Kitchen-Pulse MCAT induced Hiatus

Kitchen Pulse will be taking a month long hiatus until after my MCAT on May 21st. I'll come back ready for summer with a raw food or a grilling cookbook with lots of recipes to highlight to wonders of the farmer's market. Thanks for your understanding and please stay tuned until then.

In the meantime, I'll be studying...

Food 2.0: Wake-Up Shake-Me-Up Power Shake

I'm committing a food blogger crime: I'm posting this recipe before I even make it. But my dear readers, I promise I will make it tomorrow morning to jump-start my Wednesday. I recently connected with my MCAT tutor who has organized my life and MCAT studying into her Google calendar. According to that calendar I am studying every night and day from now until May 16th when I get my first break. As I have no idea when I'll be going food shopping, all food blogging must be done in my spare time with any ingredients I have on hand. Hence the appearance of this smoothie. I happen to have some tasteless cantaloupe and frozen berries on hand. Not that Food 2.0 would recommend using tasteless cantaloupe, however I let my cantaloupe ripen too long and the result is cantaloupe that only tastes decent with prosciutto or in a smoothie.
This post is dedicated to Pecos, Texas and my friend from Pecos. Even though we've become estranged over the years, I'll always remember the sweetest cantaloupe I've eaten came from Pecos, Texas. I visited Pecos to watch her compete in the Miss Cantaloupe Pageant which was an experience in itself. If only every cantaloupe tasted like the one from the town where the first rodeo happened...

Wake-Up Shake-Me-Up Power Shake

1/2 cup strong brewed black tea, chilled
1/2 rice milk (I used regular cow's milk)
1/4 fresh orange juice
1 small banana cut into pieces
1/4 cantaloupe melon, peeled, seeded, and diced
2 tsp honey
1/4 cup fresh or frozen strawberries

1. The night before, prepare a batch of strong brewed black tea and let it chill overnight.
2. In the morning, put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a large glass and garnish with a piece of melon if desired.

Food 2.0: Super-Simple Awesome Fish Tacos

Today I met with my friend Dave for a simple Saturday lunch. After four years of living in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, I'm pretty bored with the restaurants in our area. Although I love Thai food especially at Thai Kingdom, such a heavy lunch did not seem appropriate on such a sunny spring day. So instead Dave and I shopped at Trader Joe's together and collaborated on the Food 2.0 fish tacos. Our lunch could have been a Giada De Laurentiis cooking episode if TJ's were a farmer's market and I were a beautiful Italian chef with time on my hands to cook my friends lunch...It may not have been Everyday Italian, but the fish tacos stayed true to their name as super, simple and awesome.

Just a note, this recipe makes two tacos each meaning two fish sticks per taco.

Super-Simple Awesome Fish Tacos

4 frozen fish sticks
2 corn tortillas or 2 crisp taco shells
1/2 cup corn salsa with green chilies or pickled jalepeños mixed in
2 tablespoons tartar sauce
a handful of fresh greens or shredded cabbage

Note: If you can't find corn salsa at your grocery store, mix together a 1:1 ratio of canned or defrosted corn kernels with salsa and add in jalepeños or green chilies to make it spicy.

1. Cook the fish sticks for 3 minutes in the microwave or in a toaster oven according the directions on the box. Warm the corn tortillas in the microwave by wrapping them in a damp paper towel and heating them for 10-20 seconds. You don't want them super hot, the warming is meant to soften the tortillas so they don't break when you pick up the taco.

2. Spread 1 tablespoon of tartar over each tortilla. Coarsely chop of the fish sticks and add the fish sticks to the tortillas. Top the fish with the corn salsa and the lettuce greens. For soft tacos, roll up the tortilla and eat.

Food 2.0: Turkey-Avocado-Carrot Wrap

The second post from Food 2.0 is a quick and easy wrap that I made after a long day of studying. Prep time was only 10 minutes, and I jazzed up the recipe with some pickled guindilla peppers (similar flavor to banana peppers), alfalfa sprouts, and a hot sauce-sour cream dipping sauce. The wrap was light and savory with avocado mixed with lemon providing the bulk of the flavor.

Turkey-Avocado-Carrot Wrap

1 soft flour tortilla (wheat or white)
1 whole avocado
1 tbs of lemon juice
1 slice Monterrey jack or pepper jack cheese
1 thick slice or two thin slices of turkey
1 small carrot sliced or shredded
1 or 2 Guindilla peppers, sliced
2 tbs sour cream
1 tsp hot sauce (ie Frank's hot sauce)



Lay the tortilla out on a cutting board. Scoop out the avocado flesh mix it with the lemon juice then spread it onto the tortilla. Top the avocado with the turkey and cheese. Slice the peppers and carrot and sprinkle on top. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place the alfalfa sprouts on top as the final touch. Food 2.0 describes the wrapping as follows: Approach wrapping the tortilla as if it were a clock. Begin to wrap from six o'clock, continuing to wrap until the tortilla has come full circle and now resembles a cone shape.

I have always admired the Pita Pit and Chipotle wrap-artists for their expert wrapping. Perhaps wrapping is not my forte because the previous method did not work for me. Anyway I wrapped the tortilla in a simple cylinder shape, tucking the far end of the tortilla in tightly and rolling it up. Spike the wrap with a toothpick to keep it together.

To make the sauce, mix the sour cream and hot sauce together in a small cup. Dip the wrap in the sauce and enjoy.