Saturday, May 12, 2007

2 Quick Dinners in the Colour Yellow, Plus a Random Chinese Baking Comment

I think I'm pretty behind on my blogging, not that a lot of people would notice. But, a lot of what I've been up to is food related, so I foresee three posts in the next couple of days, at least.

I talked about going to T&T Supermarket a week ago. When I go there, I like to buy Chinese-style baked goods. Last week, I got a taro bun with almonds. There weren't many almonds, but I didn't really care because I got that topping to avoid the sickly sweet "pineapple" topping on so many of the sweeter buns. Not that it's terrible or should be avoided, but I didn't feel like eating it for breakfast on Sunday. Chinese baked goods, judging from T&T's and things other people say are usually very soft. Buns like the taro bun are soft and slightly sweet. They're a nice change from other bread products.
The taro filling was purple and pleasantly sweet with a starchy texture. . . I think, it was a while ago. Anyways, I liked it. I think I may still prefer red bean filling, though. I think I'm the only white person I know who enjoys red bean sweets, I tried feeding red bean candy to my family and nobody really liked it. My sister in particular was disgusted and didn't finish her piece. Personally, I think it like it because I'm just that big of a fan of beans. If I can have bean texture in sweet form, it's fine by me. Probably the most revelatory baked good that I've bought at T&T was called "cumin bread." I only saw it once. It was a soft bread, not sweet, spiced with cumin and topped with cumin seeds containing raisins and walnuts. It was a very good breakfast. The reason it was a revelation was that it gave me the idea to spice oatmeal with cumin since if it works in a "raisin bread", why shouldn't it work in oatmeal. . . like cinnamon. That may not make sense but it's how my mind works. I'm a big fan of cumin, needless to say.
I didn't think I would have that much to say about the bun, but on to Tuesday. I made a couple of fried eggs on top of sauteed spinach and onion plus corn on the cob. First the corn,
I hadn't had corn on the cob in recent memory. Boiled and then spread with some butter, It was really good. I liked the sweetness and the sensation of biting into it. Plus, that bright sunny yellow is visually appealing. I will have to eat more corn this summer. Actually, it was kind of funny because I tried to boil the corn in a not terribly large pot. It didn't fit until i cut off some of the stem. So, use a big pot to boil corn.
On to the eggs and spinach. They were tasty as the onions were nicely caramelized. I messed up one of the eggs and broke the yolk, which was a big disappointment. I guess my point is that I looooooove runny egg yolks and the perfect over easy egg. I have a friend who is disgusted with runny yolks, but they have been a great pleasure to me since I was a kid. I remember eating over easy eggs on toast on the weekend when I was little. I used to save the yolk till the end and relish every bit. So here's a gratuitous yolk shot:



On Wednesday, I made some vegetarian comfort food, and no I'm not a vegetarian, but I find beans and legumes very satisfying. Anyways, I felt like some lentils and had leftover dried red lentils from making this soup. I decided to make a curry soup also using the remainder of my bunch of spinach. I began by sauteing about half an onion in some olive oil. Then I added two cups of water, a teaspoon of chicken bouillon (not so vegetarian after all. . . oops), and a heaping teaspoon of curry powder. I added a half cup of rinsed red lentils and boiled it for fifteen minutes. Then I added some torn spinach, probably about three cups, and cooked it until that wilted. It looked, a little bit gross perhaps:

But that doesn't mean it didn't taste good. And it did taste good, or else I wouldn't mention it. It had a good lentil texture, I guess it's the starch and protein, the leguminess. (Made up words are fine.) The curry flavour worked well and the spinach provided a nice contrast in colour and texture as well as a mild flavour. I thoroughly enjoyed eating this.