Fruitaholic

It's true. I am a fruitaholic. I have eaten whole watermelons, pineapples, and 10 lb bags of oranges for dinner (not all of those at once - I'm not that crazy, you know).












Combine that with my magnificent ice cream machine, and you get this:

Watermelon sorbet

- half a big seedless watermelon, cut into chunks
- 1/4 cup sugar, if the watermelon needs it
- 1/2 teaspoon salt

Puree together. Toss into ice cream machine. (You may have to do this in batches.)

Lock your door. Eat the whole thing. Don't share.

Repeat with the other half of your watermelon.

Dear Yogurtland - I don't need you any more.

To make your very own Yogurtland/Pinkberry-style frozen yogurt, you will need these two things:

- 1 big container of Trader Joe's fat-free plain yogurt (the kind in the clear container with the pink & blue lettering)

- 1/2 cup sugar


Whisk together. Plop into ice cream machine. Never go to Yogurtland again.

Note: It really makes a difference what kind of yogurt you use. I made two batches with two different kinds of fat-free Trader Joe's yogurt, and the one in the clear container was much better.

Another note: I still have to try this with the Greek-style and full-fat yogurts. Will those be better? Stay tuned...

AWOL

Where is Roadsnacks?

She is busy with her annual multi-day catering gig, feeding these people:






Recipes later...

The return of recipe Wednesday (again)

Recipe Wednesday is back! Here's one of our potluck staples:














Mama Jo's Tofu Salad

- Place one or two blocks tofu (from San Jose Tofu, if you can get it) on a platter. No need to cut it or anything.
- Scatter some baby salad greens around it. Make it pretty.
- Put a handful of alfalfa sprouts on top.
- And while you're at it, some halved cherry tomatoes.
- How about some sliced scallions?
- Now drizzle with your favorite Asian-style salad dressing.

You do what?

Some of you know that I used to write for this magazine.

I left that job when I moved to the left coast but still work on cookbooks now and again. So what is it exactly that I do?

Sometimes, I write articles for food mags or contribute recipes to a cookbook.

Other times, I test recipes for cookbooks, usually ones written by restaurant chefs. The chef will get a book deal, send their recipes to an editor who pares them down to serve 4-8, and the editor will send them to me to test.

Why would the recipe have to be tested, you ask? Normally, restaurant chefs don't have any of their recipes written down, and if they do, it'll most likely be a set of vague directions with no concrete measurements or cooking times. If recipes weren't tested, they might look like this:

Marinara (serves 4? 6? 127?)

- enough tomatoes to fill a fish tub
- two cups mirepoix onions
- maybe some rosemary or marjoram, about a handful
- lots of garlic
- salt, sugar
- evoo

Cook together until it makes a sauce.

Er - what kind of tomatoes, and what's a fish tub? Seeded? Chopped? And cook it in what kind of pan? In the oven? On the stovetop? What do you serve this with?

So that's what I do.

All righty, back to the kitchen...

Where is Roadsnacks?

Loyal readers will note the absence of Recipe Wednesdays. That is due to a temporarily busier work schedule, which is a good thing, I assure you.

What is not a good thing is that I no longer have time for my daily runs, which is going to suck, come race season. Sigh.

By May 1, life should return to normal.

Now, back to the pork chops...

Why be stingy with bacon?

A pretty decent review of this book (which loyal readers will remember), from the Boston Globe:

TWO DUDES, ONE PAN: Maximum Flavor From a Minimalist Kitchen

By Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo

By T. Susan Chang Globe Correspondent / February 25, 2009

It's hard not to like the idea behind "Two Dudes, One Pan: Maximum Flavor from a Minimalist Kitchen." Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook (TV chefs and LA restaurateurs) devote the entire book to dishes that can be cooked in a single pan - a blatant appeal to anyone who dislikes washing pots. Since that includes practically everyone, the book's success is pretty much assured

The idea is that it doesn't take a surgical array of tools to coax flavor out of a few ingredients. Choose the right ones and cook smart. The authors tend to focus on rollicking, hearty flavors that are hard to ignore. And they're not stingy with the bacon, either...

And to prove it, the Globe included this recipe with the review:

1 1/2	pounds ground beef
1 1/2	pounds ground pork
1	Spanish onion, chopped
3/4	cup panko (bread crumbs)
2	eggs
1	cup ketchup
1/2	cup milk
1/2	cup chopped fresh parsley
2	cloves garlic, very finely chopped
1	tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2	teaspoon hot sauce
2	teaspoons kosher salt
1	teaspoon cayenne pepper
8	thick slices bacon

1. Set the oven at 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, combine the beef, pork, onion, panko, eggs, ketchup, milk, parsley, garlic, Worcestershire, hot sauce, salt, and cayenne. With your hands, work the mixture until thoroughly combined.

3. Lay a 16-by-12-inch piece of plastic wrap lengthwise on your work surface. Arrange the bacon strips vertically on the plastic, slightly overlapping. Turn the meat out onto the bacon and form into a loaf shape with your hands by pressing the loaf lengthwise along the bacon first, and then shaping the sides. Use the sides of the plastic to wrap and press the bacon around the loaf. Transfer the loaf to a rimmed baking sheet and flip it over. Gently remove the plastic wrap.

4. Bake the meatloaf for 60 to 70 minutes or until it is firm to the touch and the bacon starts to brown. For extra-crisp bacon, place the meatloaf under the broiler for 2 to 3 minutes, watching it carefully. Set aside for 10 minutes. Use a serrated knife to cut into slices.

Recession Soup

All right. So it's Recipe Friday this week. Sue me.

Rainy days = no running = grouchy Roadsnacks.


Recession Soup

1 bag lentils, rinsed & sorted (use half the bag if you have a small crock pot)

Trader Joe's chicken stock concentrate (maybe 3 of the little packets)

half a head of napa cabbage, chopped

1 onion, diced

1/4 cup miso paste

1 TB sugar

Kosher salt & black pepper to taste



In the morning, before going to work (if you still have a job), throw it all in a crock pot with the appropriate amount of water. The soup will be ready by the time you come home.

When life gives you lemons...

Okay - this recipe will be in an upcoming cookbook, and as long as you ALL promise to BUY IT, I will give you this one recipe. For more sneak peek recipes, check out Flour Bakery + Cafe's website!

This is the best lemon curd in the world. Seriously. If you like crazy-tart curd that really tastes like lemons, this is for you. I make this with Meyer lemons, but normal ones work perfectly well.

Joanne Chang's Most Amazing Lemon Curd
2 cups + 2 tablespoons (17.75 ounces) lemon juice
¼ pound unsalted butter
¼ cup (2 ounces) heavy cream
2 cups (14 ounces) sugar
8 eggs
4 egg yolks
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan, heat together lemon juice, butter, and cream until just under a boil.

2. Whisk together sugar, eggs and egg yolks in a medium bowl until combined.

3. Remove liquid from the heat and gradually whisk in a little bit of the hot liquid into the sugar/egg mix. Continue whisking in a little more hot liquid into the eggs until all of it is added. This is called tempering and it allows the eggs to slowly and gently be brought up to the same temperature as the hot liquid.

4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and place it over medium heat.

5. Stir mixture continuously with a wooden spoon, making sure to scrape the bottom of the saucepan to prevent the eggs from scrambling at the bottom. Cook mixture until it thickens and coats the spoon with a thick enough layer of curd that you can draw your finger through it and it holds a line. This will take about 5-8 minutes, depending on the heat of your stove.

6. Remove from heat and strain the curd through a fine sieve into a storage container. Cover and refrigerate until cool, several hours or overnight.

No more Scharffen Berger factory tours.

Stupid Hershey's.



Robert Steinberg once came to Flour and gave a lecture/demo on tempering chocolate. It was very informative, but don't ask me to explain it to you. Still can't do it.



From the SF Chronicle:

Scharffen Berger, Schmidt plants to be closed

(01-27) 18:28 PST -- The Hershey Co. said Tuesday it plans to close Scharffen Berger's West Berkeley manufacturing plant as well as the San Francisco factory that makes Joseph Schmidt chocolates and consolidate production at other facilities.

Hershey, which in 2005 bought both Scharffen Berger, which specializes in premium dark chocolates, and trufflemaker Joseph Schmidt, will continue to produce those brands, but the chocolates will no longer be locally made.

Scharffen Berger was founded in 1996 by Robert Steinberg, a family-practice physician in San Francisco and Ukiah, along with a former patient, winemaker John Scharffenberger.

The pair experimented in Steinberg's kitchen, using everything from a mortar and pestle to a hair dryer to create their chocolate. Production started in a South San Francisco plant but was moved to the larger, 27,000-square-foot Berkeley factory in 2001.

"It was home grown. They really changed the way people regarded chocolate in this country," said Deborah Kwan, a public relations consultant for the company from the time it opened until 2003.

Steinberg died in September after a long battle with lymphoma. "I'm glad Robert is not alive to see this," Kwan said. "If the lymphoma hadn't taken him, this would have."

Clay Pot Pork with Sweet Potatoes

A pot luck favorite.


















Clay Pot Pork with Sweet Potatoes

Don't leave the pan while you're melting the sugar. It can go from perfect amber caramel to charcoal in about a minute. And doing that in a nonstick pan is dangerous, since the pan will be too dark for you to see the caramel changing color.

1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup Asian fish sauce
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tabelspoons freshly grated gingerroot
1 lb trimmed boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced


Cook sugar in a dry 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, without stirring, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, swirling the pan if necessary, until sugar has melted into a deep amber caramel. Carefully add stock and fish sauce (Stand back! The caramel will harden and steam vigorously) and stir until caramel is dissolved.

Add onion, garlic, ginger, pork, and pepper. Bring to a simmer, then cover pan and reduce heat to low. Cook until very tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Add the sliced sweet potatoes during the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Serve with rice.

Presidential Potatoes

From the Inauguration Luncheon menu:

Molasses Whipped Sweet Potatoes
3 lbs sweet potatoes, roasted & peeled
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup orange juice
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Mash all ingredients together.

Need more recipes? Check them out here.

Read all about Cristeta Comerford, the White House Exec Chef, here.

Hungry?

Here, have a snack.

Or make these.


Lemon Cheesecake Squares
(Click for recipe)

From Fine Cooking magazine, June 2007.








Loyal readers will recall an earlier mention of these particular lemon cheesecake bars back in '07, before I started posting recipes. These are super-simple. Give it a go!

On a totally unrelated note, my new favorite wasting-time website is this, which you will find amusing only if you have an Asian mother.

The return of recipe Wednesday

This isn't a recipe. More like assembly instructions. But you get the idea.

Loco Moco is a Japanese-style hamburger steak, covered in gravy, topped with eggs, and all served on top of rice. Wiki says it was first created in 1949 in Hilo. To make your very own loco moco, you will need:

hamburger - seasoned with pepper and more salt than you think is necessary, formed into a giant burger and fried

brown gravy - preferably made with sauteed onions, drippings, and thickened with roux

two eggs - fried to your specifications

steamed rice - usually white

Serve with a scoop of mac salad on the side.




















This is just what you need after a morning of surfing, especially if you are a very bad surfer and spent most of your time falling off of your board.

Well. Maybe that's just me.

Spam Musubi

It's finally hit the mainstream media.

Since the President-elect is a hapa guy from Hawaii, it's only a matter of time til this becomes a staple on the White House menu.

Also, the White House Executive Chef is Filipina, so this all fits together quite nicely. It's about time DC got a little more Asian flavor.






Coming soon: Iron Chef, battle spam?

















Spam Musubi

Musubi is the Japanese word for knot. Sort of. Spam musubi is kind of like nigiri sushi. Sort of.

To make your very own spam musubi, you will need:

- spam, sliced
- shoyu mixed with a little sugar (= teriyaki sauce)
- cooked Japanese rice (mix with furikake, if you'd like)
- nori

Put spam slices in a hot nonstick skillet and fry until brown. (No additional oil necessary.)

Turn off heat. Add shoyu & sugar. Toss around until the spam slices are coated with sauce.

Look at the above photos and assemble. Either way is fine.

Um - this does not mean I've developed a sudden liking for spam. I have this maybe once a year. Personally, I think this would be better with kielbasa.

Strawberry sorbet

No, it's not strawberry season. It's 35 degrees outside, for crying out loud. In California.

But if all you have is a bag of frozen TJ's strawberries, then this is not a bad alternative.

Strawberry sorbet
1 bag Trader Joe's frozen strawberries, thawed
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar (depends on your taste)
pinch salt
1/2 cup water

Buzz it all together with your immersion blender and toss it into your ice cream machine.

Pecan Bars

From the Cook's Illustrated Baking Book, for which I did a whole bunch of recipes.

This recipe is my favorite.

Pecan Bars (fills one 9-inch square pan)

For the crust:

1 cup (5 oz) all-purpose flour

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup toasted pecans, chopped coarsely

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

For the filling:

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 tablespoon bourbon or dark rum (optional)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 cups toasted pecans, chopped coarsely

For the crust: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-inch square baking pan with foil and coat lightly with nonstick cooking spray.

Place flour, brown sugar, pecans, salt, and baking powder in food processor. Process mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal, about five 1-second pulses. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles sand, about eight 1-second pulses. Pat mixture evenly into prepared pan and bake until crust is light brown and springs back when touched, about 20 minutes.

For the filling: While crust bakes, whisk together brown sugar, melted butter, corn syrup, bourbon, vanilla, salt, and egg in medium bowl until combined. Add pecans and stir to combine.

Bake until top is brown and cracks start to form across surface, 22 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 1 hour. Remove bars from pan, transfer to cutting board, and cut into bars.

Sick of turkey? Try this!

As promised last week, a recipe from Jon & Vinny's book. This, along with their very tasty eggplant recipe, is available on NPR.










Garlic-Braised Brothy Escarole
Serves 6

1 tablespoon olive oil
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 large or 3 medium heads of escarole, leaves separated, washed, and sliced cross-wise into 1-inch-wide strips
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt*

Vinny: Escarole is an underused leafy green. It's sturdy enough to braise, and mild enough to please lots of people who don't get into more bitter braised greens. For a meal-in-one dish, add some cooked pasta and white beans.

Jon: My favorite way to eat this is in a bowl with a nice steak on the side. Be sure to dip pieces of the steak in the sauce to soak up all that garlicky goodness.

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, stirring, about 1 minute. Stir in the escarole and cook until slightly wilted, about 1 minute.

Add 1 1/2 cups water*, bring to a simmer, and cook until the escarole is tender, 7 to 9 minutes. Add the butter and salt and, once the butter has melted, serve.

*You can replace the water with chicken broth, if you'd like. And I'd start with 1 teaspoon Kosher salt, and add more to taste. And that's KOSHER salt, people. You'll be sorry if you use that much iodized table salt.

Now all y'all, go buy this book.

Need more cookbooks? Of course you do! The New York Times has some nice suggestions. They like Jon & Vinny's book, too.

Turkey Trot & Turkey Feast

Silicon Valley Turkey Trot!











My official results -
Place: 1632 out of 2413
Age Group: 232 out of 393
Chip Time: 1:06:16
Pace: 10:40/M












Not to compare, but -
First place, women's elite 5K - 00:16:00

Yikes...

Since I'm a newbie, I haven't figured out how to pace myself during a race yet. I think I start out too fast, dodging all of the slowpokes at the start (sub-9 minute mile!), then pooping out halfway (12 minute mile). The course was a lot narrower and more crowded than the SV Marathon, so there was quite a bit of dodging required.

And at mile 5, the 10K course merged with the 5K walking course, at the narrowest part of the Guadalupe Trail. 7,000+ people on a trail that's 6 feet wide? Really?

Oh, well. We had a great time, anyway!
















Time to look for another race! Wharf-to-Wharf? Bay to Breakers? Who wants to sign up with me?

Hello?




Afterwards, a huge Thanksgiving throw-down at Stew & Trish's.

The brown sugar cinnamon ice cream turned out pretty well. I think I'll make it for obon.




















Mika, doing her best turkey impression:

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream

I'm making this for tomorrow's Thanksgiving potluck:

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream

Whisk together:
4 egg yolks
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch Kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Add:
4 cups half-and-half

Heat to 180 degrees, strain, chill, & spin. Serve with pie.