Busy days in a kitchen, but at night...

I work in a professional kitchen cooking food for the masses seeking health inspired cuisine.  What does this mean?  I chop vegetables all day long to produce gallons of grain, bean and chicken salads.  How could I ever want to come home and cook, you ask?  Easy.  I loooooooooooove my kitchen.  I know there is no 8 burner gas range, mine is electric.  There is no double convection oven or dishwasher at hand, just my helpful hubby.  And there is definitely no walk-in refrigerator stocked to the ceiling for all your cooking needs.  My fridge and pantry do stand up though.  Pinto, red chili, black, mung, adzuki beans beans beans!  White jasmine rice, bulghur, vital wheat gluten(for making homemade seitan which will surely be posted about!), spring and winter wheat berries grown locally in VT!!!  Dr. Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar and Amino Acids, if you don't have them, get them!  Grapeseed, sunflower, extra virgin olive, corn, safflower oils, fresh ground nut butters, whole seeds, good fats are essential for your brain, use them please.  Kale, collards, red and green cabbage, broccoli-cruciferous vegetables will save your life.  Onions, Spanish, Vidalia, sweet red!! Garlic bulbs and bulbs!!!

This is just a fraction of what I have on hand to stir my culinary juices on a daily basis.  I never know what I am going to want to cook when I get home or even if I am going to want to cook at all.  Sometimes I swear to myself that I do not even want to look at my knives or my cutting board,  but then I get home, unwind and head to the pantry and collect my ingredients and begin the night's feast.  So,what did I make for dinner tonight?  Nothing! My husband cooked :)

With a little help from my friends...

In the very recent past I had the privelege and pleasure of working for 2 of the most incredible women I know and can now call friends.  Jackie Mittelhammer and Becky Solheim are not only sisters, they are co-owners of  Savory Spice Shop in Westfield, NJ .  Words cannot describe the feeling you get when you walk into their shop. We call it the happy place because an aroma of over 400 herbs & spices overwhelm your senses.  

-Wow, it smells so good in here!-

It is a phrase heard all day long with welcome ears.  Along with the collection of everyday or exotic herbs and spices you see you will also notice all of the blends lining the shelves in the glass bulk jars.  Oh, the blends!!  Parm Pesto you get me every time!!  I will be posting pictures of all the recipes I have created using items from Savory Spice Shop.  I don't have written recipes, just a little of this and a little of that, but if you have to recreate something you see I will gladly make a recipe for you :)

I hope you came here hungry cuz here is a taste-

 bulghur, butternut squash, celery and french herbs(Herbes de Provence and Bohemian Forest)

County Clare Corn Chowder with Beer Bread Croutons

 Jamaican Jerk (Extra HOT) Tilapia, Sweet Potato salad with mango vinaigrette and 

Collard greens

Rice noodles with Kale and Shichimi Togarashi

Cambodian Lemongrass Curry with glass noodles

So here is a little taste of the goodies I came up with using SSS products.  I am relying on my phone's camera to take pictures and it is a long process removing pics to the computer..anyway..there will be a digital camera in my life soon and there will be pictures aplenty.  I will be putting pics in another post of my other creations..so look out for it.

Muffins and some other stuff!!

I am not much of a baker. I know it is kind of strange for me to even begin a blog with a baked good.  My peace has always been with a knife chopping away at veggies, sauteing, roasting, frying, blanching.  Recently I have found joy and comfort in a few cups of flour, an egg or two and some butter, mmm always butter!!

I started small.  Sour cream coffee cake, blueberry muffins for a family brunch Sunday morning and then I had to go and make Apple Cinnamon Crumb Top muffins at 10 pm last night.  This baking jones can not be quenched! My go to for recipes is my all time favorite cook book  The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook.  It was the one I grabbed off my mom's shelf when I was just a kid to see what I could concoct for the fam.  It never fails me and when I need a suggestion, a conversion or a quick cake recipe that is easy with pictures that is where I turn to.  I love cookbooks for the suggestions.  A change here or there makes the dish yours but the solid foundation is always a huge help.  I am hoping that eventually I will be able to make my own recipes for baked goods, but for now I will rely on my old standard.

I figure this is as good an intro as any.  I will  be posting regularly, even daily, all of the fresh, whole foods ideas, dishes, inspirations and finished products that I create.  My passion is to open a cabinet and start from scratch.  Pantry cooking, garbage cooking or use whatever the heck you've got in your house cooking!!!  Whatever you want to call it as long as what you are using is au naturel.   Keep dried beans and grains stored in glass jars, it not only looks cool it keep them fresh!  Open your produce drawer in your fridge, anything there?  NO?!?  Go stock up on some collard greens, kale, fresh spinach and chard!  What about your fruit bowl?  Tomatoes, apples, pears!!  Keep it seasonal.  No butternut squash in the summer! Where has it been sitting for so long to get to you  in JUNE!

Basically the mindset is this.  Conscious eating.  Where did it come from, when was it grown and with what methods?  Was the treatment humane, no hormones or antibiotics,no small pens or dim lights?  and the biggest question of all-

WHAT WILL THIS DO TO MY BODY ONCE IT PASSES MY LIPS?  

This is the most important question of all.  What has food come to when the label makes no sense?  

This is a good ending.  Contemplate what has been on your plate lately.  I hope you can find solace here.  I want to make simple easy food that is good for you.  My mantra will close us out-

EAT GOOD FOOD-DON'T SPEND $$$ ON CRAP!!!