same old thing. We are pretty good meat-eaters, so to change things up, I made something vegetarian. I had some chard in the fridge from our garden and some canned beans in the pantry. I started tossing things in a pot and ended up with a tasty bean stew. If you want to go vegan on this, swap out vegetable broth for the chicken broth and forget the genuine Parmegianno cheese. You might want a soy/vegan cheese instead. Although the cheese adds a nice depth of flavor, it's not required. Also, I made this once without the tomatoes and it was equally tasty. So feel free to leave them out if you're not a tomato fan. Ingredients 3 Tablespoons EVOO olive oil 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped 2 medium garlic cloves, minced 2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans or small white beans, drained and rinsed 1 bunch Swiss chard, stems removed, cut into short ribbons 3 roma tomatoes, diced 1 can lo...

My family has this running joke.  If there is a food we love, a food that outshines all competition, we say it came with us. This coleslaw came with me. My mom has made it for as long as I can remember. I have tried other recipes for slaw only to find them not living up to my expectations. Coleslaw is easy, so easy. Cabbage, carrots, dressing, and you're done. Sure, you can get fancy with purple cabbage or celery. I think the most important part of coleslaw is the dressing. I like my dressing extra creamy. The sour cream makes this. Ingredients 1 head green cabbage, stalk removed, leaves shredded 1 carrot, grated 2 Tablespoons onion, finely minced (optional) 1/2 cup sour cream 1/2 cup mayo 1 teaspoon yellow mustard 2 Tablespoons sugar 2 Tablespoons white vinegar 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon salt Method 1. Combine the dressing ingredients, sour cream, mayo, mustard, sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper and whisk until blended well. 2. In...

Once upon a time, in the far, far away exotic land known as Oklahoma, the Young Heiress enjoyed eating a delightful concoction known as apple cake. It was mildly spiced with cinnamon and filled with succulent layers of sliced apples. The Queen Mother had searched far and wide for the perfect combination of yellow cake and crispy tart apples to please the Young Heiress. Yep, it's a mostly true story. This is the actual recipe for apple cake I enjoyed as a kid. It's also true that for a period of time, one of my nicknames was "the young heiress." It's a weird story and probably has nothing to do with what you would expect. Unless you were there or made privy to the details. I shall leave that story out for today. Ingredients for the cake batter 3 cups AP flour 3 teaspoons baking powder 2 cups sugar 1 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs 1/3 cup orange juice 2 teaspoons vanilla extract for the apple layers 3 tart apples, peeled and thinly sliced 2 teaspoons...

You know who loves breakfast? I do. You know who else loves breakfast? My kids. Sometimes I have to take advantage of the kids and their love of pancakes and waffles. I use it as an opportunity to get them to branch out. I find that often my kids will devour breakfast and then pick and snack the rest of the day, so it's a good time to get something nutritious in them. Ages ago, when I was a teenager learning the basics of cooking, I happened across a British recipe for oat waffles. They were good, but a bit more work than I was willing put out as a 14 year-old. About Thanksgiving, I ran into that recipe again. I hadn't seen it in years. I made it a few times with some changes. I tried using quick oats instead of slow-cooking oats and swapped out the buttermilk for regular milk. They were better. On a lark, I threw in some ground flax and wheat germ. It was so good. These waffles are filling. The texture is really light with a crisp edge and they are a little chewy from the...

Oh dear. I just realized I apparently have a tremendous love for potatoes and garlic. Funny. That sure sneaked up on me. See, I never used to eat that much garlic.  I guess you can blame credit my dear hubby for being the garlic-aholic he is.  I started eating more garlic so I wouldn't be so scorched by his garlic breath (sorry dear!). You know, I thought if I had garlic breath, then I wouldn't notice his garlic breath, like they would cancel each other out. Then that idea backfired on me because he just kept asking for more, more, more. Shoot. Garlic is really pretty tasty when you use it right. I even like roasted garlic on bread with butter. Just be careful about breathing on people. Watch out for that look they get. You know the one, the watery eyes, and sometimes they get a little blue from holding their breath. Anyhow, dear hubby usually orders garlic mashed potatoes when we go out for steaks. He's not the baked potato lover like me. I decided to spruce up s...

Well, hello again my dear readers.  Today's message was prompted by my own clumsiness. See I have furlough today. I have finished up my last-minute Christmas shopping and came back home to wrap and clean. I have laundry running, dishes in the machine, mildew spray-treated the shower, and put toilet cleaner in the toilets. In the melee, toilet-cleaning gel chemicals got all over my hands.  I got a faulty squirt lid on the toilet cleaner bottle so oops. Bad, bad, bad thing to have happen, you know? Rinsing and rinsing under cold water didn't get it all off and I could feel my thumb really starting to burn. Not good. So I run to the kitchen and grab the box of baking soda and pour it into my hands so I can stop the chemical reaction. I rubbed it in really well. Then I rinsed under freakishly cold tap water until my hands no longer felt slippery. Chemistry lesson of the day: baking soda also known as sodium bicarbonate + nasty things like toilet cle...