10 Oct – Crunchy Goodness

Tell us your favourite crunchy thing to eat.

This is a bit hard because a) I love food and b) there are so many different variations of ‘crunch’.

18 Sept – Comfort Food

Tell us about your comfort foods.

 

I bet you’re all expecting me to say cake, right? Wrong. Truth be told my ultimate comfort foods would be a pot of tea and copious amounts of toast.

Daily Prompt – Nosey Delights

From the yeasty warmth of freshly baked bread to the clean, summery haze of lavender flowers, we all have favorite smells we find particularly comforting. What’s yours?

Haven’t I already written one of these?

May 12: Nutrition vs. Taste

How do you balance good nutrition and good taste?

 

Generally speaking, I was always of the view that if it’s supposed to be good for you, healthy etc then it must taste like crap. On the flip side, if it tastes amazing, then it must be bad for you.

However, over the years as I’ve grown and as my palette has developed, I’ve discovered that healthy food can actually taste good. Don’t get me wrong, there are still foods out there that are good for you, and taste like some kind of fowl hell, (yeah, I’m looking at you corn and Brussel sprouts!!) and don’t even get me started on things like gluten-free – that’s just so much wrong, I can’t even begin to explain! I guess it’s because I’ve always had a diet that has used utter and full-cream milk – all those ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ ingredients that actually make food taste amazing.

Over the past few years I have managed to implement ‘healthier’ alternatives in my diet – we use a soy-based spread instead of butter; swapped full-cream for semi-skim… We also eat a lot more lean meats and vegetables… But in saying that we also have a weakness for cupcakes and potato chips… Our diet isn’t perfect, but it’s not terrible either.

I find that I’m still in the mindset that if it’s healthy it doesn’t taste that great, and requires a lot of seasoning / flavouring etc. every now and then friends of mine who have extremely healthy diets will get me to taste something they’ve made, particularly ‘raw food’ which actually tastes incredible. Those moments mess with my head because it just seems too good to be true that something so yummy can actually be healthy for you… I still don’t understand it, and then they tell me how easy it is to make, however easy = time consuming + expensive ingredients… And let’s face it, I’m just lazy.

May 9 – Celebrity Chef

If you could have dinner with one celebrity chef whom would it be?

This is so hard because there are so many chefs that I absolutely adore.

Heston because he’s such a creative culinary genius, and he sees food in ways most people simply wouldn’t naturally perceive. Whenever the words ‘molecular gastronomy’ are thrown around, Heston’s name is usually part of the same sentence. He’s simply amazing.

Nigella because she’s not afraid of making foods using all the wrong ingredients – full-fat cream, butter, sugar etc. Nigella’s reputation for having such a descriptive vernacular almost overshadows what she’s making.

Jamie because he has managed to show busy people that you can create quick and healthy meals every night of the week in as little as fifteen minutes, which is amazing. Considering that society has such an unhealthy diet and everybody is so time-poor, it just goes to show that we can all afford to take fifteen minutes out of our day to create something delicious.

It’s Paula Deen, y’all!! One of the original favourites of mine… she’s got the reputation of butter, butter and more butter!! The queen of fried foods, and pretty much ANYTHING you can eat that is bad for you, this woman has made it, and made it the most wickedly delicious thing you could ever imagine putting in your mouth. *lol*. She comes across as being quite welcoming and ‘motherly’, and you know that she would be incredibly hospitable if you were to visit her.

There are many more that I could add to this list, honourable mention goes to Maggie Beer, Adriano Zumbo, Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris. Incredibly talented and down to earth chefs, well, except maybe for Zumbo – he’s just scary. They’re all people I’d love to meet.

Daily Prompt: Ingredients

What’s the one item in your kitchen you can’t possibly cook without? A spice, your grandma’s measuring cup, instant ramen — what’s your magic ingredient, and why?

No, not Paula Deen. Butter.

Slippery, greasy, golden goodness. As somebody who bakes, everything that I make has butter in it. And it’s usually in every component. The batter, the filling, the frosting. Butter, butter, butter.

And as somebody who should really be paying more attention to their expanding waistline, I don’t really know how to address this problem… I love baking, and I love butter, but I don’t like gaining weight… why can’t I be able to, quite literally, be able to have my cake and eat it too… and not put on weight?

I think this is the exact reason why I prefer to wear trackies (sweat pants) and comfortable clothing (read: fat clothing) instead of showing all my lumpy-bumpy bits. Ugh, it’s hideous. The problem is, that it just makes a dish. Even when cooking dinner, it’s the sort of thing that is a fundamental ingredient of French cuisine. Have you ever had seafood that was just cooked in butter and some herbs. OMFG it’s unbelievable. Sometimes Hulk will create something special and do king prawns and scallops in some kind of butter sauce, and rather than the half-a-dozen pieces of seafood we get each, I really just want to have an entire bowl full of it. Or a lobster tail with a burnt butter sauce… yum-yum-in-my-tum-tum!! Fuck having anything else. Salad? Now you’re just talking crazy talk!

And let it also be known that when it comes to having freshly baked bread / scones / cheesey muffins etc, the only (and I mean ONLY) condiment you need is butter. And lashings of it. Moreso if it’s just come out of the oven and it’s still hot. You don’t need to ruin it by putting margarine or soy-spread on it. Good quality oil… I’ll let that one sneak past, but other than that, it’s butter all the way.

Speaking of butter, do they still make ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!’? I will admit, I did try that when it was available here in Australia, and from what I can remember, it was actually quite impressive. But now that I think back, I wonder about all the nasties that would have gone into something like that…??

So whilst I sit here and wait for my arteries to slowly harden, I couldn’t help but share something. When I first read the prompt, my instant reaction was butter. And the first thought once I thought of butter was…

Now, for those of you who aren’t on the same page, this is an Oprah reference. One that was brought to my attention by my favourite bitch, Kathy Griffin. In order to give yourself an Oprahcation (Oprah-education), enjoy the YouTube clip below…

….GAAAIIILLLL!!!

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/daily-prompt-ingredients/