earth food

Ingredients: Olive Oil Campbell's™ Chicken Gravy in a pop-top can Great Value™ chopped garlic Italian Seasoning [herbs] Kroger brand tomato paste Aquafina water Walmart frozen chicken breasts Brummel & Brown™ yogurt/vegetable oil spread Process: First the sauce: in a skillet, brown garlic in olive oil add herbs to olive oil while put olive oil/garlic/herb mixture in into a saucepan with tomato paste, gravy, and water to form the sauce(half liter of water for one small can of tomato paste) heat sauce in the saucepan and reduce to a simmer set this aside [perhaps on a very low heat] until the chicken and pasta are ready. Cooking the chicken breast: Fortunately, we thought ahead and thawed the chicken breast while we were making the sauce. Use the same skillet as the herbs started out in - add more olive oil and heat it up to frying temp for the chicken. Add more chopped garlic. Cook the chicken in garlic and olive oil. ...

Original Instant Garlic Toast™ If you have a pop-up toaster handy, and some of that garlic juice in a pump-spray bottle, and some extra virgin olive oil, Original Instant Garlic Toast™ is within your grasp, and just moments away. Simply: Toast some bread Spread some olive oil on the toast Spray the oiled toast with some garlic juice Logical standard substitutions and variations apply - for example: butter, Brummel & Brown™ 30% yogurt spread, or other types of oils may serve in place of the extra virgin olive oil Different types of bread should be tried we would like to try this will walnut oil and sourdough bread margarine is Evil, even if tasty - use it only at your peril and if you can't get any other ingredient for the oil layer you can use an oven for this, but it takes longer - arguably, use of an oven contra-indicates the use of the term "Instant" However, if you want cheese on your garlic toast, forgoing the "Instant...

The WikiHow site publishes some interesting practical and semi-practical instructions on how to do many common tasks - this week they have one called How to Organize a Kitchen . While the article overlooks those of us who are rigging makeshift kitchen's in hotel rooms, station wagons, homes without electrical power, and so on, it is a reasonably good article with some basic advice like "don't locate the spice rack near a heat source" that might be extrapolated for people who are living outside the kitchen-owning mainstream of netizens. The WikiHow site is in general "not bad" for a .com site - there's a lot of practical stuff there - a bit like the stuff that used to come thru Hints from Heloise or other practical, homemaker-type syndicated newspaper features...

I stopped at the Country Pride restaurant at the TA in Bloomington, IL . This entry is posted from their dining room, which is a really great spot - AC power, WiFi from the [new] TA wireless services - TA SpeedZone WiFi Since I still wasn't really, really hungry, and since it is generally better to eat smaller meals, more often, and infrequent large meals, I seized on the opportunity to get some oatmeal - Country Pride offers a breakfast called "Smart Start" which is a bowl of oatmeal with fresh fruit [seasonal] and coffee - I also ordered a side of wheat toast. The server was great - went and asked what sort of fruit was available, then asked me how I wanted the oatmeal - and she got it perfect - I was relieved that this is not "instant oatmeal" - I believe it was "quick oats" and she managed to get it just about exactly the consistency I make it when I make it myself. Really excellent. The oatmeal comes with a little pitcher of milk, and a pl...

Iowa 80 Truckstop bills itself as "the largest truckstop in America"   Well, They will need more than "biggest" to get me to stop there again - as it stands now, I won't waste my time going in there again. There is a TA (TransAmerica) logo on the side of the building, so I expected them to have at least WiFi and a decent buffet (the East Columbus [Hebron] TA on I-70 in Ohio has a really excellent buffet, WiFi , and plugins for the laptop at most tables. Unfortunately, Iowa 80 has none of these. I was very disapointed in Iowa 80 Truckstop Kitchen (the main restraunt - there are several fast food places in the building, as well - I didn't try those - in retrospect, perhaps I should have hit the Taco Bell). The cost was $12.xx for a crappy buffet and a cup of coffee, The buffet didn't have much selection. The meatloaf and mac'n'cheese weren't too awful, but there was no butt of beef roast to carve chunks off from (as with the East Colum...

A Simple yet tasty meal. Brummel & Brown [i] yogurt spread, honey if you want sweet. The preparation here is simple: make the coffee, swab the bread in the dish of spread, and [optionally] squirt some honey on it. Yum. The bread in question here is pumpernickel rye from the SuperTarget bakery [ target.com ]. In fact, all the ingredients came from the SuperTarget, since it's right up the street... Also used in the preparation of this meal - Melitta coffee filters, Starbucks coffee (Sumatran, "cone ground"), Nestle CoffeeMate [powdered] non-dairy creamer, Ice Mountain spring water, and the RTH brand hot pot [i] from CVS Pharmacy . The Archer Farms Blueberry Honey ["Archer Farms" is a Target store brand] pictured in the Picasa gallery looks cool, and isn't bad, but doesn't taste much like blueberries - apparently the honey is made by bees who are feeding on blueberry plant blossoms or something - it's not blueberry flavored ...

Ordered from Lee's Egg Roll House: chicken & mushrooms, spicy with garlic; an extra pint of white rice (the chicken came with a half pint of rice); and spicy noodles. This order cost something like $12 and change (tip to delivery guy not included). There was enough food there for two meals. They sent 2 Styrofoam plates, about 6 plastic forks, two plastic spoons, 2 plastic packets of Panda soy sauce, two plastic packets of Panda hot mustard, and one fortune cookie. The "spicy noodle" was $2.99 and was what appeared to be ramen noodle soup. Not bad, but something we could probably make in the microwave for - say $1 if we got the high end ramens... The mushrooms were nothing special, and in fact seemed a little tough, but the spiciness was right, and the chicken was good, although it was breaded. There is no tofu or bean curd on the menu. When I called I asked them about it, and they just said "no", they didn't have it. There is some sushi on t...

Ingredients: 1 pkg organic extra firm tofu 1 pkg uncle ben's pre-cooked wild rice thai peanut sauce "rooster" chili sauce some chili oil I found in target chopped garlic some powdered ginger root mixed with sake (about an oz) Directions: put the tofu, oil, peanut sauce, chili sauce, garlic, and galanga mixture into a bowl and microwave it for 2 minutes (time may vary) when the tofu finishes, put the package of rice in for 90 seconds (don't forget to open the top of it, or it makes a disturbing 'pop' sound at about 63 seconds into the cook cycle :D) when the rice is done, put it in the bowl with the tofu, stir it up (w/ chopsticks) enjoy! This is basically another one of my "meal-in-a-bowl" specialties - quite tasty! It would be good with some chicken or beef broth, too, but I only have 1 liter cartons of those, and didn't want to open one, since I'll be leaving before I could use it up, and the weather is ...

Powdered ginger root and sake makes a good sauce - just put some powdered ginger root in a bowl or cup and moisten it with the sake; add sake and mix thoroughly tp get all the lumps out - add sake and stir until a desired consistency is achieved. This turned out to be a good way to apply powdered ginger to a dish of rice, egg, and beef broth. Other seasonings used were chopped garlic, a mixture of chili-sesame oil and olive oil, and soy sauce. The entire recipe went like this: In a ceramic (microwavable) bowl, combine cooked rice, beef broth, two raw eggs, oils, and chopped garlic "to taste" Use a chopstick to poke the yolks on the the eggs (this keeps them from exploding in the microwave) Microwave on high for a few minutes (how long will depend on your microwave and how much rice and broth you're using - 1500W microwave for 3 minutes should work - this works better if you cover the bowl) While the bowl is in the microwave, mix the the ginger sauce - You...

Well, we decided to try out something new that was (apparently) dropped off by the mothership in time for our recent visit to the store - a 'microwave rice cooker'. Unfortunately, this device failed catastrophically 'out of the box' - on the first try. Pictured below are the results. The full album (linked from Picasa) tells the rest of the story, in pictures. From MicrowaveRice...

Ingredients that go in many things: flour tortillas ("fajita size") hot chili sauce powdered ginger root dried chopped chives extra virgin olive oil sesame oil chili oil tofu soy sauce thai peanut sauce sea salt tuna salmon chicken eggs soy milk candy cookies honey rice seasoning sushi rice wild rice oatmeal garlic dried fruit bits soy sauce mushrooms cheese hummus bread Brand names we use: Aquafina Bolthouse Farms Sriracha (chili sauce) Kikoman Brachs Worthington Mission Brand (tortillas) Melitta Botan (Calrose Rice) Myojo (Udon) Dynasty (sesame oil, maifun) Tabasco Cheerios American Spirit Tobacco Top cigarette filter tubes Rizzla cigarette tube packing device Bic Zippo Orient White Tea w/ mardarin orange Sun-Maid (dried fruit) Star-Kist (tuna in oil) Chicken of the Sea (salmon) Zatarain's (cooked, packaged rice) Brummel & Brown's Yogurt Spread Equipment: ...

Take two vegelinks - the kind from Worthington - put them in the microwave (together) for 40 seconds. Slice some cheese thinly Place each link in a flour tortilla While the links are still hot, put the sliced cheese on the links Add some taco bell fire sauce to each Wrap the tortilla around the link, cheese, and sauce Enjoy!

Ginger - Zingiber officinale by Steven Foster is a monograph on ginger - what it is, it's history, some traditional uses from different cultures, and some modern lore. References are included.

From the Earth Food Labs: Using a rice cooker (test model was a Black and Decker model from Walmart) to cook maifun. pour the entire contents of a 0.5 liter (16.9oz) bottle of water (Aquafina) into the rice cooker Switch the rice cooker on (i.e. plug it in and move the switch to the 'Cook' position). Once the water starts to bubble, add the entire contents of a 6.75oz (191g) package of Dynasty Maifun Rice Sticks. Place the lid on the rice cooker and wait for it to switch to "Warm". The maifun are ready to eat. It may help to remove the lid now and then and break the mainfun apart e.g. with a pair of chopsticks - making sure to stir them down into the water. Ideally, the rice cooker should switch to 'Warm' mode once the water is cooked out - whereupon the noodles are ready to be removed from cooker. Notes: In all tests, the water was absorbed into the noodles as they cooked, so there was no need to drain the noodles after cooking. In...