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No Electricity Required

8/31/2014

Perfect for hot weather dinners

Found a great summer non-cooking dinner salad. Just in time for hot Bay Area weather this weekend. With tomatoes and lettuce from our garden.

The first time we made this, we used grilled chicken and somen rather than rice noodles, so we did cook. However, on no-cook weekend, the all-purpose Costco chicken and rice noodles will the the way to work it.

Shred pre-cooked chicken and hydrate the rice noodles in non-boiled water. The rest of it is chopping or tossing.

Eat outside and be happy. Click here for assembly instructions.

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What's Cooking This Week--Summer Tomatoes

8/25/2014

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Tomatoes and Basil. Christmas in August.

Oh how we love our summer tomatoes. Meaty heirlooms, juicy grapes, sweet 1-millions and the always-reliable Early Girls.

They make us forget those mealy, tasteless hothouse weaklings of December. This week is all about tomatoes.

Meatless and Stove-less Monday
Summer tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and basil, fresh mozzarella, and toasted asiago bread. Eaten outside, this is pretty much a perfect summer dinner.

Breakfast Tuesday
Portuguese sausage, hash browns and eggs. With a side of sliced tomatoes topped with Hawaiian salt and pepper.Tastes like home.

Lettuce and tomatoes in the same season!

Wednesday
Tofu Tuna Salad, using the grape tomatoes and fresh lettuce from Grandma and Grandpa's garden. How they can grow both tomatoes (a hot summer crop) and lettuce (a winter garden veggie) in the same Very Small Space is a mystery to me.

Thursday
Fattaneh's Persian Eggplant Thing, with fresh eggplants,
trying it meatless with the rest of the asiago bread, and Lemon Chicken with some fresh lemons we have too. It's a weird combination, but I'm thinking this will work out well.

Friday
Gyros with, wait for it, fresh tomatoes.

For all of us with kids going back to school--good luck with the supplies/bills/carpools/soccer practice/piano lessons/meal planning!

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Do Not Try This at Home #2

8/14/2014

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Ummm, nope.

When you try a lot of Fabulously Easy recipes from Pinterest and Facebook,the Epic Kitchen Failure is inevitable.

This time it was Rice Cooker Pancakes.

The Teenagers recently found a recipe for Rice Cooker Pancakes on Facebook. Pancake batter goes into the rice cooker, press the switch, and wait. Easy, right?

Wrong. So Very Wrong.

The rice cooker tab popped early, leaving a pancake that Was Not Cooked. At All. Teenager #1 proceeded to create an elaborate device involving an ice cream scoop, the coffee maker, and a wooden spoon to hold the tab down. Creativity in the kitchen.

When the pancake was deemed “cooked,” (I'm not sure how said Teenagers determined it was cooked) it failed to come out of the rice pot. Why? Because it was burnt and stuck to the bottom. Burnt. So Very Burnt.

The result? A thick-ish pancake with a very burnt bottom. Not particularly appetizing. Not even edible. But at least nothing caught on fire (See: Not Burning Down the House).

We think this was PhotoShop.

FULL DISCLOSURE
One of the Teenagers' friends managed to pull this off with Instagram worthy results (see left), so perhaps another trial is in order.

What say you, Ohana-ers?

Worth another shot?

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What's Cooking This Week--Mostly Asian

8/11/2014

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This is a weird food week.

Birdie #1 has some requests before heading back to school, namely home-cooked Asian food. And both birdies experienced that rite of passage known as Extracting One's Wisdom Teeth. That their parents chose to have this done back-to-back clearly shows that they lost both wisdom and teeth 'back in the day' when their own teeth were extracted.

In any case, the weekly menu reflects this confluence, but does not include Vicodin.

Meatless Monday
Somebody's Garden Pasta Salad. Vegetables from our hypothetical ohana garden. Penne tossed with tomatoes and cukes from our garden, shredded carrots from Safeway's garden and avocado, which, in theory, could be from my Mom's house. Mom reports that the avocado tree is just exploding with 'bambucha' avocados. Tossed with a pesto dressing and Parmesan cheese. Eaten outside, it was delicious and hearty.

Spring Roll Salad. Great Concept.

Experiments Tuesday
Spring Roll Salad. This dinner is starting from newspaper recipe with shrimp and we all know that we make substitutions in this house. Thinking this can be good. Also eaten outside.

Fish on Wednesday
Fish Jun. Birdie #1 has requested this before returning to school. Also eaten outside.

Yaki Thursday
Shoyu, sugar and vinegar are the power ingredients. Teriyaki Chicken, Yaki Musubi, and Namasu. This is the Make-a-Bad-Day-All-Better meal.

Meatless Friday
Tofu Steaks. Why? Because you can't grill tofu in the snow. A good enough reason for us. And eaten outside too. On a cool evening with very little humidity and zero snow.

Extras for those with varying degrees of chew-ability
Sticky Rice with Mangoes. Apparently you can eat this without chewing
Haupia
Odwalla Strawberry C Monster
In-n-Out milkshakes. Yes, we do treat our children occasionally.
Yogurt. And we make sure they a fed properly even without chewing
Ice cream
Hummus, because there is only so much sweetness that one of my kids can stand
Scrambled eggs/omelets
Tomato Soup, same as above. "Plus, who doesn't love tomato soup?!"

Have a good week all!

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Doughnut Research

8/4/2014

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Fresh peaches meet malasada.

Awhile back, we posted a little piece on the 21 Best Donut Shops in the US. Since we have many times professed our love for Leonard's (which made the list), we figured due diligence was in order during the major road trip through the Southeast.

We managed to go to Fox's Donut Den in Nashville. Then a little trip to Revolution. And then another one. And we were in Atlanta for two days.

Many people recommend the true blueberry and the salted caramel. We LOVED the yeast donuts--fluffy, fluff and fluffy.

Take a look at the menu below.

We tried toasted almond, salted caramel, the peach slider (twice), true blueberry, vanilla bean, raspberry sprinkle, lemon blueberry buttermilk, orange-pistachio, the apple fritter and the peanut-butter banana fritter. We like to be thorough in our research, and we also must thank the Very Nice Atlanta Lady, who kindly let the tourist family have the very last peach slider of the day.

Our favorites were all yeast style-->peach slider, orange-pistachio and the apple fritter.

Now the logistics.

They take credit cards and advance orders with a minimum of a dozen (not a baker's dozen). Be ready to stand in line and get there early because they do sell out (again, thank you to the nice Atlanta Lady!)

Definitely worth a trip. Or two. Or a habit if you are lucky enough to live in the area.

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No Electricity Required

What's Cooking This Week--Summer Tomatoes

Do Not Try This at Home #2

What's Cooking This Week--Mostly Asian

Doughnut Research

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