Adventures in Vegetables

In my continual quest to find new and interesting places to eat, my friend Laura and I recently tried Inn Season Cafe, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Royal Oak, Michigan. I had heard good things, but I knew we were in for a delicious dinner when we walked in and saw that there was a 30 minute wait - on a Wednesday night!

We went in with an adventurous spirit, reflected by the fact that we actually ordered the black bean quesadilla with *gasp* soy cheese (phenomenal, despite my sin against the dairy gods). I was a little thrown off by the lack of booze in this joint, but I suppose that's part of the whole "taking care of your body" thing. Fortunately, they had an extensive selection of natural sodas (made from real fruit juice and no added sugar), so we tried the black cherry and cranberry flavors, both excellent.

The adventure continued with an order of fajitas, made with seitan instead of beef. I had never tried seitan before and had no idea what to expect. My later research informed me that seitan is made from gluten, and is apparently a great low fat source of protein. Turns out it wasn't a bad substitute, although I think I'll be sticking with my all-beef version of fajitas.

My lesson learned: When eating vegetarian, eat vegetables. Meat substitutes just aren't the same as actual meat, and vegetarian chefs definately know what they are doing with their hearty entrees made without a "meat" centerpiece.

Oh, and soy cheese is not right. Period.

Breakfast Casserole Comparison

We have this great set up at work where we rotate who brings breakfast every Thursday morning. It used to be a consistent pattern of bagels each week, with the occasional donut to shake things up, but recently we have started taking breakfast to the next level. One person even brought in all the ingredients for everyone to make their own parfait. So when it came to my turn, I decided to bring in the tastiest, but least healthy breakfast... the breakfast casserole.

I love all casseroles, but the breakfast variety has a speacial place in my heart. Regardless of the specific variation, breakfast casseroles are always delicious, homey, and comforting. Kind of like the cozier version of a quiche. Unfortunately, all that wonderful usually comes at a cost: chlesterol, fat, excessive calories... etc. So I decided to do a comparison with my coworkers. First I brought in the original version of the breakfast casserole. It was wonderful, and most people took multiple servings. A few weeks later, I brought in the lightened version, replacing pork sausage with a leaner chicken and turkey sausage, reducing the amount of bread and whole eggs, and replacing whole milk with 2%. The lighter version got the same great reviews, and of course everyone felt a lot better about eating it! My next step is to start playing with this version... I already have an Italian twist to try, and then a Mexican one. I hope my coworkers are up to tasting a few more versions!

Pleasant Pheasant

Just like the average American eater, I prefer to be a safe distance from the reality of the dead animal I am eating. I am usually comfortable with beef or pork bones and I love my baby back ribs, but poultry bones with the ligiments and tendons are a little too real for me. I like my buffalo wings boneless and my chicken breasts in boneless skinless form. So when my husband was given two whole pheasants by a coworker who had brought them home from a hunting trip, I was a little reticent.

I had never made pheasant before, so I did some online research to get some tips and a recipe. My husband butchered the little guys for me, and we invited the neighbors over. We were all a little nervous about eating these pheasants, and it was blatantly clear that I had no idea what I was doing. I definately had my own doubts as the sauce I was making had plenty of ingredients that I am not used to using in my cooking, such as gin and grapes. But we all dove in and tried this strange meal with teeny little bird parts. I'll be honest, we kind of looked like we were kings and queens chowing down on a hearty meal in medieval times. The only thing missing was a jousting competition.

The pheasant itself was flavorful and meaty, a little like duck but not as greasy. We also had a red cabbage and wild rice dish with bacon that was a big hit, but the real star of the show was the sauce. The sauce was fruity and bold, and complemented the pheasant nicely. I even ended up using the leftover sauce as a marinade for chicken kabobs later that week.

I don't know if pheasant will be making an encore performance in our house, but it definately opened my eyes to alternatives to the standard beef/chicken/fish rotation, even when they involve tendons and ligaments.

My Love Affair with Ham

Ham and I have always had a tumultuous relationship. Let's be honest, ham isn't exactly something you crave, at least not for the majority of the American population above the age of eight. There are a few of my favorite recipes in my repertoire in which ham plays at least a supporting role, most notably Nasi Goreng (a delicious Indonesian rice dish that my mother has made my entire life, but really has too many specialty ingredients to post here) and Chicken and Ham Lasagna. Outside of these few exceptions, ham has never meant a whole hell of a lot to me.

Until my recent trip to Spain.

I had heard ahead of time from a friend who lives in Madrid that "ham is MAJOR" in Spain but I guess I didn't put a much thought into it until I was actually there (that's me on the right at the Museum of Ham... I know). Now I should clarify that ham in Spain (and I imagine elsewhere in the world) is not like the deli ham or Honeybaked Ham you and your childhood self are used to. It is cured and therefore looks (and tastes to some degree) more like prosciutto. The most common type of ham in Spain is jamon iberico, which comes in varying levels of quality, the most expensive being from pigs that are fed only acorns their whole lives (boring diet, eh?). You should also be aware that the Spanish have a pretty gross habit of decorating their restaurants and bars with dozens of pig legs on display (see below).

Anyways... I went to Spain thinking I could try some tasty jamon iberico and call it a day. What I quickly found out is that the Spanish don't simply "like" ham - in many restaurants we went to it was literally the only meat on the menu. The other thing I found out is that ham and I had some exploring to do in our relationship - it was delicious!

So I asked around for the best place in Madrid to try the creme de la creme of the ham world: the acorn eating piggies (jamón ibérico de bellota). I learned that the perfect place for ham and I to take the next step in our relationship was Taberna Real, a bright and lively bar in central Madrid near the Royal Palace. From the minute we walked in, we knew we were headed for gastronomic glory: the floor was littered with garbage. (Apparently in much of Spain, it is considered proper etiquette to throw your napkin on the floor when you are done with it. We were told that "the more garbage there is on the floor, the better the food.")

We ordered up the good stuff and had a little afternoon ham-fest. The photo on the left is what we got (the bread served on the side is soaked in tomato puree and olive oil, also very popular in Spain).

We all agreed it was fabulous, and decided to adopt ham as our culinary traveling companion, ordering it at every city we visited and trying various types and combinations.

I'm not sure that ham and I will actually make a long term commitment, but we had some good times and I'll always remember it. At the very least, we'll always have Easter and Christmas.