food

A Fruitful Affair

/ Karina Pinella / 6 Comments

A banana fare
With strawberries and nuts flair,
Add yogurt and pear.

Recipe
Mix together:
1 ¼ – ½ cups flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
4 packets of coconut sugar (or your choice of sweetener and amount)
1 egg
3 mashed ripe bananas
3 tbsp. olive oil (or your choice of oil)
Enough cups of almond milk (or your choice of milk) to make a batter with texture of your preference

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F while mixing batter
  2. Pour batter in warmed, butter- or olive-oiled cast iron skillet
  3. Time for 15 minutes, at which time take out skillet and press/mix in sliced strawberries and return skillet to oven
  4. Time for 25 minutes and check to see if done, stick toothpick in and see if it comes out clean
  5. Serve and have a great morning or evening, if you want this to be a dinner fare
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Bánh Mi Wannabe

/ Karina Pinella / 9 Comments

Planned to make bánh mi,
But too many substitutes
No bánh mi for me.

Just a stacked sandwich,
So ban me for no bánh mi,
Though not a bad sub.

I had no baguette,
I used pain de campagne,
A pseudo-bánh mi.

My bánh mi wannabe ingredients for this classic Vietnamese sandwich:

  1. Sautéed Swiss chard, onions, and fresh basil sprinkled with tamari sauce
  2. Thinly sliced cucumbers
  3. Fresh mint
  4. Sweet pickle relish
  5. Leftover roasted chicken
  6. Mayo mixed with sriracha sauce spread on two slices of pain de campagne (aka “French sourdough”)

Eggplant Pizza

/ Karina Pinella / 27 Comments


Gluten-free pizza
Use eggplant as pizza crust,
Top with favorites.

 Stack or lay them flat
Either way won’t make you fat,
A mean aubergine.

(The cheese doesn’t look fully melted because I used alternative cheese — coconut-based with pea protein isolate)

Ingredients:

  • Italian or Indian (aka baby) eggplants
  • Shredded cheese
  • Sun-dried tomatoes
  • Green onions
  • Olive oil mixed with garlic powder
  • Fresh basil

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven at 400 degrees F
  2. Cut the eggplants in round slices
  3. Coat both sides of the slices with olive oil mixed with garlic powder
  4. Place slices on a baking sheet sprayed with olive oil
  5. Place baking sheet in oven with eggplant slices and time for 15 minutes
  6. After 15 minutes, turn slices over and time for another 15 minutes
  7. After second round of 15 minutes, take out baking sheet
  8. Turn slices over again and put on your favorite toppings and put back in oven for 5 minutes

Summer Reunion

/ Karina Pinella / 19 Comments

The Garden Hall Room at the Radish Hotel is brimming with activity. Laughter and excited conversations rise above the music. A classic color-changing jukebox is playing a 1960s song by The Platters, Under the Boardwalk. Atop a long banquet table is a generous spread of various foodstuff. A variety of fruits are gathered together, focused on their own animated chatter among themselves, as the following snippets are overheard:

Bananas: We about peeled when we learned we won for doing the best split.

Grapes: You know some people think we’re just a bunch of winos.

Pineapple: I hope you know that you’re always welcome to visit.

Watermelon: My doctor planted a seed in my mind to make me think it’s all water weight.

 Cherry: So one night my young lover and I agreed to go for it . . . for the very first time.

Peaches: We swear by the brand of that blade, which will cut through any fuzz.

 Oranges: Everyone thinks we’re so irresistible they can’t help but squeeze us.

 Kiwifruit: We prefer not to be called Chinese gooseberry anymore.

Pear: Okay, so I’m not from a shapely lot. So eat me.

Strawberries: We were left out in the fields . . . seems like forever.

Mumble

/ Karina Pinella / 5 Comments

“Ya got a big mouth on ya is yer problem, Eddie. How many people ya ate? Ya gotta pace yerself or we’ll get caught. I gotta do somethin’.” Royal, Eddie’s best friend glares at his shack mate, who is moaning at every chew.

Eyelids half closed, Eddie is too preoccupied savoring the last of his ill-gotten meat. There’s nothing like a good summer barbecued shoulder. Granted, it took him a few hours to wrestle it out of his prey who outweighed him by 65 pounds, but he triumphed, making him especially proud of his latest kill.

“I just looove tourist season,” Eddie mumbles, trying to keep in food from spilling out of his mouth.

With pressed lips, Royal saunters off to get his leather sewing kit. As he approaches his friend from behind, he says, “Sorry, buddy; this is fer yer own good.” Royal takes a swing at the back of Eddie’s head with a big sock filled with heavy rubber balls.

With Eddie stunned, he quickly proceeds to sew his friend’s mouth. As he almost finishes, Eddie’s lids flutter open. Eyes looking panicked, Eddie grunts, “Mmmph . . .”

“Oops, I forgot to ask if ya had any last words,” Royal mumbles, feeling a little guilty as he locks the stitches.