mise en place

Poutine and Beer-Yeast-Sourdough Bread

2012-01-20T19:41:00.000-08:00

We just had three snow-days in a row in here in Seattle. Which means Alex and I have been spending a whole lot of time sledding down Capitol Hill, sleeping in, and eating ridiculous things. First of all, poutine is now a breakfast food. Especially when breakfast is at 1pm. Alex made gravy out of beef au jus and chicken demi-glace while I fried up some french fries and onions in bacon grease... we thought about topping everything with an egg, but that just seemed excessive and we opted for the more traditional cheese topping instead.

Last weekend, Alex bottled a pumpkin beer that he made. We've often talked about cultivating the dormant yeast that end up at the bottom of the carboy as a method of saving a few dollars on beer brewing. Though I got inspired to use the yeast for a sourdough starter. After just a few days of feeding the yeast, I had a pretty fragrant starter going, so I used one of our snow days to make bread. I've never been very successful at bread making, but I'm happy to say this is my best attempt yet! I loosely followed Julia Child's recipe, which called for violently kneading the crap out of the dough in a mixer with a dough hook. When this first knead was done, the dough had an amazing smooth, moist, sticky texture.

I stuck it in the warmest room in our house to rise for a couple hours, then a light knead, second rise, and then it was ready to be shaped for the final rise immediately before baking. I used a technique that Julia suggested: put a pan on the bottom of the oven and just before you put the bread in, pour some water into the pan - it will immediately turn into steam and increase the humidity inside the oven. A humid oven makes a crusty bread. I also periodically added water to the pan in the oven and used a spray bottle to spray water into the air in the oven. Here is my lovely loaf of bread!

This bread has a fantastic texture! Fluffy, soft, and moist with a thin, crisp crust. The flavor however will need some work, it has a wonderful earthiness, but then it also definitely has a strong essence of bottom-of-the-carboy sludge from which it's yeast was born. It does make fantastic french toast though!

Biscuits & Duck Gravy

2012-01-15T10:24:00.000-08:00

There's something about snow that inspires me to make biscuits. Conveniently, we also have a glut of duck stock at the moment. So I made biscuits with duck gravy and a side of bacon for a glorious snowy Sunday breakfast!

There are two things that make the gravy absolutely magical; first, I used stock made from Stokesberry Farms duck, and their ducks are divine. Secondly, the stock was almost entirely duck and leeks, and then I started the gravy by sauteing leeks in butter. Few things are better than the simple deliciousness of leeks, butter, and duck. When the leeks began to turn translucent I added a bit of flour and then enough duck stock to get the perfect gravy consistency (with a bit of stirring and patience,of course). Here's breakfast in the snow!:

What Pate a Choux can do for you!

2011-12-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

Pate a Choux (pat uh shoe) might be my favorite dough to make. It's unlike any other dough, and almost feels like your making a roux, rather than a dough. It's the doughy part of a cream puff or an eclair and I always assumed it was a dough intended for sweet things, until I got roped into making Gougeres at my friend, Joe's birthday party. Gougeres are Pate a Choux with grated Gruyere and black pepper added to the dough before it gets piped out onto baking sheets and baked in the oven. Gougeres are so simple to make and pretty addictively delicious! What more could you want than buttery bread with cheese and a hint of pepper?! I'm hoping this is just the beginning of Pate a Choux experiments to make all sorts of delicious fluffy savory pastries!

Catching up...

2011-12-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

Well, Autumn Quarter happened. I took 16 credits worth of classes, did some of my own research, applied to graduate school, applied for an NSF grant, scored the Mary Gates Research Scholarship, and ate some tasty food. Here's one big long post of all the pictures I've been snapping and doing absolutely nothing with until now:

1) Pesto. I was gifted some basil starts in the spring after I killed the one basil plant I bought. I babied these basils unlike any plant I've ever grown before. I kept them in black pots so that when it was warm enough to be outside, the sun would warm the soil around there roots. I talked to them everyday and gently touched them so they would feel loved. It was quite a labor of love and in the end, I was able to make a pretty significant amount of pesto! I froze the pesto into ice cubes, so we can save some for winter when we're pining for a taste of summer.

2) Tater-tots: BAD idea! Perhaps I did this all wrong, but making home-made tater-tots turned into an inferno of spontaneous hot-oil explosions. That tater-tot on top of the stack is one of the culprits - they basically popped like popcorn in the oil.

3) Decibel Festival is a 5-day electronic music festival in Seattle that just so happened to fall precisely in line with the first week of school this year. Alex and I discovered that Breakfast For Dinner was the fuel required to sustain five-days of non-stop dancing and school. We had black tea, pancakes, Skagit River Valley Ranch breakfast sausage, and veggie omelets with fresh avocados that I smuggled back from California. Nothing like an avacado fresh off the tree! mmmm!

Also, North Hill Bakery was right down the street from the Decibel in the Park show, so we could eat amazing ham-and-cheese croissants while groovin' to some delicious music.

4) Duck. Every once in a while Stokesberry Farm sells duck, and we can't resist. It's best to do as little as possible to it, it's perfect just the way it is! Here it is roasted on a bed of itty-bitty onions, which, if you've never had tiny onions roasted in duck juices, I highly recommend it!

5) Thanksgiving Leftovers: Turkey Curry. It's brilliantly delicious and cranberries go surprisingly well in curry! I took Alex to Market Spice several weeks ago, and he was so inspired by all the spices there that he turned into a curry-making machine!

Pumpkin Pumpkin Pumpkin

2011-10-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note with a short preface: It's definitely autumn. Alex and I went to the Elysian's Great Pumpkin Beer Festival (which was AMAZING!) last Saturday. Then on Sunday, Alex was still high on pumpkin and got inspired to buy a gigantic Cinderella pumpkin, stating that he wanted to put pumpkin in everything from now on. So I roasted the pumpkin on Monday, and since then we've been adding roasted-pumpkin mush to everything we cook. This has naturally lead to some really interesting flavor combinations, but my favorite is what I just made for dinner. I was fully expecting it to be absolutely disgusting, because what I was craving and pumpkin is something I've never even remotely seen, and I honestly couldn't quite imagine how it would taste. I just made a stir-fry, but here is the brilliant flavor combination that happened:

Cilantro + Lime + Cumin + Soy Sauce + Pumpkin

It's mostly cilantro, lime, and pumpkin, with a sprinkle of cumin and just enough soy sauce to add another dimension of complexity. I love the way food totally surprises you sometimes!

Photo taken from the Ballard Farmers Market Blog

...that might actually be the pumpkin we bought on the left, from Nature's Last Stand.

On Food and Culture

2011-09-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

I developed a passion for food and cooking at a young age when Irealized that food is the center of life. Food is everything. Food caninduce any emotion, bring people together or divide them apart. There’s food in your yard, the gas you put inyour tank is ancient, geologically fermented food, not to mention we are allparticipating in one grand food chain that binds us all together under oneuniversal consciousness, or something. Thatwas my teenage idealism, which I still believe in, but it’s developed withage. This food passion is what drove meto become a Biology major and I have a sort of constant meditation churningaway inside my brain contemplating all things food. I had an experience earlier this year thatshook my beliefs on food and I realized on my bike-ride to work today that Ineed to address this, so here it is.

I generally pride myself in being simultaneously conscious of thethings I eat, while respecting and partaking in the food of others. “You are what you eat” is a common sayingthat I take seriously, in two ways. First, the molecules that make up what youconsume will be used to create and re-build your own flesh. Secondly, we all have an emotionalrelationship with our food and I believe that we all take pride in or at leastenjoy food to some extent. Therefore,what we eat is also an outward expression of who we are and by sharing food, weare sharing ourselves. This is why Idon’t push my own food beliefs on other people.

Whenever I hear someone reject food that is offered to them, I am instinctivelyoffended. I feel like the personrejecting is somehow culturally disrespecting the person who is offering food,even if that’s not the intension. I’mgenerally talking about vegetarians, vegans, raw-foodists, etc. - people whohave chosen a diet for reasons other than an allergy or diagnosed medicalcondition. However, this raises thequestion of what is the difference between food and medicine, and then how dowe culturally deal with the difference, if there is a difference? I eat the way that I do because it makes mefeel good and healthy. When I went tovisit family earlier this year I spent the week generally eating the way thatthey eat and I ended up getting incredibly sick. Asiancultures (Chinese, Indian, Japanese…) tend to blur the lines much more betweenfood and medicine than we do here in the US. National Geographic recently reported on a new archeological find from someancient European civilization (Rome?): medicinal pills made out of onions, celery,and other common vegetables that we would probably consider as food and notmedicine now.

So how do we develop and share a vibrant culture of food, if everyonehas their own individual eating habits? I think what I’m beginning to realize is that it is aboutcommunication. Communicating with yourselfto gain an intimate understanding of your body’s needs so that you cancommunicate with others to let them know what you do or do not need. I think the key is going about it respectfully,though, and discussing any foody disagreements with the understanding that everyone’sbody chemistry and culture is fairly different, and that’s okay.

Lobster Mushroom #4 - Tempura

2011-08-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

To recap, I've used lobster mushrooms in Fish & Chips, Risotto, and Etouffee. Last night, I made tempura lobster mushrooms. I can't remember the last time I made tempura, so I had to look up a recipe. I fairly quickly settled on the recipe on the Food Network website, partially because I had all the ingredients lying around, anyway, long story short, I'm not totally happy with the tempura batter, and it's something I want to play with in the future. That being said, tempura is super easy and it did turn out to be quite tasty!

To make a dinner out of tempura I cooked up some udon noodles and stir fried some onions, carrots, garlic, sweet peppers, broccoli, and finished it with cilantro, green onions, liquid aminos, fish sauce, salt, and sriracha.

Blue Cheese Cheesecake Bacon Maple Donuts

2011-08-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

For Alex's birthday I constructed something ridiculously delicious - blue cheese cheesecake bacon maple donuts. Essentially it was a yeast donut, filled with blue cheese cheesecake and topped with maple icing and bacon bits. Here's the process:

After letting the dough rise a few times, sit over night and rise some more I rolled it out to about a 1/8-1/4 inch thick and used a circle cookie cutter to cut out circles of dough.

Every circle got brushed with egg whites and half the circles got a dollup of the blue cheese cheesecake filling which was just equal parts Humbolt Fog, Cream Cheese, and Sour Cream, plus a dash of vanilla and a sprinkle of sugar.

Then I made a sandwich with two doughy circles and the filling in between. I thoroughly pinched the edges together and then placed them on a tray to rise one last time for about 30 min.

Once they were all puffy and risen, I heated up a pan of canola oil for vegetarian doughnuts, and a separate pan of bacon grease for meaty doughnuts.

I let them fry until they were golden brown all over and then let the oil drip off on some paper towels.

While the doughnuts cooled, I made a basic milk icing with added maple syrup and then iced the doughnuts when they were cool. Vegetarian doughnuts were topped with sprinkles and the meaty doughnuts were topped with the famous Skagit River Valley Ranch Bacon. I was worried they were going to be too intense, but they turned out to be a big crowd-pleaser and there were only two left at the end of the party - perfect for breakfast the next morning!

Three great tastes that taste great together!

2011-08-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

Basil

Goat Cheese

Strawberries

In my hand on the beach. Perfect.

Fish & Chips

2011-08-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

The best fish and chips you will ever have is not made with fish at all, but rather a fungus-infected mushroom. The plain white mushroom, Russula brevipes, gets consumed by Hypomyces lactifluorum, which contorts the mushroom and covers it with a hard bright red-orange coating. This appearance has won it the name of Lobster Mushroom. Russulas (and close relatives) have a unique cell structure that makes them "brittle like chalk". That's not to say they are delicate, Lobster Mushrooms in particular are quite sturdy, but if you try to bend the flesh, it snaps cleanly. This also gives it a wonderful "al dente" mouth feel. Here is what a Lobster Mushroom looks like in the wild:

To make this into fish and chips just follow the standard breading procedure, which is as follows:

1) Cut item to be breaded into pieces roughly 1/4 inch thick

2) Dunk a piece into flour, pat off the excess flour.

3) Dunk the floured piece into lightly beaten eggs, allow excess egg to drip off.

4) Plop the eggy piece into some seasoned bread crumbs. Cover the piece thoroughly with bread crumbs. (Season with salt at least, feel free to have fun with herbs or spices though)

5) Immediately fry the breaded piece in bacon fat or any other oil. Cook until golden brown!

Here's the logic behind the standard breading procedure if you're curious - The flour absorbs any natural moisture (this is incredibly helpful for breading meats that are naturally quite moist). Egg is essentially edible glue that can be used to stick dry things together, in this case, the egg is holding together the flour and bread crumbs while the flour is stuck to your food item. Then as you cook the breaded item, the egg works to cement everything together.

Now for the Chips part of Fish & Chips. Olsen Farm sells some amazing potatoes, in particular, the Bintje variety makes amazing fries! We just slice them up and fry them in bacon fat. Minimal turning/stirring helps to give them a nice crisp texture.

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Salad

2011-08-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

Few things are better than the simple pleasure of grilled cheese and tomatoes. For lunch today I made myself grilled cheese with Tall Grass Bakery's sourdough bread and Golden Glen Creamery's medium cheddar cheese. Then I grabbed a few cherry tomatoes and basil leaves from the garden, supplemented with extra basil and tomatoes from the farmer's market and whipped up a simple and delicious little salad. Oh and salt is an important ingredient for tomatoes, it really makes that delicious tomatoey flavor sing.

Mead

2011-08-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

My buddy, Mark, has a friend who has a father in Aberdeen that makes honey. His bees pollinate the flowers of Cascara trees, which is an incredibly important tree for the native peoples of this land. Way back in the day, before semis and international shipping, people here in Cascadia lived largely off of berries, nuts, roots, and wild game. Just before winter they built a long house, stocked it with food, and everyone "hibernated" in the long house for the winter eating only what they could preserve from the summer. Then in late spring, the salmon start running. Salmon are packed with calories and nutrients and it's tradition for all omnivorous/carnivorous creatures of this region to gorge themselves on salmon when the opportunity presents itself. Now, as you can imagine, eating nothing but ridiculous amounts of salmon after fasting on berries and nuts all winter can get a little digestively complicated. This is where Cascara comes in - the bark of Cascara is a laxative. According to Mark's friend, it's in quite high demand year-round, and growing up in Aberdeen kids used to make money by harvesting and selling Cascara bark. They would also play pranks on each other by saying the bark was natures candy... you know the jokes on you when you end up running for bathroom.

Anyway, the important part is that the medicinal compounds are only found in the bark. Which means honey made from bees that gather Cascara flower nectar is totally safe, and Mark and I made mead out it. We split a gallon of honey - diluted it was water, brought it to a boil, then cooled it with cold water, moved it to carboys and added Champagne yeast. Mark also added cardamom and white pepper to his carboy. Here are our babies, and in 9 months we will drink them!

Whiskey Earl Grey Ice Cream

2011-08-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

I just realized I can link to stuff in my blog posts!! Blogging just got a lot more exciting! What's also exciting is the ice cream I just made. It's something I made for my 22nd birthday party and for some unfortunate reason this is the first time I've recreated it since then. It's basically a combination of three of my favorite things: ice cream, vanilla earl grey tea, and Irish whiskey. The original recipe was made with Paris Tea, which is basically just earl grey flavored with vanilla. The tea is suspended within delicate sachets inside an ornate tin to satisfy all your upper-class British sensibilities. I decided to use some high quality Cascadian tea instead this time. Here's the recipe:

2 cups Twinbrook Cream

1 cup Twinbrook Whole Milk

3 Egg Yolks

2 tsp Vanilla

3/4 cup Sugar

couple fluid ounces of Jameson Irish Whiskey

about a Tbsp of Remedy Teas Earl Grey Creme

- Put the whiskey in a sauce pan and boil until syrupy, add the milk and cream to the pan.

- Bring the cream and milk to a boil, turn off the heat, add the tea, and cover with a lid. Let the tea steep for about 5 minutes.

- In a separate (non-plastic) bowl, whisk together the eggs yolks, vanilla, and sugar.

- Pour the hot cream mixture over the egg mixture (through a strainer to catch loose-leaf tea) being careful to temper the eggs. In this case, tempering can be accomplished by simply pouring the hot liquid slowly and stirring vigorously.

- Cool the liquid until it feels cold to the touch, but not frozen. I usually do this in the freezer and it takes about 15 minutes or so. You could also let it cool in the fridge overnight if you're patient.

- Pour the cold liquid into an ice cream machine with a pre-frozen bowl, turn the machine on, and walk away (ahh technology!)

- When the ice cream is "done" in the machine it's at the soft-serv phase. Scoop it into a plastic container and put it in the freezer for at least a couple hours to let it "hard" freeze.

Several years ago when I was in culinary school, my friend Josh got an ice cream maker and started making so much ice cream there was even talk of him and our friend, Chris, starting an ice cream company called Wopanajew! ...Wopanajew never happened, but a lot of good ice cream sure did, anyway, I still use the method Josh taught me all those years ago! Thanks, Josh!

Summer!

2011-08-08T16:02:00.000-07:00

I think it's safe to say summer is finally here! Alex made a pretty awesome summery dinner last night. At the farmers market a "bunch" of basil was more like a bushel. So needless to say, we have a ton of basil now and Alex got inspired to make a salad out of nothing but basil, strawberries, and chevre. The chevre was so creamy, and the strawberries so sweet, it was like eating ice cream, except it was actually a salad! Brilliant! We made burgers to make a meal with the salad. Of course we used our standard Skagit Valley Ranch beef patties and Tall Grass Bakery brioche buns. Alex also cooked up an onion-eggplant-yellow squash thing that he intended to have along side the burger, but I easily talked him into putting it on the burger - it made a super yummy burger topping! He seasoned the eggplant-squash stuff with lime juice, white pepper, Liquid Aminos, and nutmeg. Here's a picture of Alex's plate before he put the eggplant-squash stuff inside his burger:

It's Chinese or something...

2011-07-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

I was laying in bed earlier today, failing to take a nap, but day dreaming about what makes Chinese food so darn tasty. Those thick voluptuous sauces that are so sweet and salty, and so delicious - I needed to attempt to recreate this. I've long been skeptical of using straight granulated sugar in savory foods, convinced that I could coax the sweetness out of vegetables. But it never quite compares to some of the sauces served at restaurants. After consulting my Chinese cookbook I convinced myself that plain old granulated sugar is the answer.

I put two pans on the stove; one for searing Skagit Valley Ranch pork country-ribs, and the other for sauteing veggies. While the pork got nicely browned, I sauteed onions, garlic, ginger, carrots, and summer squash. When the pork was perfectly browned on all sides I added some Bragg's Liquid Aminos (soy sauce), chicken demi-glace, and a splash of water. Then I put a lid on it and let it all simmer. Just before the veggies were done cooking I added some chicken demi-glace, Liquid Aminos, fish sauce, a pinch of granulated sugar, a small dollop of molasses, paprika, cinnamon, star anise, szechuan pepper, and salt. At the very end I added some chopped boc choy and turned off the heat.

Sugar is the answer. It works with the salt and other spices to create a truly well rounded flavor profile that fills your mouth with a comforting intensity. Oh and I made some wild rice pilaf to go with the pork and veggies also. Here it is basking in the sun and garnished with basil:

Poppy

2011-07-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

I worked under Chef Jerry Traunfeld when he was at the Herbfarm, so I've been wanting to check out Poppy ever since it opened a couple years ago. When I was at the Herbfarm, it was during Jerry's final years there and I could tell he was suffering burn out. He used to talk about how much he hated the excessive decor of the Herbfarm and he dreamed of the day when he would have is own restaurant with simple minimalist decor. I strolled by Poppy right after it had opened. As soon as I saw the bold 4-color scheme (red, yellow, black, and white), bare walls, and simple tables - I knew this restaurant was everything Jerry had been wanting to do, but wasn't able to as long as he worked for someone else. This revelation is quite exciting, knowing what a phenomenal chef Jerry is. I could only imagine what culinary magic he would create when given complete and total freedom.

The way I understand it, the story goes like this: Jerry Traunfeld worked at the Herbfarm for 17 years and then left to go travel around India for a year or so. When he returned from India, he created Poppy following the inspiration he had gained from India. Naturally, at the Herbfarm, Jerry was all about herbs, herbs, herbs. The food at poppy is a meditation on spices with a foundation of herbs and simple, delicious food.

The method by which food is served is unlike any other fine-dining experience I've had. There are appetizers and then there are thali's. The waiter warned us the thali's take a while, so we ordered some appetizers to start.

Fried Eggplant with Honey (and cardamom?!) and Goat Cheese Stuffed Squash Blossoms with Borage and Nasturtium flowers. The fried eggplant blew Alex and I away. The eggplant flesh melted into silky smooth mush within it's crispy fried outer shell. Despite the fact that everything was fried, that fresh-picked from the garden flavor and texture still came through. Almost as if the frying was merely to add a crunchy outer shell and nothing more.

Next we dove into the thali's. A thali is a selection of several dishes served at once on a large round platter - each dish is only a few bites and contained in it's own little bowl. The long time trend in fine dining has been to serve small plates, one at a time, and in a particular order. Essentially, the fine dining restaurant dictates what you will eat when. However, with a thali, you receive everything all at once and you get to decide how to go about eating it. I feel like the original purpose of Poppy was for Jerry to have a place where he could publicly play with spices. But by serving the main attraction as a thali, he welcomes the public to play and explore spice and flavor as well. Alex and I had a lot of fun eating each dish on the thali in different orders and experiencing the way flavors influence each other. Here are our thali's, apologies for the awful pictures, my camera was not happy about the lighting situation and I'm not one to use flash in public.

Each platter contains 10 small dishes. In the foreground is my platter which had the following:

morel mushroom, english pea, and sage risotto
gothberg goat cheese agnolotti with fresh porcini and favas
carrot and black cardamom soup
cucumber raita with caraway and almond
radish, and grilled spring onion salad
beets with spice bread and mint
zucchini and basil gratin
local roots broccoli with oregano
bing cherry pickle
nigella-poppy naan

Alex's platter is on the opposite side of the table:

quillayute king salmon with pinot noir sauce, sea beans and bacon
tails and trotters pork loin with green sauce and corona beans
chilled fennel yogurt soup
cucumber raita with caraway and almond
radish, and grilled spring onion salad
snap peas with lemon thyme
beets with spice bread and mint
zucchini and basil gratin
mango, strawberry and peppermint pickle
nigella-poppy naan

Each dish was only a few bites, but it was still a LOT of food! Without realizing it, we spent nearly 3 hours trying to finish eating everything and we were on the verge of being painfully full by the end of it. As we were eating, we tried to put the experience into words, and final ended up drawing a graph. Complexity is on the x-axis, and Number of Dimensions is on the y-axis. If you plot each dish on this graph, I believe you would come up with a distribution that has it's mean at a very low level of complexity, but high number of dimensions. Like this:

This is the magic of Jerry Traunfeld. He takes the simplest things, like broccoli, and creates a multi-dimensional masterpiece. Broccoli might be my favorite vegetable, and Jerry coaxed out the very essence of broccoli, while partnering it, and not over powering it, with salty, smokey, spicy flavors that dance around your mouth in concert with freshest most beautiful broccoli flavor and then finishes with a peppery warmth in the back of your mouth. The simplicity of Jerry's food gives it a distinctly not snobby feel. It seems like he just found the best broccoli (or any ingredient), barely cooked it to perfection and sprinkled some spices on it. It's all about the details though, and that is where Jerry's talent is. It's not just Jerry though, it's all the chef's in his kitchen at Poppy that create this incredible food night after night. Mmmmm, Poppy!

P.S. I almost forgot the icing on the cake: at the end of the meal, the check was delivered in a POCKET PROTECTOR!! So hilariously random, I'm speechless.

Edible Flowers

2011-07-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

There's something really exciting about eating flowers. Maybe it's because they're so intricately beautiful, or because it's not usually something you find at a restaurant or the grocery store. Even the farmers market rarely sells edible flowers. I have to say I feel rather special when I have space to garden. And with edible flowers I can have my pretty flower and eat it too! So here is what's on the menu today:

Calendula!

Calendula is in the sunflower family and is also called "pot marigold". I love to pick all the petals off and sprinkle them on salad like yellow (or orange) confetti. They have a fresh crunchy taste with slight bitterness, very reminiscent of mild lettuce.

Violets and Pansies

Pansies and Violets are all edible members of the genus Viola. The ones shown above in my garden have a mild flowery sweetness to them, almost like a rose.

English Daisies

Another sunflower family relative, these are in the genus Bellis and have a flavor almost like celery with a mild bitterness.

Dianthus

Dianthus is a genus in the Carnation family and has a surprisingly sweet and bitter flavor that makes your tongue tingle almost as if each taste bud is saying "it's sweet! not it's bitter! sweet! bitter!"

Nasturtiums

I love nasturtiums (NESS-ter-SHUMS), both the flowers and the leaves have a thrilling sharp bitterness to them and the seeds can be pickled to make capers!

Squash Blossoms

Here's a flower I hope most people have had. Stuffed squash blossoms can be a popular seasonal dish. Squash make two different kinds of flowers; male and female. The female ones make squash when they receive pollen from the male flowers. So be careful to only eat the male flowers if you want to get any squash. (Look for the powdery yellow pollen inside the males)

Brassica oleracea

B. oleracea could be anything from cabbage and brussel sprouts to broccoli, mustard, and bok choi. The flowers can be diverse, though they all have four petals which won them their original name of Cruciforms. They're colorful and have a mild flavor.

Cilantro!

Cilantro flowers make coriander when they go to seed, but the flowers are incredibly flavorful also. I swear the flavor is half way between coriander and cilantro - super yummy!

Borage

Borage has a mild flower that is a beautiful addition to any salad. UV radiation from the sun causes these flowers to turn from blue to purple to pink.

Some other flowers to note that have already bloomed and died this year: most herbs (i.e. sage, rosemary, thyme...), onions/chives, and peas.

Mmmm pretty!

Morels!!

2011-07-11T19:15:00.001-07:00

Spring is official as soon as the morels start popping up. Morels are easy to identify, but that doesn't mean you can just go picking anything that looks like a morel at first glance. If you're foraging early in spring and think you've found the first morel of the year, chances are it's actually a Verpa. Some people eat Verpas and love them, others think they taste gross, and some people get violently ill from eating them. There have even been reports of people eating Verpas for years, and then one day, suddenly developing a violent allergy to them. So, eat them at your own risk (they wont kill you), but here is how to tell them apart:

On the left is a true morel (Morchella esculenta) and on the right is a Verpa (Verpa bohemica). They look pretty similar, especially since they can both vary in color. The difference is how the wrinkly cap attaches to the stem. Morels caps are continuous with the stem making sort of a single hollow tube. Whereas Verpas have the wrinkly cap more or less draped over the stem and not as connected. It can actually be hard to keep the stem and cap connected on a Verpa, they fall appart easily. But morels will stay intact unless you take a knife to them. Here's a picture of a morel and a Verpa cut in half to show the stem attachment:

It's morel on the left and Verpa on the right again. Also, notice how the morel stem is nice an smooth on the inside, whereas Verpas can have cottony-looking tissue filling the stem.

So why go to all the trouble of finding and correctly identifying a mushroom? Because it's DELICIOUS.

Here are some morels sauteeing in butter with some spring onions and fresh garlic.

Morels and butter make excellent pasta sauce.

(In addition to the onions and garlic, I also added Italian sausage and sea beans.)

Katrina Cakes!

2011-05-24T19:06:00.000-07:00

Katrina Cakes are very similar to Mandy Cakes, except I'm actually writing down the recipe this time and Katrina Cakes are simply vegan, whereas Mandy Cakes are vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free. I started with the Joy of Cooking's standard muffin recipe and morphed it into this:

Mix in one bowl:

2 cups Flour (Bob's Red Mill All Purpose)

6 Tbsp Cocoa Powder (Scharffen Berger Unsweetened)

1 1/2 Tbsp Baking Powder (also Bob's Red Mill)

tiny pinch salt

Mix in a second bowl:

1 cup Sugar (evaporated cane juice)

1/4 tsp Organic Molasses

1 cup Hemp Milk

6 Tbsp Organic Coconut Oil, melted

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

Pour the contents of the second bowl into the first bowl and whip until smooth. Then add about 1/3 cup of Mini Chocolate Chips and portion into a pre-greased muffin tin (I greased it with coconut oil). Bake on the top rack at 400 degrees F.

This makes about 16-18 cupcakes.

Funny Story: My first batch of cupcakes burned, filled our apartment with smoke, and set off all the smoke alarms as I was writing the above. That all took less than 10 minutes! Sooo, here's some lessons learned:

1) Keep an eye on the clock! (batch number two has been in the oven for 6 minutes now...)

2) Keep an eye on the oven! (nothing burning yet, and the temp inside the oven is in fact 400)

3) Bake cakes at the top of the oven! (they were near the bottom first time)

4) Egg Replacer has a funny texture. So for batch number two I omitted egg replacer and increased the amount of baking powder and coconut oil instead. I also added a little bit more vanilla. (they might have been burnt, but that first batch was a good taste-test!)

5) Ripping the smoke alarm off the ceiling and throwing it under a bunch of blankets is an extremely effective way of making that god-awful noise stop.

The second batch came out beautifully and I topped them with coconut frosting. I used the rest of a 14oz. jar of coconut oil, plus a lot of powdered sugar (at least 1 cup), and some food coloring and edible sparkles to make the frosting. I tried to make purple, but the thing about purple is that it's not necessarily equal parts red and blue, especially when you're using cheap food coloring... sooo, if they're in the right lighting, I swear they're lavendery, but the important part is that they are sparkly!

(For the record, to turn Katrina Cakes into Mandy Cakes; just substitute some Gluten Free All Purpose Flour for the regular gluteny flour.)

Dinner for one

2011-05-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

Ahh yes, late night dinners at the end of the quarter. I have to say I did pretty darn well for whipping up something to shove in my face between Economics and Physiology. We have the best garden I think I've ever had since I left my parents house and it's finally starting to produce. So I made a salad out the few things that are big enough to eat: Spinach, Cilantro, and Chives (flowers and leaves). Then I quickly fried up some duck breast from the duck we roasted last night and voila:

I didn't even put dressing on the salad, the cilantro and chives added plenty of flavor - horray homegrown food!

Inspirational Flavorgasm!

2011-04-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

I've been putting cilantro, lime, and green onions on everything lately. What I didn't expect was how utterly incredible this combination would be with pork schnitzel and sauerkraut. First things first though, let's talk about schnitzel. It's just thinly cut meat, breaded, and fried. Here's how breading happens:

I mix a liberal amount of salt and pepper into both the bread crumbs and the flour. I then take a single piece of meat with my left hand, drop it in the flour and use my right hand to coat it in flour. Then I use my right hand to drop the floury meat into the egg. My left hand makes sure the piece of meat is coated in egg and moves it to the bread crumbs, where my right hand ensures the egg-y meat is coated in bread crumbs. All of this switching of hands keeps one hand for the wet things and one hand for the dry things, since this process gets messy fast. Meanwhile, heat up some oil or bacon grease:

When they were done frying, I put the schnitzels in a warm oven so they would stay warm and crispy while I made the sauce. For the sauce I sauteed red onions in butter, deglazed with demi-glace and then finished it with more butter, cilantro, green onion, lime, salt, and pepper. Then I put some schnitzel on a plate, topped with my sauce and Firefly Kitchen's Red Sauerkraut.

The sourness of the lime paired perfectly with the sourness of the sauerkraut, while the green onion and cilantro added a punch of green, the schnitzel provided a comforting crunch and the butter smoothed everything together. It was amazing!

Sausage Fest

2011-04-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

Every Friday some of my friends and I have a potluck. Last week, my friends' wife was out of town so he decided the food theme should be sausage. I realized that if everyone brought sausage, that could be a bit overwhelming, so instead I made meat balls and manly desserts.

The Balls. Skagit Valley Ranch ground beef with an egg, some bread crumbs, minced onion, and some wicked garlic powder that was slipped under the table to me at the farmers market. I seared them in bacon grease and then added a wee bit of tomato sauce and chicken demi glace:

Then for dessert I made cream puffs, here they are in the oven:

I followed Julia Child's recipe for Pate-a-Choux. They puffed up nicely in the oven, but then when I took them out to cool, they deflated in such a way they were almost impossible to re-inflate with pastry cream. So I just made a dish of pastry cream for everyone to dip their cream puff in.

The thing about pastry cream is it requires a lot of egg yolks, which means you have a lot of egg whites left and when life give you egg whites - make meringue!

I added a pinch of cinnamon to a traditional meringue recipe which one these cookies the title of "dickerdoodles" because they tasted reminiscent of snickerdoodles.

Food of Spring, that isn't really spring yet...

2011-04-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

Alex's cooking continues to amaze me. His latest creation reminded me of what Thomas Keller might eat at home if he lived in Germany... or perhaps Iron Chef Germany - battle cabbage! Here is what he made: Sausage braised in beer with napa cabbage and potatoes, topped with sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) and served with kale (a type of cabbage) salad and Tall Grass Bakery sour dough bread. Three cabbages, two sour things, meat, and potatoes. Perhaps it's my heritage, but this was a fantastic meal.

This also exemplifies the type of spring we've been having--as far as I can tell it's still winter. The farmers market still pretty much only has cabbages and root vegetables. I've been itching for the variety of summer, and craving spicy, citrusy foods. So my recent culinary exploration was a beef ceviche of sorts... ceviche was the inspiration, beef stew meat is what was in my freezer. I stewed the meat in lime juice, chicken stock, and onions until it was tender. Meanwhile I cooked up some rice and mixed in a bunch of paprika, cayenne, and cumin. When the beef was tender, I turned off the heat and added a few canned tomatoes and a lot of chopped scallions, cilantro, cinnamon, and salt. It was exactly the tangy brightness I needed with all the clouds and rain outside lately.

Paella, Brownies, and Duck

2011-03-29T21:04:00.001-07:00

I have a bit of catching up to do, so here's one big post about a couple totally unrelated things I've been cooking recently. First is paella. At least, my initial intention was paella, inspired by my Spanish coworkers. But then I realized I don't really keep paella ingredients just lying around, so this is my Cascadian Paella:

Blue Bird Grains wild rice pilaf blend, Skagit Valley Ranch breakfast sausage, chicken stock, onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, cilantro, paprika, saffron, and cayenne. Breakfast sausage is officially no longer just for breakfast!

A few days after the paella adventure we hosted an Indian-fusion themed potluck. I made gluten free chai brownies and they were amazing! First I have to show off a new toy that I used for this recipe; it's essentially a sauce pan with a round bottom that becomes the top half of a double boiler. The rounded bottom is really nice to have for making cooked-egg emulsion sauces like hollandaise or sabayon. But I just melted butter and chocolate in it this time:

I followed Julia Child's recipe for fudgy-gooey chocolate brownies, substituting Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour and adding coriander, cinnamon, and cardamom.

That was Friday, then on Sunday we went to the farmers market. Stokesberry farms had duck again and we couldn't resist. I decided this was a special duck that deserved special treatment so I rummaged through my cookbooks for a while and finally settled on a recipe in Thomas Keller's French Laundry cookbook. The recipe was for duck breast wrapped in cabbage leaves and poached for just a couple of minutes. Thomas Keller wrapped them in plastic wrap for poaching, which seemed excessive to me--I just tied the cabbage on with butchers twine and it worked perfectly. Oh and I poached it in duck stock from the last duck that we got. Here's the finished product served with pilaf:

That was just the breasts. For the rest of the duck; I roasted it and then plucked all the cooked meat off and cooked it in butter with onions, garlic, and carrots. Mean while I made a duck demiglace, washed some spinach, and cooked some pasta.

Then I combined the demiglace with the buttery duck and veggies to make a pasta sauce, seasoned with salt and fresh ground pepper, and finished it with the spinach so it just barely wilted. Then I mixed in some cooked pasta and grated a bit of Gouda for garnish. Voila!

This Aint White Castle

2011-03-08T18:34:00.001-08:00

Tall Grass Bakery was selling mini hamburger buns at the farmers market this week, so I took the opportunity to make sliders! I mixed up some Skagit River Valley Ranch ground beef with their signature spice mix and some left over Mt. Townsend Seastack cheese. I mixed this together with my hands of course. I'm all about cooking with my hands, here is how I check to see if the burgers are done:

There's a trick I learned somewhere a long time ago to train your finger to be like a meat thermometer. If you touch your pointer finger to your thumb with one hand and use the other hand to poke the flesh just below your thumb, it's about the exact same texture as a medium rare piece of meat. Each finger touching your thumb then corresponds to a done-ness of meat, like so:

Anyway, back to the sliders... Here's the line up with Alex making some french fries:

There's Golden Glen Creamery cheddar cheese, demi-glace mayonaisse, salad greens, caramelized onions, garlic and peppers, mustard, and way in the background I was toasting the buns with the bagel setting! (Finally owning a toaster from this century is really exciting).

I need to digress from the sliders for another minute to talk about demi-glace. This is something I've thought of doing for a while and I have no idea why I'm just now getting around to it. Demi-glace is just very concentrated, reduced stock. I made about four gallons of stock and then boiled it down to less than a gallon of thick rich deliciousness. I then froze this in an ice cube tray so it takes up less space in the freezer and then I can just mix an ice-cube with some water to make stock for cooking in the future! Also, demi-glace by itself is pretty amazing...

Anyway, Sliders!!:

I swear burgers taste better when they're tiny...

Fajitas!

2011-02-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Stokeberry was selling fajita meat at the farmers market on Sunday, so I took the opportunity to make some fajitas. Alex marinated the beef in lime juice, cayenne, paprika, and cumin while I followed Sarah's tortilla recipe. My tortillas were nothing compared to the magic of Sarah, but they were tasty none-the-less. I roughly doubled the amount of water just to get the dough to stay together and I was having issues getting them thin enough without having them fall apart. So they were a thick, crusty, flat, corn base for all the fajita toppings. I sauteed a bunch of onions, garlic, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, and seasoned it with paprika, cumin, cinnamon and salt. Lastly I grated some Golden Glen Creamery jalepeno cheddar and opened a container of Nancy's sour cream, and voila - fajitas!

Something Pho-nny

2011-02-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to make pho, but I didn't quite have all the proper ingredients, so perhaps this is just a soup inspire by pho. I started out boiling chicken stock to condense the flavor. While that was boiling I seared some Skagit River Valley Ranch pork stir fry meat, deglazed the pan with a cup of the stock and added it back to pot of boiling stock. Then I cut up a delightful rainbow of veggies!

Carrots, peppers, red onion, leeks, ginger, garlic, and shiitake mushrooms

I lightly sauteed all the veggies, sliced the pork into bite-size pieces and then mixed it all in the bottom of a soup bowl:

Last but not least, I seasoned the stock with salt, pepper, and an Iranian Herb Mix and then ladled it over the pork and veggies in my bowl to make a delicious soup!

An Evening with Elysian and New Belgium Breweries

2011-02-20T19:06:00.001-08:00

Alex and I did something pretty ridiculous last night: we went to Crystal Mountain for dinner. The two and a half hour drive and sleeping in my Honda Accord in the snow was totally worth it. It started at the base of the Mt. Rainier Gondola where we were served New Belgium Fat Tire in a can with a paper cup-full of warm hazelnuts.

I forgot to grab my camera, so here are some pictures I stole from the internet:

The view was stunning, it seemed like we could just reach out and touch Mt. Rainier. We got off the gondola and were escorted into the high-class Summit House with our cans of beer. There's nothing quite like walking into a fancy restaurant with a can of beer! The self-proclaimed Beer Guru's of Elysian and New Belgium introduced the meal and the chef saying that the meal was based on an "Old World Winter" theme and most of the dishes were the product of late night snacks. This was easily one of the best dinners I've ever had - it was everything I love about food: locally sourced with plenty of fat and pork products and paired with beer! Though they did warn us at the beginning that we were sitting at about 7,000 feet and none of the beers they brought were below 8% ABV. It was a trip to say the least! Here's what we had:

Dark and Rich Demi-Glace Broth with Roasted Chestnuts and Bourbon Scented Cippolini Onions.

Paired with New Belgium La Terroir.

-This was one of those dishes so simple and so exquisitely incredible that both Alex and I were speechless for a minute. The La Terroir was a sour ale unlike any sour ale I've had before - it reminded me of my dad's oranges from his tree that doesn't get much sun, so they're incredibly sour. The sour of the beer juxtaposed the richness of the demi-glace perfectly (something I never would have imagined!). Also, demi-glace served essentially as a soup?!? Amazing!

Spicy Berkshire Pork Belly with Buckwheat Blini and Mt. Townsend Seastack Cheese.

Paired with Elysian Bete Blanche Tripel.

-It's impossible for me to choose a single favorite food, but as far as cheese goes, I think this Seastack cheese is the perfect cheese. The Pork Belly and the cheese both seemed to melt right at body temperature, but then the adorable little buckwheat pancake was there for a bit of texture and the Tripel just rounded out the whole course.

It was at this point that someone noticed the full moon had risen. As word spread throughout the dinning room - everyone got up and ran outside to watch the moon rise over Mt. Rainier. So magical!

Grilled Winter Root Vegetable Salad with Arugula, Bacon Pastry Tart, and Petite Basque Cheese.

Paired with Elysian Bete Noel.

-More melted cheese on pork, brilliant. The arugula was particularly flavorful also. The Bete Noel is a dark beer which provided a real contrast between this course and the previous one.

Hubbard Squash Fried Grits with Poached Farm Egg, Benton Country Ham, and Oregon White Truffles.

Paired with Elysian The Wise ESB.

-Breakfast for dinner! The ESB was a surprising complement to the food - just hoppy enough to add a little spice, but not too hoppy.

Cattail Creek Lamb Tenderloin with Potato & Goat Cheese Souffle, Squash Ribbons, and a Sugo & Cherry Reduction.

Paired with New Belgium Transatlantique Kriek.

-Another course that left us speechless, in particular, the beer. This beer is a true lambic blended with lager. It started our in oak barrels in Lembeek, Belgium, fermenting naturally with Polish cherries. New Belgium Brewery bought the lambic after it had been aged for over 2 years and blended it with a full-bodied golden lager. Incredible. Oh and it sang in concert with the food it was served with.

Gingerbread Pudding with Ice Wine Poached Pears and Toffee Sauce.

Paired with Elysian Bifrost Winter Ale.

-I've never heard of anyone cooking with ice wine before this, but I totally support it. Those pears were amazing. A perfect ending to an incredible meal!

The kitchen received a standing ovation from the entire dining room. Absolutely phenomenal.

Curry and Spice

2011-02-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

I am no where near mastering the art of curry. But I keep working at it, and here is my latest and best attempt yet. I think my biggest problem is a totally irrational fear of using too many spices, possibly because I hate over-spiced foods more than I hate under-spiced foods... So I'm trying to find my spice-balance. Here's how last night's curry began:

Spices in a saute pan: Cinnamon, Coriander, Tumeric, Paprika, Clove, Cardamom, Cumin, and Star Anise. (Note to self: buy some Fenugreek!)

I put this pan of spices over high heat and kept the spices constantly moving to toast them and to release their oils without burning them. This happens fairly quickly.

Meanwhile, I was cooking Blue Bird Grain Farms rice pilaf with lots of saffron and an "Iranian rice herb" mixture. In another pan I seared chicken legs in bacon grease until they were good and brown (dreaming of a tandoori oven). I used onions, garlic, ginger, carrots, and peppers to deglaze the pan as they cooked and released their moisture. When the veggies began to caramelize I added chicken stock and the toasted spices and let the whole thing simmer until the sauce was thick. It turned out to be pretty delicious and my under-spicing aloud the flavor of Stokesberry's incredible chicken to come through.

It's Pot Pie Time!

2011-02-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

I've been craving pot pie lately. Not just craving to eat pot pie, but craving to make pot pie, which is exactly what happened today. I haven't made pie dough in a while, but I followed the golden ratio of 3:2:1 (flour:butter:water). I used my infallible method for cutting butter into flour by small-dicing frozen unsalted butter, adding it to the flour, and systematically squishing each tiny frozen butter cube between my fingers. By starting out with frozen butter, it keeps everything cold enough that the butter doesn't melt and squishing it between your fingers is oh-so-satisfying! Anyway, once I was was done squishing, I put the flour-butter mixture in the fridge while I made the filling with onions, garlic, leeks, carrots, parsnips, cremini mushrooms, green beans, and diced chicken breast. I used my rosemary beer to deglaze the pan, made a quick roux, and added some chicken stock to make it saucy with berbere, cinnamon, paprika, and black pepper.

Side note on my rosemary beer: I wanted to make a beer that tasted like gin, specifically Voyager Gin from Pacific Distilleries. I used some of the lightest malts possible for the mash. The boil contained 5 ounces of hops (Warrior, Mt. Hood, and Tettnang) in addition to rosemary, artemisia, cinnamon sticks, juniper berries, ground cardamom, whole cloves, caraway seeds, and dried thyme. Though I added so much rosemary you can hardly taste the hops...thus it is rosemary beer. It's excellent to cook with and it's aging quite nicely as a beverage. But I digress, back to the pie!

I made the pies in ramekins and the only acceptable thing to do with left over dough is to coat it in cinnamon and sugar and bake it.

I initially forgot to poke the pie dough in a couple places to allow for gas exchange so they don't explode. When I checked on them part way through baking, one of the smaller ones was literally levitating - my pot pie became a hot air balloon! Physics is awesome sometimes. Anyway, I poked them and they finished cooking beautifully.

I made a quick salad to go with a pot pie for dinner. If only pot-pie wasn't so time-consuming to make, I'd make them all the time!

When Dinner Becomes Breakfast

2011-01-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, Sarah taught everyone how to make tamales at our weekly Potluck. Alex made some awesome Mexican rice with black beans and veggies to go with, or in, the tamales. At the end of the night, Alex and I scored a bunch of the left overs, that I used for breakfast the next morning! I took Sarah's tamale dough and added some masa and bacon grease to make tortillas. I reheated Alex's rice and bean deliciousness and made some scrambled eggs to go with it. This might be my new favorite breakfast!

Instant Sorbet!

2011-01-12T21:51:00.001-08:00

Check it out! All I did was blend up frozen raspberries and huckleberries with a bit of honey! The raspberry seeds were the only drawback (this is why people normally cook fruit like raspberries and then strain the seeds out before making sorbet), otherwise it was absolutely delicious!

Curry and Chai

2011-01-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

Last night I made a chicken curry for dinner. I didn't follow a recipe, so I have no idea what type of curry it is but here is what went into it:

Stokesberry chicken breasts, yellow and red onion, a bulb and a half of garlic and an equal amount of fresh-frozen ginger, peppers, carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, chicken stock, coriander, cinnamon, alspice, clove, tumeric, black pepper, paprika, cumin, ras al hanout, and salt.

Alex made some chai to go with it (it's a mix from Teahouse Kuan Yin).

I ended up mopping up the juice on my plate with cornbread, which gave me an idea: curry tamales!

Dreaming of somewhere south of here...

2011-01-09T20:33:00.000-08:00

My friend, Sarah, has Mexican blood in her. She made tortillas by hand a few nights ago with nothing more than Masa glued together with a little bit of bacon grease, salt, and water. They were incredible, and she got me thinking about Southern and Mexican food, which is what inspired this dinner.

I bought some Masa, but decided not to do anything with it yet. Instead I made cornbread, following the recipe that Alex uses to make his heavenly cornbread. Mine was pretty good, but Alex's cornbread is the best. Then I decided to make some coleslaw since we have more cabbage than we know what to do with at the moment. I like my coleslaw chunky with all sorts of stuff in it; carrots, red onion, garlic, mortar&pestled mustard seeds, paprika, cayenne, black pepper, salt, cumin, apple cider vinegar, and mayo. Lastly I made some ground beef grub with onions, garlic, peppers (spicy and sweet), corn, tomato juice, molasses, paprika, cumin, and salt. Twas a delicious dinner indeed!

Recreating the Ham & Cheese Roll

2010-12-23T17:11:00.000-08:00

There used to be a Vivace Cafe right next to Seattle Central Community College. When I was going to school there I pretty much lived at Vivace, not to mention spending an obscene portion my hard earned money on mochas and ham and cheese rolls. But damn, those ham and cheese rolls were the best thing to ever be served in a coffee shop, ever. They were not ham and cheese croissants, they were more bready than croissanty (thus the name ham and cheese roll). Anyway, I've been wanting to make my own ever since Vivace stopped selling them, and I've finally gotten around to it!

Here is the inspiration in it's native habitat (it's the thing on the plate behind the coffee):

I started out following Julia Child's recipe for plain-old white sandwich bread, and to my surprise my old yeast was still vibrantly alive! As the dough rose I sliced up a Skagit River Valley Ranch Ham Nugget and some Golden Glen Creamery Cheddar.

I rolled out the dough to about a 1/4inch thick and sprinkled the ham and cheese on top...

...and then rolled it up and sealed it shut with a bit of egg.

Then I just cut it into individual "rolls" and let those rise before baking them.

voila!

These were fantastic at room temperature, but even better heated up in a saute-pan with a little bit of bacon grease!

Proper Pasta

2010-12-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

Throughout my culinary education one thing was continuously beaten into my head: Always cook pasta in a liberal amount of salted water! The water to pasta ratio should be as high as possible. Though recently cooking with my step-mom (who has an Italian heritage) shattered this pasta cooking concept. She cooked her pasta in as little liquid as possible, and not just water, she uses stock! It's so simple, and so brilliant. The pasta takes on the flavor of the stock, turning it into a meal of it's own, and not just another starchy vehicle for other foods. Also, I haven't observed any adverse effects of cooking pasta in a minimal amount of liquid -I've actually been trying to cook pasta in exactly enough liquid, so there's hardly any left in the pan by the time it's done cooking. When I saw my step-mom do this for the first time, I mentioned it must be her Italian heritage, because it's an Italian tradition (in some regions, at least), to cook pasta in a minimal amount of water and use the water as the base for the pasta sauce. My step-mom had never heard of this, so it's clearly just in her blood to do awesome things with pasta. And now, a picture of pasta in stock!:

Thanksgiving!

2010-11-30T11:53:00.000-08:00

After a slight delay, here is the delicousness that was Thanksgiving. We got another Stokesberry Farm heritage turkey this year, though we were smart and got on the list about this time last year (which reminds me...we need to do that again!). This was the first year that I basically cooked the turkey all by myself, with a bit of prodding and assistance from Debbie. I slathered this glorious bird in plenty of butter, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, and filled the insides with mirepoix - just like a chicken, only bigger!

We made stock with giblets that I added to the pan drippings with some flour to create the most incredible gravy I've ever had. It was thick and dark and there was so much fat in it that it broke, but that didn't matter because it coated everything in rich, flavorful intensity.

Stoney Plains farm is officially the place to buy absolutely adorable mini vegetables. These red cabbages are my favorite:

I chopped them up along with a bunch of brussel sprouts, carrots, parsnips, and fried it all in bacon grease:

By this time, I must have been getting hungry, because I stopped taking pictures of individual dishes and just got one big picture of everything:

From top to bottom, here's what's going on: Debbie's delicious green beans, the turkey, Alex's classic roasted delicata squash, Debbie's legendary cranberry chutney, the gravy, my experimental cranberry mole, Debbie's famous cornbread stuffing (now with chanterelles!), the brussel sprouts, and two types of cheesy mashed potatoes so that Miya could have one bowl entirely to herself (hah!). We all accomplished at eating as much as we possibly could, and then there was desert, which consisted of super sticky pecan pie, apple crisp al la mode, and Miya's pumpkin pie (made from her very own pumpkin).

The day after Thanksgiving, a bunch of our friends got together and had a Thanksgiving-left-overs potluck. We made a buffet of everyones left-overs so that each person could make their own mixture of Thanksgiving stuff in aluminum foil, and then wrap it up and throw it into a roaring fire place to re-heat. This might be my new favorite way to eat Thanksgiving left-overs.

On Sunday, we went to our friend Justin's house for a second Thanksgiving. Justin had a Skagit River Valley Ranch turkey that gave some stiff competition for our Stokesberry bird! Besides turkey, Justin (plus a few people helping out) made a beef roast, cornbread-jalapeño-bacon-cheese muffins, roasted fennel and mandarin orange salad with a honey dressing, sweet stuffing made with raisin and walnut breads, mashed sweet potatoes, a hearty and complex vegetable soup...and I'm sure there is more I'm forgetting, but Justin always impresses me with his culinary magic!

...And now I don't think I'll have to eat again for a couple of days...

These are a few of my favorite things...

2010-11-23T18:57:00.000-08:00

My morning meditation:

Few things are better than "cutting" butter into flour by hand. I start with frozen unsalted butter and cut it into roughly cubic-centimeters. Then I mix it into the flour by squishing each cube of butter between my fingers until the mixture has a sort of flaky consistency.

SNOW!!!! (and biscuits)

I started following the recipe for the scones served at A Spot of Tea in Rhinebeck, NY (which is apparently and unfortunately now out-of-business!). But we were all out of eggs, so on a whim I decided to just substitute extra milk for the egg. They turned out to be the best biscuits I've ever had with this incredible fresh milk flavor that was absolutely captivating. And if you were wondering (because I was), there is really no difference between a scone and a biscuit in the US, they are both simply a soft leavened quick bread. Though what you use them for might define whether it's a biscuit or a scone; if you eat it with jam and cream it's a scone, if you smother it in gravy, it's a biscuit. Also, shortcake is just a large cake-sized scone or biscuit or whatever you want to call it. Anyway, we smothered these in bacon gravy and ate it with sausage and coffee, so I'm calling them biscuits. Oh, and I did mention the snow, that's the best part!!

After breakfast we decided to go for stroll in the snow to get more milk and eggs, but first we needed a warm beverage to keep us company on our cold walk.

Behold, the makings of The Snowball:

This is a concoction we developed with a previous house-mate during the 2008 snow storm. It's Valrhona hot chocolate, Stumptown coffee, Bailey's Irish cream, Jameson whiskey, and Rumpleminze peppermint schnapps. It gives you the power to conquer the world in the comfort of the best warm fuzzy blanket. It's the perfect beverage.

The Mac And Cheese

2010-11-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

I have to give my friend, Sarah Richardson, some credit for the creation of this dish. She made a mac 'n cheese with butternut squash a few weeks ago that filled my soul with squishy delicious comfort, joy, and inspiration - the best kind of comfort food! So I took Sarah's idea and ran with it... here is my mac 'n cheese in the making.

From left to right, top to bottom, here's what's goin' on: sauteed chanterelles and baked delicata squash, onions pepper and sausage frying in a liberal amount of butter, cheddar cheese, and pasta. I made a cream sauce with all that butter plus some flour and milk, then added the cheese and everything. Topped it all of with some breadcrumbs under the boiler and here's the finished product.

IMPORTANT EDIT: I totally failed to remember the most brilliant part about Sarah's Squash-Mac-n-Cheese! She actually substituted the squash puree for the roux! More squash means less carbo-coma!

They can run, but they can't hide...

2010-11-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

Every day that bike to work, I pass a spot that usually has some shaggy mane mushrooms. However the trick with these mushrooms is you have to catch them right when they pop up out of the ground, otherwise within a few hours they turn into an inky mess (these mushrooms are also called "inky caps"). Here is what an inky mess looks like:

It's been cool and stormy with plenty of rain the past few days, and then today was quite warm and sunny - this must be exactly what shaggy manes like, because I found more today than I've ever seen before! And lucky for me, some of them were still young enough to eat!

Coprinus comatus

The hunt is definitely the point of eating this mushroom, it really doesn't serve much of a culinary purpose. It's fairly flavorless and has a texture comparable to sauteed onions. But, since I finally found it, I had to eat it out of principle. I sauteed my catch with onions and cabbage and then smothered it with Golden Glen Creamery Red Pepper and Onion Cheddar and topped it with cilantro, voila:

The Nachos

2010-10-31T21:31:00.000-07:00

Alex made these nachos. They were awesome. Just a bed of corn-chips smothered in onion-garlic-pepper-black-bean deliciousness and then topped with a mixture of Golden Glen Creamery's Jalapeño Cheddar and Red Pepper and Onion Cheddar. That all went under the broiler and when it came out we topped it with sour cream, cilantro, green onions, and cherry tomatoes.

Soup in Stormy Weather

2010-10-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

It's stormy out and I got inspired to make something I don't make very often: soup! Nothing fancy, just sweet Italian sausage, white beans, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, ginger, chicken stock, and some chopped up carrot tops. Simple, quick, and delicious....I should make soup more often!

Fruitful Fall

2010-10-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

This has apparently been a fabulous fall for mushrooms. I got a new one at the farmer's market that I've never tried, the Saffron Milk Cap. Though, I think the Latin name is more telling: Lactarius deliciousus - Delicious! Lactarius and Russula are the two main genera with a crunchy texture. The difference is, when raw, Lactarius has a milky juice that oozes out when the flesh is broken (thus the name). Russula on the other hand has no such juice. Enough mycology, here are the gastronomic stars of the Russulaceae:

Lactarius deliciousus on the left bruises dark green when touched giving them a sort of spooky appearance that I think is totally appropriate for October! On the right is my old friend the Lobster Mushroom - Hypomyces lactifluorum (parasitized Russula brevepis).

I diced these mushrooms up along with some onions, garlic, and patty-pan squashes and sauteed these all together in some butter. Once the mushrooms were fully cooked, I added some flour and then milk and then white cheddar to make a cheesy cream sauce. Lastly I mixed in some cooked rice. What resulted was fantastic comfort food on a chilly autumn evening with the welcome crunch of the Russuloid mushrooms!

Deliciousus indeed!

Ready for Winter

2010-10-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

Two years ago Alex and I decided that we were going to start shopping only at the farmers market for meat and produce. When winter came, we were horribly unprepared - kale and potatoes all winter long gets pretty rough. So last year I went nuts canning and freezing everything summer had to offer. Canning was a hugely involved process that didn't produce the best product, I thought. So this year, I've filled our freezer with corn, peppers, huckleberries, raspberries, ginger, broccoli, and chicken stock. Bring it on, La Nina Winter! We're ready:

A fungus on a mushroom that looks like crustacean

2010-10-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

This year I was lucky enough to befriend someone with the scoop on local lobster mushrooms. They're near Mt. Rainier and the Hood Canal... It's a tough choice, but I think lobster mushrooms might be my favorite mushrooms ever. The mushroom part of it belongs to the genus Russula that is known for it's unique cellular structure that makes it's raw flesh "break like chalk". I think it's precisely this cellular structure that gives lobster mushrooms the perfect texture, the perfect "al dente" crunch that almost seems impossible with something so tender. It's the parasitic fungus that attacks the Russula to give it a lobstery complexion, not to mention a sweetly fishy flavor. Here's what it looks like in the wild:

Lobster mushrooms are utterly fabulous breaded and fried, but I decided to do something different this time. A professor of mine mentioned his favorite way to have lobster mushrooms was in etouffee - a classic Cajun dish, so I took that idea and ran with it. Etouffee came from the French method of slowly cooking vegetables and meat in a small amount of liquid inside of a closed vessel (pot with a lid). I essentially did just that with onions, garlic, corn , peppers, oyster mushrooms, and lobster mushrooms. By slow cooking with a small amount of liquid (veggie stock), everything was essentially slowly steamed, so the structural/flavor/color integrity of everything remained.

GINGER!

2010-10-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

It's a special time of year...

Ginger! Fresh out of the ground! Grown in Wapato, WA by Mair Farm Take. Absolutely magical!

My Kitchen-Garden

2010-10-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

I took a mushroom class at UW over the summer, part of which was creating our own edible-mushroom kits from scratch. My professor made the Reishi mushroom kit and gave it to me at the end of the quarter. Reishi mushrooms are much more common in Asian cultures and used as a daily health elixir, tradition says if you drink Reishi tea every day of your life you will live a longer and healthier life. I haven't made Reshi tea yet, but I will soon! Then there is the kit that I made completely from scratch - starting with a mushoom, isolating individual spores, mating germinated spores, and cultivating the mycellial mass that has gone on the bear many Oyster mushrooms.

Ganoderma lucidum

Reishi mushroom!

Pluerotus sp.

Oyster Mushrooms!

Happenstantial Fusion and other Gastronomic Explorations

2010-08-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

Alex and I have been creating some sautéed creations that start out as a method to use up what's about to go bad in our fridge, only to realize later what a fantastically unusual fusion of cuisines we've created. It all started a few nights ago with pork stir-fry meat, then onions, garlic and carrots. I believe some peppers and summer squash, some broccoli, a tomato, and a phenomenal eggplant all went in too. We finished it with soy sauce, fish sauce, and tossed it with quinoa and Firefly Kitchen's kim-chee. Let's call it "Chinese-Korean-Brazilian cuisine with French Technique". Then there was last night's meal that began with fried potatoes and onions and evolved to contain summer squash, tomatoes, cabbage, and green beans. I cooked up some hot Italian sausages to put on the side and Alex brought out the sauerkraut... after one bite, I realize this would taste best mixed together, creating a French-Italian-German cuisine. This is also the beginning of what may be an obsession with combining spicy and fermented foods, they're just so exciting together!

On another note, I was craving grilled cheese and tomato soup the other day, but it was way too hot out, so instead I whipped up some gazpacho and made grilled cheese sandwiches with Golden Glen Creamery's Queso Con Salsa cheese. Just to make it a well-rounded meal I fried up some Stokesberry Farms sweet Italian chicken sausages also. Here's a picture of our perfect summer dinner out on the balcony:

The taste of summer...

2010-08-03T19:37:00.001-07:00

Firefly Kitchens is a couple have a passion for pro-biotic fermented vegetables. They're just your average Seattlites with kids (so they only sell at week-day farmers markets), but holy cow they make some amazing stuff! Above is their sauerkraut, that's not only gorgeous, but some of the best and most unique sauerkraut I've ever had! It has an incredible meaty quality to it, like some sort of essence-of-beef, but at the same time its tangy and almost fruity.

CORN!!! The candy of summer! And this is the first of the season...

Also now coming into season in eastern Washington - Cantaloupe! More summer candy, and my favorite afternoon snack. I could easily eat a whole cantaloupe in one sitting, but I've been trying to ration myself to a half a cantaloupe a day... If only there was a was to preserve this to eat throughout the year...

Rediscovering my Arkansas Roots!

2010-07-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

For at least a year, I've been talking about making my own corn dogs, and a few days ago, I finally got around to it! It was surprisingly easy. I used Olsen Farm's Beef Country Dogs, which taste just like how I remember hot dogs tasting when I was kid. I dusted the dogs with flour, dipped them in regular corn bread batter, and then dropped them in a pan full of hot bacon grease to fry. After a few minutes they were golden brown and delicious! I had a lot of corn bread batter left over, so I chopped up some onions, mixed them in, and made hush puppies! I don't think I've had a hush puppy since I last visited my extended family in Arkansas, and oh man they're good! We took all this to a potluck, so here are the finished products in Tupperware, ready for transport:

Bridal Trail Fruits!

2010-07-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

Today might be that last day for wild mushrooms since the rain seems to be gone and it's only supposed to get hotter and hotter. To catch to end of the season I headed out to the Bridal Trail state park in Bellevue. I found a plethora of mushrooms, the only edible ones I recognized though were these oyster mushrooms:

I stopped and chatted with a kind woman on a horse and she introduced me to these local red huckleberries! They tasted just like tart grapes, with a hint of apple!

A Snack Fit for a Prince!

2010-06-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

Today in my rush to class I stumbled on these lovelies just outside the Biology department! Their botanical name is Agaricus agustus, but you can call him The Prince. I made sure the cap stained gold and the flesh smelled of rich almonds before snatching them up and bringing them home! I took a tip from my Mycology professor and decided to quickly saute them with onions and spread it on toast.

Absolutely delicious!

The Other Hiking Bar

2010-06-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest attempt at a hiking bar. It came out to be incredibly delicious, but a bit messy (to the benefit of a couple chipmunks on the trail). I started out with one of Alton Brown's recipes, and reworked it into this:

1/2 cup Hazelnuts

1 1/4 cup Cashews

1/4 Shredded Coconut

1 cup Oats

1 cup Flaked Emmer

1/4 cup Camelina Seeds

1/4 cup Hemp Seeds

1/2 cup Honey

1/4 cup Brown Sugar

1 oz. Unsalted Butter

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

I toasted all the nuts, seeds, oats, and emmer in a 300 degree oven just until they began to brown (about 15-20 minutes). Meanwhile, I melted the butter with the honey, sugar, and vanilla. When the dry things came out of the oven, I turned the heat up to 350 and tossed everything together and then pressed it into a buttered 9-inch square baking dish. I let bake for about 30 minutes. Then I should have let it cool completely before removing it from the pan, but instead I got impatient and it fell apart a little bit.

Mandy Cakes!

2010-06-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

Oh the things I do for my friends... Believe it or not, these little cakes do not contain any gluten, dairy, eggs, or soy! And yes, they are edible and actually quite tasty - I thought the texture was a little off, but for someone who can't eat the real thing, it's about as close as you can get! I started with the Joy of Cooking's standard blueberry muffin recipe and substituted egg-replacer for the eggs, Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose flour for the flour, water for milk (I should really use hemp milk next time), and huckleberries for blueberries ...I also tweaked the ratios slightly so the dough was the right consistency with all the substitutions. I greased the muffin pans with coconut oil, which made the muffins incredibly easy to get out of the pan - something I'm going to do more often! The frosting is coconut oil with lots of powdered sugar and some pink food coloring, then I sprinkled granulated sugar and grated coconut on top.

My Favorite Breakfast!

2010-05-31T21:08:00.000-07:00

Whenever I have time to enjoy the morning, here's the jist of what usually happens:

Syrup made from last summers frozen raspberries, brown sugar, and butter.

Whole wheat waffles, Stumptown french-press coffee, Skagit Valley Ranch bacon, raspberry syrup, and sun shine!

Fruits of Spring!

2010-05-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

We've been having ideal mushroom weather here in western Washington lately; frequent rain showers with mildly warm weather and sun breaks. The morels especially love the sun breaks. At the farmers market this past weekend, Foraged & Found Edibles had an impressive plethora of morels along with a small basket of Gyromitra montanum. I had no idea Gryomitra's were edible, as they're commonly called "false morels" - I just assumed that meant they were not morels and therefore inedible. But after consulting several sources I was convinced that they're not only edible but a popular (and cheap) morel substitute. Then on my bike ride home today I slammed on the breaks at the sight of a log bulging with white mycelium and a collection of whitish, gilled, shelf-mushrooms emerging. It could only be one thing - Oyster Mushrooms!! Naturally, I came home and made a mycological feast:

Here's the cast of characters from left to right:

Pluerotus sp., Morchella esculenta, and Gyromitra montanum

Below is a quick and poorly done picture of the finished product. I made some pasta with olive oil, salt, and pepper. On top is a saute of the mushrooms, four different Allium's (leeks, baby onions, green-garlic, and walla walla onion scapes), chard, and sea beans (Salicornia) - delicious!

Beef Bourginon, it's what's for dinner!

2010-05-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

Amidst my studying, I was suddenly hit by an insatiable craving for beef bourginon. All things considered, it's incredibly simple and quick to whip up, I need to do this more often. Oh and I added chard. I have officially discovered the importance of chard. yum.

Food on my Mind

2010-04-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

Spring quarter has begun at UW and I've fallen comfortably back into a relatively monotonous, yet efficient, pattern of cooking and eating, nothing worth noting on a blog anyway. However, due to popular demand, here's what I've been thinking:

-Empire's new Stumptown coffee ice cream is terrifyingly addictive (I'm eating some now in fact)

-In the lab at school I've been growing some edible fungi on agar...naturally my mind has wandered to wonder what it would be like to fry up one of these, agar and all. I don't think I'll be investigating this anytime soon. However, I did happen to read about agar and other plant-based gelatin replacements in Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, and learned that they are all carbohydrates (unlike gelatin which is protein). Also, agar is not digestible by humans, meaning it just passes through as dietary "fiber".

-I was recently sent an awful article about how bad agave syrup is (it's a big new health-food trend, if you haven't heard). Intrigued, I did a tiny bit of research and discovered it is, in fact, inferior to regular old table sugar. Basically, agave syrup is just fructose...Highly concentrated fructose to give it a syrupy consistency, which could easily be called "high fructose agave syrup". We've all learned how bad high fructose corn syrup is, it's the same story all over again, just with a different plant source.

-At the farmer's market a few weeks ago we found ourselves in desperate need of coffee, which lead us to discover my new favorite bakery: Fresh Flours. It's on Ballard Ave. right in the middle of the Sunday farmers market. Their skilled barista serves Stumptown coffee and their pastries are utterly divine and wont break your wallet.

-Maple blossoms were selling at the farmers market today - they're in bloom EVERYWHERE! Get your own for free! (apparently they're edible, I'll let you know when I try them....maple blossom salad anyone?)

Beignets for Second Breakfast

2010-03-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

This morning, I woke up, ate first breakfast, took my physics final, and went back to sleep. Then I woke up again with a brilliant idea for second breakfast: beignets!! (New Orleans style doughnuts). It's basically a choux paste that gets fried.

Whipping the chouxish dough to satiny ribbons!:

Frying in bacon grease:

A landscape of beignets sprinkled with cinnamon-butterscotch-sugar:

Bread!

2010-03-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

With nearby Essential Bakery moving far, far away to South Seattle in search of cheaper rent, Alex mentioned that we should start making bread. My first reaction was excitement at the possibility of Alex learning to make bread, then I realized maybe I could make bread too. I haven't had much luck making bread in the past several years, but I did have 48 hours with nothing but studying to do and Baking With Julia. This is roughly the Country Loaf recipe, the big change is all the flour I used is equal parts white flour and whole wheat flour.

Yesterday I made the "sponge" (basically a starter) and let it sit on the counter covered with a cloth for about 8 hours:
Then I put it in the fridge to ferment over night and pulled it out in the morning to warm up before adding the rest of the ingredients and making the bread dough. Here it is, in a lightly oiled bowl, ready for it's first rise:

I let it sit for several hours while I ran some errands and it rose a lot!:

Next I shaped it and let it rise a second time for about an hour before putting it in the oven:

Finished Product:

Delicious!

Raw

2010-02-15T21:26:00.000-08:00

I've been skeptical of raw food diets ever since I first heard about it. Plus the only so called "raw food" I have ever had has been really unimpressive. But this evening I attended a raw food dinner that absolutely blew my mind. It was truly phenomenal and ingenuous food. It was the type of food that's recognizable, though I really had no idea what I was eating because it was unlike anything I've ever had before and absolutely delicious. I found it interesting that after a while I could actually taste and recognize most of the ingredients in each dish, though they were still perfectly balanced - I wonder if this is what a super taster feels like! I talked to a few people who try to eat only raw foods and they said they recognize that it's not for everyone, we all have different body chemistry, and for them, raw food is it. For me, eating locally is a top priority and a lot of the staples of a raw food diet are not at all local, like bananas and almonds. Most of the people that were in charge of the dinner work for Thrive, and thus used some of their recipes. I definitely need to explore this more...

Happy Birthday to Me!

2010-02-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

For my birthday this year I decided to attempt to perfect my favorite cake to make (and eat). It's not perfect, though it's better than the last time I made it for a friends birthday several years ago. I started it on Monday, with a basic chocolate sponge cake. On Tuesday I made my chocolate mousse according to a recipe I perfected while I was in culinary school. It's the best chocolate mousse recipe I've ever used! I used an IKEA mixing bowl lined with plastic wrap as a mold and poured the chocolate mousse into it, placed the sponge cake on top, and froze it solid over the next couple of days. On Saturday, I made the shiny chocolate glaze, quickly flipped and un-molded the frozen cake and poured the chocolate glaze over it. This is the trickiest part, the last time I made it my glaze was too hot and partially melted the mousse. This time (in reaction to last time) I made the glaze too cool so it set up before it finished oozing over the entire cake. Despite the minor aesthetic failure, it was definitely a winner. Especially since I only used Valrhona chocolate and the best eggs and cream that western Washington has to offer (this is the other reason I don't make this cake often, it's not cheap!).

Without further ado, here is the infamous Giant Chocolate Bombe:

A Life Changing Sandwich

2010-01-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

Alex just whipped this up as a quick late night snacky-dinner sort of meal, I'm utterly amazed. It's absolutely incredible. It might even be the best sandwich I've ever had!

Bacon, apple slices, fresh ginger slices, winter salad mix, raw red onion slices, and mayonaise all between two toasted slices of Essential Bakery sourdough.

One happy girl and her sauerkraut!

2010-01-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

I'm on a sauerkraut kick again. I couldn't wait to get home this evening so I could have my daily bowl of cabbage and microbes! Perhaps I'm just connecting with my German roots, but sauerkraut sure is tasty and makes me feel great! On a trip to Hofbrauhaus in Pittsburgh over the holidays my dinner came with the most amazing hot sauerkraut I think I've ever had. It was milder, sweeter perhaps, and served hot made it oh-so-comforting. A few days ago I stopped by the German delicatessen near my work and was blown away by their sauerkraut collection. They have sauerkraut made with red or green cabbage, sauerkraut juice, and a wide variety of brands of regional flavors of plain 'ole traditional sauerkraut. I noticed the Bavarian style is made with white wine in addition to the usual cast of characters and bought it. It's my favorite. The sweetness from the wine adds a wonderful level of complexity and distracts from the possible bacterial harshness. According to Wikipedia, sauerkraut has high levels of vitamin C, lactobaccili, and other vital nutrients. It's credited as being the antidote to almost any ailment, prevents cancer, and may even be an aphrodisiac! Woohoo! In conclusion, I would like to extend a special thanks to Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Leuconostoc, and Lactobacillus for making sauerkraut possible!

The Devine Gastronomique!

2009-12-27T19:51:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago my dad sent me an email asking me to make reservations at the fanciest restaurant in Seattle. Without a seconds delay I picked up the phone and called Rover's, crossing my fingers that they would have reservations open for less than a week away. To my luck, they did! It was one of those utterly divine, life-changing experiences that has left me to re-acclimate to normal food again. We all got different menus; my dad had the Julia Child tribute, Alex had the Menu Degustation, and I had the Grand Menu Degustation. The wait-staff provided an impeccable show of gastronomical intelligence with high class French composure. The delivery of each course came with grace and a hint of theatre. The presentation on each plate was exquisite, playful, and utterly perfect. Needless to say, the food was incredible. As part of an Amuse Bouche, we all got a small cup of soup so smooth it reminded me of why Thomas Keller says to strain soups 20 times, it's worth it. I had the most amazing oysters, and I don't consider myself a person that likes shell-fish. One was warm with a buttery sauce and one was cold with a fennel-vinegar gelee and caviar. They were crisp to the tooth and silky smooth on the tongue with absolutely no "fishy" or ocean flavor to them. Amazing. A first for me at this dinner was Escargot, out of the shell and dancing around my plate amid colorful sauces. Just like the oysters, I was pleasantly surprised by crisp texture and a wonderful delicate flavor. Then there was venison, so moist and tender I didn't need the provided steak-knife. A sorbet cleansed the palate mid-meal with little beet pearls, apparently made by bubbling beet juice into almost cooled agar. Dinner was concluded with a "Symphony of Desserts" followed by macaroons and passion fruit gelees. Absolutely phenomenal, I would definitely put it on par with Daniel in New York.

Northeast meets Northwest

2009-12-11T15:47:00.000-08:00

I met up with an old friend on Capitol Hill last night at this fantastic little place called simply, Smith. It's a cozy pub with lots of dark hardwood, dusty books, taxidermy animals, and portraits on the walls. Their happy hour is phenomenal; we got a PITCHER of Allagash white ale for $10!! Not to mention they also had Ninkasi IPA and a handful of other excellent beers on tap. Their food menu was filled with all sorts of tasty, French-inspired pub foods. Since my friend grew up in Montreal, she ordered Poutine, which is according to her, the official dish of Montreal. Poutine is french fries smothered in an au jus style gravy with melted cheese curds on top - delicious! We also got some good homemade mac n' cheese. It wasn't long before we were both in a glorious carbohydrate coma!

Puff Pastry Improv

2009-12-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

A few months ago we ended up with a pile of puff-pastry dough scraps at work that I gladly brought home and threw in my freezer for later use. After nearly an entire quarter of lunches comprised of sandwiches or salads made from the same ingredients (the "salad" is really just a sandwich without bread), I decided it was high time that I make something else to take to school with me each day. Last week inspiration struck: Samosas! Granted, I don't think I've ever made an actual samosa, nor did I consult a recipe, so perhaps these are not samosas at all. I started by fine dicing or mincing a few carrots, parsnips, butterball potatoes, red onion, garlic, ginger, peppers from my canned pepper medley, frozen green beans, and celery tops (like parsley!). I sauteed everything in bacon grease, used the singer method to make a roux and then used a splash of water to make it saucy. I threw in some frozen corn and a cooked and chopped sage & garlic chicken sausage at the end. Each piece of puff-dough got a spoon full of this mixture and sealed shut with some egg wash. These baked at 350 degrees until they looked done, and oh man were they delicious! The perfect addition to a school lunch!

Thankful for good food!

2009-12-02T18:10:00.001-08:00

It's a bit belated, but here is my epic Thanksgiving post. Mandy made bacon-wrapped dates as an appetizer, or literally an amuse bouche (something to "shut your mouth" while dinner is cooking). I almost didn't get a picture of them, they got eaten quick and this is the last one!:

Mandy continued to show off her new-found love for cooking by gracing us with this deliciously authentic Greek salad. Not to mention, it was the perfect light addition to a rather hefty meal.

Debbie made these heavenly carrot pillows:

I, of course, had to make brussel sprouts fried in bacon grease:

Alex was the squash champion of the evening, he made this wonderful medly of winter squashes:

Debbie made Cranberry Chutney, which was incredible!:

And I made Wild-Cranberry Sauce (wow! they were TART!!):

And of course there was green-bean casserole and cornbread dressing, not stuffing (thanks, Josh):

Here is the only picture I got of our handsom bird. He is a heritage turkey from Stokeberry farm. So much love went into the creation of this turkey! It was absolutely divine. To put it, roughly, in the words of 5-year-old Miya, "I'm thankful that this turkey was a alive so we can eat it". And Debbie did a lovely job of carving it!

For dessert, I made the best gluten-free and egg-free cake I think I've ever had. It's a chocolate-chai-pumpkin-cranberry cake. Dorothy brought a sort of pear gallete (although it had yeast in the dough..) that was absolute delectable! And Mandy made cherry pie, yum!:

Refried Pizza and The Bay

2009-11-29T16:46:00.000-08:00

In my exhaustion and starvation after returning home from 48hours in the Bay Area I created something incredible. I call it, Refried Pizza. What I was craving was grilled cheese and tomato soup, although we had no bread, just lots of old pizza that Alex swore was inedible at this point. How to make the inedible edible? Why fry it in bacon grease of course! That is precisely what I did. I even added some fresh Golden Glen sharp cheddar to the top of the old pizza and I let it get all melty and and delicious as it was frying. Perhaps anything would have tasted as good at that point in time, but wow that was delicious! The pizza was crispy with bacon-goodness on the bottom and smothered in melted yum on top, how can you go wrong?!

On a different note, while I was in Palo Alto I was on a mission to eat as much as possible. At La Bamba Taqueria I had a tamale with a texture similar to a souffle and a burrito with some of the best al pastor I've ever had. Although nothing compares to the burritos a few doors down at La Costena. I had my usual adobado chicken with black beans, rice, guacamole, cheese, cilantro, onions, pico de gallo, and salsa - it's all so good! My dad had some beautiful little tacos at La Costena. I also got my yearly fix of pumpkin and Swiss mocha ice cream at Rick's Rather Rich Ice Cream and spicy Mexican mocha's at Coupa Cafe that, "made our tonsils light up" according to my Dad. They did have quite the cayenne-pepper kick. I've saved the best for last though, a new discovery: Coconuts. It's a bright little Jamaican restaurant right next to city hall. The owner and chef, Robert Simpson, grew up in Jamaica and got trained in culinary arts at the CIA. I LOVE this restaurant, it is hands down the best Jamaican food I have had yet. All the meat was tender and juicy enough to eat with a spoon, the sauces and spice-mixes were spot on and packed a colorful punch. Not to mention each plate was visually a work of art.

...Thanksgiving update coming soon!

Clandestine Self Indulgence

2009-11-16T22:47:00.000-08:00

When Alex isn't home and I'm craving that sinful self indulgent personal time alone at home, I sneak into the kitchen and open the fridge. In the back of the vegetable drawer is my own personal stash of the most adorable little brussel sprouts I've ever seen. I buy them from Stony Plains farm at the farmers market and when I'm home alone, I'll grab a handful, and cut them each in half as a pan of bacon grease is heating up. When the grease is good and hot, I throw in the brussel sprouts so they sizzle wildly, frying them until they're gorgeous golden brown and just perfectly cooked. Sometimes I sprinkle a little salt and pepper on them, and sometimes I eat them as they are, straight out of the pan, with my fingers.

Mushrooms!Mushrooms!Mushrooms!

2009-10-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again when there are mushrooms EVERYWHERE! The Burke Gilman Trail has a veritable plethora of mushrooms popping up along its edges. I even found some edible ones! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera to catch these guys in the ground, but here they are on my kitchen counter getting ready to be eaten:

Coprinus comatus, a.k.a. the Shaggy Mane

One characteristic of Coprinuses is that they deliquesce, that is, they decay by melting into ink rather quickly. And by quickly I mean a few hours sometimes, so the window of opportunity to find these guys, cook, and eat them is fairly short. Once a mushroom begins to decay, it's inedible, just like other foods; rotten is no good! Anyway, as soon as I picked these Coprinuses, I brought them home, cut them in half, made some tempura batter, and set about frying them in bacon grease.

They were interesting. They didn't really have any flavor, or perhaps a delicate one that got overpowered by the tempura/bacon grease. The texture was fasinating though. They were kinda slimy and stringy, but firm and tender at the same time. It had sort of a calamari-like quality to it. One cookbook describes them as "not slimy like okra, but delicious like octopus" - That's pretty much it. I want to try sauteing them next time.

Early Autumn Update

2009-10-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

School has started and I've become a big fan on sandwiches with Tall Grass Bakery bread, farmers market apples, Stumptown Kenyan coffees, and TeaCup imperial afternoon tea. One particularly amazing thing I must note though is Washington ginger! Yes, apparently the climate out in Wapato, WA at Mair Farm-Taki is suitable to grow fresh ginger!! I've never had fresh ginger before, it's almost like a super spicy apple and good for anything and everything! It's much prettier than the that dried out brown stuff we all know. This ginger is almost translucent white, with highlights of rich pink and vibrant green. Incredible. I'll try to get some pictures of it up here later.

Mushrooms and the Fish

2009-09-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

Since I've deemed this blog an "appreciation of all things edible", I must mention the fantastically edible mushroom growing on our plum tree outside! May I introduce, Laetiporus conifericola:

Unfortunately I was too greedy and waited too long, hoping it would get bigger and I would have more to eat. But alas, it died quick and mold conquered it.

I taught Alex to make bread using the sourdough starter that I started a while ago because he accidentally opened a packet of our friends beer-brewing yeast. I showed him how to kneed it and then said he could make whatever shape he wanted, perhaps a baguette or a round. He decided a fish-shape was best:

And here is an awesome stir fry with rice underneath that Alex whipped up. Notice the lobster mushroom slices sauteed with brioche crumbs! Also, he stir fried slices of cucumber, I had no idea you could do that to cucumbers, but it was delicious!

Canning Part 2

2009-09-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

Canning 20 pounds of peppers was a formidable task, but I did it! Here's the second part of the process, continued from my previous entry.

After roasting all the peppers and letting them cool in their plastic-wrapped bowls I peeled them and washed out all of there seeds. Here's about 10 pounds worth of cleaned peppers:

For the really spicy peppers, I quickly blanched them in boiling water and then put them in clean, hot cans and covered them with boiling water. For the roasted miscellaneous peppers, I just stuffed them in clean, hot jars and poured boiling water on top of them. Next, the filled cans went for a ride in my co-workers pressure caner! Here it is in action:

The cans stayed in the pressure caner for about an hour before taking them out and allowing them to cool on the counter top. At long last, here is the finished produduct; from left to right and top to bottom: habaneros, bulgarian carrot peppers, roasted medly, and chocolate cayennes. This winter will be flavorful for sure!

Saving Summer

2009-09-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

Last year was the first year that I fully committed to doing all my grocery shopping at the farmer's market. I'll never go to a grocery store again if I can help it. However winter is pretty bleak here; only so much can be done with root vegetables and kale. So this year I have the foresight to preserve what I can while I can. This is a lot of firsts for me, growing up in California I though there was something incredibly wrong with any food that wasn't fresh from the ground. A few weeks ago I started out pickling the seeds from my nasturtiums, a.k.a. capers! These ones are still in the process of being pickled:

Next I began freezing raspberries and huckleberries by laying them out on a cookie sheet in the freezer and then bagging the frozen berries in gallon ziplock freezer bags. I also boiled about 15 ears of corn, cut off the corn kernels and froze them in the same method as the berries. The Silpat is an important piece of equipment for this. The corn especially wanted to stick to the pan when frozen, but the silicone sheet made it very easy to get the frozen corn off the pan and into the bag! Parchment paper would also work if a Silpat is not available.

I'm about to venture into the world of canning. I borrowed a pressure caner from a co-worker, and I'm camped out on my kitchen floor typing this while roasting 20 pounds of peppers in the broiler. Tonnemakers has an incredible display of peppers at the University farmers market. They grow about 150 different varieties and each week they have at least 40 different varieties for sale. I just grabbed a box and grabbed handfuls of as many different peppers as I could. Some are sweet, some are hot, some are somewhere in between and I have almost no idea which ones are which. The ones I do know are Anaheim, Scotch Bonnet, and Chocolate Cayenne (yum!!!). Some other names I remember but cant match to the pepper are Banana, Gypsy, Beaver Dam, Lipstick, Aji, Bulgarian Carrot... Anyway, this is what's goin' on:

The set up: peppers, tongs (for going in and out of the broiler), bowl with plastic wrap (to keep roasted peppers moist - easier for peeling), and Golden Glen chocolate milk (a key ingredient).

Meet Your Meat

2009-08-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

Nearly all the meat I eat at home comes from Skagit River Ranch, so I went to their Meet Your Meat event today at their farm out in Sedro Woolley, about 2 hours north of Seattle on the Skagit River. Driving down their dirt driveway, I had to be carefull not to run over any of their beautiful free-running chickens and I parked next to some young heritage turkeys. Farmer George gave a tour explaining their intense commitment to sustainability and health (his definition of sustainability is that when he writes a check, there's money in the bank to cover it). They do liver biopsies on their chickens frequently to determine what nutrients they are lacking because our environment alone does not provide everything to make a healthy robust chicken. He usually has to end up supplementing minerals such as iodine, selenium, and copper; all of which are important for an immune system. They get these supplements into their chickens by adding it to the soil that grows their feed grain (usually wheat) - the grains need these minerals to grow strong, then when they are fed to the chickens they get the minerals, and when we eat their eggs or chicken meat the beneficial minerals are passed along to us. This is the methodology used for all their animals (cattle, goats, pigs, mules, horses) and even in their own family garden. Healthy dynamic soil produces nutrient rich vegetables that greatly benefit the animals that eat them and ultimately eliminate, or at least drastically reduce the need for medicine. George said they use absolutely no pharmaceuticals or chemicals on any of their animals or vegetables. And I must say, their animals and their family are absolutely gorgeous and vibrant.

A quick panel discussion between George, Maria Hines of Tilth, Craig Hetherington of TASTE, and author Greg Atkinson addressed some of the issues of sustainability in our industry and the world. In a world where food is empty calories and chemicals, we are warriors in a revolution to create a world of nutrient rich food that is created through sustainable practices that can be maintained indefinately. Our bodies are our greatest asset and we are what we eat. But we've heard this all before, so what's it gonna take to bring down the seven corporations that control 75% of food in this country? Studies in Europe and China showed that rats are not viable after 5 generations of eating genetically modified foods (why Europe has banned US GMO's). George's theory on the bee crisis is that we've been feeding our nations bees genetically modied pollen for decades and it's no wonder they've finally started dying off - may be a forshadowing of the future for the human race. The slow food movement is slowly growing, and as George put it, "any crowd that gets large enough, a politican will jump in front and say 'Follow Me!'"

George also gave us a tour of his new Biodiesel operation that he uses to fuel the tractors and what not on the farm. I love these people.

At the Skagit River Ranch store, I picked up some Camelina oil and seeds to play with. They're from Lentz Spelt Farms in Marlin, WA. Camelina is an ancient grain that was first cultivated by the Celtics and its still used throughout Europe. The Camelina oil is very flavorful, rich in Vitamin E, and probably contains the highest concentration of Omega-3's out of any other food (cold pressed Camelina oil tests at 30.5% Omega-3). So why have I never heard of it before? -it can't be hydrogenated, so mainstream oil producers have little incentive to grow it. Yet another example of how our current food infrastructure does not produce the food we need to be healthy.

George fondling some fine compost made largely from the unusable parts of their cattle (there's some live cows grazing near the trees in the background). You wouldn't believe how good that dirt smelled.

Birthday Berries and Bacon

2009-08-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

My friend Justin loves fruit and local food, so for his birthday I made him a 7-berry cake. The cake part is a genoise with local eggs from The Creamery, Blue Bird Grain Farms Soft White Cake Flour, Cremerie Butter from Oregon, and some very not local sugar from the Co-op. The frosting is a butterscotch-cardamom whipped cream made with Golden Glen cream. I tossed together a mixture of the seven berries with some sugar and spread that between two layers of the genoise before coating it in whipped cream and making the berry design on top. The seven berries from Jessie's Berries in Mt. Vernon were: Marrionberry, Loganberry, Blueberry, Blackberry, Huckleberry, Raspberry, and Boysenberry.
Right after Justin's birthday is Alex's, for which I made Bacon Cake. I began with a pancake, spread chocolate whipped cream on top, sprinkled it with Skagit River Ranch bacon, then put another pancake on top of that and repeated the process and topped it all off with a third pancake. The outer layer of frosting started out as a standard cream cheese frosting that I added maple syrup and bacon grease to - This frosting turned out to far exceed my expectations! It's fantastic! Anyway, here are a few quick pictures of the infamous bacon cake:

Foie Gras is my Anti-Drug

2009-08-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night I took Alex to Lark for his birthday. I've been saving up for this occasion since a few months ago when a foie gras protest outside Quinn's caused us to stop everything we were doing, go inside Quinn's, and order a plate of foie gras (10% of profits went to NARN as a thank you for increasing their foie gras business!). At Quinn's we found out NARN (Northwest Animal Rights Network) was also protesting Lark. It's become clear to me that these NARN people have never tasted foie gras, because if they had, surely they would not be protesting it. But I'm getting ahead of myself, Lark was magnificent.

We got some cheese and sparkling wine to nibble on while we browsed the menu. Unfortunately I don't remember what the cheeses were, but one in particular changed the way I feel about blue cheese. I've never really been a huge fan of blue cheese although I can respect its culinary importance. But this blue cheese was a deep blue, almost a dark greenish blue and had a delectably complex flavor that was sweet and tangy.

Next we had Blue Bird Grain Farms Farro with Romano Beans and Lobster Mushrooms along with Chilled Tomato and Huckleberry Soup. The farro was in cream, making it a very satisfying dish and the lobster mushrooms were sauteed to perfection. The Tomato Huckleberry soup was simple, light, and wonderfully refreshing.

We discovered pretty quick that Lark's "small plates" contain relatively large portions and we were beginning to feel full. So, we decided to cut to the chase and order both preparations of foie gras at once paired with a Muscat wine. The first plate was a foie gras terrine with mini toasts and slices of vanilla poached peaches and the second plate was seared foie gras with pecans, blackberries, and a caramelized onion crepe. The experience of eating both these preparations was absolutely spiritual. Placing a bite of this foie gras in my mouth, gently chewing it, and ultimately swallowing it made my insides vibrate with sheer joy, slowly seeping euphoria into every inch of my body. I found myself rubbing my lips together as if I had just put on the most divine lip gloss. The world around me vanished and when I closed my eyes I swear I was flying blissfully through the stars. I think I might have gotten high off foie gras. If reincarnation exists, I would like to be reincarnated as a foie gras duck; what could be better than to live life in a food coma, have a quick death, and have your liver go on to give humans an experience like this!

An Hierloom Melon Salad with Frisee, Yogurt, Lime and Mint began to bring us back to reality and refresh our palates before dessert. Dessert was a Mission Fig Tarte Tatin with Caramel Goat Cheese Sorbet along with a Summer Pudding with Brioche, Raspberries, Blueberries, and Whipped Cream. A beautiful way to end a phenomenal meal.

My Personal Garde Manger

2009-08-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Alex has been whipping up some incredible food lately, making me feel like all I have to do is sit down at the dining table in the middle of our kitchen for a 4-star meal. First off, his salads continually amaze me with sheer creativity. The salad pictured below reminded me a lot of ceviche, but with fresh peaches instead raw fish and we ate it immediately instead of letting it marinate for hours. He says he's been experimenting with using spices instead of a vinaigrette, which when using juicy fruits and tomatoes, a vinaigrette is not really needed for moisture; I think it's brilliant!
Next is the pork in which Alex discovered umami. Umami (unfortunately defined as MSG) is that inexplicable 5th taste, that is actually a proven taste along with sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. Umami is present in all meats, cheeses, fermented products, tomatoes, mushrooms...the list goes on. Asian cuisine has thoroughly explored the concept of umami and western chefs use it to add a fifth level of complexity to their food. Well, Alex did just that, he made a marinated pork that was so complex and so well balanced I wanted to savor and contemplate the deep meaning behind every bite I took of the finished prduct. The picture below shows how he marinated it. Looks like whole cloves, star anise, Bragg's liquid aminos, Bragg's apple cider vinegar, Larupin barbeque sauce, Woodring's rainier cherry chutney, Four Seasons raspberry vinaiger, cinnamon, a local sweet pepper, a local spicy pepper, and some local peach. He fried the pork chops with the chunky parts of the marinade on top and then poured the rest of marinade into the pan to cook with the pork. Fantastic!

Apricot Fennel Pork

2009-08-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

This was a moment of cleaning-out-the-fridge inspiration. I had no idea if it was even going to be edible, but I had a feeling I might be on to something. I seared two pork chops until good and brown, then moved them to the edge of the pan and threw equal parts of sliced onions and sliced fennel into the center of the pan and sauteed them until they began to caramelize. Then I added some dice apricots, cooked them down till they started to stick a bit, deglazed with a tiny bit of water, and lastly seasoned with just salt. The Apricot-Fennel combination is something I have to recommend. I cant quite put it into words, but the two strong flavors meld together into a whole new, absolutely fascinating flavor! We played with spices at the table, a hefty sprinkle of alspice transformed it into a barbeque-smokey-tomato-ish flavor reminiscent of Jamaican jerk.

Purple Cookie Dough!

2009-08-02T16:37:00.001-07:00

I have to thank my brother for the inspiration on this one. When I first went to visit him at college (I was still in elementary school) he impressed me with his culinary skills and magically created purple cream of wheat for breakfast one day. I believe this is the root of my obsession with purple foods. Not to mention a more general love of colorful foods, and purple is a good color to take advantage of when preparing a colorful dish. Once again, it's too hot to cook, so I made cookie dough instead of cookies and threw some of last years frozen blueberries into the mix. It's like ice cream! And it's even better with fresh raspberries on top.

Ceviche!

2009-08-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

I made ceviche Thursday night. I bought some halibut from the enthusiastic fisherman with neon colored signs at the farmers market. It had never been frozen and was caught the day before - I love the farmers market! The farmers market also provided me with yellow and red tomatoes, ivory and green bell peppers, jalepenos, banana peppers, and red onions. Sadly, I had to go across the street to QFC for limes, an orange, and some cilantro. I set up a cutting board on our balcony (it's way too hot to be indoors) and sliced, diced, minced, or zested all the above ingredients, threw them in a bowl and tossed it all together with plenty of lime juice and salt. Then I put it in the fridge to "cook" for 24 hours. Both acid (lime juice) and salt are capable of denaturing proteins which does two things: it destroys most pathogens (why salt is used in preservation) and this is also what we know a cooking. Heat denatures proteins in essentially the same way acid or salt can. What a brilliant discovery for a hot day - cooking without heat!

The ceviche was delicious, however the 24 hours of marination made all the veggies lose their umph and the flavors melded together more so than I was hoping. Next time I think I'll marinate the fish overnight and then combine it with all the vegetables just before serving. This way it will taste even fresher and more refreshing!

A Picture Post!

2009-07-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

I have all these pictures of food that I've made in the past year and it's time I organize and catalog their existence here. Without further ado, in chronological order:

Last fall I started seriously experimenting with our local fungi and made these deliciously fluffy Sparassis Souffles ...Sparassis (Sparassis brevapis) is latin for Cauliflower Mushroom - they look like a brain, or coral, and have a very delicate flavor with a surprisingly crisp texture.

Then there were whole wheat mini croissants; entirely made from scratch and by hand - it was quite the process/work out. I still dream of Phil's pastries at Harmony Bakery in the Bay Area, or Santa Cruz, or wherever he has ended up. Anyway, I attempted to make something like the mini whole wheat croissnats Phil made.

As winter creaped up on us, I did a survey of winter squash. The verdict: Delicata is by far the best!(bottom right). Delicata has incredible flavorful, almost reminds me of something between a butternut and a spagetthi squash but with the smoothest texture of any squash I've ever had! All the other squashes in this picture had very mild, simple stereotypical "squash" flavors.

This picture illustrates the colorful bounty of winter - all locally grown Washington vegetables in the dead of winter! yay purple! (left to right: Onions, Garlic, Three types of Carrots, Potatoes, Kale, Chioga Beets, Red Beets, and some thyme)

This is my self-portrait. And one of Alex too. Made out of buckwheat pancake batter - a Fischer Family classic.

As if pancake portraits were not enough, we topped some pancakes with homemade blueberry syrup, my own cardamom-butterscotch ice cream, and bacon (the essential ingredient).

Finally, I would like to introduce one of my best friends, the waffle iron. I got this one at a garage sale for $10, it's from the 1940's and has reversible cast-iron plates - it makes my favorite waffles

The End!

Crisp Summer

2009-07-14T22:12:00.000-07:00

Well with the unseasonably crisp weather we've been having, I thought it was time for a summer crisp. I tossed together the farmers markets finest apples and apricots with butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, butterscotch powder, cardamom, and freshly grated nutmeg. Topped it with some traditional crisp topping (equal parts butter, flour, and brown sugar) then baked it till the top was good and crispy. I ran over the water and up the hill to Eat Local for some vanilla Molly Moon's Ice Cream to make this crisp a-la-mode. We sat outside on the balcony watching dusk approach and the sun cast it's eerie light on downtown while sipping brandy and savoring this perfect end to a summer day.

Gastronomy in the Woods

2009-07-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

Alex and I are reluctantly home from our 4-day expedition from Sol Duc to the Seven Lakes Basin and down the Bogachiel River Trail in the Olympic Mountains. We're still adjusting to civilization and cleaning/drying out all of our gear. The bars turned out great and I only wish we had packed more..actually we should have packed more of everything, we just barely had enough food (in contrast to our last backpacking trip when we had WAY too much food). I made 2 more batches of the bars, and took some of both of the final batches with us. Here is an amalgamation of the two recipes:

1/2 # Unsalted Butter
4 Eggs
2 cups Honey
1/2 cup Brown Rice Syrup
1 tsp Vanilla
1 cup Bread Flour
2 cups Oats
1 cup Hemp Seeds
1 handful Date Pieces
2-3 handfuls Almonds
2-3 handfuls Cashews
3 handfuls Raisins
1 handful Chocolate Chips
3 good shakes Cinnamon
1 large dash Nutmeg, grated

*Grind the oats, almonds, and cashews in a food processor
*Thoroughly mix everything together and spread evenly on a half-sheet pan lined with a Silpat (or parchment)
*Bake at 350 for about an hour until it's good and brown. Let cool, then cut into bars.

The Bar in action at Lunch Lake in the Seven Lakes Basin
(Best July 4th Ever!)

In addition to the usual suspects of trail mix, dried fruit, and hiking bars we packed out some amazing cured meats and cheese to munch on for breakfast, second breakfast, first lunch, and second lunch. The cheese was Golden Glen Creamery's Queso Con Salsa - medium cheddar cheese with spicy salsa mixed in, yum!! We also ate Olsen Farm's Summer Sausage which was a tad spicy, not too sweet, and absolutely delicious. The Smoked Ham Nugget from Skagit River Ranch was absolutely incredible; essentially a lump of amazing ham that we gnawed on and savored all day long. A hot meal is always a treat when camping. For two out of three dinners we had PCC's Curry Lentil Soup with some Just Veggies added to the mix, it's all dehydrated of course. The Just Veggies dehydrated carrots, corn, peas, bell peppers and tomatoes is a brilliant find for any back packer! Our second dinner was Annie's Mac 'n Cheese with added Queso Con Salsa and Summer Sausage, as shown below:

As we began to descend into the Bogachiel rain forest on our third day the understory got thick, tall, moist, and eventually completely covered the trail and us as we swam through a sea of leaves and branches . We got drenched from the feet up and despite the sheer beauty of it all, one thing made it worth it: Berries!!

Blueberries!
Vaccinium ovalifolium

Black Raspberries!! -my new favorite berry
Rubus leucodermis

Salmon Berries ..pretty, not so tasty
Rubus spectabilis

We spent our final day on the trail planning out what our first real meal back in civilization was going to be as we began dreaming of cheese burgers, Elysian Brewery beer, fries, and Jameson. To our dismay, the Penninsula is huge and we ended up getting back to Seattle long after everything we were craving was closed. So we went to Jai Thai for a shot and a beer and some acceptable Thai food. Despite our fantastic waiter, it simply did not hit the spot, I was craving the perfect food. So last night we finaly made it to The Elysian Brewery where we found the end of our trail in exceptional cheese burgers and beer-battered french fries. It's good to be home...I've been thinking about pork chops with a savory-herby-carmelized onion bread pudding sort of thing made out of brioche scraps...

The Blob

2009-06-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

From my previous entry, I just about doubled the honey, nuts, and dried fruit, while nearly eliminating the flour. I ended up with a Honeylicious blob...I attempted to cut it into bars, but, as you can see, they didn't really hold up. It makes a great ice cream topping and Alex has been enjoying it for breakfast with milk like granola. I asked my pastry chef co-worker what baking magic holds bars together and beyond honey or eggs the only advice she had was to chop everything in a food processor and then physically press the mix into the pan before baking. So, hopefully 3rd times the charm!

The Bar, trial #1

2009-06-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Alex and I are going backpacking across the Olympic Mountains over July4th weekend and I've decided to make our own hiking bars. I LOVE Clif bars, but since they're involvement in the tainted peanut-butter scandal this past year, I've been a bit grossed out by the thought of what exactly goes into all these "high energy" "high protein" hiking-bar type foods...so, I'm making my own. Here's my first try, I basically had no idea what I was doing, I started with the Joy of Cooking's basic oatmeal cookie recipe, and with the magic of a pen and paper turned it into this:

2 cups AP Flour
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup Honey
1/4 cup Brown Rice Syrup
2 sticks Butter
4 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Baking Powder
3 cups Oats
1 cup Hemp Seeds
1 handful Almonds, chopped
1 handful Cashews, chopped
2 handfuls Date Pieces
2 handfuls Raisins
1 handful Chocolate Chips
couple good shakes of Cinnamon
large dash of fresh grated Nutmeg

Cream the butter and sugars together, add the rest of the ingredients roughly one at a time.
Spread evenly over a half-sheet-pan with a Silpat on the bottom and bake at 350degrees F for about 35minutes.

So how are they? They're addicting, but not quite what I was going for...they're sort of a glorified cookie, I want something dense that will withstand being forced into a full bear-barrel with maximum nutrients per cubic centimeter (not that I have any way of measuring). In short:

Things to change for the next batch:
-Less flour, more stuff!
-Leave out the baking powder entirely
-Less butter?? (the baking chemistry properties of butter confuse me)

Things that rocked this batch:
-Brown Rice Syrup!! (added a unique nutty/toasty flavor)
-Hemp seeds have hella protein
-One word: Silpat. I would give my soul to the man that invented these things.

More Allagash

2009-06-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Allagash Confluence Ale with fresh pasta in a white wine butter sauce with morrels, Skagit River Ranch Italian Sausage, and sea beans. Also, a salad! The picture doesn't do it justice, but I was more concerned with eating than being a photographer at the moment. This meal was a religious experience; my kitchen is my church.

Beer of the Gods

2009-06-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

This past Friday's beer tasting was from Allagash brewery in Portland, Maine. I was completely blown away, I had no idea beer of this caliber existed. I can't quantify it, but there was something about all their beers that I tasted that was absolutely high quality. I could only compare it to the type of culinary magic worked by Daniel Boulud, Maria Hines, or Thomas Keller. The Confluence Ale was first, it filled my mouth in a way no beer ever has before and I was instantly overcome with a great deal of respect the brewer. It was full bodied, malty but not too sweet, and silky smooth. Next was the Victoria Ale, brewed with Chardonnay grapes in addition to barley and hops which gave it a distinct and perfectly executed fruitiness. It was light, crisp, and fruity like chardonnay, but also sweet and bitter like a good ale and all the flavors were in perfect harmony. Next came Victor Ale which is the counterpart to Victoria, Victor was brewed with red chancellor grapes giving it a beer-bordeaux-esque flavor. The grand finale was Curieaux - a triple ale aged in whiskey barrels. This beer had a depth and intense complexity to it that is unmatched. I've been dreaming of these beers since I had them and long to pair impeccable foods with them. Allagash has won my heart.

Bitter Beet Saison

2009-06-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

I've had this problem lately of really intending to make a traditional style of beer, say for example a real farmhouse saison. However, I get to the brew store, start munching on grains, realize hop selection is never guaranteed, and I get struck with many creative bolts of inspiration. Next thing you know, I'm about as far from a traditional saison, while still using saison yeast, the WyYeast saison yeast strain to be exact. Here's what happened:

US 2-row, German Pilsner, Dexatrin, Belgian Caravienne, Belgian Aromatic, Oatmeal, and 1 medium-sized red beet. Bittered with Centennial and Tettnanger hops, then finished with Tettnanger hops.

Original Gravity: 1.080 / Original Sugar Content: 19.5%
Finishing Gravity: 1.004 / Finishing Sugar Content: 1.0%

Alcohol: 9.97% !!!!!!

Surprisingly and unfortunately, this beer lost it's bright pink hue pretty quick...I'd be interested to know the mechanism behind that since beets are traditionally used to permenantly dye things. Also due to the beet, this beer is amazingly high in alcohol and I'm definately going to need to let it age a bit longer. It has an exhilarating bite to it at the moment - from both alcohol and hops. Once you get past the bite though, I think this will be a really delightful, refreshing, complex beer!

This aint your grandma's burger!

2009-06-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

Puff pastry hamburger "bun" smeared with bechamel, Skagit River Ranch burger marinated in their own burger seasoning and barbeque sauce, Bacon, Golden Glen salsa-cheddar cheese, sauteed sweet onions and king boletes, sea beans, green onion, and salad mix from Port Townsend.

This is the most indulgent, gluttonous, messy burger I think I've ever had. Perhaps next time I'll use brioche instead of puff. And to add to that, I might have to try making brioche with bacon grease instead of butter...

Left overs better than the meal they were left over from!

2009-06-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

Berry Syrup(strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, pear) + Barbeque Sauce + Pork stir fry = incredible!

sweet, spicy, fruity, savory, mmmmm.

Spring, It's about damn time

2009-05-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

After two years, we're actually having a decent spring here that's starting to feel like summer. With changing weather comes changing tastes and I'm on an ice cream and IPA kick again. The regular Friday free beer tasting at Pike Street Beer & Wine was showcasing California's Firestone Brewery. They make a fine bitter beer indeed. Molly Moon's is still whipping up some incredible ice cream and they've added two more waffle-cone-irons to deal with the block-long lines. Alex got some ginger ice cream with candied ginger bits in it and I had a mix of salted chocolate ice cream and orange tamarind sorbet, all in a waffle cone, of course. So delicious! Molly Moon's is the most brilliantly delicious thing to happen to this city since Poppy opened, which I still need to go to.

The Great Cupcake Adventure Part 1

2009-05-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

The rules:

1) Chocolate cupcakes only
2) Cupcakes made with real wholesome ingredients (no vegan, gluten free, low fat, etc.)

Here is my research thus far:

North Hill Bakery - The Fudgy Pudgy $2.00
This is the cupcake that will satiate any chocolate craving, no matter how severe. This may be the only cupcake I've ever had trouble finishing because it was so intense.. I kid you not, this is an incredible cupcake; incredibly moist, dense, and with a mesmerizing even crumb. The dark chocolate flavor is obviously one of high quality chocolate. The chocolate frosting is merely icing on the cake and adds an extra level of ridiculous chocolate intensity, although it could not compare in moisture content to the cake part. Visually, this cupcake was not particularly stunning; nearly black in color (always a good sign), with neat yet casually spread chocolate frosting - about the same color as the cake and sprinkled with a few circular multicolored sprinkles to add a bit of color to this delicious black hole.

Trophy Cupcakes - Chocolate Chip Mint $1.99
This cupcakerie wins for presentation and fanciness (The framed picture of the owner with Martha Stewart says it all). They have a wide selection of creative cupcake flavors like Chai Cardamom and Margaritta. Some even show-off a bit of piping technique, sugar modeling, and candying. The sugar "mint leaf" on top of my cupcake surprisingly held its form as I dipped it into the frosting, and then promptly melted on my tongue with the frosting. This frosting blows my mind. It had a perfect wintermint flavor and was so moist and delectable in my mouth, I was amazed it held it's shape on the cupcake. I also appreciated the large quantity of icing that was just enough so that every single bite could include both icing and cake. Their website says that they use buttercream icing, I had no idea, this is by far the best buttercream I've ever had. The cake was nothing spectacular, not as dark as the Fudgy Pudgy, but still made with good chocolate (their website says Valrhona, quite posh). It was a wee bit on the dry side, but when paired with the icing, it was perfect. Lastly the mini chocolate chips, both in the cake and sprinkled on top, were a cute garnish and added yet another level of delicious complexity.

Cupcake Royale - Orange U Glad $2.75
So this is the cupcakerie that every Seattlite knows - their persistent marketing has obviously paid off, but how about their cupcakes? All their cupcakes look relatively the same with their signature method of spreading frosting. Their selection is expansive, but the most creative cakes I saw were red velvet or spicy mexican-style chocolate - not too impressive. I had a chocolate cake with orange flavored frosting. The frosting had a brittle crust and a moist fine-grainy texture that I believe was a buttercream. The orange flavor was precisely that of orange soda, not exactly my favorite type of orange flavor and I personally thought it was too overpoweringly sweet. The cake had an interesting texture, it wasn't dry, although I wouldn't call it moist either. It had an extremely fine crumb and tended to stick to my teeth. Also, the cake didn't hold it's shape very well, the top entirely separated from the bottom at first bite, not to mention it was a task to get it into my mouth before it completely crumbled under it's own weight - perhaps they should serve their cupcakes with a fork...

Sugar Bakery & Cafe - Cookies and Cream $3.00
Like North Hill Bakery, Sugar Bakery does much more than just cupcakes. They only had three flavors on display and there was nothing high-class about any of them. Sugar has nothing to hide with all the charm of a quality down-home bakery in small-town-nowhere-USA. Their cookies and cream cupcake had vanilla frosting that could almost be mistaken for an incredible pudding - can you say addicting! A liberal packing of Oreo cookie bits added some crunch and the chocolate cake I felt could have been more chocolatey, although it was tasty. The cake was not dry , but could have been moister. And I appreciated the fork that accompanied the cupcake, a wonderful touch of hospitality.