Eating in a box

Work sends me out now and again to our various offices. I'm out currently visiting our offices in London, Paris, and Marseilles. Unfortunately for my London leg of the trip I kept forgetting to bring my camera so you'll have to suffer with my low-res iphone pictures. Above is the child of one of my coworkers that are traveling with me, he sucking on a bag of chicken casserole. Yeah, that was my first reaction "Chicken casserole puree huh". I seem to remember seeing things like pureed peas and carrots, but chicken casserole? There was a suggestion that I do a post on trying some of these. All I mustered was a "um. yeah maybe". None the less it was a cute picture and the "bag o sippy food" seemed like a good related picture. I've been to London quite a few times so I've hit most of the normal stuff even tracking down some haggis two years ago. The one place I *always* go to is the food hall at Harolds (a really famous department store) they g...

So once upon a time, many years ago I asked a friend for a food challenge. I was in the full swing of my life goal of cooking as many cuisines from appetizer to dessert to learn as much as I can about food. Austin, at the time was still more of a college town and food had not exploded to be what it is today. My friend said, "fine Ethiopian food" my response, "well that's not fair, we don't even have an Ethiopian restaurant for me to try the cuisine." him, "you asked for a challenge, and my favorite place in Houston is an Ethiopian restaurant". I wasn't really willing to drive out to Houston so I set to the web. I studied countless recipes and poured over every description I could find and created the tastes in my head. Did I pass? An enthusiastic yes. This turns out to be my favorite cuisine to cook, and I think it was because of the surprise complexity of the cuisine as well as the amount of research I had to do to get there. Anyway, I'm v...

So short post today, it's been tough with all the travel to make food for my folks. The one good thing about travel is that I take the time to catch up on my food magazines and try to get some inspiration for my bentos. For today's creation I found a magazine that focused on recipe makeovers, or taking stuff that tastes great but is bad for you and turning them into something healthy. I took the challenge a bit further and tried pairing together recipes so that I could make even further cuts in the calories and fat department. Without further ado Lunch time! I start us off with a Kung Pao style chicken breast. The authors used chicken breast instead of the usually cheaper chicken thighs and went with a lighter version of sauce. Not much variation for me here. I like that they substituted fat with a lot of flavor in the form of a more fragrant and sauce thanks to the sesame oil and heavy dose of ginger. Instead of going with the traditional rice as a starch, I picked up this rec...

So I hosted what I dubbed a "Sous Vide Summit" at my house this weekend. What does that mean? It means getting a bunch of foodies interested in Sous Vide method of cooking, the result is a meat-a-thon of unbelievably tasty treats. I had a great time and am very glad to finally be back in the swing of having dinner parties. Although a bit of work prepping and cleaning, the fun with friends new and old is always a blast. Lots of pictures to share today so hang on to your hats for what probably will be a long winded post. So to start, my own contribution to this shin dig was possibly the easiest (not that seasoning, vacuum sealing food, and dumping the package into perfectly controlled water is hard by any means) my experiment was to show case various grades and cuts of steak each cooked at the magical perfect 134 degrees Fahrenheit or better known as Medium Rare. If you click in you can see the steaks raw side by side, we have from left to right, three rib eye steaks USDA Prim...

Well naturally after a trip to Costa Rica I *had* to do a bento on the subject. To be fair the only thing I did eat there that was in this lunch was the Gallo Pinto. The real inspiration is courtesy of my friend Kelly who picked me up from the airport and took me to his favorite bar for some Chifrijo which I talked about earlier . Kelly was nice enough to score me a book of Costa Rican traditional dishes, his estimate was that it was more like the normal day to day stuff that folks would cook in their own kitchen nothing too fancy, right up my alley. We start our meal off with Tortas De Carne, or simply put beef patty, I like to think of them as squashed meatballs. I will say one of the hardest things about this bento was sourcing some of the ingredients. I had the forethought to bring home some Salsa Lizano a local variant on Worcester sauce that the local use on *everything*. It's thicker than Worcester sauce, has the same tang but has a slight spicy component that makes it inter...

Part three of my culinary adventure in Costa Rica. I'll admit, I could have gotten more out there on the food, but between my adventures and trying to relax, I didn't get to everything I wanted to try. Above you'll see the breakfast I've had pretty much every day I've been here. The typical breakfast consists of scrambled eggs, pan fried plantains, and black beans and rice maybe some tropical fruit to round it out. Although this sounds quite mundane, it makes a lot of sense plenty, of carbs to get folks ready for a hard days worth of work in the palm fields, farms, and ranches. Rice is featured everywhere in the cuisine here, rice and chicken, rice and beans, rice and beef. The Gallo Pinto is very tasty, bits of cilantro are evident and I believe they use chicken stock as the base for cooking the rice. It's considered the national dish of Costa Rica, but I'll admit after about five days one does crave a bit of variety for breakfast. Sorry in advance about th...

My second segment of my trip here to Costa Rica. It's beautiful here. Above you see a Mother child monkey, I call it "monkey in repose". They look cute, but they all scheme to steal your stuff. Believe me, I witnessed one brazen monkey stare straight at me as he/she snatched a bag and took off. Little buggers. I've been told they'll work in teams to steal a heavy bag. I'm amazed at their expressive faces. Anyhow, more amazing food and experiences, and this with taking a whole day to do nothing. I didn't anticipate nothing to still yield delicious food. Yesterday I went to the Manuel Antonio State Park. That's where the monkey picture came from one. If you ever go to Costa Rica and go to this state park, I recommend a guide. I actually made the mistake of taking my best camera thinking my lenses would give me an advantage. Apparently, the humble point and shoot thru the telescope of the guide does better. Despite everyone's recommendation to tag on ...