Eating in a box

Ok, so I broke down and purchased a Sous Vide Supreme some time back and I've used it on a couple of bentos (one coming up this next week). And as with all of my gadgets I wouldn't be doing it justice if I didn't put up a post / review on the device. As a disclaimer: No I didn't get this thing for free, I purchased it with my own hard earned money (yes I had to save up for it). I'm writing this based of my opinion and personal usage no one paid or asked me to do so. No, I'm no professional chef, I just like to cook (a lot), play with toys, and be a general science nerd. I would hope that my idol (Alton Brown) would appreciate and approve of this exception I'm making for a single use tool in my kitchen. Down to business! Sous Vide what is it? This is actually a very lengthy topic and I could go on and on about it, but you could just go here and read the reliable details and do a lot of google searching. Here's the elevator pitch: If you want a medium rar...

Today's lunch is a collection of vegetarian items that I've had in my notebooks that I had been meaning to try. It just so happens that they all had a Latino flair to them so today's "Vegimex"/ "LatinoVeggie" theme happened to fall in my lap. This is actually a fairly low calorie/low fat, gluten free lunch . As with most vegetarian dishes, there's a lot of interesting flavors and spices used to make up for a lot of the flavors that animal fat and protein bring to the table. Also, there's a lot of attempts to bring meat like texture (some successful, some not so successful), probably to help out the new vegetarians with the transition. I've always been perplexed of this mock tofu duck breast that was sold at a buddist monastery, is not eating a fake duck in spirit the same? It seems like it's a question of intent to me. Anyhow I'm sure I'll get some flame in the comment for saying that. Let's get on with the description. Fir...

Sorry about the drought in posts. I took a week off because I had family visiting, and it's a bit hard to cook for a crowd when you've got people underfoot. Today's offerings coming from cooking for a dinner party last week. I had all these fresh spices from the Indian grocery and I felt I should churn out another Indian themed bento. Lindsay from Apron Adventures once Grapefruit fairy now brings me a nice bag of Ataulfo Mangos. This of course played into my bento theme nicely and basically fixed my dessert. Big thank you to her for the beautiful mangos! It's very liberating cooking for my new audience. I've gotten a lot of restrictions lifted and my adventerous coworkers even requested to be hit with something spicy. Hopefully I don't disappoint with my Beef Vindaloo. I cobbled together a few versions and came up with this spicy dish that I slow cooked for eight hours. The beef was fall apart tender and the heat from the 40 thai bird chillies gave a kick that e...