Tahini Chicken

Today we’re cooking with weird foods! So chicken isn’t so weird, but everything else is a little unusual. Growing up we didn’t eat strange foods. Common dinners included tuna noodle casserole, Stouffers lasagnas, spaghetti with red sauce. Very traditional American dinners. I can’t complain, it tasted good, I was well fed, happy childhood dinners.

Looks like a tree branch

It wasn’t until later moving to the Midwest, that I discovered the world of cooking. It sounds strange to say that it took moving to the middle of America to broaden my flavor horizons. Walking down State Street in Madison, you have so many choices for pleasing your palette. In the mood for spice? Try Indian or Mexican. How about a trip to the Mediterranean? Greek gyros or Italian pastas to satisfy. Why not try something totally different? Stop at the Ethiopian or Laotian restaurant.

Tahi-what now?

It took a few years, but my cooking eventually changed into a more international smorgasbord. Starting slowly by dabbling in Mexican dishes, making tacos and chilis. Eventually I bought curry powders and coconut milk. Then it came to the most unusual ingredients. You know what I’m talking about. Those items you see on the grocery store shelf and wonder what they are for. Strange and weird looking produce, canned goods with crazy names and spices with overpowering smells.

So today we tackle some of those weird items. Fresh Ginger and tahini. I was always apprehensive to buy fresh ginger, because I assumed it was expensive. In reality, for the amount that you need, it will probably cost you fifty cents. It is also a little crazy looking. Fear not! All you need to do to use ginger is peel it. Using a soup spoon, peel off the top layer of the ginger, exposing the white root. For the recipe today, simply grate the ginger with a box grater.


Ignore the fact that there are no vegetables, I forgot to buy them...


Tahini is also a little unusual. It is most often used in hummus. Quite simply, tahini is to sesame seeds as peanut butter is to peanuts. A nutty, rich paste that gives this dish excellent flavor. If you have leftover chicken, this dish will take you minutes to put together. Boil up some rice (in your new rice cooker, if you live at my house!) and feed those hungry people asking you “what’s for dinner?” Introduce your kids to these weird ingredients now, and they’ll be cooking you dinner in no time at all.

Meet the new member of the family.  I love it unconditionally.

Light and Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

Okay, I know that I wrote about pancakes last week, but I have a pancake problem. Since it is Saturday morning I feel like it is an appropriate time to talk about pancakes once again. This way you will be prepared for Sunday morning. And with these pancakes, your Sunday will start off just right.

I was going back and forth about posting a breakfast, dinner or dessert this morning. Actually, I was planning on posting this yesterday, but then there was bowling, and I got distracted. Let it be said that I am a mediocre bowler. This is very sad, especially since boyfriend is such an excellent bowler.

I progress the same way every time I go bowling. I start off pretty bad, generally keeping the ball in the center of the lane, but only knocking down five or six pins. Toward the end of the first game I am in my bowling groove and nothing can take me down. This was especially true last night when I picked up twenty-nine pins in the last frame.

After bowling for an hour or so I tend to start to lose focus. When bowling with a large group of people I get distracted. I’m like a puppy, running around talking to different people. Since last night was supposed to be a meet and greet, I felt I was doing my job by chatting up everyone. But this butterflying was affecting my game. I peaked in the last frame of my first game and then steadily went downhill. First place in the first game, second last in the second game.

But if my boss asks, our group crushed the opposition. It was a bowling pin massacre. The other groups were amazed at our bowling talent and showered us with confetti and champagne at the end of the games. To celebrate, today I made pancakes.

White Chocolate Cheesecake

There are some days that just aren’t going to work out. When you walk out of your house in the morning to discover it’s colder than you planned for. Shiver, shiver all the way to work… Or when your work project decides that it is going to fail and disappoint you. Grumble, grumble at your desk… Or when you find yourself wishing doom and destruction on your coworkers, just to spread the misery around. This has turned out to be one of those days.

If you were to happen upon me today, depending on the time, you would have found a sad person, a crazy person or even a vengeful person. The crazy person period of time lasted longer than my coworkers appreciated, I’m sure of it. But sometimes you just go off the deep end and you need to take a lap or two before you climb back out.

Luckily things seemed to turn themselves around toward the end of the day. My boss was understanding and we devised a new plan of attack. My coworkers decided not to commit me and waited out my cuckoo crazy hours. And I got a package from UPS! (Doesn’t that always cheer you up?) And on top of all that, I got to come home to this cheesecake.

When I read this recipe I knew I was in trouble. Cheesecake is rich to begin with, so adding a half pound of white chocolate would only make it decadent. Delicious. Very, very heavy! This cheesecake has to weigh at least 5 pounds once completed! I don’t even want to do the calorie count, I just know that I have to run the stairs of my building before AND after I have a slice. I brought half of the cake to work to get it out of my house! Luckily it freezes well, so now I have half a cheesecake (in lovely personal-size slices) in my freezer. No, you can’t come over.