Wheeeeee Vacation!

But I want to show you some things I made recently before I go kiting off.

Item: octopus shaped dress.

Items: a gaggle of tiny aliens.

First day of vacation breakfast: Fried-egg salads & baguettes for 2.

There are more pictures of these gadgets on my flickr stream.

Later today: Beer Festival!

I just remembered something

  

  
I bought this jam because I thought that I was stuck in a rut with the jam I always buy. Experiment, you know. I thought it was a good idea to try something new. I'm not tired of the old jam, but the world is full of jam to try and if I keep getting the same kind, I'll never know what the other ones are like. So I bought this, because it's not like the usual berry-what-what I already know I like. Plus, the color is attractive.

And then it made me feel very...uncomfortable. There was something odd about the jam. It tastes alright, I suppose, for sure it isn't yucky. Third party confirmation says it's actually pretty good. There was just something about it that made me feel uneasy. Not texture either, if you're wondering, that part's fine. The jam was reminding me of something I couldn't put my finger on.

This morning I remembered. Dad used to make jam from the leftovers of his fruit cordial experiments. He would take vast quantities of fruit and boil them down into syrup, ferment it slightly, then punch it up with vodka. There was always a pile of amorphous brownish fruit precipitate left over, and being a crazy chinaman, Dad could never bring himself to simply throw it away. He would add a bunch of sugar, cook it down into a paste, and put it in cans. There were a number of these still in the basement until the late 90's, I think. Because of the treatment it had received, the fruit lost any individuating characteristic it may once have had. No matter what it started out as, it all ended up as a sepia colored paste, with a flavor profile consisting largely of table sugar and a whiff of inadvertent caramelization. Only once to my memory did he make something that retained a unique quality, and that was when he used pineapple. My Freddies jam experiment tastes like what Dad might have come up with if he knew, or cared, what he was doing.

Dad was a tremendous cook, but only when he stuck to what he grew up with, so to speak. He had neither the palate to comprehend western cooking, nor the ability to admit it. Preserves of any kind as Americans understand them were totally beyond his scope, along with any type of pastry that was not deep-fried, European style bread, cheeses of all kinds, and any number of vegetables native to the western hemisphere. Squash? Hah. Corn? Forget it. Chick peas? That's "food for pigs". One time he tried to make a lemon cake. It tasted like burnt rubber and had a textural resemblance to a spare truck tire. The only cake he ever managed to learn how to make was a kirsch torte, and that was because he learned the recipe by rote from a neighbor lady, and never deviated from it. Which is remarkable in itself, now that I think about it. I have to admit that my tendency to improvise recipes is undoubtedly derived from his.

More things to do with dough

  

  
A very long time ago, I posted a recipe for spinach lentil curry. It's one of my staples in cooler weather, but I wanted something a little different to go with it. I also love naan, but buying anything made out of bread these days seems like an extraordinary expense. These aren't authentic naan, but they're pretty good.

Naan procedure:

Use the pizza dough recipe from the last post, but swap in about 25% whole wheat flour.

Knead and rest the dough the same way, and when you're ready to use it, pull it out of the fridge and deflate it. Put a little oil on your hands to keep the dough from sticking to you, and tear off pieces of dough about twice the size of a ping pong ball. Stretch them out until they are about the size of your palm, then set them aside to rest for bit.

Meanwhile, heat a heavy skillet to medium low. I use a cast iron pan. You don't need to oil the pan, but you do need a lid for it.

Once the pan is hot, put a bit more oil on the dough bits and pat them out until they are about 1/4" thick, then lay them in the pan. My skillet is just about big enough to cook 2 at a time. Cover the pan and let the naan cook for 3 minutes, turn them over, and cook them another 3 minutes. That's it!

As usual, there are some things I think are important to pay attention to.

1. The pizza /baguette dough formula calls for bread flour. This makes it chewy. Adding whole wheat makes it slightly less so, but traditionally naan is made with a lower protein flour. All purpose flour would probably be closer.
2. Also traditional is the use of copious amounts of butter, mostly for frying, but also I think there is some butter or oil in the dough itself. Again, this would tenderize the dough, if you wanted a more traditional end product.
3. Additional ingredients commonly used are nigella or cumin seeds, anise seed, or caraway seed, also fried onions and or potatoes are often mixed in. I didn't have any of those things on hand when I took a notion to make these.
4. The toasty bits are vitally important! If you don't have any little chewy crusty dark bits, it won't taste like naan.



So why did I decide to use this somewhat deviant recipe to make naan? Because of my desire to have a range of versatile, cheap, generic, ingredients that I can dress up a variety of ways. A wad of flour, water & yeast doesn't get much more basic, but already I've used it for French, Italian, and Indian cooking styles. I haven't made any steamed buns with it yet, but that's next on the list.

Shandong Irishman

    

I suspect that colcannon is to Irish people what meatloaf is to Americans- everybody has their own recipe which is indisputably the only correct version. I'm not Irish. I mean, so not Irish that I'm sort of convinced that even the white parts of me aren't Irish- they're Scots, as far as I know. Be that as it may, I wasn't kidding about the napa cabbage, that thing is haunting me.

The first time I encountered colcannon was at a party at Tom Harari's parent's house. I couldn't have been as much as 12 years old, because I remember all the adults being way taller than me. I don't remember what the party was in aid of, but it probably was not St. Patrick's day. Some lady brought colcannon. I thought, "Awesome! Mashed potatoes!" because, like Jej, I have a thing for mashed potatoes.  I was really disappointed. The dish was cold. It didn't have any salt in it. The chopped vegetables in it were stiff, and undercooked, and cut up into large, unwieldy lumps. The parsley in it had sand stuck in its leaves. I kept hearing other people say "Did you try the colcannon? Try the colcannon, its great. You should try it." I started to think the name sounded really stupid. I have to assume this was one of those instances of kids having an adverse reaction to things which don't bother grown-ups- either that or the place was just full of feckless hippies who couldn't cook and didn't know any better.

The experience gave me a prejudice against colcannon for about 25 years. I don't know what happened after that, but one day I found myself thinking "Hmmm. Cabbage. Hmmm. Potatoes. Sounds good!" Now I make it several times every winter. This is the only time I've made it with a napa cabbage, though. Somehow, it didn't leap to mind, you know? But, since St. Pat's was just the other day, it seemed natural. This really doesn't come out any different from the traditional versions, because once they are cooked, napa and regular cabbage taste quite similar. Napa is a bit less stinky, and has a slightly more delicate texture, and so requires less cooking than ordinary cabbage.

about 3/4 lb potatoes. I like baby yellow ones.
about 1/4 of a medium sized napa cabbage
1 medium onion
2 tablespoons butter
salt to taste
2 or 3 tablespoons minced parsley. I like the curly kind, the bouncy texture is nice.
a little pepper

Chop the potatoes coarsely. I don't like to peel things, which is why I get baby potatoes. The skins are more appealing to eat. Dice the onion and put them and the potatoes in a heavy pot with just enough water to cover them. Bring them to a medium boil, and keep them there until the water has almost all evaporated. Add the butter and the napa leaves, coarsly chopped. Stir everything up and add a pinch or two of salt, to help wilt the cabbage. Leave it on the heat until all the water is gone and there is a fair amount of browning on the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat, let it sit for a minute, then stir in the minced parsley, bash up the potatoes a little bit, and taste for salt and pepper. Remember to scrape the yummy brown bits off the pan, they're important.

I'm not selling this idea particularly well, am I? Trust me, this is really good comfort food. It takes no brains to cook, and anything that has onions browned in butter gets automatic approval from me.

There's cheese in the picture. I think everything, nearly, goes with cheese, and this particular cheese is a favorite of mine. Cashel Blue, besides being appropriately Irish, is a very mild, soft blue cheese. TJ's has it this month. Then there are the little oranges which I mostly put there for compositional reasons, but also because they're very chinesey, but I later realized that actually eating all these things together is a good idea. There is a tremendous amount of fat and salt in the cheese and potatoes, which is balanced by the sweet/acid from the clementines.

Spicy Chicken and Basil (with Spinach)

My fella took me to this Thai restaurant on Alberta and now I can't remember what its name was. I got a beef noodle soup which was pretty good, he got a fried catfish which was A. Mazing. It had this dark red chili sauce on it, and some bell peppers, and sauteed basil as a vegetable. I reminded me of some of the few positive experiences I had when I was living in Taiwan. I don't think I had any Thai food there, but some of the stuff I ate there was similar in retrospect. Basil used as a vegetable rather than a seasoning is one of those things.

This makes 2 dinner- sized servings for me.

Prep about 1/2 lb of chicken tenders with salt, pepper & oil. Leave them to sit in the fridge a few days. The day of, you need:

1 T oyster sauce
1 T fish sauce
1 T sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon minced lemongrass- I use a chunk of pre-minced lemongrass that came in a little vacuum sealed packet out of the frozen section at Fubonn.
3 or 4 green onions, tops & bottoms minced. This is optional because the 2nd time I made this dish, I forgot to put them in and it didn't really matter. Up to you.
1 large bunch of basil, leaves only
a double handful of fresh spinach leaves

If you want to eat it with noodles like the picture, put on a pot of salted water. The chicken takes maybe about as long to cook as the noodles do. Start the chicken at the same time the noodles go in the pot. That's if you like your noodles pretty firm.

Chop up the chicken and stir in the sesame oil, oyster sauce & fish sauce.  Heat 2 T cooking oil in a frying pan, and when it's hot enough to almost smoke, put in the pepper flakes, garlic, ginger and lemongrass, plus the onions if you've got 'em. Stir a bit until the seasonings brown and get just a tad crispy then dump in the chicken and stir really fast for about 2 more minutes. When the chicken is looking maybe half done, put the greens in the pan and keep stirring until everything is cooked through and the liquid that comes out of the greens has pretty much evaporated.

On a totally unrelated note, the hummingbirds like my sage plant.

Tasty Noodles & a Side Dish

I fixed these noodles once about 8 years ago and then for whatever reason, I never did it again. They were definitely good enough that the recipe stuck with me, but somehow I never had all the correct things at the same time, or it never crossed my mind. I can't remember if I put chicken in it last time, but I had some I needed to use up. For this, a slightly under-ripe avocado is best because the firmness will stand up to a bit of frying better.

Noodles
Chicken- I used 5 tenders
1/3 red bell pepper, in small dice
4 green onions, both tops & bottoms chopped fine
1/2 avocado, diced
Olive oil, salt & pepper

I usually take some frozen chicken parts, salt and pepper them, and dash on some olive oil before leaving them in the fridge until I remember to eat them. It's a good generic prep for anything I can think of, and it makes the meat tender and flavorful without much thinking. So I had some of those.

Use some type of wide noodles- papardelle, linguini, etc. Farfale would be ok, but I don't like those.  Have those cooking (about 3 servings worth, 2 if you have big appetites) in salted water while you do the other things.

Brown the chicken bits in a medium-high skillet. Heat some oil in the pan, then put in the chicken in a single layer. Let it brown without moving it, then flip once and let it sit for a couple seconds. If you use tenders the way I do, they'll already be done when you flip 'em, cooking the other side is just for looks. Take out the chicken and set it aside, and if the pan is pretty dry, add some more oil, about a tablespoon. Then brown the peppers and onions. Remember to add a sprinkle of salt to encourage them to brown. Add the avocados toward the end so they get cooked, but don't have time to turn into mush. When it's looking pretty good, but before the stuff stuck to the pan goes black, tear up the chicken and put it back in along with any juices that have accumulated, and throw the cooked noodles on top. Add a good shake of pepper and another pinch of salt if it needs it, turn off the heat and stir it around until the brown stuff has come off the pan.

You know what I forgot? Pine nuts. There should have been pine nuts in it. Dang. Oh well. If you use those, put them in the pan at the end of the part where you brown the peppers and onions.

I had beets & basil with it. No secrets there, just beets, fresh basil,  and a pinch of the white parts from those green onions I was using. Dress with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper. But I do want to add that cooking beets in the microwave is super convenient and I don't know why I never did it before. Just stab some holes in them so they don't blow up, and put them in a covered container with a half inch of water. 4 smallish beets took 3 rounds of 3 minutes at full power. Brilliant!

Happy May Day!

Today was the first day of the Hollywood farmer's market, and here's my loot. I had 'em take the tops off the carrots, which makes them look less amazing, but I swear those are the best carrots I've ever eaten. Theyare sweet. They are crunchy. They are tender. They taste floral, and earthy, and herbal and almost like licorice. And they are juicy. HaHA! I bet you never thought of carrots as juicy either. I'm sure their total deliciousness is a fleeting thing, but I had to tell you all about it right away. Yes, I am growing some carrots on my balcony, but I wanted carrots today, not in June.

I got basil, because I miss warm weather. I'll probably make a bit of pesto with it. And I got the beets because the greens look so good. My plan is to braise the greens a bit then make a pie with them.

And here are my plants: the forest of spinach, the enormousness of the poppies and a pea flower.

I should have staked the peas this year, but I was feeling lazy and didn't get around to it. They will just have to sprawl over the railing, I guess.

Edit: "they are taste floral" Christ on a crutch.  I think not, oriental-syntax-man.

Workin on it...

Dove Vivi has this super yummy cornmeal crust pizza. I had some on Friday and now I'm jonsing for their crust. It's like focaccia but with little crunchy bits, both chewy and crispy, and it oozes with olive oil. I'm not trying to replicate that crust, I'm just going in that direction. It's a pretty small recipe, here's what's in it:


1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
1T flour
3/4 tsp instant yeast

Mix these things together and let them sit until they're all foamy, then mix in well:

Another 1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup olive oil. Use something nice and fruity.
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp minced fresh rosemary

Let the batter sit in a warm place for at least 4 hours. I bet overnight would be better, it would get really well fermented. Then mix in about another 3/4 cup of flour. I wasn't really paying attention to it, I was really just trying to get the texture right. After about 10 minutes of kneading, it should be somewhat soft, but not gooshy, and shouldn't stick to your hands. Oil it well and let it double in bulk. I usually put my dough back in the mixing bowl and cover it with a plate; saves a dish that way. When the dough has risen, pre-heat the oven- I did 425, but now I think it should have been hotter. Then oil a thin, non-insulated sheetpan and sprinkle a little more cornmeal on it. Dump the dough out onto the pan and just sort of poke it down a little bit. You aren't really trying to deflate it, you just want it to have some dimples to hold another splash of oil, a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper and more rosemary if you want. I really liked the way the fresh rosemary got all crispy on mine. But then, since the oven wasn't as hot as I I think it should have been, after about 15 minutes I turned the oven up to broil, moved up the rack and browned the top for about 3 more minutes.

This is my first round, next time I won't stretch it out so thin. It does make really good salami and tomato bites though. Ah, fermentation, I love it.

Spinach with Pink Grapefruit & Pecans

I don't like to eat salad in the winter, because eating cold things in cold weather makes me feel dreary. I think that when the weather has gotten warm enough to actually grow leafy things outdoors, that's time enough to eat them. This year the growing part wasn't just a theoretical guide; this is my first spinach crop. After I grew a bunch, I read the seed package; apparently it isn't really spinach (spinacia oleracea), it's New Zealand Spinach (tetragonia tetragonioides). Who knew. Who cares. It looks and tastes the same, as far as I can tell. And it went extremely well with the pink grapefruit I had sitting around.

a handful of spinach
a few pink grapefruit sections
pecans
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper

The thing about salads is that every item in it should be something you'd want to eat on its own. Keep it simple. For this one, use very fresh spinach, a very ripe sweet grapefruit, and a lashings of  olive oil. Mine has a medium amount of both fruity and peppery flavors to it. The grapefruit has enough acidity that you don't need a lot of balsamic, but it adds something, so pick a kind you really like. Plus, it makes it more fun to look at before you eat it, and who wouldn't want that?

To completely change the subject: inappropriate workplace conversations.  My manager at my retail hell tells me this story. It is useful to know at the beginning that his dog is a pug.

Him: So, my dad sends me a text message and asks me if you need a USB cable to play your ipod through the car stereo. I texted him back, and said no, you use a receiver because an ipod doesn't have a standard, USB port. Then he texts me back and says so, your ipod doesn't play through the car stereo?

(slight pause, with roll of eyes)
 
Him again: So I texted him right back and said No, it plays through my dog's vagina. I waited a second, then texted him again and said, Of course it plays through the car stereo, it's an ipod. Then a minute later my mom calls me and she says "I don't know what you said to your dad, but he was laughing so hard he had to pull over and stop driving." So I told my friend what I said, and he starts laughing, he goes, Yeah, it sounds a little tinny coming out of there, but other than that... (mimes small surprised dog)

Me: Tell him he needs to trade up to a St. Bernard, you get better woofers in those things.

I'm Martha Stewart, Bitch!

...but really, I did use a recipe out of her pie book. It even looks like it worked. It seems to have worked so well that I'm still suspicious. I don't even know why I fixated on this recipe, maybe because to me, it looked like an impossible pie. I'd used the crust recipe before, here it is:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks butter
3 T sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp salt
4 T very cold water

Cut the flour, sugar, salt and sugar together until the biggest butter globs are about the size of rice grains. I mix the water with the egg yolks before adding it to the flour, but it's not crucial. Don't over-work the wet dough! Just smash it together enough to get it all evenly combined. There's enough butter in it to make it act just like play-doh. This makes enough pastry for a 2-crusted 11 inch pie. I only have an 8 inch pan, so I've got some extra. You can make the dough ahead of time and chill it until you need to use it, if you want.

Ok, well and good. But the filling sounded too simple to be true. It goes like this:

2 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs and 1 egg white

Cut one lemon into paper thin slices, rind and all. Cut the rind and pith off the other lemon, and slice it as thin as you can. Toss the lemons with the sugar and cover, leave it in the fridge for about 24 hours. The next day, preheat the oven to 450. Roll out your crust, beat the eggs and mix them with the lemons & sugar, and pour it into the pie shell.  Weird, huh? There's no fat or starch in the filling, it's all about the eggs.

I can't say I had high hopes about this. I was sure the filling would do something awful. But it seems to have set up, unlike many other pies I have attempted in the past. I will say though, that you need to use a mandoline to prep the lemon with the rind on it. Don't try to make pretty slices, nobody will see it anyway. The idea is for the long period of soaking in their own juice to de-bitter the rinds. A good sharp knife is fine for the other lemon.

Top it with another round of crust. I cut the slashes in the crust before putting it on the pie, the filling is totally liquid so if you want decorative cuts you gotta do it first. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, turn down the heat to 375 and cook for another half hour. I lay a sheet of tinfoil over mine after the first 15 min because this crust recipe tends to get burn-y faster than crusts without added sugar.


It's like a big lemon bar, with a little texture. Next time, I'm gonna add some herbs. I bet lavender flowers, or rosemary, or mint would be pretty good.  Maybe even oregano.

I've been pre-occupied

I have not been cooking anything photogenic. Potato Leek Soup is still just a bowl of grayish goop, no matter how tasty it is.

Sunchoke chips are pretty yummy too, but they look just like potato chips, in any case, they didn't sit around long enough to get a picture. It's the weather. It has been so lovely out, and my plants are doing lots of interesting things.















I have figured out a couple things since last year:








Mustard grows very quickly, but is no fun to eat. Radishes are at least as fun to grow, and the eating part is much more satisfying.


These were the sweetest, tenderest radishes I can remember ever having eaten.



Cilantro starts slowly. Very slowly. But you better give it its own pot, because it gets enormous.

Does anybody know what is making my spinach do this? The ones on the right are looking strangely anemic. Spinach is also very satisfying to grow; it starts early and grows vigorously. Hopefully, I will like to eat it more than mustard.












Speaking of vigorous growers, here are my borage plants. I read that "you won't need more than one" and boy, they were right. On the left, you see that in an optimistic spirit, I planted five.

Five. Seeds. The lefthand picture is from the 18th, the righthand picture, from the 26th. I had to pull out 2 of them, I'm calling the lettuce in the same pot a loss. Borage is very spiny, we had a windstorm and the prickers on the borage leaves savaged the lettuce while flapping around in the breeze.


But that's all right, because lettuce is another of the things I realized that I don't care enough about to bother growing. Some people say that you should grow things that are unusual or that would be expensive to buy. To some extent, this is true, but I think that one should grow the things that one is likely to eat. Yes I could buy spinach, and radishes, but it's also true that I actually do buy them sometimes. Which means that I like eating them enough to go the effort of growing them.  I never buy lettuce.

And this is my tea plant. I don't guess that I will ever be able to harvest any amount of tea from it. But I like the idea.

Sartorial Cream of Cthulhu Soup

Food and clothing are my two main obsessions, and mostly this post is about clothes. This vest, in particular. It must be the ugliest damn thing I've ever made. But it reminds me of a phenomenon I usually encounter when cooking; that of using up leftovers. Which brings me to the soup of the title.

Alas, no pictures were taken of the soup. It was a thing for the ages. For those of you who do not know the story of the cream of cthulhu soup, it was something my dad made when I was in high school. It was a cream soup. It otherwise consisted mainly of turkey feet and squid heads.

No foolin.

It was the color of a dirty eraser, was slightly curdled, opaque, and had claws and tentacles rising up out of it. I think nobody but my dad and Pete had the balls to actually try eating it. It was, as dad said, "a little strange". It has nothing whatsoever to do with this vest, except the similarity in mode of manufacture. Not so long ago, at a family dinner, something recalled the infamous soup to me, and as usual I said something rhetorical-'what could he have been thinking?' blah blah. Pete, who witnessed its birth, so to speak, described a cascading series of accidents and errors the result of which was so startling, and bore so little resemblance to the original concept that the finished product acquired a near mythic stature.

Now, I don't think my vest has anything like that degree of verve. The thing is, I could not tell you what I thought this was going to look like when I started out. I liked the plaid. The cloth has a nice feel, I thought the colors would go well with the rest of my clothes. And I had a good-ish bit left from making a skirt. But then it seemed that there wasn't quite enough to make a vest. Unless I cut it out on the bias. But then there really wasn't enough to match any of the plaids. Oh well. And then there were the darts, which changed the direction of the stripes halfway down the front. And I had to cut the back in 2 pieces, not one, so there was yet another seam. Then I thought that patch pockets would be so much easier, and maybe they would look cool if I cut those on the diagonal as well... And after that, what the hell, giant gold buttons and red topstitching? Might as well go with it.

Do I think it was waste of my efforts? No way. Do I like it? Hell yes. I have worn it in public 3 times now, and each time it has inspired me to pull together the goofiest outfits and wear them with aplomb. Clothing should be fun, and sometimes it should be downright funny. This stupid vest cracks me up. I'm gonna wear it until everybody who knows me is sick of it. Maybe someday I will wear it to pick up my nieces at school, and it will embarrass them. And if by some miracle, it survives that long, in some far distant time, maybe one of them will be a stylish young woman digging through my old crap and she will pick up my ugly vest any say Holy shit! I remember this thing! Can I wear it?

That's how I got my pants.

'Stolen' Apple Pancakes

Which is what the handwritten recipe in my mom's recipe notebook says.

I associate a childhood trip to chicago with this recipe. There was a pancake restaurant. I think I was in first grade, and I did not appreciate it. I have never been a good traveler, nor a person who enjoys meeting strangers. Going to Chicago was something I wanted to do not because I actually enjoyed the experience, but because like all children, I didn't want to miss out on anything that might be fun. How was I to know at that age that I was destined to be a curmudgeon? I was six.

The pancake restaurant was noisy, crowded, I was at a table with many strangers, and I don't remember what I ordered. Waffles, maybe. With strawberries, because we never had such exotic things at home, but I don't think they lived up to the expectations I had of them. Somebody else ordered the apple pancakes. I don't know if that was when dad first had them or what, but evidently they made a great impression on him, because this recipe showed up in mom's cookbook. 'Stolen' I assume because dad had to approximate the originals on his own.

On the other hand, while thinking about this recipe brings up memories of some very uncomfortable family excursions, the pancakes themselves, and the making of them, impart a feeling of great wellbeing. Even, I hate to admit it, of nostalgia! This was a special occasion breakfast to begin with, and later on, Dad would just decide that he wanted apple pancakes from time to time. Sometimes the tai chi group would come over, Dad would make a bunch of these things, and the house would smell like hot cooking oil and sugar all day.

The pictures are not that great, but I plead ravenous impatience to eat breakfast.

1 large apple, 2 would have been better
1 or 2 T cooking oil, canola or like that, not olive.
a teensy pinch of salt

a generous handful of brown sugar
punkin pie spice or cinnamon, if you like

I have no idea what the pancake recipe was on that card. I know that it used only white flour. It had a bunch of eggs in it. I was feeling lazy, and just used pancake mix: TJ's multigrain. It makes a fluffier, lighter dough than the ones Dad made, but I like things to be less heavy than he did. Also, do not attempt to make this in a flimsy pan or one with a non-stick coating.

1 1/2 c pancake mix
1 egg
1 cup water
a dab of oil

Pre-heat the oven to 475.

Peel and slice the apple into 1/4 inch pieces or so. Get the oil pretty hot in a well seasoned all metal skillet and throw in the apples and a sprinkle of salt. The salt is very important, it makes the apples sweat, and keeps them from being one dimensionally sweet. When the apples are a teensy bit brown, turn them once and sprinkle the brown sugar and spice over them. The sugar will begin to caramelize very rapidly.

Mix up the batter ingredients up really fast, and don't worry about a few lumps. You will actually only need to use about 2/3 of the batter. Pour the batter over the apples and cover for a few seconds. When the caramel begins to ooze up around the edges and through any little holes, remove the cover and put the skillet in the oven to finish cooking.

When the pancake is just barely done and is starting to brown at the edges, take it out, cover it and let it sit for about 3 minutes. This lets the pancake finish cooking, and allows the apples to steam loose from the pan a bit. Turn the pancake out onto a plate and poke any apple bits back into it that have got stuck in the pan. Eat with scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese.

Definitely, this is for eating with company. It will taste just as delicious by yourself, but it would be a terrible pity to have nobody to enjoy it with.

And Happy Mardi Gras!

Cake.

I've had discussions with several people, on totally unrelated occasions about the particular magic of the word 'cake'.  I agree. Cake is a good word. It implies so many wonderful things that when somebody says "Oh, it'll be cake" they mean it'll be too good to be true, possibly better than you deserve, and in any case, there will be lots of fun and goodness to be had.

It also means something is easy, which cake isn't, always, except for the eating part. But with the aid of modern technology, cake is really not that daunting an achievement. And damn, sometimes I do miss celebrating mardi gas.

King Cake

For the dough:

1/2 cup water
15g dry milk
10g instant yeast
about 4 1/2 cups flour- I used all purpose, but I wonder now if I should have used bread flour.
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp punkin pie spice
10g salt- this is about a scant teaspoon
1 tsp vanilla
3 whole eggs
4 egg yolks
1 stick of butter

the filling:
about a cup each of lightly toasted pecans and whole dried dates, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup oatmeal. Chop everything in a food processor. The oatmeal is really just to keep the dates from turning into paste. It should be slightly chunky.

I put the dough ingredients in my bread machine. I had to add quite a bit of flour when it started kneading; I think I measured the flour wrong to begin with... But don't worry! It'll be fine. This dough should be about 25% softer than a dough you make regular bread with. You may think that it will be too sticky to work with, but there is so much butter in the recipe that it really isn't a problem.

I just let the dough machine do its thing, and when it beeped to tell me the first rising was done, (that's about an hour) I floured my counter, turned the dough out onto it, and rolled it out into a rectangle about 15x24 inches. Then I took the filling and pressed it firmly into the dough, right up to the very edges. It's ok if some falls out the sides, but you probably don't want any unadorned patches in your cake. You can eat the bits that fell out while you wait for the thing to rise.

Roll the dough up along the long axis of the rectangle. As you roll, flour it a bit so it doesn't stick back down on the counter. The middle of the roll will probably be rather thicker than the ends, so gently stretch the dough out. You need your cake roll to be at least 2 feet long. Have a greased sheet pan ready, as well as a small oven-safe dish, also oiled. Put the little dish on the sheet pan and wrap the cake roll around it. This will keep the ring shape from closing back up. Tuck the ends in and let it rise for about another hour.

The recipe this is based on said to bake it with the little dish in place to keep the ring shape, but upon reflection, I decided to take the thing out before baking. I also slashed it and gave it a bit of an egg wash, which I'm very glad I did because it made it so pretty I was literally taken aback.

Bake at 375. Mine took almost an hour. If you can make yourself refrain from flapping the oven door open the way I do, it will take less time, but you should cover the cake with a sheet of foil once it's nicely browned or it will get burnt. I'm pretty happy with how it tuned out, but I think I overcooked it. Other notes: I read a recipe for boiled frosting, which tastes good, but just slid off the cake. Just do the thing where you mix a couple tablespoons of lemon juice with an enormous quantity of powdered sugar and it'll do better. This dough seems to be a nice all-purpose brioche. I bet it would make a great french toast loaf. And the filling is not traditional. Almond paste may be what is supposed to go in it, but I liked this an awful lot. Fill it, or not, with whatever you like.

Yappy Hoo Near!

Wikipedia has an entry about Tang-Yuan that seems to pretty much line up with what I remember about them.

Last year I made some of these with mochi flour and a rather poor approximation of mung bean filling. This year, I got a bug in my ear and decided to go from scratch. And I managed to remember that when I was very small and was eating them for probably the first or second time, the ones with plum filling were my favorite. The ingredients are simple, the procedure is not complicated, but it is time consuming and labor-intensive in parts. Do not  attempt the filling recipe unless you are willing to literally stir constantly for about 40 minutes. Your arm will get tired.

Here's what you need:

2 or 3 cups sushi rice, in a large pot big enough to fit that plus about 5 cups of water.
a blender, a large colander and a piece of muslin big enough to line it with.

3/4 lb of prunes
2/3 cup cooking oil or shortening. Saturated fats will make the finished produce easier to work with.Lard is traditional, dad used duck fat when he had it.  Chicken, maybe not.
possibly a half cup of sugar, but I didn't this time, I wanted it to be a little tart.

a very heavy 2 qt cooking pot, and NOT a non-stick one.
This recipe will make enough for a whole party of squeamish people, or for a small number of afficionadoes. They are even more weird and ethnic than mochi.

Leave the rice in the water for up to a week, and at least 3 days. Unless you want to risk having it ferment, stow it in the fridge. The rice grains will absorb water to the point where they start to disintegrate. Pinch one in your fingers and you'll see. It'll crush into a coarse mush. Then line your colander with the muslin, and put the rice through the blender, using only as much water as needed to keep it liquid enough for the blender to cope with it. This will take a while. Get it as finely ground as possible, and pour it into the muslin lined colander. Tie up the cloth and let the liquid drain out (this is likely to take at least 24 hours, so put it back in the fridge), and the mass of rice paste is your dough. You should freeze it if you aren't going to use it within a couple days. I found that after draining, freezing and thawing once, it was still coarser than I wanted, so I put a glob of it back in the mini-process and ground it again, with very good results. I suspect that the freezing helps break down the grains.

For the filling, put the prunes in the heavy pan with enough water to cover them, and bring them to a boil. After about 8 or 10 minutes, they should be tender enough to put in the blender, again using as little water as possible. Return the pureed prunes to the pan and add the oil and the sugar if you want it. From now on, be prepared to stir. With the heat at medium, use a wooden spoon to methodically scrape the bottom of the pot. The correct temperature for cooking will make the puree sizzle gently but quickly as you expose the bottom of the pan when stirring. You are going to cook all the water back out of the prunes which you just put in. After about half an hour of stirring, the paste will begin to form a coherent mass, and some of the oil will begin to sweat back out of it. It's done when it is very dark and has a consistency about halfway between Jif and Play-Doh. Turn off the heat and keep stirring until the paste stops sizzling against the pan, then refrigerate it in tupperware until you want to use it.

You know, lots of fruits can be treated this way. Dad used pineapple one year, which was good, and once, there was a batch made out of dried chinese red plums. That didn't go over so well, it was full of tough, splintery fibers. It tasted good, but the texture was decidedly sinister. Very pokey. Good lord, that must have been in like, 1979 or something. Don't feed things like that to your kids, they'll never forget. Anyhoo, the thing is, after all that cooking, anything you use will have a tendency to taste similar. It's the caramelization.

What to do with it:

Take the rice dough, pinch off pieces about 2 tablespoon sized, and roll them onto balls. If the dough was drained long enough to make it too dry, just add a little water back into  it. Make little balls out of the filling, about 1 teaspoon sized. Hold one of the dough balls in your palm and poke a hole in it about down to the middle, and push one of the filling bits into the hole. Gently roll the dough in your palms to re-form it into a solid ball with no filling showing. The whole business should end up about the size of a ping-pong ball. Continue until you have as many as you want.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and drop the tang-yuan into it. Stir them once so they don't stick to the bottom. Wait for the water to boil again. Once the water boils, turn it down to a simmer. When the tang-yuan are done, they will float to the surface. As the rice starches expand, they become more buoyant. The side that is immersed in the hot water will eventually become so much less dense than the top that they will flip themselves over if you poke them gently. Don't cook them any longer than that, the dough will just disintegrate.

Traditionally, these are served in a generous amount of the cooking water. I think that just makes them watery-tasting, so I usually don't do that. However, I have to admit that cooking them from scratch makes the cooking water actually pretty appealing. The freshness of the rice flour is orders of magnitude more delicious than frozen store-bought, and the texture is both firm and tender. You would think something made out of just rice would be boring, but that doesn't have to be so. Rice should taste like rice, and things made out of it should be yummy.

Lastly, I used olive oil in my filling. It's ok, but I don't really recommend it. The oil oxidizes or something in the cooking, and even if you use the most boring kind, the taste becomes more pronounced at the end. Like I said, ok, but definitely not traditional. Use peanut or canola or corn oil if you can't bear to use lard.

Girl Food

Tofu is girl food. If you're not a girl, go 'way, I'm not talkin to you.

Ladies, you all know that I am an omnivore, that I love many foods made of other animals. But it's not exclusive, nor is it a prerequisite for my enjoyment. And I'm not talking about the stuff you decorate the edges of your meal with. For me, tofu is sometimes an object in itself.

Here's the thing though: I think have yet to meet a man who didn't feel that to be fed tofu as a main dish was somehow unmanly, and not altogether fair. Even oriental men. Meat is for men, not, as dad said, "that cheating stuff" (Imagine expressive sneer). And yes, even the vegan men I have talked to. Not one of them ever gave me the impression that giving up meat in favor of actual tofu was something they contemplated- no, they would go to great trouble in order to acquire the most suitably manly, highly processed, meat-esque, soy-derivative pseudo-food. Men will subsist upon plain Ramen with earth balance margarine and Jif and Smuckers sandwiches before they will voluntarily make one of these wraps for themselves. Oh, they will eat one if you make it for them. They might even grudgingly admit that they like it. But then they'll say "...but it would be so much better with cheese, or chicken, or Tofurkey smokey mystery nubbins instead ..." Lordy, yes, then there's the sprouts. The only manly things about this recipe are 1- you eat with your hands, and 2- sriracha. Dudes like the sriracha.

These are chewy, crunchy, salty, spicy, earthy, and full of umami goodness.

Marinated Tofu Wraps

1 block firm tofu, cut into 1/2" slices and drained as much as possible
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1/8 teaspoon each garlic powder and onion powder
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 T balsamic vinegar, use a rather sweet kind
2 T soy sauce
if you use light soy instead of dark, add a generous pinch of salt
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Lay the tofu in a single layer in a baking pan. Whisk the other ingredients together well, pour over the tofu and refrigerate overnight. The next day, flip the pieces over to get them evenly covered with the sauce and bake them at 325 until the marinade has condensed and is quite thick but not burnt. I recommend letting it cool before eating it, the texture is better. I wrapped mine in homemade tortillas with a generous amount of mixed sprouts, whole grain mustard, avocado and sriracha. You can steam the tortillas for a few minutes to make them softer, if you like.

Happy National Pie Day!

In honor of the occasion, I made mine like this:

1 recipe of pastry for a double crust pie. Mine is usually

2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold water, more or less

But, I ran out of a.p. and had to sub in 1/3 cup whole wheat flour. Otherwise, made as I usually do.

Fill with

Most of a butternut squash, sliced 1/4" thick

a small thing of button mushrooms, sliced
the whites and a good bit of the green parts of some scallions, cut fine

some fresh rosemary, sage, salt, pepper, olive oil
about 3 oz. gouda
a big handful of fresh baby spinach


Heat the oven to 425

Toss the squash in a sprinkle of salt & pepper and a generous slosh of oil. Get a heavy bottomed skillet medium hot, put in the squash and a little water and cover for about  5 minutes. They'll cook surprisingly fast. Uncover and add the onions and herbs and a bit more oil if they're sticking a lot. You want to stir enough to get them cooked evenly but not so much that the squash mushes up or fails to brown a bit. When the squash is tender, put it in a bowl, scrape out the pan and add a little more oil and the sliced mushrooms. Let them brown, stir to turn them over, then add them to the bowl with the squash. Roll out your pastry and heap about 1/2 the filling in the middle. Put a generous handful of spinach on top and press it down gently, then slice or grate on a layer of cheese. Repeat, with a somewhat less generous heap of spinach and cheese, then loosely fold up the sides of the pastry. An egg wash is optional, but nice. Bake at 425 for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven and desired level of brownness. My oven is a bit cool, I think, so it takes around 40 min, especially if I keep popping the door open to fiddle with things.

2 things to keep in mind- go easy on the sage, it can be overpoweringly bitter, and remmember that spinach will loose about 85% of its volume once cooked. I think that a little sauteed mustard or chard would have a better texture.

Chicken Soup with other stuff

As usual, I was mooching off my brother, and there is a resulting recipe. This is a third-hand recipe that originated in a cookbook with a depressing title, "heart healthy recipes" or suchlike. But don't be put off, it is very tasty.

4 chicken tenders, mine were frozen
1 qt water
1 T broth concentrate
the white parts of 4 green onions, chopped pretty small
1 bay leaf
1/2 of a tiny can of roasted green chilis

1 can white beans
1 cup corn nibs, I used frozen
1+ T cornmeal

I discovered to my dismay that I do not have any chili seasoning; here's what went in it instead:

1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4+ tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp ground cumin
scant 1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp marjoram
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp ground coriander, although I do start with whole seeds and crush them up. Better that way.
1/4 tsp paprika

Put the chicken, water, and stock concentrate in a 3 or 4 qt pot and bring to a boil.  No need to thaw the chicken if you use frozen, it just adds fussing. When the chicken has thawed and cooked mostly through, use a fork and a spatula or something like that to tear the meat up into little chunks. Put the onions, chilis and the other seasonings in and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the flavors blend and the chicken is quite tender. Then drain and rinse the beans, add them and the corn nibs to the soup and bring back to a boil. Sprinkle on the cornmeal and simmer until the soup has thickened slightly.

You can add a dash of cayenne for more heat (highly recommended) and because it is very boring to look at, do garnish it with some cilantro, or parsley if you don't like cilantro. It's more fun to eat that way. I put a dab of hot sauce on it for the picture. And Greek yogurt.

Causa!

Yes, it is mashed potatoes. Awesome mashed potatoes. You know why? Because the people who invented potatoes make 'em like this, that's why. I've had the causa at Andina twice now, and it was one of those dishes that the first bite made me feel giddy with excitement. I may even have bounced in my chair a little bit. I'm not saying my recipe is that fantabulous. They make a fancy crab salad and top it with ahi tuna ceviche. And a crunchy fried shrimp. Mine ain't so costive, but it does cure the jones.

about a pound of yellow potatoes
1/2 cup small cooked shrimp
a generous tablespoon of finely diced celery
the same amount of diced bell pepper, I had yellow, but red would look better
1 teaspoon minced cilantro
1 teaspoon finely minced onion
juice of 1/2 a lime
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
pinch of turmeric for color
1 tablespoon mayo
olive oil- use the good stuff, something you could just eat with bread
dash of cayenne pepper
salt
some olives
avocadoes for serving

Boil the potatoes in salted water until they're tender, then drain them and slip off the skins while they're still warm. Mash them slightly, then mix in the juice of 1/4 of a lime, about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the turmeric and a pinch of salt. They should come out to a creamy texture a little softer than play-doh. Cover and refrigerate while you make up the rest of the stuff.

You could just leave the shrimp whole, but I sliced mine up a bit. Mix all the remaining ingredients except avocadoes and olives to make the shrimp salad. Put the shrimp mix in the bottom of a small (about 2 cup) dish, arrange some olives over it, and layer on the potato mix. Press down firmly, refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Try not to mangle it if you want to unmold it and serve it all fancy-lookin. The avocadoes are traditional, aparently. Most of the recipes I looked up called for them either in or with the causa. Also, I think the potatoes themselves are supposed to be a little spicy. Next time.

I used to work with a guy from Peru. It seems I should have asked him about peruvian food when I had a chance.

Fish-sauce Tofu

Okey-Dokey. I've had enough holiday eating. I love some holiday eating, but now I want something less fancy. This is quick, light, and is primarily flavored with fermented ingredients. It's a little stinky; don't try it unless you like thai fish sauce. A lot. This takes about 10 or 15 minutes and makes exactly one serving.

1/3 block firm tofu
1/2 cup water
1 T fish sauce, more or less. It's very salty!
1 tsp minced onion
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger. Powdered will not do. 
dash of light soy sauce
rice seasoning for garnish, bell peppers too, if you like.

Put the water, fish sauce, onion and tofu in a small sauce pan on medium heat. Braise the tofu, turning every once in a while, until the liquid is about half gone. Then put in the ginger and soy sauce, continue to cook until the liquid is reduced to a tablespoon or two. Serve over rice, decorate with such things as suit your fancy. I like peppers, I would have put on a little cilantro or green onions if I'd had any.