love, life and a poached egg

I'm not a big fan of eggs. The idea of a hard boiled oval of white gelatinous goo. I ate eggs in other forms; scrambled, frittatas, omelettes, in cakes. But here's the thing, they were always a base for the included ingredients. I'm a way bigger fan of the potatoes and veggies in frittatas, the sausage in an egg and sausage sandwich. Eggs, on their own, were never enough for me. But alas, a new day has dawned in my culinary awareness. I went to an amazing brunch place the other day. It's called Lime and if you've ever been to the Castro in San Francisco you know exactly what I am talking about. The first time I walked in I realized that I should have kept the clothes I was wearing the night before on. The interior is a futuristic white with plastic tables and costumed waitresses grooving to the beats of the in-house DJ set up in the back.
We sashayed over to our table and immediately presented with the first of many all-you-can-drink mimosas. I know. All. You. Can. Drink. After we killed the first and second rounds we perused the menu. Eevrything looked great but the Huevos Rancheros jumped out at me. The only sticking point; two poached eggs. I had never had a poached egg before. Call me a scaredy cat and you'd be right. Something about the oozy egg yolk creeped me out. It must have been the (3) mimosas I'd drunk because by the time I ordered I forgot all about the poached dilemna, threw caution to the wind and ordered up the huevos. Ah well, I could just eat around it, right?
After we'd polished off the fresh biscuits with apricot preserves and had a (few) more mimosas, the food came. Ah well, I thought, time to dig in. I sliced open the first poached egg and watched the yolk dribble down over my scrumptious looking black beans, coating the warm tortillas folded in triangles nearby. I grabbed my fork, loaded it up with guacamole, pico and beans, smooshed some yolk and white on the end and dug in.
Fireworks exploded in my mouth. The sensation was smooth and velvety. All the disparate ingredients joined together into one bite of huevos nirvana. 3 Seconds later my plate was clean and my belly was full. Where had poached eggs been my whole life?
The next day I made a salad with red leaf lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, tabouleh, chick peas and feta, and topped the whole thing with a beautifully poached egg. Ahh, my life is complete.

To poach eggs, bring a shallow pot of water to a light simmer. Crack an egg into a shallow dish. I added a dash of white balsamic vinegar because I like the slight acidic taste. It also helps the egg retain it's shape. I gently lowered the egg into the pot, shut off the heat, covered it with the lid and let it be for 4 minutes. If you want it cooked through more, leave it in longer. Bon Apetit!

Technically it is a new season. Technically I am a new age. Technically I live in a new city. Technically I should be able to get a job and create a life in this wonderful crazy Californian mecca of free love called San Francisco. Technically, I'm scared to death. This place is so foreign! I mean, come on, they sell beer, wine AND booze in supermarkets! There are 12 different types of Mexican and Asian food within a 3 block radius from my new apartment. No one knows what I mean when I say "I'm all set." They eye me crazily and then ask again if I need anything else. The Fog, and I mean it like it's a person with a personality and identifiable character traits, is everywhere. Next weekend there are two festivals going on simultaneously. A chill Bluegrass music festival and the German inspired Love Fest, an all day, all night homage to techno at it's rave-tastic finest. What kind of crazy land is this?

I know, I know, nowhere will be quiet like anywhere else. It's true. Last night my cousin brought me to a dinner party at her friends house where we ate breaded and pan fried abalone. Which, having just looked it up, I find to be large SEA SNAILS! HA! Whatever, it was breaded and fried. It tasted like breaded and fried. And now I can add that to the list. My cousin and her friends go deep sea diving for these suckers. I know, a whole new world.

I find in the midst of all this new transition I need to bring it back to something a little familiar. What is more familiar than risotto? To me, at least. Yet, as with all good staple dishes, this one has a twist. My classic risotto fell in love with a tomato and some basil. It's love child is what we call, tomato basil risotto. Excellente!


Fresh picked basil from the wonderful downstairs neighbors. Picture perfect.(hehe)


The finished product, replete with peas and muchos amounts of pecorino romano. I didn't follow a specific recipe. I simply used a can of good quality crushed tomatoes, although pureed fresh ones are wonderful, too. Cut that with a mixture of half water and half chicken broth and added it to the arborio rice until al dente. Seasoned it with salt and pepper, tossed in the basil chiffonade (thin little strips) and some peas. And voila, deliciousness in a bowl.

times, they are a-changing

I am going through what many call, a quarter life crisis. Those of you who are in your mid twenties know exactly what I'm talking about. You finish college, or whatever you've done for your early 20's and all of the sudden you're supposed to have everything figured out: the perfect job, spouse, home. We've been programmed throughout our whole lives to strive for the bright light just up ahead, or at least follow it's steady illumination right towards happiness. Well, now, that brings us to the real question. Am i happy?
The answer in a nutshell is not so much. I know what I love, food food and more food. I do love more things then that; underground hip hop, scif-fi fantasy movies, lazy bbq days on the canal with the friends I've made in this sleepy fingerlakes town I currently reside in. But I have yet to form that love into a cohesive whole. And maybe, just maybe, my relationship is wearing on me. Not in the good way. So what I am considering is a change. A life change. A change so huge that I am almost as scared as I am excited. I think I am moving clear across the country to San Francisco. I know, huge.
I can't wait to explore a new city with new adventures and excitements around every corner. But I am terrified of leaving the safety of partnership, of coupledom. I must remember in times like these that no matter where I go, there I am. My cooking, my interests and talents, will follow me as well as the tendencies I wish to leave behind. Que sera, sera.
That brings me to the food topic du jour:
Spicy Asian Peanut Noodles.
Ee gads, can I just say yum?
These noodles are the prefect cross section of creamy spicyness. They abound with raw seasonal vegetables and can be prepared in about 10 minutes. I could eat this whole bowl myself. I shouldn't, but I could. And if I do seperate from my significant other I may get the leftovers that never seem to last when he's around.
I adapated a recipe from epicurious for this bowl of wonderment. The beauty is that the whole thing is completely open to interpretation, as all truly good recipes should be. The picture above has thinly sliced red cabbage and half of an English cucumber(soooooo good in asian noodles). You can use basically whatever veggies you want in whatever amounts you choose. I didn't ahve any greens onions for mine so I simply ommitted it. No problemJust don't change the sauce!! It's perfect. I swear.
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (do not use old-fashioned style or freshly ground)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic (or to taste)
2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons chili-garlic sauce or sriracha
1 tablespoon (packed) golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
3 tablespoons (or more) low-salt chicken broth
3/4 pound linguine or dried chow mein udon noodles (I prefer asian Soba buckwheat noodles, they are the perfect consistency and they don't get too sticky)
6 green onions, chopped
1 red bell pepper, cut into matchstick-size strips
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
Preparation
Combine peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili-garlic sauce, brown sugar, ginger, and 3 tablespoons broth in processor; blend until smooth. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.
Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain pasta; rinse with cold water to cool and drain again. Transfer pasta to large bowl. Add whatever veggies and cilantro; toss to blend. Pour dressing over and toss to coat, adding more broth by tablespoonfuls if dressing is too thick. Season salad to taste with salt and pepper.

baked goods, ah, baked goods. how i love thee. Let me count the ways. Cinnamon raisin bagels may be my new favorite thing in the world. They are soft and pliable with swirls of delicious sugar and cinnamon wafting their way through the gently scented dough. I love bagels. Now I don't love cream cheese. I do, however, love yogurt. It is tart and tangy and gloops deliciously over my baked good of choice. I was inspired by the website www.thepioneerwoman.com to make these wonderful bagels. They are chewy where most are soft, dense where most are springy, and un-freaking-believable when toasted. Yes, it's a fair bit of work. But they yield anywhere from 12 gigantic bagels to well over 20 miniature bagels. The first time I made them I went with a plain variety. They were alright. This time, I upped the sugar and with the addition of cinnamon and raisins they became out of this world.
This is a picture of the fully formed and risen bagels about to take their dip in a steamy wet bath. I added baking soda and honey to the water to simulate malted syrup which is what gives the outside that special extra something-something.
The next pic is the actual bath. I found that my large saute pan worked extremely well for the shallow bath and I flipped the bagels with chop sticks. Cooking them the full 2 minutes on each side for chewyness was excruciating but I did it. It was worth it.
The last picture is of the finished product. I have yet to find another store bought bagel to match the amazing lure of these bad boys. Enjoy and try not to drool. Well, you can drool a little.

Zen in the kitchen

I have been obsessed with all things baked and delicious recently. Mostly having to do with the fact that I love love baked goods and I have plenty of time on my hands. There is something so satisfying about baking. and yes, the final product of eating is wonderful, but it's really the act of creating that gets me. When I am elbows deep in a bowl full of flour, yeast and water, kneading my little hands out, I reach a new form if Nirvana. I am completely at ease and zoned in. I can let go of all of my worries and thoughts about bills or my new house move and simply, knead. I love it. and recently I've had so much inspiration that the recipes piled up and begged to be tested. What could I do but put them out of their misery? The poor old things. First, I made mini cinnamon buns from a mix, if you can believe it. The Stonewall kitchen mix, to be exact generously supplied from my cousin Samantha who doesn't have anywhere near the sweet tooth and inclination towards sticky gooey baked goods that I have.
The only problem I had with these was that the amount of filling far exceeded the amount of dough and therefore exploded from the poor mini-cini's in a somewhat unappetizing shower of sweet brown filling. It tasted fabulous, don't get me wrong. But I probably would have put less in had I known. Fortunately there was so much butter involved that the caramelized goo pretty much pulled right off the mini muffin tin in one long corrugated strip. You have to love butter for it's greasing abilities. Luckily for me we had a dinner party that night and all the mini's left the premises settled comfortably in a new home, gently digesting away. Ah, the joys of baking.

So I've been checking out a lot of food blogs recently and I am very interested in thepioneerwoman.com

I found a recipe for corn bread on there and gave it a whirl. What I made was a moist and delicious fluffy corn bread, not made from a box, that was incredibly flavorful. I modified the recipe a little bit, to suit my own needs. I don't really keep milk in the house, I use rice milk in my cereal, and I didn't have any buttermilk. I did happen to have plain yogurt. The picture above is me mixing the egg, rice milk, yogurt, baking soda and baking powder to the dry ingredients. Oh, it was sooooo good. At the end I mixed in a bit of honey just to add a slight sweetness that you would normally get with milk. I think this would also be amazing with the addition of cooked corn kernels. A real keeper recipe.

You can see on the top picture that the crumb is very delicate. I couldn't believe all the height and fluffiness from baking powder. I also made the roasted red pepper sauce with pine nuts for pasta, soooooo amazing. I didn't take any pictures because it was practically gone within minutes. But it was a great recipe. I lightened it by not using cream to finish it off. Chicken stock and a dab of yogurt completed the slightly creamy, yet loose enough to coat pasta, sauce. bon apetito!

a few of my favorite things

Here is a picture of one of my cooking specialties. I make a killer herb crusted rack of lamb with truffle oil risotto and roasted asparagus. Again, sorry that the picture is sideways. It looks like the lamb is dominating the risotto and the asparagus is trying to stop it. Anyway..... This is my absolute favorite dish to cook and prepare for special occasions. The lamb is super easy. All you have to do is sprinkle the outside with salt and pepper, sear the outside to get a nice crispy exterior. Then you press on the crust which is bread crumbs(or crushed rice cereal or almond meal for gluten intollerant people) add some grated parmeggiano, lemon juice, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix it all together with a bit of olive oil and you are good to go. Pop it into an 375 degree oven for 10-15 minutes depending on how rare you like lamb(i say go rare!) and you can slice and eat.
Super easy and very impressive. Try it, it's hard not to like.