A tale of two dolmas

Recently, we were shopping at our favorite local asian market and stumbled upon dolmas. I stacked a few jars of these treats in the cart with a twinkle in my eye and Clayton said, “Meh… just get enough for you. I don’t like the ones in the jar.”

I scoffed and thought him to be foolish for non-fresh dolmas are all the same. Actually, jarred were probably better because canned foods are kind of evil. A few aisles down, we stumbled across the canned dolmas of the same brand. Just to be right…I put back a jar of mine so that we had one of each.

A taste test was born!

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From the outside, the jar wins every day. What would you prefer? A pretty little jar full of deep green fragrant oil and lemony, creamy dolmas? Or a military-grade can of hidden-from-sight dolmas? What are you hiding in your closed up can, little dolmas?

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Ewww. That’s what. Jelly, gooey, white rice starchy weirdness.

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But, on the plate, we can see my jarred dolmas look darker and drier. (They were.) The canned dolmas were way creamier, more lemony and there were more dolmas in the can for the same price.

So much better that we polished off the can and put the jarred dolmas back in the fridge for someone else to enjoy. Someone who doesn’t yet know that not all dolmas are created equal.

Sonnenblumenbrot

This is my new favorite bread. It is called Sonnenblumenbrot.

It has a little ridged pattern and then a cross across the top.

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It is lovingly crafted by John McBryde at Prairie Thunder Baking Company.

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It is full of sunflower seeds.

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I slice it with Clayton’s cool, old bread saw. (Yes, I just made that up. I have no idea what it’s called.)

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I put the delicious Sonnenblumenbrot into my grody toaster. Note to self: check Pinterest for toaster cleaning method.

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Then I put my tahini on it. Making my own tahini will one day help me break even on buying a Vitamix.

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And some sort of fruity thing. This day it was Peach Butter.

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It is my favorite breakfast right now.

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I bought both the bread and butter from Matt Burch at Urban Agrarian.

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This is not a sponsored post and the only discount I get is from my Keep it Local OK card, which I also purchased all on my own, too. If you live in Oklahoma, you should, too. 🙂

Food Science

So….my son and I started a little project earlier this year.

His favorite meal is a plate of plain pasta, cut up fruit and maybe some shredded cheese. Homeboy likes to keep things simple and while I would love for him to keep that life skill, I do think he needs to branch out with regards to his nutrition. And by branch out I mean Eat Things That Are Green But Are Not Candy.

Thus….the Scientific Journal was born!

I told him that he needed to eat vegetables so that he could grow up strong and healthy. He was hesitant in every way a typical 7 year old would be, but after hearing The Plan he was on board, or at least as on board as a 7-year-old skeptic could be.

The Plan: We would go to Whole Foods every couple of weeks to gather specimens. He would pick a new vegetable to try and pick a vegetable or fruit for ME to try. Then, we would take our specimens home for cooking, testing and journaling.

On our outing he picked broccoli for himself and dinosaur kale for his mom. See…his hook, his tipping point, was that he could pick ANYTHING for Mom to eat. The uglier the better, I suspect. He chose Dinosaur Kale for Mom. Broccoli for himself.

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We decided that trying it in three different preparations would give us a good idea of what broccoli would be. Raw, steamed and sauteed/seared is what we went with.

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I was sure to have him help cook.

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In the end, he had a preference.

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With all the business this year, we haven’t journaled very much since this first experiment (we’ve only added purple potatoes to the list), but looking forward to more. I assume that as a result of this project, he now will eat broccoli in any simple form but preferred it to be a little bit roasty/toasty.

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