Late Night Rambles

I should have warned all of you imaginary readers that the majority of my posts will come late at night when just about the only thing I think of is food. Hello, second post of 2011!

While I promise to practice my photography skills and entice you all with pictures in the posts to come, I currently have an extremely depressing fridge and don't want to discourage anyone. (I also have to work out the whole camera situation, but that's not the point!) Instead, I would like to preview some topics, which are sure to be discussed often in the upcoming year.

To begin, I should note that I am a strict ovo-lacto vegetarian. I have recently decided to try and reduce consumption of "fake meat" products in order to limit my intake of processed food. As a result, I have been incorporating beans a lot more into my diet. Thus far, my cannellini beans are my favorite type. They are tasty on their own and so they are often sitting atop my salads, as well adorning any pasta that I create. I have also started to dabble with heating them up in red chili pepper and garlic oil as a side, as well as puree them and put them in pasta sauces to add some heartiness and creaminess.

Then there is quinoa, a super "grain" of sorts, which is full of fiber and protein. I don't have much to say about it yet, though, except that it's easy to cook (similar to rice), but definitely needs to be rinsed with water thoroughly ahead of time!

At the same time, I find myself somewhat tempted away from my vegetarianism for the first time in a while, or perhaps, ever. It's not even that I want to really eat meat, besides that I could really go for a huge salad, plumped up with chicken or turkey, because the prospect of actually handling and cooking meat makes me a little squeamish. So high on my list of things to tackle in the very near future is mock chicken salad. I'm hoping that with time I can come up with a successful recipe substituting in tofu, because my hankering for chicken salad is rather bewildering to me.

I also want to spend a fair amount of time working on revamping classic baked goods recipes to be healthy. First up will be banana bread, because I cannot seem to stay on top of eating my bananas before fair number of them turn brown and am always making it. However, it has already been determined that this particular round of banana bread will be given to my friend since I have had banana-related products for the past 3 weeks, so the reviews will be coming from her! Moreover, since this bread is for Liron, who just might be, no definitely is, more neurotic than I am with eating healthy, and her boyfriend who understandably prefers for his food to be full of flavor, this will be quite the challenge! Specifically, I'll be attempting to make a moist and sweet, but healthful banana bread that isn't loaded with fats and sugar. We shall see, though.

And last in tonight's post, I should note that I will definitely be tackling homemade renditions of Thai food. I discovered last week that favorite Thai eatery in town has closed down unexpectedly and so now, more than ever, I need to designate a weekend to spend in the kitchen pouring over different Pad thai, curry, and peanut sauce recipes.

Of course, if there is anything you would like to see me address, just comment and let me know! I promise to give it my best shot!