On my weekly visit to the farmer’s market last Thursday I stumbled upon a seasonal booth. They have these every year; a group of vendors who only come to market at holiday time. This particular booth was selling preserves and oils. I know that preserves are a great way to get your fruit fix in the winter, when a lot of trees are barren, but I’ve never actually attempted to make my own.
They had two particular items that caught my eye: Meyer Lemon infused Olive Oil and Meyer Lemon curd. If you remember, I have a meyer lemon tree in my yard, and am still on the hunt for ways to maximize my bounty. My orange tree is ripening up, my pomegranate tree looks just about ready for harvest, and my meyer lemons are going to be plump and orangy-yellow within a month.

So I’m really curious about making some fruit preserves and some home-bottled flavored oils.
Right now I’m hunting for glass bottles and jars that I can use. Pretty vintage glass ones would be nice (provided they still have seals). You can boil the glass to sterilize and then you’re good to go.

I’ve found two methods for creating flavored oils:
cooking the oil and bottling or
cold pressing the oil

The heating method involves sauteeing the oil and herbs/juice/spices before straining it into a jar and sealing. This oil will keep for up to two months in the fridge.

The second method simply involves bruising the herbs/squeezing the juice/chopping the spices and putting them into the bottle with the oil, allowing it to sit for two weeks. The second method takes longer to make, but doesn’t run the risk of burning the oil.

Here’s my plan for the holiday:
Hazelnut infused oil
Meyer Lemon olive oil
Rosemary and thyme oil

Also, preserved meyer lemons
and jars of lemon curd.

Guess what you’re all getting for a holiday gift?

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There is a big signifier of fall for me, that I feel suffers from far too much persecution. It’s butchered, burned, smashed and left to rot. A poor fate for one of my favorite seasonal fruits. Occasionally it is given the respect it deserves, mainly from chain coffee shops flavoring their lattes with it, but I am a perennial fan. We share a first initial, so of course I have to support.

Since we’re smack in the middle of fall I decided to kick off my pumpkin fix with cupcakes (of course).

Pumpkin is so great because you can put it in dessert or dinner. Pumpkin risotto is just as fantastic as pumpkin pie.
Or you can, you know, just leave it on your porch with candles burning in it… I love that smell.

Pumpkin cupcakes:
Mix
1 cup pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
3 large eggs
1 stick of butter (unsalted)
1/4 cup chopped candied ginger

and 1 cup sugar together with an electric mixer until blended.

In a separate bowl mix 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 teaspoon baking soda, 3/4 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon ground ginger. Add this mix into the previous pumpkin mixer using an electric mixer.

Bake the cupcakes at 325 degrees for just about 22 minutes.

And some cream cheese frosting for good measure.
I buy a light cream cheese… something with less fat and whipped, to give the frosting a fluffier texture.
Mix 1 8 oz. tub of cream cheese with one stick of butter and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Use an electric mixer to slowly mix in 3 cups of powdered sugar (a little bit at a time) until you have fluffy frosting.
For this batch I also added 1 tablespoon of whole milk and two dashes of cinnamon for fun.

(recipe from Cupcakes)

Slather the frosting on the cupcakes after the cool and eat with apple cider. Saving pumpkins from becoming jack-o-lanterns one batch at a time.

Best eaten while wearing a warm fuzzy sweater.

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You should know that I am a huge fan of bourbon. In fact, you should be a huge fan of bourbon, too. The carmelly sweet liquor is warming and delectable. It simultaneously makes you feel classy from some by-gone era and tough, like you could take on everyone in the bar if say, some crazy movie-scene type brawl broke out.

But bourbon is a great entertaining liquor because of the endless classy cocktails you can put it in. (As well as the low class cocktails).

I offer for you here two whiskey cocktails for summer, one high class, one white trash.

First off, by way of Portland, a fabulous trailer park classic:
The Whiskeytini

The whiskeytini is served in a martini glass (for effect)
Chill the glass with ice, then pour in one shot of whiskey.
Top with PBR (to desired height) and add a thin, round slice of lemon (the same way you would add a round slice of apple to a washington apple)

That’s it! Cold, refreshing and tounge-in-cheek. Best served at theme parties or on the porch on a sunny afternoon.

The second cocktail has a name, but I can’t steal it as this isn’t my recipe. I’ve modified it slightly from the original, but it is still tasty. I must give credit to Bourbon and Branch for the original. I don’t get to that bar often, but I missed the drink enough to try it out myself.

In a collin’s glass grate about a teaspoon of fresh ginger
Add two shots whiskey and muddle the ginger into the whiskey
Fill glass halfway with fresh pressed apple juice (no sugary juice here… try to go as pure as you can… juicing yourself is the best way to go)
add a handful of ice cubes and top off with 7-up or tonic (for a less sugary version)
To finish add two dashes of cinnamon, stir and serve.

Voila… two conversation piece cocktails for any summer gathering.

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It’s that time of the year. The time when you cash in the remaining paid sick days you’ve accumulated at work and find yourself suffering from some miserable virus your coworkers/roomates/significant other has bestowed upon you. It is times like these that call for two things: someone to graciously listen to you whine about how awful you feel AND something spicy enough to knock your virus clear into next winter. For the latter I choose dishes with either gallons of hot sauce or mounds of chiles.

Last week, I was battling a vicious cold of epidemic proportions, and needed something cheap and quick that
1) made me feel better
2) could be made effortlessly on my meager amount of energy
3) capitalize ingredients I already had in my fridge.

While chicken noodle soup is fine and all, it doesn’t have the spice I require. I tend to order take-out Pho when I’m sick because of the abundance of broth and because the flavor goes so well with both jalapenos and rooster sauce.
After a recent trip to the asian market with George, however, I found Pho bouillion cubes that I’ve been wanting to try out. They look like this:

I can’t actually read the packaging, but it was vegetarian and seemed like you could estimate the water to cube ratio based off of what you would do with normal bouillion.

Rare steak pho is my poison of choice when I order vietnamese take-out, but I’m uncomfortable with the idea of trying it out at home. So this was a vegetarian dish all around. I already had baby bok choy in my fridge, as well as some thai basil, and a lime. Even though you would normally use a lemon, I chose to stick with my on-hand goods.

I did end up picking up fresh bean sprouts, some rice noodles and a jalapeno, totalling all of $2 at my neigborhood asian market. These places are gems. Locate one near you, if you can.

I estimated four cups of water to one pho cube and brought it to a boil. This seemed to be about right. You can add more or less depending on the concentration you want. After that I threw in the baby bok choy (I usually just cut the very ends off and let the stalks separate from there) and rice noodles. Both of these ingredients cook up quick.

Once cooked, I transfered them to a large bowl (in my case this was a large pyrex baking dish- all of my kitchen supplies play double duty) and garnished with lime slices, bean spouts and an entire diced jalapeno. I let the jalapeno soak into the broth for a while before I eat it. (IF you do choose to use meat, this would be the point where you throw in the raw meat and let it cook in the broth).

It made a huge 10 minute meal for under $5 and knocked my cold out like a heavyweight punch in the first round.

Finish with a grapefruit for dessert. YUM.

Filed under: Technique, Recipes, Meal Reports
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There comes a point in every fashionistas busy schedule when s(he) decides to host a most personal affair.

Enter the dinner party.

And at said dinner party you need a dish that wows. Something that will impress and astound your guests. A twist on an old dish is often fine, but wouldn’t you like to add something extra to your arsenal? An entrée that will win you five stars and have your dinner companions impressed at your culinary expertise?

Might I suggest forgoing chicken for another feathered friend? Duck, perhaps?

Seriously? I cannot get enough duck. Some of you may have never tried it. Some of you might be afraid to try it… but I’m here to calm your fears. Duck is not only easy to cook, but it tastes great. Crossing that line from average poultry to extraordinary poultry, it should be tender and slightly sweet. Duck is notoriously a fatty bird, but if that concerns you, you can try my personal favorite: Muscovy duck. It’s a less fatty duck that you can find at most Whole Foods and other upscale grocery stores. Two duck breasts is enough for four people. You can pick any sort of sauce, depending on the meal you’re going for. Balsamic cherry reduction is great, but I’ve also experimented with a thai chili duck over a bed of chili onions. Select your cuisine, pick wines accordingly and go to town.

Purchase your duck breasts and bring them home. To cook them you need nothing more than a frying pan and a glass dish for the oven. a little salt and pepper for seasoning is fine… lightly rub it in on each side.

You’ll want to leave the fat on the duck breast for cooking. Score the fat with a knife, just cutting through it. Don’t pierce the flesh. It should be one long cut with three cross hatch cuts per breast, exposing the meat below.

Now that your breasts are ready (insert collective snicker here) heat the frying pan over medium high heat. You don’t need any oil, but place the breasts fat side down (ALWAYS fat side down) in the pan. You’ll want to cook it for 10-12 minutes. Pre heat the oven to 400 degrees while you are doing this. When you are finished cooking in the pan, flip the breast flesh side down in the glass dish and bake for an additional 12 minutes in the oven.

Whatever sauce you’ve prepared for duck should already be reduced and ready to go. Cherry balsamic reduction is one of my favorites, but feel free to experiment with brandy, huckleberries, etc.

Balsamic Cherry Reduction is:
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons minced shallots
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
11/2 cups rich duck or chicken stock
2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage leaves
1 tablespoon cold butter
Salt and black pepper

Get as saucy as you want! My girlfriends and I love getting saucy with our food. Many stone fruits make good reductions and the sweetness really complements the duck.

Now that your guests are properly loose from the lovely wine you’ve served them and are anticipating the meal that will follow the cheese they’ve been noshing on (Roaring 40’s with a baguette or perhaps Humbolt Fog with some rosemary crackers?) you can deliver the goods.

Slice each breast into medalions and arrange them on plate over your vegetable of choice. Spoon sauce over the duck and serve.

Donald would approve.

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Friends, I think I’ve done it.

I’ve cracked the code.

You know those mysterious vietnamese sandwiches we’ve been stuffing ourselves incessantly with? I’ve found what makes them tick. I know a lot of us have tried this and failed. I know I have. Smiling knowingly, we put a little fried tofu, cilantro, jalepenos, mayo & sriracha into a french roll, and…

…it tastes nothing like Bahn Mi Chay. Why? What’s going on in there that makes these sandwiches so irresistable?

Recently I’ve taken more detailed mental notes while eating these things, really noting what’s making it special. The first element (and the first ingredient to prep) is: Pickled Vegetables.

Not having any carrots around, I julienned a jalepeno and roughly chopped half of a small purple onion, and doused each little pile in rice vinegar. I let these lovelies sit for around 20 minutes. If I had included carrot matchsticks in the mix and sweetened the rice vinegar a bit, this would have been a bit more authentic, but it worked!

I then split two french rolls and sent them on a short tropical vacation in a warm oven to limber up and get a bit crispy around the edges.

Next: The sauce!

I knew I needed a creamy sauce, so I used a tablespoon of Veganaise as my base. I added a splash of Maggi sauce, a liberal wholloping (wholloping = 1.5 tablespoons) of Sambal Oolek chili paste, a bit of rice vinegar, and a squeeze of Sriracha. This came together into an orange-tan sauce that was both creamy and spicy, but didn’t have that stank, er, *cough*, I mean, depth of flavor a good vietnamese sandwich has.

Not having any Marmite (normally my #1 choice for stank) in the house, I used Nahm Prik Pao instead. NPP is a pungent thai sauce filled with roasted chilies, shallots, and shrimp, so it effectively de-vegetarianized the sandwiches. Oops. Use Marmite if you’ve got it- it’ll work well.

In any case, with the addition of Nahm Prik Pao, the sauce immediately took on the exact flavor I was looking for. Score! For the filling, I cut up a king oyster mushroom and a few Layonna veggie pepper steak rounds into matchsticks. I stir-fried them with a chopped shallot in a bit of sesame oil, Braggs and rice vinegar until nicely browned. I kind of had to get a restraining order on myself to keep from eating all the filling before it even met the bread.

Finally, the sandwiches were ready to assemble. I painted the interior of the french rolls with the sauce, filled them up with the pepper steak mixture, and layered the pickled vegetables, fresh cilantro and mung bean sprouts on top. A squeeze of fresh lime finished them off.

Et voila:

I ended up wishing the rolls I’d used were better, but by and large, this was easily the best Bahn Mi I’d ever eaten. My girlfriend concurred. We were set adrift on sandwich bliss.

*da da da dahh, da da da dah…*

…in any case, because this weekend was all about new horizons and recreating my favorite out-of-reach dishes, I put together a DY-NO-MITE Shahe Fen dish, (known to westerners as Chow Fun) on Saturday. A post on that is forthcoming, but suffice it to say, it kicked the living ass out of the rather tepid (but still addictive) version I eat all too regularly at a place near my work. I couldn’t find the real camera in time, but here’s a preview:

Mmm mmm mmm… So good. I love summer

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I am a fan of cupcakes and I always have been. Ask any of my former roommates who I have subjected to countless batches, including one who witnessed me calling the police department when an entire batch went missing from my kitchen. (Yes, I’m serious. No, the cupcakes were never found and the SFPD fondly refers to the incident as the great cupcake caper.)

But who doesn’t love cupcakes? They’re cute and little, they taste good and they’re all about YOU!

It’s a cake just for you. A miniature marvel of sugary goodness reserved for your taste buds only. Want to lick all the frosting off? No one’s going to stop you. Want to dig your finger straight into the middle? No one will balk at the thought of getting your germs into THEIR SLICE because the whole cupcakes is YOURS YOURS YOURS.

Perhaps this is why I love them so much. Now that I’m older and have developed a taste for higher quality food, I feel my cupcakes should follow suit. Luckily, in the past couple of years cupcakes have gained popularity among foodies and trendsetters. They’ve made their way over from New York to the bakeries of San Francisco. And while we are blessed here in the city by the bay with lovely establishments such as Citizen Cupcake, Kara’s Cupcakes and American Cupcake, this is a blog all about DIY food. Bringing the bakery to your kitchen. (And personally, I always find homemade cupcakes to taste better than the store variety, with the exception of Sibby’s Cupcakery where the cream cheese frosting has reached a level of perfection I can only dream of one day matching.)

In honor of the desserts I love so very much, I’m dedicating my first Feeding Fashionistas post to cupcakes.

My coworker noticed how much I love cupcakes and let me borrow a book called (appropriately) Cupcakes.

It is full of almost fifty recipes for different types of cupcakes. Our arrangement was that I would keep the book as long as I wanted, providing I brought her samples of each batch I tried out. Fair enough. So far I have found all of the recipes to be relatively fool-proof and easy. They produce great tasting batches with minimal ingredients and a meagerly outfitted kitchen. If I can make cupcakes from scratch… YOU can make cupcakes from scratch.
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I have taken two vacation days from work to finish my solo album, (long awaited, by me anyhow). When waking up this morning, on this, the first day of two, I decided I needed a breakfast of real substance, containing large amounts of sustainance, because once I step foot in the studio on a day where I don’t really have a time limit, I often don’t leave until I need to sleep, so food may be few and far between today.

I looked in the fridge and saw some leftover coconut milk, some leftover homemade thai green curry paste, a bevy of vegetables and most freakish of all in my not-vegan-but-not-all-that-into-buying-much-dairy-stuff-anyway house, EGGS. To top it off, I’d just scored a veritable bush of holy basil (a variant of thai basil) the day before at the Civic Center farmer’s market.

Usually I’m not an egg guy, but I like to use them sparingly, as a binder. …and so, it hit me! A frittata would be born, but one which used just one egg. Would it work? Would the barrier hold? Only time, that most capricious of storytellers, would tell.
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Throughout the last week, something sinister has haunted my dreams. An eldritch vapour from childhood, wafting with considerable malice, wraithlike around my head. I avert my eyes- I dare not stare into this vortex of culinary anachronism, ere I go mad with unutterable longings… Bisquick, BISQUICK is it’s name! I am no longer afraid to speak it aloud.

Locals from the seat of my youth (when they get up the nerve to speak of it, usually after a flagon or two of rum) say my parents were bless’d (or, perhaps, curs’d) with an unearthly ability to produce all manner of doughy foods with an unnatural fluffiness. Pancakes like pillows beckoned. Drop biscuits floated like clouds, daring children become petty thieves as they cooled. What occult force was responsible?.

All along, my parents explained that the yellow box held nothing but white flour, oil, baking soda and salt. The neighbors nonetheless continued to be haunted, much like I am now, by dreams of perfect waffles, created with a mere swirl of the hand and a preternatural gleam in my mother’s eye. What vile ur-beast’s tentacles reached from hellish chambers beneath the sea through interdimensional portals into that innocent, gleaming box’s contents, hoping to enslave (or, at least, fatten) those who dared to open it?

..anyway, I’ve been reading too much HP Lovecraft again. Seriously though folks, Bisquick and all of its enthralling abilities weighed heavily on my mind this week. By the time Saturday morning rolled around, I knew I couldn’t keep the urge down any longer. I wanted WAFFLES- and not just any old waffles.

The only conundrum, how to make waffles without a waffle iron? Crap, what have I got that employs two heated plates with some kind of striated surface.. Crikey, THE PANINI PRESS! Perrrfect, perfect.. I shall set my plan in motion, said I..

By the way, I lament the fact that there are no pictures for this recipe- I was so glassy-eyed the whole time and the food was gone so fast there wasn’t time to even look for the camera. In fact, what’s a camera? MMM WAFFLES *#*!# *fizzle*
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Hi all,

*Whew*, it has been like 30,000,000 years since I’ve come here to write about cooking and dancing and drinking and living in styyyyle (well, at least a couple of those topics). I just finished a funky electro-infused instrumental hip hop album, and am close to finishing an underground house album as well- details will be here in a bit. I’ve been working on music 5+ nights per week and fitting in the rest of my life around that and my day job. As a result, I just haven’t been cooking very much!

I know, sacrelege. Well, anyhow, I couldn’t stay away for long. It’s time to sharpen those knives, blow the dust off the mortar and pestle, and get cracking.

Today’s recipe bears more than a passing resemblance to the green peppercorn aioli I outlined in one of my first posts here. I’ve deemed it a creme bruschetta topping this time, though, and I think you’ll see why.

Creme Bruschetta, Rainy Day RX
First, wash a handful of green peppercorns and add to your mortar. Sprinkle a few black peppercorns and cumin seeds over that, and a healthy pinch of coarse sea salt. Thrash these things until you’re gazing into a nice little pile of green paste. (If you can’t find green peppercorns, try this with capers- the taste won’t be anything like this one but it’ll be yummy nonetheless- oh, and omit the salt if you do that.)

Chop a good medium-sized tomato, a small shallot and a washed handful of fresh cilantro (save a bit of this for later) and invite them to the aromatic party already starting in the mortar. “It’s the place to be“, you’ll say, boasting casually about how the evening’s just started and already there’s maaaaad flava up in the spot. They’ll be thrilled..

..until you tromp them, too, into paste and grind the whole lot together with light, swirling strokes of the pestle. Press in a clove or two of garlic, and what you’ll have now will look like this:

(Well, sort of, anyway. My blogging skills are still what I’d call RUSTY and, well, I’m hoping you won’t notice I forgot to take a pic of the mixture before I added the vegan mayo.)

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