Finn Jr.

I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our household. My sourdough starter that I named Finn Jr.

I got the idea for making a sour dough starter from a Twitter pal named "Finn". He started tweeting about his sourdough starter dying and having to start a new one. I got curious and asked him if a very infrequent non-baker such as myself could create a sour dough starter and only use it once and a while? He said yes. Finn claimed that sour dough starter took little to no time to take care of and was worth it.

I did a little bit of online research and found this recipe: Beginner Sour Dough Bread It was not only simple but also very comprehensive in the steps. Other recipes I found online seemed a little bit vague or called for yeast (I didn't have any) or even potato starch. King Aurthur (my flour of choice btw) goes as far as to sell a sour dough starter kit online. I think it was only $35 or something but still it seemed a little bit lame and cheaty.

I also chose this recipe because I loved the idea of using the "wild yeast" in the air and all around us to create my sour dough. It seemed like a super neat science experiment and as a kid who excelled at science fairs (I went to regional in 9th and 10th grade) that seemed really neat to me.

And so I began. I used the instructions I found online as my chief guide but after three days I was a little skeptical that the sour dough had fermented enough or produced enough yeast. My Twitter friend Finn said that he had been feeding his starter ("Veruca") for 12 days and it was now time. So I asked him if he thought my starter was ready? He confirmed what I thought and said no. So I've been letting "Finn Jr". grow and grow. Last night he became a rebellious teenager and we woke up to him trying to escape the safety of his jar to explore the world (thus the picture above this posting).

He seems to be doing just fine. Lots of bubbles and activity for sure! See:


Speaking of which, I need to go feed him again now. I'm going to make my sponge with him on Sunday and if all goes well, I will be able to share my first loaf of sour dough bread from Finn Jr. on Monday with some friends we're having over for dinner. I'm actually going to be sad when it becomes time for me to put Finn Jr. into the fridge and I don't have to feed him everyday but like all children, he will need to move out of the nest and learn to fend mainly on his own.

But I certainly am one proud mamma for now!

Dallas Parent's Style

My parents made the move to Dallas when I graduated from college. So even though I sometimes go to Dallas to see them, it's far from my "hometown". Infact, I'm so unfamiliar with the city that sometimes I'm shy to tell people where my folks live, because they always say "which part of Dallas?" and honestly, I haven't the foggiest idea. I do know that GWB and Laura Bush are neighbors (ick) and that my Mom and Dad are very happy in Dallas. And honestly the latter is all that matters to me. They've really embraced this town and culture. Infact, as I'm sitting here typing this the family is sitting around watching a Johnny Cash Live in Concert DVD. No lie.

I enjoy visiting my parents very much. It's something that I don't get to do very often. It's a visit that always includes good food and a long soak in my mom's amazing jacuzzi tube.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, my Mom was a very good home-taught cook. Even with my entire family coming in for a visit, she made some awesomely tasty meals with a white chicken chili the first night including a cold bok choy salad (I need the salad recipe!), holiday cookies and chicken on the grill the second night. The third night my parents' hosted a small cocktail party complete with my Mom's sweet and sour meatballs (yum) and shrimp cocktail, which is my fave. It was a good time with a hired guitarist singing some tunes for the guests' enjoyment. It was a lot of fun.

Our last night in the big D, my parents wanted to take us to Fort Worth so my nephews, both 5, could see the Longhorn sauntered down the street and then take us all to the restaurant Reata.

The restaurant is a favorite of their's for the food and decor. Inside it pays homage to the movie Giant. A fantastic movie that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys epic old movies. It has Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean in it...Seriously, that should be enough said.

My parents reserved a large glass room for the fam to sit in. The room happened to be in the center of the ground floor dining room (my Dad later told me that there were actually 5 floors to this restaurant) so we were able to look out at the decor which included movie pictures, a wax statue of James Dean, plenty of horse saddles and various other cowboy and other Giant memorabilia.

I ordered the chicken fried steak with black pepper white gravy. One of my favorite meals that I can't often get in Boston for sure. I also got a field salad as a starter but it wasn't really worth mentioning. However, the chicken fried steak came and it was immensely. It came served with mashed potatoes and crisp garlic green beans. It was delicious! I felt a little guilty about going to a "fancy" restaurant and getting something that isn't fancy at all. But it was really quite good. The crust was good and crisp and the gravy was flavorful and rich. The greens were fantastic and not to be a disregarded side. The potatoes I also liked however they were not as amazing as the rest of the meal. Plus they had been flavored with blue cheese as was the mac and cheese (a side that was ordered for the entire table to share). And even though I'm a huge fan of blue, I know that it's strong flavor doesn't agree with E at all. So it seemed odd that the menu gave no mention of blue cheese in either the mac and cheese or the potatoes. Oh the mac and cheese! First of all it had blue cheese (yum!) and there were shards of bacon strewn in it as well (double yum!).

Overall, I was very pleased with my meal choice but sadly too stuffed to even consider dessert but if I had been interested in dessert, I would have asked for the Texas pecan pie. I had a feeling that it would be have been amazing and possibly had chocolate involved somehow.

A very nice end to our week long stay in Texas. Sadly, we head home back to Boston tomorrow and while it will be nice to get back to our home, etc. I will miss seeing my family and being able to spend time with them. Oh yeah and the close to 70* weather isn't bad either ;)

I Suck

It's been way too long since I last posted. I even had a fairly good food trip to NYC that I never got around to posting about. The store has been sucking my mine. Oh sure, I always blame it on the shop but seriously, small business owners definitely know what I'm talking about when I talk about my lack of time and energy.

So what has gotten me out of my non-posting slump? A change of seasons perhaps. Fall is certainly upon us in New England. Luckily our CSA share doesn't end until the end of October so we've gotten to see what the change in seasons brings.

Tonight we're having a couple of friends over. One is an old friend I've known forever and another is a fairly new friend I'm introducing to E. Infact the old friend asked what time for dinner, I said 8 and she said she'd be here around 6:30. That's how we roll.

So when I went to the CSA on Monday, I knew I wanted some stuff that we could cook or share with friends. I was happy to see heads of lettuce and some last of the summer cherry tomatoes. I grabbed a couple of green peppers so I could make a salad and Beth's favorite salad dressing to go with it. I also was thinking of making an apple tarte tatin. In my family, the only apples we cooked with were Granny Smiths. We're a family that really enjoys tart with our sweet. So alas no GS were to be found but they did have plums. I found this kinda cool because I always only thought of plums as an early summer or late spring fruit. I didn't know they were still even really in season. So I grabbed a container of plums and decided that I wanted to try and make Evan Kleiman's plum sour cream pie. The recipe is here.

I also really wanted to try and make an apple tarte tatin. My friend Caroline makes one every fall and she uses puff pastry dough. So I went ahead and looked for a recipe on epicurious and found this one.

So I was going to attempt two new recipes. I wasn't 100% that either would work out well. Infact, I was a bit concerned that the desserts would be a big fail but I hadn't been baking in so long that I wanted to try something new.

I started by cutting up the plums. Look how pretty!




It seemed like a lot of plums and Evan didn't really say now many. So I decided to make two pies. I ended up doubling the sour cream mixture. Unfortunately, as I was pouring the plums and sour cream into the pie crusts I started to realize that maybe there was too much sour cream stuff and should have just stayed with one pie. My hunch was confirmed because the pies took close to 2 hrs to cook. Eeek. They looked cute coming out of the oven though:



Look! Pie crust cozies, teehee. Anyway, I let the pies cool and snuck a piece. The filling wasn't right at all. It was lumpy and not sweet enough. I was kinda bummed but hoped that the ice cream a guest was bringing would help disguise the issue.

I moved into the apple tartin.


I followed the recipe down to the letter and when it came time to flip, the middle of my apple tartin was completely burned. I was so sad. I even used less time than what the recipe asked for just because I knew our oven ran hot (damn electric!)

Sigh. Well luckily, Jenny did bring ice cream that that helped. It also helped that E made an amazing pasta dinner. But E making an amazing dinner is to be expected.

Since it's fairly early in the fall season, I think I will be attempting the apple tartin again. Watch out apple tartin, I'm gonna make you my bitch for sure! ;)

A Meal for One

CSA greens: lettuce, purple kale, the leaves of kohlrabi. Cowgirl Creamery Point Rey Blue (thanks Caroline). Parm. Olive Oil. Rice Wine Vinegar. Red Pepper Flakes. Salt. Pepper.

Dolin: a tiny glass on ice.

Love.

Why the hell did I wait this long to join a CSA again?

Bon Chon Chicken is Chicken CRACK!

If it's not already apparent, I'm fairly proud of being Korean American. E sometimes teases me and calls me more "white" then she is. Mainly because I was adopted by a white family and well my name is certainly not Korean sounding at all. There were times when I was growing up and I hated being so different from everyone else in my family. I didn't grow up around many Koreans or many Asians for that matter. And well, as a result all of the things I know about Korean American culture or Korean culture I've had to find it on my own. But there are many things about me that I've been told are very "Korean" without me having to search for it. My fiery temper and fierce sense of pride and loyalty are things I've always been kinda proud of; I've been told often that those very traits are unbelievably Korean. I'm sure that if you look for a connection to any culture you'll find it and so my traits aren't necessarily all that "Korean" but hey, growing up apart from Korean culture means I'll take any connection I can get!

So besides my inherit (good looks, kidding) Korean qualities, I wanted to connect a bit more. My forays into speaking Korean were squash long ago. Korean is hard to learn, dudes! But one of the first things I connect with is food and finding my "roots" via Korean food was a good place to start. It was thru Korean food that I discovered that my love, scratch that, obsession with anything pickled, pungent, spicy and salty was fine, normal even. And so it was that I discovered a new sense of pride in being Korean. Many Koreans love intensely flavored food and as a result many Korean dishes are a big wallop of spice and flavor. No meek wallflower dishes here! I'm so proud to be a part of any culture/race where kimchee is involved. No seriously, I really am!

Another huge source of pride for me is Korean's love of fried chicken. When I started reading about Koreans absolutely loving fried chicken wings and eating them as bar food in Korea as well as places in LA or NYC, I pumped my little fists again in pride, "my peeps rock!".

I LOVE FRIED CHICKEN and I love my friend chicken fried HARD! Usually that means a thick batter but lately I've calmed that need down (especially after learning that triple batter isn't always the answer). But I like a very crisp skin or batter on my chicken. One that shatters or crackles when you bite into it. It's not always the easiest to achieve or find so when I learned that Bon Chon Chicken was coming to Boston, I did a little jig of happy.

Part of my reading included Bon Chon Chicken and how, despite the savory wing glaze that the chicken is coated in, the skin is very crisp and crunchy. I remember thinking, "but how?". Most chicken wings are fried and then coated in wing sauce but what happens is the skin completely softens up. It's still tasty and good but no crackle or crunch. According to the article I read, it's not that Bon Chon double fries their chicken wings rather they fry them at such a low temperature that the fat in the skin is rendered out. So the result is a skin that seems like it's been battered in something but isn't and also retains its crunch. The other fantastic thing about Korean chicken wings is that they are usually served with a side of pickled turnips. YUM! So let me get this straight? I get fried chicken and pickles all at the same time?!? Oh hell, yes!!!

In Boston, if you want Bon Chon Chicken, you have to go to this nightclub called Privus. They're only open for dinner and you can do take out too. It's sorta this amusing set up. I mean, one night we went and had dinner only to leave as the girls in trashy club dresses sauntered pass. The club techno music in full effect. I know, it sounds really odd, but trust me, it's worth the visit!

This Bon Chon franchise has only two flavors for sauce: spicy or soy garlic. The spicy is really, really, really spicy! So be careful. I can usually only eat 1 or 2 pieces of the spicy comfortably and then have to switch to soy garlic. The pickled turnip helps to cut the spice but not a lot. So again, be careful. But also be careful because this chicken is super addictive too. I swear to God, you will be thinking about it constantly. Wonder when you get go and get your next chicken fix. And if you have to get take out or have leftovers, you can throw them in the fridge and not worry about them getting soggy overnight! I've had Bon Chon chicken leftovers cold for lunch the next day and the chicken is still crunchy on the outside! It's like freaking magic or crack, I'm not entirely sure which one yet.

Bon Chon Chicken might just be my favorite fried chicken, ever! I can't help but gush when people asked about it. I wonder if part of my gushing is Korean Pride, who really knows. All I know is that Bon Chon is seriously yummy!

Cheese Gromit Cheese!

I think that people close to me, as well as not close to me, know that I love India Quality restaurant in Kenmore. I often get IQ for lunch when I'm working at Jean Therapy. I always order the came thing. I think I don't get anything different because I've tried to deviate before and, while it was good, it wasn't exactly what I really wanted. I always get the saag paneer. I love the taste of curry with the texture of the creamy spinach/greens and the chewy, sorta spongey, cheese! It's a wonderful dish full of comfort and complexity for me.

So when I saw a recipe on-line a while back for making paneer cheese at home, I cut and paste the recipe to an email, sent it to myself and archived it. What I cut and pasted is below this post. I'm sooo sorry to the blog where I found the recipe because I can't for the life of me remember where I got it.

In any event, it's a very simple recipe and I was kinda excited to be able to say, "I made my own homemade cheese". So how did I do? Well, for such an easy recipe, I managed to mess it up. A couple of suggestions, so you can learn from my mistakes:

1.) Use a cheesecloth and not a kitchen towel.
2.) Wait until the curds have cooled a bit to dump them into the cheesecloth in the colander.
3.) Wait until the curds have really cooled off to start squeezing out the liquid. E and I were so excited over making cheese that right after dumping the hot curds into the kitchen towel in the colander, she started squeezing out the liquid. This resulted in most of the hot cheese sticking to my kitchen towel.
4.) Make the cheese ahead of the sag. This will give you time to really press it and get the liquid out before you attempt to fry it.

Will I make cheese again? Sure, but it won't be a staple in my kitchen that's for sure. I don't think I was born to become a cheese maker anytime soon. A cheese eater on the other hand, well, that's another story entirely! Also, the sag recipe I got off the Internet somewhere (again can't remember where) wasn't quite right. It called for yogurt and didn't have the creamy mouth feel I was use to. So if anyone has a fairly foolproof recipe for saag, please share!!!!

Basic Paneer

This comes from my oft-consulted copy of Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian.

You’ll need:

• 2 litres whole milk
• 3-4 tblsps white vinegar

You’ll also need:

• A large, heavy saucepan in which to boil the milk, plus a colander and tea-towel for straining.

The Steps:

• Place your colander in the sink and line with a clean tea-towel or few layers of muslin.
• Put the milk in a large heavy saucepan over a medium-high heat.
• Stir the milk occasionally while it’s heating, otherwise you’re likely to end up with burnt milk residue on the base of the pot (at least that’s what happens to me!)
• When the milk is just beginning to boil, turn the heat to low and add 3 tblsps of vinegar. The milk should curdle and separate into solid white curds and a thin greenish liquid, the whey.
• The curdling should start happening right after the vinegar is added. If it doesn’t, add another tblsp of vinegar.
• Once the milk is separated (which won’t take long, maybe a minute or so) remove from the heat and pour the contents into your lined colander. Most of the whey will drain out.
• Now, you can either just let the curds sit and drain for 5-10 minutes and use them as soft curds (as you might use ricotta) or you can press them into a solid patty.
• To press into a patty, gather up the ends of the tea-towel, twist and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
• Then take your little cloth bundle, flatten it into your desired patty shape and leave the top firmly twisted. Sit it on a board in the sink and top with another board and weight it down for about 3-4 minutes. The weight (a heavy pot, say, or a combination of pots) should weigh at least 2.25kg.
• The paneer is now ready. It can be sliced and fried or cut into cubes and used in any number of Indian recipes.

The Variations:

• Having read Jenni’s post on the world of dairy infusion, I thought, hey, ho, I could add something into the milk to impart some flavour while it boils. So far I have tried adding a piece of cinnamon stick and ended up with lovely, mildly cinnamon-flavoured curds. There are lots of other things you could try adding, like bay leaves, cloves or other whole spices, depending on how you want the curds to taste.
• If you’re going to press the paneer, you can mix herbs or spices into the curds just before you press them. For Indian dishes I like to add 1 tsp of toasted cumin seeds and a couple of twists of black pepper to the paneer but you can choose the flavouring to suit whatever dish you’re making.

The Results:

• Approx. 250g of paneer

Gourmet Dumpling House

I make no bones that I love a good, cheap meal! As much as I adore fine dining and an excuse to get dressed up and put on some make-up, I love a meal that is down and dirty and just delicious. So Chinatown is a section of the city I often find myself wandering towards. My faves use to include Taiwan Cafe and Hong Kong Cafe. But lately, I've noticed the quality of the dishes at both places going a bit south. It made me a little sad and I found myself in need of a new place to fill in the gap. This is how Gourmet Dumpling House came to be near and dear in my heart. Elizabeth and I passed by it a few times and often said we'd stop on and try it soon. But E's not a huge fan of Chinese food and I was a little worried about her not enjoying her meal if we tried a new Chinese joint. But the place got rave reviews from my friend W and so we had to try it out.

First of all, the menu is huge! For such a little place, it's got one of the biggest menus I've seen. And don't let the name fool you. Dumplings are not the only thing they serve. However, the dumplings are very good. I especially like the long, pan fried Taiwanese style ones. They take longer to arrive but they're worth the wait. One dumpling dish I wouldn't order again from them would be the soup dumplings. They were a little dried out and not as soupy on the inside as I'd hoped. For soup dumplings I'd stick to Taiwan Cafe.

Among the other things they seem to do well is seafood! Recently, I had the crabs with ginger and scallion and the clams with black bean and basil sauce. Both were excellent. The portion on the crab was insane while the portion on the clams was a little less insane, it was still a very generous serving.

My standard favorite of watercress with garlic is hard to mess up but sometimes it comes out of places and is kinda not good. This is not the case with this place! Everytime I've ordered it, it's fantastic. Crunchy stems and soft leaves with sweet slivers of garlic.

And if you like that old standby, scallion pancake, definitely order it here. It's really flaky and good.

Like most places in Chinatown, the space and the decor leave a lot to be desired. The space is small and the family that runs really packs it in. Take for example, the picture up above. This was my seat one night. I was by myself and got the table that was jammed next to the fish/seafood tanks (literally the table ledge was jutting over the lower tanks). I swear they were staring at me the entire time I was eating. It was a bit creepy but with so much yummy food, I soon got over it. It was also the table in the corner next to a very dirty broom/dust bin and so led me to believe that perhaps it was the staff dining table. But on other occasions I've seen them seat other couples at that table so clearly it's used by other diners as well. I will note that all of them and me aren't Chinese, hmmm....jk. The service isn't the most pleasant and they don't mind bumping into you, shoving you aside to get by but given the space and the number of people vying for a table, I actually don't fault the servers too much. Plus I've had one of the owners just seat me when I was waiting for another person in my party and as I apologized and said I'd just go ahead and order while I wait, he waved his hand and said there was no need. I appreciated that he tried to go the extra step in courtesy.

Overall, this place rocks. And as word has gotten out, it's become busy as f-ck but I'm sure it will kinda die down soon. It was like this for Taiwan Cafe as well; when it first opened, it was literally mobbed every weekend. Overall, this just affirms that the best, cheapest meals are to be found in Chinatown. And if you ever want to find me during the week, just wait for me at the Dumpling House. Chances are I'll show up before too long!

How We Do Leftovers at 184 B-

Lately, Elizabeth and I have been trying to economize and eat out a bit less. We try to be careful with our limited funds, but even still we enjoy eating well. Since we both had Monday off, we decided it would be nice to try the $17.50 lunch at Sel de la Terre. I love Sel de la Terre. I had never been to the new Back Bay location but I was familiar with the waterfront locale. My friend, Beth, enjoyed the food there and so we'd sometimes go for dinner, splitting the fries and loving the in-house made bread. I had fond memories of the first Sel de la Terre but only ever went for dinner, never went for lunch and thought it'd be fun to try.

Elizabeth and I walked from our apartment, one of the perks of city living, and found the day to be beautiful but really chilly. The next day it was 93*! Oh Boston! What a strange spring you have. Anyway, we opted to sit at the bar. The bartender was nice and competent enough. Elizabeth was able to get her sazerac and I tried something from the bar menu called "London Calling" it's a gin based cocktail that was light and refreshing. We both decided on the $17.50 prix fixe lunch. It changes everyday but when we were there it was a starter of salmon croquettes and then duck meatballs with harricot verts and potato puree. We also opted for a side of french frieds. Yum!

The bread from Sel de la Terre is really good. My favorite bread in the bread basket was the olive bread. It had a chewy crust and the flavor of olive was very prominent.

The salmon croquettes came and were clearly made ahead of time, taken out of the fridge and seared on each side for a nice crust. They did arrive a bit on the cold side, which I was cool with, but E wasn't so certain she was down with it. The little side salad that came with the croquettes are lovely. It wasn't your usual mixed green salad and included flowers and pea shoot leaves. It was nicely dressed and I really appreciated that they treated the salad as important as the croquettes. I really enjoyed the first dish because they took me back to the days of my Grandma E's salmon croquettes (her's will always be tops in my book!!).

I was pretty much full after the first dish but we still had duck meatballs and french fries coming! The meatballs were very good and came with an accompany compote of some sort. It looked like a bit of caramelized onion and since E doesn't do onions, she handed hers over to me. I prompted ate it and realized it was onion but citrus of some sort. Elizabeth tasted some and realized it was blood orange, her favorite fruit! She was crushed that she didn't know. It was a lovely accompany to the rich meal. The pureed potatoes were really just a pool of butter with a bit of starch for show. The french fries were wonderful. Hot and not too skinny for me but still skinny enough for Elizabeth.

All in all, it was a HUGE lunch. Both of us were stuffed and only finished half of the meatballs on our plates. We decided to take it home and do something fun with the leftovers.

I was hankering for some Greek food as I often do and thought the meatballs would be really good in a sorta gyro sandwich. I mentioned my craving to Elizabeth and told her I was thinking soft flat bread with a yogurt and cucumber sauce. Pita bread wouldn't cut it. How about naan? But would the grocery store even have anything like naan?

So last night E and I took a trip to the Shaws across the street in search of ingredients. And guess what? They did have naan. Elizabeth spotted it in the fresh bread/bakery section and it was the last one too! I was really impressed that they had it at all and that it was the last package. We also got some Greek yogurt (again so happy but so shocked that they had it at Shaws).

Elizabeth put together the sandwiches which consisted of the leftover meatballs and beans. These she put on the naan and threw into the oven. On top she put shredded carrot, roast red pepper and oil cured olives. She chopped some mint and cucumber and mixed it into the yogurt and when the meatball topped naan had warmed thru, she put everything on top.

It was a delicious meal and a great way to use the leftovers. I was so happy that I mentioned my idea to Elizabeth because it truly was a very yummy dinner. It was so yummy that I was 1/3 of the way thru and then took the picture. Sorry! (burp)

So if you're stuck with leftovers, don't ever be sad! Just think about something you're craving and see where that takes you.

Oatmeal with Soy Sauce

Given the fact that I've eaten this dish non-stop for two days it is a little sad that I don't have proper picture. But trust me when I say that this is a good, dare I say great, little dish.

A little while back Mark Bittman made mention of adding scallions and soy sauce to oatmeal. Little did he know that he'd started off a sh_tstorm. The comments all over the internet came pouring in. Some were curious, even supportive but the majority of people found it strange and gross to put soy sauce in a good associated with milk, brown sugar and raisins.

I admit to being very intrigued but never really followed up on the idea. I had grown up on oatmeal for breakfast as a child and actually never really cared for it. No amount of brown sugar or raisins made it sweet enough for me and it would often sit in front me getting cold and going uneaten. My mom, trying to get me to eat a proper breakfast, would often threaten that if I didn't eat the oatmeal that it would reappear for my dinner. And lo and behold, it would. For dinner I'd sometimes be faced with the very oatmeal I had not eaten for breakfast. Only this time, it was cold from the fridge. Bad childhood food memories indeed.

Oatmeal had a place in my kitchen but only as an ingredient in oatmeal cookies and it sat beside the sugar and flour in my pantry. But again, my curiosity got the best of me and I found myself hungry after a workout. I didn't have anything in the kitchen worth fixing before I had to scoot to work but I was tired of my usual pumpernickel bagel. Ahh, now seemed like a good time to try the Mark Bittman oatmeal trick.

I cooked the oatmeal according to the instructions but without milk and when it was finished I added a handful of chopped scallions and about three spoonfuls of soy sauce. I stirred it in and tasted. It tasted familiar and comforting. Infact, it was delicious! It was like rice congee but without the rice! The scallions added crunch as well as flavor. How could something so simple be so good or so controversial?

I went to work but thought about the dish all day. That evening after it had cooked I added a bit of sesame oil and another handful of chopped spinach. The sesame oil didn't really add much and provided a lesson in keeping things simple but the spinach added a bit more green crunch and was lovely. I imagine asparagus would be great as well. Later, I added a chunk of herbed goat cheese and some oil brined olives; it was wonderful as well. Not as good as the soy sauce version but different and still really tasty.

Not convinced? I say, "try it!". Considering how cheap oatmeal is, you have nothing to lose if you don't like it. Plus, if oatmeal isn't really your thing, you can just make some cookies with the leftover oats.

Leah's Riff on Mark Bittman's Savory Oatmeal Idea:
1 cup oatmeal
2 cups water
dash of salt
(cook oatmeal, water and salt as directed)

1 cup fresh chopped spinach
2 stalks of scallions
4 teaspoons of soy sauce (more if you're a salt fiend like me)

Once the oatmeal is cooked and still hot add the spinach, scallions and soy sauce. Stir like crazy and eat.


Leah's Second Try:
1 cup oatmeal
2 cups water
dash of salt
(cook oatmeal, water and salt as directed)

1 good sized nub of goatcheese
6 oil brined olives pitted and chopped (or if you're like me, ripped apart with your fingers).

Once the oatmeal is cooked and still hot add the goat cheese and olives. Stir like crazy and eat.

I'm still a big fan of the soy sauce version but if you're a goat cheese fan, the second version will probably win you over.

March Food

I'm become such a sloth when it comes to blogging lately! I won't even bother to say much about these photos except this kinda sums up the food I ate this past month.


I'm sad the picture of this pizza is so small. It's from Picco in the South End and it's one of my favorite places for pizza in the city. The crust is perfect...not too thick or thin and the perfect char on the bottom. I should have done an upskirt pic but I'm an amateur so you're left with this crappy photo. Trust me, the pizza is good stuff. The service is hit or miss. Sometimes I get nice people who are very attentive and other times I've had servers that I wanted to throw knives out. But go for the pizza and the home made ice cream!





For our anniversary, E made triple battered chicken for me. I love fried chicken and I tend to love a thick crust. She did a great job getting a thick crust. How she got all that crust to hang into that poor little drumstick is beyond me. It had good flavor and made sure the chicken was juicy but it was a little too thick, even for the likes of me! But A+++ for effort.

In keeping with my needs for Korean food, we went to a place in Chinatown that was eh. But sometimes when you crave something you just have to have it no matter what. But seriously, can someone come up with an amazing Korean place in Boston already?!?

Back to Basics

I love Ina Garten. Although I've only experienced limited success with her recipes, I love her show on Food Network. She makes the sorta food I want to eat. She's not overly chipper ala Rachel Ray, sexpotty like Giada or overly geeky like Alton Brown. No, she's the kind of woman I imagine being good friends with. I imagine her as friendly, smart and extremely generous. So this might be why I always refer to her cookbooks first whenever I decide I want to cook something up for myself that I'm unfamiliar with.

I own almost each of her cookbooks and they all live in my tiny kitchen so I can quickly refer to them. Even so, I wasn't feeling overly inspired by any of them lately. But Ina recently came out with a new cookbook called Back to Basics that I thought looked awesome. So awesome that I bought it was a gift for food buddy Caroline and was a little sad to give it away. So E bought it for me as a Xmas gift so I had a copy of my own.

I found a yummy sounding butternut curry soup inside and have been wanting to try it for a while now. It looked very simple and easy. And since I had a day off from work, I figured I might as well give it a whirl. I also decided that I wanted dessert too and was craving chocolate mousse. My craving is odd given the very bad experience I had with chocolate mousse in the 8th grade.

My 8th grade French class was having a party, and I was given the task of making chocolate mousse. How I ended up with this task is beyond me, because I had no clue how to make it. But sure, I told the teacher I'd give it a shot if she gave me a recipe for it. Too bad the recipe she gave me involved things that a 13 year old knows nothing about, such as brewed coffee, cognac and an ice bath. All I can say is that the mousse was a disaster and turned into lumpy chocolate soup sans coffee, cognac and ice bath. That was the first and last time I made chocolate mousse until tonight.

I, being an Ina devotee, checked to see if she had a recipe for chocolate mousse and she did. It, of course, involved two different types of alcohol. Given my experience with Ina's tiramisu and the sheer amount of rum in that dish, I decided that I'd use a different recipe. I wanted something fairly simple but with a slight depth of flavor. I looked in my Betty Crocker cookbook and found a recipe that involved a total of four ingredients: chocolate chips, sugar, egg yolks, whipping cream. And while the recipe was idiotically simple (why didn't my French teacher give me this recipe to make?!?!), I was afraid the taste would be dull as well. I decided to improvise a bit and added instant espresso to the cream I had to heat as well as some good vanilla extract too.

What resulted was an incredibly rich and light mousse with the exact depth of flavor I wanted as a result of the espresso and vanilla. Yum! It's the sort of thing that you can't eat a lot of, but boy, you really wish you could! Thanks Betty Crocker Cookbook!

So back to the curry butternut soup...it was simple, simple, simple. Roast cubes of butternut squash, onion and apple until they're soft and cooked thru, run it thru a food mill (or a blender in my case), add to chicken stock, sprinkle with curry, salt and pepper and garnish with coconut, banana and cashews.

I liked how easy the soup was to bring together, although I hate, with a passion, cutting the squash. It's just so boring to me and seems like it always takes forever to peel and cube. So I roasted and pureed and soon dinner was ready. E dressed the greens I purchased with a simple oil and vinegar dressing and I pulled out soup bowls.

The soup was nice. It was sweet because of the butternut squash. The curry flavor wasn't as apparent as I had hoped though.

I wonder if I'll always be kinda lukewarm about the actual outcome of my Ina Garten recipes. I mean, I love her so much, but everything I'd ever followed of hers, turns out eh. It's good but never great. Perhaps I love Ina so much, too much that nothing will ever live up to my expectations. Maybe I need to start building a lower pedal stool in my head for my Ina. I'll think about it...

Dinner at 180 Brookline Ave, A Cultural Study

Elizabeth's Dinner:

a sandwich, edamame and wine


My Dinner:

kimchee, edamame, diet coke

With a Last Name Like Mine, Well the Burger Better Be Good!

I'm sorry that I've been so light with my posts these days. Busy busy busy. And by the time I get around to thinking about writing something either a.) I've forgotten exactly what it was that I ate b.) I don't have any pictures or any motivation to really pull something together. Sadly, my lazy ass ways get in my way too much in my life. But anywhooo....

Well, what sort of things have I been eating lately? A lot of homemade meals for sure. With the economy as poor as it is, E and I spend our monies buying groceries that allow us to not only economize but eat well too. Since we're both food lovers, going out for meals can sometimes be costly endeavors. But cooking at home allows us to enjoy some lovely meals for a fraction of the price of dining out, plus we end up with really fantastic leftovers for lunch.

Most of the meals we've eaten have already been documented here...homemade pasta and bolognese, pork chops but this week E made a really nice chili in the crock pot.




While the chili sauce/broth didn't really thicken up as much as what I'm use to the favors were still very good. And what really brightened up the flavor was a pear and orange pepper salsa that E used to top the dish. With cheddar cheese and fresh corn bread crumbled into the bowl, this dish was delicious, comforting and filling! I could barely finish my one bowl of chili. Maybe E will share the salsa recipe with you, or maybe not. But it's a great idea. I like the kinda homey comfort food chili paired with the freshness of raw pears and peppers. Sounds odd but trust me, it was very good.

As well as we've been eating at home, we certainly have been missing our stepping out for meals. Or at least, I have on occasion! I enjoy the act of sharing a meal at a bar or a restaurant with friends. And so last night E and I met our friend J and A for dinner. We decided to meet at Eastern Standard because they had some business to conduct as well as wanted to stop in for a pre dinner cocktail. I arrived and was famished. Since I hadn't had anything to eat, I decided to hold off on a drink right away. E arrived shortly after and we went back and forth about where to go for a nice meal. While E and I had a lovely quick conversation with Garrett Harker (I really do adore that man) and A + J called over to Tommy, the head bartender of Craigie on Main, to see if they had room at the bar for four. A and J have been raving about the burger, and well, I'm always in search for a good one. It turned out Tommie had room for us and after a short cab ride over the river to Cambridge, we arrived at the new Craigie Street.

What use to be a medium sized mediocre Italian restaurant had been transformed into a lovely cozy bistro style dining room with an open kitchen complete with a "chefs table" of a counter top and bar stools at the entrance. I didn't get to see much of the dining room portion of Craigie because we beelined it over to the bar to the right of the entrance. A little, fairly dark lit space, it oozed the word "cozy". We had a bit of a wait but soon enough we got seats and were able to properly greet Tommy. A and J know Tommy well, but I only know him because of his work at Eastern Standard. He would often take care of me and E. And when he first started she called him Dennis the Menace (a term of affection). Tommy was a very good young bartender. A pro at his craft with an easy manner and a very charming smile...he's a really good guy.

We ordered four burgers off the bar menu (all of them medium rare expect for me. I tend to like my meat as rare as possible) and an order of pate to share as a starter.

The pate was lovely. It was served with small dollops of grainy mustard, minced gherkin pickle, minced shallot, salt and black peeper and a tiny salad of frisee and baby greens on the plate. We all got served good sized bread points (toasted and big!) so we could spread the pate on. I was a little cautious at first and just took a little bit in case I didn't like it. Too bad that wasn't the case! It was absolutely delicious. It was meaty, fatty and creamy. The texture was both smooth but not so smooth that you didn't think it was house made. If I could have toast always spread with this stuff, I'd probably never eat anything else ever. That pate was so good and it truly didn't need any of the other stuff on the plate. I guess the salad was there to break up the meaty fatty richness of the pate but I didn't eat any of it and didn't want it. I was fine with fat and meat pulverized and spread on my toast!

The burgers came soon after. And they were lovely to behold. The buns were so perky and the sea same seeds looked as though they had been lacquered so the bun appeared to be almost looked fake. The burger came with fried sweet potato threads and more of that frisee salad. Tommy said that the buns were made in house especially for the burgers.

Okay so first thoughts: I wasn't happy that traditional french fries weren't served with it. I also wasn't happy that we weren't offered ketchup or mustard. I also forgot to ask for bacon for my burger for which I'm sure I would have been stoned by the chef. Anyway, all that aside...

The burger was very seasoned with salt. I liked that but I could see how that might be off putting for some people. I mean, I like salt and have been known to add salt to potato chips at times so that should tell you something. The meat was very loosely packed almost to the point of falling about too easily for it to truly be a "burger". While I don't love a dense pack, I do like a burger that holds together well. The meat was almost fork tender in terms of texture. Apparently it was a mix of lamb, beef, marrow, fat. It had a very good meaty mouth feel and I liked the amount of fat they used. The taste was everything a burger should be but the texture of the patty threw me a bit. I was pretty happy with it and thought it was so delicious that I didn't need mustard or ketchup but like the pate we were served prior, at least the grainy mustard was on that plate so I'd like to offered those staples.

The fried sweet potato fries or threads were very good but not my favorite. They got very cold fast and I actually found them hard to eat. I gave most of mine to Elizabeth (who loved them!) who traded me the other half of her burger. The little salad was a nice touch and I enjoyed it as a way to break up the meatiness of eating one and a half burgers. At this point, I also order a regular coke so I could enjoy the sugary sweet carbonation against the backdrop of the burger. I get a little nostalgic when I eat burgers. It reminds me of Dad grilling burgers when I was young. And the drink of choice back then? Well, regular coke, of course!

Overall, I enjoyed the burger quite a bit. I felt that it was well made and actually worth the $19 price tag. Yes, I would go back for the burger and definitely rate it higher than the Radius burger hands down!

However, is it possibly the best burger I've ever eaten? No. Burgers serve all sorts of different purposes for me from the nostalgia of Dad grilling to my poor college student days at Mr and Mrs. Bartleys eating a triple "Clinton" burgers elbow to elbow next to my fellow starving student friend to a relax burger at brunch with friends just because I can! I think that Craigie's burger certainly has its place and is possibly one of the best in Boston for sure. But I also think it shows the caliber of Craigie (it was very thoughtfully made and well executed) and made me more hungry to try other things on their menu. I want to go back for the chef's whim menu and some of those Nova Scotia smelts (think they're better that New Castle, PA smelts?).

But what made the evening so great was being able to share the meal with E, J and A and Tommy too. I will definitely rate that evening at Craigie very highly for the company and the food. So everything combined, the evening rated a perfect 1o for sure!

And on closing, I will say I finally had a drink after my meal. Tommy mixed what I think was called a 50/50 with this beautiful Vermouth I think that was called Doylton. It was a perfect end to a lovely night out with friends and loved ones.

Suisse Enchiladas

My Mom is a fantastic home cook. I have many fond food memories from my childhood: thickly frosted homemade chocolate birthday cakes, apricot bars, meatloaf, beef stroganoff, turkey tetrazzini, sweet and sour meatballs and creamy enchiladas. I have fond memories of frozen Weaver chicken too but that’s another entry for another day.

She was self taught and learned by trial and error. Most of her recipes are very reflective of the 70’s back when my brothers and I were still mighty young. By the time I was off to college, she had added salmon and healthier food to the mix and even used such exotic spices as cilantro.

I think many of us long for the foods of our childhood but lately my craving for my Mom’s enchiladas was getting a little out of hand.

So this past Sunday, I called my Mom intent on getting the recipe for the enchiladas of my childhood. Little did I know that E was listening as I was getting the recipe and was starting to get a little alarmed.

“Whipping cream? Do you think I can use half and half and milk instead?”

Yeah. So since I grew up with these enchiladas, I never once thought they might be “odd”. But as Mom went thru the ingredients which included whipping cream, tomato sauce, I realized that perhaps this dish might be only delicious to me and was hardly “authentic:.

Nevermind that E might find my enchiladas repulsive at least she’d get a taste of what 7 year old Leah liked.

The dish took a bit of time because I decided to use chicken quarters and I needed to roast those. I used my beloved Goya adobe seasoning and generously sprinkled it on the tops and bottoms of my chicken. Once cooked, E and I skinned and shredded the meat so it could get combined with the chopped spinach.

Once the enchiladas were assembled and popped back into the hot oven, the dish was quickly done!

But how did it taste? Awesome! No, really, it was good. Rich and creamy and just like I remember as a kid. I think E liked them too but I doubt that they are crave worthy for her. But they are delicious. Sure, they are fat filled and kinda decedent but perfect for a chilly day dinner. I think pairing it with a crisp light salad would be lovely and very complimentary.

When I called my Mom back to give her the full report on how the enchiladas, she mentioned that the original recipe is a James Beard creation called “Suisse Enchiladas”.
I don’t know about the original recipe but here is the one I got from my Mom, enjoy!

8 Flour tortillas (I used 12)
3 Chicken Breast or a whole roasted Chicken (I used 5 chicken quarters)
Tomato sauce, enough to moisten (I used tomato paste thinned out with water b/c it’s what I had on hand)
1 package chopped Frozen Spinach
1 medium onion, chopped (I omitted b/c E doesn’t like onion)
3 cups whipping cream (I used half &half and 2% milk again b/c it’s what I had on hand)
3 chicken teaspoons of chicken granules
A generous slice of jack cheese for every whole enchilada

Step by Step
1) Sauté onion in olive oil until soft. Add chicken, spinach and just enough tomato sauce to moist but not be wet and simmer 20 minutes.
2) Heat cream gently; dissolve chicken granules in cream.
3) Fill tortillas with chicken mixture, roll and place in a baking dish that has been sprayed with a non-stick coating.
4) Pour cream over.
5) 375 degrees for 20 minutes or less.
6.) Put cheese slices on top and bake until golden and bubbly.

'Zza: October Daring Baker's Challenge

I had a friend who called pizza, "zza". It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about but once I did, I was glad to have a friend who's deep love of pizza meant that she had a pet nickname for the food.

One of my absolute favorite foods, all my childhood memories is a moving evolution of pizza. My family moved every two years and so every move meant a new pizza supplier had to be found! Stouffers French Bread to Pizza Hut to Little Caesars and finally to Bertucci's, I loved it all! When I was 14 I found a wonderfully simple recipe for homemade pizza dough in the back of seventeen magazine. I still use the recipe and have the ripped out pages to refer back to.

So when I learned that this month's Daring Baker Challenge was pizza, I was over the moon! I couldn't wait to try a new recipe for dough. I looked over the recipe but was a little bummed by one small issue. It was a two day deal, which was okay, I could do all the work one day but the issue was timing. The second day's instructions said to pull the dough out of the refrigerator two hours before it needed to be ready. Sadly, with my schedule the way it is with the store and all, I'm lucky to get even an hour to prep before guest arrive for dinner! Luckily, E was doing the challenge with me and had the day off so she was able to come over to the apartment and pull out the dough.

Yay! But back to the actual process. I followed the directions and kneaded the dough a bit more than the 5-7 minutes instructed. I was concerned about the consistency of the dough. It seemed a bit tough to me and I was wondered it would turn out too hard (like the Ina Gartener pizza dough had done on me). I kneaded for more like 10-15 minutes and crossed my fingers that the resting time would allow the dough to really get soft and tender.

The Challenge this month also called for sauce. Didn't matter what kind of sauce but I like a simple pizza and so I thought if we made a tomato and cheese pizza well, a jar sauce wasn't gonna be very tasty. I decided to make a simple tomato sauce from scratch. It was so simple. I simmered a can of crush tomatoes and a couple of cups of red wine with a spoonful of tomato paste, a bit of chicken broth, a handful of dried and fresh basil, dried oregano and two cloves of garlic, Later, I added a slug of olive oil and pat of butter and tasted. It was good but something was missing. I sprinkled in some crush red pepper and tasted again. Still good but missing something still! I stood around and pondered, "hmm..."

I added freshly ground nutmeg and the tasted again, the sauce was awesome! Simple but yet complex. The nutmeg seemed to amplify all the other flavors in the sauce. It was quite lovely. Seriously, why is nutmeg not used in more recipes? Hmm... anyway, I highly recommended it for fall soups and sauces!

On Day 2, I came home to E prepping the toppings. A lovely sight indeed :) She had been kind enough to take out the dough and we were ready to rock and roll. I started to follow the instructions on how to toss the dough but I chickened out. I also chickened out on turning the oven up to 500 and left the oven at 485. (I've been a little scared since my oven door glass shattered due to roasted cauliflower). Luckily, E was kind enough to toss the dough for us. I did notice how tender the dough had become. It was perfectly stretchy and soft. Perfect!

E topped it with my homemade sauce and locally made fresh mozerella and slipped it on the pizza stone.

The final product? Awesome! It was a very, very, very simple pizza all made from scratch, but it might have been the best pizza I've eaten in a long time! The sauce was fantastic but the crust was really quite delicious. It was crisp and light and it cooked perfectly with no soggy edges anywhere!

For pictures and more detail, you should check out E's blog entry...here.

I've very pleased with this Challenge and will definitely keep this recipe handy! However, in the future I'll need to play around with the 2 hour ahead of time step. I'm thinking more like 1 hour or 30 minutes before instead ;)

Thanks for letting me play again Daring Bakers!!!!!!

Envy

It’s not often that I read something in Boston Magazine that gets me thinking about the deeper moral implications of one’s actions. But there is an article in October’s issue, the entire issue is dedicated to “Envy”, that got me to think about what it means to be authenticate in a world of copy cats.

The article is here:
Envy

Essentially there is a newish restaurant in town that has gotten a very large amount of critical acclaim in a seemingly short amount of time. After Frank Bruni gushed about it in the New York Times (he did say that all the places review was only stellar because they had the handicap of being outside of NYC, um thanks Frank?. A move that is sooo typically Frank Bruni), the place seemed to explode in terms of exposure. I would talk to people about Oisshii and instantly, I’d get the one up stance of “Yes, but have you been to Oya? Really, no? Then you have no idea what sushi truly can be!”.

Seriously? As someone who happened to own one of the first stores to appear in Boston dedicated to jeans, I know first hand what it’s like to be suddenly told that the younger, newer kid on the block is outshining you. I’m of the belief that there is room enough for all of us. But Bostonians tend to believe, in true Highlander form, that “there can be only one”. It’s a mentality not exclusive to Boston, but in a town trying to called a cosmopolitan city (look we have a new Mandarin Oriental Hotel and a new huge Apple store, look look!), well it’s very, very cut throat because there aren’t as many people to impress as say New York. However, even with how competitive Boston is, there are certain rules of protocol and decency.

I think that because Boston is small, most people in any given service industry know each other…And it is mostly through personal encounters. It’s not surprising when a Sales Rep calls me at work and says amazed “Everyone in this town who owns a shop knows you!. Well, in a place as small as Boston that’s not surprising. If I go into a locally owned shop, even if I know I’m just there to pick up a dress or a candle, if I find myself mentally taking notes of the layout or the brands, I will then make an effort to introduce myself and honestly, let the person know what I’m doing. This not only clears my conscious but is the right thing to do in such a small town. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m taking clues from them in a dishonest fashion.

Our new store has a dressing room fashioned after the one’s at Stel’s. I went in and told Tina and John exactly what I wanted to do and with their blessing was told how-to. I know that Nilda from Parlor has called other shops to make sure it’s cool with them to carry a line and I’ve also placed similar calls to other shops and even canceled orders because a friend told me that they wanted the exclusive to a line which they made a good case/point about. This might sound a lot like we’re mixing business with personal but none of us entered this industry for purely business reasons. Granted we all want to make money and make a living, but owning a business is like sharing a huge piece of your personal side. You sell the things you love and you talk about how it came to appear in your shop. Those stories are often hugely personal. Very rarely, did anyone else to see a performance chart regarding what brand/models/colors sell the best and go from there. It’s often about gut and feeling. I had a gut feeling that Rag &Bone would explode. I had a gut feeling that Sevens would do well for us.

As a chef, I would imagine, a lot of it is gut as well. But you can’t make the call to a supplier and say “I’d like you stop selling ketchup to XYZ” because I have ketchup too. You can’t protect the brands/supplies but you can protect the way you put things together and the way you display your talent.

Pictures, films, music and words are easily protected from plagiarizing. Just look at even food blogs these days. One of the major ones I read on a regular basis went after another blog for not only stealing her photos but her recipes as well. We’re talking almost came to a lawsuit. Another one I use to follow shut down, because the food blog community for not sighting properly where her recipes came from shunned her. This might seem like a lot from food blogs…but it’s now a clear understanding of a violation of a larger theme. There are few things that a chef can really protect and doesn’t he/she have a right to do so?

So in a city/town as small as Boston is, for the owners of O Ya to not come entirely clean about what they were up to, even if it meant nothing to them (which clear is not the case because the guy was taking copious notes) when visiting Uni and Oisshii is not only very dishonest and bad form, it should border on illegal. This might seem like a harsh thing to write but think about it. The entire Cindy McCain stolen recipes from Food Network might had not been so bad had someone on staff just added the caveat that the recipes were “inspired” from ones on the Food Network website. We’re clearly all influenced by other things around us and for the owners of O Ya to even just say, “yes, I was very influenced by my meals at those places but it’s deeper than that. He really studied that was going on there. He had the menus faxed to him twice a week and appeared at the restaurants for dinner and was never honest about who he truly was.

Perhaps, any place else, this man’s actions might make sense but not in a town like Boston. And it’s not about a “fraternity of chefs” or a “fraternity of store owners” or even about ENVY. Rather, it’s about being able to wake up every morning knowing that YOU came up with the ideas for what to carry in your store, that YOU made the decision how to put ingredients together. It’s about true integrity and honesty and how we as a community (small or large) and society award such efforts.

Fried Unicorn

It's no secret that E and I have dated off and on for a couple of years now. And all this time, E has talked about her fried chicken. She speaks of it in boastful sentences. "My fried chicken is off the hook!", is a constant refrain. E has made it for other people in her life...ex's, friends, acquaintances, randoms but not for the likes of me. Hmp! Finally one day, after hear her boast yet again about her fried chicken, I said that her friend chicken was a unicorn to me. Actually, I kinda lost it.

"Your goddamn fried chicken is a f_cking unicorn. I've never seen it!!!! Stop talking about this freaking fried unicorn already".

So after much freaking out on my part and much boasting of her, she offered to make it for me. We invited a couple of friends along for the ride. And so it was that last Saturday I had fried unicorn.

Now, please keep in mind, I don't make fried chicken. However, I am a fried chicken lover...I mean, for goodness sake, I am Korean American and we're all about fried chicken so I like to say it's in my blood. I have fond memories of frozen Banquet fried chicken out of the box, KFC, Popeyes etc. But nothing really compares to my friend Caroline's fried chicken. She's a master of the chicken! She spent an entire summer perfecting her recipes and I was one of her happy guniea pigs. I think she uses cornmeal in the crust and keeps it wam after it's fried in the oven. The result is a juicy chicken and a crisp, light crust that shatters upon impact with one's mouth. Yum. Caroline has made a bit of a snob out of me. Once you have really good homemade fried chicken, it's something that sticks with you. You dream about it all the time. Seriously.

So E set out to make something for me that had already reach mythical preportions in terms of the brag as well as something I already had high expectations regarding. If I had only had commericial fried chicken all my life, perhaps my standards would be low but alas Caroline ruined any chances of that.

E soaked the chicken in buttermilk over night. She asked me what sides I wanted for this imporant meal. I wasn't sure. Almost every chicken meal I had eaten with Caroline only involved chicken. I mean, afterall, wasn't it the star. I think I made something up about wanting biscuits. But then I got an idea. I'd make waffles to go along with the chicken! What could make fried chicken better? Why waffles, of course. And not just any waffle, but a Hello Kitty waffle! (A gift from Caroline, no less!).

So Saturday I made up a mess of batter. I ran out of milk and so used some buttermilk in it's place. I also developed a trick for making the batter a little lighter thanks to Emeril. I watched him use egg whites. He whipped them up and folded them into the waffle batter. Genius! So I do that now everytime I make waffle batter.

E decided that she would make biscuits, gravy, mashed potatoes and collard greens. All some of my favorites. She was going to send me to the store to buy bacon for the collards but spotted the ham bone in the freezer from my crock pot pork picnic and threw that into the greens.

How she was able to whip up all that food in two hours is kinda amazing. My kitchen was a bit of a disaster but eh.

So finally I sat down to the mythical fried chicken. (Sorry no pics. I took them all on my digital camera that I haven't bothered to download yet.) And how was it?

It was good. It was a little spicy and the crust was a little less dense than Caroline's. I liked it a lot. But perhaps it's because I've eaten Caroline's fried chicken for so long that I wasn't insane over it. Or maybe because it has been built up so much for so long? Hard to say. It was very, very good though and all the sides were fantastic. My waffles were great but got a little dense as they got cold, so eh to that! But overall the meal was beyond tasty. I can see how E is proud of her friend chicken skills.

And I got a fridge full of leftovers too! I made potato pancakes out of the leftover mashed potatoes and eat them with apple sauce on the side, yum! I heated up the biscuits for breakfast and even though they had cheese in them, I drizzled a little honey over them. Delicious!

I guess I can check eating fried unicorn off my to do list now :)

Not Quite Daring, More Along the Lines of Cute and Sweet

I was very, very excited about this month's Daring Baker Challenge. I was starting to get discouraged with the sheer amount of butter cream I was making every month. I've never been a fan of the taste of butter cream and so it was starting to feel like it was seeping out of my pores.

So I was so happy to see the Challenge take a new turn this month. Eclairs!!!!! The basic form for the recipe this month was from famed Pierre Herme. The rules stated by our lovely host blogger said that we needed to keep at least one chocolate element. Hmmm, nice. That wasn't going to take much arm twisting for me.

Lately, I've been craving Nutella. I can't keep it in the house because much like dulce de leche, Nutella falls into the category of Crack for me. So I thought I'd do a challenge that included nutella in some way, shape or form.

I decided that I'd make a Nutella "pastry" cream by mixing it with whipped cream and piping it into the pastry shells. This challenge was not only going to be interesting to me (as all of them are) but actually was going to be something I was excited about eating too.

I've never worked with choux pastry before and because there is a heating step to making the dough, I always assumed that choux was hard to make. And that couldn't have been further from the truth!

Luckily, E had already gotten all the ingredients together for us to use. So all I had to do was measure and mix. After I quickly measured and dumped everything into the heavy bottomed pan for heating, including the flour! Eeeek, I had to dump out my first try on the mix due to my flour mistake, but even still, the dough came together fast.

It looked really cool in the bottom of my pan. One cute little dough ball that later because a fairly sticky and gooey dough. Because I'm a fairly utiliartian cook/baker, I don't know a pastry bag or tips. Instead I loaded the dough into a 10 gallon plastic bag and cut off the tip. I considered making mini eclairs like Elizabeth had done but hers were very cute and I didn't want to compete with such cuteness. So I went the opposite direction and made big fat rounds out of the piped out choux pastry. Into the oven they went. I will say that we had to double, maybe even triple our baking time (well I did, of course, but so did E and she made the mini ones). So the baking time on the challenage seem a bit off. In any event, the puffs came out of the oven looking awesome. Behold!

They smelled divine. Egg-y and buttery. I was really excited. I let them cool and went about making a hole in the side of each of them so I could pipe in my whipped cream/nutella. Once I did that, I went ahead and nuked the nutella (or whole food equivelant that E found for me, thanks babe!) for 40 seconds. It was melty and perfect. After whipping my cream to firm peak form, close to butter, but not quite there, I folded in the melty nutella. Using yet another plastic pouch from my stash. I loaded the nutella whipped cream in and cut off the tip.

Much to my dismay, I couldn't pipe the cream into the holes I made. The choux pastry puffs were a bit more dense that I had imagined. So I gave up and just sliced them down the side and put the cream in the middle. It actually worked out better for me because it meant I could really load up the pastries with that yummy nutella whipped cream. Mmmm....

Afterwards, I drizzled on the glaze that Elizabeth had made for her eclairs. It had Iclandic dark chocolate in it. I broke off a piece and liked it alot. But I'll be honest. I didn't see much difference between that chocolate or hershey's dark chocolate. I guess I'm just a low brow girl ;)

I was very pleased with the final product.
Look at how cute they are! How did they taste? Um, let's see chocolate, nutella, whipped cream and freshly made choux pastry...that's a recipe for delicious!!! Needless to say, I was really pleased with the results. The choux was airy and eggy but still more dense than what I imagined it would be. I was actually very happy with the resulting pastry. Fairly simple to make, fairly cheap ingrediants and teedaaahh, eclairs!

The nutella whipped cream wasn't as complex in flavors as what Elizabeth did with hers. She used local Mexican chcolate bitters and added other spices as well to her filling. But there's something to be said for the simple. And since I was craving nutella, this challenge hit the spot with me!

Thanks for picking this as August's challenge. I absolutely loved it!!

A Day in the Life and Rachel Ray, This is How You Do $30 a Day!

"I had a very good food day" I im-ed to E late last night. "Really? Tell me about it." She im-ed back. And I did

And thus is my life with food. I think about food quite often through out the day. But some days aren't such good food days. The days when I forget to eat at the store and end up scarfing down a handful of nuts and a lone cup of water. Yeah, I know.

I have a true love/hate relationship with food. I know what I should eat and how much of it I should be eating but I can't stick to such things. If I was good, I'd keep to a protein shake in the morning, salad at noon and a big serving of steamed fish and veggies at night. I'd work out everyday and be all fit and shit. But I don't have the will for such things. I once asked a very cut male stripper at a gay bar, still wearing his g-string, if he ever ate chicken wings. The answer was no. And my response was "I don't want to live in a world without chicken wings". And that pretty much sums it up for me.

Like most women I struggle with thinking "life would be so great if I lost 10-20 lbs!". It's an uphill battle kids. Uphill! But what I've found is that the more I embrace the notion of good food for myself (and that DOESN'T include protein shakes) in any manner or form, the better off I am. I'm happier, more content and yes still motivated to work out and take care of my body. It's only when I veer off in either direction - starving myself (which I have done and it's not fun) or binging a bag of potato chips washed out with a huge chocolate shake that things don't work for me. I start hating my body and well, that's not good.

So yesterday was a nicely balanced day of food for me. It started with the perfect little latte and chocolate croissant. It had been freshly made and it was delightful. The layers were perfect and there wasn't just one but two long strips of dark chocolate folded into the center. I got my breakfast goodies from a place called KooKoo Cafe in Brookline Village. The line was a bit long for such a small place but it moved quickly and the person who was there working the register and getting coffee orders was so nice that I got my goodies and left a couple of bucks in the tip jar.

After that, I was off to run errands and such. Around 2pm I was getting hungry and was around the downtown area. I decided that since it was a very dreary rainy day, I needed soup. But not just any soup. I needed something with homemade noodles and veggies too. I went to my old tried and true spot in Chinatown - Taiwan Cafe. It's a restaurant where lots of additional menu stuff is written in Chinese on the walls. It's a place that served stinky tofu (it's 100% more stinky that durian folks) and makes no apologies for it. I've always loved the food there. I've had clams in a spicy black bean sauce that were so good, I was practically licking the plate, soup dumplings that were piping hot and sufficiently soupy in the middle.

Yesterday when I went, I was spoken to the entire time in Mandarin. When I opened my mouth it was clear I was so Americanized. But liked being treated like an "insider" for a bit. I reviewd the menu but what I wanted was comfort in the form of soup. And so I ordered the spicy beef noodle soup with spinach.

Since I was there quite late, I got to watch the wait staff clean and prep bags full of beautiful fresh green beens. They all sat at one table and did their work, clearly enjoying each other's company. It was nice to see. My soup came out very quickly.


This picture does the soup not nearly enough justice. The broth was very rich and spicy. The noodles perfectly toothsome and long. The beef was marbled with fat and just melted in my mouth. It was the perfect lunch. On most days I wouldn't have been able to finish such a big serving but I was really hungry and ate it all!

When I was finished I watched the people sitting around and loved the diversity around me. An older Asian couple finishing up some clams. A group of three giggling young Asian women dripping in Louis Vutton paying their bill and planning their attack at Saks. Finally I asked for my bill, but not before I was asked in Mandarin if I was done (or so I think I was asked hah!). The bill came to $6.50 and that included my diet pepsi too. Alright so this got me to thinking between my breakfast and my lunch, if I was Rachel Ray and on $30 a day (which we all know she's not b/c she makes 18m according to Forbes), I'd be pumped. But I'd also not give any sort of tip. I'd tip maybe 25 cents. Ugh. So thinking this, I had to overcompensate for that level of evil, I left a ten dollar bill and called it a day.

Later I hit the gym and worked on building up to 50lb kettlebell swings. Oye, one day I'll do a full swing! I was so pleased with my workout that I decided to reward myself with a nice veggie sandwich made on my George Foreman grill. That grill is fantastic for grilled panini sandwiches. I roasted up some peppers and eggplant I got from ghetto shaws and later layered them on top of some Italian bread that I had slathered with my homemade pesto. I added fresh local mozzarella (leftover from this insanely good dinner E had made a couple weekends ago) and green olives.

It was a great sandwich. Melty and crunchy due to time spent on the Foreman grill. I know, I know it's suppose to "knock out" the fat, but come on, it makes a fantastic grilled sandwich any day of the week and that is truly the only reason I still have it lying around.

I think the veggies sent me back around $10 and I bought enough so I could have roasted veggies for the rest of the week as well. So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it Rachel Ray!

Overall, I think I ate mostly locally made foods and fairly whole foods. Okay so the noodles, bread, cheese and croissant are really "whole" but they were all local and really lovingly made. Plus, I get my butt moving at the gym so I ended my entire day feeling really good.

A good food day indeed!

Boring

Clearly, I'm still eating but kinda boring meals. Nothing mind blowing for sure. Friday, I had some really good take out sushi from Sushi Fusion in Washington Square that E went off to get. And Sunday we had brunch at Eastern Standard but lately it's been meals at home for me.

The other day, I was in my ghetto Shaws and found local produce!!!!!! It was amazing to see and of course I had to buy some. I got a big bunch of beets. There were also yellow summer squashes and zucchini. Being that I'm not a huge fan of either of them I didn't get those items. I wish I liked squash and zucchini more because it's nice that Shaw's even stocked local produce and that's a move I'd like to support.

Anyway, I got my beets home and they looked great. I cooked the beet greens like spinach and decided I wanted to eat one of the beets from the bunch raw. I didn't know you could eat raw beets until I read a recent entry over at the Amateur Gourmet blog and saw him mention something about having raw beets. I adore beets but have only ever had them cooked or from a can (and I think those are cooked before they get canned). So I wanted to try it and see if it was something I'd like. I took one of the beets and peeled and chopped it. I added it to some yogurt I had on hand and seasoned it all with salt and pepper. I took the cooked beet green tops and the beets in seasoned yogurt and shoved it all into a toasted pita. It wasn't much to look at but it was a great meal! The beets were certainly not as sweet as they are when they're cooked. But they had great crunch and a flavor that was more like celery root or jicama. Plus the beets colored the yogurt bright pink. Fun! I was very pleased and will certainly be using raw beets in in the future.

Saturday evening, E made me dinner! It was delicious. Spaghetti and meatballs plus dessert. It was a lovely meal and a lovely evening spent watching Thoroughly Modern Millie together.

Sunday evening I was again on my own for dinner. I got the hankering for a blt but I didn't have any lettuce and I wanted to have cheese on my sandwich too. As I was reaching for my bacon from the butcher shop out of the freezer, I spotted my aioli that I had made a month before. I didn't use it all and froze it in hopes that it would keep alright. Well, my modified BLT were certainly need something mayo-esque so the aioli came out the freezer too.

I cooked my bacon in the oven and toasted my thick slabs of sour dough bread. I sliced my bacon and snipped fresh leaves off my basil plants and placed all of that on top of sliced fresh mozzarella. I warmed the aioli container under some hot water from the faucet and got it to unfreeze. I poured the homemade aioli on top of everything and when the bacon was ready put it on top of everything else. With a side of pickles and some grapes, it was a very comforting dinner for me. I think I might start putting aioli on all my BLT sandwiches from now on. Plus the basil was a great sub for the lettuce. I don't know that the cheese really added anything so I might leave it out next time but I love cheese and any excuse to try and include it, I'll always take.

So not a lot of meals out, but still a few great meals while staying in...Not a bad thing for sure!