Kitchen Woes- but Tasty Joe-Joe's

So, it probably one of the most food-tastic times of year, but I'm, sadly, out of the loop. My kitchen remodeling..or should I say demolishing, is taking FOREVER! At this thankful time of year though, I am thankful that now there is drywall over the bare joists. Yay! The next step is painting. However, there's still no floors, sink, counters, stove, you know, things that make a kitchen a kitchen. Good new is, I have become very skilled cooking on a hot plate, master of a toaster oven, and so thankful for my weird electric skillet/crockpot device that is actually like a mini-kitchen all by itself. My sad thing is that we're basically on subsistance-food mode, so holiday cooking is really beyond what we can do camped on the kitchen table.

So, my foodie posts are mostly wanna-be's right now. Like I wanna-be cooking, and am not so much. :(

I have, out of necessity, bought store-bought cookies, which I very rarely do when I have a working oven. As you know, I'm very picky about what sort of ingredients will go in my belly. But I've found some goodies. If you haven't tried Trader Joe's Candy-Cane Joe Joe's..do! They're very tasty! Think Oreo's, with crushed candy-canes in the filling, AND without the High-Fructose Corn Syrup! What's not to love? The only thing is they're seasonal and will disappear after the holidays, so it's a get 'em while they're hot sort of thing.

Anyway, I wish everyone a Happy Holidays, and Happy Cooking!

Now that's what I'm talking about!

I've been waiting all summer for the tomatoes to be ready and now they're here! Yay! There's nothing in the whole world like a tomato off the vine. I have had some real growing experiences this year with my garden, learning alot about the joys and pitfalls of growing food plants. Here are some of the pests, other than weeds, that I've come into battle with this summer.

I nearly had one tomato stripped clean by a tomato hornworm. I can't believe how big that thing was or how many leaves it could eat so fast. As soon as I noticed the top of one of my tomato plants deprived of leaves, I went looking for it. I found it by it's own weight! As soon as I touched the branch it was on I knew because it was so heavy! Unbelievable. Luckily for me, I noticed it quickly and before it ate the whole thing. The plant bounced back, grew new leaves and is now producing. From what I hear, and I believe it, they eat so fast that you most often loose the whole plant.

Another pest I came into contact with is the dreaded squash vine borer. I had two squash plants, one zucchini and one summer squash essentially killed by them. Well, I saved the plants with squash surgery, but they were so mutilated that they won't produce any more this summer, so it prettty much amounts to the same thing. Squash vine borers are revolting creatures that look like maggots. They chew into your squash plants vine and start eating their way up and you know when all of a sudden your beautiful, healthy plant just completely wilts overnight.

Unfortunately, I am too much of a novice gardener to know what had happened quickly enough to extract the borer before it ruined the plant. It took me two days to find out what happened, and by the time I cut into the vine and removed the grub, the damage was done. I buried the vine to encourage new roots, and they're both still alive, but they died back to just a few leaves as opposed to a huge fruit bearing vine, but oh well. Now I know about it, and will know what to do for next year. One thing about gardening, I'm learning, is that you really have to jump in and get your feet wet to learn.

The zucchini on the left weighed over 2.5 lbs! Crazy! And it still was sweet and tender, couldn't believe it. The eggplants are really yummy, and not bitter.

Another pest I had land on my poor squash, again, was the Mexican bean beetle. I saw these bright yellow, spiky things crawling all over one of the plants, and it looked like they were eating the leaves, so I physically removed them. Found out they were the larvae of the Mexican bean beetle, which looks like a yellow ladybug when mature, and is actually a member of the ladybug family, but one of the few non-friendly ladybug types. Usually ladybugs are good, the red kind anyway, they kill aphids that suck the juice out of your plants.


Mmm, raspberries. Didn't have any problems with them, I think their prickles take care of that themselves, and they were tasty!




I grew a beautiful sage plant. The leaves are huge!! If you've never had fried sage leaves, this is the time to try this wonderful delicacy. Pan-fry sage leaves in butter or olive oil, either as is, or dusted with a little flour, until crisp. You will marvel over the oh, so delicate taste, which is quite unlike fresh sage, and the crisp, buttery texture. They cook quickly, and the flavor goes nicely with beurre noisette, in my oppinion. I've seen them offered as is for hors d'oeuvres just by themselves, or as a garni for meat or grain like polenta or scrapple. Try them yourself, see what you can do with them. They are definately a summer-time treat, or anytime you can get nice fresh sage.

Anyway, happy summer eating and gardening!

Happy Leap Day!

I just have to wish everyone a Happy Leap Day! It only happens once every four years you know. I've always found this day interesting, a testament to bad mathematics and keeping with traditions...even if said traditions are not as efficient as they could be. But hey, if we as a society placed great emphasis on efficiency over tradition, we'd all being using the metric system, driving hovercraft that run on gravity and speaking Esperanto. No worries on that, so fear not, all you inch-and-pound-loving masses out there!
No recipe today, sorry kids, just a snarky commentary on Leap Year. Be good!

A Little Salt

Today was the second time in two days that I've seen on the television a report on how specialty salts make a great Holiday gift. And you know what? I'd be completely ecstatic to get a collection of salts for Christmas. Being the picky person I am, I would prefer the collection of the minerals themselves from various location rather than the salt blends of say...one kind of salt with herbs, or truffle bits, or what have you.

One of the best lessons I ever had in Culinary School was the day my Chef did his salt comparison. I had never really before given salt much of a consideration. I guess I thought they were pretty much all the same, I mean, it's a mineral with a distinct chemical makeup. Well..yes and no. Table salt is technically sodium chloride, but true mined salt or sea-harvested salt has different make-ups and therefore different tastes. This opened up a whole new world to me.

We first prepared different foods to taste the salt with. Everything from hard-boiled eggs to fresh sliced tomatoes, to meat and grains. We tasted the salt by itself, and then with the different foods. I tasted salt from France- a few different varieties, harvested in different ways and all with different flavors. There was Japanese salt and Hawaiian salt which were both of a red-pink color, but with different tastes and size of crystals. I tasted Indian black salt which is a greyish color and had hints of sulfur and pepper in it that tasted fantastic with tomatoes. I tasted American salts, Carribean salts, Atlantic and Pacific salts, as well as inland mined salts, all from different parts of the world with different grains, textures and tastes. I tasted regular old table salt which became as nice-tasting as old rubber boots in comparison to the other salts which had some real Taste! to them. Until that time, I had not known that some salt was "saltier" then others! That you could alter the taste of food with different salts. That some foods tasted better with a certain variety of salt as opposed to others. That all salt is not created equal.

It was that day that I realized that you really must taste all your ingredients if you want to know how they're going to work in the finished dish. You need to taste your salt! You need to taste your butter, your olive oil and your molasses because they're not all the same, and accommodating your ingredient's unique flavor can really make a huge difference in your final product.

The picture above is of a French Atlantic sea salt. You can see that the grains are variegated crystals, they lean towards an off-white, greyish-beigy color, and are moist and a bit clingy to each other. I took the picture where you could see the snow in the background to get the color-comparison, though I think the reflected light brightens them up a bit. This particular salt has a very sharp salt taste and I like to use it when I want something to have a taste of salt, but not actually use a lot of salt, if that makes sense, or if I want to give a surprising salty-pow! :)

Mad Holidays

So, Christmastime is approaching, (like you didn't know!), and so I've been busy thinking about gifts, and food, and gifts of food, which are some of my favorite gifts to give! That's a suprise, eh? In past years, I've made homemade bitter-orange marmalade and other jarred wonders, but I do love baking Christmas cookies. I've been narrowing down the contenders for Chris's Christmas Cookie Plate 2007.

So, let's see, of course I'm going to have the Melt-in-the-Mouths, because of their status as reigning champs in the Christmas Cookie division, but I've got some other ones that I think will be delicious additions. I have this recipe for a sesame seed cookie that really makes a great cookie. They're not sickly sweet, so it's sort of a nice break for holiday-overburdened sugar receptors.

I also have an adaption for Nanaimo Bars that I love, created out of necessity, the best mother of invention! I became addicted to Nanaimo Bars during a stint on Vancouver Island, BC. Not always having the traditional ingredients on hand during a nanaimo snack attack, I had to get a little creative. My favorite adaptation also reduces a bit of the sugar, but any Nanaimo Bars recipe should not be considered health food by any stretch! These things should be renamed Butter Sugar Bombs. Oh, they're so good! But anyway, I was reminded of them because every year I always subscribe to the Food Network's 12 Days of Cookies newsletter, and this year they had a recipe for a Nanaimo Bar. (I like mine better!)I need to work out the measurements so I can post it here, as it stands right now, it's just in my head.

I've also been pondering the idea of including a truffle of some sort. Something with chocolate and orange perhaps. I also want a butter cookie- something that has a delicious, buttery taste and that delicate, sandy texture that sort of crumbles in your mouth.... If anyone has a cookie that fits that description, share! lol

So that's where I'm at with the cookie plate so far. I want them to be fresh, so I'm not going to make them anytime soon. I've also started thinking about Christmas dinner. I'm probably going to have Roast Goose or Duck, and probably a Beef Roast for my not-so-fowl-ly inclined sister-in-law. I'm really in the mood to have some Duck Confit on hand, so maybe I'll make the duck.

Anyway, it always helps to get my thoughts organized by writing them down. I'll probably change my mind a time or two before it's over, but that's part of the fun of the whole thing.

Incarnations of Kir

My sister and I were standing around chatting and eating Thanksgiving snacks du jour- ah..devilled pate eggs and artichoke dip are surely food of the Gods! when I noticed the drink in her hand of a very becoming shade of violet. "Sister dear" says I, "what, praytell, is gracing your wineglass?" "It's called Kir," says she. "Shall I make one for you?"

So she grabs the Chambord and splashes in a bit, and then tops it off with Chardonnay. Ah, the lovely purple pleaser is now mine! Mwah haha. It was actually quite charming. The Chambord did a nice job of taking the edge off of the Chardonnay. I'm personally not the biggest fan of Chardonnay, I get displeased when I find my mouth making that peculiar pucker when I taste dry and oakey in excess.

The origin of my sister's Kir is from her good friend's husband that hails from France. This is what he called it, however, in 90% of the Kir recipes that I could find, Kir is made with Creme de Cassis and not Chambord. Most popular seems to be the Kir Royale, made with Creme de Cassis and Champagne or sparkling wine. I even found a recipe for one called a Kir Cardinale that uses red wine instead of white. Oh yum! I made it with a drinkable, but not spectacular Cab, and it transformed into a really fruity, really porty-licious glass of Wow!

I look forward to more experimentation with Kir in all it's incarnations.


Kir Cardinale

Armenian Food

I love perusing the cookbook section of libraries and book stores. You can find some wonderful gems. I was in my local library the other day when I stumbled on a cookbook from the 70's on Armenian cooking. It's called "The Cuisine of Armenia", by Sonia Uvezian. From the recipes I've found in the book, Armenian food is really intriguing. It seems to have elements of Mediterranean cooking, middle eastern cooking, and eastern European cooking. Many of the ingredients are very familiar, but prepared and put together in different ways. I'm excited to continue researching and exploring this cuisine and I'll keep you updated.
So, I made an Armenian dinner, and it was so so, so so good. Let me tell you what I cooked. I roasted a boneless leg of lamb, studded with garlic. The lamb was accompanied by Noushov PrintzPilav which is an almond rice pilaf and Hunkar Beyendi, a delicious eggplant puree with sharp cheese. I used grana padano which worked very well. For a green vegetable, I served a simple mix of green and wax beans with baby carrots. All in all, a wonderful introduction to Armenian food. I'm going to enjoy my work here!

The Cucumber Trick

A few years ago I had an unexpected, fairly random and completely wonderful culinary adventure literally drop on my doorstep with grocery bags in hand. Her name was Natiya, we met for the first time the day before, and exchanged a fun conversation about Thai food and how much I love it! Natiya being from Thailand, and excited about my interest in her country's cooking, said that she would have to come over and cook me a Thai meal. I nodded politely and murmured something affirmative...sounded good to me, but people say things like that all the time and I didn't really take it literally. I have to admit, I was pretty surprised when she showed up the next day at my house at lunchtime, groceries in hand, prepared to cook us lunch. So, after my initial surprise at seeing her there I became ecstatic! I mean honestly, how cool is that?!

After she was done cooking, what we ended up with was two delicious coconut milk curries. One was green and one was red, with chicken, eggplant and potatoes being the main ingredients. These were scented with fresh basil leaves added right before serving, and accompanied by steaming jasmine rice. To those of you who are unfamiliar with Thai curries, they are really very different from what you might be thinking, especially if what you might be thinking contains that ubiquitous, dry, yellow powder stuff or cooked golden raisins (don't get me started). Traditionally, Thai curries are a pounded blend of herbs like cilantro, and lemongrass, roots, rhizomes and alliums like coriander root, galangal, ginger, shallots, and garlic, chiles, either red or green, spices like cumin, turmeric and coriander, and ingredients such as ga pi (shrimp paste made of fermented shrimp and salt) or nam pla (fish sauce of fermented fish and salt). Purists say the ingredients should be pounded, not ground, in a mortar and pestle, and in a certain order to bring out maxim flavor, and the shrimp paste should be toasted before use. This is all good information, and makes for a curry par excellence. However, Natiya brought out two containers of Mae Ploy brand curry paste, one red and one green and proceeded from there. I'm not going to argue that fresh and homemade isn't best, or that homemade coconut milk doesn't taste better than the powdered or canned kind, but sometimes there are different factors to consider such as time, equipment, availability and quality of ingredients, and skill level. This curry paste did a nice job, and would be very easy for just about anyone to duplicate. Of course this hasn't stopped me from acquiring a slew of homemade Thai curry paste recipes or making my own coconut milk..wink wink.

But back to my tale of lunch. Natiya dished us up her masterpieces, and we proceeded to eat. It was wonderful, but I have to say, this was some hot stuff, and I consider myself a lover of hot food. I was thoroughly impressed as Natiya added dried red chile flakes to her own bowl. Then, amidst all this bliss, disaster struck. Somehow I managed to get the chile heat on the outside of my lips. It was horrible. I was certain they were going to catch fire any second. I shamefully admitted to Natiya that my mouth was burning, and she laughed and said simply, "That's because you're not eating any cucumber." I think I must have been staring at her rather blankly, because she pointed to the raw cucumber between us that she had been slicing and eating the whole time. She told me that the cucumber cut the heat. I had never heard of this before, but I was very much game for anything at that point and grabbed a slice. I was sold when I rather desperately rubbed the cucumber on the outside of my mouth and was amazed as my lips stopped burning. I took a bite, and behold! it worked inside too! Cucumber conclusion: Forget milk or bread, cucumber does the job right!

So this is the story of the Cucumber Trick - and one of my best lunchtime surprises. Natiya had another one for me a few weeks later involving Pho, but I'll save that for another time.