For the queue: Orzo Salad

One bonus of working at schools is the PTA teacher appreciation lunches. You also get to see how your cooking compares to all the moms at the school.

I saw this orzo salad, and it looked amazing. Then I ate it, and it tasted amazing. I think it is a variant on this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/tri-colore-orzo-recipe/index.html

This one has: orzo, arugula, pepitas, corn, cranberries, tomatoes, and parmesan.

And now it's on file for me to attempt at a later date!

Blasted Broccoli, or something like it

I had this blasted broccoli dish at Black Bottle a few times, and love it. It's charred up broccoli florets. I wondered if there was a way to do it at home. This method produces something similar, but not quite charred enough. I think the real deal requires a torch, or setting the thing on fire. This is a little safer...


(There it is, as a side with pasta and chicken)

Preheat oven and baking pan to 500 F. Toss broccoli florets in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and maybe pepper. Carefully take out baking sheet and lay out the florets on it. Put in the oven on the top rack for 5 minutes. Take out, turn florets over, and put it back for an additional 5 minutes. Voila! Charred brassica!

Coconut Pound/Bundt Cake

This is a recipe from a coworker. I've made it a few times in the short time I've had it in my hands because it's so good. It's a moist, just-dense-enough, satisfyingly crispy edged cake.

3 sticks of butter, unsalted, at room temperature
6 eggs at room temperature
3 cups of flour, sifted (approximately 12.3 oz or 350 g in sifted state)
8 oz sour cream
3 cups of sugar (bakers sugar does make the creaming go faster)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp soda
1/2 package of shredded coconut
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Grease and flour the cake pan (bundt).

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well until blended. Add flour/salt/baking soda (presifted), sour cream, vanilla. Fold in the coconut. Bake at 325 for 1+ hour (in my experience, 1:30) until the cake is golden and a testing stick comes out clean.

white chocolate raspberry cookies

Sometimes you read a recipe, and are a little incredulous when you read the amounts of sugar or butter... but then it turns out great. Then, sometimes you read a recipe, are incredulous, and are rightly so because it turns out just as you'd expect.

I googled "White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies" and decided to go with this recipe on the carnation.co.uk website. I found out that caster sugar is extra fine granulated sugar. I found out that 170 g of condensed milk is probably equivalent to 6 oz of it. And I used frozen raspberries.

The result? Flat saucers! Delicious flat saucers!


Also, take care that raspberries are not on the bottom of the cookie. This possibly results in a weak cookie that breaks or leaves its middle behind on the pan...


In the future I'll add more flour and less sugar. This is what I intend to do:


White chocolate raspberry cookies

Preheat oven to 350 F.

2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3 tsp baking soda
2 sticks butter (8 oz), room temperature
6 oz condensed milk
6 oz or 3/4 cup ultrafine sugar (maybe regular sugar'd be ok)
1 baking bar of Ghirardelli white chocolate, chopped... or about 4-6 oz of white chocolate.
1/2 a bag of frozen raspberries, thawed and drained-- the less extraneous liquid, the better!

1. Cream butter and sugar until pale in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add condensed milk and mix until consistent.
3. Whisk together flour, salt, baking soda in a small mixing bowl. Sift into the butter and sugar mix. Mix until soft and dough like, or add more flour until it's not super sticky.
4. Mix in the white chocolate.
5. Roll small balls of dough, flatten, add 2 largeish raspberries or 3 small ones, and bring the edges of the cookie completely over the raspberries... like some kind of dumpling.
6. Bake for 13-18 minutes until edges are golden brown and middle is pale. Let set on cookie sheet. Take off to cool!

Lobster Mac and Cheese

For my friend's birthday potluck, I wanted to make her something special. I remembered she loved lobster mac and cheese (ala Purple Resaurant), and wanted to make it for her. However, never having had lobster mac or visited Purple, I didn't know where to begin. So I began with the internet.

And found this recipe (in a roundabout way-- I was searching for images!): Macaroni and Cheese with Lobster, from The Passionate Cook (blog).

I also found a Classic Macaroni and Cheese recipe on America's Test Kitchen website (they make you pay the price of membership to see it).

Originally, I used the same proportions as on the Test Kitchen recipe (8 people) and came out with enough to fill a 8x12 baking dish and a ~8x8 shallow casserole dish. I bought it to 2 parties! I think the recipe was relatively successful, especially the 2nd time, for which I made extra cheese sauce and dumped it on top of the bread.

I merged the two together and came up with this (thank goodness for electronic scales).


Lobster Macaroni and Cheese, with or without lobster (Swiss/Parmesan varietal)
For 4-6 people.

Ingredients
2 lobster tails (though honestly, the more the better. It's cost prohibitive)
50 g (1.76 oz, or 0.11 lbs) emmental cheese (grated)
50 g gruyère (grated)
50 g parmesan (grated)
3 tbsp butter
1-2 tbsp flour
~1 cup milk
Small onion finely diced
2-3 cloves minced garlic (no recipe called for it, but I like it)
A few shakes of cayenne
Pasta of choice for 4-6 people
Bread crumbs or croutons (I used 1 inch cubes of bread. Sourdough sounds good)

Recipe

1. Boil pasta until done.
2. If you want lobster, shell and rinse. Boil for 15 minutes or until done. Keep it warm.
   
3. In medium pot on medium high, melt the butter and saute the onions and garlic until caramelized. It will eventually start bubbling. Add your flour to make roux and whisk to get the clumps out. Add some cayenne if you want. Slowly add the milk and whisk to prevent clumps. Whisk frequently until boiling (careful not to burn; should be like thick cream). Take it off the heat and slowly whisk in the grated cheese. Taste and season to your likings (salt?).
   
4. Combine pasta and cheese sauce. Put into baking dish. Top with pieces of lobster. Top with bread crumbs or croutons. Bake or broil to brown the crumbs and serve.
5. If your bread didn't turn out, you can make more cheese sauce and pour it on top of everything. That always helps. Decorate as you want! Cayenne looks nice on white sauce, and I think it adds an interesting/fun kick to otherwise normal mac and cheese. Other people garnish with green onion or parsley.
   
   

I can imagine using barbeque or honey glazed chicken on this dish, too.

I hope I get to enjoy this again, soon.

Japanese Curry

It's been a long time since I've posted. If it's knitting, it's because I haven't wanted to dress up to take a picture of my knitted object. If it's gardening, it's because it's been dead most of the year. If it's food, then there's no excuse.

Here comes a string of updates!

Here's beef curry that I made with a friend one day:

Basic vegetables to cut up: potatoes, carrots, onion (not pictured), and garlic.


Ingredients we bought at Uwajimaya and an Indian grocery store: garam masala, beef bouillon. We found "instant" Indian curry and cardamom for cheap at the grocery store, too (at normal grocery stores, cardamom sells for like $14 for a small bottle!).


We tackled browning the beef, sauteing the vegetables, and making the sauce in separate steps. Here's everything in one pot.


Pretty amazing beef curry! Tasted awesome, too.


We combined these recipes together (somehow) to make the curry above:
http://japanesefood.about.com/od/curry/r/curryroux.htm
http://www.grouprecipes.com/2942/japanese-curry.html


It might have looked something like this (no guarantees):

Japanese Beef Curry

Ingredients:
1-1.5 lbs beef chuck roast (or something similar)
4 medium sized red or yellow potatoes
3-4 carrots
1 onion
3-4 cloves of garlic (you can't have enough, IMO)
3-4 tsp grated ginger

Roux:
4 cups water + 2 beef bouillon cubes (although consider 2.5 or 3; need a stronger flavor when all the ingredients and rice are added)
4-6 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour (might need more than that)
4-8 tbsp curry powder (like S&B)
1 tsp garam masala
Chili powder to taste
Ground ginger to taste

1. Brown/cook the beef until it is mostly cooked, then set aside.
2. Add some oil and saute the onion and garlic until the onion is somewhat translucent. Add the carrots and potatoes, saute until 1/2 cooked. Add the water and the bouillon, and simmer for 15-20 minutes (I wasn't counting).
   
3. Roux: This part is tricky, because you don't know how it'll taste until you combine it with the broth from the previous step.
   
   Put the butter in another pot, and when it's "boiling," add the flour and blend. Keep stirring. Add the curry powder, mix well. Add a shake or two of chili powder (this is the "kick" and it starts adding up fast, so be conservative. You can always add more later), mix well. Add some ground ginger if you want. The roux will look crummy and dry.
   
   Take the vegetable pot off the burner. Take some broth from the vegetable pot and put it in the roux, and combine until the curry sauce emerges. I think eventually, you want most of the broth from the vegetable pot in the roux. You'll see how thick it is and how strongly it tastes. Add salt if needed.
   
4. Optional step (the mistake step): Make another roux and add the amount of flour, curry powder, chili powder, etc. you need to thicken the curry and/or add flavor. Consider making more concentrated bouillon broth if you want stronger "medium" flavors. Add some of the curry to the roux, then add it back to the curry pot when it's a similar texture, little by little, to avoid unintentional "dumplings" from unmixed flour :p Add the garam masala.
   
5. Add the curry to the vegetables and beef and simmer for another 20-30 minutes, stirring intermittently. When the things are cooked and it tastes the way you want, you're done. Serve hot on rice.
   

July Doings

First of all, I made vegetable lentil soup today. Recipe courtesy of Leila.
I added a bay leaf, generous shakes of basil, a good amount of thyme, a few shakes of oregano, and some cumin. In retrospect, it was well spiced but could have been even stronger, especially with oregano. I don't like the strong smell of it while it is in the bottle, which kept me from adding more to the soup-- mistake. I added smoked ham, which went nicely, and did add some red russian kale from the garden.
Next time, because I am not vegan, I would definitely add some chicken broth.

I finished the lace ribbon scarf and also the bainbridge scarf-- I'll have to post pictures. I finished them during a family vacation to San Diego, in which I did not have to drive. Thus, the hands were free to knit. It was a good trip. Still love Balboa Park.

During a recent sidewalk sale at an outdoor mall, I bought a decorative ceramic milk bottle with flecks of paint that ran down the bottle in vertical lines. I became so attached to it that I bought it. What a random thing to get. Among my friends, I am the most likely to buy random bottles because I get aesthetically hooked. I think it represented to me hope and a vision for a clean bedroom. Ironic that I bought something to go inside that room-- that is, adding to the clutter instead of bringing the cleanliness it symbolizes.

On the queue:
--Sew a tunic or sundress using a Japanese pattern.
--Replant arugula and chard sprouts. I need 1) to weed myself more plot space, 2) floating row cover. There was a point this year where I didn't think I needed floating row cover, but I actually do. P.S. copper really does prevent slugs from entering the garden plot. It works amazingly well. No slug problems since putting copper rod on the perimeter of my plot and removing slugs inside the plot.
--Knit the Coachella tank top. This pattern was only appealing to me because I saw the mods that Roko made to it-- darling. I also saw a different project modification where length was added to the body, and it made a super cute dress. I'm thinking about doing both those things. (I love that Roko called her project "Coachella for shy scapulas"-- the use of the word "scapula" brings out the anatomy geek in me). I also like that Coachella is the name of a music festival in California.
--Continue cleaning my room. I made significant desk progress recently, but still need to clear up the room environs (e.g. file folders, academic materials, dresser). I bought some organizers, which should help.