Cooking for Friends and Strangers

French Macarons

2009-10-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Dating back to the 18th century, the macaron is a traditional French pastry, made of egg whites, almond powder, icing sugar and sugar. In the 1830s macarons were served two-by-two with the addition of jams, liqueurs, and spices. The double-decker macaron filled with cream that is popular today was invented by the French pâtisserie Ladurée.

I have only once had french macarons in my life. My friend Janice brought a bunch to my house-warming party a few months ago and we had fun trying to figure out the different flavors. The lavender was strange. The hazelnut with chocolate filling was my favorite. I decided on a Fall flavoring... something nutmeggy, cinamony, pumpkiny... These pumpkin-safron macarons looked fabulous... But then I forgot to put the saffron in... and the safron was replaced by turmeric... and the pumpkin-cream cheese filling was replaced by pumpkin buttercream... So the end result was completely different. Oh well.

As you can probably tell from the picture, my macarons didn't quite turn out. They didn't rise and didn't form that nice foot and that slightly crunchy crust good macarons have. They just kind-a baked and sprawled a bit. I think my egg whites were too small and the batter ended up too dense. But they still ended up being nicely chewy and the pumpkin buttercream was fantastic so everyone loved them and most of them promptly disappeared at the pre-U2 dinner last weekend. I would love to make them again, with bigger eggs and probably a different recipe.

French Macarons

2 1/4 C Icing sugar
2 C almond flour
2 Tbs granulated sugar
5 egg whites at room temperature
+ 1 tsp turmeric for color

Sift icing sugar and almond flour together. Beat egg whites to soft peaks. Slowly add granulated sugar and keep beating till hard peaks. Sift sugar/almond flower mixture in 2-3 parts and fold gently with the egg whites. Line baking sheet with wax paper. Pipe into 1-inch mounds 1-inch apart. Bake for 5 minutes at 200 F then turn the oven up to 375F and bake for another 8 minutes. Let them cool in the pan before removing.

Pumpkin Buttercream

1/2 C butter (1 stick)
1/2 C pumpkin puree
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 C confectioner’s sugar (more or less)

Mix. Beat. Eat.

Treats to Share with Mr. Dog

2009-10-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

I am sure you have noticed it - the showing of pictures, the discussion of minor habits, the constant retelling for funny (and not so funny) stories and of course, the inevitable attribution of human moods, feelings and intentions. Yes, people with pets have this specific kind of obnoxiousness and I am certainly very much guilty too. Now that I have admitted that I can indulge in a whole post dedicated to my dog, complete with pictures and all.

Atlez, my dog, turned 4 years old this past week and like any self-respecting dog parent (yes, parent, not owner) I organized a week-long celebration, complete with cake (carrot cake from Three Dog Bakery), two visits to the dog park, fancy food, manicure, and today - a hike with a friend's dog and home-made dog biscuits for a snack. I am sure the whole shabang did not register with him in the least and that all my care was wiped clean from his memory by the bath I just gave him, but it was nice to do it all the same.

I have been meaning to make some treats for him for the longest time, ever since I actually ate one of the dog treats I bought for him and found out why he refused the eat them. They taste like cardboard, that's why. To the best of my knowledge he doesn't like to eat cardboard. He likes cheese, and lamb, and beef, and chicken, but above all cheese. Meeee toooo. So I made him biscuit that we can share. They are technically dog biscuits but nothing in them is dog-specific and I have been nibbling on them as much as he has. They are tasty. We both think so.

Cheesy Dog Biscuits

1/2 lb. cheese, grated

1 egg

1/4 C butter, soft

1/4 C corn meal

1/3 C oatmeal

1/2 C hot water

1/2 cube chicken bouillon

~ 3 C flour
a bit of salt

The flour can be all purpose or whole wheat. I used unbleached all purpose. I used mozzarella cheese, because I know that Atlez likes it, but any other cheese can be substituted. The mozzarella yielded a very mild cheese taste. I think cheddar would be better.

Dissolve the bouillon in the hot water and set aside. In a bowl beat butter until creamy, add the cheese, egg, corn meal, oatmeal and the bouillon, while beating. Then start adding the flour. Add just enough flour to make soft dough, still a bit sticky but not wet sticky. Separate the dough in 2-3-4 balls. Knead each ball with a bit of flour and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a knife or cookie cutters. I like the heart-shapes because they can be easily broken in two. Ummm... this was really not a statement about broken hearts.... Bake at 375F until rosy, 25-30 minutes. Cool. Share.

For more dog treat recipes check out the following links:
Gourmet Sleuth
Bullwrinkle
Cheese Dog Treats

Cream Puffs

2009-10-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

Cream puff aka profiteroles have been on my to do list for a while. Actually ever since James sent me the table of ratios for different types of doughs from Michael Ruhlman's book "Ratio". I didn't even know how to pronounce "pate au choux" ... not sure I do now. But I know how to make it! After two batches of cream puffs based on two different recipes and two batches of pastry cream in less than a week I can confidently say cream puffs are my new favorite thing to make.

Pate au choux is a light pastry dough used to make not only cream puffs but also eclairs, croquembouches, beignets, gougeres, etc. According to its history on Wikipedia, the pastry was invented in 1540 by a chef of the Medici family, shortly after they all fled Florence. The name came much later, in the 18th century, when a patissier by the name Avice invented the Choux Buns and the name of the dough became pate au choux because the buns resembled little cabbages - choux in French. They really look like miniature cabbage heads, don't they?

The first recipe (let's call it Recipe A) came form Brown Eyed Baker's fantastic tutorial:

Pate Au Choux

2 large eggs + 1 large egg white (1/2 C eggs)
5 Tbs unsalted butter
2 Tbs milk
6 Tbs water
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C flour, sifted

The second recipe (Recipe B) comes from Michael Ruhlman's ratio approach:

Ratio Pate Au Choix

1/2 C butter
1 C water + milk
1 C eggs (3 large, ~5 medium eggs)
1/2 C flour, sifted
1 Tbs sugar
pinch of salt

The process of making the pastry is soooo simple. Heat butter, milk, water, sugar, and salt in a pan over medium heat, stirring until the butter is melted the mix starts to bubble. Take off the heat and immediately add the flour, stirring briskly, until a paste is formed. Return to low heat and stir until the batter is glossy and easily separates from the sides. Take off the heat, stir briskly to cool a bit. Then slowly pour in the eggs while stirring until smooth. The batter will be sticky, but thick. To make the puffs, transfer the batter to a pastry bag with a plane tip and pipe 1 to 1 1/2 inch mounds on a wax-paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 min @ 415F + 8 min @ 375F. Then turn off the oven, crack open the door and let the puffs cool in the oven. More detailed instructions can be found here.

Now, for the comparison. The two recipes actually had very different ratios of ingredients. The first recipe was 1:1:5/8:1 of liquid:egg:butter:flour, so almost 1:1:1:1. Michael Rulman advocates a very different ratio - 1:2:2:1, so the batter has a lot more egg and butter. In the end however, I was surprised at how similar the batters looked. They had almost the same consistency with B being sweeter and just a bit more runny and unable to hold height when piped. The baking results however were quite different. The puffs from Recipe A held their shape pretty well, puffed a bit but not too much and at the end of the baking were quite sturdy. The puffs from Recipe B puffed up like little balloons and even some of them merged together. They became huge! But at the end of the baking they were still quite moist and some of them collapsed as soon as they were out of the oven. Meh. I personally prefer the first batter though I would increase the sugar to 1 Tbs next time. Ruhlman's ratio works but it the result was not all that satisfying.

Now for the filling:

Pastry Cream

2 C whole milk
1/2 C sugar, divided
5 yolks
3 Tbs corn starch
2 Tbs unsalted butter

Additional for chocolate pastry cream:
3 Tbs cocoa
2 oz quality semi-sweet chocolate

Again, for more elaborate instructions check out Brown Eyed Baker's tutorial. Here is my brief summary: beat yolks + 2 Tbs sugar; add corn startch and beat until mixed well; heat milk + 6 Tbs sugar until boiling; over low heat add the yolk mixture to the milk in a thin stream while stirring well and keep stirring until the mix thickens and begins to bubble; take it off the heat and stir in the butter. For chocolate pastry cream, add the cocoa to the yolk-starch mix and add the chocolate with the butter at the end. Straining the cream is not a bad idea, because there are always lumps. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Honestly, I don't know what cocaine tastes like but I can imagine it tastes like pastry cream. This stuff is so tasty it can be addictive. I am adding pastry cream to the list of foods I love, love, love, right next to Thai yellow curry, Monica's lasagna, James's risotto and the 9-grain bagels at Bentley's, among other things.

To finish thinks off, I recommend leaving the puffs uncovered overnight (to dry them even further) and the pastry cream in the fridge also overnight (to thicken and cool). Make little holes on the sides of the puffs and pipe the cream in, slowly and gently so that the cream doesn't come out squirting from the side. Eat as soon as possible - the longer they sit the soggier they get. Cream puffs week is over.

Puff Pastry! Wow!

2009-10-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

As with some of the previous challenges, I was absolutely convinced this was not going to work. Not on the first try at least. Maybe on the second, most likely on the fifth try, but not on the first. The dough was a bit gummy, the day was hot, and I was covered in butter up to the elbows, watching Michel Richard roll out his pastry with unbelievable grace while I was huffing and puffing over mine. I have always thought that making puff pastry was the Holy Grail of baking. I love using it but never thought I would ever attempt to make it myself. So this challenge was really challenging. Long story short, my puff pastry turned out great, the Vols-au-Vents were fabulous and promptly disappeared at the party later that night, accompanied by "uhs" and "ahs" and marriage proposals.

I used Michel Richard's recipe, though I actually halved it (in case of complete failure I didn't want a pound of butter to go to waste):

Puff Pastry

2 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 C cake flour
1 tbsp salt (half for sweet preparations)
1 1/4 C ice water
1 lb very cold unsalted butter

extra flour for dusting work surface

I am an impatient reader when it comes to cooking technique or I get lost halfway through (I also hate reading instruction manuals... don't ask how I put together my IKEA couch) so I loved watching the Julia Child + Michel Richard video instead. In fact I watched it a few times. Not only is it very informative, it is also very entertaining:

Michel: Do you like garlic?
Julia: Oh yes.
Michel: Me too. Of course it's hard to kiss your boyfriend after you've had garlic.
Julia: Unless of course he's had some too.

As a matter of fact I made the Tort Milanese last weekend and it turned out FAN-TASTIC!

If you are more of the instruction reading type of person though, here is a site you might enjoy: Baking911 (but beware of the crazy web design).

For the filling I improvised with what was available in my fridge. Considering I had just come back from a 12-day trip and was to be gone for another 5 day the following week, the choices were pretty slim - a peach, butter, cream cheese. So... how about peach cooked with sugar and cognac... topped with cream cheese frosting? Voilla!

Moral: Puff pastry is not as hard to make as most people think.

Temporary Suspension

2009-09-09T14:11:00.001-07:00

As of today this blog is suspended. Hopefully this will be temporary, but I am not sure. I have been trying to do a good job at this blog but it is unfortunately taking too much time and CPU, which I really need to devote to other matters such as working and writing proposal, hiking, hanging out with my dog and actually cooking. I am trying to simplify my life and I decided that actually doing the things that I enjoy is much more enjoyable than writing about them. I am not closing down completely - I might continue doing the Daring Baker's challenges (which will be much more pleasant once the temperatures go down) and I might still post a picture or two, but don't keep your hopes high. Adeu!

Dobos Torte

2009-08-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

I sure hope that starting the Monday morning with a piece of cake is a good sign for the week. It must be, especially if the cake is fantastically delicious like this one turned out. I am craving a second piece now... The Dobos Torte is a 5 to 12 layer sponge cake filled with chocolate buttercream and topped with wedges of caramel. From the Darling Baker's site: "It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely."

I must admit I procrastinated on this one. Big time. It is August in Southern California and in my 1940's house with no central air-conditioning August is the month you give the oven a break. It has been so hot and with the wild fires raging just miles away, my enthusiasm to make a cake kept waning as the days of August kept slipping away. Also, I must admit, I found the recipe a bit intimidating. With all the measurements in grams and the equipment list as long as the Torah, my kitchen felt ill prepared for the challenge. But in the end, it all turned out well to my utter surprise, nothing was too hard to handle, the sponge was great and the cake is amazingly delicious. Maybe I'll go home for lunch and have another piece...

I only made half the recipe and cut the layers in rectangular shapes to simplify things. However below I am including the full recipe. The elements can be made separately and then assembled. Store the layers in the fridge between layers of parchment paper.

Dobos Torte

For the layers:
6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 1/3 C powder sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C + 2 TBS sifted cake flour
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 400F. Beat the yolks with 2/3 C of sugar and the vanilla until the mixture is pale yellow and thin ribbons form when the beaters are lifted. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and then gradually add the remaining sugar. Gently fold the whites into the yolk mixture, not stirring completely. Sift in the flour and salt, a tablespoon at a time and incorporate very gently. None of that vigorous stirring here - you need to be very gentle. If you do not have cake flour do not despair - mix 3 Tbs corn starch and 13 Tbs regular flour and sift to combine.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. For the rectangular layers I spread the batter all over the sheet, not quite reaching the edges. I you want circular layers, then trace the circles (bottom of a spring-form pan) on the reverse side of the parchment paper and then spread 3/4 C of the batter very thinly to just fill the circle. Bake at 400F for 4 minutes. Once you start smelling the sweet aroma of the baked cake, the layer is ready. Repeat to make the rest of the layers - you need at least 6 of them. Cool very well. Once the layers are cooled, you can peel the parchment paper (carefully!) and trim them to the desired size and shape (I used a pair of scissors though they pinched the dough a bit at the edges).

For the buttercream:
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 C sugar
4 oz bakers or dark chocolate, chopped
1C + 2 Tbs unsalted butter, at room temperature.

Beat the eggs and the sugar in a bowl until well mixed. Place the mix in a double-boiler or improvise one with a bowl nested in a pot and cook the mixture over water at a rolling boil for a few minutes until the mixture is hot to the touch, stirring constantly. Once hot, take the egg mix off the burner and stir in the chopped chocolate until it is all melted. Let cool. Beat the butter in the chocolate mix piece y piece and finish off on high until the mix is smooth and no butter lumps are visible. Refrigerate to thicken.

For the caramel:
1 C sugar
12 Tbs water
8 tsp lemon juice
1 tablespoon neutral oil

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and oil it lightly. Place the best-looking layer on top (the layer better be at room temperature) and cut as desired - sections or strips or whatever. In a small pan combine the sugar, water and lemon juice. Heat at low until the sugar is melted and then crank up the heat and bring the syrup to boil. It will foam - that's ok, just make sure the heat is not so high that the syrup will boil out. Occasionally turn the heat down and check the state of the syrup. Eventually it will turn thick and brown. At that point pour it over the cut-up layer, using a spatula to distribute it evenly all over. You must be pretty quick because the caramel will start setting quite fast. Do not spread the caramel over the edges of the cake layer because that will make removal difficult. Let the caramel set and then peel the pieces off the paper.

Assembly: This should be pretty obvious. Layer-cream-layer-cream and so on till you run out of layers, frost the sides with the remaining cream, arrange the caramel pieces on top. Optionally, decorate the sides with chopped hazelnuts (I put some hazelnuts between the layers as well).

I would love to make this cake again! It looks very sophisticated but in the end it was not all that difficult to make. Next time I would probably skip on the caramel on top. I thought it really was not worth the trouble - it looks interesting but my caramel pieces were the dentist's nightmare and not really edible. The butter-cream was a bit on the soft side but maybe I did not cook the eggs enough. Anyways it was so delicious I licked the bowl twice. And finally, the hazelnuts were a great addition, on the sides and the top. If you would like to put them between the layers then they must be really finely ground - mine were a bit too chinky. All in all, a fantastic cake. Thank you, Daring Bakers!

Fig Bounty

2009-08-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was taking my car from the work parking lot when I noticed a large fig tree overhanging the lot, heavy with unripe figs. I thought how fabulous it would be when the figs started getting ripe. The roots of the tree were on the other side of the fence so the tree technically belonged to the house next door. So am I allowed to pick the figs or not, I wondered. My friend Jane was kind to inform me (after I had already done the deed) that according to an ancient Greek law, the fruit overhanging your property belong to you; besides, no one else (except the squirrels) were making use of them and these luscious, juicy black Mission figs were just falling to the ground. So I proceeded to harvest them quite regularly over the past two weeks.

After the first bowl of figs appeared in my fridge I realized I could not possibly eat them all. What to do with a boatload of figs? They are such delicate fruit with very subtle flavor, the best thing is to just pop them in your mouth, close your eyes and sink into heaven. They are best fresh and there are very few things that you can cook with figs. I browsed by cookbooks, I surfed the net, I was restless until I lined up 4 (yes, four!) recipes which I wanted to try.

First came the fig tart. I was responsible for buying food for the Friday social hour at work. If I make a pie just for the sake of making a pie, the poor pie will spend a month in my fridge. But if I bring it to Happy Hour, there will be 15 volunteers to take care of it. Muahahaha. The recipe came from Epicurious. Just read the name and you will be seduced: Fresh Fig Tart with Rosemary Cornmeal Crust and Lemon Mascarpone Cream. Oh, doesn't it just sound delicious?

Mascarpone-Fig Tart

For the crust:
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C yellow cornmeal (not stone-ground)
1 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 Tbs finely chopped fresh rosemary
3+ Tbs ice water

For the filling:
1/4 C plain yogurt
1 C mascarpone cheese (8 oz)
1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp finely grated fresh lemon zest

1 1/2 lb fresh figs

This is made just like your regular tart. Mix flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and butter, and rub between your hands until the mixture turns into pea-sized crumbs. Add the rosemary and start adding the water one Tbs at a time, until the dough can be collected into a ball. Don't knead. Press the dough into a pie pad and line the walls and sides with a thin even layer. This recipe produced a bit too much dough for my pie pan so I used the leftovers to line a little ramekin for a mini-tart. Poke the dough with a fork and line with foil...or don't - opinions are split on whether you should do that. Bake at 350F for ~25 minutes, until the rim of the tart starts getting golden. Cool well on a rack.

Make the filling: beat the mascarpone cheese, yogurt, sugar and zest together in a bowl for ~30 seconds until fluffy. To assemble, pour the filling into the cold crust, arrange the figs on top. The picture here shows the figs sliced, but I cut them into wedges and it worked just as fine. I didn't brush them with glaze either, but got no complaints.

The tart was fantastic! Everyone loved it and I got thanks for it even 4 days later. So it must have been good. Or people were just really impressed that I baked something. What I really loved about this recipe is how versatile the element are. I'd never thought of putting herbs in the pie dough, for example. I was not a big fan of this particular crust recipe (and will make sure I post my favorite crust recipe at some other point) but including rosemary, basil or thyme in the crust, especially for a quiche or a savory pie would sure be fabulous. Also the filling was to die for! I couldn't get enough of it! (By the way, Trader Joe's carries mascarpone cheese, which is like cream cheese but better). It can be paired with any other fruit - Andrea suggested fresh raspberries, I also think peaches, strawberries, blueberry compote would go just fine on top of this filling. Ah, just more ideas for tasty things to bake!

Following the tart, I proceeded to make two types of fig jam and one type of fig preserve. Woah! That was a lot of work, but the results are so delicious, I can't wait for the winter to come so that I can start opening the jars. (Yes, I have a rule that no jams should be eaten if fresh fruit are available.) First I made the Spiced Microwave Fig-Orange Jam by Elise on Simply Recipes. I know, jam in the microwave?!? It worked great but if you want to boil it on the stove in the spirit of tradition, then go for it. Then I made the preserve with whole figs, which turned out very much like the fig preserves my mom used to make. Finally I made the spiked fig jam (spiced, spiked, I hope I don't get them confused in the cupboard). To prepare the figs for jamming, cut off their tails. I found two different suggested methods on washing the figs - pour hot water on them or wash them with cold water and baking soda. I used the former for the jams and the latter for the preserve.

Spiced Microwave Fig Jam

2 C (well packed) diced fresh figs
1/2 C seeded, peeled orange, diced
2 C sugar
the zest of 1 lemon
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cloves (which I forgot to pull out at the end... or ground)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 8oz jars & 1 4oz jar

Combine all the ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl, stir and let sit for ~30 min. Place in the microwave and set on high for 20 minutes. As soon as the mixture starts boiling (after 6-7 minutes), stop and stir. Keep stirring every 2-3 minutes and keep an eye on it so it does not boil over. It is ready when it has boiled down to 2/3 of its original volume. You can also check for done-ness using the wrinkle test shown here. Don't just rely on the thickness on the jam because it will thicken as it cools.

While the jam is making (and this is true for jam and preserve recipes), sterilize your jars in a large pot with boiling water. Just let them simmer. They should be well covered with water. Sterilize the lids and bands as well. Once the jam is done, pour it into the hot jars (use a towel or oven mitts), wipe the mouth clean with a paper towel, place the lid on top and screw on the band as tight as you can. Place the jars in a pot of hot water (yes, you can use the same pot of hot water) and bring to boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Maybe this double sterilization is an overkill - sterilize the jars and then boil the jam too - but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Pull the hot jars out of the water and let them cool on a towel (don't place the hot jars on the cold counter-top - they might crack!). Count the pops.

I liked the jam. The spices were very light. On first taste they still seemed to overpower the figs a bit, but things improved when the jam cooled The orange was hardly noticeable. The consistency was fantastic - the vigorous boiling the the microwave made for a very smooth jam.

Along a similar line comes the Spiked Fig Jam. I love adding alcohol to food - it imparts fantastic flavors even if a small quantity is used.

Spiked Fig Jam

1 lemon
4 1/2 C fresh figs, chopped and loosely packed
2 C sugar
1/3 C brandy or Cognac
2 Tbs lemon juice (from the same lemon)
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

3 8 oz. jars

Peel the lemon (thinly, with a potato peeler) and chop the rind into matchsticks. Combine all ingredients in a pot and let them sit for ~1 hour. Bring to boil over medium heat. Turn heat to low and simmer for ~30 minutes, stirring frequently and mashing the fruit. After the 30-minute mark, start checking for done-ness. Again, the jam will thicken when it cools. When the test comes out positive, turn off the heat and pour the jam into sterilized jars. Put on lids, screw on bands and boil the jars for ~10 minutes to finish off sterilization.

This jam turned out sooooooo incredibly good. I barely had the will power to leave some for James to try. I could have easily polished it off.

Finally, the fig preserve. I've always been befuddled by the differences between preserves, jams, marmalades and such. I am learning my way around them as I am making them - while jams are basically purees, preserves keep the fruit whole submerged in a sugar syrup. This old-fashioned fig preserve reminds me of the one my Mom used to make. It takes a long time to boil down so arm yourself with patience.

Fig Preserve

4 C whole figs
2 C sugar
3 lemon slices, seeded
1 C water
pinch of salt

2 8oz jars and 1 4 oz jar

Combine all ingredients in a pot, stir well and bring to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally for at least one hour. Continue simmering until the syrup passes the wrinkle test. Pour into sterilized jars, cap, screw the bands on and boil for 10 minutes.

Phew, that was a huge adventure! So much jammin' my head started spinning. And as if that wasn't enough I had another bowl of figs left. In a final act of desperation I decided to dry them in the oven. It took two nights with the oven turned on the lowest setting, probably 100F, to get most of the moisture out, to get the figs all dry and shriveled. All right, that's enough. I'm done.

And if that was not enough for you, here are a few more fig ideas:
Pizza with Figs, Prosciutto, Gorgonzola, Balsamic, and Arugula
Candied Fig, Hazelnut and Orange Cheesecake with Port Sauce
Warm Black Mission Fig, Walnut Crunch, and Blue Cheese Tartlets
Fresh Figs with Goat Cheese and Peppered Honey
Fig-Sesame Jam

Michael Pollan on Food Television

2009-08-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, just before "Julie and Julia" hit the movie theaters, Michael Pollan came out with a long (as usual) article in the New York Times about the evolution of food television. In Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch Pollan traces (and criticizes) the long way that food television has gone since Julia Child first appeared on public television some 45 years ago and tries to answer the question "How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves?". I recommend reading the article - it is lengthy but it makes some very interesting points. He starts with his own experience watching Julia Child when he was young and the courage she gave American women, goes through the mass exodus of women out of the kitchen and into the work force and the post-war effort to get us all to eat military rations (very successful effort indeed), looks at our life today where we spend only 27 minutes a day on average cooking and ~ 2 hours watching television and discusses what the future holds - will we go back in the kitchen?

I'd never watched Julia Child myself, until yesterday. I was surfing the channels on TV and came across the public TV station and lo and behold, it wad Julia Child in black and white making bouillabaisse. She cleaned the fish, made the soup and then sat at the table, poured herself a glass of wine and showed viewers how to serve and eat the magical concoction. It was fascinating, and extremely educational. I now feel that if the need should arise, I can make bouillabaisse. That sense of having learned something is vary rarely the result of watching the Food Network these days. After that experience I very much agree with Michael Pollen that food television is no longer about learning how to cook but rather about watching other people cook and/or eat. I was also struck with how accurate Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child was - her manners, her voice and intonation were so perfect. Rarely have I seen such a striking resemblance on screen (Salma Hayek as Frida Khalo is another one which comes to mind). Also, I was struck with how thin Julia Child was. Honestly, for someone who uses butter with such unbridled generosity, I thought she'd be a bit more.... plump.

But back to Michael Pollan. A large portion of the article is devoted to a detailed criticism of The Food Network. As I recently acquired cable subscription for the first time in my life, I, too, was struck with the content of most cooking shows. It's been two months since I have been watching The Food Network and I have not yet cooked a single thing I have seen there. Granted I usually turn the TV on in the evening when The Food Network is all about the race against the clock than about showing you how to cook. But even during the day (as in right now, on Sunday afternoon) the shows are about quick, cheap and easy "dump-and-stir" meals which promote the culture of cheap food and how to wow your family and guests with as little effort as possible. What if you want to wow them with some quality food that goes beyond fried chicken breasts you bought on sale for 50% off? Which reminds me that I recently heard an interview with Ellen Ruppel Shell, the author of Cheap - The Hight Cost of Discount Culture and it sounded fascinating. Check it out.

What do you think of food television today? Do you watch it? What do you watch? If you have had the chance to read Michael Pollan's article - what did you think? What struck you the most? Do you agree or disagree with it?

PS. A nearly complete list of Michael Pollan's works (including links to articles) can be found here (scroll down for the articles). Here are two which particularly appealed to me:A Letter to the Farmer in Chief and Unhappy Meals.

PPS. And if you, like me, have never see the original Julia Child series The French Chef, 36 of the original episodes have been published in two DVD box sets which are available on Amazon (Set 1 and Set 2) and on Netflix. You know, Christmas is coming and wouldn't these make wonderful presents for your favorite foodie?

Home-made Mayonnaise

2009-08-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

Like many other things that appear here, this, too, was James's idea. A few weeks ago he came to visit and brought me a box-full of home-made mayonnaise. He told me about his adventures trying to make it, hand-whipping it, not quite getting the consistency right, adding another yolk and finally finishing it off in the food processor to a grand finale. He made an egg salad and several sandwiches generously slathered with mayo. The consistency and the flavor of the mayonnaise were so light and fluffy you could eat it with a spoon and completely forget about the oil in it. I was hooked. A few days after he left, I made my own attempt at mayonnaise. I started with the blender, broke the emulsion, continued with the food processor, which only made things worse, and finally decided to hand-whip it, which to my utter surprise, did the trick! Oh, so good!

The video below is our join second attempt to make mayonnaise (success!).

Home-made Mayonnaise

1 egg yolk at room temperature
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp cool water
1 C oil
1/4 tsp salt

Yields: 1 C

Notes on the ingredients: The yolk needs to be at room temperature. If you want to speed the process, submerge the cold egg in a cup or warm water. After a couple of minutes pour out the water, add some new warm water, leave for a few minutes and keep doing this until the egg no longer feels cold to the touch. The oil needs to be very mildly flavored. I recommend canola oil or vegetable oil or sunflower oil. In the video we use 1/4 C of quite strongly flavored olive oil but the result had a seriously strong olive oil flavor - I would not recommend doing this. Either use very mild olive oil or only add a Tbs of olive oil if you want to impart that flavor.

The making of:
1. Combine the yolk, the water and the lemon juice in a deep bowl. Whisk to combine.
2. Start pouring the oil in a very thin stream and whisking vigorously. The mixture should be smooth and pale, initially very thin. It will start to thicken at the point when you have added about half the oil. Keep whipping until all the oil has been incorporated.
3. Add salt to taste and mix it in. Refrigerate - it will thicken even further.

I don't know about James, but my main inspiration to make mayonnaise came from Michael Ruhlman's new book "Ratio". I came across the mayonnaise chapter when I was browsing the book online and I was stunned to find out that the key ingredient to achieving an emusion (i.e. mayonnaise) is not the yolk but the liquid! Yolks come in all sorts of different sizes. What is important is how much water and/or lemon juice you add. The basic rule of thumb is 20 parts of oil to 1 part of liquid. One cup is equal to 16 Tbs which is approximately 20. There is a wide range of ratios that can be emulsified but 20:1 seems to work and is easy to remember. I think 1 C : 1 Tbs is also easy to remember. If you don't add the liquid, you will not get a thick emulsion. My Mom used to make mayonnaise with yolk + oil + citric acid when I was a kid and it always turned out thin and runny. I am guessing the lack of water explains that.

Finally, before I leave you with our feature presentation, what is a broken emulsion? If you add the oil to quickly the mix will start looking like curdled milk - the oil and the yolk will separate. That's not good, but fear not. Pour out the broken mix into the cup cup with the remainder of the oil, wash the bowl, add a teaspoon of water to the clean bowl and start over, pouring the broken emulsion in a think stream and whipping. That should fix it.

Now get yourself a glass of wine, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

From Movies

Summer Squash Gratin

2009-08-08T17:35:00.001-07:00

This is a true story. Quite a few years ago I had a crush on this boy and after a couple of months of flirting, in a poorly thought-trough attempt to move things along, I invited him over for dinner. Equipped with barely the knowledge how to boil pasta I think I called my Mom five or six times over the course of the next week asking how to make a some of her specialties which mistakenly left her with the impression that I had suddenly become very interested in learning how to cook. The dinner (chicken with potatoes and ice-cream) turned out fine but the boy ended up being a huge disappointment. Many months after it was all over, my Mom sent me a Christmas present - a cookbook! And not any cookbook, but the encyclopedical "1585 of the Best and Tested Recipes" by Penka Cholcheva, which is sort of the Bulgarian version of The Joy of Cooking. Forward 6 years, the book is still sitting on my bookshelf and I don't think I have made a single recipe from it. Until last week that is.

Last weekend I came home from the farmers market with more than two pounds of summer squash. I had given myself an interesting task - pick one from each shape and color of summer squash I could find at the market and ended up with the assortment above. Purrrrtty! And I decided to put them to use by making Mrs. Cholcheva's Squash Bourek. Bourek is typically a dish containing cheese and eggs, but since this one also has a browned top crust I will christen in a gratin. It ended up being absolutely fantastic! The proportions are approximate from what I did to fit a 8x8 inch pan.

Summer Squash Gratin

1 1/2 lb summer squash or zucchini, sliced into thin rounds, ~1/8 inch
1 C ricotta or feta, crumbled
1 C yogurt
4 eggs
1 bunch fresh dill, chopped
salt

1. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Lightly oil the baking pan you will be using.
2. Salt the squash slices lightly and let them drain for a few minutes until you do the rest of the prep work.
3. In a bowl whisk the cheese with two eggs and the dill until well mixed. Season with salt if using ricotta.
4. In a second bowl whisk the yogurt and the other two eggs. Season with salt.
5. Squeeze the zucchini lightly.
6. Place a layer of half of the zucchini on the bottom of the pan, overlapping rounds so that the bottom is well covered. Pour the cheese-egg mixture on top and spread evenly. Layer the rest of the zucchini. Pour the yogurt-egg mixture on top and spread evenly.
7. Bake for about 45 minutes, until it starts browning on top. Finish of with a few minutes under the broiler to brown nicely. Serve hot or cold. Either way, very tasty, an excellent sink for spare squash and a good source of protein.

Unfortunately, this only used up half of my squash (all the long ones). The round and flying-saucer shaped ones were doomed to another week in the fridge but then rewarded for their patience by being turned into ratatouille... But this is a whole different story...

Panzanella

2009-07-31T08:05:00.000-07:00

Tuscany. Just the name sounds so beautiful. Makes me think of green rolling hills, vineyards, cypress trees, sunsets, calm, quiet, cobble-stone streets, red roofs... Imagining Tuscany made me dreamy. And then I realized that I have been to Tuscany and that it is indeed all I imagine. That was a long time ago, seems like a different life now. I remember standing in line to see Michelangello's David and being surprised that the statue was smaller than I expected; climbing the stairs to the top of El Duomo in Florence and being utterly stunned by the view; sitting on the curb in a square, listening to a concert and drinking beer; walking the narrow streets of Sienna. And then, there is the memory of the medieval torture museum in the tiny town of San Gimignano, which still keeps me up at night. But I don' t remember a single meal I ate. So now, a little belatedly, I am trying to familiarize myself with Tuscan cuisine.

Panzanella is a traditional bread summer salad. I only found out about the concept recently, after coming across a grilled panzanella recipe online. And then I found that a whole of three pages are devoted to it in the Dean and Deluca cookbook (which is a fantastic read by the way). It is meant to be a leftover salad to use up stale bread (and possibly other odds and ends). But before I start muddling the water, here is the classical version:

Panzanella

1.5 parts tomatoes
1 part cucumber, peeled
1 part onion
1 part stale bread, de-crusting optional
torn basil leaves
Dressing: 2 to 1 ratio of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, preferably white
salt

Instead of giving exact measures, I am listing the basic proportions (by weight) though these need not be obeyed exactly. The idea is that the salad is dominated by tomatoes and bread, with less prominent presence of cucumbers, onions and basil. The exact preparation of the vegetables is up to you. Dean & Deluca suggest that you thinly slice everything. I prefer my tomatoes in bite-sized pieces and my cucumbers and onions quartered and then sliced. Either way goes. The bread should be de-crusted traditionally, but I left the crust because I like its chewy texture but that brings the bread forward flavor-wise. For a more fluffy and subtle bread texture, remove the crust. What bread to use? The salad works best with a hearty white bread with solid body and a bit of chewiness. It is best if the bread has been around for at least 4-5 day and is quite stale. If you only have non-stale bread, don't despair - just skip the "getting the bread wet" part.

Now, how does it all come together? Slice the onions and cucumbers, toss them with some salt and leave in a colander to drain some of the liquid while prepping the rest of the salad. Chop the tomatoes and add to the cucumbers and onions. De-crust the bread if desired and cut or tear into bite-sized pieces. Place the bread in another colander and sprinkle with cold water until the pieces are moist throughout (taste-test). It's ok if there are dry patches here and there, because these will absorb the moisture from the vegetables. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl, add the basil and toss with the dressing. Do not over-dress, you don't want to over-power the vegie taste. Add the bread and toss again, gently. Serve immediately or stick in the fridge for a few minutes until you are ready to eat it. This salad is way better if all the ingredients are really cold.

Chocolate-Cherry Milano Cookies

2009-07-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milano Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

This is my first Daring Bakers challenge and I feel seriously embarrassed to be flunking it a bit but the result is edible if not as pretty as I had hoped.

On the scale of one to ten of biblical disasters, making these cookies was probably only 1.5. Still I could have easily done without the excitement. It all started with grandiose plans (as all disasters usually do) to make a few different variations of the cookies - some original ones, some black and white ones, some chocolate cherry ones and to color some of the cookies red to match the cherry filling. It all sounded great and I was already imagining treating myself to one of these wonderful cookies along with my coffee on Monday morning (which I did anyways), but my plans deflated as soon as I popped the first pan in the oven .... and the cookies turned into crapes. Things kept going downhill when, after removing the cookies from the oven, I discovered they were glued to the parchment paper and there was no way to remove them from it. Nothing personal against parchment paper, but I prefer my cookies without it. I managed to salvage one cookie. But I was already out of the white batter. Oh well.

I figured I needed to add more flour (maybe too much of egg whites) which I did, realizing along the way that what I had hoped would be red batter was turning bright pink. To make up for it, the chocolate batter was tasty as hell (mmmmm, coooookiiiie baaaaatter). The pink and brown cookies turned out better if a bit too thick. Finally, I ended up with something more resembling deflated macaroons than Milan cookies. I did stick them together with chocolate and cherry jam, so they are chocolate cherry flavored, which I think worked out fabulously - I love the combination of the two flavors. Lesson learned: store bought Milano cookies are better. However, If you are not convinced, you are welcome to try this for yourself. Here is the recipe by Gale Gand on the Food Network site.

I-Miss-Tucson Triple Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies (First Attempt)

2009-07-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

It has been almost four months since I picked up and moved from the scorching heat of Tucson, Arizona to the green lawns of Los Angeles, California. Despite the fact that I have moved to better weather and a better job, I am still missing Tucson a whole lot. One of the things I miss the most (along with that special someone) is the Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea, the place where I spend the last three months of grad school and a significant fraction of the previous six years too. I am really more productive when there are people around me, when there is talking and music and interesting faces to secretly stare at for distraction. The quiet unnerves me and the hustle and bustle of the cozy coffee shop were a fantastic escape. Being able to get a huge mug of hot coffee and a bagel (ah, those fabulous 9-grain bagels) any time during the day was also a big advantage. Last but certainly not least was their fabulous selection of cookies. Mmmmm, cookies! Especially the triple chocolate cinnamon ones which I discovered one cold December day last year. And my life was changed forever. Seriously.

A few days before I moved away I asked the owner for the recipe. She refused politely but ensured that a big jar of cookies was supplied the next day which was sweet but I still wanted the recipe. And then I found this recipe on Epicurious. Aha! So here is my first attempt at making these cookies. I didn't quite follow the original recipe because of limitations on the available ingredients so here is what I did:

Triple Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies

1/4 C + 1 Tbs flour
1/4 C unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 Tbs sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/2 C (3 ounces) chopped milk chocolate (or chips)
1/2 C chopped walnuts, raw

Preheat oven to 350F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and set aside. In a big bowl beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs and beat till smooth. Add the melted chocolate and mix in. Add the dry ingredients in two batches, beating until incorporated. Stir in the milk chocolate pieces and walnuts. The dough is done.

Shaping the cookies can be done in two ways - ice-cream-scooping and slicing. I did the latter because I didn't have time to bake the cookies on the evening I made the dough. The scooping is easier: scoop level ice-cream scoops of dough and place them on a parchment-paper, 2-inches apart because cookies will spread. Bake for 12 minutes in the lower third of the oven. Cookies will be a bit soft to the touch and glossy. Let them cool on the pan for a few minutes and then cool completely on a rack. The slicing method is messier because the dough is very soft and sticky. Roll the dough into two logs about an inch and a half in diameter (or bigger if you want bigger cookies) by wrapping it in parchment paper and rolling it. You are bound to have chocolate behind your ears. It's ok. Once the logs are shaped wrap them in plastic wrap and place them in the freezer. The dough can stay in the freezer for a few weeks... if you can wait that long. To bake the cookies, slice the logs into 1/4-inch slices and place on a parchment-paper-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, cool on pan and then on a rack. Eat.

These cookies turned out sooo fabulous! They were soft and chewy, chocolatey with just the right amount of cinnamon and walnuts, so delicious, I could not have just one. Everyone loved them. So did I but they were not quite what I was shooting for. The Bentley's cookies are drier, less chewy and they crack on top. I think I will try making them with all white sugar and adding some more flour next time. I'm going to work on these. Come Christmas, I'll have them perfect!

Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Sweet Miso Dressing

2009-07-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Cabbage keeps well for long periods of time but still this is no excuse for the fact that 2/3 of a head of this leafy green has been inhabiting my fridge for two months. Scary! I even moved the cabbage with me when I changed apartments three weeks ago. Yes, indeed, I am very fond of this particular head of cabbage. But it was time to let it go and last night I made this wonderful crunchy cabbage salad inspired by Heidi Swanson's Chopped Miso Salad recipe.

Hmmm... All the interesting things about cabbage I just learned on Wikipedia! Cabbage, apparently is from the mustard family and has originated in the Mediterranean by selective breeding of wild mustard plants for suppressed intermode length. It was known to the ancient Greek and Romans and was praised for its medicinal properties. The powdery, waxy finish on the leaves is called bloom, the bitterness is due to glucosinolate, and it is rich in riboflavin, vitamin C and glutamine. China is the largest producer of cabbage in the world, followed by India and Russia. South Korea is fourth (kimchi?) and Poland is 6th (cabbage rolls, anyone?). And now that we have covered the basics on cabbage, lets get to the recipe.

Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Miso Dressing

1 smallish head of cabbage
1 bunch chives, chopped
1 C almonds, pan roasted and chopped
1 C cooked garbanzo beans (optional)

Dressing:
2 Tbs miso (I used red miso)
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp mustard
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 C rice vinegar
1/4 C olive oil

To make the dressing, combine all ingredients except the olive oil, in a small jar or in a blender. Mix well. Add the oil. Shake the jar or blend until well mixed. This makes about twice as much dressing as you will need for the salad. I very much liked the dressing and will use it on other salads, but if you don't want extra then halve the recipe.

Chop the cabbage in very, very small pieces. I chopped it like a big onion - cut it in half, put each half flat on the cutting beard and put 5-6 not all-the-way-through cuts lengthwise (from the core to the tip) and then I sliced it very thinly starting from the tip. When I got to the core, I cut around it. Cabbage is usually way too hard and fibrous for me so I always give it my secret family treatment - I put the chopped cabbage confetti in a bowl, salted them lightly and kneaded then for a minute. This can be done with one or both hands, you basically squeeze the cabbage and mix it, squeeze and mix until it's all softened up. The motion is really very similar to kneading. Add the chives, almonds and beans. Add the dressing, toss, chill. This salad can easily keep for a couple of days in the fridge.

This can easily be made into a left-overs salad - a meal to take care of all of last week's Farmer's Marked odds and ends. The dressing is slightly sweet but bright from the vinegar. It goes very well with the cabbage, but you can easily also add lettuce (finely chopped), blanched green and wax beans (cut into 1/2 inch pieces), peas, asparagus, cucumber (chopped into matchsticks), green onions, other green herbs.

The garbanzo beans are optional - I wanted to make a meal out of the salad - and can be substituted with some other type of beans (like navy beans or baby lima beans). I very much recommend that you just buy a pound of dry beans, cook them with some salt and keep them in the fridge or freezer for adding to soups and salads instead of buying the canned stuff which is (a) way more expensive and (b) way worse tasting. You can substitute the beans with stir-fried extra firm tofu too (or maybe even chicken but don't quote me on that).

De-li-cious! Next on my list of summer adventures? Panzanella!

Salad Season is Here!

2009-07-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Every summer I go on a salad binge. In a good way. It's just that I don't see any reason to be cooking and eating bean and potato dishes when I am going to have the whole winter for them. As a matter of fact I don't see much of a reason to cook at all when I can enjoy a crunchy, fresh, flavorful salad with nothing more but a knife and a cutting board (and a steamer basket in this case) in under 10 minutes from the fridge to the table. And so that I don't get into a rut eating the same tomato-cucumber concoction, I always try to find new salads to make. Here are two new finds.

But before I get to the recipes, a quick word on steaming: take it easy! Use the microwave timer and go for two minutes. At the end of that, taste a piece (careful, HOT!) and if the vegetable is a bit soft but still a bit crunchy, end it at that. Better undercook than overcook - we have all had enough of awful mushy vegetables.

Carrot Ginger Salad

3/4 lb carrots
1/2 - 1 Tbs ginger, minced
several springs of thyme, leaves only
1 Tbs toasted sesame seeds
a splash of sesame seed oil
the juice of 1 lime
salt to taste

This salad was inspired by something very similar I had at a bakery last week. The main ingredients were carrots, thyme and ginger and the salad was very lightly seasoned so that the carrot flavor came out. Lacking a significant source of protein this is really a side salad, mild and refreshing.

Chop the carrots in fat matchsticks and steam for three minutes until softened a bit but still crunchy. Cool and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Serve/eat chilled.

Green Bean Salad with Glazed Almonds

3/4 lb green beans
1 C cooked garbanzo beans
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
2 green onions, chopped
1 Tbs ginger, minced
1/4 - 1/3 C cilantro, chopped
2 Tbs rice vinegar
1 Tbs olive oil
salt to taste

1/4 C whole raw almonds
1 Tbs soy sauce

lettuce

A week ago I acquired some phenomenal Blue Lake green beans at the farmer's market and as much as I was enjoying munching on them raw, I really wanted to do something more grandiose with them. I found inspiration in this salad on Epicurious and added beans to make it more substantial. I tossed it with some greens to serve and enjoyed it for lunch yesterday. And for dinner. And for lunch today again. The beans can be steamed ahead of time.

Trim the ends of the beans and cut into inch long pieces. Steam for 2 minutes until bright green but still crunchy. Cool. In the mean time heat the almonds in a small dry skillet over low heat for a ~3-4 minutes until they start to brown. Pour in the soy sauce and stir in with the almonds and continues cooking until the sauce has evaporated. Cool the almonds and chop. Toss all ingredients in a large bowl and chill for the flavors to blend.

So far so good. I have planned to try two more salads this week!

Birthday Brownies

2009-07-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

For some reason or another I have always had home-made birthday cakes. I remember the checkered cake I always begged my Mom for when I was little, and the sponge cakes my Grandma used to make, decorated with red and yellow raspberries like strings of Christmas lights in June. But at the point when one pack of candles is no longer enough to mark my age, birthday cakes have lost their charm and birthday celebrations have become more like an avoidance there of. Instead of a celebration, I try to do something fun and memorable. I had planned to run a marathon this year but with the stress of the last three months my training fell off track big time. BIG time! In place of marathoning, I managed to convince several of my friends to go chasing bears (literately and figuratively) in the Sierra Nevadas over a 36-mile hike. And to fuel the hike I lugged a pack of brownies in place of a cake. Yeah!

You might hate me for saying this, but in my opinion as far as deserts go brownies are usually just too much - too sweet, too choclatey, too sticky. But these ones I like. They have more of a cake consistency and don't feel like a cubic inch of a heart attack. I would like to make them with chopped dark chocolate instead of chocolate chips next time. And unless it is agains your religious convictions, do add the walnuts! The recipe is from King Arthur (and can be found on the back of their flour packs). Yep, that's right, King Arthur made brownies.

Best Brownies Ever

1/2 C unsalted butter
1 C sugar
2 large eggs
1/2+ C Dutch-process cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 C chocolate chips
1/2 C walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease an 8x8 inch pan. Place butter in microwave safe bowl and melt in the microwave (watch it - 20 seconds are usually enough). Add the sugar, stir and return to microwave for for another 20 seconds, stir and keep heating and stirring until the mixture is hot and glossy but not bubbling. In another bowl mix the next six ingredients (eggs through cocoa) and add the hot butter while stirring. Add the flour and stir till smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips and the walnuts. Pour in the pan and bake for ~30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool well before cutting. If you can.

Vote with Your Wallet and a Spring Potato Salad

2009-06-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

There has been a distinct shift in how I think about food and cooking and in how I shop over the last few months. After reading books like "Fast Food Nation" and "In Defense of Food", I am now convinced of the importance of the whereabouts of your food before it came inside your kitchen. It is an increasingly active movement for sustainable food, one led by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser and a number of other opponents of modern agricultural practices, a movement to change the way we produce food, shop for food, eat food. Recent movies like King Corn and Food, Inc. are trying to give publicity to the movement though I doubt either of them will have the popularity (and the impact) of The Inconvenient Truth. The idea of sustainable food is very multifaceted. On one hand there are the health issues - the food we eat is rich in calories but poor in nutrition (yes, this is true even for your greens if they came from a large commercial farm). Then there is the rich environmental issue - contemporary agricultural practices are responsible for 22.5% of greenhouse gases (47% of methane, 88% of nitrous oxide and 9% of CO2), a major cause for land loss (due to erosion and loss of fertility), a threat to biodiversity and a serious pollutant (where do you think all the cow poo goes?). In addition, transporting food half the way around the world so that we can have watermelons at Safeway year-round is a huge fuel sink. And finally there is the complex social issue - people need food and will need even more food as the population increases but our centralized scheme of mono-cultures is fragile and bad for us and frequently the ones at the bottom of it, the producers, are the biggest losers of all.

It is a long laundry list and it calls for a major over-haul of the food industry. Certainly this is not going to happen overnight but things are starting to stir. The number of Farmer's Markets in the USA has increased dramatically over the last five years giving a boost to small farms and creating a local demand-supply network. The same is true for Community-sponsored Agriculture. Victory gardens are making a comeback, tomato and squash plants peeking through the fences of many of the houses in my neighborhood. My concerns are that so far these alternative food sources are only accessible to a small fraction of the population (the one that has access to them) and that they mainly address the produce portion of the food-pyramid - sustainable meat production is very rare and supermarkets are still full of processed corn-derivatives.

Baby steps, baby steps. What can I (and you) do? In an effort to increase the quality of my food and reduce its carbon footprint, I have made a commitment to purchase all my produce from the Farmer's Market. I am voting with my wallet. I kind-a have it easy though - there is a fantastic and very reasonably priced farmer's market every weekend three miles from my house and I live in California - the Mecca of produce. Does it make a difference? I tried to explain my war on fast food to my parents and they were very befuddled in a "who cares" way, but I haven't spend a dollar at a fast food restaurant since October and I feel great about it. However, I think this decision to source my produce locally is bigger that just a feel-good feeling - it is a vote for and sponsorship of the Farmer's Market folks, of their effort and commitment and ultimately good for me (I eat a LOT of fruits and veggies). I am kissing my demand for instant gratification good-buy.

But enough of the prelude. This aweeeesome potato salad recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen and uses all Spring products (I get really irked by mixed season recipes... pear-strawberry cobbler, anyone?). I love this salad! And just for the record, the ingredients - potatoes, green beans, scallions and basil - cost me ~$4.50 at the Farmer's Market.

Pesto Potato Salad with Green Beans
2 lb new potatoes, quartered
1/2 lb green beans (better go for 1 lb)
2-3 scallions, chopped

1 bunch of basil, just the leaves
1-2 cloves garlic
~1/4 C of olive oil

1/2 C pine nuts, toasted
a splash of mild vinegar
salt & pepper
parmesan for garnish

Wash and cut the potatoes into bite-sized peaces (not too small though, not diced). Place them in a pot, cover with water and boil then until tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the beans (ends trimmed and cut into inch-sized peaces) and boil another 2-3 minutes. The beans shouldn't be soft but still a bit crunchy. Drain well and let cool. While this is all happening, make pesto from the basil, garlic and olive oil; add just enough oil to make a paste, not all of it. Stir the pesto, scallions and pine nuts with the beans and potatoes. Season with salt, pepper and vinegar, stir, garnish with parmesan, serve. Awesome. (Hint: make more pesto than you need - you are going to love the pesto-potato combination so much, you'll want more pesto. Or use it on some pasta. Or bread. Or just about anything else.)

The bottom line of this very long post is that there is a bigger picture behind the tasty recipes and pretty pictures, the picture of the vast food industry which we are all supporting with our choices of where we shop and what we buy. Support your local farmers. Vote with your wallet. Know where your food came from, who it came from. Be proactive. Do what you can - your actions matter. And enjoy the potato salad!

PS. For more blogs on sustainable food check this review.

Backpacking Food

2009-06-21T12:33:00.001-07:00

I am heading off to yet another awesome backpacking adventure next weekend and I am too excited to think about anything else. But before I go, I must solve The Big Question - what are we going to eat for 4 days in the wilderness with no gas stations and vending machines. Even for me it is stretch to spend 4 days of strenuous hiking on bagels and cream cheese. The alternative is the store bought "just add water" meals sold at outdoors stores for ~$5 a meal which is a bit steep for a bag of ramen with some spices. On our last backpacking adventure two months ago, I was introduced to the miracle of freezer bag cooking - home-made "just add water" meals that are delicious, nutritious and easy to prepare for a crowd. We made them for dinner, family-style, all in one pot and everyone (but lazy, post-thesis me) cooked a meal for the whole group. It was fantastic - an amazing warm meal every evening! We had a burrito night, a couscous night and a linguine in cream sauce night. Yum! So for next weekend I readily agreed with James's suggestion that we cook dinners the same way and decided to use the occasion to test and cross-compare some freezer bag recipes. All recipes below are from the Trail Cooking website. More recipes can be found at One Pan Wonders, the Backpacker magazine and on some other websites (search for freezer bag cooking).

Orange Rice with Salmon (for 1 person)
1 C instant rice
1⁄3 C chopped toasted pecans
2 Tbs dried parsley
2 Tbs diced dried onion
1 Tbs dried orange peel
1 1/2 tsp bouillon
1 tsp orange drink mix (such as crystal light or tang)
3 oz pink salmon/tuna (1 bag)
salt
(1 C water)
Weight: 10.5 oz Cooking time: boil water + 5 minutes Calories: 530 Kcal Protein: 22 g Fat: 30 g Carbs: 46 g Price: ~$4.00

Preparation: Mix all ingredients but the fish in a bag. At camp, bring water to boil, mix with the dry ingredients and let it seep for 5 minutes. Stir in the fish. Enjoy!

Review: I was very excited about this and it turned out fairly tasty if a bit strange. The original recipe asked for 1 1/2 C of rice - this makes way too much food for one person so I scaled it back. I am not sure about the orange drink mix - I used Kool-aid and it sucked (too sour). I'd suggest just skipping it altogether. Quite a mix of flavors, maybe a bit too much.

Thai Style Peanut Noodles (for 1 person)

3 oz package ramen noodles
1⁄4 C chunky peanut butter
1 1⁄2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp diced dried onion
1⁄2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp vinegar
salt
(1 1/2 C water)
Weight: 5.5 oz Cooking time: boil water + 3 minutes Calories: 760Kcal Protein: ~21g Fat: ~20g Carbs: ~60g Price: $1.50 (generously)

Preparation: Break ramen into smaller pieces (to save space) and pack in a ziplock bag. Mix all other ingredients in a small plastic jar. At camp bring water to boil. Add ramen and let it steep for 3 minutes. Pour some of the ramen water in the sauce jar (less than 1/4 C) and shake until it turns into a thick sauce. Dispose of the rest of the ramen water. Stir the noodles with the sauce.

Review: Veeeeery peanuty! Oh my! The original recipe asked for too much water in the sauce and too much vinegar so I've changed these. Using chunky peanut butter is fantastic (I used salted). One can add more peanuts if desired. I would like to add some dried vegetables if I make it, maybe a handful of dried carrots.

Swiss Broccoli Mac and Cheese (for 1 person, generously)

1 1/2 Tbs flour
1⁄4 C dry milk
1 tsp dry mustard powder
2 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried garlic
1⁄8 tsp ground black pepper
4 oz uncooked small shell pasta
1⁄4 C diced dried broccoli
2.5 oz shredded swiss cheese
salt
(2 C water)
Weight: 8.5 oz Cooking time: boil water + 5-10 minutes (depending on pasta) Calories: 760Kcal Protein: 45g Fat: 20 g Carbs: 90g Price: $2.25

Preparation: Pack pasta in one bag, cheese in a second bag, all other dry ingredients in a third. At camp, bring water to boil and boil the pasta till ready. Without pouring the water out, stir in all the other ingredients until the cheese is melted. Reserve some cheese and parsley to sprinkle on top if desired.

Review: This was awesome! Well, when is mac and cheese not awesome... Total comfort food, rich and delicious. I used Swiss Cheese from New Zealand, found at TJs and tiny alphabet pasta which cooked in under 5 minutes.

Which am I going to cook after all? The Orange-Salmon-Rice is at the bottom in the weigh-price-calories ratio - it is heavy, expensive and low in calories. The race is between the Mac'n'cheese and the peanut noodles. Not rally sure. The peanut noodles are cheap and light. The Mac'n'cheese is a bit on the heavy side but equally delicious. Mmmmm, though choice. Any votes?

PS. Why is this called "freezer bag cooking" if these meals can be much more comfortably cooked in the pot where you boiled the water?

Look at These F***ing Carrots!

2009-06-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

I have not been doing much of actual cooking lately, the type of cooking where you combine a list of ingredients and the mix of their different tastes, textures and flavors make something more than the mere sum of the parts. But June Gloom - a weather pattern in southern California which brings weeks of cloudy, drizzly, cool days - has been getting me down. After seven years in Arizona, two weeks without sunshine are definitely giving me seasonal depression symptoms. So I decided to cook myself a soup, with spring ingredients to warm my old bones. How about carrot soup? Why not?

A quick search of the interwebs lead me to this excitingly looking Carrot-Ginger-Lemon soup. And after the acquisition of this beautiful bunch of carrots from the Farmer's Market I was all set to go.

Sometimes recipes drive me crazy. Now, I understand that ingredients should be in certain proportions but if the recipe asks for 1 1/2 cups of onion what are you supposed to do with the 1/3 unused onion you are left with? Or what are you to do with the 1/2 red pepper left over from the recipe which asks for 1/2 cup of chopped pepper? I much prefer recipes which ask for 1 onion or one pepper or two tomatoes, and of course the taste will vary a bit every time you make the recipe but, for a soup, is that so crucial? Anyways, here is the recipe is re-written in whole ingredients:

Carrot Soup with Ginger and Lemon
1/4 C butter
1 medium/big onion, chopped
1 generous Tbs finely chopped ginger
1-2 tsp finely chopped garlic
the peel of 1 lemon, finely chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
3-4 C sliced carrots
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
3-4 C stock (chicken or veggie)

For garnish: yogurt/sour cream and boiled brown rice
Yields: 4-6 servings

Saute onions in butter for 4 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and saute another 2 minutes. Add carrots, tomatoes and lemon peel and saute another minute. Add the stock and boil till carrots are tender (~20 minutes). Pure in batches in blender and return to pot. Bring to simmer, add lemon juice and season to taste with salt and a bit of black pepper. Serve with yogut or sour cream. I added about half a cup of brown rice to give it more substance too - it works great! This soup is fantastic both hot or cold. After a day the ginger lends it a bit of spiciness and the flavors have blended deliciously. A fantastic entry into spring! Yum!

Two Scary Movies

2009-06-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

I am not a bit fan of the horror genre myself. But while these two movies are classified as documentaries, they might turn out to be equally chilling (and without any special effects) as any horror flick. With the common denominators of bad science, corporate greed, small-minded governments, and escalating consumer demand, these two movies look at two different food sources - agriculture and fishing - and show the devastating effects of how we eat today on the environment and on our lives.

Food, Inc. came out last fall but is just now in a wider distribution. I just came across a review in the NY Times. The movie is currently showing at the Nuart Theater in Westwood (11272 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025). Read the review. Watch the movie.

Under the tagline "Imagine a world without fish" comes a documentary about the impact of (over)fishing on the world's oceans. The End of the Line had its premiere at the Sundace Film Festival this spring and starts nationwide distribution on June 19th. It will be showing at a couple of the Laemmle Theaters in LA starting Friday (Sunset 5 in West Hollywood and Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills).

See, sometimes you don't need zombies to loose sleep.

Pretty Lunch

2009-06-11T10:56:00.001-07:00

My lunch today is so pretty, I had to share... Though, now that I think about it, I forgot to put salt.

Pretty Lunch

boiled pasta
home-made ricotta
cherry tomatoes
basil
olive oil
salt
a squeeze of lemon juice

Enjoy!

Where to Shop & Eat in Pasadena, CA

2009-06-08T17:17:00.001-07:00

I have recently moved to Pasadena, CA and I am still trying to figure out where to shop. King Ranch has definitely become one of my favorites - they have wonderful bread, varied produce, awesome cheese and jalapeno sandwiches and cupcakes with radioactive-blue frosting. I rarely ever buy cupcakes, buy this one had to be mine - I had to have this Superman ring at all cost (50c it turned out). Trader Joe's is definitely a staple. Whole Foods is good for a splurge and special things (like fancy cheese, rennet, pectin). Any other recommendations? Recommendations on Middle-Eastern stores and stores which specialize in great produce would be particularly welcome.

I have found two great Farmer's Markets nearby - the one at Victory park on Saturday mornings and a smaller but still very cute one in Sierra Madre on Wednesday evenings (before 7pm). They are both very affordable and have an abundance of fresh produce as well as fancy goods. I have been thinking of trying out a CSA but haven't quite mustered up the courage yet. I might be interested in sharing a share (or even half a share) because on my own I eat very little. Any advise? Volunteers for sharing?

I haven't had much of a chance to explore the restaurants in town yet, but I've had fantastic luck with vegan and Salvadorian food. I heavily recommend My Vegan and La Caravana! Send suggestions my way!

Follow up: Just today I saw the NY Times article about Persian restaurants and markets in LA. Woot! My friend Sabrina has for long recommended me the LA Persian food. I might just have to try some.

Mozzarella!

2009-06-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, we did it! And it turned out so good, oh so good! Can we call ourselves cheese-makers now? Alright, alright, let me back a little. James visited me last week and making mozzarella was among the many wonderful, exciting, delicious and very much unplanned things we did. We used a very simple recipe - the one included in Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" (read it!). All the recipes from the book can be found here.

Mozzarella

1 gallon pasteurized milk
1 1/2 tsp citric acid dissolved in 1/4 C cool water
1 tsp cheese salt
1/4 tablet rennet dissolved in 1/4 C cool water
or
1/4 tsp liquid rennet dissolved in 1/4 C cool water

Yields: four 2-inch balls
Also helpful: Big stainless steel pot (should fit at least 1 gallon), candy thermometer, sieve, slotted spoon, heavy duty rubber gloves, microwave.

I am not going to explain you how to make the cheese - just follow the instructions here.

Aout the ingredients: You need pasteurized but not ultra-pasteurized milk (a.k.a. HUT milk). Ultra-pasteurized milk cannot be turned into cheese. With the advent of big milk-processing plants, milk distributers wanted to be able to keep milk from spoiling for longer periods of time and thus developed the process of ultra-pasteurization - by heating milk to a higher temperature (280F/138C vs. 161F/71.7C for regular pasteurization) milk will stay "fresh" for up to couple of weeks months. Unfortunately, this also changes the protein structure, so milk will not curdle properly. Frequently, additives need to be included in UHT milk to duplicate the taste and texture of regular milk. To summarize, avoid it if you can in principle, definitely avoid it if you are making cheese.

Rennet, according to Wikipedia, is a natural complex enzyme produced by any mammalian stomach to digest the mother's milk and often used in cheese production. Ewwwww. Luckily, I managed to find some vegetable rennet at a brew-store in Arizona (which is usually derived from mold?). I got a dozen of tablets for ~$7 which will make a whole of a lot of cheese. Rennet can also be found online as well as here and I saw some liquid rennet at Whole Foods the other day (not sure that was vegetarian though... I think it was).

Citric acid ... Hmmm, I bought it from the same place as the rennet. I have also seen it in Middle-Eastern grocery stores. If you live in Tucson, AZ, Caravan (on Glenn and Country Club) is the place to go. Also, use non-chlorinated water if possible and definitely non-iodized salt. The latter is important, for iodine may interfere with cheese making enzymes. Get some cheese salt (which is just nice coarse-grain salt without iodine) or get the box with the girl without iodine.

This is a lot of explaining for such a short ingredient list!

About making the cheese itself. We followed the recipe and things went pretty smooth. We had to heat the curds three times for about 20 seconds each time while kneeding until we reached the desired consistency. The result was very smooth but not as stretchy as I thought it needed to be. I think we just didn't heat it enough because I just saw the pictures here - wow, this really stretches like taffy. The cheese came out a bit dense, but the taste was great! We kept it in a bowl covered with whey to prevent it from drying. The whole batch swiftly disappeared over the course of the weekend - most of it was consumed at a dinner with friends along with some sliced tomatoes, olives, basil and olive oil. The rest went to top our amazing Sunday night dinner.

What next? I think I need some more practice with the mozzarella. But other than that I am thinking of getting Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making book to explore some other recipes. Ultimately, wouldn't it be nice to be able to make feta? I think my life would improve substantially if I could do that... Or I'd get fat. Possibly both.

Passion. Ambition. Butter.

2009-06-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

I came across this a few weeks ago - a movie about Chef Julia Child and Julie Powell who cooks her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (now in its 40th anniversary edition). The movie is partially based on Julie Powell's blog later turned into a book - "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen". But wait... what? I have to wait till August 7th? That's like ... a year from now!!! Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci. It looks fantastically delicious! In the mean time - enjoy the trailer.

My Favorite Pizza Dough

2009-06-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

Some days it is hard to believe that all problems will inevitably be solved and life will get better - apartment hunting is not going all that well, James left town and, most importantly, last night's amazing pizza is gone. I was so sad that I got some shopping therapy... at Trader Joe's. I got some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and milk. And I'm feeling all better now.

I am afraid a lot of people think of pizza as the greasy stuff you order when there's nothing in the fridge (Brooklyn Pizza and Maggpie's are very much excluded from this generalization). Also a lot of people think that making pizza is very hard and time consuming. I am going to try to convince you that this is not the case and that amazing, tasty pizza can be made with minimal effort and ingredients so that you should never have to order the greasy cheesy stuff ever again.

I love making pizzas in the summer, when there is an abundance of fresh vegetables to top them with. I have been using this recipe for about a year now and have made a dozen pizzas, all of them very much successful. The crust itself is so good, it can be eaten all by itself with little more than olive oil, salt and an herb of your choice on top. The recipe is originally from Epicurious:

Pizza Dough

1 envelope active dry yeast
3/4 C lukewarm water
1 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt
2+ C flour
3 Tbs olive oil
a bit of cornmeal

Preheat the oven to 450F. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the water and leave aside for 5-10 minutes until it gets a bit frothy on top. In a big bowl make a well in the 2 C of flour and pour in the olive oil, salt and the yeast mixture. Mix first with a fork until all flour is incorporated. Then flour your hands and knead adding a bit more flour until the dough is not as sticky, but it should still be soft - I usually end up adding another tablespoon. Kneading should be about a minute. Grease the dough with some olive oil, place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it sit and rise while you are preparing the topping.

To make the actual pizza, punch the dough down and knead into a ball on a floured surface. The dough must be soft and all surfaces and hands should be well floured to avoid sticking. Roll it out with a rolling pin (also floured) or just pull it with your hands. It needs to be very thin, almost transparent. Oil the pan/stone and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place the dough on the pan and oil the top a bit. Place in the oven and par-bake until the top starts getting a bit rosy. At this point you may add your toppings and bake for another 5-10 minutes until heated throughout. Voila.

Here are some topping ideas - I am a fan of simple pizzas where you can savor the flavors of the ingredients and not get lost in them:

Tomatoes, mozzarella & basil. Slice 2-3 tomatoes, 3 balls of mozzarella and tear the leaves of a bunch of basil. Toss everything with olive oil. Arrange on top of pizza and salt. Eat right away or bake until tomatoes are soft and mozzarella is melted.

Potatoes and rosemary. Parboil potatoes, peel and slice thinly. Toss with a rosemary, salt and olive oil. Arrange on top of the pizza. Bake. (You can add some sort of cheese id you want.)

Three cheeses. Spread tomato sauce (pasta sauce from a jar would work too). Arrange slices of mozzarella and parmesan and crumble ricotta on top. Bake until the cheeses are melted. Sprinkle chopped fresh basil on top before serving.

Caramelized onions and cheese. Slice thinly 3 heads of onion. Caramelize. Spread onions on top of the pizza and randomly distribute slices of Gruyere or parmesan on top of them.

Of course, the possibilities are endless - more ideas can be found here, here, here (grilled pizza, lots of ideas in the comments), and here (including a recipe for Arizona Pizza).

30-day-notice Strawberry Jam

2009-05-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

Because I made this on the night I got my 30-day-notice to move out of my current house. *Sigh.* A girl's got to cheer herself up somehow. I guess making strawberry jam and watching The Dish worked for me. The fresh California strawberries I bought last Wednesday at the farmers market were turning into dehydrated and/or rotten strawberries so I decided to practice my jam making technique for next weekend and make a small batch as suggested by Cooking Up a Story. I also liked her recipe because it uses very little sugar ... so I borrowed it. Here ya go.

Strawberry Jam

3 C sliced strawberries
1 C sugar
2 Tbs lemon juice

Yields: very little

I would recommend that you watch the video but it is a whole of 10 minutes long so here is the abridged version: mix everything in a wide pot, bring to boil and simmer for ~15 minutes until it starts to thicken, pour into a jar, wait to cool, eat. This only made about a cup and a half of jam, not even a full jar so I didn't bother sterilizing and sealing it - I just put it in the fridge for immediate consumption. James asked me to leave some for him to try it. It is Tuesday, he is coming on Thursday... this will be hard...

Sandwiches!

2009-05-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

I just finished my lunch - a tomato-ricotta-pesto sandwich on french bread roll - when I came across this: Scanwiches. Ahhhh.... ain't it beautiful?

From there I found an article about sandwiches in the Washington Post here. And from there - a book about meal-worthy sandwiches - 'wichcraft by Tom Colichio.

And then down the winding lane of my thoughts, I remembered I had seen an amazing blog post about grilled cheese sandwiches. Finally, I started to wonder about the other staple American sandwich - the PBJ. What other variations are there? Here are some ideas and one more. Wow! I like the idea of fresh fruit (apples or kiwi) and I'll be curious to try the PB & cabbage one. Hmmm. Any other suggestions for grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwiches?

About that Ricotta

2009-05-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

I am not sure where the original inspiration to make ricotta came from. It may have been driven by the frustration to find ricotta at the grocery store and/or by its price once found. I love cheese and I consume generous amounts of it. I have been heard to say that feta can be added to just about any dish (and I have been known to do it too). I guess at some point I may have felt that in order to be able to afford my addiction I need to learn how to make cheese. Can't be that hard, can it?

Making ricotta is as simple as it gets. The ingredient list is short and the whole process, start to finish, takes about 15 minutes, most of them brooding over the milk on the stove. The equipment list is a bit more involved but all the items needed should be present in a semi-well furnished kitchen.

Ricotta

1/2 gallon milk
1 tsp salt
3 Tbs lemon juice

Yields: 1 1/2 to 2 C ricotta

Equipment: one large pot, one large cheese cloth, candy thermometer (optional), sieve/colander (also optional but helpful), stove.

Notes on the ingredients: I usually get 2% generic pasteurized milk but I am sure any milk would work. The question of what salt to use in cheese-making seems to spur a lively discussion on the internets. My brief review and 2-month long experience have led me to conclude that for ricotta it really doesn't matter what salt you use - if you want to be fancy, use that kosher sea salt from the Red Sea, but plain old iodized salt from the box with the girl does a perfectly good job. I have been using freshly squeezed lemon juice because as a result of my friend Tedi's generosity I still have a bag of lemons in the fridge (3 Tbs ~ 1.5 lemons); the stuff that comes in yellow, lemon-shaped bottles would probably work too.

Now on to the very complex process of the actual cheese-making. Pour the milk in the pot and heat over moderate heat until the milk temperature reaches just over 100F (38C). Generally, anything between 100F (38C) and 110F (43C) would work. If you don't have a candy thermometer (such as me until yesterday) you can do the pinky test - dip your pinky in the milk and if it feels just a bit hot (like someone with fever) then it's ready. At that point turn the heat to low stir in the salt and then the lemon juice.

As soon as the lemon juice is in the milk should curdle and the liquid should clear. Leave on low hear for a few minutes. Then turn off the heat, put the lid on and leave for a few minutes undisturbed so that the curds can settle and the liquid cools a bit.

Fold the cheese cloth so that you have 3-4-5 layers, line the sieve/colander with it and place in the sink. Pour the contents of the pot in the cheese-cloth lined colander. Tie the diagonal ends of the cheese cloth together, forming a bag with the curdled milk in it and hang above a bowl or sink of a 2 to 4 hours (kitchen cabinet door knobs make excellent hanging places). Do not leave it overnight unless you want really dry, crumbly ricotta. Feel free to squeeze it once in a while but be careful as the contents may be hot. When you are satisfied with the draining (do taste it to see if it is dry enough) move to a box and refrigerate (or eat). That's it.

If you want to make herbed ricotta, add the herbs (and other desired ingredients such as more salt, parmesan, garlic) after the draining. Mix well and leave in the fridge for a few hours for the flavors to blend.

Troubleshooting:
What if the milk doesn't curdle? This has been happening to me lately... add a couple more tablespoons of lemon juice. Maybe my lemon juice is not acid enough.

Suggested uses: Ravioli, lasagna, sandwiches, spreads, potato and pasta salads, etc.

Next weekend - MOZZARELLA! Excited!

Update

2009-05-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

Today at the grocery store I overheard the following conversation between two people who, for all I know, were complete strangers: "How are you today?" a woman asked a man. "I am blessed. Thank you!" he answered. This answer reminded me that despite the stress and worry that have clouded my thoughts these days, I, too, am blessed. So I sat down on one of the concrete tables in front of the store and ate my cheese and jalapeno sandwich thinking just how blessed I am. My family is well; I did graduate after all; and I still have a job; my friends are well (and I miss them all very much); my dog is well; I do have a roof over my head (and a crazy landlord, oh well); my seedlings are growing; and I had just bought food for the week for $15. Did I mention I am broke too? Hence the CupNoodles. I would like to think of them as backup. I considered going on a PBJ diet where P is TJ's peanut butter, J is homemade strawberry jam and the boundary conditions are home-made bread, but I slept in and missed the Farmer's Market strawberries. Plan B is homemade ricotta and tomatoes (those I did get from the Market) sandwiches on 25c french bread rolls - doesn't sound all that bad, does it?

Spring Favorite

2009-05-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

As different as we were when we were kids, my sister and I had the same favorite dishes. These dishes were the first we ever learned to cook (luckily they are all simple enough) and now that we are adults they are saving our lives in hungry, busy, and stressful times. One of them is this new potatoes with dill "extravaganza". I cannot resist making it every spring as soon as new potatoes and fresh dill come out. I made it a few weeks ago for my parents and was exulted to receive the compliments of my Mom. Woot! She may hate my hair, nails, and sense of interior design, but she loved my new potatoes with dill. I'll take that.

New Potatoes with Dill

2 lb small new potatoes
1 big bunch fresh dill
1/3 C canola oil
4 Tbs flour
1 C plain yogurt
salt to taste
feta for garnish (optional)

Scrape the potatoes, halve and rinse. Boil them until easily pierced with a fork. Drain but reserve the liquid. Chop the dill. Heat the oil in a big sauce pan or stock pot. Throw in the dill and stir for a couple of seconds. Add the flour and fry on low heat while stirring until lightly brown. The oil and flour mixture should form a not very thick paste; if it's too runny, add some more flour. When the flour browns, pour in about 2/3 of the potato water while stirring and then add the potatoes. Once the sauce heats up it will thicken. Add more water it you think it's too thick. Just before you take it off the burner, salt and add the beaten yogurt and stir well. Done. Serve with crumbled feta on top and good bread on the side. It can be eaten both warm and cold. Oh, I'm salivating just thinking about it. Enjoy!

Mmmmm, warm scones!

2009-05-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

The recipe for these in the Leithis Baking Bible starts like this: "Traditionally, scones are served at tea time. Scones are at their best if they are mixed and cooked quickly as any rising agent in them will start to work once the liquid is added. [...] Ideally they should be served warm from the oven. " Hmmmm. Doesn't that sound just great? A recipe which, unlike my mother, encourages you to eat the product of your efforts straight from the oven. I'm in!

Sweet Scones

8 oz self-rising flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 oz cold butter, cubed
1 oz caster sugar
5 oz milk
1 egg (for brushing)

These are made in the traditional scone method which is as follows: Place all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon or whisk (to aerate). Add the butter and mix in with the dry ingredients using a pastry blender or two knives or your fingertips until small crumbs are formed but do not overmix. Make a well out of the crumbs and add the milk (at room temperature). Gather into a soft dough. Transfer to a floured surface and knead just long enough to form a ball. Roll out thick and either cut out shapes with a floured cookie-cutter or cut into triangles. Place the scones on a parchment paper-covered cookie sheet and brush lightly with the egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375F until golden.

The most important rule is "handle the dough as little as possible". Also "act quickly". I think I made a double batch and also I added the zest of one lemon (two would have been better). They were fantastic eaten warm with butter, while drinking English breakfast tea! It's been a couple of months now but I still fondly remember that breakfast!

While I was researching this post, I came across this Scones Newsletter on the Joy of Baking, which is full of interesting scone-related recipes and further advice.

Biscotti, Revisited

2009-03-28T15:27:00.001-07:00

Sometimes the stars somehow align and I come across several recipes for one and the same thing within a couple of days. It must be bound to happen, I think then, and turn on the oven. Such was the story of these two biscotti recipes. I came across the chocolate biscotti on David Lebovitz's blog and then I came across the Twice-baked Cookies in Ursila Ferrigno's book La Dolce Vita (absolutely fantastic book by the way). Or maybe it happened the other way around. Anyways, biscotti were in the star.

Twice-baked Cookies

280g/10oz plain white flour
140g/5oz caster sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1tsp vanilla extract
115g/4oz blanched slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients except the almonds and mix well by hand. Add the almonds and mix until evenly distributed. Collect into a ball and divide in 2 or 4 balls. Shape each ball into a cigar shape and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and slice each "cigar" into 1-inch slices. Place sideways on the baking sheet and return to the oven for another 10-15 minutes, until golden.

Chocolate Biscotti

2 cups flour
3/4 C top-quality cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 C sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 C almonds, toasted and very coarsely-chopped
3/4 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the eggs, vanilla, sugar and almond extract. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips and almonds until evenly distributed. Shape dough in 2 long logs and bake for 25 minutes. Again slice logs into 1-inch slices and return to oven for another 10 minutes.

These turned out so different! Like night and day! The chocolate biscotti were very crisp and airy and also very, very hard! The plain ones were softer and a bit chewy, even. We had made some coffee ricotta to go with the plain ones but it really wasn't necessary, they were great by themselves. The chocolate ones were fantastic with coffee and hot chocolate but a little dangerous on their own. I wonder how many different biscotti recipes are there? These weren't just different flavors from the ones I made back in December, they were completely different cookies - different texture, crumb. All great but so different. I think Ursula Ferrigno's ones are my favorite so far!

Farmer's Market Loot

2009-03-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

I saw some spicy greens at the Farmer's Market last weekend and I instantly knew I had to have them because I had just read Mark Bittman's Green mashed potatoes recipe. They didn't have to wait long - we made them for dinner that very same night. And, oh, were they delicious! This dish is really not mashed potatoes, it is more like a casserole, so fresh and flavorful, with a slight crunch from the greens and breadcrumbs, very filling - a fantastic way to get more mileage of your greens! It was even better the next day, the greens had somehow gotten spicier!

Green Mashed Potatoes

2 large or 3 small potatoes
salt
a big batch of dandelion or other (spicy) greens
1/4 to 1/2 C extra virgin olive oil
1 C bread crumbs
parsley

Serves 4.

Notes on ingredients: You want equal weight potatoes and greens, approximately. Use really good olive oil! I recommend home-made breadcrumbs (i.e. smashed croutons), don't use the really fine store-bought stuff!

Heat the oven to 400F. Peel the potatoes, wash them and chop them up in 1-2 inch pieces. Boil in salted water till soft when pierced with a fork. While the potatoes are boiling, wash the greens, cut off any thick stems, cut in two if necessary. Scoop the potatoes out, keep the water boiling on the stove and dunk the greens. Cook for 1-2 minutes (don't overcook), then rinse in cold water and drain well. Chop. Mash the potatoes with a fork, with the olive oil and salt - you are aiming at rough mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes with olive oil, yum!) - then mix well with the greens. Pour the mix in an oven-proof dish, spread the breadcrumbs on top and drizzle with some olive oil. Cover with foil and stick in the oven for 5-10 minutes until heated throughout. Then take off the foil and let it brown under the broiler for a minute. Serve immediately, sprinkled with chopped parsley! Enjoy!

Great minds think a hike

2009-03-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

A bit cheesy,but I like it - the title comes from a bumper sticker for a local outdoors store. It is March in southern Arizona. This is the time when the rest of the Northern hemisphere is barely starting to thaw, tulips and hyacinths are popping their heads, trees are blooming and people are happy to see the Sun for the first time this year. In Arizona however, this is the time to pull out the sunscreen, hats and shorts, and head for a hike before it gets too hot to be outside.

I had not gone hiking in a loooong time and was wondering what food to bring. Apple slices, cheese, treats for the dog... granola bars? Then it dawned on me that it couldn't be that hard to make some granola bars and stuff them will all the goodness I want. I used Heidi Swanson's recipe to get the basic proportions and here is what I came up with:

Homemade Granola Bars

1 Tsp coconut oil (or butter)
1 C chopped pecans
1 C dried cranberries
2/3 C unsweetened coconut
2 Tbs flax seeds
1 1/2 C rolled oats
1 1/2 C unsweetened crispy rice cereal
1 C brown rice syrup
1/4 C brown sugar
1/2 Tsp salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Notes on ingredients: You can substitute the 2 C pecans+cranberries with anything that suits your fancy. Just nuts or just dried fruit will work well too. The coconut is very subtle so don't worry too much about the flavor clash. I used a generic crispy rice cereal, but next time I may try this with the Kashi 7 grain cereal or a crispy brown rice cereal. I used brown rice syrup because I wanted to try it - it has very strong caramel/molasses flavor and the consistency of honey. I bet honey can be substituted for the syrup just fine.

Heat the oven to 350F and toast the nuts and coconut for 5-7 minutes until the coconut is golden brown, stirring a couple of times along the way. Mix the oats, nuts, fruit, and cereal in a big bowl and toss together. In a small pan, combine the brown rice syrup, sugar, salt and vanilla extract. Bring to low boil over medium heat, and let it bubble ~4 minutes until it thickens a bit, stirring constantly. Pour the syrup over the dry mixture and stir until thoroughly covered. Spread in a greased (with coconut oil or butter, or covered with parchment paper) pan and press well - a 9x13 pan gives decent thickness bars. Refridgerate for a few hours and then cut into whatever shapes and sizes you like. The brown rice syrup is liquid at room temperature so the bars will start to fall apart if it's too hot, though this doesn't make them less tasty. Wrap them individually in small pieces of parchment paper to avoid them sticking together (sticky wrap doesn't work).

The recipe made so many bars we had enough of two hikes two weekends in a row! The result was ~15 miles of hiking, suntan, lots of wildflowers seen, three tired hikers and one exhausted dog. Amen.

It's Alive!

2009-03-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

Indeed it is! The blog I mean. Thought this statement is (shockingly) also still valid for my attempt at an herb garden. But this is a whole different topic right there. Anyways, the blog is still alive and so am I (also shocking). And I plan on coming back full force very, very soon. The last three months have been very tough - I was finishing my thesis (which I turned in last Friday), hoping one day I will get to defend it (in two weeks!), all the while surviving on bagels, coffee and generous contributions of soup, risotto, and snacks from friends. Still I have many exciting things to write about - food, books, movies. And I have grandiose plans for after I am done - starting a garden, learning to make chocolates and cheese, and cooking for lots and lots of friends. On a shorter time-scale, I think some Dulce Sin Leche cupcakes would be nice; I plan on visiting the farmer's market this weekend to mine it for some fresh, bright, muddy spring greens, and maybe making a batch of bread to utilize my house-mate's brand new, oh so pretty, birthday present - a red Kitchenaid!

Be back in a bit!

Ravioli Galore!

2009-01-27T22:01:00.000-08:00

Why I am writing this post is beyond me because it was all his idea. Oh well, I guess I took the pictures. This is the second batch of home made raviolli inspired by Laura Schenone's book "The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken". Now I haven't read the book (James is half-way through), but we have made the raviolli twice already, and judging by how delicious they were, I highly recommend the book!

The recipe is very well illustrated and we pretty much followed it to the t. To begin, make a pile of the flour and make a well on the top - you will end up with something looking like a volcanic cone. Pour the egg, salt and olive oil in the crater of the volcano and start stirring in the flour, dredging it from the edges of the caldera. Pour in the tablespoons of water one by one, mixing in more and more flour. When we made the ravioli using only all purpose flour (King Arthur Organic) the 6 tablespoons of water were all we needed and the dough came together beautifully. On the second attempt we used a mix of all purpose and OO flour and we had to put 3-4 extra tablespoons of water and the dough still came out tougher. I am sure the amount of water also depends on the air humidity and a slew of other factors so mix the water in a tablespoon at a time and see how much it takes to gather all the flour together. Pasta dough, just like any dough, takes some time to get a feel for. Once you have the dough together, knead it for 5 minutes. Then place it in a bowl and cover it with a wet paper towel. Let it rest for 15-20 minutes.

While the dough is resting, make your filling. This filling was our invention - we put it together with what we had on hand - home-made ricotta, some herbs and nuts. Ricotta, parmiggiano and spinach or kale is tasty too (the egg is there to hold things together). I recommend you fill them with whatever suits your fancy. You will need a bit more than 1.5 C of filling.

Dough Recipe 2 C all purpose flour (or 1 C all purpose + 1 C OO) 1 egg 1 Tbs olive oil 6 Tbs cool water ~1 tsp salt	Filling Recipe 1 1/2 C ricotta 1 egg parmiggiano thyme, marjoram salt toasted pine nuts

Once the dough is done resting, cut it in half (for easier handling above all), flour a surface (counter or table) and start rolling the first half. Start by flattening the ball, and then rolling it and rotating it by half or quarter turns every few seconds. Keep the dough lightly but continuously flowered. Once the circle (or whatever shape you have going on) is about at big as the one above, we rolled the dough on the pin and proceeded to apply the "Bulgarian Grandmother" technique. Notice we are using a rolling pin much thinner than the one usually used for ravioli - a Bulgarian style pin for making filo dough. We found this technique worked for us, but do check out Laura Schenone's video on the original raviolli rolling technique and on the whole ravioli making process! Keep rolling out until... the dough gets pretty thin.

Spread filling thinly on half the rolled out dough. Fold in half and either pat the the dough or roll it VERY LIGHTLY to get the air out. Yes, James got a ravioli pit (for $10 online) but the shapes can be easily achieved using less technology-intensive methods. The squares can be formed using a yardstick or any other long 1/8 inch thick object. After impressing the squares, cut them up using this thingy. I guess a knife would work too but the thingy (pastry wheel is that it's called) actually help seal them better.

Move the ravioli to a sheet- or cheese cloth-covered tray or table (do not overlap) and let them dry a bit, ~20 minutes. You can make the second batch in the mean time. Bring a pot of salted water to boil and drop the ravioli in the water. They only need to boil for a couple of minutes and when they are done they will swim to the surface. Just fish them out with a slotted spoon and drain. Serving suggestion: toss with browned butter and herbs and sprinkle with parmiggiano and toasted pine nuts. Buon appetito!

Easy-Peasy Lemon Marmalade

2009-01-19T20:16:00.000-08:00

After a glorious lunch at a friend's house on Christmas Day, she sent me home with a BIG bag of lemons (see, it all ties back to the previous post almost a month ago). I spent a few days admiring the bowl of lemons on the kitchen table. Then I got sick and ate a few (yes, I actually eat raw lemons). Then I started getting scared thinking what could I possibly do with so many lemons?!? I could not possibly eat them. I didn't want to make lemonade as I am not a big fan of it. And my attempt to convince James to make lemonchello was quite unsuccessfully. Finally (after much pondering and many sleepless nights) I discovered lemon marmalade! This fantastically well illustrated recipe from Simply Recipes asks for Meyer lemons (thought to be a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin orange or sweet orange). I don't think my lemons were Meyer but the process looked simple and the result promised to be delicious so I figured it was worth the try. And try I did.

We had some for breakfast this morning and it was delicious!

Lemon Marmalade

800 grams organic lemons (~4 C)
800 grams organic sugar (~4 C)
800 grams of water (~4 C)
(Makes ~4 cups of marmalade)

Additional equipment: cheesecloth (teabags work too), jars, sauce pan. Follow the instructions here. On the following morning, place a cup of yogurt in a bowl, mix with a tablespoon of marmalade and some cereal. Enjoy!

(Mexican Wedding Cookies) x 2

2008-12-26T23:45:00.000-08:00

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, I was sipping a beautiful dark ale and lounging over at Maggie and Aleks' house, when Maggie asked me if I plan on baking Christmas cookies. I wasn't planning. In fact, I have never baked Christmas cookies. But after Maggie enumerated all the fancy cookies she had baked last year (I must admit I helped with the eating...) I gave the idea a more serious thought. Six batches of cookies later - biscotti, nut-bars, chocolate cutouts and all - I am completely cookied out! Of them all, I think the two batches of Mexican Wedding cookies were my favorite! They were not all too sweet and their texture was so fragile, they melted in your mouth, one batch was cheered by cranberries, the other batch nutty with pecans, both of them to die for!

The first recipe came from Epicurious.com's collection of 25 Days of Christmas in cookies - Pistachio and Cherry Mexican Wedding Cakes. These looked snow covered and wintry. I wanted to make something without nuts so I skipped the pistachios and substituted cranberries for the cherries. The red and white combination made them even more festive!

Cranberry Mexican Wedding Cakes

1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 C powdered sugar plus more for coating
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 to 1 C dried cranberries, chopped
2 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
(Makes ~40 cookies)

Preheat oven to 350F. Beat butter and powder sugar until fluffy. Add the other ingredients in the order listed but don't overmix. The dough will be crumbly. Shape the cookies into ovals by squeezing a Tbs of dough in the palm of your hand. Place cookies on a parchment-paper-covered baking sheet. These do not expand during baking and can be pretty close to each other. Bake for 16 minutes, until the bottoms are very slightly browned. Cool for a bit and roll in powdered sugar while still warm.

Alright, they were not the prettiest of cookies, but they were tasty! A couple of days later, when these were all devoured and given away, James came back from visiting his family and treated me to one of his Mom's cookies. I begged for the recipe.

James' Mom's Mexican Wedding in Wisconsin Cookies

1 C butter (2 sticks), softened
6 Tbs powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 C sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups pecans, chopped very fine
(Makes ~60 cookies)

Mix all ingredients into a dough same as above, form into a ball and chill four a couple hours. Roll the dough into 1" balls (or crescents) and place on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes at 375 F. Let them cool slightly, then roll them in powdered sugar.

Do they really eat these at Mexican weddings? I have never been to a Mexican wedding (I bet it is a lot of fun) - maybe they do, maybe they don't. Turns out the name of the cookies is not necessarily connected to our Southern neighbor. Buttery cookies, containing finely ground nuts and rolled in powdered sugar appear all over the world - Russian Tea Cakes, Danish Almond Cookies, Spain's polvornes and Finnish Butter Strips. Still other names for the same cookies are Nut Butter Balls, Almond Crescents, Napoleon Hats or Melting Moments (I like this last one). It seems like the cookie is old, but the name is new. The first mentions of Mexican Wedding cookies appear in the 1950's. Some sources suggest that then, at the cusp of the Cold War, calling them Russian Tea Cakes would have been a bit inappropriate (and possibly a poor marketing pitch) so a new, politically correct name was invented. Some recipes from the 50's and 60's can be found here (note that many of these recipes ask for margarine; do substitute with butter for goodness sake). Whichever name you choose to call them by, these are some tasty cookies!

Biscoctus Biscotti

2008-12-26T21:57:00.001-08:00

In all honesty, i had somehow managed to go through most of my life without discovering biscotti. I even managed to live for a month in Italy without having a single one. Granted, it was June and I was distracted by gelato, Baci chocolates and good-looking Italian men. And until a few weeks ago I had no clue they belonged to an extensive class of "double-baked" cookies. So when I was flipping through the cookie section of The Baker's Dozen Cookbook (my new favorite desert book!) and came across the biscotti recipe I immediately decided I had to make them. Two batches later, I am hooked. They are great and easy to make. The double-baking makes them last forever though that doesn't make much sense around here because they seem to disappear within days...

According to Wikipedia, the word "biscotti" (pronounced [bis-COT-tea]) in Italian is the plural form of biscotto, which applies to any type of biscuit, and originates from the medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning "twice-baked": it defined biscuits baked twice in the oven, so they could be stored for long periods of time, which was particularly useful during journeys and wars. Through Middle French, the word was imported into the English language as "biscuit". Frequently the term "biscotti" is taken to refer to a specific type of hard almond-flavoured biscuits traditionally served with vin santo, probably originating from the town of Prato and therefore still known as "biscotti of Prato". In general, biscotti is more a method of preparation, rather than a specific recipe, as pointed out by Laura Schenone from Jellypress.com in her history of biscotti. She also points out the fact that biscotti are usually first baked at high temperature and then on low temperature - probably a consequence of how wood-burning ovens work.

While keeping their hardiness, biscotti today seem to be very different from their ancient predecessors. They are buttery, usually studded with nuts and sometimes covered in chocolate. We are so spoiled, I don't think we would have them any other way.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti

2 +1/2 C flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C butter (1 stick)
1 1/4 C sugar
2 large eggs
2/3 C hazelnuts, roasted, chopped
1/3 C quality semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300F. Sift flour with baking powder and salt, and set aside. Beat butter and sugar until combined (1 minute) - do not overbeat, you don't want to incorporate too much air. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour and blend until almost combined, add the nuts and chocolate and mix well. I thought that 2.5 C of flour were a little too much so go easy on the flour at the end, you do not want crumbly dough. Divide the dough in half. Wrap each half in a plastic wrap or parchment paper and roll into a long log, about 14 inches long. Place the two logs about 4 inches apart on a big baking sheet, lined with lightly oiled parchment paper. Bake, turning the sheet around halfway, for 1.5 hours. Remove from the oven and let just cool slightly. Slice carefully into 1/2-inch thick slices using a serrated knife. Return the cookies to the baking sheet, laying the flat and return to the oven for ~10 minutes, until golden. The oven can be turned off before placing the cookies inside. Cool and story in a tin box.

These were marvelous! Crisp but not too hard. They can be eaten as it is or dipped in tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Oh, I love the combination of chocolate and hazelnut, it makes me think of Nutella. Just smelling these is heaven! The variations offered include pistachio-raisin (2/3 C pistachios + 1/3 C raisins in place of the chocolate and hazelnut), pine nut-orange (1/3 C tasted pine nuts + 1/3 C candied orange), and the classic almond anise biscotti (1 C almonds + 1 tsp anise). What other flavors can be made? Any ideas?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2008-12-25T00:10:00.000-08:00

Truffles, please

2008-12-22T20:55:00.000-08:00

There's a colorful insult I learned in my high school French class that goes something like vous avez les truffes en place de cerveaux. Roughly translated, "you have truffles for brains." If this was literally the case, I can see how it would be pretty cool to be a zombie amongst the insulted.

Now that we've covered zombies, lets move on to talking about food. Truffles are a member of the fungus family. Trained truffle hogs (or dogs) sniff them out and dig them up out of the ground. They make pretty much anything taste magnificent - from scrambled eggs to cheeses. But a great way to allow the little tuber to really sing is to shave it over the top of a basic risotto. We cooked such an accompaniment last night for dinner, and it was a symphony to behold.

Risotto, of course, is the traditional, creamy rice dish from northern Italy. My roommate, who is originally from the north of Italy and is referred to as "risotto monster" in our house, seems to be genetically predisposed to poor self-control when around the creamy dish, much like the Cookie Monster is around cookies. Any risotto leftovers that miraculously find their way to the fridge after dinner mysteriously disappear not long after. In any case, let's look at what ingredients make up a risotto.

Basic Risotto

2 cups carnaroli rice (arborio will work too)
6 cups chicken stock
1/3 of a yellow onion
1 glass dry white wine
3 tbsp butter

To finish
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup Parmesan-Reggiano cheese, grated
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
black truffles or good truffle oil, to taste

A few notes on the ingredients. Carnaroli is the type of rice I like to use. It's a plump, starchy rice, medium-grain, that cooks up to a creamy consistency. I get it at 17th Street Market here in Tucson. Arborio rice will work too, and it is much more common here in the US, though I find the quality varies quite a bit. Stay away from the bulk stuff at Sunflower Market. Sunflower does have nice bouillon for the broth though. As for the finishing ingredients, only imported Parmesan-Reggiano will do - no substitutes - and the truffles can be either fresh black truffles, or a truffle oil that doesn't have "aroma" as an ingredient. That's usually an indicator that is has synthetic truffle flavor added, which is not good. If there's a chunk of truffle in the bottom of your oil, then you're in business. Either black or white truffle oil will do the trick.

Technique: Pour a glass of white wine, and have a sip. This is the very important first step to making risotto.

Make up stock in a sauce pan and bring to a gentle simmer. I use the vegetarian bouillon from Sunflower Market that tastes like chicken. It works really nicely. I make it a bit stronger than suggested, though not too strong as it will get concentrated during the cooking of the rice.

In a separate heavy sauce pan, saute the onion in the butter over medium heat until softened and translucent, around 4-5 minutes. Add the rice, coating all the grains, stirring frequently for a few minutes. The rice will become translucent around the edges and will start to smell nutty. When the nutty smell is very strong, toss in the remaining glass of wine to deglaze. It will make a beautiful noise and it will smell delicious! If you've drunk a good amount of the glass of wine, fill it back up to a normal level before adding it to the rice.

Once the wine has been absorbed by the rice, start adding your heated stock a couple ladles at a time. You want to stir it continuously, but not over-stir it. If you over-stir, you end up with mush, if you under-stir, you end up with a not-very-creamy risotto. I usually stir every 15 seconds or so and make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Keep adding stock 2 ladles at a time, allowing it to be absorbed (but not completely dried out) before adding the next amount, and stirring until the rice is al dente, approx 20 minutes. Most of the stock should be used up by then.

When rice is almost tender but still has a bit of a bite, remove from heat and add the finishing butter, 1/4 cup of stock stock and cheese. Stir thoroughly and salt and pepper to taste. Be sure to only add salt at the very end here, as the Parmesan-Reggiano is very salty. You may not need to add much of any salt depending on the salt level of your broth.

When you serve it on the plate, shave some black truffles over the top. Or drizzle some white truffle oil over the top. Or do both!

The above recipes is a basic risotto with cheese and truffles as the finishing ingredient. But you can pretty much add anything to a risotto as a finishing ingredient. You can even replace the broth and wine with other types of wine or vinegar and broth. Here's some ideas that I've tried.

Risotto Milanese Same as above, but add 1/2 tsp rehydrated saffron threads mid-way through cooking. Finish with butter, Parmesan-Reggiano, and garnish with chopped parsley. This is a classic risotto usually served with braised veal shanks.

Beet risotto Boil 3 quartered beats in 3 cups of water until fork tender. Reserve liquid and use with bouillon and the rest of the water to make broth. Remove skin from beets, chop smaller and roast in oven for 20 minutes tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper. Make the risotto in the normal way, using the reserved beat juice fortified with bouillon. To finish, add the roasted beats, butter and steamed beet greens.

Risotto with pesto and fava beans This one is lots of work! Make pesto (more on that in a future post). Shuck fresh favas - pinch and twist, repeat. Blanche fava beans. Peel fava beans. Cook the risotto in the normal way. Add favas in final 10 minutes of cooking, and add the pesto at the very end as the only finishing ingredient.

Risotto with peas and shrimp Peel uncooked shrimp, reserving the shells. Make the broth by simmering the discarded shells and your favorite herbs for an hour. Make risotto in usual way, tossing in the shrimps for the last 10 minutes of cooking. To finish, mix in butter and frozen peas.

Risotto with balsamic roasted chicken Replace the white wine with 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar. Cook in usual way, adding chicken for the last 5 minutes to heat through. I usually get one of those piping-hot roasted chickens that many grocery stores carry these days, and pull the meat off the bones. To finish, add butter and more balsamic vingar to taste.

Mushroom risotto Rehydrate about 1 oz of dried porcinis in a cup of hot water. Strain, reserving the delicious liquid. Cook the risotto in the usual way, adding the reserved liquid and the porcinis half way through. To finish, add butter, Parmesan-Reggiano and parsley. You can also add sauted cultivated mushrooms such as cremini. Saute these up in butter first and set them aside, before you start cooking up your risotto, and add them towards the end.

December in Arizona

2008-12-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

It is December in Arizona and I just saw the first yellow leaves a couple of weeks ago. The four grapefruits the tree in our back yard birthed are turning bright, catching my eye every time I walk through the yard. The mercury swings 40 degrees between the "where are my flip-flops" highs and the "was that a penguin" lows, and the morning bike rides are sliding from 7am to 8am to 9am. "It's cold", we all shiver as we stand by the fires, drinking beer and looking at the bright stars of Orion in the invariably clear skies during one tacky Christmas sweater party after another. The pizza place around the corner has a Christmas ale on tap. The prickly pear cacti have Santa hats on heir pads. It's cold but I played Ultimate outside yesterday, ran with my dog tonight and I am going riding tomorrow morning. It is December in Arizona. No clouds, no blizzards, no flu. But I am still sad that most of my friends are spending the holidays with family in far-away snow-covered lands. I kind-a miss the snow and I most definitely miss my family. Very much.

A Moment with Eric Schlosser and a Movie

2008-12-18T21:36:00.000-08:00

I rarely read the Princeton Alumni Weekly, but the November 19th issue, devoted to food, had my attention since it made it through the door. I haven't had a chance to read through all the interesting articles, except for an interview with "Fast Food Nation" author Eric Schlosser (apparently a 1981 Princeton Alumni). The full text of the interview can be found here. He makes interesting points about his career, the Slow Food movement and future US food policy.

In the introduction, the article mentions that Eric Schlosser is a co-producer to a new Robert Kenner (who is he anyways?) documentary, "Food, Inc.". It is shockingly difficult to find information about the movie (yes, I did Google it!)... There isn't even a trailer! Some info can be found here and here. Quoting one of the interviews: I have to admit that after coming out of a packed screening Monday afternoon of "Food Inc,." I was suddenly convinced that all my vegetarian pals were a lot smarter than I'd ever imagined. Yes, I know, that's just mean on my side.

Anyways, something to look forward to.

Giving Thanks for Mushrooms

2008-12-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

Iva asked me to blog about a vegetarian stuffing I made for Thanksgiving last month which turned out to be pretty tasty. I've had a beer and can now sorta remember the recipe, so let's get started!

I made a cornbread, mushroom and carmelized onion stuffing last year, which turned out really nice. It was based on a Tyler Florence TV episode I saw, and was pretty simple in that one uses cornbread muffins from the store. This year I decided to kick it up a notch by making the cornbread myself, swiping a basic cornbread recipe from Emeril and giving the dish a bit more flavor and complexity, using a few local ingredients. Let's look at the recipe.

Mushroom Cornbread Stuffing

1 lb cremini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 lb shitake mushroom caps, sliced
2 oz dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated
1 cup dry white wine
parsley
1 tbsp white truffle oil
6 tbsp butter
2 yellow onions, thin-sliced
2 pears
sage
thyme
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
2 cups vegetarian chicken-flavored broth
salt and pepper, to taste

For the cornbread

1/4 cup corn oil
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pasillia chili powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg

The night before is a good time to make the cornbread, as it has to cool and dry up a bit before it can be used for stuffing. A cast iron skillet is really important here to get the crusty bottom on the cornbread. I used cornmeal from Native Seeds. I tried a blue and a yellow, both tasted great, but the yellow looked better. The blue cornbread turned out kinda grey. Not terribly appetizing.

Cornbread: Preheat oven to 400 F, heating the skillet in there with the oil. While it's heating mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and pasillia powder in a mixing bowl. Add the buttermilk and egg and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Turn out into the heated skillet and bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool, and break up into pieces with your hands. Leave out overnight so that it gets nice and dry. If it's not dry enough the following day, a little time in a warm oven with help it dry out further.

Onions: Melt 3 tbsp butter in a pan and saute the julienned onions over medium-low heat. This takes about 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally, but not too often. Make sure they don't burn. They should get very soft, fragrant and brown in color. Set aside when done. Restrain yourself from eating them in their entirety.

Mushrooms: Melt 3 tbsp butter in a pan and saute the sliced cremini mushrooms and the sliced shitake caps. I don't use the stems because they are woody. You can save the stems though, as they make a nice soup stock addition. While the mushrooms are releasing their liquid and then browning up, soak the dried porcinis in a cup of hot water for about 30 minutes.

When the mushrooms have started to brown, add a bit of salt, a bit of parsley, a glass of the dry white wine (a glass is important because it lets you try it first) and the reserved liquid from the soaked porcinis (filter using a funnel and a couple layers of paper towel). Keep the pan on the heat for another minute or so until the liquid is cooked down and then remove from heat, tossing with the rehydrated porcinis. Drizzle with 1 tbsp good white truffle oil.

Fruit and Nuts: Slice the pears into 1/2 inch cubes and toss in some boiling water on the stove. Boil for a few minutes or until soft, but not mushy. Strain and set aside. Toast some pine nuts on the stove on medium heat on a dry skillet, tossing them occasionally. When they're brown and smell nutty, they're ready. Set aside.

Putting it together

Now we put everything together. In a large baking dish, toss together the mushroom mixture, the onions, the nuts, the corn bread, the pears, and a reasonable amount of fresh thyme and sage, chopped. Fold together well by hand. Add about a tbsp of salt and some freshly cracked black pepper. Whisk an egg in glass, and pour it over the top, and then pour enough of the broth to thoroughly wet the stuffing. How much you need to add will depend on how dry your cornbread got overnight. Toss together by hand again. Topping with some freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano is acceptable before baking.

Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes. Yum!

Cupcakes: The Ultimate Edition

2008-12-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

Over the last six months I have taken up ultimate frisbee and I am loving it! Great exercise, exciting game and awesome people. Today was the end of the fall season and my team - Vodka Rain (don't ask) finished 3rd ... or 4th... Does it matter? I loved my team! I was happy to meet all these guys and be on the team - everyone was so much fun and at the same time we were actually really good! Here is our team picture. Again, don't ask.

My contribution to the team? Scoring half a dozen points and cupcakes. I am still to figure out where exactly I need to be and my forehands still wobble and flip, but I damn well know how to bake a proper batch of chocolate cupcakes! Even better - chocolate-mint cupcakes, which I took to the game tonight. These are so delicious and so infallably good I must have made them a dozen times! The recipe for the cupcakes, again from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the Cake (I love this book!) can be found here: Basic Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes. The frosting is simple buttercream which I have discussed in great detail here. To the buttercream I added a 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract and ~1/2 C crushed candy canes. The decorating style (described in the book in connection with the Tiramisu Cupcakes, yum too!) is simple, yet very pretty and I use it as often as possible: with a small knife cut out a cone from the top of the cupcake; put a dollop of frosting and press the cap back on; finally put a smudge of frosting on top of the cap. I sprinkled them with more crushed candy-canes (used a total of 4 candy canes) and red sugar. Very pretty! And Christmassy too! Enjoy!

In Honor of Federico

2008-12-04T00:00:00.000-08:00

This post started a long time ago. September 29th to be more precise. I made alfajores and we went to see Federico Aubele and had a great time. I wore a pair of heels in the hopes I will get to dance some tango but instead ended up bear foot, heels in hand. There was a guy in front of the theater begging for money with a sign "why lie, it's for booze" and we bumped into Federico on the corner and I told him how much I loved the show. Then, I woke up the next day to find that my car had been broken into and shortly after left for Chile where I ran into an avalanche of alfajores and never came back to finish this adventure into South American cuisine. Until now. Here is the original post and below it is the continuation.

"I had never gone to a concert to just see the opening act. Until last night that is, when I joined a few friends to see Federico Aubele. I love his music, especially the tango inspired, melancholic pieces on "Grand Hotel Buenos Aires". They were fabulous live! I so much want to go back to dancing tango, I miss it so much! But, anyways, this blog is not about music or dancing but about food - in honor of the concert I decided to cook something from Argentina. After exhaustive exploration of Argentinian cuisine I zeroed in on Alfajores, a type of shortbread cookies with many variations which nevertheless seems like a favorite. I chose a recipe which uses corn starch from Pin In the City:"

Alfajores de maizena (Argentinean Alfajores)(~25 cookies)

3/4 C flour
1 1/4 C corn starch
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 stick butter (1/4 C)
3/8 C sugar
3 egg yolks
1 tsp cognac/whiskey/rum
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest from 1/2 lemon
For decoration:
dulce de leche
toasted coconut
chocolate

Deep down these are really shortbread cookies, but more than half of the flour has been substituted with corn starch, and they have fancied themselves up with some liquor and lemon zest. The texture was slightly different than the usual shortbread cookie... maybe a little finer, more fragile. Prepare them the same way as described here. Chill the dough for a bit and then roll out as thin as possible. I found the dough hard to roll out so mine didn't turn out all that thin but I saw lots of cookies of similar "thickness" on the webs so I couldn't have done all that poorly. Cut out circles or other shapes (I used a 1.5 inch brandy glass) and arrange on a wax-paper-lined baking sheet, giving them some space. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350F. They should be white not golden and the bottoms should be slightly brown. Do not overbake or they will end up too hard. Cool. Sandwich them with 1 tsp dulce de leche and powder them with sugar, roll edgewise in shredded toasted coconut. Or glaze with melted chocolate... or both. Why not.

Now, Argentinean Alfajores are complex... almost sophisticated. The cookie is crumbly, stuck together by the dulce de leche, and the flavors of caramel, coconut, lemon and rum merge beautifully. Ah.

But then come the Chilean Alfajores. At first I was a little disappointed, but then I realized they are a completely different beast. Chilean Alfajores have one goal in their lives - delivering a shot of dulce de leche directly to your blood stream! And while they look similar and have the same filling, this is where the similarities end. Here is the recipe from the Chilean dulce de leche can:

Alfajores de Chile(25-30 cookies)

5 egg yolks
1/2 C all purpose flour
1/2 C corn starch
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs orange juice
1 can dulce de leche
powder sugar for dusting

These are just bare bones wafers! Not even sugar in the cookies! Mix the first five ingredient and knead into a very soft dough. Cut in two and roll out as thin as possible on a floured surface. Be careful because the dough has a very high stickiness factor! Unlike the dough for the cookies above, this one was very malleable and rolled out nicely. You want saltine cracker thickness. Again, cut, place on a wax paper-lined baking sheet and bake 5-7 minutes at 300F. The cookies will be hard and very slightly golden but mostly white. Cool and sandwich with the dulce de leche. Dust with powder sugar. Eat.

See? I told you. Simple dulce de leche delivery mechanisms. No fuss, no complications.

Either way, the bottom line is that alfajores are fabulous. Amazing. And I feel like dancing tango again. Ah. I think there is one more cookie left.... I'll take what I can get.

Finally! Cupcakes!

2008-12-03T23:07:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago while biking with James, he told me about this great way to make butternut squash puree without the whole peeling and cutting torture - cut the squash in two lengthwise, remove the seeds, place cut-side down in a baking pan and pour in half an inch of water and stick in the oven for 1-2 hours at ~300 F, cool, scoop out the flesh, done. No, I am not kidding, we do actually talk about butternut squash and chocolate and white truffle oil and beans and mushrooms while we bike. Which explains why I end up eating three breakfasts on bike-ride days. Eager to try the idea, I applied it to a fairly big specimen of of the butternut family and now I have two boxes of pumpkin in the fridge. What to do with it? Pumpkin-chocolate chip cupcakes of course! These delicious winter treasures have been made a few times already and they go perfectly well with both a mug of hot chocolate or a mug of tea. The recipe below is tweaked to my liking from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing

1 C pumpkin
1/4 C soy milk (+some)
1/3 C canola oil
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 C flour
1/2 C chocolate chips
Icing
1-2 Tbs melted butter (or margarine to keep the vegan)
1 Tbs soy milk
1/2 C powder sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Notes: I prefer using vanilla soy milk - it adds to the vanilla flavor. I also used the home-made pumpkin mush, but canned pumpkin works just as well. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips. I wouldn't recommend that you use very dark chocolate because the cake itself is not very sweet and the chocolate makes up for that. I think I will try making these with brown sugar next time.

Heat oven to 350 F. Mix pumpkin, oil, soy milk, sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Stir well. In another bowl combine the dry ingredients - baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and flour and stir. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mix carefully stirring with a spoon or fork (not a mixer). The amount of liquid in the batter depends on how watery the pumpkin is so if the batter gets too thick splash some more soy milk in. You want the batter to be thick but not hard to stir. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips. Line a cupcake pan and divide the batter evenly. Bake ... I dunno... ~30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean (which is a little tricky because of the chocolate) or the tops spring back when pressed. Better underbake a little to keep them moist.

To make the icing, stir all the ingredients in a bowl. The icing should be thick and dull looking. If it is glossy, add some more powder sugar. Keep at room temperature. Drizzle generously over the cupcakes after they have cooled (use left-overs on ice cream). Or if you'd rather skip the icing, sift some powder sugar and cinnamon on them... or, whatever, just eat them like they are.

Giving Thanks

2008-11-28T23:36:00.000-08:00

I give thanks for the pumpkins (technically butternut squash), for the chocolate, for the beans. I give thanks for all the delicious food on my table and for the food that is burnt, overcooked, undersalted and the lessons learned along the way. I give thanks for having a roof over my head, a soft bed, a spacious kitchen. I give thanks to my housemates who bear with me and wash some of my dishes. I give thanks for having wonderful friends whom I love very much. I give thanks to whoever needs to be thanked that my family is well. I give thanks to the American people for finally coming to their senses and voting for change. And I give thanks to the Universe for us all being here.

Bean and Squash Mole from Denis Cotter's Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me via 101 Cookbooks

3 C butternut squash, cut in cubes
3 C cooked beans
28 oz can diced tomatoes
5-6 big kale leaves, cut in strips
3-4 Tbs butter
some olive oil
4+ jalapeno peppers, chopped
1 1/2 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2-4 Tbs paprika
2 oz almonds, roasted and finely ground
3.2 oz chocolate bar, 70% cocoa

Heat oven to 350 F. Toss the squash with some olive oil and spread in a 9x13 baking pan. Bake ~20-30 minutes, unill it starts caramelizing but is still firm. In the mean time melt butter in a large pan and saute onions and jalapenos for ~15 minutes until onions star caramelizing. Add paprika and garlic and stir until fragrant. Add tomatoes. Bring to boil and let it simmer down for ~10 minutes, depending on how liquidy the tomatoes are - you do not want a dry dish! Add beans, chocolate and almonds and stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Turn heat off, set aside and steam the kale. To assemble, pour the bean mixture in a 9x13 pan or a large casserole dish, spread the squash pieces and kale evenly over the top and stir everything lightly. This way the colors are preserved and the dish is so much more beautiful instead of turning it into a brown mush. Cover with foil and put in the oven at ~200 F until heated throughout. Serves 8 as a generous side-dish.

Notes: I used brown Tepary beans from Native Seeds and they worked wonderfully - the flavor of the beans matched well with the chocolate. The jalapenos didn't make the dish spicy, not at all, contrary to my expectations. I think I may toss a little bit of cayene pepper next time. Because there will definitely be a next time. This dish was so very delicious, people were getting second servings which means a lot when there are ~30 dishes on the table!

Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake via Epicurious.com

For crust:
3/4 C graham cracker crumbs (5 crackers)
1/2 C pecans, finely chopped
1/4 C packed light brown sugar
1/4 C granulated sugar
1/4 C unsalted butter

For filling:
1 1/2 C pumpkin pure
3 large eggs
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
2 Tbs heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbs bourbon
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 Tbs cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
3 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, room temperature

Invert bottom of a 9-inch springform pan (to create flat bottom, which will make it easier to remove cake from pan), then lock on side and butter pan. Stir together crumbs, pecans, sugars, and butter in a bowl until combined well. Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and 1/2 inch up side of pan, then chill crust, 1 hour.

Heat oven to 500 F. Seriously. Whisk together pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, cream, vanilla, and liqueur in a bowl until combined. Stir together granulated sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt in large bowl. Add cream cheese and beat with an electric mixer at high speed until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium, then add pumpkin mixture and beat until smooth. Pour filling into crust, smoothing top. Place in oven. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 500 F. Turn the oven down to 200 F and bake for another 40 minutes. Cool cheesecake completely in pan on rack, about 3 hours. Chill, covered, until cold, at least 4 hours. Remove side of pan and bring to room temperature before serving. Serve with roasted pecans and Bourbon-caramel Sauce. Serves 12-16. Despite the startling baking instructions and my fear that I have burnt the crust beyond recognitions this cheesecake came out amazing to say the least. The sheer fact that it is already gone while we still have leftovers from everything else we cooked for Thankgiving is a testimony to how "can-i-have-one-more-piece" it was.

A spoonful of each. Sage mashed potatoes.

Cornbread muffins. The adult's table.

Waldorf salad. Yes, that kind of Thanksgiving.

Food Thoughts

2008-11-28T00:07:00.000-08:00

Before I download the ton of pictures of food, food and more food from the bountiful Thanksgiving celebration, here are two articles with a holiday slant that caught my attention yesterday:

The WIRED magazine blog network offers an fascinating historical look at the "evolution" of some of the staple Thanksgiving foods - turkey, corn and potatoes in the piece Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner. It is quite startling and unsettling to see what selective breading can do in such a short time. Over the last century turkeys have more than doubled in size, the sugar content in corn has trippled and the starch content of potatoes has increased by just as much. The majority of the changes are genetic. I wonder if genetic uniformity of staple foods is a good idea... probably not. Despite what the article seems to imply, feed corn is really not nasty! It is not as sweet, and has a stronger corn taste and more crispy bite but who said that corn must be sweet anyways? So, creationism, anyone?

On the opposite end of the spectrum - from abundance and sugar highs to scarcity and community food banks - comes this article in PressDemocrat.com about the rebirth of gleaning across the country - Sharing the bounty. Gleaning (portrayed in this Millet painting from 1857) is the practice of gathering grain or produce after the reaper, to collect the left-overs after the main harvest has been completed. With startling 27 to 50 percent of food in the USA going to waste while 11 precent of US households experience or are at risk of hunger, the efforts of non-profit organizations like Second Harvest which work to supply produce for food banks, school cafeterias, senior centers and soup kitchens are admirable.

Happy Post-Thanksgiving! I'm off to play football and burn some of the chipotle-mashed-yams-sage-mashed-potatoes-deep-fried-yucca-tofurkey-cornbread-stuffing-two-types-of-cranberry-sauce-mocha-pecan-pie-pumpkin-rice-krispies-etc. fiesta calories from yesterday.

El Tour de Tucson Fabulous Chocolate Mousse Pie

2008-11-24T21:37:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday Tucson was the course for a huge road bike race - El Tour de Tucson. I think some 8,500 people rode in it, half of them riding the full distance of 108 miles. Insane, I know! Some of my best friends were in the race and had a great time though. I was feeling out of shape and under-trained and didn't want to pay the huge registration fee just to do a mediocre race so instead I decided to do Bike Patrol and help people with more enthusiasm and better training than me perform as best as they can. Over the course of a week I attended three classes, got my bike in a pretty good shape by changing the break pads, lubricating the chain, and managed to coral a respectable pile of useful things to bring along - tire wrenches, patched tubes, WD40, tyvek, chain lube, patch kit, allen wrenches, CO2 cartridges, a medical kit, a few bags of sugar gels and some power bars, duct tape,.. The list goes on. I think I was better prepared than most Bike Patrols out there. All in all, I rode ~55 miles, changed 2.3 tires, removed half a dozen bottles off the road, cheered on for a couple of hundred people, and helped 2 people who were sitting on the side of the road. And had a great day in the sun!

In the evening after the race a friend who rode the whole distance had a BBQ and served an amazing chocolate mousse pie for everyone who needed to catch up on some calories. Turns out the pie is one of the signature desserts of a great restaurant in town - Terra Cotta. Here is the recipe from their website. This pie is insanely delicious - rich but fluffy, chocolatey but not too sweet. I recommend using high quality chocolate, but not too high is cocoa content.

Chocolate Mousse Pie

1 1/2 packages (9 ounces each) Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers (to yield 3 cups crumbs)
4 oz unsalted butter, melted
1 lb bittersweet chocolate
4 C cream
2/3 C powdered sugar
2 whole eggs
4 eggs, separated
shaved chocolate curls for garnish

Lightly oil the sides of a 10-inch springform pan. Grind the cookies to crumbs in a food processor or blender. Mix with the melted butter and press into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Chill.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over hot but not boiling water. Meanwhile whip 2 cups of the cream with ½ cup powdered sugar. When the chocolate is melted, remove from the heat and add the two whole eggs and four yolks. Mix very well. Fold in the whipped cream.

Beat the egg whites and fold them into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the chilled crust. Chill overnight or at least 6 hours.
Whip the remaining cream and sugar and spread about half the whipped cream on top of the pie. Un-mold the pie and pipe the remaining cream around the edge with a pastry bag and a star tip. Scatter a layer of chocolate curls evenly over the middle.

Homemade Yogurt

2008-11-23T11:54:00.001-08:00

Yogurt is a staple in Bulgarian cuisine and the pride of many Bulgarians who consider it our most notable contribution to the world. Unfortunately there is no evidence which suggests that we have invented yogurt - cultured milk has existed for a few thousand years. But we do have a yogurt bacteria named after us - Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus. Yey! And I am sure we are one of the largest per capita consumers of yogurt in the world.

Milk fermentation converts lactose (the milk sugar) to lactic acid which lowers the pH of milk. When the pH drops the molecules of casein (the protein which is responsible for curdling milk) coagulate in effect curdling the milk. In yogurt, the conversion of lactose to lactic acid is done by bacteria such as Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus, Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, L. acidophilus, L. casei and Bifidobacterium. Usually yogurts contain several different types of bacteria and only products containing live bacteria should be called "yogurt" anyways. Products which have been pasteurized after preparation usually do not contain live cultures. In my humble opinion, yogurt should not contain any additives for thickening such as cornstarch, pectin or even dry milk, but most yogurt companies tend to disagree, and I tend not to buy their products. My favorite? Nancy's Fat Free yogurt. Not only does it contain only milk, but the container is made of Type 2 plastic and can be recycled.

My Mom used to make yogurt when we were little though I think this was mostly driven by the scarcity of yogurt in the grocery stores. My Grandma used to make goat milk yogurt with the milk from our goats. I am sure my Grand-grand-mothers used to make yogurt too. So in the spirit of this multi-generational tradition, I decided to give homemade yogurt a try. And it actually turned out great! Fancy that! It turns out making yogurt is so easy even a physicist can do it.

Materials:

4 C 2% milk (I used Sarah Farms milk)
1/2 C yogurt for starter (I used 1 Cascade Fresh small cup of plain yogurt)
~2 glass jars (4 cups volume)
1 pan
candy thermometer (optional but helpful)
small cooler/Styrofoam container
blanket/towel

Heat milk to ~170 F, until hot but not boiling. Turn the heat off and let it cool down to ~100 - 110 F - slightly warm to the touch. In the mean time wash and dry the jars and boil a kettle of water. Stir the yogurt with a fork until smooth. When the milk has cooled down, pour the yogurt in the warm milk slowly, while stirring. Make sure the yogurt is well dissolved and there are no lumps. Pour the milk-yogurt mixture in the jars, put the lids on and close tightly. Pour hot water in the cooler (or whatever isolated container you have) and then mix it up with some cold water until you reach water temperature of ~110 F. Place the jars in the water, make sure they are well immersed, up to just below the lids. Close the lid of the cooler and wrap it up in a blanket (the blanket/towel/sheet is just a family tradition, I don't think it is really necessary). Leave overnight without opening, 8-10 hours. When you uncover it the milk should have already turned into yogurt but may be a watery. Leave in the refrigerator for 24 hours and it will get a little denser. At this point you can add fruits, jams, jellies and sweeteners. Enjoy!

Best B-day Ever and a Good Cake

2008-11-18T23:36:00.000-08:00

Best Birthday Eva'! I haven't laughed so hard in recorded history! I wish I would still be hanging out with these guys in my 60s, I honestly do!

So, two of my friends were celebrating their 60th birthday last weekend and I volunteered myself to make a cake. Yes, I know, a masochist. But I thought that the Mexican-inspired dinner would match well with a Tres Leches cake, and Tres Leches cake is my new favorite thing. My first piece of Tres Leches cake was at a wedding this spring. It was fruity, moist and absolutely delicious. My second piece (and the third and fourth) was at the Las Campanas observatory in Chile a few weeks ago. I had cake for lunch and I would have had it for dinner too. I asked the chef for the recipe and he was all to kind to write it out for me. Turns out the cake is pretty simple - sponge cake, soaked in a mixture of three milks, which was no guarantee for success - my first attempt at making it failed quite miserably (but was happily eaten nevertheless). So here it is, attempt Number 2, follow the directions exactly:

Tres Leches Cake

For the cake:
6 eggs
1 C white all purpose flour, sifted (sift, then measure)
1 C + 1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

For syrup:
1 can evaporated milk
1 can condensed milk
heavy cream

For topping:
4 egg whites
1 C sugar

Please, please, please, do sift the flour! Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks with 1/2 cup of sugar and the vanilla for 2-3 minutes, until the mixture is frothy and light yellow. Beat the egg whites until frothy, ~ 2 minutes. Keep beating the whites and add 1/2 cup of the sugar tablespoon by tablespoon, beating until well incorporated before adding the next tablespoon. Keep beating the whites until soft peaks start forming. Carefully mix a portion of the whites in the yolk mixture to lighten it up, then pour the rest of the whites in and fold, veeeery carefully. Mix salt, 1 Tbs of sugar, baking powder and the flour (the baking powder may not be necessary). Sift the flour mixture into the wet mixture little by little, slowly folding the flour in. Do not overmix! I used an electric mixer to beat the eggs and then folded the ingredients with a spatula. Pout into a springform pan. If the pan is nonstick, oil and flour the sides of it, but not the bottom, before pouring the mixture in. Bake for ~40 min at 350 F, until the top is lightly brown and springs back to the touch. Take is out if the oven and flip is upside-down on a towel for a couple of minutes to avoid serious deflation.

While the cake is baking, make the "syrup". Use the condensed milk can as a measuring cup and mix 1 can of condensed milk, 1 can-full of evaporated milk and 1 can-full of heavy cream. Stir well until the condensed milk is well dissolved.

While the cake is still warm, remove the sides of the springform and move to another plate if you want. Using a cerated knife cut off the thin top crust. This is done so that the cake absorbs the milk mixture easier but will make is unappealing without frosting. Put the springform sides back on and slowly pour the milk mixture minus ~3/4 cup evenly on the cake. Place in the fridge to chill. Decorate with merangue, stick the candles in and start singing "Happy birthday to You". Enjoy!

Life is Beautiful: Cascabel

2008-11-18T23:34:00.001-08:00

When my friend Monica first invited me to go to Cascabel for a night of camping at her friend Chet's property and attending the local mesquite milling festival, I probably made a face and offered some lame excuse about being busy but promised to try to make it if at all possible thinking there would be no way that would happen. But when she e-mailed the reminder a week before the even I gave myself a stern look in the mirror and said: "You love camping. It is probably a beautiful place. How much work would you get done on a Friday night. Plus, Monica mentioned mesquite pancakes for breakfast. You would love it. Go." And so I did. And I loved it.

Cascabel is a small town situated on the banks of the San Pedro river, east of Tucson, AZ and about 24 miles north of the town of Benson. I didn't know anything about it when we left Tucson but by the end of the trip I was happier for knowing such a place existed in the Universe. In the words of Mary Taylor who has written a brief history of the area "Cascabel is a place and a community. The place is an area about 40 miles long and ten miles wide along the San PedroRiver, beginning about 8 miles north of Benson. There is no post office, no school, no service station, no quick mart and just the beginning of a general store. There is only one road in, through and out of the area with some ranch access roads. The Community is mostly made up of special, different“characters,” independent, but cooperative when needed. "

Having left Tucson after sunset in a caravan of nine cars we arrived in Cascabel well after dark and soon joined the crowd huddled around the fire. Dinner time! I honestly didn't see what everyone else had for dinner but my friends and I, all being amateur gourmands, brought some seriously tasty stuff! I threw several potatoes stuffed with butter, thyme and garlic and wrapped in aluminum foil in the coals in my first adult attempt at real baked potatoes. While I was waiting for the potatoes, Monica treated me to a generous serving of pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes and smoked gouda, James shared some cheese tortellini with home-made pesto and pine nuts, and Jon grilled a dozen skewers with elk meat over the camp fire. Smores followed dinner; the tin box full of chocolate chip cookies which I passed around came back almost empty; Monica was taking orders for hot chocolate with mint schnapps. We sang and laughed, and looked at the almost full Moon, warming our hands, and feet by the fire late into the night.

Roasted marshmallows. Chet and Monica. Fire. Jon singing.

The morning came earlier than expected, and after the soft lights and deep shadows of the night before, now everything seemed almost too sharp, the sunlight brighter than usual, the air crisper, the edges sharper. I climbed the hill above our camp ground and the horizon opened - rolling hills, towering Saguaros and low shrubs, and only a gravelly road winding into the distance, the pristine beauty of the Sonoran desert. Breakfast was served at the Community Center where the smell of pancakes and waffles filled the air in the spacious hall and the line was winding to the door. Almost all ingredients of this delicious breakfast were local - from the flour for the pancakes to the prickly pear syrup on every table. So, so tasty, I went for a second waffle. As the mesquite bean milling began and clouds of flour swirled in the wind, we headed out back home.

Making pancakes. Breakfast. Milling mesquite. Locally grown.

What struck me most about Cascabel and its people was the deep dedication to living sustainably. The eggs and milk came from chicken and goats in town, there was talk about the community garden, all produce was grown there, by these people. Knowing where the food came from, talking to the people who invested their effort and time in bringing it to the table, listening to them talk about it, made me have so much more respect and appreciation for the breakfast on my plate, and gratefulness to these wonderful folks. Chet was explaining about how cows in the town are being herded on foot and led to different grounds to avoid overgrazing of the fragile desert flora. Pearl stopped by our table while refilling the prickly pear syrup bottles and gave us tips on harvesting the prickly pear fruit. People were sharing the long wooden tables for breakfast and everyone was pitching in with something - cleaning the tables, washing the dishes, shelling corn or picking through the mesquite pods.

Indeed, life is beautiful, especially when mesquite waffles are a part of it.

Daniel's Mesquite Waffles

1 C whole wheat flour
3/4 C mesquite flour
3 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 C milk
1/2 C oil

Separate he eggs. Stir together the dry ingredients. Combine egg yolks, milk and oil, and stir with the dry ingredients. Beat the egg whites until fluffy and fold them with the rest of the ingredients. Do not over-mix. Follow the instructions of your waffle-iron to make the waffles. Makes about 8 waffles.

Part I: Seasonal

2008-11-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

Eating seasonally may be the easiest step toward more sustainable as well as healthier and tastier eating. Why? Let me count the ways.

Produce is most nutritious when it is ripe. However if you are buying tomatoes in Canada in December, your tomatoes had to travel thousands of miles before they reached the grocery store and chances are they were picked when they were barely getting rosy. While being transported, produce will gain color and softness but it is no longer building up nutrients. Just the opposite in fact , its nutritional value is decreasing. Produce which is shipped long distance is also more likely to have been grown for its "shippability" and not for its taste. Now that alone explains many a perfectly looking melons which tasted like rubber. Alternatively, if the produce is grown in a hot-house it is probably more likely to have been chemically encouraged to grow. Either way, it is not surprising that one may find studies which suggest that seasonal produce may be more beneficial for the immune system. Seasonal produce is more likely to be local and more likely to have been picked close to ripeness - yey, lower carbon footprint too! So maybe the "one apple a day keeps the doctor away" should be edited to something like "one piece of seasonal fruit a day keeps the doctor away"?

Choosing seasonal produce also introduces variety to your diet. The different seasons bring different fruit and vegetables to your table and let you explore new tasty recipes, diverse flavors and textures. The variety helps you not get tired of eating the same stuff over and over and over again all the year round. Sure, you can eat Caesar salad all year round but do you want to? Growing up my in Bulgaria, we could only get seasonal produce and I remember looking forward to every new season because the produce would change. In June I would be dying for peaches and apricots and watermelons, but come August I would have had so much of them that the first Fall pears and apples were a welcome rescue. Then there would be the excitement when the glowing pumpkins appear on the market in October. Oranges and lemons would add their zestiness to the cold days of December. And then by March I would have eaten so many apples that I would start craving cherries and peaches again. The beauty of it is that the seasons keep going in an enchanted circle and you will eventually get what you're longing for.

Yes, it is good for you but logistically it may be quite challenging to figure out what is in season in the grocery stores today. In the six years I have been living in the United States I have not noticed significant seasonal changes in the produce section of any big grocery store. There are watermelons and lettuce all year round. The only sign of what is in season may be to look for what is on sale as seasonal produce is more likely to be cheaper: watermelons are cheapest in July and oranges in January. But, if you have never been close the the beginning of the food line it may be hard to know what produce is in season. How do you find out?

Certainly what is in season will vary by where you live which determines the length of the growing season and the crops which are most suitable for the local climate. This nicely interactive albeit probably incomplete map shows the peak season ingredients in each state during each month. Similar information can be found here. Buying a share in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organization and visiting the local Farmer's Market are perfect opportunities to supply not only seasonal but also local produce (more on that in a different post) to you table and support small, local farms as well. If you would be interested in hunting down your own seasonal produce here is quite an exhaustive list for moderate northern latitudes:

DECEMBER-JANUARY-FEBRUARY
Brussels sprouts, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, cabbage, gourds (squashes and pumpkins and such), leeks, onion, root vegetables (parsnip, sweet potatoes, potatoes, yams) - cranberries, fresh dates, citrus fruits, apples. Most winter fruit and vegetables are from storage.

MARCH-APRIL
Asparagus, artichoke, fresh cabbage, new carrots, cauliflower, chard, green garlic and green onions, collards, fennel, garlic, kale, lettuces, mushrooms, peas and other edible pods, parsley, spinach, radishes - navel oranges, apples, pears

MAY
Green beans, new cabbage, celery, chard, new corn, dill, fennel,kale, lettuces, mushrooms, spring onions, parsley, peas, new potatoes, radish, sorrel,spinach, zucchini - cherries, cantaloupe, grapefruit, raspberries, field rhubarb, strawberries

JUNE-JULY-AUGUST
Bell peppers, green beans, carrots, cilantro, corn, cucumber, eggplant, garlic, lettuces, okra, peas, summer squash, tomatoes - apricots, berries, cantaloupe, cherries, currants, fresh figs, grapes, honeydew, nectarines, peaches, plums, Valencia oranges, watermelon

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER-NOVEMBER
Beets, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, rutabaga, again roots and gourds, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, onions - apples, cranberries, figs, grapes, Valencia oranges, pears, plums, pomegranate, quince, fresh nuts

Or alternatively, if you are into gadgets Chew on This offers the perfect solution: the Food Wheel. Woah! Check it out! Unfortunately it is only available for the NYC area for now.

But then what do you do when a peach craving hits you in mid-December? Peach preserve. Canned peach. Peach nectar. Frozen peaches.

So far I have focused on produce only, but I wonder whether meat is also seasonal? I would guess less so (plus you can freeze meat), but can someone tell me?

I am super, super inspired and excited to try and keep to seasonal produce this winter! After researching this post, visiting the local Farmer's Market, talking to my friends about planting their winter gardens and reading about so many so tasty recipes with squash, sweet potatoes, beans, leeks, cabbage, pomegranates, peaches, apples and quinces, I have decided that there well be no more lettuce in my fridge 'til Spring. Meanwhile, I plan on broadening my culinary horizons and learning new recipes using winter produce. I am thinking quinoa and pomegranate pilaf, bean and pumpkin andean stew, squash gnocci, sweet potatoes with butter and sage and probably some apple-pear tart thrown in for good measure. And definitely pumpkin-chocolate chip cupcakes, lots of them. You are in for a ride!

This post is a continuation of this one: Organic. Local. Seasonal. Photos courtesy of Monica Stephens.

What do you do with cauliflower?

2008-11-10T23:45:00.000-08:00

Cauliflower is one of these autumn vegetables that I always buy with excitement - "Oh, look, it's cauliflower season again!". But then I bring it home and I can never quite figure out what to do with it. So the poor things sits in the fridge until it gets completely black and only a curry can save it. But curries are not happening very often these days. My family makes awesome pickled cauliflower but that's just Too Much Work for me these day. Some day. May be.

The same scenario played out this week again and I was stuck with a head of cauliflower. But then I came across this recipe for a cauliflower soup on Smitten Kitchen and I was saved!

Cauliflower Soup

1 head cauliflower, broken into florettes
3 C vegetarian chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic gloves, chopped
1 Tbs butter
1/4 - 1/3 cup shredded cheese
2 Tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Notes on the ingredients: The vegetarian chicken broth was recommended to me by a friend who found it in the bulk bins at Sunflower. It has a mild flavor and is low in sodium. I used 1 Tbs of broth powder per cup of water. I am guessing vegetable broth would work as well. Also, the original recipe asked for Parmesan cheese, but I only had monterey jack. I guess Parmesan might work better as it is more flavorfull but I still liked the result.

Saute the onion in the olive oil until soft. Add the garlic and saute for another couple of minutes. Add the cauliflower and the broth and bring to boil. Simmer for ~15 minutes, until the cauliflower is soft and falling apart. Let the soup cool for a while. Take out some (1/5 to 1/4) of the cauliflower in a bowl and blend the remaining soup until smooth. Return the whole cauliflower to the soup, add the butter and the cheese, and heat up again. The complicated cauliflower juggling is because I like to have something chewable in my soup, so if you'd rather just pure the whole thing, I say do it. Add more water if the soup ends up too thick for your taste. Finally, add salt and a little bit of black pepper. Makes...kind of a lot. I served it sprinkled with shredded cheese and a bit of parsley.

I have been dishing out soup after soup but in all honesty it really isn't all that cold in Arizona yet. I just wish it was cold. Come November I really miss the rustle of dry leaves and the foggy autumn nights. I pull out my coat and scarf, start wearing sweaters and cooking soups. Yet, the cold refuses to come. Oh, well.

Do Not Shed a Tear

2008-11-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

I have to write about this! It's just too cool! Onion goggles! One of my housemates got them as a present from a thoughtful parent last Christmas and I have been making good use of them. They work amazingly well! You can get them from Amazon.com for $18.98 or probably find them at the nearest kitchen gadgetry store. Wow, they even come in pink! They also make a fashionable accessory.

Why do onions make us cry? Here is the answer from The Naked Scientist: "Onions are a member of the Allium family of vegetables that also includes leeks, shallots, chives, garlic and sharp scallion. The tears come from volatile oils containing substances called amino acid sulphoxides, which give the members of this family of vegetables their characteristic smells. So why do we cry ? Well, when you cut the onion you also release substances called allinases which break down the amino acid sulphoxides to something called sulphenic acid which then turns into something called syn-propanethial-S-oxide which irritates nerve fibres on the surface of the eye, triggering tear production. Because it takes time for this substance to form, this explains why we don't start to cry until at least 30 seconds into cutting up an onion."

Then, again, if you don't want to splurge on these, swimming goggles work just as well. But are not nearly as cool.

'Tis the Season

2008-11-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

Halloween came and passed without my vigorous participation this year (again) as I was on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, working. I was a bit disappointed that no one even noticed that I was wearing my special "Batty" Halloween t-shirt (which for full disclosure I thought meant "a little bat" when I bought it). And since I was 5,000 miles too far to participate in the annual pumpkin carving event at my house, you get a pumpkin picture from last year.

Inspired by Halloween, fall, pumpkins at the grocery store and most of all, by an oh so yummy pumpkin soup ("sopa de zapallo") I had at the El Adobe restaurant (pictured here with my bowl of soup) in San Pedro de Atacama, this pumpkin soup will warm you up on a chilly autumn night. Instead of the usual flavor pairing of with nutmeg and other pie-reminescent spices, here pumpkin is paired with thyme and parsley and a generous addition of black pepper gives it some extra heat:

Pumpkin Soup

2 C water
2 C pumpkin puree (one 14 oz can)
1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 - 1 tsp thyme, fresh or dry, chopped
1 -2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 C milk
5-10 whole black peppercorns
a little olive oil
salt to taste

Saute the onion with a little olive oil for a few minutes, until soft. Add the garlic, thyme and peppercorns, stir, saute for another minute. Add the pumpkin pure, stir. Add the water, stir. Add the salt and taste. Bring to boil, turn down the heat and simmer for ~5-10 minutes. Let it cool down for a few minutes and then blend it up. Return to the stove, add the milk and bring to boil again. Serve warm, with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of parsley, maybe some freshly ground black pepper and some bread. Feeds approximately 4.

Enjoy! I hope it warms you up as much as it warmed me in San Pedro. For the record, I begged the waiter for the recipe, but he wouldn't cave in. The recipe above is based on a pumpkin soup listed on Allrecipes.com but it tastes pretty close to the real thing.

Paying for Plastic Bags?

2008-11-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

The New York Times has an interesting article this morning - In Mayor’s Plan, the Plastic Bag Will Carry a Fee:

"In its struggle to make New York more green, the Bloomberg administration has tried discouraging people from using plastic bags. It has taken out ads beseeching residents to use cloth bags and set up recycling bins for plastic bags at supermarkets. But now the carrots have been put away, and the stick is out: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has called for charging shoppers 6 cents for every plastic bag needed at the register."

The fee (not tax) is one of the ideas of Mayor Bloomberg to make NYC greener. A similar fee of 33 cents per bag in Ireland brought down plastic bag use by 94 percent in a year. Critics say that the fee is too small to make a difference in the behavior of shoppers, but judging from the outrage generated by the proposal that may not be the case.

I personally think it is quite reasonable to charge for plastic bags. Seems like having a financial incentive is one of the best ways to change people's habits. The charge can be easily avoided by bringing a canvas bag (or used plastic bag) or placing your items in your backpack or just carrying them without a bag to your car. What do you think? Do you use canvas bags? Any tricks to remember bringing a canvas bag to the store?

My Last Fast Food French Fries

2008-11-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

Wow! Has it been a month already? I cannot believe it! Well, I really haven't been cooking all that much over the last month, at least nothing blog-worthy. But I promise to catch up! I spent the last two weeks in Chile, working, traveling and above all, eating tons of tasty Chilean food (and taking pictures of it). The trip, the food and the views will be a topic of another post though. Here, I wanted to write about quite a striking book I read while I was on the road - "Fast Food Nation". I know, I know, I am seven years too late and most of you have read it ages ago, but seven years ago boiling rice was my crown culinary achievement and I certainly couldn't be bothered to care where my fries came from. Times have changed. Now I cook, care and blog about food.

I enjoyed the book very much. So much that I read it in two days all the while craving one last serving of french fries. The book is very informative and quite frightening, though in the lest expected ways. When I started reading it I was anticipating (a) a treatise of why fast food is bad for you, much like "Supersize Me" and/or (b) a rant against the inhumane treatment of animals. While both topics are touched upon in the book, neither is placed in the center of the discussion. Instead, Eric Schlosser presents the reader with an extremely well researched work (the bibliography alone is 69 pages) on the history, development and current world-wide hegemony of the fast food industry. This is a book about the transformation of the American diet, economy, workforce, landscape and popular culture caused by the fast food industry. It is thoroughly enchanting. On a given day a quarter of the US adult population visits a fast food restaurant. 90% of US children eat at a fast food restaurant at least once a month. Ronald McDonald is the second most recognizable face (after Santa Claus) by school children - 96% can recognize him. The profit margin of a cup of soda is ~95%. It is practically impossible to summarize everything the book is about in a paragraph or two. It is also practically impossible to summarize all that is disturbing about the fast food industry in a paragraph or two. Therefore, I would like to mention the two topics which struck me the most: the treatment of workers in the meat processing pants (yes, workers not cows) and the lack any government control over the meat industry.

The chapters describing the meat packing industry, Schlosser's visits to the meat packing plants, his encounters and interviews with workers at the plants all speckled with references to Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" were the hardest to read. Now, even though I am a vegetarian, I am very much aware that hundreds of thousands of animals must be killed for all the steaks and hamburgers to show up at the grocery stores and restaurants and I have no illusions that this is done in the most humane manner possible. However I never realized that the people working at meat-packing plants were treated so disgustingly inhumanely! The stories portrayed in the book are beyond belief! Missing fingers, missing limbs, people incapacitated for life being compensated by a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, extremely dangerous jobs without health insurance staffed by illegal immigrants who do not speak English and cannot defend their rights, company doctors deliberately misdiagnosing injuries to avoid paying the medical expenses, companies paying dimes in penalties for the deaths of workers caused by negligence - just a few of the details portrayed in the book. I find it truly bewildering that so much fuss is made over the living conditions of animals (including Proposition 2 - The Prevention of Animal Cruelty Act which just passed in Calofornia) when thousands of people, people who put food on the tables of millions of American families every single day, are treated with such abyssmal inhumanity! It is beyond disturbing! According to a December 2006 PBS article not much has changed since Fast Food Nation was written in 2001: "In early 2005, Human Rights Watch released a report entitled "Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers' Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants" which concluded that the working conditions in America's meat packing plants were so bad they violated basic human and worker rights. This was the first time the human rights organization had criticized a U.S. industry." Isn't anyone paying attention?

The several country-wide produce scares in the last one year (was it tomatoes and spinach?) made me read very carefully Eric Schlosser's discussion of the dangers of the centralization of meat-production, or any production: "Today a cluster of illnesses in one small town can stem from a bad potato salad at a school barbeque or -- or it may be the first sign of an outbreak that extends statewide, nationwide and even overseas." Millions of tons of meat infected E. Coli and Salmonela can be distributed unchecked throughout the country, sicken thousands of people, and no government agency has the right to issue a recall and inform the public that they should not buy the infected meat! A voluntarily recall can be issued by the company weeks and months after the discovery of the infection, long after the infected product has already been sold and consumed. Since when did eating a steak become risky business? Apparently, a large amount of money and effort have been invested by the meat industry to prevent the institution of control. Isn't this frightening? The Secretary of Agriculture is quoted to have said: "We can fine circuses for mistreating elephants but we can't fine companies for violating food-safety standards."

In short, if you haven't read "Fast Food Nation", read it. I recommend it.

What now? It's not that I have ever been a big fast food fan. I was 17 years old (and already a vegetarian) when I walked into a McDonald's restaurant for the first time, I think it was in Belgrade, so I do not have the childhood allegiance or comfort food association. And, honestly, I've never had a hamburger, let alone a BigMac. Yet, aside from reasons loosely defined as "they don't serve anything I eat", I have never consciously avoided them. In fact, french fries and/or a frosty is my occasional fare after a late night out. Given that the majority of fast food purchases are spontaneous, I may as well be the typical customer. Or should I say "was" the typical customer. I here-by solemnly swear to never eat at a fast food restaurant ever again. I had my last serving of (Jack In the Box) fast food fries last Sunday, November 2nd, 2008. I oppose their practices, I oppose their corporative greediness, exploitativeness and manipulativeness. Fast food chains very much remind me of Walmart, like the food version of it (seen Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price?). Well, I won't be spending my money there no more.

And if I were to ever buy meat, I'd rather know the name of the cow/chicken it came from. (Sorry, Monica!)

Cookies for Breakfast

2008-09-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

I swear, I will eventually cook something sore substantial than desserts! I really will, I swear! But until then, one more batch of cookies. My housemate left for a grueling trip around Europe a few days ago. She will be visiting 3 countries, giving 4 talk and participating in a conference, all in under two weeks. Phew! I wanted to make her some cookies for the trip, so that she has some comfort food (or food, period) while hopping from plane to plane, or working on her talk late into the night in a hotel room on the other side of the pond. I started with her favorite "Cookies a la Grammy" she makes with the dried cherries her Grammy sends her for her birthday every year, and tweaked, and then tweaked it some more:

"You can have them for breakfast" Cookies
1 C butter (2 sticks)
1/2 C brown sugar
1/4 to 1/2 C white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 C rolled oats
1+ C dried cranberries
1/2+ C pecan pieces
1+ C chocolate chips
zest of 1/4 lemon (or less, or none)

Beat butter and sugar for 3-4 minutes, until fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and zest, and beat some more. Combine flour, salt and baking powder and add to the wet mixture. Finally, stir in the oats, dried cranberries, pecans and chocolate chips. Feel free to change the nuts, chocolate chips and dried fruit ratios (or omit some), as long as they all add up to ~2 1/2 cups. These will go well with dried cherries (definitely skip the lemon zest) or walnuts or white chocolate chips too. Drop teaspoonfulls (or ice-cream-scoop-fulls) of batter on a baking sheet about an inch apart. Bake at 10-12-15 minutes at 350F until bottoms are lightly brown. Let them cool on the sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely. They are really soft when warm (this is apparently not a sign that they are underbaked) and will stay quite soft. Makes ~3 dozen cookies.

I took some to a BBQ at a friend's house last night and everyone loved them. So did my housemates. I have to agree, they are pretty good too - I had one with my beer tonight ;) And I may have a couple for breakfast tomorrow too - after all they have all the things I usually have for breakfast - oatmeal, pecans, cranberries, chocolate chips - in them already.

PS. For the original "Cookies a la Grammy" recipe increase the brown sugar to 1 C, the white sugar to 1/2 C, the chocolate chips to 1 1/2 C and instead of cranberries and pecans add 1 1/2 C of dried cherries. We usually cut down on the sugar though, they are too sweet for our taste.

Hummmmmmus!

2008-09-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

Yet another all time favorite, a bowl of home made hummus makes an appearance at pretty much every gathering of more than four people at my house. It is so quick and easy to make that I have (almost) sworn I will never pay money for hummus. This recipe or some version of it came from an old issue of Gourmet magazine:

Basic Hummus
1 can garbanzo beans
1 Tbs tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
1-2 cloves garlic
1/2+ tsp cumin
salt to taste

Drain and rinse the garbanzo beans but reserve the water in the can. Put all ingredients in the blender. While blending, pour the reserved water little by little in the blender, until the mixture is smooth - usually 1/3 to 1/2 of the water. Be careful not to make it too runny. If you'd like less of a punch, cut back on the lemon juice. Add more cumin, up to 1 tsp, or more garlic if you'd like to emphasize them. Please, please, please, do not substitute oil for the tahini! Tahini is usually sold in Middle Eastern stores and is not all that expensive (~$2.99-$3.99). It gives hummus the creamy texture I absolutely adore (and you will too). Just stir before using.

A variation would be to use roasted garlic. It has a milder taste, so I would suggest 5-6-7-8 cloves, and maybe a little easier on the lemon juice so that the garlic would stand out. Despite the picture above, I prefer to wrap the garlic in foil with some olive oil when roasting it. Putting it directly on the grill does the job, but dries it out too much.

Well, last week I finally decided to go beyond the basic hummus recipe I have been whipping up incessantly for the last three years and try to mix things up a little but flavor-wise. I explored some of the offerings at the Farmer's Market, looked through Epicurious.com and FoodNetwork.com and perused the hummus section of the grocery store in search for ideas, I read the lengthy Wikipedia entry on hummus. And of course, I reminisced about some very tasty hummus variations gifted by a friend earlier this year. Finally I decided to go for something simple this time - Red Pepper Hummus, and maybe build up in time.

Red Pepper Hummus
1 can garbanzo beans
1 red bell pepper, grilled, peeled, seeded
1 Tbs tahini
1/8 cup lemon juice
1-2 cloves garlic
salt to taste

Prepare in the same manner as the basic recipe. Serve with pita bread (this doesn't go well with fresh veggies) or on a sandwich with some grilled eggplant. Yum!

Other ideas? Pine nuts and parsley or rosemary... Mint and lime... Olives... Ginger and caramelized onions (oh...)... What else? Any ideas?

And while we are on the topic of hummus, if you find yourself hungry in Manhattan, be sure to pay a visit to the Hummus Place, a hummus restaurant which now has three locations - East Village, West Village and Upper West Side. I had the pleasure to visit the original location on 99 McDougal Str. a couple of years ago and still have very fond memories of the best hummus I have ever tasted. And make sure you get the roasted pine nuts!

PS. Other flavors tried: black olives and rosemary (fabulous), pumpkin, nutmeg and a bit of black pepper (interesting)

Winnie The Pooh

2008-09-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

My dear laptop, Pooh, is heading for laptop paradise. I am very saddened. Pooh and I have had 5 memorable years together - we have travelled around the world, cooked and shared excellent meals, cudled on the couch and spent many, many sleepless nights working. Thus, excuse the un-illustrated posts. Regular transmissions will resume shortly.

Organic. Local. Seasonal.

2008-09-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I would spend the summers with my grandparent. They lived in a village 4 miles away from the Danube river in a house with a big garden where practically every square foot of land was utilized growing something - they had orchard trees, a vineyard, a vegetable garden, a berry patch and a potato patch among others, with flowers and herbs filling the spaces in between. Every summer the garden would always overflow to a rented piece of land in the outskirts of the village where they would grow corn, beans, melons and watermelons, more veggies. The strategy was "pick, wash, eat". Everything we ate was fresh, grown within a mile, i.e. local, seasonal, and essentially organic. I hated it at the time (ah, the rebellions of youth) but in retrospect I don't think I will ever be able to tell my grandparents how grateful I am for having had the experience to spend the summers of my childhood with them.

But enough of ancient history, the point I am trying to make is that the way my grandparents used to (and still do) put food on the table is distinctly different from the road food travels to the tables of most industrialized countries today. And I mean this quite literally. In the U.S., the average grocery store’s produce travels between 1,500 and 2500 miles between the farm where it was grown and your refrigerator (Worldwatch Institute). Furthermore, before it reaches our tables, that food has been genetically modified, chemically treated and sometimes processed beyond recognition. Our ability to ship food from anywhere to anywhere is creating a huge carbon footprint and hurting local growers. Our ability to grow any type of produce out of season results in food which is not as nutritious and flavorful as when grown naturally and in season (and even more chemically laden). Finally, the disconnect between producer and consumer facilitates exploitative treatment of (workers in) developing countries by developed countries.

I am not going to advocate that everyone of you grabs a shovel and start laying the drip irrigation for a garden, while feeling guilty for all the sins you've done. No way. However, I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I would like to explore the (growing) opportunities to eat safely, ethically and environmentally friendly (hopefully without breaking the bank).

The topic is indeed quite large and this will probably be a series of posts while I am researching the different topics for my own benefit and sharing my findings.

Your comments, thoughts, suggestions, advise, experiences and practices are welcome and encouraged.

Secret Healthful Ingredient Brownies

2008-09-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

I was telling my housemate that I was planning on making brownies which had a secret ingredient and she laughed - apparently her Mom had used the "Secret Healthful Ingredient" method with her youngest sister in an effort to sneak something more nutritious than Mac'n'Cheese in her diet by making cookies with white beans. Now, I have no intention to do any such thing to my friends and housemates, for the most part they are all sufficiently nourished, but this recipe was so interesting and unusual that I wanted to try it. What is the secret ingredient? Black beans. So here are the Black Bean Brownies from Baking with Agave Nectar via 101 Cookbooks. Drum-roll, please....

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 C unsalted butter
2 C soft-cooked black beans, drained well
1 C walnuts, chopped
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1/8 C + some more instant coffee
1/4 tsp sea salt
4 large eggs
1 to 1 1/4 C light agave nectar

Notes on ingredients: I cooked the beans but I guess canned (probably 2 cans, drained and rinsed) beans would also work; I also used instant coffee (Nescafe), if you like a strong coffee flavor add more; if the batter seems unsweet, add more agave nectar.

How to make them: melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave or in impromptu double boiler stirring until no solid clumps are left. In a food processor add the beans, salt, vanilla, half the walnuts and part of the butter-chocolate melt and pulse until well pureed. In a bowl beat the eggs and the agave nectar, add the rest of the chocolate-butter mix, add the bean mixture and the rest of the walnuts. Mix everything well
(with a spoon, the batter it pretty thick). Line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper and oil it lightly or spray it lightly with canola oil cooking spray. Spoon the mixture in and spread well. If you are feeling creative, save 1/2 cup of the eggs-nectar mix and pour it on top of the panned mix and swirl it lightly - that will create white swirls. Bake for 30-40-50 minutes, until the brownies are set and your house is filled with the fragrance of chocolate. Cool, refrigerate, cut. The brownies were really soft and moist out of the oven (I thought I had underbaked them) but they will definitely set after being in the fridge overnight.

I am personally not a big brownie fan but these were actually quite tasty. They are moist and not overwhelmingly sweet (which turned me off brownies to begin with) so you can distinguish the chocolate and coffee flavors and explore the texture as you let them slowly melt in your mouth. Now, I would not say they are healthy considering the large amounts of butter, eggs and chocolate which went in them, but they definitely have a couple healthy ingredients.

Black beans are rich in fiber and protein all for only 227 Kcal per cup as I just found (pass me another brownie). They also contain iron, manganese and antioxidants. Yey! Feeling healthier already.

Now what is this agave nectar stuff? Agave nectar or syrup is the processed sap of the agave plant. It is used as a honey substitute by vegans and and has the same sweetness as honey but lower viscosity. I used light agave syrup which had very mild flavor. There is also dark or amber syrup which I guess has a stronger flavor. Raw varieties (processed at temperatures below 118F) are popular among raw foodies. Agave nectar is high in fructose so drink/use responsibly or you might get a sugar high. If you can't hunt down any agave syrup (I found it at Whole Foods) feel free to substitute it 1:1 with honey. Do not substitute with sugar because that will offset the liquids to solids ratio of the recipe.

These brownies breached a whole new field of desserts for me - flourless cakes - which is apparently quite well populated. There seem to be several different branches to flourless cakes also referred to as tortes. To maintain cake-like consistency some contain ground nuts, some contain breadcrumbs (now, that's just cheating) and some (actually all) ask for ludicrous amounts of eggs. Seriously, this Flourless Chocolate Cake with Toasted Hazelnuts and Brandied Cherries is a heart attach just waiting to happen (but I will bookmark it anyways). So in retrospect, these brownies are actually quite healthy.

So, anyone want some brownies? I am serious though unwilling to ship.

How do you pronounce this?

2008-09-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

I was browsing through the pages of a not-to-be-named sports magazine a couple of weeks ago when I came across a recipe for quinoa tabbouleh in the cooking section (which I always find somewhat out of place in such publication). Tabbouleh (pronounced [ta'bu:li], also tabouleh, tabouli) is an Arab dish, frequently served as an appetizer (or mezze). Its primary ingredients are bulgur, parsley, mint, tomatoes and scallions and it is typically seasoned with lemon juice and olive oil. Oh, I love tabbouleh sooooo much!!! And what an interesting idea to mix up the ingredients a bit. So taking inspiration from the magazine recipe I concocted a Quinoa Tabbouleh:

1 C quinoa
1/2 big bunch of parsley
1 handful of mint
1/4 red onion, chopped
3-4-5 Roma tomatoes, squeezed and chopped
1 English cucumber
1 can of garbanzo beans (oh, yes!)
lemon jiuce
salt
splash of olive oil

Combine quinoa with 1 1/2 C water and a pinch of salt, bring to boil and simmer for ~15 minutes, until quinoa is soft, but still has a slight crunch. Cover and let it cool. I made this with the intention of bringing it to work for lunch which meant that the salad will be in the fridge for a few days so initially I mixed everything but the tomatoes and cucumber in a bowl, covered it and refrigerated it. Then every morning I would chop up some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber and top them with ~3/4 cup of the quinoa mix. Yum! And nutritious too!

I have only recently discovered quinoa (pronounced ['ki:nua], above middle) and found it a tasty and fun ingredient to include in salads, stir-frys and in place of other grains. Quinoa is a pseudocereal and not a true grain. It originated in the Andean region of South America and has been a staple food there for 6,000 years. The Incas even considered it sacred - quinoa was second in nutritional importance, superseded by the potato and followed by corn. During the European colonization the Spaniards scorned and tried to suppress its use due to its importance in non-Christian ceremonies, obviously without success - Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador are now the world's top producers. Quinoa has been gaining popularity (among protein starved vegetarians) because of its nutritional value - it is high in protein (12-18%), it is a complete protein, it is rich in dietary fiber, iron and magnesium, and it is gluten free. It has a pleasant nutty flavor and a light crunchiness, and can be easily substituted for rice, couscous, bulgur. Plus, it looks really cute.

So far so good. However, last weekend I made a long due visit to the Farmer's Market and ended up buying a bottle of liquid gold - Lemon Infused Olive Oil (capitalized on purpose) from the Queen Creek Olive Mill. I don't frequently splurge on fancy foods but this stuff is just phenomenal - smooth olive oil with a vibrant lemon flavor. Furthermore, it comes packed with a feel-good-about-yourself feeling as the olives are grown locally and you are supporting a small family business. The acquisition of lemon infused olive oil could only mean one thing - more tabbouleh! But while I threw the previous one together in a hurry, I decided to make this one a work of art. Classical Arabic culinary art. And in my humble opinion, it was a wild success. Here are the ingredients:

1 C dry bulgur
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped
a handful of mint, chopped
4 green onions, choped
4-5 Roma tomatoes, squeezed and chopped
3/4 - 1 English cucumber (...you'll never guess...), chopped
2 Tbs (lemon) olive oil
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt

The key to a good tabbouleh? Dry ingredients. I put the bulgur in a bowl with a little salt and poured 2 C of boiling water over it. Then I covered it and let it cool and absorb the water. A few hours later there was still some unabsorbed water so I put the bulgur in a cheese cloth and left it to strain overnight. The next day I chopped up all the herbs and veggies and mixed it up. I prefer to use Roma tomatoes because they are not as watery. I felt that the juice of 1/2 lemon was just enough to not overpower the lemony flavor of the oil but if you want more sourness, add more juice. I recommend adding the zest too - adds lemony flavor without sourness. This turned out oh, so, good! The fresh vegetables, the herbs and the spices gave it such a rich flavor and I love the different textures - the chewy bulgur, the crunchy cucumber and the leafy parsley. I am already looking forward to lunch (shown here) tomorrow, after the flavors have had the chance to blend overnight!

PS. After-lunch review: fantastically minty-fresh! But beware of parsley between your teeth ;)

Coconut Addiction

2008-09-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Iva and I am a coconut addict. No kidding. If you were to follow the trail of shredded coconut through our house, you will inevitably find me at the end of it, spoon in one hand, box of shredded coconut in the other. Yes, I said spoon. It is very serious indeed. Let's start again. Hello. My name is Iva and I am a cupcake addict. If you have ever met me you will know this is not far from the truth either. So to combine addictions, this installment is about coconut cupcakes - the Citrusy, the Fruity and the Chocolatey (a.k.a. the Zesty, the Sweet and the Very Tasty).

The recipes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, the pictures are my own, taken inside our most famous fridge and the appetite was supplied by 2-3 dozen carefully selected applicants who licked their fingers after eating the cupcakes without my asking them to do so.

Coconut Lime Cupcakes
1 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 C coconut oil
1 C coconut milk
1/4 C soy milk
3/4 C granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp coconut extract
1 tsp lime zest
1 C unsweetened coconut

Lychee Cupcakes
2 C all-purpose flour
5 Tbs ground flaxseeds
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 C oil
1/4 C coconut milk
1 1/3 C granulated sugar (or less)
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz. lychee, well drained and chopped
1/4 cup lychee syrup

Toasted Coconut Cupcakes
1 C all-purpose flour
1/3 C cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 C coconut oil
1 C coconut milk
3/4 C granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp coconut extract
1/2 C unsweetened shreded coconut

The basic idea is that you mix all the dry ingredients (sans zest, fruit and coconut) in a small bowl, beat all the wet ingredients in a mixing bow and then add the dry ones in 2-3 batches until there are no lumps. Finally mix in zest/fruit/coconut. Coconut oil is definitely worth the splurge as a jar will last quite a few batches of cupcake but don't go overboard because it is rich in saturated fats. I use the Spectrum unrefined organic coconut oil. Note: melt it in the microwave before incorporating but make sure it is not scorching hot. I also use vanilla soy milk whenever necessary. Divide batter equally between 12 liners and bake at 350F until a toothpick comes out clean.

The coconut lime cupcakes made an appearance at a farewell party for a friend of mine (along side the chocolate-strawberry ones). The cupcakes are not too tangy but the Lime Butter-cream Frosting (recipe below) bears quite a punch. The best part is that they look all so impressive with minimum effort - frost, dip in shredded coconut, decorate with a thin slice of lime, and everyone will ask you where you ordered them from. I use coarsely shredded coconut to decorate these.

Lychee and flaxseeds don't make frequent appearances in my pantry so it took a while to get to this recipe as simple as it is. There is only one difference in making these - beat the ground flaxseeds with 6 Tbs of water before combining with the other ingredients. The batter is really thick but they do rise a lot and the end product is moist and light. They turned out less sweet that usual as I cut down the sugar (1 1/3 C sugar seemed ludicrous) but the coconut glaze - 2 C powder sugar + 1/4 C cocnut milk - took care of that. I keep thinking that these may work with other fruit too. Peach-coconut? Cherry-coconut? Any thoughts?

Finally, the Toasted Coconut Cupcakes made an appearance at a recent Labor Day BBQ. And oh, my goodness! How come I had not made these before!?! They were so good! Frosted with Coffee Butter-cream frosting and decorated with toasted coconut (and maybe chocolate covered coffee beans) these are to die for! The batter is a little thick and adding a splash of soy milk to un-thicken it won't hurt but may be unnecessary. These are going to be made again...very, very soon!

A word on Butter-cream. My butter cream frostings were beyond terrible until one day I read the recipe and followed it. It says: beat butter/shortening/margarine until fluffy, add powder sugar, BEAT 3 MINUTES, add everything else, BEAT ANOTHER 5-7 MINUTES. This makes it heavenly, like whipped cream, absolutely worth the partial deafness of holding the mixer for 10 minutes straight. Simple butter cream is just this:
1/2 cup butter (or 50/50 shortening/margarine)
+ 1 3/4 cups powder sugar
+ 1/2 to 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
(+ a splash of liquid, i.e. milk/juice)
For the Coffee Butter-cream frosting add 1 1/2 tsp coffee extract or 1 tsp of instant coffee and 2 Tbs coconut milk to the basic recipe. For the Lime Butter-cream frosting, add 1/4 C lime juice and 1 tsp lime zest. Other variations include Maple Butter-cream (maple syrup and flavor), Lemon Butter-cream, Rum Butter-cream, etc. Let your imagination run wild!

And while the topic is coconut I have to relate my favorite coconut story which revolves around a whole coconut my Mom bought when I was 8 or 10. Unfortunately, the coconut did not come with opening instructions and that was in the days before the internet and YouTube so we couldn't conveniently watch a How to Open a Coconut instructional video. My Dad spend the better part of a Saturday in the endeavour of opening the coconut and used a significant fraction of his tool box in the process. I think in the end the power drill and the saw did the job. After we scraped the meat from the inside my Mom glued the coconut back together and we had it as a trophy for many, many years (for all I know it is probably still at home). The End.

A Tale of Two Sugar Cookies

2008-09-07T18:18:00.001-07:00

Once in a while I would get the urge to make cookies. Not because I want to eat them, but just to make them. For some masochistic reason I thoroughly enjoy the mixing, rolling, cutting and baking of cookies. And once I've made them, I truly enjoy packing them up in jars or boxes or bags and giving them away. And then baking another batch.

The most recent cookie-baking urge was directed particularly at sugar cookies as I had never made any. One of the coffee shops I frequent - Bentley's has these cute star-shaped sugar cookies with powder sugar glaze and rainbow sprinkles, which inspired me to try and make something similar. The quest for a recipe led to the baking of three batches of cookies so far (and I think more will come in the near future).

First came the Jackson Pollock cookies. They are based on a Dutch Sugar Cookies recipe from Epicurious.com. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (don't use regular sugar!)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
(+1/4 cup if the cutout cookies break when you try lifting them)
(+1/2 cup for dusting and keeping the dough together if the 1/4 cup above is not enough)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, baking powder, a pinch of salt and flour (in this order) and mix just to combine. Gather together but don't knead and form into a ball. Refridgerate the dough for a while so that it hardens a bit but not until it freezes because it wouldn't roll out well. Roll to 1/8 inch, cut in your favorite shapes, arrange on a parchment paper - lined cookie sheet and bake for 10-13 minutes in an oven preheated to 325F. 10-11 min will give softer, whiter cookies; at 13 min they are golden and a little harder. Cool. Repeat.

Once they cooled down, I melted some dark chocolate in an impromptu double boiler and drizzled it over the cookies as best as I could. The result was pretty artistic but had to be kept in the fridge because the chocolate melted otherwise. (Warning: The first batch came out a little salty owing probably to my use of salted instead of unsalted butter.) They were oh so tasty and delicate and not too sweet. The chocolate was actually adding to the sweetness instead of being overwhelming.

Then a few weeks later I came across these Brown Sugar Sandwich Cookies, which seemed a lot like the brunette version of the Dutch ones. The idea is very similar - flour, butter and sugar, but it uses brown sugar and whole wheat flour instead. Here's the spell:

2 1/2 C whole wheat (or white) pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
scant 1 tsp salt
2 Tbs + 1 tsp poppy seeds
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 C quality brown sugar (increase to 1 cup)
2 large egg yolks (or 1 egg)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 Tbs milk

1 tablespoon sugar for sprinkling
6-7 ounces dark chocolate, chopped

Mix them in the exact same way as the ones above. Roll them out as thin as possible (saltine thin), sprinkle with sugar and bake for 5-7 minutes. Once they are cooled, melt the chocolate in a double boiler and slightly cool and stick them together in pairs with 1/2 to 1 tsp of chocolate.

Honestly, I was not too impressed by them - I feel they bear some improvement. Sandwiching them with chocolate made them soft and fabulous with coffee. However, they were not sweet at all, so I would increase the sugar a little and avoid using 65% cocoa chocolate but go for something slightly sweeter next time. I would also try making them with white pastry flour - the whole wheat flour made them a little rough, or I might use a mixture of white and whole wheat flour. The poppy seeds were great and I might add some spices next time too - cinnamon, cardamon? I'll report on the results.

What have we learned? Sugar cookies are fun and easy to make. Mix up 1.5-2 sticks of butter with 1-1.5 cups of sugar, add 1 egg and some vanilla, a teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of salt and 2.5 cup of flour and voila - you have a basic sugar cookie. Roll, bake, repeat. Varying the ingredients (flour, sugar), adding stuff (poppy seeds, sesame seeds, spices, vanilla specks) and post-processing (melted chocolate, glaze, sprinkles) can yield tasty and pretty variations. Let me know how you cookies turn out.

Start!

2008-08-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

Food blogging is on the rise and with so many tasty creations coming out of our kitchen, I have decided to join the throngs of food bloggers worldwide by making my pictures, recipes and musings on food and related topics public through this blog.

Well, here is something my mother never thought she's hear me say - I love cooking! Better yet, I love cooking for other people. Yet, I don't feel that I can cook. True, I can follow a recipe to an edible final result but why did the result turn out to be edible and why does it taste well is still mostly a mystery to me. I am very much interested in figuring the underlying principles of what makes good food, learning basic techniques, flavor combinations, menu fundamentals. I will be writing a lot about my endeavors and explorations in this direction.

As frustrating as that may be for some, I don't follow recipes to the t. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, taste, continue. Unless it is bread or cake or souffle food is not that easy to screw up. Thus, I toss away the measuring cups and spoons and play with the proportions based on what is in the fridge and what tastes good. I very much recommend that you do the same.

Someone recently asked me about my cooking philosophy. I wasn't sure exactly what to say but the question made me think about it. In addition to the above, I guess my cooking philosophy is to make everything from scratch, to use fresh, raw, natural and simple ingredients as much as possible. You will find no cake mixes, artificial sweeteners and food coloring (red velvet cake is an exception), and very few jarred, canned and frozen things here. I am mostly vegetarian but I am not a sworn vegetarian and occasional carnivorous (as rare as that may be) entries may make appearance here. Please, don't get upset at me.

Alright. Turn on the oven and let the fun begin.