Posted by Anita on 04.22.06 1:44 PM
I started out canning just to see how it was done, mostly dill pickles and pickled beets, and the occasional fruit preserve. Then I started pickling and preserving a few batches of produce from my friends’ gardens, as a way of helping them cope with overabundance — 2 years ago, in Seattle, it was a huge batch of brandied plums, and a batch of pickled serranos and carrots.
Last year was a tough year, as we were moving long distance from Seattle to SF, and living in a furnished apartment without access to our own kitchen gear. I did manage a very small batch of tomato-bourbon jam, and my first batch of nocino (green walnut liqueur).
Now I’m hooked: I preserve at home now mostly to get flavors I can’t get from retail products. And a lot of what I preserve ends up being holiday presents and hostess gifts.
I just took a marmalade class this past weekend with June Taylor, a local preserving maven — unfortunately, the citrus season is almost spent, but I may put up a batch of something simple, just so I don’t forget what I learned.
And we’re about to plant a bunch of fruit-bearing trees and plants with the express intention of preserving and infusing. It was fun coming up with all kinds of different plants, from trees to shrubs to vines to groundcover, that will give us something to eat. Most of our yard will be edible in one form or another.
As far as books go, I like Georgeanne Brennan’s The Glass Pantry, which you can get used online for about $2, and Linda Amendt’s Blue Ribbon Preserves. I just recently purchased Putting Food By, which many consider the bible of preserving, but I found the authors’ writing style horrifically pedantic… it set my teeth on edge and I slogged my way through it wondering what people see in this book. It is remarkably complete, so if you need a recipe for somethings really specific and unusual, it may be the only way to go (as ad-libbing in preserving is a definite no-no — you really want an expert to have sussed out all the biohazard stuff, and changing from one fruit or vegetable to another can throw that all out of whack).
cookbooks, drinks, preserving & infusing, recipes, Seattle
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Posted by Anita on 04.06.06 4:36 PM
In honor of Passover, I decided to make the Russ & Daughters Mushroom-Barley soup from the NYT Jewish Cookbook.
(Yes, it’s shown with a decidely un-Jewish grilled bacon-and-cheese sandwich.)
If I made this soup again, I think I would use a LOT less barley than the recipe calls for. I kept adding more and more liquid, and still it was a bit too much like porridge. I finally gave up — realizing I was going to throw the balance off even more. And it needed a LOT more salt than called for.
cookbooks, cooking, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 03.20.06 3:22 PM
(links updated 1/2010)
I made a huge batch of posole verde yesterday, with Rancho Gordo hominy, and pig parts from Prather Ranch. I am drooling as I think of eating the leftovers for lunch.
The recipe was from the Williams-Sonoma Mexican book, which I still have checked out from the library, with some reality-checking of quantities from Rick Bayless. Tausend calls for 3 pounds of posole for a single batch, which would have been an amazingly awful mistake. I also used Bayless’s larger ratios of meat (2 pounds) and bones (3+ pounds, and substituting water for the chicken stock accordingly) and his suggestion of adding a pig foot for broth texture. I did use the W-S recipe’s sauce components, although I don’t think I’d bother with the pumpkin seeds again — a lot of effort and expense for very little payoff.
Dessert was a nearly flourless chocolate-almond cake frosted with with ancho whipped cream — from the same cookbook — which I liked very much.
cookbooks, cooking, Mexican
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Posted by Anita on 03.06.06 4:27 PM
We made a Fettuccine and Garbanzo soup from Molto Italiano. It called for a whopping 1 tsp. of saffron threads, which (of course!) gave it a lush, decadent flavor — even though the soup was entirely vegetarian — and turned the fettucine pieces a lovely shade of gold. It was very simple and tasty, although the quantity of pasta seemed way too generous; next time, I will reduce the pasta by half.
cookbooks, cooking, Italian, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 02.06.06 1:50 PM
(originally published as part of eGullet’s Culinary Memories of your Grandparents thread)
My paternal grandparents died when I was very young, so I have no memories of them. To hear my father tell it, though, I probably wasn’t missing much, culinarily speaking. They did live on a chicken farm on the outskirts of Monrovia, CA (near Pasadena), though, and that I would have liked to have seen.
My mother’s parents are a source of many food memories. They lived in Glendale, CA (northern L.A. county, near Burbank), so we got to see them quite a lot. My most vibrant food memory of G&G was their pantry, which consisted of 2-x-4s that Gramps had hammered in between the wall studs of the basement stairs. The wall was perfectly deep enough to hold a single row of cans and jars… it was great fun to explore!
My grams, a first-generation Italian-american was a good home cook; I still use her chicken stuffing recipe, and a few others that fit into the day-to-day, down-home American genre. I don’t have any of her Italian recipes, but I do have a few letters that her mother wrote to her when she was first married, nearly all of which end with a recipe for something she thought the newlyweds would enjoy. They’re written in a lovely phonetic Italian-English hybrid that never fails to bring me a chuckle.
Gramps was always something of a gourmet at heart. He loved Julia Child — I have his copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking — and shopped at Trader Joe’s back when it was a single store with a funky selection of cheeses and wines. I also remember the aunts (including my mom) chuckling with amusement as he showed off the unglazed paving stones he’d used to line his oven for bread baking — this in the early 70s, when pizza stones weren’t yet something you could buy. After Grams passed away, my mom sent me to stay with Gramps for a week, probably over spring break. He made me tomato soup for lunch, from scratch… I’m ashamed to admit that I turned up my nose at the stuff, since it was nothing like the Campbell’s I was used to at home. (In my defense, I think I was about 6 or 7.)
Family holidays always started with hors d’oeuvres, known in our clan as “befores”… and Gramps usually brought them. The usual creamy dip with crudites (always including black olives for me), some cheeses, and ‘funny’ crackers.
Gramps was a bourbon drinker, and his kisses always tasted like Kentucky. It’s taken me a long time since his death to be able to bear the taste of bourbon — it’s just too closely tied to my memory of him.
cookbooks, family, food boards, Italian, SoCal
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Posted by Anita on 12.15.05 1:54 PM
Originally posted as part of eGullet’s Culinary Resolutions thread
In 2006, I will eat… more food that I can trace to its source.
I will make… time for entertaining friends at home.
I will find… a talented architect to remodel my kitchen.
I will learn… where to find better lunch possibilities near my office, and not just lazily fill my belly with convenient crap.
I will teach… the basics to my friends who want to learn to make Thai food.
I will read…. cookbooks from the library before I buy them, to keep my media budget sane.
This is the year I will try… to cook at least one new recipe a week.
I will taste… , at least once, anything that’s put in front of me, no matter how ‘weird’.
I will use… my new smoker (you know, the one I hope to get for my birthday) often enough to justify its purchase.
I will give… my time to the food bank, and not just when my company gives me time off to do it.
I… will fill my new garden with as many edible plants as possible.
We… will finally take our long-awaited culinary tour of Thailand.
My kids… are dogs, so their culinary needs are relatively simple.
cookbooks, food boards, garden, holidays & occasions, kitchen, Thai, travel
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Posted by Anita on 11.16.05 3:49 PM
I had planned last night to make Julia Child’s Garlic Soup with Potatoes (Soupe à l’Ail aux Pommes de Terre from Mastering the Art of French Cooking) but then Cameron got invited to a business dinner, and I had a work projet that was going to keep me busy all evening. So, instead I made… uh, soup from leftovers.
I had a half dozen or so boiled new potatoes left over from Saturday’s corned beef and cabbage, so I put them in a small pot with some chicken stock and a splash of cream. Once they were warm, I buzzed them all together with the immersion blender, added some salt, pepper and a little more stock, and tasted. Yummy, but a little bland. I added a small amount of jack cheese, which helped, but it still needed more.
Then I remembered I had some roasted pepper garnish left over from Sunday night’s salad: roasted red, poblano, and anaheim chiles, thinly sliced red onion, a bit of cotija cheese, all bound together in an olive oil and champagne vinegarette. I garnished the soup with the chile-onion mixture, and — ta dah — Crema de Papas con Chiles Picantes y Dulces
(Sounds a lot better than Soup from Leftovers, doesn’t it?)
cookbooks, cooking, Mexican, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 03.01.05 11:21 PM
Excerpted from Mouthfuls’ Mexican Cooking Project #2: Cochinita Pibil
Cameron and I made cochinita pibil last night, using a hybrid of two Rick Bayless recipes: we used the small batch from Mexican Kitchen, but cooked it in the grill a la One Plate at a Time. We also made his habanero salsa — just a drop per taco was enough! — plus pickled onions and homemade tortillas.
We used a whole pork shoulder, and had plenty of meat. Ours took about 4-4.5 hours for a bone-in roast about 3.5 pounds and 4 inches thick on our gas grill that we kept at around 325 degrees F. The marinade didn’t completely dry up, but we did add about a cup of chicken stock to it to deglaze the pan, and then simmered that down to reduce back to the right consistency. We didn’t lift the wrapped roast up off the bottom of the dutch oven, nor did we cover it.
I’ve never had cochinita before, and I loved it. The achiote and the banana leaf gave it the most ethereal scent and taste. I had 2 tacos this morning for breakfast, and another 2 with some leftover black beans for lunch today. Man! It’s a good thing I have another project planned for dinner, or else I would eat it again!
cookbooks, cooking, food boards, meat, Mexican
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