I found this recipe for Mapo Tofu and instantly wanted to try it. I've had it before, and loved the spicy red sauce. The recipe calls for chili bean paste and fermented black beans. The first time I made it, Wegmans neither, and tried to substitute with stuff I already had. Fermented beans are salty, so I used pancetta. I didn't have chili ( Read more... )

Well... the first meal using my new stove! When we bought the house, it had an electric stove. Our real estate agent recommended a plumber, and he is fabulous! We have gas coming into the house, and he ran a gas line up to our kitchen. Since there was already a plug up there, I bought a dual fuel stove. The range is gas, with five burners ( ( Read more... )

I read in the commuter paper this morning that a lot of Americans are feeling stress about the election. Obamaniacs think the country will go down in flames under another Republican administration and Republicans think that Obama will destroy the America that they love. I'm not stressed about the election, but I'm worried, and don't like waiting ( Read more... )

Last week, I found a random zucchini in the veggie drawer. I have no idea what I bought it for, but it was still ok to eat. I decided to make stuffed zucchini, and was inspired by the dish my mother in law made when we were in Rome last month. Her stuffed zucchini involved veal, breadcrumbs, and some flavor of stock. I only had what was ( Read more... )

I like tofu. I try to eat it at least once a week. The key to making a good tofu dish is to allow the tofu to absorb the flavors of the other ingredients in the dish. I made three tofu dishes recently. One had a recipe that looked fabulous: a tofu scramble with spices, dried cranberries, fennel, and pistachio nuts, all things I really like. It ( Read more... )

Genius that I am, I set my alarm clock for 6:00 pm instead of 6:00 am. I woke up this morning, thinking, "Oh, I'll just go back to sleep until my alarm goes off." I look at my clock and it's 8:45. I had a free CLE ethics class to go to at 10am. Going to this class would save me a lot of money, because I need 2 hours of ethics CLE a year to keep ( Read more... )

Since I got a new widescreen LCD monitor yesterday, I wanted to spend my evening playing Civ IV instead of taking a lot of time to make dinner. So, I picked an quick standby, pasta, asparagus, and toasted hazelnuts, with mascarpone and Parmesan cheeses. The first time I made this dish, it was a little boring, so I added some of my own ideas to it ( Read more... )