daniellewiley

Well, we are installing some new software on the iMac I use for photos, so I can't share a picture, but dessert was terrific. A Buenos Aires brownie: (from Zingerman's Bakehouse) with a scoop of Zingerman's Dulce de Leche gelato. Both were incredibly sweet, but wonderful. I'm stuffed...

Ahhh, the old Grilling War of the Sexes thing... I don't grill much either but I volunteered to do all the cooking on a road trip in a few weeks where ALL of my cooking will be on the grill. Michael's instructions help me enough to add the stuffed cousa squash to the menu. Please thank him for me! He'll read your thanks himself. He's lurking.... By the way, this is the first time we made this with cousa squash. Usually, we do them with yellow squash or zucchini - also good. We have also done variations, the best being a stuffing of ricotta and herbs. Much more delicate in flavor, but absolutely delicious. Laksa was wondering about the difference between cousa and zucchini. I think cousa are more tender. They also seem meatier, especially in this application where you are removing the seeds. The zucchini tend to get a bit flacid when you do that - the cousa didn't. The flavor is pretty comparable, but the cousa are a bit more delicate, especially the young ones we ate tonight.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is kibbe? Kibbe is usually ground lamb mixed with bulgar wheat. I think those sandwiches usually just have kofta meat in them though. Kofta is lamb with minced parsley and onion, no bulgar. What I am wondering is why anyone would put a dairy product in hummus? Weird. Also, give the hummus with meat a second chance. It is meant to be made with lamb rather than beef and can be really good when done right. I think foodman has a recipe somewhere in the Middle East forum. Behemoth is right about the aryas halabi stuffing, by the way (of course!). I typed kibbe, because I had been discussing raw kibbe with one of the women I met with last night. She is Lebanese, and recommended the raw kibbe at the restaurant we will be visiting Friday night. I had kibbe on the brain.

Yes, I definitely will save that one for the boyfriend archives!! Here's what Michael says about the squash: They were on for 16 minutes (same as the chops), on indirect heat, but CLOSE to the heat. The grill was closed, and the temp reading was 325 to 350, but was definitely hotter closer to the coals. Does that help? I don't do any of the grilling - but I do all/most of the prep. Also, we have done the squash in the oven previously. Just at 350 degrees until they looked done. Very unscientific, LOL.

Just finished dinner! Grliled veal chops with thyme vinaigrette, feta stuffed cousa/koosa squash and roasted purple potatoes. The veal chops are from Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger's City Cuisine. We hadn't made them in years, actually, but Michael suggested veal chops for dinner, and we realized this was a great choice, because they are so easy! I didn't get home from my Ann Arbor meeting and then picking up Dylan, until almost 5:45, so we couldn't have a dinner that required hours of work. Dylan goes to bed at 8-8:30, and we all eat together, so very often we are limited to dishes that are fast. Anyway, these chops are great. The only drawback is the high price of veal chops!! The two I bought (at Whole Foods) were over $15. Yikes. Cheaper than eating out, but... The one-inch thick chops are sprinkled with salt and pepper, and grilled over cool coals for 8-10 minutes on each side. They are then placed on the plate and a very tasty vinaigrette composed of fresh thyme, shallots, EVOO and lemon juice is spooned over them. The potatoes were cut into wedges and tossed in a ziploc with EVOO, kosher salt, ground tellicherry pepper, chopped chives and chopped garlic. Then, I put them in a baking dish and cooked for 45 minutes or so at 375 F.: We also had the cousa squash in a recipe that my sister-in-law created. The seeds are scooped out: and then the squash are stuffed with feta, fresh herbs (I used the thyme and chives), pepper, chopped garlic and EVOO. These were cooked on the grill with the chops. (Yes, that's Dylan laying on the floor having a fit in the background. We were busy ignoring her.) Dinner was great: We drank a 2000 Chateau de Chamirey mercurey, which is a red burgundy, and Acqua Panna. Kid-haters, skip the following... In the middle of dinner, Dylan had to go potty, and wanted to go by herself. A few minutes later she started yelling for me. I ran in and saw this: I have a special dessert for the adults after Dylie goes to bed. I'll post in a few...

I skipped breakfast today because I didn't go into the office, and right now I'm eating a quick lunch. I have a 1pm appointment in Ann Arbor, so I need to eat early, and eat fast! I did a toasted sourdough roll half topped with goat cheese and Niman Ranch applewood smoked ham. Pretty tasty - it would be better with some cucumber, but I'm short on time! Tonight will be grilled veal chops with a thyme vinaigrette, cousa/koosa squash stuffed with feta and herbs, and some kind of starchy item that I have not yet selected. Stay tuned!

It's for a new personal business that I'm working on (selling botanical products), so I picked the locale. Unfortunately, most of my other business meetings are far less exciting. I agree about the weirdness of the hummos - you guys will experience some great hummos with me on Friday when we go to the Beirut. A lot of people love the food at Ranya's, and the owner is so passionate about what he does, but it just usually leaves me uninspired. Oh well... to each his own, I suppose.

since yer already blogging, any chance could you make that day today? i'm really curious as to what could cause an explosion on a regular ol' chimney starter. or not! whichever you wanna do--it's your blog! OK, here's the story: Our house is 113 years old, and the driveway, while not as old as the house, is very old as well. It is an incredibly thin layer of cement. Michael is extremely talented as a grill-man, so I don't question his tactics, and perhaps this is how the problem developed. Now, since he is a man, I have no idea why this is the case, but, can you believe..... He NEVER read the instructions for the chimney starter!!! Had he read the instructions, he would have discovered that it should be placed on the grill itself, not the ground. And, certainly, not the paper thin cement covered ground. So, one day, the coals are heating, we are relaxing on our new patio, and all of a sudden - WHOOOMMMM!!! The starter flies off the driveway along with a perfect circle of broken concrete. Lump charcoal is everywhere. Cement is everywhere. There is a round dent in my driveway that looks like an urban crop circle, and I started saving for the propane-started Weber.

Here I am! Here I am!! OK, this day/evening will give you guys a very good idea of how hard it can be sometimes to fit in a great homemade meal. First, a brief, brief recounting of lunch, which isn't really even worth discussing much. Here is what I should have eaten: It's Aryas Halabi, which is kibbe stuffed into a pita and grilled. Served with hummos. Yummy. Here is what I unfortunately ordered: The soup was delicious as always, but I don't think this dish is for me. While quite tasty, the hummos at Ranya's is a bit too rich. It is heavy on the dairy (yogurt or sour cream, I believe) and there was no way I could eat an entire plate of it. I also wasn't thrilled with the ground round. It had no flavor! I did enjoy my snack, though. Here are my exciting figs sitting on top of my boring work. So, now to discuss my dinner. The plan was to cook a whole chicken on our Weber. I didn't remember to defrost the chicken, though, until this morning. Now, normally, I'd just go buy a new one, LOL, but I'm trying to be frugal, so I threw caution to the wind and let it sit on the counter for four hours. Then, I had visions of salmonella dancing in my head and ran home to throw it in the fridge. So, of course, come 5:45, it was still solid as a rock. Microwave time! At this point, we realize that our timing is way way off. Michael has a conference call with Asia at 8pm, and I'm supposed to be at a business meeting at a local bar at 8:30. Dylan hasn't bathed, is covered in dirt, and we have this rock solid chicken defrosting in the microwave. We did not have the 30 minutes required to fully defrost, so I made an executive decision and pulled it out of the microwave. Still hard. I ignore that small fact and move forward. I rub the chicken with my seasoning; kosher salt, freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper, garlic powder (only time I use the stuff) and the secret ingredient; Smoked Hot Paprika from Spain: The chicken goes on the Weber and cooks for a while under the cover. We love our Weber, by the way. It is the charcoal one with the gas ignitor. Awesome, considering we had an explosion with our chimney starter when we had the old fashioned kind (story for another day). Here is Michael adding hickory chips to the lump charcoal. We don't always do this, but we thought it would be a nice touch: While the chicken cooked, I quickly prepared the rest of the meal. I chopped onion and garlic and added it to a pot with fresh lima beans from Rhodes, some milk, some water and some butter. Brought to a simmer and cooked on low with a cover. Then, I made a quick salad. The dressing contained a soft mild goat cheese, Maille Dijon mustard with green peppercorns, Spanish sherry vinegar and EVOO. The chicken kept on cooking and cooking and cooking. To conserve time, Dylan and I ran upstairs and took a bath. We came downstairs a half an hour later and continued to watch the chicken cook, and cook, and cook. Here it is cooking: Finally, it was done: And served at 7:52pm: Everything was delicious. Dylan ate a little bit of everything, which is good, and we both made our meetings. Phew!! At my meeting, I had an interesting concoction that was basically a deconstructed s'more. Homemade graham crackers. melted marshmallow, sprinkled with chocolate shavings and served with raspberry sauce and raspberries. Not phenomenal, but a fun effort. Sorry to everyone for the long delay in reporting. I got here as soon as I could!!!

Danielle, Michael Ruhlman participated in a fabulous Q&A last year. If you like the book, the love seeing him in the "eg hot seat." Thanks! That's on my list to read. (None of us mentioned all the hours spent here, reading blogs and Q&As!!!) He will also be a speaker at next year's Greenbriar Food Writer's Symposium. I am scrimping and saving to try and go. Big dream of mine.

I'm reading The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I love it. And I'm very excited that I live so close to Lola. Other food books I've read recently: On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis - an excellent book by a cookbook author and cooking school teacher. It's is about her adventures living in Normandy, and has wonderful recipes. Wife of the Chef by Courtney Febbroriello. I didn't love this book, because I just didn't love her writing style, but it was interesting nonetheless. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain of course. Loved it of course. The Bobby Gold Stories also by Tony Bourdain - I read it on the plane to California. Great fun summer reading.

This reminds me of Dylan's funniest food comment to date: She was sitting on the potty about 6 months ago (she was almost 2.5), and was talking to me about body parts. I was explaining the various words to her, and told her that boys have a penis. So she replies: "I eat penis at Ty's house!" Ty is her friend who just turned 3. This seemed a bit premature. Suddenly, I remembered. At Ty's birthday party, she had some peanuts for a snack. phew

Good morning! Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday, but with a Michigan Red Haven peach in place of the strawberries. Those got eaten up this morning by Dylan and Michael. Lunch should be interesting. Every day at work, they order in from a different restaurant for lunch. We go online to place our order, and then our runner picks it up or the restaurant delivers. Today is Ranya's, a small Lebanese restaurant in downtown Toledo that is only open for lunch. I know we are having Lebanese overkill this week, but that's Toledo!! I ordered the Hummos topped with ground round. I have not had it before, but the owner of the restaurant, Nadji, is very proud of his mother's hummos recipe, and I've heard good things about the dish. I'm most excited for the soup that comes with it. It's Egyptian Lentil, and I love it. It has a chicken stock base, and lots of celery. Very very tasty. Stay tuned for pics - I'll try to get pictures of some of the other dishes as well, since most of the office is ordering today.

I listed to a very funny segment on This American Life this past Sunday about tipping. It's in the middle of the show, but you can listen to it here: Allure of the Mean Friend Turns out that niceness is not at all required for great tips.

I'm excited that a Toledoan is reading my blog!! Everyone at my office thinks I'm a nutcase, LOL. My friend Mike said, "Do you actually think people will read this thing?" I then forced him to read through all of the posts. hee hee. Which cashier was it? They will all recognize Dylan when they see the photo of her. We're there quite often.

The oregano gives it an Italian flavor, of course. My sister-in-law thinks it tastes a lot like the eggplant parmesan that we get at the small plates restaurant in town. To me, it's an amalgam of a lot of flavors. The fact that it calls for cheddar instead of mozzarella, and butter instead of olive oil is what prevents it from being pure Mediterranean. I think it's just a weird product of the 70's that happens to work.

Dinner tonight was a bit of a project - it's always a challenge to keep Dylan occupied while I cook, and Michael doesn't get home until 6pm most nights. As I mentioned earlier, I decided to make my mom's eggplant gratin. In an effort to be honest, I should state that the real name of this dish is eggplant casserole. My silly husband thought gratin sounded less midwest. My mom served this casserole as a side dish for many of our holiday dinners growing up. I had forgotten it until a few years ago, when it suddenly came to mind, and I realized that it would be great as a vegetarian main course. I think it came from a 70's vegetarian cookbook. The first step is to peel and slice one large eggplant. I didn't like the looks of the large eggplants at the store, so I substituted two small ones. The slices are steamed in an inch of salt water for 10 minutes. It then gets mashed with melted butter, bread crumbs, eggs, chopped onion and oregano. I used fresh oregano, and also added some chives: That gets mixed together, first by an adult, but then by a kid. It is layered in a casserole with fresh sliced tomato: and topped with grated cheddar and parmesan and a sprinkle of paprika. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes: I served it with roasted asparagus and paesano bread that we topped with Stilton. We drank "two buck Chuck" Shiraz: Despite helping me cook it, Dylan wouldn't eat my eggplant. She had some bread and some asparagus, washed down with chocolate soy milk and followed by a salty licorice from Europe. Luckily, she had cheese crackers and a banana for her after school snack, so she's not totally malnourished. The eggplant is real comfort food for me. It tastes like childhood.

Yes, of course. I didn't grow up with tailgating either - it wasn't a big thing on Long Island. That will be a fun blog day. I want to mention that I skipped the Hershey's kisses. As I was washing my lunch dishes, I remembered the apples, so I grabbed one of those along with a handful of almonds. I think this blog-thing is good for my nutritional health. Well, except for that ice cream last night.

First of all, thank you eGullet, for giving me a wonderful excuse to come home for lunch! I eat breakfast at work every day, because I can't bear to eat right after I wake up. Here is a photo of what I ate this morning. This is basically what I eat every weekday morning that I come to the office in the summer: The Heritage-O's are my favorite cereal, and I'm not a cereal person, so that's saying a lot. They are very crunchy and have a faint sweetness. Today I topped them with 2 sliced strawberries, a big handful of blueberries and some raspberries that I froze yesterday. I have been freezing my raspberries the day I buy them because I can't bear to lose any to mold or mushiness. I find that by the time I get to work they are defrosted. I'm excited about this new process of mine - it will let me eat my summer breakfast in the winter this year. Oh, I forgot to mention - I use Silk Vanilla soy milk in the cereal. I'd be just as happy with skim milk, but the soy is less likely to get filched from the office fridge. I just finished lunch. I heated up some vegetable gyoza: This was an OK lunch - nothing special. I still feel hungry, and will more than likely grab some Hershey's kisses on my way out the door. I dipped the gyoza in a combination of soy sauce, brown rice vinegar and chili garlic sauce. That was tasty, at least: I'll spare you the photo of my chocolates. I think we all know what those look like.

This question has a somewhat complicated answer. Neither myself nor my husband works in Ann Arbor - we used to live there, and will likely be relocating there if we ever sell our house (which seems doubtful at this point). So, we love Ann Arbor. That's one answer to your question. Another is the quality of food there. Toledo is great for ethnic items, but for very high quality imported foods, nothing can beat Zingerman's - in fact, people all over the world order food from them. We also love going to Whole Foods, and Toledo doesn't have one. We have a couple of small natural foods stores, but they are expensive and don't have anything close to the selection of Whole Foods. We try to eat organic whenever possible, so it is worth it to make the trip. Also, the butcher up in Ann Arbor features non-hormone meat from local sources. One of the reasons we will probably be moving back is because it is silly to drive almost an hour to go food shopping, and food is so important to us.

Wow!! Who knew I'd have a controversial food blog?? Here's my plan, and SobaAddict, please let me know if it's not appropriate. I will blog about what I eat. If Dylan is with me, I will mention her food as well, and it will usually be what I eat, unless she refuses. In that case, I will tell you what she has as well. What I will leave out is the lunch I pack Dylan every day and her breakfast, as I don't eat mine until I get to work, and she's not with me at that point. Cool?

Perhaps they are the same as cousa squash? They look very similar to ones I've been buying at my farmers' market (picture here). Yes, those seem to be the same type of squash. Yours are much bigger though!! I think we've figured it out!! Here is what I found on the Winter Creek Gardens site:

I just found some great information about muskmelons online. Here's the scoop, from the Texas A&M website: In this area of the country, the little round ones are called canteloupes and the large lumpy ones are called muskmelons.

I was waiting to see what the outcome was, and now I'm cracking up! She didn't want anything? "Honey, we're going to the WORST booth." (The worst booth? They'll have the worst food! That would be the worst thing! No way!!!) Children are so literal, and I am laughing at my imagination. I ditto Carrot Top's request: pile on the kid notes. If people don't like it, tough for them. I skip blogs that aren't to my taste (things piled high with raw onions, bok choy, and/or sauerkraut are usually where I start scrolling); any kid that eats mussels at age two is a child I am interested in. Thanks for doing this, Danielle. Thanks for the great note Tana!! Dylan is way way too smart for me to actually say "wurst booth" out loud. I just said hot dog. I think her refusal to order was more a result of crankiness than anything else. Instead of napping today she sat in her room for two hours singing "Where is Thumbkin" to her dolls, so she fell asleep in the car on the way to the festival. She was in a grumpy post-nap state when we were ordering food, and probably just wanted to be contrary. She also had eaten that giant bowl of muskmelon shortly before we left, so she wasn't starving.

Thanks Laksa! I think that Koosa is the Lebanese word for squash. They are pale green with speckles and are very tender. The ones I bought today were very tiny - I thought they would be fun to cook at that size. I will ask the Lebanese grocer this week for some more information. Great question! Akanes are (according to my Google search) a Japanese Jonathan hybrid. I haven't had them before, but the descriptive sign at the store said, "tart/sweet and crisp", so I couldn't resist. Yes, the muskmelon is the giant canteloupe that you see. I never had them when I lived in NY - I think they are a midwest thing. They are very large and kind of lumpy looking. Could you tell that from the photo? The taste is very similar to canteloupe, but there is a much stronger floral perfume to the flavor and to the scent. This one especially tastes very perfume-y. I didn't like it much actually when I tasted it this afternoon, but Dylan ate a whole bowl of it. She's the melon eater in the family - I pack it in her lunch all the time.