Mango & Pineapple Sticky Rice/Searching for Sugar Man

This week's post comes to you from my dear sister, Caitlin. Caitlin lives in Chicago. She's awesome and a better writer/photographer than me so don't expect the rest of the posts to be this great from here on out. Enjoy!

Soon I will start Academy Award Madness. I have two movies/recipes up in the queue.

Sisters! In Chicago!

Welcome to my guest post!

I'm Caitlin (Kim's sister), and I gotta say, I might not be on Kim's cooking or movie-reviewing level. But with an optimistic spirit and an undeniable sweet tooth I bring you my take on mango sticky rice as well as the Oscar-nommed documentary "Searching for Sugar Man" about a folk musician who made it big in South Africa. A warm dessert in juxtaposition with the cold streets here in Chicago... kind of like Rodriguez's snowy apartment in Detroit in juxtaposition with his fan base's lush & subtropical home of South Africa!

The recipe is inspired by my roommate last year, who is from Asia and loves Thai food. She used to dig on this sticky rice from Thai Palace, a deliciously evil Thai food place in Holland, MI. I wanted to try and recreate it with a couple of things I already had in my apartment.

I also have an insatiable sweet tooth (and my mother will let you know it), so this hit the spot! I used white jasmine rice, but feel free to use actual sticky rice. I'm just going to say that you can't beat coming home to a kitchen that smells like jasmine rice. It's the closest I'm going to get to a dog's affectionate greeting until I live in an apartment larger than your average office cubicle.

Recipe: Mango & Pineapple Sticky Rice

Veggie Stir Fry/The Last Emperor

No excuse for the lack of posting lately. I would say I'm going to try to be better about it, but that's probably a lie. Maybe some more guest posts coming up soon? Also, I'm starting to grow weary of the same 10 root vegetables I get in my farm share every week. Step up your game, Boston Organics!

This week's recipe is more about the sauce than anything else. These vegetables are great, but you can pretty much use any kind of vegetable in a stir fry (which is why they're so great). Except for beets. Don't use beets in anything. The trick is to add the vegetables that take the longest to cook first and progressively add the rest as they cook. Leafy greens are always wilted down last when the sauce is added. Feel free to experiment with other vegetables and share your experiences!

In other news, I'm going to try this month to watch every film that was nominated for best picture. Typically I see them all without trying this hard, but this year has been a slow one for me as far as new releases go. I have already seen Django Unchained (way underwhelmed) and Silver Linings Playbook (meh), so there will be no posting for those ones. I will try to make some good entries for the remaining films. In the meantime, enjoy this review from a film that won best picture for 1987!

Although I don't know how it beat out this one.

Stuffed Acorn Squash/The Hobbit Part 1

It's the first new movie review!

I don't have much to say here. Being home has been awesome, but I have eaten TERRIBLY. Expect some healthy stuff coming up these next few weeks. I hope everyone's had a great holiday!

Recipe: Stuffed Acorn Squash

Special Guests and Tuna Steaks/Jaws

Japanese food galore! I guess I'm on a kick.

I got really excited when some friends contacted me to be guest contributors to the blog. I was happy about being able to hang with some cool kids for the night, but I was also really stoked that people took an interest! If anybody else in MA wants to be included in pretty much the hottest blog around, let me know. Recommendations of movie/food pairings are also taken into consideration.

Special guest Mario!

Special guest Maggie!

Also, a lot of the food from this entry was reused from the last one. The tuna recipe was inspired by this. The tuna was purchased from a fishmonger in Inman Square and HOLYCOW it was good. Jiro would be proud.

Recipe: Tuna Steaks with Leftover Rice and more Spicy Miso Soup

Sushi Bowls & Miso Soup/Jiro Dreams of Sushi

All I did in Vegas was EAT. I guess we did some other stuff too, but it seems like everything was centered around food. Not that I'm complaining - everything we had was super. Arriving home, I decided to go with something a little lighter to maybe offset some of the heavy eating. No CSA this week, so no crazy vegetables. There were some good veggies in these sushi bowls though!

The local grocery store didn't have all of the ingredients for Miso soup, and I didn't feel like making an extra trip, so I decided that the Minute Miso paste sounded just as good. After throwing some of my own touches to the paste, it actually turned out to be pretty delicious. Plus, now I have a way to have Miso soup whenever I want. That's pretty great if you ask me.