Cooking Stories

Mini Polenta Pizzas (Gluten and Dairy Free)

2012-02-06T21:29:00.000-08:00

These little mini pizzas are the result of some creative thinking to feed my two boys who don't eat gluten or dairy food (let that sink in for a second, no ice cream, cheese or regular bread). Anyway, we've learned some good meals that are not only pretty good for them, they taste good and aren't even that hard to make.

Tonight's dinner was Mini Polenta Pizzas.
Ingredients:
1 Polenta "chub" sliced into as thin discs as possible without the polenta crumbling
Marinara sauce
salami cut into eighths or sliced hot dogs pan fried to look like mini pepperoni
cooked white rice
dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste

I baked the polenta slices on a lightly greased half sheet in the over at 350 degrees for close a half hour. The package says 20 minutes but that wasn't working for me. Use your judgement though, if the slices are thin they'll cook faster and scorch faster too.
Heat up the marinara (I used the Tomato & Basil Marinara from Trader Joe's) and added the oregano after rubbing it into your hand and using a mortar and pestle to break it up. The rice can be room temp or warmer, cold doesn't work.
Assembly is pretty straight forward.
Polenta slice, top with marinara, a layer of rice (playing the part of the cheese here), top with salami or hot dog pepperoni pieces.
A little salt and serve.
My finicky son wolfed down two and then two more and my not so finicky son ate a total of five and a half mini pizzas.

Avocado Madness!

2012-02-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

Almost shamelessly lifted from the Santa Cruz Patch...

1. Mango Smoothie with Avocado:

It's like a mango lassi...kind of. Blend one cup of cold milk, one ripe mango (peeled), honey (as much as you want), and one half to one whole avocado, depending on how much avocado you can handle. Good served on a hot day.

2. Creamy Avocado Milk Shake

The avocado milk shake is insanely delicious for the first sips but it is extremely rich. In Indonesia, it's commonly made with a shot of espresso. Check out an interesting read on the secret dessert life of avocados in Indonesia, found on "The Traveler's Lunch Box" blog.

1 ripe Haas (dark-skinned) avocado, peeled and pitted
4 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (you can find organic sweetened condensed milk at Trader Joe's)
1 cup cold milk, more or less depending on thickness desired
a few drops orange extract, or some vanilla, rum or coffee (optional)
Crushed ice and additional sweetened condensed milk for serving

Blend all of the ingredients, minus the ice. You can throw a few ice cubes into the blender if you want a more frothy consistency. Pour over the ice cubes for a creamy dessert.

3. Coconut Avocado Ice Cream

The two Lazy Gourmets are in on the avocado dessert possibilities too. Here is a recipe for coconut avocado ice cream, adapted from Sunset Magazine. You need an ice cream maker for this one. Click HERE to read more about it.

2 ripe, medium avocados, chilled
1/4 cup sugar
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (14-ounce) can coconut milk

In a blender or food processor, blend avocado flesh, sugar, condensed milk and coconut milk until smooth. Process in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

4. Avocado Pie

There are a million recipes out there for avocado pies, some calling for cream cheese, some just sweet and condensed milk. Here is one that calls for cream cheese and looks pretty appetizing for a green dessert.

5. Avocado Chocolate Mousse

This recipe is courtesy of avocado.org, and was contributed by Adrian Halmagean.

1 ripe, Fresh California Avocado, halved, peeled and seeded
½ cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ cup agave syrup
¼ cup coconut milk
¼ cupsliced strawberries

Chop the avocado into a few medium-sized pieces and put it in a food processor
Add the cocoa powder, vanilla, agave syrup and coconut milk to the food processor and blend on high for about thirty seconds, or until mousse reaches desired consistency
Serve it chilled with fresh sliced strawberries.

Stupid Easy Tostadas

2011-09-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

One of the difficulties of having a kid who doesn't do well with food that had gluten in it or food that has dairy products in them is keeping some kind of variety. One of the best and easiest meals we had last week was worth sharing here.

Stupid Easy Tostadas
Ingredients:
tostadas or corn tortillas cooked to stiffness in oil
canned black or pinto beans
rice, white or spanish
cooked ground beef or chopped sausage or pepperoni or other meat
salsa, if wanted

Heat up a can of black beans or pintos or whatever kind of beans you like, we use the organic beans from Trader Joe's. Add some spices to give it some personality. Mash them up.

Spread a dollop of mashed beans onto a tostada, trying not to crack it. Once spread, add warmed up white or spanish rice. Top with browned ground beef, chopped sausages or whatever other meaty protein you like. If you like you can put a spoonful of salsa and a splash of hot sauce too but my kids aren't into salsa or hot sauce.

And if you can swing cheese then this is just begging for a layer of cheese and then a melting before adding the rice, beef and salsa on top. Other things you could swap in, corn, avocado, guacamole, tomato, grilled/sauteed onions, fried rice. Whatever you think might taste good just might taste good.

Its pretty easy to whip out six or eight of these in a quick period of time though you'll need a second can of beans. They are fast, pretty healthy, pretty easy and surprisingly awesome tasting. And you can enlist the help of your kids to assemble these too!

Bananas Foster

2011-02-16T23:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know if this how Bananas Foster is supposed to be made but this is how I learned it from my step-dad who used to run a bed and breakfast and is a kickass cook (so's my mom for that matter).

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff.

Ingredients:
Bananas, the more the merrier
Brown sugar
Butter
Rum, optional
Vanilla ice cream

You may have noticed that I don't have measurements for the ingredients, you don't really need them. Add more or less brown sugar, more or less butter as you like. The rum you should probably go light on until you've got the other parts of the recipe down.
Start by melting butter in a skillet on medium heat, you do not want the butter to brown at all, just melt. Add brown sugar to the butter and heat until it gets all bubbly and gooey and awesome. Add sliced bananas until the skillet is mostly covered with a single to a layer and a half of bananas, they will cook down a little bit. Stir and heat until the bananas are thoroughly coated and just starting to soften. Add a dash of rum, you can opt to flambe this but do so at your own risk. Stir and serve immediately, preferably over some vanilla ice cream.

Make sure you make extra because I can promise you that people will want more.

Yep, this is a pretty easy one but wowee does it make for an amazing and memorable dessert!

Kickass Chicken Tortilla Soup

2011-02-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

This is a very loose recipe that can be tailored to your tastes and outfitted with all manner of accessory food but we'll get to those in a bit. All credit goes to my wife for developing it.

Ingredients, more or less:
medium white onion
tomatoes, canned, chopped
fire roasted green chilis
roasted garlic salsa
better than bouillon soup base
chicken breast, pan seared and then shredded
Chalula hot sauce
cheese, grated
avocado, cubed
tortilla strips, recipe below

Pan sear the chicken with the onions and some of the fire roasted green chilis. Once the chicken is cooked, put it aside and continue cooking the onions and green chilis and add the tomatoes. Let it all come up to heat and then add the bouillon and water. Simmer for a while, add as much roasted garlic salsa as you like and continue to simmer. Add the hot sauce to taste, we like the Chalula brand.
The longer it simmers, the better the flavor will be and your house should smell insanely good by now. The cheese, avo, chicken and tortillas should be put in bowls buffet style

Ladle up a bowl and add any or all of the cheese, avocado, chicken and tortilla strips. I usually add a couple more dashes of Chalula here too. You can add whatever else you like that might appeal to you, we go with these because they work for us. Try whatever you like and let me know how it goes.

The truly best way to do this recipe is to make your own tortilla strips. Its surprisingly easy and the results make for awesome snacking material even outside use in the soup.

Tortilla Strips
6-8 inch white corn tortillas, the more the better, trust me
vegetable oil
salt
seasonings

Stack the corn tortillas five or eight deep and cut them into strips, don't worry about the curve on the edges. Heat up an inch or more of vegetable oil in a sauce pan and use a wok scoop to deposit and remove the rapidly cooking strips. Lay them on paper towels to cool and drain a little extra oil. Make sure to hit them with some salt (or whatever seasonings you fancy) while they are still hot. Once they cool, they are awesome in the soup and easily worth the little bit of extra time to make them. Oh and make alot more than you think you'll need because people will scarf them like mad.

The beauty of this recipe is that you can use whatever cheese you like, we usually use a medium cheddar but I will use Cabot Extra Sharp every so often for a different kick. The Better Than Bouillon is also swappable with whatever broth you prefer. The tomatoes could be fire roasted as well. Really, anything in the recipe can be changed around and tweaked to your particular liking though the garlic salsa seems to be a really key ingredient in making the whole thing come together so well. We use the Roasted Garlic Salsa from La Mexicana from Nob Hill (Raley's) specifically.

The soup also improves with age, as in, it gets even better if you make extra and eat it the next day or the day after. Just don't add any toppings until you've reheated and you'll be amazed at how complex and just downright awesome the soup is. I wish I had some pictures to share, maybe when I reheat a bowl tomorrow I'll add one.

Hot carrot and pickled jalapeno peppers

2009-09-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

From here

We love those canned pickled jalapeno peppers that you buy in the Mexican grocery stores here in California. Actually, we like best the hot carrots that they add to the cans for garnish. They put in about ten peppers for each slice of carrot. I devised this recipe because we were tired of buying a whole can of peppers just to get a few slices of hot pickled carrot!

This recipe is sized so that it will fit in a 1 1/2 pint Tupperware container

2 Large Carrots.
5 Medium Jalapeno Peppers.
About 1/4 of a medium onion.

Get a small pot of water boiling on the stove.

Scrub two large carrots, and wash five medium fresh jalapeno peppers. I try to choose nice firm green and shiny peppers.

Slice the peppers into 1/4" thick slices. Add the peppers to the boiling water and boil for three minutes.

Slice the carrots and onion into 1/4" slices. [After the peppers have boiled three minutes.] Add to the boiling water and set the timer for another five minutes.

While this cooks, mix together...

4 ounces of water
7 ounces of white distilled vinager
1 ounce of red Balsamaic vinager
1/4 teaspoon of olive oil
1 Tablespoon of salt
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
2 dried bay leaves
a tiny piece of crushed garlic
a very small pinch of monosodium glutamate

Quickly drain the cooked carrots & peppers [they should still be a bit crisp] and add to the water/vinager/spice mixture. Cool and refrigerate at least 24 hours before eating. I don't know how long this will keep as I always eat it up within a few days!

Please let me know what you think of this recipe. By sending me email:

My collection of other pickled pepper recipies collected on the net.

Recipe for Cinnamon Basil Jelly

2007-01-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

I've had this recipe for a while now and am looking forward to trying it out once I get a crop of cinnamon basil growing (after the frost is gone).

Here we go.
1 1/2 cups cinnamon basil leaves
2 1/4 cups cold water
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 1/2 cups sugar
One 3-ounce pouch liquid pectin.
Half pint jars, sterilized

Finely chop the basil and place in a saucepan with 2 1/4 cups cold water. Bring to full boil, cover, remove from the heat and allow the mixture to steep for 15 minutes. Pour the mixture into a jelly bag or fine strainer and let it drip. There should be about 1 3/4 cups of basil "tea."
Put the basil tea into a large saucepan along with the lemon juice and sugar. Cook the mixture over high heat, stirring constantly until the mixture comes to a full rolling boil (a boil that can't be stirred down). Boil for 1 minute, then remove from the heat. Stir in the pectin and ladle the liquid jelly into the sterilized half-pint jars. Wipe the rims of the jars clean and seal with proper lids. Turn the jars upside down for 30 minutes to seal the lids, the turn them right side up and allow the jelly to set and cool.

Its already pretty well known that I'm a massive fan of basil and cinnamon basil is among my most favorite types. It has a complex and fascinating aroma and a lovely, unique flavor in the mouth. I would imagine cinnamon basil jelly is absolutely fantastic. With some luck, I won't have to imagine forever. But ain't no basil growing now until the frost goes away! I'll get my crop going in a couple of months.

Carnitas Scrambled Eggs

2006-12-23T10:51:00.000-08:00

I just whipped up an easy and freakin' delicious breakfast. So good that I wanted to share it.

Eggs
Carnitas
Cheese
Salsa
Salt and pepper to taste.

Scramble up the eggs, add the carnitas when the eggs start to firm up, add a little shredded cheese."

Baked Zucchini Sticks

2006-07-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

This is actually decently healthy and tastes excellent so long as you get them fresh from the oven.

zucchini sticks, as many as you want to eat
flour, enough to dredge the sticks through
2 eggs
milk
bread crumbs, herbed or not
parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease or spray a sheet pan large enough to hold all the sticks without touching
Mix the bread crumbs and cheese together and then mix the eggs and milk together seperately
Line up some shallow bowls and put the flour in the first, the eggs in the middle and the bread crumb and cheese mixture last
Process a handful at a time, making sure to cover each stick completely in flour before a quick dip through the egg and milk mixture and then into the bread crumbs
Arrange the completed sticks on the sheet pan and bake for 20-24 minutes

Serve with whatever dip you like, we used some ranch dressing that was good. These come out of the over with a crust on them that is really pretty good but they do not stay good for all that long. In an hour, they'll be nasty.

Can A Timer Be Sexy?

2005-03-29T13:16:00.000-08:00

I think they can if they look and function like the Eva Solo timer. Simple is elegant is practical is useful.

Wiki for Recipes

2005-01-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

Just was alerted to Wikipes which is Wiki for recipes, a community site to gather recipes together.

A great concept and should get some legs very, very quickly!

Cooking with a Torch

2005-01-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a very good visual recipe for Creme Brulee (a personal favorite desert of mine), Creme Brulee for Engineers.

Apple Pancakes

2004-07-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Tried this new Apple Pancakes Recipe this morning and liked it enough to pass along.

Easy and quite good, I'd recommend using Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples as they hold up pretty well during the cooking process.

Fast and Excellent Tostadas

2004-02-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

Its easy to forget how easy and good tostadas are. Its just a hard corn tortilla, spread it with some refried beans of your choice (tonight's were black beans with jalapeno mixed in), broil for a few minutes to get the beans hot.
Top with shredded or grated cheese, a good mix to use is cheddar and monterey jack, it melts well and gives a good cheesy flavor with some bite.
Broil again until the cheese has melted and begun to bubble around the edges.
Remove from broiler and top with avocado, spicy salsa and sour cream.

Dig in.

You can add in all kinds of other things like, shredded bbq pork, chicken or beef, another layer of another kind of bean on top of the first bean and cheese layer, jalapeno slices, grilled shrimp, spanish rice, chopped tomatoes, some julienned jicama, gaucamole, sausage and any number of other things.

I made two in under ten minutes from start to finish. The only problem is that the tostada can get a little soft, the easiest solution is to put a fresh tostada under it. It also adds crunch.

As the soon to be incarcerated maven of polite cooking likes to say, Tostadas Are a Good Thing.

Speedy Gazpacho

2004-02-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

I came across a cool and easy recipe for Gazpacho, which is one of my favorite soups of all time at least it was the way the guy at the Molly's Restaurant used to make it for me. Crunchy, spicy, chunky and chilled. A superb liquid salad.

Anyway, here's the recipe:
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano already added in (I think its the Italian blend)
1 large cucumber cut into good sized chunks
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar.

Put it all together, whir it to your chosen consistency, chill and serve. Bam!

One good idea is to pre-chill the tomatoes to cut down on the chilling time.

I'm making it tonight and will try to post an update on how well it turns out as well as the cookbook I found it in.

[Update: Well, apparently you can make it with malt vinegar as well since I couldn't find the stupid red wine vinegar. My lovely wife let me know that, since we'd run out of cupboard space, she'd put all of our vinegars into the fridge. So, we did have some but I couldn't find it, which sucked but the soup came out alright in any case. I think the diced tomato blend is bit too strong. The Lovely Wife thought there was too much of a cucumber flavor and I thought that some jicama would add crunch and flavor. A worthwhile experiment and I'm looking forward to trying it again. The cookbook is called The Dinner Doctor.]

Following up with Butter Pecan

2003-12-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

Following hot and fast on the heels of my recent escapades with creating the perfect Mint Chip Ice Cream, I plunged back into the artisan ice cream world again this past weekend and ended up with a marvelously smooth, layered toasted butter pecan ice cream that's been my favorite creation to date. Just awesome.

Not all that hard to put together either. Just melt a 1/4 of butter in a pan, add 1/2 cup pecan bits (Trader Joe's sells nice bags of them) and some kosher salt. Toast until the pecans begin to darken and then drain the butter off (you can save the butter for something else though I'm still trying to figure out what but it smells great!) and allow the pecans to cool completely.

Make the basic vanilla ice cream recipe but cut back on the vanilla just a bit. Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker, let it do its thing for 20 minutes or so, then add the chilled pecans (I've taken to freezing them for a couple of minutes) and continue mixing for another 5 minutes.

Pack in containers and chill for a few hours in the freezer or dig right in and enjoy it now. The key is using good heavy cream in the mix and folding it into the milk and sugar mixture, don't blend it or you'll flatten out the resulting ice cream.

Follow up site from a post a few weeks ago about the Salmon and Cucumber Salad calling for some creme fraiche (though I wrote it then as creme fresh), a page on substitute dairy products......
Cook's Thesaurus: Cultured Milk Products
Cultured Milk Products

Acing the Mint Chip Ice Cream Final!

2003-12-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

I figured it out the other day and had already gathered my ingredients for another run at the fabled Mint Chip Ice Cream Crown. I recognized my first batch mistakes and determined not to repeat them. Hey, if you're gonna screw up, screw up in a new and different way than before.

The differences were subtle but made for a much, much better product. In fact, the vanilla tasted far better than it had in the past by the simple switching of one single ingredient. Of course, when there are only four ingredients in the base mix then switching one can make for a huge difference.

I substituted an ultra pastuerized whipping cream for the heavy whipping cream I'd been using and, instead of blending it all in together. I combined the milk and the sugar with the stick blender and then folded in the cream and the vanilla. It doesn't agitate the cream so much and the whole mixture takes on a much creamier texture from the start.

Another key difference. Chilling the chips in the freezer as well as the mint extract. The colder it is when added to the whirring mixture, the better.

And the main difference that really made it all come together? Getting some Andes mint and chocolate chips at Safeway. They add just the exact right amount of mint flavor without overpowering the tastebuds.

At twenty minutes in, the ice cream had thickened to the point where it was piling up behind the scraper on the side of the bowl. I tasted it and was surprised to find that it didn't dissolve into its component parts very quickly at all. It had cohesed into ice cream and it was very, very fresh and excellent tasting. I removed just under half the vanilla ice cream and put it in a small tupperware box to chill for a few hours in the freezer. Then I started the machine back up again so I could pour in the chips to mix into the ice cream. With just a about a minute left, I pulled the mint extract out of the freezer and poured a very, very small amount into the now halved mixture. It was just the right amount to give the ice cream a minty smell but again without being too much. And it tasted absolutely perfect!

Even not fully solidified, it was the best mint chip ice cream I'd ever had. Smooth with a layering of flavors and each bite begged for more.

And that's the story of how I created the finest mint chip ice cream ever. Next up? I want to try some butter pecan and some peach in two seperate batches (of course, the beauty of this machine is that I can make both kinds at once!).

Smoked Salmon and Cucumber Salad

2003-12-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

Saw this on The Naked Chef last night and tried to get the recipe from the FoodTV.com website but they didn't deign to post it so I copied it as much as I could and think I've got it all. I will be trying this recipe in the next couple of days and will report back on how it scores.

Ingredients:
sliced smoked salmon
shaved cucumber in long slices, lengthwise
2 big tablespoons creme fresh with a little more than a half lemon
zest of one lemon chopped fine
fresh ground pepper
finely chopped chives

What to do with the ingredients:
lay salmon over a plate, follow with the cucumber slabs, drizzle lemony creme fresh over with dollops, follow with lemon zest, fresh ground pepper and then finish with chives and serve with bread and olive oil spiked with balsamic vinegar or serve as is.

Alternative, make salmon and cucumber rollups, secured with toothpicks, then sprinkle other ingredients over rolled up rolls.

It looked gorgeous and I think it will taste just as good as it looks because we love smoked salmon, I just have to figure out what I can substitute for creme fresh because they don't really sell it stateside. Any ideas?

Fun with the Cuisinart Duo Ice Cream Maker

2003-11-29T21:46:00.000-08:00

For those of you who aren't familiar with this pretty damned awesome machine, its a Flavor Duo™ Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker. I can make two different kinds of ice cream at the same time! And yeah, that is pretty damned cool!

Anyway, I've been working off the basic recipe for a little while, its a simple vanilla ice cream recipe but the best thing about vanilla is that it is really easy to spice right the heck up.

Its easy to whip up:
3/4 cup milk (the book calls for whole milk but come on now, who drinks whole milk anymore when its so fattening?)
2/3 cup sugar (I've used turbinado sugar before but it doesn't dissolve as easily)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

A key tip is to keep the ingredients as cold as possible.
Mix the milk and sugar together until the sugar fully dissolves, stir in the cream and the vanilla to taste. Pour into the machine, let it work for 20-25 minutes, add the chopped chocolate chips in during the last five minutes (tossing the chips into a chopper breaks them up and makes for a better ice cream). Once its all chilled as much as the machine will do it, transfer the thickening ice cream into another container and put it in the freezer to set up for a couple of hours.

I made a chocolate chip the other night that had a hint of cinnamon flavor added and it was just superb.

Tonight's flavor is mint chip and I'm not quite sure how it will come out. I screwed up one important thing and that is don't add the mint extract (which is in a 90% alcohol solution) until the last couple of minutes or you'll affect the mixture's ability to freeze. So my ice cream is in the freezer now, hopefully setting up and turning into beautiful and creamy yumminess.

Some other ones to try are the Eggnog Ice Cream, the full on, cooked Chocolate Ice Cream and the Fresh Strawberry. But there's also Pumpkin Spice, Chocolate Marshmellow Swirl (otherwise known as Rocky Road), Mocha Chip and then, down the road, Pistachio, Butter Pecan and Peanut Butter.

Yeah, the Duo is one helluva cool wedding present!

Easy Pasta Pomodoro with Fresh Basil, Reggiano and Pecorino

2003-09-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a long travel day and neither of us felt like cooking (in fact, P didn't feel like eating and went to bed at about 8) but I was hungry and ended up doing a little light dinner pasta.

We have a whole bunch of tomatoes from the garden right now and they are in need of being consumed or they'll go bad and that would be a terrible shame.
I started out by boiling some salted water for the angel hair pasta, while it was heating up I cut the tomatoes into cubes, mostly reds but a couple of green zebra striped for color and flavor (and to use them up). Along with some fresh basil, a combination of sweet basil and some of the thai basil and a clove of garlic, peeled and sliced into four thick chunks.
Angel hair pasta cooks rather quickly and I drained it and tossed the pasta into a bowl with a small amount of butter to keep it from sticking. The pot went back on the stove and I added olive oil to coat the bottom, added the garlic and let it sizzle for a few moments before adding the basil. Another moment or two to allow the basil to come up to heat and I added the tomatoes. Salt and pepper were added as well as another dash of olive oil.

The mixture was allowed to heat all the way through and turn into a sauce before being poured over the pasta.

Some fresh grated reggiano parmesiano and some pecorino and it was ready to be consumed as I watched the Giants come back against the Cowboys only to give up a bad kick and allow the Cowboys to kick a game tying field goal that sent the game into an overtime period that the Cowboys prevailed in.

I would have liked to add some fresh oregano to the pasta just as it was finishing up but I didn't have any and I really don't care for the dried kind.

Not a bad nearly instant dinner. I may try it again but this time with a few adjustments. Namely, the basil will be left whole leaf, the tomatoes will be sliced into rounds and the garlic will be crushed to allow more of its flavor to seep out. I'll also cook the sauce over a lower heat so the flavors can meld together more slowly.

Tomato Goodness

2003-09-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

The tomatoes are in full fruiting right now and the backyard smells amazing, the combination of buttery tomato smell combined with the fresh basil, rosemary, peppers and catnip along with the jasmine. Quite an interesting group of smells to explore.

The tomatoes have been excellent, an incredible taste treat to pick a tomato, clean it, slice it up and eat it within ten minutes of picking.

And I've been trying new things with them. Easy tomato based salads that take a couple of minutes to make and taste excellent. By letting the basil infuse into some olive oil before adding the tomatoes the flavors get more thoroughly dispersed. Marinades and sauces are easy to put together. Olive Oil, some garlic, fresh basil (usually a combination of kinds, cinnamon, fresh sweet and purple ruffles), a shot of balsamic vinegar and then a dash of Worchestire Sauce for the smoky undertones. Let it all sit together for a few minutes to allow the flavors to say hi to each other. Then hit it up with some appropriate cheese, pecorino works well because of its ability to stand up to other strong flavors but cheddar is nice too, as is mozzerella. Go with whatever you want to.

There are the three holy flavors of the summer season in my book, maybe four. Fresh tomatoes (not pronounced in the hoity toity tom-ah-toes way but the lower key and more accepted to-may-toes), fresh basil, fresh mozzerella and then maybe some fresh garlic if its going to stand for any length of time. But a favorite plate is to assemble the parts, not chopped into small parts but left with good sized wedges and larger portions of cheese. Drizzled with some high quality olive oil and then sprinkled with some finely chopped basil it is an excellent snack to make and can be as beautiful as it is tasty when prepared well.

On a side note, I just had some peas, green onions and peanuts in a salad together with a light cream dressing. Very tasty and crunchy and a really nice little salad that I'd like to try and recreate myself sometime.

Watching Your Food Grow

2003-07-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Not in the sense of having spent far, far too long in the fridge but in the sense of getting home from work each day and being able to go out and see how much taller, how much fatter and thicker the tomatoes are. How fresh and beautiful the basil looks (well, all of it except for the purple ruffles basil but it's P's least favorite so that's alright).

And today at lunch Zanatto's had Tomato Basil Bisque in their soup bar. A simple and excellent soup that I'm very much looking forward to making from our own garden when the time comes. And its coming, there are dozens and dozens of tomatoes on the four plants that we've got growing on the back patio.

Quick side note, tomato plants have got to be one of the best smelling plants anywhere. There's just something comforting and incredibly appealing about their scent. I can literally just stick my face into the plant foliage and inhale its wonderful smell.

The best thing about having a patio garden is that we can check out the plants at any time, keep them trimmed up, clean off any bug issues (though a container of ladybugs we got totally took care of any bug problems, nothing like 1500 ladybugs chomping on any bugs they find!). So we're planning things to make out of the small garden we've got going. Small now but I know, once we have the space, we will have lots and lots of fruits and vegetables all the time. Herb gardens, old growth Californian fruit trees and vegetables like nobody's business.

I think the first dish that we'll make will be the most straight forward, simple bruschetta made from the three varieties of tomatoes (regular red containers, green zebra stripped and purple toms) and a mixture of the basils, some regular sweet, some thai, some cinnamon basil (which has absolutely the most heavenly scent ever!) and maybe some of the holy basil if the little sucker rebounds. Combined with some other ingredients like thinly sliced red onions and the secret ones and it'll make for one powerfully tasty spread!

But now I'm sure that I also want to give a try to making the bisque. Its a bit like a bruschetta soup but has more of tang to it and less bite. Does that make sense? Anyway, I don't serve the bruschetta soup hot ever. Its a cold soup served on hot days and is refreshing and light. I'll have to get around to posting some recipes up here though or this here blog might just end up withering on the vine like the tomatoes do when I forget to soak them in the morning before leaving for work because it gets so outrageously hot in the back yard during the day.

But damn, it was some yummy soup and I'm excited to give it a run at home now!

And I need to get around to upgrading the comment system on Cooking Stories even though there's really just about no traffic through the site as of yet.

Skirt Steak, Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers and Well Done Salmon Fillets

2003-06-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

Ahh, the joy of cooking in the great outdoors. Food smells waft all over camp grounds, an odoral cornucopia for the nose. Burgers and hot dogs over there, bratwursts over here, more elaborate camp gourmet stuff going in pockets all over.

It would be really interesting to peek into everyone's coolers to see what they bring camping. What makes it a camping trip for them. S'mores? Yeah, those go down on the all time list of camping foods. Hot dogs (or sausages for those that just aren't into the snout and tails of a typical hot dog).

Camp Cooking

2003-06-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend ought to be an interesting and fun one. We're packing up and rolling south to Big Sur for the weekend with a few friends and a dog.
The hardest part about going on a trip like this is not knowing how much food to bring, what spices must go and all the other myriad food based questions that can arise.

Clothes and camping gear are pretty straight forward but food's subjective and more subtle. You never want to run out of food while camping but you also don't want to haul your entire pantry into the wilderness.

And then, car camping is a very different animal than hiking into the back country where every ounce you bring is another ounce on your shoulders and hips. Car camping is a more indulgent form of camping that allows the chance to bring alot more equipment than is necessary.

But that's half the fun, isn't it? Not having to worry about having enough to eat. Just enjoying the wilderness area. We'll see how the meals go, should be interesting if nothing else. I'll see about adding pics later.

2003-06-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

New Month? Let's Start a New Blog
I've been ruminating about starting a new blog for a little while and June 1 seemed like the best day to initiate the concept.

This is a blog dedicated to the culinary side of our days. Recipes that my fiance and I invent, migrate, adjust, update and Californian-ize. This can be something as basic as adding some lemongrass to a marinade to specialized handmade sushi parties.

Since we're just getting started, things may take a few evolutions to get to where we're happy with them. And then we may still change our minds a few weeks later.