This Is bc

Pesto Party

2007-10-16T11:31:00.000-04:00

Ok, I lied.

Remember back in July of last year when I said to use "a jar of pesto" in the orzo salad recipe? Well, I never use jarred pesto. I should have mentioned this then, but I was lazy and didn't feel like also including a pesto recipe. I doubt it matters because no one has actually used that orzo salad recipe anyway. But I would like to address this pesto thing.

Pesto is great, but pesto from a jar is not great. Fresh pesto is the only way to go and making your own means that it will be cheap as well. You really can't find large quantities of fresh basil at any other time of the year than the summer and the summer is coming to an end. So make pesto now. And make a lot of it, put it in ice cube trays, freeze it and then you have pesto to last the entire winter. That's what I did yesterday. It's also what I did at this time last year, and we just finished the last of our pesto a couple of weeks ago.

The New York Times had an article about this last week which included a recipe. You'll want to multiply the actual recipe many fold to get enough pesto to freeze for the winter. I bought 2 pounds of basil, so without the stems it probably yielded 1 lb/16 ounces of basil. I didn't use nearly as much oil as it calls for in the recipe. I probably only dumped about a cup or so in the food processor.

The most important part of this process is finding lots of basil on the cheap. I would look for ethnic grocery stores which also sell produce. The basil is out there you just have to find it, but stay away from the supermarkets which charge $2.50 for a little bunch in a tidy plastic container.

Banana Nut Muffins

2007-10-10T16:18:00.000-04:00

Grand Reopenning? I wouldn't go that far, Dan. But I do have some recipes and comments and original photography I'd like to share. And that should be good enough.

Whenever I buy bananas I always two or three really ripe ones leftover at the end of the week. Best thing to do with these are make banana bread or banana nut muffins. This muffin recipe is my grandmother's and I really like the lightness the yogurt and baking soda give the muffins (in lieu of more fat).

Banana Nut Muffins

Makes 12 small muffins

Materials:

1 small muffin pan

1/2 C yogurt
1 t baking soda
2 T butter
2 C flour - any combination - all-purpose, wheat, corn, oatmeal, etc.
1 t baking powder
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 C sugar
2 bananas, mushed up
1/2 C nuts - walnuts, pecan, or any nuts to your liking
some other stuff - cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, etc.

Preheat over to 400 degrees.

Put yogurt in bowl and add baking soda. Let this sit and rise, about 10 minutes. Melt butter and let cool. Mix the dry ingredients (flour and baking powder). Mix the wet ingredients: whisk the eggs while adding the butter slowly, and the sugar, bananas, yogurt, and vanilla. Add the wets to drys. Mix and add the nuts and a teaspoon or so of your spice selection.

Bake for ~25 min. Keep an eye on them after 20.

Peaches

2007-06-27T15:43:00.000-04:00

Go eat a peach! Peaches are back and they are great. If you know anything you'll eat one every day for the rest of the summer or until they stop being good.

Summer Wine

2007-06-20T20:25:00.000-04:00

I promised to blog about wine this week, so I've committed myself. I'd like to be brief though.

Summer is a time for kicking back and having a beer after work on the weekend standing next to a grill loaded with meat. But wine can sometimes be a suitable alternative to beer, even during the summer. Most of the wine I would want to drink during the summer would be white or (maybe) rose. But there are good summer reds too. I wouldn't recommend a big red like cabernet for the summer. Instead go for something lighter, more acidic and less hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-cornucopia that you find in some reds that showcase deep, ripe fruit.

The two that I drank this weekend are 2005 Sepp Moser Zweigelt (pictured above) and 2004 Michele Chiarlo Le Orme Barbera d'Asti. Both of these are made from grapes which aren't quite household names in the US.

The Barbera grape is very popular in Italy and most of the wines you'll find are from Asti, Alba and Monferrato, in the north. Barbera were just reviewed two weeks ago by the NY Times and the Michele Chiarlo just made their top 10 (out of 25 or so.) The bottle may run you $13.

The Zweigelt is a grape most grown in Austria. Austria isn't particularly known for its wines, but most times when you see an Austrian, it's white. The red Zweigelt is sort of hard to come by, but if you see one, buy it. You might be pleasantly surprised. Last week the Times reviewed Zweigelts and Bluafrankisch (another Aryan red). Unfortunately, I don't think the Times tried Sepp Moser's bottle, because I think it would have done well. It's also a cheap buy at under $10.

I liked the Zweigelt must more than the Barbera. But both were good and I would buy them again. Thankfully my local wine store always stocks Sepp Moser wines (they produce some of my favorite Gruner Vetliners) so my supply will never run out. I drank each chilled a bit, which is definitely the way to go when drinking wine when 80 degrees out.

Apricots

2007-06-15T11:24:00.000-04:00

I like dried apricots so much more than fresh ones. I don't think I can same the same thing for any other fruit. Isn't that interesting?

Also, I haven't blogged about a wine for such a long time. I'm planning on buying and drinking two summer reds from fairly unpopular varietals. Check in after the warm weekend for notes on those.

Hummus Saga: Part 2

2007-06-11T09:01:00.000-04:00

In our last post, I bought hummus at Shaw's and then e-mailed to thank them. Let's see what they had to say:

Dear Brian,

Thank you for contacting Shaw's Customer Care. We have received your email regarding the availability of Sabra Hummus and Sabra Babaganoush and the comparison of our prices and our competitors'. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us.

We are pleased to hear of your satisfaction with your Shaw's. We are also pleased that you took the time to write us regarding your satisfaction. As a valued customer, your feedback and satisfaction are vital to our success.

We have forwarded your request for Sabra Babaganoush to the Store Director. You will receive a response within 4 days. For your records, your case number regarding this request is 407419.

We are sorry to learn of your disappointment with regard to the price of Sabra Hummus. Shaw's recognizes that we may not have the lowest retail price for every item and it is difficult for us to comment on the price of specific products offered by other retailers.

We believe it is important to offer the best possible value right across the wide range of products we offer. It will always be possible to isolate individual products similar or identical to those in our stores, for which another retailer is charging less.

We can understand your disappointment on finding Sabra Hummus for sale at a lower price elsewhere. However, to judge fairly it is necessary to take into account the prices, quality and variety of all the products a store offers.

Please be assured that the information you have provided will be forwarded to our buying and marketing department. An adjustment will be made on this product if it is determined that the price is too high.

Again, thank you for contacting Shaw's Customer Care. If we can provide any information or be of service to you in the future, please feel free to contact us by email or by calling 1-877-932-7948.

Sincerely,

Shaw's Customer Care Representative

While that was nice and all, but I wanted a little more meat to the response. Something along the lines of "OMG, you are soooo right! We'll get more HumMuS rite away!" Oh and "We'll send you a free case right now." Luckily, the manager of the Medford Shaw's e-mailed me too.

Mr Cooperman:
Thank you for your e-mail to our corporate offices about Sabra products. At this time our store is authorized to carry the following Sabra items: Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, Supreme Spicy Hummus, Greek Olive Hummus, Roasted Garlic Hummus, Classic Original Hummus, and Hummus with Pine Nuts. The only Baba Ganoush we can get is a Cedars item. We will submit a request to our Deli Buyer and see if s/he will authorize more Sabra products for our store. Thank You again, and we will do whatever we can to try to get a larger selection into the store.

Now that's a little more satisfying. Let's hope we see some fruit from our hard work in the orchard of corporate public relations.

Hummus Saga: Part 1

2007-06-07T14:29:00.001-04:00

When a blog doesn't have any readership, it will sooner or later (most times sooner) will fall by the wayside. Obviously this one has been laying in a ditch for some time. Occasionally, some event will occur and a lax blogger will be moved to post despite their most recent blogging negligence. Maybe a homeless person was mean to them or they just moved to seattle and want to post a bunch of pictures. For me this happens when a supermarket starts to carry my favorite brand of a particular food.

Yes, Shaw's supermarkets have now started to carry Sabra hummus. This is my favorite packaged hummus. Obviously any homemade (i.e. my mother's, heavy on the garlic and lemon) or in-store produced hummus if far better than any packaged kind, but who's going to make hummus every week?

It looks like the Shaw's distribution of Sabra is pretty widespread too. A couple of weeks ago I saw and purchased a container from the new one in Waltham on Lexington Street. I thought this was a fluke because there was only one kind of hummus available and this is also the second most cosmopolitan Shaw's I have been to. But a couple of days ago I saw an entire spread of Sabra hummus at my home Shaw's in Medford, which is in far less hip (food) area.

I was so happy with this development that I sent an e-mail to Shaw's. I hope they get back to me. If they do I'll be sure to post it.

I wanted to write to thank you for starting to carry Sabra Hummus. While the Sabra brand might not be as popular as Tribe of Two Sheiks, Cedar's or Joseph's, it is by far the best packaged hummus on the market. Before Sabra hummus was available in your supermarkets, I would have to drive to Brookline to procure decent hummus (after a call to the Sabra distributor I learned that the Butchurie was the only store in the Boston area that carried Sabra). Thank you for bringing the best product to an uneducated hummus eating public. I encourage you to carry other Sabra products like their baba ganoush in your stores as well. I hope the person or persons responsible for making this decision gets the praise they deserve.

P.S. I also encourage you to lower your price on the 10oz package of Sabra hummus to make it more likely to compete directly with the other brands you carry. The $3.99 price tag it carries is a remarkable markup considering at other stores I have purchased the 10oz. container for $2.99 and the 23oz container for $4.99.

talk of the town

2006-11-27T17:31:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in over a month which is a shanda. I have had so much to share (most of which I've forgotten,) but precious little time with which to share it.

Let's get right to the topic of the hour (two weeks ago:) Mark Bittman's No-Knead Bread recipe in the New York Times. The food bloggers have been all over this and even though I don't read any food blogs (and I'm pretty sure most of you don't either) I should share my thoughts. First, forget the recipe. Bittman's great, but despite being "The Minimalist" this recipe is much more wordy than it needs to be. Instead watch the video of the guy who actually came up with the recipe. Have you watched it yet? The bread is really that simple; mix ingredients, wait 18-24 hours, sprinkle with wheat or oat germ, throw in hot pot and bake. The other steps bittman would have you do are unnecessary. Oh, and another thing only use 1 1/2 C of water, like the baker says. The recipe measurement 1 5/8 C of water produces a very wet and sticky bread.

Using a very heavy pot with a good fitting lid is important when making the bread. Creating the perfect loaf was a good excuse for getting a Le Creuset 5-Qt. Oval Dutch Oven in Sonoma Blue. Don't fret, I didn't pay nearly that much for it. I got mine at T.J.Maxx, which sells these and other cast iron w/ ceramic enamel pots for much cheaper than retail. You can probably find one there for as little as $20. I highly recommend having one. It turns out my 5qt size is a little big for the bread recipe. A round 3qt one would probably be the perfect size. I should probably just double the recipe the next time I make the bread.

As I write this I have a whole chicken smoking in the backyard. Today has been unseasonably warm so I thought breaking out the grill would be a good idea. I'm using hickory and the 4 1/2 lbs. chicken has smoking for 2 1/2 hours so far. I think 3 or 3 1/2 hours should do the trick. I think I'm going to make cornbread and grill some asparagus to round out the meal. Time to get to work.

chinese food

2006-10-19T21:35:00.000-04:00

Guess what? There is good chinese food in Boston. In fact, there's good chinese food in Medford/Somerville. This is great news, huh? Unfortunately, it took me 5 1/2 years to find the two best chinese places. Did I mention they are each less than half a mile from Tufts? Anyway, on to the restaurants!

Wang's is on Broadway in Somerville. It's near Hannah's in Magoun Square. This was Emily's find. She heard the dumplings were good so that's what we got. An order each of the vegetarian leek, vegetarian spinach, and pork. All are steamed (as they should be) and are the best dumplings I've had since the last time I was at Joe's Shanghai (in Queens.) The dumpling wrappers aren't too thick and doughy, as crappy dumplings often are, and the filling is perfect. It's flavorful and each dumpling is filled with the perfect amount of stuff. I even saw the old chinese woman making them in the kitchen when I picked the food up. Consensus on the food sites is that there are the best dumplings in Boston. I don't think I need to test that theory; these are good enough for me.

The other place is Chili Garden, which is in Medford Square. True to it's name, there's plenty of heat in the food here. This place serves authentic Szechuan cuisine, which is really really spicy. They grow a chili in Szechuan that is really spicy (the flavor is called "la") but it is also numbing (called "ma.") I got the beef short ribs, which were a good example of this Ma La one-two punch. Amazingly, the Szechuan chili will kick your ass but also allow the flavor of the food to come through.

these apples are delicious

2006-10-07T15:45:00.000-04:00

As a matter of fact, apples are delicious. Last weekend's apple picking has so far yielded a Ginger Snap Apple thing, an apple cake and now a huge pot of apple sauce. The apple cake is my mom's recipe and it's really good. You can use pretty much any type of cake pan you have around - bundt, angel food. As long as its round and kind of deep it'll work. I used macintosh apples which we picked, but any tart apple will work well.

Apple Cake

6 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
5 T sugar
5 t cinnamon

3 C flour
3 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 3/4 C sugar
4 eggs
1 C oil
1/4 C orange juice
1 T vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the apples, the 5 T of sugar and the cinnamon. Combine all of the dry ingredients and then, in a separate bowl mix the remaining (wet) ingredients together. Add the dry mixture to the wet. In a greased cake pan add 1/3 of the batter, then add half of the apples, another layer of 1/3 of the batter, then the remaining apples and finally the rest of the batter. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

someone new

2006-10-02T09:28:00.000-04:00

I've added Matt blog to the link list. It seems Adam has duped him into starting a blog as well. Matthew I pity you and also wish you the best of luck.

desserts for grilling

2006-09-21T09:39:00.000-04:00

I just ate a peach and it was amazing. A good peach is one of those foods that can top a best foods ever list. You don't need to spend a lot of money or go some place special to taste one of the best things the world has to offer. We are right at the end of the summer, which means the late summer harvest of peaches is almost over. Go out and yourself a peach this week. Do it! Let me know how that goes.

Peach eating notes: if I want one peach I'll always buy two because you never know which ones are going to be mealy and gross. Also, I wait until they are extremely ripe. Eating a peach which is still a little crisp should be crime. They should be completely fleshy. If you really want to ripen a peach quickly put it in a brown paper bag. That might be myth, but I feel like there's probably some science behind it. I'll find out. Also, never put your peach in the fridge!

The end of summer also means the end to grilling (for most people.) I actually plan on barbecuing for many more months. I like grilling dessert when I'm making a bbq dinner. I usually grill a fruit and then serve it with vanilla ice cream. You can grill the fruit and then let is sit under some foil while you eat, or just put it on a cooler part of the grill while you eat so that it doesn't over cook.

Grilled Pineapple
serves 4-6

1 pineapple, cut into quarters
2 limes
2 T brown sugar

How to cut a pineapple into quarters: Use a serrated knife of a good length. Cut off the top and bottom of the pineapple so that you can stand it up. Take off columns of the outer rind, starting with your knife at the top of the fruit and sawing downward (convexly, reflecting the shape of the fruit.) Work your way around the pineapple until it's peeled. Make sure to get deep enough to get all of the prickly things, but not too deep and lose a lot of the fruit. Now cut it in half lengthwise twice, so that you get four quarters of pineapple. Stand up each quarter and cut off the inner triangle of woody core.

Juice the limes and mix with brown sugar. Brush this over your pineapple as they grill. Serve over ice cream.

Grilled Peaches
serves 2

1 peach, cut in half and pit removed

Grill cut side down. Server over ice cream.

its a wrap

2006-08-30T19:00:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't say I'm a fan of wraps. The way I see it, a wrap is just a sandwich on a thin, chewy, sub-par bread. The burrito, the king of wraps, is obviously an exception. The fresh flour torilla used for a good burrito shouldn't be bland at all. And, of course, torillas serve the very practical purpose of holding together lots of small (rice, beans) and wet (chili verde, salsa) food.

The last burrito I had (from Anna's) was disappointing. It just wasn't up to the Anna's standard. The wrap I had today however, measured up to be a superb, though unlikely, substitute. The place is called Wrapture and it's in Beverly, MA. Beverly is pretty far from everything but this wrap is worth the trip.

Grill Steak Wrap: Grilled Steak, goat cheese, roasted poblano peppers, roasted corn, garlic puree, limed onions, tomatoes, greens.

You'll notice that with the exception of the garlic puree, there's no condiment. I am pretty adamant about the condiment. It supplies the necessary glue to hold the sandwich together. A-hah! But this is a wrap, you say, it doesn't need holding together. This is not true. If you need confirmation get a burrito at La Choza (Great Barrington, MA.) It will fall apart within seconds of the first bite because of a lack of the requisite glue. But lets get back to Wrapture. The garlic puree combined with the melting goat cheese and juice from the grilled steak supplied enough tasty adhesive to hold this baby together. And taste is really what this is all about.

I've been trying to find out how to make the limed onions, so that I can replicate this wrap at home, but I haven't found anything online. I might have to go back to ask them if they would give me an idea of how to make them. Of course, I would also have to get another wrap.

fresh food

2006-08-21T15:27:00.000-04:00

I just read this article from New York Times's magazine section this week: The School-Lunch Test

It's a great article but I found it a little more pessimistic than other coverage of school-lunch reform programs. I wish I could also post an article I read about the efforts at The Promise Academy in Harlem, but I haven't been able to find it. Basically, the program there proves how schools can provide much healthier meals, serve locally grown produce and be cost effective. Well, I just found it, so you can read it for yourself: Harlem School Introduces Children To Swish Chard

The article notes that The Promise Academy food cost is "about $5.87 per student. The amount, almost twice what some public schools spend, comes from a mix of government reimbursements and a school budget pumped up by grants and other private donations." The Promise Academy is a charter school, which I guess is why they are able to do this and not get food from the commodities program, which is explained in the first article. I've never been too keen on charter schools but if a (semi-)public school can serve healthy food and teach nutrition, then I'm all for it.

It's sobering to read the article in the magazine section though. What is a public school supposed to do when there are actual laws that require them to serve a number of calories (which will then come from fat and sugar) and a deep rooted infrastructure that makes only unhealthy and processed foods dirt cheap? Maybe that pessimistic view is warranted then. A change from the federal level, reforming the commodities program to provide low-cost, healthy items and ingredients (for real cooking!) is really what is needed. I don't think that most public schools will be able to enact real health changes in students without that.

_____

So my garden is starting to yield some actual fruit. This year has largely been a bust. There was much too much rain early in the season and the weeds have taken over. We got some good peas but we stopped eating them after they made me and emily sick (elsewhere this has been a great pea/bean season.) We had some of the best strawberries ever earlier and I've recently eaten some of the yellow cherry tomatoes. I think these are two fruits most people don't really know what they are supposed to taste like. If you want proof go to a supermarket and get some of each and then go to a farmer's market and get their equivalent. Let me know what you think.

Most of my plants haven't done well. We just picked our first zucchini because all of the zucchini blossoms were falling off the plants. I think all of the pepper plants died. So did many of the tomatoes, beets, eggplant and basil. One of my co-workers says he is getting amazing results from the hot pepper seedlings I gave him. I had a great crop of those last year but I don't see a single plant left standing this year. My tomatillo plants are huge and have lots of green lantern-like tomatillos hanging off of them. I might have a bumper crop yet. Which has gotten me thinking, I wonder if there is a website out there for people to post what garden grown fruits and vegetables they have to trade? I'm going to look into it and see what I find.

I'll be your huckleberry

2006-08-07T11:23:00.000-04:00

Blueberry actually.

A while ago I said that I had blueberry lemonade when I was in Maine and that I would try to recreate it in my own kitchen. Well, I tried to do it yesterday. The results were not as good as I expected them to be, but I'm going to try to refine the recipe. These are the ratios I'm working with:

Blueberry Lemonade

3 parts Pure blueberry juice*
3 parts water
2 parts fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 part sugar

*a note on blueberry juice - you can make your own by blending blueberries and straining out the solids or you can just buy the juice in the store, which is what I did. If you go to the store to buy the juice pay attention to the labels. There is "pure blueberry juice," which is just that, and there is "blueberry juice," which is acutally a blend of juices. Read the ingredient list. You only want blueberry juice.

With these ratios I found that the taste is very strong on the blueberry and not as lemon-y as I wanted it. So I'm going to shy on the side of more lemon next time around. I suggest you find your own mix.

deep in the heart

2006-07-20T15:39:00.000-04:00

I just got back from eastern Texas and now all of my clothes smell like mesquite. I was staying in Beaumont but working in Orange County. Vidor is in Orange County, which is the one city in the USA where, according to Neil, the KKK is alive and well.

Anyway, here's a recipe. Its from the Moosewood Cookbook. Emily and I grilled corn the night before and put the kernels of two of the cobs in the batter of the corn bread. We also doubled the recipe and cooked it in a 12-inch cast iron pan instead of the square 8-inch pan the recipe calls for. The benefit of cooking corn bread in a cast iron pan is that you can get the sides and bottom really crispy. All you have to do is get the pan very hot and coat it with canola oil before you put in the batter. Then bake as normal. Here's the recipe:

Buttermilk Corn Bread

Materials

8-inch pan or 12-skillet (double recipe for this one)

1/4 C honey
1 C buttermilk
1 egg
1 C yellow corn meal
1 S unbleached white flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3 T melted butter

Beat together egg, buttermilk and honey. Mix together all dry ingredients well. Combine all ingredients, including melted butter, and mix well. Spread into buttered pan and bake for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.

this is not a recipe

2006-07-02T10:23:00.000-04:00

How about a post without a recipe in it? Will you still read the blog? There should be a way of keeping track of who reads your blog and when. The technology is out there but I just don't care enough to implement it, I guess. So I guess I'll never know if you decided to stop reading my blog because there wasn't a recipe in this post.

Anyway, my uncle gave me a great digital SLR. I was going to get one on my own, but he wasn't using this one any more and wanted me to have it. Its a Fujifilm FinePix S3Pro. I don't have a lens for it so I need to get a lens for a Nikon mount. I'm thinking about getting this Sigma lens: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/sitem/sku=352405&is=REG

Does anyone know anything about this? Josh? Suggestions?

Rest assured that once I get a lens on that camera I will be posting photo all the time. The recipes might have to split time with the photos even. Well see what happens.

Oh, you guys. You know I can't leave you without even just a little recipe. I'll keep it short and simple, but I've got to give at least a little something.

Pesto Orzo Salad with Grilled Shrimp

Materials
a grilling device (charcoal is the best, but even a foreman will do)

1 lb orzo
1 jar of pesto
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1-2 C peas
1/2 - 3/4 lb raw shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 lime
salt
black pepper

Cook the orzo and let it sit and cool. Emily recommends using chicken broth to make the orzo adding a little broth at a time to the orzo in a pot while stirring, like you would do with arborrio rice for rissotto. This will make your orzo tastier, but you can boil it water and drain it like any other pasta instead. Mix in the pesto, halved cherry tomatoes, and peas (defrosted if they were frozen.) Squeeze the lime juice over the shrimp and salt and pepper them before setting on a hot grill. By the time you put down the last shrimp, the first one will probably be done on that side. Flip the shrimp over as each looks done and starts to get pink and opaque. Don't over cook! It so easy to let the shrimp over cook but don't let that happen. If there is extra lime juice, baste the shrimp with it as you turn them over. Mix the shrimp with the orzo and enjoy.

Summer soup

2006-06-23T17:22:00.000-04:00

It seems like every time I post now, I have to apologize for not posting in a while. Well, I'm not saying sorry this time! If I don't post because I'm doing other things with my disposable time, then I don't have to apologize for it. Take that!

But you're right, it has been too long. I even have two recipes I want to share. I'll do one now and later. Soon, but later.

In case you didn't notice, it was hot this week. I decided to make a cold soup. Vichyssoise, perhaps? No. Gazpacho, you say? Getting warmer (colder.) Must be a cucumber soup then? Yes! And no. I added fruit to this soup. Because, I mean, why not?

Cold Cucumber and Fruit Soup
Servings: 4-6

Materials:
a food processor or blender (my blender did not work with this)

2 C plain yogurt
4 large cucumbers
some fruit (I used 1 green apple, a bunch of green grapes and a handful of blueberries just to throw the color off)
1 t lemon juice
pinch of salt

Cut up the fruit and throw most of it in the food processor. Reserve about half a cuke and some of each of the fruit you are using. Add the yogurt and lemon juice and puree. Now add the rest of the fruit and just give a quick whirl of the processor. This way you'll have a texture difference between the smooth soup and the chunks of fruit. Add the salt, if you think it needs it. Chill. Eat. Be less hot.

a dessert

2006-06-05T18:45:00.000-04:00

I have yet to post a dessert recipe, which might be surprising because in many circles I am known soley for my brownies or banana bread. Those two might make it in here in-time, but it's spring and its time for a seasonal dessert.

One of my coworkers supplied me with some rhubarb from her garden before the weekend. And though I have about 10 stawberry plants in my garden, there are probably only 5 ripe strawberries on them; I had to use store bought berries for a Rhubarb and Strawberry Crisp.

This recipe is adapted from Sara Moulton's Rhubarb Crisp on the Food Network website.

Rhubarb and Strawberry Crisp

Materials:
1 baking dish (rectangular, square, Pyrex, metal, whatever)
1 large bowl
1 small bowl, microwave proof

1 lb. of rhubarb, or about 4 C cut up into 1/2 inch pieces
2-3 pints of stawberries, halved
1 C sugar
1 1/4 C flour
1 t cinnamon
1 C firmly packed brown sugar (it doesn't matter if it's light or dark)
3/4 C rolled oats
1/2 C of butter (1 stick,) melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Cut up the butter in the small microwavable bowl. Melt the butter and let it sit to cool a bit while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
In the large bowl toss the cut up rhubarb and stawberries with 1/4 C of the flour, the regular sugar, and the cinammon. Put this in the baking dish. In the big bowl mix the rest of the ingredients, the flour, the brown sugar, the oats, and butter. Sprinkle this over the fruit and bake for 35 minutes.
Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Champagne and sage

2006-06-02T08:57:00.000-04:00

Hello. That last post contained a lie. I obviously did not post within 36 hours. That was four days ago. I've been busy, but don't worry; nothing interesting ever really happens anyway.

Last week I spent many of my evenings in New York. Culinarily, it was a joy. I had chinese with Vivian in chinatown, dinner at a french bistro , Brasserie 360, with the fam and Maltz family, amazing Cuban in Norwalk,CT (place called Habana,) Thai in Queens, and on saturday for lunch I went to Artisanal with Emily and the family. Artisanal is a cheese lover's dream. Its probably also the highest Zagat rated restaurant I've been to. I think I left the cheese list in New York, but if I find it I can tell you what cheese I had on my cheese plate. There were three and I know that there was a Gruyere, a Stilton and a soft sheep's milk from France, kind of like a Brie.

In addition to eating out, I made dinner with Jackie and Stef at their place. Inspired by Mark Bittman's Roasted Chicken and Fennel recipe (The Minimalist in the NYTimes) and Stef's many bottles of good Champagne (from some party) we made Roasted Chicken, Fennel and Carrot with a Champagne Sage Sauce. We served it over orzo, which I think goes really well, but any pasta or rice would do well.

Roasted Chicken, Fennel and Carrot with Champagne Sage Sauce
Serves 4

Materials:
1 large oven proof pan (cast iron would be great)
1 baking dish, if you don't have a large enough pan
1 whisk or fork - this is going to touch your pan so if you are using non-stick don't use metal

4 chicken thighs
4 chicken legs
2 heads of fennel, cut off the fronds and cut into medium sized slices so that each slice will stay together at the base of the plant
4 carrots, roughly chopped
2 T of butter
1 T of flour
10 sage leaves, fresh and cut into a chiffonade (how to: here
1/2 C of sparkling wine - from Champagne or elsewhere
1 C of chicken broth

For this recipe you want to get your pan pretty hot, so that the chicken skin can be browned on the stove top and then finished in the oven with the fennel and carrots. If you don't have a big enough pan to get all 8 pieces of chicken in with some space in between them, work in two batches, putting the first batch in a baking pan and right into the oven. With one big pan you can do it like this:

When your pan is really hot add some cooking oil and then the chicken pieces, skin side down. Use a splatter guard if you have it to reduce the amount of burning hot oil that winds up on your stove, walls, arms, etc. It should only take a minute or two until the chicken gets some good color. When it does, it is done. Kill the heat on the pan and move the chicken temporarily onto a plate. Add the fennel and carrot and season with salt and pepper. Toss the chicken right on top and roast in a 450 degree oven. This should be done in 30-45 minutes. The carrots will be tender and the chicken juices will run clear. Move the entire pan's contents to a serving dish so that you can use the pan again.

Making the sauce:
Put a medium high heat under the pan and add the butter and the sage, saute the sage until it becomes fragrant and bright green. Add the flour slowly while whisking it into the liquid in the pan to make a slurry. If the mixture starts to get too think to mix add a little chicken broth. If your pan is still really hot, the liquid should be bubbling the entire time. Now add the wine and whisk to get all of the dark stuff off of the bottom of the pan. Add as much chicken broth as you need to get your sauce to the right amount/consistency. Cook this while whisking, to get all of the flavor off the bottom of the pan and to reduce the sauce a bit. Pour over the chicken and eat.

Note: save some of the dill-looking fronds at the top of the fennel as a garnish.

coming attractions

2006-05-29T10:00:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a while. I know. Relax it happens. This isn't the real post though. That's coming soon. So here's what to look for:

- comments on spending a week in Norwalk, CT (I'm not really going to comment on it, but that's what I did)
- a bc original recipe: roast chicken w/ fennel, carrots and a champagne and sage sauce
- the snakes on a plane trailer - have you seen x-men, yet? well, the snakes on a plane trailer plays before it, so make it to the theater on time
- notes on the massachusetts assembly

actually, I'm not going to post on any of that, besides the recipe, of course. I thought that this little piece would be a good enough stop-gap measure for another content deficient 36 hours.

a post about Maine

2006-05-13T11:20:00.000-04:00

I've been in Downeast Maine for the past week, which is why I haven't posted. I've survived the trip (literally!) and would like to share some things.

Maine is not fun when it rains for an entire week. I was hoping to get in on a pick-up ultimate game in Bar Harbor on Tuesday but no one showed up because they don't play in the rain. Bar Harbor was a nice little town from what I saw as I drove in and then out on my way to/from the ill fated pick-up game. It had small shops which looked very much like how I envisioned a New England fishing town would. This was wholly unlike the towns I drove through the rest of the week which each had one "store." One local I talked to called one such location a "trading post." I guess that's pretty close to the original use of the place. Now each of them is a gas station/grocery store/restaurant/hardware store/drug store/bait shop/etc. In each I felt completely out of place.

My notes on the food and drink in Maine:
I ate plenty of lobster on the company's dime, so that was nice. I drank blueberry lemonade twice and it was great. I'm going to experiment and try to recreate it. Expect a recipe for the drink in the future.

Rose and I together dropped $100 for dinner at the nicest restaurant in Ellsworth called Cleonice. It was a Mediterranean Tapas bar. Most notable parts of the meal: artichoke pesto bruschetta, a fiddlehead fern sopressata and ricotta salata salad and the 2003 Vox Populi Pinot Noir. I'll probably make the bruschetta also at some point because it was so good. I'll post the recipe, of course. The salad was really good and its always fun to seasonally. Right now is the only time of the year you can get fiddlehead ferns. Go out and eat some! Right now. The wine was nice. It is from Romania and I don't think I've ever had a wine from there. It was very round pinot with good mouth feel and taste. Nice and dry. I don't think it stood out very much though. Its a fine under-$15 buy.

Ultimate frisbee video

2006-05-08T21:40:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty sure I did this in a game once:

http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/mamabird/video/Beau_Jumps_Over_A_Guy.mov

So Improper in Boston

2006-05-07T20:04:00.000-04:00

So Dave showed an ad in the Improper Bostonian the other day. Its for a strip club but it also very obviously contains a naked woman with naughty parts exposed. Thank god for blogs because I wouldn't have been able to find the picture otherwise:

http://www.puritancity.com/2006-04-11/the-centerfolds-ad.html

I cast my vote. I think you know how I voted.

Wine, a week later

2006-05-06T22:29:00.000-04:00

As promised, here is the wine I had with Adam, Dan and Whitey. Whitey brought it so I can take no credit for finding it. I very much recommend it to you, though.

2002 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

I don't know much about Pinot Noirs so I probably didn't appreciate this wine for how good it really was. I don't remember about the flavor much now, but it was very smooth. It's a bit more expensive than an everyday-type wine, at $18, but its a great under-$20 buy. When I was in Portland a few months ago I had a couple of glasses of wine at a restaurant and I know that one of them was a very good Oregon Pinot Noir. I was to say that it was this one, but I really don't remember. Because I had ordered by the glass, I never got to see the label and seeing the label is really what helps me remember info about a wine. I guess we'll never know.

. . . . . .

I lost my glasses today at a barbecue at the Beacon house. I'm very upset about it, mostly because I rarely loss things, but also because getting a new pair is going to be quite a hassle. I'll have to make do with my sunglasses until I get a new pair.

I suppose there is still the possibility I will find my glasses. I'm going to go over there tomorrow with Dave and look through the backyard more thoroughly. Man, I hope I find those glasses.

Mango Salsa, etc.

2006-05-02T23:32:00.000-04:00

My first many day long blogging hiatus! It's hard to get jump started after a break. Now I know why Dave hasn't posted in two weeks.

On Saturday Dan, Whitey, Adam and I made dinner with wonderful results. We made chicken fajitas w/ sauteed onion and red pepper, a mango-avocado-habanero salsa and black bean and rice. I'll try to replicate the salsa in my mind so that I can share the recipe. Maybe Whitey would like to do the same for his Tequila marinaded chicken. I'll post it when he gets it to me.

Mango Avocado Habanero Salsa

Materials:
1 large bowl
1 good knife
1 cutting board
1 set of latex gloves (optional)

1 mango
1 Haas avocado
1/2 a red pepper
3 scallions
1 habanero chile
1 lime
salt
black pepper

Dice the mango, avocado, red pepper and scallions. Mince the habanero extremely finely. If you have latex gloves you might want to use them while handling the chile. If you don't have gloves get some or be careful. Even washing your hands afterwards will not always get rid of all of the capsaicin. Touching any of your orifices for the rest of the day would be foolhardy.

Mix the salsa with the juice from the lime and a few pinches of salt and pepper. The longer the salsa sits the better incorporated the flavors will be.

Try the salsa on chicken fajitas, burgers, w/ blue corn chips, or, literally, anything else! Literally!

The salsa might be really hot. You've been warned.

Up next: the wine we had with the meal.

A gracious home

2006-04-28T14:08:00.000-04:00

This evening I will be dining in New York City. A New England reprieve has been a long time coming and I can't wait. What I miss most about New York is the food, uhh . . you guys. uhh. . . the pizza. you guys. the pizza. you guys. the pizza. you guys. the pizza.*

I miss both you guys and the pizza. The other day I made a statement to Dave Starr like, "Oh, there's a place in the North End I'd like to go to. I heard their pizza is edible." He carried on that that was a very snobby thing to say and that my new york standards were unfair. I don't think so. That fact that good pizza, bagels, chinese food, greek food, etc. is not readily available up here is an affront to good taste. These people, Dave included being from Philly and not having spent any time in NYC, don't even know that the food that they are eatting isn't nearly as good as it should be! I really hurts me. As a result, I eat those foods about one tenth as often as I would and I did when I lived in New York. Well, at least for the weekend I won't have to worry about not being able to get a good slice when I want one.
. . . . . . .

On Saturday I'm probably going to go to this with my mom:

"Gracious Home, the upscale hardware store, will hold a one-day warehouse sale in Queens on April 29 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Look for bedding, kitchen appliances and everything in between at discounts of 40 to 90 percent. . . . 30-30 60th Street (Northern Boulevard), Woodside" (NYTimes via my grandmother.)

Maybe I'll find something awesome and cheap.
. . . . . . .
Footnote:
*Pizza

The house red

2006-04-26T22:46:00.000-04:00

Today we received the case of 2002 Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon, which Aaron and I ordered. We decided that we needed to have a "house red" and once we tried this we each immediately realized it met all of our criteria. It was red (I guess that's the most important and obvious criterion,) it was cheap (less than $8 a bottle w/ a 20% case discount,) and it tasted great.

This cab comes from the North Coast region of California (Napa, Sonoma and nearby counties,) where the best American cabs are born. I'm no wine expert but I can't imagine there being a better cab from Cali for this price. Of course, Aaron and I had to open a bottle tonight. Amazingly the wine took on a different flavor than that of the first bottle we had. It continues to surprise! What a drink.

The first bottle we had with cheese (Emmentaler, Jarlsberg, and Double Gloucester; amazing cheddar) and the wine seemed lighter than a Cabernet should. It was still full, light on the tannins with a long pleasant finish. Tonight we ate Bucatini with Meatballs and the wine was much bolder. The smoothness and long finish was still there but this time the wine tasted much more of berries, especially currant. It was great.

You can probably find a bottle of Cellar No. 8 2002 Cab for a little more than $10 in your local place. It's cheap at twice the price.

Meatballs
Makes about 10, normal sized

Materials:

1 large pan
1 large bowl
1 ceramic baking dish (optional)

1 lb. of ground chuck (or ground beef w/ 85/15 fat content, if you can't get chuck specifically)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves or garlic, minced
1 C bread crumbs (make your own with stale bread!)
1/4 grated Parmesan
1 or 2 eggs
dry basil
dry oregano
red pepper flakes
salt pepper
olive oil

Constructing the actual meatballs is not a science but the cooking certainly is. Saute the onions and garlic in a large pan with a little olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes. Put in a large bowl and let cool a bit. Add to the onion the bread crumbs, and season with the herbs, salt, etc. Mix in the ground beef with your hands. Crack the egg into the mixture also (add another egg if the mixture is too dry to stick together well.) Make sure not to mash everything together. That's just going to make meatballs with the consistency of golf balls. Instead work the mixture with your finger tips.

Preheat the oven to 350 and put the large pan over as high a flame as you can get. Wait until the pan is smoking. Now add a few table spoons of olive oil and then, carefully, the meatballs one at a time. Once you get the last one in, its time to get the first ones turned. Shake the pan bit so that the meatballs roll around another face of them gets contact with the pan. The idea here is that you want to get really nice browning on as many sides of the meatballs as you can quickly with the very high heat. If you do that balls won't have time to turn into triangles and loose their shape in the pan. Once most of the meatballs have a nice brown crust on most of their faces, put the meatballs in a ceramic baking dish with some of the oil so they don't stick and put in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.

This is what I use for the baking part: Le Creuset Oval Stoneware dish You can get it for retail at Williams and Sonoma, at wholesale prices online, or at discount at T.J. Maxx. If you don't have a ceramic baking dish you can use a pyrex dish. You want to make sure that the dish does not transfer heat well, like a metal pan, because then you would have meatballs that were burnt on the bottom. Not tasty.

The scene in which food and wine enter the blog

2006-04-24T18:05:00.000-04:00

In the past I've entertained the idea of starting a website where I can make my favorite recipes available and easily accessible. That website has never come to full fruition, but I think that this blog will serve as a suitable substitute. I'm still working on the navigation part but if you like/don't like what I'm doing in the sidebar, I would appreciate the feedback.

I think offering recipes and wine recommendations here will be an important step to offering some real content that I actually know something about. Hopefully there will be something you can enjoy as well.

. . . . . . . .

So last night Aaron took the reins in the kitchen and organized the cooking of a great meal. Here are the three recipes we followed, all from Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking, and the wine we drank with the meal. The chicken is a great and easy curried dish, especially for when a sauce would be too heavy or time consuming. The spinach can be extremely spicy (depending on how many chilies you use,) but the ginger and chilies put a great twist on boring sauted spinach. Plain basmati rice can be served obviously, but this turmeric rice is a nice change of pace.

Ground Chicken with Peas
Murghi ka keema
Serves: 3-4
Approx. time: 15 min.

Materials:

1 large pan (a 10 or 12 inch)

3 T vegetable oil
1 stick of cinnamon
4 cardamom pods
2 bay leaves
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 t fresh ginger, finely grated
1 1/4 lbs. ground chicken or turkey
6 to 7 ounces peas (1 bag of frozen is fine)
1/4 t ground turmeric
1 t garam masala
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t salt
2 T lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper

Set pan over medium-high heat and add half of the oil when the pan is hot. Add cinnamon, cardamom and bay leaves. After a few seconds (and the spices get fragrant but not burn!) add chopped onion. Once onion gets some color add garlic and ginger. After a few seconds either move this aromatic mixture to a plate or push it to one side of the pan furthest from the heat. Add the remaining oil and then the ground meat. Stir and chop meat until none of the meat is pink. Stir together all of the remaining ingredients, including the onion mixture. Cook until the peas are warm. Remove the cinnamon stick, cardamom pods and bay leaves and serve with Basmati rice.

Spinach with Ginger and Green Chilies
Saag bhaji
Serves: 3-4
Approx. time: 5 min.

Materials:

1 wok or large pan

1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled
2 T vegetable oil
1 1/4 lbs spinach, trimmed and washed
1 or 2 fresh hot green chilies, finely chopped
1/2 t garam masala
1/4 t sugar
1/8 t cayenne pepper

Cut the ginger very thinly, then stack the slices and cut into slivers. Set the wok or pan over high heat. Add oil when the pan is hot and then add the ginger. When the ginger gets a little color add the chopped chilies and then the spinach. The spinach will wilt quickly. If there is not enough room for all of it, add in smaller batches and stir so that the spinach wilts and makes enough room for the rest. Add the remaining ingredients and stir. Serve.

Turmeric Rice
Peelay chaaval
Serves: 3-4
Approx. time: 30 min.

Materials:

1 Medium pot

2 C basmati rice
2 3/4 C water
2 T vegetable oil
3 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
4 cardamom pods
1-inch stick of cinnamon
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1/4 t ground turmeric
1 t salt
2 T chives or scallion, finely sliced

Put pot over medium-high heat and add oil when pan is hot. Add cloves, bay leaf, cardamom pods and cinnamon. After a few seconds and the spices get aromatic, add the garlic. When the garlic get golden, put in rice, turmeric and salt. Stir to combine. Add water and cover. When the water comes to a boil reduce the heat to as low as your stove will go. Set timer for 25 minutes. Fluff rice with fork when cooking is done and add chives or scallion.
. . . . .

2004 Firestone Vineyard Gewürztraminer

I don't love whites but this grape (Gewürztraminer) produces a wine that taste like no other white. I was really blown away by how well the wine was able to stand up to the spice of the Indian meal it was eaten with and how much bold flavor it contributed. It would go really well with any spicy meal that would be hard to find a wine with which to pair.

The bottle is from the Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County, California and you can find it for under $15. The wine has a musky, spicy flavor but also a little sweet (the bottle says its like lychee)and it finishes very smoothly with almost no acidic feel on the palate. If you want to get a nicer and more expensive bottle, you should probably go for a winery in Alsace, where they specialize in Gewürztraminer.

Good to know: Gewürz means "spicy" in German.
The varietal is sometimes also called Traminer.
The grape thrives in cool weather, so look for bottles from Northern Italy, Alsace, California's cooler areas, New Zealand, etc.

Paired with: Ground Chicken with Peas
Spinach with Ginger and Green Chilies
Turmeric Rice

Rainy Day

2006-04-23T11:50:00.000-04:00

Today its rainy in the greater Boston area. Its an inside day.

Watching music videos on demand seems be what we're doing this morning in this house.

Here's a great one we just watched. Chicken Payback by The Bees. In Real Player and in Windows Media

Its got that Woot Wooooo!

2006-04-21T14:27:00.000-04:00

Remember whistle tips? Well, dats only in da mo'nin'

Apparently this one's only at night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8

. . . . . . .

FYI, Passover was broken with a cookie at Trader Joe's and then more completely with take out indian. Both were consumed with dave starr.

. . . . . . .

Who else seen the leprechaun say "yea!"

What I would have posted if had a blog 10 days ago

2006-04-20T09:20:00.000-04:00

I don't know how this guy did this (http://www.sandiegoserenade.com/2006/04/1986_world_series_game_6_reena.html) and I'm not sure if I want to know. I know it might have involved cutting and editting many games of RBI baseball, in which case its still cool and an original concept. But if this is the real thing and there was no post production involved? Oh man. I would have to say, in terms of video game playing prowess, this might be superior even to that guy who beats Mario 3 in like 4 seconds.

Now for those of us who do Pesach the traditional way, we can eat chametz after sundown tonight.* The top three things I want to eat after the holiday is over are:

- roast beef sandwhich
- indian food
- tortilla chips

These also happen to be the last three foods I encountered last night but, unfortunately, I was unable to consume. What will you be eating after sundown tonight?

*Pesach is Passover and chametz is bready-type stuff

The first post

2006-04-18T00:27:00.000-04:00

The back story: Adam said I should have a blog. He hounded me for months, during which time he posted on his blog maybe four times. That's another story though. When I asked Emily (both) whether I should go ahead with this they each said, "why not?" Now I have a blog.

Let's start it off right with a link:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060424fa_fact

If you've been wondering what I actually do during the day, here's a well written article to explain it to you. Shovie and I had training together last August/September.

Another link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5820468130078341226&q=nunchucks&pl=true

More all the time.