Right Brain Feed

 We recently took a much needed trip to the West coast. Trip was fairly family focused, as we have family in Portland, Seattle, and San Diego. Had a blast in Portland, loved the food truck culture. Amazing mole (3 kinds!), really nice Peruvian smoked chicken with yummy jalapeño cilantro cream sauce, amazing Pizza crust (Kens Artisan Pizza), and it was fun to try Burmese food (a salad with green tea dressing and 4-5 different types of nuts/seeds).  Enjoyed relaxing afternoon beer at a pub, enjoyed tranquil Japanese gardens, saw Sarahs nephew, hung out at Powells, and played some games of Tempest in a retro arcade. Portland definitely suits us, we will be back.   Seattle was a quick visit, checking in on my parents and sister, and seeing Sarah's sister.  San Diego was visiting Sarah's other sister, and seeing Sarah's almost 1 year old grand nephew (wow, that feels old!). He's very photogenic, a bouncy sweet baby. I melted. I even managed to capture his first steps on v...

 This is the third year I've gotten wild ramps from the farmers market. The pattern is always the same... I'm itching to get back to farmers market produce, find a really awesome looking ramp recipe online, buy a bunch of ramps. One year I tried grilled ramps, one year I made ramp butter, and this year it was ramp pesto. After buying them, I spend way too much time fussily cleaning and trimming up the muddy messy ramps.  And finally I try the recipe, and have my hopes dashed once more. It never seems worth how messy and time consuming cleaning them is. Then my mind gently forgets how messy it was just in time for it to be next year's ramp season. 

 Every year I learn something about making Thanksgiving dinner. This year I got better at controlling the browning of the drippings. Turning convection on dries out the pan pretty quickly and helps brown the drippings as well as brown the bird. This year I cranked on convection the last 30 minutes. My roasting pan also tends to scorch the drippings in the corners, so this year I quartered an onion and tucked the quarters in the corners.  And why do I care so much about drippings? Because I am a nut for really rich, dark turkey gravy!

 We just got back from a family-foodie-fun trip to Seattle.  It was a blast: We feasted on wonderful sushi, soup dumplings, Vietnamese vermicelli salad, Japanese udon, Japanese ramen, grilled salmon, crab cakes, and divine clam chowder. I’ve gained new respect for well prepared ramen. We went to a prohibition style speakeasy: the bartender interviewed us on taste/alcohol preferences, then made a custom drink for each of us. Mine had Leningrad gin, Punt e mes Italian bittersweet vermouth, lime juice, ginger, and sage. Yum. Sarah had a chocolate brandy grapefruit concoction. We had a few nights on a houseboat on lake union. It had a rooftop deck with a really nice view.  We visited the Chihuly glass museum, wooden boat center, and spent a very zen afternoon wandering in a Japanese garden We caught up with family and friends.  I took a half day fused glass class. I really want to try this in my pottery kiln at home! Here’s the link to some photos of the trip:  http...

 I keep a list of discovered foods, either foods I’ve found I now like (capers!), or a new dish I’ve made (tomatillo avocado salsa). I just added Chanterelles goat cheese tart, and I made up the recipe. I used store bought (gasp!) crust, and kept the ingredients simple to highlight the mushrooms.  Definitely a keeper, and pretty fast to make. 

 I've been experimenting with a DIY hydroponics setup. I wanted to see if I could grow decent lettuce during the winter.  I figured out that there's a whole industry around selling components used in aerogardens. I was too cheap to fork out $$ for a real aerogarden, and I also wanted to use more environmentally friendly planting medium made from renewable coco coir rather than peat. I drilled holes in the lid of my food safe container, sterilized everything, and planted. The benefit of hydroponics is complete control over water, nutrients, and light. I pH balanced the water, added fertilizer (really similar to the fertilizer  I use in my fish tank), and set up a full spectrum grow light on a timer. I also had parts on hand from my aquarium to set up a bubbler in the hydroponics water, which ensure the roots get enuf O2.  Seems to work pretty well, once it got going.  Here are some pics from along the way. 

 I keep a sourdough starter, but don’t use it super often. So occasionally I need to feed it between bakes. I’ve started saving off the layer of clear liquid that forms on top, it’s a byproduct of fermentation. I used to pour it down the drain, but it has nice acidic twang to it, so now I save it and use it in my bread. I save it in a separate jar so the acid level doesn’t get too high in my starter. It’s definitely acidic, I added it to the milk I was using in my last bake, and it curdled the milk! The loaf turned out great, and the sourdough flavor was definitely enhanced.  That led me to google the fact that people use milk that’s about to go sour in sourdough. Since the interior of the loaf gets over 200F during baking, it kills any bad guys in the sour milk. So next time we get milk that is getting a weeee bit old, I’ll freeze it and use it in bread. My starter is named Bubbles. 

I recently lucked out and got to spend some foraging time with a really knowledgeable forager. We went seeking black trumpets.  They smelled amazing, as we gathered them, I could smell them wafting up from my basket. We need to invent a scratch and sniff photo technology, because a photo without the lovely smell just doesn't do it justice.  Apparently black trumpets are found close to hemlock, beech, and fallen birch. They like an undulating ground surface, and quartz outcroppings. Yummy in a simple butter miso linguine dish, and also delish in an omelette 

 We've been really excited to see our very first black raspberries starting to ripen, black raspberries really are my favorite.  But then we were chased out by some really aggressive yellow jackets. Sarah got 5 yellow jacket stings a few weeks ago, and then last week I got two. War has been declared.  Most stinging things here are pretty laid back. They go about their business of visiting flowers or building a nest, and generally leave us alone. We even had wasps nesting in the house for a bit this year.  I finally found their nest today out in our field, and hit it with spray. Hope it works, because our raspberries are delightful when they aren't covered in perpetually angry yellow jackets. I did manage to pick some while suited up in thick pants, and a hooded windbreaker with the hood cinched tight around my face.

 A friend sells duck eggs, and I managed to score two nice big ones. I’d heard that duck eggs are good for baking, so I tried them in an enriched brioche-like bun, and they are awesome! I like nice soft rolls, so I found a recipe that uses a Japanese technique called tang zhong, where you cook a bit of flour and milk/water until it gets hot enough (I think the magic happens around 125F) for the flour to absorb all the liquid. You then let it cool, and include it in the mix. I also have found that diastolic malt powder helps bread brown, so I added a dabble of that. They turned out great, but huuuuuge! I can’t imagine eating a burger that big. Here’s the recipe I started with  https://hotfromthekettle.com/blog/nice-buns-tangzhong-brioche-hybrid

 I’ve tried growing carrots a few times, with measley meager results. By the time they get going, the summer is pretty much done. It’s annoying (in a first world problem sort of way) to be buying carrots at the store/market/farm stand all summer because mine in the garden are so pitiful.  I read about a method that seemed so weird and bizarre, I just had to try it. I lay out sheets of paper towels, wet them down and sprinkle seeds on them. I lay wet paper towels over the seeds, layer between wet cardboard, then shove them in a garbage bag. In 10-14 days,  check to see if they’ve sprouted. Once they sprout, lay the paper towels out on a prepped garden bed, cover with a little soil and they grow… in theory This method has the added benefit of being able to more evenly spread out seeds, so no thinning needed.  I tried it with brown paper dividers this year, so my layers are cardboard divider, then paper towel, then seeds, then brown paper bag. I found a local heirloom s...

 I’m not always cooking fancy dishes with exotic spices (Sarah grinds our garam masala mix) , or grilling unusual things (last week it was enoki mushrooms). There are definitely times when Sarah and I seek out simple comfort food. Last night was a great example. Nachos with black beans and avocado, cheddar, queso fresco, and pickled jalapeño. 

 We usually feast on dishes over the holidays that are especially decadent, and tonight was no exception. I tried making Albondigas from a friends family recipe, with a few tweaks (chipotle powder and smoked paprika) .... and they were really yummy. I also made the yearly coveted mac and cheese, and added diced hatch chilis to spice it up. The cheesy sauce came out well, adding evaporated milk and creating a nice roux helped it stay creamy during baking. Yum.

 I’ve really gotten hooked on bone broth, I now always use it in soups. I save up chicken and turkey bones and freeze them, ideally I like to use a bit of smoked turkey/chicken bones mixed with regular roast bits. I use skin, bones, meaty bits, even the leftover onion and garlic I use in roasting birds. I use it all... I use an instant pot to speed up the process, I fill it up with bones and water, and let it pressure cook for 2 hours, then I remove the bones, and since I always do it on a cold day, let it cool on the deck. Then I can remove all the fat. Then I strain it and freeze it in quart size portions. If this sounds like a pain in the backside..... well, it is a long process, but sure beats store bought stock, and  the crazy high prices of store bought fancy bone broth.

 We recently treated ourselves to an old favorite.... Tex Mex at an Austin originated restaurant, Chuy’s. We discovered that a Chuys branch opened in Greenville, and we needed to make a shopping run to Greenville anyway, so we sat out on their patio and stuffed ourselves silly on chips (with salsa and creamy jalapeño sauce ), roast chicken enchiladas with chicka boom boom sauce and green chili sauce, and of course rice and beans.  We needed a detox meal, so the next night it was tofu buddha bowls.  I pressed tofu, then marinated it in soy/garlic/rice vinegar/canola, then roasted it. Then I cleaned out the fridge of veggies that were on the verge of ending up in the compost bin: kale that we sautéed, broccoli and sweet potato that we roasted and tossed with sweetened harissa, and fresh grated beets. Toss on some quinoa, and you have the Tex Mex detox of champions. 

  It tasted great, but sure didn’t match up to the glorious pot pie picture in the recipe book. I made turkey pot pie for the first time , and used a crust recipe that uses canola in place of butter, and adds a handful of parmesan.  Crust needs some work, I’ll definitely try it again.

 Pro tip: when a friend asks if I want her excess basil harvest, the answer is YES!    Especially when she offers an armload of it.  Today I made pesto for this winter, perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. 

 I frequently try shortcuts in cooking just to see if I can get away with it, and make cooking a dish I make frequently more efficient. Today I wanted to make hummus...and decided to see if I could get away with not dragging the heavy Cuisinart up from the bottom shelf.  I thought since I use a stick blender all the time to puree soups rather than a proper blender, maybe a similar shortcut would work for hummus.  So I kept the chickpeas in the stockpot they cooked in, and tried using the stick blender. While it did make hummus, it was kinda a  lengthy pain in the backside to blend them, and the end result wasn't as creamy as the properly Cuized hummus.  We'll still eat it, I froze some of it.... labeled "Crappy hummus" just to make sure I don't accidentally whip it out to serve to guests (not that there are a bazillion guests these pandemic days). 

Even awesome cookbooks have some recipes that don’t really work for me. And that’s ok. We did eat it, but doubt I’ll try to again. Having some things fail helps brighten successes. Salt and Pepper shrimp, bye bye. 

 I can own up to it: before tonight I’d never really wanted to cook with or consume anchovies. But I decided to go for it since a Milk Street recipe I wanted to try used the scary anchovies creatures. I made a Venetian inspired dish of pasta with carmelized onions, shrimp, mushrooms and a buttery white wine garlic sauce , sprinkled with toasted breadcrumbs and lemon juice. Came out really well.  Translation: Italian comfort food.