The Food Virgin Blog

Scrumptious Sorbet

2007-03-08T11:31:00.000-05:00

So, recently, I had way too much fruit in my fridge, so I decided to make sorbet. The only problem with this was that I don't have an ice cream maker. Never fear, though-- I found a recipe that was so easy, and didn't need one, and the result: Fabulous Strawberry Sorbet. "The best I've ever had!" declared my husband.

So the recipe is here: http://foodvirgin.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=677

I even will take a picture of it, it was so good (though, really, it will just look like any ordinary sorbet).

Bon Appetit!

Sodas of the World

2007-02-24T13:11:00.000-05:00

It's easy to talk about foods of the world and overlook the variety of drinks that are out there.

Personally, I'm not much for drinking alcohol, but I like a lot of different soda pop from all kinds of places. Here's my top 5:

Top 5 Soda Pops from Around the World

1) Ting- A Jamaican soda that tastes a lot like fizzy grapefruit juice. Similar to Fresca, a friend tells me.

2) Orangina- More genuinely orange flavoured than those crazy neon orange pops found in America, Orangina comes from Italy and has real orange pulp in it too. Kids, you might be able to convince your mom that it's healthy, like juice!

3) Mitsui Water- From Japan, Mitsui water sounds like something that you might put into a car, but don't-- it's a tasty variation of Sprite/7-Up: A bit lemon-limey, and clear, but slightly different. Yum!

4) Cream Soda- I prefer it white these days, but the pink one does bring me back to my childhood. It seems to be found in British commonwealth countries and America.

5) Ginger Beer- With more of a gingery kick than ginger ale, ginger beer's got the edge. Hailing from England, it's easy to find across SE Asia too. Probably because they know of the healing properties of ginger.

So... anything you like that I missed?

The most expensive dinner in the world?

2007-02-10T13:22:00.000-05:00

How much would you pay for a nice dinner? How about a really nice dinner? How about a dinner cooked by 6 3-star Michelin chefs from around the world?

15 people are spending a million Thai Baht ($35,000USD) for such a meal. I was happy to hear that the money will be going to charity (a good one too- Medicins sans Frontiers/Doctors without Borders), but others seemed to think it was an unnecessary extravagance. Here's the menu for the 11 course meal:

1) Creme brulee of foie gras with Tonga beans 1990 Louis Roederer Cristal

2) Tartar of Kobe beef with Imperial Beluga caviar and Belon oyster 1995 Krug Clos du Mesnil

3) Mousseline of "pattes rouges" crayfish with morel infusion 2000 Corton Charlemagne

4) "Tarte Fine" with scallops and black truffle 1996 Le Montrachet

5) Britanny lobster "Osso Bucco"1985 Romanee Conti

6) Risotto with white Alba truffles "Enoteca Pinchiorri" 1961 Chateau Palmer

7) Saddle of lamb "Leonel" 1959 Chateau Mouton Rothschild

8) Sorbet "Dom Perignon"

9) Supreme of pigeon en croute with Perigord truffles 1961 Chateau Haut Brion

10) 1955 Chateau LatourSelection of fine cheeses

11) Imperial gingerbread pyramid with caramel and salted butter ice-cream 1967 Chateau d'Yquem

I have to say that the wine pairings sound amazing, but for me, truth be told, I'm not much into eating things like pigeon or scallops. I don't even like caviar or lobster, really, so such a meal would be mostly wasted on me (or slipped onto my husband's plate when no one's looking).

That said, dessert sounds amazing.

If you could have a million dollar dinner, what would be served at it?

Recipe Mystery

2007-02-05T15:34:00.000-05:00

So there's this recipe I thought I lost. My not-quite-ex-mother-in-law gave it to me because she knew I loved her chicken wings. The only problem was, back when she gave it to me, 15 years ago, I didn't cook. Like, I didn't cook ANYTHING. But loving the recipe, I kept in anyway just in case one day I decided to try.

Fast forward 15 years to now, when I thought I'd lost the recipe. My husband has friends over for dinner and has brought home shrimp. For no apparently reason, he had bought these things, and had no plan of what to do with them, so I started to go through recipe books to look for something inspiring. I open a book I haven't seen for a while, and *wow!* there, taped into the front of it, is my long lost chicken wing recipe! Too cool!!!

So yesterday, I had the perfect conditions to try making them: Home alone, so I could experiment and not screw up anyone else's dinner if it all went wrong, and most of the ingredients.

There was just one problem: What this 'recipe' was, was a collection of ingredients, but no instructions on what to do with them. It was called 'Fried Chicken Wings', so I figured that some frying must be involved.

I decided to do the easiest thing: Mix everything together in a bowl, coat the wings with it, and then deep fry them.

I mixed everything as best I could. Two things were missing- thick soy sauce, and Chinese 5 spice. To make up for this, I added extra regular soy sauce and added each ingredient in 5 spice separately. All I had to do now, was just cook the wings into tasty perfection. Unfortunately, this is where it all started going wrong.

Problem #1: The oil heat was too high. As such, I charred the outside, but still had raw insides.

Problem #2: Did I mention the charred outsides? So to finish cooking the insides, I dipped them into more sauce and put them back into the fryer.

How did they taste? Well, like any charred chicken wings would, I guess. They did not seem anything like what I remember other than the fact that there was chicken involved.

So what's next in this saga? My plan is to try making the recipe again, according to the instructions of other Chinese chicken wing recipes I've found online. Most of them involve marinating the wing overnight, while other Asian recipes that fry stuff involves cooking them twice-- once to cook the meat, and then again after being dipped into a batter.

Stay tuned for the next update on how this goes.

T'is the Season... for Gingerbread Cookies!

2006-12-16T17:26:00.000-05:00

Why is gingerbread such a holiday-time food? Probably because you can shape it and decorate it into fun things. Last year, I made a gingerbread shack. I say 'shack', because my architectural measurements were done rather lacksidaisically, so when it came time to put up the structure on the plate, it was less like a perfect Amish barn raising, and more like building a shanty in a third world slum. Even the decorations didn't help. Ultimately, its only tenants were fruit flies.

Today, I tried to make my favourite gingerbread cookies. They are normally delicious and get rave reviews. Today, though, they stuck to the pan, so getting them off without breaking them was a challenge that has left my cookie sheet forever scarred. My plan is to bring them to a Christmas party tonight, and blame the broken ones on the bottom on breakage in transport. Hee Hee Hee! In all honesty, I think my problem today was a slight shortage of butter. They do say that baking is a science, and boy are 'they' ever right!

Happy holidays to you!

Here is the cookie recipe: Spice Sugar Cookies

Forgotten Recipes

2006-12-15T22:41:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else cook in cycles, or am I the only one who makes lots of one recipe for a while, and then move on to other things only to not make the recipe for a long time again?

Tonight I just made something that I haven't made in months- shashlik- and while it turned out fine, if I'd been in the habit of making it, I'd have remembered that I should have everything ready to go before starting to cook (yes, this is something that everyone learns in lesson 1 of Home Economics, but hey!). Anyhow, I'll probably remember to do so for the next little while, but that's only if I make shashlik again sometime soon.

Here's a link to the recipe:

SHASHLIK RECIPE

Maybe I'll add a note to myself so that I don't forget ingredients or key cooking tips! :-)

Seasonal Food

2006-12-10T12:59:00.000-05:00

A lot of the time, when someone talks about food being seasonal, we think of fruits and vegetables that only ripen at certain times of the year: Apples in the Fall, strawberries in early summer, peas in late June.

We do also have seasonal meats too, though. Spring lamb, turkey in the holiday season.

Are there meats that are eaten in your part of the world that are seasonal? Let us know here, or at the forum!

Holiday Cookies

2006-12-09T12:44:00.000-05:00

So, it's that Christmas/Hannukah/Hari Raya/New Year time of year, which could also be known as "Cookie Time!"

This year, in addition to making lots of apple crumble (try this recipe here: http://foodvirgin.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=183 , I'm about to move into Cinnamon Spice Cookie making mode. These are my signature cookie, if such a thing as a signature cookie exists. I think it does because I have another friend whose signature cookie is the traditional chocolate chip, which is also yummy.

To make my favorite cookie, use this recipe here, and follow the undercooking instructions (I think 9 mins is enough usually).

Anyone else got holiday cookie recipes they'd like to share?

Real Mexican Food

2006-12-04T14:36:00.000-05:00

So, you think you've had Mexican food, right? Ground beef tacos a la Taco Bell, or maybe you've gone all out and splurged at a Fresh Mex at the mall.

Well, brace yourself, because coming next is an article about what to expect when eating real Mexican food-- the kind you'd find if you made a run for the border, and actually crossed it. Get ready for lots of tips on seafood, what 'mole' really means, and whether huitlacoche is as gross as it sounds.

http://www.foodvirgin.com

New Forum Sections

2006-11-29T06:01:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone~

Well, it's finally here: The new and improved Food Virgin Forum! For a while now, I've wanted to create better sections for the forum so that all the topics aren't just lumped in together ad hoc. And now, you can finally go there and find distinct sections. One for general topics and comments, one for recipes, and one for international dining etiquette. Hopefully, this will keep everything organized, so that visitors can find what they're looking for more easily.

Happy posting! Food Virgin Forum

Food Stockpile

2006-11-26T19:02:00.000-05:00

When's the last time you cleaned out your pantry?

For me, that question didn't come soon enough. We have such easy access to fresh ingredients from our local supermarket, deli, and Wholefoods that we tend to ignore all of the items lining our pantry. It's an incredibly well-stocked area, thanks to my husband's 'stockpile' mentality. He's not quite as bad as the end-of-the-world types who have five years' worth of canned beans and tuna at the ready, but he's not far off.

For the most part, this is fine. It's nice to have another bottle of ketchup at the ready when we give up pounding on the bottom of the current one and chuck it out. Unfortunately, I discovered the downside of this stockpiling two days ago... on Thanksgiving.

I had decided to make apple crumble for dessert and add oatmeal to the recipe. So, there I am, assembling the ingredients, and when it's time to add the oats, I pick up the container, open it up, and "AAAAUUGGHHH!!!" There was a whole ecosystem of bugs in there!! So gross. So I threw that out, and thought, "Well.. this is where it comes in handy to have a stockpile of food in the pantry!"

Smugly, I picked up the spare container of oatmeal, fully sealed as it had never been opened before. I peeled back the plastic, plucked open the lid, and, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" THIS one was even worse than the first!! There seriously were at least 3 different kinds of creatures in there.

Luckily, my recipe didn't call for oatmeal- it was just something I was thinking would be nice to add. I did, nonetheless, decide to add 'cleaning the pantry out' to my list of things to do this weekend. Sure enough, there were weevils in the rice, some of the noodles, ant critters in the popcorn (don't know how they got through the plastic, but they did!), and one fat spider enjoying it all.

The moral of the story: Don't keep too much stuff in the pantry that you never use!

Next, we'll be tackling the freezer. Does anyone know how long is too long for meat left in the freezer? :-)

What to eat for Thanksgiving?

2006-11-22T22:59:00.000-05:00

Sick of eating turkey on Thanksgiving? Try some other kind of meat. Here are some options:

Goose- You can find this at Wholefoods, along with duck, cornish game hens and various cuts of turkey (not whole ones, so you don't have months of leftovers).

Roast a leg of lamb- Popular in Australia and the Middle East, lamb makes a nice change from roast beef. Or if you want less meat, roast a rack or two of lamb ribs.

Ham- Pop 'the other pink meat' into your oven. And the leftovers will make for tastier sandwiches than turkey, let's be honest.

Whatever you decide, have fun cooking and happy Thanksgiving!

Best Fish Fingers- EVER!

2006-11-19T14:30:00.000-05:00

Are you a landlubber who thinks they hate fish? I used to be. Here's a suggestion of some fish to try: Grouper. Why? When it's fresh, it's got a nice, gentle taste that would be hard for anyone to hate- definitely as mellow as chicken. Here's my latest grouper-eating tale:

So, we're at a hotel in the Bahamas that's just opened, and their kitchen isn't properly running yet. "We can make some crab cakes or fish fingers," the Manager says. Being no huge fan of crab cakes, my mind goes to fish fingers, but the fish fingers I envisioned were the frozen kind that I grew to dislike as a kid-- dry, fishy, and breaded in a coating that was mostly flavored with salt. Bleah. The Manager then explained that the fish choice was grouper, and that it was fresh. Yum!

These fish fingers were the tastiest ever! Basically, they were what any fish lover would want when eating fish and chips- moist, flaky white fish in a crisp and light breading! What's not to like? Fresh seafood dishes like this were a wonderful staple we found throughout the Bahamas and will most certainly keep us coming back.

P.S. For those of you who are wondering whether I tried conch, I actually chose not to because when I last had it, my lips started to swell, giving me the inkling that I might be allergic. Next time I go, though, I'll try to get my hands on a conch shell.

What's on your french fries?

2006-11-18T22:17:00.000-05:00

OK, so I was in the Bahamas this week, and excited about trying new food. At one restaurant, I ordered their grouper and fries. When the food came, the waitress asked me, "Do you want mango ketchup with that?" Frankly, it sounded a bit weird, but knowing that I like mango chutney on Indian pappadums, I said, "Sure!"

Well, what came out was golden colored with specks, and pretty runny. I dipped a fry into a pool I'd created on my plate and popped it in my mouth. It was sweet and cinnamon tasting, like a dessert! Very odd.

Watch this space for a report on mango chutney that I bought at a Bahamian general store.

Exciting times for foodies!

2006-11-03T18:36:00.000-05:00

For anyone who hasn't stumbled upon it yet, Yahoo! has a new food area, called... yes, Yahoo! Food. It's mostly made up of content supplied by Martha Stewart (a lot of her video clips), Food and Wine magazine articles and recipes, and user-supplied Q&A. There are also blogs from food bloggers I'm not familiar with. I'm wondering if as they spread the section to their sites for other countries whether they'll need content there. It could be an interesting revenue-sharing opportunity.

Eating Indian

2006-10-27T19:04:00.000-04:00

If you haven't checked out the newest Food Virgin column, found here: http://www.foodvirgin.com/columns/Indian.htm, then go ahead and read all about eating Indian food.

One interview snippet that didn't make it past the final edit was Chef Milind's outlook on eating: "No cuisine is bad; all food is good!" He said this in regard to the various types of Indian food served across the nation, but it could apply planet-wide.

Another quote I liked: "Cuisine exists in people's hearts, minds, tastebuds..." This is so true, though I wish it wasn't also true that it seems to exist on my hips and waistline too. ;-)

Hope you enjoy the article!

Too hot outside? Have a ball!

2006-07-23T10:08:00.001-04:00

These ice cream maker balls have been around for a while, but it seemed like a good thing to mention right now because it's hot and kids are still out of school. Why not give them something fun (and yummy) to do with one of these:

Ice Cream Ball

They seem like a great way to get kids involved with preparing food. Even if you don't have kids, it looks more fun than a regular ice cream maker.

New Q&A Section Additions

2006-07-19T10:14:00.000-04:00

Hi Food Virgins! Check out the new Q&A section of The Food Virgin (http://www.foodvirgin.com/qanda.htm). It has expanded to cover food from around the globe, by continent! Enjoy, and feel free to ask a question of your own!

food virgin

Coming soon- The Food Virgin Podcasts!

2006-06-26T17:19:00.000-04:00

Too lazy to type? Not near a computer? Ask your burning dining question to The Food Virgin anyways!

Now, you can send her your questions and comments by phone- from any phone! Details are in this audio post:

When asked for a phone number, spell out 'FOOD VIRGIN' on your telephone keypad, and for a password, press 'FOOD'. We look forward to 'hearing' from you!

New Article on French Haute Cuisine

2006-06-26T14:22:00.000-04:00

The new article on French Haute Cuisine is up! Find it here: http://www.foodvirgin.com/columns/FrenchHaute.htm

Bon appetit!

New Q&A section at FoodVirgin.com

2006-06-20T11:46:00.000-04:00

Check out the new Q&A section at The Food Virgin's main site. It is now divided by continent and you can ask a question right from the page.

Mmm... chocolate chip banana bread.

2006-05-24T14:44:00.000-04:00

Bananas and chocolate. Put them together in any combination and it's hard to go wrong. Recently, though, we descovered a banana bread recipe that we just can't keep around (mysterious 'guests' keep inviting themselves around and the whole cake just disappears).
Found over at the classically Hot Epicurious.com site, we really didn't have to make any serious amendments to it (though we did skip the walnuts, because, let's face it- there's no fun in walnuts).
If you've never been to Epicurious, check it out. And be sure to read the user reviews too: Sometimes the tips to turn something great into truly amazing are there.

Food Virgin Forum

2006-05-18T10:35:00.000-04:00

If you've ever wondered what kind of restaurants might be good to bring kids to, or how different a cuisine is that you've never tried, check out the Food Virgin forum. There are poll answers and tips from Food Virgins all over the world.

http://foodvirgin.com/phpbb/index.php

Asian Restaurant Survey

2006-05-12T14:24:00.000-04:00

If you're in Asia, or have been there to eat, take place in Chubby Hubby's Asian Restaurant survey. Vote for your favourites, as well as what you think is the best in your home country or the countries you frequently visit.

You can send an email to him at: aun at chubbyhubby dot net.

Welcome to the Food Virgin RSS Feed!

2006-04-19T18:29:00.000-04:00

Welcome to The Food Virgin RSS Feed! Sign up for it to receive regular updates, or click here to go to the home of The Food Virgin. Right now, the latest article is all about Thai Food.

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