MY Moussaka

My mom's moussaka is one of my most favorite things to eat. You might have seen it on the menu of Greek or Mediterranean restaurants and even ordered it. But let me tell you, my mom's version is NOTHING like the ones they sell in restaurants. The most obvious difference is that my mom uses potatoes instead of eggplants. She also makes it with ground pork rather than a pork/lamb mixture. Finally, from the one time when I actually tried it, the moussaka in restaurants resembles a stew, and my mom's is a lot drier. In summary, you probably have no idea what my mom's moussaka tastes like. So just take my word for it when I say that it's amazing :)

Anyway, the reason why I'm writing about moussaka now is because I made it myself today. Well, it was probably my 5th attempt to re-create my mom's moussaka, and all other attempts failed pretty miserably... Today was different, though! This is the closest I've gotten to getting the recipe right! I did use ground turkey rather than ground pork, so I'm going to attribute any differences in taste to the different meat. Other than that, it had the familiar taste and texture that I love :D I'm so proud of myself, haha. Now I can make my favorite dish whenever I want :)

Out All Day/Eat All Day

This last weekend there was an Oysterfest at Park Tavern. Both Cashew and I love seafood, so of course we were there. Our friend Virginia (her state of origin) also came with us. Truth be told, the festival was more about the bands and the alcohol than the oysters, but we still had fun.

We tried both the fried and the steamed oysters. The fried ones were battered and oily and deep-fried and oh-so-good! I couldn't detect any oyster/seafood taste, but who cares, the fried taste was great by itself. At least we got some oyster taste from the steamed oysters. They were still in their shells, so we had to open them up. Some shells were completely closed, but a safety pin and a plastic fork were the only props we needed to get the meat out. It seems like the steaming process removes some of the fishy taste and slimy texture. I'm not sure yet whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. On one had, it makes them easier to eat, but on the other hand, they're no longer what I think of as a quintessential oyster.

After spending several hours in the sun and listening to live music, we were hungry again. Cashew and I left the festival while Virginia remained there with some friends from Virginia :P Cashew and I agreed that we wanted some Indian food, so we drove over to Little Five Points and ate at Niramish for dinner. I'm no expert on Indian food, but even I could tell that it wasn't supposed to taste like that. We were both very very disappointed. We shared the Vegetable Thali (a tapas like dish) and the Begoon Bhorta (a traditional eggplant dish).

First of of all, since when are spring rolls Indian?!?!?!? Yet, they were part of our thali dish. The other components were: naan bread, mixed vegetable korma, shaag aloo (potatoes with spinach), and tarka daal (lentils dish). The potatoes and the lentils dishes were actually pretty good. They did have the flavor that I typically think of as Indian. However, the mixed vegetables didn't have any flavor at all (despite being served in heavy coconut milk).

The eggplant dish is supposed to be one of Cashew's favorite Indian things, so I was pretty excited to try it. However, I bet that what we got is not what it's supposed to taste like! Technically, the dish we got had absolutely no taste: no salt, no Indian spices, nothing... It was so inedible, we asked for something spicy that we could add to it. And what were we given? The hot sauce that you add to pho soup - not Indian either!

We did finish everything eventually and received the dessert that was part of our vegetable thali. I don't know what it was supposed to be, but here's how I think they made it: they steamed some white rice and then mixed it with canned evaporated milk. For good measure, they added a bay leaf that didn't contribute any flavor to the dessert because it wasn't cooked together with the rice. By the way, leaving a bay leaf in a dish is a big no-no. You're supposed to remove it before serving.

The only good part of the dinner was that we had a 50% off coupon, so we each ended up paying only $9. However, we agreed that we wouldn't go there again even if someone paid us to.

After dinner we did some shopping, but the eating wasn't over yet. I had made chocolate pudding earlier in the day, so it was time to try it. I personally loved it. It had a perfect mousse texture and a rich chocolate flavor. It tasted professionally-made. I don't think I'll be buying mousse ever again when I can make it myself :)

Snow blues

I must admit, I am not doing that well at this blogging thing. I keep forgetting to take pictures when I go out. But I think I'll simply start describing the food, just so I can mention all the places I go to.

But for today, I do have pictures. Last week Atlanta got hit by an epic snow storm, and got a whooping six inches of snow :P  And these six inches of snow were enough to close down the city for a whole week... Well, the freezing rain right after the snow and the freezing temperatures for two days did make the situation worse than it might seem. Anyway, the fact is that I was stuck at home for 5 days. My friend Cashew was visiting me, so she was stuck here for the same length of time. By the 5th day, we were so ready to go out, we decided to walk to the local Top Spice Thai restaurant. Having spicy Thai food was a great idea for a cold winter day :) We first tried their veggie and tofu soup and coconut soup. Both were good enough, but nothing special.

For lunch we shared the spicy basil chicken and a seafood noodle dish with an unpronounceable name :P I only remember that it was the last item on the lunch menu. Just like the soup, the entrees were ok. They weren't as spicy as we wanted them to be, but at least they weren't too salty either. Despite everything, I do think that Top Spice has the best reasonably-priced Thai dishes in Atlanta. I've had Thai food at MaLi as well, but I don't remember what it tasted like :(

After the lunch, Cashew and I were looking for something new to do after a week of watching movies and TV. Pumpkin had sent us a recipe for French macarons, so we took up the challenge and decided to make them. The recipe she sent us was really really easy to follow, and included insider tricks and secrets that we credit with our ultimate success. Maybe our macarons were not the best ever made, but they were a valiant first try. Their texture was perfect, which is the hardest thing to get right for macarons.

Btw, here's the link if anyone else wants to attempt this culinary challenge: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-schler/homemade-macarons-recipe_b_807876.html Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve has always been a night dedicated to good food for me. If I stay home with my family, my mother cooks something special. If I go out for dinner, I go to a fancy restaurant. This year I tried to make dinner reservation at a couple of popular places on December 30th. Needless to say, I failed to find an open table at a reasonable time...

Well, that was also good news because it meant I would have some tasty home-cooked food that's also way cheaper than dining out. This year we had something we call "Stefanie" meatloaf. It's made of seasoned ground pork, but differs from American-style meatloaves. The Stefanie meatloaf is made almost like a jelly roll - you lay slices of hardboiled eggs, cooked carrots, and pickles on one end and roll them into the ground meat. The result is simply delicious!

As sides, we had sliced fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, and mushrooms that were baked together with the meatloaf. You gotta have something healthy, right? :P Well, that was combined with mashed potatoes (shaped as rosettes), so the health factor probably went back to zero...

This wouldn't be a family dinner without dessert. We had two of them this year. First, something we make every year, some pastries. We usually make them with regular cake batter, but my mother decided to make them out of velvet cake this time. The layers are then soaked in a syrup to make them nice and moist. There is buttercream icing in between the layers and covering the pastries. After cutting them in squares, we decorate them with more buttercream that has been dyed with food coloring. My mother made an incredible poinsettia pattern!

The other dessert were Bulgarian Christmas cookies that we call "Christmas trees" (yes, we had them for New years). The dough is very similar to sugar cookie dough. We then cut out the three different players with special cookie cutters and baked the cookies. After they cooled down, we assembled them with rose hip jam to hold the layers together. Finally, for the snow effect, the cookies were dusted with some powdered sugar. This was a great ending for a great dinner :)

Tis the season for really big eats

In Bulgaria, Christmas Eve is called "Бъдни вечер." I would say that this night is even more important to us than Christmas itself. We have a special menu and several other traditions we observe through the night. The menu consists of an odd number of vegan dishes, and there must be at least 7 types of foods present on the table. In the course of the dinner, you're supposed to try at least one bite/sip from everything that is placed on the table. The count this year was 15 food items :) I told you this is "really big eats"...

So let's start with what we had. One of the most important things is the home-made bread with a coin baked inside. At the beginning of dinner, everyone receives a piece of bread. The traditions states that whomever gets the coin will have great luck for the next year. This year the luck went to my father.

Two other traditional dishes are the bean soup and the pickled cabbage leaves stuffed with rice.

On the dessert side, we always make baklava and something called "tikvenik" (тиквеник). It has shredded pumpkin sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, rolled inside leaves of fillo dough and baked.

Baklava

As you might notice, several of the food items might be familiar to you from Greek or Turkish cuisine. Bulgarian cuisine is very tightly intertwined with other cuisines from the Mediterranean, encompassing countries from Morocco to Lebanon. I think what sets us apart is the heavy use of potatoes. Hmm, somehow potatoes are not featured at this traditional dinner.

Tikvenik

Rounding up the food items are little things like fruit (oranges, bananas, apples, mango), nuts (walnuts and almonds), and drinks (wine, whiskey for my father, soda). Believe me, even if you take only a couple of bites of everything, you are so stuffed at the end of the dinner, you go to the couch and fall asleep ;)