Bachelor Life

Dang, the other day I felt like a total bachelor... for a couple reasons. Reason #1: I was eating dinner alone. Reason #2: I had garlic bread & Sierra Nevada IPA for dinner. Immediately after the garlic bread, I had a Theo chocolate almond bar... the salted almond, dark chocolate bar in the hot pink wrapper. I ate the chocolate so quickly, I couldn't technically call it dessert. Garlic bread, beer & dark chocolate for dinner. Bachelor status.

To all my fellow bachelors, you can make dinner with only 5 ingredients & actually feel pretty accomplished. A baguette, garlic, butter, beer, and chocolate. The dark chocolate is an excellent source of antioxidants, which could mean nothing... or could mean everything! and ultimately, you have a legitimate buzz at the end of dinner and no hangover in the morning (assuming you drink water appropriately).

Homemade garlic bread is like homemade croutons, and if you don't know what that's like, what the fuck have you been doing all this time? Ultimate comfort food. Mmm Mmm Mmm. So, 2 recipes in 1 here, y'all. Recipe #1: Garlic bread. Recipe #2: Cut garlic bread into crouton-sized pieces, and you have croutons. Impress any child you know with this trick.

Impress your company with your croutons.

Garlic Bread

• Fresh baguette*
• ~ 1Tbsp room-temperature butter** - you're choice, salted or unsalted (hopefully you always have room-temp butter on hand, because you keep your butter in a butter dish on the counter like every other person from the South - it makes toast a much more delightful experience)
• 1 clove garlic
• Sea salt
• Fresh Italian parsley, if you want to feel fancy

*If you're a bachelor and you're making this for yourself, half of a small baguette will do (a small baguette is usually 10-12"). If you're anyone else, not eating dinner alone, this recipe covers 6" of whole baguette, so double or triple appropriately.

**Substitute olive oil if you're making croutons.

Preheat oven to 350 (can be made in the toaster oven!). Cut baguette in half, lengthwise. One way to determine the "freshness" of your baguette is whether or not it is pre-cut. What I'm tryin' to say is your baguette better be fresh.

Mince the garlic like you mean it. Combine the garlic with the butter. If using unsalted butter, I recommend a few grains of salt. Nothing crazy... the garlic is gonna take care of the crazy.

Spread garlic butter on the 2 cut halves of the baguette. Pop in the oven. Wait 7-9 minutes. The garlic should be hella fragrant.

Parsley & freshly grated Parmesan make everything fancy

Enjoy your garlic bread with beer. The beer will make the bread taste better, and the bread will make the beer taste better. Win win.

Miso Delicious

Early autumn basil is in abundance and the fragrance literally seduces me every time I walk by. Earthy, calming, and refreshing. Yes, please. It's totally lovely.

What is a girl to do when there is no Parmesan in the fridge and no pine nuts in the pantry?!

Dang girl, get creative. Use some of that amazing, miraculous miso paste that's always in the fridge, and make some crazy good, vegan, pro-biotic, earthy pesto without all those fancy pants ingredients!

Miso Basil Pesto
(Luna Circle Farm, as published in the book, From Asparagus to Zucchini)

• 3 cups basil leaves
• 2-3 large garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or sunflower seeds
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2-3 Tbsp miso (mellow variety is best)

Puree everything in a blender, food processor, or with a handheld immersion blender until a thick past forms.

Makes 3/4 - 1 cup. You may need to add salt to taste if you're a crazy salt fiend, which I am, but I think it's SDD without it.

It's beautiful y'all, in more ways than one. Miso delicious love.

What A Pickle!

My great grandmother used to tell me I was going to turn into a pickle. I guess she thought I ate too many pickles. She probably just wanted me to stop eating all her pickles but I don't know when to stop. Story of my life! If they weren't so dang delicious, I wouldn't have this problem.

I am still settling into my new kitchen, slowly re-acquiring all my kitchen supplies & gadgets from the old storage unit on the east coast (ask me how you can contribute to the kitchen supply shipment fund!). Meanwhile, beautiful friends of mine gifted some of the most beautiful deep, dark red Swiss chard my way, and I knew I finally had to make this brilliant recipe for pickled chard stems.

 

Luscious

I modified the recipe a little, ate all the pickled chard stems (my friends helped) with a quickness, and then pickled sliced cucumber in the same brine! After I ate through all the cucumbers (in one sitting), I pickled sliced beets in the same sweet sweet brine. I'm dirty like that.

I have to preface this recipe with a quick story: I am currently teaching a cooking class - how to prepare and cook in-season produce, and we made fresh salsa. It was totally fantastic, but the students I had that day are super anit-tomato :( C'est la vie.

Fresh tomato salsa & corn, avocado, basil salsa

The tomato salsa was super juicy. The recipe was simple: tomatoes, fresh-squeezed lime juice, cilantro, red onion, garlic, jalapeño, and salt. With so much extra juiciness, the salsa was slightly unappealing and hard to eat, so I strained the liquor out, but then I couldn't just pour it down the sink -- what a tragic waste that would be. Tangy, sweet, spicy... it would be oh so delicioso in some kind of crazy pickle concoction!

Sweet & Spicy Pickled Swiss Chard Stems

• 1 large bunch of chard stems, leaves mostly removed
• 3/4 cup unfiltered apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 rounded Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp sea salt
• 1/8 tsp coriander seed
• 1/2 jalapeño, sliced crosswise, pith & seeds removed
• Approximately 1/3 cup salsa liquor

Rinse the chard stems well and slice into batons to fit into whatever glass container you're using. I don't have any Mason jars, so I used a Pyrex storage container.

Blanch & shock the chard stems prior to pickling. This will give them a longer shelf life in the refrigerator if you're not canning them. I reserved 1/2 cup of the boiling water, post-blanch, for the pickle recipe.

Combine the vinegar, water, salt, sugar, and coriander in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar and salt.

 Stack chard stems in your clean glass container and cover with brine. Add the sliced jalapeño and the salsa liquor.

Allow to marinade in the fridge for at least 24 hours, in a sealed container.

Last step, invite me over when they're ready. You might actually want to double the recipe if you are going to share with me (or any other pickle lover). They are completely fabulous right out of the jar and they're utterly brilliant in a salad.

Succulents Steal My Heart

My own personal dreamboat

These adorable little guys are from the Saturday Irvine Farmers Market, at the corner of Bridge & Campus. The succulents booth must make a killing from suckers like me!

The little ones in the bottom right corner of the box are called "baby toes" & the little fatty pink gordito on the top, second from the right is called "pork and beans"!! Shut up, I know. The baby in the top right corner is like a little fractal explosion, and the little grayish guys are pretending to be mushrooms, obviously. I have to tell them to stop being so cute all the damn time. It's distracting.

Not to mention that they are all trying to propagate in the coolest ways... and they're totally the opposite of fussy. They're so dang cool. I <3 succulents.

Maple Apple Pancake

 

Pretty much a slice of heaven. Imagine a pancake and custard and apple pie all together, in the same hot pan... it's indecent.

side shot. oh baby!

Brand new to southern California - new job, new life, etc. etc. - I am beyond lucky to have a supportive network of family & friends to help me through this mind-blowing transition. Mostly, I don't have a place to live, and I'm depending on a few super outstanding, fabulous people to let me sleep on their couch, use their shower, hog up space in their pantry and fridge -- so, in other words, I'm a big fat freeloader.

Somehow I have to compensate for the fact that I take up space, otherwise who's going to want to have a girl like me around?? As per usual, I go the route of culinary seduction. This pancake has saved my ass more than once. There is a reason my doggy is named after this culinary delight.

Maple Apple Pancake

• 2 large eggs, at room temperature if possible
• 1/4 cup spelt flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 maple syrup
• 1/4 tsp kosher sea salt
• 1.5 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 large, firm eating apple (Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady, etc), peeled, cored & thinly sliced

Heat the oven to 425°F.

Combine the eggs, flour, cream, maple syrup, and salt in a blender. Blend on high to combine well.

Melt the butter in an 8-inch (measured across the top of the pan) heavy-duty ovenproof nonstick skillet (such as an omelet pan) over medium heat. Add the apple slices and sauté until soft and slightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes.

Whiz the batter in the blender again until frothy, about 30 seconds. Carefully pour the batter into the skillet (coax a few apples back to the center of the pan with a heatproof spatula), let the skillet sit for just a few seconds, and transfer it to the oven.

Bake until the pancake is puffed, golden, and set, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the skillet and let the pancake cool for a few minutes in the pan (it will deflate)*. Slide a flexible spatula or two under it and transfer to a cutting board or plate.

Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar or confectioners’ sugar and a little cinnamon, cut into wedges, and serve warm.

Many years ago, when I would spend hours poring through cookbooks and cooking magazines, I found the above recipe in Fine Cooking. I knew right away, it was worth keeping. It's practically made of magic.

*This is usually the point at which I try to grab the handle of the pan, forgetting that it's been in a 425 degree oven, and burn the bejeezus out of my palm and fingers. Please be aware of the consequences of your actions.

I heart Sunday Brunch

I love Sunday brunch so much I want to marry it. I mean, if we're talking about Sunday brunch with truly adorable friends, homemade cornbread, eggs from the farm, my favorite kale salad, pork sausage, homemade apple butter, and maple syrup, well...

Tell me you're not kind of falling in love right now.

If I remember correctly, these eggs were fried in bacon fat. Saving bacon fat has been a new thing for me, and I'm really happy about it. When I ran out of olive oil for a whole week, bacon fat saved the goddamn day, not to mention that it's insanely delicious. If you're gonna eat bacon, you damn well better save your bacon fat.

Have I mentioned that I work at a beautiful organic farm in town? Dang, I love that place so much. At the farm we grow some incredibly delicious kale. In fact, the following recipe, for the kale salad shown above, was given to me by one of our customers when I was a cashier at the farm stand back in 2004.

Kale Salad

• 1 bunch of kale

• 1/4 cup roasted pine nuts*

• 1/4 cup dried cranberries or golden raisins

• 1 lemon, squeezed (you may only need half, depending on the size of your lemon)

• 2-3 Tbsp. olive oil

• 1/4 tsp sea salt

Allow the cranberries to sit in warm water for approximately 10 minutes. Rinse the kale and remove the stems. Layer and roll kale into easy-to-manage roll-up. Slice into ribbons. Drain the water from the cranberries and add to kale. Add salt, lemon juice, and olive oil. Massage the dressing into the kale until it is well coated. Let sit for 10-20 minutes.

Top with pine nuts and drizzle with more olive oil.

*I roast my pine nuts in 350 degree toaster oven, for about 10 minutes.

The cornbread is also worth mentioning... the cornbread was covered in real butter, apple butter, and maple syrup. Out of control. My cornbread recipe came from this book.

Brunch is a leisurely event in my house - in other words, it takes forever for me to get it going. We were halfway starving while my friend gave me a sneak-peak preview of a new book being released by the local Gold Lamé Bandits - absolutely stunning. We needed to have breakfast before brunch: peanut apple butter-tastic oatmeal. I used whole oat groats, which take so much longer to cook compared to rolled oats, but are so worth it. Totally the bees knees.

Peanut Apple Butter-tastic Oatmeal

• Whole oats groats*
• Your favorite peanut butter (to taste)
• Homemade apple butter (to taste)
• Suggested: Organic raisins, sliced fruit, nuts.
• Your favorite milk (I used raw cow's milk, milked 2 days before!)

Combine. Enjoy. Smile.
*I cooked my oats according to the directions on the bulk container at the grocery store. I forgot to write them down. Details to come.

Sunday brunch with neighbors and friends should be an institution, no matter where you are. Viva community Sunday brunch!

Passing Moons

Were you up at 3am on the 20th for the full moon Winter Solstice lunar eclipse? Me too!! So dang out of control. "The light comes from all the sunsets and sunrises, seen from a lunar perspective around the edges of a silhouetted Earth." -apod.nasa.gov

What a gem.

This actually happened.

Happy (belated) Winter Solstice y'all! Hooray for longer days to come! More time for food mavens to cook AND blog. I hope all of you lovely stars are shining bright out there! Shining bright with love, breaking bread and celebrating joyfully with your family, friends, and neighbors. I wish for your 2011 to be more delicious than 2010. Yeah, you heard me. Make it happen!