Cucumber Shrub

I'm not much of a soda drinker, but I tried Mr. Q. Cumber soda when I had lunch at Keenwah last week.  It was pricey -- two bucks for seven ounces -- but it was also delicious.

My friend took a sip and said "We could make that."  We discussed things like using a juicer and simple syrup.  When I got home it occurred to me that I could try making a cucumber shrub.  I added one peeled, diced cucumber to 2 cups of distilled white vinegar, then proceeded according to the recipe found here. 

It came out great.  Like summer in a glass.  YUM!

P.S. I just found out that cucumber beverages are trendy.  Of course they are.  I'm hip like that.

Dinner and a Movie: Bollywood/Hollywood

I don't know if it was the Campbell's soup talking, but immediately after our first dinner and a movie night the Army Dude suggested we do it again - this time choosing a country instead of a time period. We bandied around a few ideas, finally settling on Indian food and a Bollywood movie. I was concerned because it wasn't so long ago that the Army Dude officially did not like Indian cuisine. I figured that a couple of good Indian dinners could be completely cancelled out by my inexperience, so I looked around for user-friendly recipes. Eating Well magazine had a Chicken Tikka Masala recipe that looked easy and tasty. It was, both. We loved it.


For dessert, I used an apple spice coffee cake recipe I found online and I subtituted garam masala for the spices listed. Voila! Yummy Indian Spice Cake! If you want to try this at home, add 3 teaspoons garam masala - I followed the recipe and wished I'd used more than the 2 teaspoons it calls for - and knock the heat back to 350 degrees to prevent the bottom from getting overcooked before the center is done.

While I was planning the dinner, I kept asking the Army Dude if he was sure about the movie. I said "You know Bollywood movies have songs, right? And they're REALLY campy?" But he was brave. (This, my friends, is why our army is the envy of the world.) We watched Bollywood/Hollywood, which technically was not made in Bollywood but it plays on the conventions and storylines of romantic comedies in general and Bollywood films specifically. It was hilarious and the Army Dude actually liked the songs. It may have helped that the lyrics were in Hindi.

Guacamole - with Recipe!

I made this guacamole a couple of weekends ago when I was in a taco kind of mood. I loved the guacamole we had at El Charro Cafe in Tucson, and this recipe is my version of it.

Now I know that guacamole is one of the things that people get passionate and, frankly, a little nutty about. Messing with guacamole is like messing with people's grandmother's recipes. First of all, folks should lighten up. I am not submitting this as the definitive guacamole recipe, but instead as something you might like to try. Second of all, I mess with my own grandmother's recipes and you may feel free to mess with this one. I like the brightness of lemon juice with avocados, but lime juice is certainly more traditional. If you love cilantro, add more than my recipe calls for. Taste as you go and make it your own. It's what I did and the Army Dude and I loved the results.

Ingredients:

2 ripe avocados

1 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp. minced cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

1 oz. goat cheese, crumbled

1 medium tomato, chopped

Method:

Remove avocado flesh from the skin and place in a bowl. Mash with a fork. Add lemon juice, and continue to mash until you get the consistency you want. Add garlic, cilantro, salt and pepper, and mix well. Give it a taste, and adjust seasonings as needed. Fold in tomato and goat cheese. Taste again, and make any adjustments. Once you love it, serve.

Note: If you are making the guacamole ahead or you have leftovers, scoop it into a plastic container, press a piece of plastic wrap flat onto the top of the dip to prevent discoloring, and then close the lid on the container.

Just Another Manic Wednesday

Contrary to what you probably think given all the treats I've been posting lately, this is the type of thing I tend to eat during the work week. Alas, a woman cannot live on chocolate alone - or at least not unless she wants to get as big as a hippo or work out two hours every day.

Here's the thing about a stir fry. If you decide you are going to make it into an art assembly project by using fancy knife cuts and insisting on eleventy kinds of vegetables, you will be prepping it until doomsday. If, like me, you limit the vegetables to between one and three kinds (depending on how much you have on hand of each), and you chop them like a normal person instead of a Martha Stewart wannabe, you can be eating in half an hour. And that includes making rice.

This particular recipe is healthy and really good, especially in the spring when pencil-thin asparagus is in the stores. It could be done with chicken, I suppose, but the great thing about tofu is that you can prep it without having to declare the cutting board and counter a hazmat area and dealing with it accordingly. That's why it's smiling.

Also note that the asparagus spears are not only smiling, but are also sporting some pretty fancy bouffant hairdos. That's a lot of fabulous for one meal.

A Semi-Homemade Casserole

This is what I cooked for dinner with my niece Katie -who is a vegetarian -and my great-niece Elizabeth. It’s based on a recipe I got from Dixie Peach, but I substituted black beans for the ground beef in her recipe and added taco seasoning to give the beans a little zip. It was a rousing success. Also, as you can see, the zucchini is happy because it was not overcooked. (Are you listening, Toads On The Whatsit?)