January 10, 2015 by Andrea

How much is a ‘clove,’ exactly?

I browse recipes. I get bored and I search for interesting recipes or something different that I might actually be able to make. While doing this I’ve come across the instruction for “a clove of garlic” or “two cloves of garlic, crushed,” etc. What I’ve also noticed from using a lot of garlic in my cooking is that the size of a clove of garlic varies greatly. A head of garlic is fairly straight forward.

A clove of garlic, however, is not so uniform. Generally I try to go with the medium size clove and adjust from there. But is that right? Is my guess at the size of a clove correct? Does it really matter? Probably not, but for some reason it bugged me today.

That said, I did make a rather odd experiment today. I have been craving pulled pork for about a week now. I haven’t cooked much meat in recent months, but I think the cold front (and yes, it did get cold here, just not freezing) put me in the mood for comfort food, and pulled pork is one of my all time favorites. Usually I make this with my version of Grandmom’s BBQ sauce, but today I wanted something a little different.
My sauce cookbook had a recipe for Korean BBQ sauce in it, but I was missing sesame seeds, so I scoured the Internet for another version. I found one recipe that used ingredients I had on hand. This recipe, calling for five cloves of garlic, combined with my wildly varying sizes of cloves today, prompted the above question. No satisfactory answer has been found. But, I digress. I skipped the thickening part of this recipe and left out the cornstarch. I also blended it in a blender just a bit to get everything smooth since I don’t have a garlic press and the mortar and pestle didn’t exactly get everything to a paste. Anyway, I made up the sauce as the pork was cooking.
I also made corn bread.

This probably counts as Northern Cornbread or Yankee Cornbread since it has sugar in it, but I happen to like that version of cornbread, so I’m going with it.

I also found this incredible Brussels Sprout Salad that I just had to try. It looked so fresh, so bright and just so good that I wanted this for the crunch with my pulled pork. I actually used my Ninja with the disk to shave the Brussels sprouts. Way easier than hand chopping.

So for dinner tonight we had a pulled pork with a Korean BBQ sauce, Yankee Cornbread and a Brussels Sprout Salad with an Italian cheese. This should not have worked. The flavors should have clashed. Instead, the savory pork went exceedingly well with the salty sauce, which was cut by the brightness of the salad and tamed by the semi-sweetness of the cornbread. The South American wine I had with it was ok. Well, the wine was very good, but it only paired ok with the meal. As a bonus, Bob loved all of it and we have leftovers for a few days.

Gracie tried to help. She likes helping, but really, I think she just wanted the cheese.

January 3, 2015 by Andrea

At Home Vacation

I really should not be allowed two weeks at home with no project. I really, really should not be allowed at home for two weeks with no project and two colds. Not feeling up to leaving the house combined with the verge of boredom means I have lots of time to peruse cookbooks, blogs and websites for cooking/baking inspiration. I end up wanting comfort food, but not a lot of it, and sweets even though my stomach will rebel. So far I’ve managed:
Brownies
Coffee Cake Muffins
Coffee Chiffon Cake (with mocha icing)
Beer Bread Muffins
Caramel Corn (aka crack corn)

This does not include the actual food experiments.

Sobs noodles with a Kung Pow sauce. I also managed the butternut squash and noodles in the Buerre Blanc sauce and an Asian tofu dish I was desperate to try.

My cookbook calls it Mapo Doufu. I call it tasty looking so I had to try it. This did require acquiring Szechuan Peppercorns which look a lot like regular pepper, but taste nothing like pepper. Apparently they are a staple in Chinese cooking and related to citrus. Or so says my cookbook.

After picking up a jar at the local spice store on the one day that I didn’t feel sick, I started the dish. Into a hot pan (with sesame oil) went leek and scallion – the white parts of each – with garlic and ginger. Cook until soft then add tofu cut into chunks that has been marinating in soy sauce, garlic and ginger.

I cheated here and bought the diced tofu instead of the regular block. Same amount, same cost, less work for me. To this I added a teaspoon of the peppercorns, ground with a mortar and pestle and strained so as not to get the hard casing.

Stiff and let cook a few seconds then add one cup vegetable broth, one teaspoon chili garlic sauce and two teaspoons of black bean sauce. (The last two ingredients are in the Ethnic aisle of most grocery stores.) I let that cook for about ten minutes, letting the sauce reduce and thicken just a little.

I played that over rice and topped it with some peanut and the green parts of the scallions. It was a pretty dish, a tad spicy and really good. Bob liked it – didn’t mind it was tofu – and we put it on the make again list since it was fairly quick and easy.

Recipe
12 ounces tofu, diced
2 tablespoons soy sauce (for the marinade)
3 scallions – keep white and green parts separate
2 cloves garlic, diced and divided – half for tofu, half for tofu, half for sauce
1 inch chunk ginger, diced fund and divided – half for tofu, half for sauce
1 leek, white parts only
1 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns, ground fine
1 cup vegetable broth
2 teaspoons black bean sauce
1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce
Sesame oil
Peanuts
Rice for serving

December 28, 2014 by Andrea

Sage Buerre Blanc

I’ve been craving a lot of thing recently. The cinnamon rolls, brownies, hot chocolate. Given that I have some time off, I’ve actually indulged in baking, but today I wanted sauce. A warm, buttery sauce. Most of my sauce experiments were paired with meat dishes and since we’ve had more meat dishes than I really want in the last few weeks, I decided to try a vegetarian dish with a killer sauce.

I started with roasting some butternut squash and getting a pot of egg noodles going. I though about quinoa or another healthier option, but today was about indulging so I went with the noodles. For the sauce … One shallot, two tablespoons white wine vinegar, about an eighth of a cup of white wine and some chopped sage. My little sage plant is still hanging in there. Every time I think it’s done, it just comes back enough to keep it in the ground. I brought this to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it reduce until there was a thick, almost syrup in the pot.

Once it was reduced, I added some water. I didn’t measure, but somewhere around two tablespoons and then about four to five tablespoons of butter, chopped into pieces and added one piece at a time. I kept the flame super low so the sauce wouldn’t break, and stirred constantly. I added salt and pepper to taste but skipped the squeeze of lemon as the wine I used had a pretty good lemon flavor in it already.

I originally bought the wine because of the label, but go back for it because it is a good wine for both cooking and drinking. It’s not fancy, but it had a nice acidity without hitting you over the head with it, and no grapefruit flavor. Sorry, but I really do not like grapefruit – as a fruit or in my wine.

But the dish. I drained the egg noodles, added the butternut squash then added the sauce and mixed it all together so the sauce would coat the noodles and add an extra flavor to the squash. The results were a resounding success and it didn’t take long at all. For a total experiment it was great and I’m just sorry there aren’t any leftovers.

December 27, 2014 by Andrea

Coffee Cake Muffins

I wanted cinnamon rolls. That was the plan this morning. Coffee, walk Jessie, make cinnamon rolls. I wanted the spice of the cinnamon, the sweet of the brown sugar and the goo-y tooling that make them so decadent. After three days of a horribly sore throat thanks to the strep infection I picked up at work and *nothing* sounding good, I finally felt better and finally wanted something. Cinnamon rolls.

Yes, I know that is not a picture of cinnamon rolls. I wanted cinnamon rolls but I forgot one thing – my rolling pin broke a few months back and I haven’t found a replacement beyond a wine bottle. Today I didn’t feel like fussing with the wine bottle (and the dough sticking to the labels) so I improvised. I found a recipe for coffee cake muffins. It had all the markings of a good cinnamon roll. Pecans, cinnamon, sweet topping. This could work. No rolling dough, no waiting patiently for said dough to rise (twice if you are really going to do them right) and I could almost have cinnamon rolls. They would just be without the roll.

So I mixed up the topping and mixed up the batter then began assembling. Batter, filling, batter, topping. Layered like a cake, cinnamon goodness between cake like dough. Quick, easy and in no time I had muffins going into the oven.

And then coming out of the oven to be topped with the glaze. I need to work on the glaze just a bit. Make it a little thicker so it stays more on the muffin. It might also help if I water more than thirty seconds to top them and begin eating, but that is a whole different discussion.

They were almost perfect. The dough isn’t the yeasty dough of a good cinnamon roll, but that’s ok. They filled the void and took care of the craving. They even filled me up until dinner when I managed to put together a Kung Pow Soba noodle dish for dinner (Bob’s request).

And just because I think it is adorably cute …

That is Ms. Leia in her usual sleeping on Bob’s lap, using his arm as a pillow as he tries to play on the computer. He even commented that he’s gotten so use to this that it feels strange when she *isn’t* there. The second picture is all three of the trouble makers. An unusual sight to have them all together like that. Taken yesterday as I recuperated on the couch.

December 22, 2014 by Andrea

The Brownie Quest

For the last decade or so I’ve been on an off-and-on hunt, a quest if you will, for the perfect brownie recipe. I was on the hunt for the perfect brownie, but we found that in Belgium. Admittedly after *the* brownie in Brussels I almost gave up on finding a perfect brownie recipe. That brownie was so good, so perfect I was sure I could not come up with a close approximation, but the call of brownies was too good, so I’m still searching.

A few weeks ago I came across this post. About half the time I drool over the food but am too intimidated to try recreating it. Sometimes I find something I have to try, like the corn soup, but end up changing it to suit my tastes a little more. But these brownies looked so good, so perfect, I decided I had to try.

What makes a perfect brownie? A few things. My perfect brownie has no nuts. Sorry if you are a nut in brownie fan, but I think they detract from the overall experience. They are an extra that a perfect brownie doesn’t need. The perfect brownie also needs to be dense and not at all like a cake. You want cake like brownies, make a cake. Make a dark chocolate cake, but leave out the brownie designation. The perfect brownie has to be slightly gooy, but not from under cooking, and it cannot be too sweet. The chocolate must be the star of the brownie, not the sugar. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it’s not. I’ve tried dozens of brownie recipes over the years.

So how did this one do? Well, I did mostly follow the recipe. I could not find black coco in my grocery store, so I used Hershey’s Special Dark Coco along with regular coco. I ended up cooking them about ten minutes longer than the recipe called for because they were not cooked, much less set, at 25 minutes. But …. Oh, they are close. Very rich, but not sugary sweet and dense, but cooked. The sprinkle of sea salt on top was an unexpected delight that I thought would detract a bit, but it didn’t. It added to the chocolate taste. I do think I need to find good Irish butter for the higher fat content and really good coco – both real black coco and really good regular coco. Those changes may, just may, make this the perfect brownie.

Now if I can just figure out how to make a Vanilla Anglaise to go with it, we might have the perfect homemade brownie.

December 18, 2014 by Andrea

Christmas in the City (part 2)

Holy cow it is taking me a long time to get these up. I may actually make a New Year’s resolution to post faster in 2015. … Probably not, but it’s a thought.

Day two of our trip centered around meeting up with Karen, Brenden and the kids. We hadn’t seen them in several years so I was particularly excited about this. Bob and I always talk about wanting to get back to DC and see everyone but we just don’t get there. But we finally did.

We started at Congress and took a look at the massive tree and the decorations there. Then we wandered a bit before heading down to the American History Museum to meet up with everyone. I was excited to be in DC, excited to see everyone and just excited to be away for a few days. Making it more exciting – the band was playing!

That is the Air Force band playing Christmas songs (and other things) in the American History Museum. I love DC.
We did wander the museum with everyone for a while. We were seeing how long the kids would last since they already had the drive into the city. They did really well and for longer than I expected. We mostly stuck to the bottom floor of the museum with all of the trains, cars etc. the kids had things to climb on, things to touch and explore. When it looked like everyone was starting to fade, we made a quick trip to the chocolate demonstration, which peaked their interest for a little bit longer.

Best part – we got to taste really fresh, really crafted hot chocolate. I think the adults like it more than the kids, but it was tasty.

After the museum we did lunch at one of my favorite spots – The Dubliner. Kid friendly, but with great food (and beer for the boys). It was so much fun just hanging out with everyone and catching up. Definitely something we have to do again before another half decade passes us by.

In the evening, despite the rain, we did the other thing I was determined to do while in DC – the trees. Every year the Ellipse has the official tree, a tree for each state and territory, the trains, Yule log and menorah. It is one of my favorite displays. This year it was raining, chilly and crowded, but we persisted. The National tree was actually very pretty this year.

The train set did not disappoint.

But … And I HATE to say this … The state trees were boring, and the same and not anything like they should be.

Yes, technically the light patterns are different for each tree, but they all looked the same. They all felt the same and it too away from the idea behind the individual trees. Add to this, no Yule log and we couldn’t find the menorah and it was the only disappointing thing about the trip. I was also a little stunned at the extent that they closed the area around the White House. I remember walking Jessie right by the fence and now … Can’t even get close. But it is what it is and we still had fun.

The other really should do that we did fit in was the old Brickskeller. It is now the Bier Baron but they kept the look and feel of the old place. Bob had never been, so I was really glad we made the trip. He even found the coolest beer …

Needless to say I texted that picture to a few people. But it was a really good time, and very relaxing. A great way to end the trip.

December 12, 2014 by Andrea

Christmas in the City (part 1)

There is something special about D.C., especially around Christmas. You can insert whichever political joke you would like, but I love D.C. around the holidays. Don’t love the weather, but I do love the city.

We hadn’t been to D.C. in a couple of years, which means we have not seen Karen and family in that long. I mean to head up there every year, but something always happens and the trip doesn’t. This year we found some great airline flight deals and a hotel deal and decided to just book it. It was a short trip, but we packed a lot into it. Best part we got to see not only Karen and family, but Ed and Erin also. It was a fabulous trip.

Let me first say this was the easiest trip, travel wise, that we have had in a decade. Security at the airport was reasonable and fast with none of the usual hassles. Boarding was quick and efficient (I do love Southwest for that reason alone) and we were able to grab the first metro train and head straight into the city. It was lovely.

After meeting up with Ed and Erin we decided to grab lunch. Since we had no plan we started to wander, but about three blocks in I realized I was headed to one of my favorite go-to restaurants in DC – Jaleo. I could taste the croquettes before we even got there and knew they have a great selection of both meat and vegetarian dishes so we would all be happy. It is a great relaxed atmosphere for catching up and the wine is good. It was perfect.

After lunch we hit my favorite “museum” in DC, especially around the holidays – the Botanic Gardens. this year’s Christmas display was lighthouses, which were beautiful, but I love the tree. The tree with the ultra cute decorations. You have to smile.

Bob and I had planned a dinner at The Partisan so we headed there for dinner. It was ok. I went into this knowing that the restaurant was meat based. It is attached to a butchery but I think I failed to realize that every single item had meat in it in one form or another. The food was good, but it wasn’t spectacular. Bob did get the coolest looking dinner, however, do I will give it that.

Hopefully I will get day two of the trip up soon. Hope everyone is having a great start to the holiday season. Merry, merry and happy happy! Deck the halls and all that!

November 27, 2014 by Andrea

Thank you, Alton Brown

I decided a while back I wanted to host Thanksgiving this year. I had it in my head that I wanted to cook for days, see everyone and still be at home. What I forgot was that A) I don’t particularly like turkey and B) I’ve never cooked a turkey. I’ve cooked chicken and duck (twice … It’s too tricky) but never turkey. I was going to get around this by doing chicken, but everyone except me wanted turkey. So turkey it was. The big question … How the heck does one cook a turkey? A bird known for being easy to mess up and that is notorious for having one part dry out before the other part is cooked. Alton Brown to the rescue.

I have one of his cookbooks, but I have to admit, I use it very infrequently. I do, however, love a number of his recipes including the basic lemon meringue pie (I alter the recipe slightly but it works) and the magic polenta. So I checked the book (a week ago when I finally admitted it was going to be turkey for Thanksgiving) and thought, “sure, I can try that.” First step, brine the turkey overnight. I used an old styrofoam cooler I had and the requisite brine ingredients. Add lots of ice and put it somewhere Gracie can’t get it.

Then to cook the thing. Problem one came when I couldn’t tell which way to place the bird. Neither way look right so I did what made sense to me. I asked Bob and Val. (Val by text since she was at her place for Thanksgiving.)

Then came what to do since the bird, about an hour into cooking looked very brown. So, I covered it. We started with the wings early on, then the breast (that part per instructions) then the whole thing. It didn’t take nearly as long to cook as I thought it would, which just meant dinner a little early. But it came out looking ok.

(It really did look better in person – more even looking)

Since I can’t go with straight traditional fare, we did a few twists. Rather than sweet potatoes or yams, I went with butternut squash parsnip soup. Instead of typical green beans, I did pan roasted green beans with candied pecans. Instead of mashed potatoes, we had the potato tart. I also did an herb stuffed tomato for another vegetable since I really wanted to try the recipe. Mom did make her stuffing and I made gravy from the pan juices, so we had some elements of a traditional meal.

For desserts I went with one favorite, one soon to be favorite and a complete experiment. Lemon meringue pie, applesauce spice cake with caramel glaze and a maple-honey-walnut pie.

The nut pie was not pretty, so no pictures.

All in all it was a really nice day, and everything came out rather well. The turkey was … well, according the everyone who likes turkey, it was great. I thought it was fine, but it’s turkey. Apparently I didn’t mess it up. The light and dark meat were both well cooked and moist (without the gravy) and it did have flavor. So thank you, Alton Brown for saving my turkey this Thanksgiving.

I know I missed a few weeks posting here. Nothing wrong, just got a bit busy and a little tired. All is well. Bob and I even did another Disney tour on Monday to start the holiday season. Backstage Safari was a really good look at the workings of Animal Kingdom. It wasn’t as surprising or “wowing” as the Keys to the Kingdom tour was, but it was interesting. And honestly, to see a black rhino about five feet from you … Incredible. But I still want a meerkat family for the backyard. Have to figure out how to make that happen.

Happy start to the holiday season everyone.

November 2, 2014 by Andrea

Experiments

I haven’t been playing in the kitchen as much lately. Not that I don’t want to, I just haven’t really gotten around to doing much other than the usual dishes for a few weeks. I am, however, making up for lost time this weekend.

Beer bread has to be the simplest bread to make. Three cups of flour, sifted, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 3 teaspoons baking powder and one bottle of beer. I also tend to add a tablespoon of melted butter to the top right before baking. It takes two minutes to put together and an hour (at 375) to bake. I’ve experimented with versions of beer bread – yeast varieties, non yeast varieties, different beers – and I keep coming back to the same recipe. And the same beer.

A white wheat beer is also good, but Yuengling always comes out the best. It has a really nice nutty character that I haven’t gotten with other lagers. It’s also subtle, unlike a stout. And for pairing with cheese, it’s pretty perfect.

Speaking of cheese, yes, we are still getting our cheese boxes each month, I just keep forgetting to post them. This week we did a cheese tasting – Europe vs. America.

Six pairs of cheese, each pair in the same style but one from Europe and one American. This was a blind tasting in a sense because we did not know which was which when we tasted. I can’t say I found any pattern, and I definitely could not easily tell which was American and which was European, but it was fun. And we picked up some cheese to go with the beer bread for a nice, light dinner.

We also picked up a new kitchen toy this weekend.

That is all the pieces of a new blender/food processor. I’ve been contemplating one for soups and curry and Bob has been wanting the smoothies Val got him craving last time we were out there. I didn’t really want the expense (and storage issue) of another kitchen appliance, but we went ahead and got it. It’s a behemoth, but it works great. So far I’ve made smoothies. (banana peanut butter for Bob and pineapple-strawberry-ginger for me)

I may have forgotten to take a picture until I was half way done my smoothie this morning. Oh well.

I also made soup. A roasted butternut squash and parsnip soup. I took inspiration from a recipe I found but I didn’t have an apple and really love the flavor of roasted root vegetables so, I went for it. One small butternut squash, two good size parsnips, half a large onion and about four cloves of garlic.

I cut everything into medium cubes, tossed in oil salt and pepper and roasted at 375 for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. I could have roasted at 400, but my oven runs hot, so 375 works well. After they were cooked and cooled, I blended them with three cups of vegetable broth. After blended I added cumin, coriander and more salt and pepper. The result?

Soup. Flavorful, bright, sweet-ish butternut squash soup. And I was amazed at how smooth the soup is – thirty seconds in the blender did what a strainer and food processor could not do in thirty minutes.

I also tried one more fish today – eggplant tahini. In its simplest form, this is a dip or sauce, but I added tomato and cucumber to make it a salad. It doesn’t look pretty, but holy cow the flavor!

Hopefully I will have a few more experiments soon. You can bet there will be soup involved. Or curry. Still need to figure out the curry.

October 19, 2014 by Andrea

Keys to the Kingdom

Every now and then, Bob and I like to head to Disney for a day. And by every now and then, I mean frequently. We are lucky enough to live a decent drive away, and have Mom around who likes to pet sit and play in the garden. Having done the parks a few times over the last few years, we decided to do something a little different – the Keys to the Kingdom tour. This is a five hour walking tour of the Magic Kingdom and how Disney makes the magic.

I was a little worried that knowing how Disney does its thing would take away a little of the magic. I was a little worried that I would loose the seven year old kid I become every time we are in the Magic Kingdom. I was a little worried I wouldn’t smile catching a glimpse of Pluto or Cinderella or Mickey. I was a little worried, but I still wanted to do the tour.

It didn’t happen. This was in part because I’ve been to Disney World enough to be incredibly impressed with it. I’ve seen the consistency of Disney that it actually becomes more impressive to know how it all happens every single day. I can separate fantasy from reality and appreciate both aspects of Disney World. I can know how Disney does it and still become the little girl, sitting on Dad’s shoulders, star struck and tongue tied because Cinderella is talking to me. I get that same feeling, and am drawn back to that memory every time I see the castle or Cinderella or any of my favorite characters. That is the real magic of Disney.

I’m deliberately not saying anything about the tour itself. If you haven’t been to Disney, immerse yourself in the Magic Kingdom and experience.i think you need to experience the magic before taking it apart and examining why it works. If you’ve been to the parks enough that you want a different perspective on it, take the tour. You get a new appreciation for how it all happens (keep in mind it’s more impressive when you remember WDW was originally built in the 1960s and the basics have not changed) and somehow knowing how they make the magic, makes it even more impressive.

Sixteen Paws

The random adventures of Andi, Bob, and four furry creatures