Kung Fu Kitchen Master

Takorean Clones

2011-03-16T15:27:00.002-04:00

The craze of korean tacos swept from Las Angeles with the Kogi truck (http://kogibbq.com/category/menu/) to Washington D.C. with the Takorean truck (http://takorean.com/menu/). So, at my latest foodie party which just happened to be a Korean food throwdown, I decided to try to replicate these bad boys. Takorean's philosophy is simple, (1) choose from bulgogi, carmelized tofu or tangy chicken, (2) choose from a napa cabbage slaw or a spicy kimchi slaw, and (3) then choose from an assortment of toppings, including lime crema, black sesame seeds, cilantro, and siracha. I decided not to do the classic bulgogi taco and opted instead to attempt my favorite Takorean truck taco... the Carmelized Tofu Taco.

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Cup-Pakes Make Good Bribes

2011-03-02T07:59:00.000-05:00

My friend Phil is the pake-master. By this, I mean, he introduced to me the entire concept of a pake, a pie baked into a cake. A pake is basically pared down cherpumple, which originally a three-layer cake with an entire pie baked into each layer—a cherry pie baked inside a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked inside a yellow cake and an apple pie baked inside a spice cake. Phil's pake prowess became so famous that he now cannot be invited to any food party without the expectation of pake (in fact, at the infamous roasted pig head birthday party, we even deep fried the pake). The leftover pake was stuck in the freezer and slowly enjoyed by me and the man friend... who has since become similarly obsessed with pake.

And so, when man friend decided to upgrade his stationary bike trainer, I proffered pake as a bribe so I, too, could start my long road to cycling geekdom. Or rather, he told me his bribe of choice was pake. But I was thwarted by the limitations of my current baking pans. I had a large pie pan but no cake pan. What to do? I eyed my mini-muffin tin and regular muffin tins with interest, recalling a link my friend had sent me of a a mini-pie baked into a cupcake. The large bags of purple raspberries I had picked last summer were just waiting for a purpose.

And... so.... drumroll please... best... idea... ever... the Purple Raspberry Dark Chocolate Cup-Pake with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting was born.

I spent an inordinate amount of time researching recipes, and then ended up throwing all caution to the wind and modifying them based on what I had on hand at the time, and barely measuring anything. For the crust, I decided specifically not to use the perfect flaky buttery crust recipe I had discovered before because its (a) time consuming, and (b) time consuming. So decided to cut together the following:

handful of powdered pecans (basically, throw 'em in the blender and pulverize into dust)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 stick of chilled regular butter
some half-and-half and a couple splashes of cold seltzer water (mostly because that was what I was drinking at the time)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
a dash of cinnamon

Then I just took small handfuls and pressed them into the mini-muffin tin to line each side. I saved aside some of the dough to roll out between wax paper and cut circles (my tablespoon measuring spoon turned out to be just the right size). Pre-bake for about 5 minutes in an oven set to 400F. Oh, and for the record, don't use seltzer water, it makes the crust rise. I ended up having to mash the crust back down but overall, it has a pleasant nutty flavor and the texture was good enough that I could pop the pies out of the mini-muffin tins at the end.

The filling was super easy and its delicousness will depend on the quality of the berries you are using. Luckily, my penchant for delicious raspberries means I go raspberry picking several times when they are in season at a local farm. And so I took a package of beautiful frozen purple raspberries (approximately 2 cups), drained off about 1 tablespoon of the dark rich juices to add to the frosting, and then mixed it with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of pulverized tapioca pearls and two tablespoons of corn starch. That's it. Easy. Delicious. Easy. Did I say it was easy? I baked the pies at 400F for about 10 minutes and then reduced the temperature to 350F for about 20 minutes. I feel like I could have pulled the pies out earlier, but I was concerned that the filling wouldn't set. All in all, they look and taste pretty good, I let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then popped 'em out to cool on a rack.

I decided that I wanted to do the cupcake batter from scratch and have a dense dark chocolate blanket for my muffins. I think the combination of dark chocolate... not too sweet... with a sweet buttercream frosting is the best. Everything is about balance. The recipe was easy enough and I mixed together all the dry ingredients first and then slowly added the wet ingredients:

1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Giardhelli)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup regular butter, softened
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups sugar in the raw
2 eggs
1/4 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup seltzer water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

This recipe ended up yielding a thicker batter than I expected, but it worked out beautifully. I lined the muffin tins with cupcake wrappers, and then filled each one about 2/3 full. Then I pressed each mini-pie into the tin which made the batter fill up the sides and start to come up over the pie. I used a knife to fold that overflow over the top of the pie and added dabs of the batter if needed. The best part about having a thicker batter is that it allows you to shape the cupcake over the pie... you don't have to worry about it rising too much during cooking because there is relatively less muffin to cook than a regular muffin. If that makes sense.

Anyway, pop these bad boys in the oven for about 12 or 13 minutes at 375F. Let cool just long enough that you can pop them out without burning your hands. Of course, I had to test one to make sure there was proper cup-pake action going on. Besides, I had made these the night before the man friend was due to come over for dinner so that they would have time to cool all the way before frosting (need at least an hour so the frosting doesn't melt all over the place).

And finally, it was time to do the frosting. I decided to get a little fancy, and creamed together the following:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar (about an entire box)
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon half-and-half
2 tablespoons raspberry juice

Then I shaved some dark chocolate I had picked up on my last business trip to Paris with a microplane on top. Seriously, dude.

Given the richness of both the pie and the dense cupcake, and the creaminess of the buttercream frosting, vanilla bean ice cream served as the perfect complement.

Pork, the Other White Meat

2011-02-24T14:35:00.003-05:00

I have a profound love of homecured bacon, homecured sausages, roasted pig head, and pork spareribs... it might be a borderline unhealthy love of pork products. Just because I ordered a bacon omelet with double bacon and bacon on the side does not mean that I have a problem. Right. Anyway, I realized the other day that while I love pork, I rarely actually make it at home, reserving it for special occasions or trips to a BBQ shack in West Virginia or Kentucky. So I decided I would try to make a healthier dinner using pork as the centerpiece the other night and used my Special Man Friend as a guinea pig. The verdict was that the Chipotle Crusted Pork Tenderloin served with baked sweet potato fries and Broccoli Slaw was a hit. Learning from the Cuban feast overindulgence, we sadly only took seconds of the broccoli slaw (and compensated for it by eating a couple newly delivered Girl Scout cookies).

Pork tenderloin, when cooked properly, is an amazingly tender and juicy cut of meat, and relatively lean. My favorite way to cook meat to use a covered cast iron skillet with high heat with a blackening season of some sort. It guarantees a wonderful crust and a little mini oven of joy to get the inside perfectly cooked. Pork tenderloin is no exception. I decided to depart from my traditional blackening seasoning (equal parts powdered onion, powdered garlic, cayenne, paprika, white pepper, black pepper, and seasoned salt), and went for a spicy-sweet seasoning to create the Chiptole Crusted Pork Tenderloin. Simply combine:

2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons chipotle chile powder
1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
3 tablespoons loosely packed brown sugar

Then cover a small pork tenderloin (mine was about 3/4 of a pound) with the mixture and dump it into a ziploc bag with the extra seasoning. I let it sit in the fridge for about an hour, and then took the tenderloin out about an hour before I wanted to start cooking to let it come to room temperature for more even cooking. Heat a cast iron skillet with a lid over medium high heat, make sure your stove fan is on and windows are open, and then put the tenderloin in and quickly cover. About every 2-3 minutes, turn the tenderloin so that all sides get charred. Check the internal temperature to make sure it reaches 155 F before letting the meat rest. If the outside is charred to your liking but the internal temperature is not ideal, finish off a 350 F oven. Let the tenderloin rest for at least 10 minutes and then slice in 1/4-1/2 inch slices.

I have to admit that I sort of cheated on the Broccoli Slaw. I wanted something veggie laden that I could make ahead and didn't feel like checking what ingredients I had when I was at Whole Paycheck. So I bought the Bolthouse Farms yogurt based coleslaw dressing to toss with my baby broccoli (1 small bunch, florets only), shredded carrot (1 carrot), thinly sliced purple cabbage (2-3 cups), sweet onion (1/4 medium onion), dried cranberries (1 handfull), and shredded granny smith apple (1 apple). The Bolthouse Farms coleslaw dressing is a creamy semi sweet dressing, so I added some tang with a dollap of Miracle Whip and about 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Once I had tossed everything together, I stuck it in the fridge for about 2 hours before it was served and it was the perfect complement.

Triathlon Training Recovery Leads to Overindulgance in Cuban Feast

2011-02-24T13:59:00.002-05:00

So once upon a time, I put together a bucket list of sorts, involving adventures such as skydiving and exotic travel, and feats of endurance and strength, such as triathlons and marathons. I've been more than successful at the fun adventures, but not so much with the feats of endurance and strength. And so, bolstered by the success of running two 10ks and a half marathon, 2011 became the year of running, biking, swimming, and generally being out of breath while I train for a half marathon, two olympic triathlons and a marathon. My special man friend is also similarly nuts and has been into road cycle racing for the last several years. This all requires lots of delicious but well balanced calories... my favorite part about burning 500-1000 calories a day training. Of course, after one particularly grueling day, we probably negated the effects of training by eating some ridiculous amounts of Cuban food -- Venison Ropa Vieja served over white rice, black beans stewed in sofrito, pan-fried plantains, and Sauteed Vegetetables in Mojo Marinade. In our defense, it was amazingly delicious.

Venison Ropa Vieja was born out of a desire to use my crockpot and to use the venison stew meat I got by bartering homebrews to my "living off the earth" second parents. Sure, beef is the traditional meat, but local venison hand butchered by people I trust sure as heck beats cows raised in their own poo and processed in a huge facility. I browned about 2 pounds of venison stew meat in canola oil and then transferred this to my crockpot before I went to work. Then I threw in the following and set my crockpot to low for 10 hours:

1 small onion, sliced
1 green bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups of pureed tomato (when I get a surplus of tomatos in the summer from my CSA or a mysterious bag dropped off by a friend when their tomato plants overproduce, I pop 'em in a blender and freeze them to use in place of tomato sauce in recipes)
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 packet Goya sazon with achiote and culantro
2 tablespoons white vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

About 5 minutes prior to serving, use two forks to shred the stew meat and stir well so all the pieces soak up the sauce.

I love my freezer. Mostly because it allows me to keep the bounty of summer and fall and maintain the bright freshness of those flavors that often gets lost when dehydrating food or canning it. Wonderful but delicate herbs like cilantro are often thrown away because it is nearly impossible to use the huge bunch you get before it goes bad. So I often make Sofrito to stash away in my freezer (if you freeze it in ice cube trays and then transfer to a ziplock, its easy to grab a few every time you need some) for amazing stewed black beans done Caribbean style. Caribbean style sofrito is basically done by blending together tomato, cilantro, onion, some sort of pepper (I've used everything from green pepper to anaheim to jalapenos and habaneros). Take about a cup of it for a can of black beans, saute it lightly in canola oil, add a dash of white vinegar and 1/2 a packet of Goya sazon with achiote and culantro, and you'll have the best black beans ever.

With the hearty dense flavors of the black beans and ropa vieja, I wanted something light to accompany the meal. Cuban food tends to be very heavy, often fried, and usually laden with sweet sweet carbs (rice, plantains, yuca, you name it). I was researching Cuban vegetable recipes and, no big surprise, there were almost none. Mostly fresh salsas used for garnish. I did, however, come across a traditional Cuban grilling marinade usually used to marinate meat and fish. The flavors incorporated a very bright citrus accent, and I decided I would buck tradition and do Sauteed Vegetables in Mojo Marinade.

I basically just sliced a bunch of different kinds of bell peppers, red onion, summer squash, and tomatillos and just barely sauteed them over high heat. At the last minute, pour the mojo marinade over the veggies and cover to steam for a couple minutes (not too long, still want the veggies to be crisp). The marinade was simple and could easily be made ahead, just put the following ingredients in the blender and pulse until its all incorporated and as smooth as you can get it:

6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup minced yellow onion
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon fresh oregano (dried if you don't have fresh, I happened to have some leftover in my fridge)
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup olive oil

We basically ate until our stomachs hurt, but it was worth it. Lesson learned... next time stick the leftovers in the freezer first and then dig in.

When Life Gives You A Pig Head, Roast It!

2010-12-06T15:24:00.001-05:00

I went to the Capital Bacon and Beer Bash, and lo and behold, one of the features of the event was a pig butchering demonstration by Chris of SausageCraft, a wholesale small batch craft sausage company. I had never heard of the company before so I stalked their website before the bash. You see, craft sausage has been on my food project list ever since I had the life-changing venison brats from Momma Keeler and ever since my mom bought me a book on how to make sausage for my birthday. But I digress. Much to my chagrin, they do not sell retail and as far as I can tell, their clients are mostly in Richmond. Sausage fail.

Anyway, as we all attempted to digest the 10,000 calories worth of bacon and bacon products, the butchering demonstration began. I like butchering. It's something I'd like to do more but don't really have the opportunity to do. I've had the basic venison butchering tutorial. Much to our joy, Chris explained each cut and then started handing them out to the various spectators. I'm pretty ruthless when it comes to food. Life is too damn short to stand back and be a wallflower.

Clearly, I needed to work out some strategery. First, a bacon and beer bash generally attracts testosterone-laden and slightly overweight men. Being a little asian woman probably didn't hurt. Second, apparantly, people in DC are pretty boring. They just stare and watch demonstrations. I believe in interactive demonstrations and banter with the presenter... especially when its a pig butchering. Come on folks, take the fork out of your um... yea, and have a little fun! Third, a clear and vocal appreciation of meat will get you everywhere. Fourth, be helpful. Really. Logistically, bagging up ice and putting each cut in a plastic bag kind of sucks, so I decided to pitch in to help expedite the process. So for all you jerks who just stood there and watched these guys run there butts off for you so you could get your piece of meat, this is why you didn't get the head. Being nice never hurt anyone and so when I asked for the head (and I also somehow managed to get a rack of ribs too... ), it was mine, no questions asked, much to the chagrin of the trio of guys behind me (who, I might add, basically stalked me to the car). I wasn't a jerk about it, one woman asked if she could have the ears and I also gave up one of the cheeks, which for me was the coveted part of the pig head.

When I got home, I stuck the head in the freezer and got to researching. I had a little time as I was planning on using the pig head as my centerpiece for my birthday party. Most of the options seemed well, not shocking enough. Head cheese, souse, blah blah blah. Until I came across a Filipino recipe for crispy pig head. I decided to modify that recipe and then making different dipping sauces for the meat and the crispy skin.

First, I took the liquid I had braised the pork spare ribs in which was basically water, soy sauce, onion, garlic powder, salt and a crapload of whole peppercorns and brought it up to a boil in a 6 gallon pot. Yes, I own a 6 gallon pot. It's pretty handy for brewing beer, canning, and scalding a pig head. Anyway, after playing around with the head for about thirty minutes (seriously, making a pig head talk is the best kitchen prep ever) and making sure all the hairs were shaved down with a bic razor (yes, I took the moisturizing strip off), I dropped it into the boiling broth and turned the heat off. I let it sit for about 45 minutes.

I ladled out the broth and stuck it into quart canning jars to give to friends as party favors. A wierd party favor but I think this broth would make some epic Korean style ramen. Plus it made it easier to take the head out. Then I patted him dry and brushed on a glaze of equal parts water to honey, with a squeeze of lemon, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Bake at 315 degrees for 4 hours and....

I let it rest for about an hour and then set it out with a spicy horseradish honey mustard sauce, barbecue sauce, bacon ketchup, and hot sauce. We picked away at the crispy skin which tasted amazing, and dug into the cheek meat. And so that's what I did when life gave me a free pig head.

Using Leftover Phyllo Dough

2010-10-26T16:56:00.000-04:00

I used to be scared of phyllo dough. Until last weekend when a friend of mine made spanikopita for a party and I decided to try to make spanikopita myself. I would have probably blogged that recipe, too, if it hadn't been for the fact that (a) I took no pictures and (b) I've decided since then I prefer the handy cute pastry triangles in lieu of the big casserole. The wonderful thing about making savory pastries is that you can really throw in whatever leftovers you've got and make something pretty tasty. Blue Cheese Butternut Squash Pastries are deceptively fancy and tasty.... just the thing for a party to make people think you spent hours and hours in the kitchen, when, in fact, it took about 15 minutes of prep time and 30 minutes in the oven.

So when I peaked into my fridge and saw half a tub of ricotta cheese, some leftover blue cheese, and some butternut squash, my first thought was a nice butternut squash ravioli... except made with phyllo dough! I roasted the butternut squash, and then mixed some minced garlic in with everything else for the filling. Take one sheet of the phyllo dough and ... drum roll please ... use a pressurized oil sprayer or spray olive oil instead of brushing butter on. This lets you get the finest mist of something lovely and fatty to make the phyllo dough cook into flaky goodness. I sprayed just the right half of the phyllo dough sheet, then folded it in half. Put some filling in the bottom then "roll" it up into triangles, folding the bottom edge to the side. Place seam side down on a baking pan lined with parchment paper and bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown.

Sneak Attack Tomatos

2010-08-16T11:10:00.000-04:00

A good friend of mine has a garden plot which is producing tomatos like crazy right now. I've never viewed an abundance of tomatos as a problem, as they can be dried, canned, and otherwise turned into deliciousness with very little work. Except when a paper bag full of random tomatos mysteriously shows up on your doorstep about 5 hours before you are leaving for a long "meteor shower watching, camping, whitewater rafting, and ziplining" weekend. And so I threw the paper bag into the fridge, crossed my fingers, and hoped that maybe some would make over the long weekend. I thank him that at least it wasn't zucchini.

Upon my return, I had a bunch of really really ripe tomatos, and one mushy sad dead tomato. What else do you make with a ton of tomatos that are about to go bad? Marinara Sauce. There is nothing better than a basic pasta sauce with fresh heirloom tomatos. This is a sauce where the quality of the tomatos is what makes or breaks the flavor. If done properly, it needs needs nothing except a sprinkling of shaved parmesan and pasta al dente. I decided to go for a deep sweet flavor which finishes with a spicy kick.

I used about 2 TBSP light olive oil which is better for high heat to sautee one large Spanish onion diced along with about 1 TBSP dried basil, 1 TBSP dried oregano, 1 TBSP garlic powder and 2 tsp red pepper flakes. I let the whole thing go at medium heat until the onions were carmelized and brown. Then I threw in all the tomatos, diced, skins and all (mostly because I don't mind the chunks) and added salt and pepper to taste. I let everything simmer for about an hour, using a potato masher to stir and squish all the tomato-ey goodness. About 20 minutes before it was done and thickened up, I added about 1 TBSP of balsamic vinegar and 1 TBSP of extra virgen olive oil for flavor. This is important to do at the end of your simmer as high heat destroys the flavor of olive oil. The result was beautiful, rich, deep, sweet, and spicy all at once.

Getting Creative With My CSA, The Eggplant Diaries

2010-08-02T12:53:00.001-04:00

I rarely buy eggplants. I just don't know what to do with them half the time. The other half of the time I panic over the amount of oil they absorb when sauteeing. My CSA crate has brought me several eggplants and forced me to move my repetoire beyond the traditional greek dishes like moussaka. I love moussaka. I made one last week that was absolutely amazing, but took about 3 hours of prep. I stared at my latest eggplant in dismay. I didn't want to spend 3 hours making it delicious. And I didn't have to because I have finally learned the secret of Middle Eastern grandmas. The secret of perfectly smoky non-bitter eggplant puree to form the building blocks of delicious spreads to dip toasted pita and sliced cucumbers into... from kashk bademjan to Baba Ghanoush.

This recipe yields a wonderfully smoky, tangy, and rich baba ghanoush. Its actually better than any other baba ghanoush I've ever tasted. Start with a medium to large eggplant. Now here's the secret of grandmothers all over Greece and the Middle East. Char the skin on all sides over medium to high flame on a gas burner so the skin turns black and crispy. Keep rotating the eggplant every minute or so to get all parts as best as possible. Then wrap loosly in tin foil and bake at 350 F for 30 minutes and let cool. After it cools, the skin should come off easily, just peel it off and set aside. No oil required. No messy pans and gross amounts of oil.

Dump the eggplant pulp and the juices in the tin foil into a blender. The rest is ridiculously easy. Add 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup tahini, 4-5 cloves of garlic roughly chopped, and salt and pepper. Blend until smooth. Then stir in about 2 TBSP olive oil. Refridgerate at least 3 hours (preferably overnight) to let the flavors come together. I ate mine with an extra drizzle of olive oil atop sliced cucumbers from my CSA crate, which adds a bright fresh note to smoky flavor of the eggplant.

A Taste Of Germany

2010-08-01T12:28:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I eat things just to make people jealous. I generally aim for making the masses jealous. This time, I was able to appease Boy's love of all things hotdog and target my jealousy campaign at one friend in particular, who I will call Jealous Dude to protect his identity. I've been making a ridiculously large number of batches of sauerkraut due to cabbage showing up in my CSA crate repeatedly. Jealous Dude has repeatedly threatened me with needing a saukerkraut tasting due to his unhealthy obsession with sauerkraut. Claims that he will bring the brats have not come to fruition and so, after a long day of kayaking, mini-golfing, salsa dancing, and parkour training, I decided it was time for my tribute to Germany.

I went to Balducci's on a whim. Mostly because it was on the way home from the park and because I knew it was supposed to be a fancy grocery store. Fancier and more outrageously expensive than Whole Foods. But I knew that I needed to find a brat and buns worthy of my homemade sauerkraut. Balducci's did not fail me.

We chose Binkert's Bauernwurst on the recommendation of the meat counter guy, a beef and pork mixed brat which incorporates mustard into the seasoning mix. The whole wheat buns were hearty and looked like they could stand up to the brats. A dollop of spicy brown mustard and some grilled sweet corn from my CSA crate rounded out the meal and my plans for delicious, amazing, perfectly balanced German amazingness was complete.

Comfort Food

2010-07-28T13:24:00.001-04:00

I've been doing flying trapeze as a way to balance martial arts, salsa, and biking since those seem to fatigue my legs a lot. Except that some of the harder tricks I've started to learn are taking a toll on my body and after doing a killer trapeze-martial arts-salsa-biking-trapeze triple header, my body felt like it was about to fall apart. All I wanted to do after my last trapeze class was hunker down with a hot plate of comfort food and start reading Anthony Bourdain's new book Medium Raw.

My fridge was nearly empty as my CSA pickup day is Wednesday and well, it was a Tuesday night. I briefly contemplated running out to Whole Paycheck for something easy. A big bunch of beautiful collard greens rediscovered in my veggie drawer, garlic from last week's CSA basket, along with some red chili peppers from my garden inspired Linguine with Spicy Collard Greens and Bacon. This dish is a rich hearty dish, something that would be more appropriate for a crisp fall day. For me, it was perfect because the air conditioning is on full blast in my apartment keeping it at a cool 68 degrees while my latest batch of home brew ferments (mmmm, London Porter on the way!). Sometimes, its the simple dishes that are the best. For me, simple dishes that allow me to incorporate all of my CSA or farm stand or Farmer's Market goodies are the best. This dish, aside from the linguine, is 100% local and organic.

I browned in my cast iron skillet 1 thick slice of homemade bacon sliced into lardons (google it... I had no idea what the heck a lardon was until I started making my own bacon), 1 thinly sliced shallot, 4 cloves of garlic minced, and 4 red chili peppers minced. Then I added a bunch of sliced collard greens with the thick stems removed and wilted them down. Then I added about 8-10 pieces of dried farm stand tomatos and let them slightly rehydrate. Season with a tiny bit of salt and liberal amounts of pepper. Add linguine cooked al dente -- I used about 1/3 box of linguine -- and add a drizzle of olive oil and toss while still on medium heat.

The dish was good, not great, because there were 3 things missing from this dish. While the dried tomatos provided the perfect amount of sweetness and the peppers provided just the right amount of kick to offset the wonderfully bitter collard greens and the fatty bacon, it needed: (1) a tiny bit of acid, maybe a dash of cider vinegar or white wine; (2) toasted pine nuts or walnuts to add some texture; and (3) a little shaving of parmesan instead of the salt to add some depth. Of course, I knew all of this when I made the dish. I was just determined not to have to go to the grocery store... sometimes you have to know when to rest and not let the food control you. Ha.

Garnishes for Summer BBQs

2010-07-21T13:51:00.002-04:00

Growing up, my family had a strange tradition of serving sauerkraut at holiday meals. I'm not sure exactly where it came from, but my mother has always loved sauerkraut. Its funny, we never ate it as most people do, piled onto a fat juicy brat. No, it was served in a bowl by itself as a garnish to turkey, stuffing, cranberries, or to eat on its own. An excess of cabbage in my CSA has led to a series of sauerkraut experiments, due in part by a hankering for brats and threats from a friend of mine who loves sauerkraut. My friend's mom makes the best venison brats which she traded me for home brew and grassfed beef and they are so good that I am itching to experiment with making my own. Methinks that homemade Sauerkraut might be the perfect excuse to buy a meat grinder and some casings as my next food project next week, when my first batch will be ready. [Admission: I had one failed attempt due to the salt water brine not covering my cabbage all the way which I had to throw out]

The most basic sauerkraut is a simple affair, shredded cabbage, kosher salt, filtered water, and bacteria which is already present in the air and on the cabbage leaves. The salt draws out the water and kills off the spoilage bacteria. Most recipes I saw called for 3/4 to 2 tsp of kosher salt per pound of prepared cabbage, which I sort of eyeballed and probably ended up using a little more than 2 tsp.

Toss one head of cabbage, shredded, and salt together in a clean bowl to release the juices. Let it rest 10-15 minutes and then toss again. Then stuff the cabbage into a sterilized mason jar (you can do this by either boiling the jar and lid for several minutes in water or cheat like me and use the sanitizer I use for beer making). Then cover the cabbage with a salt water brine, about 1 tsp kosher salt per cup of water. Cap loosely with a canning lid. Then let it sit between 65°F and 72°F for 2-3 weeks. I keep my apartment at 68°F for beer fermentation so it was a lucky coincidence.

The fermentation process producing bubbling as well as air bubbles, so I repacked the cabbage down to force out the air bubbles every couple of days. I also skimmed off white spots and film from the top (all of which are harmless and expected). Once the 2-3 weeks are up, transfer to the fridge and start eating!

The mason jar on the left is the basic recipe. The mason jar on the right has 1 tsp mustard seeds and 1 tsp caraway seeds added. It looks and smells like saukerkraut. Once again, I've managed to make something that requires lots of patience that I don't have!

Why Arms Full of Scratches Makes Me Happy

2010-07-12T15:12:00.000-04:00

My arms look like they went through a battle with a thorny bush. And that's exactly what they did when we went purple raspberry picking. All 5 pounds of purple raspberries were worth the war wounds. I have never been a huge jam fan. Generally, I don't eat a lot of toast for the sake of toast. I make a pretty damn fine english muffin from scratch, which I prefer toasted and topped with an egg overeasy, a thick slice of tomato from my CSA, some Dragon's Breath cheese from Keswick Creamery which I buy at the Dupont Circle farmers market, and a big squirt of spicy brown mustard.

After some thought and an assessment of the huge load of berries I had, I decided to make a small batch of Purple Raspberry Freezer Jam, which doesn't require you to cook the berries and uses a special freezer pectin made by the king of canning, Ball. I love this jam. I now have an existential crisis every morning trying to decide if I want to slather jam on my english muffin or fry up an egg. I usually compromise by doing an open face egg sandwich and putting gobs of jam on the other half. I also discovered that this jam is very tasty mixed into greek yogurt, and I bet its also magical slathered on top of a cheesecake.

I had to order this pectin online because I don't own a car and neither of my two local groceries stock it. It runs about $2-$3 and one packet is enough for 4 cups of mashed fruit. I love this recipe because its so easy. Mash up enough fruit to turn into 4 cups. Add sugar to your desired sweetness. I only added about 1/2 cup because the berries were at peak ripeness. Add the packet of freezer pectin. Stir for 3 minutes as it thickens. Spoon into small airtight containers, tupperwares, glass, whatever, let sit for 30 minutes and then pop in the freezer. These stay good for at least a year.

The beauty of this jam is that the fruit maintains its wonderful fresh flavor. Traditional jams are often cooked, and packed into jars need to be processed in boiling water, which changes the flavor of the jam. Raspberries, any kind, are best used raw and still warm from the sun from the raspberry field. And that is exactly what this jam captures.

Finally Perfecting the Elusive Flaky Pie Crust

2010-07-07T12:31:00.001-04:00

The beginning of July marks the most oppressive hot and sticky part of the year in the DC metropolitan area. Most people hole up in their air-conditioned houses or head out to the beach or to Harpers Ferry for tubing. Me? I went out during the hottest part of the day to pick berries at Larriland Farms about 40 miles outside DC in Maryland. I love "pick your own" berry farms, mostly because you can eat as much fruit as you want and pick a ton of berries for a fraction of expensive store prices. A few tips when you head out:

Always check the farm's website or call before you go to see what is available.
Ask the staff members when you arrive what is good picking. For example, we started off to the black raspberry patch only to find very scattered picking. So after picking about half a pint, we asked which raspberries were the least picked over and we were sent off to the purple raspberry field.
We were told by the cashier at the purple raspberry field to pick low and inside the bush for best yields. And low and behold, so long as you didn't care about getting a few scratches, it was the motherload.
Laugh quietly at the obvious newbies trying to cherry pick and who refused to get down on the ground and really dig in. Their reward for not wanting to get dirty was five or six berries rolling around in their pails and obvious looks of disappointment.

Anyway, I ended up picking more than FIVE POUNDS of purple raspberries for FIFTEEN BUCKS! I have several short rants. Chain grocery stores will never carry purple raspberries. I don't think I've ever seen Whole Foods carry purple raspberries. All you see are blackberries and red raspberries, and while they might be organic, they are rarely local and never have that taste of sunshine you get from a fresh picked berry. The fact of the matter is that berries are fragile. They don't travel well. They don't stand up to heat. You will never get anything as pretty as a fresh picked berry in the grocery store. In addition to that, berry picking is a fairly time consuming process. A tiny half pint container costs $4. Do the math.

Okay, this weekend got a little excessive...some produce from farmers stands also happened to accidentally fall into the car. My favorite farm stand is on Lee Highway out near Warrenton, VA just down the street from the Wegman's... they always have a great variety and the owner is always ready with samples. He also chills samples of his melons and has a very nice Latino guy on hand to serve you whatever you'd like to try.

So what do you do with all this fruit other than make preserves, can in a simple syrup, freeze or dry them? I make a nearly perfect Pecan Peach Galette to take to the 4th of July BBQ at Boy's friend's house. This recipe is adapted from an Alice Waters recipe, and not nearly as pretty. A galette is basically a fancy way of saying that its a free form pie that doesn't require a pie tin. I like to think of my lack of fancy crimping on the edges as rustic.

I have always been scared of doing my own pie crusts. Mostly because I was used to mediocre pie crusts and who wants a mediocre pie crust? I had never really tasted epically delicious pie crusts before. My mom made her own crusts, and they were okay, but not epically delicious. I ended up preferring crushed nut pie crusts, or graham cracker pie crusts to the standard pastry over the years. But I was determined to at least give it a go, the right way. And guess what? When you add lots of butter, keep the pastry at the right temperature, and don't overmix, you get a perfect flaky buttery epically delicious pie crust!

The hardest part about making crust is keeping everything cold and avoid overworking the dough. Basically, you don't want the butter to melt and you don't want to develop the gluten in the flour. I mixed about 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp sugar, and 1/8 tsp salt in a tupperware container, shook it up, then stuck it in the freezer. In a separate tupperware, I stuck 6 TBSP butter cut into 1/2 inch pieces, and then put that into the freezer for about 30 minutes.

Then I plopped it all into a shallow bowl, tossed lightly, and then cut the butter as finely as I could, covering all the tiny butter bits with flour. I know I could have used a blender for this job, but I was exhausted from having climbed a mountain earlier and I was at Boy's house, and didn't know where the blender was. He was blissfully sleeping and so I figured I could do it old school with two sharp knives. It was supposed to resemble coarse cornmeal, but mine was decidedly lumpier for lack of patience. I stuck the shallow bowl back in the freezer while I made some ice water. Then I slowly dribbled about 4 TBSP ice cold water into the dough and used a spatula to pull it all together. I ended up having to use extra water, and then figured out that I had added just a bit too much.

So I patted it into a disc, stuck it in the fridge, and made sure that I over floured my surface to account for the extra water. After about 30 minutes, I took the dough out, threw some extra flour on top, and then rolled it out to about 1/8" thick. I then rolled the dough up on my rolling pin, and laid it out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and stuck it back in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Onto preparing your oven... rack placement was a bit of an issue for me. I was told putting the galette in the bottom third of the oven would yield the best result, but I ended up kinda freaking out because the bottom seemed to be cooking too fast, so I ended up having to move my galette to the top rack and then finish it off with the broiler. When I do this again, I might do the same thing, have one low and one high rack and then switch the galette in the middle. Because the bottom should cook well and quickly in the beginning to avoid the icky squishy pie crust bottom. Long story short, have a low rack and a high rack and then preheat your oven to 400.

Pie assembly is the easiest part. The secret to non-soggy crust is to have some sort of delicious absorptive matter between the crust and the fruit to act as a buffer while the crust cooks. This time, I used about 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans mixed with 1 TBSP sugar, and 2 TBSP flour with about 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg. Then I layered sliced peaches from the farm stand, topped with another sprinkling of sugar and some chopped nuts, and then carefully pulled the crust sides up over the fruit. You just need to get enough of the crust over the fruit so it will keep it shape. Now, a pretty Alice Waters galette would probably be beautifully crimped with uneven edges pinched off. I am not Alice Waters. I like rustic homestyle baking and think that crimping off uneven edges wastes perfectly good crust. To finish it off before baking, brush some melted butter and sprinkle additional sugar on the crust.

Bake for about 45 - 50 minutes. Keep an eye on it. My peach juice kinda exploded all over and drooled down, so I ended up mopping it up so it wouldn't burn on the pan. Remove immediately from pan onto a rack to cool. This was so pretty and Boy and I were so tired, that we contemplated skipping the 4th of July BBQ and just eating the galette at his place with a couple of beers. We exercised an extraordinary amount of restraint, but then demolished half the thing at the BBQ.

Date Night With Myself

2010-06-29T16:05:00.000-04:00

After biking 185 miles along the C&O canal towpath with camping gear strapped to my bike, a couple good friends, and a slightly bunk knee, I decided I needed a date night with me, my kitchen, and a good movie. I was still starving from the aftermath of burning 2000 - 3000 calories a day on top of whatever my body burns naturally, but since I had been gone for almost 4 days, my fridge was pretty empty with the exception of the half dozen or so different pickles in various stages of fermentation. I had already frozen/dehydrated/pickled most of my CSA items. Hrm. What I did have were some freshly dug baby red potatoes, a red onion from my CSA, some eggs, and some leftover milk that had not gone bad yet. Although this screamed breakfast, it did not bode well for my date night with myself. That is, until I remembered a potato tart that I had drooled over from Smitten Kitchen's blog. I guess I can't call whatever it is I made a tart because I didn't use a tart crust... so I'll call it my Blue-Brie Potato Custard.

And so I headed off to Whole Foods to grab some blue cheese and a bottle of a light bodied pinot noir with a cherry finish. The most important thing is to open the bottle of pinot noir and pour a glass. Then take a couple sips before beginning this dish.

This dish is easy comfort food... potatoes au gratin dialed up a couple notches into "fancy" food. In fact, its easy enough that you can drink a glass of wine or two while you make it and it will still be delicious and nearly idiot proof.

I took about 4 baby red potatoes, cut them in half and then sliced about 1/8" thin. These were laid out in an overlapping circular pattern and fanned out in a jumbo muffin tin sprayed with olive oil. Then whisk together about 3/4 cup milk or cream with 1 or 2 egg yolks. I used 2 yolks for additional richness as the milk I had was only 2%. Add a pinch of salt, cracked pepper, a pinch of thyme and basil, and pour over the potatoes until they are almost covered. Then top with little chunks of blue-brie (basically a very soft blue cheese), walnuts, and slivered red onion. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes until the potatoes are done. Let cool before serving.

Oh Bacon, How I Love Thee!

2010-06-16T17:13:00.002-04:00

One of the joys of the Farmers Market is that I get to actually talk to the farmers. Many of them find me amusing because I get so excited about food... about their food. The guy from Cedarbrook Organic Farm near Harper's Ferry, West Virginia who has a stand at the Dupont Farmers Market is one of my favorite. Although he has a diversified organic farm, he specializes in raising organic free range pigs which he sells at the Farmers Market. He also gets just about as excited about his meat as I do. He always asks me what my plans are for each cut of meat I buy. So when I told him I've always wanted to make my own bacon, he not-so-casually mentioned that he also sold pork belly. While I managed to resist the temptation that week, I knew I was simply postponing the inevitable... it took me just one more week to break down and buy a 3.5 slab of pork belly. This is not a big surprise because anyone who has spent any sort of time with me knows that I love bacon.

And so, I made my venture into Hickory Smoked Maple Bacon, and it was a delicious success despite a few missteps along the way. The limp thin slices which line store bought packages pale in the shadow of this thick cut slab bacon. To be perfectly honest, this even beats the fancy bacon Whole Foods stocks at their meat counter. The hardest part, smoking the bacon, is time consuming but well worth the effort when doing a large batch. I have enough bacon to last me and Boy at least four to six months for minutes a day during the curing process and one three hour stint to smoke the thing.

There are basically two main steps in making bacon: (1) cure the pork belly in some combination of salt and flavorings and (2) smoke the pork belly.

Curing is remarkably easy. I used about 1/4 cup of kosher salt, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and 1/4 cup of maple syrup for my cure. I rubbed this all over a 3 pound piece of pork belly (skin on) and then stashed the pork belly in a big tupperware container. I actually had cut off about 1/2 pound of the little end of the belly to cure with just salt to make lardons. I didn't know it was called lardons until this bacon making journey, but these are little strips of bacon browned to add flavor to other savory dishes. I figured the maple would not necessarily taste great say, in a pasta dish. Over the next 5 to 7 days, the meat cures in the fridge. I flipped the meat over about once a day or once every other day, dumping out the fluid which the salt has drawn out and sprinkling a pinch of salt if a lot of fluid had been removed. Each day, the meat gets firmer and firmer as the salt draws out the moisture.

Once the belly is cured, rinse the belly really well under cold water. In order to avoid super salty bacon, I actually soaked mine in cold water for about 20 minutes and then patted dry. The big question was how to smoke this thing in my urban apartment, which is actually a basement apartment in a 3 unit townhouse. I'm lucky enough at least have a yard and a stoop to work with. Now, you can bake this for 3 hours at 200 degrees in an oven to finish off the pork (or until the internal temperature is 150 degrees), but you won't get the lovely flavor that smoking imparts. And while I had dreams of rigging up Alton Brown's homemade smoker, it proved to be cheaper and easier to buy a cheap $30 grill. My initial rigging was to pile the charcoal on one side and put dry hickory chips in tin foil and puncture holes in the top to let the smoke come through. The bacon should be laid skin side down on the side where there is no coals so it gets indirect heat from the smoke. Unfortunately, the tin foil method did not work so well. Mostly because my charcoal wasn't lit properly and didn't produce enough heat to make the wood smoke.

And so I ended up just dumping a mixture of hickory chips I had soaked in water and dry hickory chips directly on the charcoal and my bacon was enveloped in a beautiful cloud of smoke. I covered the grill keeping the bottom vents open, and the top vents half open and turned to the opposite side of the grill the coals were so the smoke would draw up over the belly. The tiny little snafoo was that since I had woken up at 5 am to smoke this away from the heat of the day, I was tired and my coals hadn't burned off all the lighter fluid yet, so I had a few minutes of lighter fluid smoke mixed in with the hickory smoke. Oops. I stuck a thermometer inside the lid through the top vent to ensure it stayed at a happy 180 - 200 degrees. The hardest part of this step is that you need to monitor your chips, coal, and temperature for about 3 hours. Next time, I'll do it with a friend and a couple beers.

Once the bacon is done, stick it in the fridge so it can cool down and its easier to slice. Next time I might actually stick it in the freezer for about 30 minutes after it is cool because I still had some difficulties cutting the bacon. Cut the skin off as close to the skin as possible to keep all the luscious fat on the slab. Not that it was really bad, I ended up with some really thick bacon, but it would have been nice to keep the slices just a tiny bit thinner. All said and done, the lighter fluid taste is barely noticeable given the magicness of the bacon itself. Next time I'll take better care to make sure I wait for my coal to be perfectly ready.

I presliced my entire slab and sealed each thick piece separately in some press n' seal, and then rolled the whole bit up for easy storage. That way I can just cut one piece out at a time as I use it without having to expose the other pieces.

Farm Stand Addiction

2010-06-15T12:51:00.000-04:00

I cannot pass up farm stands. This is a plain fact that Boy has readily accepted and in fact, has become similarly obsessed. Some of the first tomatoes of summer are here already from seedlings nutured in greenhouses to allow for earlier production, and finished outside in the warm sun of early summer. We stopped by a small but friendly farm stand on the way back from skydiving this past weekend and were greeted with a latino guy enthusiastically stuffing samples into our hands, from cantaloupe to tomatoes to cherries. The tomatoes were perfectly ripe with that deep rich red color all the way through the tomato and were so juicy and delicious, you could eat them like an apple. Tomatoes like these are impossible to find at the grocery store, where the pale pink mush they pretend to call tomatoes prevail. Even the redder so-called vine ripened tomatoes will never rival the farm stand tomato. So of course, I ended up buying 6.5 pounds of tomatoes (along with 2 quarts of beans and 3 pints of cherries).

I know Sun-Dried Tomatoes are "so 1990s", but I love them, I don't care what anyone else says. I have dreams of pastas tossed with sun-dried tomatoes, crispy homemade bacon, and spring greens / spring peas / spring anything. I cut these into 1/4" slices, and then in half down the middle since the tomatoes were huuuuuge. It took about 18 hours to dry because these guys were so damn juicy.

I took some of the tomatoes and packed them with sliced garlic into a small mason jar with oregano, basil, and olive oil. The rest I left as-is, for snacking and other yet-to-be-determined plans.

Pickle and Preserve Invasion... Discovery Ways To Bake Away Veggies

2010-06-14T16:40:00.000-04:00

After peering into my refrigerator and seeing piles of spicy garlic asparagus pickles, pickled broccoli and garlic scapes, key lime preserves, ginger radish pickles, mango rum jam, garlic snow pea pickles, and sweet watermelon rind pickles... I knew something had to give. I don't like to do large batches of pickles, mostly because I love to experiment with flavors. The amounts of random veggies I get in my CSA also lend themselves to single batches and help me work through a full CSA share.

Although I had initially thought of processing large batches, but I decided against doing that until I have a tried and true recipe. For example, next year when asparagus is in season, I am going to hunt down a farmer's stand on the Eastern Shore and buy 20 pounds of asparagus (its $2 a pound at the stand, half the price of the Farmers Market and Whole Foods even when it is in season) and do a huge batch of pickled asparagus. Because I learned this year that pickled asparagus is simply amazing. And I only have 2 jars left. Sniffle. And I'm a cheapskate so I refuse to pay full price at the grocery store.

Anyway, all my small batches of refrigerator pickles are starting to pile up, and even though I love pickles nearly to a fault, and even though I have a big refrigerator, this is getting ridiculous (oh, and I have grand plans of pickling beets this week, too, so well, *sigh*).

My freezer, on the other hand, is pretty empty. I don't buy frozen meals, or meat in bulk (although I loved my grass-fed beef share, it was too big and too much and I don't eat it enough... I ended up gifting a lot of it away), or frozen veggies or frozen fruit (that happens in the winter occassionally, although this year I plan to freeze my own). What goes in the freezer are my homemade items such as chicken stock, leftovers, sofrito, the occassional Farmers Market meat purchase that is waiting for just the right moment (and which came to me frozen... like my massive pork ribs).

My CSA share is growing week-by-week, and while the first couple of weeks were manageable, even without much help from Boy, the veggie takeover in my fridge is going a little nuts as my garden starts contributing to the veggie jungle. I woefully looked at big heads of broccoli, 2 big zucchinis, and 2 big yellow zucchinis, along with the massive amount of greens and other veggies. My first thought was to pickle them, but well, yea. My second thought was zucchini bread. Except I am trying to stay away from making too many sweet baked goods (aka the "Extra Pound Lesson Learned From Rhubarb Weeks").

After some research, I settled on a redesigned version of Savory Zucchini Muffins that to rid myself of two of my zucchinis. They aren't pretty, but are a delicious change from the typical zucchini-pretending-to-be-pumpkin-bread type of recipe. These have a nice kick and the savory flavors blend together perfectly. The muffin itself is moist and satisfying.

Saute 3 cloves minced garlic and 1/4 cup chopped oil packed sun-dried tomatoes in about 1 TBSP of the olive oil the sun-dried tomatoes were packed in. Then dump that into a bowl with with 2 medium zucchinis shredded (I just used a cheese grater, but if you have a food processor, that will go much faster), and 1/3 cup chopped roasted red pepper. Then I incorporated 1/2 cup softened butter, 1/2 cup greek yogurt, 2 TBSP sugar, 2 eggs, 1 TBSP olive oil, 1/2 tsp hot sauce (I used some Killin' Me Man Sauce I brought back from Panama) and 1/2 cup milk together, and then dumped into the veggie mix and mixed again. In a separate bowl, I mixed together 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup cornmeal, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper, 1 tsp dried basil, and 1 tsp dried oregano. Integrate the wet stuff with the dry stuff, slop into a greased muffin tin, sprinkle some grated parmesan on top of each muffin and bake at 375 for 35 minutes.

Food for Everyday

2010-06-09T23:06:00.002-04:00

I found myself with a random night to myself when plans with Boy fell through at the last minute and I had already started too many projects which made it seem worth it to stay in. Sometimes its not about making fancy food, but rather to stock up on the basics. Its important to keep the quick stuff around for when you don't have time to cook but want something good and homemade. In particular, I need to have easy breakfast food on hand because sometimes, fruit just doesn't cut it.

I made a rare visit to the grocery store to stock up on fruit (its too early in my CSA for me to get enough fruit to last me a week since I eat a ton of fruit) and goods for a few projects. Mangos were on sale. Not just any mangos, but Ataulfo (aka Champagne) mangos which have a lovely creamy texture. I fell in love with these mangos when I lived in Mexico. And just like those mangos, these ones were also from Mexico and not organic, but cases of mangos were on sale for $10. That meant about 20 mangos for $10... the frugal side of me won in the contest of "local and organic" versus "but its 50 cents a mango!"

I decided to dry a large chunk of the mangos, turn some of them into creamy mango swirl popsicles, and the rest were turned into a tangy Mango Rum Preserves. Since I don't like to mass produce jams and pickles until a recipe is tried and true, I did a test batch. Since mango is so thick to begin with, it doesn't really need the fruit pectin for it to set properly. I basically cooked the following ingredients together on low for about 20-30 minutes until it formed a nice thick consistency and it was almost starting to brown on the pan.

1 1/2 cups diced mango
1/4 cup water
2 TBSP rum
1/4 cup sugar
Juice of half a lemon

Next time I'll make sure my mango is completely ripe. I got impatient and used some slightly underripe mangos. This is still a lovely tangy and chunky jam not too sweet and is wonderful spread on homemade english muffins (which I keep on hand at all times).

Another staple of mine is Granola. The beauty of granola is that it can be sprinkled on top of just about anything, fruit, yogurt, ice cream... or eaten plain. I melted 2 TBSP real maple syrup, 2 TBSP raw honey, 1/4 cup canola oil, 1 tsp cinnamon, a dash of vanilla extract, and 1/4 tsp salt together. Then I poured this over a mixture of 3/4 cups of raw walnuts, 1/2 cup wheat bran, and 4 cups rolled oats. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice until crunchy. Then once its cool, add whatever dried fruit you have on hand. I had some dried plums from my Lawyers Have a Heart 10K race packet, so I just threw those in.

Since I am in the process of curing my own bacon, I decided I needed to use the last of my fancy bacon in the freezer. This decision coupled with the guilt of not having any breakfast items on hand for Boy the last time he was here spawned the rebirth of my mini-quiches. That is, a crustless quiche made in muffin tins for perfect breakfast portioning, which can be easily frozen and reheated. This time, I did a Bacon Radish Green Quiche, a marriage of leftover fancy bacon and some of the greens in my last CSA basket I am trying to work my way through. This recipe is so flexible it doesn't really warrant a recipe per se. Its basically eggs whisked vigorously with some dry nonfat milk, mild cheddar, radish greens, cooked bacon, salt and pepper with shaved parmesan on top... then baked at 350 until the quiches rise and the cheese gets crunchy on top. I usually wrap these in plastic wrap and then store them in a freezer bag to avoid freezer burn. They reheat really fast in the toaster oven in the morning, which I usually do on a small piece of tin foil at the same time as I toast my english muffin.

The Joys Of Things Which Ferment

2010-06-07T17:42:00.005-04:00

For someone who can be very impatient, I have managed to pick up a number of cooking hobbies which require a lot of patience. I've graduated from breads that only require one single hour rise to breads which take two or more days to craft from start to finish. I've thrown myself into beer brewing, which takes a good four hours on the front end, a couple hours in the middle, and at least a month before the product comes to fruition. It takes an extra month for the flavors to fully develop. I've become pickled obsessed, which although can be sometimes enjoyed in as few as 24 hours, usually requires at least two weeks for the flavors to develop properly. And so of course, I decided that I must start making my own cheese, which can take up to four whole months to do properly. My first experiment? Monterey Jack.

After doing a significant amount of research online and reading through the better part of Home Cheesemaking by Ricki Carroll which my trusty Boy purchased, I ended up ordering a beginners kit that comes with the appropriate cultures and rennet from her company, the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. It comes with recipes for about 8 or 9 different kinds of cheese, but the ingredients are flexible enough to make only your favorites (for example, I won't make the parmesan). It also shows you how to do hard cheeses without the fancy presses that cost a ton of money. Although there are ways to make hard cheeses using ingredients you can find at the grocery store (namely junket rennet and buttermilk or yogurt), I decided to do this the proper way since from what I've read, results can be mixed given unknowns about the cultures in the buttermilk or yogurt. Plus, apparantly junket rennet is fairly weak and so isn't recommended for hard cheeses.

My first impressions of the beginners kit was that it was a little bit incomplete. It didn't come with a top part of the cheese mold and suggests you use an appropriate sized plate. I have square plates so they obviously don't fit into the round cheese mold. I ended up cutting out something about the right size out of cardboard and putting it in a ziploc. It also didn't come with the cheese wax, but warns you of that on the website so no huge ding there. The instructions are quite truncated as compared to the book, for obvious reasons, but I'm glad I did some background reading so as to be able to easily fill in any gaps or questions. All in all, the little guide did give a weath of information, from the kind of milk to use to how to wax your cheese. Each component tells you where you need to store it (cultures in freezer, for example).

One thing all resources told me was to get raw milk or the closest thing to raw milk as possible (that means, no ultrapasturized milk products, and if pasturized, you might have to add calcium choloride to get the cheese to firm up properly). Well, it just so happens that raw milk is readily available at my Farmer's Market. Okay, but what happens if I can't make it to the Farmer's Market? Whole Foods to the rescue! They stock a local Virginia dairy's whole organic creamline milk... it comes in the old school milk bottles for about $3, but there is a $2 bottle deposit. This is actually cheaper than buying regular organic milk when you return the bottle. But the bottles are also cool in and of themselves and I kinda wanna keep 'em.

Basically, making cheese requires a ton of patience and constant monitoring of temperature and stirring of curds. It would probably take me 2 hours just to type out what I had to do. Just know that this is easily a 5 to 6 hour project, requires vigilence, patience, and a good thermometer. One day, maybe, if I ever need to waste a couple hours, I might actually blog out what exactly the process was. Or you could just go buy the book and save me the time. Hehe.

Photo montage of the cheese making process:

Update July 21, 2010: Boy and I cut open the cheese. It looks and tastes like a young monterey jack cheese and melts beautifully!

Goodbye Spring, Hellooooo Summer!

2010-06-03T16:07:00.001-04:00

Summer just officially started and the bounties of my CSA is starting to show it... although my basket was still laden with lettuce, wonderful gems like yellow zuchinis, sugar snap peas, and snow peas are starting to creep into the rotation. Since I discovered how easy it is to pickle almost anything, very little has escaped my pickling brine... muah ha ha ha... the joy of my CSA is that even I can do a lot of experimental pickling with the various goodies as refrigerator pickles, which do not require processing. I don't get enough of any one kind of produce to worry about if I have a funky brine, ruining a huge batch of 20 jars of a certain type of pickle. This week, I eyed my sugar snap peas... first, when I popped one in my mouth, they seemed a bit tough for sugar snap peas. These are the ones I normally can eat raw because of the sweet crunch... but I found myself chewing a bit vigorously for my liking. Doh. Well, when life gives you tough sugar snap peas, make Spicy Pickled Sugar Snap Peas.

The brine is basic, as are all my pickling brines. This time, I decided to kinda wing it, and just played a bit around with proportions. I heated about 1 cup of distilled white vinegar and dissolved 1 tsp kosher salt and 1 TBSP sugar in it and threw in about 1 TBSP whole black mustard seeds. I've never seen black mustard seeds before, but had ordered a pound online for pretty cheap for a future homemade spicy mustard experiment. I figured it couldn't hurt to see what they had to offer to pickling in case my spicy mustard experiment eventually fails. I packed my peas in a mason jar with a couple dried hot chili peppers with the stems torn off and the inner seeds dumped in, a couple whole black peppercorns, and a couple mashed cloves of garlic. The only downside to pickling is the stupid waiting part. Grrrr.

But enough of that. Let's talk summer. I've always been a fan of frozen treats to placate my sweet tooth in the summer. However, the sugar laden fruitsicles at the grocery store have always been a little too sacchrine, a little too much of a sugar bomb, and generally don't taste very good. I spent my childhood eating popsicles made of orange juice. I remember running hot water over the plastic molds trying to coax a single popsicle out without popping them all out at once. Well, popsicle molds have gone high tech with these crazy silicone coverings and fun shapes. I kind of splurged on some fancy ones, but I think I'll end up using these all summer. I can think of endless awesome combinations, watermelon lime (oooh, and then I can pickle the rinds!), creamy peach, cinnamon pumpkin nut, and everything in between.

Well, while I was glowering and making faces at my not-yet-ready pickles, my CSA strawberries and some leftover greek yogurt from the Famer's Market stared me in the face just begging to made into popsicles. This is mostly because I read on another food blog, which I cannot for the life of me relocate to give the appropriate props, all about popsicles the other day and have been itching to put my popsicle molds to use. And so I decided that I would try to do something other than just shove handfuls of beautiful fresh picked CSA strawberries down my face this week. Of course, half the quart met that fate, but I managed to exert enough self control to concoct beautiful Creamy Strawberry Swirl Popsicles, perfect for the hot humid 90 degree weather that has been causing my poor early garden veggies to bolt.

I threw about 1/2 pint of hulled strawberries in my mini chopper until it was pretty smooth. Some chunks are okay. I decided to eat the big chunks. Because that's where they go. In my belly. I added just a tiny bit of sugar even though these were so sweet they didn't really need it. Then I melted about 1 tsp of raw honey and stirred it into about 3/4 cup greek yogurt. Layer spoonfuls of strawberry puree and yogurt, then stick a chopstick down to serve the dual purpose of:

1. Making sure there are no air bubbles.

2. Making pretty swirls between each layer... cuz pretty is obviously a priority here.

Freeze for about 4 hours and voila! I, of course, had to try one for breakfast the next morning (and to be able to take this picture). Perfectly sweet, creamy, and satisfying. And taste a heck of a lot better than the frozen sugar water they sell at the store.

Because Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day

2010-06-02T11:24:00.001-04:00

There is only one real reason to go car camping, and that is to eat smores and be able to enjoy dinner outdoors. I'm not entirely certain why the average American thinks that it means you have to have hamburgers and hotdogs of dubious quality or that you have to eat instant oatmeal or cereal for breakfast. A campstove and/or grill plus tin foil and/or a good cast iron skillet will give you all you need to eat well in the great outdoors.

Boy and I headed down to Kentucky for Memorial Day weekend with a slew of old and new friends to do some via ferrata style climbing. Basically, some experienced rock climbers went and installed iron rungs and hand holds to allow us less experienced climbers traverse formations that would otherwise be completely out of our ability. I always volunteer to organize the food, at least for our carloadful, because I don't quite trust others to think outside the bag of frozen hamburgers and hotdogs from CostCo. And so, our menu for dinner was organic grassfed beef burgers stuffed with garlic and blue cheese with an assortment of grilled veggies. They were better than most burgers you get at fancy restaurants (photo courtesy Alejandra).

But that's not why I write here today. I love breakfast. Breakfast is really the best meal of the day. Since I'm naturally an early riser when camping (aka the stupid chirpy birds wake me up before everyone else), I always have ample time to put together a great breakfast. And we were going to need our energy for climbing. So, we had the traditional breakfast staples of sunny-side up eggs, toast, and I opted this time for organic turkey bacon... and Cast Iron Skillet Berry Cobbler.

This cobbler is super easy to prep ahead of time. Throw 1 cup of all purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 heaping TBSP nonfat powdered milk, 1/2 cup sugar, and some cinnamon into a ziploc bag. Pack a stick of butter (which can be used for toast and corn on the cob, too!) and a bag of frozen mixed berries into your camp cooler. I actually rebagged mine into a big ziploc to make sure it wouldn't leak. I preheated a cast iron skillet on the campstove for about 5 minutes on medium and while it was heating up, I added about 3/4 cup water to the flour mixture and just mooshed it around in ziploc bag. Then melted about 1/8 cup of butter into it. Once the butter was melted, I poured the batter in. I took the mixed berries, which by that time had defrosted, drained off the excess fruit juice, and then poured the berries atop the batter. Then I covered with a cast iron skillet lid and baked for about 20 minutes.

I would change two things I did with this. First, I was going to do this with charcoal because you can put charcoal under the skillet and on top and do it by the fire ring. However, given some miscommunications, Boy decided he wanted to throw all of our charcoal on the fire the night before. Next time, I will communicate to Boy to save some charcoal. Second, if I were to do this on a campstove again, I would have heated skillet with the lid on and I would have cooked this on low, and taken the cobbler off after about 10 minutes, and then let it cook with the residual heat for another 10 minutes. Mine came out a bit too crusty on the bottom (okay, so it was basically black), but the sides were great!

Perfecting The French Art Of Bread

2010-05-26T14:12:00.002-04:00

Thanks to a good friend of mine who has a copy of the book Bread Alone by Daniel Leader and a very insightful boy who saw me drooling on said copy of the book and ordered me a copy (as well as one for himself). I have been baking my own bread for several years now, basically since I started this blog. I had relied for a long time on Whole Grain Breads by Hand or Machine by Beatrice Ojakangas, which provides for a wonderful introduction to baking bread. In my quest for food perfection, however, I had outgrown this book, and was itching to take my bread to the next level. Instead of recycling my original bread book, I gave it to boy, who did not realize that Bread Alone is for "fancy" bread and well, decided that he would like to flex his bread muscles first on some more basic recipes.

Bread Alone is a wonderful read. I have been slowly working my way through his stories and vast wealth of information about flour, kneading, and temperature. Its a bit overwhelming if you don't already have confidence with dough. However, I have been just waiting for the right time to try the baguette recipe in Breaad Alone. It wasn't until I was working from home and an old episode of Julia Child's cooking show came onto PBS which just happened to be an episode where she brings in a guest baker to demonstrate how to make a baguette. Since then, I have been craving, no, let me reword that, NEEDING to make a real French Baguette. This produced the most airy beautifully crusty, perfectly developed gluten all stretchy and amazing baguette I have ever eaten. Nothing but flour, water, yeast, and salt, and the techniques in this book produce the most flavorful bread I have ever baked in my home (without the help of things like maple syrup, etc.).

I'm not going to blog the recipe's measurements here for copyright reasons since I basically followed this recipe to the T (pubicly available recipes and/or recipes I have changed so much that it resembles the original recipes are fair game). Besides, most people ready for this recipe probably already own 20 bread books which they can use. And, depending on the kind of flour used, the humidity, and the temperature, all of the measurements will be off anyway. I used a combination of whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, and unbleached bread flour... a slight variation on the flours called for in the recipe.

This is not a recipe for the faint. You need to plan ahead and allot at least 5 hours for the actual bread baking day. It seems overly complicated, much like making english muffins. But much like my infamous english muffins, this is completely worth it. It starts with a poolish, which is basically water, flour, and a tiny amount of yeast which makes a thick batter and then is left to ferment for some amount of time. I dunno, its a silly name, I've always known it as a sourdough starter, but apparantly when you graduate to baking real bread, you have to call it a poolish. This one required a 24-hour fermentation at room temperature. This was my first real lesson of utmost importance because most recipes I've seen only say let it sit for about 4-6 hours or just overnight. I noticed that the flavor of the bread is vastly improved by a longer fermentation at this step.

The day I baked, I mixed the poolish with more water, yeast, and salt, and then gradually mixed in more flour. It was this stage where kneading became incredibly important and where I learned my second lesson. With french bread, you need to really develop the gluten, while avoiding the classic blunder of incorporating too much flour. I had no idea I needed to aggressively knead this dough for almost 20 minutes (seriously, you have to start attacking towards the end because the gluten flights back), and I learned how a dough scraper is very important so you don't have to keep adding flour all the time to keep the dough from sticking to the surface.

Lesson number three involved understanding how temperature affects dough. This fermentation once the dough is done is much longer than the 1 hour most recipes call for. In fact, the dough should go for about 2.5 hours at 78 degrees. This Now, I have to keep my house at 68-70 degrees for the beer I brew. So I don't have many options for a warmer part of my house... except my bathroom which has radiant heated tile floors. So I set my tile floors to about 80 degrees and put the bowl in the bathroom. I know, wierd, but hey, it works.

I then learned how to keep a baguette shaped roughly like a baguette (actually, I think baguettes are too skinny, so I opted for something just a big fatter than a baguette), this meaning a loaf of bread that was actually round rather than the ubiquitous long oval shape when sliced. First, it is important to let the dough rest about 30 minutes after you divide it and shape into balls to let the gluten relax. Then it is important to take a linen or non-fuzzy cotton dish towel and liberally flour it. This means rubbing flour over every surface to fill in all the little air holes. Then, after you have shaped your dough into 12-14" torpedos, put it onto the dish towel, pull up the seam so it creates a little wall, and then put the next piece on the other side, and repeat. The final rising is 1.5 hours.

My final lesson was learning that I could use a very good serrated knife that has been floured to score my loaves. Scoring loaves properly has been a mystery to me, mostly because I kept forgetting to buy razors.

These loaves were baked on a pizza stone preheated for 1 hour at 450 degrees with water sprayed into the oven just before they went in and about 3 minutes after they went in.

Remembering Mexico

2010-05-25T16:56:00.006-04:00

When I lived in Mexico, I bought 99% of my ingredients at the market, where all of the food was brought in from nearby farms by little old ladies who loaded their wares on the top of second class chicken buses at the crack of dawn, and livestock were walked in by the farmers. Nothing had traveled more than 20 or 30 miles. Flash to today's Farmers Market and you'll find farmers who have driven their trucks into the urban jungles of Washington DC from up to 100 miles away. Still, that's better than the sad excuse for produce that has traveled all the way from Mexico to Washington DC.

Now, since my CSA started, I have had to exercise incredibly restraint at the Farmers Market and not buying produce. Its hard to see all of the beautiful produce lined up in the stands without drooling just a little. And so, I have graduated to buying dairy and meat, a luxury I could not afford in previous years.

This trip was a carnage of poussin, the first chickens of the year which just "can't be beat" (according to the farmer), nearly 3 pounds of pork spareribs, grassfed cow milk yogurt, raw milk habanero cheese, free range eggs (the elderly farmer who sells these gems always has a few cheery words each week... this week my tattoo was dutifully admired), and mushrooms. The bounty of the Farmers Market, and memories of the times when I lived in Mexico, made me crave a Mexican-style breakfast.

And so, I dug out some masa, whipped up a few tortillas and cooked until golden brown and able to withstand the toppings I was about to unload on them:

* One perfectly cooked sunny-side up egg. Seriously, the joys of a perfectly cooked sunny-side up egg was worth buying a non-stick Calphalon pan. I use stainless steel normally, but this non-stick pan makes magic.

* Crumbled habanero raw milk cheese from Keswick Creamery.

* A few lightly sauteed mushrooms from my grab bag o' mushrooms.

* The last bits of my CSA tomato diced.

* A huge dollop of sofrito made from cilantro, stewed tomatos, onion, and jalapenos.

Yummmmm, so good.

The First Harvest and Thank You Gerald R. Ford

2010-05-24T17:01:00.001-04:00

Boy does not judge me when I have to go look at my garden every time I leave my house, even if I've left the house just a couple hours before. This is what happens when (1) you have an urban garden in downtown DC and your vegetables are growing just feet from your doorway, and (2) you are obsessive about your garden. I had been noticing the rampant growth of my broccoli rabe, which I've never tried to grow before. Due to my inability to actually kill off seedlings without feeling guilty (and pretending they seedlings were fancy micro-greens on my salads did not help), my sad efforts at thinning out my broccoli rabe resulted in a crowded garden bed. A few of the plants were beginning to flower prematurely, and so, with a heavy heart and empty belly, pulled up a few so that the plants remaining were actually properly spaced.

Broccoli rabe are supposed to be at their best right before they are about to flower. Oops, I kinda was too late, but since these guys are still in their youth, I wasn't too worried. The entirety of the broccoli rabe, leaves, stalks, and flowers are edible.

They taste like a cross between broccoli and asparagus with a peppery finish. I sauteed them together with some radish greens from my CSA to eat along-side Eye-of-Round Steak Braised in Red Wine Gravy, inspired by Gerald R. Ford's favorite way to eat this tougher cut of steak. For the last year, I have been dutifully trying to eat my way through about 40 pounds of grass fed beef. My friends and I all went in on a grass fed beef share from a local farm in Virginia ... half a cow of amazingness! This beef has been multi-purpose, serving as housewarming presents, birthday presents, and delicious meals. One of the cool things is that it has introduced me to some very diverse cuts of meat that I'm not sure I have ever purchased at the store. Its hard to make meat look sexy, but damn, this is a sexy looking piece of meat.

Okay, so I'm from Michigan. At least I was raised there. This fact has absolutely no bearing on the fact that Gerald R. Ford is also from Michigan and apparantly really like his steak cooked in a similar fashion. I only discovered this tidbit when I searched online to figure out how one is supposed to cook eye of round steak. Everything pointed to searing the outside and braising it for at least an hour. I already had half a bottle of leftover red wine (malbec) and so this simple reciple came to fruition in a wonderfully impromptu last minute kind of way. I heated my cast iron skillet to extra high, sauteed about half a large onion sliced thin along with about one piece of thick cut bacon cut into small pieces. Once those had both browned, I rubbed two eye of round steaks with a bit of canola oil and seared them on both sides for about 2 minutes each side. Deglaze the pan with about 1/4 bottle of red wine and 1.5 cups of beef broth and let cook over medium heat until wine cooks off (just a couple minutes). Reduce heat to a simmer, add about 1 tsp dry thyme, 1 tsp garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and let it go for about 1 hour.

Pull the steaks out and plate them with the onions. Keep the leftover braising sauce in the skillet and bring the heat up to medium. Mix together about 2 heaping TBSP cornstarch with about 1/2 cup cold water and slowly add to the braising sauce and stir until it thickens into a thick gravy. Then pour gobs and gobs of this gravy all over your steak and in this case, your lightly sauteed broccoli rabe/radish greens/green onions. This gravy, despite its simplicity, is addictive and delicious. Boy had baked some delicous buttermilk wheat bread. I had purchased some "limited edition organic pasture butter." I don't know what that means, but it makes for some really tasty butter. Fancy bread + fancy butter + not-so-fancy gravy = magical!

Seriously, it was so good, there was some plate licking involved at the end of the meal.

100% Local, 100% Organic, 100% Freaking Delicious

2010-05-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, its the most basic meal that can be the most satisfying. Half a baked CSA potato with a small dollop of organic butter, topped with sauteed CSA green onion, Farmers Market greek yogurt, and bacon from the meat counter at Whole Paycheck (ahem, Whole Foods) was a simple pleasure. It was amazing to see how the quality of each of the ingredients made a difference in how all the flavors came together. Served aside CSA baby asparagus spears lightly sauteed in olive oil with a smattering of sea salt, I couldn't think of a more satisfying meal. Just a reminder that some of the best things in life don't require a recipe or elaborate preparation.

How To Use Up Milk

2010-05-19T15:19:00.000-04:00

I don't like milk by itself. I've never been one to like milk in my cereal or just drink a glass of milk. But I love all things made with milk, gelato, butter, yogurt, cheese. Its a little strange, much like how I used to love tomatos but hated ketchup (although that has changed). The closest I get to milk in its original form is when I make Ricotta Cheese. One thing I like about the Farmers Market is that you can get small bottles of grassfed cow milk. You know, the pint size ones, the ones that are pretty easy to use up. However, when you buy grassfed cow milk at the store, it often only comes in a half gallon size. I had to buy a half gallon of milk to do a custard and I was kind of stuck what to do with the rest of the milk. Sometimes I make paneer, but I wanted to try something a little different.

First, this recipe is not exactly ricotta since its not made from recooked whey. Second, regardless of what you categorize this cheese as, its creamy and delicious. I ate mine with sliced strawberries from my CSA. It tastes like spring. You cannot find any ricotta that will taste as creamy as this one in the store, especially a 1% milkfat ricotta (which to me, tastes grainy). And, its super super super easy and quick.

I basically scalded what was left of the milk (except about 1/2 cup which I reserved) which means that I brought it up to nearly boiling, but not quite over medium low heat in a stainless steel pot, and then skimmed off the milk "skin" off the top, which is the milk protein. Then I turned the heat to low and poured in about 3TBSP distilled white vinegar and kept stirring until the curds and whey separated, about 3-4 minutes. I lined a strainer with a clean hankerchief and strained all the whey out, then left it in the sink to cool off enough so I could touch it. At that point, I squeezed out most of the moisture and then ran cold water over everything and squeezed it again. I transferred it to a small jar, added 1/4 tsp sea salt and stirred in the reserved milk which absorbs a bit back into the curds and voila! Magic! If you want to have a creamier ricotta, I would use whole milk or cream at this step.

When Someone Leaves A Huge Bag Of Key Limes At Your House

2010-05-19T12:58:00.000-04:00

I've been puzzled as to what to do with a huge bag of key limes which were left at my house. Yes, they were left at my house at the same said Malaysian food potluck which made me the proud new owner of 3 bottles of plum wine. And of course, being the the frugal hater-of-waste I am, I have been trying desperately to use about 15-20 key limes in various ways. I'm not a fan of key lime pie so that was out of the question. There are only so many jugs of water I can squeeze lime into. And so, inspired by food blogs much better than mine, I decided to make Preserved Limes, a cross between preserved Meyer lemons which apparantly was the "in" thing to preserve over winter and the Indian style preserved limes, which generally has lots of crap in it like tumeric.

Well, I've never been particularly trendy, except for maybe this food blog, which apparantly is the trendy thing to do these days, but that's another rant, discussion, be what it may. This recipe is ridiculously easy. I took about 15 key limes and quartered and deseeded them. I squeezed the juice into a small bowl and then put the limes in a separate bowl. Then I liberally covered the limes in about 6-8 tsp of fine sea salt, stirred well and mashed them into a quart jar. Oops, I used too big of a jar and re-mashed them into a pint jar. I added about 1 tsp sea salt, 1 TBSP mustard seeds (which are toasted in the Indian lime preserve recipes, but are not toasted in traditional pickle recipes, so I stuck with a more traditional approach), and a couple of dried red chili de arbol peppers into the lime juice, swirled around, then poured over the limes. Since I had an extra lemon that was on its way to lemon heaven, I used the juice of that lemon to top off the jar to make sure all the limes were covered in juice, and then I put another tsp or so of salt on top.

This is one that will ferment for the first week at room temperature and I will need to turn the jar upside down every other day or so. It will then go into the refrigerator until the limes are all squishy and soft and can be eaten rind and all, which could be weeks or months. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them when they are done, but at least this gives me some time to figure that out.

Trying To Explain What Rhubarb Is To My Foreign Co-Workers

2010-05-17T14:37:00.000-04:00

Apparantly, rhubarb is not a common food worldwide. To me, rhubarb always meant that spring had arrived, my friends and I would try to chew on the stalks grown in the backyard without puckering up our faces. We had rhubarb pie. Laura Ingalls Wilder talks about making rhubarb pie in her first year as a wife (back then it was called pieplant) and how she forgot to add sugar. I was talking about my CSA to my co-workers from Spain and Argentina respectively and apparantly, neither had heard of rhubarb. Despite my best descriptions, they were still confused. I love rhubarb, but the days of sugar-laden rhubarb pie are beyond me. There is only so much pie one can eat before you start looking like you've been eating pie every day. Its been one of my bigger challenges to use up the rhubarb from my CSA each week. Most rhubarb recipes are for pie, more pie, pie with strawberries, or jam. Blah blah blah blah and blah. And then I came across the concept of a rhubarb custard. Now, the consistency of rhubarb when cooked, is very creamy, and sometimes described as custard-like. The rich milk and egg combination in custard with the sugar scaled back and just a dash of vanilla made for a relatively healthy Rhubarb Custard Pie.

No, its not a pretty pie. Its probably why the original recipe which inspired this dish called for a standard pie crust on the top and the bottom, to cover up the ugliness. However, the flavors were just about right, and it was reminiscent of a slightly sweet quiche. I would use a little more milk in my milk to egg ratio than I did this time for a creamier texture, but would probably not change a single thing else.

First, I had intended on making a basic graham cracker crust, because I figured since it works for cheesecake, it would work for another creamy type o' pie. I completely forgot to buy graham crackers and so I improvised a Pecan Pie Crust with about 3/4 cup of pecan bits, 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1.5 TBSP sugar in the raw, and 1 TBSP butter mixed with 2-3 TBSP warm water (enough to get the dough a right consistency to press out into a pan). I didn't do a pre-bake, and just poured the filling right in.

The rhubarb custard filling was pretty simple. I whisked together 3 eggs from the Farmer's Market and an equal part 1% organic grassfed cow milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 2 TBSP all purpose flour. Then I add 3 stalks of rhubarb into 1/2" pieces, mixed together and poured into the pie crust. I baked this for about 45 minutes at 400F. Needless to say, this poor custard did not make it through the weekend. May it rest in peace and into the sewage system of DC.

Pickles Pickles Pickles, and Not Cucumbers

2010-05-17T14:12:00.001-04:00

Deciding to do a CSA this year was one of the biggest decisions I've made regarding food since I went organic/local/homemade/whatevertheheckitscalledmovement. You get a surprise basket of joy from a local farm, only you really don't have a say in what you get. Some farms will let you pick and choose for a premium, while others (like mine) will try to accomodate requests if possible. I kind of like the surprise basket. Its like a Food Network show each Wednesday when I go to pick up my crate. What crazy things will I find that I have to make edible, if not absolutely delicious? Will I be able to eat 5 pounds of lettuce and greens without getting sick of them? What the heck is this strange looking thing? Holy cow I have a bag of spinach and a head of lettuce left and my new crate will be here in two days!

Its a huge commitment, because if you are like me, beyond the challenge of figuring out how to use everything, there is also guilt in wasting anything. Oh no, what do I do with a bunch of mint and crap, I got more mint! Doh! There is also the guilt at the Farmer's Market if I buy anything that I could very well get in my CSA (I am not allowed to buy greens, I am not allowed to buy greens, ooooh, look, pretty frisee and garlic chives!).

So far, I have received 2 crates and so far, there is little to no waste. Mostly because I have a boy to feed and can send stuff home with him where in my mind, it is not wasted because it was a gift! My saviour is pickling. I love pickles. Who doesn't love pickles? Boy popped open a jar of spicy garlic asparagus pickles because I had traded it to him for a small jar of pickled garlic and dill pickled carrots. I was nervous, the idea of asparagus pickles had sounded good to me, but would it actually taste any good? It had been the requisite two weeks and I watched his face expectantly as he munched through his first spear. I heard crunching. That was good. I had a lot of fear that cooking the aspargus first would be a mistake. He declared them to be good with the right balance of sweet and pungent and bullied me for the recipe. Okay, that's a lie, he just asked me for the recipe and I told him to come to this blog.

And so I nabbed one, too. The verdict. Extremely addictive, although next time I would use a little more garlic, a little more hot pepper, and only pour the hot pickling liquid over the raw asparagus spears. We ate the entire jar in about 10 minutes. But not to fear, CSA to the rescue with another bunch of asparagus! And so, I have a quart jar of asparagus pickles getting all ready for me to eat. I also have a lil jar o' Asian Inspired Radish Pickles in the fridge. You can only eat raw veggies and salads so many times, but pickles, you can all the time! At least I can. And pickles can be super easy and don't require you to jar the pickles for storage on the shelf if you have a relatively small amount like I received in my CSA.... cuz then you can just throw them in the fridge and they stay good for a couple weeks (if they last that long).

Radishes have a naturally crunchy and amazing texture with a nice peppery finish, and so they need very little to help them along on their way to pickle-dom. I packed about 8 small radishes sliced thin and a thinly sliced bulb of a CSA green onion into a small canning jar, and poured in the pickling brine. The pickling brine was nothing but 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes heated together. I popped on a lid but kept the ring a little loose and then let it cool before I transferred to the fridge. It should be ready to eat the next day, but they stay good and get better with age for the next couple of weeks. I am seriously considering finding me a farm stand and buying 20 pounds of asparagus so I can have asparagus pickles until next year.

Overnight Crockpot Recipe Lessons Learned

2010-05-12T15:39:00.009-04:00

Although I generally loathe crossing into Virginia-Land, unless its on my way to some far flung camping/rafting/biking adventure which takes me by local farm stands, I generally park my bicycle and join the masses on public transportation at least once a week to spend time with a guy who is worth the trek (even when slightly grumpy). Although his kitchen is fairly well stocked for a bachelor, I sometimes like to bring food out for mid-week dinners. This is mostly because I've got some recipe I have been dying to try, and well, it takes too much prep to do it all in one night and still eat before 11 pm. So, I generally do some (if not all) of the prep in the comfort of my own kitchen.

The aftermath of a Malaysian food inspired potluck which exploded into a minor boozefest left about 3 bottles of plum wine in my fridge along with about 4 cups of cooked jasmine rice. Plum wine? Who drinks plum wine? I certainly don't. Its sweet. Its barely wine. But it was a gift, and who am I to turn down plum wine? Who am I to dump it out when there are starving children in China? And so, I found a promising recipe which called for plum wine. And thus, Pork Tenderloin Braised in Ginger Fig Sauce was born. I served this with leftover jasmine rice for the Malaysian food fling, and some asparagus leftover from last week's CSA delivery lightly stirfried with Vidalia onions.

However, the long cooking times and the need to be able to transport this creation to Virginia-land, by metro and then bus and actually have time to eat had me puzzled. My genius idea was to prepare this the night before, set my crockpot to cook for 8 hours right before I went to bed, and then let everything cool to pack into tupperware containers while I showered and got ready for work. This would have been absolutely genius if the delicious aromas of the pork tenderloin braising in all sorts of rendered pork fat and sweet/savory juiciness had not wafted into my bedroom at 5 am and thus, keeping me semi-awake for the next several hours.

But, it worked. The timing and the end result, allowing me to pack everything for easy transport to work, and subsequently, to the hinterlands. Around 10 pm the night before said trek to the-middle-of-nowhere, I seared 2 pounds of pork tenderloin cut into 2 inch chunks in just a little bit of canola oil. I removed the seared pieces of tenderloin and placed in the bottom of the crockpot while I melted 1.5 TBSP butter in the same pan and sweat about 1 medium onion sliced, deglazing the pan as the onions sweat. Into the crockpot the onions went. I then added 1/4 cup of fresh grated ginger, 4 cloves of garlic grated, 3/4 cups finely grated carrot, 15 figs chopped into quarters, about 1.5 cups of plum wine, and salt and pepper.

This was definitely an interesting recipe, mostly because of the interplay between the ginger, plum wine, and figs. It was a little too sweet for my taste, but the ginger almost added the perfect counterbalance. Next time I would add some kind of acid, like maybe apple cider vinegar and add a little more grated ginger.

Garlicky Joy

2010-05-12T15:23:00.007-04:00

There is no such thing as too much garlic.

This was my mantra until my college roomate and I, both devout garlic lovers, once put 10 cloves of fresh garlic into a hummus recipe. Apparantly, we had managed to find the most pungent and strong garlic in the world, and we managed to render the hummus nearly inedible. I have since then, learned balance, and how not to make the same mistakes of my youth. Its funny, I haven't had hummus in ages, it wasn't until I smelled the garlic hummus of one of the instructors at my trapeze school (yes, that's right, trapeze school... its my plan B when being a corporate attorney doesn't work out). It's something that I refused to buy at the grocery store because well, $5 for a tiny tub of hummus always seemed wrong. Even though I now am well into my illustrious career and can very well afford to spend $5 for a tiny tub of hummus, I'm cheap. I refuse to buy it on sheer principle more than anything. Oh yea, so trapeze school instructor lady was eating carrot sticks with $5 per tub hummus. It smelled good. And then I couldn't stop thinking about it. So, by accident, because I take trapeze classes, I created perfect Garlic Chili Hummus. Perfectly creamy, smooth, with a staying garlic power. Garlic that sticks to you. Literally. Which finishes with a tiny kick.

Hummus is one of those foods that is really worth making yourself, because its easy to whip up small batches. Its also really addictive, which is why I have to make small batches or else you would find me on the floor of my office in a hummus coma. The major investment in hummus is actually the tahini, a sesame paste reminiscent of natural peanut butter. For $5 or $6, however, you get about a pint, which will stay indefinitely good in the fridge, and can be used little-by-little in baba ganoush and hummus adventures. It'll probably take me a year or two to go through mine.

Perfectly creamy hummus has eluded me for years until I had a rare moment of boredom. I had about 30 minutes to spare while waiting to go pick up my share of fruits and veggies from my Dragonfly Farms CSA (check 'em out at http://www.dffarms.com/). I decided to make some hummus... except this time, I decided to take the extra time to run hot water over my garbanzo beans and pick off all of the little skins on them. Mostly because I needed to bust some time and it was better than the alternative of mopping the floor. It took all of 5 minutes to do one can of garbanzo beans. Then I threw the deskinned garbanzo beans in with the juice of 1 lemon, 1 TBSP olive oil, 1 TBSP minced garlic, 1 heaping tsp chinese garlic chili paste, salt and cracked pepper, and 1 heaping TBSP tahini into a blender. Hmm. It whirred and then stuck. So I added about 1/4 cup of water to thin it out just enough for the blender to do its thang. The result? A beautifully smooth blender full of garlicky joy. I could have eaten it all right there.

Post-discovery of the secret to smooth hummus, I did a quick search online to see what the interwebs had to say about garbanzo bean skins. Hrm, apparantly this is common knowledge that taking the skins off garbanzo beans is the magical secret. Pshooo.

Yeast... Patience Yields Great Things

2010-05-07T15:59:00.010-04:00

One of the absolute joys of having free time and a CSA which brings me a surprise basket every week is that I can spend an inordinate amount of time looking up recipes and creative ways to use up whatever it is I have in my pantry and fridge. This is purely selfish joy of food, food that tastes like real actual food. Tomatos that taste like spring, strawberries that explode in your mouth and don't leave a sour aftertaste from being picked too early, fresh oregano snipped from a windowbox... I was actually discussing this at work today with a co-worker of mine from Spain who commented that when she was a child and went to the market, you only got what was in season, and that moving to the U.S. has made her realize that people need to be re-educated about food, where it comes from, how it is grown, what food actually is. But I digress.

But the real joy of free time, time to scheme, time to plan is that I can make the foods where time is required to create the best things. I present exhibit A: Garlic Tomato Asiago-Parmesan Foccaccia. Its a basic bread. I had all of the ingredients for it on hand. Probably one of the easiest ones you can make. In fact, I didn't even really measure things, just proofed half a packet of yeast in about 3/4 cup warm water and 1 tbsp raw honey. I added 1/2 tsp salt, 1 TBSP olive oil, 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, and then enough bread flour to get it to the right consistency. That is, the dough is springy and comes off the side of the bowl, but still sticks a little to the bottom of the bowl. I greased my hands with olive oil, then stuck the dough in a bowl coated in olive oil to rise for an hour. I punched the dough down and then put it in the fridge to slow rise for a couple more hours.

Okay, I admit, I didn't do this for flavor, even though I do believe that a slow rise develops flavors better... I had to transport said dough through Washington DC's finest metro and bus system out to Northern Virginia-land to feed the great white giant (aka the boyfriend). The hour that trip takes was the perfect amount of time for this dough to come up to proper temperature from being in the fridge so I could almost throw it in the oven at 350 F when I got there. Ahhh, but wait, first, this needs to go down on a piece of parchment paper dusted with cornmeal, flattened out a bit with your fingers, brushed with olive oil, and then topped with your choice of toppings. For me, loads of minced garlic, thinly sliced CSA tomatos, and a generous sprinkling of shaved parmesan and asiago. Then poke your fingers all over the bread to create that infamous dimpled look and to allow the olive oil to pool a bit. 15-20 minutes later, yay, warm foccaccia! I also sprinkled with some rough chopped oregano from my windowsill.

Now bread, bread is a child in comparison to my next project, which isn't even quite done yet. I present you with Exhibit B: Irish Red Ale. One of my friends had an illustrious birthday, the decade of youth gone, and so, in the way that we are, I clearly had to gift her a beer brewing class for her birthday. And take the class with her. Completely unselfishly taking this beer brewing class, taking one for the team. She introduced me to The Brooklyn Kitchen (http://www.thebrooklynkitchen.com/) which makes me want to move to NYC just so I can take classes there all the time. They bring the hip edge back into preserving, canning, baking bread, and generally, do-it-yourself kind o' folk like us. The thought of being able to make beer myself was dizzying, I mean, I could have beer ALL THE TIME! Not just when I went to the store! The possibilities seemed endless. And then I went to the class... you mean I have to wait a whole month for my beer? What!? Where is the instant gratification? Pout.

Anyway, my first batch of beer was anxiously done, with lots and lots of mistakes. But I think, despite all that, its going to turn out okay. And if it is okay, my future plans of buying a B&B in the Shenandoah with my kitchen garden have suddenly expanded to include home brew for my guests...

The first thing I did when I came back was to raid Borders Bookstore for the recommended beer brewing book by John Palmer. Its supposed to be the bible for home brewers. So I bought it. And then I saw the other 3 million brewing books and the little voice in my head won, and I bought another one which provides a bazillion (yes, a bazillion!) recipes for beer that I could probably find online. Doh. After reading through it four or five times, and changing my mind about 20 times, I finally picked a beer for my first batch. And then off to our local beer brewing store (yes, they exist, and they are amazing...). The guy there was pretty much my hero. We marched in with our recipes and listed off what we needed. He had everything on hand, had useful tips, and knew what substitutions to make for certain products which had been discontinued. And so we marched off with our malt extract, specialty brewing grains, hops, and yeast....

Now, brewing should be a social event. Mostly because there is a lot of waiting that goes on. Also, because there's a lot of stuff to remember and if distracted (damn you Comcast guy!) you do things like leave your yeast next to the hot stove and almost kill it. Good thing I know how to proof yeast and make sure its still alive. Bread experience to the rescue! Beer can easily be broken down into these steps:

Steep specialty grains in a mesh bag as filtered water comes up to almost boiling, then remove.
Boil and add (stirring quickly so it doesn't burn) malt extract.
Boil for an hour.
Add hops when recipe tells you.
Add different hops when recipe tells you.
If you have an IPA, then you add hops all the freaking time.
Add sugar if the recipe calls for it.
The brown liquid is called wort.
You cool the wort as fast as possible, using an ice bath and changing the water frequently.
Once it gets to 65 F, you put into a fermenting bucket (basically, a huge food grade plastic bucket), slosh it around so it gets oxygen in it, and pitch the yeast you have previously hydrated.
Then you seal it up and let it ferment for about 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks, the fermentation has stopped. Now you have alcoholic brown liquid which tastes what your final beer will taste like. Except there no carbonation. Interestingly, it still tastes better than flat beer the day after. Not that I've ever had that. *Cough*. So you add some more sugar and then bottle up the beer and wait for the yeast to do its magic and create carbonation.

So in about two weeks, this will be ready to drink. Patience my friend. Beer gets better with age, so you can't drink the two cases this makes too fast. Ha. Anyway, this recipe came from the book The Brewmasters Bible by Stephen Snyder and is technically called the Erin-go-Braugh Pale Ale, which falls under the Irish Red Ale umbrella of beers.

Original gravity: 1.046
Final gravity: 1.013
Potential alcohol: 4.3%

1/2 pound toasted Victory malt
1/2 pound Crystal malt
6.6 pounds Northwestern Gold Unhopped malt extract
1 oz Centennial hops
1/2 oz Cascade hops, 20-minute boil
1 package Sahale S04 yeast
3/4 cups priming sugar

Update!

After waiting 11 days, I decided to pop a beer open to see how the carbonation was coming. It was pretty good, still young tasting, but almost fully carbonated. My guru brewing co-worker told me that the flavor and intensity should change drastically in the next two to three weeks. I'm going to taste it every week to see how the flavor evolves over time. But, it looks and tastes like a pretty damn fine beer. Wooooohoooo!

Farmer's Market Brunch

2010-05-04T12:30:00.009-04:00

I have a small problem of over planning my weekends due to our insatiable desire to do everything, camping, kayaking, whitewater rafting, beer festivals, climbing, biking... there's so much to do in Spring. So every once in a while, its really nice to just have a lazy Sunday. Besides, it was August swamp summer weather instead of glorious Spring weather. So my fearless companion (okay fine, I'll call him my boyfriend, even though I think it sounds wierd) and I meandered off to the Dupont Circle farmer's market. I had to set some strict guidelines for myself because I am in the process of eating as much of the crap in my freezer and pantry as possible before my CSA starts. I was not allowed to buy anything I thought would come in my CSA. I was not allowed to buy meat since I have a bunch of grass-fed beef and venison in my freezer. I was not allowed to buy bread or baked goods since I make those myself.

Soooooo... we ended up with 4 kinds of raw milk cheese, morel mushrooms, wild ramps, and grass-fed cow milk. Which made for an amazing brunch of wild ramps, morel mushrooms sauteed with thick-cut bacon, artichokes with garlic butter sauce, the cheese assortment eaten on a homemade quinoa whole wheat baguette, and a mixed berry smoothie with grass fed cow milk.

Now quinoa (pronounced keeeeeeeeeeeeeen-wa... okay fine, just keen-wa, but the other one looks more fun) originated in Peru and is the seed of a grain-like plant. Its growing popularity amongst foodies is its nutty flavor and the fact that it provides a complete protein. I had a little jar of it left in the back corner of my cupboard and decided that it needed to get used up. This thought has apparantly been in the back of my mind for a while as I found a crumpled up handwritten recipe for a Quinoa Baguette in the stack of recipes I save for a rainy day. I have no idea where this recipe came from, but the result was good, not great. The crumb was hearty and nutty with lots of nooks and crannies much like an english muffin, but this bread does not stand up well to time (some breads become magicical twice if toasted in the days after... this is not one of them). I would make some adjustments for a future batch, as noted below.

Rinse 1 cup of uncooked quinoa in hot water. Okay, first adjustment. My recipe says uncooked. I honestly would cook it after rinsing and prior to doing the dough to allow for more integration of the quinoa with the whole wheat. Dissolve 2 TBSP honey in 2 cups of warm water and let it sit with 1 package of yeast for 5 minutes. Second adjustment. 2 cups of water was waaaay too much. I would maybe cook the quinoa in 2 cups of water, let cool, then add honey and and yeast. Add 1 TBSP olive oil, 2 tsp salt, 2 TBSP gluten, 2 cups of whole wheat flour, and 1 cup of unbleached bread flour. Beat with a spoon for five minutes and let rest 15 minutes to develop gluten and all that good stuff.

Keep adding additional bread flour until its the right consistency. Sorry, I'm a consistency kind o' gal. I do most of my bread by feel. Anywhoooo, the consistency of this one never got quite right. Mostly, because I think the recipe should have said to cook the quinoa in the 2 cups of water. I left it at a pretty wet batter with well developed glutens and let it rise in an oiled bowl for 1.5 hours, punched it down and divided into two baguettes and let it rise again. Baked it for 22 minutes at 450 F on a bread stone that had been preheated with a pan of water underneath to keep the oven nice and humid (this keeps the crust from scorching and allows the bread to expand).

Eating Seasonally... Asparagus Invades the Eastern Shore

2010-04-28T20:30:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think I was meant to live in West Virginia, Kentucky, wherever there are major farming communities... I have a major weakness for farm stands whenever I am on a road trip. Thank goodness most of my friends are, too, and humor the fact that I have to stop at almost every single one I see from April to November. The sight of asparagus at farm stands means I am about to embark on a whirlwind 8 months of amazing seasonal eating. I also love pickles. You can pickle almost everything. Its really easy. It stops you from getting bored of eating the same thing every day for the 3 weeks it is in season.

And so, in an effort to rid myself of 2 pounds of asparagus I nabbed on the Eastern Shore without having to smell my pee for the next week, I decided to make Spicy Garlic Asparagus Pickles, inspired by the King o' the Canning Mountain... the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I have no idea how these taste yet, but really, I have never met a pickle I didn't like.

Cut about 2 pounds of asparagus into 4" pieces, making sure to discard any of the really fat fibrous icky bottom part. Yes, very scientific-foodie description, but don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. I also cut about 1/3 of a red onion into very thin slivers. Mostly, because I love onion, and who wouldn't want to pickle onion. They also happen to match the slightly purple tips of my asparagus. Cuz pickles should also be pretty (Disclaimer: see discussion of canning salt... this obviously is secondary to taste). Soak these in water with about 1/3 cup of canning salt for two hours.

Now, stores in downtown DC where I live do not seem to carry canning salt. At least, not in the Logan Circle/Dupont area. I figured out after searching online this basically means you can't use iodized table salt and probably not sea salt or it will make your pickles turn a funny color possibly or make your pickling liquid cloudy. Well, I accidentally bought sea salt, of which I already have a ton, instead of kosher salt, which is considered an acceptable alternative for discoloration purposes. But, at the end of the day, really, its the taste that matters so if my asparagus pickles turn a funny color, I don't really care. They are still going to be delicious.

I used 3 pint mason jars and simmered them with water in my all purpose lobster/canning/beerbrewing pot atop a small cookie rack. I simmered in a small separate pot the lids (not the rings). While those were keeping warm, I brought 1 cup of water, 4 cups of white vinegar, 3/4 cups of sugar, and 2 heaping TBSP of mustard seeds to simmer for about 5 minutes in a large pot. Make sure this pot is big enough to hold all of your asparagus.

Rinse the asparagus and onions with cool water and add to the pickling liquid. Bring it back to a boil and then remove from heat. Using a handy dandy jar picker upper thingy (yes, these exist, check out a hardware store or kitchen store for one), take one jar and dump the water back into the pot. Put 1 TBSP minced garlic and your choice of dried hot chili pepper (I used 2 dried chile de arboles per jar, whole, but cracked the top off and dumped the seeds into the bottom of the jar, too) along with a couple white and black whole peppercorns in the bottom of the jar. Then pack as tightly as possible the asaparagus into the jar leaving 1/2 inch of head space. Ladle in the pickling liquid to 1/2 inch of head space. Make sure there are no air bubbles, wipe the rim, and then pop a lid (which has been keeping warm... I used plastic tongs) and a ring on each. Make sure not to tighten the ring too much. Then put back into the big ass pot.

Once you have finished all of them, make sure at least 1" of water covers the jars, and bring the pot to a roaring boil and let it go for 10 minutes starting from when the rolling boil starts with the lid on. Turn off the heat after 10 minutes, remove the lid, and let everything sit for 5 minutes. Take the jars out and put on a towel and let cool for 24 hours. Well, that means tomorrow I need to check to make sure the lids sealed properly.

So maybe only 3 pints of these pickles seems paltry, but my CSA starts next week and well, yea, I plan to pickle what I can't eat, freeze, dehydrate, or otherwise enjoy without getting completely sick of it...

Post-Hiatus, Now With More Kung Fu!

2010-04-23T11:21:00.013-04:00

Its been a very long time since I've dedicated any sort of time to this blog. After losing a year to work and well, a guy (hereinafter "the lost year"), its time to brush off the snarky food writing skills and the creative food skills. Its a new year, a new start, a new kitchen, a new garden, my first go at a CSA (Community Assisted Agriculture - google it!), a whole slew of new food projects (from canning to brewing beer at home), and I actually have time to do it all. After posting pictures from this blog archive to my [insert name of popular social networking website page here] account, I was told I should (1) open a restaurant/brewery or (2) write a food blog. I also realized that 90% of my posts to said popular social networking website are about food.

Doh. Part of my apprehension in restarting this blog was in large part due to me thinking I would need to blog all of my amazing recipes from the lost year. Then I realized that I didn't have that many worth the time to hunt down my scribbles in notebooks splattered with oil, food, and coffee. Here goes nothing....

And so, unfortunately, my scribblings don't reveal much about how much of what I put in these amazing Chinese Shrimp Dumplings. Basically, I tried to let the shrimp shine through. The filling was some combination of raw jumbo shrimp (roughly chopped), minced ginger, bamboo, green onion, cornstarch, egg white, oyster sauce, cane sugar, sesame oil, and chinese rice wine. I made a basic egg wrapper with unbleached all purpose flour and an egg. Steam in a bamboo steamer atop napa cabbage leaves. Okay yea, I know, this post sucks. My notes also suck. Former kung fu glory will resume, seriously.

My latest love affair is with English Muffins. I don't think I can ever go back to the store bought kind. The only tweaks to this recipe (which I modified so I don't have to use buttermilk, which I never keep in stock) I think I will make in the future is to figure out how to integrate more whole wheat while maintaining the epic nooks and crannies I achieved. These freeze beautifully, but honestly, they never stay in my freezer very long. They also make for good bartering... I got myself some bunny poo compost, venison, sweet potato slips, and a variety of other good stuff by giving a small bag o' these away.

It is really key to know you are going to make english muffins. This isn't a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of project. This is a firm commitment of time that is well worth the effort. The batch generally makes about 18-20 english muffins which can last quite a while. Think about it, this is like 3 packages of the english muffins you get in the store. This recipe can be parsed out into four project chunks:

First, you need to make a sourdough starter. This is a simple affair that can be done at night the day (or two) before you want to make the english muffins. Mix together the following in a large nonreactive bowl (I prefer glass) in the following order (this is where I want to play around with proportions of whole grain to non-whole grain... just remember, the more whole wheat flour you have, the more water you need as it absorbs more!). Leave this lightly covered with a dishtowl or ventilated top overnight or for at least 4 hours (also does well overnight or while you are at work):

2 cups of warm water (no greater than 105 F)
1 tsp yeast
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1.5 cups of unbleached all purpose flour

The second step is to make what bread makers call a "sponge." I dunno why they call it this, all I know is that it makes things delicious. At some point before you want to make the sponge, you need to scald 3/4 cups of milk and let it cool to room temperature. Basically, you need to bring the milk to just near boiling, and then cool it down. The fridge helps speed that process. You don't want the milk to be too cold though! Mix together in this order the following items to make the sponge and then let it rest at room temperature for 1 hour:

3/4 cups warm water
1 tsp yeast
2 cups of the sourdough starter
3/4 cups scalded milk at room temperature
2 cups of unbleached bread flour

The third chunk provides you with two paths. At this point, you add the rest of the sourdough starter to the sponge, add 4 TBSP honey, 2.5 tsp salt, 1 small container of yogurt, 2 TBSP cornmeal, and up to 4 cups of bread flour. If you add too much bread flour, you will not get epic nooks and crannies. Just remember that this dough should be pretty stick and almost like a very thick batter consistency. Although you need to knead the dough to develop the glutens, this is not going to feel nice and sproingy like other bread doughs. Once you knead it all together for about 5 to 8 minutes, you have a choice: (A) be impatient like I often am and let it rise an hour or (B) let the flavors develop by doing a slow 8 - 10 hour rise in the refridgerator and then letting it sit out at room temperature for an additional 2 hours. It does make a small difference. I sometimes use Plan B when I run out of time and need to push back another day.

The fourth and final step requires you to turn out the dough onto a sheet pan, cutting board, hard surface, be what it may, which has been liberally covered with corn meal. I cannot emphasize enough that there is no such thing as too much corn meal. This is what makes your sticky ooey gooey batter not stick to you, the hard surface, the pan, etc. Sprinkle lots o' corn meal on top, then use your fingers to pat it out to about a 3/4 inch thickness. Then, this is the hardest part. You need to use a cookie cutter (you can take the top and bottom off an old tuna can, or do what I did, and take a small tupperware and cut the lip off it carefully) to cut the dough into rounds. I actually dip my makeshift cookie cutter into corn meal in between each round to avoid sticking. Its really hard to maintain the shape so just do the best you can. Set each round carefully onto a corn meal covered cookie sheet or parchment paper where it will spend the next hour rising again. Once you have them all cut out, you need to pre-heat a cast iron griddle to medium, medium low. Its really important not have the heat too high or you'll scorch the cornmeal and your english muffins. Make sure you have lots of cornmeal on each dough round before you place on the ungreased cast iron griddle. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side and let cool on a rack. .

It is imperative that as soon as humanly possible after the muffins are cool enough to pick up, you take a fork and split the muffin open around the entire thing, toast it (the insides stay relatively moist, so toasting provides the proper crunch) and slather with some organic butter from a grassfed milk (ooh, that Irish cream butter is soooo good). These stay good for a couple days and can also be frozen. When you defrost, just set your toaster oven for like 200 F - 250 F and then let it defrost for about 5 minutes, then split open with a fork and toast it like you normally would.

And last, but certainly not least, Pork Shoulder Braised in Homemade BBQ Sauce. I actually still have a small tupperware of this in my freezer which I am saving as a rainy day meal. Nom nom nom. This is quite possibly the easiest most amazing thing I have ever made in a crockpot. The onions get carmelized and beautiful. The pork just comes apart. The juice is worth saving just to dip each bite into.

Are you ready? Take at least two pounds of pork shoulder, ribs, etc., trim off some of the fat (not all), and sear in an oiled cast iron skillet on all sides. Place in a crockpot. Slice an entire onion and layer the onions on top of the pork. Make a quick sauce of the following ingredients and pour over everything, then set the crockpot to low and let it go for 10 - 12 hours:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1 TBSP dijon or coarse mustard
3 TBSP brown sugar
Minced garlic (ain't no such than as too much)
Liberal amounts of black pepper
2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
1 tsp celery salt

Seriously, this took me about 15-20 minutes in the morning to throw into the crockpot and when I came home, it was magical. MAGICAL. And it freezes really well for leftovers. It also tastes very delicious piled onto a homemade english muffin... just sayin'.

Gooey Peanut Butter Goodness

2009-03-24T22:30:00.004-04:00

The perfect post workout food is... Sauteed Shrimp with Thai Peanut Sauce. Warning, this recipe makes a crap-ton of sauce, but hey, that just means I get to eat more tomorrow! I love the bags of frozen shrimp you can pick up at the grocery store. I usually get the jumbo butterfly cut ones with the shell still on. If you cook them with the shells on, they stay juicier but the butterfly cut makes it easy to pull the shells off. I just sauteed the shrimp in a skillet with olive oil spray. Then drizzled the sauce on top.

I mixed the following ingredients together for a spicy version of this thai classic:

Juice of two limes
Zest of two limes
1/4 cup vegetable oil (emulsifier)
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce (tamari)
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp minced garlic
1.5 tbsp minced ginger
2 thai chilis finely minced
Big handful of cilantro finely chopped
1/2 cup peanut butter (I used all natural organic creamy and threw it in the microwave for 30 second to make it easier to mix

This is the perfect blend of acid, sweet, spicy, and richness... can't wait to drizzle it over shrimp, scallops, chicken, whatever :D.

Greek Avgolemono Soup... Just Like Uh... Mama Used To Make?

2009-02-11T13:06:00.006-05:00

Busted ankle/achilles tendon/calf meant I actually had time to cook a real dinner last night rather than just throwing together something quick post-workout. I also had very little in my kitchen as I just got back into town from a snowboarding trip. The cupboards were bare. My Peapod delivery wasn't for another day. However, my freezer was full of chicken carcasses from the pulled barbecue chicken I had made for my parkourrific Superbowl party... and so I made a huge tangy, savory, and soothing pot of Greek Avgolemono Soup.

I took the carcasses of 2 roasted chickens and a bunch of chicken leg bones and set them to simmer in a stock pot with 1/2 tsp sea salt. Just add enough water to cover the bones and let it go for at least an hour or two. I like to let mine go for a little longer so the chicken broth has a nice concentrated flavor. Strain the bones from the broth and return the broth to the stock pot. Pick the leftover meat off the bones and set aside. You can also use store bought chicken broth which makes this all go much faster, of course. The added chunks of chicken are optional. Add a couple handfuls of long grain white rice or orzo and let simmer for 20 minutes.

While the broth is simmering, saute in 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil about 1/2 cup or more of shredded celery, 1/2 cup or more of thinly sliced onion, and 1/4 cup shredded carrot. I like to do the celery and onion first and let the onions carmelize and then throw in the carrot at the very end since well, nothing is worse than mushy carrot. Set this mixture aside.

Now, take 3 eggs and whisk together with the juice of two lemons. I tried using one huge lemon, but would have liked it to be a little tangier so will use two next time. If you want the broth to be richer or thicker, add an additional egg yolk or two. Take the broth of the stove and scoop a ladle of the broth off the top (try to avoid the rice). Whisk the ladle of broth into the egg and lemon... pouring the broth in slowly because you don't want the egg to cook, but rather become emulsified. Then pour the egg, lemon, broth mixture back into the main pot slowly, whisking like a madman until everything is integrated and the broth has a nice creamy appearance.

Throw back in the onion, celery, carrot mixture as well as the bits o' chicken and stir. Salt and pepper to taste and garnish with parsley!

Superbowl Party Food

2009-01-30T11:47:00.010-05:00

20+ people who had been running around outside for a couple hours piled into my tiny place and devastated enough food to feed an elephant. The menu included classics such as bulgogi, barbecue pulled chicken, chili cheese dip, bacon wrapped maple glazed smokies, White Bean Dip with pita chips, Black Bean Mango Salsa, korean dumplings, Venezuelan Pork Empanadas, pigs in a blanket, cheese and salami platter, veggie platter with saguero dip, tropical fruit salad and miscellaneous other bits o' deliciousness. I forgot to take pictures of everything so I stole the one below off of Beto's Facebook album. It probably shows an eighth of the food consumed. I also am too lazy to blog all of the food so what little I remember of the flurry of preparation....

White Bean Dip

Mash together:

1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup olive oil, plus 4 tablespoons

1/4 cup (roughly chopped) fresh Italian parsley leaves

Salt

Pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Black Bean Mango Salsa

Mix together... gets better with age!

8 roma tomatos deseeded and diced
1 small white onion, diced
handful of chopped cilantro
1 slightly underripe mango, diced
3 jalapenos w/ seeds, minced
1/2 can black beans, rinsed
juice of 3 limes
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Venezuelan Pork Empanadas

These were amaaaaaazaing! And easy. Super easy to make ahead and freeze.

To make the filling:

3 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 large white onion, very finely chopped
1 tbsp sugar in the raw
1.25 lbs pork tenderloin, finely chopped (if you stick in freezer for 30 minutes, easier to chop)
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup beer (I used a honey porter, drink rest while cooking)
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tsp paprika
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp siracha
1 red jalapeno, very finely chopped
3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
10 pitted kalamata olives, thinly sliced
1/4 cup golden raisins

In a medium skillet, melt 1 tbsp butter with 1 tbsp olive oil, add onion and cook over medium hit until softened (about 8-10 minutes). Stir in sugar and cook stirring fairly frequently until browned and nicely carmelized.

At same time, in a large skillet, melt 2 tbsp butter with 2 tbsp olive oil. Cook chopped pork seasoned with salt and pepper on high until pork is golden brown on botton, about 4 minutes. Then stir and cook until no pink remains.

Stir in browned onions, beer, soy sauce, paprika, siracha, cumin, and jalapeno. Cook for 1 minute. Transfer filling to large bowl and stir in eggs, olives, and raisins and season to taste. Refrigerate until cool before filling dough/wonton wrapper.

Use any standard empanada dough recipes or wonton wrapper, fill, and crimp edges with fork. Brush empanadas with egg wash and bake at 350 for 20 minutes until golden brown. In a pinch, I used wonton wrappers but there some great recipes where you use half masa and half flour to make awesome wrappers. These freeze really well, just have to bake longer... 30 min. This recipe made about 100 mini-empanadas.

Cornish Hen Mania

2009-01-12T17:45:00.002-05:00

Note to self:

Rub with olive oil
Douse with some rum

Chili powder
Cumin, ground
Cayenne
Salt and Pepper
Sugar in the raw
Nutmeg

Roast on bed of sweet potatoes, onions, and medium-ripe plaintains. 1 hour at 380.

Before:

After:

A Taste of New Orleans and Good Home Cookin'

2009-01-05T11:50:00.003-05:00

Winter brings out cravings of warm food that hearkens back to when momma used to make roasted birds (a la turkey, chicken, hen, duck, goose, and everything edible in between...). Well, I lie. We only got turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but even though my mother never made these things in the time inbetween, it certainly doesn't mean that I can't. I actually intended on roasting a whole chicken, but the grocery store was lacking and all that remained on the barren shelves were cute lil Cornish hens. So into the cart they went, with one being a perfect size for one hungry LeeAnn. As much good home cooking goes, Herb Encrusted Cornish Hen is the proof that you don't need a fancy recipe to make good food.

Heat oven to about 380. To prep the hen, wash the hen in cold water and pat dry. Rub it lovingly with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Then take equal parts rosemary, sage, and thyme and crush together roughly by hand. No Simon and Garfunkel jokes, please. If you can get sage and rosemary that has been dried from fresh plants and not purchased in the store, it makes a world of difference. I have a cousin who works at a co-op who gives me herbs from their garden and the flavor was magic. Be liberal with the herbs, there is no such thing as too much herbs. Rub the bird all over with the spice rub.

Now, the secret. Place the hen breast down in the pan. This prevents it from drying out while roasting, especially since the bugger is so small it can do so quite quickly. I put very roughly chopped red potatoes, onions, celery, and baby carrots all around, drizzled a little olive oil over and seasoned with leftover spice rub and salt and pepper. Then I put little slices of butter atop the hen and the bed o' potatoes n' things. One hour later, you get a roasted bit of happiness. Let it rest 20 minutes and dig in!

This is a placeholder for the magical Jambalaya that fed an army of parkour and salsa kids, which I modified from a recipe of Epicurous' website.

1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 large green bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped
3 celery stalks, diced
3 tbsp fresh Italian parsley, minced
3 fresh hot italian turkey sausage links (Whole Foods)
6 chicken thighs
1 1/2 lbs large shrimp, peeled, deveined with tails on
2 large bay leafs
3 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups brown rice, uncooked
2 cups chicken broth
2 tsp oregano

Spicy Caribbean Flavors... and Using Up Spicy Sausage

2008-12-12T17:31:00.006-05:00

I like roasted whole chickens. I see the rotisserrie chickens at the store all the time and think, I should just grab one of those! But they usually get old and bland after a while. I wanted something with more flavor and spice. I figured I could find some time somehow to roast a chicken. And magically, I made Caribbean-Spiced Roast Chicken with Dirty Rice yesterday.

My problem with meats that require attention (e.g. basting) and take a long time to cook (e.g. roast chicken) usually require a significant amount of time. Alas, since I am pretty obsessive about working out at Primal most days and don't get home until well past 9:00 pm, this usually nixes these kinds of dishes. I took a risk and decided to pop the chicken in the oven before going to the gym, cooking it initially on high heat, and then letting it slow cook while at the gym the rest of the way. It could have been a disaster and I could have returned to raw or burnt chicken. But it was a thing of beauty.

I took a 3 pound chicken and tied the legs up and rinsed it with cold water while I preheated the oven to 380. I brushed vegetable oil over the entire thing and then spread a spice rub all over it made of:

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves

In retrospect, I could have used an entire teaspoon of cayenne pepper, but the 1/2 tsp was already double the spice rub recipe I had found in the first place. Regardless, the combination of sweet and spicy was perfect and amazing. Anyway, throw this on a roasting rack and let cook for 50 minutes.

During this 45 minutes, you will baste this sucker every 10 minutes or so with a mixture of two shots of rum (I used Flor de Cana which was on hand), the juice of 1 lime, and 1 TBSP sugar in the raw (or brown sugar). Then, I was ready to go to Primal, so I put a cooking stone in the bottom rack, turned off the oven and then shut it to keep the warmth in. An hour and a half later when I came back from class, I had perfectly cooked chicken, ready to eat, and still warm.

While this was baking during the first 45 minutes, I also made a improv Dirty Rice to serve the chicken with. I knew I needed something spicy enough to hold up to the chicken and wanted to incorporate vegetables and healthy carbs. I had a leftover spicy italian sausage from making chili and tortellini, so I took it out of the casing, sauteed that in a little bit of vegetable oil with half an onion, chopped roughly, 1 tsp minced garlic, and 2 sliced serrano peppers. Then I added 1 cup of long grain brown rice and sauteed for about 5 minutes to allow the rice to toast and absorb the delicious sausage drippings. About a cup of beef broth leftover from making chili and a 14.5 oz can of whole stewed tomatoes (squished by hand) also got thrown in with some black pepper and I set the whole thing to simmer until I left (about 35 minutes or so).

Much to my chagrin, since brown rice takes longer, it was not ready and I didn't have enough liquid. So I added another 1/2 cup of water, let it simmer, turned off the burner (I have electric so this was perfect which allowed my rice to keep cooking), then covered it tightly and let it do its thing while I went to the gym. It was almost perfectly cooked when I came back and still warm and happy.

Quick Post Workout Fuel

2008-12-11T10:47:00.003-05:00

Since I work out until about 9:00pm or later most days, having a full blown dinner is not always an option given that means I'm often eating dinner at 11:00pm. I wanted something quick and healthy with the proper balance of protein and carbs to refuel from a hard workout. Note to self: sprinting laps while suffering work-related angst = legs in pain next day. I had let some jumbo shrimp defrost in the fridge overnight, and a quick scan of my fridge showed I had the makings for Pesto Shrimp Linguine.

I set some water to boil for the linguine, which I made by slicing some leftover eggroll wrappers thin. While that was getting ready to boil, I took about 1 tsp of olive oil, 1 TBSP jarred pesto (which is the best thing to keep on hand... its great for easy pasta, to smother in sandwiches, everything), 1 tsp red pepper flakes, and 1 heaping tsp minced garlic (again, I use the pre-minced stuff that comes in a jar when I'm short on time) and sauteed everything in a skillet for about 3-4 minutes.

I threw a handful of string beans in to cook on medium high heat for a couple minutes. I put them in first because shrimp takes little to no time to cook and is awful when overcooked. Always put in shrimp last. When they were almost done, the water was boiling and I threw in the pasta. Since it was fresh pasta, it takes about a minute to cook and even then, you want to undercook the noodles since you'll finish them in the skillet. I threw the linguine in the strainer, ran cold water over and a lil olive oil to prevent sticking.

Then I threw in about 8-10 jumbo shrimp into the skillet. I love the frozen bags of raw shrimp which are already deveined. The ones that split the back and keep the shells on are my favorite because I think having the shell during cooking helps keep the juices in, but it does make it a bit of a pain in the ass to eat. Pumped the heat up to high and then right after the shrimp turned mostly pink, I threw in a tiny pat of butter, the linguine, and a couple teaspoons of water to deglaze the bottom of the pan as I tossed everything together. Throw on a plate, garnish with parmesan and cracked pepper, and voila. Instant happiness on a plate.

Cap'n Morgan Balls o' Greatness

2008-12-11T10:24:00.004-05:00

Christmas is that time of year I dread a bit and embrace at the same time. I hate the neverending Christmas music, sending Christmas cards, the whirlwind travel, and the emptying of my wallet. I love Christmas lights, snow, snowball fights (though those are lacking in this wasteland of not-quote-cold-enough-for-snow-ever), hot chocolate, things that taste of pumpkin, and last but not least, Christmas cookies. One of the few amazing things the folks at the church my parents forced us to go to as a child was the cookie swap, where all the churchgoing mothers brought a couple dozen cookies. Then, for a couple bucks, each kid got a tin coffee can or brown paper bag and got to stuff it full of whatever kind o' cookie they wanted. One of my favorites was the Cocoa Rum Balls. Sure, they were prolly non-alcoholic, but I went on a mission to soothe my work-frazzled nerves and decided to make some that packed more punch. Of course, a couple of the guys at Primal Fitness decided to mar my memory of rum ball deliciousness by comparing them to Captain Morgan and his balls... ha.

I took 1 (12 ounce) package Nilla wafers (don't get the generic brand, this is one time where you can taste the difference) and pulverized them into dust in my blender. It took two batches but its worth not having huge chunks for consistency. I did the same with about 1.5 cups of pecans. Mix those in a big ass bowl with 1/4 cup Ghiardelli unsweetened cocoa and 3/4 cups confectioner's sugar. My cousin works for Ghiardelli so I often feel compelled to buy their products. I'm sure Hershey's would work just fine.

Now, although the recipe calls for light corn syrup, I believe it is pure evil brough upon us by the food industry. Plus, Safeway didn't have any that I could see, which is probably smarter anyway since it just makes people crave more sugar and then get fat and does all sorts of crazy shit to your sugar levels. Anyway, I subbed in 3 TBSP agave nector, which worked amazingly well and has a very low glucose level so it doesn't mess with your system as badly. Plus, its all natural and made from the same plant as mescal and tequila, so it automatically gets alcoholic cool points there.

Mix the agave nector together with 1/2 cup of rum. I used a little more than 1/2 cup and I used Flor de Cana (the 5 year) because its a lighter rum but packs a nice punch. I also have fond memories of Flor de Cana rum from Nicaragua, and my food choices and cooking inspiration often comes from my personal experience. I like to get messy so I mixed it by hand. Then you roll the "dough" into one inch balls (hehe balls), roll 'em in confectioner's sugar, or as I prefer, sugar in the raw, and line 'em up on parchment paper. Store in an airtight container, stick 'em in the fridge. Note that the flavors actually improve over time, so resist the urge to eat them all right away. Wait at least 2 to 3 days for maximum alcoholic deliciousness.

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta

2008-12-10T10:55:00.011-05:00

For some reason, I've been uber-motivated to cook lately. I love to feed people. Its probably one of the few "homebody" types of things I enjoy. The mothering instinct maybe. Or maybe I just like good food and its always more fun to cook for two. Either way, my brain has been on overload with new recipes and things I want to try and my trips to the grocery store have been more inspired. I had planned to make a shrimp pesto linguine dish, but the leftover sausage and ground turkey in my refridgerator were just calling to be used. So I decided to make some food that could be frozen and done up quickly as late night snacky food since I had been overdosing on Korean dumpings as my standby late night fix. Spicy Sausage Spinach Goat Cheese Tortellini was born out of leftovers in my food stores.

I have no idea what the measurements were... guesstimating... I cooked together over medium heat on my stove about 1 spicy italian sausage link with the casing removed, 1/4 pound of ground turkey, 1 cup of frozen spinach, and 1 tsp red pepper flakes until most of the moisture was gone. You do not want runny insides for your ravioli, so err on the side of trying to get out most of the moisture. I put this mixture in the fridge for about 20 minutes to cool. Once cooled, I mixed in the leftover bit of herbed goat cheese, it was probably about 4 TBSP?, and 1/2 cup of finely shredded part skim mozzarella. Cracked some black pepper over everything and the filling of the ravioli mixture was born.

Once upon a time, I used to make everything from scratch. I meticulously made pasta from scratch, made my own bread, blah blah blah. Who has time to do that all the time? Certainly not me. I still like to make things from scratch, but fresh baked bread and handrolled pasta are now reserved for special occasions. The secret to doing quick dumplings, ravioli, tortellini, whatever are the pre-made asian wonton wrappers. If you can the round ones which are generally only sold at asian groceries, those are preferable. The itty bitty Safeway by my place only sells the square wonton wrappers, but they are convenient enough to be worth it.

I usually set up a little station with a big cutting board in front of my TV and pop in a good movie to make these. A lil cup o' water to seal the edges, the wonton wrappers, the mixture, some kitchen scissors, and a baking tray lined with parchment paper... take a small tsp of mixture and place in the middle of the wrapper, wet the seam and fold in half. Now with the square wrappers, I trim off the corners so the whole thang looks like a half circle at this point and then you take the two edges, wet one and press together. Place each one on the parchment paper so they don't touch. When done, stick in the freezer for about 30 minutes before putting into a freezer bag so they don't stick.

Served with some marinara sauce and a lil extra mozzarella cheese on top. Perfect way to use up leftover anything. Seriously, you could stuff almost anything in these and it would be great because its inside a pasta wrapper. I think I like the tortellini shape better than ravioli. Mostly because its fun to say tortellini. And now I'm just getting silly. Huzzah.

Winter Cravings

2008-12-10T10:35:00.003-05:00

Summer has come and gone and I've neglected my food musings. Summer and fall usually mean I'm outside whenever possible and the idea of spending time over the stove usually gives way to the call of camping, whitewater kayaking, parkour, biking, hiking, be what it may. But the weather is cold, and I love curling up in my cozy apartment with a good movie and a hot plate of food with my monkey boy wonder. The last cold snap had me wasting time on my lunch break at work reviewing chili recipes. Washabinaros Chili caught my eye because of the strange ingredient combination and it looked like it would pack a punch.

In two TBSP of vegetable oil, I sauteed together two onions roughly chopped, 4 cloves of minced garlic (okay, I cheated and used the pre-minced stuff that comes in jars), 1 pound of lean ground turkey (the recipe called for ground beef, but I like to try to make healthy substitutions that won't compromise flavor), and 3/4 pounds of spicy italian sausauge with the casing removed, in a big ass stock pot until the meat was cooked. To this, I added:

1 (14.5 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes with juice
3/4 bottle of Delerium Nocturnum... the big bottle (or other dark beer, Guinness or any other stout would work well, but this Belgian beer packs a punch... plus you get to drink the rest while you cook!)
2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
2 cups organic beef broth (I like Pacific brand)
1/4 cup chili powder
1 TBSP ground cumin
1/8 cup sugar in the raw
1 tsp dried oregano
1 TBSP cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp sea salt
1 TBSP wasabi powder

Bring all this to a boil and then cover and let simmer while you prepare the peppers. Chop 2 Anaheim chile peppers, 2 serrano peppers, and 2 habanero peppers... okay, so the recipe only called for 1 serrano and 1 habanero, but we like it spicy... I could have easily added another habanero and it would have been perfect. In order to take advantage of the full spiciness of the peppers and draw the flavors out, heat 2 TBSP vegetable oil in a skillet and cook the peppers until they wilt a bit. Then add them to the pot with 3 cans of dark red kidney beans. I let this simmer for about 45 minutes before I got too hungry and wanted to eat.

The chili had a wonderfully rich and complex flavor and the kick from the habaneros and wasabi were perfect. This is one of those cold winter night meaty conconctions that would have been perfect served with slices of toasted crusty french bread. Alas, we had no french bread. But garnished with jalapeno jack cheese and sliced scallions, it was satisfying. This recipe makes enough for 8 overly generous servings and saves really well. It also tastes better reheated the next day.

Post-Parkour Bulgogi Feast

2008-10-13T13:27:00.004-04:00

The boys and I went out to Great Falls to play on the rocks and what better to bring to a picnic than Bulgogi?

2 pound marbled sirloin (or venison steak, or really any meat)
1 small onion, sliced thin
4 green onions, sliced thin

1 pear, peeled and mashed
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBS rice wine (can substitute either white cooking wine or rice wine vinegar)
4 TBS sugar
2 TBS sesame oil
8 TBS low sodium japanese or korean soy sauce (a/k/a do not use crappy LaChoy)
1 TBS toasted sesame seeds

Put the sirloin in the freezer for about an hour before slicing. Slice it super thin against the grain. The slices should be at least 2" in diameter. Mix the marinade, add the green and regular onion, and then toss in the sirloin in a big ziplock. Use tongs or your hands to make sure the marinade gets to all the pieces. Throw in the fridge overnight (or marinate for at least two hours).

When using an outdoor grill, you want the coals very hot so the beef cooks in almost an instant and you get carmelization of both the onions and the beef. Once the coals are hot, cover with a double layer of tinfoil with a few holes poked in it to allow for ventilation to the coals and for any excess marinade to cook off. Place the pieces of beef in a single layer and cook on both sides. Since it is cut so thin, it should cook very quickly. I like to take the beef off first and let the onions cook until golden brown. Wrap a couple pieces up with green leaf lettuce, and something spicy like kimchi, siracha, or kochujang, and enjoy hot off the grill!

You can also make marinated veggies to wrap with the beef. Use fresh string beans, carrots sliced into matchstick size, bean sprouts, spinach, or anything else that sounds good. Blanch the veggies (bring water to a boil, throw the veggie in for about 2 minutes, then put in an ice bath or cheat and put in a strainer and run cold water over it until the veggies are not hot anymore). Toss with a mixture that is equal parts soy sauce, sesame oil, and a dash of rice wine vinegar. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and salt if needed. Refridgerate for at least an hour.

Moroccan Lamb Devastation

2008-07-15T11:31:00.007-04:00

My friend Sarah had asked me to teach her how to cook lamb after I mentioned the Moroccan Lamb with Shiraz Honey Glaze I made a couple months ago. She finally took me up on my offer of lamb education, but somehow, it turned into a small dinner party where we ate the equivalent of an entire lamb's ribs. But you cannot go wrong with Moroccan Lamb with Honey Shiraz Glaze atop a bed of Moroccan Couscous when you entertain.

The meat counter at Whole Paycheck nearly gave me a heart attack when I looked in display and ... gasp ... no rack of lamb. On a whim, I asked at the counter if they had racks of lamb by some miracle in the back, and they did. Ask and ye shall receive. Given that I was feeding two boys on top of Sarah, I decided to get two racks, which was just barely enough.

I did most of the slicing and dicing earlier to make the whole process a little easier. Sometimes my dinners become this crazy explosion in the kitchen and my life is twenty times more sane when I do all my prep first, and then cook later. I also enjoy the fruits of my labor more because I don't feel like I've been in the kitchen all day. Anyway, Sarah came over early to help cook, all giddy and nervous about her first lamb excursion. We oohed and aahed over the raw lamb, each taking control of one rack. We trimmed off a little bit of the fat so as to assuage the little voice in our heads. Then, we lovingly rubbed Ras El Hanout (doubled the recipe for two racks), a magical Moroccan spice blend all over the lamb while a cast iron skillet heated to medium high heat. This was much better than using high heat like I did the first time because it reduced smoking, still provided a nice sear, but made everything much more manageable.

Then placed these babies on baking sheet (with edges!) lined with tin foil and a rack and let them roast to perfection for 30 minutes at 400. No meat thermometer for us, we just trusted that 30 minutes was right and then took them out and let the juices rest while we made the shiraz honey glaze.

For some reason, the shiraz honey glaze didn't work as well this time. Its just a cup of shiraz with 1/3 cup of raw honey and the drippings from the pan. The glaze, well, didn't get glazy. I think we got impatient and should have let it reduce more. Looking back at my pictures from my first try, I must have had more patience because the glaze was thicker. But, it tasted good, so that's all that really matters.

Then, we sliced into the lamb. Like the dorks that all of us food lovers are, everything gathered around to take pictures. It was perfectly medium rare in most parts, some were a little closer to medium, but that was fine since Ali "El Oso" preferred those. I cannot begin to tell you how tender and succulent the lamb was. The sliced rib meat soaked up the glaze beautifully. Sarah found a perfect mellow Malbec that stood up to the lamb wonderfully and we all gorged.

The Moroccan Couscous blows all other couscous out of the water. It was amazingly easy to make. Place a large, heavy bottomed pot over medium heat. Stir in the about 1 tbsp of leftover Ras El Hanout and gently toast until fragrant, about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 red onion (cut in half and very thinly sliced) and cook until softened. Stir in 1 diced orange bell pepper and 2 diced zucchinis. Cook a couple minutes until half done. Add 1/2 cup golden raisins, 1 tsp sea salt, and 1 can of garbanzos (the recipe also called for orange zest, but I didn't want there to be an overly citrusy taste). Immediately pour in 1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth (I always prefer the broth out of the boxes since the cans leave a wierd tinny taste sometimes) and 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (valencias were on sale at Whole Paycheck and were perfect). Turn the heat all the way up and bring to a boil. Then stir in 1 1/2 cups french couscous (not the bigger israeli kind), remove from the heat, cover and let stand until you are ready to eat it. Now the recipe called for 3 tbsp fresh chopped mint which I think would have been awesome, but there was none to be found at the store. Sooooo, I sprinkled 1 tsp dried mint and toasted about 1/2 cup of sliced almonds and folded them in right before serving.

Warning! Warning! Warning! This recipe easily serves 8 very hungry people. Sarah thought the recipe risked overflowing my pot. It didn't, but I'm still eating the leftovers!

Because I am a compulsive entertainer, I also made a Moroccan inspired salad with an Orange Mint Vinaigrette to match the couscous and other flavors in the meal ... just in case there wasn't enough food. I totally made this up, but its probably one of the tastiest summer salads ever. I used a mixture of organic red and green leaf lettuce, Moroccan pistachios from Whole Paycheck (check the bulk food aisle -- there is a whole line of foreign country flavored nut mixes that are awesome) which had a little kick to them, roasted red beets, mandarin orange segments, sliced red onions, and golden raisins. Then I took some freshly squeezed orange juice, chilled brewed mint tea (this was a strong brew), red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and made a wonderful vinaigrette. It was the perfect starter.

Anyway, we polished off the night with some chocolate covered apricots and graham crackers that Sarah brought and Moroccan Mint Tea. The tea was simple, its half looseleaf green tea and half mint tea sweetened with agave nector. I used a wonderfully fragant green tea that I bought at a tea shop in Kuala Lumpur and it was the perfect ending to the feast. Sarah left clutching the magical Ras El Hanout recipe in hand and dreaming of an excuse to make this meal in the near future.

Real Actual Tomatoes

2008-06-28T13:49:00.003-04:00

I love Farmer's Markets. Living in a big urban sprawl means that grocery stores carry tomatoes which have been transported half green from California or Mexico. A friend of mine and I strolled through the Farmer's Market near our respective houses and we pounced on the reddest loveliest tomatoes we could find. The farmer had lovingly picked them the day before. These tomatoes were so red and firm that I couldn't resist. You could just smell the tomato-y-ness. We're still in what I dub the season of "Greens." Still too early in the season for a good variety of produce, but I nabbed the last of the Koi Spinach. With my goodies in hand, I went home and found all the fixings for Roasted Garlic Tomato Spinach Pizza.

I made some quick pizza dough sans recipe for the first time. Honey, olive oil, water, salt, yeast, millet flour, and whole wheat flour. I didn't measure anything. Just went by feel and it turned out pretty good. I only had time for a single rise, but that was okay. While the dough was rising, I preheated my oven and pizza stone to 480.

Then I thinly sliced about 5 big cloves of garlic. Paper thin. Tossed them with some olive oil and set my toaster oven on low heat for about 3 minutes. Just until the edges got barely golden. Then when I rolled out the dough, I covered it with the sliced garlic, created a thin layer of golden garlicky goodness. Then, on top went thick aromatic slices of tomato, a sprinkling of organic mozzarella cheese, and steamed spinach. 11 minutes later, I had a thing of beauty. I topped it with some fresh basil and ate the entire thing in one sitting!

Caribbean Summer...

2008-06-16T14:44:00.004-04:00

I have always loved the flavors of the Caribbean.

Plantains, lime, jicama, tomato, mango, chile... fresh produce connected by strong bold flavors. After spending the last few weekends out of town, from El Salvador, to Yosemite, to the Shenandoah, I finally found myself with a couple hours to spare after a fully-charged weekend (ran my first 10K and participated in a two-day parkour/free running seminar).

I had initially planned to do a grilled mahi fillet with mango-jicama salsa. No jicama to be found. Hmm. I strolled by the fish counter. Mahi was super expensive, but wild caught bay scallops were on sale. Bay scallops are known for their sweet flavor. Perfect -- Pan Roasted Bay Scallops with Mango Cucumber Salsa accompanied by Plantain Chips. Fast, healthy, and easy.

The Mango Cucumber Salsa was a simple mixture of the following ingredients finely diced: 1 small heirloom tomato, 1/4 cup vidalia onion, 5 inches of an english cucumber, 1 small ataulfo mango (aka champagne mango, aka lil yellow mango), a handful of cilantro, juice of 1 lime, and salt. The salsa was good, but lacked a good crunch which I thought the cucumber would provide. Jicama would have been perfect, but an unripe peach would do as well.

Normally, when I make Plantain Chips, they are done with green plantains and come out crunchy with a light char. However, this time, my plantain was closer to ripe than green, so when I lightly pan-fried these in my cast iron skillet on medium heat that was sprayed lightly with canola oil, they didn't crisp up like they normally do. They are still delicious, but need a closer eye because ripe plantains have more sugar which burns more quickly. These are sweet so its a good idea to throw a little salt for seasoning to offset the sweetness (but salt after they are done, not before). Its good to prep these by cutting at an angle and in thin slices regardless of how green or ripe your plantain is for quick even cooking. Throw these onto a plate with a paper towel until ready to serve.

Last but not least, rinse the bay scallops and throw into the same cast iron skillet and let brown a little each side. I had to spray the pan again with canola oil since they stuck a little, but you want some nice browning on the scallops to sear in the juices and flavor. I only seasoned them with salt. As these guys were cooking, I wilted about a cup of baby spinach in the microwave . I tossed the bay scallops around for about 3 minutes, and then turned the heat off. Its better to undercook scallops than overcook. Mine were just about perfect!

I served the scallops on top of the bed of wilted spinach and topped the whole shebang with my salsa. Hugely satisfying and the whole thing only took about 20 minutes to pull together from start to finish. Next time, I'll use a green plantain as the whole thing was a little too sweet. Green plantain would have perfectly balanced out the sweetness of the salsa and scallop.

Springtime Means...

2008-06-05T13:32:00.001-04:00

The ninja is too busy traveling and playing in dirt to make photo-worthy food. I'll be back, soon, and in full force.

Spicy, Tangy, Indian Perfection

2008-05-08T16:18:00.012-04:00

My Indian food fanatic and salsa partner in crime called me last week to tell me he couldn't go to New York with me (and I didn't even end up going), but that he would be free to make Indian food again if I wanted. I took the hint and it took us all of two seconds to decide on vindaloo, as we are both spice fiends. A couple minutes online coupled with his fantastically authentic Indian cookbook purchased at one of those expensive kitchen places like William-Sonoma, and the menu was set: Chicken Vindaloo, Nimona with Lentil Dumplings, and Wild Rice Pulao. My friend got put in charge of chutney again, this time, a coconut chutney which I don't have the recipe for and I threw together a very basic cilantro raita which isn't worth posting here when I have so much to say about the stars of the show. I am of the firm belief that all good spicy Indian meals should have a tangy chutney and a good raita to balance the palate.

Anyway, the dish that made the whole venture worth it was the Chicken Vindaloo. For those who don't know, this dish is a marriage of Portuguese and Indian flavors, and it is a beautiful marriage of tangy and spicy. This would work well with lamb or goat or beef or pork as well, but make sure you use a cut of meat that stands up well to long slow cooking, like pork leg or the stew meat. I don't think I would change a single thing in this recipe.

A couple hours before you want to actually eat, take about 1 1/2 pounds of boneless chicken thigh meat (fat trimmed) and cubed it and set it aside while you make the marinade. Since I have all the Indian spices on hand, this marinade took me literally 3 minutes to make. Take 6 cardamon seeds, 1 tsp black peppercorns, 4 dried red chiles (I used the kind you get at the latin markets), 1 tsp whole cloves, 4 inch cinnamon stick roughly broken, 1 tsp cumin seeds, and 1/2 tsp coriander seeds and ground them all together in a clean coffee grinder. I have a coffee grinder dedicated to spices. Believe me, fresh whole spices make so much difference in Indian cooking. Then, I mixed the ground spices with 1/2 tsp ground turmeric and 5 tbsp apple cider vinegar in a non-reactive bowl. Throw in the cubed chicken, toss, and let marinate for at least an hour. Mine marinated for almost 3 hours.

After (or while) the chicken marinates, finely slice 2 onions (think long and paper thin slices), 10 big garlic cloves, and a 2 inch piece of ginger (think matchstick-like when slicing). Roughly chope 3 ripe tomatoes, and 4 green chilis. This slicing takes a while and I always do it by hand. I used a huge skillet for cooking everything. Saute the onions until golden brown, then add the garlic and ginger and cook until the garlic is golden brown, and finally add the tomato and chili. I let the tomatos break down a little, and then created a round opening in the center of the skillet, turned up the heat a little, threw all of the marinated chicken in the center and let the outsides sear a bit. Then I added 1 cup of water and the leftover marinade liquid and 1 tsp raw sugar and stirred everything together. Reduce the heat, cover tightly and let simmer for about 45 minutes. For the last 10-15 minutes, cook with the lid off to release any extra liquid so its not too runny. Season with salt at the very end and voila! Garnish with fresh cilantro. This makes four generous servings, athough you'll want to eat more. Use chicken breast for a healthier option, although the chicken thigh is wonderfully moist.

I always like to accompany meat dishes with a nice healthy vegetarian side dish. I had some peas and lentils on hand already, and I remembered seeing an interesting recipe for a dish called Nimona, which I had never heard of before, on Mahanandi. This recipe used spring peas and also dried lentil dumplings, which are apparantly quite hard to find and so she subbed in potatos. I decided that the Lentil Dumplings sounded good enough that I would try to make my own since I didn't have time to hunt down these dried lentil dumplings.

This was quite a prep intensive dish and I found it best to prep everything beforehand and then make the lentil dumplings first. The only alteration to the way I would make this recipe again would be to keep the lentil dumplings separate and serve the pea and tomato mixture OVER the dumplings rather than mixing the dumplings in. Since the dumplings are a little delicate, half of them broke apart when I stirred everything together, but it still tasted wonderful.

The lentil dumplings were pretty easy to make, and I liked having them cooked in a different way than the typical boiling or pureeing cooked lentils. Take 1/2 cup of lentils (I used red split lentils) and soak for 2-3 hours. Pulse in a food chopper with 1 red chili, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 cup of finely chopped onion, and a dash of salt. You want a nice coarse paste. I actually ended up adding a little extra water to get mine to look properly pasty, then microwaved the paste for about 30 seconds to get it to a proper stage of mushiness for forming the dumplings. Then, take the paste and form small lemon shaped balls about the size of a whole walnut and place the balls in a steaming basket. You want to steam these for 7-8 minutes -- its pretty cool, the dumplings get bigger in the basket so be sure to have enough space to accomodate for the growth. Then, while I prepped everything else, I stuck the whole steaming basket (mine is metal) in the oven on very low, like 300 degrees, for about 25 minutes so they would get a nice crust.

Then, In a big pan, saute and add in this order:
2 bay leaves
A puree made of 2 onions, 3 garlic cloves, 1 inch ginger, and 1/4 cup cilantro
A puree made of 4 tomatoes
1 cup of mashed peas
1 cup of whole peas
[this is where I added the lentil dumplings, but I see my note above]
2 cloves, 2 cardamon seeds, and 1 small cinnamon stick powdered together
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup water [see how watery your tomatoes are, mine were very juicy so I didn't need much water]

Stir together then let simmer for about 15 minutes on medium heat covered. Then let sit another 15-20 minutes for the flavors to blend. This was the perfect pairing with the vindaloo. It was spicy and flavorful so it held up well on its own and wasn't overpowered by the vindaloo, but it was mild enough that you didn't feel like your mouth was on fire the entire meal. My salsa partner in crime ended up taking ALL of the leftovers, and this makes a lot of Nimona, and eating them the next day. I say this makes 4 servings, but this is 4 meal-sized servings. Its more like 8 side dish servings...

And last, but certainly not least, Wild Rice Pulao. I didn't cheat this time like I did with the Aromatic Rice. I cannot recommend the Aromatic Rice recipe since, well, I cheated on that one. I won't even link to it because its so, well, lazy. This turned out pretty well, but probably could have used little more cumin.

Take 1/8 tsp saffron threads (mine I bought for ridiculously cheap in Cambodia and brought back with me) and 1/8 tsp ground turmeric and let steep in 3 cups of boiling water. Saute 2 finely chopped shallots in 1 tbsp canola oil until golden brown. Then add 1 small cinnamin stick, 2 whole cloves, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1 tbsp ground cumin, and 1 clove garlic finely minced, 5 cardamon seeds. Cooke for 3 or 4 minutes to release the flavors and then add 2 1/4 cups wild rice and saute for 10 minutes. It is important to stir constantly so it doesn't stick. Then add 1/2 cup greek yogurt, the saffron/turmeric water, and 1 tsp sea salt. Cover the pot with a dish towel and then place the lid on top. Reduce heat to low and cook for about 45 minutes. Let sit covered for 10 minutes with the lid on after you remove it from heat. Remove the cinnamin sticks, cloves, and cardamon seeds before serving. Makes 6 generous servings.

Perfecting Whole Grain Breads

2008-04-27T20:13:00.004-04:00

Today I think may have been one of my most successful whole grain ventures. As I get more and more used to working with whole grains, I've noticed that my intuitive feel of how much bread should rise, or how much flour to incorporate, or how much gluten to use has really come into play. I like crust. I like it a lot. And so, I wanted to make some sandwich rolls for work that would have a nice chewy inside, but have the requisite crust to hold up to sandwich fillings, and aren't too tall. There's nothing worse than too much bread and not enough filling. These Barley Wheat Sandwich Rolls were perfect. I made them flatter than a typical roll, but they still had a good lift and nice moist crumb. I ate two straight out of the oven slathered with pumpkin butter.

I proofed 1.5 tsp active dry yeast in 1 cup warm water with about 1 tbsp raw honey. Then I mixed in a separate bowl 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup barley flour, 1/2 cup wheat bran, 1/4 cup unbleached bread flour, 1 tsp salt, and 2 tbsp gluten. I stirred in the liquids plus about 1/2 tbsp olive oil. Once it was blended, I let it sit for 15 minutes covered. The reason why you do this is to help the dough relax and become easier to work. The extra gluten also helps in that respect. I kneaded this for about 5 minutes until I got a nice springy dough. Since whole grains, and especially the wheat bran absorb lot of water, I didn't have to really add anymore flour like one would expect at this point in time. Its really important not to use too much flour. I put my dough in a lightly oiled bowl, rolled the dough around so it was coated, then covered it and allowed it to rise for about an hour until doubled.

Once it doubled, I divided my dough into 16 pieces, rolled each piece into a ball, then flattened it to about 1/4 inch thick and laid each piece out on parchment paper. They look really small at this point, but no worries. The dough circle should be about the size of a woman's palm. Make sure there is some room in between each dough circle, then cover and let rise again for another hour. They should rise to at least 1/2 - 3/4 inch tall. I baked mine at 400 degrees for 13 minutes on a baking stone with a heated pan on the rack below. Squirt about 1/2 cup of water in the pan with a sports bottle right before you shut the oven door. This is what allows you to get the nice crust with the moist chewy inside. These almost remind me of very fluffy mini-pitas. Of course, if you like bigger sandwiches, you could easily just do 8 pieces and then double the nutritional information.

Curing the Blahs

2008-04-27T19:22:00.010-04:00

Today was a blah day. Just felt really blah. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe its my aching leg muscles. Had to cancel my personal training session. Blah. Had some major brainstorming for food for work this week, and had a blah day at Whole Paycheck. First, it was cold and crappy out. Second, I accidentally bought cilantro instead of parsley for the pesto I was going to make. Third, I was completely unmotivated to make the lasagna noodles for the lasagna I was going to make for the week. So I found myself standing in my kitchen, staring at an eggplant and cilantro, and figured I make do. I started with figuring out a way to make pesto anyway. Hmm. Well, cilantro pesto would be great, but not for lasagna. Maybe to slather in a taco. Blah.

Kind of robot-like, I started with a recipe for parsley and walnut pesto pulled out of an old Cooking Light magazine. And then it hit me. It was genius. I eyed the baby spinach in my fridge. Spinach is green. So is pesto. And slowly but surely, a fragrant Spinach Rosemary Walnut Pesto was born. This is a nice change from the typical pestos, the walnut adds a wonderful richness to the pesto and the pungent rosemary shines through.

I threw 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, 1 tbsp olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, 4 cloves of garlic chopped, 1 cup of fresh baby spinach, 1 tsp rosemary, 1 tsp dried basil, and salt and pepper to taste into my mini-food chopper and pulverized it until it resembled pesto. I finally figured out how to do a screen shot of the nutritional information! This is the nutritional information for 3 servings.

Because I was feeling to blah to make lasagna noodles, I decided to grill slices of eggplant on my George Foreman grill with no oil to get the char marks, and use those in place of noodles. Besides, they fit perfectly into my round tupperwares so I could make several mini-"lasagnas" for work. For the picture, though, I decided to cut the eggplant into quarters and have since concluded this would also make a great starter. Anyway, Grilled Eggplant with Sweet Potato and Rosemary Pesto may become a new staple. The thick slices of eggplant pair perfectly with creamy ricotta cheese blended with the pesto and cooked sweet potato. The sweet potato and rosemary in the pesto offset each other perfectly and the bright flavor of tomato draws everything together. This dish can be served cold or warm.

Anyway, take 1 regular eggplant and cut it into 1/4 inch discs. Grill for about 4 minutes on a George Foreman grill until you get nice grill marks. While the eggplant is grilling, mix together 1 cup part skim ricotta cheese, 1 small sweet potato cooked and mashed (I just threw mine in the microwave for 6 minutes then removed the skin), and about half the pesto recipe. Have 1 can of no salt added crushed tomatoes open and ready to go. Thats it.

Put a small spoonful of crushed tomato down, then place a piece of grilled eggplant on top. Put a generous dollop of the ricotta mixture on top, and top with more tomato. Repeat. I usually did towers of 4 pieces of eggplant, and then the top eggplant, I just spooned some tomato on top and grated with parmesan cheese. This makes four servings (and the serving size is about four times bigger than the photo -- I had to do the presentation piece with a straggler piece of eggplant) and the nutritional information includes the pesto as well.

Recipes By Category

2008-04-27T18:22:00.022-04:00

Bread

Soup

Appetizer/Side

Entree

Dessert

Cheese

Ricotta Cheese

Pickles

Beer

Irish Red Ale

Other

Making Art of Leftovers

2008-04-23T15:08:00.004-04:00

During the week, dinner is not so much an art, but an exercise in using up leftovers. It is usually a simple affair, but this one warranted a posting. I don't eat pork products often, but my inspired Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Prosciutto Stuffed Morels and Asparagus had filled my fridge with leftover asparagus and prosciutto. And so, tired and bleary eyed, I knew my asparagus had to be eaten quickly or else die a fiberous death in my fridge. Hmm. Grilled Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus seemed as good as anything. Simple, easy, and fast, perfect for a midweek dinner. Since the recipe analyzer doesn't seem to want to recognize prosciutto, I guestimate the caloric content of this to be around 150 calories.

I took about 12 stalks of asparagus and trimmed them to 6 inches. I took 3 pieces of leftover prosciutto, trimmed the fatty edge off, and then cut each one into four square-ish looking pieces. Each piece got wrapped around the asparagus stalk, then rolled in a combination of cracked black pepper and thyme.

I plugged in my George Foreman grill and away we went. About 4 minutes later, pure crusty perfection and perfectly cooked asparagus. I couldn't believe how easy it was. This is something I would serve as an appetizer at a dinner party. On a side note, this is also perfect for when you get those really fat pieces of asparagus that don't have the subtle flavors of the young delicate ones. The prosciutto creates a perfect paring to mask the fact that you don't have the most perfect asparagus. Not that I would ever buy less-than-perfect produce...

Impulse Buys and What to Do With Them

2008-04-23T11:02:00.005-04:00

In my excitement of finding a relatively well-stocked latino grocery store within 10 minutes walking distance from my house, I stocked up on random things that are generally not found at Whole Paycheck or the Soviet Safeway. Dried anchi chili peppers. Hmm. These had been sitting and mocking my lack of planning for a while now. These are a staple of Mexican food, from chili to moles to tamales. But really, I had no idea what to do with them.

Allrecipes.com to the rescue ... I found a recipe for ancho chili honey glaze, which I modified to become Ancho Chile Honey Glazed Chicken Thighs. I was going to use chicken breasts, but I prefer to cook chicken on the bone and the cooking method, braising, works so much better with dark meat than white meat. Besides, thighs were on sale. This dish has a dark smoky flavor with a kick, a slightly sweet edge because of the glaze, and a cool finish with the creamy yogurt topping. I didn't do a nutritional analysis because this recipe made an insane amount of the glaze and an equally insane amount of the mixture in which the thighs are braised. Which is not a bad thing, since it creates leftovers for use in other ways. But it made it hard to get an accurate picture of what the nutrition would be.

I heated my cast iron pan on medium-high heat on the stove and seared 4 chicken thighs on both sides until golden brown and then set the thighs aside. Then, I sauteed 1/2 onion and 2 cloves minced garlic until soft and starting to brown. Then I added 1 dried ancho chile pepper (chopped, stemmed, and seeded), 1 can of no salt added diced tomatos (pureed in a food chopper but still slightly chunky), 1 tbsp tomato paste, 1 cup homemade chicken broth, 1 heaping tsp ground cumin, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp cayenne, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring this to a boil and return the chicken thighs to the pan. Then, cover with tin foil and bake for about 1 hour on 350 degrees. Just throw the whole cast iron pan in there.

Then, while the chicken is slowly cooking, you prepare the glaze. Take 3 dried ancho chile peppers (stemmed and seeded) and boil them, then soak for about 10 minutes in 2 cups of water. Reserve about 1/2 cup or more of the cooking water. Throw the reconstituted chiles in a blender with the reserved cooking water, 1/4 cup raw honey, and 1 tsp lemon or orange zest (I used lemon zest) and set aside. Super easy. You could easily make this glaze separately for any meat like lamb or beef and it would be awesome even without braising the meat. But next time, I would cut this recipe in half since it made a huge amount of glaze.

Now, pull the chicken out of the oven and increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Lightly oil a roasting pan (I just used a small pie dish), and take your chicken thighs and put them meaty side facing up on the pan. Set aside the tomato mixture. Brush the glaze over the meat and return to the oven for another 6-8 minutes or until a crust forms. Now, I think I made my glaze too thick because I didn't get any nice crystallizing action in the form of a crust. The thicker texture is perfect for smearing on sandwiches or burgers or quesadillas, but not for created a crust. But, in the end, the chicken was delicious, crust or not.

Finally, while the meat is resting 5 minutes, mix some chopped up cilantro in skim greek yogurt. I served the chicken on top of steamed greens, with a huge spoonful of the tomato braising mixture, and a dollop of yogurt on top. Even though the glaze was pretty good, I think the best part was the braising mixture, which had so much flavor and was a perfect match with the chicken. The glaze would probably be better with lamb or beef or venison.

Savory Flava' of Italy

2008-04-20T12:06:00.007-04:00

Leftover gnocchi, plus asparagus on sale at Whole Foods, plus fresh morel mushrooms at the Farmer's Market just cried out for a gourmet lunch on this rainy crappy day. This was fast and easy given the fact the gnocchi was already made ahead of time. Sometimes I wonder why I ever go out to eat at all (which I rarely do) when I can throw together Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Prosciutto Stuffed Morels and Asparagus. This dish had a better balance of savory to sweet. The gnocchi themselves have a slightly sweet taste and the prosciutto's bold flavor wonderfully permeates both the morel mushrooms and helps balance the sweetness of the gnocchi. The asparagus adds a perfect crunch to finish this dish off. This rates pretty well for nutrition, although the calorie analyzer would not recognize prosciutto so I had to manually calculate the nutrition in. This recipe makes enough topping for one serving of gnocchi and comes in at a mere 120 calories (on top of the gnocchi, that's about 300 calories total), with 3.6g fat (.5g saturated), 15mg cholesterol, 720mg sodium, 11.6 carbs, 3.1g dietary fiber, 3.5g sugars, 13.8g protein, 20% vitamin A, 21% vitamin C, 5% calcium, and 18% iron.

Take two slices of prosciutto and trim off the line of fat (you can leave it in if you don't care about saturated fat). Cut one slice into thin strips and saute in a skillet until crispy and then remove from the pan and onto a paper towel. Then, saute about 2 tbsp thinly sliced shallot, 1 clove of garlic sliced thinly, and 5 or 6 stalks of asparagus cut into 1 inch pieces in the skillet. As that is cooking, slice the other piece of prosciutto into about 5 or 6 even pieces, or one pieces for each morel mushroom you have. I had five morel mushrooms so I did five pieces. Err on the side of using less prosciutto than more since it is a salty and strong meat and you don't want to overpower the flavor of the morel.

(Side bar, for those who do not know how to prepare morels, cut the stem off at the base of fresh morels, then soak in warm water to remove all the dirt for about 5 minutes. Then squeeze out some of the moisture and put on a paper towel until ready to use. For dry morels, you can reconstitute them by boiling them gently in water, broth, or milk depending on what flavor you want. Again, squeeze out some of the moisture and you are ready to go)

Then, roll up each piece and stuff it inside the cavity of the morel. If you can't fit the whole piece in, just trim it and don't force the whole thang in.

Okay, so now your shallots, garlic, and asparagus are done (about 5 minutes assuming you sliced them really thingly), push them to the edges of the pan, and put the morels in the center and let cook a minute or so on each side on medium heat so that the prosciutto cooks and plumps a bit and the morels absorb their moisture. Right after you put the morels in, put your prepared gnocchi in on the edges. Once the morels have had a minute on each side, squeeze half a lemon over everything, throw in your reserved cooked prosciutto, and add some cracked pepper to taste. Then slowly stir everything together and cook 1 or 2 more minutes. Serve with a small amount of grated parmesan (don't use too much since this is also salty!) and relish every single bite. Try to get a piece of prosciutto, asparagus, and gnoccchi in each bite. Enjoy the morels on their own with the prosciutto stuffed inside or alongside the asparagus.

Flavors of Italy

2008-04-19T20:22:00.009-04:00

Lazy Saturday night. Feeling a little anti-social and having been up since 7:00 am preparing for my long run, didn't feel like doing a whole lot other than relaxing. I had spent some time looking at new recipes while waiting for the Comcast guy (who seemed to think I was a teenager and was shocked to find out that I am the ripe old age of 28) had to sort out some block on Comcast's end while he was installing my internet. My self-imposed digital exile is at an end, and all because of cooking. My only frustration with not having internet was not being able to look up recipes or caloric information over the weekend. I loved not having internet since I sit at a computer all freaking day long. But Comcast had a deal, only $25 bucks a month for 6 months before it kicks up, so I caved in. For the sake of food of course. Plus, now I can food blog on the weekends instead of drafting all of my food commentary at home and then shuttling it to work on a USB drive and uploading while I have my morning coffee or lunch. Kudos all around.

Anyway, I've never cooked with fennel before. I knew it had kind of a licorice kind of flavor, like anise. It's used more in French cooking, I think. But I digress. I wanted to use it and I saw a recipe in Cooking Light that looked promising. It was a gnocchi dish which called for fennel, but used a prepackaged gnocchi. Well, that wouldn't do. Prepackaged is not part of my personal food philosophy. That, and as much as potatoes are a whole food, they don't have that much nutritional value in comparison to other foods. And so, I managed to find a recipe for sweet potato gnocchi. Perfecto. Instant new classic -- Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sausage, Roasted Red Pepper, and Fennel.

The gnocchi recipe makes two serving and is rated A for nutrition. Each serving has 176 calories, .5g fat, 0 cholesterol, 340mg sodium, 36.4g carbs, 2.8g dietary fiber, 4g sugars, 6.3g protein, 219% vitamin A, 19% vitamin C, 3% calcium, and 11% iron.

I made the sweet potato gnocchi first. I microwaved 1 small sweet potato for 5 minutes. Its key to slightly overcook the sweet potato (to get a similar texture as baking) because you want a drier sweet potato for fluffy results. Then I let it cool for about 10 minutes and then peeled off the skin and ate it as my cooking snack. I suppose you could throw it away, but that's where half the vitamins are, and well, my stomach was grumbling because my metabolism was still revved from my morning run. Then, I mashed that with 1 clove of garlic minced, 1/4 tsp fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, and 1 egg white. I just used a fork so as not to overwork the starches. I think next time I will try to grate the cooked sweet potato rather than go straight to mashing for additional lightness. It will become a smooth paste and then slowly add it about 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or as much as you need) for it to become a workable dough. By workable, I mean something you can handle with floured hands. It is soooo important not to use too much flour because thats when you get the heavy dense gummy gnocchi that you often get in sub-par restaurants. You should have more sweet potato than flour!

When the dough is workable (and should still feel very flexible), flour your hands, and roll into dowels lightly. Don't squish the dough too much or you get that denseness. It should be about as fat as your pinky. Then, slice them into 1 inch pieces.

Then, bring a pot of water with a generous pinch of salt to a boil, have an ice water bath in a big bowl waiting nearby, and start slowly dropping the gnocchi in one by one. I say slowly because you don't want the boil to stop. If you dump them all in at once, the temperature of the water drops too much. Anyway, I put about a third in, waited a bit, then started dropping the rest in slowly. After a few minutes, the first few should start to float. Be prepared with a slotted spoon and scoop the floating gnocchi out immediately and transfer to the ice bath. Start adding the last of the gnocchi, and wait patiently as the little pillows of happiness start floating, scooping them out as they pop up. When all are done, keep about 1/4 cup of the cooking water for later, and dump the rest. Drain the ice bath and then take another bowl with 1 tsp olive oil in the bottom, and transfer the cooked gnocchi into the bowl. Toss with the oil and set aside. You can use as much as you want for this meal, or set some aside in a tupperware in the fridge. These will keep up to 2 days. I saved one portion for another gnocchi recipe I want to try tomorrow.

Once the gnocchi were done, I was able to focus on what I was going to put on top of the gnocchi. This is a wonderful combination of chicken sausage, fennel, and roasted red peppers which makes for a savory sweet combination that was perfect with the sweet potato gnocchi. This part of the dish was made just for 1 serving at 236 calories with 15.9g fat (4.8g saturated), 40mg cholesterol, 393mg sodium, 12.3g carbs, 3.6g dietary fiver, 5g sugars, 11.3g protein, 41% vitamin A, 146% vitamin C, 6% calcium, and 8% iron.

I browned 1/3 of a Whole Foods-made apple spice chicken sausage (casing removed), about 1.6 oz in 1/2 tsp olive oil. Then I removed the sausage and set it aside, and cooked on medium 1/2 cup of thinly sliced red onion and 1/2 cup thinly sliced fennel bulb for about 10-15 minutes until almost carmelized. While the onion and fennel were cooking, I roasted a red bell pepper in my toasted oven. This is an easy process to create roasted red peppers. I set my toaster to broil, then cut the red pepper in half and put each half on tin foil with the skin side up. Let them broil until the skins are black. If you have a gas stove, you can also char the skin just by putting the pepper skin directly to the flame. Make sure you get a good even char all over.

Let them cool when they come out as the steam from cooling will make it easy to remove the char. Once they are cool enough to hand, either peel by hand or use a spoon to scrape the char off. If you charred a whole pepper, you can put it in a plastic bag and rub the char off, but I find that gets kind of messy.

Its okay if a little char is left on... thats what gives it the nice smoky roasted flavor. Once all the char is off, it should look like this.

Okay, so once the fennel and onion are nicely cooked and soft, add back in the gnocchi, the cooked sausage, throw in 1/2 a roasted red pepper sliced thinly, 1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley, some cracked black pepper, and grate some parmesan into the dish. When its warmed, serve with some parmesan grated on top. Absolutely fantastic!

Hot Summer Days and Cooling Foods

2008-04-19T18:31:00.005-04:00

Today was the first real day that felt like summer. It was over 80 degrees out and sunny. After my morning run, all I was craving was something cooling and soothing. I also had the realization that I haven't been eating enough good fats lately, and so I wanted something with avocado. I quick search online revealed a recipe from Runner's World that I modified to meet with my culinary satisfaction. I call this my Creamy Avocado Gazpacho. This is wonderfully cool and rich, satisfying, with a little kick on the end. This rates A for nutrition, and makes 1 serving at 252 calories with 16.7g fat (3.4g saturated), 7mg cholesterol, 110mg sodium, 20.5g carbs, 7.1g dietary fiber, 10.3 g sugars, 9g protein, 7% vitamin A, 25% vitamin C, 25% calcium, and 5% iron.

Puree together the following in a food processor or blender:

1/2 medium hass avocado
5 inches of an english cucumber cut into cubes
1/2 cup 2% fat greek yogurt
juice of 1/4 lime
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
1/2 tsp siracha or your favorite hot sauce
1 small clove of garlic, minced

Let it rest in the fridge for about an hour to let the flavors mix, then garnish with cucumber slices (I stick in a fennel green just for the picture... so pretty... hahaha).

Complex Carbs for Running

2008-04-19T17:55:00.004-04:00

Now that I am training for a 10K race, I am doing long 6 miles runs on Saturdays with about 2 miles of walking before to warm up, and a 1 mile walk to warm down. I probably burn about 700-800 calories doing this and refuse to buy crappy health bars or gels or any of that crap. So I realized that I need more complex carbs for these long runs. And so, my Whole Grain Molasses Bread was born. This bread is wonderfully chewy and is perfect sandwich bread. The crumb is moist and the extra gluten called for by the recipe really makes the dough easy to work with. I made two smaller loafs and modified the original recipe from my bread book quite a bit. Each loaf made 10 small slices, and each slice grades A nutritionally and comes in at only 80 calories, 1.1g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 61mg sodium, 15.4g carbs, 1.7g dietary fiber, 2.4g sugars, 2.4g protein, 2% calcium, and 7% iron.

Proof 2 tsp active dry yeast in 1 cup of warm water and 1/4 cup of blackstrap molasses. Then add 1 cup of whole wheat flour (I swear by the King Arthur flours or Hodgson Mills flours -- it really makes a difference than using the generic brand), 1/2 cup rye flour, 1/8 cup millet flour, 2 tbsp gluten, and 1/2 tsp refined sea salt. Beat together until it combined and let rest covered for 10 minutes. Then turn out onto a floured board and incorporate as much of 3/4 cup unbleached bread flour as necessary. I probably used about 1/2 cup and tried to avoid letting the dough get too stiff. Knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is springy.

Let rise in a greased bowl until doubled, about an hour. Then I actually punched this down, divided the dough into two pieces and shaped into into to loaves on parchment paper dusted with cornmeal and placed on top of a big cutting board. I did the second rise overnight in the fridge with the loaves covered with a damp tea towel. Then, at the crack of dawn when I woke up, I took the dough out, preheated the oven to 350 degrees, and then baked these for about 35-40 minutes on a baking stone.

This bread makes for fantastic peanut butter (or in my case, almond butter is what I had on hand) and mango jam sandwiches. The molasses imparts a wonderful sweet flavor to the bread. I had two big pieces of this bread with a banana and egg whites prior to my run and it was the perfect fuel. My glycogen stores were happy the entire run.

I left the half of one of the miniloaves out for use tomorrow and into Monday. The other loaf, I sliced and wrapped first in saran wrap and then in a quart size freezer bag for use later in the week. The double wrapping helps keep the moisture from crystallizing and making it hard to just pull one or two pieces out. I just throw the frozen slices in the toaster and the pieces come out perfectly every time.

Fresh Herbs On Hand

2008-04-19T17:45:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons I love spring so much is because spring means planting gardens and growing things outside. This was all well and good when I had a house with a real yard and an accommodating landlord who let me dig a huge hole in the backyard to fill with dirt and have a garden. Living in a townhouse with a concrete backyard and a manicured front stoop have taken that option away from me. But, I persist, and despite the minimal direct sunlight of a first floor townhouse apartment, I have still managed to create at least a little herb garden.

It began with some green onions. I wondered what would happen if I threw them in some dirt or some water since they always come with their roots still attached. Well, these were the spring onions I used to make the korean dumplings a while back, and guess what? The kept growing! This is about a week's worth of growth. I had chopped these babies down to just above the white section. Hydroponic green onions.

And then, last weekend, much to my joy... the local garden store was finally stocked with locally grown herbs. Yaaaaay! So I bought the ones I thought I would use, chives (yes, yes, yes, I know I have hydroponic green onions, but I use both chives and green onions often). Italian flat leaf parsley, basil, and cilantro rounded out the collection. All things I use often, hate paying $2.00 for a bunch when I only need 1 tablespoon, and then have to find a way to not waste the rest of the bunch. The indirect sunlamp coupled with an indoor grow lamp should do the trick. The silly herbs are just sitting in their original containers because I accidentally bought a bag of plant food instead a bag of potting soil. That got remedied in the middle of the week and so they are settling happily in their new home.

From France to Thailand... In My Kitchen Anyway

2008-04-15T14:52:00.003-04:00

So I was at Whole Paycheck stocking my barren fridge when I wandered into the bulk food section. Its one of the rare times I venture from the perimeter into the center of the store. Now, one of my favorite dishes from my trip to France are what D calls “magic lentils.” And they are. Provencal style, done with sausage, butter, and other deliciousness. Unlike most Indian lentils, French lentils are not split and so trying to replicate the dish with the typical split red or green lentils would be disastrous. But, lo and behold, I found black French lentils. And so I picked them up with no plan. I was contemplating doing a turkey sausage version, but I didn’t pick up any turkey sausage.

Fast forward a couple hours later. I had also picked up a whole chicken to roast. I love doing that on Sundays, eating some still warm from the oven for dinner and then picking the carcass clean to use on salads, in sandwiches, in quesadillas, or other culinary creations later in the week. I also make my own chicken stock to freeze for later use. I had already assembled most of my food for work, but needed something filling but not bread-like. I looked at the lentils. I looked at the roast chicken drippings. And a plan formed for Savory Black French Lentils. The calorie count plus recipe analyzer does not recognize chicken drippings as an ingredient. Without the chicken drippings, this would a be super healthy two servings at 192 calories per serving, 2.1g fat (.5 saturated), 1mg cholesterol, 8mg sodium, 14.7g dietary fiber, 1g sugars, 12.7g protein, 3% vitamin A, 5% vitamin C, 4% calcium, and 23% iron. We all know that the drippings add fat and cholesterol. Assume about 50 calories per serving or more extra.

[Picture is of lentils about to simmer -- finished product was not as uh, pretty]

I sautéed 1 section of a shallot, thinly sliced, in ½ tsp olive oil and ½ tsp butter. Then I threw in the roast chicken drippings (fat skimmed off the top of course and you could definately sub chicken stock) and about a cup of water and let it come to a boil. Then about ½ cup of black French lentils, a bay leaf and ½ tsp thyme, a pinch of salt and some ground pepper, throw the cover on, reduce the heat, and let it simmer 20 minutes.

No, this is not the same as magic lentils, but the chicken drippings add a wonderfully savory quality to the lentils.

And now for something completely different.

I accidentally bought some soft tofu a couple weeks ago. Its been sitting in my fridge doing nothing forever. Sure, the hermetically packaged stuff stays good forever, but just seeing it my fridge made me feel guilty. Stupid food guilt. Don't buy things you don't want to eat then feel guilty for wasting it! I always buy extra firm if I buy tofu at all. I had no idea what to do with it, but the frugal part of me was challenged into making this into something delicious. I had a vague recollection from my vegetarian days of a Thai Tofu Dip that could be served up with sliced carrots or other veggies. This recipe was sheer improvisation. This pure protein-packed heaven makes two generous servings (perfect for a mid-afternoon snack at work). It comes in rated A for nutrition, and assuming you eat it with 1 cup of sliced red peppers, it is 196 calories per serving, 11.5g fat (1.8g saturated), 0 cholesterol, 708mg sodium, 3.7g dietary fiber, 4g sugars, 13.7g protein, 80% vitamin A, 108% vitamin C, 31% calcium, and 19% iron.

I took one package of soft tofu and let it sit in a bowl so some of the water could drain out, then squeezed it in double layered paper towel to get more water out. Oops, I lost about a quarter of it in the process. So really, this was ¾ package of soft tofu, drained. Then I whipped it (by hand with a fork – although a food processor would do a fine job) as smooth as I could. I was worried at first that the lumps would just stay lumpy.

But no worries. As I added ingredients, the whole thing smoothed out and got even a little fluffy. 1 tbsp almond butter (peanut butter would be the natural choice, but I didn’t have any left), 1/4 cup finely chopped green onion, 1 1/2 tbsp tamari soy sauce, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, a squeeze of lime, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (I used the cilantro as garnish, but it would be delicious in the spread, too), ground pepper, 1/4 cup grated carrot, crushed red pepper to taste, 2 cloves of garlic finely minced, and 1 tbsp fresh ginger finely minced. Beat it lots.

I served this up with some mini-sweet peppers and sliced carrots and it was awesome. I actually felt the sliced carrots matched the flavors better because it didn't overpower the dip's flavor. I could barely tell it was tofu and the dip was incredibly creamy. This would also be awesome with sliced cucumber or those japanese rice crackers.

Lazy Sunday Baking

2008-04-14T14:37:00.005-04:00

Last weekend was full of amazing food and it was probably a good thing. This past week was one of those weeks at work from hell, which really just drove home the importance of preparing ahead of time and sticking to my guns (which I did not do so successfully). By the end of the week, my fridge was empty, and I was forced to go the restaurant route at work several times. Even food piping hot from the restaurant never is quite as good as the food I bring.

Anyway, I’ve realized that my love for bread means I’m usually making more of it than I can consume. I’ve also realized that really, all bread recipes come down to 3 parts flour to 1 part liquid, with adjustments for additions like nuts and things. And so, I’ve shrunk the starter recipes to become even tinier loaves. Ideally, I want to be able to make two kinds of bread a week with no leftovers and not feel like I’m eating nothing but bread or throwing away bread.

I had been on a sweet bread kick lately, but want to make sure I’ve got some variety going on. And so, I decided to make a traditional Bohemian Rye Bread. The kind New York delis pile high with corned beef and the like (although I would never pile mine high with corned beef… slices of this bread are going to be piled with roasted chicken, spicy red pepper spread, goat brie, and greens).

The caraway seeds are what give this bread its flavor. The crumb was nice, although I think I may have gotten this to rise just to the edge of collapsing as the very inside of the dough was very airy. I liked this bread, but I think I like the rye flavor without the caraway better. But, this is a great sandwich bread and for that, I will relish this loaf at work. This comes in graded A (what? Bread graded A for nutrition?). If we assume this mini-loaf makes 8 slices, each one is 93 calories, with 1.1g fat, 1 mg cholesterol, 149mg sodium, 3.2g dietary fiber, .7 sugars, 3.4g protein, 1% calcium and 8% iron.

I took ½ cup of warm water, 1 tsp turbinado cane sugar, ½ tsp caraway seeds, and proofed 1 tsp dry active yeast. Then I stirred in ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp vegan butter (okay, now I am lactose intolerant generally, I can eat cow milk yogurt because of the live cultures and goat milk products generally, and other cow milk products in small quantities – I have decided that vegan butter is decidedly not a whole food – and am trying to simply use small amounts of real butter since it scares me how many words in the vegan butter ingredient list I cannot pronounce), and ¾ cup light rye flour. Let it rest for about 15 minutes, then slowly stir in 1 tsp gluten and as much of ¾ cup unbleached bread flour as you need. I turned out the dough onto a board with spelt flour and kneaded it for about 5 minutes until springy to the touch.

I sprayed my dough ball with oil from my pressurized oil sprayer (which, incidentally, I fill with half olive oil or canola oil and half water. The way it pressurizes it mixes the two and provides not only a finer and more even spray, but helps reduce the amount of oil I’m using even more. Then let it rise for about an hour until doubled. Then I took the whole thing out, punched it down a little, reshaped the ball and let it rise again in the fridge for 4 hours while I went to the gym. When I came back, I took it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature for about an hour.

Although this bread is traditionally placed in a coarsely woven basket for the final rising according to my bread book, that didn’t seem feasible. Anyway, this bread I did on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dusted with cornmeal. I baked for 10 minutes at 450 degrees, then about 25 minutes at 350. I thought the crust was going to burn but it was just fine and the bread could have had another 5 minutes and been just fine.

Seafood Galore

2008-04-10T14:05:00.004-04:00

I love seafood. There is something natural to me about eating seafood. Maybe its my Asian genetics. Maybe its just because seafood is delicious. But I've been craving it more and more. And craving the typical chicken, pork, beef kinds of meats less. Lunch at the office has become more interesting with Lump Crab Salad "Sandwich" and Tuna "Crabcakes."

The Tuna "Crabcakes" I actually did for a quick dinner and took the leftovers for lunch. I drained one can of high quality canned tuna stored in water, a tsp of vegannaise, 1/4 tsp dill, 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, one shallot section finely sliced, 1/4 cup of ground flaxseed (to replace having to use breadcrumbs), an egg white and cracked pepper, and mixed it all up and made two patties. 4 minutes on ye olde George Foreman grill and voila! Beautiful golden brown and served up with steamed greens with some parmesan grated on top made for a really satisfying post-workout meal, full of protein and just enough salt to replenish what I had sweat off at my martial arts studio.

The Lump Crab Salad "Sandwich" was really inspired by wanting to create a healthier version of crab and artichoke dip and served in a way that was easy to take to work. About 3/4 cups lump crab (pre-picked cuz I'm lazy) and 1 chopped up steamed artichoke heart were mixed with 1 tsp of vegannaise, about 1 tbsp shaved parmesan, a squeeze of lemon juice, 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, and cracked pepper. Then I threw in a little greek yogurt for extra creaminess. This was served up with sliced English hothouse cucumber slices rather than bread, which seemed too heavy for the lump crab. Besides, if you are going to splurge on lump crab, you want to taste the crab, not the bread. No pictures this time, I was too tired to make it look pretty enough for publication. Work has been a little nutso lately so no more posting until next week.

A Taste of Morocco

2008-04-09T16:08:00.008-04:00

The flavors of Morocco have always been some of my favorite. There are several wonderful Moroccan restaurants in the DC area, which almost do justice to the flavors of Morocco. Some of Spain's finer foods are influenced by the spices traveling north from Morocco. But inspired by my Indian feasts, I decided to take my favorite flavors from Morocco and kick it up an "Indian" notch. And so, with all the time in the world and a glass of wine, I pulled together Moroccan Lamb with Shiraz Honey Glaze, Beet Green Paneer, and Aromatic Rice. The clear winner was the lamb. I also clearly short-changed the rice process.

I was supposed to have a friend over for this meal, but plans were changed and I had absolutely no desire to go out and join in the frat boy havens of Adams Morgan. And so I decided to make this just for one. And so, I started with the Moroccan Lamb with Shiraz Honey Glaze. Whole Foods sells "rack of lamb" with just two ribs, which is perfect for one person. It ends up being about 1/4 pound including the bones and fat which is an appropriate portion size. I was worried I was going to have to buy one of the full racks and deal with leftovers. I trimmed some of the fat off, but not too much so the lamb would stay juicy through the whole cooking process.

This part of the meal comes in at 389 calories, 9g fat (3.2 saturated), 102mg cholesterol, 97mg sodium, 1g dietary fiber, 32.5g sugars, 4% vitamin A, 2% viatmin C, 5% calcium, and 24% iron. Use a little less glaze and you can cut calories. The lamb itself runs only about 200 calories if you are trying to be more calorie conscious. I ended up only using about half the glaze, which would put this closer to 300 calories.

First preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Now, you need to rub the lamb all over with Ras El Hanout. Ras El What? This is a typical Moroccan spice blend that is easily made ahead of time. Or if you have a specialty store, they may sell this pre-blended. I made my own. Mix:

1 tsp coarse sea salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ginger (ground not fresh)
1 tsp tumeric
3/4 tsp cinnamin
3/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp coriander(ground not whole)
1/2 tsp cayenne (to taste)
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves

Rub your lamb all over with this and cover as much surface area as possible. I actually took some olive oil and oiled my hands lightly, then rubbed the oil into my lamb so the spices would stick better. Then I covered the ribs in spices. Every inch. You should still have a decent amount of spices leftover. This is fine, I ended up using them later for a side dish. Then, open a window and turn on the fan above your stove. This is gonna smoke. Heat a cast iron pan to medium high or high. Let the pan get really hot. Then sear each side. The spices are going to burn. They act as a blackening seasoning. Don't let any one side stay on too long. Yes, there is a lot of smoke. But no worries.

Then, I placed my lamb on a cookie rack placed on top of a baking sheet with edges to catch all the juices and threw it in the oven and let it roast for about 16 minutes. Then I took it out and let it rest for 15 minutes before doing anything to it. Reserve the juices that came out during baking. Of course, with the smaller rack duo, there aren't many juices. I threw a tiny bit of shiraz on the pan while it was still hot to deglaze any juices that had dried down there and dumped it into a small saucepan. Stir half a cup of shiraz wine (do yourself a favor and use a wine that you would actually drink -- besides, the leftover pairs perfectly with the meal) and 1 tbsp raw honey over low heat and reduce by half. It should create a thick dark syrup.

When you serve this, slice between each rib, it should be medium rare for optimal deliciousness. Then drizzle the sauce over the meat. The spice rub on the lamb will be both spicy hot and spicy savory and slightly spicy sweet. The glaze provdes a wonderful simple contrast to the spices encrusted in the lamb.

Now, I had some leftover paneer and fresh beet greens, so I just took a tiny bit of olive oil and heated the leftover Ras El Hanout in a pan, then threw in some cubed paneer to absorb the flavors. And boy does paneer do that. They took on the wonderful yellow of the tumeric and all of the flavors. The great thing about paneer is that it also gets nice and crusty when sauteed.

Then I threw in the beet greens as a contrast to the salty spiciness of the paneer. Easy. Delicious. Perfect side dish.

My less than perfect side dish was my Aromatic Rice. I had some leftover brown rice in the fridge, and so I figured I would just use that. I took a couple tbsp of water, and threw in a couple cloves, cardamom seeds, cinnamin stick, and saffron threads and heated it slightly.

Then I reheated the rice which generally dries out with refridgeration with the water from this mix. Haha, don't cheat. Make this rice from scratch and make it with basmati or something delicious. The rice was fine. And it was a nice break from the intensity of the other dishes. And it was great with bits of the glaze stuck to it. But I cheated. And I knew it. :).

Taste of Spring -- Sort Of

2008-04-09T10:54:00.004-04:00

The weather in DC has been cruddy for early April. Usually by now we have sunny days in the 60s. I still have to wear a sweatshirt under my jacket when I go to the gym in the morning. Evil hints of spring have gotten me excited for spring veggies, putting together my herb window box and potted tomato plants. Each weekend I rush to the farmer's market to find that there are no seedlings yet. Grrrr.

I was craving something light and refreshing this past weekend, and a recipe for White Bean Edamame Flatbread seemed to fit the bill. I wish I could say this was a success. It wasn't bad by any means, but it sounded a lot better then it the final result. I'm not providing nutritional information for this recipe dud, but it probably ranks fairly healthy.

The recipe called for packaged refridgerated pizza dough, but I just used the whole grain dough that I used for the Stuffed Italian Bread. I made a big batch of it this time and froze the extra in single size portions for later mini Stuffed Italian Breads and carmelized onion paninis to come. I carmelized half an onion sliced thin in about 1 tbsp olive oil. Do this at low heat and it should take about 15 minutes. If you find your onions are sticking to the bottom, don't add more oil. Rather, cover your pan with a lid for about 2 minutes and the onions will release their moisture and help deglaze the bottom of the pan. Stir on 2 tbsp roughly chopped fresh basil, ground pepper to taste, 1/2 a can of canellini beans (rinsed thoroughly as they are usually canned with extra salt), 1 clove of garlic minced, and 1/2 cup of defrosted shelled frozen edamame. Cook until warmed through and then transfer half of the mixture to a food chopper or blender. Add 1 tbsp water and 3/4 tbsp apple cider vinegar and pulse until a coarse sauce forms.

Spread this mixture on top of your streched out dough. I did mine in a traditional circle, although any shape will do. Shave some parmesan cheese on top and sparingly as parmesan adds a lot of salt, then top with the un-pureed mixture. Top the whole thing with sliced tomato. I used sliced red and orange grape tomatos which added a nice sweetness and then did big shaved pieces of asiago over top. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes until the crust turns golden.

A couple things I would do differently: (1) brush the dough with olive oil before adding the toppings do add a depth to the crust; (2) bake at 450 degrees and really let my baking stone get hot -- I think I cheated on this; (3) bake for longer to allow for a crispier crust -- mine was a little soggy in the middle; (4) use less of the topping; and (5) wait until the very end AFTER cooking to top with chopped basil. I love the idea of flatbreads encrusted with atypical toppings, but this wasn't quite right. I'll try this again with some major modifications from the recipe some day.

Always Back to Mexico

2008-04-08T19:22:00.007-04:00

My first travel love... you know, that crush you always think about, kind of like the first time kind of love, was Mexico. It was my first uninhibited travel, out of the confines of a study abroad program, and when I was mentally really able to appreciate it. And so, my food always brings me back here.

Leftover ground lamb from my korean dumplings left me wondering if I should just freeze it (which I did for some of it in the form of patties for quick burgers at some later date), but I was craving real Mexican again. At first, I was going to make empanadas, but the dough recipes all required butter, flour, and resting of dough, and things that seemed foreign to Mexican food. So I decided to do a basic Quesadilla with Salsa Verde, no, not the cheddar cheesy mess stuffed inside a flour tortilla. No, these are the fresh corn tortillas stuffed with anything from squash blossoms, to guacamole, to chicken, to queso oaxaca (kind of like mozzarella), to mushrooms, to beef served up with freshly made sauces and then heated on a griddle.

My favorite in Mexico was the queso oaxaca with mushroom with extra salsa verde, which was the spicy sauce. The red sauce was usually more of a chipotle flavor, milder, but still delicious. Salsa Verde is extremely simple. I broiled 1 poblano pepper and 3 husked tomatillos in my toaster oven until the skins were blackened and the insides mushy. Then I tossed that, plus 1/4 cup roughly chopped purple onion, 1 small green chile roughly chopped, and the juice of one small lime into a food chopper. Pulverize until done. Yup. That's it. A little cracked pepper and all is well. I didn't use salt because I knew the cheese I was using was naturally salty. This makes about three servings (I like a lot of salsa), which I used on these quesadillas and on my morning egg whites. This is a nutritional giant rating A and coming in at a mere 23 calories per generous portion, .4g fat, 0 cholesterol, 2mg sodium, 1.1g dietary fiber, 2.7g sugars, .8g protein, 5% vitamin A, 74% vitamin C!!!, 1% calcium, and 2% iron.

The filling was a bit more creative as I was trying not to waste the ground lamb. I took about 1/4 cup of slivered red onion and sauteed it with 1/8 pound of ground lamb and about 1/4 cup of queso fresca (this is the same stuff as paneer -- fresh compressed rennet free cheese sold in small blocks at most Latin groceries) in small cubes. Then when the lamb was almost cooked, I threw in about half a cup of the salsa verde and let the whole thing cook down a bit.

Then I whipped up a couple corn tortillas (see my Fish Tacos recipe and yes, these are not that pretty, but this was a quick meal, not an attempt for aesthetic perfection), stuck some filling in, and folded the tortillas in half and let the corn tortillas get slightly golden on each side on medium heat in my cast iron pan. This would be semi-authentic as lamb has a similar gamey taste as goat to me, and in many many many parts of Mexico, goat meat is the meat of choice as goats are more portable and affordable than cows.

Oh yea, nutritional information. The quesadillas sans salsa verde rates B because the cheese and lamb add a lot of fat. But this recipe makes two filling quesadillas at 279 calories, 10g fat (4.6g saturated), 66mg cholesterol, 133mg sodium, 2.6g dietary fiber, 1.5g sugars, 21.8g protein, 3% vitamin A, 4% vitamin C, 12% calcium, and 12% iron. Just tack on 23 calories and loads of vitamin C for the total count, which puts this as just over 300 calories for a small meal.

Food for Work

2008-04-07T12:59:00.012-04:00

Much to my co-workers' chagrin, I almost always bring my lunch to work. Mostly because I find the West End/Foggy Bottom/Dupont area completely lacking in edible lunchtime food. The food I bring inevitably tastes better, is more satisfying, and more economical. A good chunk of Sunday is spent leisurely baking bread which can be a vehicle for cheese, spreads, peanut butter, and full blown sandwiches, and making quick easy to prepare and compartamentalized goodies. Leftover white cannelini beans get sauteed with garlic and rosemary to make a simple dip for sliced red peppers. The odd ends of veggies get roasted with olive oil and thyme. Sometimes I make one or two different stews or soups to freeze in tupperwares. Other times, a simple assessment of my freezer says I have enough leftovers from the weekend to get me through. This week, I decided to make Korean Dumplings and Carrot Apple Muffins.

The beauty of Korean Dumplings are their simplicity and ingredient flexibility. I never really measure my ingredients. In a pinch, you can use the storebought wrappers (the round ones that come frozen or refridgerated from any Asian market, or even the square ones from the grocery, and use a cookie cutter to make them round). Also, find a good (short) movie and clear a space in front of your TV. Although I can roll these in about 20 minutes when I make them from scratch and less time using storebought wrappers, I like taking my time and doing it while watching a good movie. This time, I watched The Kingdom, which was surprisingly good for a post 9-11 kind of movie. I probably made about 60 dumplings from this recipe (or 10 servings), but these freeze fantastically well and are super convenient. These are also superbly nutritious, grading A for nutition with just 159 calories for 6 dumplings, 3.6g fat (1.1 saturated), 76mg cholesterol, 63mg sodium, 2.2g dietary fiber, 11.3g protein, 2% vitamin A, 2% calcium, and 11% iron.

First, these ingredients are an approximation and can be changed to accomodate any taste. I took 1/2 pound of ground lamb (ground in the store which reduces exposure to air and bacteria -- you can use ground turkey, ground veal, ground pork -- if you use ground beef, get the grass fed stuff, and try to get something with a decent amount of fat for peak juiciness), one bunch of scallions finely chopped, two fresh shitake mushroom tops, a chunk of ginger the size of my thumb minced, 3 big garlic cloves minced, about 1.5 tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce, 1/2 tsp sesame oil and cracked pepper. Sometimes, I also throw in some rice wine vinegar for turkey dumplings to help as a tenderizer, or chile pepper if I'm craving spicy, or some shaved carrot for added sweetness which works well with with ground pork. Mix all of your filling stuff together and stick it in the fridge covered to let the flavors mingle (also, the mushrooms will release some liquid so it will let that liquid drain to the bottom). No added salt is needed as the oyster sauce has all the sodium you need.

Then make your dumpling dough. This is a basic egg dough. I used 3 eggs, both white and yolk (traditionally, this is done just with the yolk, but for health reasons, I use both -- eliminating the yolk however, is not recommended as the dough consistency never seems to be quite right -- you could take out one of the yolks and probably be fine), beaten together. Incorporate about 1 cup of spelt flour and 1 cup of all purpose flour. If you want thinner dumpling dough (that is to be able to roll it thinner), add a tsp of gluten to help create more elasticity. I like to have a little substance on mine and can still get it think enough without having to add the gluten. Knead the dough until you get a nice, heavy, and slightly stick dough ball (it will feel sticky, but won't really stick to your hands). You may or may not use all the flour, and you may need to add extra. I like to knead mine for about five minutes.

Then, set up an operation -- little bowl of water for sealing if you use the storebought wrappers, the homemade dough does not need it, a wood board or flat surface for rolling out the dough for homemade wrappers, saran wrap, and a cookie tray with corn meal dusted down. Take a piece of dough the size of one of those big gumballs (or a big marble) and stick it between two pieces of saran wrap (I use this method because the dough is slightly sticky, and I hate adding more flour if I don't need to). Make sure to keep your dough ball covered so it doesn't dry out. Then roll out a circle about 3" - 4" in diameter. Put a small scoop, maybe a tsp, of filling in the center. For your first few, be sparse on the filling. It takes skill to close up the ones that have too much and most people over stuff their dumplings to the point they explode when cooked.

The picture probably is too much filling for an amateur, but I'm an old pro so I get to have bigger fillings. Then fold the circle in half and pinch the edges together to create a tight seal. Then you want to do an accordian fold around the edges so they stay together while cooking. Repeat 60 times. With the storebought wrappers, you have to be careful with leaving them out too long because the wrapper may get soggy. With the homemade ones, letting the dumpling dough airdry after they are assembled is fine since this is a heartier wrapper.

Once you are done with the tray...

Stick the whole tray, uncovered, in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes, or until the dough starts to set and the dough does not feel moist to the touch. After that time, you can throw all of these babies in a ziplock freezer bag for later cooking. When you cook them later on, bring a pot of water to boil and plop 5 or 6 of the dumplings in there. Don't do too many or it cools the water too much. Boil until they float, and then let it go another minute or so. I like to cook these up for work in a nice broth and throw in some uncooked greens and scallions and tofu. Reheating the soup in the microwave at work will cook the greens and tofu perfectly and reheat your already cooked dumplings. Otherwise, just serve them as boiled dumplings, with a sauce of tamari, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, scallion, and hot chili oil or a big squirt of siracha.

[Update 4/18/08: So I made some of these bad boys last night to take to work today, and they were fantastic. These take a little longer to cook, I would give them 2 minutes after they start floating if you use the homemade wrappers with a whole grain flour. I just threw a little soysauce on them after I put them in the tupperware still warm and popped the top on. This was my first time using whole grain wrappers, and I really liked them a lot. The wrappers were thicker and chewier than I was used to, but were perfect with the heartiness of the lamb filling. They also stand up to reheating better and don't fall apart as easily either. I probably wouldn't use these wrappers if making vegetarian or seafood dumplings as they would probably be too heavy. Lamb made for a perfect filling because of the relatively high fat content. These wrappers, if sealed properly, keep all of those juices inside and these buggers explode deliciousness when you eat them.]

Carrot Apple Muffins are one of my snack staples to keep me away from our gross vending machine, which is filled with donuts, Doritos, and baked Lays. There is nothing I would consider food in it. I make these in mini-muffin tins and freeze them. The best part is that you just throw one or two in your lunch bag and they are defrosted by the time you eat them during the day. These are awesomely moist with no oil (although I do use some oil from a pressurized oil sprayer to grease the muffin tins), not too sweet, and packed with nutrients. This is the only baked good I've done so far that is rated a straight A for nutrition. This recipe makes 12 mini-muffins, each coming in at just over 100 calories, with 4.5g fat (.5g saturated), 0mg cholesterol, 125mg sodium, 3.2g dietary fiber, 7.5g sugars, 3g protein, 15% vitamin A, 1% vitamin C, 4% calcium, and 5% iron.

Mix together:
3/8 cup whole wheat flour
1/8 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup raw cane sugar (or I sub half with honey sometimes)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 tsp cinnamin
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup shredded granny smith apple
1/4 cup chopped dates (or other dry fruit)
1/4 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup vanilla soy milk
1 egg white

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes, let sit in pan for about 5-10 minutes after coming out and then cool on wire rack.

Bread Love Affair

2008-04-07T12:33:00.006-04:00

I had forgotten how much I love baking. Not that I really forgot, but the week before I left for France, I was so busy I didn’t get to bake any fresh bread. And the last week has been spent in catch-up mode, so no new bread either. This week was a breakthrough in my bread baking. I really feel like I’m starting to get the timing and the feel for bread. My two favorite breads so far I made this week were a Rye Sourdough French Bread and Oatmeal Maple Nut Bread.

The Rye Sourdough French Bread was pretty basic as are most bread recipes. Really, the complexity is in the process, the timing, the kneading…. This serves up 10 chunks of deliciousness coming in at 117 calories per chunk, .5g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 201mg, 2.2g diestary fiber, 4g protein, 1% calcium, and 9% iron.

I made a sourdough starter with ½ cup rye flour and ½ cup of water and just a dash of yeast during the week. I left it out overnight, then stuck it in the fridge until I was ready to use it.

Make sure the starter has time to come to room temperature and then add 1/3 cup of warm water to 2/3 cups of the starter and 1 tsp yeast. I actually cheated here and used really warm water since I needed this to start rising before heading out. Then add 1 tsp fine sea salt, 1 cup whole wheat flour and about ½ cup of unbleached bread flour. Mix until the dough is smooth and let rest 15 minutes. This resting is really important because it helps the dough relax and makes it easier to work so you aren’t fighting really sticky dough. Then, add 1 tbsp gluten and up to 1 cup more of the bread flour. Turn this out on a floured board and start working however much of the bread flour you need. I’m always hesitant to give exact measurements because humidity (Saturday was really humid so I needed extra flour) is such a factor. The dough will become springy and elasticky. Always try to avoid adding too much flour. I sometimes will allow the dough to stay a little sticky even when I think it could take more flour.

Anyway, grease a bowl with some olive oil and coat your dough ball. Let rise until doubled, or about an hour. Then, take the dough out of the bowl and turn it out smooth side up on floured or oiled board. Punch down into a rectangle. Then, fold the dough in half the long way, pinch the seams, and fold it again the long way, and pinch the seams again. Roll the dough out so it is baguette shaped. Transfer to parchment paper with cornmeal for dusting and let rise covered until doubled again. Now, here was my genius. I actually folded it once more the long way and pinched the seams again without really punching it down, and let it rise for another 30 minutes or so. Slash it the longways down with a razor (I find a straight edge razor works really well, you know, the kind you get from the hardware store). Then I baked it on a baking tile at 450 degrees (throwing a cup of water in a tray below the tile) for 17 minutes.

I could have gone a little longer on this to have a thicker more developed crust, but I have absolutely NO complaints. The crumb was perfectly chewy and the use of the sourdough starter with rye gave a wonderful flavor to the bread. Not only did you get the tang from the fermentation process, but the hint of rye with the wheat added a depth to this bread that made it perfect with nothing but a dollop of vegan butter (lactose intolerant me stays away from cow’s butter, but I’m trying to find a goat butter – otherwise, I’ll just make it myself). I had to cut this up right away and freeze it for later this week so as not to tempt myself.

I never thought I could outdo the Rye Sourdough French Bread. Oh, but I did. I introduce to you the Oatmeal Maple Nut Bread of my dreams. This bread has a nice open crumb, the walnuts add a wonderful texture contrast, and the maple adds a perfect sweetness that makes this bread perfect with soft white mild cheeses like a young goat bree. This makes 10 generous slices of bread at 130 calories a slice, 2.5g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 207g sodium, 1.3g dietary fiber, 2.5g sugars, 4.1g protein, 1% calcium, and 8% iron.

I proofed 1 tsp yeast with 2/3 cups warm water and 2 tbsp 100% pure maple syrup (do NOT cheat and use the fake crap – the flavor is so important in this bread that you will notice the difference). In a separate bowl, mix 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup toasted rolled oats, 3/4 cups whole wheat flour, and 1/2 cup unbleached bread flour. Beat with the liquids until smooth. Let rest 15 minutes. Turn out onto floured board and add 1 tbsp gluten and up to another 1/2 cup of unbleached bread flour until the consistency is right. Knead about 5 minutes and incorporate 1/4 cup chopped walnuts.

Grease a bowl with olive oil and cover whole dough ball. Cover and let rise for about an hour and a half or until doubled. Rising always takes a little longer when there are extras (like nuts) in it. I punched this down when it doubled, let it rise for another 20 minutes before I stuck it in the fridge to finish rising overnight. The next morning, it hadn’t risen very much, so I let it come to room temperature and rise another full hour. Then I slashed 3 times, brushed it with an egg white wash (equal parts egg white and water beaten together), and sprinkled oats on top. This is a slower baked bread than the French breads, so bake 35-40 minutes until it is golden brown at 375 degrees.

And voila! Perfection. Serious perfection. I had to tear myself away from this bread. It was so soft and fluffy on the inside with the perfect amount of crunch. Sigh. You know, I never even ate bread (except for pita) until I started baking it myself. I never knew what real bread tasted like. It beats all rice (except maybe a good Indian pulau)…

Where the Magic Happens

2008-04-07T11:16:00.007-04:00

As a single-ish woman living in an urban setting by herself usually means a tiny studio apartment and a pathetic strip of a kitchen in a high rise apartment commplex. That's not me. Actually, I have a pretty spacious one bedroom on the first floor of a townhouse. My landlords live upstairs and are a wonderful gay couple who redid my apartment several years ago. Think bay window, fireplace, exposed brick, wood floors, and a kitchen the size of most people's bedrooms. Of course, this is still an urban kitchen, so not the hugest thing. But no mini-fridge or mini-countertops for me. The only thing I regret is the electric stove, but the ease of cleanup sort of makes up for that.

Not glamourously huge, but big enough for me and one other person. I keep a second rolling stainless steel topped kitchen cart in my bedroom, and use it as a storage place for my iron and ironing board for the days when I invite folks over to cook. It makes a perfect portable prep station.

My wood topped kitchen cart is my bread station, complete with my kitchenaid mixer, a gazillion kinds of flour, masa for tortillas, cornmeal for dusting, and other various goodies. Is it strange I have dedicated bread station? Ideally, I'd like to build shelves for my flour canisters to free up the counterspace, but that would require me to actually mount something straight. I'm pretty good with handy things. I know how to install dry wall screws. I can use an electric drill. I just can't use a leveler for the life of me.

I have also been fighting with where to store my spices and herbs. I use them nearly every day. I refuse to put them over my stove as that destroys their flavor. I had the next to the stove, but even that was pretty dicey as the heat emanates. This weekend, I had a stroke of genius and not only managed to get more countertop space, but a safer and more useful place for my spices. I used to have my microwave on the counter. Mostly because the previous tenant had it on the counter. My toaster oven was wedged on top of it and under the cupboard. Not exactly the safest place. I really only use my microwave to (a) defrost leftovers and (b) heat water.

Hmmm. Aha! And so, on top of my refridgerator went my microwave. The toaster was moved next to the stove and magical space appeared to accomodate all of my vast collection of spices as well as my garlic, ginger, hot peppers and other fresh herbs.

All of this rambling is just my excitement in finding something closer to Kitchen Shangri-La. I think that one should always seek to make the kitchen somewhere enjoyable. Keep your basics visable. If you do break down and buy crap or some kind of trigger food, hide that away. I keep my spices out because I like to be able to see them all when crafting a new recipe. I like my bread making items all in one place. I hide away my Swiss dark chocolate since I only bought a couple bars in Zurich when I passed through in the freezer. Its the same reason why I tend to use my vegetable criper sparingly, and keep my veggies lined up on the shelf. I'm a visual food improviser. I won't remember the wilted carrot (doh!) in the bottom of my drawer. Or the scrap of Vidalia onion begging to be thrown into a dip or camelized as a garnish.

Dry goods, like lentils, quinoa, wild rice, dried fruits and nuts all stay in a cupboard, but in clear mason jars and well displayed. Cans are bought fairly sparingly, none of this 300 cans of tomato paste hiding the one can of garbanzo beans. I try to shop like the average non-American person. Don't buy for a lifetime, buy for that week, or that few days. Sure, I could save a few cents by buying 30 cans of black beans when they go on sale, but by the time I get through them all, I'll be so sick of black beans, I'll have thrown the last two cans away in disgust. Keep one or two of the basics always on hand, and you'll be just fine.

The same goes for kitchen gadgets. A good mixer, mini-food chopper, blender, and coffee grinder are all I need. I have one very very very nice set of all-clad stainless steel pans, a cast iron skillet, a steaming basket, one set of mixing bowls, a George Foreman grill, a few baking sheets, and a set of glass Pyrex dishes with tuppeware tops. That's about it. No bread machine. No hand whipper gidgits. No juicers. No fancy egg slicers. A good santoku knife and paring knife will get you everywhere.

Oy, I'm rambling. Yaaaay!

UPDATE!

My very nice gay landlords broke up and told me I had to move. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that it was in between the biggest blizzards Washington DC has ever seen in all of history and that I was about to leave the country for 5 weeks for work. This meant that my generous amount of notice meant I had to find a place essentially overnight. Instant karma, just add water, I found the most amazing apartment just a block from my old place, complete with a beautiful kitchen, the best freaking kitchen a one bedroom in DC could possibly have. Oh, and a gas stove! Almost impossible to find in this type of unit, but thbbbbbt to all of you.

The joy of cooking in this kitchen has just opened up the possibilities... from canning to dinner parties, I have the space to do it all. The real test was when I had 4 people cooking and prepping in my kitchen all at the same time without getting in the way. I'm in love with a kitchen if that's possible. Oh, and the best part, the island swivels around the column so I can open up or close the kitchen as I see fit. Huzzah.

I'm a visual improviser, and so the storage in the island allows me to see all my grains and flours... it makes whipping up a batch of English Muffins incredibly easy. No wondering if I've got something, no finding something expired in the back a year after its expiration date.

Some things never change. Spices must be visible and away from heat. Boy has the worst spice set up in the world, which doesn't allow him to see his spices... which leads to him owning 3 of the same spice because he worries he doesn't have something. Its endearing. But its also frustrating, which led us on the epic space rack hunt of aught six. Haha, joking. But in all seriousness, it makes a difference. It allows for inspiration. It allows for improvisation. It ain't gotta be pretty.

My Food Philosophy

2008-04-07T11:04:00.004-04:00

I was at Whole Foods today (as I missed the Farmer’s Market due to a desire not to want to dredge through the rain and cold – is this really spring?) dodging people in the produce section when I had a strange realization. I probably spend about $50-$60 a week on groceries and eat out maybe once every other week or so. Considering how well I eat and the fact that I stubbornly buy everything organic, this is pretty good. On average, 80% of my budget is fresh produce, 10% is from the dairy case (eggs, milk, etc.), and 10% is from the meat or seafood counter. The baking aisle and bulk food section see me only when I manage to get through a bag of flour or lentils, but very rarely. As does the canned veggie aisle, which only sees me grabbing canned tomatoes and canned legumes.

This means that two-thirds of this supposed grocery store is useless to me. The shelves and shelves of processed food-like substances, prepackaged meats, frozen goods, baked goods, and prepared foods are useless to me.

Now compare this to the average market in Mexico. Everything is in raw form. Half the animals are still snorting or clucking. It’s bring your own basket and lug away 20 pounds of produce for $3. The only “prepared” food are the food stalls, where a little old lady makes food from scratch and most likely, her raw ingredients came from the market, or she is selling in baskets next to her little fire and pot.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about food. Michael Pollan and Brian Wansink are two of my favorite authors of late. In fact, Pollan cites Wansink multiple times in his book In Defense of Food, which I found to be a decent read. The Omnivore's Dilemma, however, was much better. It really drove home why I am so incredibly right (as I always am hahaha) in choosing to eat the way I do. I learned a lot more about getting sucked into the Whole Foods brainwashing as well (that is, the joy of shopping at Whole Foods Market which still is full of environmental and processed bombs). Mindless Eating makes a perfect companion as it focuses not on the industrial food complex, but rather the psychology of food. Of course, it leaves you feeling like you have no free will, and in many ways, we have been indoctrinated with "finish your plate, there are starving children in China" rhetoric. Our parents do not teach us to eat until we feel full or not hungry. They teach us that waste is bad and so you must eat everything so as not to waste it. No wonder why America is obese.

And of course, our society's reaction to all of this is much like the all or nothing of fad diets and eating disorders. You have raw food fanatics who won’t eat food cooked above certain temperatures. You have touchy feely vegans who don’t want to hurt anything and whine about it. You have environmentalists who will only eat locally and want to make as little of a footprint on the earth. You have organics freaks who cling to the word organic like its magic. You have nutritionists who grab up anything that is fortified with Omega-3 fatty acids, soy protein, and 500 vitamins.

I can clearly remember some of the big American all or nothing food eating disorders. My mother bought into all of them. I remember the no-fat purge. No-fat cheese that didn’t melt and tasted like plastic. The few times my mostly vegetarian parents served ground beef, it was cooked to well done, then hot water was run over it until it looked and tasted like the soy crumbles we normally ate. No-cal Pam and butter flavored sprinkles lined our cupboards. Popcorn was air-popped. I clearly remember the cabbage soup diet craze because my mother made a huge vat of it one night that I remember ending badly for some reason or another. I don’t really have fond memories of real actual food from growing up. I looked forward to holidays when Chex mix was a treat, or when my mother would let me make cookies. Or the insanely fatty and delicious corn soufflé which called for obscene amounts of egg and butter and creamed corn. Summers when I was old enough to make my own lunch after swim team were full of cans of chicken noodle soup a la Campbells or even better, Top Ramen. These were salty foreign tastes to me that I relished. I loved the rare times we went to Pizza Hut or Arby’s or ordered in Chinese food.

I would sneak off to my best friends’ houses to eat real ice cream, marshmallows, make sandwiches with Wonder bread, make layered bean dip, and eat full fat non-baked chips until my stomach hurt. Its no wonder I didn’t grow up obese. I was blessed with a fast metabolism until about college time when it began to catch up. Then instead of looking waifishly thin, I just looked like an average sized American. Maybe not an average sized Asian, but not fat, not skinny, just there.

These days, I feel really good. Healthy. Active. I probably exercise or stay active the same amount as most people watch TV on average. I cringe when I walk through the halls of my work at the food on the support staff's desks and in the break room where attorneys and secretaries alike ponder their vending machine breakfasts. My co-workers are shocked when I tell them that I bake my own bread and bring my lunch every day. They peer into my tupperwares with wonder ... maybe shock that I've managed to cobble together something more impressive than canned soup or pasta with jarred pasta sauce or a salad. I peer at their oatmeal packets, candy bars, chips, microwave meals, and McDonalds with the same wonder and shock. I watch them sprinkle Splenda on their out of season strawberries and grimace through their obvious displeasure at eating cottage cheese in the morning and gorging on free cookies in the afternoon.

I don’t think there is any one magical nutrient. Nor any one way to think about food. Nutrition is still very much an inexact science. No one can explain the French paradox of a butter and saturated fat laden diet that seems to produce healthier people than the so-called American diet. No one can explain why Mexican food, the majority of which is fried in lard and has enough spice to give the world heartburn, still promotes general good health in comparison to American food. Why can Italians eat carbs and drink wine until the sun rises and why can Greeks with their fat laden diets be healthier than Americans. Why do Asians live longer with fewer diseases with their rice filled food cultures?

All I know is that what Americans deem exotic ethnic cuisine provides a whole nutritional picture. Rice and beans creates a complete protein. Rich French cuisine satiates quickly which breeds moderation. Most cultures are vegetarian by poverty because meat is expensive. Most cultures do not rely on beef, but rather seafood, poultry, lamb, or goat, all of which are healthier and environmentally less harmful than beef. Goat milk is a staple in many countries because it is easier to digest. Rennet free cheese is easy to make and the staple cheese from Latin America all the way to India. Food from India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America are full of vibrant flavors from spices which eliminate the need for things like salt, fat and sugar to make things taste "good." Spices are satisfying, they satiate the brain. Sugar, the body reacts to sugar by craving more. The body can't tell the difference between sugars either, really. Stupid body.

My only rule is that if I can picture people in any other part of the world other than America eating it over 200 years ago, then I will eat it. None of this no-fat lets make everything taste like cardboard crap. None of this wholesale cutting out of any particular food, unless it is eliminating food-like substances that the grocery store tries to sell us in the form of microwave meals and breakfast cereals. Food should taste good. Food should be raised naturally. This means grass-fed beef, if any. No cows stuffed with corn or animal byproducts it was not meant to eat. No farm-raised fish stuffed with fish pellets. Sure, I’ll be conscious of what is sustainable and environmentally friendly – but I won’t let that dictate my diet because I think it is unrealistic and sometimes impossible to know exactly where and how food came to me. Whole Foods is a corporate machine, too. Local always wins. Seasonal, too. Mexico is a toss-up with California – remember, I can fly to Mexico in 3 hours. It takes nearly 6 hours to get to California.