Some of the best dreams are the ones that come true, and I'd like to recommend that culinary dreams are a great place to start. All you need are the right ingredients and a taste for what you want to eat when you wake up.
One morning I dreamed I had arrived late for a culinary competition taking place somewhere at a college culinary program's cafeteria/kitchen in the mid-west (maybe one of the Dakotas--sometimes I get a feel for where I am geographically in my dreams), but found that teams were to devise a blend of two usable existing components, propose the dish to the "master chef" (rather than master chief?) for approval and make a new dish of them.
My team was looking demoralized and frustrated, but there were a lot of fresh herbs and cheeses on our table.
A scoop of tabbouleh and pesto on French bread slices came to mind, and I got it approved by the master chef (even though it was a dream, I addressed her politely as master chef) and I set off to make it.
About 10 minutes later, I woke up, went straight to the kitchen, and took each container from the fridge (thank goodness for pre-made pesto and tabobouleh!).
Here's how I made it come to reality (using available ingredients in my fridge):
Crusty multigrain bread slices ~1-3/4" (close enough to eat)
each toasted with a 1/2 slice of swiss on top
&
About a teaspoon of pesto (whatever we've got in the fridge, it's salty thus my reserved use of pesto) mixed with a heaping scoop of tabbouleh until the masses were heterogeneous in appearance
As I was making my dream come true (in seeing if the combination would actually taste good) I realized in retrospect that I probably would have lost points for presentation and taste as it would literally be a slice of bread with a scoop of pesto and a scoop of tabbouleh on top of some cheese. So I decided I'd blend the two together.
I also had some eggs drizzled with Cholula to go with it.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Bah, craisins--try rose hips instead.
This weekend the Student Environmental Association went to Waterloo State Park for a cabin outing.
I like to point out that rose hips are edible, are high in vitamin C, and as such can help a fellow in preventing scurvy. As you may suspect, Michigan's largest state park in the lower peninsula has rose bushes (possibly wild) in its area, and I pointed them out to Duke and Amit.
However, I never ate the rose hips. Maybe in the past I tried some in the backyard from domestic roses and didn't fancy their flavor when I was younger. More likely it's because there's a bottle of Ester-C made from rose hips and other stuff in the medicine cabinet, and each pill has a horrible hay fiber texture with an unpleasantly semi sweet/sour medicine cabinet taste if you don't swallow them soon. That said, I don't take vitamin C pills frequently.
Anyhow, Amit and Duke were fascinated and decided to try it out despite my disclaimers and warnings (good for them!). Better still, they really enjoyed them and started eating all the ripe hips off of the bushes.
I finally decided to try them and realized they were indeed pleasant, like dry craisins (minus the coloring and high fructose corn syrup) with a hint of rose in the aftertaste. Mind you, this is early mid-winter in Michigan, so the hips were dehydrated, but they were certainly delicious.
I'd like to experiment with the native wild roses on the Estate grounds at UM-Dearborn next to see if they bear a similar taste.
I like to point out that rose hips are edible, are high in vitamin C, and as such can help a fellow in preventing scurvy. As you may suspect, Michigan's largest state park in the lower peninsula has rose bushes (possibly wild) in its area, and I pointed them out to Duke and Amit.
However, I never ate the rose hips. Maybe in the past I tried some in the backyard from domestic roses and didn't fancy their flavor when I was younger. More likely it's because there's a bottle of Ester-C made from rose hips and other stuff in the medicine cabinet, and each pill has a horrible hay fiber texture with an unpleasantly semi sweet/sour medicine cabinet taste if you don't swallow them soon. That said, I don't take vitamin C pills frequently.
Anyhow, Amit and Duke were fascinated and decided to try it out despite my disclaimers and warnings (good for them!). Better still, they really enjoyed them and started eating all the ripe hips off of the bushes.
I finally decided to try them and realized they were indeed pleasant, like dry craisins (minus the coloring and high fructose corn syrup) with a hint of rose in the aftertaste. Mind you, this is early mid-winter in Michigan, so the hips were dehydrated, but they were certainly delicious.
I'd like to experiment with the native wild roses on the Estate grounds at UM-Dearborn next to see if they bear a similar taste.
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