How NOT To Make Meringues (AKA That Time I Poisoned Myself)

April 14, 2012

Wrong.

It started out innocuously enough. My mom emailed me, asking if I wanted to bring some dessert element to our Passover Seder. She suggested I pick up a can of Passover (NOT French) macaroons, but since nobody actually LIKES those, I decided to bring meringues. And then I decided to MAKE meringues.

I blame it on my brand new electric mixer. I wanted to try it out.

So I consulted the googles and found this recipe for coffee-flavored meringues.

None of these ingredients are actually poisonous.

I liked the recipe because it said EXACTLY what mixer settings to use, and for how long. And the making of the batter was REALLY fun. It’s pretty awesome, how a few tiny egg whites swell up into a whole bunch of batter. (This recipe called for 4 egg whites, which out of the 3 times I’ve now made meringues is the most.)

Poof!

And then it makes all these pretty patterns and peaks as it really meringues up.

FOUR EGG WHITES!

And then I folded in the instant coffee flakes, because my family likes coffee with/for dessert (I used decaf).

Everything was fine up until the baking portion. I will now list what I did wrong.

-I used tin foil instead of parchment, because I’d seen other recipes that called for foil, dull side up. Obviously, foil conducts heat MUCH more than parchment would. Growing up I always learned that parchment was made from lamb skin — the TORAH was written on parchment — so whenever I read about baking on parchment I’m just like, WHAT? Where the F am I supposed to get parchment? ANCIENT ISRAEL? (Turns out they sell it in rolls at the store, next to the wax paper. It’s basically… waxy-ish paper.)

-I thought I had two cookie sheets but I only had one, so I used a glass Pyrex dish for the overflow. Probably also stupid.

-I cooked the meringues at 250 degrees F, which was definitely too hot under the circumstances (even with parchment, my new recipe calls for 200 degrees– my oven isn’t marked low enough for that, but luckily I have an oven thermometer– GOOD INVESTMENT.) (Thanks for the Sur La Table gift certificate, Sam’s parents!)

Another thing I did wrong that didn’t actually affect the outcome was that I totally screwed up the piping-with-a-Ziploc-bag, because I didn’t CLOSE the top of the Ziploc bag. So it came out both ends. Blurp.

Abandoned piping bag. Gluey.

So I just scooped the rest of them out with a tablespoon.

In retrospect these look totally wrong. And like poops.

During the cooking process I thought the meringues looked a little strange (like dinosaur eggs?), but what could I do?

Don't hatch!

So they cooked until really late at night, and in the morning I ate half of one, and it was really… crusty.

Crags?

I remembered meringues being “melt in your mouth,” and these were not. After a bit I started feeling really nauseated and got a terrible headache, and I thought maybe I was just too sensitive to the decaf coffee in the meringues.

It was like, a bad sickness. Sweats. Hangover-level gross feelings. (I tried to barf and it ALMOST worked.)

Then I had a poorly timed text conversation with my mom about it.

Mom always knows what to say.

Luckily I rallied enough to GO to the Seder. Crazy enough, I brought the meringues, but just to show that I made them before I trashed them. My mom took one bite to be nice, then ran to the trashcan to spit it out.

I couldn't tell they were burned.

Diagnosis: Super, super burnt. So I think I basically got sick from eating, like, the burned-est coffee in the world.

Next up: I fix my mistakes and avenge myself.

xoxo…

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Milking It (Or, Lack Thereof)

January 24, 2012

Dairy-free ice cream. I swear. (Salted Oreo & Chocolate Peanut Butter)

So far, trying to be lactose-free has gone pretty well. There was a little bit of cultured whey (milk) in the Trader Joe’s Yellow Curry Sauce that Sam and I used to make a chicken and veggie curry over the weekend. And there was possibly some dairy in the chicken with mole sauce that I ate for dinner on Saturday when my sister came to visit. But… that was at a restaurant. Oh well.

The hardest thing is realizing that there’s milk product in almost every flavor of frozen dinner and even in my beloved Lipton’s chicken noodle soup (that might be an “oh well, I’ll eat it anyway” situation)– so many things have at least some trace of dairy. Baked goods. Salad dressings. Sauces. I’m trying to be good for evaluative purposes, but once that passes I probably won’t be quite as fanatical. Because it’s kind of impossible.

But for the time being– man, it’s really hard to tell if things have lactose in them, if you’re not privy to the ingredient list. And– unlike gluten– Trader Joe’s doesn’t have a dairy-free items list on its website. I just find it funny because a majority of the population is lactose intolerant to some degree– whether they know it or not. I don’t know how people with severe lactose allergies manage to avoid the minefield. I mean… I guess they make a lot of their own food.

The hardest thing to deal with is desserts. SO many desserts are dairy-based. I went to the grocery store and got myself some nice fruit pops, melon, and a quality dark chocolate bar with almonds. (One side effect of trying to avoid milk and the processed things that contain it– I’m eating more fruits and veggies and doing more cooking… I feel healthier-ish.)

Okay, now that I think of it– there are still a lot of dessert options. But I’m an ice cream lover. So it was definitely a wonderful splurge to get some dairy-free ice cream at Scoops on Sunday– even if it was soy-based, and sorta made my stomach hurt (dairy placebo effect?). I’m glad I live in a hip part of LA where it’s not hard to find vegan ice cream.

This was going to be a post about what I made for dinner, but I guess I’ll write about that separately.

xoxo…

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Can’t Stomach My Stomach… Again

January 15, 2012
6591398701_4181e5db28

Took this photo at a diner on a sad stomach morning in Monterey.

Last time I wrote about my gluten-free follies after the fact. This time (if it even pans out…) I figured I’d blog about it while I’m IN IT. I mean, this is how book deals happen, right? (Just kidding… unless you want to give me a book deal.)

Every couple of months (or less), I seem to be dealing with digestive unpleasantness. About a year and a half ago I gave up bread for a week, with inconclusive results. A few times I drank those gross probiotics… also inconclusive. In Monterey, I got can’t-sleep-might-barf sick from an apparent lack of proper digestion (that’s what Sam gets, trying to take me on a romantic getaway…).

And now– less than a month later– I’m sick again. At first I thought I was dehydrated. Then– maybe it’s a cold. But I began to realize– every time I eat (or even drink chamomile tea), my stomach has this initial “OUCH.” Sam listened to my stomach with fascination, and reported that it sounded like “a dragon.” (The Girl With the Dragon Stomach… coming to a doctor’s office near you.)

I’ve tried all the easy-ish remedies– Activia yogurt, Tums, chamomile tea, Gas-X… but so far, nothing has really solved the problem. Thing is– since I don’t actually know what the problem IS, anything could be hurting. If I’m lactose intolerant, yogurt’s no good. If I’m allergic to gluten, saltine crackers aren’t gonna help.

I’m going to a gastroenterologist on Wednesday (maybe I should be going to an allergist). Perhaps I’m just stressed or ate something funky, but at this point there’s a pretty clear pattern of crappy-ness. I’m guessing that I’m allergic to something– please dear universe don’t let it be tomatoes!

I’ve long suspected that I might have Celiac disease, and some of the symptoms are uncanny. (Particularly– when I was a kid my dentist thought I was suddenly sucking lemons, because the enamel got really thin on my front teeth.) But either way, I’m thinking maybe I ought to try a gluten-free (or something-free) diet again, just because… something is up, here.

The idea of going gluten-free is not a super-exciting one, because… I love food. But I love not feeling like crap, too– and there are increasingly more gluten-free choices in stores and on menus. So… that’s uplifting, I guess. But I know if I go on vacation–especially abroad– I’d probably have to break the diet and feel like total blergh. Great.

I keep thinking things like– but I just got Sam a pizza stone! But I don’t want to have to take a bunch of gross supplements! But… honestly, if I’m not feeling well, it’s time to grow up and really evaluate what’s going on here. I’ve been happy to ignore my potential problems and just eat away, but ignorance is not bliss if I’m curled in the fetal position with a burbly stomachache.

Coincidentally, yesterday I stumbled upon Mara Kofoed’s A Blog About Love, and I’m heartened by her delicious-sounding gluten-free (among other things) diet… of course, it sounds like her husband is sort of a gourmet chef. But Sam has agreed to attempt to make Mara’s husband’s zucchini ribbon pasta for me (scroll to “So what DO you eat?”), if indeed I am a Celiac. Yay!

At least I’ll have a flatter stomach? (Every stomach-cloud has a silver stomach-lining?)

And at least I’m not the first person to forge this path. There are ample resources… including maybe some of my readers?

xoxo…

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Butter Days Ahead…

December 1, 2011

Freakin' tree branches. Jerks.

Last night some crazy winds whipped up in LA. I was really worried that this big power line outside my window was going to fall into my bedroom. That would be shocking. (Get it?)

So, the wind was loud. I didn’t sleep much. I had a shitty dream that some thugs held up my office. I had another shitty dream that my apartment manager was rushing to my door to deliver bad news, shouting, “Somebody call for help!”

This morning I was watching “Top Chef” on my couch (about to find out who was eliminated) when I heard my apartment manager saying, “Who owns the Corolla that’s parked on the street?”

Shit. Dreams sometimes come true, kids! Shitty ones. (So far my office is thug-free.)

Long story short: A tree branch did a number on my car’s backside. A really big tree branch. (That’s not even the big one… somebody pulled it off before I came out.)

But it could be worse. Up the street, a WHOLE TREE uprooted (next to the gas station… eek). And at least my bedroom remained intact. (For now.)

So I did the whole insurance/tow-truck thing (my car beeped pathetically the whole way to the collision center), and got a rental that needed gas. Of course, the nearby gas station was shut down, due to wind. (I’m really going to worry about that rental tonight, when the winds whip up again…) But I eventually found gas… so that worked out okay.

I grew up with these winds all the time in OC, and the worst thing that ever happened to me was a sinus headache. So I guess I had this coming?

Did I mention that I had just ordered a $300 part for my car– to fix a tiny little broken lock issue? (I’m having bad car-ma, lately.)

Did I mention that Sam’s Christmas present is now stuck in my inoperable trunk?

BUT at least I’m intact, and I have insurance. And Sam’s gift– if it’s broken– is replaceable. (As you can see, I keep reminding myself that it’s all fine fine fine… ish.)

And a few things really cheered up my afternoon–

First– since I missed the end of “Top Chef”– I’m really enjoying Videogum’s recap of the episode. Side-splitting, as usual. Like Gabe, I am unnerved by weird Chris and his objectification of all humans.

Second– well, I’ll let you see the conversation.

Ris: Not to abruptly subject change

  BUT
  WIZARDING WORLD OF HP IN H’WOOD!
  WHAT?!
  LOVES IT!
me: WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?
  is that happening?
Ris: YES
me: OMGGGGG
Ris: They announced it today
  I KNOW
 me: WHEN WILL IT BE OPEN? WHEN CAN I DRINK THE BUTTERBEEEER?
Ris: OH MY GOD THAT WAS MY FIRST THOUGHT!!!!
 BUTTERBEER!
me: I might have to blog this
Ris: I don’t know when it will be open
  They’re still trying to figure out where to PUT it for eff’s sake
  it’s not like we have the room Orlando does
 me: just put it over something else that we don’t need that much
  just stick it over the hollywood sign. whatever.
Ris: hahahahaha
Let’s just take out everything on H’Wood/Highland
  Except the Roosevelt
 me: and replace it with a REAL HOGWARTS

See what you miss when your car gets crushed by a tree?

And see how food-related things always make me feel better? Ha. I’m so easy.

But seriously, how exciting is that? We’re getting a Wizarding World! Now I don’t have to take a stupid trip to Florida just to drink butterbeer. (I mean, not that it wouldn’t be worth it, but I don’t know if I can afford a trip to Florida right now.)

Until then– you can make these Butterbeer Cupcakes, if you feel like doing something complicated with your life. (You have to use a SQUEEZE-Y BOTTLE to feel them with GANACHE.) (Complicated.)

And until then, I anxiously await to hear whether my poor old car (Sylvie) is totaled… (and I hope the winds leave LA for another decade, and/or I need a better parking plan.)

xoxo…

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Do It Yourself: The Dangers of Night-Crocking (“Always Yummy Beef”)

September 27, 2011

A surprisingly enticing photo, under the office fluorescents.

I never learn. I obviously never learn, right? I get all overeager and suddenly I’m in the middle of another crock-pocalypse.

Last year I went to 25 Degrees, the burger place at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. I took pictures and intended to blog it, but was so overwhelmed by the portions (particularly the burger size) that looking at the pictures made me sick. So I never blogged it. Six months ago, a Philly cheesesteak put me into a ridiculous food coma. I pretty much know for a fact that I can’t handle my meats. (Haha, very funny.)

Friday night, Sam made a beef stew on the stove. I showed up at his place and found him wiping away tears– onions, man!

From the Mark Bittman school of stewing. Sorry, bad lighting.

After experiencing a stove-cooked beef stew, I wondered how it would turn out in the crock pot. And I was bored last night, and didn’t have a mound of leftovers for lunches… one thing led to another, and soon I was buying the ingredients for “Always Yummy Beef.” (Recipe here.) (Doesn’t it sound so innocent?)

Here I go again...

It was a seriously easy recipe, made all the more delightful by the use of dry onion soup mix (no onion cutting whatsoever!). What I didn’t realize was that the recipe was written with a 5.5 quart crock pot in mind. Mine is 4 quarts. Luckily I bought the minimum of each ingredient, but still… whoops. I’m lucky the beef could even fit in the pot. (That’s what she said, etc. Deal with it.)

Three pounds of raw meat. Just another Monday night.

That was the only crock pot-approved piece of meat I could find. So… I guess I lucked out? (I’m seriously having a case of the 25 Degrees not-sure-I-can-blog-this feeling right about now…)

You smother the meat all around with the cream of mushroom soup (I didn’t do anything to dilute it… crocking draws water from the veggies) and the dry onion soup mix…

Where's the beef?

… and the next instruction is, “Stab with a fork to get rid of frustrations.” I wasn’t sure if that was a joke, but I stabbed the meat with a fork just in case. No exploding beefs on my watch!

In theory you then put the veggies in AROUND the beef, but obviously I was out of room. So they went on top.

The recipe called for 3 to 7 potatoes. I bought 4, and only 2 fit in the pot. So… yeah. I guess I’ll be making something else with potatoes in the near future.

Once again, filled to capacity.

The recipe said to cook on LOW for 6 hours or more. I started the pot at 8pm, thinking that I would wake up to a wonderful aroma. By the time I went to sleep at around midnight… honestly, not much had happened. Not even a discernible smell. I mean, setting a SLOW cooker on LOW, one should expect this sort of progress.

I slept rather fitfully, and at around 3:50am I awoke to a really… humid feeling. The smell was… not delicious. It was just more like a heavy feeling in the air. So I went to the kitchen and turned the pot to WARM, so I could just deal with mucking out and cleaning up in the morning.

I went back to my room. I had my door closed, and plenty of windows open, but I couldn’t shake the smell. I turned on my fan, to help with that humid feeling. The thing is– I am a rather quirky sleeper, and all summer I’ve been sleeping ON TOP of my covers, under one thin blanket. Well, the unnecessary addition of cold air gave me a SNEEZE ATTACK. If you know me, you know that I can sneeze on an ENDLESS LOOP.

Much like a character in an action movie, I had to fight my way toward the fan while sneezing violently. After I turned it off, I couldn’t get warm again. So I got under my REAL covers, but after a summer of light blanketing, I felt constricted. I was definitely zonked when my alarm went off at 6:30am-ish.

Good morning, my new nemesis.

All that is just my way of saying– I do not recommend that you run your crock pot overnight. Use it while you are off at work or… wherever you go during the day. The roller skating rink. The hair salon.

And then I fished out all the beef. And fished. And fished. SO MUCH MEAT. What was I thinking, seriously?

What have I done?!

It’s hard to tell from the perspective in the picture, but the amount in the small container is about 1/20th of what’s in the big container. That’s 20 lunches. About 17 more than I could ever want.

And Sam is still working on his stew, so I can’t even turn to him to relieve me of this unholy amount of meat.

I had that small container for lunch, and it was very delicious and tender, but I am seriously in over my head. I need some people to come over to my place with big Tupperwares and relieve me of this bounty. Please. Pretty please.

Because I feel bad about wasting food… but not bad enough to eat this on my own.

Heeelp…

xoxo…

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The (Not-Too-Terrible) Curse of the Crock Pot

September 23, 2011

The long national nightmare is over!

You may recall that I did some crock pot cooking last weekend. Chicken cacciatore. It made a very delicious dinner on Saturday night.

I ate it again for lunch on Sunday. On Monday I brought it to work with the last of the linguine. On Tuesday I forgot to make more linguine, so I just ate chicken. And I kept eating the chicken on Wednesday, Thursday, and today (Friday). (If Sam hadn’t joined me for dinner last Saturday, I might have had to eat it for lunch all weekend.)

Maybe as a sweet goodbye, today the chicken juice leaked out of my plastic container and got all over my reusable snack bags. Thanks, buddy. I’ll remember you always. (Luckily the bags are highly washable.)

So… when you cook crock pot dinner for one, make sure you like that meal enough to want to eat it for many, many subsequent meals. (It’s very cost-effective, if you’re okay with the monotony.) (Crock pots are the Costco of cooking.)

OR– give some of it away. I have an idea– say you crock it up over the weekend, and give half to a friend. Then THEY crock and roll on Tuesday or Wednesday and give half to YOU, and it finishes out the week. You still have to eat the same thing for multiple meals, but maybe 3 or 4 meals rather than 6+.

Or… just half the recipe.

Happy Impending Weekend!

xoxo…

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Do It Yourself: Spice Cake (BETTY CROCKER)

August 18, 2011

Round cakes always reach a Pac-Man stage.

You guys– I am SO BEHIND on blogging so much stuff. Cakes. Puddings. Cheeses. Food trucks. Home-cooked dinners. One of the things that deters me from blogging is the time that it takes to add “www.thedailybinge.com” to all the pictures. So guess what? I’m going to stop doing that. I have mixed feelings about throwing the pictures up naked, but whatever keeps the posts coming.

For all I know, I’ll drop the fancy URL and the “www.thedailybinge.com” stamp won’t even be accurate anymore on all those old pictures. Haha. Life happens.

Okay– for the longest time I would walk down the baking aisle of the grocery store (danger!) and ogle Betty Crocker’s Spice Cake mix. I was really curious how it tasted, because I typically love spice cake– but not all spice cakes are created equal. (I don’t think I’ll ever figure out the recipe for the AMAZING honey/spice cake that USC’s Hillel used to have on the High Holidays… but that’s life, too. Shit gets lost forever.) (Getting deep on a Thursday morning.)

So here are some pictures of the process…

Ingredients... most of them, anyway.

Those cake pans were about $5/each. I could have gotten one-use pans, but real pans seemed like a sound investment… sorta. (This means I will be making more cake… dangerous when you live alone.) (I have literally been making up parties and gatherings as an excuse to do dessert-making experiments.) (Yes, I use people as guinea pigs– er, taste-testers.)

I also don’t own any electrical mixing apparatus. I just do it all by hand and hope for the best…

Ready for the oven...

It was my first time using the oven, and I realized that certain important numbers were rubbed off of my oven dial– so I was guessing at what temperature I had dialed up. I was pretty sure I was right, but the cake LOOKED done about 10 minutes before it was SUPPOSED to be done. I was taking pictures of it through the glass and texting them to Sam, trying to get his opinion on whether it was burning…

To burn, or not to burn...

But I decided to just go with it, because baking is an exact science. If Betty Crocker says wait 10 minutes, I wait 10 minutes. (And there was no burning smell in the air.)

I’m glad I let baking cakes lie, because the layers came out perfectly cooked, not at all dry. (I didn’t have any toothpicks, so I used a fork to check the centers.) (Like a boss.)

Just forked.

I realized that I didn’t really have a method of flattening the tops of the cakes, and wondered if that would affect my ability to stack the layers. But then I had a revelation– Invert the bottom layer, so the two flat sides touch. (Probably not recommended by professionals, but it worked out okay for me.)

Looks happy.

Pro-tip– don’t stack the layers while they’re cooling, or the insides will keep each other hot, and you’ll wait forever to ice them. (My sister likes to ice cakes while they’re still hot– impatient person that she is– and it always results in weird melty-ness.)

After a long wait (I think I went to dinner in between), the cake was ready to be iced! I chose Cream Cheese frosting, and one container was perfectly enough to achieve full coverage, including between-layers.

Delicious inside and out.

I finished it off with chocolate sprinkles, for looks and for just a hint of chocolate-y goodness.

It's alive! Er-- it's a cake!

I covered it carefully in plastic wrap and let the frosting harden in the fridge. Guess what? It was a very delicious spice cake. Good for breakfast or dessert.

Piece of cake.

Luckily Lauren was staying with me that weekend (the Renegade Craft Fair was in LA), so she helped me with the eatin’. But it’s a dangerous thing to have a cake in the fridge. I didn’t eat the cake in irresponsible portions, but I DID finish the whole thing… over the course of about a week. (Middle class problems, am I right? TOO MUCH CAKE IN THE FRIDGE!)

So while I love baking cakes (easy ones from mixes, at least), I think I’ll only bake them for social gatherings and special occasions. Lest I become like Miranda in that episode of “Sex and the City” where she drowns her sorrows by baking sheet cakes and eating them by herself. (Because the bakery she frequented was prohibitively expensive.) (I happened to see that episode a few days before I baked this… perverse inspiration?)

I’m excited for the next cake-gathering opportunity, because there are so many flavors and combinations to try! Yellow cake with chocolate frosting! Strawberry cake with buttercream frosting!! Funfetti everything!!!

Let me know when your birthday nears… (Mine is Saturday!)

xoxo…

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Snack With Caution: BEN & JERRY’S LATE NIGHT SNACK

August 9, 2011

When I chip you chip we chip.

Typically I am pretty good with my portions. If you give me a big chocolate bar, I will eat it in small chunks over a series of days.

If I bake a spice cake, I will eat it in small pieces, and it will take me at least a week to finish. (I actually did that, but I didn’t blog it yet.) (WHY I did that is still unclear/stupid.)

It is probably okay for me to buy a big bag of Baked Ruffles, but it’s safer to buy the individual-sized bags. (Sometimes the giant bag FEELS like an individual size– you know?)

But I am really bad with ice cream. It calls to me.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Tea and I bought the Dreyer’s Slow-Churned Drumstick ice cream. It’s the best parts of a Drumstick all covered in chocolate and swirled around in vanilla ice cream (a bit like Ben & Jerry’s Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream, which was a danger to my health when we had it in the old office’s kitchen).

I don’t know what it was (perhaps the awesome just-home-from-the-store melty-ness action), but I ate that slow-churned ice cream until my stomach was doing a churn of its own. Maybe half the container, which is probably double the size of a human stomach. I never learn!

Luckily Mr. Tea retained custody of the ice cream, because even after a mundo stomachache, I wanted to eat it again the next day. (See: I never learn!)

When I saw the new Ben & Jerry’s Jimmy Fallon Late Night Snack ice cream at Gelson’s last week (seriously, they carry every flavor of everything), I was mighty tempted by the prospect of chocolate-covered potato chips. But I held myself back, because I just can’t be trusted around ice cream-y goodness.

I ALMOST bought the mini-size of AmeriCone Dream to console myself, but that just seemed like a slippery slope to a freezer full of mini AmeriCone Dreams.

If you’re like me, there IS a way to keep ice cream around the house– sorta. I buy individual-serving ice cream– like the Skinny Cow cones, or the Weight Watchers English Toffee Crunch Bars. And I don’t let myself eat more than one. (I could just ban them from the house, but that would only resort in teeth-gnashing or spending $4/cup at nearby Gelato Bar.)

So yeah, I’m not trying the Jimmy Fallon ice cream unless I can take one scoop and hand off the rest of it to some sort of ice cream parole officer. Until that day arrives (?), I will console myself with the delightful giraffe song. (Apparently the video is expired? WTF, that was the best thing ever.)

(Okay, now I don’t know what to console myself with.)

Another solution: I need to be amongst many, many other people– people who will eat the ice cream before I can go too crazy on it. Basically I need to have an ice cream-tasting party, and send everybody home with the leftovers. (OR they need to release the mini-size of the Fallon flavor.) (No wait, I already nixed that idea.)

How do you deal with those foods that you love so much, you have to set them free (from your kitchen)?

xoxo…

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The Mystery of the Ew

August 9, 2011

A cat reads The Binge.

I need your help solving a mystery.

Long story short-ish, I like Thai food. I like yellow curry. I like pad thai (well, not all the time– but I love it from Gindi Thai). I like pad woon sen. Etc etc.

But for some reason, I cannot eat pad see ew. I’ve tried it at various times in my life, and from different restaurants. (You know… just to see if it was a one-time deal.) Every time, I get fully nauseated. Like, thisclose to vomiting.

THISCLOSE.

As far as I know, I’m not allergic to any of the food-ingredients in pad see ew. Is there some special oil in it, that isn’t in other Thai dishes?

On a potentially related note, Umami Burger makes my stomach really unhappy… some people have guessed that they use MSG? Or maybe it’s the oil? (This is really perturbing, because Umami is super-hip and there’s one IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD.) (And apparently they serve awesome ice cream sandwiches.)

After years of head-scratching, I leave it to the internet to help me figure this one out. What puts the “ew” in pad see ew?

Are there any random foods/spices/oils that make you go “blech” in the night?

xoxo…

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Not-So-Simple Favorites…

July 8, 2011

Meatballs... and more.

I had a weird experience today. I actually read my Lean Cuisine box.

Since before I can remember I’ve been in the habit of eating Lean Cuisines, and Swedish Meatballs is one of my favorites (fittingly, it’s part of the “Simple Favorites” line). Today I was bumming around the office kitchen waiting for my meal to finish cooking, and something near the microwave instructions popped out at me–

“… a flavorful sour cream gravy.”

Weird, thought I. I’m typically not a fan of sour cream.

So I did a dangerous thing. I turned to the list of ingredients.

Here are a few that popped out at me: dehydrated sour cream, caramel color, potassium chloride, Worcestershire sauce (?!)… and, most alarmingly, beef AND pork. (Also: Contains anchovy?!)

You guys, I don’t eat pork. Like, I’m not kosher or allergic. I just don’t eat pork. It’s just a sort of Jew-y vestige. And I never even thought of checking to make sure that these grocery store meatballs are just beef. (To me, meat equals beef.)

So I did what I do when I make a Swedish Meatballs Lean Cuisine. I ate it. (What was I going to do– NOT eat it?) (Another Jew-y vestige.) I went to the Delicious Rewards website and entered my code to redeem my points.

But I feel kinda dirty about it. (The stupid thing is– I always feel slightly sick when I eat this flavor. Maybe it’s because I don’t like sour cream? And yet– I keep buying it.)

I guess the moral of the story is, don’t read the box. It’s sorta like opening Pandora’s box. Now I’m wondering if there’s pork in the chicken nuggets. Or dehydrated mayo. And if so– will I stop eating them? (Which I probably should anyway.)

Because even though I’m kinda grossed out, a big part of me doesn’t really care. I mean– we all know that these dinners are terrible for us. Weird chemicals, too much sodium. I’m disillusioned, but not surprised.

I feel a Lean Cuisine identity crisis coming on…

1 Comment | PURGES | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by yapplebee

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