軒窓下静聴

release as much water as possible

This recipe is one of those on a whim recipes that just came about from cleaning out the fridge. I had all the ingredients in my kitchen, put them together and even shared my dish on Facebook and Instagram last week. It went well and I decided to put it into the recipe collection. I originally made this without any oil, using water to stir fry my vegetables. I simply forget that you can do that with great tasting results and will do it more often from now on. You could also use veggie broth for extra flavor if you like. In this recipe you’ll have the option to either use oil or the water as you like. Since then I’ve been buying the ingredients to make this because it’s just that good. I love basil and this stir fry is really all about the basil! I’m lucky enough to live in So Cal and have access to fresh basil year round. I use two cups in this recipe but feel free to add more if you like! I hope you’re able to find it readily available too. As for the other vegetables, you can mix them up using whatever you like. That’s what I love about stir-fry’s is that they are so versatile. Try using different colored bell peppers, zucchini, bean sprouts, broccoli or carrots adding or replacing anything you don’t care for…pretty much anything will work here.

Lately, I’ve been buying tofu labeled either Sproutofu from Wildwood or High Protein from Trader Joe’s. Both are high protein and super firm. I find these do not need to be pressed making them a bit easier to work with in that you can skip the pressing process. They are so dense that there is no room for water to collect. Simply open your package, cut as desired and cook. It takes on the flavors surrounding it very well and has a nice tender texture. If you can find these in your local store, I highly recommend giving them a try. If you can’t find these then you will still want to press your tofu for this recipe to release as much water as possible.

mixture of damp earth

Waking up the next morning and poking my head outside the house, I saw Fabrizia Lanza of Case Vecchie, where she runs the Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school, sitting in the courtyard, offering me coffee. After breathing in the fresh air, with the warm sunshine hitting my skin, and realizing that I had escaped the stress of airport (and a whole bunch of other things, too) I almost wanted to cry because I was so happy to be in Sicily, which I sometimes think of as just a whole ‘nother planet.

I don’t know what it is about Sicily that I’m so attracted to. There’s a certain savage, forgotten beauty there. It’s Italian, but so different from anywhere else in Italy. And old traditions are still very much alive here, many unaffected by modern times. After downing three well-merited cups of excellent, strong Italian coffee, Fabrizia took us to visit some producers near her house.

Francesco Di Gèsu took us on a walk through fields of wheat, lentils, and chickpeas. It had just rained, which was probably the last rain for four months, which we slogged through, our shoes encrusted with a remarkably tenacious mixture of damp earth, grass, and hay.

Francesco grows ancient varieties of wheat, which local bread bakers use. So much of what still exists in Sicily are oldways of growing and producing, creating things, bringing products to the local bakery, or salumeria (for meats), for customers. Or locals coming by to pick up orders on their own, the connections going back for generations.

I’ve never seen lentils growing, each little pod yielded just one or two little pulses. Fabrizia told me that they used to dry the branches, hit them with sticks, toss the bundles of dried lentil sticks high in the air with pitchforks, then collect the lentils that fell off. So even though they’ve modernized the techniques a little bit since then, next time you eat lentil soup, or green lentil salad, make sure you eat each and every lentil!

And curiously, I’d only seen green chickpeas (growing, above) on food blogs, whose flavor is a bit reminiscent of peas, and they’re great eaten raw.

the pot of milk on the stove

Ok, I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m not just a fan, I’m in love. With Harry Potter that is. No, no. Not with the character himself, with the books. The whole Potter universe Rowling created had me in its claws the very minute I heard my first sentence of “The Philosopher’s Stone” (and yes I know that’s the British title and some expressions in the original version are just so weird but man, I wouldn’t have it any other way!).

Yes, heard. Because I didn’t actually read the first few chapters by myself. It was fall, probably around early October, when my aunt and uncle took me and my cousin on a weekend trip to a small youth hostel somewhere in the mountains. While the first night was dominated by the dog of her friend who had joined us peeing on everything, my aunt had to find a way to entertain my cousin and me for the rest of the trip – because the weather was simply dreary and we were starting to make, ahem, nonsense. (Like wanting to make coffee for everyone in the hostel and just leaving the pot of milk on the stove. Unattended. On high.)

Well, it just so happened that my aunt had taken the first Harry Potter book (and also the only one available in German at that time) with her to read to us. And as soon as she opened with “Mr und Mrs. Dursley im Ligusterweg Nummer 4 waren stolz darauf, ganz und gar normal zu sein, sehr stolz sogar.” (Which translates to “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” in the original version) I was hooked. This world, this fantastic and entirely magical world had reeled me in. I think to me the most fascinating thing about the books to this day is the fact that this wizarding world is so seamlessly integrated into our world it becomes almost real.

Now, back to our trip. Since there wasn’t much else to do with all the rain and fog going on my aunt just kept on reading to us. And when my cousin got bored I continued reading by myself. I just couldn’t stop! And my aunt, she was the sweetest. You know, this was the time people still had very huge cell phones and hers was constantly blinking in this green hue. Now if you’re not acquainted with Harry you should know that green flashes are a very dangerous thing in his world. And my aunt got up in the middle of the night to hide her phone because she was scared we’d wake up and freak out.

Now, so much for my love letter to Rowling’s work. There’s also a love letter to pie. This right here, stuffed with the most delicious pumpkin filling and nicely spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Just like Harry and his best friend Ron shared on their first journey to Hogwarts. Only they wouldn’t call them pumpkin pie cookies but pumpkin pasties. And theirs were probably a lot bigger than those cuties right here. But it’s the inspiration that counts.

decorate my new office

I am a procrastinator. It is possibly my worst quality, but one that I haven’t bothered to change because, quite frankly, it works pretty well for me most of the time. In school, some of my best papers were written the night before the paper was due. On the rare instances where I started work on an essay early, I would usually scrap the entire thing the evening before the due date and start fresh. This led me to believe that procrastination leads to inspiration.

“I work better under pressure,” I often tell myself (and others). And while I’m waiting for the pressure/inspiration to strike, I get to do all the fun things I want to do, like catch up on my DVR queue and go to brunch and decorate my new office.

But then there are moments when the harsh reality of procrastination comes crashing down around me, as was the case with these churros. Don’t get me wrong, the recipe is totally sound. But the entire production was absolute chaos. My first thought as I scanned the room when all the churros had been fried was “This kitchen will never be clean again. Ever.” And I’m fairly certain this could have been avoided if I had planned a little in advance, rather than just jumping in on Sunday morning hong thai travel.

I also didn’t plan well for the photos. I had a vague idea that I wanted to use these sweet retro glasses I got at the Columbus Summer Flea a few months back, that parchment paper cones would fit perfectly inside, and that my straight-as-an-arrow churros would just gently rest in there and fan out. A desperate fantasy hong thai travel , I soon realized

Traditionally, models are stick straight and skinny. But in the world of food photography, thin is not in. I need some food with some curves. A plum with a badonkadonk. A fat slice of pie. These churros do not fit that bill. And since I procrastinated, I didn’t have time for another casting call, or even a new set design. This yellow bowl for the chocolate sauce? Gross.

The good news is, despite all the chaos caused by my procrastination, I still walked away with an awesome, greasy bag of churros, which I took shared with my family while we played Bolivia, which my mom railed against for being a socialist card game. And the good news for you is that you get this recipe, despite the whack-attack photos. I’m not saying I’m a genius or anything, but substituting coconut milk for heavy cream in the dipping sauce hong thai travel ? I a little bit love me.

Faults of style

It is hardly necessary to plead, in extenuation of those many faults which any impartial reader will discover in the following pages, the impossibility of discussing events which are unfolding themselves around us, in the same detached spirit as if we were dealing with past history. The greater part of this volume has been written in haste, and no one is more alive to its shortcomings than the author himself Miramar Travel.

are a small matter, and will be easily forgiven. It has not been the aim to produce a work of literary merit, but solely to present a certain view of public affairs. It is to be hoped that actual errors of fact are rare. Inconsistencies however—or apparent inconsistencies—cannot be altogether avoided, even by careful revision. But the greatest difficulty of all is to keep a true sense of proportion.

In Part I.—The Causes of War—an attempt has been made to state, very briefly, why it has hitherto proved impossible to eliminate the appeal to arms from human affairs; to set out the main incidents which occurred at the opening of the present European struggle; to explain the immediate occasions, as {x} well as the more permanent and deep-seated causes, of this conflict; to consider some of the most glaring miscalculations which have arisen out of misunderstanding between nations .

In Part II.—The Spirit of German Policy—an attempt has been made to understand the ambitions of our chief antagonist, and to trace the manner in which these ambitions have been fostered, forced, and corrupted by a priesthood of learned men. The relations which exist between this Pedantocracy and the Bureaucracy, the Army, the Rulers, and the People of Germany have been examined .

will probably take less time

This chicken dish is the chicken dish I make when I feel like making chicken. It’s delicious and easy to make.

I’ve made the liquid version of soy sauce chicken many times adapting the wonderful recipe from Appetite for China, but until now had trouble making the chicken look dark brown. The flavor is delicious each time – yummy coating with soft drumsticks underneath – but I really wanted to make a dark brown drumstick that also had a sticky coating instead of a soupier (but still delicious) chicken.

To make the meat turn browner, I let all the sauce boil off until all the flavor (and color) had condensed on to the chicken. Towards the end of the boiling there was so little water my pot was foaming over the chicken instead of really boiling. Beware not to let it boil too long because then the chicken is so sticky it sticks to your pot and burns black. To avoid over-boiling, simply stop boiling when you have about a 1/4 inch of liquid left in your pot.

This means you are boiling off from your starting point of enough liquid to almost submerge the chicken, to just 1/4 inch of liquid left! It will take about 1 hour on medium heat if you use a thick stone pot like me, but check on the liquid every 15-20 minutes and use that as your guide of when to stop. If you use a thin metal pot it will probably take less time.

I’ve also tried making soy sauce drumsticks in a crock pot a few weeks ago. While it still tastes great, I don’t recommend it because the meat fell off the bone so it was more like chicken stew in the end. And the fat also came out of the chicken skin and created a yellow layer. In my experience, the crock pot is better for making shredded meat or stew.

I brought these soy sauce drumsticks to a family friend’s house for dinner and they really enjoyed it.

sticky soy sauce chicken ~ www.savoringspoon.com While I was at our friends’ house I also tried some of their home-made yogurt, and tasted AMAZING. I just ordered a yogurt incubator and yogurt starter packet today, and am excited to start making yogurt. Expect a post about yogurt soon!

I had a ton of leftovers

Last Sunday, Theresa and I threw a Jamberry party at my apartment. I’m really obsessed with nail polish, so when I heard about Jamberry, I just had to see what they were all about. Luckily, Theresa new a consultant so we scheduled a party and invited a few friends over. Obviously, I wanted to make a million different things for our guests, but I decided to keep it simple and make 1 dessert and some simple snacks – spinach dip with veggies and pita chips and margarita potato chips. That’s all I made, and I’m glad I did because I had a ton of leftovers nuskin.

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes | A Teaspoon of Happiness I had a bunch of strawberries that needed to be used up, so I pureed some of them and tried making something new – strawberry lemonade cupcakes. They’re light and summery with a nice lemony zip. Since I wanted to keep it simple, I decided to doctor up a cake mix for the cupcakes and top them with a buttercream-turned-fancy-frosting with a simple addition of some lemonade drink mix and strawberry puree Dream beauty pro hard sell
This batter has a lot of eggs in it, which is good because it makes the cake extra delicate and fluffy, but you need to take extra care to not overload the cupcake liners. Otherwise, you’ll end up with dips in the centers of all your cupcakes. It’s an easy fix, since you can just fill them in with extra frosting, but better to avoid it all together if you can.

While the cupcakes are cooling, you can whip up the strawberry lemonade buttercream frosting. If you want to make them fancy like I did for the pictures, I used a piping bag and Wilton tip 2D, a lemon wedge garnish and striped paper straws cut to size. Or, you can keep things simple and just spread a decent layer of frosting on the top Backup and Recovery.

old carrots out of the ground

Matt Accarrino, chef at the Michelin-starred SPQR in San Francisco, has a close, working relationship with Peter Jacobsen, who has an orchard and garden in Yountville. Jacobsen used to supply a lot of fruit to The French Laundry, and now supplies fruits and vegetables to SPQR. Accarrino drives up to help work the garden as often as possible.

On a sunny, balmy afternoon, Accarrino and I visited Jacobsen’s garden, where I marveled at the rows of fruit trees, including an ancient-looking fig tree. Despite the wintry starkness of the barren trees, the garden beds were full of life. We clipped and tasted a variety of arugula and cress (including one that tasted intensely of almond extract before turning hot and spicy on the finish), peeked inside the “snail condo,” and pulled year-old carrots out of the ground Dream beauty pro.

For his dinner at the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood, Accarrino took those carrots – too fibrous to eat – and juiced them to make a sformato (Italian for “form,” a sformato is usually perfumed with curry spices. He served the sformato with sea urchin and fritters made from carrot top. He garnished the plate with powder made from the leftover fibers of the old roots.

When David Chang can’t find the flavors he wants – like certain soy sauces from Japan – he makes them.

Yesterday, he opened bottles and jars of what he calls “bonji” – fermented sauces – and “hozon” – fermented pastes- for us to taste. These fermented products, made from legumes and nuts, were developed in his lab in Brooklyn. The sauces had the color, viscosity, and meaty-saltiness of soy sauce, but each had a distinctly different base flavor, depending on the grain from which they were made Electro.

Likewise, the hozon – fermented pastes – had all the semblance of miso, but each had a distinctly different texture (the one made from lentils, for example, had an identifiably grainy texture) and flavor (the one made from sunflower, for example, tasted like the love child of miso and sunflower butter; it was extraordinary). (Pistachio hozon? Sounds amazing.)

Last night, on the sixth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood, Chang served a plate of cured mackerel – the skin seared on the plancha until charred – with puffed farro, radishes, and a hozon made from chickpeas. He finished the dish with a few drops of farro bonji PSVANE .

a new level of crazy

June marks my boyo's birthday, and there's nothing he likes more than apple pie. He's a pie kinda guy. -snerks- Ok, so, apple pie was the way to go, but I didn't want to make one big one, as we'd then have it sitting around the house to tempt us later (we're trying to cut back on the quantity of sweets around here). Since slices of pie are not at all portable, I decided to send his work pie miniatures .

A note for those of you admiring the lattice: I am a dork. For each of the 50+ pies I made that day, I hand wove the individual lattices. Had I been smart I would have made only one or two large lattices, then cut them up into the sized sections that I needed. Hey, weave and learn, yes?

This post also marks a momentous occasion: the retirement of my camera. It was old and tired, as evidenced by the 5 seconds it would need to take a picture (hold still... hold still... keep holding still... oops, I twitched, shot taken!). The decision to get a new one was brought about by another momentous occasion: me and the boyo's very first vacation together! We've gone on family visits before, but as enjoyable as they are there's always a certain level of stress involved. Plus, this past year we were moving at the same time, so things were at a new level of crazy comparable to silk.

Now that we're settled in and life is relatively calm, we are taking a cruise to Alaska! I'm excited to see the glaciers and (hopefully) wildlife, but you guys know me. I'll be taking pictures of the food. But, under the guise of admiring wildlife, we decided to purchase a new camera. The Canon PowerShot A590 IS slices, dices, makes chili and fries! ... well, ok, not those four. But so far it takes astoundingly beautiful and easy shots. I'm reading up on the manual so I won't have to plead with the eagles to hold still while I figure out which setting to use, but once I've got it sorted, look out Alaska!

So, I'll be gone for the next week. But when I return, expect a deluge of pictures and lots and lots of new oh-my-god-I-gotta-makes sculptra.

who can resist a challenge

I couldn't get apple pie out of my head. I tend to be naughty - I try to think of desserts that will poke at the boyo's weaknesses, even though I know he'd rather eat ... well, let's say "more wisely" tho I think "less funly" is more apt. My boyo loves apple pie. Pies of all kind, but give him apple and he won't even protest.

He also won't protest over cheesecake - remember those two from the cruise? Hmm, I thought. Could I possibly make him a dessert that is so in tune with his cravings, that he implodes from the tastiness? Hey, who can resist a challenge ?

On top of that, I had a new pan I'd been dying to try: a mini cheesecake pan. Now, if the idea tickles your fancy, a word of recommendation - they're cheap, get two. I found myself taking way too long with the baking, just because I only had one pan in rotation. But, then again, I'm crazy and generally bake for 50. If buying pans for single projects isn't your thing (-cough-) you might be able to use a muffin pan .... but I really wouldn't recommend it. The cheesecake pan works because the bottoms come out, allowing you to push the cheesecakes up-n-out with very little hassle preamp.

So. I'm going to give you guys options. There's the way I actually made the recipe, and then there are the tweaks. I'll add the latter in as notes so you can decide how you want to go, but let me just say, either way you go, YUM.

Mini Apple Pie Cheesecakes (adapted from Diana's Desserts)
Ingredients:
Crust:
2 c graham cracker crumbs
1/2 c granulated sugar
7 tbsp (3/4 stick/3 oz/85g) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 c pecans, coarsely chopped (tweak: my recommendation would be to omit the caramel swirl and caramelize the pecans instead before chopping them up)

Filling:
2 large apples (I used fuji)
3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/4 c granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 tbsp cinnamon (or to taste)
1 tsp nutmeg (or to taste)
4 oz apple concentrate (or to taste)

Caramel Sauce (from The Food Network)
1 1/2 c sugar
1/3 c water
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 c heavy cream
1/2 vanilla bean or 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325°F/160°C. Place removeable bottoms in mini cheesecake pan.

Stir cracker crumbs, pecans and sugar in medium bowl to blend. Add melted butter and stir until evenly moistened. Spoon a heaping teaspoon into each hole and pat down using the bottom of a shot glass.

For Filling:
Peel, core, and finely dice the apples. Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in large bowl until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reserve 2/3 c batter for caramel swirl; add apple concentrate and spices to the remainder, then gently fold in the diced apples.

Note: The caramel swirl is optional - the contrast on the top wasn't as strong as I was hoping and there was only a hint of caramel in the overall flavor. Caramelized pecans in the crust would do better if you're looking for a caramel punch... but if you're looking for subtlety, the swirl's the way to go jimmy choo handbags(or hey, both!).