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So one of my roommates and I have been going through a bit of a peanut butter phase recently—we both like it on our morning toast. And, tragically, we recently ran out of it. No big deal, you say. Just go out and buy more. Not that simple, bub.

Where I happen to live in San Francisco, I’m about equidistant from two fancy-schmancy gourmet markets, Bi-Rite (Bi-Me Rite Out of House and Home) and Whole Foods (Whole Salary Foods). And normally, I love this; I have, at my fingertips, gourmet (and expensive!) chocolates, more fresh (and expensive!) cheeses than you can shake a stick at, imported (and expensive!) French lemonade, exotic handmade (and expensive!) fruit preserves, and some beautiful organic (read: expensive) vegetables, among other (expensive!) things.

So a few days ago I went to B-MROoHaH on a grocery run, where one of the items on my list was a replacement jar of peanut butter. Between the various jars of soy butter and other nut butters, there was one type of 100% organic, freshly ground, non-hydrogenated, lightly salted creamy peanut butter. Ok, sure, I thought, and brought it home.

I learned my lesson the next morning when I put it on my toast. It was…not good. I mean, it was certainly peanutty. Too peanutty. It was like distilled essence of peanut, mixed with ground peanuts, with some peanut oil added in for flavor. I mean, if I had wanted to eat peanuts, I would have dumped a handful of Planters on my toast. No, I wanted to eat peanut butter. And the texture was all wrong! I’m used to peanut butter with the consistency of spackle. This stuff kind of sloshed around when you tilted the jar…<shudder>.

After I choked down that single piece of toast, I decided that the only way the rest of that jar would be palatable would be in a PB&J sandwich with some really sweet jelly. It would not do solo, on a piece of toast. So today, I went down to WSF to see if I’d have better luck.

But I should have known better. I went in, walked up and down the aisles a bit, finally found the peanut butter. And stood there dumbfounded. Between the cashew butter and the soy butter, what should I find but more of that 100% organic, non-hydrogenated bullshit? I want my hydrogenation, dammit! Say what you will about the stuff that choosy moms choose, but it tastes good.

Why is it so hard to find a simple jar of peanut butter? Now I’m going to have to get in my car (which I rarely have to use these days), and drive all the way to my nearest mega-mart in order to get some good old Jif. Yeesh.

recipe I promised you. This one comes from the Japanese Home Cooking cookbook, which I picked up at the local used book store for like $5. It’s got some great (looking) recipes in it, but I’ve only tried one so far, which I loved. Well, here goes:

Pork and Eggplant (Note: ground beef may be used instead of pork.)

Ingredients:

Yield: 4 servings

1. Brown the meat in a skillet and drain excess grease. Add garlic, pepper, and eggplant, then stir well.
2. Add 2/3 cup water and cover with lid. Cook at medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until eggplant becomes tender.
3. Stir in mirin, soy sauce, miso and green onions.
4. Mix cornstarch with 1 tbsp water and add to the skillet. Stir occasionally and cook until the mixture becomes pasty. Serve with rice.

Enjoy! And if you really do, please support the authors by buying the cookbook.

^* They mean, of course, a Japanese eggplant; they’re much smaller than the regular European variety you might be used to.

^** A common Japanese cooking ingredient, mirin is a sweetened rice wine you can find by the soy sauce in most Asian markets. It is not , however, to be confused with sake, another wine often used in cooking. If you plan on cooking Japanese food often, make sure to have mirin and sake on hand always.

^*** The third part of the sacred triumvirate of Japanese cooking (the other two being mirin and soy sauce), miso is a salty soybean paste that comes in two varieties: white and red. The white one has a milder flavor and is my personal preference. Keep this stuff on hand, too. It keeps forever in the refrigerator.

eating out entirely too much in the past few months. Not only was it hard on my wallet, it was hard (or going to be, anyway) on my health; the bottom line is, you can’t control what goes into the food at a restaurant. Plus I just got sick of eating at the same old places. It wasn’t a treat to go out anymore.

So I decided to cook more at home, but something had to change. I like to cook, but when I’m home alone, I keep it simple; cooking something elaborate just for myself is no fun and hard work, besides. As a result, my repertoire was quite limited: canned soup, grilled cheese, tacos, sloppy joes, that kind of thing. I got to thinking that I really like Japanese food, which has a great variety, is generally easy to prepare, and for the most part is low-calorie. Plus it would add some much-needed vegetables to my diet. And I have a bunch of great cookbooks I’d been dying to try. Okay, then. It was decided.

But I had a problem. Most Japanese dishes are served with rice. No issue if you have a rice cooker, right? Well, sort of. I had one that had suited me just fine until now, but I didn’t like to use it too often, because it didn’t have a non-stick bowl. Every time I made rice, I’d have to soak the bowl overnight and then really scrub it to get the cooked and hardened rice off the sides. The cleaning process was really quite laborious. And not, moreover, suited to cooking rice very often.

But the answer to my problems was near. I had some rewards points coming up on one of my credit cards, and my eye on a fancy rice cooker—with a non-stick bowl. It’s overkill, I know. 10 cups? I don’t cook more than a cup or two at a time, usually. But, and this is the kicker: it doubles as a steamer and a slow-cooker. A multi-tasker! Alton Brown would approve.

So when I got it home a few days ago, I wasted no time. I started cooking. And with it, I “discovered” a couple of good recipes. The first is actually not mine; it’s a bastardized version of a dish my friend Jieun makes sometimes. I’m not sure how she makes hers, but I think this one is reasonably close; it tastes good, anyway:

Ingredients:

1/2 large carrot, peeled
1/2 medium green bell pepper
1/2 medium yellow or white onion
1 link Aidell’s artichoke & garlic chicken/turkey sausage
2 eggs

1. Slice the carrot into thin strips. Chop the green pepper and onion into bite-sized pieces. Slice the sausage into 1/4″ pieces.
2. Saute the carrot, pepper and onion in a frying pan with 1 tsp of vegetable oil (or your grease of choice) over medium-high heat until the onions are translucent. Season the vegetables with salt, pepper and oregano.
3. Add the sausage and cook for another 2-3 minutes, until the sausage is cooked and looks a bit caramelized.
4. Whisk eggs together with a dash of soy sauce and a generous pinch of sugar (no more than 1/2 tsp).
5. Add a little teriyaki sauce to the pan (about 1 tbsp) and toss the sausage and vegetables.
6. Turn the heat down to low. Add eggs. Wait until they set a bit, then stir. Remove from heat. Serve with white or brown rice.

Makes 2-3 servings.

More soon…

the worst bowl of cream of broccoli soup ever for lunch today. First, they’d advertised it as broccoli cheese soup, which it clearly wasn’t. Second, the pieces of broccoli were way too large; if I’d wanted a tree in my soup, I’d have asked for one. And third, someone forgot to add the salt. The saltines had more flavor. Gotta love that cafeteria food. I want my $2.15 back, dammit.

From The Independent:

Coffee might soon be considered a health drink following a study showing it is a surprisingly rich source of anti-cancer agents.

A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants – which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer – to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes.

Carnival of the Recipes: Ma po tofu, the right way. Ma po tofu is my favorite Chinese dish, and I’m sure this recipe beats the hell out of using House brand Hot Ma Po Tofu Sauce. While we’re on the subject, here is a roundup (read: Google search) of other ma po tofu recipes.

So I have got to share this with you. Did you know that Häagen-Dazs just came out with a light ice cream, with 1/2 the fat content of their regular ice cream? I had taste-tested a couple of flavors at a local festival a few months ago, and promptly forgotten about it. But when I was walking through the grocery store last week, I noticed that it had finally hit store shelves, so I got myself a couple of pints. One was vanilla bean, and the other dulce de leche. The former is really very good, but the latter is simply divine. Just amazing. Go out and get some right now. I mean it. Get in your car, go to the nearest grocery store or ice cream purveyor of your choice, and get some.

here’s a pretty neat blog/website: Cooking for Engineers. It’s cool not just for its content, but the way the website is programmed.

While we’re on the subject of cooking and geeks, I have to admit that I am a Good Eats junkie. It appeals to the engineer in me. If you don’t watch this show regularly, you should.

Walt Mossberg here and do some product evaluation, although I don’t think anyone’ll ever accuse me of being a kingmaker (makress?). Nabisco has just come out with a new snack product called the 100 calorie pack, which is just a little baggie containing exactly 100 calories worth of some popular snack-flavored baked cracker* (Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, Cheese Nips and Wheat Thins, to name a few). Notice I say “flavored”. If I had 100 calories of actual Oreo, I’d have like a half a cookie, and it wouldn’t be very good for me. These have a pretty low fat content, and they still taste good. And it’s a great size for snacking – not too much, but your craving gets satisfied. Good stuff.

* To be perfectly accurate, I think they have fruit snacks as well as flavored crackers.

It might be a good idea to go out and stock up on Twinkies. (Via Dave Barry)