Make your own yogurt

It's not news that yogurt can easily be made at home, but truth be told, what you usally get out of your average home rig just isn't that delicious. It can be watery, overly sour, and often resembles silken tofu with soft curds and a gelatinous texture. To achieve homemade yogurt that's both creamy and perfectly sour, there are few extra steps, but well worth the trouble.

Yogurt isn't complicated
Before we get to fixing broken homemade yogurt, however, here's a brief primer. Yogurt is simply milk that's been fermented using particular types of bacteria that create lactic acid. You can get this right bacteria using commercial yogurt as a starter, or by buying it in powder packets, like yeast.

Either way, once released into the wilds of your fresh milk, this lactic acid-producing bacteria multiplies, consuming the milk's natural sugar for food and adding, among other flavors, sourness. Meantime, the acid produced curdles the milk, creating the distinctive firmness and thick texture we cherish and expect. Curdling happens when milk proteins (casein) begin to unravel into strands and then tangle up, creating a mesh that traps water and fat (hence, thickness). In the process, some water also gets squeezed out of the curd, and that's why you often see whey separating out from yogurt.

For extra firmness
Along with casein, you can also enlist another milk protein to thicken your yogurt. Whey protein goes unscathed in the lactic acid bath that curdles casein, but by scalding your milk before fermentation at 185° for a period of 30 minutes, the whey protein gets cooked, unravelling it and reinforcing the final texture. You may have heard that scalding milk is necessary to kill stray bacteria or to deactivate enzymes that can interfere with fermentation, but in commercially available milk that's already pasteurized, these reasons no longer apply (if you're using raw milk, by all means scald for protection as well as texture!)

Making the yogurt
Once your milk is scalded, reduce the temperate to 70° by placing your pan into an ice bath (be sure you don't get any water or ice into the milk). Take temperature measurements! If you add bacteria to overly warm milk, it will die. And if your milk is too cold, you may be adding hours to the final fermentation time. Once the milk hits room temp, put it into a clean, airtight container, add the starter, blend it in fully, and find a warm spot where the whole thing can ferment undisturbed.

To achieve an even temperature throughout the process, I use the Yogourmet yogurt maker. I have friends who use the oven light or electric blankets for temperature control, and those methods can work, but I found the minimal investment in this simple piece of equipment to be worth it in terms of consistency and mess control.

After the milk has fully fermented (I leave mine overnight and then some, about 12-14 hours) I then take two extra, quick steps that add firmness and creaminess that really make this yogurt worth the work. If you've already gone to all the trouble of scalding and cooling your milk, this part is nothing!

First, I place pour the warm yogurt into a chinois and let it drain until about two cups of whey liquid separate out. Next, I take the strained yogurt and subject it to an immersion blender. This breaks up the curds and creates a smooth, runny texture that will appear ruined. Don't worry, once it has a chance settle and cool down, the texture will snap back. While still warm, I pour the now-runny liquid into glass containers and refrigerate it. After about six hours, I've got perfectly smooth and nicely thickened homemade yogurt that's somewhere between regular yogurt and greek style.

The payoff on making your own yogurt, as well as being fun, is multifold: the cost is about one third to one half of what it costs to buy, it tastes better, and you can be sure you're getting all of the probiotic cultures you want without any unwanted additives. After you make it a couple of times yourself, buying a plastic tub at the store won't seem quite as convenient or worth the money.

Restaurant Style

Restaurant style can be unexpected and exciting, and comes and goes, like fashion. Remember black, white, and chandelier decor? Foams? In their time, very cool.

Ingredients, furnishings, and service details can delight guests hungry not just for good food, but also fresh luxury. Something as simple as offering to take your coat to orchestrating the kitchen and waitstaff to ensure plates are dropped in front of every guest at each table in perfect synchrony can make or break a restaurant experience.

Living here in San Francisco, we're lucky enough to have a competitive environment where restaurants are always reaching for fresh new ideas to inspire. Here are a few of them, some newer than others.

1. House filtered water, sparkly or still? Everyone wants to jump onto the green bandwagon, and so restaurants are not only serving organic local produce, but also taking high carbon-footprint beverages like bottled water off the menu in favor of filtering and carbonating their local tap water. 

2. Wine is off the table. After the traditional opening, the bottle is kept off the table and poured for you by staff as your glass drains. This one's a double-edged sword. When done well, it makes you feel like the center of the universe, but if the service isn't crisp, it can feel laggy and awkward when your glass is empty and you're wanting a nip.

3. The empty bread basket. Food-focused restaurants with upstart chefs don't want you to waste your palette on a loaf, they'd rather you enjoy an amuse bouche or a shot of some exotic cocktail concoction from the bar before settling in to consider the menu.

4. House-cured charcuterie, pickles, and jerkies. Look for house-cured meats and vegetables from salmon to salumi. Preserving meats and vegetables is labor and space intensive, but more and more restaurants are foraying into old-world preservation techniques.

Stop Thinking Outside the Box

We refer to cars we don't like the look of as boxy. We tell people to think outside the box when they're being dull and boring. Where's all this box negativity coming from? When it comes to wine, it's time to turn away from box hatred and embrace a greener package: the wine box. Foodbuzz kindly set me up with a box of Black Box Sauvignon Blanc, and I have to say the box makes perfect sense for this drinkable, basic, dry wine made from New Zealand grapes.

The secret to box wine isn't really the box, it's the mylar bladder. The liquid is packaged in an air-impermeable plastic bladder with a nozzle. The bag prevents spoilage because, as you drain it, it's deflating shape conforms to the contents perfectly without allowing air in. Bottles can't do that, unless you fill them up with glass pebbles... and we all know how much of a pain that can be.

That means you never have airspace, so you get much less spoilage, less waste, and pretty much always have something to serve stashed in your fridge. The wine doesn't last indefinitely, but it lasts long enough to make the lack of traditional packaging well worth it. The box holds 3 liters, so you get 4 bottles worth in one package. The packaging ensures that, once opened, the wine will survive under refrigeration for at least the length of time it would take you to get through 4 bottles, and at about $6.25 per bottle, that's hard to beat.

About the Beverage

The Black Box wine is a highly produced commercial affair, and as a result, doesn't have a lot of character. There's no terroir in the box, if you will, but no scary surprises either. It's perfectly drinkable, pleasant and refreshing on a hot afternoon. It has a lot of acid, some floral aromas, and no residual sugar that I could detect, making it an acceptable pairing with casual food or on it's own as the sun drops behind the horizon from a vantage point your local green space.

I'm not going to say that Black Box rivals the finest Sauvignon Blancs produced in Bordeaux, but it's not trying to, and the wine is certainly none the worse for being transported in an earth-friendly box as opposed to a traditionally packaged rival. In short, the quality of the wine is good enough to serve at a picnic lunch in the park or at your sunset backyard BBQ party without a moment's hesitation... it's floating far above Franzia in terms of quality, the other box wine. But would I serve it with sixty dollar per pound Dover sole flown in from the white cliffs? Not likely.

Mineral Oil's Mysteries

Mineral oil is one of those kitchen oddities: as far back as I can remember my mother has admonished me to "feed" my wooden cutting boards and utensils with the stuff. I'm not sure if it's feeding anything, but it is good at preserving, and just as importantly, sure makes them look good.

So, what is mineral oil anyway? Is it food? Is it natural? I wondered why it was called mineral oil; are there any minerals in it? And why people eat it, rub it on metal to prevent rust as well as all over their babies (baby oil is just scented mineral oil) to prevent diaper rash?

Firstly, It Comes from the Ground, But It's Not Natural

Mineral oil, contrary to it's nutritional-sounding name, is a by-product of petroleum distillation. And there are no minerals in it. The term mineral has been attached to this colorless, flavorless and non-reactive lube because of it's origins. Crude oil is found among subterranean rocks--you know--like minerals.

Mineral oil is definitely not food, but because it's non-reactive and indigestible, but it's also not inedible. Think of mineral oil as a hitchhiker that's just passing through the honky tonk town that is your body. It'll go to the saloon, end up in jail, but only stay there until morning. Or you can think of it as vaseline, but runny. They're actually very close from a chemical perspective, as is paraffin, which may be starring in a candle near you.

Fire Eaters, Sufferers of The Grip, and Sugar-Crazed Children

Mineral oil can't be absorbed by the body, so if your guts are bound up from drinking creek water or taking too much Vicadin, sucking down a tablespoon or two can help get things moving. And I mean that in the most literal of senses...think about an orange inside a nylon sock. Now think about an orange in a nylon sock but covered with mineral oil. See? That's what happens, roughly.

If you don't like the idea of ingesting a petroleum distillate, and I don't either mind you, you should also stop eating that nice shiny candy you just bought. Some soft gummy candies are made with mineral oil as an ingredient, and some are just coated with it to create a nice sheen. Bleh.

Fire eaters use mineral oil on their crazy batons because it burns at a low temperature, but simultaneously has a very high flashpoint, meaning it won't light unexpectedly by simply coming into contact with a flame like gas or kerosene would. And it's not poisonous, of course, so it's perfectly safe for fire eating. Whew!

What About Wood?

Yes, you should use mineral oil on wooden utensils. For one thing, it repels water, so it can help to seal out moisture and the bacteria that would enjoy bathing in it. By making your wooden stuff a bit more water repellent, they may also last a bit longer, too.

Finally, it brings out the natural grain in wood, which in turn makes you feel like you're more at one with nature as you microwave your teriyaki bowl and adjust your hearing aid so you can listen to Fred on YouTube more clearly. So yes, mineral oil deserves a place under the sink, just remember to take it out and apply to your wooden boards and utensils every few months.

Indulge in a Classic Negroni with Special Red Vermouth

Nothing says summer sunset like a chilled, sophisticated and delicious Negroni cocktail. It's got a refreshing bitter bite, a citrus sparkle from fresh orange, and a heady blend of aromatics from the gin and sweet vermouth that never fails to refresh before dinner.

The Negroni is built on a platform of three complex flavor families, one of which is bitterness contributed by Campari. I'm a big fan of bitter liqueurs like Campari, Cinzano, and Cynar. Bitter liqueurs are described more fully in this post, but basically, they're alcohols steeped with enigmatic herbal blends. The recipes are often closely-held secrets (as it is for Campari) and bitters were often originally developed for medicinal purposes or digestive aids.

The Negroni
This classic gin cocktail is bursting with infused herbal flavors. Comprising gin, Campari and red vermouth (all infused alcohols, though sweet–or red–vermouth is infused wine), the Negroni's bursting with resinous juniper berry, caraway, and all of the mysterious herbs secreted into the proprietary gin, Campari and vermouth recipes.

Which Gin?
Gin comes in several styles, but because the Negroni contains so many other herbal notes, I like to keep the gin classic and simple. It's not the starring ingredient the way it would be in a martini, so using a top quality, very distinct gin like Junipero, Lot 209 or Hendricks would be like using extra virgin olive oil for frying. If you're loaded with cash, go ahead and indulge, but I think you can go with a solid standby like Bombay Saphire. If you want to try this but can't stand gin, you can subsitute for vodka.

Which Red Vermouth?
When it comes to red vermouth, everyone thinks about that green bottle with the old school label. Of course, I'm referring to Martini & Rossi. But I think this brand is the weakest link. The secret to a superb Negroni is to switch up the sweet vermouth for Punt E Mes (pictured above). Punt E Mes is chocately and syrupy with a dense mouthfeel and dark, rich flavor and color. Unlike Martini & Rossi, you can't see through Punt E Mes when you hold it up to the light. It's about $20, and you can find it in specialty wine shops or online.

The Negroni Recipe
1.5 oz Gin
1.5 oz Vermouth
1.5 oz Punt E Mes

Shake over cracked ice and serve in a chilled tumbler over more cracked ice with an orange wheel as garnish.

Kick Ass Smokey Pork Shoulder, Made Inside on a Rainy Day

In these days of wintery wet days (at least in my corner of the world) as well as a rapidly shrinking meat budget, doing pork shoulder inside has become more than wishful thinking: it's become an anti-downturn salve to the soul.

The Why of Pork Shoulder
Pork shoulder is relatively inexpensive, very flavorful, and blissfully simple to make. The only problem with doing inside, in fact, is that I'm in love with that smokey charcoal flavor I get by grilling it outside. But since it's been raining for days on end, I was driven to alternate means, and it turned out pretty well. Here's what I came up:

The How
Buy a 2-pound pork shoulder and season liberally with salt and pepper. Next, find a heavy, oven-safe high-sided pot-with-lid that will provide a pretty tight fit for your pork. Add a little flavorless, heat resistant oil like grapeseed or highly refined canola.

Next, crank your stovetop to medium high and wait until the pot is fully energized. Once up to searing-temp, induce a nice rich brown on all six sides (if the piece you have is cube-shaped enough to be able to do all six). Return it to a rimmed plate or shallow bowl.

Let it cool quietly on some desolated part of your kitchen counter where it will be undisturbed as you prepare for the next phase: the rub!

Here's the Rub
While the shoulder loses energy, make the spice blend. I put all of this into shallow bowl that allows me to mix the spices and also coat the pork.

1 tablespoon of ground, smoked paprika,
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of ground tumeric
1 teaspoon of ground cumin.
Several grinds of black pepper
Ground cayenne to taste (I like about 1/4 tsp)

Optionally, you can add coriander and crushed garlic.

Rubbed the Right Way
The rub is where you can tinker as much or as little as you like, but make sure you've got at minimum the salt and smoked paprika if you want to replicate some of that grilled, smokiness. Granted, it's not really going to taste grilled (though you could experiment with liquid smoke), but it will have a smokey depth that I personally love, and the red color doesn't hurt.

Get the rub together, and once the meat has cooled enough to handle, coat it thoroughly on all sides. If you have trouble with the rub adhering, coat your pork with a tiny bit more flavorless oil.

Re-Pot and Fire It Up
Now comes the tricky part. Return the pork to the tighly fitting pot you used to do the sear and cover the meat with enough tinfoil to create a pretty tight seal over the pork, making sure to fill up the gaps around the meat as much as possible. You're looking for a dome of foil that leaves as little airspace as you can around the pork. These close quarters will allow steam from the pork to remain in close proximity to the pork and assist with the braising process. You may think I'm just making this up, but for real, Madeleine Kamman taught me this trick and it really works!

Next, cover the pot with it's oven-safe lid (on top of the tinfoil, which will be lower down in the pot) and put the entire contraption in a slow oven (about 325 degrees) for 1.5 hours. Once the initial time is up, flip the shoulder, replace the foil, and go again for another hour. The flipping, while a pain, ensures that one side doesn't dry out. Don't fiddle with the meat during the flip...just flip, recover with foil and the lid and return to the oven as fast as possible.

Once the hour is up, check out your pork and see how 'falling apart' it has actually gotten. If the texture isn't right, keep cooking until it is.

The Shredder or Whatever...
Once you pull it out of the oven, let it rest and cool for a while, transfer the meat to a plate and shred it or prep it in whatever way makes sense for what you're doing (I use it to add to bean dishes or for burritos or just on it's own with some sauteed vegetables, so shredding is usually what I do.)

You'll notice that there's a lot of nicely flavored and beautifully colored liquid left in the pot, along with a huge layer of fat. Degrease as best you can and return as much of the remaining liquid to the meat without drowning it...there's a lot of tasty gelatin and spices in there, so don't waste it!

That's it! Since this recipe requires some tending, it's a perfect one for a quiet afternoon at home on a rainy day. Personally, I like to run a couple of old movies in the background, make some rice and beans and do this pork shoulder. But you could also break this recipe up into phases and cut down your stay at home time, though I never recommend leaving an oven untended.

More About Sweet Lime, Courtesy a Reader

This illuminating note and great photos from an intrepid reader who went to India, ate the fruit, and happened across the Sweet Lime posting here. Thanks for your note and photos, Dave!


"I was in India in November for about 10 days. I was introduced to sweet lime there and fell in love with it. It is mildly flavored and yet full-flavored at the same time. The best way that I can describe it is if you had an orange with no orange flavor but still robust and sweet. At the hotels I stayed at they served slices of sweet lime as well as sweet lime juice and a mixture of orange and sweet lime juice, which was heavenly. The sweet lime juice that I had was pure juice, no sugar added, according to the hotel staff. They fresh-squeezed it at the hotels. I’ve attached a few pictures that I took when I was there. The plate picture shows some pieces of sweet lime flesh that were cut up and served in a breakfast fruit buffet in Hyderabad, India. The sweet lime is at the top. The other fruits on the plate are papaya and pineapple. The containers show sweet lime juice in a dispenser as served at a hotel in Agra, India. The street picture shows a vendor in Agra selling sweet limes and sweet lime juice. Note the juicer on the left and the glasses. I never had the courage to try anything from a street vendor because I feared getting sick, but it was tempting.

Sincerely,

Dave Johnson"

Update on San Marzano's

After writing my marinara posting, the SF Chronicle serendipitously came out with a shoppers guide to San Marzano tomatoes.

They went through the aisles testing domestic and imported varieties and have some terrific recommendations. Here, here SF Chronicle!

Check it out!

Canned tomatoes - step aside, San Marzano

Perfect Simple Marinara Sauce

Marinara is so beguilingly good, you think there's gotta be a mystery to making it. Turns out, great marinara for topping pizza, pasta or breaded eggplant is not only simple, it's quick and cheap.

The Foundation
There's really only one thing you need to actually plan for to make good marinara, and that's the tomatoes. Unless you've got a stash of ripe, fresh ones, next time you're at Whole Foods or your favorite local upscale-ish grocer, buy half a dozen 28oz cans of whole San Marzano tomatoes (so you never run out). Now you're set.

The open secret to great marinara is the tomatoes you use. San Marzano tomatoes are simply a variety of plum tomatoes that have more flesh, fewer seeds, and richer flavor than romas, making them perfect for sauce. I buy them whole in cans like you see pictured above.

You can get the San Marzano variety from many brands, but tomatoes grown in the actual vicinity of the town of San Marzano are said to be especially good because of the volcanic soil and endless bright sunlight in the south of Italy. You can get high quality specimens from US producers, too, and since these red gems have become so popular, getting the super duper genuine article is nearly impossible (unless you want to spend some serious coin).

The Recipe: Make it in 20 Minutes Flat
1 28oz Can of San Marzano tomatoes
2 cloves fresh garlic, very very thinly sliced (like paper)
1 teaspoon of salt
3-5 grinds of black pepper
1 8oz small can of Hunt's Tomato Sauce (yes, you read that right!) Use only the plain unseasoned tomato sauce...avoid the cans that have garlic, basil or other "herbs and spices" added.

Empty both cans of tomatoes into a high-sided pot, crank up the heat to medium and grab your immersion blender. Press down and blend each tomato until coarsely chopped, but not pureed. The high sides of your pot should help control the spatter, but you might want to don your fave apron.

If you don't have an immersion blender, you can chop with a food processor or knife before they go into the pan, but it's just messier and adds clean up. Next add everything else and continue heating on medium-low heat until you achieve the thickness you require from evaporation, about 20 minutes. Seriously, that's it.

A word about Hunt's. Some may be surprised to see the extra can of Hunt's, but trust me, it's the simplest, best product for adding liquid, additional tomato richness, and a bit more acid to the balance the San Marzanos, which when boiled down, can get mighty sweet.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Alton Brown

For a long time now, Alton Brown has been persona non grata around my media center. But I've been watching a bunch of Good Eats lately (thanks to Tivo) and I have to admit he's a bit on my hit list. Wait, before you hit the red thumbs down button, hear me out! Here's the case for Alton.

What Was Wrong with Good Eats?
Like many others, things that turned me off about this sometimes overly spirited show included: his badly-matched, embroidered frat boy shirts, his over-worked mini-dramas, and his guy-gadget approach to all things cooking. After a while, you just get sick of the machine-shop approach to food. There's gotta be more to life than that, right?

But amidst all of that clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk that he pulls out show after show, Alton turns out to be, heart-wise, more like Dorothy than the Scarecrow. All he wants is to be at home in his own back yard and for you to be, too. He wants you to be as good as Proctor and Gamble at pancakes and as smart about soda as Coke. Yes, that's right, dear reader... he's a romantic individualist. And I guess after all the kooky measuring is done and quirky DYI devices fall apart, that's his true charm.

The Facts
#1
On screen, he puts himself out on a limb time after time with embarrassing dramatizations, with no embarrassment. But in each one, no matter how annoying, he respects facts, science, and the craft of cooking. In recent shows, he hired an impressive character actor to play his business partner as a foil to push recipes along. It's great to see the passion and creativity, history and humanism all rolled into one. One of my favorites was a show on toast. A whole show.

#2
He changes his mind. When he decides he was wrong about garlic powder, he just changes his mind and states the opposite, sometimes years later. And mostly, he acknowledges his change of heart. In other words, he's intellectually honest. And an honest intellect, even in the kitchen, is the hallmark of a romantic: he wants the world to be better than his own vicissitudes , he believes in something bigger. The truth, in this case, food-science truth.

#3
He's a lover, and by that I mean he gets joy from, science, and it's cousin, technology. He believes he can connect rational thought to the senses by understanding and explaining it. And that's a beautiful thing. He's a rationalist and a sensualist with no contradiction. Food makes him feel good, and thinking makes him be good. And he's a pilot, which means he puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to believing in natural forces like gravity and the bernoulli principle as much as the Maillard reaction.

#4
Finally, Alton wears his heart on his sleeve. Over the last several years, he's fully transformed, on screen, from slightly off-balance food geek to comfortable, elder statesman. And I believe he's got even more better good times ahead, now that the whole "Waves" thing is done. (I get why he wanted to do it, but seriously...)

Alton may be in a bit of serial box on Good Eats, but I think he's got a really good book or new series in him, and I can't wait to find out how it'll turn out.

The Lowly Fork, Latecomer to the Western Table

Your ears may still be ringing with the parental interdiction "don't eat with you hands!" bellowed across the formica clad breakfast nook. You, sporting your Oshkosh jeans or Strawberry Shortcake socks, thought your parents were simply revealing the plain truth, but little did you know that throughout most of western history, most people used their hands and hardly anyone used a fork. Although experts differ on dates, up until the 18th or 19th century, digging in freestyle was the fact and fashion, and people who didn't use their digits were suspect.

As far back as the reign of the Romans, the most common table implements used throughout Europe were knives, spoons, and bits of bread used to push things around and soak up soup or gravy. Forks had been used in the kitchen as a cooking implement for centuries, but only the eccentric and wealthy dabbled with tines on a handle at the dining table.

According to Reay Tannahill's Food in History, special forks are known to have been used in Greece and Byzantium as early as the 10th century, but only for the elite. The first widespread dining-table adoption occurred in Italy, starting in the 13th century by aristocrats and as late as the 16th century by wealthy merchants.

In the 16th century, Italian manners were considered to be the most refined in Europe, and in 1533 Catherine de Medici brought forks (along with her entire kitchen and staff) with her to France when she was was married. But even with that kind of an introduction, ubiquitous fork use across all economic lines didn't catch on in northern Europe until the 18th and 19th century.

As late as 1897, seamen in the British Navy were forbidden forks and knives because they were considered an emasculate affectation that was bad for morale. And although we were slightly ahead of the English curve, the fork only became de riguer at every American dining table a few decades earlier after being embraced by squeamish 19th century doyennes of etiquette.

Failure to use a fork is a deficit in manners, no doubt, but the next time you're tempted to snatch a shrimp or palm some pan-dowdy don't beat yourself up for being an animal. After all, it's only been decades since the fork showed up at our gastronomic rodeo.

Laser Cut, Ginger Bread

If you haven't seen this, check it. out... insanely detailed gingerbread bridge cut using a laser.

Unboxing: Gifty Cowgirl Chocolates from Moscow Idaho

Foodbuzz.com graciously arranged for me to do a little tasting of Cowgirl chocolate truffles. I did an unboxing and a quick tasting, and here are the results for your pleasure.

What I Got In the mail, I got a Cowgirl Signature 1/4 Pound Truffle Box, which costs $12.95 for 8 individually, mylar-wrapped flavored chocolate truffles and one caramel in a heftily built gift box.

What's Inside As you can sorta see from the pics, it's a nice looking gift with lots of decorative stuff on it. There's a sticker, tissue, a ribbon, a tag, and a western-themed, and a silver plastic star button (that unfortnately will go straight from the box into the landfill).

When you open the western-themed gift, what you get is handful of mylar wrapped truffles. Each tuffle is color coded, and there's a variety of flavored truffles to discover, everything from Ivory Orange to Habanero Dark Chocolate flavors in the box.

Gift Impact
I'm a big fan of simplicity, and I avoid buying anything with over-built, themed wrappings, trinkets and decorations all over it. The decade of the Hummer and Escalade is over. Even in gift giving, I like to follow a path of thoughtful simplicity.

Especially in these times when we're thinking a bit greener, I appreciate innovative ways to cut back on packaging rather than ways to bulk it up. Don't get me wrong, nothing was cheezy about the Cowgirl packaging (except the silver button), but IMHO there was just too darn much of it.

For example, I would rather have had the flavor guide stamped onto the inside of the box top with a plain old, low-rez rubber stamper than have another bit of paper to throw away. I would rather have had received the truffles all naked nested in recylced paper than individually wrapped with more plastic I can't re-use. The ribbon was totally cool, however, and I'm already re-using it as a cat toy.

The Chocolates Themselves
For the sake of full disclosure, I tend to be pretty much a purist when it comes to chocolate, but I also love chocolate and chili flavors together, so I was excited about the Dark Chocolate Habanero flavor. To be fair, I usually buy bars, and I gravitate to high cocoa levels and never crave milk chocolates (or worse, white chocolate...if I want to eat pure fat, I'd rather dip bread in olive oil or eat crispy duck skin than eat vanilla flavored, sweetened palm oil emulsions).

However, for the sake of a balanced tasting, I chose both the hottest, darkest truffle for my own personal pleasure, and the lightest, blandest one on behalf of those who enjoy a milder treat.


The Habanero
The ingredient list for all of the chocolates reads well indeed. There's nothing artificial there, just good, solid flavorings. The Habanero truffle itself was not very spicy hot, it was imbued with a pleasant warmth to accompany the bitter and sweet flavors of the dark chocolate. The heat component was a simple, one note shot of capsacin without a lot of chili character. The dark chocolate wasn't bad, either, but it also lacked noticeable character or depth.

The Ivory Orange
For the lighter side, I chose the Ivory Orange tuffle. It had a soft, creamsicle style with lots of sweetness and orange essence floating around. Again, it was a solid truffle, but it was a pretty simple bite. Nothing much to savor, there. It was milk chocolate and white chocolate in a marbled presentation.

The Verdict
These gift boxes are made with earnest care, the wrappings are colorful, and the theme is all americana. The chocolate itself is tempered beautifully and makes that "expensive" impact that many people enjoy. If you know someone who likes themed gifts with visual appeal and a little story and theme to accompany, you'll love giving these treats.

If you're looking for something with a more sophisticated, leaner presentation and an emphasis on adventurous flavor and ingredients, you're better off with Pierre Marcolini or traditional, old-world styles like Teuscher.

Mean Pinto Beans with Bacon and Arugula

As the economy spirals into oblivion, you may well be reconsidering your food budget. And dried beans are a smart item to factor in. They're packed with all sorts of stuff your body and your wallet will love! Like flavor and cheapness and fiber and nutrients.

Thing is, beans taste like dirt unless you season and add some meaty flavor. To get going, I use the smartest invention since windmills and solar panels, the pressure cooker, to turn dried beans into a versatile base ingredient in just about 20-25 minutes.

Start with Flavorful Beans
I start with 3 cups of Rancho Gordo pinto beans, 7 cups of suitably salted water, a couple of bay leaves, some cumin, a tablespoon of dried Turkish oregano, a couple of Szechuan pepper pods and several grinds of black pepper.

The basic recipe for dried beans calls for soaking overnight, draining, then cooking in water or stock. If you use a pressure cooker, as I recommend, follow the manufacturer's instructions. My 15-year old Fagor Rapida requires just 20-25 minutes to get the beans to al dente, destroy the gastric problem-causing sugars, and infuse initial flavors into the bean.

Believe it or not, pressure cooking puts dried beans into the category of practical and realistic for weekday meals. If you do it the traditional way, you'll need hours. Pressure cookers are the bomb! In the good way!! All of the current models are PERFECTLY SAFE. Mine is 15 years old and safe as houses...errr...as houses were before the economy did it's swan dive.

Finish the Beans
Once the beans are seasoned and al dente, drain off the cooking liquid and reserve it, then reboot your tongue and think about how to finish them. Today, I sauteed a couple of chopped onions and 4 strips of Niman Ranch smoked bacon chopped into one quarter inch pieces with salt and pepper.

After adding two tablespoons of dried, ground ancho chili to the beans, the somewhat browned and caramelized contents of my saute pan, two handfuls of baby arugula, and a couple of cups of the reserved cooking liquid, I set the pot on low and let the arugula wilt and the ancho to thicken, about 10 minutes.

That's it! And it only cost 10 bucks for 6 servings...not bad. Add some rice or even just a few slices of good bread and you're done.

Recipe
3 cups of dried pinto beans, cooked and seasoned with salt, cumin, oregano, hot pepper pods and ground black pepper. Yields about 6 cups of cooked beans.
2 medium onions chopped and sauteed in 1 tbs of peanut oil
2 tbs of dried, ground ancho chili
4 thick cut smoked bacon strips, chopped into pieces
2-3 handfuls of baby arugula

Season and cook the pintos, saute the onions with the bacon, combine with ancho chili, arugula and a couple of cups of cooking liquid... simmer until the ancho thickens and the arugula wilts and ladle over rice or serve with a couple of slices of good bread.

Pick-Me-Up Before You Go-Go Granola

Like all granolas, this recipe (see the previous post called 7 Foods for the Economic Downturn to understand the inspiration for this recipe) is simply a riff on a tried and true formula of oats, sugars, and add-ins like nuts and seeds toasted in a medium oven until golden. It's not as easy as buying a box, but it's very, very easy and incredibly less expensive. Keith and I developed it cooperatively...thanks, Keith!

Premium store-bought granolas like 18 Rabbits incorporate interesting, top quality extras like hazel nuts, maple syrup and cocoa nib, balancing the salt and sugar accordingly. For this recipe, we combined healthly components from Debra Madison's recipe with more baroque add-ins from the Cheese Board recipe and some interesting inspirations from 18 Rabbits. The cocoa nib is a great one, but go easy and get reasonably good quality nib otherwise the flavor can quickly turn from an earthy, nutty complementary flavor to Count Choccula. Here's the nutritional information.

Shameless plug here: click the "Follow this Blog" link in the left-hand column. You'll get an email when there's a new posting. Here's the recipe:

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 25 minutes
Difficulty: Super Easy

Coating
4 tbsp. butter
¼ cup almond oil
1 dash salt
1 cup almonds slivers, chopped (or sliced, unchopped)
1 cup pecans, chopped
½ cup honey
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon (so called "ceylon" or true cinnamon is preferred, since it's milder and richer in flavor)
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste
Dash of real vanilla extract

Dry stuffs
6 cups rolled oats
1 cup unsweetened coconut shreds, (or flakes)
½ cup pumpkins seeds
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa nib, chopped into uniform, sesame seed sized bits

To keep this granola somewhat healthy, the sugary coating is minimized. If you like chunks of granola rather than a more cereal-like consistency, you'll need a bit more moisture and sugar and lay off on stirring it around.

Directions
Preheat the oven to 325°
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper

Make the coating
1. Melt the butter over a low heat
2. Add the chopped nuts, raise the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes (until lightly brown)
3. Add the honey and brown sugar, reduce the heat to low and stir until melted
4. Remove from heat and stir in cinnamon, nutmeg & vanilla

Coat
1. In large bowl combine the dry stuffs
2. Add the coating and mix until oats are evenly coated

Bake
1. Spread the granola evenly over the 2 baking sheets
2. Place in the middle of the oven and bake for 15 minutes
3. Remove from oven and stir to redistribute the granola
4. Place back in the oven (swap shelves) and bake for 10 minutes more (or until golden brown)

Cool the granola completely before storing in an airtight container. It will last for a couple of weeks, and you'll save a boatload of cash.

7 Foods for the Economic Downturn

Let's face the truth folks, there's always a trade off between quality and quantity: in friendships, in sex, and yes, in food. When you've got less to spend on grass-fed, free-range, organically raised beef, you probably won't have it twice a week.

Maybe you only get that perfect bavette once a week, or once a month. But a tighter food budget doesn't mean you have to lower your standards. It just means you change your grocery pick list and find ways to make that yummy beef become a flavor in larger quantities of other, less expensive, complimentary foods.

I've recently been laid off, so this posting isn't just editorial much about nothing; I practice it day to day, like I would practice meditation if I had the patience...or yoga if I could get past all the hemp clothes and chanting. Here's my top seven ways to squeeze blood from my stoney wallet.

1. Coffee--Use that over priced, thermal sippy cup you bought out of guilt for the environment. Get a large french press and double your morning recipe. Have your normal cup, then drink the other one later from your stainless steel wonder. You'll be saving a few bucks a day as well as getting a spiritual lift by reducing your carbon footprint.

2. Vodka--Stop adding premium vodka to your cocktails. Nobody but nobody can realllllly tell the difference between vodkas once blended with Ocean Spray (or what have you). I personally hate vodka and cranberry, but I know a lot of people who drink it like fishes. For strongly camouflaged cocktails, switch to Smirnoff. It won the New York Times blind taste test a few years ago against brands like Ketel One, Grey Goose, and other premiums. Seriously! Save the good stuff for when it counts, like on the rocks with a twist of lemon peel.

3. Granola--Make your own granola. I know how that sounds, and while 18 Rabbits is fab, at almost $8 a pop, it's not worth it. The good news is that you can make something very, very comparable yourself in about 20 minutes that will last two weeks (my own recipe coming soon). Deborah Madison has a few good ones, too.

4. Reconsider the Bean--I know how lame this sounds, but wait! There's more to beans than those dusty vegetarian chili recipes from your Mooseweed cookbook. First, check out the delicious bean varieties available from one of my favorite local purveyors, Rancho Gordo. Their beans aren't the cheapest, but they've got an amazing array of unique heirloom varieties, their product is always freshly dried, and they've got flavor you won't believe possible in dried beans.

I like beans for soups, pozole, and even for making appetizers like Cannellini Spread to replace those pricey little jars one normally reaches for when friends come over. Big BIG Hint: If you don't have a pressure cooker, get one! It virtually eliminates all the soaking and par-boiling nonsense you normally have with beans, AND it destroys the sugars that cause...ahem...GI troubles. Pressure cooking makes beans easy and practical: it shortens cooking time to 20-30 minutes and lets you forget about buying Beano. Even more savings!

5. Friends--No, you don't eat them, but you do eat with them. Swallow your pride and tell them you've been axed. They'll honestly pity you, and many will buy you lunch! (Isn't that just so wrong??) OK, this isn't a long term, or even tasteful, strategy. But I was pleasantly surprised by the number of free sanwiches I got out of it! Thanks again, friends!

6. Chocolate--Sorry chocolate haters, this one isn't for you. But for the rest of the normal people, I've got great news! A piece of really good, premium chocolate has a very high satisfaction to price ratio. In other words, maybe you won't be having a rack of lamb every night, but you can have that square of amazing chocolate. It makes up for lot in my book, and it's worth the money. Please, people, don't buy Hershey's... it's just not right.

7. Canned Tuna--Learn how to use tuna as a flavoring and condiment, not as the main course. Canned tuna is only a few dollars and there are many ways to use it as a flavor component rather than the main event, and I'm not talking tuna casserole.

Here are a couple of my favorites: salade nicoise and pasta con tonna. Nicoise is a classic, and according to Julia Childs, the only way to go is canned tuna. She rejected, as I do, fresh or seared tuna in this wonderful salad. Canned tuna has a texture and flavor that's unique: it's pungency balances with vinaigrette and it's texture adds bite and chew to crunchy greens and tender boiled eggs.

My second favorite tuna dish is so simple you'll be embarrassed about your laziness when you make it. Simply boil a nice pot of any multi-faceted pasta like rotini or farfalla (not penne or capellini) that's been generously salted. Break up a can of drained tuna with a fork into little shards and toss in with a few tablespoons of good, aromatic olive oil, several grinds of pepper, and a healthy grating of Parmesan cheese. It's fast and amazing. Your evening meal will never be more inexpensively or rapidly prepared.

Check back soon for an exclusive look at my granola recipe. You'll love your cereal bowl, and wallet, for using it!

6.5 Ways To Find Time To Cook

It may feel free and spontaneous to come home and let the cupboard speak to you, but most of the time, it's got nothing much to say. Then what happens? It's the takeout menu, the chinese food delivery, or a quick run to the store for prepared food.

Quality cooking time can feel like a luxury you can't afford, but if you make a plan weighing the costs against the benefit of free time to cook, there's a way to make it work. Fair warning, this plan is basically not really a plan as much as lifestyle adjustments around food...you could use the time you save to do almost anything.

1. Buy Lunch
It may be counter intuitive on a blog dedicated to quality eats, but seriously, do you have time to make lunch every day? I don't. Sock away the time you save for making relaxing meal at the end of the day. And there are mor benefits: buying lunch gives you an excuse to walk, the chance for variety, and makes cooking for fun at home feel much less like work. If you're budget conscious, follow number 5 and plan in a couple of lunches a week.

2. Learn to Love the Cardio Machine Everyone Else Hates
You work out to be able to eat what you want, right? Maybe that's not a totally healthy attitude toward fitness, but am I far wrong? You'd be amazed how much time you save by loving that sad machine nobody else wants. Think of it as cuts and do your workout already. You'll never have to wait, and trust me, your heart rate will go just as high.

3. Shop Like a Librarian
I know you're not a list person, but just add a little discipline to your process and make one for shopping. You'd be amazed how much time you can save by eliminating just one trip to the store every week. By the time you're done getting there, buying, paying, getting home and unpacking it's at least an hour. So keep a pad of paper and one of those half-pencils in the kitchen, and make a list as you go.

4. Get a CSA Box
First, a CSA is Community Supported Agriculture box of produce delivered once a week to a neighborhood spot near you. You'll not only feel good about the organic, lovingly raised produce you're eating, it's delivered! So you want to save time on shopping and figuring out what to eat? Let the box be your guide. And let the spoiling, overabundant produce be the necessity that spawns inventive, just in time cookery. Every meal's a nail biter.

5. Be Open to Leftovers...In fact, Plan Them
There's no shame in eating day old food. Go ahead and make extra pasta, dose the spare noodles with olive oil and refrigerate. On day 2, repurpose with feta, black olives, chopped organic CSA tomatoes (or whatever you've got that you can quickly blanch and chop) and fresh ground pepper. Ya, it's pasta salad, but it's quick, delicious, and it's ok to slide the scale toward efficiency once in a while.

6. Don't Skimp on Prepared Food
You may think prepared food is for sissies, but when used judiciously, it can pump up a meal from flat to phat in next to no time. Buy a few grilled prawns, your baby greens mix will love you fot it. If you're not into paying your hard earned cash for a grilled chicken breast, be your own prepared food provider by following number 5 and making extra to fuel the next couple of meals.

6.5 Buy Wine by the Case
If you find a wine you like with what you're likely to eat on a week by week basis, buy a case and stop wringing your hands over how many other wines are out there. It may feel painful to drop a hundred and something at the wine shop, but if you add up the cost of sourcing and choosing individual bottles, it's a lot. For your weeknight ham sandwich wine, you're better off finding a reliable go-to. If you don't drink wine, rejoice, you've already saved yourself hours and hours.

You call it fresh corn buzz-kill, biologists call it peroxidase and catalase

No matter what you call it, be sure to refrigerate, cook or blanch and freeze your cobs allowing the least amount of time to pass following picking. If you don't, enzymes in the corn will eat it for lunch.

Corny Story
Once corn leaves it's stalk, nothing good happens. Enzymes (see title) in the corn get to work converting the delicious natural sugars into starch. After just a few hours, your corn could be well on its way to what my dear old grandma used to call 'horse corn'. Yummmm!

Refrigeration slows the process, but the easiest way to stop it entirely is the boiling point. So if you find yourself with an armload of freshly picked corn, blanch the excess and freeze it rather than leaving of in your crisper drawer (or worse on the counter!)

Blanching Method
Drop shucked and cleaned cobs into boiling water for five minutes. Reomove the corn to an ice bath, cool completely to arrest cooking, then dry, wrap in plastic, bag on a zipper bag and freeze.

Once you've gotten your freezer packed, and whenever you're hankering for the fresh flavor of corn, drop into boiling water for 2 minutes or bring to room temperature and shave off the cob with a knife for fresh kernel flavor. You may be tempted to dekernelize your corn before freezing, but don't, it won't keep nearly as well as freezing it right on the cob.

The Slightly Whackadoo Chemical Method
There's a plan out there for food geeks who don't see the point in freezing when chemicals can do the job. According to Alton Brown in an episode of Good Eats, by adding some lime and a tiny bit of bleach, you can effectively deactivate starchifying corn enzymes right in your kitchen sink. That's all I'm going to say about that for now.

Lemon Cucumber

Never heard of it? Neither had I until it turned up at my local market, the Bi-rite. They're almost the size of tennis balls, and plumply shaped as slightly elongated globes. They've got some tiny black dots on the outside, and they taste like a cucumber except perhaps a bit lighter and less vegetal. 

The great thing about lemon cukes is that you don't have to peel them! I know it seems like a small thing, but it's still a cool thing. The skin is very soft and fully edible. You get an nice cucumber flavor and snap, but the texture is a bit silkier and juicier than the familiar English variety.

Cucumbers with Sesame

Want something new to do with cucumbers? My dad recently went to France came back with this one for me. I made it with the very lemon cucumber shown here in less than 10 minutes. You can also do it with a regular english cucumber, just be sure to peel.

How to Make Sesame Wheels

Take a few tablespoons of sesame seeds and toast them in a pan until light golden brown. They become scented and slightly darker. Take care not to overdo them, once they get to toasting temperature they go quickly!

After the sesame seeds have cooled to room temperature, mix in a bit of salt and blend thoroughly. Next, slice your cucumber and simply press both sides into the sesame seeds. That's it! And it's fabulous and super easy.

Pile them up on a plate, serve with a nice chilled Sauvignon Blanc and you're set for an afternoon of relaxing, sesame adventure.

Two Women Who Rock

I've been a bad blogger for the past month as I took some time off and got my thoughts together about what to eat next! As I looked around, I found some very cool video podcast resources that I want to share! Disclaimer: I have not had any contact with either of these fabulous women nor their website distributor!

Cocktails
The first set of v-casts are by the Orbit Room's sensational mixologist Alberta Straub. She's no longer at the Orbit Room, and to be honest, I've been totally unable to track her down! If anyone knows of her whereabouts, please clue me. I'm into Alberta, and would love to know what's she's up to!

Here's a couple of links to some of her v-casts. Some of them are techniquey, some are recipe oriented. The thing about her podcasts, while they're somewhat uneven and confusing from a creative standpoint, you really get the sense of how she approaches flavors and combining ingredients to make something fabulous! She's the real deal.

http://www.onnetworks.com/videos/cocktails-on-the-fly

Food Science
The second set are by a ridiculously spunky food science aficionado named Dr. Kiki. She's very bubbly and funny, but all of that barely masks a seriously brainy, hard core scientist who knows what she's talking about!

She's a prof at UC Davis, and somehow did these food science video podcasts. The content is a bit roughly presented and sort of uneven in depth (she could use some better writing!), but there are some amazing gems of information and she's a delight to watch getting all serious about teflon, the maillard reaction and my favorite, how to make your own home-grown ginger ale! She literally makes fresh ginger ale in a soda bottle. I love Dr. Kiki!

http://www.onnetworks.com/videos/food-science

Check out these vids. You won't be disappointed.