Month of Food.

From a eating standpoint, last week was rather intense. There was the huge Brazilian barbecue, the Chinese food with Jocelyn, the little irish pub with Cindy and the gang, and the horribly overpriced 14 dollar veggie wraps at the McCormick center.

With all this great eating out, it’s no surprise that upon getting back to CT one of the things I wanted to do most was have some good home cookin’.

On Saturday, Shaun L. and I attacked some Asian cuisine.

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While Shaun fired through a Thai Chicken Vegetable Salad shown above, I worked on a Vietnamese Fried Rice (shown below)

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General Rock Climbing Food Rating?
Salad = 5.9+ toprope
Refreshing and fulfilling… but it took awhile to set up.

Rice: = 5.6- toprope
Not only did this take awhile to setup… the end result was extremely salty. Tony, Paulette, and Michael didn’t have too hard of a time eating it… but both Shaun and I were overwhelmed with sodium chloride.

THEN, as if that wasn’t enough. Sunday evening Pete came over to do a little work on a Mechanical Engineering project and I decided to throw together a spicy chicken soup with dumplings and bake a quick bread.

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I’m particularly pleased with the bread. I am notoriously bad at making bread, so I followed this recipe EXACT. Even to the point where the instructions said “spoon the mixture into the pan” and, instead of pouring directly, we used a spoon.

And actually, it came out great. It’s a honey bread and required 20 minutes of thorough beating in the Kitchen Aid… which we feared didn’t have any beaters… but they were found in time for bread making.

The chicken soup was just a quick “throw whatever we had” into a pot with some jalapeño seeds and some tobasco… and BANG. Spicy chicken soup.

Soup Rock climbing food rating: 5.8
I had a bit too much broth. But the dumplings were A+

(fanny farmer’s) Honey Bread: 5.10c
Awesome! Easy! Fast! The whole thing took about an hour and 20 minutes, which, in the world of breads is Super!

So! After a week of glorious food on the road, I get a weekend of glorious food at the house. Follow that with Thanksgiving? well… I think that’s as close to bliss as one can get.

6 thoughts on “Month of Food.

  • 11/19/2007 at 10:16 am
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    A personal favorite around the Schenk-Bleakley household is seitan fajitas. Seitan is a delicious protein source made from wheat gluten, and looks kind of like brains when simmering. Cut it into strips with strips of bell pepper and onions, maybe a little coconut milk and some seasonings. And if you want to get really fancy, since you have a gas range, you can pour in a shot of tequila, ,tip the pan into the flames, and produce a big ball of fire. Boom!

    The delicious dish is best served on those expensive Joseph’s tortillas (7g protein EACH) with a small dollop of sour cream.

    We made this by lantern-light when the power went out during the hurricane and it was awwweeeeesssooooommmmeeeee

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  • 11/23/2007 at 1:04 pm
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    Oh boy does that bread look good. I want to learn how to make bread.

    Anyway, on the saltiness of the rice, I’m wondering if after letting the rice sit it became less salty, because I know I eat salt, but I’m usually aware of the saltiness, and by your discription of eating the ocean, I either have to assume the salt level came down as the dish cooled (since Paulette and I were late to the feast), or you’ve never tasted salt water.

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  • 11/23/2007 at 5:55 pm
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    BRAAAAIIINNNSSSS (Ryan is really good at making seitan fajitas)

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  • 11/24/2007 at 1:55 pm
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    We’ll have to make some quick bread next time you come over to the HoR.

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  • 1/6/2008 at 12:10 pm
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    mmm so healthy!! i love healthy food) its good when people understand that

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