Christmas food

Is anyone else sick of eating holiday food. While we still have New Years Eve, I can say I am over holiday food. I am done with cookies, cheesecake, popcorn, breads, cheese, and lots of heavy dishes. I did really well this holiday season, but I can say the diet will go much better without all of that crap. I thought I would post some of the dishes we made for the holidays. Mark has a few more of the pictures I need to steal, but here is a start.

Its Christmas Time!

What can I say. Its Christmas time! I love this time of year and hate all the temptation that comes with food in the office. We have had cakes, cookies, toffee, popcorn, treat contests, nuts, candies, lunches and lots of other goodies. I do appreciate when we have the fruit baskets, although they arent always the best items this time of year.

Today we went to the Vaught Christmas. It was a great time of food and family including a great sweet potato casserole from Andrea and Luke. We had a great time visiting this side of the family, and love the very thoughtful gifts that I received.

We do not typically exchange gifts on this side of the family. My grandma Peg usually sends us he choices for gifts and she typically gets plenty of gift certificates to go out to eat and buy items like books and home items. This year she turned the tables on us and gave us a wonderful gift. We all opened a family history binder she made of us that traces our entire history back 6 generations on both sides. It is amazing that she put this much time and effort into organizing this book and I was truly blessed that she even included me in this gift. I could sit and read this forever. The marriage and death records are included and some typically even told what the cause of death was. I found traces of breast cancer in my family all the way back to 1939 before they had typical treatments that they do today.

I really appreciate this time of year, to remember those who are with us and love us, and those who are not. Its great to get together with family without the premise of gifts and high priced ticket items, and also get to see how the year has treated us. I sit tonight and look at the Christmas tree after a wonderful dinner with Mark and a wonderful time with my family and thank God for everything and the wonderful life I currently have.

Weekend in review 12-15-08

Well, after a lovely weekend of Christmas parties and interesting food, I decided to write a new post. Tis the season of Christmas parties, and odd food schedules always seem to follow. Friday night Mark had a company Christmas party and I attended a HYPE happy hour. We both decided to meet in Mt. Lookout after our separate events and have dinner. Since there were many friends at my happy hour event, we gathered a group for some RuThai. If you know me, I LOVE Ruthai. I will never pass this up. We grabbed our group of 12 and headed over. Knowing we would have to wait a while, we grabbed a couple of bottles of wine at UDF (its bring your own) and waited patiently for a table.

If you have never been to Ruthai, its definately worth the trip. The staff is wonderful and the food is even better. They were wonderful with our group of 12 and our end count of 6 bottles of wine and some beer, keeping everyone in order and the food coming fast and delicious. Mark had a wonderful seafood curry which came in a great presentation.
I stuck with the wonderful house salad with peanut dressing (I ate too fast to get a picture) and the hot and sour mushroom soup. YUM! Everyone seemed to enjoy their night and plenty of full bellies left.

Here are the photos from the night!

I said I would be better, but man have I been busy.

So, I said I would be better about posting, but I will admit I am slacking. I really wish I would have thought about the camera on my cell phone prior to purchasing it, but now that I am stuck with it for at least another 5 months, I am going to have to just tell you about the great food I have been eating.

I started my own version of weight watchers a week ago. I figured, if I am working out with a trainer (
Joel and Cris at Fitnext in OTR are WONDERFUL) I might as well do it right. Food isn't as hard as I thought it would be, but it takes planning. I survived the first week and have a lot to learn, but I am excited about the possibilities in the future.

One thing I was craving last week was sushi. I had an errand to run on Thursday, so I talked Mark into having sushi at Dancing Wasabi. If you haven't been to Dancing Wasabi... what are you waiting for. Located in Mt Lookout Square, its a small restaurant that never lacks tons of guests and great sushi. I have been going to this location since it was Sushi Ray. I was a little bummed when they left and Dancing Wasabi took over, but I was optimistic. We typically had been visiting Sake Bomb, but needed a new restaurant to visit as we were tired of the same old sushi.

My girlfriends and I have been frequenting Dancing Wasabi for a while, but I have only taken Mark here twice. Without fail, the sushi is spot on. We waited quite a bit of time for a table, however, with Wednesday and Thursday nights being half priced sushi, what do you expect. The space is maximized with plenty of small tables and room at the bar, but with deals like these you should expect to wait, unless you arrive early enough to miss the rush. We sat at the bar and were pretty quick with our order.

After being seated, we ordered two house salads (they make their own ginger dressing and its wonderful) and prepared our sushi order. I had the usual, two pieces of tuna, two super white tuna, split two rolls with Mark. Mark had the egg, the Flying Fish Roe, and our rolls of choice were the Red Double roll and the crunch roll. I must admit, the red double roll is hard to not like. I will say there is something for everyone here, and when you are eating the half price sushi, why not try a few new items. Dancing Wasabi uses beautiful ingredients, has great sushi chefs and makes for a great time.

Next time your in Mt Lookout, stop in for a visit. Their half price sushi also starts at 10pm on Friday and Saturday nights as well, and they are open until 2am on the weekends to supply the wonderful bar crowd with great sushi.

Hugo

Mark and I have not been on a date for a very long time. We have a lot coming up in the next few weeks, so we needed to catch up. Mark was moved to a global role within dunnhumbyUSA, and we decided to celebrate.
We went to Hugo to celebrate. We had an 8pm reservation, and they were ready for us as soon as we walked in. It was our first visit to Hugo, and we were pleasantly surprised. We walked into a warm dining room and bar. We were greeted by almost every staff member walking by, and were seated in a comfy booth with plenty of privacy. We were given menu's and the wine list, and were greeted by the wine specialist to assist us with our wine selection. We decided on our three courses and enjoyed a beautiful bottle of Ramirez de la Piscina.
First course I had the pork belly and Mark decided on the foie gras. My pork belly was beautiful served with a homemade carmel sauce and bits of granny smith apple. It was heaven on a plate. The portion was perfect and cooked very well. Mark's foie gras was served with a fig compote and buttermilk biscuit and was also perfection. It was probably the best single dish that we have had all year.
Second course was our salad course. I received the Hugo salad and Mark had the Poached pear salad. The Hugo salad was romaine lettuce, goat cheese, potatoes, and a vinaigrette. The goat cheese was tossed with the potatoes and was creamy and beautiful. Mark had the Poached pear salad. It was served with a vinaigrette, mixed greens and a little bit of bacon. It was wonderful as well. We ate half of our salad and then traded to get a little of both dishes.
For our main course, I chose the duck and Mark chose the rabbit dish. The duck was wonderfully prepared. I usually only eat duck at Daveeds, but I love the duck here. It was served with a tomato broth as well as chorizo and white beans. Mark had the rabbit which was served with a pasta and homemade tomato sauce. All of this was very well presented and tasted wonderful.

We had the open apple and pear dessert as well ginger ice cream and a cup of coffee. It was beautiful. We were very surprised at the wonderful service and the wonderful food. If we complimented any of the dishes we were pleased to see the staff smile. When the staff smiles like they did you know they take pride in where they work and the food that they are presenting. I am excited to see staff that has soo much pride in their work.

We would have taken pictures, but we were too busy enjoying our night together. I cant wait to go back and enjoy Hugo again. Great job!

Now that the weather is cooler, here come the posts

Now that I am beginning to use my coat, and enjoy yummy winter dishes, I will have more time to post. We have had many culinary adventures in the last few weeks so keep looking for the posts. I am on a new diet, so it might be helpful for me to include some of my food habits on here so you can see what I enjoy even thought I am dieting.

New Cookbook!!!

After a trip to purchase my dress for an upcoming formal party, Mark and I ventured to Williams Sonoma for some browsing. They had wonderful apple cider that got me in the mood for fall. While we were there we picked up a new cookbook to add some quick weekly ideas to our current menu. We had our first dish of Pasta with prosciutto and peas and I am impressed. Its a Martha Stewart book which I happen to like. In college I was called Martha Stewart for my cooking and decorating skills. I am not sure if I should have taken offense, but her cooking and decorating are good so I am not complaining.

The dish looks quite simple, but its divine. The mix of the beautiful prosciutto from Angelina's at Findley Market, and the crisp peas was wonderful. I have a feeling we will be making this more in the near future.

Lacking in time to post!!!

So we have been busy and I havent had much time to post. I love the change in season, but I feel like I have to get outside as much as possible and enjoy the weather.
As a little update, I am back in a cast. Its making life very difficult (and making the calories from Mark's wonderful food harder to burn), but I am excited that I am almost out. For those of you who dont know I have been fighting a horrible ankle break and a torn joint since January. I decided that it was a great idea to play Broomball on Fountain Square with my collegues and my body reminded me that I was not a young pup anymore. Needless to say after 5 months in a cast and rehab and a summer worth of small nagging pain, I ended up back in the cast with a torn tendon that would not heal. Thanks to the folks at Wellington, I will soon be back to normal.
Back to the food. We are switching to the fall dishes, which means I get to drink more wine. I love wine, but tend to prefer reds over a white on any given day. In the past two weeks I have consumed a total of 7 bottles of wine (and a lot of beer). Wow, that is quite a bit. I can say that I love a good bottle of wine, and love the Wine Merchant in Hyde Park and City Cellars downtown for their WONDERFUL suggestions on wine. They never steer me wrong.
I promise to post more about the food on weekly basis and start labeling the dishes that we are working on. If you ever need a suggestion or want a recipe, send me an email. I would love to share.

for now...

kel

Coming to the end of the summer.

How sad it is when we come to the end of the summer. I will miss the tomatoes, corn and all of the wonderful berries and herbs that I find with Mark in Findley Market. With the wonderful winds from Hurricane Ike, I was thrown off most of the week. We kept our power, thanks to the fact that we are in a very old building and setup on a downtown grid. All of our lines were underground and away from the flying trees and the massive power lines flying everywhere. Most of the city was without power most of the week, and allowed most of the city to do the dreaded fridge cleaning, whether they liked it or not. We all know that it should be mandatory to go through the fridge once every few months, but most of us neglect it. Its a great start to the fall.
I was excited to go to the market this week. I knew there was a fire in one of the buildings, but I am glad that the wonderful Cincinnati fire department was able to save the rest of the buildings. I was hoping that most of the vendors would be up and running and there would be plenty in the farmers market. I was right... we had plenty of options. As we were pulling in we saw the VW thing. It was Justin and Acacia Flamm. I was hoping that they would be there. We rushed to the asian market to get what we call pork sushi. I know it sounds awful but in fact its not sushi at all. They sell sticky rice with pork and lentils. Its wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked to perfection. Its a wonderful start to the market. Acacia and I went to get tea and a waffle, while the guys went to get our yummy pork sushi.
As soon as I saw Justin's face, I knew something was wrong. No pork sushi. The woman who makes these wonderful goodies had no power, so no pork sushi. I promise to take a picture next week and post it. But if you are at Findley Market try one. They are heaven. I also promised to get Justin a few since he would be out of town next weekend. We did end up with filet's, bacon, wonderul squash, tomatoes, corn, plenty of honey crisp apples. I will post plenty of pictures from our wonderful finds this week.

Caprese Salad our style

I love tomatoes. This time of year we have a hard time not buying a ton of them and eating them like crazy. I am going to find a way to make pasta sauce before the summer is over (well since its over I guess I need to get moving :). I love when Mark makes Caprese salad. We get our fresh mozarella from Angelinas and usually basil and tomatoes from whomever looks the best at the farmer market. Add on some Shadeau bread, and we are all set. Here is what our dinner of caprese salad looks like.

The day of Roasting

I had book club this night so Mark was home alone most of the night. I came home to this wonderful dinner. Roasted Chicken, Roasted Thyme, Roasted Garlic, and corn salad. Mark made this corn salad out of his wonderful head, corn on the cob, bacon, cherry tomatoes and garnished with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and parm. I dont think I have ever liked this kind of thing so much. I can eat it all day every day. Its served cold and its fabulous.

Ribs, beautiful ribs.

Thank the Lord Busch's opened again after the wedding. They have beautiful ribs. We went for one slab of baby back pork ribs. We usually go for beef ribs, but they were out. Mark does great work on ribs. Slow cooked in the oven, just the right temperature so the meat falls off the bone and the bbq sauce carmelizes and makes beautiful crust. Today we had it with corn on the cob, straight from Guaido's in Findley as well as their mustard greens. YUM. I swear, no wonder I have a hard time loosing weight with food like this. Sooo good.

Fire Roasted Peppers

Mark is having a lot of fun having a gas stove. This might be the one redeeming quality of our place. We love a gas stove. This is definitely a must when shopping for a house. Mark loves to make different types of pesto. I love it as well because its great to eat on just about anything. Today was roasted red pepper pesto. I didnt get a picture of the finished product, but I did get the actual fire roasting. This stuff is WONDERFUL.
Here you go:

My first attempt at plating my food.

I cant take credit for this entire meal. We were not able to go to Busch's at Findley Market this week because they were closed for a wedding. Man do we miss our Findley Market routine when things dont work out the way we plan. We went to our second favorite spot, Eckerlin 's for our meat. They luckily had great t-bone steaks for us to eat. I decided to cook some zucchini and tomatoes with white onion and plate the food without the help of Mark. He did cook the steak, but I think I did pretty good for my first try.

Here you go:

I dont think it was too bad. Steak was grilled on the Le Creuset grill pan since we didnt want to go outside to grill, and the zucchini and onions were sauteed in a pan, later I added the tomato and finished it off with parm shavings.
Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Klump for the great veggies.

Cooking in Cozumel

Mark and I just returned from a week long vacation in Cozumel. Our stay at the Cozumel Palace was wonderful, although if I never have to visit the Miami airport again I will be happy. We are both pretty active, so we scheduled a few activities besides the scuba diving that Mark loves including renting a Jeep for the day and traveling to the ruins, and a cooking class with a native.
I know what you probably think - we took a class at the resort and called it a day. Not us, we dont want any cheesy cooking class. Mark found a link on the internet for a woman who actually takes you to the market, purchases the food you use, and will teach you how to make many dishes out of your purchases. After a few calls, we had our class scheduled. We took a cab to the local market and we were ready.
Josefina is a wonderful teacher. She met us at the local market dressed in a red apron just like her website. She was wearing a dress from a local dress maker which was absolutely beautiful. We started discussing our menu options, and we were off. Here are a few pictures from the market:


Joesefina Peppers and spices at the market.


Masa for tortillas Herbs and spices at the market.

After purchasing all of the items we would need, we made a pit stop to a tortillaria (wow that was hot) and to a local artist's home to view his paintings. (You can find his work at our house now). We entered the home of Josefina which was only a block away from the market. It was a great house for the area which she shared with her son and daughter-in-law (and of course their daughter Luz pronounced Lucy). We were listening to wonderful records on her record player and had a native drink of a hibucus tea- made from hibucus flowers. They dry their own flowers and store them to mix with water as a tea-- but tastes more like a juice.
We got to work right away making cactus leaf salad and cucumber mango salad. We made Pollo Pibil, which is chicken with a traditional sauce, hand rolled tortillas stuffed with cheese and the herbs in the picture above, traditional salsa with crushed pumpkin seads, Josefina's guacamole (wonderful) and black beans. It was a lot of food. If you ever venture to Cozumel- let us know. We will get you in contact with her. It was worth every penny and we can only hope others will experience what we did that day. Here are some more pictures.

Just a little introduction

After many requests, I am now going to share what we eat for dinner. I cant always say its going to be good (I am known for my bad eating habits), but as I change these habits and attempt to eat like a normal adult, I have to share the wonderful food my boyfriend, Mark, makes on a regular basis.
I brag on a regular basis about Mark's cooking and have been asked to blog about his culinary adventures and what we do for food. In response, here is our blog. I cant always promise the food we eat is good for you, however, we enjoy it. We hope you enjoy. We will try to add as much information about what he does (and sometimes when I cook, what I do) but if you ever have any questions about recipes, let us know.