Food Blog:
Cook In.
Eat Out.
Miss Tenacity.
New Mexico.
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Monday, January 31
Have you ever seen 13 pounds of cookie dough?
Well, now you have!
Hope you all had a great weekend. You can read all about mine (and the next few days, as well) in my week-long stint at eGullet (a usenet-type food website): "Land of Enchilement"
Time posted: 15:40 [permalink]
Friday, January 28
A Souper Weekend
YOU will be attending the Souper Bowl tomorrow. Why? Because I told you so. I certainly will, and my tastebuds and gullet will be ready and willing.
Twice before I have gone, and always I get stuffed with luscious liquids, and practically overwhelmed by the crowds. I hope that this year's restaurants has great entries again, and the desserts don't run out in the first half-hour, as they seem to have done every year.
I might even try to stay around for the live competition, "Iron Chef" style, which is done with a basket of items exclusively from the food bank. Look back here on Sunday for photos and commentary on the whole shindig..... Okay, Monday at the latest. *grin*
Time posted: 15:47 [permalink]
Wednesday, January 26
Buca di Beverage Rip-off
Met some friends this evening and visited Buca di Beppo for the 3rd time (2nd time for dinner). A word, if I may, of advice: just say no.
Highlights: really really tasty food.
Lowlights:
- Food priced at least a third more than it ought to be for the portions (chicken with lemon, billed as feeding 2-3 people, was 2 smallish breasts - a dish of equal proportions at a place like Trattoria Trombino might run $10 or so, at Buca its $13)
- Wine that was drinkable - barely - and horribly expensive (Their "house chianti" is $7 a glass. That's right, SEVEN DOLLARS a glass.)
- Side dishes of veggies that would have been piled on one's plate at, say, Olive Garden as part of the entree, were $5 a pop
- Finally, iced tea (good) and coffee (awful) are $2.25 each. I practically take offense at Flying Star getting nearly $2 for their very good coffee, so Flying Star, I owe you a sort of apology. Buca, you should be ashamed. Sheesh.
In short, food that tastes good is being served to patrons under this guise of 'family style' and 'huge portions!' but it really doesn't add up.
Go to Vivace instead, please.
Time posted: 21:00 [permalink]
Gates: Good for Humans, Just So-So for Customers?
Bill Gates gives a shitload of money to international charities on a regular basis, and gets other governments and philanthropists reason to try to match or one-up him. This is a fabulous thing.
Bill Gates oversees the production of an anti-spyware tool that won't run on one of my machines and doesn't follow through on its own preferences and settings on a different machine. Time to uninstall....
But of course this is a dilemma - Gates must continue to sell software that people want to have the money to give away. So lets see some more & better Microsoft products, eh guys? Thanks.
Time posted: 09:07 [permalink]
Tuesday, January 25
Scary Scale of the Internet.....
The pervasiveness of the internet is comprehensive enough that, more than a decade after I last wandered the halls, I know what is being served for lunch today in my hometown's high school.
Wanna be dazzled? Here it is ("formatting" intact from their site):
Nacho Grande’
Taco Meat, Cheese
Sauce,Onions,Ripe
Olives,Tomatoes,Sour
Cream and Salsa
Cheesy Rice
Sliced Peaches
Mmmmmm, cheesy rice........
Time posted: 15:49 [permalink]
Monday, January 24
Oatcake Brekkie
Yes, I meant to make that sound like his Nakedness. I love his recipes, but generally find his demeanor and personality difficult to bear. So the cookbooks work just fine for me.
Enough with the diversion - I made an oatcake-like omelet for breakfast yesterday! Plunging ahead with my recipe-less status, I made:
Oatcake Omelet (serves 1)
Mix 1/4c slow cooking oatmeal in 1c milk. Allow to stand as long as you can wait.... ideally 20-30min.
Then whisk in
1-2 eggs
handful chopped scallions
1-2 thinly sliced hot peppers
S & P to taste
Pour the whole thing into an OVENPROOF, preheated, greased small skillet. Allow to cook for a few minutes on low, then put into a 350 degree oven for another 15 minutes until everything has set. Broil for a minute at the end if you like a crunchy top.
Time posted: 22:22 [permalink]
Sans Recipes, an experiment
I have read a damn lot of cookbooks, magazines, and online journals/forums in the past 2 years. One would think that I have acquired some knowledge that resides in my brain during all that time....
A challenge is in order. I will for at least a week, cook only from what I know. I can continue to read my books and such for inspiration, but when it comes down to the actual act of cooking, I will not rely on the visual crutch of glancing over to make sure that Julia/Nigella/Jacques would approve. After the week is up, I'll assess how things went, and try to maintain my independence much of the time.
Here we go..... first stop, oatcakes.
Time posted: 13:45 [permalink]
Friday, January 21
The Slow Boat from Chile has arrived!
Or else, the dunderheads at "Grocery Corporation Conglomerate Limited, USA" have finally got their act together and put my beloved Chilean red grapes on sale at $1/lb. This happens about half of the time during the summer, when it is interestingly winter in Chile, and rarely to never in our winter, when it is of course summer in Chile where the grapes originate. Silly, no? I mean, come on, we here in the arid west have few enough fresh fruits in the winter anyway - give us a *little* something during our 2 weeks of frigid weather....
Time posted: 07:07 [permalink]
Monday, January 17
Spicy Summer Salad
I had a light dinner tonight of pasta carbonara and this salad that I improvised, colorful and light and tasting like the warmer weather that has yet to arrive:
Sitting in my fridge are a couple of cukes that will start getting funky in a few days, and some freshly acquired red onions from Sow Yer Oats. Last time I did a cuke salad it had a creamy dressing, so I wanted this one more pungent and tangy. Here are the components.... mix & match as you please.
1 cuke, sliced thin
1/4 red onion, sliced thinly and marinating in
juice of 1/2 lime
1 scallion, diced
mix together and toss with:
1 t holy basil paste (like flaming ambrosia, this stuff)
1 t soy sauce
1 t sour cream
1/2 t powdered ginger
1 t chopped cilantro
I think that's it. I'm probably forgetting something, but the point is you just want some tang and some spice in the dressing.
Time posted: 21:48 [permalink]
Saturday, January 15
Chicken Almond Soup
Tonight I made a new soup, after getting some inspiration from my Barnes & Noble book called "Soup". It is hearty and just a little bit spicy (might use 2 jalapenos next time), and hit the spot perfectly on a cool late winter evening.
Chicken Almond Soup
(serves 3-4)
1/2 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, smooshed
1 celery stalk, diced
1 T olive oil
chicken stock
1 jalapeno, roughly chopped
1/2 avocado, roughly chopped
1 - 1x2" parmesan rind (you've got one just sitting around, right? If not, 1/4 c grated parmesan)
1/4 almonds (whole, blanched, sliced - it doesn't matter)
1 chicken breast
1 T cilantro, chopped
salt & pepper
Sweat the onion, garlic, and celery in the oil. Do not let them color. When softened, add the chicken stock (about 3 cups), the jalapeno, the avocado, the almonds, and the parmesan rind (if you're not using a rind, don't add the cheese yet). Let that simmer until the jalapeno is soft, then cut the raw chicken up into bite-sized pieces and drop them into the soup to cook. Once they've cooked, scoop out about half of the chicken chunks (I used chopsticks) and set them aside. Dump the rest of the soup into a blender with half the cilantro and puree until smooth (it will take a minute or two - don't forget you've got a cheese rind in there!). Add the soup back to the pot, add your grated parmesan if applicable along with the chicken and cilantro. Heat through, season with salt & pepper to taste, and serve!
Hope you are all having a great weekend.
Time posted: 20:40 [permalink]
Friday, January 14
For the Love of Flora.....
In the "holy crap!" news department this month (thank you to Krista for the link!):
Its the Gut, Stupid - from the University of Michigan Medical School. Here is a link to the abstract of the actual study.
Among the observations made, the basic points are this: if you
1) go on antibiotics (as most Americans do quite frequently) and then
2) do not replenish your now-dead good intestinal critters, you will
3) develop LUNG allergies such as pet dander, pollen, mold, etc.
This study confirms results from August of 2004, when the first study that linked the gut flora to lung allergies was published. If this information were widely known, the market for allergy drugs could shrink dramatically as millions of people with supposed allergies could fix themselves before the problem ever started.
The fix? The authors caution that you should not avoid antibiotics if they are medically necessary, but you may think twice about asking for them if all you have is a cold or flu. Otherwise, the prevention is simple - eat good food that will help the beneficial intestinal critters. Avoiding common American foods like processed flour and sugar is especially important while you are on a course of antibiotics, as bad conditions flourish in the presence of sugar in the intestines. This can be helped with probiotic supplements, but also just by eating live culture yogurt and other products that have live & active cultures in them (look for that on the label).
Note: I meant to report a few weeks ago on the peanut allergy problem, which is similar in nature (being about allergies and also "news of the DUH"). Alas, I forgot. Here's the article, for your reading pleasure: Eating Peanuts Reduces Peanut Allergies
Time posted: 11:07 [permalink]
Thursday, January 13
Scalo
I ate at Scalo again last night for the first time in nearly a year. They have transitioned back to a standard menu, after trying out a small-medium-large plates format for more than a year. One item on that menu was outstanding and I do miss it, even if I've heard that its a 'overdone' dish: beet and goat cheese salad. Scalo's version had popped herbs and seeds which gave it just enough crunch to make it interesting.
Further back in the past, the old menu had an item called a "vegetarian tart" that was a cylindrical layered creation including roasted red peppers, polenta, sauteed greens, and mushrooms. It was divine and I hope its back on their lunch menu.
Back to last night. The new menu seems a bit smaller than I remembered, and I ordered 2 starter dishes to make up my meal - traditional caesar salad and italian wedding soup. Also on the table was an order of pork tenderloin (more on that in a minute). The caesar salad was whole-leaf romaine, so I had to slice it up myself, and the dressing was a bit thick and heavy. I've had just a few really good caesar salads and this was just short of that. The flavors were very good, including irregular garlic croutons and flash-fried anchovies, the latter chopped up by yours truly to distribute their salt equally to the salad. Overall, a very good salad, but the best I've had yet is still from the Rancher's Club, where they prepare it tableside (raw egg and all - yum!). On to the soup - this was the best italian wedding soup I have ever had. The small meatballs were just barely done and therefore tender, floating in a nearly clear broth that had a gentle but very toothsome flavor base. In the broth were also the standard tiny button pasta - not mushy but al dente - and tiny bits of chopped herbs which included at least parsley but I thought I tasted something else in there as well (chives?). And finally, giving the soup a bit more robustness was the addition of tender slices of chicken, which did not clash in any way with the rest of the flavors (even though chicken is not a standard ingredient). Between the "heavy" salad and the hearty soup, it was a perfect amount of food to be full but not stuffed. Across the table from me was a pork tenderloin dish with fried gnocchi and sauteed kale, sitting in a rich puttanesca sauce. The flavors in the pork and the gnocchi were great, but the kale and sauce were too salty, despite having excellent ingredients.
Overall, a good dinner, one that will make me interested in coming back to try other menu items. And now that there are 2 MORE places in town that I've been meaning to get back to that are now CLOSED - Monte Vista and La Piazza, dammit - Scalo gets bumped up the priority list just a bit.
Oh yeah, and in a nod to the gossip-queen Pika: we sat next to Mr. Marty himself, resplendent in an orange windbreaker (we were in the bar area, so fashion norms are a bit more relaxed).
Time posted: 09:16 [permalink]
Monday, January 10
Sunday Food
Yesterday I again followed a very typical eating pattern for lazy Sundays around the house, consuming several light meals and more snacks than most weekdays:
Coffee (excellent stuff from Moon's, as usual) with half&half
Yogurt w/ granola (small bowl)
After all of that had settled and the day was really in progress, breakfast was prepared for the rest of the house:
Scrambled eggs w/ toast, hashbrowns, and green chile sauce. (I had a bowl of oatmeal with pears, and then some scrambled eggs on the side.)
Mid-afternoon as I started to get hungry again I prepared some hot and sour soup with onions, cabbage, and venison sausage (from WI).
And, early evening it was time for burgers. Green chile cheeseburgers, to be precise. Mine was served with a side of creamed spinach, as I am the only veggie eater in the house. An hour later while watching 24, the last nibble of the day was a care-package square of homemade fudge.
Thusly I am able to start my week replenished and revved up (especially after being handed a homemade nutmeg scone from a coworker at work this morning!). :-)
Time posted: 08:30 [permalink]
Friday, January 7
Banana Mango Ice Cream
Felt like making something cold and sweet last night after a quick dinner of a cheese omelet, so I drug out the Donvier and set to work. 1 hour later I had a pint and a half solidifying in the freezer, and of course had to sample some of it while watching the Daily Show. The rum flavor is there but mild - definitely not as strong as Hagen Daaz Rum Raisin, which is almost cloying.
This turned out to be the most scoopable variety I've made so far, despite having very little fat in it. The alcohol lowers the freezing point so that's a big factor. But the base formula will definitely be used again, as its easier than keeping cream in the fridge. The sugar amount seems tiny, but don't worry, the fruit carries quite a bit of sweetness to the mix. If your banana was horribly overripe you could leave out the sugar entirely.
BANANA MANGO ICE CREAM (makes 1.5 pints)
1 5oz can condensed milk (sweetened is ok, but omit all sugar below)
3 egg yolks (rescued from making pavlova and omelets)
1t powdered ginger (optional)
1/2t lemon extract or 1T lemon juice
1 banana, fresh or frozen
1c frozen mango chunks
2T light corn syrup
2oz light rum
1oz finely chopped candied ginger (optional)
Blend together everything except the candied ginger. Because the mango and/or banana were already frozen, the mixture should be very cold and ready for the ice cream maker. Process according to directions, then when transfering to container for solid freezing, fold in the ginger candy.
Time posted: 15:52 [permalink]
Thursday, January 6
Carne Adoration
Note to Golden Pride: Your carne adovada burritos rock. They are the perfect size for a moderately light lunch, the red chile is flavorful and at least somewhat spicy, and they still cost less than $2 (unlike the breakfast burritos.... bah).
Time posted: 11:54 [permalink]
Wednesday, January 5
Higher Plane Pizza
Slowly, I'm figuring out the home pizza "thing". Here are the bare minimum of rules:
1. The hottest oven you can manage. For a home oven this means 4 stones in the oven (2 clay tiles on the sides, one on the lower shelf, and a pizza stone on the operating shelf) and a preheat of 45 minutes or more at 500 degrees. All that heat bouncing around will bring the temp up to 525+. This is the best one can do when a wood-burning pizza oven is not at hand.
2. A pizza peel, and semolina to roll the pie on and off. Semolina grains are round, so they act as ball bearings, making the pizza easy to slide off the peel onto the stone.
3. Decent dough, whether homemade or purchased at the store. Trader Joe's pre-made dough is pretty good and costs $1 per ball, in regular or whole wheat. The slower you let the dough rise, the better its flavor will be.
4. Light glaze of oil on the naked dough right before the sauce goes on. This helps keep the crust from getting soggy under the wateryness of the tomatoes.
Everything else is negotiable.... Obviously the better the toppings, the better the pizza. I make my own sauce using canned tomatoes and adding spices, olive oil, and S&P. Last night the pizza I made had tomato sauce, fresh basil, fresh mozz from Relish, and pepperoni (on half). The dough I used was made the night before and allowed to rise very slowly in the fridge, then on the counter for 3 hours before making the pizza. Mixing the flour types seemed to help with the flavor, and I ended up with 1/2 bread flour, 1/3 whole wheat flour, and 1/6 corn meal. The corn meal made for an extra crunchiness to the finished crust that was nice, and I just like the taste of whole wheat anyway.
Now I have 3 more dough balls in the freezer, just waiting for the next round of pizza experimentation.
Time posted: 09:27 [permalink]
Tuesday, January 4
Guten Tag, Guten Terroir
Loosely translated from its 2 languages - "good day, good place". Today is the day to talk about terroir, what is known about how to define it, or even if a definition is needed at all.
Driving in to work this morning I listened to a segment about Maytag blue cheese in which they discussed the recently rising value of terroir to food buyers (that is, we the foodnuts). I hadn't even realized that Maytag blue originated in Iowa by the family formerly best known for washing machines. Yes, that Maytag. They likely started in on cheese as a self defense mechanism against the factory farm and market pressures that tend to squeeze small farms out of business. They now make 1 million pounds of the cheese per year BY HAND and Maytag as a variety of blue is very well known. I'd say that qualifies as a success.
Reading my other favorite food blogs I found several mentions to both the timeliness of discussing terroir (via Derrick), and a set of 2 posts attempting to put some traction into the known concept (via Wine Anorak).
Derrick's post also goes into an additional component - history - which seems to be important but so difficult to define that he decides having a hard and fast rule may not be the best thing, after all. My main experience is with cheese. There is a local producer, Widmer's, near where I grew up that makes some great products. Their aged cheddars, string cheese, and farmer's cheese are good but not the best I've had - but that is not the most important part. The crux is that the cheese is MADE just a few miles from my childhood house, the proprietors are friendly, and to buy from them gives me an additional connection to my past. Bon Terroir!
Time posted: 08:24 [permalink]
Monday, January 3
Just A Typical Weekend
....in which I lay around the house, read, and cooked. A lot. One of my snacks yesterday was a cucumber yogurt salad, eaten while my first attempt at french onion soup was bubbling away on the stove.
Cucumber Yogurt Salad
(serves 1)
1 sm-med cucumber
1 tiny or 1/2 small red onion
1/2 lime
1/2c yogurt
dried mint
dried dill
salt
(This is not a quickly tossed together salad - there is some wait time involved).
Take off half of the cucumber peel in long strokes with veggie peeler (I like a little of the dark green skin, but not all of it). Then slice the cuke into rounds and spread them on a paper towel to dry out a bit. Put the yogurt into a cheesecloth (set inside a strainer is ideal) and let it drain for a half hour or more. Slice the onion thinly and toss it with the lime juice to marinate while everything else is going on.
When everything is ready, peel your thickened yogurt off the cheesecloth and stir in the dried herbs and the onion-lime mix. Add a pinch of salt to taste. Toss with the cuke slices, and eat.
Time posted: 08:08 [permalink]
Saturday, January 1
A Smoky New Year
Well, mine was, anyway. First time in an embarrassingly long while that I've been at a smoky overcrowded party of a person I didn't really know. I *must* do that more often.
Anyway, it was fun, I didn't get drunk, and everyone I know made it home safe. That's a good way to start out the year, since I have no desire to work up a bunch of resolutions. Babble I could about how much my life is great right now, how my friends are fantastic, my health and lifestyle are squeaky clean, etc etc.
Oh, ok. I suppose I can spit out one thing at least that I could improve on in the next 364 days. That will give me at least something to chew on tonight in my pre-bedtime thoughts.
1. I will make all of these items for the first time: souffle, puff pastry, demiglace, terrine. And I will have loads of fun doing it, of course, even if they scare me now.
Is that better?
Time posted: 21:17 [permalink]
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CONTACT ME: tenacity -at- gmail.com
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