balance

The pathetic-ness of a bad cup of cocoa

2012-01-23T15:28:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I almost never blog anymore. Blame what I may, it's only my own fear of giving up one more morsel of my very rare time that keeps me an my writing apart. Or maybe it's that new show my husband thinks I need to love? No matter.

I find myself the lucky owner of a few spare moments today, gifted by an inability to calculate that 2:00 does not equal 3:00. So, instead of drifting into the class I am a teaching assistant for a mere 3 minutes before start time, I arrived an entire 63 minutes early. To assuage my way-to-early sorrows, I wandered over to JOE to grab a cup of cocoa.

This is the second time in my life I've had the baby-blue not-Starbucks cup in my hand, and I must say, for a company that prides itself on making a stellar cup of coffee, they STINK at making cocoa. Yes, it's pretty and frothy and warm, but even after making certain it actually tasted like chocolate my cup of cocoa remains just a pretty, frothy, warm concoction with a hint of cocoa. I will concede extra points for a not-too-sweet profile, but beyond that?

What is the perfect cup of cocoa? I'm pretty opinionated here: it should be full of flavor, with a hint of salt to bring out the flavors. It should have as its base high quality cocoa (I personally prefer Barry Callebaut's Bensdorp cocoa). A hint of sugar, just a hint, and depending on your tastes, a bit of caramel, or chili pepper, or vanilla. Or take it straight.

However, all of these nuances of quality and such are lost on most coffee purveyors. And that, without a doubt, is a shame.

Waste not, want not? When trash talks. Or at least says something.

2011-11-12T22:29:00.001-05:00

My favorite scene from Red, a film that I consider the pinnacle of Krzysztof Kieslowski's fantastic tri-color series, involves a bent old woman standing tippy-toe, carefully pushing a glass bottle into a giant green container. It's been a while since I watched the film. I cannot tell you whether the gusting wind and slanted rain I see in my mind actually appear on screen, or if they are just the mental elements I associate with that moment of daily life that underlies the tension inherent in every quiet scene of Red. Nonetheless, that wet and cold mental image flits through my head every time I encounter the green glass bottle recycling containers that pepper the streets of francophone cities and towns.

This photo, taken in the Montmartre portion of Paris' 9eme arrondissement on a sunny August morning, is sugar to my salt, sun to my rain, a juxtaposition of chaos and order. Garbage, it seems, always juxtaposes.

Examples: Consider Freshkills park, the NYC Department of Parks and Department of Sanitation's solution to the Freshkills landfill. Consider the pile of leaves outside your home (if you live in the leaf-dropping region of the world). Consider the dustbunnies attempting to set up residence in your broom. Or, in my case, consider my collection of empty and full bottles of enhanced waters (e.g. water + something, generally color or vitamin-like things)--trash not in a trash bin, instead out for all who wander past the graduate student cubicle to see.

I love that our world is filled with objects to think with, containers no longer containing, and containers for the containers failing to be used. Is it because the black hole for putting bottles in is too high, or because the recycling bin is full that a small town of bottle-containing bags has set up residence on the streets of Paris this particular morning? What stories do each of these bottles have--how long have they held aged beverages, or water, or candle sticks before deemed no longer needed and set off on a new life? What sort of effort went into carrying the bottles here? Why did one person bring their bottles in a bag they had to pay money for (that bright green bag in the right-hand corner--see it? That Carrefour grocery bag, if I remember correctly, goes for a Euro or so) when all the others thought it best to use shopping bags or cardboard boxes?

If you get a chance, I'd love to see your moments when trash talks to you. What does it say?

MMM macaron tart!

2011-11-02T23:32:00.000-04:00

My friend Anne's book on macarons recently hit the market, and given the NY Times article on the same subject, it seemed appropriate to share a macaron memory.

I personally am not a huge fan of the macaron. It has all the necessary ingredients for baking love: some good air in protein emulsion from the whipped egg whites, a nice dose of sugar and almond, and the chance to play with a variety of inner flavorings. What better treat? Yet the vaunted, dare I say fetishized (in the sense that they are given powers beyond that of mere cookie), nature of the cookie drives me a bit batty. Especially when they're filled with buttercream.

But if you take a macaron and put lemon curd underneath, I will happily sing their praises. As you can see, with my mom hamming it up for all of our pleasure, this is one lovely little treat. Should you wish to take on the challenge, I suggest playing around, making your own culinary chimeras. Smacaron, anyone?

Pie?

2011-10-12T20:04:00.001-04:00

Scottish Meat Pie

I love the Historical New York Times. If you haven't browsed its rowdy pages, or considered the pleasure that a good bit of muckracking reporting can bring, I offer you the following anecdote, from January 23, 1900:

Yes, you read correctly.

The article continues "Brooklyn was visited by a pie famine yesterday, and the Harolds and Reginalds employed in the office buildings about the Borough Hall, the high school girls, and pie eaters generally were depressed in spirit all day."

The loss, blamed on "the archfiend who has charge of the mince-pie bureau," included approximately 3,000 pies: "plum, peach, lemon, meringue, and the insidious mince." All lost in the wreckage of a collapsed oven roof or devoured by flames from an ensuing fire.

I've wondered, in the last two years since reading this lovely passage, what about pie so offended the hygienic diet-conscious elite of the time. Kate Masterson, on August 10, 1902, opined that pie "possesses injurious qualities" and predicted that continued consumption threatened to "kill all appreciation of art in the minds of the young." To me, pie has always seemed so 4th-of-July, Thanksgiving, family time. Even reimagined as a pie-in-the-face, it remained fun. Lighthearted even.

Then I went to Scotland.

Scotland is lovely: green, with loads of rain and fluffy sheep and really heavy breakfasts. Even better, it is home to Steve and MBC, who are amazing and love graveyards and sticky sweet things and have an allotment that we got to work in.

It also has Scottish pies.

Scottish pies, it turns out, are what Miss Masterson was talking about. They are certainly little packets of energy-denseness, but they also land on the stomach with a clang that sets your entire digestive tract a-quivering in fear. I think I will stick with my version of meat pie.

An early taste of fall

2011-10-07T22:12:00.000-04:00

Today the world felt fragile, almost brittle, as though the wrong move would shatter the perfection of sun, sky, air, breeze. I woke up with a worried knot of pain at the base of my skull, a knot that expanded throughout the day, pulling with it all my senses. Walking from home to metro, an army of smells marched over me, dying leaves, Asian frying mixed with Latino flavors, even the corner pizzeria traveled across the street to taunt. I passed through the shadow of a man long gone, his cologne imprint invisible yet so palpable. If you peeled back my skin would my trigeminal nerve glisten like that of the floral flesh of a lychee? I imaginined the normally invisible nerve visible as it radiated sensation from top of head to jaw and nose. Was the nerve trying to break free of its fleshy home, push out roots to sprout delicate fruit, only touchable, smellable, taste-able in the heightened sensorial state of a migraine?

Amused at my wanderings through the brittle day, I planned ethereal recipes around this fruit of pain. A pie, always my favorite, now the darling of the anti-cupcake crowd seemed appropriate, bringing out juices and flavors in only the way that heat and crust do.

Baking with the bounty of the mind is a quiet task, so as I peel and slice and toss, I invite you to enjoy another day, an earlier hint at the bounty of summer's close.

Apple Picking outside Paris

With the Babin family of Busy as a Bee in Paris

Maria

Eating while picking--an important component of taste education!

If not careful, one apple picked results in ten on the ground.

Ben decides that he has found his Eden.

We perhaps went overboard?

But a wheelbarrow of apples is so fun!

As are wheelbarrows.

One chili pepper can make you cry. This one appears innocent, but note it's biting capabilities!

Cheery cherry tomatoes.

What would you like to bring home today?

Breaking Fast or breakfast

2011-08-04T01:56:00.001-04:00

Ramadan conversations regularly surround me at the moment, perhaps because of my tendency to listen to Radio France International while walking around the city. I mumble phrases, trying out this language that is not mine like I try on shoes or a dress, seeing what fits, how to wrap my body into new shapes. Similar to the games of agility required by a new language, an entire month of fasting requires a rethinking,a restructuring of time, of eating habits and work habits and even personal relationships. None of this is first-hand knowledge, yet my imagination is spinning about with the possibilities.

I see it as not all that different from the August vacances that the large majority of Parisians take. The city remakes itself, bringing in sand to make beaches along the Seine, food deliveries happen later in the day, so I can actually wander past an entire beef half outside the butcher's, mid-delivery. Hanging there in stasis, an almost unimaginable reality in today's world of cellophane-wrapped foods, visible as the animal it was before being transformed, remade by a simple knife into food.

I imagine the joy of the evening meal, the anticipated moment when food first crosses into the body again. I know this moment, as I fast the first Sunday of every month. It reappears, in small form, every morning. Sunlight creeps in, my body readjusts, and hunger announces its presence via burbling, gurgling, growling demands for food, for attention, for care. This may be why breakfast is my favorite meal, because it carries with it a true remembrance of what hunger can be.

So today I offer up the suggestion of fresh melon, arugula with a fried egg, and very, very dark cocoa. Happy munching.

Ma cuisine, c'est toute petite

2011-07-23T05:34:00.000-04:00

Readers, meet my new kitchen. So that you may more fully understand the size of this lovely little thing, my husband, approximately 6 feet tall, has kindly agreed to model for you. To even further your comprehension, I offer below a detailed list of both hidden and seen:
Mini-fridge: under the hot plate
Two-burner electric hotplate
Two frying pans
A multitude of cutting boards
Dull knives (X4)
Plates (many, some chipped)
Glasses (many)
1 ladle, one spaghetti scoop, three strainers, scissors, cork screw
a glass juicer
Two pots
Bowls
Utensils
One washer/dryer
And a fly

Most interesting, however, is the microwave. It supposedly steams (this I believe) and "crisps" food, offering for the intrepid user of frozen foods a way to enjoy previously soggy egg rolls as they should be enjoyed. Curious, I decided to give it a try.

Key to the crisping action are two features: 1. the crisping plate, which somehow can heat up to 450 F in about three minutes and 2. air movement.

My first test? A galette aux pommes. Lacking both a scale and measuring cups, I went for the cooking method of "hmm, looks right." Practically speaking, this meant three espresso cups of flour, one espresso cup of sugar, a dash of salt, as much lemon rind as I could scrape off and chop up before going crazy, and an unknown quantity of butter (here, I employed the "feels right" method). Mixed together by hand, slightly chilled, then patted out into a tart-like shape on the crisping pan. Apples, peeled, with a bit of lemon juice and a sprinkling of sugar on top, graced the dough, and then I microwaved on the crisp setting for about eight minutes. Finished off with a simple drizzle of caramelized sugar and OP! Dessert is served.

As you can see, browning/ caramelization did not make it to the sides, but underneath is a nice crispy tart bottom. The apples cooked nicely, but were a bit dehydrated from the air movement. Overall impression: it works. I'm going to have to experiment a bit more.

Approximating: Ready-made pasta

2011-07-12T15:17:00.000-04:00

My kitchen is feeling shy, hiding behind sliding doors to avoid any attempts to create chocolate pudding despite a significant lack of ingredients. So, promises cast aside, I instead introduce you to . . . dinner.

Moving to a new country with nothing more than two carry-ons, two backpacks and a smallish bag means that the only kitchen utensil that followed me is a knife. My favorite one, perhaps, by virtue of it being the first good knife to cross my path. My most memorable, by virtue of being purchased on September 11, 2001, minutes after hearing rumors of attacks and bombings. My most resilient, by virtue of surviving a nasty drop onto a tile floor.

Our landlady appears to have a tolerable sense of what a cook needs, as this little space has an army of cutting boards, a few lovely pans, and a juicer. Of course, she also seems to think that a microwave oven can actually serve as an oven, but that's beside the point. I will take her up on that challenge at some point, but not today. Today is reserved for grouching about the rain that comes and goes, and smiling at the sun when it appears.

Before leaving, we made lists of what we thought we might or might not need. Cumin, cookbooks, cinnamon, salt, pepper. What would you take? All, sadly, stayed behind. Bereft of my familiar things and places, I find dinner-making a wonderful new challenge. After a fairly successful recreation of our favorite couscous dish on Monday night, Tuesday called for something different. Ben suggested pasta.

Apparently, the Italians are taking over the world, as ready-made pasta now appears in almost every grocery store we venture into. Combined with a jar of pre-made pesto, and accompanied by a dash of mache and arugula, a bit of chicken and garlic, and a tomato or two (sliced by that loyal knife), dinner made it from bag to table in less than 15 minutes. I think I'm a fan.

2011-07-11T15:54:00.000-04:00

I made a promise to myself somewhere over the Atlantic, half curled up between discomfort and sleep, that this summer I would bring my blog back to life. Today, half-sleepy promises take on life, poking their sticky little hands out towards the sun.

What better place to start than a very large kitchen?

May I introduce to you the kitchens of Hampton Court,where charcoal fires once burned under cast-iron pots, where bread, fish, wine and meat ran so freely that the court had to move or utterly deplete the countryside. This, according to my handy headset, was kitchen life under Henry VIII. I have a new wish in life, and it is to actually cook in one of the kitchens.

Pie, preferably. Although I am a bit skeptical of any crust not meant for consumption. For more information on Tudor cooking, see here.

Tomorrow, I will introduce you to my very, very, very tiny kitchen. I used to think that the 60-square foot kitchen was nothing but a nightmare, but so far, we're eating very well, and our kitchen is lucky to be pushing 20.

Still alive . . .

2011-05-23T23:37:00.000-04:00

But not cooking much.

This is the story of my life. I get up. If I'm lucky, I run. If not, I shower, read a bit, munch (breakfast is now spinach with a fried egg and tomatillo salsa. Splendid), and then "run". To teach, or to learn, to grade, to read, to write, to TA, to schedule other people's events, to show someone how to use something, to turn in receipts, to church, to bed.

Effective May 30th, I will stop running. I will fly instead. I will fly to California to teach, to learn, to read, to write, to meet new people, to see the fish in the Monteray Bay Aquarium, to make pies with my friend Stephen, to sit on a porch and finish an over-due paper with Sarah and her quietly incubating twins, to SLC to see my family.

And then I will drive. To Montana. To speak, to eat, to learn, to read, to write, to meet new people, to see the big sky either rain or shine.

Finally, I will undo all of that, until I land again in New York City.

Then I will pile and file and pack and arrange so two nice men from New Zealand can come live in my little apartment while I fly again.

To France.

And there, I will cook.

RSBC #3 Roundup

2011-02-24T22:48:00.001-05:00

I don't know about you, but the biking part of RSBC kills me every year. My friend Dave, who is playing along, did his biking in two days. Two. Days. He happens to be on the NYU cycling team, so I feel a little less overwhelmed when I remember that, but still. It takes me 45 minutes of frantic, heart-wrenching peddling to make it from my door to campus, and the grand total is a mere 6.5ish miles. For this I risk life and limb? New York City bikers: I salute you.

Week three's citrus challenge resulted in some lovely dinners:

Kara made lemon chicken with Jerusalem artichokes, a perfect antidote to the snowstorm that somehow blew through her non-snowy locale. I think she deserves extra mileage credits for biking with children in tow--and I wish I could have joined her on the picnic that followed.

Lizzie, my intrepid co-host, has been horridly sick this past week, along with most of the 2 to 4 year old population in Brooklyn. Despite that, she's managed to produce a beautiful lemon-risotto chicken, and survive multiple viewings of various cartoons etc. If you have any old t-shirts that are, well, too big, you should check out her brilliant "how to save a race t-shirt" post. It makes me wish I sewed. (or had a sewing machine).

Alex made scallop ceviche, and is getting really close to finishing everything. I want to eat at her house.

Brianna (still camera-less) made citrus steak, which may be the most perfect ever of slow-cooker recipes. Reading the recipe made me crave take-out . . .

(update) Julie, who is more on-top-of things than I could ever hope to be, made a beautiful tilapia with lemon butter, capers and Orzo. Yum! My sincere apologies for accidentally leaving her out of the first published draft of the roundup. :( (puppy dog eyes)

Lindsay, like Lizzie, found herself faced with a week of miserable sick ones, and to make matters worse, the lemon-lentil stew (which I agree should have tasted wonderful) recipe she used just didn't work.

I'm with Lindsay on culinary failures. Maybe it's February? We made a spinach shrimp salad with orange and lime dressing. It had all the write parts, but not enough umph. To date, I've logged 59 miles of biking, 21 miles of running (I admit it, I'm guessing here, but it's around 21. That doesn't include my recent adaption of my friend Lydia's view of running as a means of transportation. A necessity these days as my subway stop into Manhattan is closed until May. Running in boots, though, is not brilliant.) and absolutely no swimming. Looking forward to everyone's beany desserts!

RSBC Culinary Challenge #3: Citrus

2011-02-14T09:17:00.000-05:00

To all of you who are experiencing mid-February despair when it comes to culinary challenges, running in the cold (or heat), braving swimming pools or freezing rain, I understand! Remember that this should be fun, if it's not, take a breather. The joy, after all, is in the journey.

This week, for our culinary shenanigans, I offer you an entire category instead of an individual (super)food: citrus. Citrus may be the original (at least European) superfood. Consider a small group of men, stuck on a ship in the middle of the ocean, with hair falling out, constant nose bleeds, painful sores and receding, spongy gums. This, friends, is scurvy. Add citrus, with its accompanying citric acid, and a miracle occurs. Of course, isolation of the "curing" nutrient, vitamin C, didn't come until the early 1900s, but that didn't stop James Lind from strongly suggesting in 1753 that the British Navy start supplementing sailor's diets with citrus fruits (a suggestion the Navy ignored for a few decades).

So work some citrus into a dinner, and keep those scurvy monsters at bay. After all, we humans can't actually make our own vitamin C . . .

What happens when hazelnuts come to breakfast?

2011-02-11T09:56:00.000-05:00

Good, wonderful, amazing, yummy things.

And, only a few days later than promised, I finally have carved out a moment to share. Granted, I should be reading about fertilizer production . . . but that will come.

RSBC 2011 is off to an amazing start.

Kara from What's Up With the Wheelers made apple-hazelnut bread pudding. If the grin on this kid's face is any indication, it was amazing. (Don't you just want to hug him?)

Brianna from Eat More Toast made hazelnut orange scones, has run 6 miles (and readers, she doesn't particularly like to run, so a round of applause!) and biked 21.2. Her camera has taken a trip somewhere warm, and left her behind to weather the Ohio winter (cruel, cruel camera), so in the white space below, paste in your own culinary imagining.

Scones are an inspiring way of using hazelnuts, as Lindsay T points out. Lindsay is the lucky mom of a 2 month old baby and is slowly getting back into her exercise routine. I love her enthusiasm--she tries to do one half marathon a year, and is playing along to help her overcome the post-baby training slump. Lindsay doesn't blog (should I say yet?), so I've posted her recipe at the bottom of this post.

Julie of food and photographer decided to eschew the sweet for a hazelnut pesto omelet. I had a happy fit when I received her email--eggs? Hazelnuts? So yummy! And almost copied her on the spot. Then realized I still had to have hazelnuts for whatever I happened to come up with. Bah.

My co-host, Lizzie (Do you remember the "Wanna be like Mike" commercials? I want to be like Lizzie. She runs everywhere! Just a side note.) made hazelnut lemon ricotta pancakes. As a lemon ricotta pancake lover, I can attest that this is a serious crowd-pleaser of an idea. Election-winning, as it were. She's logged 24 miles of running, 1/4 mile of swimming, and a vacation to Florida.

Alex of Meet and Eat is overcoming an ankle injury brought on by a hungry pothole (it tried to eat her. Seriously.), so running is not yet on the plate. But she did all the swimming in one go . . . this overwhelms me. It takes me about a week to swim 2 miles! Like Julie, Alex is falling on the savory side with a hazelnut/brussel sprouts combo that would pair so nicely with a fried egg and some orange juice. :)

I had my brother and one of my favorite friends from college in town for the weekend, and did my best to please them with a crepes topped with caramel, apples, cream and hazelnuts. It worked. We ate them all up, and then wished there were more. I'm struggling to keep my proverbial head above water (we're only two weeks into the semester, how can this be?!), so at this point I've managed to log about 6 miles of running. This is, sadly, amazing. :) Yeah grad school!

If you've never made crepes before, my recipe is below Lindsay's scone recipe.

Looking forward to seeing the sweet potato treats!

Recipe for the Hazelnut Cranberry Scones: (adapted from allrecipes.com)

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon almond extract
* 1/2 C dried cranberries
* 1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Lightly butter a 9 inch diameter circle in the center of a baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut the butter into 1/2 inch cubes, and distribute evenly over flour mixture. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut butter into the flour mixture. Stir together buttermilk, egg, and extract; add to the flour mixture, and stir to combine. Stir in the craisins and hazelnuts. The dough will be sticky.
3. Spread the dough into an 8 inch diameter circle on the baking sheet. Pre-cut with a serrated knife into 8 wedges.
4. Bake for 17 to 19 minutes, or until the top in lightly browned. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer scones to the wire rack to cool, and cut into wedges (along the lines you cut into the dough). Serve warm, or cool completely and store in airtight container.

Crepes
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/8 tsp salt

Whisk together eggs, then add milk. Whisk until combined. Add 1/3 of the milk, whisk until smooth, then add the remaining milk, whisk again. (Yes, this looks like a pain, yes, if you do it in a blender you can just dump and blend, but otherwise do it this way. It minimizes lumps. I don't like lumps.)

Drop a small pat of butter (For the first one, use a thumb-tip size, for all the rest, a pinky-tip sized pat) into an 8 or 9" non-stick skillet pre-warmed over medium-high heat. Add "just enough" batter. I know, that's a stinky measurement, it comes out to about a scant 1/4 cup. Tip/ swirl the pan so the batter coats the bottom, cook until set. Flip and cook briefly on the other side, then transfer to a plate.

Top with whatever you love.

Ironchef challenge #2!

2011-02-06T22:01:00.001-05:00

I've got a small pile of exciting hazelnut-breakfast combos in my inbox that I can't wait to share with you! However, due to the fact that between now and tomorrow night I have a bucketful of school to do, it will have to wait until Tuesday.

In the meantime, Lizzie's announced this week's sweet orange superfood challenge, go check it out and between tonight and Saturday night, get cooking! Both she and I happen to not have a single sweet potato in our respective houses, so imagine the brilliant orange beauty for yourself. Email all entries to lizzie AT themotherrunner DOT com.

Until Tuesday . . . .

Announcing Run Swim Bike Cook 2011

2011-02-01T09:01:00.002-05:00

One month into 2011. What have you accomplished? I've caught a cold, learned some basic Spanish, considered utterly changing my dissertation and stopped baking (not a goal, just a side effect of a lingering illness). I think it's time to get the rest of the year going with a few obtainable goals, and a few fun culinary challenges. Want to come along?

Enter the fourth annual Run Swim Bike Cook challenge (here for 2010, here for 2009, and here for 2008).

For those of you who haven't taken part before, here's the layout: You have 28 days to do one of the challenges, some of the challenges or all of the challenges. You decide based on your fitness level. For every challenge you complete, you will get one entry into a drawing for a yet undecided but absolutely fabulous prize.

Challenge 1: Run 26.2 miles (I suggest a mile a day)
Challenge 2: Swim 2.4 miles*
Challenge 3: Bike 112 miles**
Challenge 4: Cook 3 of the 4 superfood "iron-chef" challenges. On the first day of February and second Sunday I will post the superfood challenge for the week and category; on the first and third Sunday, Lizzie of Mother Runner (my gracious co-host this year) will post the challenge. You have a week to come up with a dish that blows us away.

Now before you freak out and run screaming, remember you have 28 days to do this. Unlike the amazing Ironman competitors, you get a whole month to do your triathlon. And this is no two hour culinary competition with glaring lights and TV cameras and hyper announcers. Nope. This is you, your superfood of the week, and your kitchen going at it for seven days.

Still not convinced? Let me sweeten the deal a bit more: you can do all your running, swimming and biking (and cooking!) inside. Or outside. Your choice.

Notes:
* One water aerobics class = 0.4 miles
**One spin class = 12 miles

Rules: Have fun. Send an email to the host (christy DOT spackman AT gmail DOT com) for this week's challenge by the following Sunday at midnight, including a link to your blogpost for the week. Your post should highlight where you are in the event, and/or have a mouthwatering pic of your ironchef entry for the week.

This week, after raiding my refrigerator and freezer for ideas, I picked beautiful, flavorful hazelnuts to grace the challenge table. As with most foods, there is little conclusive evidence that "if you eat this, you'll be set for life," which leaves us once again grasping for the definition of a superfood. My personal definition, which has driven the superfood challenges for the past four years, is that a superfood is any food that offers a little extra nutritional oomph. Hazelnuts, for example, have a lovely combination of micronutrients in addition to their intriguing flavor profile and pleasant crunch. And what better meal than breakfast for a micronutrient kick?

Pumpkin Piewhiches

2010-11-04T09:20:00.000-04:00

As mentioned before, pie trumps cake in my family. Every time. Yet cake allows a sort of architectural versatility rarely seen in pie: cakes cut and stack and expand in a variety of directions. Pie insists, however, on adhering to the geometric principles of radius, circumference, and everyone's favorite number, 3.1415 (...). Such stubborn insistence, even conformity, teases incessantly. Shouldn't pie, that most royal of delights, be dressed in wings of creativity and fly?

These questions crawled through my brain, a minor break from theory and practice, bodies and science, as I studied for and then wrote my exams. Finally, in a flash of clarity, I envisioned a pie that could burst its circumscribed boundaries. The pie-which. The necessary components? A filling willing to hold its shape, and a crust that allowed gentle compression instead of intense pressure. Given the season of baking and making stretching into our futures, pumpkin and gingerbread jumped to the forefront, waving their desire to play along.

First challenge: making gingerbread squares without a square cookie cutter. I settled on knife and form, and draftsman-like found myself with imaginary plumb lines and t-squares. Of course, you could just buy a cookie cutter, but this way may be faster.

Second challenge: square pumpkin filling. I settled on baking my pumpkin custard in a shallow water bath to provide the insulation I imagine pie crust giving, then chilling overnight. Finally, a bit of tin-foil cut into a square acted as guide as I scored an 8"X11" of pie filling into many little squares. A metal turner and some careful transferring later, the pie-which emerged triumphant, ready to dance with the best of them. (cut the edge sections of the pan, scoop out with a spoon, and eat with any broken cookie parts you may encounter; this allows access to the rest of the filling)

Of course, this beauty lost out in the annual pie competition to a s'mores pie, but I chalk that up to a failure to appreciate architectural genius, not a failure in flavor and presentation. Some contests, we firmly believe, are meant to be entered, not to be won.

Pumpkin Pie Filling
(Honestly, I just use the Libby's recipe and reduce the sugar)

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
2 large eggs
1 15 oz can of Libby's pumpkin
1 12 fl oz. can of evaporated milk (2% or whole)

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine sugar, salt and spices, mix together. Whisk eggs together, then whisk in the sugar until well combined. Next add the pumpkin, once mixed in, add the milk. Pour mixture into a buttered glass 8 1/2" X 11" glass baking pan, place that in a 9"X13" pan filled with approximately 1/2" of simmering water (I put a clean dish cloth in the bottom of the 9X13 to provide an extra bit of circulation under the dish). Bake for 10 minutes at 425F, then reduce the temperature to 350F. Bake for 30 minutes, check for doneness by inserting a knife near the center. Does it come out clean? If not, return to the oven for additional baking and continue to check every 5 minutes. Remove from oven, cool on a rack, cover and chill overnight.

Gingerbread
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup molasses
1/3 cup sour milk (milk + 1 tsp white vinegar)
(Optional, but highly recommended: the zest of one orange)

Sift together dry ingredients, set aside. Cream butter, then add sugar (orange zest, if using) and mix until light and fluffy. Add the molasses and mix well. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, mix until combined, then add half of the milk, mix until combined. Repeat: dry, wet, dry. Chill 4 hours or overnight.

Roll out to desired thickness (I generally like mine to be about 1/8" thick) on a lightly floured pastry cloth. Cut into squares and bake on a lightly greased sheet at 350 for 8 minutes. Allow to cool completely, and store in an airtight container until ready to use.

Note: The pumpkin pie filling will soften the gingerbread over time; therefore, if you want to assemble your pie-whiches a day in advance, I suggest baking the cookies a bit longer.

New media, meet old. How blogging, book writing and media make up.

2010-09-21T23:36:00.001-04:00

I've had a hard time blogging recently. Obviously. Yet at the back of my mind, I kept wondering whether I wanted to participate in Foodbuzz's Project Food Blog, not because I'm interested in blogging fame, nor because I want a book contract. Nope. Instead I wanted to participate simply because it's the perfect solution to a long-standing discussion about the tensions between new media (read: blogging, twitter, YouTube) and old media (read: NY Times, magazines, books).

If you haven't been hanging out with a group of people who really like to talk about theory and possibility on a regular basis, you probably haven't spent a lot of time thinking about tensions such as the New/Old media divide. Certainly you've been aware of it happening: think back to when the NY Times and Washington Post decided to start publishing their own food blogs (or your local paper, for that matter). Or maybe it was the day when NPR suggested you "follow" them on twitter or "like" something on facebook. Perhaps it was when you walked into a book store and saw your favorite blogger's name attached to a print copy of his or her work. Had I not been drowning in a sea of words about new media and old, I think my wake-up-and-pay attention moment would have been when Conde Nast dropped the print format of Gourmet altogether. The stunned silence after Conde Nast dropped that beautiful glass was only echoed in intensity by the immediate buzz of electronic and human voices inquiring whether new media itself was responsible for the sudden re-shaping of the food world.

Project Food Blog simply crosses the divide by taking an old model (e.g. the American Idol model, which is itself rooted in many other models) and making it new. Foodbuzz partners with those having cultural (Food and Wine) or economic (Buick) capital, and then this marriage of new and old media work together to produce the next food blog star.

Unfortunately, my self-preserving realization that passing my exams trumps food blogging at all times, leaves me on the sidelines, books in hand, cheering for friends and acquaintances as they dance through the rounds. If you'd like to join me in watching this fun little caper of new and old, I invite you to check out Project Food Blog, or look at a few contestants like Christo of Chez What or Kelly of Pink Apron.

Back to studying. :)

IFT 2010--Rethinking Food?

2010-07-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

If you've never had a chance to go to a Food Expo, I highly recommend finding one. Be it Fancy Food, or the Candy Show (if you can get a ticket to that one, please share), or some other derivative, they are fascinating cultural events that act as snapshots into the state of the food world.

I just returned from attending the Institute of Food Technologist's 2010 conference in Chicago. It's been three years since my last IFT conference, and in that gap there have definitely been a few small tremors in the food world. Financial crisis, anyone? Yet at the same time, many things remain the same. For example, the trend exhibit still pulled in an interested audience, but this time, instead of indulgence (very appropriate for the boom time of 2007), satiety was on everyone's lips. From starches to protein, to mouth-filling flavors, it seems the next year of product roll-outs will seek to help us feel more "full" in a world that feels increasingly insecure, while allowing consumers to gain the bodies, and thus the fiscal and moral security, they're dreaming of. Of course, my expectations for the success of such campaigns remains fairly low; after all, how can companies continue to make enough profit to satisfy their endlessly profit-hungry investors--critters that require feeding on a quarterly basis--while selling consumers more filling food in an environment where cost-cutting (for both producer and consumer) is the top game?

Other trends of interest: Antioxidants continue to remain top players, showing up in a variety of forms. My favorite is Mars Botanicals CirkuHealth line of cocoa extracts--unlike most chocolate hits, these contain no additional sugar (at least the Cocoa Extract Supplement beverage mix does not), allowing you to consume cocoa flavanols without the extra 100 or so calories that cocoa butter brings along. Of course, there is a pesky voice in my head asking "why not just make it yourself? Cocoa powder, mixed with a little water, then added to whatever you're consuming?" There's an even louder pesky voice whining about the "health claims" that are present on the website--yes, cocoa flavanols may have benefits, but I find it difficult to swallow the way that "helps maintain healthy circulation" is accompanied by a "this statement has not been evaluated by the FDA." Translation: we're treating this food like a nutritional supplement, which lets us make these statements, but buyer beware--it doesn't actually mean that you will get what you think you're getting. However, pesky voices aside, if you hate taking extra time to do anything, and you like dark chocolate, this product may be for you. I'll stick with my cocoa powder, but kudos to Mars Botanicals for an interesting take on chocolate milk.

Next post: what I learned at IFT about storing food, headspace, and mold growth . . .

Greening of the pans

2010-06-25T23:45:00.000-04:00

I just finished a marathon dish-washing session, attested to by slightly dry hands and swollen feet (One summer equation I dislike relearning: heat + dish doing + my feet = pain). My favorite dishes to wash are my plates (pasta bowls I found 8 or so years ago) and my non-stick pans, as both quickly and politely acquiesce their hold on food. We've had our current set of non-stick pans for about a year now, and they're beginning to show a bit of wear that will soon leave me pondering whether to get another set, or just transition my cast-iron skillet from most-of-the-time to all-of-the time duty.

Why would I transition? Maybe for concerns over chemical leaching--except I remain fairly ignorant of most of the issues surrounding chemical release from non-stick cookware. Maybe for economic purposes, as I've had my cast-iron skillet since high school (a graduation gift), whereas my non-stick cookware tends to enter and exit like migrating geese. Maybe for environmental concerns, as plastics are petroleum based (at least that's the selling point behind today's daily special: green non-stick cookware with a ceramic surface), and the oil slick floating around the Gulf makes me feel a bit hyper-aware of the amount of plastic surrounding me.

What about you? What would you do? And more importantly, why?

dietary supplements and daily specials

2010-06-19T00:16:00.000-04:00

It's still Friday somewhere, just not here. Nonetheless, I've survived a week of learning about dietary supplements from the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), and am just now thinking about normal, daily (or weekly) activities. Like peeking at the lasagna pan on the daily special and wondering why you wouldn't just use a pyrex 9X13 that you found at Salvation Army or Goodwill instead of buying one brand new. I'm just sayin' . . .
So what, exactly, does one learn when talking about dietary supplements for a week?

1-Dietary supplements are regulated like foods. This is silly.
2-You may think you're getting what the label says, but unless your dietary supplement company is paying for 3rd party validation (e.g. USP, NSF, consumerlab), the FDA just doesn't have the funding or staff to regularly chase down the large number of cheats, frauds and downright dishonest producers out there.
3-Some herbal supplements, like St.John's Wort, are amazingly potent, and have fascinating and unintended side effects. In fact, St. John's Wort somehow has the audacity to mess with your body's ability to metabolize many prescription drugs. For example: birth control alone = fairly reliable. Birth control + St. John's Wort = much, much less reliable. I found this tidbit of information fascinating.
4-Politicians are interesting creatures. They have pet projects, like dietary supplements, and those pet projects show up in national programs.
5-Dietitians, in general, are just as food-obsessed as food studies students. They just also happen to count calories and may comment on what you may be eating.

I learned a lot more than this. In fact, I learned a weapons-grade book worth of knowledge on this subject this week, but my brain is so full that it can't process anymore.

Happy weekend!

Of food shares and mystery greens

2010-06-11T20:26:00.000-04:00

I love the idea of a CSA . So much, that I extol the virtues of community supported agriculture, and then consistently fail to invest in my own share--an irony that pricks at my conscience, reminding me that if word and action fail to correspond the mental picture of "me" that I've painted will fray to a different image altogether. While such a fraying would not ruin the world, it is nice to go about, convinced that I am at least partially who I imagine myself to be!

This summer, I made the leap and purchased a half share. This felicity was facilitated, in part, by parsimony and a fatter bank account, but also by a friend who emailed me regularly to see if I wanted to split a share. I dithered and delayed, a bit like a hesitant belle until a final "Yes," escaped, and I committed.

A month or so later, the first harvest arrived. Occupied with mustering victuals for a small host of guests (a first, I admit, which is why the hostess has enough food left to feed a second party), I sent my husband to brave the security forces and withering glares of the volunteers guarding radishes and vegetables. He brought home green mysteries, Jack and the beanstalk style, to grace our little kitchen.

What are these, we wonder?

Garlic scapes, it turns out. Little shoots ready to flower and make something beautiful. Pizza perhaps? Drizzled with a little truffle oil and shaved parmesean?

A CSA share, especially a spring one, requires a few accessories. Totes, for carrying vegetables about the subway, colanders for draining greens until little bugs and bits of dirt wash away, and stomachs to put these exciting new bits of nature into.

Once again, we have the daily special from Foodbuzz to thank for easing me back into this blogging business. It is strange to be convalescing in a passion, but here I am, slowly becoming me again.

My sensory madeline: squishy chef's mats

2010-06-04T19:33:00.000-04:00

It's been four years since I graduated from culinary school--the culminating check mark on a list of dreams made before I could vote. Time quickly sweeps up the chalk dust of memory: broad swaths of impressions punctuated by intense bursts of flavor and color remain, but the daily reality of rushing from work to home, then from home to school no longer decorate my daily activities.

What do I recall?

My first encounter with another student--we registered at the same time, and I thought "I'll never be friends with this man." Within a few months we were baking pies together on the weekends, asking my bemused husband whether he preferred ginger peach or apple rosemary between his crust.

My favorite class--early Saturday mornings defined by flour, yeast, water and salt swirling together into a living, breathing silky mound of dough. Instead of a foot high paper chef's cap crowning my head, I exulted in the luxury of hair clamped down beneath a cloth baker's cap. I woke up sick one morning, so dizzy that any movement meant imminent misery, yet still tried valiantly to heal myself just so I could pound dough into little rolls of joy.

My worst day--one semester in, confidence beginning to wind its way from hand to head, when Chef walked by and asked in disgust, "Where were you when we taught you to chop an onion?"

The trickiest thing I ate--the ocean, embodied in a little tender oyster. Sea slugs? I thought, then shied away to safer mental places.

Attending culinary school did not make me a chef. Instead, it gave me the confidence necessary to stand in increasingly mediated kitchens, next to "superstar" chefs, and, after admiring their bold pink shoes (Sherry Yard) or fascinating striped pants (Gale Gand) I could instead focus on the pleasurable feeling of sinking into a gel-cushioned chef's mat while paring strawberries or chopping onion.

This culinary memory lane brought to you by today's daily special, which jumpstarted my rusty memory machine.

Toasty hot . . . or just room temperature? Induction cooktops.

2010-05-28T18:59:00.000-04:00

Summer's coming. Sticky hot evenings illuminated by static electrical crackles across the horizon. Air conditioning free apartments abandoned by their owners who gather, languid hands fanning phrases into the evening dusk, to discuss politics or fetid garbage. Instead of bread baking, ovens lie abandoned for ice cream makers (or the singing truck that dings its presence to the world, a bat's sonic boom made audible to attract young and old). Instead of gas ranges, dreams of cool cooktops where nothing burns unless it is meant to, slowly wind their sleepy tails around my brain.

Today's Foodbuzz daily special boxes that dream up and offers to ship it for a mere $1. Too bad I don't actually need a portable cooktop that seems to work like magic.

I am cool because . . . and other letter of recommendation tips

2010-04-28T22:03:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I imagine another kind of cookbook: one that provides the recipes for successful navigation of professional life. Just like other culinary books, this imaginary guide would be divided up into a variety of sections:

Snappetizers: Getting the first bite (AKA resumes and CVs)
Cocktails: Making the cut (AKA cover letters)
Big bites: Spicing up the job interview
Entrees: Day to day survival (AKA how not to alienate all your coworkers, or the good-girl's guide to playing nice with others. Step 1: listen to your colleagues. Step 2: don't hog all the attention. Step 3: show up to group functions and help. Step 4: work hard, etc. etc. etc. Step 5: share the fruits of your procrastibaking.)
Sweet finishes: Promotions and next steps

Right now I need a whole list of cocktails to play with. The mint mojito? Combine sparkling brilliance with subtle sweetness and a biting bit of humor. Tomorrow's bloody mary? Tart insight with spicy anecdotes and crunchy details.

Thinking of writing out life's overwhelming tasks like a recipe helps. There are those necessary key steps (introduction, details, conclusion), complemented by necessary flourishes. Now maybe I'll finish that letter of recommendation I'm writing myself?

Peanut butter mania!

2010-04-28T09:24:00.001-04:00

In case you missed it, the winners for the Great Peanut Butter Exhibition are in. I've posted Peanut Butter Boy's announcement below:

The results are in! We received 20 entries for this exhibition, spanning a wide range of unique dishes. Me and my co-hosts from What's For Dinner?, Scotty Snacks, and Balance donned our virtual tongues to pick our favorite recipes. While the real prizes here are the fantastic peanut butter concoctions, the first place winner will receive a huge $99 prize package from Peanut Butter & Co! I suggest you thoroughly check out each and every recipe listed, there are some interesting concoctions here. Read on to experience the incredible creativity of these submissions!

Congratulations to the winners! We loved all the entries and it’s always a tough decision but here are the undisputed peanut butter combo masters:

1st Place: Peanut Butter Gravy and Biscuits by Julia at Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body was the overall favorite. This fantastically creative dish is well deserving of the first place prize! I never imagined something like this could work so well, but now I'm eager to try it! Enjoy your peanut butter Julia!

2nd Place: Fluffernutter Cupcakes by Sara at Don't Bother Me...I'm Cooking! came in a close second.

3rd Place: Alice presented us with an interesting recipe titled Peanut "Batter" in Black Rice Mochi (abbr. title) that sounded fantastic, unlike anything we've seen before. Full recipe below:

Ingredients:
1 cup black glutinous rice flour
1 cup water
sugar, honey or other sweetener (to taste)
2 bananas
1 jar peanut butter
dried coconut chunks (use grated or powdered coconut if in a pinch)

Directions:
1. Use a blender to combine the peanut butter and 1 banana together, then add roughly chopped coconut chunks and mix by hand. Roll out onto a board or plastic freezer bag.
2. Make the mochi by combining 1 cup water and 1 cup black mochi flour in a large bowl with optional sweetener of choice and a pinch of salt. Microwave in 2 minute intervals, removing to stir for a total of 8 minutes or until the mixture is glutinous and stretchy.
3. Chop remaining banana in segments. Enclose each segment in a layer of Peanut Batter. Lay lumps on a greased board or freezer bag and slowly spoon sheets of mochi over each lump pinching together to make a smooth round(ish) ball. You may need to wet or grease fingers to avoid gumming your hands together. Chill and serve, or eat warm.

All Blog Entries

Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Candied Bacon - from Elle's Kitchen

Flourless Peanut Butter & Coconut Cookies - from Sweet & Savory

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Black Bean Brownies with PB Cream Cheese Frosting - from Food Makes Fun Fuel

Peanut Butter Pork Potstickers - from Biggest Diabetic Loser

PB&J Banana Bread - from Healthy Food for Living

Peanut Butter Jelly Banana Bread - from Lucky Taste Buds!

Spicy Vegetable Fritters with Peanut Butter Yogurt‏ - from It's Alimentary

Spicy Thai Peanut Butter Pizza - from Veggies and Valentino

Ultimate Breakfast Banana Split - from Bran Appetit!

Peanutt-y Beet Souffle - from La Reina Batata

Peanut Butter Granola Bars - from Savvy Baker

Submitted Recipes

Vegan Peanut Butter Pretzel Pie by Manuel Addams

Crust:
3/4 cup crushed pretzels (crushed fine with a food processor or rolling pin)
3 tablespoons white sugar
6 tablespoons margarine, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl combine the sugar and pretzel crumbs. Drizzle in the melted margarine and stir until the crumbs are all coated with the butter. Press the mixture firmly into a 9 inch pie plate, making sure to come up the sides of the pan. Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Cool on a rack while you prepare the filling.

Filling:
1 cup vegan cream cheese (follow your heart or tofutti), room temperature
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups vegan topping cream (Soyatoo)

In a mixer combine the softened cream cheese , sugar and peanut butter until smooth. This mixture will be thick. I added one scoop of Soyatoo and stirred to lighten it up a bit before adding the rest of the Soyatoo and gently folding to combine the two mixtures fully. Pour this into the cooled pretzel crust and chill for 2 hours.

Peanut Butter Matzah Pizza By Susan Kaplan

1 large round shmura matzah.
1 jar dark chocolate peanut butter
1 jar of reduced sugar organic blackberry preserves
1 cup chopped diced apples
1 cup chopped diced pears
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup lemon juice

Place matzah on a flat round plate. Place apples and pears in a small bowl with lemon juice and toss to coat lemon juice on apples and pears to prevent oxidation. Spread peanut butter very slowly on the matzah so it does not break. Spread preserves on top of the peanut butter. Using a strainer, strain the liquid from the apple and pear mixture. Sprinkle the apple and pear mixture over the preserves. Sprinkle the nuts over the fruit mixture. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Serve right away by gently cutting the pizza with pizza cutter. If all the ingredients are kosher for Passover, this makes a great dessert after the seder!

Fluffernutter Oatmeal by Zach Nerenberg

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oatmeal (not instant)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp peanut butter (or PB2)
1 Tbsp marshmallow fluff

Prepare oatmeal as directed. After oatmeal is cooked, add in the brown sugar, peanut butter, and fluff. Stir and enjoy!

Sweet Potato Muffins with Peanut Butter center by Abby Langbehn

Muffins:
¾ c. whole wheat flour
¾ c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
½ t. baking powder
½ t. salt
1 ½ t. cinnamon
1/8 t. cloves
1 ¼ c. sweet potato (microwaved until soft, skin removed, and mashed)
1 c. sugar
1 1/8 c. milk (soy, almond, or dairy)

Peanut Butter Filling:
½ c. peanut butter, natural
3 T. pure maple syrup

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 375.
2) Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cloves in bowl. Set aside.
3) In separate bowl, use hand mixer to mix sweet potato with milk, until creamy. Add sugar and mix well.
4) Add dry ingredients to sweet potato mixture and stir until combined. Be careful not to overstir. Mixture will be thick.
5) In small bowl, combine peanut butter and maple syrup until creamy and well-mixed.
6) Fill muffin tin with cupcake liners, and fill tins with enough batter to cover the bottom. Make an indent in the middle of the batter, and place a dollop (about ¾ T.) of peanut butter filling in the middle. Cover the peanut butter filling completely with remaining muffin batter.
7) Bake for 17-18 minutes. Let cool before digging in!

Peanut Butter Cone by Ashley

1 ice cream cone
1 Tbs. peanut butter
1 scoop of ice cream

Fill/line an ice cream cone with peanut butter like you would the edges of a peanut butter cup. Enjoy any flavor of ice cream on top. (Bonus points for one with PB, of course!) When you get to the cone, you have a nice salty layer to sink your teeth into.

PB and Bacon Sandwich by Donna Harvey

Toast whole wheat or another good bread. Crisp up some lean bacon - real crisp – then drain and crumble. Spread peanut butter on toasted bread; sprinkle bacon crumbs on top -- add salt and pico de gallo, or you can also add tomato or cucumber slices.

Additional Info:

While "Peanut Butter Boy" sounds like a superhero name I am in fact human, and if I've forgotten anyone's submission please let me know. Also, I hope ya'll don't mind that I touched up some of your photos a bit.

How to make a strawberry milkshake, and other life lessons

2010-04-06T23:28:00.000-04:00

Step 1: Make strawberry jam. Preferably from berries purchased from a street cart vendor on Broadway.
Step 2: Put jam in jars. Because you're low on "real" canning jars, use a few leftover ones you've been collecting, like that baby food jar.
Step 3: Cap tightly, place in water, and bring to a boil.
Step 4: Turn your attention to the kind men visiting with you and yours. Serve them lemon meringue pie.
Step 5: Turn back to your jam and realize that the baby food jar cap has come off. Panic.
Step 6: Remove jar.
Step 7: Knock over jar in your attempt to pour off the water invading your precious creation. Jam everywhere.
Step 8: Turn red.
Step 9: Wipe up the worst of the spill, and feel grateful that half of it just spilled on your now empty dessert plate.
Step 10: Say goodbye to the nice men. When the door closes, grab a glass, add a cup of ice cream and a cup of 1% milk, and dump all of the spilled jam into the jar, and mush around.
Step 11: Get very, very possessive of this little bit of cold spring-almost-summer flavor that you happen to be holding in your hands. Almost Gollum-ish, one could say. Think better of it, and share with husband.
Step 12: Vow to have a milkshake for breakfast tomorrow.

As a reminder, there are a few days left in the Great Peanut Butter Exhibition. This month's theme is Delectable Duo - any recipe where the two star ingredients are peanut butter and any other ingredient. To enter, submit your best peanut butter (or other nut butter) recipe following the guidelines below. The deadline is Monday, April 12th @ Noon (EST).

Judging Criteria:

Uniqueness, Peanut Butter Weight, Presentation and Preparation Time.

Rules:

Post and submit your "Delectable Duo" recipe by the deadline.
Please link to this page from your posted recipe to indicate that you are entering this contest.
Pictures are highly recommended but not required.
One (1) entry per person so choose wisely.
You may use any nut butter but don't list any brand names in the recipe.

Feel free to use any of the logos on this page, including the following, to link back:

Blogless? Don't worry if you don't have a blog, you can still submit your award-winning recipe. Fill out the same form below but leave the "Recipe Permalink" field blank, fill out the "Recipe" box and feel free to attach a picture to go along with the recipe!

Submission:

Click here to submit your recipe online. Or, email "pbe@peanutbutterboy.com" with "PBE #8" as the subject and include the following information:Name, Email, Recipe Title, Recipe or Recipe Permalink

Prize:

All recipes will be displayed but the judges will vote for the Top 3. All 3 winners receive a badge of pride to display on their site but the first place winner will receive the following prize package, courtesy of Peanut Butter & Co.:

6 jars of PB&Co peanut butter (1 of each flavor)
3 boxes of PB&Co peanut butter squeeze packs (1 of each flavor)
3 boxes of PB&Co baking mixes (1 of each)
1 signed cookbook

The entire prize package retails for $99, except of course the priceless aspect of Lee Zalben's (Founder of PB&Co) signature.

* PBE Logos courtesy of the talented Kristina Sacci.

Urban Food Systems Course through UVM--a great way to see NYC!

2010-04-02T00:52:00.001-04:00

I'm co-teaching an intensive course this May on New York City's Urban Food Systems, and thought I'd share a bit about the class--registration is open until April ~~5th~~ 9th, and if you've ever wanted to really gain a broad understanding of how New Yorkers get fed, (and taste the foods they eat) this is a great way to do it. For all of the official information and necessary registration links, see here. Below I've included a brief overview of how the course flows, and some examples of things we did last year and things we are hoping to do this year.

Taste a demographic transition: understanding an urban food system requires understanding its people. Urban Food Systems: NYC begins with an introduction to past and current NYC history and the immigrants that shape(d) the city by bringing students into the neighborhoods where immigrants live and work.

Ultra Urban agriculture: how in a city that is mostly blacktop and apartment buildings can anyone find safe soil, sunlight and space for growing things to eat?

The economic divide: explore who has access to what types of foods, and how those foods are procured.

NYC's food manufacturing mavens: How, in a city where one can pay more than $1000 for a closet, can someone afford to open a pickle business, or make chocolate by hand? And who are these bold entrepreneurs? What about larger scale manufacturers and distributors?

Things we did last year (LY) or are considering doing this year:

(LY) Explore New York's iconic Lower East Side neighborhood and learn about how immigration shaped the city, and the nation. See first-hand the current changes brought on by a new wave of immigrants while you walk the streets, taste the foods, and explore where new New Yorker's work, shop and live.

Learn how "8 million urbanites get fresh veggies" by visiting Hunt's Point the "world's largest distribution center"

(LY) See how hungry New Yorker's find food: volunteer at a local food bank.

Discover bodega culture and gain a first-hand understanding of a food desert: visit bodegas in multiple distinct neighborhoods, ask yourself "what do they offer and why?" then visit Jetro, the major supplier for most Bodegas in NYC.

(LY) Learn how a small storefront dumpling factory becomes a state-of-the art manufacturing facility and gets recognized in Crain's when we visit TMI.

Meet (some of) the people responsible for converting Brooklyn's backyards into farmyards when we visit with BK Farmyards and discuss how re-imagining previously inaccessible spaces into community spaces can change the way food production and procurement works.

(LY) Meet some of the small food manufacturers responsible for Brooklyn's food renaissance, then eat their food while discussing the role that individuals can have on the food production scene in a city the size of New York.

The nitty gritty: "If I take this course, what will it cost me?"
The Program Fee is $740, that fee includes one week's housing, 5 lunches, 4 dinners, an endless parade of foods to sample, transportation and admittance fees while in New York. In addition to the Program Fee, students still need to pay for 3 credits of tuition and their transportation to get to NYC. Three credits of tuition at UVM are equal to:

Vermont residents = $1,245
Out of State residents = $3,141

PB cookie cups: "Utah" food culture fights back . . .

2010-03-29T17:05:00.001-04:00

I grew up in a small town in Northern Utah. If you've read Scarlett Lindeman's recent Atlantic article "Jell-O Love: A Guide to Mormon Cuisine" you now know that most of my early energy sources came from Jell-O, funeral potatoes, frog-eye salad, fry sauce and Hawaiian Haystacks. Although all are lovely foods, my biased memory (as all memories are, I must add) oddly categorizes these giants of the Utah food world into the "church dinner" category, where all played second fiddle to an overcooked ham and baked potatoes cruelly ruined by a wrapping in foil. Instead, when I think of Utah food, I think of cookies.

Lots of cookies.

Cookies at parties, cookies at dances, cookies at events, cookies at home. I cut my baking teeth on cookies, each of my brothers followed suit. When someone new showed up in the neighborhood, we took them cookies (or jam, or bread, or if it was summer, lots of zucchini). When asking someone out, a message hidden in a cookie was de rigueur. Even Sunday School lessons involved cookies; the teacher would pull out a tantalizingly beautiful plate of cookies with too much salt as a multi-sensory object lesson on how evil masquerades as good.

I rarely bake cookies now, preferring the chemical wonder of experimenting with flour:fat:sugar:water ratios that muffins, quickbreads and cakes offer. I'm comfortable dancing in that land, thinking of new steps and cadences, twirling here or there while I try to find the limit where texture and tastebuds collide. Cookies always seem like something someone else does well, and I am quite content to follow their lead like a slightly distracted puppy on a leash. My caramel popcorn cookies? A lovely anomaly.

However, in light of the slander on Utah's food culture, it seems fitting to bring the cookie out, dress it up a bit, and give it a new place in life. Enter the peanut butter cookie cup (recipe way, way below).

Since the Great Peanut Butter Exhibition is back in town (I happen to be lucky enough to co-host with What's For Dinner?, Scotty Snacks, and The Peanut Butter Boy), I decided to dress up the Peanut Butter cookie in a new pair of shoes and a fancy new outfit to celebrate, and as a friendly challenge to all of my readers to get out their own jars of peanut butter and create something new and exciting, while still retaining that hint of the familiar.

The theme for this round of the Peanut Butter Exhibition is Delectable Duo - any recipe where the two star ingredients are peanut butter and any other ingredient. This is a wide open theme so get creative, much emphasis will be placed on the uniqueness of the second ingredient. Think of it as a Mad Lib, simply fill in the blank: "Peanut Butter and ______". To enter, submit your best peanut butter (or other nut butter) recipe following the guidelines below. The deadline is Monday, April 12th @ Noon (EST) which gives you a full 2 weeks to brainstorm, develop and create a peanut butter duo that will shake the bowels of the earth!

Judging Criteria:

Uniqueness, Peanut Butter Weight, Presentation and Preparation Time.

Rules:

Post and submit your "Delectable Duo" recipe by the deadline.
Please link to this page from your posted recipe to indicate that you are entering this contest.
Pictures are highly recommended but not required.
One (1) entry per person so choose wisely.
You may use any nut butter but don't list any brand names in the recipe.

Submission:

Prize:

6 jars of PB&Co peanut butter (1 of each flavor)
3 boxes of PB&Co peanut butter squeeze packs (1 of each flavor)
3 boxes of PB&Co baking mixes (1 of each)
1 signed cookbook

The entire prize package retails for $99, except of course the priceless aspect of Lee Zalben's (Founder of PB&Co) signature.

* PBE Logos courtesy of the talented Kristina Sacci.

Peanut Butter Cookie Cups with Chocolate Chantilly
1 cup + 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 cup semolina flour (or substitute in an additional 1/4 cup of all-purpose)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
seeds of 1 cardamom pod, ground in a mortar and pestle OR 1/4 tsp cardamom
1/8 tsp salt
7 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup crunchy or smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup finely chopped peanuts
Chocolate chantilly mousse (see below)

Whisk together flours, soda, baking powder, salt and cardamom. Set aside. Mix butter until smooth, then add peanut butter and sugars. Cream for 2-3 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add egg and cream for an additional minute or until well-incorporated. Add flour mixture, mix until combined, then add peanuts. Mix an additional minute. Transfer to a lidded container and refrigerate 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350.
Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4 " thick or so. Liberally prick the dough with a fork ("dock" it), then cut out 1.5" diameter rounds using a round biscuit or cookie cutter. Put each round into the cup of a mini muffin tin, and press the dough as needed to make it fit. Bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven, allow to cool for 5 minutes, then invert tin to remove cookie cups.

Once cookie cups are completely cooled, pipe or spoon chocolate chantilly into the cups, and serve.

Chocolate Chantilly, AKA chocolate mousse for the time-pressed woman
This is one of my favorite "fun" things to do. It's so easy! Even better, it comes with a dose of cool food science. Supposedly the better your chocolate is, the better the mousse. Makes sense, but it works quite well with Nestle Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate chips, so don't feel like you need to run out and buy the finest for the first time. Although it never hurts to have good chocolate around . . .
Needed: 2 nesting bowls, metal works especially well
One fabulous whisk
Ice
A small saucepan
Equal weights chocolate and water
(e.g. 200 ml water, 200ish g chocolate; for a thicker cream, use more chocolate)

Make an ice water bath in the larger of the nesting bowls, place the smaller bowls in the ice water bath. Combine chocolate and water in a small saucepan over medium heat and allow the chocolate to melt, stirring occasionally. Once all the chocolate is melted, transfer the chocolate water to the smaller metal bowl in the ice water bath and "whisk like fury" until the mixture thickens and changes color. Place in the refrigerator until use (You'll probably see a little of the water weep out if you wait multiple days). Here's where I learned about it:

Sources consulted in the creation of this peanut butter cookie recipe: Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours, one of my mother's community cookbooks.

Vanilla goes pie: Vanilla-strawberry-rhubarb pie in a chili crust

2010-03-25T00:22:00.001-04:00

Sometimes being a bit charitable has its rewards. As we finished wiping down the kitchen after StirIt 28, Christo of ChezWhat? asked me if I'd be interested in playing around with a variety of new foods some time soon. I wiggled my toes in anticipation and ventured, "Spring break?"

So, when the paper writing and grading and researching pile got whittled down to a mere inch deep, I packed up my favorite toys and met up with Christo, Kian of Red Cook, and Joanne of Eats Well With Others to take on a "minor" culinary challenge from Brooklyn-based Marx Foods, a high-end food distributor that luckily has a soft spot for home chefs: What does one do when given a chest full of exotic meats, and a bag full of sizzling spices?

Make dinner, of course. How about osso-bucco, red-cooked, or tea-smoked quail with asparagus, or a fresh pile of pasta with a cinnamon lamb-merguez tomato sauce, or wild boar chops and wild boar tenderloin marinated in mulato and ancho chiles served with purple mashed potatoes and yams? That was just the beginning, though. It was, as Kian put it, a carnivore's delight. Joanne called it dinner impossible; Christo dubbed it meatious exoticus. Read each, for a Rashomon-style peek into our four interpretations of the same evening.

I made mustard-rubbed rack of lamb with chimichurri, and a pork chop marinated in a poblano-chipotle-garlic-maple sugar mixture, served with chipotle apple sauce. And best of all, I got to make itty-bitty baby pies.

Vanilla-strawberry-rhubarb pies, with a mulato-chili pie crust. On a pie-scale of 1-10, they were pretty good, with one minor problem keeping them from great: not enough filling in itty-bitty-pies. Because it turns out that when you chop up a wonderful, perfectly moist tahitian vanilla beans , and put them in a strawberry rhubarb pie, very good things happen. Once again, I must ask "what to do?"

Play around some more, I guess!

Mulato-chili pie crust
An adaption of my pie crust; please follow link for detailed basic crust instructions with pictures
4 cups all-purpose flour, unbleached
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter (3 sticks), cut into pieces and then chilled
1 dried mulato or poblano chili, seeds removed and torn into smallish pieces
1/3 cup boiling water
1 beaten egg
1 tsp cider vinegar
2 ice cubes or so, enough to bring the water up to ~1/2 cup

Combine water and chili. Allow to soak until cooled to room temperature, ~15 minutes. While the chilis are soaking, work on your flour: combine flour, salt and baking powder. Cut in fat until mixture resembles pea-sized (and smaller) crumbs; place in a refrigerator.

Once chilis have soaked, place in a blender and blend, then pass the liquid through a fine strainer. Use the back of the spoon to push through the extra chilis, you should get a paste. Add the egg, vinegar and ice cubes, mix together until the water/chili is ice cold. Remove remaining ice cube bits.

Remove flour/fat mixture from the fridge, and add almost all, but not quite all, of the icy chili water. Toss to combine, you should get a dough that is slightly wet and holds together. Form into 5 disks, and wrap each disk in plastic wrap. Freeze any pie crust you're not going to use, place the remainder in the refrigerator

Vanilla-Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie Filling
1 vanilla bean
1 lb fresh strawberries that actually smell like strawberries when you buy them
1 lb rhubarb
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
dash of salt

Finely chop vanilla bean. Husk and rough-dice strawberries. Rough-dice rhubarb. Toss the vanilla bean, strawberries and rhubarb together in a bowl. Combine flour, sugar and salt, sprinkle over strawberries, and toss. Place in the fridge, covered, and let macerate for as little as 15 minutes, or up to an hour. Remove from refrigerator, place in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat for ~10 minutes, or until the mixture begins to simmer and thicken. Remove from heat.You can actually store this mixture, refrigerated, for up to a week before baking into your pie. Which means you can keep making small pies until your patience, or filling, runs out.

Assembling the pie
After trying itty-bitty-pies, and finding them lacking, I moved on to free-form, where the vanilla flavor could truly shine! (and the pie guts to crust ratio was more how I like it)

So how do you do a free-form pie? Roll out one of your pie crust discs, ideally on a floured pastry cloth, place rolled out crust in a parchment or silpat or aluminum-lined pie dish or baking sheet, put cooled vanilla-strawberry-rhubarb filling in the center, enough to cover the middle while still leaving a 2" edge all-around, then fold the sides up over the crust. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes, then cover crust with tin-foil (I just cut a hole in the center) and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until the filling is nice and bubbly.

This makes enough for 1, 9" deep dish pie (in which case you'd need 2 of those pie-crust disks, not just one), or 18 itty-bitty-pies, or however many free-form tarts you can make before you run out of filling.

Making myself sick on Irish sodabread, and other tales of culinary shenanigans

2010-03-16T23:16:00.000-04:00

I may be a chex mix of Western European ancestry, with a dash of Scandinavian thrown in for flavor, but as far as I can tell (after hunting through my genealogy) there's not a bit of Irish in me. Potato farming runs in my blood, thanks to a dose of Idaho, yet the great potato famine didn't scar my past. However, here I am, a kitchen messy with soda bread, corned beef, and bits of cabbage, thinking about how foods create reality-transcending stories as I try to imagine myself into a past where I do not belong.

The iconic American example of culinary myth making is Thanksgiving, of course. My 2nd grade self can tell you a lovely story of friendship and partnership, embodied in a Thanksgiving feast to rival those dined on by royalty elsewhere. My 20th grade self responds with a newer story of mid- to late 18th and early 19th century cultural needs and political expediency faced by a nation looking to rebuild itself.

What culinary myth am I re-enacting, then, as I create my "traditional" Irish dinner? Hasia Diner (who recently lectured in a class I am taking), argues that the effects of the famine in Ireland, coupled with the inordinately large number of female Irish immigrants who "entered America through her kitchens" created a culinary vacuum of sorts for Irish Americans. In a most simplified sense (as google books feels fit to exclude some pages from my view, and I am not venturing out in today's deluge to visit the library), there were no loved dishes or foods to celebrate from the Irish homeland simply because there was such a paucity of food. That empty-bellied lack voyaged to the U.S., looking for economic opportunities unavailable in Ireland, and found herself cooking for middle-class America--an unappreciative mistress, it turns out, who saw her Irish maid as a plague to be borne and a scapegoat for household ills. Rare was the woman, unappreciated at work, and haunted by memories of hunger, who created a memorable "Irish" feast at home for her family. Food mattered to daily survival, but food did not define Irish ethnicity. (Hasia Diner, Hungering for America: Italian, and Jewish Foodways in the age of Migration, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001)

Using Hasia Diner's interpretation of history, it appears my display of ethnic identity is a reminder of times of want and need, of times of crushing economic uncertainty and hopeful opportunity. I have not known the kind of hunger that creates a culture not defined by food (something I give thanks for daily), but I have known uncertainty and opportunity, want and need. So tonight, while the elements rage, I eat a history not my own to better prepare for what tomorrow could bring.

Irish Soda Bread
Adapted from Bread: A Baker's Book of Tecniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman
7 oz all-purpose flour (1 5/8 cups)
2.5 oz old-fashioned oatmeal, ground (3/4 cup)
1 oz whole wheat flour (1/4 cup)
1 Tbsp Brown sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup + 2 Tbsp buttermilk
1 tsp caraway seeds
1/3 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 475F. Place the oatmeal in a food processor or blender and process until broken down, but still slightly coarse. Mix all the dry ingredients together with a whisk, then add the buttermilk. Mix gently just until the dough comes together. Hamelman says it should be "quite moist, but not runny." Mine was a bit sticky, but not bad.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat together into a ball by cupping your hands around the dough and pushing the dough away with your left hand while you pull the dough towards you with your right. If that makes absolutely no sense to you, do whatever works to get a ballish shape. Lightly flour the ball, then transfer to a parchment lined sheet pan. Cut a cross on top of the dough to split it into four quadrants, when you cut, do not go all the way through the dough, just "80 percent of the way."

Bake at 475 for 15 minutes, then lower the oven to 450 and bake until done, approximately 20 minutes. My oven runs hot, so if yours does, I suggest starting at 475, and dropping the temperature a bit earlier. In fact, my bread took closer to 25-30 minutes to bake. The crust should be a pretty brown. Lovely with honey butter or strawberry jam.

Made at home: Flour Tortillas

2010-03-13T22:26:00.000-05:00

Wheat or corn?

Ever since returning from Puebla, Mexico, the "grain divide" has plagued me. Wrapped up in those two similar yet disparate staples of life are entire worlds of conflict, politics, power, authority and authenticity. Corn, native to the Americas, became a marker of class with Spanish colonization. Wheat, not-native, and a bit temperamental--finicky, actually--in its new home, became the food that those puttin' on airs consumed, at least in public. Yet the bakers of fluffy wheat breads were characterized as criminals, while the makers of hand patted tortillas were both sainted mother and slave to the metate? Meanwhile, behind closed doors the wheat-eaters ate corn. Centuries later, the conversation continues. Wheat or corn?

This time, though, it's the question I ask at night when we decide to make tacos for dinner. It is invariably followed by a discussion of why I think all tacos need pineapple on them . . .

Corn generally wins.

But on days when I want to remember my childhood, wheat gets a moment to shine.

Flour Tortillas (from my mom)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp shortening or lard (my mom uses 2 Tbsp)
1/2 to 3/4 cup warm water

Mix together flour, salt and baking powder. Add shortening and rub the flour and shortening between your fingers until well dispersed. Add the water, starting with 1/2 cup, and mix together. You should get a moist, pliable dough that is not sticky. If too dry, add a bit more water, a tbsp at a time. Divide into 8 balls, cover the dough not in use, and roll out into rounds. Cook in a hot pan (I use cast-iron) about 1-2 minutes on each side. Wrap the warm tortillas in a clean towel until use.

SlimFast, Beware! The barley smoothie is coming to town . . .

2010-03-04T08:53:00.001-05:00

I find myself up early, little invisible elves hammering out a fault line from my shoulder, up over my head, and down to my eyes. One side of me, normal, the other, well, we're not on speaking terms. On the plus side, an earlier-than-usual morning, punctuated by the soft chirps of just-returning birds and the overhead honk of a traveling flock of geese, is the perfect excuse to share a new culinary adventure, inspired by (but not completed in time for) the last culinary challenge of RSBC 2010.

Granted, ChezUs threw down the barley-for-dinner gauntlet, and I'm picking up a just-do-something with barley challenge, but we can blame that on the pain, right?

Barley fascinates me, from its toothsome (oh, I like that word) texture to its intriguing shape and pleasantly nutty taste. Like oats, barley contains significant levels of beta-glucan, a form of insoluble fiber that is linked with lowering detectable levels of cholesterol in blood (see here and here). However, the research I've found is a bit mixed on whether barley beta-glucans actually lower blood cholesterol levels in humans--some studies show it does, some show no effect.

What do we make of research, then, when it doesn't agree? First, a quick run-down of the perils of investigating the effects of food consumption in the body. The clinical trial model is based, to some extent, on the assumption* that the product being tested carries some pharmaceutical-like levels of activity that will occur at detectable levels. When testing an isolated, purified and concentrated form of a compound, a researcher is much more likely to see an effect than when testing a compound in a food matrix, interacting with and perhaps masked by all the other things eaten or drunk in a day, a week, a month, or over years.

Consider, for example, an experience I had as a human guinea pig a few years back: I signed up to participate in a study examining the effects of caffeine on concentration. I rarely consume caffeine (unless in the form of chocolate), as I neither drink coffee nor black or green tea, so I was a perfect candidate for their "caffeine naive" group. I would go in early in the morning without eating anything for breakfast (a serious trial), be given a granola bar and a pill (either a placebo sugar pill or a caffeine-containing sugar pill--I couldn't tell the difference when I took the pill), and then participate in a series of tests of my awareness of events and memory. Some days, I didn't notice any effects, but one day, I thought I was going to never stop shaking. I knew I'd just been given a fairly large dose of caffeine, and I knew it had had an effect on my body (when I asked later I think they said it was between the level of caffeine in 2 or 3 cups of coffee).

Yet when researchers test the physiological (in body) effects of food consumption, the picture is much less clear. Humans are complex creatures, and the levels of biologically active compounds in most foods are quite small compared to the levels of biologically active compounds found in drug doses. This makes it extremely difficult to detect effects, and fails to acknowledge that foods are not consumed as single ingredients, nor are they consumed as pills (thankfully). Marion Nestle argues this quite well with regards to heart disease and nutrients:

"Recall that nutrition research is difficult to do because diets contain many foods, foods contain many nutrients and other chemicals that affect health, and other behavioral, socioeconomic, and genetic factors influence heart disease. Studies of single nutrients take these chemicals out of their food, dietary, caloric, and lifestyle contexts and are, therefore, reductive."

"Such studies tend to produce ambiguous results that demonstrate small differences, if any. Small differences create situations ripe for interpretation. Interpretation depends on the viewpoint of the interpreter. That is why it helps to know who is doing the interpreting and who sponsored the studies."

So why even consider barley, or any other food for that matter, as a superfood? Why even have a superfood challenge? My main goal, in designing the month-long Run Swim Bike Cook event (which will come around again in February 2011), is to raise awareness of how our activity levels and the foods we eat make us feel. Thinking about new ways to incorporate exercise, fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains into our daily activities challenges us to examine our own worldviews. Think you're not built for exercising? Set an achievable goal and work towards it (like running/walking 26 miles in 28 days). Not necessarily a fan of butternut squash? Try putting it in your next dessert. A bit mystified by barley because you've never cooked with it before? Try making barley salad, or Iranian barley soup, or chicken and barley. And on and on we go . . .

Finally, we get to the recipe portion of this post, and why I'm suggesting that Slim Fast start scurrying for cover. About a week ago my father called me, after seeing the barley challenge, and suggested that I make a horchata-like barley drink that his friend Jose had made for him. Always game, I gave it a try, and discovered in the process that cooked barley + water + spices + banana = a really yummy, filling, and low-calorie smoothie.

Barley Smoothie
Time: about 45 minutes, most of which is spent waiting for the barley to cook
Makes 2 large smoothies, or 4 small smoothies

1/4 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup water
1/2 cinnamon stick
2 strips of orange peel (optional)
a pinch of clove (optional)
2 cups water
1 frozen banana
any other fresh or frozen fruits that meet your fancy, fresh pineapple is highly recommended

Combine barley, 1/2 cup water, the cinnamon stick and orange peel in a small sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, remove the orange peel and cook for 30 minutes or until the barley is tender. Remove the cinnamon stick and transfer the barley to a blender. Add 1/2 cup additional water, and blend until smooth. Then add the remaining water, the cloves, banana and any other fruits you have on hand and whirl away until smooth.

Serve with a bendy straw.

*From a purely statistical point of view, the assumption going into all studies is that there is no effect; your data must then prove that assumption wrong.

Picture, for a snowy evening

2010-02-27T23:15:00.000-05:00

I find myself missing the sun a bit today. So here is some sunshine to share.

Cran-appys: RSBC 2010 week 3 roundup

2010-02-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

When I ran the 1600 meter race in track, the third lap always wrapped its circular finger around my heart like a line of barbed wire, and then applied pressure. "Quit!" it whispered. Finding me resistant, it changed its tune to "Slow down!" and occasionally, "Give up!"

The third week of February, which is the third week of RSBC 2010 (AKA the annual balance Ironman meets Ironchef event) reminds me of that third lap. Granted, I was throwing together the last-minute NYC arm of StirIt 28, a life-stopping event if I've ever encountered one, but phew! What a week.I made up cranberry/mushroom/apple potstickers for my appetizer contribution to StirIt 28 NYC, and of course didn't take a picture. And running, biking, swimming? I have no idea. I think I did some, but who knows how much . . .

Luckily there are more intrepid souls in this world, and they take pictures of their amazing creations:

Kara made cranberry salsa, and plans to make it again and again.

Justin and Brianna made cranberry apple chutney and entertained little nieces and nephews. The pool's still giving them trouble, scuttling left and right to avoid any contact with the Wheeler clan. (I'm having the same problem here. Bad pool. Bad.)

And finally, Trish made a fabulous (and spicy!) cranberry jezebel sauce. I love that there are chili peppers in this sauce. Yum!

So, if you didn't make it into the cranberry round, but you'd like to participate in our final culinary challenge, head over to Chez Us for the final challenge. Good luck!

StirIt28--Recapping a night of fun in NYC

2010-02-21T23:55:00.002-05:00

How do you take a class-room and turn it into a space where good things happen? A little chalk, some Chinese New Year's decorations, and an imaginative table arrangement help. Remembering to turn on the spotlights is useful, too . . . oops!

Most importantly, you bring together a dynamic group of people, feed them great food, provide fun new music, and let them do the rest.

The remains of amazing Lettuce Wraps (Brooklyn Forager)

Red Cooked Pork bun (RedCook)

They may eat all the food before you take pictures, but if you're lucky a bit is left in the kitchen. Sadly, only a small portion of what we ate is available for your vicarious consumption, and many of my pictures fail to do them justice. I have no photos of Janet (JloEats) transforming a table into a bustling bar, nor of Sam's fabulous dumplings.

Lemongrass corn soup (me)

Vegetarian Spring Rolls (Chez What?)

Enchiladas Rojas (Fresh, Local and Best)

Walnut Cookies (Bloggerlicious Athena) and a last-minute Chocolate Banana Coconut Bread Pudding (Joanne Eats Well With Others)

Celebration Cupcakes (My Baking Therapy)

(most of ) The amazing people who made it possible to throw together a fundraiser in 7 days. A round of applause, please.

All proceeds from this fundraiser will be donated to Share Our Strength and Yele Haiti at the end of the month. If you'd like to contribute, but just couldn't make it, donations will be accepted through February 28th at http://www.Flanboyateats.com.

StirIt 28 NYC: menu, details, and a shout-out

2010-02-20T10:02:00.003-05:00

After a week of feverish planning, we're finally getting the final bits into place for StirIt 28 NYC. If you're not aware, StirIt 28 is a month-long blogger-originated fundraising effort to raise money for the earthquake victims in Haiti, thought up by Bren of Flanboyant Eats, Chrystal of The Duo Dishes , and Courtney of CocoCooks. All of the proceeds from this event, and I mean ALL (100%) of the proceeds, are going directly to our partner charities: Share Our Strength and Yele Haiti. What an amazing event!

If you haven't bought your tickets yet for New York City, Atlanta, L.A. or Chicago, go here or here to buy tickets by clicking on the StirIt 28 badge, which will take you to a paypal page. Just remember to indicate which city you're getting tickets for!

NYC tickets are $30 for the general public, and $20 for students. Students must pay via the PayPal General Online Donation button on http://www.cococooks.blogspot.com or http://www.flanboyanteats.com and indicate "NYU student ticket" in notes. Must show student ID at the door.

When: Sunday, February 21, 2010; 4-7pm
Where: 35 W. 4th Street, 10th Floor

Menu (with links to the bloggers preparing)

Appetizers
Dumpling Bar:

Veggie Dumplings,Cranberry Mushroom Dumplings, Pork & Cabbage Dumplings

Panko stuffed shiitake mushrooms

Spring rolls, both vegetarian and non

Entrees

Lemongrass corn soup

Enchiladas rojas

Red Cooked Pork on Steamed Buns & Cucumber Salad

Minced Chicken in Lettuce Cups Mushrooms & Tofu in lettuce cups

Desserts

Chinese-flavor inspired cupcakes

Walnut Cookies

Vegan chocolate chip cookies with hints of cinnamon and star anise

Schedule

4:00-4:45 Appetizers, cocktails, mocktails, and Fizzy Lizzy love, door prizes, hands-on dumpling making mini-class and a performance by Scott Alexander

4:45-5:00 Welcome

5:00-6:00 Dinner & Spins by DJ LP

6:00-7:00 Dessert and story time, with a guest appearance by The Love Story Thief and music by The Creoles

Cooking for a Cause: StirIt 28

2010-02-18T00:42:00.003-05:00

About a month ago I started noticing little yellow and green badges popping up on a few of my favorite badges. A few days later, I opened up facebook to find that yellow and green badge on my screen again, this time in the form of an invite from Courtney of CocoCooks. "Chicago," I thought, a bit of nostalgia and longing for the place I still think of as home, creeping past my mental get-over-it-and-love-New-York defenses, before going to hit "not attending." But before my finger made that final decline, a strange little notion crossed my mind: "Why isn't anyone in New York doing this?"

That question haunted me.

And then I had a moment of insanity, and decided to reach out to Bren of Flanboyanteats, Chrystal of The Duo Dishes, and Courtney. "Can I help?"

Here I am. Helping.

You can, too! Spread the word on twitter (tweet w/ #StirIt28), or via our facebook page, volunteer to help (see below), or just purchase a ticket here or here! To purchase tickets, follow these simple, albeit slightly tedious, steps:

General public ticket sales available at http://www.flanboyanteats.com via the STIR IT 28 logo image on the upper right hand corner of the home page ($30). It will take you directly to Paypal. Super simple! It only accepts one ticket at a time, so for multiple tickets you'll have to repeat the process. Apologies . . .

Special $20 rate for students. Students must pay via the PayPal General Online Donation button on http://www.cococooks.blogspot.com or http://www.flanboyanteats.com and indicate "NYU student ticket" in notes. Must show student ID at the door.

I'm amazed at the generous response I've received in the last week and a half. Some highlights:
Fizzy Lizzy's bringing the best fizzy juice to play!
Diageo's donating Smirnoff and Godiva

For our door prizes:

Dorie Greenspan is donating a signed copy of one her baking books

Tomorrow morning, Daisy Martinez, host of Daisy Cooks, is buzzing at my door to drop off her new book Daisy: Morning, Noon, and Night

Then I'm headed to a photo shoot to pick up Alan Richardson's book Hello, Cupcake!

Next, up, Allison Fishman's book, Cook Yourself Thin

Then to grab some of Magnolia Pictures favorite flicks

I wonder what else we'll be giving away?

If you'd like to donate your time, culinary skills, or just your love of a good cause, pass on the word (twitter #StirIt28, facebook, email, etc.), and drop us a note. :)

Participating blogs:
http://jloeats.com/
http://alittlebitofchristo.blogspot.com/
http://www.bklynforager.com/
http://www.redcook.net/
http://freshlocalandbest.blogspot.com/
http://joanne-eatswellwithothers.blogspot.com/
http://mybakingtherapy.blogspot.com/
http://www.athenachang.wordpress.com/

For Atlanta: bren AT flanboyanteats DOT com
For Chicago: courtneynzeribe AT sbcglobal DOT net
For L.A.: chrystal AT duodishes DOT com
For NYC: ccs316 AT nyu DOT edu

Squashcapades, round 2: butternutted ginger bread

2010-02-16T15:53:00.002-05:00

Today snow flakes are dancing across my window, I have read about lettuce production in the Salinas Valley, written a short paper, and Dorie Greenspan graciously agreed to donate a signed copy of one of her cookbooks as a door prize for the NYC StirIt28 fundraising event for Haiti. And that car that was driving on the wrong side of the road? My brother somehow avoided its evil intentions. Blessings all around. The world feels peaceful, a fuzzy blanket of good possibilities and warm potential. Soft gingered chocolatey-goodness seems appropriate, especially with a powerful addition of butternut squash, inspired by last week's RSBC 2010 superfood challenge, so if you're in a baking mood, try this. It's mighty good.

Butternutted Ginger Bread
Oven: 375F

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/4 C + 2 Tbsp molasses (just guestimate half way between 1/4 and 1/2 cup, it will be okay)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, unbleached
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 cup 1% milk
1/2 cup finely grated raw butternut squash
optional, but highly recommended: 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375, grease a large loaf pan with cooking spray. Or a muffin tin. Or two 8" round cake pans, should do it, too. Sift together flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves. Warm milk until luke warm (~15 seconds in the microwave). Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment on speed 2, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg, cream until well combined, then add molasses and mix until combined. Add about 1/2 of the flour mixture, pulse the mixer on and off until just combined, then add the remaining flour, mix until just combined. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the milk, beat until smooth. Remove from mixer and fold in the squash and chocolate chips. Bake until the top springs back when lightly touched; for muffins this will be about 15 minutes. For loaf pans, I would check at 25 minutes and anticipate going as long as 35 minutes. I haven't tried the cake pans . . .

Butternut Squashcapades! (and superfood challenge 3 for RSBC 2010)

2010-02-14T17:53:00.002-05:00

I love the February palette, with golden light and deepest blue, colorful hints that spring may actually come back again. The food palette, however, seems a little less colorful when I actually wander through the farmer's market, nose tightly bundled against winter cold, hands slipping in and out of gloves to touch the slightly withered apples and still firm but battered pears. In February, the non-romantic part of my soul almost understands the winter deprivations that drove my grandmother to plant, tend, and put up her own food. (The romantic side always thinks she understands why my grandmother spent her afternoons with dirt between her fingers, the rational side thinks the romantic side paints a fairly one-dimensional picture)

Week 2's superfood challenge, butternut squash in dessert, left me slightly stumped. I could imagine butternut squash replacing carrot for a butternut squash cake. I could imagine butternut squash ice-cream and butternut squash chocolate chip cookie ice-creamwhiches thanks to my on-top-of-all-challenges sisters-in-law. But what else dessert-y-ish could butternut squash go in?

Pie, perhaps? With apples and pears, since I had picked up a few when wandering through Union Square? Ben thought no, that sounded too strange. I turned to my book collection to search for inspiration, and discovered that Dorie Greenspan had already climbed the butternut squash pie mountain, and decided to plunge into a crisped version with her instructions as guidance. (May I here insert my public wish that I had one of my fellow student's internships? He gets to work with her! Oh joys!)

That, however, only used up 1/2 of my precious squash, leaving me with yet another dilemma: "What to do?", round 2. Leftover gingerbread dough, shivering in the confines of my fridge, shouted out for experimentation. After all, what is a challenge if you don't actually plunge into the great unknown? A few long minutes of careful shaving, squash squares transforming into squash bits with each move of my hand, a gentle folding and baking, and butternut squash gingerbread gracefully stepped across the threshold, her silky soft mouthfeel and layers of flavors a happy breakfast joy.

Happy, then, for butternut squash dessert heave had landed at my door, I turned to the sticky problem of the superfood challenge, week 3. What food could slyly wink at this Valentine's announcement, yet still meet my superfood definition? Something beautiful, to represent love, something red, to stimulate desire, and something tart, to recall challenge.

So, for week three of RSBC 2010, can you make up an appetizer that is both beautiful, desireable, and little bit tart using cranberries? I think I can . . .

For official rules of RSBC 2010, see here.

Run: 8 miles
Swam: 0 miles
Biked: 48 miles
Cooked: 2 challenges

Winter Harvest Crisp
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's stellar book Baking, From My Home to Yours

For the filling:
2 cups medium-cubed butternut squash
2 cups medium-cubed sweet-tart apples, like Macintosh
2 cups medium-cubed asian pears, or other pear
1 fistfull of dried cranberries
1 tsp orange zest
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp orange juice

For the crisp:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup oatmeal
As many roughly chopped nuts as you wish

Preheat oven to 400F. Combine squash, apples, pears, cranberries and orange zest. Stir together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, then toss with the fruit/vegetable mixture. Sprinkle orange juice on top, then transfer to a 9" diameter deep pie dish.

Using your fingers, mix together flour, brown sugar, butter and salt until well mixed. Add oatmeal and nuts, squish together, than sprinkle on top of fruit/veggie filling. Microwave on high for 10 minutes, then transfer to the oven and cook until the top is crisp and the interior juices make slow-bursting bubbles, about 25 minutes. Serve warm or cool, ideally with vanilla ice cream or gently whipped cream, or just eat as is.

Gingered Butternut Squash Bread
I'll post the recipe tomorrow. :) Mwah! Happy Valentine's!

Piefriteroles!

2010-02-10T09:16:00.000-05:00

Finally! A snow day!

I have watched in jealousy as Washington D.C. gets buried. My dreams keep wandering into snowdrifts, painting my nights with snowangels and cold toes, and if I am lucky, a few nieces and nephews to chase about. Not surprisingly, I jumped for joy this morning to see that last night's doomsday predictions were at least partially coming true. When I'm done with my morning pancake making, the boots will be on and you can find me somewhere near Prospect Park, gleefully packing snowballs and snowmen.

Before then, though, I should share with you my favorite new solution for day-old pie (other than eating it for breakfast, which is definitely the best option available). This adventure into reimagined pie came about in the space where leftover churro dough becomes pâte a choux, that lovely alchemists tool that easily transforms from the dross of dough into the gold of cream puffs or éclairs. Wary of leaving my churro dough in the fridge for more than a day, and tired of a house that smelled of frying oil, I added an extra egg, stirred until my tendonitis screamed, and then baked away. Poof! Lovely large cream puff shells, just waiting for pastry cream . . .

And then, I went to bed.

In the morning, pastry cream seemed too much work, but stuffing cream puff shells with pie? That I can justify, no matter that I've a paper to write or a class to prep for. And you can, too.

Piefriteroles

Leftover pie guts
Cream puff shells (find the recipe the Daring Bakers used in August 2008 here)
White chocolate ganache (equal weights cream and white chocolate shavings; heat cream to a simmer, remove from heat, gently stir in white chocolate shavings and continue stirring until melted)

Cut open cream puff shells, stuff full of pie guts, and then drizzle with white (or dark) chocolate ganache. Yum.

Black Bean Challenge: Round-up of RSBC 2010 week 1

2010-02-08T21:34:00.001-05:00

First, I'm hosting the NYC arm of StirIt 28, a fundraiser bringing together bloggers to raise money and awareness for Haiti. For more information, or to donate, see here. If you're in NYC, and you'd like to donate your culinary expertise, please email me at ccs316 AT nyu DOT edu. Raise your hands in applause for Bren of Flanboyant Eats, Courtney of CocoCooks and Chrystal of DuoDishes for putting together this amazing event.

Week 1 of RSBC 2010 has wrapped up, and a few intrepid souls took on beans for breakfast. The general consensus? We definitely should be eating these things more often! I'm almost ready for it to be morning again, just for that moment when warm feet meet cold floor and my brain realizes it gets to explore and create again in the kitchen. After a few more minutes in bed . . . It's not too late to join in on the fun! If for some reason I've left you out of the mix, please email me at ccs316 AT nyu DOT edu.

I made corn crepes with black beans, mushrooms and mango salsa. Fairly straitforward, very yummy (see below for my recipe).

Denise of ChezUs made beans with yuzu eggs and chorizo (Yum!) and has posted the next challenge on her website here.

Additionally, Suvi of Tales of the Summer Child branched out of her comfort zone into lentils for breakfast. Not quite beans, but still in the legume family, so a thumbs up from the RSBC judging booth.

Justin and Brianna from Eat More Toast bring it on with Red Bean Paste Pancakes.

Kara from What's Up With the Wheelers ventures into black bean and zucchini pancakes

Corn Crepes

3 eggs

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups milk

dash of salt

Whisk together eggs until well combined, add cornmeal and all-purpose flour. Stir until lump-free, then add 1/3 of the milk. Stir until combined, then add remaining milk and salt. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat until drops of water jump upon contact, then add a little pat of butter. Swipe around until melted, then add enough crepe batter to cover the bottom of the pan once you roll the batter around (~1/3 cup for a 9" skillet). I don't know how to describe the rolling motion, maybe a bit like hula-hooping? Cook until the crepe starts to come away from the edges of the pan, flip if desired, or just remove and repeat until the batter is gone.

Fill with black beans and whatever else you fancy, then eat post-haste.

Beery Caramel Cake: a superbowl hit?

2010-02-04T14:09:00.002-05:00

Those of you who know me know I don't drink beer. Or wine. Or anything boozy. But I've had a beer sitting in my fridge door since returning home from my summer exploring the northern suburbs of New York City, and it needed some sort of practical purpose to its life. Cake, of all the practical purposes, seemed most appropriate.

I've heard of beer cakes before, chocolate-based ones, that is, and I've even eaten one quite nice chocolate-stout cake. Yet nary a thought of making my own little beery creation presented itself. Until now.

I think we should call it apostacy cake . . .

A little sweet road to sin?

or perhaps not.

There were a few challenges in deciding how to construct this recipe: the chocolate stout cakes all melt the butter ahead of time, then whisk in the beer, then add the dry ingredients. I happen to have a soft little space in my heart for the creaming method, and since I was planning on making a caramel version, needed the lovely emulsification that occurs when eggs are whipped together with butter to hold all the sugar and water in the caramel syrup. Additionally, I wasn't quite certain how the chemistry of beer would affect the amount of leavning I used. Was it acidic? How acidic? (about 4 seems to be the average consensus online, for a lager like the Heineken in my fridge, a bit closer to 5) How much base (baking soda) would be appropriate for that amount of acid? Not to mention the tricky little fact that cocoa, which makes up a nice chunk of the drys in the chocolate beer cakes I perused, acts a bit like flour in that the cocoa carbohydrates absorb and hold moisture.

In an ideal world, I would have spent a lot of time researching out these answers. Instead, I took a few educated guesses, and came out with one, wonderfully tender and moist ("carrot-cake moist," my taste-testers proclaimed as they came back for seconds), very fruity and caramelly and not-all-that-sweet cake.

Frost, if you will, with lightly sweetened whipped cream to allow the beer flavor to come through, or pair it with a nice dark ganache made with 72% chocolate such as the Madagascar Bar from Mast Brothers for a more subtle (and to my beer-sensitive tastebuds, more enjoyable) approach to this cake.

Undoubtedly a superbowl hit. After all, what could be better than beer and cake? *rhetorical: I say a tall glass of milk from Rosehill Dairy and cake, but that's me*

Beery Caramel Cake
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature*(see below for alternative recipe)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup caramel syrup, room temperature (see below)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup lager beer such as Heineken
1/2 cup light sour cream, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2, 9" round cake pans with parchment paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray.

Sift together flour, soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Mix together vanilla, beer and sour cream. Set aside.

Beer + Sour cream = pretty

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter for one minute. Add sugar, and cream for an additional 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating for one minute on 2nd speed after the addition of the first egg, and an additional two minutes (on 2nd speed) after the addition of the second egg (or until it starts to look like butter cream frosting--this step makes the emulsion that holds it all together). With mixer running on 2nd speed, slowly add caramel syrup. Continue mixing until caramel syrup is well incorporated. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, pulsing the mixer on and off until the flour is just incorporated. Then add 1/2 of the beer/sourcream, mix on first speed until just incorporated. Repeat with an additional 1/3 of the flour mixture, then the remainder of the beer mixture, then the final 1/3 of the flour.

Divide batter evenly between the two cake pans. Bake on the middle rack in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and the edges begin to pull away from the pan. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and continue cooling.

*variation: Browned Butter Caramel Beer Cake; requires a bit more planning ahead
Brown 1/2 stick of butter by placing it in a small sauce pan and heating over medium heat until it begins to brown and give off a pleasant brown/caramelly smell. Remove from heat, allow to cool, then add to the other, unbrowned stick of butter when doing the initial creaming step. Remeber that the butter will continue to cook once you remove it from the heat source, as fat retains heat well. Remove earlier rather than later.

Caramel Syrup (you really should keep some of this on hand, it's wonderful in many things)
This recipe was originally part of the November 2008 Daring Baker's Challenge. Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater kindly shared it with the group. For the original caramel cake that inspired today's boozy creation, and caramel sauce, in all it's glory, see here; the syrup below is an excerpt from that recipe.

2 Cups sugar
1/2 Cup water
1 Cup water for "stopping"

1. In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand.
2. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush.
3. Turn on heat to highest flame.
4. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.
5. When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and prepared to step back.
6. Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

*Many thanks to Eggland's Best for giving me the opportunity to try out their eggs via Foodbuzz's Tastemaker program.*

Ironman meets Ironchef: Introducing RSBC 2010

2010-02-01T15:35:00.000-05:00

One month into 2010. What have you accomplished? I've caught a cold, learned I'm really allergic to cats, and managed to spit out a few useful phrases in spanish (my favorite being "I only have 5 pesos, could I get a tortilla with beans?" The answer was yes). I think it's time to get the rest of the year going with a few obtainable goals, and a few fun culinary challenges, and I, along with my co-hosts from chezus, want to invite you along.

Enter, once again, the third annual Run Swim Bike Cook challenge (here for 2009, and here for 2008).

For those of you who haven't taken part before, here's the layout: You have 28 days to do one of the challenges, some of the challenges or all of the challenges. You decide based on your fitness level. For every challenge you complete, you will get one entry into a drawing for a yet undecide but absolutely fabulous prize.

Challenge 1: Run 26.2 miles (I suggest a mile a day)
Challenge 2: Swim 2.4 miles*
Challenge 3: Bike 112 miles**
Challenge 4: Cook 3 of the 4 superfood "iron-chef" challenges. Each Sunday I, or my co-host, will post the week's superfood and category, and you have a week to come up with a dish that blows us away.

Week 1: Beans in breakfast (beautiful alliteration)
Week 2: Will be announced Feb. 7th at chezus
Week 3: Will be announced Feb. 14th here
Week 4: Will be announced Feb. 21st at chezus

Now before you freak out and run screaming, remember you have 28 days to do this. Unlike the amazing Ironman competitors, you get a whole month to do your triathlon. And this is no two hour culinary competition with glaring lights and TV cameras and hyper announcers. Nope. This is you, your superfood of the week, and your kitchen going at it for seven days.

Still not convinced? Let me sweeten the deal a bit more: you can do all your running, swimming and biking (and cooking!) inside. Or outside. Your choice.

Notes:
* One water aerobics class = 0.4 miles
**One spin class = 12 miles

Rules: Have fun. Send an email to the host for the week by Saturday at midnight, including a link to your blogpost for the week. Your post should highlight where you are in the event, and/or have a mouthwatering pic of your ironchef entry for the week.

Before we go into the details of what makes beans great, let's start with a quick review of the superfood definition. Although not really found in the lexicons of the scientific world (try searching for "superfood" on googlescholar. You'll note that most of the references are cited less than 15 times--this is science-speak for "largely ignored."), the mass media defines superfoods as foods that are high in plant sources of nutrients such as vitamins, mineras, antioxidants, fiber, etc (see here). The scientific community enters the discussion on a more basic level, first investigating the health properties and nutrient levels of individual foods, then investigating the effect of consumption of those foods on health; then larger organizations such as the AMA or ADA and even non-organized "organizations" such as the media (in the form of books, newspapers, newscasts, and blogs, as I am currently doing) take that information and attempt to apply it to larger lifestyle recommendations.

Why choose beans, then, and why beans for breakfast? Two weeks in Mexico definitely left me craving breakfasts with a little less sugar and a lot more--shall I say?--umph. On the superfood side, foods high in dietary fiber appear to exhibit cholesterol-lowering effects (see here). Black beans contain both anthocyanins and antioxidants, plus they are high in fiber, proteins, vitamins and minerals (see here, here and here). What better way to start off the day, then? You are certainly welcome to explore traditional bean-including-breakfasts like huevos rancheros, but I bet there are a world of new creations waiting to come to light.

Nanaimowich or nanaimopolean? You decide.

2010-01-29T09:38:00.000-05:00

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and http://www.nanaimo.ca/.

It's been a short January, at least as far as kitchen access is concerned. 16 days in a hotel will do that to you, won't it? Imagine my happy surprise, then, when I opened this month's Daring Bakers' challenge to discover graham crackers on the menu--thanks to a recent foray into s'moreffles (discovered via my hubby's love affair with waffleizer, an amazing new blog that makes my hair curl with delight every time I read it), I actually had a batch of unused graham cracker dough sitting in my freezer! So, between class teaching, carefully worded departmental meetings about sensitive subjects, and the more mundane paper writing (already!), I managed to sneak in a little baking.

Nanaimo bars are beautiful things. I didn't know this before today. A symphony of chocolate, graham, custard, and more chocolate deserves celebration, and since Clumbsy Cookie had already staked out her claim in the nanaimo spoon corner (go visit!), I decided to attempt nanaimopoleans. Or nanaimowiches. You pick which strikes you as the most appropriate name, either way, nanaimopolean-wiches result in skipped breakfasts and lunches, and a few tip-toed trips after lights out to the kitchen where you find yourself caught, a human racoon, in the piercing glare of the refrigerator light with spoon half raised and nainamo-guts everywhere. A dangerous thing, indeed.

As my small grocer does not carry custard powder, and as I felt a bit peckish today when looking at the vanilla pudding packages, I decided to make my own pastry cream (*keep reading, this is important*):

Pastry Cream:
1 cup 1% milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar, divided 50:50
1 vanilla bean
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 large egg yolk
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
a dash of salt

My recipe is based off of one found in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. A fairly authoratative source, yes? Martha (or her recipe writer) tells you to mix the milk, cream, 50% of the sugar and a vanilla bean until the mixture reaches a simmer. Then combine the remaining sugar, the cornstarch and egg yolk, temper (add a portion of the hot milk mixture to the egg yolk mixture while stirring) the egg yolks, then add back to the milk mixture. Yet as I followed the instructions, I found myself arguing with Martha: "Remove from heat as soon as the mixture reads 160F? Really? How can the starch have gelatinized by then?"

But I figured I would try it anyway. And my pastry cream was runny as an egg yolk. So I put it back on the heat, stirred a bit more, and only when it started to do what I recognize as thickening did I remove it.

The take home message? If you know from your own previous experience that a recipe stinks, no matter how authoratative the author is, don't second guess yourself. What make her recipe a failure, though?

The biggest weakness of Stewart's pastry cream recipe lies in how it is written--technically, if you maintain your mixture at 160F for long enough, the starch will gelatinize, thickening your pastry cream. After all, starch gelatinization requires heat and moisture, both of which are present, and time, which is missing from the recipe. To get around the time, the recipe could have instead suggested heating to a higher temperature (185F, for example), as cornstarch gelatinizes over a wide temeprature range, with maximum gelatinization at 95C. Ironically, the recipe also calls for 5 minutes of beating in a stand mixer after removing from heat and adding the butter, however, the mechanical process of extensive mixing will actually break down gelatinized starch.

So how would I write the instructions?

Place 50% of the sugar in the bottom of a sauce pan. Add milk, cream and vanilla bean. Do not stir. The sugar will provide a barrier to prevent the milk proteins from sticking to the bottom of your pan! Heat to a simmer, then remove from heat. Mix together the remaining sugar, cornstarch and the egg yolk. Temper the egg yolk mixture with 1/3 of the milk mixture, then add back to the milk mixture. Return to medium heat, stirring gently with a heat proof spatula or spoon until the mixture begins to thicken and reaches 185F. Remove from heat, fold in butter and salt. Transfer the pastry cream to a shallow dish, cover with plastic wrap (poke holes in the wrap) and refrigerate until well chilled. Eat.

To make nanaimowiches you need:
Home-made graham crackers
Pastry cream
The yummy chocolate mix base
Ganache (50% cream, 50% chocolate)

See here for the graham cracker and chocolate base recipes. Feel free to substitute the instant pastry cream mix, it will probably hold up better for long-term assembly.

And finally, dust off your running shoes, goggles, pull out that bike seat and get set with your whisk: RSBC 2010 is coming (see here for a hint of what's coming)!

Life to death: meat production in Mexico

2010-01-25T10:12:00.000-05:00

Piglet at Granjas RYC

Of all of the things I observed during my recent study abroad trip to Puebla, Mexico, I learned the most from a series of trips to various types of meat production facilities. I grew up, like most of American Generation Y, with meat only vaguely related in my mind to the animal that produced it. After all, mine is the generation where ground meat could actually be perceived as coming from the ground, as opposed to from a cow. Only rarely did the border between living animal and plated dinner falter and fade to reveal the truth: when backpacking, or on the occasional family fishing trip where my father spent more time untangling knotted lines and removing hooks from hair than actually pursuing fish.

I of course am aware that the meat I eat lived, walked, swam, existed before becoming my dinner. Yet in a world of supermarkets, or even farmer's markets, where the transition from life to object still remains veiled, it is difficult to remember that the clean packages of cutlets have a history.

During my stay, I visited four different stages of the production process, each with different commercial bents and different philosophies and approaches. First, I visited the meatpacking plant for Granjas RYC. Granjas RYC packages meat for purchase at large retail operations such as Walmart (which is booming in Mexico). I have no pictures to offer as the facility followed good manufacturing practices, thus barring all jewelry and loose articles such as cell phones or cameras. However, one thing stood out to me: the irony of Mexican meatpackers breaking down beef produced and slaughtered in the U.S. by (one can assume) Mexican immigrants for a Mexican market. Second, I visited the actual Granjas RYC pork farm that supplies their high-end pork (the farm is owned by the company). The operation housed about 2500 pigs, and grew a portion, although not all, of the sorghum used to feed the pigs on site. Birth to finishing was well-regulated, a life cycle that started with artificial insemination (typical in most modern operations), involved a short period of time with the mother, and then quickly progressed through a series of feeding stages (and houses) until slaughter weight was reached. A thoroughly modern affair in approach, although the scope of production thankfully was a fraction of that on a CAFO. The smell was astonishing enough with 2500 pigs. Surprisingly, the farm used all of the pig poop to power the farm, an amazingly useful approach to disposing of awfully smelly waste.

"Trucha" caught by our group, pre-dinner prep

Next I visited a trout farm. Unlike Granjas RYC's large commercialized market , this farm was geared towards consumers interested in "catching" their own food, specifically, their consumer base consists of local villages, sport fisherman, and (non-English speaking) tourists. Mexico currently faces extensive water contamination, both from inadequate regulation of industry, and from human activity. Growing fish that are safe to consume thus requires special care; this farm was run by a biologist, and farm employed a bio-purification system to remove upstream contaminants from the water. Like the pig farm, growth rates and feed amounts dominate the daily activity of raising fish--after all, both pigs and fish have seasonal cycles; overcoming those cycles facilitates a consistent source of income.

Lamb slaughtering at a hacienda

My final visit was to a hacienda where we observed the end of life and beginning of product. Watching fish die is less painful than watching a lamb--perhaps because of the slightly alien nature of something that calls water home?--however, in both cases living to dead occurred quickly and quietly. A short struggle, a quick movement, and then the long work of final preparation before consumption. If I were a lamb, I think I would rather die outdoors on a sunny day than on a slaughterhouse floor.

Bullfighting (for touristic entertainment)

The final stage of meat production I observed was the one I struggled with the most--bullfighting, albeit bullfighting with a very young bull. It turns out that I find observing the harming of an animal so that it will chase a colorful cape about a bit dreaming spiders are crawling on me--extremely uncomfortable. In this case, it was just a few cuts on the ear, and then back to the pasture, but it left me wandering in fields and talking with horses in an attempt to makes sense of what I had just observed.

Protein in my food? What is going on?

2010-01-03T10:29:00.000-05:00

This post originally appeared on 12/7/2007. I am republishing some of my favorite Forays into Food Science posts while I am temporarily out of the country.

This month's challenge from the Daring Bakers just happens to be a perfect excuse to discuss starches and gelatinization. I've often ogled lovely pictures of Yule Logs in various cookbooks and magazines and wondered "Do I have the time or gumption or will to make such a treat?" Well, nothing motivates me better than a deadline, so knowing that it was time to learn to make genoise and re-approach the dreaded buttercream fairy led to an early start.*

My yule log recipe is adapted from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri. Once again, I direct you to another amazing blog for the entire step by step process, complete with a great before-you-start checklist, but here is the modified recipe I used:

Genoise:
3 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
pinch of salt
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup cake flour - spoon flour into dry-measure cup and level off (also known as cake & pastry flour)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup cocoa powder
finely grated zest of one orange

To truly understand a genoise, we have to first look at the preparation directions.

1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. This is good temperature for starches to gelatinize at.

2.Half-fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to a simmer over high heat.

3.Whisk the eggs, egg yolks, salt and sugar together in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer. Place over the pan of simmering water and whisk gently until the mixture is just lukewarm, about 100 degrees if you have a thermometer (or test with your finger - it should be warm to the touch). This temperature is warm enough to begin "encouraging" the proteins in the egg to start to "unfold" (denature--see here for an in-depth explanation). This creates a network that can trap air bubbles, a key step in creation of an airy cake that contains no chemical leavening.

4.Attach the bowl to the mixer and, with the whisk attachment, whip on medium-high speed until the egg mixture is cooled (touch the outside of the bowl to tell) and tripled in volume. The egg foam will be thick and will form a slowly dissolving ribbon falling back onto the bowl of whipped eggs when the whisk is lifted. The mechanical beating will increase the amount of denaturation, making it so even more air can be incorporated.

5.While the eggs are whipping, stir together the flour, cocoa powder and cornstarch. Ta Da! Here be starches.

6.Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the beaten eggs. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the flour mixture, making sure to scrape all the way to the bottom of the bowl on every pass through the batter to prevent the flour mixture from accumulating there and making lumps. Repeat with another third of the flour mixture and finally with the remainder. Before starches can gelatinize, they need to be hydrated. Egg white is mostly water, and provides the necessary moisture to pre-hydrate the starch. At this point the starch will start to slightly swell.

7.Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

8.Bake the genoise for about 10 to 12 minutes. This is when the action begins! As the heat penetrates the starch, the bonds holding the starch together stop working and the starch will unfold. Make sure the cake doesn’t overbake and become too dry or it will not roll properly.

9.Once the cake is done (a tester will come out clean and if you press the cake lightly it will spring back), remove it from the oven and let it cool on a rack. This is where understanding how starches work direct the choices we make with a rolled cake. A quick survey of various cookbooks shows a variety of suggestions: let your cake cool, then fill and roll, pre-roll your cake, or let your cake partially cool then roll. What is a novice baker to do?

Consider your starches. Gelatinization requires water (see above), heat, and a little time. As the starch is heated, it will unfold and allow additional water to associate with the molecules. The starch then swells and traps the water (think of what happens with cornstarch when you move from cold water and cornstarch to warm, to boiling and then to cool). As the cake cooks, the starches change but they don't stop changing when you remove the cake from the oven! During the cooling process, the starches try to return to their original format--this is the perfect time to persuade your cake what form it should take. So instead of letting your cake cool, liberally dust a clean towel with powdered sugar, roll your cake up and let it cool. Not my idea, but now you know why this will save you from a genoise sandwich.

Since you're probably wondering, here's the finished product:

I filled my genoise with chocolate pastry cream and iced with chocolate buttercream. The "bark" pieces are little bits of cake that stuck to my parchment paper. Yum.

Happy holidays!

*I've now made buttercream a total of three times: the first time was wonderful, the second a disaster, and this time was fine--maybe we'll discuss emulsions and how they define buttercream in a future post.

Foray into Food Science: Exploring cake baking and starch gelatinization

2009-12-31T22:22:00.000-05:00

Due to a lack of internet access while I complete a winter session study abroad in Puebla, Mexico, I am reposting a series of my favorite Forays into Food Science posts. This post first appeared 12/23/2007. Enjoy!

This month's challenge from the Daring Bakers just happens to be a perfect excuse to discuss starches and gelatinization. I've often ogled lovely pictures of Yule Logs in various cookbooks and magazines and wondered "Do I have the time or gumption or will to make such a treat?" Well, nothing motivates me better than a deadline, so knowing that it was time to learn to make genoise and re-approach the dreaded buttercream fairy led to an early start.* My yule log recipe is adapted from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri. Once again, I direct you to another amazing blog for the entire step by step process, complete with a great before-you-start checklist, but here is the modified recipe I used: Genoise: 3 large eggs 3 large egg yolks pinch of salt 3/4 cup of sugar 1/2 cup cake flour - spoon flour into dry-measure cup and level off (also known as cake & pastry flour) 1/4 cup cornstarch 1/4 cup cocoa powder finely grated zest of one orange To truly understand a genoise, we have to first look at the preparation directions. 1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. This is good temperature for starches to gelatinize at. 2.Half-fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to a simmer over high heat. 3.Whisk the eggs, egg yolks, salt and sugar together in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer. Place over the pan of simmering water and whisk gently until the mixture is just lukewarm, about 100 degrees if you have a thermometer (or test with your finger - it should be warm to the touch). This temperature is warm enough to begin "encouraging" the proteins in the egg to start to "unfold" (denature--see here for an in-depth explanation). This creates a network that can trap air bubbles, a key step in creation of an airy cake that contains no chemical leavening. 4.Attach the bowl to the mixer and, with the whisk attachment, whip on medium-high speed until the egg mixture is cooled (touch the outside of the bowl to tell) and tripled in volume. The egg foam will be thick and will form a slowly dissolving ribbon falling back onto the bowl of whipped eggs when the whisk is lifted. The mechanical beating will increase the amount of denaturation, making it so even more air can be incorporated. 5.While the eggs are whipping, stir together the flour, cocoa powder and cornstarch. Ta Da! Here be starches. 6.Sift one-third of the flour mixture over the beaten eggs. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the flour mixture, making sure to scrape all the way to the bottom of the bowl on every pass through the batter to prevent the flour mixture from accumulating there and making lumps. Repeat with another third of the flour mixture and finally with the remainder. Before starches can gelatinize, they need to be hydrated. Egg white is mostly water, and provides the necessary moisture to pre-hydrate the starch. At this point the starch will start to slightly swell. 7.Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. 8.Bake the genoise for about 10 to 12 minutes. This is when the action begins! As the heat penetrates the starch, the bonds holding the starch together stop working and the starch will unfold. Make sure the cake doesn’t overbake and become too dry or it will not roll properly. 9.Once the cake is done (a tester will come out clean and if you press the cake lightly it will spring back), remove it from the oven and let it cool on a rack. This is where understanding how starches work direct the choices we make with a rolled cake. A quick survey of various cookbooks shows a variety of suggestions: let your cake cool, then fill and roll, pre-roll your cake, or let your cake partially cool then roll. What is a novice baker to do? Consider your starches. Gelatinization requires water (see above), heat, and a little time. As the starch is heated, it will unfold and allow additional water to associate with the molecules. The starch then swells and traps the water (think of what happens with cornstarch when you move from cold water and cornstarch to warm, to boiling and then to cool). As the cake cooks, the starches change but they don't stop changing when you remove the cake from the oven! During the cooling process, the starches try to return to their original format--this is the perfect time to persuade your cake what form it should take. So instead of letting your cake cool, liberally dust a clean towel with powdered sugar, roll your cake up and let it cool. Not my idea, but now you know why this will save you from a genoise sandwich. Since you're probably wondering, here's the finished product: I filled my genoise with chocolate pastry cream and iced with chocolate buttercream. The "bark" pieces are little bits of cake that stuck to my parchment paper. Yum. Happy holidays! *I've now made buttercream a total of three times: the first time was wonderful, the second a disaster, and this time was fine--maybe we'll discuss emulsions and how they define buttercream in a future post.

A Tweet away from changing the world? How to talk to the US farmer

2009-12-20T16:28:00.001-05:00

While researching for my final paper on whether the number of small farms and farms with young ideologically-motivated farmers has increased in recent years, I came across an interesting video from the American Farm Bureau (see below). When I first moved to New York City, I constantly found myself arguing with my classmates and acquaintaces as we talked about the way food was produced in America. The farmers they described didn't quite jive with the farmers I knew. Yet in the past year and a half, I am increasingly convinced that parts of our agricultural system need changing, that there should be fewer agribusiness executives doing stints as industry regulators (recognizing, however, that they know the industry better than anyone), and that the way the US subsidizes food seriously threatens our nation's food security. That's why this video snags me like a briar, tugs at my brain, and shouts "pay attention!"

Do you see it? The US farmer is as addicted to his/her Blackberry and Twitter account as every Manhattan attorney or Seattle event coordinator. "Know your food, know your farmer" suddenly takes on a whole new meaning--not only can you chat up your farmer at the Greencity market, you can chat up the corn producer somewhere in Iowa, or the hog farmer in southern Illinois, or the wheat farmers of North and South Dakota. So, although I drastically disagree with Glenn Brunkow when he blogs that Meatless Monday is a danger to my country and my freedom, I think it's time to find him on Twitter and start following him. From my eyes, the best way to change the food system is to talk with your farmer. And there he is, just a few cyber clicks away.

haha paper . . . I have conquered you!

2009-12-14T23:48:00.000-05:00

Deafening silence in bloggerdom in December? Is it holiday baking, or is it that all-semester long dread becoming reality: paper-writing time?

Yep. The second. And today I wrapped one up in a little holiday cheer and turned it in an entire 18 hours early! A bit difficult, given the, um, tenuous nature of some of my arguments. (I blush to think about them now. They were so mortifying I stared at the screen for a good half hour, trying to think up a nice euphemistic way to say what I wanted to say, and then gave up and just said most of it. Then I pretended the other brilliantly horrid argument crossing my mind never existed. That's what happens when you write papers on fetishes.)

Only one final more, and one paper more, and then I can bake until my heart sings. Sticky fingers and flour clouds, I look forward to you.

Happy Holidays!

Carrot Cranberry Tea Scones

2009-12-05T10:33:00.000-05:00

Acid + base = interesting things.

This little equation dances in my head everytime I bake. Maybe it changes a bit, occasionally to acid + protein = unfolded proteins that glob together to make buttermilk or cheese, or base + greens = retained color whereas acid + greens = nasty brown, but it's still there.

Today, that equation became especially relevant when I opened up my cupboard and found an empty can of baking powder. Empty? Ack! But wait . . . I have baking soda and cream of tartar. Brilliant! Baking soda, as you probably remember from grade school experiments is a nicely basic, and cream of tartar carries an acidic little punch.

Sodium bicarbonate, AKA baking soda

Potassium bitartrate, AKA cream of tartar

You may vaguely recall from high school chemistry that there are a variety of definitions for acids and bases (the Brønsted-Lowry definition seems the most useful for this discussion). For today, let's define an acid as having extra hydrogen ions it can give away while still feeling "comfortable" with the world around it (those H's attached to all the Os in cream of tartar), and a base as willing and able to receive some extra hydrogen ions. In the process of cream of tartar giving away a hydrogen ion and baking soda receiving a hydrogen ion, water and carbon dioxide are formed. Or, more simply speaking, bubbles! Leavening!

Baking powder contains both acid and base already mixed together, whereas baking soda just is a base. So if you are out of baking powder, maybe due to school craziness, or laziness, or it's freezing and I don't want to walk to the store haziness, a little bit of chemistry knowledge can come in very handy. Major crisis averted!

You can see similar baking soda + acid (In this case, vinegar) action in Madhuram's adaption of the Joy of Vegan Baking recipe for vegan blueberry muffins (they're really yummy, I made them last week for fun). It's not often that a recipe calls for a whole teaspoon, plus some, of baking soda with only two cups of flour--without the vinegar those vegan muffins would taste horridly soapy. Yet once you add acid to the base, good things happen.

So, for today's almost-wintery chemistry celebration, I suggest combining cranberry and carrot into a lovely little tea scone, and then sitting down with a really great book and a cup of rooibos. Ahh, paper-writing crunch time seems less horrid already.

Carrot Cranberry Tea Scones
Makes at least 12, but it all depends on how big you cut your pieces
Oven: 425

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup corn meal
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, very cold
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp milk
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup finely grated carrot
1 large egg
1/4-1/2 cup fresh cranberries (depending on how cranberry-y you like it)
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Whisk together flour, corn meal, soda, cream of tartar, salt and sugar, remembering to enjoy the view of disparate ingredients combining. Cut in butter until mixture resembles crumbs somewhat larger than fine, but smaller than pea-sized. (If you're like me, and you tend to only do half of your mise-en-place at a time, put the flour/butter mix in the fridge while you prepare the remainder of the ingredients). Combine milk and lemon juice, and let sit for five minutes so the acid can unfold milk proteins . Add carrot and egg to the milk, and mix until well combined. Add milk mixture to flour mixture and toss with a fork to combine. You will probably have a few crumbs left that aren't wet, quickly knead the mixture together 3 to 4 times to combine the not-yet-wet with the wet. On a floured surface (I highly recommend a pastry cloth) because we like things to not stick, pat the dough into a rectangle about 1/2" thick, and then dot the dough with cranberries, pushing them in like little red buttons. Here is where the pastry cloth becomes indispensible . . . Cut the dough in half, and then plop one half on top of the other, like closing a book. Pat or roll until about 1/2" thick, cut into whatever shape strikes your fancy, and bake at 425 for 10-12 minutes. Do not get distracted writing blog posts while baking, as you may accidentally overcook them (!).

Honey-chipotle-lime glazed chicken

2009-11-23T09:25:00.001-05:00

First, my apologies for the inherent violence in these images. While occupied in the mundane task of making dinner, I seldom think about my food as something other than a task-at-hand, something to work with as a medium, not something that lived and no longer lives. That thought process generally comes before, when I choose to purchase (or not) meat. We hover on the border between omnivouressness and vegetarianism, but generally spend more of our time on the omnivouress side of the line. Yet I find myself uncomfortable with the images here, with the reminder that my dinner last night was an exchange of life for life. As Annie Dillard said (in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek), "This looking business is risky."

Essentially, this "looking business" is a short tutorial on how I roast a chicken. Based on the number of chicken roasting accounts out there, this act has as many authors as there are chicken-cooking cooks in the world. I (the authoratative "I", that is) start by organizing my ingredients on a cookie sheet or some other "salmonella containment device"--something to create boundaries between clean and unclean, safety and danger. A few things remain constant: a lemon (or lime), pricked with a fork to go inside the body cavity, garlic slices to slip under the skin, and salt and pepper to rub everywhere. On a typical Sunday, I'll also slide fresh rosemary and thyme under the skin and in the cavity. However, this week we played a post-modern Thanksgiving game, making our own feast days before the actual holiday, combining chipotle pepper's fire with the sweet of honey and tang of lime.

I preheat both my oven and my stove-top/oven safe dutch oven to 425F while I work on chicken preparation. First up: salt and pepper rub, followed by garlic under the skin and in the cavity, and then the lemon or lime. If I have string on hand, I will to a simple truss, just to hold the legs together. I rarely have string. I then make three slashes on each of the thighs, a trick learned from the Puck of cooking, Jamie Oliver.

At this point I pause, wash my hands, remove the dutch oven from the oven and place it on the stove-top over medium-high heat. To keep the chicken from sticking, I add a small bit of oil in the bottom, a teaspoon or two, and then I place my chicken in on it's right or left side, thigh to the heat, and fry (sear?) for three minutes. After the first three minutes, I flip the bird 180 degrees, and repeat with another three minutes of frying. This starts the cooking on the parts that take the longest to cook, and reduces the overall amount of time I have to tie up my oven in chicken baking. Finally, I move the bird to its back, breast pointing toward the ceiling, swipe a glaze over it (if using) and place in the oven to bake, uncovered, until done. I regularly cook 3-4 pound birds, so "done" is about an hour, but best measured by a thermometer poked between thigh and body.

Our post-modern feast, if I'm using the word correctly, consisted of chipotle-honey-lime glazed chicken, chipotle-garlic mashed potatoes, mini-caramel corn muffins (decreases baking time, brilliant!), salad and squash. Key to all of this was the chipotle-honey-lime glaze:

Chipotle-Honey-Lime Glaze
1 Tbsp adobo sauce (the sauce found in a can of chipotle chilis)
1 finely chopped chipotle pepper
1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp lime juice
zest of one lime
1 Tbsp freshly ground cumin
1/4 tsp mexican oregano

Mix together. Divide the sauce into two small bowls, 1/2 for glazing your chicken, the other half for adding to garlic mashed potatoes (start with less, and add to taste).

To be honest, the chicken was good, but the mashed potatoes? Divine!

Caramel Popcorn Cookies

2009-11-20T09:23:00.003-05:00

Soon after we first moved to NYC, Rusty of Nine Moons, upon meeting me, inquired whether I had any great cookie recipes. I thought, then paused, then announced, "Um. No. I bake other people's cookie recipes." Then I spent the next year wondering why I never make up my own cookie creations.

What would my ideal cookie have? Chocolate chips? Dried fruit? Soft and chewy, or nicely crisped? Cakey like a Madelaine, or lacy like a Tuille? Cookie questions wandered in and out of my mind, sometimes leaving me alone for days on end, other times interrupting my attempts to fall asleep before a big project.

Inspiration struck recently after reading Francisco Migoya's posting on his popcorn candy-bar creation. Popcorn, caramel . . . cookie? My ideal cookie, found!

I originally envisioned a cookie subtly filled with popcorn dust, followed by a wonderful caramel burst. So far, technology (or more accurately, lack thereof) has limited my goal--I don't own a tamis, and turning popcorn into dust has proved an elusive game. I started with the obvious one: food processor + popcorn = dust. But no, popcorn dust fail. I've tried staling my popcorn in the oven, and then blending: same results. I've left the popcorn out for a week, then processed--fail again. I spent two hours pushing popcorn through my mesh strainer, since it's the closest thing to Francisco's recomended tamis technique, and found success. But then I mentally tossed that technique because *who* would want to make a recipe that includes two hours of pushing popcorn through their mesh strainer?

At this point, you're probably asking "why, idiot girl, haven't you just gone and purchased a tamis?"

I don't know. I'm suddenly feeling the strong urge to go get one.

Tamis questions aside, if you like the fun of finding noticeable popcorn bits in your cookie, follow the method below. And if you don't, and you own a tamis (or, like me, are going to go get one imminently, or have a better idea about how to get popcorn dust, which you will kindly share in the comment section), follow the method in italics.

Caramel Popcorn Cookies
makes about 3 dozen, if you make smallish ones

3 cups popped plain popcorn
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp caramel syrup^

2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, unbleached
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup granulated sugar for coating dough before baking

Whisk together flour, soda and salt. Set aside.

Place popcorn in food processor, and process until as fine as possible. You will find that you don't get a fine powder, that's okay. Leave in the food processor--we'll come back to the popcorn.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter until well creamed, about 30 seconds, then add granulated sugar and brown sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Remove about 1/4 cup, and add to the food processor with the popcorn, and process for another 30 seconds. Set aside.

Add the egg to the remaining butter/sugar mixture, beat until light and fluffy, and then add the caramel syrup. Next, add the popcorn/butter mixture and the flour mixture. Mix until just combined.

Transfer cookie dough to an airtight container, and refrigerate for 2-3 hours before baking.

To bake, preheat the oven to 350. Make nickel to quarter-sized balls of dough (depending on how big you like your cookies), toss in granulated sugar, and then bake for 7-9 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack, and then eat away.

If you want your popcorn texture finer, you can push the popcorn through a tamis. You will need a total of 1 1/2 cups of popcorn dust. You can omit the step where you combine the butter and popcorn, and add the popcorn dust in with the flour mixture.

^Caramel Syrup
This recipe is from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater; since first making this in the November 2008 Daring Baker's Challenge, I find myself using caramel syrup in a lot of things, and recommend keeping some on hand to add to hot cocoa, plain yogurt, or on top of goat cheese.

1 cups sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly and dark amber in color.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about--have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.} Store unused caramel in a covered jar in the refrigerator indefinitely.

I hate my camera, but I loved the Foodbuzz blogger fest

2009-11-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

I had really cool pictures from the 2009 Foodbuzz Blogger Festival.

Really.

I looked at them on the train, and thought happy thoughts all week long about how when I could stop falling asleep every time I opened my eyes (me + red-eye flight = dead for a week) I could finally post all about my amazing adventures overcoming my hatred of crowds, and general sit-back-and-watch tendencies to make a new bucket full of food-loving friends. I met so many wonderful people!* Of course, illustrations of my adventures would abound. After all, aren't you excited to see Pt Reyes cheese, and read about my take on the pastoral picture painted by the Cowgirl Creamery maven and my fetish paper ideas all at the same time? Yeah. I was excited to share that. And my camera, or my memory card, or something ATE almost all my pictures. Yesterday they were there, today they are not.

(I did eventually find Denise from Chez Us, which made me very happy, even if it was just to say "hi")

Maybe I should enjoy the irony of my camera eating my food pictures.

I'm not.

Here are a few highlights that survived the carnage (for a really great roundup, see Diana's day, plus a really great picture of her, moi and Kelly from the Pink Apron!):

Shrimp and scallop ceviche at the tasting pavillion

Soup that's not yet soup but will be wonderful soup with yuzu surprises

Outstanding in the Field goes indoors. Catering for 250 must be miserable. They did a great job.

I am so glad I went. It seemed a bit indulgent, leaving mid-semester just as things start to get hectic, this idea of flying across the US just to eat food, meet other bloggers, learn about new products, and see some friends. But you know what? It was worth it. So thank you Foodbuzz, and thank you Foodbuzz sponsers (Bertolli, Nature's Pride, Kikkoman, Kerrygold, Joie de Vivre, Mezzetta) for the work and effort you put into it. I want to bake you all yummy cookies.

*To make things less overwhelming, I will highlight two of the bloggers I met on each of my posts for the next 10 weeks or so, because that's how long it's going to take!

Plum Clafoutis

2009-11-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

My racing self got pulled off a shelf, shined up, and sent out to run a 10K a week or so ago. Up and down, fast fast fast, my brain chanted, and my feet did their best to oblige. Lucky me, because waiting at the end were piles of plums just calling out to come home.

I resisted that plummy siren call until the plum attendants began crying "last call," and shoveling their wares into any willing bag. Then I surrendered. A whole plum clan came home, their blackish purple blue bellies set up camp on my table, insisting on covering every available surface (and some papers, too) as they jostled for space. Were they urban plums masquerading as settlers?

This morning saw the birth of that spot where enough and enough combine. A flurry of books made suggestions: jam, cake, tart, all ignored in favor of clafoutis's simple dessert meets breakfast song.

Plum Clafoutis
4 generous servings
4 plums, pits removed and sliced
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted buttter
4 tsp vanilla extract
6 eggs
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar
1 cup 1% milk
1/4 cup half and half

Preheat your oven to 425. Heat a 9" cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1/2 Tbsp butter and saute plum slices in the butter for one to two minutes, or until they start to turn translucent at the thinnes edges. Turn off the heat, remove plums from pan and set aside to cool. Add the remaining 1 Tbsp of butter to the skillet so it will melt from the remaining heat of the pan.

Combine vanilla, eggs and salt, and whisk together until well-blended. Add flour and sugar, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in milk and half and half until combined.

Pour batter into buttered skillet, then arrange plum slices on top, eating pieces as you go, because they taste a bit better when they're destined for somthing else. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes, or until puffed and golden and just an itty-bit dark on the edges (if you like it that way). Remove from heat, sprinkle with powdered sugar and top with a bit of lightly sweetened whipped cream. Sigh happily.

Repeat tomorrow?

New York does Chocolate, Show-style

2009-10-31T00:35:00.000-04:00

Chocolate.

That’s what Halloween celebrations are actually about for food people, isn’t it? Not some recreation of pagan traditions, nor an opportunity to skank out for a day. Sure, it may have elements of that, if the MTA posters in every subway station giving out directions for the Greenwich Village Halloween parade are any indication, but it’s really a day for celebrating chocolate.

Which makes this Halloween weekend the perfect time for the NYC Chocolate Show. This is my first year going, but I imagined it might be similar to the Institute of Food Technologists food expo (except with more chocolate), or a smaller version of the Fancy Food Show (except with more chocolate): lots of vendors, lots of samples, and lots of new business cards to pick up. I was partially right.

The Chocolate Show, unlike IFT’s food expo, or the Fancy Food Show, is actually geared towards a lay public. Certainly, vendors are there looking for new business opportunities, and chocolatiers are there to compete for recognition and acknowledgement. But on the most basic of levels, the chocolate show seems to be an opportunity for a chocolate-loving public to meet a few new chocolate flames, and perhaps kindle some old sparks, too.

Highlights, then:

*Al nassma chocolates—I heard rumors of camel’s milk chocolates a few months back, and finally had the opportunity to try it. The Arabia bar combines exotic hints of cardamom, coriandor, clove with smooth chocolate sourced from Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. According to Martin van Almsick, the general manager of Al nassma, their chocolates will soon be available in the Museum of Natural History. Who doesn’t want to support 3000 happy camels?

*madécasse—This is the second time I’ve encountered madécasse chocolates, sourced from and produced in Madegascar. I’ve been thinking a lot about social entrepreneurship recently (see my live-blog of Honest Tea’s Seth Goldman discussing his journey to success here), and appreciate the founders’ efforts to contribute to the local economy by not only sourcing their cocoa but also finishing their products in Madagascar. Brett Beach told me that they currently employ 20 farmers and 10 full-time equivalent workers in their Madagascar operations, numbers that should grow with their business. If you like tasting the flavor of the region your chocolate is coming from, madécasse is worth adding to your repertoire.

*Chocolate Springs—I just liked the chef. He’s young, excited, and very passionate about what he’s doing, which is making a beautiful and flavorful assortment of chocolates heavily influenced by his early training in Japanese restaurants, and later training in France.

*FIKA—I learned to temper chocolate a few years ago. If I’d ever produced a temper as amazingly smooth and shiny as that produced by FIKA’s executive pastry chef, I think I would’ve fainted from pure joy. I’m more of a straight bar kind of gal, but the simple lines and gorgeous finishes of FIKA’s chocolates make them well worth a mark on your NYC chocolate tour map, should you ever make it here to do a tour. (On a side note, I ran into Alexandra Leaf, the brilliant mastermind behind Chocolate Tours of New York City. She came and spoke last spring at NYU, and I was blown away by her knowledge. If you don’t want a do-it-yourself chocolate tour, she’s well worth considering. I want to be her.)

*Last, Dove Discoveries. It’s Tupperware/ Mary-Kay/ Pampered Chef for chocolate people. To be honest, I can’t decide if I’m thrilled or annoyed at such a development in the direct marketing world, yet considering the success that many have had developing their own businesses with the T/MK/PC angle, why not? If this screams “This is me!” to you, buy your business kit before Nov. 2nd, and they’ll knock $50 off the cost if you mention NY Chocolate Show when you sign up. The prices in the catalog seem a bit high to me, but I think the same thing every time I look at Pampered Chef products.

Voila. It’s almost like you were there with me eating chocolate for breakfast, except your stomach probably feels a lot better than mine, and your blood sugar levels are much more even. And you didn’t get the chance to taste the passion-fruit chile creation that made my hair stand on end with delight. A frightful thing, indeed.

Smacarons! = Hi (macaron) + Low (smarties) (plus a giveaway)

2009-10-29T00:01:00.002-04:00

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

I grew up with Smarties as an integral part of my mom's reward system, and have a happy pot of childhood memories linked with these little rolls of sweetness. Last semester I found myself in a class with one of the granddaughters of the man who made a sugary dream into Smarties, and we became friends. Lucky me! I've been begging her ever since to let me come visit so I could see how candy is produced, and we finally managed to get our schedules aligned. Huzzah! Last week found me clutching my first-ever NJ transit bus ticket (round trip) in one hand and a map in the other and heading out of NYC into the great unknown living on the other side of the Hudson. All for the chance to see candy be born.

It's not surprising, in retrospect that my macaron flavor inspiration came from that trip to the real-life wonderland where Smarties, those little candy rolls of sweetness that you may remember if you grew up in the US, and probably have never encountered if you grew up elsewhere, are produced. I had planned to transform my visit into another product development corner vignette. Fate, however, kindly stepped in, adopting the brown-haired form of Edward Dee's (the founder of Smarties) granddaughter, Jessica, one of the family-owned company's executives.

"I was looking at your blog," she said, "do you think you could bake with Smarties? They're dextrose, so not quite like sucrose, but you could grind them up? They could add flavor."

Enchanted with the idea, I accepted a small stash of Smarties candies, mentally re-labelled them as baking supplies (some for me, some for you, dear readers, if you leave a comment, and are randomly picked*), and headed off to find my way back to New York City from the enchanting industrial realm of Union Township, NJ. Did you know that you have to to wave your bus down, even if you're standing at the stop?

First up on the can-one-bake-with-Smarties? (AKA COBWS?) challenge: macarons. After all, I keep hearing rumor that these are picky little baked creatures. Having never made macarons before, I had no idea if adding Smarties would work, let alone if my macarons would work. But a daring baker I am! (albeit a procrastinatory baker) If I can make this work, I can make anything work, right? *Here is the point where I request swelling music, and a sudden transformation into my alter ego, super-baker. In case you were wondering, she wears orange tights.*

First step: set up the scene of action

Grind the Smarties. A quick paper-towel swipe and zoop! my mortar-and-pestle is ready for action.

Step 2: sift those ground up smartie bits into clouds-of-dust smartie bits, and just-a-bit-big smartie bits. Then add 2 Tbsp of the clouds-of-dust to your macaron recipe (see here), at the point when you should add flavoring. For fun, a bit of orange zest is good, too. The candies add a bit of flavor and color, but it's really the just-a-bit-big bits that make the difference! Sprinkle them on top after you pipe your macarons, as they do cool things when baked. Color changes, for instance.

Step 3: for me, at least, was the hardest. The recipe says to bake in an oven on low heat for 5 minutes to dry out your cookies before increasing the heat. I was too tired, though, so I followed my friend Anne's advice (she always gives advice worth following), and piped out my macarons, left them sitting forlornly on the counter (bake us! they cried) and went to bed.

I'm glad I did, because they more or less looked the way they were supposed to (given that I made my own almond flour and didn't sift it three times).

Out of curiousity, however, I tried piping some of my remaining batter out the next day, and baking it according to the instructions in the recipe. Macaron fail, indeed (see those canyon-like cracks?). Maybelle's Mom and Wolf's Den had similar experiences. THM: it's really worth letting them sit for a bit before baking them. Which works really well with my life.

I filled mine with chocolate ganache (a great success for picture taking), and lime curd (a bit more of a mess, but oh-so-yummy). Yum! Go visit the other bakers to see what beauties they made.

^Disclaimer: CeDe candy corporation neither asked me to write this post, nor did they pay me to write this post, it is instead a labor of love.

*All comments left on this post by Oct. 31st, midnight, EST, will be entered into a random drawing for a variety pack of Smarties products. However, due to my student budget, I can only ship within the US.

How to make pita, and then create pizza

2009-10-23T21:47:00.000-04:00

I love pita bread, especially the pita with za'atar from Damascus Bakery on Atlantic Avenue. If I'd been to the middle east, I'm certain I could recout lovely tales of wandering the streets of Lebanon in search of that perfect loaf of pita (remember that time when we got lost?), or traipsing about Jerusalem, pita in hand (and ended up in the Arabic quarter buying olivewood nativity scenes from a Muslim man?). But I haven't been (yet), so instead I eat pita and think of making mini-pizzas with my nieces (cheese flying everywhere) or my first taste of hummus as a college freshman ("what is this? I don't like it. Hmm. Maybe I'll try another bite. Oh, it's not so bad. Another bite? I love this!").

Happily, pita is incredibly simple to make, and amazingly forgiving for novice breadmakers.

Pita
Oven: as hot as it goes (450-500), makes twelve 6" pitas
2 tsp instant dry yeast
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour
1 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 cups warm (~72F) water

Combine yeast, flours, salt and oil in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add 2 1/4 cups of the water and mix on first speed with the dough hook for 30 seconds. Feel the dough (pinch it between your fingers: is it dry? sticky?) and adjust hydration with the reamining 1/4 cup as necessary. Mix until the dough comes together and forms a ball, about one minute. It should be a medium consistency. Cover the bowl and let ferment at room temperature (70-74F) about 90 minutes, or refrigerate for up to a week.

Preheat oven to as hot as it will go (450 to 500F), and place an upside down jelly-roll pan in the oven to create a hearth. Or you can use a pizza stone if you have one, or a cookie sheet.

Divide the dough into 12 equal sized parts.

Use your hands to fold the edges of the dough pieces under to make a ball. Do this for all 12 pieces.

This helps "train" the dough to take the shape you want it to.

Keep the dough pieces you are not workign with lightly covered with plastic to prevent them from drying out. Roll out your dough pieces on a liberally floured surface--about 6" in diameter. You do not want sticky dough at this point, because if it sticks to your hands or the peel, it will be difficult to get it into the oven. Brush off excess flour from the dough, and place directly onto the hearth. I use a wooden peel to transfer my pita, and bake them two at a time. You can use the back of a cookie sheet, or, if you're careful, just plop them on with your hands.

Bake for three minutes.

As soon as you remove the pita from the oven, wrap them in a clean cloth. When they come out, they will be big pillows of puffy bread, as they cool the "pillow" will collapse, making the pita pocket.

Now for the pizza fun: cover your fresh pitas with sauce, cheese and whatever strikes your fancy, toss them back in your already hot oven, and bake until the cheese is melted. Yum.

My other half strongly recommends pita dessert: cut the pita in half, fill the inside with peanut butter, nutella, and banana slices, and then bake for 3 to 4 minutes at 400F. I'd post a picture, if there was anything left to take a picture of.

Live coverage of Seth Goldman of Honest Tea on social entrepreneurship in the 21st century

2009-10-19T12:07:00.004-04:00

Have you wondered how a socially-minded business can survive contact with a corporate giant such as Coca-Cola? Seth Goldman attempts to make the case that it's possible. You'll have to scroll through a few too many "organic" tweets to find the start of the conversation (I'm still learning with cover-it-live), but once you're there it gets really interesting.

Cheers!
Chou
Seth Goldman of Honest Tea talks about social entrepreneurship

Take out menus and tortillas: a 3X5 story

2009-10-18T22:54:00.001-04:00

I occasionally find myself struggling to write, evident by the long stretches of silence between posts. It's not that I'm not cooking, although I certainly spend less time experimenting and more time doing nothing of note than I care to admit. To combat this listless phase, and work on amusing myself, I've started writing little vignettes on 3X5 cards. One side, three parts.

Dine-out Nation, 3X5 #2
I. I hate inviting people over. Not for those floral-print, rose-scented reasons of Pisa-like towers constructed of coffee cups and cereal bowls, nor due to the freakishly mobile shadows that roam the space between front door and street. There's just nowhere. to. put. them. Okay, maybe not put, but feed. Where would they go? On top of the filing cabinet, or in the all-in-one bathroom that requires you stand on the toilet to close the door?

II. It's a frantic thing, space with no people inside, too busy and fussy and cold to allow access for any human heart beside mine, nattering on about clutter and chaos instead of shared laughs and popcorn fights. Late at night, when possibility and reality drop their stone masks and start eying each other like dumplings and soy sauce, I'll screw my eyes up and squint about this space, imagining another person bringing smells of cardamom or curry in. I sing songs of hope, until I run, myopic eyes-wide open, into a 6-foot high and 3-foot deep wall of resistance. At least those are the dimensions my mental magicians have imposed, after three bloody noses and two broken toes.

III. Remove the flour trails, tortilla presses and butter bombs from my history, and perhaps friends and strangers in my space could unbutton this cast-iron curtain. I'm practicing right now, smuggling take-out menus in under my coat, stuffed in my pockets, folded into hat brims. They're smart enough to keep quiet when we cross those visible lines of power keeping insiders in and outsiders out; after all, they're the ones that make puppy-dog eyes and beg for shelter. Open my door and they clamor for attention, sending out fireworks of flavor and sparkling hints of experience. Yesterday I came home to a raging argument--menus scattered about the room, hiding from the Golden Dragon's fiery defense of the merits of General Tsao's chicken. I wonder how they'll react to today's news that they're now all online?

3X5 #1, Accidental Dragons

Solar powered kitchens

2009-10-12T23:31:00.003-04:00

If you've ever met me in person, or read my blog long enough, you know I have a secret, second non-food passion: solar panels. They make my eyes light up like the 4th of July, and then I wander off into fits of dizzy happiness while extolling the virtues of the Deparment of Energy's bi-annual college-level solar competition: Solar Decathlon. It's been two painfully long years since I first got hooked on pipe dreams of solar houses and urban experiments, a dream that may just be transitioning from a niche love to a national obsession. After all, trusted favorites such as CNN, and Scientific American have joined the conversation, not to mention the admittedly geekier (and thus cooler) gizmodo and my new favorite inhabitat.

Solar Decathlon officially kicked off October 9th, however, if you're anywhere near Washington D.C. you have until October 18th to make it to the mall for your chance to glimpse solar bliss.

Now to business: what kind of kitchens do these little beauties (contest rules limit the houses to a footprint of 800 square feet or less) sport? I've done my best to wriggle and wrangle my way around the crowded masses enjoying the event so I can document what type of cooking fun we may all be dreaming of for our future homes. Warning: drop those dreams of big, because smaller is the word of the day.

Trends: induction cook tops, half-size sinks, counter-tops that double as tables, and innovative pantry hiding.

Cornell University

Round and pretty, but no place for the stand mixer; Two burners?

University of Minnesota

Corner drawer!

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Functional, streamlined, a bit boring

University of Puerto Rico

No oven?! Otherwise, a pleasure

Rice University

The most affordable unit on the block

Team Alberta

A TV that retracts into the cabinet? Cool. But dangerous . . .

Technische Universität Darmstadt

The smallest oven of them all, but a cappacino machine and a shallow prep sink might compensate

Ohio State

Hidden pantries rock!

University of California at Santa Clara

Very, very liveable

Arizona

If only you could tell where kitchen ended and bedroom began . . .

Team Ontario

MOMA meets the daily grind?

Most intriguing of all, was the number of houses incorporating food production of some sort into their design. Perhaps food, environmentalism and sustainability do all go hand-in-hand. And, in the case of Rice's house--which came in at a mere $150K (vs Germany's $850K), and will find its final home in Houston's 3rd Ward neighborhood--social justice.

Although I love the kitchens themselves, it is the fact that these kitchens should, in theory, be totally powered by the sun that really makes me leap with joy.

If anyone has pictures of the other kitchens, drop me a note so I can link to your post.

Apple crumb cake with caramel bread crumble

2009-10-06T13:59:00.003-04:00

How does bread become cake? Marie Antoinette purportedly found such a proposition plausible. However, her subjects lacked butter and eggs, sugar and flour, and thus rebelled mightily against such frivolity. We* live in happier times, perhaps, at least when it comes to such basics as needed for cake making, allowing joyful exploration of the mysteries of converting bread crumb to cake crumb, making sweetness from savory.

As part of Foodbuzz's Tastemaker program, I recently received a sample of Nature's Pride 100% Natural Whole Wheat bread. If I were to draw a bread continuum, and place Nature's Pride100% Natural bread thereon, it would look a bit like this:

I prefer my breads on the home-made side of the scale.

We've tested it so far on grilled cheese (not bad), PB&J (good), and most recently, in an amazing apple crumb cake--(best yet!). This cake's tender crumb melts in your mouth, a medley of sweet and caramel accompanied by the slight tang of cream cheese and a burst of crunchy intrigue from the caramel crumb crunch topping.

Apple Crumb Cake
makes 12 cupcakes and an 8" round, or 18 cupcakes

3 slices 100% natural whole wheat bread, such as Nature's Pride
Process in a food processor and then divide: it should give you ~ 2 cups, use 1 cup for the cake, and the remaining crumbs for the caramel bread crumble topping
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup caramel syrup ^see below
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup finely grated sweet apples such as gingergold (about 3 medium apples)

Preheat oven to 350F and line cupcake tins with liners. Combine 1 cup bread crumbs, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl, whisk together to mix and set aside.

Using the paddle attachment (if you're using a stand mixer), cream butter, sugar and cardamom together on medium speed until the mixture changes from yellowish to whiteish, or reaches that elusive "light and fluffy" stage, about three minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, and beat for one minute after each addition. Scrap the sides of the bowl between egg additions. Next, add the caramel syrup, mixing until well incorporated.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the creamed butter mixture, and blend on low speed just until incorporated. Add 1/2 of the grated apples, and blend on low speed just until mixed. Repeat, alternating flour and apple, and ending with flour.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 of the way and bake at 350F until the tops appear caramel-y brown and spring back when lightly touched, 20-24 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in pan, and then transfer to a wire rack to completely finish cooling. Once cool, ice with cream cheese frosting and caramel crunch crumbles.

Cream Cheese Frosting (makes enough for a light frosting of all cupcakes; if you like a heavy frosting, double the recipe)
1/4 cup unsalted butter,room temperature
4 oz neufchatel cream cheese
1 cup sifted confectioner's (powdered) sugar
1/8 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp vanilla

Using the paddle attachment on low to medium speed on a stand mixer, cream butter for 30 seconds, then add cream cheese. Mix until well blended, then reduce the speed to low and slowly add powdered sugar. Mix until well incorporated, and finally add the salt and vanilla.

Caramel Bread Crumble
1 cup 100% natural whole wheat toasted bread crumbs
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Spread the bread crumbs out on a greased pan, or on a silpat mat. Evenly sprinkle 1 Tbsp of granulated sugar in a small skillet or sauce-pan, and heat over medium heat until the sugar all begins to melt. Do not stir. As the sugar melts, continue sprinkling on the remaining granulated sugar, one Tbsp at a time, until it all melts. If needed, swirl the pan around to introduce unmelted sugar to melted. Once all the sugar is melted, and it's as dark as you like your caramel, pour over the bread crumbs. Working quickly with a spoon or silicon spatula, toss the bread crumbs with caramel until well coated. Once cool enough to touch, break up the caramel crumb crunch into smaller pieces.

^Caramel Syrup
This recipe is from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater; since first making this in the November Daring Baker's Challenge, I find myself using caramel syrup in a lot of things, and recommend keeping some on hand to add to hot cocoa, plain yogurt, or on top of goat cheese.

1 cups sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.} Store unused caramel in a covered jar in the refrigerator indefinitely.

*My academic self must qualify the "we" as the lucky "we" who actually have means and access to such luxuries, while recognizing that many do not. Please consider donating a bit of your time or money to City Harvest, or The Greater Chicago Food Depository, or any other organization that makes it possible for those in your own neighborhood who have less to have a bit more.

Product Development Corner: Emily Bakes! and shares her insights

2009-10-04T15:55:00.002-04:00

How do not-quite perfect pastries and perfectly formed, identical pastries live in the same handmade universe? We've been trained to equate machine-formed with uniformity, and slightly misshapen as identifiers of the rustic reality of human intervention in the creation of food. Yet, as Francisco Migoya of The Quenelle recently noted, sameness, when produced by the human hand, indicates a level of skill and craftsmanship that deserves a quiet round of public accolade, followed by happy munching.

The shortbread cookies from Emily Bakes caught my eye at the fancy food show precisely because of the juxtaposition of hand-formed and uniform. I decided to follow up with Emily after the show to learn more about how she found herself baking cookies as a living rather than a pastime as part of balance's Product Development Corner Series.

Unlike Lesley Stowe (previously highlighted here), Emily comes from a non-food background. She started her professional life studying art, metal-smithing and print-making before becoming a trained gemologist. Her childhood food history, recounted here, baked sugar and flour into her soul, and souffled into an interest in creating and making food--especially desserts--that her friends would scarf down without even considering the caloric content. An unwelcome job loss, a request for 1000 wedding-favor cookies, and a charity event with an additional 1500, led to the creation of Emily Bakes.

If you've ever considered opening your own food business, you know that there are a myriad of obstacles that insist on blocking the path from idea conception to implementation: space to bake, legal issues, compliance with state and federal regulations, allergy warnings, identifying reliable suppliers, price point determination, projected sales, business plans . . . my brain dances in circles every time I consider the possibilities. Emily, however, makes it sound easy.

In a way, for Emily, setting up her business was actually "easy," at least in that she took advantage of the business and practical experience embedded in a network of friends and friends-of-friends: attorneys, commercial food producers, even state resources such as the Cornell Extension Service. In my opinion, here lies the key to the current and future success of Emily Bakes, or of any new business: mentors. If you have any interest in food entrepreneurship, resources such as Cornell's Food Entrepreneur Resource page are indispensable.

Emily's mother's fork--responsible for her signature cookie design

In addition to seeking out resources in preparing to start Emily Bakes, Emily also found a community of resources in her own kitchen. Emily currently rents a licensed bakery space in Red Hook, a space shared with a wedding cake virtuoso, and the bakers responsible for making certain the Treats truck has what you're craving. Imagine a workshop--a place for bouncing around ideas off of others who are each tackling a different part of the market, and you get the idea. Good company, indeed. Her advice to anyone seeking kitchen space: don't settle for something that doesn't meet your standards of cleanliness--just keep looking and you'll find it. Cornell provides a partial list of kitchen and small co-manufacturer spaces that can be useful for the NY area, and craigslist never hurts. If you live outside of NY, check with your State Ag extension service--they will probably have resources similar to Cornell's.

Packaging design contributes to consumer perceptions of quality--and to overall quality!

Emily makes nut-free cookies. She wryly admits this self-imposed boundry is a challenge when coming up with new formulations, however, it also inspires an extra level of innovation and creativity. From my outside perspective, Emily's choice to produce a nut-free product points to important lesson #2: pick your niche, and grow in it.

A little pressure and heat create a great seal

Lesson three may be the hardest of all: growing a business is a lot of work. Emily said the best advice she's received so far is to be patient: most businesses take between two and three years of hard work before they truly find their "footing" and can flourish. Little encouragements like the Nibble's great review of Emily's cookies certainly help make that time go a bit faster.

My favorite flavor--wonderful with lemon curd

After our interview, Emily graciously sent me home with a package of chocolate espresso and vanilla sea salt cookies to enjoy. Although wonderful plain, I absolutely love crumbling the vanilla sea salt shortbread over lemon curd and topping with whipped cream. Simple, easy and fabulously addictive.

Emily currently sells her cookies online at Emilybakes.com, and at select stores in Ohio. For purposes of disclosure, I received no compensation for this little adventure in interviewing.

Chausson aux pommes and a daring September dash

2009-09-27T22:34:00.000-04:00

Lemon meringue vols-au-vent.

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. You'd think that after missing last month's daring challenge to make a Dobos Torte (which I mostly did, but happened to move half-way through torte creation, a serious failure of planning) I would have planned ahead and made my puff pastry days in advance. Nope. I started last night, and finished, well, tonight.

Here I am, eating my attempts and feeling grouchy about it. And trying to decide whether to do study abroad in January. Note my window-less oven. We have issues.

It wasn't very fun, to be honest. There's nothing daring in doing a last-minute "I want to play" dash--it's too much like cramming for an exam. Lots of effort, little reward. But to assuage myself after watching my vols-au-vent attempt all sorts of acrobatics in the oven, I made chausson aux pommes: little pastry slippers filled with chunky apple filling. They speak of fall, and happy discoveries in foreign bakeries that make you decide you actually need to play with puff pastry.

The recipe is simple:

puff pastry
whatever apple-sauce you like
     (I made my own),
a bit of egg
to wash the top and seal the edges,
and an oven
hot
     400, in fact
apple in middle of square
followed by edge painted in
egg
fold over,
     angled towards belly button
egg wash top
bake
30 minutes or until it reaches
     that proverbial
golden brown

Chausson aux pommes: visual poetry

I attept to explain myself using pictures.

Luckily, I like laminating dough (especially pie dough), I just don't do it all that often. I attempted to graphically explain lamination before, this time I actually took pictrures! They're a bit abridged, of course, but you can see the major steps. On a lightly floured board roll into a rectangular shape (~4.5" X 6.5"). Place the butter for laminating the crust into the center and fold edges over (step 1). Seal edges and then roll out, attempting to keep the corners as square as possible. Fold using the double book fold: first roll your dough into a long rectangle, and then fold one side in 1/3 of the way, followed by folding the other side in to meet the first side (step 2). Next, fold your dough in half again, like you're closing a book (step 3). Rotate one quarter turn and repeat steps 2 and 3. At this point you've completed two "turns." Wrap in plastic wrap, toss into the fridge and go watch a movie. When you've finished, and wept over the heroine's marvelous escape or horrible end, return to your now chilled dough. I find it most effective to use my rolling pin to create little "troughs" to help soften up the butter, before I begin the entire rolling process again. A total of four "turns" is ideal. Chill your pastry again before using it.

A few favorites, from newbie Daring Bakers:

Apple pie reimagined at Sassy Suppers

Cran-apple inspiration at Sweet Treats (plus the recipe for puff pastry)
Caramel Creme with apple adornment at Patisserie Gourmet

Bread: A book review

2009-09-22T23:07:00.000-04:00

My mother once left me in charge of the bread baking in her oven. Book in hand, I settled into the soft confines of the couch to await the timer's buzz, only to emerge to the scent of imminent burning. Six loaves, blackened and hard enough to bounce knives and small artillery fire in new directions emerged from the oven. Although voiceless, they still accused me of neglect and disrespect.

As a freshman in college, bread baking became my excuse for cementing a friendship with a group of six funny, intelligent men, who just happened to have loaf pans in their apartment. I made cinnamon bread, and my mother's bread, with varying degrees of success mitigated by butter, warmth, and strawberry jam. None of my bread creations, however, came close to approximating the crunchy, creamy, airy, dense, caramelized loaves of bread I encountered in France.

Melina Kelson, a chef-instructor at Kendall College, introduced me to Jeffery Hamelman's Bread in 2006 and my bread baking (almost) irreversibly changed from sandwhich loaf to crusty loaf. Hamelman carefully introduces readers to thinking like a master baker. No longer is bread dough just a step to that warm loaf, instead Hamelman transforms it into a wonderland of science and living organisms, protein contents and hydration levels. Especially useful, at least during the days when I had my own monster mixer and was making 15 lbs of dough for church functions, are the triplicate formulations for large- and medium-scale production, plus home production. Yeasted pre-ferments, sourdough, straight dough and enriched dough formulations all make appearances, allowing readers to gain a good grasp of the similarities and differences between each appraoch to bread making. A personalized commentary accompanies each formulation, bridging the formality gap between professional and amateur--I find myself returning to read and re-read the commentary as I make my bread.

Bread is not a coffee-table book, it's a next-to-your-flour-and-yeast-book, pages giving off a slight poof of floury dust every time you open up to decide between pain rustique (pictured above) or challah for your weekend baking adventures. In addition, it's a life book: the most useful lesson I've learned in the past three years of baking from Bread hides in the Epilogue. Hamelman hopes that after all, as bread bakers, we will find that "To know for ourselves how much of the world's prosperity we need, and to be content with it, allows for the possibility of happiness because the endless yearning for more and more ceases." Zen baking, indeed.

Winter Gardening

2009-09-20T20:19:00.000-04:00

I've finally located a nice chunk of space for growing things amidst this urban adventure of concrete and steel. I'm not the only one, as the New Amsterdam Market demonstrates, and I'm not the first, as the stoop steps covered with planters and green bits peeking over rooftops show. But I am one of the few lucky ones to get a winter garden, provided the dirt gets delivered soon enough.

Here's the list I've put together, thanks to my father's growing expertise, of things that should do well over the next few months:

Rosemary
Spinach
Radishes
Kale
Collard Greens
Swiss Chard
Lettuce
Endive

These boxes won't all be my purview, instead I hope to have a small team of graduate student gardeners take on this project with me, while we tend these boxes until spring, when a group of 2nd and 3rd graders take over to learn the joys of watching seeds turn to plants.

What would you plant?

Lime-a-melon mocktail

2009-09-17T22:46:00.002-04:00

As Summer winds herself up into a compact ball, ready to snuggle into a drawer with Spring and Winter while Fall dances gloriously free, the last of the watermelon crop rolls quietly from farm to vendor to table. If you find that perfect melon, the one that sounds of "crack" when slapped, or covered with bee stings on the belly button end, I suggest engaging in a little lime-a-melon making to toast Summer's final days.

Watermelon cocktail recipes abound, but I remained blissfully unaware of that until a recent NY Times article, which I seem unable to find, described the moment when small child invites grandma for a watermelon cocktail. My first memory of such a creation involves dappled sunshine, family, and a blender full of water, watermelon and sugar. Amazed that such lush flavor could morph from plate to drink, I followed by adding my favorites: salt and lime.

Despite years of mixing the three, I still sip in astonishment every time. It's such a simple transgression, morphing food for a hand to food from a glass. Almost, if you squint your mind hard enough, a phase change: solid to liquid to gone.

Lime-a-melon mocktail
Enough watermelon to fill your blender 75% full
1 cup of limeade
zest and juice of one lime
1/4 tsp salt

Blend. Blend. Blend. Serve over ice.

Summer's quiet endings: simple pasta

2009-09-13T17:35:00.004-04:00

My melancholy alter-ego craves the day when the air first smells of fall, light-crisp cold mingled with summer's left-over musky warmth. Despite a few coldish spells, that day hasn't arrived. Yet I feel it hiding around the corner, my toes curling in anticipation each morning when I open the window to check on the late-summer progress of my basil plants.

Unlike last year's 6'X6' garden, which joyously tossed out basil plants with fat, bunchy leaves, this year's planter box exhibits a much more restrained approach: New York slender, with a bit of a prickle if you get too close. My crop, too small to make pesto, exists to garnish a weeknight dinner, or a light afternoon snack.

Summer's End Pasta
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped
A generous handful of grape tomatoes, quartered
Cooked farfalle for two
As many basil leaves as your plant can spare, chopped
A light dusting of grated Parmesean
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat a non-stick saute pan over medium heat, then add the oil and let it warm until it slides about the pan when you look at it askance, heat eddies creating gentle movement. Thirty seconds should do. Add the garlic, slipping it gently into the oil, then stir about until garlic permeates the room. Thirty seconds again may adequately work, but if you prefer your garlic muted, a minute is better. Slide the tomatoes in next, swirling about with a spoon until garlic and tomato combine and the tomatoes just begin to blush with the heat. Remove your pan from flame, and add the farfalle; toss, toss, then plate and garnish with basil, Parmesean and as much salt and pepper as your heart desires. A candle may help make it taste better, but even the sad light of two bare bulbs looks happier when lighting this dish.

Favorite Family Heirloom Recipe?

2009-09-07T07:47:00.002-04:00

Dear readers, occasional and otherwise,

My apologies for an immense blogging silence, engendered by an intense few weeks of packing, moving, camera dropping, and kitchenless-life. Reality returns later today, and I anticipate a lovely cascade of blogposts and pictures for your reading enjoyments.

In the meantime, however, I pose this question: what is your favorite family recipe, that heirloom that grandma or mother or aunt or uncle or father passed on to you? How have you preserved it, or changed it, or remade it?

Please share!

Sincerely,

Chou

Whole Wheat Bread for Liz

2009-08-17T21:24:00.007-04:00

I have a cousin, AKA Liz, that I acquired by marriage. Liz happens to be someone I want for my best friend--she's brilliant, fun, and extremely patient with life's little ups and downs. Unfortunately, she lives on the opposite side of the North American continent, west to my east, a travesty that plagues me on a weekly basis--after all, we could hike the entire state of New York while our respective spouses spent the day glued to a computer, and all would be absolutely wonderful in the world. Fate had other plans, however.

She emailed me a few weeks back, wondering if I could recommend a good whole wheat bread recipe. Normally I'd whip out my favorite bread book (Bread by J. Hamelman) and send her one, but that book is a 2 hour trek away. So I tinkered a bit with other recipes, and made up my own.

I love bread baking, the way the house smells like all holidays rolled into one. However, it seems a skill better transmitted by hand than by word, for my literary skills stall when faced with describing the almost-deflated balloon feeling of perfectly risen bread, or the silky smoothness of perfectly kneaded dough. Wild Yeast does a wonderful job of transmitting the joys of bread baking, I highly recommend going there for training. Here, though, is my baby-shower gift for Liz:

Wheat Bread for Liz
*This makes one really big loaf, or one big loaf and one little loaf
sponge
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
~~1 1/2~~ 1/2 cup luke warm water (modified 9/23/09)
1/4 tsp instant yeast

Mix together until smooth, place in a covered container and allow to rest at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours. Or place in a refrigerator overnight. After fermentation, add the sponge to the following:

1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp instant yeast
2 Tbsp honey
sponge
Water--start with 1/2 cup, then adjust until you have the appropriate texture

Combine all ingredients and mix until water is incorporated. Feel the dough, if it's still dry, add more water, 1 Tbsp at a time, until you get a semi-stiff, elastic dough, with a medium gluten development (see here for how to test gluten development). If you accidentally add too much water, you can add in a little extra flour. Coat dough with ~1Tbsp of olive oil, place in a clean bowl, and cover. Let rise for 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Turn dough onto a floured surface and roll or pat into an 8" by 12" rectangle. Roll the dough up, tightly, then take both hands and tuck the sides under as you transfer to a 9" x 5" greased loaf pan (the seam side should be on the bottom of the loaf). Cover with a plastic bag sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, and let rise until the dough is doubled in size, approximately one hour. Preheat oven to 425F, and place a small pie tin of water in the oven to pre-hydrate it during preheating (remove the water pan when you place the bread in the oven). Brush top of bread with melted butter just before placing in the oven. Bake at 425 for 5 minutes, then drop the temperature to 350 and continue baking until the center of the bread registers 200F-205F on an instant read thermometer, or the loaf sounds hollow when tapped, approximately 35 minutes more.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes in pan, then turn out onto a rack to finish cooling. Try not to eat it all in one sitting.

Bingle, Jingle

2009-08-13T23:09:00.005-04:00

My cubicle neighbor kindly introduced me to a new snack food delight today, the ever elusive Bingle. Try googling it. Then discover the existence of some woman named Lara you've never heard of, and somehow feel no need to ever hear of again. I can't help but describe Bingles as existing somewhere in the cosmic space between where a Twinkie ends and a red velvet cupcake that escaped a high-end bakery, got battered up a bit en route, painted with sugar and lost all hint of cocoa, begins. The closest to a true web site sharing the Bingles story is here, a severe failure in modern-day advertising.

Yet doesn't that perky blue bird just make you want to dash out to your nearest mid-atlantic supermarket and hunt down your own box of frightenly red deliciousness? True food? No. But fabulously fun to eat? Yes. Good luck in your hunt, let me know where you spot the next of this rare breed.

Presto! pesto perfected

2009-08-10T20:43:00.003-04:00

I love the smell of fresh basil mixed with garlic, olive and parmesean sneaking around corners in my house, from kitchen to living room and then out the door. "Summer!" it sings, pushing dreams of cool evenings back into their basil-less futures, reminding us to enjoy today before tomorrow comes.

Somehow the saddest moment in pesto making is when the gorgeous green color of my freshly made pesto begins to brown. I discussed this two years ago (my, how time flies!), suggesting extra olive oil, blanching or additional lemon juice as effective means of slowing the enzymatic action that takes oxygen and transforms summer green into winter browns. I stand behind those suggestions, but thanks to a lack of pinenuts in my house, have an even better suggestion.

Almonds.

Maybe you've read about how good-for-you almonds are? Or looked at a can of almonds and seen a tag-line extolling the virtues of almond's high levels of naturally occurring vitamin E? Vitamin E just happens to be a great antioxidant, and it turns out that when you substitute almonds in place of pine-nuts you find yourself with pesto that stays beautifully green, without blanching or extra olive oil or lemon juice, for longer than I ever imagined. We've made it two weeks, weedling down our jar one grilled pesto/mozerella/tomato sandwhich at a time (going on 10 days now), and the pesto is still green.

Take home message: add almonds to your pesto, and summer might last a few weeks longer.

My personal recipe is here, just use almonds.

If browning, enzymatic or not, interests you, keep an eye on Lab Cat's ongoing non-enzymatic browning series.

Product Development Corner: An interview with Lesley Stowe

2009-08-04T10:36:00.001-04:00

Those who make, bake and feed others, be it on an individual, daily level, or on a larger, restaurant/bakery level, or even on the mass-produced level fascinate me. Perhaps a part of that fascination comes from my own compulsive need to feed others. I reserve a special place in my awe-o-meter, however, for people who take the next step and attempt to transition a fabulous out-of-the-oven, or just-from-the-stove product into a shelf-stable* product, while maintaining appealing flavors and textures. No easy task.

After a bit of thought, and a dash of inspiration from cakespy's Sweet Talk interviews, I've decided to introduce the product development corner. I anticipate highlighting small, and maybe, maybe, some large (depending on the access I can get) food production businesses for your enjoyment. After all, aren't we all curious about what makes someone step out of the comfort of a small kitchen into the mysteries of bake lines, package design, and shipping manifests?

First up is Lesley Stowe, the mind behind Raincoast Crisps. Raincoast (think Vancouver), not Rainforest. I mess it up regularly. I met Lesley at the Fancy Foods Show, and after tasting her crisps, decided I wanted to know more about how such a great product came to be. The basic story is on her website, we go more in-depth below.

Business development
When you started your business, the fine foods world was just opening up . . . now it's a different ballgame. How have you managed to survive and thrive throughout the years?

“Our business has definitely evolved since we first started in 1985. We originally ran a catering operation and wholesale dessert business supplying restaurants with desserts beyond the ubiquitous carrot cake and cheesecake. After four years, I realized there was a real need for a specialty food shop in the city of Vancouver. We pioneered the first store by offering high quality prepared foods along with grocery items from around the world that had previously been unavailable. From there we developed the Raincoast Crisps for the catering side of the business. The popularity of the product allowed us to expand into retail markets across Canada and the U.S. You always have to be looking ahead for opportunities in the specialty food industry; like everything else, it is always evolving and you have to continually push yourself if you want to stay in the game.”

You saw a need within your own community and reached out and embraced it when you opened Lesley Stowe Fine Foods . . . what needs do you see now within your personal and increasingly expanded community, and what are you doing?

“We have streamlined our business and are focusing only on the Raincoast Crisps at the moment. I believe that when you find something that’s working really well, you should stick with it and take it as far as you can before venturing into something else.”

Personal development
How has your journey into fine foods changed you? What next? What advice do you have for anyone interested in transitioning an idea to a business reality?

“I wouldn’t say that being in the fine foods business has changed me – I have always been involved in the industry, just different facets of it. When something is in your blood you can’t really imagine doing anything else. As far as transitioning an idea into a business reality, do your homework, talk to everyone you can in your area of interest and learn from the mistakes of others – this last one is crucial to avoid falling into similar situations.”

Tell us about the challenges you've faced in moving your product from a small-scale product to a large scale line. What technological hurdles have you had to overcome? What kind of additional training did you seek out/ what kind of technical assistance did you have to seek as you moved product from concept to reality?

“Be careful not to get ahead of yourself in these economically challenging times. Be realistic about your financial needs and don’t over extend yourself. Get the best financial advice you can buy, beg for or borrow. Have a business plan and grow when you can afford to. Surround yourself with those who are experts in the areas you are not. Focus on the big picture, but watch the details. Finally, always try to exceed expectations.”

Raincoast Crisps are currently available in Canada, and in select Whole Foods locations. See here for a store locator. In my Whole Foods, they're located next to the Parm-Reg. For purposes of disclosure, I received no compensation, nor product samples (beyond those that I tasted and fell in love with at the Fancy Food Show) for this little adventure in interviewing.

*I use the word shelf-stable broadly here to indicate foods that have a longer shelf-life, either through packaging, heat treatment, or product reformulation, than that which normal home production gives. Home canned/preserved goods do fit my shelf-stable definition.

Cookie Mallow Monster!

2009-07-27T07:00:00.001-04:00

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network. I had the pleasure of making cookies with Gale once, but neither of these cookies were on the cookie docket that day.

Inspired by the green space aliens from Toy Story 2, my cookie mallow monsters are a tasty mixture of cardamom, dulce de leche, home-made mallow and chocolate. Although they didn't win, nor did they even place (heart broken), in the 2009 intern competition "Bring Your A Game," every last mallow monster disappeared. A sure indication that these are great party food, loved by all, just not vote-worthy when company store cash (a bit like monopoly money) is on the line.

Mallows(Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website, slightly modified

2 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 cardamom pods, ground
8 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
2 eggs, whisked together

1 can dulce de leche
Homemade marshmallows, recipe follows
Chocolate glaze, recipe follows

In a mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the dry ingredients, then add the butter and mix until sandy. Add the eggs, and mix until the dough comes together. Pat the dough into a disk, wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.

When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1.5inch cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough I used the dosage cup that came with my bottle of Nyquil. Perfect size. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes 8 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.

Place a dollop of dulce de leche on each cookie and then pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature until the marshmallow is "set." The recipe recommends 2 hours. I was in a hurry and waited 30 minutes. After marshmallows are set, drop mallow side first, into chocolate glaze. Toss and turn them, then remove. If you're smart, you'll place the cookies on a silicone mat, or a greased pan. If not, you'll have issues later when you try to remove your cookies! The coating takes about 1 to 2 hours to set, unless you cheat and speed it up in the freezer.

Homemade marshmallows:
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
2 egg whites , room temperature
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve. I had to add a tsp additional water. Combine the water, corn syrup, and sugar, bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or (235 degrees). Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix. Whip the whites until soft peaks form and slowly pour the syrup into the whites while mixing. Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.
Transfer to a pastry bag (I sprayed my pastry bag with pam to make it easier to pipe. This may have affected the setting up. I didn't care) and pipe onto cookies.
Chocolate glaze:
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces cocoa butter or vegetable oil

Melt the 2 ingredients together in the top of a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water.

You can see all the other baker's creations here.

Take us to your leader!

Strawbarblerone Morning Muffins

2009-07-26T13:22:00.009-04:00

Do you remember the first time you had a Toblerone? I think my inaugural tasting happened during a summer abroad as an undergrad, perhaps in an airport lounge while waiting for luggage to arrive, or maybe shared between a pack of giggling girls riding a train into Paris? A duty-free candy, I've heard it called, although I more strongly associate Toblerone with the candy-bazaar ironically named the BYU Bookstore, where books are supporting act to the most amazing candy counter in the universe.

Where I haven't tasted Toblerone before is in my breakfast. A true travesty.
Unfazed by this obvious gap in my morning experimentation (after all, when salad, cake and pie regularly make the breakfast list, why not chocolate candy bars?), I decided to attack the problem head-on, and combine some leftover strawberries, rhubarb, and a bit of white chocolate into the perfect vehicle for morning calorie delivery.

Calories, as a unit of counting, fascinate me. By definition, a calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temeprature of a kilogram (1 liter/ ~ 4 quarts) of water by one degree. To determine the calorie amounts listed on nutrition labels (at least NLEA approved labels), a food is placed in a bomb calorimeter, set on fire (this sounds like something a bunch of high school physics students invented, doesn't it?), and the heat produced is measured. This assignment of energy units to food is a bit arbitrary, as we don't really know if all of our bodies consume food in quite the same fashion as a calorimeter. However, for now, calories indicate the amount of energy available in your food. Like a mystery, calories fail to reveal the social stories and constructions that accompany them, the taboos invisibly besmirching high calorie foods, or the the valorization making low calorie foods glimmer and glow with the knowledge that you should like them, even if you don't.

Strawbarblerone Morning Muffins
3/4 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
3/4 cup finely ground whole wheat flour, such as Whole Foods 365 brand
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
at least 2 triangles(~2 Tbsp)Toblerone white chocolate, roughly chopped
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/4 tsp orange zest
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup medium-dice rhubarb
1 cup medium-dice strawberry

Preheat oven to 350F, and grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Combine flours, soda, powder, cinnamon, sugar, white chocolate and salt, then set aside. Combine buttermilk, oil, egg, zest, vanilla. Add wets to drys, stir until just moistened, and then fold in rhubarb and strawberry. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool and devour.

If you wish to add more besmirching caloric goodness, top the batter with strudel topping. Otherwise, these muffins will happily masquerade as a healthy breakfast choice, at least until you eat six of them in one sitting.

For more Toblerone fun, check out Some More Please!'s Mini Toblerone Muffins, and Clumbsy Cookie's Toblerone Ganache.