Well, it’s hot now. Really hot. And San Francisco and Oakland are like insulation tanks when it’s hot. Our apartment is upstairs so it gets really hot and doesn’t air out. We keep swearing (literally) that we need to get a fan, but then it gets cool again and we forget.

The heat has also made me lazy. So if I can scrape my sweaty, puddle-of-a-self off the couch tonight, I might be able to finish a little project I’ve been working on regarding 5 things to do with the huge pile of tomatoes sitting on your counter staring patiently at you. But don’t hold your breath.

In the meantime, look at what my mom found in her pile of carrots! I never said this was a family-friendly blog… Heheheeeheheee

Super quick, pantry enchiladas.

Everything we needed for this dish we already had, I love it when that happens!

Start by pressing one block of firm tofu. Split it in half down the middle, wrap it in a dish towel, place it on a cutting board and put a big, heavy book on top of it. The encyclopedia usually works. Remember that? No kids, before Wikipedia there were these things called encyclopedias…

In a large bowl, dump one can of drained black beans, one can of diced Ortega chilies, one large jar of sliced black olives (I know this is strange, but I think that the whole olives that you have to slice yourself taste better than the pre-sliced olives), and half a large chopped yellow onion. I also added a quarter of a jalapeno because I had it, but it’s probably not necessary.

Once your tofu has pressed for about 10 minutes, chop it into small squares and dump in a separate bowl. Add approximately a half cup of green enchilada sauce and leave it to marinade. This should marinade about ten minutes and then add it to the larger bowl with the other ingredients (include the marinade).

Pour half of what you have left of the enchilada sauce on the bottom of a glass baking dish. Heat a pan with a little canola oil and soften flour tortillas, one at a time. This should take about 10 seconds on each side. After each tortilla is heated, fill it with some of the bean/tofu mixture and a little grated jack cheese. Roll er’ up and stick it in the glass pan. Continue until the baking dish is full.

Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top of the enchiladas and top with some jack cheese.

Bake for about 15 minutes at 400 and then about 10 minutes at 450 to crisp up the tortillas.

Oh man oh man. I love pulling random things off the shelf and having success! Even more so when it only takes about 15 minutes! So delicious.

That enchilada might have exploded a little.

We now resume to your regular scheduled program.

I learned a lot about Laurel at her memorial service. One of the things that I didn’t know is that she is a major foodie! I knew she has always been a big baker but didn’t know she had a sincere love of food. It was mentioned by multiple speakers just how much she loved food and reveled in meals, baked goods and wine.

She kept a blog about her cancer struggles and all sorts of other things. I guess I should mention that Laurel was an English professor and has written three books. She is a GOOD writer (she also hated bad grammar and I have a feeling she probably cringed multiple times while reading my blog!). Her blog was funny, interesting and also showed her courage and strength while dealing with a scary illness. Anyhow, one thing she sometimes blogged about was food.

In honor of Laurel, and since this is a food blog, I thought I would include one of her blog posts on the beauty of cherry pie! http://critbritlit.blogspot.com/2010/05/but-can-she-bake-cherry-pie.html

Also, her obituary if you are interested: http://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsuniverse/news.aspx?s=72363

After this weekend I am reminded more than ever to grab on to life! Life is short! Cherish your family, hug your friends, eat good food, laugh so hard you can’t breathe, feel like the luckiest person on earth when the last thing you hear at night and the first thing you hear in the morning is your boyfriend telling you he loves you, value your health and don’t waste energy and time being mad, it’s just not worth it. Cheesy I know, but we know how I all love cheese- especially a creamy brie.

Laurel, you will be greatly missed. May you feast on cherry pie and the finest of  wine.

First, chicken pot pie! I’m not the biggest fan of chicken pot pie (especially in the hot summer) but Cooks Illustrated featured a quick weeknight version of the dish that I wanted to try. It is definitely not a quick meal and I can’t imagine that this would be an easy weeknight meal, but I guess it’s easier than the typical version with a pie crust? This version was more like a casserole with a pre-baked crust that went on top. Guess what, Cooks Illustrated doesn’t fail and this was G.O.O.D! So good that the entire dish was almost gone a day later. A dish that could have easily served six. Yeah. Pie night was a success!

Start with some chicken

Saute up a little celery, onion, carrot and garlic

Mix up the dough and bake it separately first

Yummmm, baked dough

Mix it all together, add some frozen peas, make a little creamy sauce, add the topping and throw it in the oven

Behold!

Probably better for a cold winter night than a 90 degree day when summer finally arrived, but oh well!

MmmmMMMM, bubbly creamy chicken goodness.

That covered the savory part of pie night, but it would not be complete without a sweet pie!

I have seen all sorts of people in the blogosphere making peach pie and with the glorious peaches I picked up at the farmers market I could not resist. As it turns out, peach pie was my Grandpa’s favorite as well as Zach’s mom’s favorite! (Sometimes I wonder what happened to my grammar skills. It took me three times to punctuate that and I’m still not sure it’s right. I read a lot but I swear the internet is in fact making me dumb.)

Pretty.

I’m proud to say that I took all of these photos in manual setting. I’m getting better!

This was my first ever lattice crust pie.

Drum roll please…….

My grandma was a pie-making extraordinaire and I think she would be pretty proud of that good looking pie! And of course my grandpa would gobble it up. Not that there was any to gobble up with vacuum cleaner Zach around. Of the whole pie I had two pieces and suddenly the thing was gone! Better him with his ridiculously fast metabolism than me I suppose.

If you are interested in the recipes for pie night, the chicken pot pie came from Cooks Illustrated and the peach pie came from the Eat Live Run blog.

Off to the Cal/UC Davis football game. I went to Davis for grad school and Z went to Cal for grad school so there is a little rivalry action going on today. Typically Davis has been horrible at football and I don’t have high hopes but I can pretend to care, right!?! Makes things more fun.

Adios amigos!

Now that we finally have gotten some hot weather, the garden is producing in full swing. Of course this means plentiful amounts of squash and tomatoes. Well, not quite plentiful on the tomatoes just yet but they are green and just waiting for a few more hot days. C’mon heat, COME ON!!

I finally became a real adult and ordered the weekend edition of the Chronicle and have been loving it! My most favorite part? The food section of COURSE! I found this recipe and thought I could put it to good use: Summer squash, potato and tomato gratin.

This was really good and a great way to use up excess zucchini, squash and tomatoes. We used chicken sausage and it worked fine but I would recommend reducing the salt on the potato and squash layers if the sausage is also salted. The salad was also tasty with simple spinach, red onion, feta, pistachios and a garlic vinaigrette.

I am still learning my new camera and trying to actually learn about photography versus just using the manual settings. I was practicing last night on a sunflower… out of my garden!!

Getting better. Now I just have to figure out how to make my blog look better. I want to make the photos appear larger, but not hugegantic. Too bad I have zero HTML language. Oh well!

Now, I have to be off to get ready. I’m going here with a certain someone to celebrate our three year anniversary! Awwww.

First of all, I GREW the cucumbers with my own two hands. And they are cute!

Then just like God, on the seventh day (instead of resting) I created PICKLES!!

(oh yeah, I got a fancy new camera, can you tell?)

These were super, duper good! They had all kinds of tasty ingredients like mustard seeds, fresh dill, peppercorns, garlic, salt, and vinegar. Lots and lots of vinegar. I am secretly freaked out about botulism and canning and even though these are NOT canned and just refrigerator pickles, I figured that if I made them so vinegary that I could barely eat them, there’s no way botulism could grow, right? My hand was a little too heavy with the vinegar, but after dumping some out and adding more water and waiting a few days they were much more edible and didn’t make my face pucker and give me the chills. I am still a little freaked out that I will go to wake up one morning and not be able to move. Botulism! Perhaps I shouldn’t have read about it on Wikipedia.

So…. I know I’ve been gone awhile. I’ve been a little unmotivated with the blog and trying to get back to doing more crafty things and spending time outside, rather than just on my computer. But I might be back.

Oh yeah, and I went to PERU!

I climbed really big mountains and discovered there isn’t much oxygen at 15,000 feet!

And saw this:

And it was absolutely amazing!

Adios mi amigos!

I’m going to let you in on a secret though. Here’s the thing… it’s actually not that hard. And before I get too carried away in my bragging I have to give all credit to my stepmom for teaching me the tricks to risotto. My brother who has dined his way through some pretty impressive restaurants will eat risotto on the menu and if it is really good, claim that it is so good it’s almost as good as his stepmom’s. There were many a lessons through my teenage years where I was forced to slave over a hot stove and learn just when is the right time to add liquid to the rice! So here you go, the top-secret way to make delicious risotto. The basic recipe can be adjusted for whatever vegetables you have on hand. All that is required is some cheese, butter and a lot of patience.

1. Start by getting all of your ingredients ready.

One of the key aspects of risotto is that you have to stand and stir for a long time, so it’s best to have everything ready first.If you have a stirring helper it is even better, but then you have to give them some of the credit for the fabulous meal you are about to create.

Chop one small yellow onion, a handful of shiitake mushrooms and asparagus. Chop the asparagus into small pieces, leaving the tips a little longer.

Measure out 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice, 1 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese, 1/2 stick unsalted butter and 1/2 cup white wine. I used this recipe for reference since I wanted to know how to incorporate the asparagus. Again, you can always find a recipe for the specific ingredients you want to use, but making the risotto is more of the learned technique.

Blanch the asparagus in boiling water for 2-3 minutes until tender. When done, transfer it to an ice bath to stop the cooking.

By the way, if you want a tip on how to store cheese, after opening, wrap the cheese in wax paper and then place that in a plastic bag (recycled produce plastic bags work best) to be refrigerated. You can keep many different types of cheese all wrapped in their own wax paper in the same plastic bag. This keeps the cheese from getting a plastic taste and the wax paper also keeps it nice and moist.

2. Heat chicken (or vegi) broth.

Bring the broth to a low simmer and then keep it at this temperature for the duration of the risotto making. I used one of the aluminum cartons that broth is typically sold in and that was just enough.

3.Saute mushrooms.

Heat a few tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a large saucepan. Saute mushrooms until they are nicely browned. I like to create a bit of a sear when I saute mushrooms, so I stir them along until they start releasing their juices and then spread them out on the bottom of the pan and leave them for a few minutes. Don’t let them get burnt, but just a nice sear. Add salt and pepper to taste to the mushrooms and set them aside in a bowl.

4. Saute onions.

In the same pan, add another tablespoon butter and olive oil and then saute the onions over medium heat. You want the onions to soften but to not get too browned.

5. Add rice.

Add the 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice and stir. Stir for about a minute until the rice is getting sticky and then add the 1/2 cup of white wine. Turn to medium heat.

6. Start adding the broth.

This is one of the integral steps of risotto and is best shown in person, but I shall try to describe it. When the rice has absorbed the wine, use a ladle and add one ladle-full of broth. Stir. The stirring is key for the rest of the time. You don’t need to stir really rapidly or put too much into the stirring. It is actually more of a push and pull with a wooden spoon than a stir. You should push the rice around maybe every ten seconds or so.

The thing that is different with risotto than cooking other rices and thus makes this a long process is that you have to slowly add the liquid as you are stirring and the rice is cooking. After you add one ladle of the broth and are stirring the rice, you have to pay attention to when it starts to stick to the bottom of the pan. You want it to stick a little bit before the next scoop of broth but not so much that it starts to really stick to the bottom. So, when the broth seems to be all absorbed, stir a few more times until you hear that it is getting sticky and then add another scoop of broth. Start the process again. I would say it takes about 2-3 minutes for each scoop of broth to by absorbed.

7. Continue to add broth until rice is done.

Test the rice as you go along to see how the cooking is going. You can also see the grains becoming more translucent as they get cooked. When the rice is done, the grains will be all translucent and they will be chewy but not tough. Hopefully the point where the rice is done coincides with when you run out of broth. If not, frantically send your boyfriend on the bicycle to run to the nearest corner store to get more broth… or just use a little water.

8. Add the butter and cheese.

Remove from heat and add 1 cup freshly grated parmesan (good quality Reggiano makes this much better) and add the remainder of the butter. I don’t always use butter, but it’s good and this isn’t meant to be a health food, so why not?!

9. Add vegetables.

Add the mushrooms, asparagus and salt and pepper to taste.

10. Inhale your masterpiece and proudly impress anyone you serve this too. It’s so, so good.

The other variety of risotto that I make a lot just has mushrooms and then I add a lot of dried and fresh thyme. The combination of the two together is amazing.

Also for dinner with the risotto? A little creation I made up.

Start with bacon…. (yeah, this meal is not one for a diet). I chopped it up into small pieces. Cook the bacon and then remove the bacon, leaving behind the grease.

Into which I added chopped chard.

I cooked that down until it was limp, added the bacon back in and then covered the whole thing in a few tablespoons of pure maple syrup. Salty/sweet flavor overload. MmmmMMMMmmm.

Everything together, including some sausages.

After pounding our chests a few times to clear up any artery blocking that might have occurred, we rolled ourselves to bed. Yum.

One food that stands out in my memory growing up is Irish Soda Bread. My Grandma Maribeth, my dad’s mom, wasn’t really much of a cook. She did however go to A LOT of church functions that were potlucks and required her to bring something. Her food of choice? Irish Soda Bread. Company coming over? Irish Soda Bread. Christmas presents for the mailman (and oh he was a busy mailman with my letter writing grandma)? Irish Soda Bread. My dad also started making the recipe too. As much as I hate caraway seeds, if I could get them to leave them out, I LOVED Irish Soda Bread. I like it doughy with the fizzy feeling of the baking soda, mixed with the raisins. I haven’t made this in years and actually emailed my step-mom earlier this year to send me my grandma’s recipe. I never got around to making it but when I saw this recipe (by the way, another AMAZING food website!) online, I knew I wanted to try it.

I liked that the recipe used six different seeds and kind of put a modern spin on an old classic. The bread wasn’t the same as how I remember it. It wasn’t doughy, chewy and sweet like how my Grandma and dad made it, but it is really good in its own way. It was also super easy to make and looked really impressive for my own potluck I brought it to… not one with the church.

I pretty much used this recipe exactly as printed.

A new spin on an old classic- Six Seed Irish Soda Bread

• Mix 2 1/2 tablespoons of sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, poppy and flax seeds. I didn’t use fennel seeds because as I proclaimed earlier, I HATE anything licorice tasting. I guess this actually makes it Five Seed Irish Soda Bread? I recommend buying the seeds bulk if you can so that you can just buy a small amount of each and save some dinero!

• In a large bowl mix
  • 1 3/4 cup spelt flour
  • 2 cups flour- whole wheat if you want
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Add all but 2 tblsp of the seed mixture

• Create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add 1 3/4 cup of buttermilk. Mix until the dough just comes together. Add a little more buttermilk if dough is too dry. I usually always make buttermilk at home but since I made two loaves of bread, I splurged and bought real buttermilk. But fear not if you don’t have any buttermilk (like you have 6 kinds of seeds sitting around? obviously this recipe requires a little shopping trip) add 1 tblsp of vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup of milk. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes while the milk curdles. I usually always use this method because I don’t want to buy a large container of buttermilk just to use a little and waste the rest. Unless you like to drink buttermilk….. oh, actually my Grandpa liked to drink buttermilk, since we are talking about Grandparents and all! Though this was my mom’s dad.  I digress…

• Knead the dough on a well floured surface for about a minute, but not longer. Apparently you want to get the bread in the oven while the baking soda is still working it’s magic.

• After kneading the bread, roll it together into one ball and place on a well floured cookie sheet.

• Make a very deep cross cut into the dough. This is what is going to make you look like a pro at the potluck!

• Brush the dough with a little more buttermilk and sprinkle with the remaining 2 tblsp of seeds, being sure to get enough seeds into all the cracks.

• Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 35-40 minutes, until it is golden brown on the top.

Prepare to blow people away with your mad, professional baking skills. Only the best for a potluck! Next up, jello mold!

ANYway, I have discussed before on this blog how some foods are so delicious, cheap and easy to get in my neighborhood that they are hard to justify cooking (sourdough bread, ice cream, thai food). I would include Indian food on this list, especially since we have found the absolute best restaurant just down the street from us, except that Indian food poses a special challenge. Sometimes it’s fun to make something completely foreign. I always thought that I would absolutely fail at making Indian food since there is such a delicate blend of unique spices and the only way to actually learn the art correctly is to have it passed down from your grandmothers, grandmothers, great-grandma. Well, the food I made wasn’t quite to THAT level, but it was pretty good and fun to make.

I found a great book “Easy Indian in minutes” during a trip last month to Powell’s books in Portland (I think my heart rate just sped up a little at the mention of Powell’s, I must have conditioned it). This book is full of really easy and tasty recipes that don’t take 8,000 ingredients to make. I do recommend you have the basic spices needed (garam masala, cumin, coriander and turmeric) but if you can get these spices bulk and just buy a little of each it shouldn’t cost you too much and they are good to have on hand.

For this feast I made cucumber raita, tikka chicken, spicy zucchini, garbanzo beans and potato bread (read: fried bread, yum). The meal did not contain saag paneer but I suppose I’ll forgive myself. I was pretty impressed with how stocked my kitchen was considering all I had to buy for the meal was ginger, cilantro, scallions and chicken breasts.

Here are the recipes:

Cucumber Raita
I made this first so it could marinate in the fridge for awhile

1/4 cucumber, seeded and finely chopped
5 oz low-fat plain yogurt
1/2 oz mint, roughly chopped
pinch cumin powder

Place all the above ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine.
Garnish with mint and cucumber if desired.

The following two dishes had a lot of the same ingredients, so I prepped everything in advance and kept the ingredients for each dish in separate bowls so as not to get them confused.

Spicy Zucchini
1 tablespoon oil
2 large shallots, chopped
14 oz can chopped tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
3-4 zucchini, sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a pan and brown shallots for about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, garlic, ginger and chili powder. Bring to a boil, then simmer
for 20 min. uncovered. Stir in the zucchini and season with salt and pepper.
This can be served hot or cold. I chose hot.

Garbanzo beans with raita
2 tblsp olive oil
1 shallot finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
3/4 inch gingerroot, finely shredded (I used the small part of the cheese grater)
1/4 tsp turmeric
14 oz can chopped tomatoes
28 oz can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
2 tblsp cilantro, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons garam masala

Heat oil in the skillet and saute the ginger, shallot and garlic for 2-3 minutes.
Stir in the turmeric and cook for another minute.
Add the tomatoes and garbanzo beans and bring to boil.
Simmer gently 10-15 minutes until thickened.
Add cilantro and garam masala and salt and pepper to taste.

(this sort of looks like a blob of goop!)

Potato Bread
2 medium potatoes, unpeeled
1/2 cups flour, plus extra for rolling
Pinch salt
Oil or BUTTER for frying

Boil the potatoes until tender, 15 minutes. Drain, cool and peel potatoes.
Add the flour and salt and mix to form a soft dough. Add water if necessary.
Divide the dough into 15 small pieces and dust with flour.
Roll each piece into a small round.
FRY FRY away! 1-2 min each until browned.

Mmmmm fried bread. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture.

Tikka Chicken
1 tsp hot chili powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
2-3 garlic cloves minced
1 inch piece ginger, shredded
1 oz. plain yogurt
1 tblsp chopped cilantro
1/4 tsp salt
2 tblsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp shredded lemon rind
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (organic and local if possible)

Put all spices in a large bowl. Add garlic, ginger, yogurt, salt, lemon juice and rind.
Make 3 diagonal gashes in the chicken and add it to the bowl.
Cover with marinade. Cover and chill in refrigerator for 1-6 hours.
You can grill the chicken if you want but since we don’t have a grill (yet!) I used the broiler.
Line a pan with foil and broil 8-10 minutes on each side, basting with marinade.
We had super thick breasts so this took a bit longer, but the chicken didn’t dry out which is always good.
Serve with lemon wedges and cilantro.

Another gorgeous photo. Gah. The lighting in my dining room is bad.

Everything coming together:

My plate before I realized I forgot the chicken!

Chicken included.

This dinner wasn’t quite to the level of an Indian restaurant, but it was still pretty tasty. I was able to do a lot of the prep work like chopping and getting all the spices ready before my guests arrived, so it was really easy to throw everything together at the last moment. We paired this meal with a delicious buttery chardonnay which went really well together.

If you are interested in learning to cook easy Indian food but are a little intimidated (as I have always been) I highly recommend this book for some easy yet tasty ideas. Here is the book if you are interested. And by the way, the website I linked to is www.betterworldbooks.com which is a FANTASTIC website!  The money raised by selling used books online funds literacy projects worldwide. They have a really big selection, so next time you head to amazon.com, check them out first to see if they have it. I have met some of the employees before and they are super cool and it’s always better to support small, super cool companies than huge conglomerates like Amazon, right?

Enjoy the food… I need to go work on some of my responsibilities as the president
of the NGO, non GMO, naan club