Tzatziki a la French Fridays

This summer we put in two planter boxes at the end of our landing strip of a back yard and filled them with jalapeno plants, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, basil, oregano, and green beans. This week the cucumbers have finally started to reach their full size.

Vegetable planters at the end of our patio "runway"

So what to do with a glut of cucumbers?

The fork is there for scale. Please ignore the one on the far right that I obviously picked too early. It was the first one I picked and I was over-eager. That is, until I saw the two monsters in the middle.

Dorie's tzatziki recipe came at exactly the right moment. We were going to have some friends over for dinner, and with our overabundance of basil, we came up with a "summer bounty" themed meal, with tzatziki and hummus for appetizers, a garlicky classic pesto as the main course, and an open-face fresh blueberry tart (from Rose Levy Berenbaum's incomparable recipe available here) with meyer lemon curd for dessert.

As an aside, this was our fifth or sixth batch of pesto this summer and it was the best yet. The secret? Pan sear the garlic in some olive oil before adding the whole shebang to the pesto, it makes all the difference!

I'd never made tzatziki before and even had to look up how to pronounce it, but now I wonder why I hadn't. It's quick and easy to make from pantry staples - I had everything in the ingredients list except for dill, which was easy enough to fix. I ended up only dicing up 2/3 of a cucumber for 1 cup of yogurt; this was half the amount of yogurt that the recipe called for, but I liked this ratio of cucumber to yogurt better. The remainder of the cucumber I cut into finger-length sticks for inclusion in the appetizer plate with some carrots and celery. I kept the amounts of everything else in the recipe the same, except the white pepper, which was to taste.

As it's a shame to waste perfectly good zest, I also added lemon zest from the lemon that I juiced. One average-sized lemon gave me the 2 tablespoons of lemon juice the recipe called for as well as what I needed for the blueberry tart filling.

The dill, mint, cucumber, and lemon zest all sitting together before the yogurt is added

There just happened to be fancy Greek yogurt in my fridge, but once the dip was mixed up, Dorie's instructions became obvious: if you are going to make tzatziki, please, please, please make sure you use only the best, thickest Greek yogurt you can find. Alternately you can thoroughly drain some good-quality yogurt. Otherwise the tzatziki ends up more like a watery mayonnaise, rather than a nice, thick dip, which is what you want.

The final appetizer spread

The hummus in the back is sprinkled with olive oil and some precious Israeli zaatar that my awesome friend Sarah brought back from Jerusalem for me. We didn't finish all the tzatziki that night, so I was able to taste it again a couple of days later, and yes, it does get better after the flavors have had a chance to meld together. I'll definitely be making more of this before the end of cuke season.

Sourdough Starter, Day 1

Guess Kea and I are both back in grad school and have bread on the brain!

Last spring I started a new masters program in Public Health that took up all my non-work time, thus the lack of postings on this blog. Having taken the summer off from school, I've been happily filling all my free time with seeing friends that I ignored, picking up knitting projects I'd set down, and using cooking equipment that had been gathering dust.

One of my goals for this summer is to create a nice, healthy starter so that I can take that next step into breadmaking and tackle sourdoughs again. A few years ago I tried making a sourdough starter by following instructions from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. The starter went through all the textbook phases and was fine, but I was never happy with the bread that I made with it. Looking back, I was still too new to breadmaking, terrified of making any small mistake, and probably set my expectations too high (for myself and my bread). That, plus I couldn't bear throwing away all that starter every time I wanted to refresh it. This time, I am using instructions from Maggie Glezer's "A Blessing of Bread." Her starter instructions are the only ones I have come across that starts off by saying that she uses the minimal quantity of flour and water to reduce waste. Ahh...girl after my own heart! She also reassures her readers that organic flour, distilled water, and (after the starter is established) weekly feedings are all unnecessary, thus taking a lot of the expense and pressure out of the endeavor. What's not to like?

Unlike Kea, I can't complain of the same difficulty in finding good bread. Here in DC we have our fair share of respectable bakeries, but there is an undeniable gratification about making your own bread, and especially one from your very own starter. So for the next few weeks I will be documenting the process of my starter on this blog and hopefully inspire my fellow Bees to try their hand at one of their own, too. Wish me luck!

Bread in London

Greetings from London, everyone. I haven't posted here in almost a year. I don't know if any of you still check this site, but I figured I'd come and say hi to anyone who might be listening. I'm most of the way through my master's degree, exams and term papers are over, Boyfriend's been "kidnapped" for a family vacation, I've got the house to myself for a week, and for the first time in months I have free time on my hands. And I need an excuse not to start working on my dissertation right away.

Since this is a food/craft blog, let me start by saying that bread in England is bland. Well of course bread is bland, you might say. It is bread. But the grocery store bread you get here does not even taste like bread. It tastes like...nothing. The white bread tastes like styrofoam. The brown bread tastes like cardboard. I gave up on grocery store bread and went to the local bakery. It was marginally better, but still tasted like a puffy matzo cracker. Compared to British bread, even the humble, standard Hong Kong "Garden" loaf is bursting with nutty aroma. I can't understand it.

So now that I have free time, I've taken matters into my own hands and started making my own bread. I am operating under the general principle that the more egg, milk, butter, cheese and cinnamon (but not at the same time) I add my dough, the better. I have no idea how any of this works scientifically, but I don't care as long as it turns out anything but bland. Or burnt. Burnt is bad.

I've got some whole grain-ish, eggy, milky, buttery dough rising right now, and I'll post pictures when it's done.

Aside from the bread and the sausages (don't get me started on the sausages - ick), I am enjoying quite a lot of the food here in London. I can get so many ingredients that were rare or ridiculously expensive in Hong Kong. Like almond powder. Or whole wheat flour. And the yoghurt! It is so cheap and plentiful, I don't have to make it at home anymore. Boyfriend is in love with the cheese. And the Vietnamese food here is much better than what you can get in Hong Kong.

But seriously? How does every single commercial bakery in this country screw up bread?

3 Chicks + 3 Recipes = New Friends!

My boss is fond of telling me that I am an introvert, and it's true. I enjoy spending quality time with just a few people versus large groups, but because I also enjoy my "quiet time," it means that I am usually slow to make new friends. I am delighted to be able to say then, that I have two new friends - Liz and Kim - with whom to share my love for cooking and eating. It all started when Liz decided to pop in a DVD of Julie and Julia on a transatlantic flight. Liz hadn't been too enthusiastic about the movie but figured it would do for some mindless entertainment. Ironically, she loved it so much that as soon as Liz got off the plane she wasted no time and started a blog, cast an open call for partners, and picked out a cookbook.

And so, that was how my DH and I found ourselves at Liz's house with her husband Tri, Kim (Liz's cousin), and Kim's BF on Sunday evening, faced with a mountain of red chili peppers, several pounds of ground sirloin, a package of truffle butter, a dozen different spices, and more.

While the guys heated up the grill and sipped wine on the deck, Liz, Kim and I got to work deciphering three recipes from the Top Chef cookbook/web site:
spicy fire wings with pineapple-jicama slaw,

black truffle burgers (sorry, cookbook-only recipe),
and strawberry apple crisp.
Despite some glaring editorial mistakes that required some educated guesses on our part (three QUARTS of chili peppers, people? Really??), the food all turned out excellent, if you can't tell from the photos, and we had a great time getting to know each other and messing up Liz's kitchen in the pursuit of a Top Chef-calibre gourmet meal. You'd never have guessed that Kim and I had never met before this, and that the three of us had never been in a kitchen together before. We made an super team and got dinner out on time, in a good humor, and without any major snafus. Two hours of cooking passed in a blur of happy chattering and a coordinated dance around each other and the butcher block island.

Thanks Liz! Can't wait for the next lesson!

Photos are all courtesy of Liz's DH, Tri, who is a fantastic photographer. Aside from working a 9-5 job, Tri also photographs local boxing matches for an online boxing magazine. Check out his other great pictures at www.tringuyenimages.com!

Holiday Baking

Yesterday was the perfect baking day. It started raining at 12am and didn't stop all night. By late morning, the rain had turned into big, wet snowflakes. It was cold and messy outside, so I stayed home and made a stew and dessert. The plan had been to start making candies for my holiday care packages, but it was too humid so it had to be cake instead. Well actually, a tart. An Austrian Linzertorte, to be exact.

I love Linzertortes. I love to make them, because the results are a lot more impressive-looking than the actual effort - they are as beautiful as making a perfect lattice-top pie, but much quicker and easier. I love the way they taste, and I love that if I have any extra dough, I can make Linzer cookies with them. I could also do away with the entire tart and go straight for the cookies, which are just as gorgeous, and travel well in holiday cookie tins.

I used this recipe from epicurious.com because it called for almond flour, which I had on hand.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Linzertorte-109549


Traditional Linzertortes all use a nut flour - usually almond, sometimes hazelnut or walnut. The recipes that didn't use ground nuts I passed on, because then I would just be making a spiced tart, not a Linzertorte. The nuts are usually what the store-bought versions skimp on too, which always makes for a huge disappointment. I don't have a food processor so I prefer to buy the nut flour. Almond flour is the easiest to find and least expensive. The large proportion of nuts to flour in the dessert makes the crust particularly fine and crisp-crumbly. While it's baking, the butter baking with the almond makes the most amazing sweet, rich, nutty aroma. Although the recipe is straightforward, the use of nut flour and almost a full jar of jam makes it a relatively expensive dessert to make, but oh, so worth it. You be the judge.

The flavour of money

I've figured out how to make my home-made sorbet taste all fancy and expensive.

Put basil in it.

Or rather, infuse the basil in the hot simple syrup, if you want to get all culinary.

And now that I know how fancypants sorbet makers get their sorbet to taste like that, all I can say is, that's so cheap! I was expecting magical fairy dust, or something.

Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies (Part 3?): Fan's Attempt

I'm going to a potluck party tonight, so what better time to try Kea's cookie recipe? It was pretty much a breeze, but next time I may opt for a dark chocolate bar with less cocoa content. I picked a 100% cocoa bar. It might be a little too intense for some people (i.e., not hardcore chocolate lovers!). Of course, when the first sheet of cookies finished cooling, I had to test a cookie! It was "whoa" at first bite. Kea, this is an amazing recipe. I had to remind myself that I was baking these for the party, so after one more "test", I packed them up. I'll report back here if I get any feedback. Thanks for sharing your recipe!

Lentil Tagine

In a curious exchange of roles, I always worry that my parents, particularly my father, aren't eating properly. Just because dad is relatively healthy for his age, he insists on eating like a boy of twenty; beef, heavy sauces, tonnes of sugar in his coffee, and sweets. (I know where I got my sweet tooth from!) And then, when it's just the two of them, it's easy to get into a rut and eat all sorts of unhealthy and/or unimaginative (!!) things.

The thing is, I know they appreciate good food, and they can be made to be adventurous, too. So, I took a little gamble and made a Moroccan lentil tagine using our pressure cooker. I say it was a gamble because they don't often enjoy things with a lot of "foreign" herbs and spices (that is, those not normally used in Chinese cuisine), especially cumin, which the tagine has.

I still don't think my dad enjoyed this very much. He ate it, but when my mother complimented the dish and had more, he didn't say anything, which is tantamount to saying he didn't like it. However, my mother has never hesitated to tell me that something I made doesn't taste good, so I feel that I can trust that she truly liked it. A, who isn't much for stews, seemed to like it well enough, too. The greatest compliment came from my cousins, though. They tried some when they came over for New Year's dinner. They're terribly picky (at least, I think they are, but I'm a foodie), but kept going back for more.

New Year's En Famille

A and I have been spending Christmas and New Year's at home in Oregon with my parents. We had dinner on Christmas Eve at my uncle's house so, apart from A making some mashed potatoes to bring over, we didn't cook too much. For New Year's, we had my uncle's family over, and I was in charge of making dinner. After the excesses of Christmas Eve, I wanted to be sure that we had a slightly healthier (though still delicious!) meal for New Year's. I started early in the morning, marinating the chicken, baking dessert, and working on the cobb salad.
This was my first time making a cobb salad (a little too much trouble, wouldn't you say, for one person?), but I absolutely adore eating them; everything is perfectly bite-sized so that you don't have to have bits of salad green hanging out of your mouth. I roughly followed the recipe from Cooks Illustrated, making the dressing, but approximating all the other ingredients. I used turkey bacon instead of pork bacon, too. There was so much salad, and no big serving plates in the house, so I rubbed our wok with oil (to prevent rusting) and used it as a serving vessel; it was perfect. Everyone really enjoyed the cobb salad, and it was pretty much demolished.
In order to encourage everyone to have more vegetables, I also made a simple Asian salad, with mesclun mix, sliced almonds, dried cranberries and mandarin oranges. I also made an Asian-inspired dressing to go with it, mixing together balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, salt, pepper and a dash of sesame oil. This salad quickly disappeared, as well.

We also had oven roasted Brussels sprouts with whole cloves of garlic. A deemed them slightly overcooked, so he didn't take any pictures. But, as a fan of Brussels sprouts, I think they were still delicious.
A was responsible for marinating and cooking the steaks. My family is not fond of sirloin, and normally goes for rib eyes. However, we've found that flat-iron steaks are excellent, too. Moreover, they are conveniently sized in approximately single-person portions, so we decided on flat-iron steaks, which were a success. Really, I think porterhouses and T-bones are over-rated.
My uncle brought over two fresh Dungeness crabs, which we steamed Cantonese-style with ginger and scallions. These were served with dark Chinese vinegar. I'm a very lazy crab-eater, meaning I can't usually be bothered to eat more than a piece or two. With my added handicap of braces, I only had one piece, which was enough to satisfy me.
For dessert, A had requested key lime pie. This request, coming from him, surprised me, since he dislikes sour things almost as much as our father does. It turned out to be an excellent choice, however. Even dad went back for more, and it was deemed very refreshing after a large meal.
The only thing that didn't really get eaten was all the rice we had made, for the eight of us! We had so much rice left over, A made fried rice today (by himself, for the first time). I won't embarrass him with the telling of it (ask him yourself!), but the rice is all gone now, too.

An Italian Thanksgiving...and more

Lana and our brother came to visit for Thanksgiving this week. No one was too excited about having a bird for the holiday meal, so the DH and I suggested an Italian theme instead. We had recently tried out a recipe for meatballs that we'd seen on an episode of Bobby Flay's Thrown Down. The challenge was over meatballs (DUH!), and the competition's secret recipe involved the use of four eggs per pound of meat. I'd never heard of using so many eggs in a meatball recipe - it was so decadent. Anyways, the meatballs turned out beyond expectations - soft and tender, almost souffle-like. They were better than any we'd ever had in a restaurant, and it's made it into our standard roster of meals.


So, on Sunday I threw eight eggs into two pounds of ground chuck, mixed in chopped parsley, onion, black pepper, salt, and a cup of pecorino. I then added enough bread crumbs to make everything stick, formed golf ball sized meatballs, baked at 350 for 25 minutes, and froze them for T-day. For sides we had garlicky green beans (so the DH would have some greens) and golden-crusted brussels sprouts, from a 101cookbooks.com recipe.

Dessert had to be Italian, of course, and tiramisu is always a crowd pleaser. Lana and I made a tiramisu using a recipe my friend Andrea gave me from when she worked at the Mandarin Oriental hotel. I had asked if she had a tiramisu recipe using a pate a bomb (egg yolks whipped with sugar cooked to softball stage) so that we wouldn't have to choose between eating raw eggs or trying to find pasteurized yolks, which is what most tiramisu recipes ask you to do. My friend's recipe turned out excellent - thick and rich-tasting but with a texture that was light as a cloud. We soaked Italian Savoiardi with a mix of espresso, Godiva liquor, and Amaretto and laid down two layers of cookie. I dusted pure cocoa powder on each layer of cookie and on the top layer, and sprinkled grated chocolate over everything just before serving. The recipe is below - our 2.5 qt vintage pyrex cassesrole was filled to the brim. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture before it was completely demolished by my brother, who claimed not to like tiramisu.

Andrea's Mandarin Oriental Tiramisu

Ingredients
mascarpone 500g
gelatin 12g

Pate a bombe:
yolks 140g
sugar 260g

whipped cream 500g

Savoiardi dipped quickly in coffee and liquor combination of your choice (do no oversoak - center of cookie should still be hard)
Grated chocolate
Directions:
For pate a bombe:
- Add about 1/2 cup of water to the sugar, stirring with your finger to make sure there are no dry spots. Heat the sugar to 121 celcius, or softball stage. Meanwhile put the yolks in the bowl of a mixer and give it a minute or two of whipping.
- When the sugar has reached softball stage, restart the mixer on high and immediately pour the hot sugar in a slow and steady stream down the side of the mixing bowl onto the eggs. Try to keep the whipping attachment from whipping the syrup around the bowl before it hits the yolks - this is best done by directing the sugar syrup straight down the side of the bowl. Pour all the sugar out, but do not scrape the bottom. Immediately set the pot in the sink and fill with hot water.
- Whip yolk-sugar mix at high speed until increased in volume, pale yellow and forms ribbons. - Set pate a bombe aside and continue with rest of recipe.

- Pour cold water over gelatin and let sit until soft.
- Meanwhile, whip the 500g of cream until stiff and set aside in refrigerator.
- Drain gelatin well and place in medium-sized pot over low heat until liquified.
- Add mascarpone to pot and stir/whisk vigorously until mascarpone is just liquified and warm, with no lumps, but NOT hot.

To combine:
- Fold mascarpone mixture into pate a bombe in two additions.
- Fold whipped cream into this in two additions.

Assembly:
- Lay down a 1" layer of tiramisu cream in your container.
- Dust with cocoa powder.
- Add layer of cookie and try to fill in all corners.
- Add another layer of tiramisu.
- Repeat above.
- Smooth tiramisu over, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least overnight to allow it to set and flavors to develop.
- Before serving, remove plastic wrap, dust with final layer of cocoa powder, and finish with grated chocolate.
- Buon appetito!

Everyone likes tiramisu except for the DH, so I also made up a batch of pate sucree and pastry cream for these pretty fruit tarts that we later during their stay.
We had them with the HUGE grass-fed steak Lana's advisor gave her when he was cleaning out his freezer. It was literally enough to feed a family of four. Anthony gave us a break and whipped up this classic steak dinner for us the day after Thanksgiving, and learned how to roast brussels sprouts during the same meal. The spices he used on the steak made the house smell good for two days after. With luck, next year he'll be making a standing rib roast for us.

Eww...vegetables!

My husband has the tolerance of a militant five year old for all things green. It's not that he's a huge meat-eater either. He is just very particular and can happily get by on a sandwich or a bowl of cereal for dinner. Unfortunately, I can't do that, so I've been spending much time and energy trying to come up with new ways to make green foods enticing for him. I draw the line at pureeing food for him. He is not a baby.

We have had some successes. For green beans, that has meant copious amounts of garlic or bacon in a quick saute. Since we cannot live on garlic green beans alone though, I have tried other vegetables too. Turnips are out. As are parsnips. No cabbage. He cannot stand the smell of cooking brussels sprouts or cauliflower. He pretends that Shanghai bok choi and broccoli rabe don't exist when they appear on his plate. Peas are the devil's spawn. Celery is tolerated as long as it is minced into oblivion.

A few weeks ago I picked up a beautiful multi-colored bunch of swiss chard at the farmer's market up the street. When I came home, I showed the DH the pretty bouquet, hoping that the rainbow colors and innocuous-looking green leaves would pass muster. Below are pictures of the dishes I came up with that even my picky DH managed to polish off.

First, I promised to chop everything up SMALL and toss with a sausage over pasta. (I have discovered that pork is my friend in my quest to make vegetables palatable.) That went over quite well, and to my relief there were few "green bit" casualties at the end of the meal.

As there was a LOT of chard, I had to figure out another way to use them. Ironically, that was even harder as I discovered that I did not like chard very much either.

It's been freezing cold here and as we'd been making a lot of barley-based soups, we had some barley on hand. Instead of putting the chard in a soup though, I came up with this barley, sausage, onion and carrot dish that was actually very quick to prepare. Start boiling water for the barley and let the barley simmer away while chopping and sauteing the other ingredients. By the time that's done, the barley is ready to be tossed with the rest, making a very warm, satisfying meal in itself. I used this to stuff some roasted red peppers, which made for a pretty presentation, but taste-wise wasn't really worth the effort.

Even I didn't mind the chard in this dish.

Lastly, I used all the rest of my chard in another recipe from 101cookbooks, the Chickpea Hot Pot. I had a giant cauliflower hanging out in my window sill, and a carton of brown rice left over from a meal at P.F. Chang's, so I threw everything into a pot and had a lovely soup for three meals. I have to say though, that after 8 meals featuring it, I was glad to see the last of my bouquet of chard!

Hearst Castle Shortbread

"A" came to visit me and my DH yesterday afternoon. She has a serious sweet tooth so in honor of the occasion, I went shopping that morning and got the ingredients for this shortbread recipe from 101 cookbooks that I've been dying to try out. The little story behind the recipe is fascinating, but I won't recount it here as you can read the original account on Heidi's blog. The cute mini butterfly shapes she used were also an inspiration, so I drove out to Michaels to see what I could score as I had only large, palm-sized cookie cutters. It being two weeks before Halloween, the store was all stocked up for the holiday and I ended up with a set of mini Halloween-themed cutters for two bones.

Like all shortbread recipes, this one does not contain any liquid. The most basic shortbread recipes contain only butter, flour, and sugar, but that's very basic, not containing even any salt. A pinch of salt is desirable though as it adds depth and complexity any cookie. The Hearst Castle recipe uses salt, all purpose flour, butter, and confectioner's sugar, and - the surprise ingredient - a touch of baking powder. Many traditional recipes use rice flour to achieve that delicate crispness that the best shortbreads offer, but I had never seen a recipe calling for baking powder before. My curiosity was piqued as most of the shortbread recipes I'd tried over the years yielded heavy, greasy cookies.
Half an hour before "A" arrived, I patted the dough together and wrapped it up. By the time we came back from our stroll around the Old Town historic district, it was properly chilled and we were ready to start cutting out our cookies. I showed "A" how to pound out the cold, stiff dough evenly with a French rolling pin. She took to it like a natural, clobbering the thing into a nice, even round. I also shared a pastry school secret to using minimal flour while preventing the dough from sticking to the counter - pick up the dough with a bench scraper and move it in between every roll so that it doesn't have a chance to be rolled right into your surface. We cut out pumpkin and ghost shapes and, looking at the amorphous ghosts, "A" joked that they could double as snowmen in two months. The cookies were shoved into the freezer for half an hour and 11 minutes in the oven later, we had ourselves these lovely bite-sized treats. The cookies are barely sweet, delicate, and with that elusive tender crispiness. I think I would like it a teensy bit sweeter next time, but otherwise it's the nicest shortbread cookie I've made. I was going to decorate them with orange icing, but they taste so lovely on their own, we left them alone. "A" is on the train back up to NYC as this is being written, maybe making a dent in the little bag she took with her.

Hong Kong Borscht

Once in a while I get a craving for Hong Kong borscht soup. Hong Kongers borrowed the recipe off the Russian refugees who passed through in the early 20th century, but must have ditched all the ingredients that made the locals grimace in bewilderment or disgust. There are no beets in it. Served at every diner and coffee shop in the city, the Hong Kong concoction is actually a tomato soup with cabbage and beef. It ranges from cheap-and-nasty diluted tomato paste swill to quite hearty versions which are pretty good in their own right, even if they aren't really borscht.

I decided to try making some at home. Vast quantities of it in fact, so that I could keep it in the fridge and reheat portions all week for lunch. I made it up as I went along, but I managed to produce something that tasted quite authentic. Or rather, inauthentic. (If you successfully commit culinary blasphemy, is that a good or a bad thing?)

I'm going to cut my portions in half here, since you probably don't want a whole vat of the stuff.

You need:
1 large pot

1/4 catty stewing beef (about 150 grams or 5 ounces). You can use a bit more if you want.

3 tomatoes
1/2 a small cabbage
1/2 an onion
3-4 carrots
1 large potato

1 can tomato paste
2-3 tablespoons ketchup (no kidding)
1 cup beef stock (or 1 beef stock cube, dissolved)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1-2 cups water, depending on size of your pot

1 bay leaf
2 sprigs thyme
1 sprig marjoram (optional)

Chop the beef up into bite-sized cubes. Chop up all the vegetables.


Put everything in the pot, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for at least an hour.
Season to taste with salt, pepper, and if it's too sour, sugar. Chili flakes optional.

Italian Tomatoes

I was looking over old photos I'd taken of a food class I took in Italy and came across a series of bodacious tomato shots taken at a market in Bologna.

I can't imagine why I didn't post these pictures sooner, but here they are.

Looking at all that round, fleshy red make me nostalgic for the gorgeous bounty of European markets in summer.

Grey Cars, Silver Linings and Korean Food

I had car trouble today, and my year-old grey VW Rabbit (his name is Peter) had to get towed to the dealership today. Some waiting ensued. The car miraculously fixed itself, I was charged ridiculous amounts for an oil and filter change, but I did get something out of all that: some better soon dubu (a Korean tofu stew). I've tried making soon dubu before, following a recipe I found online (I can't remember where), but although it satisfied my craving of the moment, the flavour just wasn't as complex and intense as I've had at Korean restaurants.
There is a Korean grocery store near the VW dealership, and I picked up some pantry items for the Korean kitchen: some chili soy bean paste, and salted shrimp. The recipe I had only called for the salted shrimp, but I figured some chili soy bean paste - to bump up the spiciness, and the flavour since I wasn't using beef or pork - wouldn't hurt.
Soon dubu is all about the tofu. I can never get enough of the extra soft, extra silken tofu you find in little tubes. I got these at the Korean grocery, too.
That zucchini/squash is from the CSA, but I think it is (or is very similar to) the type of squash I saw at the Korean grocery, and that I've eaten in Korean restaurants. It has a slightly softer texture and more delicate flavour than the darker green zucchini you can normally get.
I departed seriously from the recipe. What follows is what I did, and not necessarily what you should do for an "authentic" recipe. Instead of beef or pork, I had a seafood mix, which I marinated with ginger juice (I grated, then squeezed, a large piece of ginger), minced garlic, sesame oil, white pepper and soy sauce.
In addition to scallions, I added the squash, onions and daikon.I started out sauteing the onion and squash (I would have added the daikon at this point, but I forgot I had daikon until later in the cooking process), and adding chili powder, salt and a little bit of soy sauce. Then, I added water (you could also use beef broth) and kimchi (I added my daikon in at this point, too) and brought it to a boil. I used some of the cooking liquid to thin out a bit of the chili soybean paste, and added that back to the pot. The tofu is gently spooned in, then the seafood is added. After a couple of minutes, I stirred in some salted shrimp, chopped up hot peppers, and the scallions.

The recipe I based this all off of said to put a raw egg yolk and some sesame oil on top of a bowl of soon dubu for serving. I just cracked an egg into the bottom of a bowl and ladled some hot soon dubu on top. Soon dubu should be served very, very hot, with steamed rice.

Soon dubu is very quick to make, no long cooking times involved. This was a definite improvement on my previous attempts, but it still isn't as richly flavourful as I remember it ought to be. Next time, I may actually use beef, and see if that helps.

My First Chicken Pot Pie

Did you know that I absolutely adore chicken pot pie? Even when they were a bit of a goopey mess in the college dining halls, or the pre-made frozen affairs you find in the supermarkets, I adored them just a bit. But I had never made my own chicken pot pie before. Recently, I was telling a coworker about the CSA pie that I had made, and he said it sounded a little like a chicken pot pie, without the chicken and the cream. And he went on to tell me how easy chicken pot pie is to make, and how his father makes a really delicious one. Well, how could I resist? I had most of the makings of a chicken pot pie already, I just needed some chicken. (Another bid at using up CSA vegetables.) Since it was my first attempt at this, I followed a recipe from Cooks Illustrated. First, you cook some chicken breasts in chicken broth. Then, you saute some vegetables (onion, celery and carrots) until tender-crisp. A sauce is made with butter, flour, the broth, and milk. Once that thickens, you mix in the chicken, vegetables, peas (I used cut up green beans) and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. It was late when I got home that day, so I didn't want to bother with making my own crust. Instead, I bought some pre-rolled crust from the supermarket. I wanted a double-crust chicken pot pie, so I followed the instructions on the box to blind bake the bottom crust. Bad idea.The instructions had said simply to prick the crust and bake it. I should have followed my instincts to line the crust with parchment paper and fill it with some pie weights (a.k.a. dried beans). With the crust so shrunken and inflated, I had to abandon it. Good thing I had the top crust left. I would just have to make a single-crust pie. So, the filling goes into a deep-dish pie plate (all of the filling filled the pie plate perfectly)
The pie crust goes on top, with vents cut in. I put the pie plate on a baking sheet before putting it into the oven, which was a good thing. The filling bubbled over and out the sides a bit, so the baking sheet saved me from a big mess in the oven. After the filling was bubbly and the crust golden brown, the pie was ready.

The filling tasted great, although I probably should have put a little more salt in. All the farm-fresh vegetables that went in, still ever the slightest bit crisp (instead of overcooked and soggy) gave the pie a wonderful texture. I shouldn't be lazy about the crust next time, though. I should definitely blind bake with pie weights. Also, the pre-made pie crust was sweeter than I liked. It could just be the brand that I purchased, but next time I may decide to make my own crust. Or, perhaps I'll just top it with biscuit dough. If I had enough ramekins, I could even make single-serving pot pies. Yum!