Filed under: in the kitchen
Almost all my favorite tea mixes (not to mention my very favorite beverage aid – mulling spice) contain dried orange chunks or peel in them. I’ve been contemplating crafting my own tea mixes for a while, and up until the last couple of months, I was certain I would simply be buying dried orange from Mountain Rose Herbs or a similar organic retailer. The thought of buying oranges retail and then going through the effort of drying them didn’t seem cost or labor effective. Sad to say, living where a lot of citrus is grown doesn’t seem to translate to savings at the register.
However, I’ve moved to a new neighborhood in the last year, and lucky lucky me, it seems like everyone has a citrus tree of one type or another in their yard. Even better, the neighborhood directly north of me hosts a Produce Exchange on Sunday afternoons. I’ll post more about that later, but suffice to say for now, it meant I could trade the lemons growing in my yard for oranges growing in other peoples’ yards. In fact, the day I happened to attend, there were so many oranges up for grabs that it was more like a 6:1 trade than a 1:1 trade.
My kitchen crowded with free oranges, a gleeful me went to work figuring out how to dry them. Turns out it wasn’t hard at all. But what exactly did I want for my teas? The whole orange dried, or just the zest? Wouldn’t the pith part of drying the whole orange make my teas bitter? An experiment was in order.
Filed under: in the kitchen
Long time no see, dear blog. I have been enjoying life very much, and have lots to share. While I work on ramping up content, here’s a fun and fabulous video I’ve been enjoying the past few days. I tested the recipe this morning, and all I would add is half a teaspoon more sugar in your mug when you pour the tea.
How To Make Masala Chai from High Beam Media on Vimeo.
Filed under: in the kitchen
I found some of those infamous Meyer lemons at the Japantown farmer’s market and immediately juiced six of them to make strawberry lemon sorbet. Which was dang good in and of itself.
But the later use of it as a concentrate, mixed with sparking water to make soda, was in-cre-di-ble.
Start with this recipe. Prior to chilling, put mixture in your blender and add a large handful of strawberies – fresh or frozen. Proceed per usual.
My time in this big Victorian barn of an apartment has drawn to a close and I have, with the help of some dear friends, spent the last week packing. The packing of the kitchen has been an amusing thing – I wasn’t the one who packed it, and because I am still in residence for the next week and a half, several things I’d like to still have out to cook with are in the bottom of a taped up box somewhere.
But I managed to squirrel my way into the kitchen during the pot packing, and insisted that this pot stay free of bubble wrap and cardboard. I need something to cook my remaining meals with, and this just seemed like the right choice.
Filed under: in the kitchen
The farmers markets are expensive around here in the winter. But the flea market on Berryessa has bags of peppers and potatoes and green beans measured out and tied up and selling for a dollar a bag. My lengthy, though unscientific, survey tells me there’s generally over a pound of produce in each bag (that’s three peppers for a dollar). It’s probably from Mexico. But man is it fresh. And cheap. And going in my freezer pronto.
I remember reading a quote a long time ago about fried rice and stirfry style recipes developing as a way for poor families to make a single serving of meat serve a whole family – when the meat is chopped very small, everyone gets a few pieces in their bowl.
The sandwich above is more generous in its serving of meat, but the idea is the same. A 5 ounce steak looks tiny when placed on a plate in once piece. But if you slice it thinly and pile it on a slice of rustic bread, it doesn’t feel so small anymore. In fact, it feels quite indulgent.
Whether you’re trying to eat smaller portions or you’re long overdue a bit of steak on your tight budget, it’s a concept worth keeping in mind.
Filed under: in the kitchen
First, I’ve had this tray for ages and not had an excuse to use it. It’s a pearly gray with a hint of lavender and made from plywood. You can see the ply around the edge. I love it. So, tada! Here it is! (Humor me.)
Second, Saturday I put together a pumpkin carving party for thirty folks, on a budget. They’d all paid ten dollars to attend, and the pumpkins had eaten up half of that per person. After buying red wine for mulled wine, apple cider for mulled cider, hot chocolate, and sodas, I had a limited amount to work with for edibles. The treats had to be tasty and inexpensive, but, because I’m just like that, they had to look twice as fancy as they were. Personal standards will be the death of me, yet.
Filed under: in the kitchen
I was at an Easter potluck barbecue when I first tried these. A guy in attendance had brought a huge, huge bowl of them – so huge we thought he was out of his mind. Then we ate one. And the bowl was promptly emptied.
Thankfully, he was willing to tell us what was in them. And even more thankfully, it was so simple that I still remembered the recipe last weekend when I decided to make them for a pumpkin carving party at my house.
Filed under: in the kitchen
Not my recipe. But I can oh-so-vouch-for-it.
Filed under: in the kitchen
There’s so much life to live in the summer that it’s hard to sit still long enough to make blog posts. But continuing experiences with new-to-me vegetables are worth documenting, so here we go!
Beets? They were around when I was growing up, usually pickled. Never touched the stuff, personally. But an eeny-meeny-miny-moe menu encounter in a local Russian deli revealed to me I like borscht. I like it a lot! So when the CSA foisted beets on me, this was first choice.
I found the process of boiling and peeling the beets fascinating. I walked away from the kitchen, forgot I’d a pan on the stove, and ended up over-boiling by a good deal of time, yet it doesn’t seem to have mattered.
Filed under: in the kitchen
Family sized bunches of scallions were delivered two weeks in a row this month. I cut one bunch up and stashed it in the freezer, predominately for future dips and garnishes. The other bunch I decided to experiment with.
Filed under: in the kitchen
I’ve been posting a running tally of CSA vegetables received in my Flickr account. Thanks to the Green Bags I’ve been using, I don’t have to use them up right away – but as a result I was reaching a critical mass with the root vegetables. I needed a recipe that would use up mass quantities of everything, and clear out the fridge for the new batch of goods. I also got my first “I’ve never eaten that!” veggie: turnips. It was clear, despite the afternoon heat in my west facing kitchen, some kind of roasting was in order. So in the pan went all the root veggies I had, along with a generous helping of olive oil, sea salt, and several springs of fresh rosemary.
Filed under: in the kitchen
The CSA box isn’t quite keeping me stocked in fruit (although the strawberries are wonderful) so I went trawling for fruit this weekend. What I came back with was a splurge (fresh blueberries) and an oddity – Saturn peaches. I’d never seen one before.
They’re short, squat little things, but they’re oh so sweet and because of their size, less messy to eat.
I have a favorite ancho/pasilla chili sauce which unfortunately requires a certain amount of tedious work that keeps me from indulging as often as I’d like. It’s not a fast sauce – you first have to cook the ingredients, then puree them, then cook them even more to bring the flavors into balance (it’s bitter before the last cooking). But the tediousness of it makes it a perfect candidate for split preparation: do the first half of the work in a big batch, and then do the second half as needed, when needed.
A month or so back, I made a double recipe of that lovely sauce. But I didn’t do the final round of cooking. I put it, mid-recipe, into ice cube trays. Once frozen, the cubes of sauce were dumped into ziploc freezer bags and stashed.
Now whenever I want delicious homemade sauce for a Mexican dish, I pull a few cubes out of the freezer and toss them in my crockpot over the chicken I’m stewing, or in the oven over the chicken I’m baking. They melt and finish cooking with the chicken, and I get a delicious, flavorful meal that would have normally taken a lot longer and a lot more dirty pans. Figuring this out has saved me from the lure of quick, store-bought sauces out of a jar. (Yes, Trader Joe’s Simmering Sauce, I’m talking about you.) I know exactly what’s in my sauce, I have the quiet contentment that comes from knowing I made it myself, and it didn’t cost me two bucks or more a pop.
Being able to portion out the cubes is a perfect tactic for someone who eats alone. Just take what you need and save the rest for later. It’s also nice simply for someone who doesn’t want to do a lot of prep every night when they come home from work. Get all the flavor of the long preparation, but much quicker and with less hassle. Take the half hour you saved and spend it with the newspaper, your pet, or your mate.
It doesn’t always have to be sauce (or the ubiquitous fresh herbs) that you put in your ice cube trays. I recently froze a carafe of coffee that didn’t get finished at one of my previous dinner parties. I don’t drink coffee, I’d merely had it on hand for the guests, but I couldn’t bear to throw it all out. I froze it, same as above, and plan to put it in the blender with a little milk and sugar syrup to make iced coffee drinks for a future summer event. The point is to be mindful – can you do something now that would make your life better later? Can you save something that would otherwise be wasted?
I love to think about and do things like this; it economizes your time, improves the quality of your daily meals, stretches your money, and minimizes waste. Plus you get to feel clever!
Filed under: in the kitchen
Did you know you could substitute Creamy Tomato and Basil Soup for chicken or vegetable stock in a cauliflower soup recipe? I wanted soup, but I also wanted to save the chicken broth I had for paella later this weekend. All that was left in my pantry was a couple of cardboard cartons of organic tomato soup. I thought…why not?
It’s my lunch today and it’s good. Really good.
I tried to join a local CSA a few months ago, but they were booked full. They offered to put me on a waitlist and I accepted, although I didn’t think it would do me much good. I was wrong! Last week, my number on the waitlist came up, and yesterday I got my very first CSA box ever. I can tell right now it’s going to be like getting a present every week. The anticipation, the hints, the slow reveal, the tearing through the packaging…it’s all there.
Filed under: in the kitchen
Frogmore stew, also known as Beaufort stew, is basically a localized variation of a seafood boil. Move around the coastal areas and the seafood will change (shrimp to crawdads to crabs) and so too the supporting cast, but the idea is always the same. Boil a big pot of water over what is essentially a propane blowtorch, dump in a heapin’ cupful of seasoning, and then start adding your ingredients. There’s some slight math involved to figure out the order of adding - what needs to be cooked longest first, shortest last, and last should finish cooking at precisely the point the guests gather round to eat – but that’s about all the brains it takes to turn out what is uniformly an awesome dish.
Filed under: in the kitchen
The basil is big enough to eat! Here served with warm goat cheese, ripe plum tomatoes, sea salt, and fresh cracked pepper.
Mmmmmmmm.
Filed under: in the kitchen
I wasn’t sure what to title this post, but I wanted to share my “wow” moment with someone. Despite growing up relatively close to the butchering process and not having any illusions about meat consumption, I still went a little slack jawed on the sidewalk outside my local Vietnamese grocery when I saw this. I guess I didn’t realize they’re actually doing the last bit of butchering at the grocery itself (it seems so small inside), nor that the meat is transported in such an exposed, unwrapped state.
I’ve never been particularly diligent about washing meat prior to this, assuming perhaps stupidly that health standards require it to be relatively clean when I buy it, but I’m definitely going to wash from here on out (and never use the carts at this grocery again).
Filed under: in the kitchen
I unfortunately don’t have a picture of the finished dish, but I wanted to take a moment to throw my wholehearted endorsement behind this recipe for Leek & Goat Cheese Tart. I’ve joined a local foodie group that has monthly dinners based around a theme. This month’s theme was French food, and this was my contribution. I was entertaining a bit of nervousness, since I’ve never cooked with leeks, but everyone loved it. Totally worth the calories.
Filed under: in the kitchen
Totally worth the effort (if only for the price effectiveness). Recipe here. Err on the side of too much honey, rather than not enough. I don’t really have a sweet tooth, but the lesser amount was definitely not enough in my first batch.
Makes a great gift, too.
Filed under: in the kitchen
One of the highlights of my kitchen experiences was the moment I mastered a basic pad Thai sauce. Life changing. Or at least palate changing!
Filed under: in the kitchen
I’ve had my ice cream maker for a while now, but I’ve only ever made apple cider sorbet and a Coke slushie in it. Let me say I have now seen the light.
I was craving sweets last night so badly I’d paced the kitchen six times before realizing it. I resolved to make ice cream, since for the first time in ages I actually had cream in the house. But a quick survey of googled recipes showed me all the things I didn’t have. Like vanilla beans, half and half, and, it turns out, fresh milk. Oops.
I started eliminating recipes based on ingredients, starting with eggs first, as I didn’t feel like adding twenty minutes of stirring on the stovetop to the length of my payoff. Then I eliminated the vanilla bean recipes (keeping vanilla extract recipes). Then any that required large amounts of milk. Somewhere in the middle, I started sourcing recipes that called for powdered sugar, ’cause I happen to have a ton that needs to be used up. I ended up with a recipe that looked really good…except for the quart of half and half it called for.
In the end, I made up my own recipe. And you know what? Hit it out of the park. Either I’m amazing, or ice cream is hard to screw up. Probably the latter.
It’s a vanilla ice cream base with chopped peppermint bark stirred in. I’d been saving a box of the stuff in the freezer, a gift from Christmas, for precisely an occasion such as this. It was worth the lost space. You can use crushed starlight candies or peppermint extract along with chocolate chips, if you like.
Harry and David peppermint bark!
Filed under: in the kitchen
Twice this year I’ve gotten up early on a Sunday and done some scrambled baking before having to go somewhere. Lucky me, part of this past weekend’s recipe required a homemade ‘baking mix’ for which there were lots of leftovers. Now I have a stash of already-started oatmeal blondies for future usage.
I was googling recipes late Saturday night looking for something I could make the next day that wouldn’t require a trip to the store between then and 8 am the following morning (basically everything that called for chocolate!). Naturally Martha Stewart swooped in to the rescue.
I found the recipe via Vicarious Foodie. The orginial MS version (and a link to other baking mix recipes) here.
They came out perfectly. Would you expect less of Martha?
Filed under: in the kitchen
I’ve seen a few references lately to being a good cook = not being afraid in the kitchen. Specifically, going with the flow and making the best of your mistakes. That’s what this soup is. It started as a pilaf style couscous…and somewhere the water to couscous ratio took a really bad turn. Now it’s soup! And good soup at that.
Filed under: in the kitchen
Now here’s a novel idea: using an ingredient for what it’s intended for! I had bacon ends in the freezer, bok choy in the fridge, and leftover potsticker wrappers. Building on the success of the previous bacon and bok choy recipe gave me these potstickers, which were so perfectly salted that no soy sauce was required. (Yay bacon?)
Filed under: in the kitchen
So here was the experiment (and a scientific experiment at that!): Take potsticker wrappers from the refrigerated case at the Vietnamese grocery store. Add three types of cheese from the Hispanic grocery store. Fry half, boil half. Taste. Judge.
(From right to left)
Cheese One: Don Francisco Queso Fresco, Whole Milk (large wheel)
Cheese Two: Los Altos La Cubeta Queso Fresco, Whole Milk (molded)
Cheese Three: Rancho Grande Sierra Fresco, Skim (large wheel)
I thought cheese one would win, as it was the closest in moistness and texture to ricotta cheese. I was rooting for cheese two, as it was the only one that didn’t come shrink-wrapped in plastic. I threw in cheese three because it looked firm and different and I needed an underdog.
Each potsticker wrapper peels off the stack ready to go. Put a dab of cheese on one side, wet the edges with a damp finger, fold over, and crimp with a fork. Flip it and crimp the other side for good measure. If boiling, drop in rapidly boiling salted water for three(ish) minutes. If frying, lay in a pan of very hot oil for thirty(ish) seconds until crisp on one side, flip and fry second side equally.
Filed under: in the kitchen
Double thumbs up. Ten out of ten. Five stars. I don’t know how to recommend this recipe any harder. First wonderful thing about it: it takes hardly any time at all. Second wonderful thing about it: the sauce is so dang good. (And it can be used with just about anything, including satay.) Third wonderful thing about it: any green stir-fry-y vegetable will do, fresh or frozen.
