A food sorting adventure...

While one sister was sorting her treasures in Massachusetts for a yard sale, the other sister was sorting through her thoughts in NJ. With my weekend plans cancelled due to too much craziness, I had a Saturday to spend on my own, with my thoughts and two new recipes.

I don't know where my obsession with trying a 'fish taco' came from, but I was on the hunt. And I thought "how hard could it be?". So with a Rachel Ray recipe in hand, I was off to the store for the ingredients. There are 3 major components to this recipe: the grilled fish (mahi mahi), the red cabbage slaw and the black bean paste. Don't underestimate the black bean paste, it is the glue that makes this taco sing! The assembly was a bit unique but right up my alley - I don't eat tacos because in one bite you are covered with taco fixings. This taco has a soft tortilla, covered in black bean glue which is then attached to the hard taco shell. Into the shell goes the warm grilled fish (flaked) and it's topped with red cabbage slaw and a dollop of creme fraiche! So each bite contained all the flavors, the taco stayed together and was not a big mess. YUM!

My other recipe today was Blueberry cookie bars - this one is a winner also because its a basic. It required the heavy baking artillery, the cuisinart was out and pulsing the crust and crumble. Essentially, this is a butter and flour based crumble with almonds that is pressed into a baking dish, covered in blueberry preserves and then sprinkled with the remaining crust crumbs. You could switch out the nuts to walnuts and you could easily use another preserve or make your own preserve. I wish I had remembered to sprinkle a little cinnamon on the top (my addition) to warm up the topping.

So at the end of this long day, the Massachusetts sister is tired from working in her treasures and the NJ sister is tired from working in her kitchen. Both feel rewarded from a hard day's work! And that's a good thing.

Enjoy the photos. Bon Appetit (sorry, Julia)

Two new experiments!

On a rare Sunday, the two hip sisters were actually in the same kitchen and performed 2 separate recipe experiments.

First, to use up leftover, slightly stale french bread, we made french toast out of the french bread, using a simple batter of eggs, milk, vanilla and cinnamon, just like mom used to make. We topped this with real maple syrup from Massachusetts and a light dusting of powdered sugar. Yum. Even the kids liked the small pieces that could be dipped in the syrup.

Second, we experimented with 'churro bites'. We used a churro mix and a pancake batter dispenser to make 'donut hole' size churro bites...a quick run through hot oil and voila! We then mixed up the white sugar and organic sugar with cinnamon - the taste test proved the organic sugar was better (2 small children voted) we then mixed up the spices with using Chinese 5 spice and Cardomom. We loved the Chinese 5 spice!

We are now off to find churro recipes so we can try this from scratch and make them our own.

A beginning....

It has to start somewhere, right? Starting tomorrow, I am vowing to cook a brand new type of food each day. Perhaps it will be popovers (never done that), or fiddle-heads (a what?). But I am going to break out of my culinary doldrums and try something new! The kids may not enjoy it, I may not enjoy it, and my husband may not enjoy it, but by gosh I am going to try!!

I have enjoyed cooking for years. When my mother got married, long long ago, she had no idea how to cook (so the story goes!). She was a determined young wife, and taught herself how to cook (I believe with a fair amount of help from my grandmothers, excellent cooks in their own rights!). So, when my sister and I were growing up, my mom was determined that we would both know how to cook well, when the time came to leave the house. Thus our love affair with food began...

Fast forward many years, and what is most important to me, in the culinary world, are healthy ingredients that are as "wholesome" as possible. I won't dive into the whole movement in my very first post, but I'll just say that I would like to keep my family's diet as local, organic and sustainable as possible. I am by no means perfect, and I believe it takes a long while to truly make the switch over in every way. Over the past year, I have made every effort I could afford, both monetarily and with time, to keep it local. My goal in the coming year is to make even more progress, but we'll keep that for later too.

For today, this is a welcome message, and a request to stay tuned. Tomorrow is my first day of trying something new - I think I am going to try and make popovers. I am not sure yet, but will keep you posted...pictures to follow!