spicetart

Yogurt Obsessed

I'm late to the party AS USUAL.

You remember the frozen yogurt craze of the '80s?  Well, it's back and I can't get enough of this "original" frozen yogurt.  It's not that super sweet stuff most froyo places serve, no, it's tart and sweet and organic AND, if you go to this place, you can get it made from local yogurt.  Yay!  Oh, and get the "natural" with the apricot preserves.  Hell yeah.

Where have I been you ask?  Well, Pinkberry is in LA, and so I haven't been there, and I don't keep up on the latest hip foods that Paris Hilton is eating.  I know, I know, how boring a life I lead.  Yumi Yogurt just started serving it too, though it's not as good as Harmony, it is a lot closer and the portions are HUGE.  Just. What. My. Ass. Needs.

At least I have finally discovered this new fab frozen yogurt, I even made some today in our once-used ice cream maker.  It wasn't perfect but it had promise, it was a bit too milky tasting, which is sort of yucky since I don't drink milk, and it didn't have enough tang, even though I used Strauss, the Best Yogurt Ever.  It is missing the secret ingredient and I don't know what that is.  Lemon?  Honey?  Chris suggests malt.  Hmmmm....

Send any and all suggestions my way.

I still cook.

I still cook.  I do, really, almost every night.  These days, though, it's more about the basics - protein, starch, vegetable - I try not to be boring, because I still love to cook, but I no longer have hours and lots of money to prepare a meal.  So we eat a lot of sausage and salads and broccoli and beets - and I'm most creative with starch - barley or farro or beans.  Most of the time it is simple and good, farro with thyme and parsley, barley with onions and tomatoes.

I get the genius of the one pot recipes - like last night I made a pasta with chicken and pasta and broccoli and other good stuff, all in one pot, in about an hour.  This makes me very happy, though it is hard to make such a dish without adding copious amounts of fats (butter,olive oil, cream, cheese).  Fat just makes food better.  The end.

This, fortunately, is a great time of the year for vegetables.  I get excited just going to the Farmer's Market on Saturdays.  Two weeks ago at the Ferry Building, we got the best romaine lettuce I have ever had, sweet and crispy, I almost cried.  I have actually planned our next four meals with the veggies I got today - snap peas, romaine, fennel, green garlic, red cabbage - we'll see if I cook each night as I'm already tired and it's only 2:00 in the afternoon.  Best intentions and all that...

Olives

It's that time of year, Olive time!  Sort of like Hammer time, but without the parachute pants and house foreclosures.  I have a baaaad feeling about this batch of olives.  The first time I made olives was back in 2003 in Santa Monica, and I confess that I used lye in the initial curing phase.  Boy, it really did the trick, and soon after the water ran clear, I brined them then ate them and they actually didn't totally suck.  Funny, because I don't even really like olives all that much, I just wanted to see how to make them. 

So when I saw a bunch of green and purplish Manzanillas at the SF Farmer's Market, I decided to have another go at olive curing.  Sadly, my baby addled brain sort of forgot about them for a few days and I lost about a third to the elements.  I decided to go the non-lye curing route this time, so on the advice of several websites, I whacked the olives with a rolling pin to help the water get into the center of the olive so that the yucky, bitter glucoside would be extracted easier.  I may have banged some of the olives too hard (snort) cause after a week in water they were looking pretty damaged.  Oops.

But carry on I did, after a week in water being changed daily, into a brine they went.  The green got salt, white vinegar, lemon, garlic and rosemary, and the purple got red wine vinegar, cumin, coriander, black pepper and oregano.  I have no idea if that was a good choice.

What's the worse that could happen?

A Roast for Biggles

Inspired by Biggles and his love for meat, I just HAD to capture this roast pork with a photo and a blog post.  You know it's a good piece of pork when I blog about something other than my precious baby!  Pork roast with a crust of crushed fennel seed, rosemary, garlic and olive oil.

When I pulled this baby out of the oven, and sliced it, seeing the perfect pink juiciness, I thought, "Oh I GOT to take a picture.  Biggles would be so proud how well I treated this meat."   

Miss you all and eating and writing and all the other great things that went along with food blogging.  Especially the eating.

Yummy Broccoli

Broccoli is my stand-by veggie, I either eat it or salad just about every night.  I love it, love it, love it, love it.  The usual way to make good broccoli better is to add a couple tablespoons of butter and some salt.  Oh yeah, now that glistening, hot broccoli beckons you.  Right?

So in the spirit of eating vegetables new and different ways, and in the spirit of avoiding dairy, I did something completely different.  I didn't make enough, I could have eaten all of it for dinner.  Chris made me share.

Easy Yummy Broccoli
Broccoli, as much as you want, trimmed into medium-sized florets
5 or so anchovy fillets in oil* or salt, minced (if in salt, rinse and dry)
3 garlic cloves, sliced
good Olive oil

Blanch the broccoli in boiling water for NO MORE THAN 2 minutes, just to make a tad tender.  Drain.  Saute garlic and anchovy in 2 or so tablespoons olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes until fragrant and starting to brown.  Add drained broccoli and cook, stirring occasionally.  Test broccoli for how done you want it, about 6 minutes for still a bit crispy.  Add salt and pepper to your taste.  Eats!

*note: I use Talatta Anchovy Fillets in Olive Oil from Whole Foods that I keep refrigerated and just use a few fillets at a time.  This has worked well, so I don't have to use a whole thing of anchovies or throw them away.  These are also better quality than most of the ones in tins sold at grocery stores.  I have yet to use anchovy paste but I think that I may try some if I can find some really good stuff.

Tired of Beets Yet?

Never!  So I decided to pickle them.  Conclusion? Not so much.  I am not a pickled beet hater, I am a lover, just not of my very own pickled beets. 

I boiled the beets skin on, for about 45 minutes.  They were a little overcooked and I think they could even be undercooked so that they are just a tad crunchy when pickled.  Rub them a bit, and they take their skins right off (sexy!).  After they got naked, they were sliced, and added to a mixture of water, vinegar, sugar, salt, clove and allspice berry mixture (brought to a boil then cooled). The beets were joined by some sliced onions.  Three of those ingredients were ALL wrong.  Can you guess? Yep, the sugar, clove and allspice gave them that Christmasy almost fruit-cake flavor, too sweet and spicey.  Not for me, thanks.  Next time, I'm going with straight pickling spices and we'll see what happens.  There is no denying, however, that they are beautiful...And Chris ate them anyway.

What am I doing?

I have no idea.  The lady at the Riverdog Farms stand at the Berkeley farmers' market said that this was a variety of radicchio, so even though it looks like plain old lettuce, it's really a much hardier and MUCH more bitter green.  It definitely deserved to be cooked.  It deserved to be cooked and eaten and it deserved to taste good.  So I treated it bad, so so bad.  Olive oil in a hot pan, funny radicchio variety in the olive oil, salt and pepper on top, swirl it around a bit, and then add some good chicken stock and braise for about 15 minutes with the lid tightly on.  Conclusion: Good but VERY bitter, could probably have used a chopping before braising.  Trying to braise these bad boys whole was really out there.  Crazy. I'm wild like that.

Riverdog Farms
At the Berkeley Farmers' Markets on Saturdays at Center & MLK and on Tuesdays at Derby & MLK

Plate-licking Strawberries

My mother will be so happy to know that, despite my incredible sweet tooth as a child, and despite having spent all my allowance on as many candy bars, Jolly Rancher sticks and Laffy Taffy that I could afford, and despite me turning my nose up at fruit offered as dessert in foot-stomping refusal, despite all that, I often eat fruit for dessert.  If there is no ice cream in the house.  So for Sugar High Friday #7: Molasses, hosted by Derrick over at An Obsession With Food, I settled on fruit, but better. 

Strawberry season hits like a bang, the rows at the farmer's market sporting that ripe scent, and I knew my basket wouldn't last another day.  I used to eat strawberries dipped in white sugar, crunchy and sweet, strawberries were a sugar delivery vehicle.  I graduated to dipping strawberries in chocolate and, when chocolate was not available, sour cream sweetened with vanilla and sugar.  Sour cream with molasses instead of sugar seemed a logical step.  Epicurious apparently already stole my idea 10 years ago, so this is not an original recipe, although I thought it was when I made it.

Strawberries Bathed in Molasses Sour Cream
You can follow the Epicurious recipe or do what I did

Strawberries, cleaned, hulled, halved or quartered
Sour cream
Molasses
Vanilla

Put some sour cream in a bowl, as much as you want. Add a bit of vanilla.  Add some molasses, probably a tablespoon or so at a time until is tastes just right.  Mix well.  Slowly drizzle some molasses on top so you can take a fancy picture and your entry for Sugar High Friday looks tight. Eats.  Lick bowl.  Serves 1-4 depending on your gluttony level.

And the beet goes on

I am sure they have been doing it for centuries, "they" being either people without food coloring or people who hate food coloring and "it" being coloring things with beet juice.  Fabrics and paints were dyed naturally by the Egyptians and Chinese, and right here in America, betalain is produced from a specially bred "high pigment beet" to be used as a natural food dye in the food industry.

I have accidentally "dyed" many things with beet juice, towels, tile grout, carpets, but had yet to use it for coloring something on purpose.  So when I was recently in the throws of pickling some beets, it occurred to me that they could be used to liven up the butter-cream frosting that was at that very moment being whipped up in my Kitchen Aid.  I did a quick test by squeezing a handful of beets skins into a tiny bowl with a tablespoon of frosting.  This resulted in a beautiful, soft pink and no beet flavor which was exactly what I wanted for the cupcakes Chris was making (yep, and he makes the best cupcakes on the planet).  So I squeezed away (squozed? squeezeded?), and whipped away until we got the perfect color.  What simple pleasure I get out of this discovery, to be able to use a food I love to naturally enhance the beauty of another food I love makes me giddy.  No, I'm not totally nuts.  I just have this crazy thing about beets.

Baby Artichokes

Spring time was always a good time growing up because it meant giant artichokes appeared on the dinner table (or TV tray).  Anything that I got to eat with my hands, and scrape on my teeth no less, was a real winner in my book.  Let's face it, artichoke leaves are a butter delivery system (or mayo delivery system for you heathens - snort) and the heart, well, let's just say coagulated cold butter never tasted so good. 

I've also always been a big fan of marinated artichokes, especially with pesto and melted cheese sandwiches, and my pizzas often proudly display a layer of the canned variety.  But not until recently did it occur to me to actually pick out some baby artichokes and explore some fresh possibilities.  So a pound of baby artichokes, some bacon for the fatty goodness, and dandelion greens for a bit of a bite, and I was off to cook these little beasties myself.

Trimming the outer leaves is easy, and after cutting them in half, I made sure to place each tender, exposed choke into acidified water (with lemon) to help prevent browning.  They turned a bit brown anyway, but I cooked them in a vinegar bacon sauce so it didn't really matter.  I love wilted salads with a warm vinegar sauce and used this recipe as a base.  I added a lot more vinegar though, (and way less mustard) it didn't seem like enough dressing for me and I like it with a lot of bite.

A layer of dandelions, a layer of artichokes and the dressing, sprinkled with bacon and egg.  The artichokes were tender and perfect with that characteristic astringent artichoke flavor, and the bacon always adds a nice smoky contrast.  The dandelion greens were beautiful and tasty, though next time I would select some that are a bit less woody and perhaps cut the leaves smaller.  It also could use some shallots in the dressing for that oniony sweetness, but overall, a somewhat healthy and definitely fun way to cook with these spring lovelies.

Merguez Two Ways: Second Way

After the success of my eggsellent Merguez Scramble (I'm cracking myself up!), I wanted something a little, ok A LOT, more complicated, to highlight the Merguez's spices and flavors.  And you wondered what the grape leaves were for?  I had made dolmas once before and found them lacking in flavor and texture, which doesn't really leave a lot to lack.  So why not see if I can waste another 6 hours at second attempt at success?

The recipe for the filling was in my Gourmet Cookbook and also here, conveniently calling for Merquez and two of my favorite food ingredients, dill and pinenuts.  I mean, how could I go wrong?  Making the stuffing was easy and could be a good stuffing for cabbage as well.  I would normally omit the currants, seeing as how I am suspicious of sweet things in savory food, but I stuck to the recipe with the confidence that this would be fantastic as is.

Grape leaves come in rolls STUFFED into jars.  Seriously, I could barely get them out.  They needed to be rinsed and then boiled for a few minutes to soften them.

Then, flattening the cooled leaves and using only the leaves that were not torn and that were big enough to roll, away we went.  A heaping tablespoon of filling per grape leaf.

After all the stuffing was used, we layered the dolmas over the rest of the leaves lining a pot and covered with the chicken stock and olive oil.

Cook for about an hour and then cool.  I served them with tomato, cucumber and feta salad with sumac, pita and pickled turnips (which I grew to love from eating at Zankou Chicken).  And while the dolmas looked beautiful, the taste, meh - not great.  Too dry and not wrapped tightly enough.  I must say, I was pretty dissappointed, and will likely NOT attempt dolmas again.  I'll just stick to the ones that I get in restaurants that I love.  At least the tomato salad was good, very very good!  Feta and sumac...mmmmm.

Paper Chef Is Here!

While I am pretty good at following recipes, I for some reason lack food sense and creativity.  Taking a few ingredients and creating a recipe has never been something that I have been able to do with great success.  So up until now, I have avoided the Paper Chef challenges.  The most recent challenge, however, has some of my favorite ingredients, sherry vinegar, goat cheese, prosciutto, green garlic, so I just couldn't resist.  Thanks to Fatemeh for judging (as the gracious former winner) and thanks to Owen for hosting!!!

Chicken Roulade with Sherry Vinegar Sauce

4 chicken breasts
6 oz good goat cheese, softened
1 stalk green garlic
1 T olive oil
4 slices prosciutto
1 cup sherry vinegar
2 cups chicken stock
4 shallots, chopped
2 T butter
salt and fresh pepper

Clean and trim green garlic, then slice in half lengthwise.  Place in small roasting pan and pour over olive oil, salt and pepper.  Roast in 300 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until carmel colored.  Cool, dice and then mix with goat cheese.

Pound flat each chicken breast between plastic wrap until about 1/4 inch.  Spread goat cheese mixture over the chicken breasts, but do not go the edges.  Put one piece of prosciutto over goat cheese.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Tuck in sides and start to roll up, using kitchen string or tooth picks to secure the ends.  Melt butter in a skillet and brown the chicken lightly.  Put chicken in small roasting pan in 350 degree oven to finish cooking, about 35 minutes.

When chicken has cooked for 20 minutes, heat the skillet the chicken was cooked in add the shallots, sauteing until softened.  Add vinegar and bring to a boil.  Boil for about 3 minutes and then add the chicken stock.  Boil until is starts to get thick, about 10 minutes, or until it is the desired consistency.  Season to taste.

Remove string or toothpicks from chicken, slice chicken into rounds and drizzle the sauce and shallots over the rounds.  Voila!

Merguez Two Ways: First Way

There are many things in this world that I know very little about.  Merguez sausage is one of those things.  I've heard the word many times but have managed to avoid a Merguez encounter for these many years.  So when at the Made In France warehouse sale in February, I picked up a package to see what they were all about.

Bright red and spicy, Merguez sausage is traditionally from Northern Africa, though is popular in France where it is eaten (among other places) barbecued at street fairs (Note to self: Visit Southern France and eat Merguez sausages barbecued at street fairs).  The Merguez I bought were made with lamb only, no beef, and chili paste, I assume harissa, and NO nitrates/nitrates of any sort (blessed be the nitrate/nitrite free sausage).

I wanted a simple way to serve the Merquez so I took them out of their skins, browned lightly and then scrambled them with some eggs.  Um, yum.  Not too spicy and really lamby, but not in a gamey way, this was an eggsellent (heh) way to really taste the sausage without getting the full effect of the chilis (I'm a wuss).  Not sure that this picture could possibly do it justice.

Next post: It's a doosey, Merguez the second way...

Beets Me

The last of the vegetable series has arrived!

My love of beets started when my good friend Nova returned from Russia.  She lived with me a bit and, while I was familiar with her and her family's extensive cooking skills, I was wary of her extolling the virtues of the beet.  In my experience, beets were those crinkly cut, sour, mystery-veggie at salad bars.  That was it.  But I decided to at least try it and was instantly smitten.  I became a life long beet fan, it was all beets all the time.  For a while I talked about my love of beets so often that my mother starting cutting out every article and recipe containing any word of a beet.  My collection is many volumes strong.

First, roasteda unpeeled beets in, what else, olive oil, salt, pepper, covered with foil.  They could just be wrapped and roasteda in foil as well.  These ones were small, the size of a large walnut, so they cooked for about 35 minutes.  I don't trim them much because if their skin gets cut they seem to leak all their juice out.  Then, when cooled, the peels just slip off and take all the dirt and stuff with them.

Gorgeous, right?

We ate these with some miso-ginger-lemon marinated chicken and with the beets greens that had been braised in the chicken marinade.  Eating beets and their greens is like injecting my body with Mom Nature, they are so darn good for you.  Check it out.

Carrots, roasted

By now you're probably saying to yourself "Sheesh Molly, enough with the vegetables already".  You can't say I didn't warn you.  Plus, it's my blog and I happen to be cooking vegetables right now and feeling that I should share it with you, my dear reader.

So I roasted some carrots.  The End.

These were just so beautiful, I had to take a picture.  Olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.  Because thyme won’t give me thyme, and thyme makes lovers feel like they’ve got to roast some carrots, you know what I'm sayin'? 

Asparagus and Leeks, Together At Last

The Farmer's Market has incredible looking asparagus right now, of all thicknesses, and so I grab a couple of bunches each time I'm there.  I also got some lovely leeks, not too big and thick, begging to be made into soup!  While I am a fan of asparagus, it is not really one of my favorite spring vegetables.  But cook it up with some leeks, shallots and chicken stock? Oh yeah!  Based on the Asparagus Soup in my Gourmet book here, off I went to make my soup.  I made this soup on a week night, it was an incredibly easy and fast recipe with great results.

The recipe includes a Parmesan Custard that is served in the soup (not loaded with fat, I swear!) which looked delicious, but I really just wanted some straight up asparagus soup.  I imagine the parmesan custard could only make this better, and it would impress dinner guests too!

I used twice the leeks and shallots that the recipe called for and I used half-and-half instead of cream because I didn't have any cream.  I also did not strain it because I like blended soups with a little texture and chunks (as long as it's not potato-based, then it gets all gummy).  Anyway, it was excellent, this recipe is very flexible and could be changed even more to your individual whims.

Rabe Rocks

So one of my major scores at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market lately has been Watermelon Radish Rabe.  Get some at the stand with the baskets full of those beautiful red, orange and yellow carrots (that's my favorite stand).  I am a fan of the more common Broccoli Rabe, in fact one of my top 10 favorite recipes (from Luna Park in the LA Times) uses Italian sausage, broccoli rabe, lemon and Parmesan to make a yummy, chunky sauce.  Much thinner and more bitter than broccoli rabe, watermelon radish rabe has a distinct spicy bite that mellows with a little cooking.  I made a simple saute last week, with garlic and olive oil but decided this week to try a little bean pasta.  This is my first attempt at a semi-original recipe ( I was inspired by pastas with beans and basil), and I was pretty pleased with the result.  It even illicited "that's good" from Chris, and this dish had no meat. Go figure.

Penne with Watermelon Radish Rabe and Fried Chickpeas

8 ounces penne (or other shaped pasta)
extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves fresh garlic, whole, crushed
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or use fresh cooked)
1/3 cup basil, julienned
1 pound cleaned watermelon radish rabe
1/3 cup good dry white wine
1/3 cup chicken stock
lemon zest and lemon juice of one lemon
good Parmesan
salt and pepper

Cook pasta al dente, according to directions, reserving about a cup of cooking water.

Place about 6 tablespoons oil in a warm skillet, add garlic and cook over medium until fragrant and browned but not burned, about 5 minutes. Remove from oil and discard.

Add chickpeas and saute until they begin to lightly brown and get a bit crispy, 8-9 minutes. Remove and reserve.

Add rabe, wine, and stock. Cover and cook until rabe softens, about 6 minutes. Stir in basil, lemon zest and juice and saute for about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Add pasta and beans and reheat in mixture for a couple of minutes. If more sauce is desired, add some or all of the reserved pasta water. Transfer to a serving platter, drizzle with good olive oil. Sprinkle liberally with Parmesan of course. Makes 4 servings.

In My Backyard: Nettles Fritatta

Take the plant that used to cause painful welts on the arms and legs and face of this young Indiana Jones, as I hacked a path through my backyard jungle in the rugged hills of Oakland, enduring the bites and stings of the poisonous (I imagined) thorns of the exotic nettle plant, take it and make a frittata.  Show it who's boss!

I was excited to see a basket at the farmer's market and, stuffing as much as I could into a bag (with tongs), I managed to just touch a piece to my skin, enough to feel a little tingly stinging.  Memories flooded back of summer days playing in the dusty, green hills, of that sharp, astringent scent I remember on my shoes and clothes, and I realized that I was preparing to eat a plant that I had avoided for many childhood years.  Just please don't tell me that poison oak will be appearing in our spring mix...

Nettles are used in cooking internationally but the first I heard of using them in food, was an incredibly delicious Nettles Parpardelle at Quince a couple of months ago.  They appear from March - May (celebrate), when the plant reaches about 6 inches; any taller and they start to get woody and inedible.  A woman at the market also buying nettles, about 3 pounds worth, for tea and said they were her medicine.  Nutritional, delicious and a rich medicinal history, all this in a plant growing in our backyards.

Nettles Frittata
Recipe by Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook

1 pound nettles
1 medium  onion, thinly sliced
good extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 cup young pecorino or Sardo
6 eggs, lightly beaten
salt and pepper

     Wash the nettles thoroughly WITH GLOVES ON, they will sting.
     Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat (in a pan large enough to hold the nettles) until softened.  Add a bit more olive oil, add garlic. Season with salt and cook a minute.  Add nettles and turn the heat to high, cooking until nettles are wilted and most of the water they release has evaporated.  Drain in a colander and then when cool, chop coarsely.
     Mix chopped nettles in a bowl with the cheese and about 1/4 cup olive oil.  Add the eggs and season well.
     Warm 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet, and pour in eggs and nettles mixture, cooking over medium-low until just set and starting to brown.  Slide the frittata onto a plate and then invert back into the pan.  Cook until done (I had to check inside, total cooking time was about 13 minutes).

THEN EAT!  I mostly followed this recipe, though I used half the cheese and olive oil, I just didn't think it needed it, and it was still excellent.  It was also excellent cold.

More wonderful nettles info and recipes at Mariquita Farm and Prodigal Gardens.

A Taste of Home

In an age of pot-de-creme and creme brulee, my mother's favorite dessert is still a chocolate sundae with vanilla ice cream and toasted nuts.  She eats sundaes at home, out in restaurants (even when it's not on the menu) and, this week, she brought sundaes over for Survivor Wednesday (thanks Mom!).  I too, love a sundae, simple but harmonious, while I can eat them without nuts, my mother has nuts on hand at all times just in case a sundae might come by.  Easy and delicious, I've never met anyone who didn't love a sundae.

CHOCOLATE SAUCE
A straightforward ganache — chocolate and cream — with a two-to-one ratio of cream to chocolate. Some sugar, in the form of corn syrup, is added, primarily for consistency. The chocolate sauce is only as good as the chocolate you use, so use the best you can.

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, such as Valrhona Equatoriale, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup light corn syrup

Place the chocolate in a metal bowl.

Combine the cream and corn syrup in a small heavy nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer. Pour the liquid over the chocolate and allow it to sit for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the chocolate has melted. Whisk to combine. Allow the sauce to cool slightly, then pour into a bowl or other container. (Stored in the refrigerator, tightly covered, the sauce will keep for up to 2 weeks.)

To serve, warm the sauce gently in the top of a double boiler or in the microwave.  Makes about 2 cups.

NOTE: The recipe and introductory text above are excerpted from Thomas Keller's Bouchon.

NOTE #2: I don't generally cook with corn syrup and don't know if plain sugar can be substituted.  But it is Keller, so I imagine he is using the sweetening agent he feels is the best for the sauce, as he says, for consistency (it helps prevent crystallization). 

You know it's love when...

... you get an OXO Mandoline for Valentines Day.  It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.  And I will NOT be tempted to NOT use the guard as the last time I did that, I ended up in the Emergency Room.

Last night I sliced a cucumber. Simple, I know, but what perfection!  Every slice exactly the same as it's sibling slice!  No thin on the top, thick on the bottom slices!  Uniformity, sameness, a harmony of precision!  Ah, the possibilities.  Not that I'm known for needing everything I slice, dice and mince to be the same size.  No. Not at all.  Ahem.  Imagine: identical strips of julienned carrots.  I leave you to ponder that image.

Super Super Bowl Chili

Because I had $40 riding on it, I was determined to watch the Super Bowl last Sunday.  No I didn't win, but I did drink two Budweisers and ate some pretty awesome chili that I whipped up.  How American male of me! I decided that while the game was on I needed to be entertained, so when I asked Chris what I should cook, he said "I always eat chili during the Super Bowl."  Funny, because Chris wanted to go to a movie instead of watching the game, so the term "always" was a bit suspect, but I figured I'd humor him and make some chili.

I have made chili before and it was OK, but I wanted to do something different.  I checked out a basic chili recipe in How To Cook Everything and then thought I'd see if Rick Bayless had any advice.  Now, I have been suspicious of Bayless ever since the Burger King commercials, but he came through with a great recipe from my falling apart older edition Mexican Kitchen- Smoky Pasilla Chili (not his name for it).  He suggests making a paste out of chiles, garlic and spices and adding that to the meat/beans instead of the traditional two tons of chile powder.  The paste makes a rich, smokey chile flavor that beats ANY chili powder I have had.  And the response I got from Chris "This may be the best chili I have ever had".  Sweet.

IMBB 11: Beans, beans the well-you-know

Garbanzo beans are easily my preferred bean, my go-to bean, if you will.  Two of my favorite standby dinners use this bean so I thought it was time to branch out a bit and try something new.  The result: Chick-pea Tomato Stew with Moroccan Flavors.

My brief research on the Garbanzo informed me that they are the most widely consumed legume in the world.  Right on world!  The Latin name for garbanzo beans, Cicer arietinum, means “small ram,” which, if you check out its shape, the garbanzo resembles a ram's head.  Somewhat.  At least, that's what I read.  Garbanzos are a member of the Pea family (Fabaceae) and have a multitude of names, chick pea, ceci (Italy), Egyptian pea, Bengal gram, Kichererbse (Germany), and revithia (Greece).  The English name chickpea comes from the French chiche, which comes from the Latin cicer.  Huh.  All this AND they are yummy!

My stew turned out pretty good, but got way better by the next day, I served it over whole wheat couscous with which it was perfectly paired.  Based on a recipe on Epicurious, I caramelized 3 onions, added a pound of cooked beans, tomatoes, raisins, cinnamon stick, coriander, cumin, chicken stock and preserved lemon (I cheated since I had none and used softened, salted lemon peel - SO not the same), let it cook for about an hour and then added a ton of fresh spinach.  It was good, but only elicited a 6 from Chris, it may have increased to a 7 by the next day however.  It was a great, nutritious meal and I'm freezing the rest and seeing how it fares.

Thanks to Cathy for hosting my first IMBB!

Tarte Tatin Twice Upside Down

This is a story of great joy and great tragedy.

I volunteered to make dessert for a dinner at my mother's where she had some relatives that I had never met coming over (yeah, a real tight family we are).  I figured if I couldn't think of anything to make, I can always whip up the old standby, Pumpkin Cheesecake.  But we were having pasta so I thought something lighter, maybe with fruit, would be nice.

I scoured my recent magazines and came upon a recipe for a Tarte Tatin.  Bear in mind, I don't bake.  Breakfast, lunch dinner, ok.  Dessert, bread, cakes? No. But I figured, what's the worse that can happen? It can turn out all wrong and I'll buy some ice cream and I'll be the better for having tried.

I peeled and cut the apples, made the butter and sugar syrup, and put the apples the syrup in a circle (I really squished them all in like the recipe said - amazing how recipes can be right) and away we went. It just got better and better, and despite a brief wrassle to roll out the dough (not being a baker, I don't have a rolling pin, so a bottle of Ravenswood Zin had to do), it was as easy as, well, pie:

Anyhoo, the pictures show the progress:

I was beside myself with joy. I baked something that had a French name and it didn't suck!  As you can see, the bottom (top?) is a little brown so I figure I must have cooked the apples too long in the syrup and it went past amber to slightly burnt.  So when I went to turn it over, it looked beautiful but a little dark. Still, it looked lovely to me and Chris said it smelled great, so I win.

Off to dinner in Oakland we go, off to Mom's to show off my fancy dessert.  I was even prepared to whip up some cream.

Needless to say, my pride and joy never made it to the house. Correction. It made it to the front steps and then it went inside but not after it had picked up a little of the lovely Oakland Hills. Yes. The piece-of-shit (I'm not bitter) cake carrier sort of shifted and somehow out came my tart and, of course, landed perfectly upside down on the steps. Sure it was edible. If you like pieces of pine needle, gravel and plate, that is. Yummmy.

I was a TAD peeved. But then I had to remind myself of how good I have it, I get to see my family tonight, they didn't get taken away by a tsunami, so if this is the worst thing that happens all year, I'm doing pretty damn good.

So I shall try again. But this time, that thing is staying in my hands the whole way to the table.

I have to quit my job.

How is it possible to work AND blog? 

There have been many eating adventures over the past few weeks, but the highlight for me was probably December 18 when we had a Crabstravaganza in honor of Chris's birthday (the big three-oh).  I'd post a picture but we ate everything and I completely forgot to capture it before I brought it all out.

We (and when I say we, I mean Chris) went to 99 Ranch and picked out 9 (about 18 pounds for 12 people) of the liveliest Dungeness crabs they had out of 3 GIANT tanks.  For $2.99 they cooked and cleaned them, and for free I cracked them with a mallet.  This part is not really fun and I recommend you prepare extra for this part as it can get really messy with crab bits going everywhere.  I then made a sauce out of soy, dry vermouth, chicken stock, large pieces of ginger, scallion, lemongrass and garlic, white pepper and some salt and sugar.  I poured it all out over the crab that I had put into my All-Clad roasting pan (I heart that thing) and roasted it in the oven for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees.  It was so good, I could not believe it.  It was worth the mess of cracking to get that fresh of crab for sure.  And we ate every last claw.

We also had the BEST BREAD EVER by a bakery called Crepe & Brioche. I am so excited to have stumbled upon this bakery as I constantly am on the lookout for the BEST BREAD EVER.  I got some at the Farmer's Markets in Burlingame and San Mateo and then we started to see it served at a few restaurants (Astaria, Anjou and Bouchon).  I asked the waiter at Anjou where they got their bread and he said that the bakery only sells to restaurants and at Farmer's Markets so there was no other place to buy it.

BUT I GOT THE SCOOP!
I called their bakery number and found out that they are planning on opening a retail store at 210 Columbus in January 2005! Sweet! In the meantime, check them out at Farmer's Markets across the Bay Area.