Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

As a rule, I eat meat daily and would never considering being a vegetarian. However, there are benefits to eating less meat for three reasons.

1. It’s better for your health. I started cutting back on red meat on the advice of a dermatologist. I had very bad acne in college and he told me to abstain from beef because of the synthetic hormones which might cause my acne to be worse. (Stress on ‘might’, but I had nothing to lose.) Plus there are added benefits to cutting out meats like lowering your fat intake and cholesterol counts.

2. It’s good for the wallet. Meat is expensive. Pound for pound, tofu is kind of expensive too if you get the organic stuff, but let’s face it, when you’re looking at entrees on a restaurant menu, the vegetarian options are always cheaper. As it is, at the Korean wholesale place, I get them for $1.50 a block (about 14 ozs).

3. It’s good for the environment. Most corn in the US is actually used as animal feed for the animals you like to eat most. I read somewhere that it takes like 16 lbs of grain to make 1 lb of beef. It also takes a lot of water and fertilizer to make 1 lb of grain, so any quantities of those inputs have to be multiplied by 16. You can reduce your carbon footprint quickly by cutting meat from your diet.

I’m not ever going to give up all meat unless my doctor says I have to. But I’ve been eating more meatless entrees, or halving the portion of meat I do eat. Consider trying a meatless meal once or twice a week. Track your grocery spending. You might find you’re saving money. (Just be mindful of your cheese intake. That kind of negates #1 and #3.)

We had a visitor this weekend so we took her to the Library of Congress’ re-opened exhibit areas and then to Jaleo for tapas dinner on Saturday night. Then we went back to Napa 1015 for the totally awesome brunch Sunday morning. (Where they recognized me and boyfriend from a few weeks ago. Gratefully there were a lot more people there for brunch and I also got a friend to go there for dinner last week for her birthday and she said it was amazing. But I digress.)

Jaleo is by far the best place in DC I’ve been for tapas. La Tasca doesn’t even compare. And fortunately, Jaleo is in several locations around DC.

The food ranges from the very traditional Patatas Bravas, roasted potatoes with aioli and tomato sauce, to funkier stuff like artichoke hearts with grapefruit slices and olives. OMG was dinner delicious I am salivating just recalling the dinner.

We got 9 dishes total, 2 desserts, a glass of sherry and a bottle of wine. Damage was about $135 + tip. Dishes ranged in price from about $6-10 each and the wine was a Rioja for $34. This was dinner for 3 and way too much food, but we wanted to impress our guest and give her a lot of options for her first taste of Spanish food.

I got the artichoke hearts with grapefruit and olives, wild mushroom rice (basically a risotto), and cannelones with foiegras and pork. Boyfriend got Chorizo in crispy potato pastry, chicken croquettes, brussel sprouts with grapes, apples and apricots, there was mashed potato in cabbage leaf with goat cheese (’Trinxat’), sauteed cauliflower and Patatas Bravas.

Dessert was the warm chocolate birthday cake with with bergamot flavoring and yummy vanilla ice cream and Basque cake with semolina cream, cinnamon-vanilla sauce & ice milk, and a very nice sherry for the guest. Dessert was amazing. I highly recommend the chocolate cake if you go soon. It’s a seasonal special.

In retrospect, 9 dishes was too much for the three of us. Jaleo has huge portions. 2-3 is usually enough for a person. But I’ve been places where 3-4 is more the norm. (Thirsty Bear in San Francisco comes to mind, but I also remember their fish cheeks and beef with rosemary dishes. Yes. That good.)

They also have a wine shop near their Crystal City location. CRAP. I wish I knew this before. boyfriend and I had a really amazing wine there before that just knocked our socks off. But now I can’t remember what it was, else I would buy a case of it tomorrow. A rioja. Of course. What else would you have with tapas?

Amelia is a new blogger and like many of us, she’s working on getting her financial house in order, as well as lose weight. Her blog is called Amelia’s Healthy Life. Because if you have enough money, you can buy a trainer’s time, or quit and focus on your health full-time. (I had a friend who did this and frankly, he’s really hot after losing 100lbs in 2 years.)

At any rate, I was kind sad to read she had a Mac N’ Cheese disaster at home. But hey, we’ve all been there and done that. I’ve botched many a cheese sauce. In fact, mine was grainy on Sunday night, but quite edible.

I’m a little disturbed though by the recipe used. It’s a lightened version of Alton Brown’s stove top recipe and I’m utterly confused why there’s so much butter and egg in it. If you’re putting a sauce on the noodles, don’t bother putting butter on them. It makes the sauce slide off. Even Alton Brown says not to do that.

Macaroni and cheese is a very easy pantry recipe. Shoot. I made it for dinner on Sunday because boyfriend and I were sitting around what the hell to eat and feeling lazy. Having watched an Alton Brown casserole program, I was kind of inspired to make homemade mac n’ cheese. There is only one trick to mac n’ cheese and one trick only.

MAKE A GOOD BECHAMEL SAUCE.

Bechamel sauce is a very basic French sauce. (Thank you very much Julia Child!) It’s also called a ‘white sauce’. It’s so freakin’ cheap to make, but also very easy to screw up. Got butter, flour, and milk? I bet you do.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan on medium to high heat till it’s foamy. (Alton Brown says that’s when the water burns off leaving only fat and milk solids.) Then drop in a teaspoon or two of flour and cook till it’s lightly browned. You want to coat each flour molecule with some fat, or else you get floury flavor, so don’t use too much flour. Err on the side of less if doing this without measuring. Gradually whisk in a cup of milk and cook till thickened. This is the tricky part because you will end up with a lumpy sauce if you do not whisk your little heart out. The best way is to take the pan off the heat and add a little milk at a time so the flour absorbs it all before adding more. Take care that the pan is not too hot when you do it. That’s what usually screws mine up.

To make a cheese sauce, add a 1/2-1 cup of sharp cheese like cheddar, but gruyere or another fondue cheese works just as well. Try a smoked gouda. Fog City Diner in SF makes it with smoked gouda, ham and peas. YUM. (ok, I admit, not low calorie)

I just don’t get why someone would use a egg white for this to save calories. Eggs are picky and will curdle if the heat’s not right. If you want less fat, just use less butter. The sauce will be thinner since you have to adjust down the flour as well, but at least you haven’t added a finicky egg.

The mac n’ cheese on Sunday night was about half a box of rotini from the pantry. 1 tsp of butter. 1/2 tsp of flour. 1/2 cup of low fat milk. A sprinkle of cayenne pepper. 1 c of grated sharp cheddar cheese. (Save some for the top)

I stuck it all in a casserole dish, sprinkled on the last of the cheese, and crushed a few Triscuits since I didn’t have bread crumbs. Baked it in the oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes to re-warm the noodles and make the top a little crusty. It was enough for 3-4 servings. The leftovers were freshened up with an extra sprinkle of cheese before popping in the microwave.

This cute little restaurant has charming original artwork decor, granite tabletops, and little jade plants in white pots sitting on each table. The menu is gourmet, but not inaccessible. The service was friendly and nice. Though this place specializes in wines and holds wine tastings on Wednesday nights, we went for Sunday brunch. We walked in last-minute at 1:30, though they stop brunch at 2pm. The place was empty save for a family of 5 at one table that was clearly enjoying themselves with a little champagne and dessert.

I was in the mood for a chicken sandwich with a nice mustard, but the mushroom-asparagus-goat cheese omelette caught my eye. I had it with a side of bacon. The asapargus was sliced on the bias and very tender. The mushrooms were a mix of button and I think cremini and/or shitake, very meaty with just the right tang of goat cheese. The home fries served with it were a little crisp/crunchy on the outside, but nice and moist on the inside served with ketchup. I found myself picking at them till the waiter took my plate away because they were so yummy. I think the only thing missing might have been a little onion or garlic on either the omelette or the potatoes. Perhaps they were lightly seasoned so as not to compete with a glass of wine?

Actually we skipped wine. We had been out the night before for a birthday party and alcohol was off the menu for us. Though the wine list was great ranging from $6 wine by the glass to a $100 bottle from Italy (A Barolo I think). It has a lot of appealing wines by the glass, and despite the name, not all the wines featured were from California. I was really pleased though that they had Domaine Chandon champagnes. They’re some of my favorites, and the happy family’s mother asked for hers with a strawberry and they poured a glass of it for her garnished with a strawberry.

Boyfriend had what was by far the best French toast we’ve ever had in our lives. Though I cannot eat strawberries, he cut me a little piece that had a dab of strawberry sauce on it. It was divine. Thick 2″ slices of French bread, soaked in egg custard (that’s what Alton Brown calls it), fried, then arranged on a plate with sliced strawberries with strawberry sauce and fresh chantilly cream. No extra icky confectioner’s sugar, just pure freshness for spring. Delicious. My mouth still waters remembering it.

BTW, he got a side of sausage and I got a side of bacon. Mine was nicely crisp, just the way I like it, but I’ll be honest. I prefer single slices that aren’t stuck together. That makes for a bummer because then you end up crunching it up with your fork to get a bite size piece and it makes a mess. Stupid, but honestly, they can’t cook single slices of bacon? It’s not like their kitchen was super busy. Of course, this is nitpickery and never a dealbreaker.

What is a deal breaker is the pricing. Part of why we skipped on their appealing menu of wines by the glass was the cost of our entrees. In the neighborhood they are located, they are definitely on the higher side. Boyfriend and I agreed that we couldn’t eat brunch here every week because of the price, but that we would gladly be be regulars if it wasn’t quite so expensive. We’ll probably still go there once a month for a nice treat if we can get there before 2pm. (We’re late risers.) The manager asked us how our meal was and we raved about the French toast. He invited us to come back around sometime for dinner, which I think we definitely will do. I know I will try to make it out on a Wednesday night for a wine tasting. And the service throughout the meal was good, except at the end when boyfriend ran out of water and no one came around to refill his glass. That’s ok. I just let him drink mine, but if the day had been warm and I had been thirsty, that oversight would have been much more noticeable.

Total for brunch, two vegetarian entrees, two side orders of breakfast meat and tip was $37.00 and change. This does not include any beverages other than water.

Last night we met at Fado in DC. It’s an Irish bar down near the Verizon Center aka The Phone Booth. I was reluctant to wear a hat so people could recognize me, but James from DINKS Finance convinced me that a hat was essential so I wore my Washington Capitals camouflage hat. CleverDude just calls me anyway and then inadvertently plays hide and seek with me at the metro station. It was kind of funny to the casual observer. We were wandering around a huge pillar keeping ourselves just out of view of the other person.

Debt Hater picked the bar and I actually liked it a lot! It was a bit loud, but we were able to get a large table for all of us and their mini-burgers came with fries and tasty mustard. I walked out of there $22 lighter for a light dinner and 2 Boddington’s pints, but it was well worth it. Yesterday, I REALLY needed a drink.

I hadn’t seen Mrs Micah since Plonkee’s visit last year. Nor have I seen HC from One Big Mortar Board or Donna Jean from The Weight of Money in months. We also had some new faces appear, which is always nice. J from Budgets are Sexy and Jaylin from You Are Not Your Wallet joined us. I won’t tell you who had the faux hawk ala Capitals’ defenseman Mike Green, but it was pretty awesome.

If you are in the DC area, email me and I’ll add you to the happy hour list. They’re fairly impromptu and they don’t always have beer. (HC mentioned fancy hot chocolate somewhere instead. YUM!)

So frozen tofu turned out to be way better than I thought. It’s pretty darned versatile. We’ve thrown it into curry for an entree, boiled in soup, and now I’ve tried frying them.

There’s a fried tofu appetizer at Bangkok 54, one of DC’s best Thai restaurants, that I love. I haven’t figured out the dipping sauce yet, but the main thing is that I have a more than acceptable alternative.

Since I usually freeze whatever is leftover from making dinner out of a 14oz block of tofu, it’s usually a log about 1.5 inches square and about 3-4 inches long. I freeze it, and then thaw in boiled water for 20 minutes as I was instructed by my tofu cookbook. Once that’s done, I drain it really well. It’s kind of spongy, so I end up squeezing it just a little bit over the sink to drain it even further. After that, I cut it into half inch slices and spread them on a paper towel to dry.

I then mix up a tablespoon or two of flour, add garlic powder, curry powder and cayenne pepper. I put in enough to make the flour brown like light brown sugar, but not enough pepper to burn my tongue. I suppose you could dump everything into a bag and shake up the tofu cubes to coat. Shake off the excess and let them dry out a little bit. Then deep fry them. I pour in just enough canola oil into a pan till it’s about a half inch deep. Then fry the cubes. I flip them when they turn brown on one side and drain on paper towels. I like them to be really crispy on the outside, but still squishy in the middle.

I also tried this without flour and then drying the tofu cubes for a few hours. They come out MUCH crispier that way. Feel free to experiment and leave your results here. The main issue is driving the seasoning into the tofu for lots of flavor. I’ve also been using Goya Adobo seasoning as well, but the curry and cayenne flavors come out the most.

For a dipping sauce we’re experimenting with soy-sesame for a more Korean style sauce. We’re also investigating fish sauce for a Thai style sauce, and a sweet and sour type sauce too.

I like them really hot, fresh out of the pan, but they are pretty good room temperature too. It’s a pretty quick appetizer.

Despite all my homages to meat on this blog, I really really really like tofu. Being Korean, I’m not scared of tofu. I love it. I love hot, I love it cold, I love it fried, boiled, squished into dumplings, deep-fried and now, I like it frozen.

Since my boyfriend likes to eat vegetarian, I’ve been making more tofu for him and for myself. I’m a bit of a treehugger so adding more soy to my diet is ok by me. The thing is, I almost wrote ’substituting tofu for meat’ in that sentence, but I am a firm believer that substituting tofu for meat is a BAD IDEA. The reason I think it’s a bad idea is that frankly, tofu will never be meat. I don’t pretend that tofu is meat. Tofu is tofu and it has merits of its own. It will never be steak, but I don’t want it to be steak and that doesn’t bother me like it does other carnivores. Maybe it’s because I grew up with an awesome arsenal of Korean tofu dishes, a lot of which also have meat. (Mabo-dofu anyone?) Or that I don’t try to fool myself that it’s akin to actual meat. (Though there are some highly processed soy products that are pretty yummy, fake chicken patties especially. Heck, what’s a Chicken McNugget?)

Being single, I usually cannot use an entire package of tofu very quickly. Even if I make an entree with leftovers, an entire package of fresh tofu (well, as fresh as the organic tofu from the western market is). I end up with half a block of the stuff that I never get around to eating. Heck, even when cooking for two, I try to make enough for us to eat and that still leaves a decent block left over.

Boyfriend bought a tofu cookbook at the DC Farmer’s Market recently. (It’s the wholesale market district, not Eastern Market yuppieville, which is fine, but let’s get real about who shops where.) The cookbook is a Japanese-cuisine cookbook, ironically sold by Koreans, but I digress. We flipped through it to get some recipe ideas and learn to cook better, but the stunning revelation in it is a lesson in freezing tofu and what to do with a frozen chunk. Boyfriend’s vegetarian/vegan friends say freezing tofu makes it firmer and meatier in texture. Having never done this before, I tried it out with the last block. Basically, I wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap, pushing out as much air as possible and tossed it into the freezer.

That was 3 weeks ago.

I eyed the beige colored block of frozen tofu for many days, uncertain of what to do with it. I read somewhere in the recipe book that frozen tofu is excellent for simmering. Perfect. I had an idea! I bought some shiro miso (lit ‘white miso’) at the supermarket and some scallions. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any dashi powder (sardine/fish stock powder), but I’ll get some next time. It turned out ok without it.

I had some leftover squash I diced into small cubes, and started boiling in a 1qt saucepot. Then I thawed out the frozen tofu in warm water, pulling off the plastic wrap. I tossed the entire block into the boiling water and waited about 10 minutes. I should have waited longer since the block was still frozen in the very center. But either way, I fished it out of the water, and drained it. I put it on the cutting board and cut it into cubes and tossed back into the pot. I brough the water back up to a boil, added some chopped garlic and a big spoonful of miso. I let the miso dissolve into the water and then took it off the heat. I sprinkled some minced scallions and served. Quite tasty and pretty hearty since the cubes were kind of big. Boyfriend said he really liked it and would like to try deep frying frozen tofu to see if will come out like some other tofu dishes he’s had.

Usually I make miso soup with silken tofu, but this was a really nice hearty miso soup. I needed some super thin sliced white onion, seaweed (kombe seaweed), dashi, maybe a little few tiny anchovies/sardines or dried fish to make it really yummy. Maybe even a little shitake mushroom too.

All I can say is that I love Anthony Bourdain. What’s not to like about a guy who puts duck, sausage, bacon and beans all into one dish? Or serves duck confit with foie gras sausage and another blood sausage? AND STILL puts rabbit on the menu?

Now that I’ve grossed out my vegan and vegetarian readers, I shall get on to my dinner review.

WARNING: The restaurant websites listed herein all seem to play loud accordian music, so turn it down before you click.

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Stop for a moment. Think about your life without ice cubes. Without cold beer. Without convenient frozen dinners. I perish at the thought!

A few weeks ago while I was home with my mom and dad, we were talking about breakfast. My mom has this prune and honey spread she and my dad like to eat on toast. I don’t quite know how to describe it. It’s basically some fresh onion pureed with some dried prunes. Then you mix in some honey and let it ferment for about a month. When you taste it, it’s sweet and slightly savory without the harsh bite of raw onion. Fascinating, but I also instantly got an allergic reaction to the fruit in it. My mom likes it because she can make it in small batches and put in an old jam jar and it keeps without refrigeration.

My folks grew up without refrigeration in pre-war Korea. Visiting the old farmstead where my father lived, it’s not hard to see that there wasn’t electricity running to the house. Visiting Korean Folk Village (kind of the Colonial Williamsburg of Korea with re-enactors, etc.), my mom clapped her hands with joy over an old provincial farmhouse which she said was just like where she grew up. I was agog at the huge ceramic amphorae buried underground for long-term kimchee storage. (Amphora is probably a bad term for them since they technically aren’t Greek and don’t store wine, but I digress.)

Years ago while on a work project, my sibling was working on a home in West Virgina for an old lady who had no refrigeration in the house. The resident still kept her perishable items in the cold mountain stream out back of the house. This was in the late 1980’s. I don’t know if that lady ever got refrigeration, but it surprises me that she lived that way. I cannot tell if it was poverty or a choice. Given the work project criteria for selecting homes to fix, probably the latter compounded by the former.

Conceptually, I think it’s hard for people to grasp what it’s like to live without refrigeration. I know there is a simple pleasure to popping open a can of chilled mandarin oranges on a hot summer day. (One of the few fruits I can eat.) I have been contemplating my mom’s onion, prune and honey spread for a few days and I can only think that the natural anti-microbial properties of onion and honey must do some sort of natural preservation.

Sometimes I like to think about how people lived without the modern conveniences of the 20th and 21st centuries. I try to appreciate what it is that I have and remember what is non-essential about life and living. Counting our blessings in a way, I suppose. Next time I look at a super charged Audi A3 fully loaded at nearly $35K, I will have to remember that I really don’t need a car like that. My Altima still gets me from Point A to Point B reliably.

Let it be known, that St. Valentine, is not my favorite saint. I’m just saying. It’s a dumb holiday. I can say that as someone who has a sweetie pie this year so that remark comes from the afterglow of a pretty awesome Thursday.

Last night I spent the best Valentine’s Day in the last 10 years, if not ever. I dislike Valentine’s Day since it’s always been Bitter Singleton Day for me. Rarely have I had a significant other in mid-winter, when I’m at my grouchiest. However, this year, I cut a deal. We do nothing for Valentine’s Day and go all out for my birthday in a few weeks. Boyfriend was down with this idea.

About a week ago, some friends of mine in a dancing troupe made the Washington Post’s Valentine’s Day guide. Their regular monthly gig happened to fall on Valentine’s Day and they had a sold out show. Since these are folks with whom I used to dance, I really wanted to see them perform in this new venue. Even if last night was not a holiday, we would have gone to the show.

Tickets were $10 apiece. After a lovely home cooked Indian meal, we headed out and had a great time. The Palace of Wonders is pretty cheap and 4 beers were $20 including the exorbitant tip of $4. (Walk up, get two beers for $8 bucks and leave the bartender the change. Hey, they’re probably friends of friends. No need to be stingy.)

I did a meet and greet afterwards with everyone. I’ve been so busy blogging the last two years and focused on some other interests that folks are always glad to see me. I made plans for Saturday in Philadelphia after visiting my folks (scrounging tickets for an event). Then we headed back into the cold to go home.

Twenty bucks for two advance tickets on a sold out show is alright by me. Boyfriend bought the beers. Having fun trying my hand at Indian cooking is good stuff. I didn’t even have to clean it up!

What’s on deck for my birthday? Reservations at Les Halles! (We like Anthony Bourdain’s show, No Reservations. So it’s kind of a corny joke to us.)