The Bitten Word

1 Video and 10 Photos to Wrap Up Our Trip to China

This photo? This is what we would call a chopstick fail.

We were having lunch in Beijing, at a place we had randomly picked while walking down the street, and we were in the midst of a massive dumpling craving. So we went in and ordered several kinds of dumplings, plus these beef noodles. As you can see, our attempt to split it between bowls didn't go so well. The staff of this restaurant thought it was hilarious and not so discreetly kept coming by the table so they could see (and laugh). 

At this point, our trip to China at Thanksgiving seems a lifetime away. But as we think more about the trip and look at our photos, we just can't help ourselves! Here's one last post about our trip. 

We told you about our favorite dishes, the wacky food, and gave a tour of a Chinese market. This last set of photos features things we thought were fun, or that you might be interested in seeing.

Let's start with a video. 

Swordfish Puttanesca

Saveur (January 2012)

One of the best things about cooking our way through magazines is that we're always learning something new. Whether it's an ingredient, a preparation or an actual dish, we're constantly finding out about new techniques or being confronted with dishes that we have long heard about but never tried.

Puttanesca is a perfect example. We've always heard about it, but if we'd been pressed to define it, the best we would have come up with is, "It's like an Italian...sauce...right?"

Well, puttanesca, we're sorry it's taken us so long to get to know you. Where have you been all our lives?

Warm Coconut Rice Pudding

Cooking Light (January/February 2012)

Rice pudding is easy to forget about. It's sort of a sleeper dessert. If it were an Oscar contender, it'd be The Artist. If it were a character on Downton Abbey, it'd be Edith, the middle daughter. (Yes, we're watching. And we're obsessed.) If it were a Beatle, it'd be George. (Obviously, if Ringo were a dessert he'd be something more like this.)

Rice pudding is Jan Brady.

Which, of course, isn't fair. Rice pudding is warm and comforting, and it's easy to make. Scented with cinnamon and other spices, it's the perfect treat on a chilly winter night.

And this recipe from Cooking Light has us sitting up and taking notice. More than two years ago, we asked ourselves why we weren't eating more rice pudding. But, well, we keep forgetting about it. Not any more. This rice pudding may just be our new favorite winter dessert.  

Inside a Chinese Market -- A Video Tour

One of our favorite ways to experience a new place while travelling is to visit markets and shops where locals shop for food. You're able to get a sense of what everyday life is like, as you see everyday folks shop and sample. 

Never was this more true than while traveling in China a couple months ago. In Shanghai and then again in Yangshuo, we had the chance to visit several "wet markets," and to see everything that was on offer there. 

In Yangshuo, we snapped quite a few photos, along with some video, and thought you might enjoy getting a glimpse inside a Chinese market. 

Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Greens

Martha Stewart Living (January 2012)

We're on a bit of a cauliflower kick right now.

Last week we made that yummy Radicchio and Cauliflower Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs, and now here we are with this cauliflower soup.

Cauliflower abounds in the January issues of food magazines. In fact, two magazines -- Everyday Food and Bon Appétit -- are currently featuring recipes for cauliflower steaks. (Do two make a trend?) 

There are plenty of reasons why the food mags turn to cauliflower in January. It's seasonal, affordable, healthful and hearty. And, oh yeah, it's extremely versatile and it tastes great.

Nothing showcases all those accolades more than this Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Greens.

Pasta and White Beans with Broccoli Pesto

Everyday Food (January/February 2012)

Zach's sister Cassidy grew up a very picky eater. Sitting down to a meal was more like entering hostage negotiations between Cassidy and Zach's parents in an attempt to get her to try new things. Even through college, she was extremely particular about textures and colors, and she essentially allowed no vegetables to pass her lips. 

Since then, Cassidy's come around. She started testing the waters with things like cream cheese and olives, and now she'll eat everything from Brussels sprouts to foie gras. She's turned out to be one of the most adventurous eaters we know. (Perhaps she's making up for lost time?)

But there's still the matter of vegetables. Cassidy will eat them, and there are some she even rather enjoys. But she still doesn't think she eats enough veggies. Over the holidays, she told us she wants to get better at "hiding" vegetables into her diet, a la Jessica Seinfeld.

"Hiding them from...?" we asked.

"Oh," she said, "from myself."

Cassidy, this one's for you.

Creamy Polenta with Sausages and Roasted Grapes

Bon Appétit (January 2012)

We wanted something fast, easy and fresh for dinner last week. We knew just where to turn: Bon App's "Fast, Easy, Fresh" section. It's a front-of-the-book collection of relatively quick and simple recipes, and it's always good for a little inspiration.

This Creamy Polenta with Sausages and Roasted Grapes sounded perfect -- hearty and comforting, with the roasted grapes adding a fun twist.

Radicchio and Cauliflower Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs

Fine Cooking (December 2011/January 2012) 

January is a cruel month for salads. Just when you're trying to eat better and more healthfully, good lettuce becomes hardest to find. The rest of the produce can be wan and unexciting, and you valiantly abstain from all the good stuff ("Oh, no blue cheese for me, thanks!", "Could I get that dressing on the side?").  

Every bite of a January salad can feel like choking down a resolution.

But there's good news.

This Radicchio and Cauliflower Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs is a welcome break from the sad iceberg lettuce of January. It's just the sort of New Year's salad we can get behind.

2012 Culinary Resolutions (And How We Did with 2011's Resolutions)

It's been nearly two weeks since we've cooked anything.

Between holiday parties, travel for Christmas and New Year's, and then catching up with friends after we've returned, we've been away from our kitchen for far too long.

While away over the holidays, we played sous chefs/kitchen sidekicks for others, and while in Tennessee for Christmas we did make Nigella's Chocolate Fruit Cake (it's a tradition, after all). We're glad to be back in our own kitchen, making our own food. And we're about to start cooking with a vengeance.

Those of you who have been reading The Bitten Word for a long time likely remember previous years of culinary resolutions. We try to avoid the "lose weight," "get more exercise" types of proclamations and instead focus on specific things we want to learn, eat or improve for the coming year. Before we share our resolutions for 2012, here's a reckoning of how we did with our resolutions for 2011. 

The Successes

• Less meat on the plate. We're proud to call this one an unqualified success! We've done a really good job of elevating veggies to a main course and de-emphasizing meat. And we've had more and more meals without any meat at all -- at least one or two dinners a week. We're positive that we ate less meat in 2011 than ever before. This is a good example of a realistic, workable resolution. If we had resolved to "give up meat" or "become vegans," we would have failed miserably (and we would have been two very unhappy guys). But by resolving to simply make meat less of the star of a meal, we've really been able to make a difference in how we eat.

• Flex our canning muscles again. We canned tomatoes this year, made some jam and experimented with pickling okra. We have a pressure cooker now, so look out, 2012!

• Familiarize ourselves with our cookbook collection (or purge them!). Done and done. We've done a pretty good job of getting to know the cookbooks on our shelves, and an even better job of getting rid of the ones we don't use. Plus, we've been getting our cookbook fix by test driving new books from the library before we buy them.

The Failures (so far!)

• Visit a food magazine test kitchen. Not yet, but that's more because of timing than anything else. We've got some irons in the fire on this one. Stay tuned!

• Give gardening another go. We did, with moderate success, and wrote all about our gardening adventures. Will we do it again this year? Probably so. Though last year's harvest wasn't great, it was our best yet, and we already have some ideas about what we'd do differently in 2012. We learned a lot and (for the most part) had a really good time doing it. 

• Strive to buy higher-quality meat. Eh, not so much on this one. We've given it a game try, and we're confident we bought better meat in 2011 than any year before. Some months we did better than others, purchasing more of our meat from the farmers market, but just as often we got our meat from the supermarket, mostly due to cost. 

So what about our culinary resolutions for this year?

Our 11 Favorite Food Magazine Recipes of 2011

Plus Two Bonus Recipes

 

 

 

 

 

This New Year, we drove up to the Hudson Valley, where we spent a few nights with a group of friends in Rhinebeck, New York. It's a beautiful little town, with cute shops, adorable houses and some nice restaurants. (The porchetta sandwich at Terrapin, with manchego, arugula and an olive aioli was especially tasty.)

Incidentally, we had an amazing New Year's Eve dinner at home. Our friend Ingela, whose mother is Swedish, made a traditional Swedish smörgåsbord: pickled herring, boiled potatoes, sour cream, meatballs, ham with mustard, homemade gravlax, and shots of Aquavit. It was such a fun meal for New Year's, and such a memorable and delicious way to wrap up 2011.  

The drive there and back gave us plenty of time to chat about 2011 and make plans for what we want to do with The Bitten Word in 2012. As we looked back at the dozens of recipes we shared here in the last year, we started to make a list of our favorites, and it quickly ballooned to nearly thirty recipes. 

After deep negotiations ("But that was so good!," "What if we trade the salad for the sandwich?" Heavy stuff.), we settled on a list of our 11 favorite food magazines dishes from 2011.

You can see them above (click the images for the posts). Here's a rundown of what made the cut, in no particular order.