world Archives ← Foodie's Arsenal

chickpea curry (chana masala) 3

Nov

2012

Indian food can be intimidating, because it usually includes about 1,000 ingredients, 870 of which you’ve never had in your kitchen before. But it’s also delicious and satisfying, and somehow uses some kind of black magic to take all those ridiculous amounts of spices and make them work in harmony to create new and intriguing...

the holy cheesesteak, and a year of blogging 4

Nov

2012

Annoying renewal emails from my domain registrar have reminded me that somehow a year has already passed since I started this blog. Last November, I was in one of those slumps where you get cabin fever, except in your life — didn’t like the job I had to stick with then, didn’t like how I...

habanero hot sauce 4

Sep

2012

Last week at the farmer’s market, one of the stands had a box of beautiful orange habaneros. Now, I don’t eat habaneros much, because they kill you, but for some reason I felt drawn to them. “How much?” I asked. “25 cents each,” he answered. “or 10 for a dollar. Or 15 for a dollar.”...

sundried tomato pesto 4

Sep

2012

Over the weekend, we were visited by dear friends who brought some sun dried tomatoes I had asked for from a great produce store in their area. I have a hard time finding them cheap enough to use without a pang of “wasteful foodie” guilt, so it was quite the kitchen blessing to have a...

fish tacos 3

Aug

2012

Fish tacos! I’m a huge fan of tacos in general, but the “fish” kind is one I haven’t tried very much. It’s one of those items that at the moment hasn’t been converted to any kind of Tex-Mex version, so generally it lives in the land of semi-authentic Mexican cuisine. I’ve rarely heard anyone say...

guajillo salsa (salsa roja de guajillo)

Aug

2012

It doesn’t look like much, but this salsa is the culmination of a significant quest in my life. When I lived in Mexico, there was one little taqueria we would frequent every few weeks, due to it being one of the few restaurants we knew for sure we could trust. Like most Mexican restaurants, each...

baba ganoush 3

Aug

2012

Baba ganoush! What a funny-sounding name for a food, especially since I have no Mediterranean heritage to justify using such terminology. What I should really call it is “eggplant hummus” or “one more attempt to start liking eggplant at all”. Because it’s true– I don’t like eggplant very much. I’ve tried it in various forms,...

pizza margherita 7

Jun

2012

We had some leftover fresh mozzarella from our garden party last week, and I thought a great way to use it up would be some pizza on the grill. I’ve made attempts at neapolitan pizza in the past, with mixed success, and I can say that this was the best effort so far (although hopefully...