And for just five dollars more...

As promised, the night before last, Tech Support came home to curry yakisoba.


I'd planned on saving some for lunch the next day, but wound up finishing it off instead.

Then, last night we did the Kurobuta Bulgogi.


That too was delicious. Both dishes were too easy to make, requiring only a little sauteing, piling everything up and putting the lid on top for a few minutes. I feel like I'm cheating, or part of an infomercial for obscure Japanese clay pots.

Entering My Experimental Phase

I've been reading Naoko's blog for at least two years. Who knows where she gets the energy to work hard, make dinner, and then blog about it almost every day, but I'm grateful. Over the past year or so she's started using and importing Japanese Donabe, clay pots. She makes it look good.

I wanted one.

I had a birthday.

Tech Support is a wonderful boyfriend.


And in return for being so, he gets a large share of smoked salmon and asparagus. Tonight he's getting curry yakisoba, and later this week he'll get kurobuta pork bulgogi.

One Thing (One Thing) Leads to Another...

I figured out how to make ricotta gnocchi sometime within the last year. Since it was so easy to freeze and cook up and so tasty I wound up making it 5-6 times within a number of weeks. Tech Support's eyes turned the color of tomato cream sauce and he said "Ricotta gnocchi again?" like a man facing a firing squad. After finishing up the last frozen bag-full I laid off of the ricotta for several months.

Months and months later, the Kitchen Gnome in town, and Meggish and her Nick due for dinner, it was time to dive into the gnocchi once more. For kicks I decided to make the version from Apples for Jam which is simpler than the Cooks Illustrated version, but has a tomato pesto sauce.


Good food and good company go well together.


Though I'd seen it done and understood the basics, I'd never made pesto before that night. The tangy, garlic infused sauce inspired me and within the same week I had to make it again. I also made focaccia (a name I will never pronounce correctly), using Apples for Jam's recipe for that too. I laid it all out with some feta cheese.


Despite having forgotten to put salt in the focaccia, it made a wonderful, snacky dinner.


I'm going to lay off the tomato pesto for a bit though, to make sure Tech Support doesn't get sick of it too soon.

I think embarrassed is spelled wrong

If I were in charge I would spell it emberass. Actually, I spell it that way on a regular basis, but an awful red underline forces me to change it into the 'correct' spelling. Pah!

Moving on. Though I can put on a good show, I've discovered that having a single night of bad sleep can throw me off for the next several days. I slept poorly on Tues, okay on Weds, and well Thursday night, but by the end of work on Friday I was falling asleep on a student who'd come in for a private lesson. Luckily I still managed to help her fix her lace, which she proclaimed 'saved her life'.

On the bus ride home I contemplated dinner. We were supposed to do burgers. I was so tired. Yawning tired. I ran through a list of local restaurants in my head, and argued with myself internally.

Pro: I am tired and won't have to do anything if I let those nice peoples make my dinner.

Con: I will feel like a weak failure and probably won't enjoy the ill-gotten food that much.

The fact that we were eating out all weekend pushed me back into the "no, I will be STRONG!" arena of thinking (though I suffered a setback when I realized I had also planned on making fries). Then a blast of inspiration, what if I topped the burgers with caramelized balsamic onions and brie? Memories of the burger at the Bistro in Independence tantalized me.

I think this is why I get lazy about cooking sometimes, I seem determined to always make more work for myself.



But surprisingly, the fries and the onions were very easy to make and didn't require much more than slicing and putting over heat.


Tech Support came home and I put him in charge of the burgers.


In about a half an hour, we had brie burgers. Not quite as good as the ones in Independence, I think we needed a milder brie, but delicious anyway. Very satisfying after a long day of saving lives.

In The Family

On Sunday a Kitchen Gnome showed up.


And I got him to do the dishes somehow. He also helped me make Pasta alla Norma which I discovered in the latest issue of Cooks Illustrated. I like eggplant, but have had issues with cooking it before (so have other people, I've received eggplant dishes that were entirely too firm from restaurants). This dish had some creative way of cooking the eggplant to guarantee it wouldn't be chewy and unpleasant.


And it wasn't.

The next morning the Kitchen Gnome got to work with my Cooks Illustrated baking book, and by the afternoon, this had appeared.


Yum!

Poseidon Worship

June gloom has been aggressively persistent this year. I didn't even realize it was summer until the sun came out about a week ago. We were all set to go to the beach on Sunday with Meggish and her husband, but Meggish's schoolwork got in the way. The morning was cold and overcast, but I still demanded we go down to the beach and say hello to the summer ocean.

Intimidated by the cloudy sky, we didn't get into our bathing suits -- a mistake. Once I touched the water I wanted to get my whole body into the waves. But, there are still several months of summer. We settled for getting significantly splashed.




I haven't been food blogging lately because I've been making a lot of dishes that I've already blogged about. I'm quite proud of my repertoire, but at a certain point it comes off more like taunting and less like a journal. Ala: I made Chicken Tikka Masala again last night, and it was even better this time. You shoulda been here.

Sunday night though, I pulled out Let's Cook Japanese Food! and tried a new one. Spicy ground beef curry with vegetables. Tech Support was in charge of vegetable prep and I think he did a delightful job.


I love colorful food. I think that presentation is definitely a part of an enjoyable meal, though sometimes I'm too lazy to bother. Of course, after cooking these vegetables for a bit and adding the bright yellow curry, they had lost some of their shine.


Perhaps not the most beautiful presentation, and my shots are still coming out blurry, but it was pretty tasty.

Food and Cats

A few months ago I finished doing laundry and didn't feel like folding it right away. If you have ever had a cat, you know how this story goes. Well, in this case James beat Sylvester to the punch, but she wasn't going to let him have the best spot all to himself.


Last night I made Chicken Tikka Masala. As mentioned before, cooking chicken and other meats always makes me nervous. So I got an instant read thermometer, which would let me know if the meat was done. Still, I jabbed it nervously into the chicken and stared at the numbers, trying to figure out if the slow rate they were increasing meant anything.

J-Po, sitting across the kitchen, told me quite sternly that the chicken was done and he'd eat it all if I was really afraid. Luckily, it didn't come to that.


I also managed to squirt tomato all over myself while attempting to convert diced tomatoes to crushed tomatoes with a potato ricer in a hurry. Who knew that was a bad idea?

Despite that, the food came out great. I'm feeling my kitchen Mojo returning.

Found the Macro Setting

So now I will subject you to pictures like this:

Mountains of roast potatoes with spicy caramelized onions, an old favorite from Cooks Illustrated that I have done many times. I love fingerling potatoes with brightly colored insides. Slicing them up is like opening little presents.

A hastily tossed together dinner, another winner from Apples for Jam. I had asparagus, but wanted something a little more filling. The boy remarked that he was surprised how well the egg and asparagus went together. The Parmesan didn't hurt either.

Is February Over Yet?

I'm still here, but I'm ready to be done with this month. First I was exhausted from work, then I floundered with my writing, then I got a cold, then I got my wisdom teeth out. During all this I didn't do too much cooking.

Honestly, I think that was a mistake. Cooking is hard work, sometimes I screw up, and it's really not usually a joyful activity. But it is a satisfying one. When I've put together a tasty meal, or at least something new, I feel like I've accomplished something. I needed more of that in February.

March will be different. I'm already in the baby steps of planning a dinner party with a friend. I couldn't help but pick up another book by Tessa Kiros. Her cookbooks belong on coffee tables, they are so beautiful. I've been watching and reading Pride and Prejudice lately, and though I know none of the Bennet girls cooked or did housework, for some reason it always puts me in the mood to do just that.

Unfortunately, thanks to the wisdom teeth removal, I'm still on soft foods today. Tomorrow though, I may try something different.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with two things I managed to snap pictures of that the boy made with a little bossy oversight from me:


Sweet Simmered Beef and Onions over Rice from Let's Cook Japanese Food! I like beef when it's done Japanese style. Sliced thin, cooked well, and over a bed of rice.


Hot Chocolate from Apples for Jam (one of the Tessa Kiros books). Wow, this stuff is decadent.

See you in March!

The Second Time Around...

We made Japanese Hamburger's again and this time they came out better. The first time they were yummy, but rather meat-loafy. The second time they were fantastic.

What did I do different? I wish I knew. I hate it when I do something better (or worse) the second time and have no idea why. It's taken me 3 times to be *almost* certain that my favorite brand of Silken Tofu is just TOO soft for Ma Po Tofu. When I add the cornstarch it winds up looking more like what I imagine Menudo looks like than Ma Po. It's delicious, but nothing I'd show on the blog.

Next time I'll use their Firm Tofu instead, that'll be the final test.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to make Japanese Hamburgers in an attempt to figure out what I did right. This is not something I'm dreading.

On the subject of Transcendental Foods, the parents brought me half a flat of Strawberries from Oxnard. Some kind of bribe I think. I had to do something with them.


This may not look like much.


But this was delicious. Strawberries + Homemade Sponge Cake + Whip Cream = Happiness. Plus, I'm very proud of myself for successfully making Sponge Cake! That's a lot of egg-beating.

Beautiful Days...

... lead to falling behind on the blog.

Finished the first book of 2009. Fledgling by Octavia Butler. I'm aiming to read more than one book a month, but had a rough start with another book that couldn't keep my interest. Now I'm reading Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake, which I am enjoying but is dense, dense, dense. So it may take a little while to get through.

Meanwhile there have been:


Delicious breakfasts. The only way I'm willing to eat eggs besides the (very) occasional egg salad or deviled eggs.


Baked Shrimp Scampi from Ina Gartens Back To Basics, another Christmas present. Delicious, easier to make than usual scampi, and would definitely be a great course for those dinner parties I'm going to have someday.


Beautiful days at the Getty Villa, where someone else made lunch for me, and I sat and enjoyed the view far more than the art.

Repulsion Cuisine

Around midnight one evening, laying in bed but not yet in asleep, I turned to the boy and said: "What's the opposite of fusion? Repulsion maybe?"

One of the many reasons I love this man is he always takes me seriously. He stopped and thought for twenty seconds. "Yeah, that sound good."

Earlier that day I'd been presented with a dilemma: What to make with potatoes. The potatoes were important. They were growing old, were probably already a little past-done, but salvageable. I knew I could make roast or skillet potatoes pretty easy. But while I had a ton of ground pork and could easily make Ma Po Tofu for the dozenth time, I just couldn't stomach the idea of Ma Po Tofu and Potatoes. That wasn't the kind of fusion cuisine I liked, it was more like repulsion cuisine.

I did have some drumsticks that the boy had purchased and then, like many grocery store inspirations of his, left to die in the freezer. The problem? I have this neurosis about chicken. I'm terrified of undercooking the pale pink meat. I'll eat it when others make it without batting an eye, but I fear my own abilities. Still, chicken and potatoes sounded much, much better than Ma Po Tofu and Potatoes.

Battling my fear, I paged through a new cookbook I'd picked up on the recommendation of a friend, Apples for Jam. Chicken Drumsticks and Wings with Orange Tomato Glaze caught my eye. I like the word glaze, so that was a good start. The basic ingredients were encouraging. The 2-2 1/2 hour cooking time sealed the deal. I could eat chicken that had cooked for that long.

Finally, I had a complete meal.

Combinations

Maybe you know already, but I've got this thing about cooked fruit. I don't like it. Numerous times loving family members have presented me with just-out-of-the-oven homemade pies, and I've remained unmoved. Warm berries? Hot apples? No thanks.

Except for jam. I dig jam. Only, I don't like toast that much (I know, I know, wait until I tell you about my issues with cooking chicken later this week), so I am always on the lookout for good Jam Vehicles. Scones, for examples, are excellent at carrying jam. Lately though, I've been casting my eye in the desert realm. Enter, Jam Thumbprints.


I used Cooks Illustrated's recipe, and first made these around Christmas, and they were eagerly gobbled up by my father and brother. The cookie is tender, moist and dense and the perfect vehicle for the sweet jam. They were a winner from the first bite, and I had to make them again.

The thing about these cookies though? They taste great after dinner of course, but there is an even better way of eating them.


The slightly bitter green tea cleanses the palate and makes each bite taste like the first. I love combination's of food and drink that belong together. Things like apple and gorgonzola in the same salad, or the way feta, parsley and kalamata olives belong together in all kinds of dishes. But I'm also always looking for components of a meal that enhance one another. Like how homemade burritos taste better if I'm drinking a Corona. Or the way clam chowder needs a good sourdough. As the flavors come together in my mouth, they become more than the sum of their ingredients.

As part of my self-education on cooking and food, I'm seeking more of these transcendental moments.

Cooking Loves Knitting

I think that becoming a skilled knitter has actually helped me become a better chef as well. Patterns for more complicated knitted garments can be intimidating and overwhelming. Time and time again I've watched people read through patterns like they were some kind of novel and exclaim: "But I don't understand what it means here in step 10."

In such cases I always urge the customer to just go ahead and start, and if they take the pattern one step at a time, by the time they get to 10 it'll make sense. (Of course, occasionally a pattern is poorly written or wrong, but usually by then you can also Figure A Way Around It.)

As another side note, I've heard the occasional novice knitter refer to patterns as "recipes."

Which is all to say that I'm a lot less intimidated by long recipes these days. I do them one step at a time, and at the end I usually have something tasty, if not always what I was going for.


Or I can just keep making a recipe I've already made once. "Ebi no Chiri So-Su" from Let's Cook Japanese Food! is a new favorite of mine. The main ingredient in the sauce is ketchup -- which illustrates why I'm really loving this book. While the accomplished Japanese chef may wow you with their tempura and sushi, the average Japanese person is more interested in how they can get more mayonnaise or ketchup into their diet. And since this book represents the latter, they are also very simple.

Too bad taking good pictures of food at night isn't like following a recipe...

Next Year I'll Ask For Photography Books...

This year I asked for, and thus received, a fair amount of cooking related paraphernalia for Christmas. I've already used two of these gifts.

The Le Creuset Dutch Oven (which I may occasionally refer to as 'my precious') was put to work to make this Almost No-Knead Bread recipe from Cooks Illustrated. I've wanted to make this forever, but even after I got the dutch oven I had to wait for a good time with 8 hours to rise.

Whenever I wait to do something though, I tend to end up doing it on impulse when I can't stand to wait any longer. So, on a Friday night at 11pm I sent the boy for a quick trip to the local store for the instant yeast I thought I'd had, and then threw the dough together in about five minutes. It was supposed to be left standing at room temperature, but since it's chilly here I put it in our oven where it was kept a little warmer by the pilot light.

Saturday friends came over and I pulled this baby out for it's almost-no-kneading and second rising, and then popped it in the oven. It cooked faster than expected, and burned on the bottom, but it was still absolutely delicious. I'm going to invest a few $ in an oven thermometer, because I suspect my oven sometimes runs a bit hot. Next time I make this (which will definitely be soon) I'm going to do the Rosemary-Parmesan version.

My younger brother gave me "Let's Cook Japanese Food!" by Amy Kaneko, and I've already tried out two recipes, including the shrimp seen in my previous blog. Those were delicious.


So was this, "Mapo Nasu", spicy pork with eggplant. I've made "Mapo Tofu" using another recipe, the main difference (besides tofu vs. eggplant) was this one had no miso added. I missed that flavor, so next time I will try adding it to this recipe.

I was pleased with how the eggplant came out, since they have given me trouble before, though one of them was a little tough. I think I'm going to blame that individual eggplant since the rest were quite yummy.

I've still got a few Christmas gifts to experiment with, some money at amazon that might go towards cooking gadgets, and I think I need to work on my camera skills...

Some days...

... success is homemade Ricotta Gnocchi, made using homemade ricotta.

The Show

Home made Samosas, Vegetable Curry, Tamarind Chutney and Mango Lassi. Store-bought Chapatis and rice.

Mmm.

A preview...

Cupcakes and Dolphins

I spent Valentine's Day with my boss and one of our clients discussing divorce at length (with good reason that I won't go into) until they both declared:

"You should never get married."

Now, I'm definitely not one for the consumerist-hallmark-card version of Valentines Day, but this was going too far in the other direction.

Which has nothing to do with the rest of the post.



These are my two new wonderful things to enter my life. The first appeared magically from Ikea last Saturday and little more needs to be said about storage space and apartment kitchens.



I haven't been keeping track of whether I make a new recipe a week or not, but I have been cooking a lot of new things. These are The Big Hit. I made a batch and brought them to my parents just to prove what a Big Girl I am.

Let's just say they are like coconut flavored clouds with light pineapple frosting. To make matters worse, they are easy to make.

The recipe is the Fluffy White Cupcakes from the woman who does Vegan Lunch Box, the frosting is only to be found in the book. Following the direction of some of the commenters I replaced soy milk with coconut milk.

Don't worry, I plan on making these at the weakest excuses.

Finally, I finished these socks a few weeks ago but wanted to wait until the stars aligned properly to photograph them.





Can you see the dolphins?

Details to be found at Romancing the Skein.