Cinnamon Toast Remix

Sometimes I just want a little dessert. And my favorite desserts are not chocolate-based or even fruit-based, but cinnamon-based. To quell this craving, the other night I whipped up a play on the classic cinnamon toast, with a little Mexican twist. And let me tell you one word to sum up this little recipe: heavenly.

The first thing I made was a cinnamon toast-like mixture. Three parts white sugar (could use Splenda) to one part cinnamon to one part brown sugar, with a sprinkle of kosher salt. Then I put in little bits of light Smart Balance (could have used butter), maybe a teaspoon at a time and mixed the spices into it with a fork. I continued adding bits until it had nicely “taken in” all of the cinnamon-sugar.

I next took six, small corn tortillas from the fridge and cut them each in half. My original craving was actually for a churro, so the corn tortillas came to mind as a way to make it a little crispier and churro-ier than cinnamon toast. I spooned a very small amount of the smart balance-sugar-cinnamon mixture onto half of each piece of tortilla and then folded the other half onto it so the stickiness of the mixture sealed it. I arranged all of the now quarter-tortilla-sized “churro quesadillas” onto a baking sheet and brushed them all with a tiny bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of sugar, cinnamon and salt. I placed them in a 350 degree oven for 11 minutes.

When I removed them from the oven, the house filled with the gorgeous waft of cinnamon and sugar. My creations looked delectable. They were a little caramelized on the bottom, crispy on the top and soft and gooey and delicious in the middle. It really was like a cinnamon toast quesadilla. I gave a few to a wowed Julia and gave a few to a ravenous Me. I would describe how incredible the taste was in deep detail, but I think I already told you everything you need to know. Heavenly.

Luxe Ceviche

Every so often I find a perfect food for me. During our recent Las Vegas trip, I not only had my new perfect dish ceviche for the first time in many months, but probably the best version ever as well. I had this brilliant ceviche at the T&T (tacos and tequila) at the Luxor casino. It was a gorgeous triple ceviche combo, with small portions each of a beautiful orange-ahi ceviche, a lime-shrimp ceviche and a tomato-citrus-mahi-mahi ceviche. All three were different yet stunningly delicious.

You have to like raw or nearly raw sushi grade fish to appreciate most ceviche, as the fish is just slightly cured by the citrus that it is marinated and served in. The shrimp on the other hand IS cooked, so ceviche for non-raw-lovers will nearly always be shrimp-based. I'm a fish and shrimp fanatic, so that love might be the root of my affection for ceviche.

And beyond that is just the simple beauty of a classic dish that can only be messed up via a lack of quality of and respect for its components. But if it has very high quality fish, lots of fresh citrus juice, fresh onions, tomatoes, avocado, jalapeno, cilantro, olives (often) along with salt and pepper, the taste is aromatic, light and simply ideal. What a meal should be. Imagine the offspring of the freshest of salsas and the freshest of sashimis. Its name would be ceviche.

The Tacos and Tequila restaurant in Luxor caught me at a great time, as the overly heavy food one traditionally encounters in Vegas was starting to get a bit repulsive, and I needed something fresh and exploding with flavor. I instantly knew when I saw it that I was going to be ordering the ceviche trio, bypassing all of the excellent-sounding, creative tacos that were on the menu. Each little portion of this ceviche trio, presented wonderfully on a tri-sectioned long plate, had its own perfect flavor and character, each sizably different from the next. But they all still rang of that tangy, aromatic ceviche base that is crucial to the luxe of this dish. Whether you're at the Luxor or anywhere.

Birthday Adventures: Zengo

Happy birthday to THE most special girl today! Of course while I could never think of a celebration quite worthy of Julia, we did manage to have several highly noteworthy meals in DC this weekend in honor of her further foray into her 20's. I'll highlight a few of the weekend’s culinary highlights this week.

And start with...

Zengo: A highly popular, high-energy restaurant in DC's Chinatown that manages to fuse Mexican cuisine with several Asian cuisines (including Indian). The slightly peculiar-sounding result was actually quite interesting and well, awesome! The menu included a sushi section, a small plates section, an entrees section and a noodles/rice section. The sushi all looked interesting including a complex vegetarian roll, a Kobe beef roll and several ceviches. But for the prices and the waitresses' skimpy descriptions, we decided to skip this section in lieu of the even-more-interesting alternatives.

We ended up trying a side of their plantains to start with, which were good for plantains, being not too sweet but crispy and with a nice little unnamed sauce that was half spicy and half creamy. Compared with the rest of the food though, they were relatively unmemorable. Julia, along with her mango mojito, ordered the crispy tofu blocks entree with grilled bok choy and other accoutrements and found it to be fabulous. Actually one of the better and more interesting entrees she has had at a restaurant in a while.

I agreed, despite not being limited to the vegetarian items. I finally decided on a two Mexican-Japanese fusions. The first were mini crispy wonton tacos containing sushi rice, ahi tuna and mango salsa, with a dollop of fresh guacamole. Yes, they were as heavenly as they sound, with the crunch of the shells and the vinegar of the rice mixing perfectly with the sweet of the mango and the savory of the tuna and avocado. My only complaint was that they were a little messy to eat, but hey, who cares when they're tacos? I also wish the sushi rice was slightly more prominent. Nevertheless, these were comprised of an exquisite combination of flavors that had more uniqueness than most restaurants ever manage.

My second dish was a rice noodle bowl that was filled with awesome ingredients like tender, delicious pork shoulder, a soft poached egg, mushrooms and countless other veggies. It was a real treat and was very spicy. The flavors mixed together well on the palette and surprisingly lightly with the thin rice noodles keeping everything from sagging. The pork itself was the tastiest and most tender pork I have tried in quite a while, and the dish was worth it even for that. It was very pleasing and was a second testament at Zengo to the wonders that combining cuisines can create.

While we were licking our lips to the crispy tofu, ahi tuna, plantains, pulled pork and intriguingly delicious cocktails, the waitress managed to slip a dessert menu onto our table. This included several interesting desserts and from these, Julia ordered a very nice lemon cake with a lemon custard and a black sesame cracker accent. But the real standout here was the churros and chai, which I quickly recognized as a must-order. Once she tried them, Julia quickly agreed. They were divine; as divine as you'd ever expect a churro to be. Tiny little, ruffled, fresh, warm, soft, donut-like cigars with a perfect layer of cinnamon and sugar around them. And a tiny little shot of chai-flavored chocolate mousse and cream to dunk them in. Now that's coffee and donuts! Our mouths are still watering over those.

Zengo was a fabulous find, although it wasn't much of a gamble, since I've heard so many good things in the past. But now that we've tried it ourselves and left completely satisfied, except for the lingering thoughts of longing for dishes we haven't tried yet, it has definitely quickly soared to one of our favorite DC restaurants. When we actually talk about a restaurant for an entire day afterward, we know that it was definitely a memorable experience.

Wow and I even wrote twice as much about it as I was going to, so I'll have to save the rest of the birthday-celebration descriptions for later this week. Plus, my tasty-looking pictures are unavailable due to technical difficulties, so you'll have to check back in soon when I can finally post up the Zengo pictures. In the meantime, Happy Birthday to Julia again!

Tangy Toastadas (or Down with Tupperware)

When Julia (my fiancée) and I were getting ready to move from Michigan to DC, we made an important and intelligent decision about our culinary future together. Down with the tupperware!

Forgive me if this doesn't sound like a familiar rallying cry, but those misshapen, non-matching, funny-smelling lumps of plastic did no wonders for my eating experience. Besides being expensive, hard to wash and annoying to lug to work or school, they contribute to two kinds of waste. They permeated through our cooking behaviors, and I'm sure we were not alone.

The first kind was a sort of active waste: having lots of tupperware makes you think that leftovers are a really great thing, and you never put the effort in to actually cooking the amount of food you need. This contributes to the second form of waste: not eating the leftovers because you have so much. This is particularly bad, because you've already made the extra food and loaded the excess into a container and probably left it in your fridge for a while before finally forcing yourself to eat it so it doesn't go bad, or throwing it away because it has gone bad. You might say that I would waste more because I pitched or gave away my tupperware, but the key is that I'm not replacing the hunks of smelly plastic with disposable, less eco-friendly versions. In fact, the point is to reduce all but the best or most necessary leftovers. Cook (or order for that matter) what you're GOING to eat. It's a simple and marvelous concept. You waste less food, less money, plus have the added bonus of not being forced to eat old leftovers, unless they're really good and you've intended it this way.

Of course, if you're not cooking for a family, but for yourself or for two, making just enough food can be much more difficult. Many recipes serve four at a minimum, cooking TV shows always make a ton of food, and sometimes it just seems difficult to conceptualize cooking for just a couple people or just one. But I think it is more than possible, and that you can actually come up with better dishes this way. Plus, often when you come up with a great small recipe, it's easier to make larger when you DO have more people, rather than vice versa. All this is why I will be focusing on meals I've created or recipes that are size adjustable, or simply those that work really well for just one or two people.

Let's start with a meal that Julia made a couple nights ago. It is something we've had before, it's easy and it's flexible. I look at it as a healthier version of taco night. Tostada night. Well, really “Toastada” night -- because “toast” is the key to making these healthy. Get your own corn tortillas. They are naturally low in sodium and fat, and even have more than 1 gram of fiber each. All you have to do is crisp them (or toast) them in the oven on 400 F with a light spray of cooking spray on each side for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly brown and crispy. You can add salt to taste, but I find it adds little besides some excess sodium. They taste great with just the spray -- plus a couple drops of Tabasco will add all the flavor you need! From there, you can add any taco ingredients that you would normally want and pile them on top of the “toastadas”. Let's just say they beat the store-bought shells in flavor, texture and health.

A few notes about making the toppings as great as possible. Tang! My I've found how much interesting flavor a spritz of a lime wedge will add to a taco or tostada. It is literally amazing. Make it your last topping you add to each “toastada” and you'll love what it does for all the other toppings.

With that much flavor coming through, black beans, salsa, avocado slices, chopped onion, green onion, tomato, the lime wedges, Tabasco and a little reduced fat sour cream are all we need to enjoy a wonderful and easy dinner for two. No need for cheese; no need for meat either. It really is a terrific little thing to whip up in only a few minutes -- plus you get to decide how much you make. Tupperware or no tupperware, there will NOT be any leftovers because this dish is just too tasty!