The Brown Bag Deli

This is one of our neighborhood delis. (I love that we live in a neighborhood where I can say that.) I had a half grilled cheese sandwich that had cheddar and havarti cheeses AND Granny Smith apple slices. My salad had cranberries and gorgonzola cheese and grilled chicken and a balsamic vinaigrette. All in all - it was delicious.

Now Kirk, on the other hand, didn't like it that much. His "Russian vegetable" soup was only mediocre, and he says the portions were too small. It's true that his little cup of soup was small compared with my half salad...and didn't look that great. Not that he would have liked what I ordered either. He hates when fruit is included in savory dishes. He says he'd rather eat garlic ice cream than pineapple on a pizza. Okay...

-eva

Hot Food for a Cold Night

Well, I've been cold a lot lately.

I think that this is due to 2 things:

1. I'm not used to the mid-west's bone-chilling weather.
2.During the past few winters I was spoiled with free and plentiful heating.

So here I am, dressed in a sweatshirt, scarf, and fake Russian chopka , eating curried lentil soup. It was the perfect dish for a blustery night.

No real recipe, but here are the ingredients:

lentils, water, tomato bouillon, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, fresh ground pepper, curry powder straight from africa (thanks ashleigh!), and coconut milk. saute the veggies, add the cooked lentils, water and everything else, puree half of it, and voila!

- eva

fresh mozzarella

The other night, Eva and I decided to make some quesadillas for dinner. I made mine with some freshly grated Romano and I made Eva's with fresh mozzarella. Big mistake! The mozzarella was so liquidy that it soaked the entire quesadilla. Eva picked it up and it just sagged, the whole thing was soaked with liquid. Ewww..
I forgot to photograph the weird quesadilla, but you can imagine.
P.S. Last night we had hot dogs for dinner?!
kirk

The True Meaning Of The First Thanksgiving

Awhile back, on Thanksgiving Day, we made a lot of good food. We seriously cooked all day long while listening to old punk (and miscellaneous--shout out to Huey Lewis' "Power Of Love") records, and generally had a good time. Here is a picture of what our table of food looked like:


Next is a close-up of our loot. We had lots of starchy stuff like stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potato (savory) pancakes, and rolls, along with cranberry sauce and green beans. Am I forgetting something? Anyway, we invited a couple of friends over to share with us but even still, we were eating those mashed potatoes weeks later.


And then there were pies. I made the second pie of my entire life--pumpkin. Eva made a crumbly apple pie and a chocolate pecan pie. All three turned out nicely, but I think the chocolate pecan pie was the Michael Jordan of the bunch.

And that is the story of the first Thanksgiving.

-By KARI!

Cookies Were Just Okay

So, when our folks were in town, Dad had a real hankering for some cookies in the small window of time that took place after our previously-mentioned dinner and before he and Mom had to leave for the Indianapolis airport. I am usually up for cookies because they are awesome!

These are the cookies that my dad and I made. As you can see, they look sort of anemic and flat. I have no real idea how or why this happened, so I will place blame on the dubious recipe. They tasted fine, but not awesome! I should have had Dad make his signature Ranger cookies, but I don't think we had any corn flakes or grape juice or whatever he puts in those things.

-By KARI!

Fancy Feast

I'm not talking about the cat food. ( Although , do you remember those commercials where the fluffy white cat was fed in a crystal goblet? ridiculous.) I'm talking about a traditional wedding dinner. If i am sitting by funny people ( like I was on Saturday), then a fancy wedding feast is one of the most entertaining events I can think of. Good food, laughs, everyone looks their best, endearing or embarrassing toasts... On the other hand, I've been to some torturous events where i am forced to sit with people I don't know, and who have nothing to say. (Or maybe it's me who has nothing to say?)

This dinner was a success...complete with funny stories of my brother's run - ins with the police in our small town, tear-jerker toasts, and a gorgeous view out of 10th floor windows of the city and the mountains beyond.

squash soup for Kirk, Kari and Eva's souls (or whoever else wants some)

I love the fall. And I love cooking fall-ish food such as sweet potato oven fries, butternut squash soup, and some garlicky greens.

easy squash soup recipe:

1. Chop an onion and saute in olive oil in a large pot or wok with salt and pepper on medium low heat.
2. After onion is soft, add 2 peeled, seeded, and chopped butternut squashes.
3. Add enough water to cover, a couple of vegetable bouillon cubes, and boil until it all becomes very soft.
4. Puree in batches in a food processor (or blender).
5. Return to pot and add salt and pepper and curry powder to taste.

A little cream can be added if you like. I usually forget to get any, which is probably better for my health. I'll often add a potato to the mix, and I've made this with zucchini or pumpkin or even peas and carrots as the base.

Bruschetta

It was our turn to have Mom and Dad Jorgensen over for Sunday dinner! Bruschetta, green salad, roasted pepper soup, and lentil soup made the menu. Looks like they were pretty happy with it. Too bad we didn't get photos at the Ethiopian restaurant the night before. Picture 5 adults eating with their hands out of one big plate... and loving it.

Shrimp Fried Rice

I just found out that fried rice is not only popular all over Asia and North America, but also in the west African countries of Ghana and Togo where it is a common street food. We used spinach instead of the usual eggs, and I highly recommend it. (Eggs make Kirk feel sick to his stomach.)

Kirk and I (Eva) made this dish while Kari was out of town. Kari is vegetarian, and Kirk is lactose intolerant, so most of our food ends up being vegan or close to it. But sometimes, Kirk and I will make something with meat or fish, and sometimes Kari and I will eat some fresh mozzarella or tzatziki sauce or something. My main dietary restriction is that I loathe strawberry flavored things ( esp. strawberry milk), but this doesn't seem to come up that often.
Oh, and I also hate wasting calories and appetite on bad food in general. White Castle, I'm sorry.

SAMOSAS

Greetings. It is I, Kari. Although I happen to be one of the "Bad Luck Jorgensens" (shout-out to Kris and Karl), I was lucky enough to receive this recipe for samosas from Crystal, Food Genius, PhD, along with a chutney recipe of her own creation.

We split up the duties like this: Kirk was in charge of the dough, I was in charge of the insides, and Eva was in charge of making the chutney in addition to the side dish that we fondly call Vegetable Thing (pictured above), which is a good thing that has many leeks and squashes and tomatoes in it.

Then, all together we assembled and fried the samosas. Everything tasted excellent, although we did have some cosmetic issues (the dough got kind of dry and was then difficult to work with, resulting in flat rather than pyramidal-shaped dumplings).

We also thought we were being so funny by talking in really bad British accents (Oliver style) saying things like, "Can I have some more, sir?" Get it? "Can I have sa mo, sa?"

Mexican Pizzas

There really isn't much good mexican food here. I know a lot of people love it, but I'm not sold on that huge chain Chipotle. I want it to be like Cafe Rio, and it's not. I'd even love it if we could just find a place like Beto's ( that's how desperate I am), but no such luck. So we've been making our own uneducated verisons of mexican food. This is a fried tortilla topped with beans and cheese and broccoli (weird, i know, but good!), melted under the broiler and then pulled out and topped with fresh tomatoes and homemade guacamole. Uno mas?

Birthday Cake for Eva

Happy Birthday Eva! Kari made this really good cake for Eva's b-day. It was a pumpkin spice cake with sauteed apples and nutmeg cream. It was eaten with pumpkin spice ice cream! (or whipped topping for me).
I ate so much cake that i felt sick! It was that good.

Do you know what a buckeye is?

We finally figured it out. This guy is THE buckeye. He makes great donuts.



Chocolate cake, apple spice, pumpkin spice, chocolate cream filled, and crumb.



None of these people were actually eating the delicious donuts. I have no idea why.



We got them for the drive to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Which was great and totally worth it to see the Clash and the Beach Boys exhibits.)

Kari has a friend who once stayed in Buckeye Donuts for 24 hours straight and now they give him free donuts whenever he goes there.

Lost in the Supermarket

I don't usually buy candy and snacky things when I go to the grocery store...but when I make the trip out to the asian supermarket, i can't help myself! They are so tasty, and it doesn't hurt that their packaging is so much nicer than most of our american junk food wrappers.

By the way, did you know that dark chocolate pocky sticks are supposed to be for men only? (That's what it says on the box). Kirk only wishes I would follow that rule.

Dirt made my lunch

This is a pretty standard lunch for me. Bread: A good wholewheat/grainy bread from the local deli. Peanut butter: Organic, not too sweet. Sugary peanut butter is not so great. Jam: Rasberry jam. This is never enough food for me, but for some reason this is all i ever bring. There is a cafe on the first floor of my building, so sometimes i'll grab a bag of chips or something.

time is on our side

Kirk loves talking about phonology and language contact, Kari knows all about pedagogical methods, and I (Eva) am engrossed by picas, typology, and the weight of paper. But we can all admit to a delicious fascination with food, and so this blog is born.

We just moved to a new place, and what better way to explore a new town and pass the time that was once filled with friends and family than by finding/making/eating food?

PIZZA

Dough on pizza stone, brushed with olive oil. Sauce from tomato paste plus fresh herbs and garlic. Toppings: Fresh Romano and Mozzarella, onions, garlic and fresh tomatoes added after it cooked. Face says it all! Pizza!