An eater's manual

As you may have noticed in my sidebar, I have added some links and the third one down is titled "Food Rules" by Michael Pollan. I actually own the book, which I bought at the college book store over a parody book of a popular piece of work, and I must say it's a very good read for anyone who loves food and/or is going on a diet.

There's four sections, including the introduction, that talk about the "rules of food"

"What should I eat?" -- Eat food.
"What kind of food should I eat?" -- Mostly plants.
"How should I eat?" -- Not too much.

The link below the one to "Food Rules" is to another one of Michael Pollans books, "In Defense of Food", which came before "Food Rules"

I really do suggest "Food Rules" for anyone and everyone seeing as since my mother has read it, her thought process in what we need from the market has changed pretty drastically. Now, as the book suggests, even if you read it you can or should only take one rule from each section of the book.

Even if you don't change your eating habits, you'll be surprised at what you find out.

Happy eating everyone!

BokChoy and Rice.

^{Bok Choy Image by Urban Talk}
BokChoy, or Chinese Cabbage as it may be known in the normal supermarket, is one of my favorite vegetables. It's got this bitter flavor that isn't too strong but when cooked correctly it can be delicious. I suggest trying to find an Asian Food Market near you that sells Baby BokChoy because they are usually much cheaper to buy in a group bag than buying one giant head of Bokchoy at the local supermarket.

A week or so ago after going to the Hana Asian Market down in the valley where I bought some BokChoy, I was hungry and I remembered some left over rice we had from our stir fry from the weekend. So I decided to make myself something that was filled with veggies.

Ingredients;
2 Heads of Baby BokChoy
1 small head of Broccoli
6~7 Baby Carrots or 1~2 normal carrots
About a tablespoon of butter
About 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water
Soy Sauce
1 Cup [or more if you want it] of Rice [any kind, I used white]

Directions:
1- First make sure that all of your veggies are clean, I need to emphasize this because at a local buffet where I first had bokchoy, they didn't clean it completely and I found a ladybug in my food.
2- Slice the Bokchoy in half and then cut it into slivers as small as you'd like. I personally cut each 'leaf' in half. Chop up the Broccoli so you have the florets [the flowering part] and the stem if you like the fibrous section of it. I suggest adding it in because it is good for you. Then chop the carrots into about 1/4th inch sized circles.
3- Grab a pan, preferably a sauté pan, put the butter, water and as much soysauce as you'd like into it and put it on medium. Wait for the butter to melt, stir it slightly before adding the veggies.
4- Put a lit onto the pan so everything can steam and wait 4~6+ minutes depending on how large you cut everything. The time can be shorter if you like more crunch to your veggies or longer if you like them to be mush.
5- Once the veggies are done to your liking, add the rice and mix it up!
6- Taste it, add salt and pepper [or more soysauce. I suggest adding the soysauce first if it needs more soy and salt if you're using normal Kikkoman Soy] to your taste and enjoy!

Alterations on Classics : Stir Fry

^{Stir-fry image by domestifluff}
By now almost everyone knows what a stir-fry is and pretty much knows what goes into one.
Meat
Veggies
and Rice.

But that can get very boring very quickly when you live in a family of four and you try and change your weekly eating habits every so often so everything doesn't just run together into one big sloppy mess.

So last friday my dad and I decided to change up our usual stir-fry.

He made it like usual, but used some Chicken Breast that was on sale and the 'European' blend of frozen vegetables over the Oriental ones [my sister loaths onions and the oriental style veggies has onions] but the one major thing we changed up was the starch.

Thats right, we didn't use rice!

We used Rice noodles.

Thing is, Rice noodles have a specific flavor to them that not everyone likes so my mother was quite disgruntled by the fact we used rice noodles over normal rice.

Baking: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Cant get your kids to eat carrots because they love sweets? Well the Carrot Cake is your answer!
Sweet, Delicious, and you can get at least half of your daily dose of vegetables from it!
This recipe is a mix of two that I found; one from a cook book in my kitchen and one from food network.
Many of the recipes had either yogurt, pineapple, raisins, or some other weird combo that made it sound unappetizing so I mixed one that was just carrots, cake batter and walnuts.

Carrot Cake Recipe
1 Cup of Sugar
3/4ths a Cup of Brown Sugar, packed down
2 Cups of All Purpose flour.
1 Teaspoon of salt, preferably not Kosher salt.
2 and 1/2 Teaspoons of Cinnamon
1/4th a Teaspoon of Nutmeg
1 Teaspoon of Ground Clove
1/2 Teaspoon of Allspice
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of Baking Soda [or bicarbonate of soda]
1 and 1/2 cups of Canola/Vegetable Oil [can be substituted for Apple Sauce]
4 Eggs, room temperature to help with mixing.
3 and 1/2 cups of Carrots, Grated [3~4 Carrots depending on the size]
1 Cup of Chopped Walnuts

Directions
This is in the order of how I did things;
1. Mix the dry ingredients [flour, sugar, baking soda, spices] with the oil, stir to mix.
2. Peel and Grate the Carrots.
3. Chop the walnuts.
4. Add in the four eggs one at a time. Once mixed, add in the Carrots and Walnuts.
5. Before mixing the Carrots and Walnuts in, Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
6. Grease and flour a 13x9 Pan. [Note: If your using Arisol spray, make sure you keep the can sprayer pointed down unless you want a mouthful or arisol. Turn the pan to do this.]
7. Pour the cake batter into the pan and bake at 350F for 60~70 Minutes.
8. Once done, Put on a Cooling Rack or you can keep it in the pan.
9. Let it cool before you add the icing.

Cream Cheese Icing
What Carrot cake is complete without the icing?

Recipe
4 Ounces of unsalted Butter [a little more than one stick], Make sure its room temperature!
4 Ouncess of Cream cheese [Room temp as well]
2 Cups of Sugar
1 Teaspoon if Vanilla Extract.

Directions
1. Beat the Butter and Cream Cheese with a Mixer [electric or otherwise, electric saves your hands.]
2. Once beaten, put the mixer on low and add the sugar and vanilla Extract.
3. Once it has completely been mixed together, slather and smooth it over the carrot cake.
4. Enjoy!