Felted Cloche

Okay, I have a good reason for eating ants on a log instead of cooking today:

I was busy finishing my first ever felted cloche, and the first hat I've knit in a long time! All my other hats, purchased or knit, are getting a little ragged. So I made this with a ShuBui Knits pattern, which always have kind of a retro flare. I'm not sure I'm in love with the fold-up brim, but I was past the point of no return a long time ago.

For those who don't knit, felting involves knitting a big slouchy oversized item and then agitating it in hot water and soap so that it shrinks into a stiff, thick fabric with no visible knit lines. As youi can see, the so-called hat before felting is hardly something anyone would wear.

After felting, it becomes perfectly respectable, if I do say so myself. I might need to move the knit coil a little higher up on the flap, but other than that I'm pretty happy. The hat is very slightly big for my pin head, but it's warm, breathable, easily collapsible, versatile, and now I have a pretty good handle on how to make more.

Ants on a Log

A little bit of childhood nostalgia:

No, it's not classy food. Yes, I love it.

Vegan (again!)

Decided to go light again after eating bar snacks for dinner last night. Plus, for various reasons, once you get into the habit of eating a lot of legumes it's best to keep it up.

Let's see, how to go about writing a recipe for this thrown-together dish?

• 2 cups black-eyed peas, half-cooked in salted water and drained. Black-eyed peas don't need to be soaked. To me, half-cooked means still raw in the center but getting soft around the edges.
  
• 1 large or 2 small bulbs fennel, cubed
  
• 1 small onion, cubed
• 1 large anaheim pepper, cubed (leaving seeds in or out is up to you)
  
• 2 stalks celery, cubed
  
• 2 medium carrots, cubed
• 2 cups corn kernels (I used frozen)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper
  

Sautée the onions, fennel, and pepper in a tablespoon of oil over medium heat until slightly browned. Add the carrots and celery and sautée for about a minute. Add a cup of water and scrape the bottom of the pot to release any brown bits that have formed. Add the bay leaf and a few cracks of pepper. Add the peas, add just enough water to barely cover everything, bring to a boil, turn the flame down to a simmer, and let it cook half covered until the peas are cooked. Add salt and pepper if needed, though if you salted the peas before cooking you should be fine. Stir in the corn kernels and heat through before serving.

The Bay Bridge and Epic Roasthouse at Dusk

Since I surprised myself with a great jog time yesterday, I decided to really push myself today and made it 3.5 miles without being completely shot afterwards. You really can't beat this view of the Bay Bridge from behind Epic Roasthouse. This photo is worth clicking on, it was a gorgeous evening.

Afterwards, J and I went to Epic's happy house and enjoyed some budget fine dining: $2 Anchor steam, $5 Oronoco rum cocktail (delish!), and bar snacks under $5 were all quite tasty.

Accidentally Vegan

For two people who both love meat/seafood, we do eat vegetarian for most of each week. It's cheaper and healthier, we figure. But it's rare that we actually end up eating a vegan meal, which is what happened tonight.

Rice and beans with fresh salsa. Pretty boring, but I'm a fan of anything the consistency of gravy poured over rice so you'll hear no complaints from me. The beans are just pinto beans cooked in water and salt with a pinch of cayenne and oregano, drained and mashed, with some of the reserved cooking liquid stirred back to achieve desired consistency. The rice is long grain cooked with a tablespoon of tomato paste and two bay leaves. The salsa is chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro, juice of half a lime, and salt to taste. Tada! Vegan Mexican meal that everyone can enjoy. Tomorrow we'll probably do something with the leftovers.

2.5 Miles, Redux

I shaved 5 minutes off my snail-esque jog time! It's true everything is hardest the first time. And this time, a different view.

Fennel Braised Chuck Roast

Now that I'm done with dinner, I regret not taking the plate to a better lit room and taking a better picture. But before dinner, the smells were driving me insane and I had to eat it ASAP. My methodology was adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, but I put my own flavor twists on a classic pot roast. The best part of all this was the fennel, which made the entire apartment fragrant beyond belief. Cooked fennel smells like roasted onions and sweet corn. If you've been put off by it because it smells like licorice, give it a try! The flavor really changes when cooked.

For dinner for two and plenty for lunch:

• 2 lb chuck roast
• 1 bulb fennel
• 1 onion
• 2 carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• salt
• pepper
• bay leaves

Grind the bay leaves, and mix with a few teaspoons of kosher salt and a teaspoon of pepper. Rub the roast all over with this mix. Bring a dutch oven or shallow pot with lid to high heat with one tablespoon of oil in it, then sear the roast on all sides.

Meanwhile, dice the vegetables into small pieces. When you're done searing the roast, set it aside and immediately put the fennel and onions into the pan. Toss, and add a splash of water, wine, or beer to release the solids left by the roast. Scrape the bottom of the pan and coat the vegetables, then add the carrots and celery. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for about ten minutes, until fairly cooked through and a little brown. Add a scant cup of liquid of choice, bring to a simmer, then put the roast back in and bring the heat down as low as you can while maintaining a simmer.

Flip the roast every half hour for about two hours, making sure it's not getting too dry. Add a little water if you need to, but you shouldn't have to if your pot has a heavy lid. After the first two hours, check the roast every fifteen minutes until you're able to shred it with two forks. If your roast is very uneven, you can remove the parts that become fork tender first to a separate plate while the rest cooks. When the roast is close to being done, remove the lid and bring up the heat slightly. Using two forks, shred the roast into large bites, and simmer the liquid down until it's thicker than a stew but not dry. You know, something you'd want to eat poured over rice. I garnished the dish with a few slivers of raw fennel and shaved fennel frond for a little flavor brightness and crunch.

I used Trader Joe's jasmine brown rice today and was very happy with it. It's very fragrant, and cooked up soft and fluffy with very easy package instructions even without using butter. J and I both thought this was one of the best home cooked meals we've had in awhile.

Chaat

One of my favorite Indian foods is chaat, or snacks. Chaat Cafe in SF, specifically, serves a papri chaat that I love. I compare it to granola or muesli because it's a lot of things layered with yogurt, but I like it a lot more because it's savory.

This week, I made my own version since I was deep frying samosas. I have yogurt, mint-cilantro chutney, tamarind chutney, garbanzo beans, and chaat chips (deep fried dough strips). I'm missing cubed potatoes here, but it was still delicious! I could eat this for breakfast all the time.

Thanks, T!

I don't know if it's the economy, getting older and more domestic, or just temporary insanity. But T baked delicious oatmeal raisin cookies and made lemon orange jam and shared with us! The jam is pretty soft, more like orange preserves, but I like it because I usually use preserves in yogurt so it doesn't matter if it's runny. It just has to be delicious! I think I'll have to make some berry or apple freezer jam as soon as I can get my hands on some good fruit. Freezer jam is low in sugar and not cooked very long so it's not shelf stable, but it it's flavor is closer to that of freshly mashed fruit. Stay tuned!

Bushi-Tei Lunch

If you haven't been to Bushi-Tei for lunch yet, I suggest you high-tail it there immediately. We'd been putting it off because even though our dinner experience was lovely, it came with an almost un-digestibly high price tag. Lunch, it turns out, is much more reasonable and no less delicious. With lunch, you start off with a complimentary soup. Today's was a very tasty carrot puree.

J and I shared an arctic char salad to start. Extremely lightly dressed, this was a great starter dish but not so great as a side since its flavors were drowned out by everything else we were eating.
I had what the server says is the most popular entree, the pork cutlet. I'm not the world's biggest pork fan (blasphemy for a Chinese person), but this was incredible. Thick, juicy, not overcooked, and with none of that funny flavor you get with inferior cuts of pork. People think lamb or buffalo is gamey, but I think cheap pork smells the worst--sort of sour and stinky. Anyway, this was the opposite, and the fatty bits were the best. And, most impressively, there was not a chewy tendon or overcooked bite in the entire dish. Good fries, "tartar" (chopped eggs and herbs), and macaroni salad too.

J surprised me by ordering the penne, possibly the most boring dish on the menu. But I will give Bushi-Tei this: they came through. This might just be a basic penne in tomato sauce, but it's better than penne at 90% of Italian restaurants chargine $12 for pasta.

Mizuna salad, with three colors of seaweed. This was a more strongly flavored salad than the char, with lots of seafood smell and a lightly fishy sauce.

Chiffon cake was deceptively simple, and served with yuzu mousse. I really do need to master a good chiffon cake. It looks so simple and goes so well with almost anything, but is so hard to get just right!

Black sesame blanc mange. Wow. I loved this. Intense black sesame floating in a creamy gelatin, with coconut milk poured on top and some pineapple salsa as garnish. There was also a deliciously caramel-y apple dumpling that was too far to photograph. The sesame and apple desserts really push Bushi-Tei's desserts to the level of Zuni or Delfina, two restaurants where I'm willing to pay $7-10 for a small dessert.

Anyway, this meal really redeemed Bushi-Tei, and we'll definitely be coming back. Six entrees (with soup), four non-alcoholic beverages, and three desserts came out to $129 before tip. We also had a $50 restaurant.com certificate, so the entire meal was extremely reasonable for the amount of food, food quality, and superb service we received.

Shaker Lemon Pie

Dessert of the evening: Tartine's shaker lemon pie. If it turns out well I'll post the recipe. But I haven't even un-molded it yet!

Friday Night Party Preview

There are few things more tasty than deep fried dough filled with potatoes. For that, I have always envied cultures with foods like samosas, knishes, you get the idea.

And today, success! My first samosas, made with a few pointers from my friend P. I made a few for lunch in anticipation of a little get together tonight. Doesn't it look dreamy, dripping with my first successful tamarind chutney?

Muahaha, I took a bite and you can't. Sorry. I shouldn't be needlessly cruel.

2.5 Mile Run Complete!

And my reward was this beautiful view.

Stone Soup

Everyone knows the story of stone soup, right? Well, tonight we're eating an Asian version of stone soup.

My tale begins thusly:

I was busy partying this weekend, and then it started pouring for three days straight, so by this morning there was not much left in my fridge. When this happens, I usually throw a few vegetables in chicken stock and boil some noodles. Today, I didn't even have chicken stock. So I thought "Oh well, it'll be okay." Until about 5:00 p.m., when extreme hunger set in. I dug through all my kitchen cabinets, refrigerator drawers, freezer shelves, and came up with a soup comprised of the following:

• hondashi in water flavored with ginger, onions, and scallions
• large pieces of daikon, which is extremely sweet this time of year
• dried seaweed
• teardrop shaped fish balls stuffed with juicy masago centers
• Konniyaku, or Japanese yam cakes
• fresh spinach (not yet included in the photo above)
• a handful of shrimp

I just kept throwing things in until the smells made my mouth water. Sometimes it amazes me how much food I keep in my freezer and pantry. Stone soup rules.

New Tartine Favorite

When C visits San Francisco, it's always good times. This time, the highlight of the weekend was unquestionably P's big raucous Indian wedding, a first for the both of us. Check our our headless selves in saris.

I know, not enough jewelry. There's never enough jewelry when an Indian wedding rolls around.

Another high point was visiting Tartine. It was crowded as all getout when we got there Friday around noon, but we wrested two seats at the communal table and enjoyed quiches and desserts. I had the bread pudding.

C had the lemon meringue cake, which turned out to be the winner. So gooey, so sweet, so lemony. My favorite lemon dessert at Tartine has always been the lemon tart, but I might have a new favorite.

And finally, one of the few good photos from our trip to the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. It took me three tries to get into this very popular new museum, but going at 9:00 a.m. on a weekday turned out to be a great idea. There were plenty of people but it was not crowded, meaning we had a very enjoyable trip and got to see everything at a good pace. These are jellyfish in a display that really let them glow. The blue ones didn't really show up on film, but the entire tank was eerily mesmerizing. Go, jellyfish! I loved the Academy so much I got an annual pass, so if anyone wants to go let me know!

White Bean Lamb Stew

So satisfying on a cold day! Recipe when I get internet back.

Indian Wedding Weekend

Apologies for the lack of posts. My modem died (I think) and my Blackberry is my only connection to the e-verse.

Also, I have been busy going to a wedding! Congrats to P and K again, and thanks for the chance to get some gorgeous henna done! I've been getting a lot of attention over how cool it is.

Baked Pasta

Yum, it's been awhile since I've assembled a baked pasta. I eat a lot of pasta, but the baked versions are usually cheesier and keep better in the fridge (read: great for J to take to work).

And, close up. Cheeeeesy!

A Few Chicken Ideas

Last week I bought a really tasty chicken from the farmers' market. Here are a few things I did with a $5 bird.

Simmered in water and ginger for about an hour and a half, removed the chicken until cool enough to handle, and chopped into manageable pieces. This dish is better if the chicken is steamed, but I wanted broth so I made do. The best part about this dish is a dipping sauce sort of like that used for Hunan chicken. Finely chop two or three green onions. Grind about a tablespoon of ginger. Mix the two with a tablespoon of neutral oil and a few dashes of salt and white pepper.

Just as you would with Hunan chicken, we drank some clear broth with our chicken. You could add noodles or rice to make it a more substantial meal, but a spoonfull of the green onion and ginger dip gave the soup enough oomph for me.

The next morning we had chicken porridge: leftover rice simmered in chicken stock until soft, with an egg and some roasted seaweed stirred in at the last minute. Savory, satisfying, and easy on the stomach at the start of the day.

Weekend Shenanigans

In anticipation of a visitor next weekend (yay!) we exercised some restraint and only ate out once this weekend, spending a grand total of $17. But that doesn't mean we didn't eat well or have fun!

On Saturday, we spent the afternoon in a Zipcar with my friend C, grocery shopping at our favorite spots outside of SF and then coming home and making a lemon cake with the most incredible fresh lemon juice frosting imaginable. C made the sprinkles heart in an early nod to Valentine's Day. The cake was not all that I had hoped it would be, but the frosting was divine.

Sunday, J and I made a pot of stewed everything. It's a standard Chinese way to cook a lot of meat, tofu, and vegetables. Everything is slow cooked, pulled out of the sauce, cooled down, and sliced up and served with cilantro and green onions. A jumping point for the braise base is as follows, though there are as many variations as there are Chinese people. I myself don't ever follow this exactly.

• 1 knob ginger, sliced
• 1 tablespoon star anise
• 3 heaping tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder, or 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 cup rice wine
• 3 cups water

Bring al ingredients to a boil, then turn down to a simmer. Cook tough meats first: a beef shank, tripe, etc. They'll need to cook for at least two hours, until you can easily pierce them all the way through with a chopstick. Pull them out of the liquid and set aside to cool. Using the same liquid, cook hard tofu or pressed tofu, large chunks of carrots or daikon, hard boiled eggs, large knots of seaweed, "tofu wheels" if you can find them, or whatever else you think will taste good in a soy sauce base. Drain when well cooked, and serve with a little of the sauce.

Potatoes, Potatoes

As I mentioned earlier this week, I bought a 10 lb. bag of potatoes and we're slowly working our way through it. There's no rush, potatoes last forever in a cool dark place. In fact, most of them are harvested once a year and then stored in warehouses. So in the summer, we're all most likely eating six month old potatoes anyway--or so I hear.

Potato celery chowder with corn. This is as easy as can be. Peel and dice four small potatoes, and run a vegetable peeler along the sides of four stalks of celery to remove the strings. Dice the celery. Put the vegetables in enough water to just barely cover them, and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer, add salt, pepper, a bay leaf if you want, and simmer for twenty minutes until the potatoes are soft. Cool slightly and puree in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender. Stir in a drained can of corn. A half teaspoon of sugar helps to bring out the flavor of the corn, and of course you can garnish with a few celery leaves. A half cup of heavy cream, creme fraiche, or even sour cream would make this soup more decadent, but I rarely feel the need to make it heavier. A few drops of good olive oil do just fine.

And who can resist hash browns? Of course, I had mine with ketchup.

And then, because the first one was a little undercooked, we made a huge one to prove that we could. Look how perfectly round it is! This is just grated potatoes thrown into a fry pan with salt and pepper. No fancy hash browns today!

Black Bean Cakes Two Ways

Pretty, isn't it? And don't tell anyone, but it's vegetarian! I can't stop eating them they're so good.

I did my own take on this Chow.com recipe today. Instead of serving black bean cakes with a fried egg and avocado crema, I made a simple slaw with celery, bell pepper, a tiny bit of mayo, and some dijon mustard. I topped it with some black pepper and celery leaf garnish. It's a really great contrast of textures and flavors.

Alternatively, the exact same ingredients can be made into a more filling, more transportable sandwich! I altered the recipe a little to fit what I had on hand, but you can click here for the original.

• 1/4 cup finely ground yellow cornmeal (I'd use flour next time)
• 1/2 cup dried black beans, soaked overnight, cooked, and drained (about two cups)
• 2 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped (I forgot these completely)
• 1 large egg
• 2 slices Orowheat bread, toasted until pretty crisp and processed in a food processor
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, cut into large pieces
• 4 teaspoons hot sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Pulse everything in a food processor until it comes together. You should still be able to see pieces of parsley and onion, but they can be pretty small. Divide the mix into six portions and form each portion into a patty. Coat with cornmeal or flour, and pan fry until browned on both sides. Serve hot, or refrigerate and reheat in a toaster oven later. Enjoy!

Almost Successful Kumquat Jam

I'm no prize jam winner, but I do believe I'm improving over time. Today, I finished a Gothamist recipe (link here) for kumquat jam. Total cost for three jars? $1, because sugar is cheap and the kumquats were free. I just had to spend ten minutes picking them off my aunt's tree. $1 is of course a very small fraction of the cost of a jar of d'arbo, one of my favorite widely available jam makers. I filled up my empty jar and I'll just pretend I'm eating d'arbo for the next few months.

My biggest problem with this recipe is that it took so long for me to boil off the liquid that there are no visible orange pieces left and the jam is a bit dark. It tastes fine and will be perfect for baking into things like carrot and zucchini cakes, but it's not superb enough to gift. Next time I think I'll boil down the liquid alone and add the fruit halfway in to keep the pieces intact. I might also not slice the pieces so thin.

Curry Dinner

Ah, curry.

There's something very comforting about a ladle full of soupy Japanese curry poured over fragrant freshly steamed rice. The pot I made today turned out to be plenty for the two of us to eat for dinner, plus three servings leftover. Those will be for lunches. Here's a cost breakdown for anyone who's interested:

• 2 carrots (3 pounds for $1.80)
• 1/2 a bundle asparagus (1 bundle for $2)
• 3 small potatoes (10 lbs for $3)
• 1 onion (6 for $1)
• 3 ribs celery (1 head for $1)
• 1/2 bell pepper (1 for $1)
• two squares of curry powder from the depths of my drawer. I don't remember what it cost
• 1/2 pound skirt steak, cut into small cubes ($3?)
• whatever two cups of rice costs

So if you needed to go out and buy every single ingredient I put into this curry, you'd spend about $15 at the market. But I still have most of my celery, carrots, onions, and potatoes so I'm thinking it was closer to $8. That's for five meals. A few more cubes of curry and the rest of the vegetables could have fed a family of 20 for under $20. Tips?

• shop at Asian markets and farmers' markets that are known for good prices.
• buy only seasonal fruits and vegetables
• have a few dishes in mind that you'd like to make, but be flexible if you notice that what you wanted to buy costs a lot more than what's sitting next to it
• don't overbuy. I usually think about four dinners that I'd like to make and make sure they'll either make decent leftovers or that I have sandwich materials for lunch. If you plan four meals for the week, by the time you eat leftovers, find creative uses for the odds and ends you end up with, and have a spur of the moment dinner out, it's time to shop again
• try to empty your fridge each week. If you're always shopping for food when your fridge is still half full, you need to get more creative with your cooking. It's tempting to think you need to buy new ingredients because you've suddenly acquired bits and pieces of things that need to be used up. But don't go out and buy ten things because you want to use up that last potato in a shepherd's pie. Just bake it, eat it, and be done with it!

Carrot Bread/Cake

I'm never sure whether to call this a bread or a cake. "Carrot bread" makes me think of a loaf of sandwich bread with carrot bits in it, like an olive loaf. But saying "carrot cake" misleads people into thinking I'm eating a cream cheese laden sugar bomb. Any suggestions? This is just a deliciously moist baked good that's great as either breakfast or dessert.

And today, I have a recipe!

• 1 3/4 cup plus 2 tbs flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 tsp mace or nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp dried ginger
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil or apple sauce
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar, depending on your preference
• 1/2 cup orange marmalade, apricot jam, or apple jam
• 2 1/2 cups grated carrots, packed lightly
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped coarsley

Preheat the oven to 350°. Combine the dry ingredients (everything up to the ginger) in a bowl and set aside. In a larger bowl, combin the eggs, oil, sugar, and marmalade. Mix well, then add the carrots and salt and mix again. Add the flour and nuts and fold gently until just combined. The batter will be rather thick. Pour into a greased and floured 9x5" loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes or until a fork comes out clean. Cool on a rack before removing and slicing.

Chinese Recession Dining

We're a lot more fortunate than a lot of people, but I think everyone's tightening the belt these days. Instead of springing for a table full of Super Bowl snacks this year, we spend Sunday making a few tasty Chinese treats from scratch. Today, we enjoyed the fruits of our labor.

Dumplings: a pork and napa version with plenty of ginger, and a vegetarian version filled with shitake mushrooms, tofu, vermicelli noodles, scallions, and watercress. And daikon cakes with dried shrimp and sausage. And to fill our vegetable quota, we had some cabbage and watercress. I think the entire meal was assembled from under $5 worth fo groceries, but I didn't actually do the math.

A close of dumplings, made with homemade dough wrappers. I find that thick, chewy homemade dough shines best with a smaller amount of filling than big thin commercial wrappers, so a little meat and tofu went a long way. And we'll have freezer dumplings for awhile! I love freezer food.

Help Needed: Dan Bing

One of my favorite things about Taiwanese (Shanghai influenced) breakfast joints is the egg crepe. I've never known how to make it at home, and have sometimes substituted a tortilla as a quick fix. Last weekend, a friend told me she knew the crepe was composed of flour, tapioca or corn starch, and water, but she didn't know the proportions. I played around with a bowl of flour and cornstarch this morning but couldn't get the texture quite right. So I'm shouting out to my readers: does anyone know how to make dan bing???