"Asian" Chicken Salad

I love salads for lunch, but they must have meat in them or I get hungry again in less than an hour. But making meat for a salad sort of defeats the purpose of having an easy meal, because I hate the frozen packs of chicken at most markets because they're injected with brine and taste mushy. Therefore, getting chicken for a salad meant roasting a whole bird, taking it apart, and saving chunks for a week's worth of salad.

Enter Trader Joe's. Their frozen chicken breasts are not injected with anything. They're simply flash frozen, and I'm sure the birds they use are healthier for you too. It's not the best chicken in the world, but chunks of chicken for a salad don't need to be Zuni quality. I just let it sit in about half a teaspoon of salt per breast overnight, pound it with my fist until it's a uniform thickness (very fun, by the way), and cook it on low heat until it's brown on both sides (about five minutes a side). Let rest, then cube.

Long story, I know. Here's the dressing guidelines. I can't call it a recipe because it's really meant more as inspiration for people who know how to put dressing together but haven't considered these ingredients together:

• one large lime
• several tablespoons of miso (I had yellow in the fridge, feel free to use red)
• very small amount of red or white wine vinegar
• a tablespoon of sugar
• water or tangerine juice
• half a teaspoon of sesame oil
• a splash of sake, if you're the kind of person who keeps sake in the freezer

Combine the zest and juice of the lime with equal parts miso. Whisk it together with half of the sugar, then taste. If it needs more salt, add more miso. If it's too sour, add a little sugar or water. If it's somehow not sour enough for you, add a little vinegar. I know, so precise. Add the sake and sesame oil to taste as well, then whisk everything together.

Add a tablespoon of water or juice to get thin out the dressing to a non-gloppy consistency. If you want, you can blend this in a blender to get it really smooth. I would do that if I quadrupled the recipe to make a whole bottle of dressing, but for this amount it seems silly.

Asian salads, for me, always have chicken and tangerines. Therefore, you'll need a can of mandarin oranges (which is where you get the juice from). Other add ins include fried wonton strips (too fatty for me to make at home), sliced carrots, alfalfa sprouts, or sometimes cold noodles for even more bulk. Toss some baby lettuce with dressing, toppings, and chicken, and you're set to go.

English Toffee

Be jealous. Be very jealous.

My first try at English toffee was not as successful as my first try at peanut brittle, which rocked.

I blame the recipe from this site. I've made the French salted caramels from the site too, and they turned out delicious but way too soft. The English toffee was the same way even though I added fifteen degrees to the printed finishing temperature. I'm just going to have to keep on hunting til I find the perfect toffee recipe!

This batch tastes fine. Good chocolate, crunchy almonds, nice slightly salty toffee. The problem is, the toffee has no snap! It has the texture of a praline from New Orleans. That is to say, a bit sandy.

Spaghetti

On top of spaghetti (er...egg noodles), all covered in cheese...there were no meatballs to lose because I used frozen Trader Joe's ground buffalo meat instead. Not the best buffalo I've had, but so cheap I guess I forgive them.

Mmm, look at all that pecorino. I love my new microplane. It makes big fluffy mounds of grated cheese. Sorry, I've made a lot of boring food lately. I haven't been inspired by anything at any of the markets, nor have I stumbled across any recipes that make me think "Wow! I gotta make that!" I am open to suggestions, though, so if there's something you want to see a picture of let me know and maybe I'll make it!

Seafood Fried Rice

A typical home cooked Chinese meal.

Fried rice with fish, shrimp, yo chai (a type of tender mustard green), dried shrimp, and plenty of white pepper. We also had seaweed egg flower soup, which is just chicken stock with seaweed and an egg stirred in toward the end.

Simple meals are how I empty out the fridge while simultaneously making time for other, more complicated kitchen projects (cue mysterious music...).

I actually ate my dessert mid-afternoon, but vanilla ice cream with melted peppermint ganache always hits the spot. The ganache is just 70% dark chocolate, whipping cream, and a few drops of peppermint oil. After the chocolate solidified and I mashed it around, it tasted just like mint and chip ice cream.

PS. Don't bother with Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream. Hagen Daaz is better, and Staus is WAY better.

Gumbo-rama!

Three kinds of crab, catfish, and tiger shrimp all in one pot=yum.

I took a step back today and let J the gumbo master take command of the kitchen. The only thing I added was the Tapatio, because let's face it: that's what Californians do.

Step 1: procure a LOT of seafood. We bought tiger shrimp as well as live blue crabs and a spider crab today. This was added to some catfish filets and picked Dungeness crab that we had already gathered and kept in the fridge. The biggest disappointment today was that the market didn't have any good oysters or clams.

I'd never bought a spider crab before, but I wouldn't recommend it. They're covered in dirt and algae, and their shelld are impossibly hard to crack. I had to use the back of a cleaver and I got crab juice all over the kitchen and myself. But look how intensely blue it is!

The spider crab turns bright orange after steaming. The flavor is similar to that of a Dungeness crab, but the meat is a little springier.

Step 2: Make seafood stock. Anything goes, but today's stock included a pound of whole shrimp (the really cheap kind that's not great for eating), the shells and smaller feet of six blue crabs, bonito flakes, bay leaves, cracked pepper, thyme, oregano, celery, onions, and parsley. Everything was simmered for a few hours, then strained.

Step 3: mise en place! This was my only contribution to the meal. Don't knock it; it's a lot of chopping. Onions, celery, garlic, a bell pepper, a poblano chili, and a lot of okra. The okra was cut later to prevent it from turning brown. And look at my beautiful Shun santoku.

I roasted a poblano for the first time today. I should have let it get a little blacker all over, but I didn't really know what to look for. Next time, I'll know to let it get totally black on the outside. It was fun to hear the skin popping as it blistered. It sounded like tiny popcorn.

Step 4: sit back and knit while J works his magic! That's right, I finished in one weekend. I can't believe I finally finished a project. Now that I've mastered rectangles, straps, and curved armholes, I think I'm ready to add sleeves and make a complete sweater. Someday. I still need to wash this and shape it to get rid of some of the funny wrinkling, but that's easy. I love my Seuss-inspired stripes.

J is the seafood master of the relationship. If I could only eat one animal for the rest of my life it would undoubtedly be beef, but I think J would die without seafood. He won't even let me touch his roux, so you're going to have to excuse me for not having an exact recipe for gumbo.

The recipe for ro geng, however, is up and running! Scroll down or click here.

Blackberry Vodka

Blackberry vodka is officially my second favorite way to consume blackberries. Nothing beats a milkshake with vanilla ice cream, but my gosh this is fantastic.

I filled a jar with a cup of blackberries that we picked in the wilderness of Oregon (aka. my friend's back yard in Portland). I added about a bottle (750mL) of Stoli vodka, covered it up, and left it in a dark cabinet for about a month. Today I suddenly remembered it and strained the vodka. I didn't expect it to be so dark and full-bodied. It's more the consistency of juice than vodka!

It's a little bitter straight up (probably from the seeds), but it's fantastic in a cocktail. For two wine glasses:

• one very large lime, or two small ones, cut into small wedges
• two tablespoons simple syrup or agave nectar
• half a cup of blackberry vodka
• a shot of vodka (optional)
• a mini can (80z.) of club soda

Muddle the syrup with the limes, add the vodka(s), and stir in the club soda. Pour into the wine glasses, and top with a spoonfull of crushed ice if you want the drink super cold. For a nice gradation, pour a teaspoon of blackberry vodka on top of the drink. Serve immediately. The flavor of this cocktail is to me like a cross between brachetto d'acqui and a lime margarita; it has the dark jamminess and full-bodied mouthfeel of the former with the zing and freshness of the latter. Easily the best cocktail I've made this summer. Cheers!

Ro Geng

Ro geng is one of the few bona fide Taiwanese dishes I know how to make. I don't know anyone whose mom actually made this other than my own, so making it makes me feel special. The recipe is long and involved, so I'm going to have to come back and give details, but the photo is fa-bu-lous.


To make a long story short, the ro geng is slices of pork shoulder dipped in fish paste. There's also you yu geng, which is chopped cuttlefish in fish paste. I think the best translation for "geng" is a description of the texture of something that has a little bounce to its mouthfeel.

Some people like their geng served in a light broth with just some scallions, but I like to go all out. This meal in a bowl version has napa cabbage, carrots, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, salt, white pepper, black vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil. It's also thickened with cornstarch. Yummy served over rice or rice stick noodles, or all by itself. Definitely a good one for stew fans.

Non food related mystery: what is Pei knitting? Is it a human sweater? A dog sweater? A purse of some sort? A tank top? A tea cozy? A hat? A throw pillow? The possibilities are endless. I'm hoping if I get you all curious enough it'll be incentive for me to hurry up and finally finish a project. I keep picking projects that are too hard for me and then having to tear it apart. This one, however, is easy peasy. I'm giving myself a week. There, I announced it to the blogosphere. Now if i don't finish it I'll be breaking a promise.

RO GENG RECIPE

This recipe is interesting in that it doesn't involve any complicated techniques or particularly exotic ingredients, but the prep work can kill you if you don't plan ahead and expect to be in the kitchen for a long time. I don't mind doing everything in one day, but you can save a lot of time but cutting everything up the day before and having it ready in the fridge. This recipe will make a large pot (six quart pot, not filled all the way to the top) of ro geng, which was perfect for dinner for three and leftovers the next day.

I don't measure when I cook Chinese food. Sorry. But honestly, this recipe is so flexible that if you see something you like you can double it without affecting flavor at all. Just don't double everything because you'll end up with three gallons of food.

• Pork butt (shoulder), about 2.5 lbs
• Fish paste, about 3/4 lbs
• two 12 oz. cans of chicken stock
• a small napa cabbage, or half a large one
• ten shitake mushrooms, fresh or soaked overnight in water
• a handful of dried shrimp, soaked overnight in water
• three carrots
• one 16 oz. can of slivered bamboo (not whole, not sliced--slivered!)
• one package fresh enoki mushrooms, or canned if you can't find fresh
• one package wood ear mushrooms if you can find them and if you like them
• salt
• black vineger
• white pepper
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• hondashi (optional)
• cornstarch
• rice and/or rice stick noodles for serving
• cilantro

Prep work (things to do the day before if you want)

For me, ro geng is as much about texture as flavor. If someone gave me a bowl of ro geng with all the right flavors in it, but all the ingredients were chopped up differently from how I like it, I don't think I would be able to eat it. It's kind of like how mac n' cheese has to be elbow macaroni, but ten times more important to me. This is why I haven't ordered ro geng in a restaurant ever in my entire life. I'm serious. Never. I don't even know what restaurant ro geng tastes like. I know, I'm a brat.

• cut the meat against the grain into three inch long slices. Because pork butt has so many sections, you're going to have to turn the meat a lot and constantly check that you're cutting against the grain. It helps if the meat is slightly frozen. I wish I'd taken photos, but for ro geng it's actually desirable to have some pieces that are two pieces connected by a little tendon or fat. Just be sure to trim all the biggest chunks of fat and throw them away. This is probably the toughest part of the recipe to get right. The first itme I cut ro geng meat for my mom, my dad noticed right away. The pieces didn't even look different, I just hadn't been careful about the grain. But he bit into it and said "Hey, did you make this?" and my mom laughed and pointed at me.
• clean the napa leaves and cut them in half horizontally (that is, separate the top leafy part from the bottom white part). Stack the two halves, and cut into finger-thick strips the other way. So basically, you're cutting the napa into strips using the grooves in the napa as a guide. Don't cut it too thin, or it will melt into the soup. Finger-thick is a good guide.
• slice the shitake thinly, squeezing out all the water.
• cut the dirty part off the enoki and separate the lightly
• slice the wood ear thinly
• chop cilantro. Whether you include the stems is up to you. I like to leave just a little stem for crunch.
• another hard part: cut the carrots into long thin strips. I hate doing this, and it's impossible without a freshly honed knife. I cut a thin piece off one side of the carrot to give it a flat surface to lie on. Then I hold tight and start slicing at a diagonal so I can get big oblong discs about a milimeter thick. This is crucial. You don't want paper thin strips, but you don't want big sticks either. If you crack open your can of slivered bamboo strips you can see what you're going for. It's a pain in the a*&. Stack the discs and cut into strips. The sad thing is, ro geng sucks without carrots so you'll spend a good amount of time doing this.

Putting it all together

• Add chicken stock to a pot of water (about a gallon total). Of course if you have homemade chicken or pork stock you can use that. Bring to a rapid boil.
• Meanwhile, mix the pork slices and fish paste until all the pork is evenly coated. When the water comes to a boil, start dropping the coated pork in one slice at a time. Be sure not to let the pork drop in the water in clumps. Stir occassionally. It helps to have someone else stirring while you do this.
• Turn down the flame to a simmer and add the dried shrimp. I usually do my cutting at this point and let the pork cook for ten or fifteen minutes. If you've already done your prep work, let it simmer for ten minutes before you start adding things.
• Add the napa, bamboo, mushrooms, and carrots. Stir well and bring to a simmer. Add half a cup of soy sauce, half a cup of black vinegar, and a teaspoon of salt. Taste, and add more if needed. I actually use about a cup of vinegar and then more upon serving, but that's just me. If you're not sure if it needs more of something, leave it out and give it a chance to cook into the ingredients and for the soup to reduce slightly before you add too much and can't turn back.
• Cover and let everything cook together at a bare simmer for half an hour or until the vegetables are soft.
• Taste again. You'll most likely need more salt.
• Mix half a cup of cornstarch with half a cup of cold water and mix well. It should be the consistency of whole milk. Make sure there are no lumps. Bring the soup to a light boil. While stirring, add half the cornstarch mixture in a thin stream. Stir well so you don't get big clumps. Let the soup simmer so it thickens up. You're going for a gooey consistency kind of like gravy, but thinner than clam chowder out of a can. Add more cornstarch if needed. I usually need to use the whole half cup. People are weirded out that ro geng does look a bit slimey, but that's all part of the appeal.
• Add a tablespoon or two of sesame oil and stir well. Like all stews, it's better the next day. But it's better straight out of the pot than many stews.

Serving suggestions

• Ro geng can be eaten alone
• Ro geng can be eaten over rice
• Ro geng can be eaten with egg noodles
• Ro geng can be eaten with Chinese wheat noodles
• But my favorite way to eat ro geng is with rice stick noodles.
• Top with tons of cilantro, plenty of white pepper, and additional black vinegar if you want to be hip with the in crowd.

Zucchini Muffins

Lesson of the Day: people like brownies. The brownie post from yesterday got me five times the number of hits I usually get on this site in a single day. Thanks, guys!

But, surprisingly enough, a few people also noticed the zucchini muffins tucked away under the brownies and were curious. So here's the recipe, adapted from Mark Bittman's "Basic Muffin" recipe on page 249 of How to Cook Everything.

Original Recipe

• 3 Tbs. melted butter of canola/other neutral oil, plus more for greasing pan
• 2 cups (9 oz.) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk

One change: I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose. For most cakey things, I use WWP instead of all-purpose. WWP is ground more finely than your average whole wheat, so it's a great substitute and a nice way to sneak whole grains into desserts. You can sub out half of the flour for WWP or regular whole wheat as well.

My addition was a cup of shredded zucchini. Shred what looks like about three cups, then squeeze very well to get the water out. You should end up with one cup tightly packed, relatively dry zucchini.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease your muffin tin (or line with paper cups).

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat together eggs, milk, and butter. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients in along with the zucchini. Using a wooden spoon, stir together quickly, using a cut-and-fold-over method rather than a stirring rapidly in circles. The batter will be lumpy and thick but moist (like pancake batter). You can add a touch more milk if you think it's necessary, but remember moisture will come out of the zucchini.

Spoon the batter into the tins, filling two-thirds for normal muffins and almost to the top for big muffins. If you have empty cups fill them one-fourth full with water.

Bake 20-30 minutes until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Because of the added moisture from the zucchini, the baking time tends toward the 30 minute mark. Let rest for five minutes, then remove to a rack for cooling.

Note: these muffins are NOT your average bakery muffins. They aren't very sweet, which is actually why I like them. There's a hint of sweetness, but they're savory enough for me to enjoy as breakfast. And if you want to make them a treat, just add some sweetened butter or jam to them. The whole wheat in my version means even a small muffin really sticks to your bones, all the while giving you a healthy dose of vegetables.

Chicken and Potato Salad

Today's pre-gym dinner (eaten an hour before my first spinning class ever):

CHICKEN (protein)

• marinate the chicken the night before in salt, pepper, and whatever herbs you have on hand. I used rosemary, lemon thyme, and parsley.
• Set on the counter while you preheat the oven so it has time to warm up to room temperature just a bit.
• bake at 450 for 40 minutes until the skin is crispy and the thigh is cooked through. I did this in my toaster oven, so it may have taken longer than a regular oven.

POTATO SALAD (carbs)

• Boil potatoes (I had seven large Russets, so I have more potato salad than one person should be allowed to own).
• Prepare a bowl filled with a tablespoon of salt, three tablespoons champagne vinegar (or whatever vinegar you like), two tablespoons dijon mustard, a half teaspoon of paprika, a half teaspoon of onion salt, a handful of chopped parsley, and three chopped scallions. Add herbs and spices as you see fit.
• Add a cup of peas and/or carrots to the mix,
• Peel potatoes and cut into six pieces (four for smaller potatoes).
• Put the potatoes into the spice mix, which should have sat and marinated while the potatoes boiled. Cover and let the potatoes steam everything a little. Then mix and cool.
• When the potatoes are cold, stir in a few heaping tablespoons of sour cream or mayo. Add half a cup of chopped red onions and/or cucumbers and mix well.
• As you can tell from the photo, this version of potato salad is like a cross between potato salad and mashed potatoes. The consistency is great for making a sandwich, but I just like to eat it as is.

As for spinning, I thought it was kind of a letdown. Maybe I had a mediocre teacher, but I also hate doing the same thing over and over, and I didn't feel it tired me out enough to warrant the excruciating boredom that kicked after the first half hour. I'd much rather be weight lifting or in a class with more variation in the routine. How many different things can you possibly do on a spin machine? Or maybe bicycling across San Francisco (yes, up and down the hills) has ruined me for spin forever.

Brownie Cupcakes

I had too much coffee today (no, that had nothing to do with the Stumptown), so I was wide awake at 11 p.m. looking for a project. I settled on mini cupcake brownies, which I'd been researching all day.

I settled on this well-received recipe on epicurious.com: Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting. I followed the basic recipe, but I made some significant changes so I'm sure my end result doesn't taste much like what you'd get if you followed the recipe exactly. My changes:

• I don't own a kitchen scale, so it's hard for me to guesstimate ounces. Instead, I used 1 3/4 cups of chopped up chocolate. I tried to chop the pieces into roughly the size of chocolate chips, and I used Trader Joe's 73% dark chocolate instead of two different kinds of chocolate. I melted one cup with the butter in the beginning and saved 3/4 cup to stir in towards the end (you'll see what I mean if you read the recipe).
• I used 2/3 cups walnuts instead of 1/3
• I added a teaspoon of baking powder with the flour because the comments on epicurious.com said the brownie was extremely dense and I just wasn't in the mood for that. Plus, I'm giving a lot of the brownies away so I wanted them to be poofy and cupcake like, not sunken in the middle like storebought mini brownies. The baking soda made it rise quite a bit, but it was still more brownie than cake. Next time I'd use 1/2 a teaspoon.
• I added a tablespoon of my homemade Grand Marnier to the liquid. A little booze never hurt anyone.
• I used mini cupcake tins instead of regular sized cupcake tins, but it still took at least 15 minutes to bake all the way through. Check for the cupcakes to look very inflated and dry in the center before you start doing the toothpick test. I sprayed the cups with oil, dusted with flour, then inverted to knock out excess flour.
• Because I added so many things to the recipe, I had too much batter to fit into my 24-cup mini cupcake tins. I just baked the leftovers in a greased ramekin.

But my favorite alteration is this: after filling half the cups with regular walnut brownie mix, I added a generous pinch of ginger powder and half a teaspoon of ground cardamom to the rest. Spiced brownies are a love of mine. I studded the regular ones with walnut and left the spiced ones untouched. I put together a box of zuchinni muffins (whole wheat, low sugar, recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything), regular brownies, and spiced brownies.

Stumptown Coffee

Getting a package in the mail is always cause for joy, but getting a package of food? That's something to really celebrate!

Thanks Jo! And I love the postcard. Yay for grumpy girls! Stumptown Coffee is from Portland, and their coffee is used at what might be my favorite coffee shop in the world: Ritual Roasters in San Francisco. It's the only place I've been where they make consistently great cappuccinos and lattes. I didn't get to try as much coffee as I'd like in Portland, but Anna Bananas was pretty stellar as well the one time we stopped in.

Hehe, the hairbender blend. I can't wait. Someone will probably have to scrape me off the walls tomorrow morning.

August Wine Roundup

I find myself at the wine shop about once a month, despite having an enormous closetful of wine from our trips to Sonoma.

This month's selections tend toward fun bargain wines I hope will taste good. Nothing fancy, but I'm looking forward to each and every bottle.

From left:

2005 Bio-Weingut h.u.m. Hofer Grüner Veltliner. As recommended by the Los Angeles Times: "Crisp, minerally and delicious, this dry Grüner from Austria comes in a distinctive, fat, green one-liter bottle with a pop-top." Yes, this liter of wine comes with a beer cap. I guess that means you have to drink the whole thing once you open it. No cork to close it back up with! Shouldn't be a problem. I have yet to meet a gruner veltiner I didn't like. $11

Bitch 2004. Yes, the wine's name is Bitch. How could I not buy it? It's an Australian grenache, and the wine clerk told me it's actually pretty darned good for the price point. Spicy, like a bitch should be. $9

Thomas Fogarty 2004 Monterey Gewürztraminer. I've liked Fogarty wines in the past, and the wine shop described it as transcendently fragrant so I had to give it a try. Websites seem to tout its acidity and fruitiness, and someone even calls its minerality remniscent of Pop Rocks! $15

Lois Loimer Grüner Veltliner 2005. Austria is known for grüner veltiner, and this one is packaged in such a pretty green bottle! The wine itself probably isn't this green. More like a white wine that's green around the edges. I've actually been looking for a Portuguese style wine called vinho verde (green wine), but I didn't find any today. $11

Marquis Philips 2004 Vintage Holly's Blend. This is one of J's favorite white wines in any price point, but I first bought it at a $10 sale. This kind of bargain is why I continue to buy $10 wine. I would say eight out of ten $10 wines are drinkable but not worth buying again; one is be truly terrible, and one (if you're lucky) is wonderful. Holly's blend is intensely fragrant, light on the tongue, with a smooth finish. No funky sourness, no bite, just smooth. Unfortunately, the two entities (Marquis and Philips) who joined to make this wine are going their separate ways, so I got the last bottle at the store for a bargain $8, but was told there would be no more. I think Marquis figured out they (husband and wife) could make better wine, because their new wine (Marie something or other) is going for closer to $20. Good for them, bad for me.

Burrata and Tomatoes

Everyone has many strengths, but I'm pretty sure people like me because my idea of a pre-bed snack includes fresh mozarella and vine ripened tomatoes.

Kimchi Stew

This is a great way to use up kimchi and eat a lot of vegetables.

Very rough proportions:

• three cups of regular old napa kimchi
• four tablespoons of gochujiang (Korean chili paste)
• a teaspoon of Hondashi
• 1/8 cup clam juice if you have it
• 1 bulb crushed garlic
• 2 cans chicken stock
• 3 cups water

Bring all those things up to a boil, then add some or all of the following and simmer until everything's cooked through.

• fresh daikon or daikon kimchi
• slivered onions
• silken tofu cut into large cubes
• 1 bunch spinach or some kind of Asian vegetable
• sliced pork or beef
• seafood galore: scallops, shrimp, fish, mussels, clams, squid, crab, etc.

And a bonus photo, just because cherry tomatoes are in season.

Yellow Watermelon

Today's prize from the farmers' market: a yellow seedless watermelon.

I don't really think there's a flavor difference between yellow and red watermelons, but the yellow ones are fun to look at. And since this was from a farmer and not a grocery store, it was amazing. Crispy, juicy, and full of watermelon flavor. When the inside of a watermelon is all cracked and "dry" like that, I take it as a sign of good things to come. It's not that the fruit is actually dry; it just looks dry because the cells of the melon are intact instead of all mushed up. Pay attention next time. If you cut into a watermelon and juice immediately drips everywhere and the inside looks slick, it's probably not a very good melon.

Even Blackfoot (my rabbit) seemed more enthused about getting to eat the rind off this than he did last time I gave him a rind from a mediocre red watermelon. I'm so glad he likes to eat the rind more than he likes the part we humans like. That way nothing goes to waste!

Pseudo-Mexican Rice

I've decided to start eating like it's summer again. How many days do you think I can go without eating a big piece of meat?

For the rice, I soaked three cups of brown long grain rice overnight. Then I sauteed chopped onions and garlic in olive oil (and, I confess, a quarter pound of ground beef), added the rice, and sauteed the rice for five minutes until a little brown around the edges. I added a can of chicken stock, a little over a cup of water, and one can of diced tomatoes pureed in the blender with three extremely spicy Thai chilies and a handful of cilantro. Then came the salt and pepper. Finally I added a cup each of diced carrots, frozen peas, and frozen corn, brought the whole thing up to a boil, turned the stove down to simmer, covered the pot, and let it cook for a good forty minutes. Because I'm compulsive, I had to start stirring the thing after the first twenty minutes, so I probably increased the cooking time.

To serve, I sliced up half an avocado and sprinkled cilantro over the whole thing. Pretty, no? The dinner version had the addition of some salsa made with my last heirloom tomato and a fresh lime margarita. I know, fancy. I still can't believe I got through the day eating what must have amounted to an eighth of a cup of meat. For me, that's unheard of.

I can't really call this Mexican rice, but on the other hand it's not quite paella either. I guess "Mexican inspired" would be a good description.

Shepherd's Pie

One of our favorite dishes from college is shepherd's pie. It's tough even for a dining hall to mess up mashed potatoes and beef stew!

My version is a little fancier, a Sunday supper that took all day to make but didn't require too much actual work. I took chunks of lamb and simmered it in a 200 degree oven for three hours. Then I sauteed some onions and carrots in oil, sprinkled two tablespoons of flour over the vegetables, and sauteed a little longer until the flour was cooked through. Added the vegetables to the lamb and stirred til thick. I seasoned it with chives, salt, pepper, Worchestershire sauce, tomato paste, and a little ketchup. This went back in the oven for another hour or so at 300 degrees, along with four potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil.

When the potatoes were ready, I peeled and mashed them with a tablespoon of butter and about a quarter cup of cream (no measuring). I added salt, pepper, and a handful of chives for color and flavor.

Assembling a shepherd's pie is the fun part. Add a cup of peas to the stew, then pour it into a casserole. Drop big spoonfuls of mashed potatoes all over the stew, then smooth out with a knife, spoon, or clean damp hands. If you're serving right away, just broil until the potato is golden on top. If you're putting it in the fridge, heat at 375 until golden. You can even freeze this, just start the oven at a lower temperature and bring it up later. It might take up to 45 minutes to cook a frozen pie.

I know it's not a summery dish, but sometimes I just want what I want!

Prime Rib Dinner

Lawry's who? After tonight, I might never eat prime rib in a restaurant again. For this week's cooking project, we convinced some friends to chip in for a $110 ribeye roast. Yes, that's a lotta meat.

The secret is to have a giant ribeye roast. I wasn't able to find a bone in roast, but this was fine. I coated it with cracked pepper and extra coarse sea salt, seared it on every side, and then wrestled it into a roasting pan. It went into a 200 degree oven for about 45 minutes per pound, until the meat thermometer registered an internal temperature of 120. Corn and creamed spinach seemed like fitting side dishes.

A perfectly plated potato created by one of our guests. Unfortunately, few people had the stomach room and the initiative to go grab potatoes after all the food we plated for them.

This photo has shamed me into cleaning my oven, but I thought you deserved a peek at the Yorkshire pudding poofing up in the oven. I was surprised by how easy Yorkshire pudding is. As soon as you grab your roast out of the oven, crank up the oven to 400 degrees. Start heating a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Take a cup of flour and whisk in a cup of milk, two eggs, and half a teaspoon of salt. Using a brush, coat the cast iron skillet all over with pan drippings. Don't worry if you get juice and charred bits all over. Pour the cold mix into the hot cast iron, put the whole thing in the 400 degree oven, and cook for 20 minutes until it's puffy and golden. You'll have to play with the recipe to see how soft you like the center, but whether it's gooey or cooked through it's delicious. People gobbled it up, and it's the perfect thing to cook while you let your roast rest for 20 minutes..

The condiments bar, and some extra corn. Chives, sour cream, and butter for the potatoes, and an invisible jar of horseradish (okay, it's still in the fridge).

And finally, dessert! I'm taking advantage of summer while berries can be found in the markets in full force. This was a two day project. Yesterday I baked the tart crust and spread a thin layer of melted dark chocolate over the bottom and sides. A few hours before dinner today, I poured a layer of creme fraiche over the chocolate. The berries, which I macerated for several hours in a combination of jam and balsamic vinegar, include strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. I seriously can not wait to dig in.

Steak Dinner, Homestyle

As I type, my steak is cooling down (to about 120 degrees) and my wine is warming up (to about 65 degrees). Needless to say, I don't have much time to type a bunch of nonsense here tonight.

Steak: boneless ribeye, sliced at least 2" thick.
Beans: red string beans, the color of an eggplant but just like the green ones in flavor.
Cabernet: Benziger Stone Farm Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Perfect.
Me: Very very very happy.

A close up of my setup. All you need for a good steak is a cast iron skillet, kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper, and a meat thermometer if you're not sure what you're doing. I had one just in case, since this is the first steak I've cooked in a long time.

BBQ, South Carolina Style

The stars of today's meal were two of the three barbeque sauces C brought me on her last visit. Mustardy, super tangy sauce, in the tradition of South Carolina. Mmmm!

Everything else was time savingly simple today: romaine salad with some mustard dressing I made last week, watermelon cubes, and a white bean and tomato salad.

And dessert! Super boozy tiramisu at J's request.

In non-food related news, I took H to Bead Source today and he picked out some beads to make earrings for his girlfriend. I have to say, that boy has an eye for color; I'm tempted to make myself the exact same pair to match my yellow dress and green sandals. These are probably the most complicated earrings I've made to date; I'm very proud. Okay, sorry to get all girlie on you. Back to food...

Mango Madness

Mmmmm...cubes of fresh mango and frozen solid coconut mango sorbet run through a shaved ice maching. Pure genius.

Fizzy Lizzy!

Fizzy Lizzy is officially the best passionfruit drink I've ever had.

It's 58% real fruit juice with 42% carbonated water. There's no sugar or corn syrup added. Needless to say, the flavor is incredibly fresh and tangy. The only product I've had that comes close is passionfruit pulp or syrup that's sometimes used in shaved ice, but I'm pretty sure those products have sugar or corn syrup added since they tend to be Asian. Fizzy Lizzy's a little tricky in that you have to shake the bottle to mix the pulp and the water, but you can't really give the bottle a shake (for explosive reasons). I just gently turned the bottle upside down a few times, opened it, drank some, and then swirled as needed. I used to avoid the specialty sodas because they're so expensive compared to Coke or Sprite, but then I realized I pay way more than $2 for a beer, cocktail, coffee drink, or real fruit juice so why the hell not enjoy a quality soda from time to time.

Lunch was a quesadilla with eggs, tomatoes, and salmon in the middle instead of cheese. The salad is some romaine with mustard dressing.

Oh, and that little thing on the quesadilla is the cap off the Fizzy Lizzy. I assume it's a picture of Lizzy herself. I just thought it was cute.

Lemony Breakfast Surprise

I love lemon poppyseed cake.

I love a pinch of cardamom added to my coffee.

Surprisingly, I'd never had the two at the same time until today. And boy, was it good. I made a really zingy lemon poppyseed cake that I'd thought was too sour. But it mellowed out a little overnight, and it complements the cardamom perfectly. Somehow, the cardamom mellows out the lemon and the lemon brings out the subtle cardamom flavors. Beautiful.

Cold Soba and Vegetables

I took my cue from a summertime ramen house staple: cold noodles with raw vegetables and egg. Of course, I had to use soba since I don't pull my own ramen (sigh), but it was still tasty.

Carrot, cucumber (English hothouse, please. They're crunchier), mung bean sprouts, and eggs. The carrot and cucucumber should be coarsely grated or finely sliced. The mung bean sprouts are blanched for 30 seconds, then shocked in iced water. Two eggs, well beaten with a pinch of salt, should be lightly scrambled over low heat in a small pot (NOT skillet) until half of the eggs are cooked. Then they're spread in a layer over the bottom of the pot and covered with a lid. Over low heat, the egg will souffle and the raw parts will cook through. Turn off the heat after five minutes. When you take the lid off, the egg will immediately start deflating and turn into what I have pictured above.

The sauce is a quarter cup soba soy sauce (you can look up a recipe, it's soy sauce with mirin, sugar, and a few other things), a tablespoon of sugar, and two tablespoons (or more) of champagne vinegar. Sake would also be good to add.

Cook the soba, shock in iced water, and assemble the cold vegetables and room temperature egg on top. Admire the pretty colors, then dig in!

Cheap and Tasty Summer Meal

I love it when I can assemble a meal for two (plus lunch for one tomorrow) under $10, but I hardly ever expect it to look or taste this good.

I started with heirloom tomatoes, a gift from a home gardener who is now my best friend. I added some basil from my own garden. Oooh, I think this is the best photo I've taken in months.

Chop up two of the tomatoes with two large handfuls of basil and add two chopped cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of olive oil (optional), a generous pinch of salt, and plenty of fresh ground pepper. Let this summer confetti marinate at room temperature for a few hours. Any time you're ready, put a few ears of corn in cold water and bring it up to a boil. Then turn off the stove and let the corn sit in the water until you're ready for it. It won't overcook.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the pasta, and begin the side dishes as soon as the pasta goes in.

Marinate a few prawns in oil, garlic, pepper, and onions. Broil on each side for five minutes along with some pineapple slices. If your broiler's big enough, put the corn on a separate baking sheet and broil alongside the prawns. The corn can be dusted with salt and chili powder.

Drain the pasta and pour the hot pasta into the tomato "sauce." Toss well, season to taste, and grate some Parmesan or Pecorino over the whole plate before serving. Tally for the meal:

• Free tomatoes and basil
• A quarter for the amount of garlic I used
• Negligible amounts of salt, pepper, and oil
• What, a quarter's worth of cheese?
• $4 for the prawns (just think how cheap this meal would have been without them!)
• $1 for a fraction of a pack of whole wheat pasta
• $1 for a quarter of a pineapple, most of which was eaten for dessert after the meal
• $1 for three ears' of corn at the farmers' market

The pasta alone is a well-balanced meal, but the combination of the three was summer on a table for me.

Samgyetang

Samgyetang is something I've always wanted to try, but as luck would have it I've had to end up making it for myself before trying it in a restaurant. And yes, that's a bottle of Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon. Call me crazy, but I enjoy chicken and red wine. Korean friends, tell me if this looks right aside from the bottle of red wine.

The process is easy, as is the ingredient list:

• 1 small chicken (a 3 lb. fryer or a cornish game hen)
• 1-2 cups of washed glutinous rice, soaked in water overnight or at least 4 hours
• 1 handful dried jujubes
• 1 handful gojiberries
• 1 handful ginseng
• a few cloves of garlic
• 1 stalk green onions, chopped
• a small dish of one part white pepper mixed with one part salt

Wash the chicken inside and out, and stuff with as much wet (but drained) rice as will fit. Also put in one piece of ginseng (about the size of your thumb), one clove of peeled garlic, and three or four jujubes. tie up the openings of the chicken with string, toothpicks, or bamboo skewers. You want to close it up enough that rice doesn't fall out, but you still allow liquid to get in to cook the rice. Submerge the chicken in a pot of cold water and add the rest of the ginseng, jujubes, and two cloves of garlic to the water.

Bring the water to a boil. Immediately turn the flame down to a simmer, and simmer the chicken for an hour. Skim off any skum that comes to the surface. Simmer for a 90 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through, adding the gojiberries in the last fifteen minutes. You can salt the soup towards the end of cooking or let each person to salt his or her own serving.

Set the chicken on a counter until it's cool enough to handle, then scoop out the rice into a large serving bowl. It should be cooked all the way through, but don't panic if it's not. Just put it in a pot or steamer and cook for ten more minutes. Meanwhile, cut the chicken into pieces and place on a serving plate.

Set the rice and chicken on the table along with a dish of chopped green onions, the salt and pepper blend, and a bowl of plain salt. I like to start with a bowl of broth with a sprinkling of onions in it, then move on to a bowl of rice and chicken dipped in the salt and pepper blend. You can also serve bowls of soup with the rice at the bottom and a few pieces of chicken already in the soup. Or you can bring the entire pot to the table and rip it apart in front of your guests. Any way you serve it, it's mighty tasty!

The Call it Crate and Barrel

because you'll need a crate to hold everything you want to buy, and a barrel of cash to pay for it all. Obviously I left there lusting after plenty of things I couldn't afford, but I made out pretty well in the sale section:

Twelve of the square appetizer plates, nested oval serving trays, three egg-shaped serving bowls and plate, and a $1 impulse buy in the form of a mini gravy boat. Muahaha...my collection of white servingware continues to grow.

What I really wanted was the pine cookbook stand with a clear plastic shield (like this but way prettier, sturdier looking, and cheaper to boot), but I couldn't justify it.