One Pot Meals: The Grad Student Life

Between attending classes, studying for classes, biking to classes, and thinking about classes, Marnina and I have had very little time to think about cooking. In the meantime, we are still alive and have not starved–a true accomplishment  Ever since we moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, we have been invited over to new friends’ houses for meals more times than we can count. We have enjoyed several dozen types of challah’s (apple-pomegranate challah anyone???), and we have brought in the Jewish New Year with plenty of honey-infused food (carrot-japanese yam-apricot tzimmes anyone???). We actually made that tzimmes (we are very proud of it!), but for the most part, we have been thoroughly enjoying other people’s cooking since we moved here.

Turkey: A Culinary Destination

I Be a fooDie takes a cooking class in Istanbul!

As foodies, we enjoy learning about different cuisines.  Our ethnic culinary adventures have ranged from experimenting with a traditional Greek food to popular Korean dishes.  Food was a big part of our travels this past July in Turkey and Israel.  We encountered new ingredients and new flavors, and we gained a new perspective on cooking, as well as a renewed respect for specific ingredients.  In Turkey, ingredients are simple and unadulterated.  There are hardly any incredibly complicated dishes.  The natural state of food is heavily emphasized, and this brought us back to the basics of cooking: using fresh ingredients.  The Turks often love to take seasonal and local ingredients and cook them with some olive oil and a few spices. This method of cooking brings out the flavors in a way that is not complicated or overwhelming, but just perfectly balanced.

Wise Organic Chicken

Marnina and I have been eating kosher poultry and beef for our entire lives, and so we profess to have a decent amount of knowledge when it comes to the typical kosher meat offerings.  We have always been led to believe that the quality of kosher meat is superior to non-kosher meat because kosher meat goes through a kashering process, which involves salting the meat to extract the blood.  Also, some people say that the kashering process and the specific diet they are fed, produces moister, more flavorful meat.

The Fatty Foods Battle and a Delicious Recipe!

After a particularly fat-laden meal, Marnina will often complain that she feels irritated and bloated.  Crohn’s disease often affects one’s ability to digest or absorb fat normally.  When Marnina does occasionally eat red meat (that is not lean) for dinner, she will wake up the next morning and claim to feel like last night’s dinner is still sitting in her. Her body just does not digest fat very quickly and instead sits inside of her. While many fatty foods are trigger foods, there are some foods that are particularly troublesome, such as butter, margarine, ice cream, fried foods and fatty red meat, among other foods.  Fat is harder to digest than other nutrients, plain and simple.