take comfort in this...

Sometimes I wonder if the only reason that Valentines day is in february is to distract us from the awfulness of this wretched month. I have said for the longest time that I hate february. It's cold, dreary, and I swear that its 28 days feel like 56. So, what's a disgruntled chap to do with this most melancholy of months? eat...things...in...bowls. More specifically, comfort foods. Nothing gets me out of a feb funk faster than a warm bowl of soup/stew/curry/whatever. I think that most of us have the wrong idea about comfort foods; meaning that comfort is associated with things that are bad for you, or at least not necessarily all that good. However, the tasties you see above were not only delicious, but also pretty good for you as well.

First pic is a fried rice with leeks that is topped with a sunny side egg and sprinkled with crisped ginger and garlic. We had it for chinese new year. it was really nice because the richness of the egg yolk, along with the leek had a really nice, velvety texture that contrasted well with the crunch of the ginger and garlic.

Next up was an elk stew with parsnips and carrots. Just threw some leeks (had a little left over from what I didn't use in the rice), carrots, mushrooms, parsnips, and chunked elk meat (all seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, paprika, and fresh rosemary) into a dutch oven along with one beer and one can of beef broth, set the oven to 250F and took a four and a half hour nap. when I woke up, it was perfectly done. I honestly spent about 10-12 minutes putting this dish together. you could do the exact same thing in a crock pot if you wanted to.

Next up was a chana masala so we could get our weekly curry fix in. I'm really not kidding on that one by the way. If mames and I don't get curry at least once a week, things can get pretty nasty around here...

Last was a parsnip and ginger soup. It was interesting because the end product almost tasted like sweet potato. another really easy dish. Just sauteed some onion and garlic, then tossed in about 3-4 parsnips, a couple carrots, 2 stalks celery, and about an inch piece of peeled and diced ginger, salt and peps, and then chicken stock to cover. let go until the veggies were tender and then blended it up. I topped it with some sourdough croutons and some cilantro. I did fry some bacon to top it with also, but ended up eating all of it while i was waiting (anyone else ever have this problem?)

non-foods:

Have been spending a lot of time lately trying to solve rubiks cube. have gotten close a couple of times, but not totally solved. I hate/love the rubiks. can't believe they sell this thing in the kid's toy section of stores. anybody else out there ever solve one of these? let me know.

Went and saw shutter island last night. All in all, pretty good. I had already read the book so I knew all the twists and turns already. Scorsese and Leo seem to make a pretty good team.

Had a minor kitchen freakout...turns out the guy forgot to add our window measurements in when laying out the cabinets in 20/20 (which almost resulted in mames' lovely face melting off of her skull and the walls of our house being cloaked in a tapestry of obscenities:), but we figured everything out and now all seems to be right with the world.

Oh yeah, got some new clogs for work. I'll have to get back to everyone on how they hold up as I've only been wearing them around the house. I used to only wear birkenstocks for clogs, but bought a pair of sanitas as they are supposed to be more supportive. Bad thing is, I'm like three inches taller in them. we'll see...

DISH recommends:

Cuisinart 4 cup rice cooker. I use this little guy all the time. I know that having a rice cooker is kind of an extravagance, but I just.don't.care. It's an extravagance I can embrace (like my body pillow made out of gold lame fabric).