Popcorn!

As you're reading this, you're thinking about that horrible disco song that you were probably forced to dance to at some point in your life. You're welcome.

I've recently gone into a wild spree of making gourmet popcorn. It sounds silly, but it's so simple and easy that it's really quite a game changer at the ever-popular movie night. I do need to make a disclaimer and say that I have a movie-theater style kettle popcorn machine. I fucking love that thing and up until recently, I was entirely a butter'n'corn type of gal. Now I'm more of a black truffle n' corn type of gal.

For the most part, the concept is simple: melt butter, add spices. The combinations are really endless. And if you don't have a theater-popper, just microwave or airpop some plain popcorn and have at it! Here are my current blends:

Truffle Popcorn: pop corn, melt butter and add black (or white) truffle oil, salt & pepper. Drizzle & toss over popcorn before serving.

Churrocorn: pop corn, melt butter and vanilla extract. Create a cinnamon/sugar/salt blend (easy on the salt, heavy on the sugar) Toss vanilla butter over popcorn and sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar.

Black and White: pop corn, set on wax paper. Melt down white chocolate in a double broiler and add butter and milk if too thick. Drizzle over popcorn. Melt down dark chocolate in double broiler. Drizzle over popcorn. Let cool completely. Break up into pieces.

Currycorn: Pop corn, melt butter and siracha hot sauce. Drizzle/toss srirachabutter over popcorn, dust lightly with curry powder.

…Even as I type this, I'm thinking about making a parmesan/rosemary popcorn or wasabi popcorn. (I might actually make that wasabicorn tonight, now that I think about it…) So gentle readers… what do you wanna put on your popcorn?

EDIT: (5/8/12) Don't do wasabi corn. It's pretty gross.

Apathy & Lotus Root

I was reading an article (http://chronicle.com/article/Tools-for-Living/130615/ ) and the statement about people not knowing how to cook made me grimace a bit. time and time again I find myself surrounded by people who can't cook and I often find myself confused as to why this is such a lost art. Food is an every day occurrence- it's not like it's hard to obtain ingredients, nor do we lack the space to do such magic within our homes. Also, one can get an recipe anywhere and follow it with good success. To me, and I admit it's entirely speculation, the problem lies in apathy. Why cook when I can just buy this burger? Why spend the 30 minutes in the kitchen when I can watch the latest episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia? There is a harsh lack of priority in today's society that we've been growing since the dawn of microwaves and the mighty corporation. Our reward systems are out of whack. And I will be the first to admit, I have no idea how to fix it. I've preached to friends forever about the joys of cooking and the kitchen revolution of healthier, green eating but most can't be bothered or simply get frustrated by the initial learning curve of what it essentially tasty form of chemistry and give up. I've also have several people ask me to teach them cooking, to which I'm always thrilled and eager to help, but it just seems like it's not enough.

So I guess what point I'm trying to reach is… how do we help more people learn about cooking? Do we teach in in colleges? How do we teach it in the home to families? How do we make people enjoy cooking again?

This weeks recipes:

* Kale salad: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/11/kale-and-brussels-sprout-salad

* Crispy lotus root with black truffle oil (sautéed sliced lotus root in olive oil until brown and crispy, sprinkle with parmesan reggiano cheese and drizzle with black truffle oil) A very fancypants appetizer when trying to impress folks without really doing much in the kitchen! I'm starting to develop a deep love for lotus root and may start posting a lot of recipes about this tasty vegetable... It's super earthy and sweet, not to mention beautiful and exotic!

What I want to try next week: http://www.canyoustayfordinner.com/2011/10/03/slow-cooked-sweet-potato-chili/

Coming up next: I bought a food dehydrator. I'm dehydrating EVERYTHING. :D

Greek Lentil & Eggplant Lasagna

I'm a big fan of turning already-awesome foods into healthier, meat-free foods. I find it's a wonderful (and welcomed) challenge to create something awesome (like Greek lasagna) and then turn it around and reinvent it. I've done it a few times (one day I'll get around to posting my beef based French Onion Soup and my vegetarian French Onion soup...) but today I'd like to share my latest creation. Lasagna.

Lasagna, at least in my mind, is one of those "difficult" foods to make that often used for large groups, family meals, gifts*, etc. But it's not so much that it's difficult as it is time consuming to make (hence the quotation marks) - it also freezes well, which is probably also why it's always available in the freezer section of the grocery store. Typically lasagna is made with a meat sauce that tends to be on the sweet side, and with a slight fennel seed taste. It's then layered in pasta and ricotta cheese then baked. Yawn.

At some point in time, I must have seen a magazine article that had a recipe for Greek asagna. I probably followed it and promptly changed it. Today, this is what I use recipe:

Ground lamb (can use cow)

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

large jar whole tomatoes, squished in hand

olive oil

oregano

cinnamon

salt

pepper

- Cook this into a sauce. This is the meat sauce.

butter

flour

milk

parmesan cheese

2 eggs

- Make this as a sauce (typical roux, add cheese) then temper the eggs

In a casserole dish, layer no-boil pasta, meat sauce, parmesan cheese sauce, white cheese, crumbled feta, chopped olives, and repeat until no more room in pan. The goal is to end with feta on top for pretty presentation. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.

-----

Now that I'm trying to eat vegetarian, I decided to mix it up and do this:

cooked lentils

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

large jar whole tomatoes, squished in hand

red wine

olive oil

oregano

cinnamon

salt

pepper

- sauce

butter

flour

milk

parmesan cheese

2 eggs

- other sauce, temper your damn eggs

In a casserole dish, layer sliced and skinned EGGPLANT, lentil sauce, parmesan cheese sauce, skip the cheese, but still use your crumbled feta, and repeat until no more room in pan. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. I forgot the olives on this go around so it's probably optional. I actually preferred the lentil version over the lamb version- although both are great!

*I am reminded of We Bought a Zoo. Although I've gifted food several times, I don't think I've ever gifted lasagna... I should though!

Chicken Tikka Masala & Coconut Kale

This week I attempted one of my favorite genres: Indian. I found myself at my parents house and my brother got dubbed with cooking dinner. My wonderful brother is still in the learning phase of cooking and so I quickly (and eagerly, I might add) stepped up to plate to help him cook something a) amazing b) new c) something I wanted to eat. (I might have had my own ambition here…) and so I pulled one of my favorite cookbooks, America's Test Kitchen, and found their Chicken Tikka Masala recipe. Normally, I'm entirely about the freeform cooking, but for the sake of coaching my brother and being genuinely curious about their recipe, I followed it exactly.

It was amazing. And it was even better the next day, much to my glee! Of course, that alone wasn't enough for me- I needed a veg! For my parents, I had to steam some plain zucchini (they are not spice-crazed like myself) but for me, I decided to recall a recipe I had once found on the internet (wilted spinach with mustard seed, cumin seed, and toasted coconut) and made this variant:

sauteed chopped kale

ground cumin

ground mustard

red chili flakes

olive oil (or butter)

sliced almonds

toasted coconut flakes

This blend is so good… I actually want to try and make this into a whole proper salad add further ingredients. I definitely want to try more combinations with spices that are outside of my comfort zone… mainly anything not italian, mexican, or thai. Indian spices are a good place to start due to their complexity.

And for a bonus round: about Wednesday or so, I was hit on my a semi-celebrity chef. It was sort of a crash and burn awkward, so I'll spare all the details. In short, I'm not going out with him. Mainly because his food sucks. I've eaten at his restaurant several times and I've been sorely let down each time. So after that, I had no choice but to go home and cook something that I knew was better than his version. I present to you…

The "My Turkey Burger Is Better Than Your Turkey Burger!"

Turkey patty - cook in olive oil until done, sprinkle with parmesan cheese at end

Rosemary/parmesan roll- heat in pan with olive oil until crusty brown awesome

Pesto sauce - use as light spread for roll

Wilted spinach, drizzled in truffle oil

Avocado

So there, Mr. Chef.

****

Chicken Tikka Masala recipe: http://www.copykatchat.com/tried-true/49392.htm

EDIT: Orignal spinach dish recipe here! http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/spiced-coconut-spinach-recipe.html

Pumpkinapalooza!!

I love pumpkin. I love savory pumpkin, I love sweet pumpkin, I love pumpkin in Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, etc food. I can pretty much use it in anything. That being said… I think I'm getting sick of the stuff. You see, at Halloween I bought a large jack-o-lantern pumpkin (along with sugar pumpkins that were immediately used up) with the intention of carving it into a Wheatley core from the game Portal 2. (Wheatley is also the name of my cat) Well, October passed… But November is still a pumpkin month! I can carve a turkey! …November passed. A could carve a christmas tree into the pumpkin! …Well, now its January and it was time to remove the pumpkin from my counter. But I couldn't just throw it away. It's a delicious pumpkin! So I cut it open and much to my surprise (okay, childlike delight) the insides were still good and exactly the texture of spaghetti squash. If you've never had a spaghetti squash before, please buy one now. Steam or bake it, just cook it, put some butter on it and maybe some cinnamon and enjoy the fuck out of a severely underrated vegetable. So yes, I had spaghetti pumpkin. Approximately ten pounds of pumpkin, to be exact.

Since the new year I have made the following:

- Singapore noodle style pumpkin

- Sage and brown butter pumpkin with mushrooms and parmesan

- Kimchee pumpkin with walnuts and carrots

- Pumpkin quiche with spinach and leek

- Indian spiced soybeans with pumpkin

And I still have a gallon sized ziplock bag filled with pumpkin in my fridge. I could make a soup, but prior to the holidays I went on a giant soup binge and now I'm rather souped out….

I could make muffins and send them to work. (Ooh… I might do that, actually…)

Anyway, I have a lot of pumpkin right now, which might just make me not want any more of the stuff until the next October rolls around…

So riddle me this, Batman: what are your favorite pumpkin recipes?

Poached Pear Pie

There are a few things I simply can't master in this world (yet.) one of them is rice, another one is coffee, and until this last Christmas... pies. Well, that's not entirely true. I can make a mean pumpkin pie, but I use a gingersnap crust in lieu of a traditional pastry crust, so really the thing I can't make is a pie crust. If you manhandle it too much it turns tough, the butter has to be cold for it to flake... so much can go wrong. For someone who doesn't make a lot of baked goods, that is some difficult stuff!

That being said, I used this recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_pie_crust/ and I didn't fuck it up! I just kept in mind that a) keep it cold b) don't touch it much and it was pretty damn good. A lot better than a frozen grocery store crust, that's for sure.

So with that crust made, I set out to make a poached pear and cranberry pie for Christmas this year. The inspiration was from a place in Los Angeles called "The Pie Hole" that is, so I'm told, the hip place to be in downtown LA. When I ate it, I was a little more than underwhelmed. The name just sounded so good... and yet it just tasted like sugar syrup. So I got to work! First I googled a bunch of pear pie recipes. Nothing inspiring. Then googled "poached pear pie" and found a few good ideas- mainly trying to figure out what to poach my pears in. At first I wanted to try rum, but after several recipes used a sweet white wine, I made my battle plan:

-Pears: a lot of them. I got both red and bosc. Make sure to peel them whole, then slice.

-Sweet white wine: I used a prosecco, nearly a whole bottle. Lots of recipes called for a riesling.

-Pear cider: Did I cheat here? I just wanted something to help balance out the poaching liquid.

-Sugar

-Cinnamon stick

-Ball of mulling spices (Trader Joes brand in a tea ball)

- Vanilla (I brew my own with a dark rum and vanilla beans- shway better than store bought!)

-Large zest peeling of buddha hand fruit : You can totally use lemon. I have an affinity for Buddha's hand fruit due to its fragrance (like lemon blossoms) and I had one lying around to use specifically for my holiday baking needs... and to sniff every time I was in the kitchen. It smells so good! The next time you're in the grocery store and see this magical citrus, give it a wiff for me! ...Anyway, big pieces of zest here because you'll want to fish them out later. You could also stuff these into the mulling spice ball too, but I cut large enough pieces that it wasn't a big deal.

(also in ingredient list, but not used in this step)

- dried cranberries (optional)

- cornstarch

I let these all boil then simmer in a large covered pot for about an hour. The pears will cook and absorb all those wonderful flavors.... Not to mention your house will smell AMAZING. After it's all poachy, remove everything from the pot and save all that liquid. Strain a few times to remove any pieces of vest or spice pieces. At this point there should be bowl A of poached pear bits and pot B with poaching liquid, strained of everything not liquidy goodness. Put the pot back on the heat and reduce the liquid until it is about a cup to two cups of liquid. As for the bowl of poached pears, sprinkle in a few dried cranberries. It doesn't add too much tartness to the pie, it just adds a surprise bite every once in a while. Preheat your oven to 350!

Once the liquid is reduced, if it's not syrupy enough for you (mine wasn't) add about a teaspoon of cornstarch to a little bit of tap water and dissolve it so there are no clumps. Then add that to the liquid. Allow to cook and thicken. You can repeat if needed to get to the thickness you'd like.... but I wouldn't go too thick... Remove your perfect crust from the fridge and if it's not rolled out and prepped in a pie pan now, please do that. Now add the pears and the poached sauce, then either cover with the rest of your pie crust or add a oatmeal crumb topping. I went with a oatmeal crumb topping and it was fabulous. (oatmeal, brown sugar, flour, butter)

I baked it for about 45 minutes to an hour and it was perfectly browned and beautiful. If yours browns too fast, tent with foil.

In my head this all makes perfect sense, but if anything is too vague or sounds wrong... please ask!

Hello 2012!

Okay. So. I think this year I'm going to jump onto the blog bandwagon. I'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there... It's going to be a food blog.

And just so we're all on the same page:

1) My grammar is going to suck. Sorry. I'll try my best but I know it's not going to be perfect. I also know I am very comma happy.

2) I will not post food porny pictures. I don't have time to light things to be pretty and if there is going to be a photo, it's going to be on my iphone. My dishes are chipped, and I don't make designer food.

3) My recipes will not be exact. This will be the hardest part. I mainly cook by throwing ingredients together so if you're looking for a how-to... I'm probably not someone you are going to want to follow. I hope to be able to create discussions and ideas about healthy, flavorful foods here by sharing my combinations and ideas with food.

4) I am the worst vegetarian in the world. I believe there is a technical term for folks like me.. a "chooseitarian" or something like that. I'm just a ovo-lacto-bacon-vegetarian. Mm, bacon.

5) I love challenges.

So I think that's about it for now... I'm interested in seeing where this thing goes and what I can get out of it!