Food In The Fort

I had been craving a fish fry for ages so, despite the fact that Leo and I had just made pan-fried fish on Thursday (it’s just not the same!), I decided to take the kids to Ya Boy. In case you are unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with this wonderful establishment, it’s at the corner of Anthony and McKinnie, across from the 99 Cent Pus store - your one-stop-shop for knock-off purses, perfumes and bling. Being situated in this less than lovely part of town, Ya Boy does boast some unusual features such as bullet-proof glass separating you from the food preparation area and a little lazy susan contraption that allows them to give you your food without actually handing it to you. Brings back fond memories of liquor stores which sold vodka to minors in NYC when I was an undergrad… Read the rest of this entry »

I love cooking together with Catherine. Yes, because of our schedules it’s often harried and sometimes things don’t turn out quite as good as we might like. Such is life. But, and I think this is important, the time we take in planning and preparing meals nourishes our love for one another just as we are nourishing each other with the food we cook. We work hard to keep it interesting too by trying to anticipate each other’s tastes, making old favorites, trying out something exciting and new, indulging each other in decadent desserts, or just a heaping serving of comfort food. Everyone needs a little comfort now and then.

It doesn’t have to be complicated either. Just like in love, a plain and simple screw is exactly what you need once in a while. So it goes that sometimes the simplest meals are the best ones. Last night was like this. All we did was pan fry some salmon that had been hanging out in the freezer and served it with this uncomplicated and unpresuming lemon-dill sauce that I threw together at lunch time. On the side we had steamed asparagus because asparagus was on sale this week and I bought a mountain of it (we both love the pointy green veggie).

And you know what? The lemon-dill sauce was as good on the asparagus as it was on the fish.So here’s the recipe, but by all means, don’t feel like you have to restrict this sauce to just fish. I imagine it’d be just as good on some chicken, pork or beef. And if you don’t have a lemon to grate, don’t worry! Remember, we’re keeping it simple here and it’s going to taste as good whether you use bottled lemon juice or the real deal. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, that’s probably a gross exaggeration; all right, it’s an outright lie, but sometimes I wonder if I’m just doing it all wrong.  It happens like this:  dinner is either a quick, rushed meal in between work and some other obligation or a more involved affair which I come to with no appetite since I’ve eaten so much of the raw ingredients during prep. I can’t help it; I’m starving after school and it’s impossible not to snack while I cook.

So what’s a girl to do?  I end up liking all the wonderful things that I cook with Leo better the next day as lunch - the pasta with hummus, for example, was an entirely different experience when it wasn’t prefaced by preparation (but it still needed hot sauce).  Should I throw in the towel and only eat leftovers?  If I only eat leftovers, when will I cook them?  They will have to be un-leftovers at some point…so confusing.

Dear reader, please offer your helpful suggestion to a girl in trouble. How do you deal with the dinner time crunch and still enjoy what you’ve cooked?

This recipe, which comes to us from the top of a Tribe of Two Sheiks hummus container via Catherine’s mom, is one we really wanted to like. Honestly, we did. After all, hummus, pasta and veggies are all things we heartily approve of. Catherine’s mom and dad both loved it but, alas, we found it a bit bland for our tastes. It’s not that it’s a bad recipe. The texture is nice and we found the rotini we used held the hummus and veggie mix very well. It’s also a welcome change from tomato or cheese based sauces.

We just think it needed something, maybe cumin and some ground red pepper. Perhaps we were, for a change, just too shy with the garlic. Catherine’s mom suggested that maybe she had used a spicier hummus. Perhaps. And maybe our readers will have some hints on how to improve this dish or some more recipes that make clever use of hummus. Let us know in the comments. Read the rest of this entry »

This two-headed  lollipop by Luxus is one of our favorites. Rompope is a sort of Mexican eggnog and a real winner as a lollipop flavor. It goes especially well with the mild, chalky chocolate that was at the other end. One note of caution: these lollipops are Formica counter top hard. Those with soft enamel or otherwise bad dentiture would be wise to lick, not bite.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

We have no idea what this is, but it’s wonderful. Except for the pits, which are most of it. It’s kind of like eating a pomegranate - a lot of work for little payoff. The fruit (we guess it’s fruit) is sweet and slightly spicy; hazmat procedures might be called for with this baby; it sticks to everything. Just like the Rollo Coco, good luck removing the wrapper. But don’t let our warnings dissuade you. It’s a delicious, if sticky, treat.

Update: After some fast googling we find that this is, indeed, simply tamarind pulp.

Quick trivia: Tamarind is an essential ingredient in Worcestershire sauce.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

Because our entire world doesn’t revolve around food we took the day off from Food In The Fort to go tour the Indiana Alpaca Invitational at the Fort Wayne Memorial Coliseum. In case you missed your opportunity to see these gorgeous creatures up close and personal, this free show runs through tomorrow, March 6th. But we did finally take the time to update our About page. So if you’ve been wondering who Catherine and Leo are, and what Food In The Fort is all about, now is your opportunity to satisfy your curiosity, if not actually be informed. But do go see those alpacas. You’ll be glad you did.

Coconut rolls are a sweet staple of Mexican candy. You’ll find them in a dizzying array of shapes and colors much like the ubiquitous gummi. There’s no particular reason why we selected the two we did for comparison and we recommend that you try them all because they’re quite tasty treats.

Delicias del Triunfo has concocted a marvelous confection of shredded coconut, sugar and oil in a handy stick. What more could you want? A perfect candy except for the thoughtless wrapper design. The plastic wrapper is sort of tucked into the ends of the roll in such a way that makes detaching it from the candy problematic; little bits of plastic easily get stuck to the candy. Still, if you can avoid ingesting the wrapper bits - and what’s a little cellophane among friends? - this one’s a real winner.

La Coculense has managed against all odds to squeeze several extra helpings of sugar, artificial flavoring and yellow food dye into this compact coconut bar. While coconut lovers will like this one, we think Rollo Coco has the edge in the tight coconut roll market. Catherine does give props to the wrapper; unlike the Rollo Coco covering, this one came off without putting up a fight and leaving shreds of plastic.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.

There’s very little we can say about this product from Lorena. We bought it because the colorful, grimacing cartoon fruit amused us and we thought it was candy. However, it turned out to be a condiment. Although it was interesting to have a little bit of spice on the candies, we remain unconvinced that fruit routinely needs to be seasoned. Perhaps we will come around in time, but until then the cartoon fruit on the Pico Sitos cannister mocks us from the rear of the spice rack.

We bought this Lucas product because it looked cool; unfortunately, our package was quite stale and disappointing. We wanted to like it, but since the “spaghetti” had the texture of real pasta which had had the misfortune of being overcooked and then left out for hours, it was hard to arrive at a favorable opinion. Although we should say that Catherine enjoyed the slightly sweet, slightly spicy sauce, Leo didn’t find anything redeeming about it. Perhaps if we had gotten a fresher package things would have turned out better but, as it was, it was a sweet and salty choking hazard.

This post was part of our Mexican Candy Shootout! series. You can find all the posts in this series here.