So, what's for dinner?

I admit, that the photos I take for this blog are not the most professional looking nor do they always sometimes make the food look really tasty. Like the above picture, that may not look that delicious, but hey, that was the cactus dish I made, before adding the quinoa.  It had chopped onions, tomatoes, green chilis, garlic, and salt and pepper besides the chopped cactus in it. While I did take a course on food presentation, to be honest, I have so little time each day to experiment and cook fun things that I don't have the added hour or so to plate this dish and then clean it up and take the most awesome photo of it I can.  And let's face it even further, if you are a stay-at-home person or just the one who cooks at home, chances are that you don't have the time to make it look really nice either.

I posted a status message about this on Facebook as for some reason, just a pan full of onions cooking smells so good that I once wondered about making a relish purely on diced and cooked onions; and did it by the way. The problem with that photo is that onions are pale and pretty much colorless.  So taking a picture of them doesn't show a lot of color and such so they look like a blob or just not so appetizing.

Now when I am out and reviewing restaurants, I pull my tiny camera out and take pictures of the food and the place, on my own, and quickly as to not get thrown out or have anyone complain towards me.  These in-restaurant food photos tend to have the lighting off a bit or the color and again, as most restaurant reviewers don't want to be recognized, now with the growing number of food bloggers, and the increasing number of people bringing cameras with them wherever they go, I find it easy to take a snapshot and get away with it.  What I can do in the future, is try to take better photos at home, with a better camera.  This way, when I am doing something, you can get a better view of it.  Even my wife suggested using a stand to place a camera onto it so that I could record my process of cooking or doing something fun, like make caviar and place it on here for all to see.  Either way, with luck and more time, better photos will be on here.  Or maybe, when I finish each dish or thing I cook, I can plate it and take a good photo or two.

Iron chef ingredient theme: cactus...

Yes folks, it is not just for storing water in the dessert and letting Spike rest his back against.  The cactus is edible and last year I had the first try with the fruit, the prickly pear and after peeling it, chopping it and boiling it I was able to make a low calories and interesting jam, out of the fruit.  Now, a random, for fun, trip to Whole Foods inspired me to purchase 7 cactus leaves. I bought them because I remember them coming up in a box for the Food Network show "Chopped" and no one had a clue what to do with it.  Well, in case you are ever left with a few leaves of cactus and wonder what to do with it, here was my experiment, which turned out well.

You first have to clean them and the easiest method I did was to get the sharpest knife you have, in my case it was a ceramic kitchen knife, and slice against the grain, slicing each 'eye' off with the needles.  Oh yes, please be careful, those needles drive in deep and fast and hurt. Some people online suggested a cleaning pad, and that didn't work too well as it took off some of the skin, revealing the slimy insides.  Also, other suggested using a vegetable peeler on the whole thing and again, that leaves only the slimy inside. How slimy? Not as slimy as Okra but close.

The next part was easy, as many online sources suggested everything from grilling to boiling and by far the easiest thing to do was just slice it up, and saute' in a pan with some olive oil for about 8 minutes on high heat.  After 8 minutes, it was tender and had gone from bright green to a darker olive green color. I tasted like cooked green beans and I wanted to do something fun with it. So, inspired by its Mexican culture, or South American ideals, I added some chopped garlic, onion, tomatoes, green chilis and some freshly cooked quinoa to the pan, along with a good helping of salt and pepper.

All in all, everything turned out good so if you are interested in my recipe, or more information of what I did, let me know.