Eggs ala Ed Bushell

My grandfather, Ed Bushell, used to make eggs for me in the morning. He had an impressive repertoire of recipes, but the one I remember dearly and have attempted to replicate and improve on is probably the simplest as well. It's simply poached eggs on toast, but I find that surprisingly few people know how to make a good poached egg. So here's what I do. You can put one egg on toast or two (I find that two eggs on one piece of toast is the perfect breakfast).

Easy and fast mac & cheese from scratch!

Just the mention of a roux can send some amateur cooks into a fit, and I have to admit that mine often aren't perfect, so I tend to shy away from them. But a roux is at the heart of mac & cheese. For those who aren't aware, a roux is a blend of fat and starch that forms a pasty or saucy mixture that doesn't separate. This can be very useful for making gravies and sauces. Mac & cheese is just pasta in a cheese sauce, so it's usually a roux of butter or other oil, cheese and either corn starch or flour.

Below, I'll go into the recipe for a basic mac & cheese using this technique and then a few ways you can "dress it up" with other ingredients. But I have to stress that mac & cheese is a basic canvas. Get creative and try whatever you want! If you're trying to keep carbs in line, don't have this more than once a week, and consider one of the high-fiber, high-protein pastas that have a lower glycemic index.

Basic version:

• 2 tbsp canola or peanut oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 3 cups water
• 2 cups pasta (more if it's a large shell or the like)
• 1 cup cheddar or other flavorful cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup cream cheese cut into small cubes
• salt & pepper to taste

Low Carb Apple Pie Ala Mode!

By Aaron Sherman

So, I've been reading quite a lot about religion and philosophy recently, which has affected my blog posts. Just by way of switching gears and cleansing the palate, I'd like to talk about food. Tonight I wanted some desert, but I'm trying (once again!) to get back to my low-carb diet which I abandon every time there's a round of going out to dinner.

Tonight, I wanted some desert, and found that we had an apple pie flavored protein bar in the kitchen that was left over from a Quest Bar variety pack that Jeff and I have been working through. First off, let me say that Quest Bars are absolutely freaking fantastic! Jeff and I have been having quite a few of them, and at 5-7 carbs per bar, depending on flavor, these things are pretty damned tasty!

Cumin and Chili Con Carne

Cumin plant and seeds
from Wikipedia

A friend of mine is allergic to cumin and recently claimed that cumin is a recent American ("Tex-Mex") addition to chili con carne. Further, he claimed that most chili did not contain cumin. I had to look into this, because I know food history can be confusing at best, and this was likely not the whole story. After some investigation, I found out a lot about chili powder, chili con carne and Texas culinary history that I didn't now. Here's the highlights:

So, Chili Con Carne doesn't always have cumin listed as an ingredient, but this is misleading.

The I Can't Take It Anymore Diet

Several years ago I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea with a minimum blood oxygen saturation of around 70% which is to say, "you're dying because your brain is starving." I was placed on a CPAP machine and was immediately relieved of almost all symptoms. Problem solved, right? Well, no.

Life on a CPAP machine isn't fun. You have a bulky thing that you have to carry around anywhere you intend to sleep and anyone who intends to sleep with you has to deal with your having medical equipment strapped to your face and making airflow noises all night long. Mind you, it's much quieter than most apnea sufferers themselves, and far less distressing to hear than a pause in breathing followed by a loud snoring, choking intake of breath, but it's not exactly sexy.

Those were just cosmetic/lifestyle issues though, and I could have lived with that. The real problem was that I found the thing painful to wear and while it gave me a better night's sleep, it also caused me to get less of it, due to the difficulty of falling asleep and plenty of events where I would wake up with it pulled partially off.

So, I decided to give it up. That's not a small decision. I essentially decided to risk injury to my brain and/or death, so I needed a plan. Most apnea sufferers, myself included, have their breathing problems as a result of their weight. Over a certain, individual-specific weight threshold, your airway just doesn't work the way it was designed to. In my case, I was 265 lbs. and the threshold was about 230 lbs.

This made a diet a fairly obvious solution. (click the title for the rest of the story)

A Quick and Easy Americanized Curry

I found myself without a plan for dinner the other night, so I broke out some random ingredients and found myself sort of accidentally making a vegetarian dish that tasted just like some of my favorite curries. The spices in this are a bit exotic for some American kitchens, but get them and you'll thank me. Most large supermarkets these days will carry most of them.

Ingredients:

4 whole, green cardamom pods (or 1/2 tsp powdered)
1 whole clove (or 1/8 tsp powdered)
4-6 whole peppercorns (really, you need to substitute?)
1/2 tsp ground tumeric
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 tsp garlic chili paste (comes in a small plastic jar with green lid, can substitute fresh chilies that you chop and add early)
1 can diced tomato
1 can Progresso Lentil Soup (Vegetable Classics)
2 good sized handfulls of fresh, baby spinach
2 cups rice

Cook the rice while the rest of this continues on. Consider adding vegetable or a chicken stock to it and perhaps some saffron if you have it. I also love to put just a little bit of extra virgin olive oil into the rice steamer with it.

To the ingredients, you could also include a meat of choice that you cook ahead of the next step.

Combine all spices in a mortar or spice grinder and make a powder. Pass this through a sifter if you want to avoid chunks of cardamom pod in the dish. Place all ingredients except for the spinach into a large, wide pan and cook on high until it begins to bubble. Then lower heat and reduce until it's thickened.

Now add all of the spinach on top and cover for 3 minutes on medium-low heat.

Stir and serve on rice.

You can tweak the spice mix or use a pre-mixed dry curry spice mix if you wish. I don't recommend the wet curry mixes. They tend to have off-flavors in most cases, and really don't get you anything over the dry. Other spices that are nice: curry leaves if you can get them, mustard seed (use 5-10 seeds), whole cumin seed. If you use whole seeds, consider toasting them in oil before adding them to the dish. This will release their oils more readily and incorporate them with the dish.

The Mayo Burger

Sometimes I have hamburger around that's less than fresh (queue comforting music and soft focus). Typically, it's been frozen and thawed (perhaps even in the microwave) and it just doesn't hold together well enough to make a good burger from. When this happens, I usually just use a generic meatloaf recipe, and then make my hamburger patties from that instead of just plain meat. Here's my go-to recipe:

1 lb meat (85% works well, but you can mix in veal or pork as well)
1 large egg
1/4 cup bread crumbs, unseasoned
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
hot sauce to taste

Mix this by hand, folding and squeezing until it becomes uniform, and form patties onto a plate to prepare for the grill or pan.

Last night I find that I'm caught with no egg. Remembering a wonderful recipe for Mayonnaise Chocolate Cake in The Cake Bible that substituted mayonnaise for its composite ingredients: egg and oil, I reached for my big tub of mayo. This made the whole mixture more oily, so I added a bit of extra bread crumb:

1 lb meat (85% works well, but you can mix in veal or pork as well)
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1/3 cup bread crumbs, unseasoned
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
hot sauce to taste

The resulting burgers held together perfectly, were delicious, moist and just perfect all the way around. I can't recommend these strongly enough!

Ogunquit Breakfast: Bread and Roses Bakery

I'm in Ogunquit, Maine for a wedding and popped into Bread and Roses for a bite to eat.

I've been here once before on a previous trip and I'm just in love with their muffins and little quiches. If you're on the streets of Ogunquit and find yourself looking for food, skip the big restaurants and try something simpler.

If you ask for a plate, they'll give you one, which makes it easier to take your goods out to the small tables on the side of the building and watch the foot-traffic go by.

Finale

A desert at Finale From Misc Photos

Finale is a dessert restaurant that I went to for a friend's birthday party in Harvard Sq. If "dessert restaurant" makes you think of the Cheesecake Factory, disabuse yourself of that notion immediately. The entree menu here is fairly restricted, and the focus is really on the deserts. Of these, there's a range between indulgent and simply artful, but the name of the game is sugar and chocolate. If you enjoy the two, prepare yourself for an evening of pleasant surprises.