Apartment Update and Stir Fry!

Hi Guys!

Sorry my posts are so few and far between!  Classes, homework and apartment life are taking more of my time then I thought they would!

I have a few posts planned (Sweet Cheeks BBQ in Fenway, and a few Apartment Recipes) that I hope to get to soon.  In the meantime, I wanted to tell you that I tried cooking stir fry!

I followed the recipe by The Pioneer Woman for Beef with Snow Peas.  

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/10/beef-with-snow-peas/

Since I hadn't made stir fry before I tried to follow this recipe as closely as possible; which meant I only added garlic to the sauce and some broccoli to the stir fry!  And since I don't have sherry, I also used just a small amount of vegetable broth in its place.  

It was fantastic!  I followed the recipe and cooked the snow peas first, in a pan that was "hotter than Hades".  The peas fried and popped and looked more like fried shishito peppers than peas; but that was fine by me!

Shishito peppers courtesy of http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/diaryofafoodie/2008/01/shishitopeppers

I cut up the flank steak while the pan heated, and when I threw it on the frying pan it started popping and bubbling furiously!    When I finally finished cooking the meat and had added all the vegetables and leftover sauce to the pan, I cooked some rice and ate right away!  

Even though I used small portions of beef, broccoli and peas, I had enough for 2+ meals!

The final product!

Besides having to avoid some hot oil and the mess that my short pan caused, this meal was easy and quick!  Not to mention delicious!   It was so good I made it again with chicken!  

And carrots...and more broccoli...and more garlic...and more snow peas....

I tip my hat to The Pioneer Woman on a delightful recipe!

Apartment Recipe #1: Rainbow Chili

Today marks the completion of the first week of class.  Yay!   It also marks my first week of having an apartment!  So even though the purpose of Terrier Bites was to review restaurants, I am not eating out as much as I was last year.  I'm cooking for myself!  It's time-consuming and challenging, but I love cooking, so it isn't too bad.

When I opened the fridge to figure out what I wanted for dinner tonight, I saw that I had ground beef and flour tortillas, so I immediately though tacos! Unfortunately I had not taco mix!   I went onto the allrecipes website and found this one:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/taco-seasoning-i/ and right away started pulling out ingredients.   My kitchen is not well-stocked yet, so I decided I would make do, so no chili, paprika, garlic, or onion powder.  I don't like cumin or oregano, so those were out too.  I did have red pepper flakes, sea salt, black pepper, and actual onions and garlic though!

As I was mincing half an onion and three cloves of garlic, I saw I had some tomatoes too.  I decided to throw those into my taco mix.  I chopped the tomato into quarter inch squares while the garlic and onions simmered on the stove, and put those in the pot too.  Since tomatoes are so full of moisture, I turned up the heat and tried to boil it off, as I added in some (less than a teaspoon each) red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.  

Then I started cooking the ground beef in a frying pan, making sure to break it up with a spatula.   As it cooked, my taco seasonings simmered along but the liquid didn't reduce all the way.    I had to cook my beef half a pack at the time since my frying pan was small, so once the first half was finished cooking, I poured it into my onion-tomato mixture.

And that I when I had a change of heart.  I decided that it was time to make chili.  I had carrots and celery in the fridge, and a can of tomato soup in the cupboard.  I chopped up the carrots and celery, tossed that and the other half of the cooked ground beef in the pot and poured in the tomato soup.  (Side note, I should have let the celery and carrots simmer, they were still a little crunchy when the chili was done.)

The tomato soup was really thin, so I added some flour to thicken it.   The soup was made to just be thrown into the microwave and then eaten, so not a typical really thick "add a can of water" and then boil soup.  I added maybe a quarter cup of flour, just enough so that it didn't pour like water when I spooned some out.  I knew it was going to boil down and thicken, so I kept the flour additions to a minimum.  As it boiled down, I added more seasonings (pepper, red pepper flakes, salt, and even a little parsley) I let it boil and cook down for about another half hour, then I poured some into a bowl, covered it with thin cheddar cheese slices, and ate it!

As it cooked it was very colorful; red tomato sauce, green celery, orange carrots, brown meats... well you get the picture.  Anyway, I dubbed it Rainbow Chili and here's the recipe!  These amounts are all approximate, since I just did it to taste and consistency.

Please excuse the paper bowl!

Rainbow Chili

Serves approximately 3 (fills a 1.25 quart pot)

1/2 onion-finely chopped/minced
3 garlic cloves-minced
1 Roma tomato-finely chopped
1 long carrot-chopped
1 stick of celery-chopped
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes (to taste)
2 teaspoons sea salt (to taste)
2 teaspoons black pepper (to taste)
0.9 lb 85% lean ground beef
1 can tomato soup
1/4 cup flour (or as needed)
Cheddar cheese slices (for topping)



Add chopped onion, garlic, tomato, carrot, celery, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper to a pot.  Sauté until soft.  While that simmers, cook the beef in a separate frying pan, chopping with the spatula until fully cooked.  Add the cooked beef to the pot then pour in the tomato soup.  Stir and heat until boiling.  Add flour if necessary to thicken the chili; once thickened, pour into bowls and cover with thin slices of cheese.  Enjoy!

Tazo Is Stuck In My Crawdad

Hello readers!  Today is the first Stuck In My Crawdad (SIMC) post!  Since this is a food blog, I’ll try to keep all the SIMC posts food-related in one sense or another.  Today’s SIMC is about Tazo Tea. 

My first disclaimer is that I love love love Tazo, and this post isn’t really about the tea itself. It’s about the new packaging.  I first tried Tazo more than eight years ago.   I was visiting Montana with my mom, and we had a busy day planned so we were up early to enjoy the hotel’s continental breakfast.  We both tried the green-bagged Tazo Refresh tea.  It was an instant hit! The refresh was so… Refreshing! Since then we have tried many flavors of Tazo Tea, and we love each one.  More recently, my favorite has been Awake, the Tazo equivalent to English Breakfast Tea. I still drink the others, but when I have the choice between say, Vanilla Apricot (delicious!) and Awake… Nine times out of ten I’ll drink Awake. 

I hadn’t purchased any Tazo since they redesigned their teabags for their twenty-year celebration.  When I purchased the new box I noticed that the exterior had changed.  It was pretty, and I thought nothing of it.  Once I got home I saw that the box wasn’t the only change. The paper folder holding the teabag had been modified too.  What was once boldly red was now white.   The standout black background for the TAZO name was now black letters on a white background.  The new design kept the red, but only as a wave design along the bottom.  

Here’s my problem with the new design, because I will admit, though it isn’t as bold as the previous one, it is a tasteful, pretty design; if you are a Tazo lover like me, you can’t identify one teabag from another! 

A hat tip to Ebay user silver9amg for collecting this much Tazo!

    The original design wasn’t colored that was just to be boring!  Passion was purple, Awake was red, Refresh was green etc.  Now to identify the teabag I want at-a-glance I have to be psychic, manage to have the names exposed in the cupboard, or have my teabags upside-down!  Storing the teabags upside-down would be a pain because of the pressed top: they wouldn’t be able to support the teabag and would fall over. I have so much tea that it is a problem to try to fit all the teabags at different levels, and would waste valuable tea-storing space!   And though I feel psychic at times, the majority of times I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.  At first blush not being able to tell which tea is which doesn’t seem so inconvenient, but think about keeping the cupboard stocked with tea!  Before the appearance change, there was a rainbow of Tazo teas, after the change has a sea of white bags.  Keeping stock of teabags will require more than just glancing in the cupboard and seeing one red bag as opposed to ten purples.  Now it needs attention, how many Awake have I used?  How many are in a box?  

20 bags in a box.

            The new Tazo design is a slight inconvenience; it really sticks in my crawdad.

~Ashley~