I’m A Fig Thief

I have been in fig heaven for the last few weeks. Figs tarts have dominated our diet. I’ve eaten them for breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack, dinner and midnight snack. However, figs are not free. In the sense that I don’t have to pay for them, they are free. But for some reason, I continue to do things that are embarrassing so I pay with a bruised ego.

Then I turn around and the tell the world about it.

Anyway…

My friend Neighbor Corinne has a couple of fig trees (bushes?) in her yard. Last year I went to her home to pick some and I fell in love with the fresh fruit. This year was another banner year. They were beautiful.

So one early morning, the dog and I dropped the girls off for their field hockey practice and I drove to the beach. On the way home, I stopped and picked a few figs from the tree in her front yard.

I told her after the fact and she was very sweet about it. In fact she said I should go to her back yard because they were bigger. So without ado, the next early morning, the dog and I took another trip to her house and I helped myself to the tree in her backyard.

Fig tarts, here I come.

I told her afterward and she seemed okay with the fact that I was skulking around her house at 6:30 in the morning.

So now I’m thinking it’s not her fig tree. It’s mine. It’s there to satisfy my fig fetish.

Last weekend, I did it again. I dropped the girls off for their field hockey practice (those poor girls) and the dog and I made our way to Neighbor Corinne’s home to skulk. The dog started to protest about being left in the car.

“Shhhh…,” I said, “You’ll wake them up.”

Needless to say, I should have listened to the dog. I think she was saying “Don’t do it, don’t do it.” A part of me still feels like a thief even though in my mind, my tree was at their house. It’s that little voice in your head that you should always listen to.

Later that day, I logged into facebook to tell her I was at her house. Only to find that another friend of hers had schedule to go the next day to pick figs. I read the message over and over again…eeekkk, the figs were gone.

I debated in my head what to do. The easiest thing was to not say anything. But that would have guaranteed a lifetime of guilt and sleepless nights being visited by the Ghost of the Fig Bushes. Scrooge has nothing on me when it comes to a guilty conscience.

So I wrote – “ummm…ladies…I’m so sorry but I picked a few this morning. I just came on to tell Corinne and I saw this. Yikes, I wish I checked earlier. I promise to let you know BEFORE I come next time Corinne. I feel badly. There are still quite a few left by the way. Oh man…”

Something’s just not right me with.

I saw Neighbor Corinne the next day and she gave me a hug which made me feel so much better. I reciprocated by giving her a couple pieces of fig tart.

I will post the fig tart recipe after I’ve healed my bruised ego.

By the way, months ago Neighbor Corinne gave us a planting from her fig tree. It was a short little guy but now has grown to about three feet tall. We planted it in our a yard a couple of weeks ago and it’s doing fantastic. I hope it will bear fruit next year, and Neighbor Corinne will never again have to worry about the fig thief.

This is my very public apology.

A Thought Or Two About Eggs

I am a big fan of the egg. Cheese omelets were the only source of protein for the boy it seems. I know I seem obsessed with the boy’s eating habits but unless one has a uber picky eater, one doesn’t know the troubles I’m seen…

I know the boy has grown to be a big strapping young man. I will say this without any pride whatsoever; it is and will always be my biggest accomplishment in life. Because had it not been for the little egg, I swear the boy would be emaciated.

So it was very disconcerting when last month when eggs were being recalled left and right. To tell you the truth, I haven’t bought any eggs since then. It’s probably alright, America has the most sophisticated and trustworthy food system in the world. And there are many wonderful local producers. And I’m sure all the bad eggs (hehehe) have already been recalled. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, you should see the markets in Algeria. Do I sound like I’m trying to talk myself into this?

Anyway, anyone eating eggs now? Did anyone stop eating eggs for a while? Am I the only one?

If you reassure me that the danger has passed, I have the perfect recipe to try…

Thai Beef Salad or Waterfall Beef

One of my all time favorite dishes – ever – is Thai beef salad. I make it at home often and I order it in Thai restaurants whenever I have the opportunity to go. My mother makes the best beef salad but I do the best I can.

Disclaimer – if you are a vegetarian, this is definitely not the dish for you.

To make it truly authentic, you will need to make the ground rice. This can be done in one big batch and stored for later use. That being said, I make this dish many times without it. It can be time consuming and I’ll skip if I’m desperate and in a hurry. That being said, please know that it does add quite a bit of authenticity to the salad if you take the time and make it.

Ground rice:

Brown some rice on the stove top. This is only about a half a cup but you can do as much as you want and put it aside.

Increase the heat until the rice begins to look brown. You must stir constantly. This is important. Do not walk away to finish a load of laundry. Trust me.

Once the rice is a nice brown color, take it off the stove and let cool. Once it’s cool, you can put it in a grinder/mixer and ground the rice to a fine but not too powdery mix. There should be small pieces of rice for texture.

You can put the rice in a container and put it aside to store or you can go ahead and make the rest of the dish.

I use a London Broil cut because it’s affordable and what my mother used:) If however, you are feeling frisky and rich, go for a nicer cut.

This is a three pound piece of meat. I know it’s a lot but I put the rest aside for leftovers.

Now we chop.

1. Chop a bundle of well washed cilantro, more if you like.
2. Chop red onion into slivers.
3. Chop the mint.
4. Cut cherry tomatoes in half.
5. Chop the hot peppers into small pieces.

Speaking of peppers…this is definitely one ingredient that you can moderate according to you own taste. Our household (everyone but the boy) can eat very spicy food. If you are not as experienced with it, put in only what you are comfortable with. I am not going to post a quantity for how much pepper to put in. It’s up to you.

If you don’t have small Thai peppers as shown in the photo, you can use whatever pepper you like. Last week, I used McCormick ground pepper. Works just fine! Mint as shown here is also something that you can choose to put in if you can find it. My yard was overgrown with it for a period of time.

Ingredients:

1. 2 1/2 pounds of beef (London Broil)
2. 1/2 cup Thai fish sauce
3. 1/4 cup water
4. Juice of one lime (here’s how you cut that lime.)
5. 2 – 3 tablespoons of chopped Thai hot peppers (or any other pepper to taste.)
6. 2 cups chopped cilantro
7. 2 cups thinly sliced red onion
8. 1 cup chopped fresh mint
9. 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
10. 1/4 cup ground rice

Directions:

Grill or broil the beef. Be careful to not over-cook it. Leave some pink in the middle.

Slice the beef into small slivers being careful to discard any fat.

Put in the fish sauce, water and juice of one lime. Toss well (sometimes I’ll use my hands.) Put in ground rice. Toss well. Put in the peppers. Toss well. Put in all chopped and prepared vegetables. Toss well.

I make it for guests quite often and they love it! Even some of the boys at the lake ate it. You gotta try it.

Eat Here & Get Gas

This sign is located in Tipton, Indiana on a busy route between the airport and the husband’s hometown. We drove by it many times over the years on our visits home. It always cracks me up.

The sign itself is funny but the sign below it is kind of cute as well, Home Grown Cookin.

The place was packed. You can tell that there were a lot of repeat customers. It seemed like a place that people would come week after week to have a cup of coffee with their neighbors.

Look at the mannequin waitress next to the computer and printer on the counter…it’s a clash of decades.

I don’t know how the food is but I’m sure you really don’t get gas by eating. There’s a Sherrill’s gas station next door:)

Bon Appetit!

Turning A Profit

The boy has always been a picky eater. It is the one thing in life that I just cannot get over (ok, one of the things). I have cajoled, begged, pleaded, yelled, cried and medicated myself many times over the last 15 years over this very issue.

Dinner has always been an adventure and many times it’s been stressful. I always worried about what he would eat. Both the husband and I are vertically challenged so I worried that the boy would grow up to be an Upa Lumpa because he wouldn’t eat his carrots.

It’s been very, very hard.

The boy does have an irrepressible charm and a really great disposition. I think it’s a gift. And he knows how to turn a negative into a positive.

So he start asking for money for eating a raw clam.

And he actually gathers $30 from various family members, including his dad and his Poppop.

Lets just say the entire family knows of our plight so it wasn’t very hard to raise the money.

So here we go…

“Hold your nose!” says his Aunt Annaliese (isn’t that a nice German name?)

Down that hatch!

Yum…

The slimy clam oozes out his mouth and clings to his chin…sorry.

Is he okay?

The crowd waits breathlessly…

Yes! He comes up for air!

He’s alive! And he’s $30 richer the stinker. He certainly knows how to work a room.

The girl asked me if she could have $30 for eating a clam. I said no.

She’s my good eater. It’s not fair but at least she’ll go through life with a healthy appreciation for food. Which is more than I can say for the boy. People have told me that he will get over it when he gets older. I’ve waited almost 16 years, I guess I wait a little longer.

And one last kiss from his auntie.

Les Champignons Fantastique

One of the most wonderful mushrooms dishes I had ever had was ordered by the boy at Bistro de Paris, the chi chi restaurant at the French Pavilion at Epcot Center in Walt Disney World. For those of you who have not been there, the Bistro de Paris is located above the Chefs de France restaurant, a more casual dining platform located below.

We had a big party, the husband, the boy, the girl, the mother-in-law, the mother-in-law’s boyfriend (uh huh) and two of the husband’s high school friends. The restaurant is fantastic but not quite the boy’s cup of tea. There weren’t any chicken nuggets on the menu.

For you see, if dog and cat hair is the bane of my existence, the boy’s picky eating habits is a close second. He will manage to make it to his 16th birthday in a couple of weeks in spite of eating literally nothing but mac and cheese and pizza. It hasn’t been easy, especially in a home where Thai food is a staple. His mama has had many a nervous breakdowns, crying fits, and sleepless nights of worry over his lack of nutritional intake.

I’m close to reaching an unstable peace in my soul over it. But I admit I’m not quite there yet.

So while at the wonderfully French Bistro de Paris, I order what I think may be the closest thing to getting consumed by the boy. A roast chicken. But being that it’s French cuisine, it had many accompaniments.

Brown butter leeks, grilled baby potatoes, and couscous with truffles. I asked that all be placed separately on the side. Si vous plait.

“Mais oui Madame, bien sur.”

Not even a batted eyebrow. I really love the French.

The boy asked, “Mama, what are truffles?”

As he went to put a forkful of chicken in to his mouth, I said, “They are little mushrooms that are sniffed out by pigs in the woods.” It was the truth.

I admit it was a mean mama thing to do. Sometimes his lack of appetite for nothing but fried foods just gets to me.

But to the boy’s credit he quit chewing for a moment, then continued slowly and swallowed. He  then put down his fork and declared he was full.

It was five years ago, and he still really hates mushrooms. I know he’ll need counseling one day and I’ll be to blame. I’m starting a self-help group called Mothers of Picky Eaters Unite! If you have a picky eater, please give me some words of wisdom.

Fast forward to last weekend. I can’t wait to show you what he ate at our little family reunion.

Posted on Mosaic Monday (even though Mary’s not playing this week) and Best Shot Monday, two of the best ways for me to begin my week.

How To Grammatically Correctly Cut A Lime

I had no idea how carelessly and quickly I had been posting this week. The husband called and said, “Your photo is on the right and Kristina’s photo is on the left.”

I corrected it.

And the girl told me tonight, “Mama, “we was” or “we were?” when she read this post.

I corrected it.

At least she’s reading my blog, that’s more than I can say for the boy. However, unlike bloggers with small children, my kids may be offended by what I write about them so it’s probably a good thing he doesn’t read LifeSignatures. Teens are strange creatures.

So tonight, I am taking my time. Not rushing. And I dare you to find a grammar mistake.

I’m going to show you how to cut a lime. Because next week, we are going to make waterfall beef. And I measured the ingredients, which is something I rarely do so just know that I did it for you.

I know I start quite a few of my sentences with prepositions or conjunctions. It’s a writing style. There’s nothing grammatically incorrect about it…I don’t think.

Begin with a lime and a very sharp knife.

Cut the lime just off center.

Then flip the lime and cut it again, off center.

Flip the lime again and cut it off center.

Are you getting the point?

Cutting the center out will eliminate the tough sinewy center part of the lime which will make squeezing it much easier. You will get more juice out of the lime and with much less effort than cutting it through the center. Limes are expensive during certain times of the year, and you want to get as much juice out of it as you can.

Once the lime is cut off of the center, you can squeeze the center to get every last bit of juice out of the lime and you don’t have to be a weight lifter to do it.

Limes are very important in Thai cooking and it is much easier to cook Thai food if you know the techniques that are handed down by Thai grandmothers.

So get your lime cutting technique down before next week. You can use the juice for margaritas:)

I hope this is of use to someone, not just bartenders.

I’ve Got It All Wrong

I try the best I can to adopt a healthy lifestyle. I do fall off the wagon and I have to pull myself back up again. Speaking of which, I haven’t done any cardio in two weeks. Hello belly.

I’m sitting here, minding my own business, and mending my body when I received a funny email from a friend which tells me that I’m doing it all wrong.

Or as she puts it, “I knew all that exercise and eating right stuff was crap - now there’s proof from a real doctor!!!”

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans

The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Photos are mine. The words are not. I don’t even know if it’s true but it’s funny all the same.

Still resting…

Sopapilla Cheesecake Recipe

I made this dessert twice last weekend. I did it once to practice before I felt I was ready for primetime. We got to eat it twice! This is the most yummy-licious and easy desserts – ever.

I got the recipe from Miss Tracy who made it for an office party. She’s a mother of twin one-year-old boys, works full-time and is training for a half-marathon. Can you say super woman? I don’t know she found the time to cook but here it is. And it’s wonderful.

I had to ask her permission before I posted it in case it was an ancient Chinese secret. Enjoy!

Ingredients

* 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 (8 ounce) packages refrigerated crescent rolls
* 1/2 cup melted butter
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Prepare a
9×13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Beat the cream cheese with 1 cup of sugar and the vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth; set aside.
3. Unroll the cans of crescent roll dough, and use a rolling pin to shape each sheet into 9×13 inch rectangles. Press one sheet into the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish. Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture into the baking dish, then cover with the remaining piece of crescent dough, and brush with melted butter. Stir together 1/2 cup of sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl, and sprinkle evenly over the top of the cheesecake.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until the crescent dough has puffed and turned golden brown, about 30 minutes. Allow to cool 10 minutes before serving.

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I had every intention of posting more photos but I find it hard to cook and photograph at the same time…I need a sous chef, and a photographer, and a maid…

It looks really good in my Polish Pottery dish doesn’t it? Try it! You’ll love it!

Deep Food Thoughts

I have company coming over tomorrow. It’s not Neighbor Leigh or LCAT Daniel. This is company I want to impress:)

So I have been in deep thought all weekend about what to make and since I was so busy thinking, I wasn’t quite busy enough in the execution. So therefore, I’m behind. While I was thinking about what to make, I had several unexpected requests for my time this morning. They are always unexpected aren’t they? It’s Monday morning for Pete’s sake!

In the midst of it all, the gym called to politely tell me that I was supposed to teach a yoga class five minutes ago. Really? I do? I guess it’s good to get a yoga class in considering how the morning was going.

So after all the fuss of it, I now turn my attention to what I’m going to make for tomorrow night.

Here is the menu:

Aritchoke Dip
Mozzrella and Baby Tomato Salad
Lemon Chicken with Capers & Angel Hair Pasta
Thai Seafood Salad (spicy) with Steamed Rice
Red, White & Blue Potato Salad
Blueberry Pie
Sopapillo Cheesecake

A lot of this is based on the fact that I already had a bunch of these ingredients. I’m hoping I’ll have some more of those cute yellow tomatoes ripe before tomorrow, I think it’ll look great with the mozzerella. We ate some already this weekend, why didn’t I think? There doesn’t seem enough to feed thirteen people.

I’ve never made blueberry pie before. But I had a bunch of blueberries so I figured why not. They are God’s perfect food. They make you ten years younger.

I bought a huge can of artichoke heart and parmesan cheese at the Restaurant Depot, therefore, artichoke dip is on the menu.

The sopapilla cheesecake…well divine. I practiced it on Saturday and it turned out really yummy so I get to have it twice within one week.

I’m off to find some pretty flowers to replace the dead ones on my front porch…I’ll post recipes soon…

Hello Mosaic Monday!

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