April 3rd, 2011

Strawberries

Homemade Strawberry Syrup

Homemade Strawberry Syrup

My favorite place for recipes and inspiration these days is thekitchn.com. I've mentioned this a few times before. A couple of weeks ago, they posted a fabulously inspiring recipe on strawberry milk. Apparently, the author had been using store-bought strawberry milk for a recipe and ended up addicted. However, store bought strawberry milk is loaded with unsavory things like corn syrup and artificial flavors. She thought that she could not only make it healthier, but tastier, but making her own strawberry syrup. And why not?

The recipe is pretty much the same steps that you use to make strawberry jam. Strawberries + Water + Sugar + Heat. Except that in the end you separate the syrup from the fruit with a sieve. Which actually gives you syrup for the milk AND preserves to spread on biscuits or to mix into your oatmeal, yogurt or top your blintzes with!

This was use a cup or two of fresh strawberries, but the original post used frozen strawberries successfully.

April 2nd, 2011

Leek Tart

I had intended to create a delicious lunch dish, high in protein and nutritious with greens. However, I made one vital mistake: premade pie crust. I had one of those frozen pillsbury roll-out pie crusts in the fridge, that in my laziness, I decided to use as a base. Holy freaking cow. It has so much fat and so much sodium, you'd think I just decided to eat 3 pounds of salted butter instead.

Healthy tip: Never under any circumstance use Pillsbury Pie Crusts.

The contents were fine. I use all egg whites, sauteed leeks, lots of fresh chopped dill, and give it a dusting of Parmesan. It was really that simple. In any case, it was like buttery insanely good due to the pie crust and I pretty much destroyed my diet eating the whole thing over the course of two days.

April 1st, 2011

Coconut Rice Pudding

I'm mildly obsessed with coconut, and my friends will be the first to tell you this. My friend was joking that if I was on an episode of Hoarders, they'd open my kitchen cabinet and find 2 cases of coconut milk. That I could fund my own coconut milk can drive. Ha...ha..huh.

Well, whatever. I love coconut and I'm not afraid to admit it. You've seen images of the Coconut Cake and Coconut Cream Cupcakes I made last month. Well, I delved into virgin territory last week and made: Coconut Rice Pudding.

There were a lot of recipes to choose from, and I didn't like half of them. I also only had brown rice, which no one seemed to recommend. But that's life and I thought it would be mildly healthier anyway. A loosely based this recipe from the Rice Pudding Recipe featured on the blog Slice of Feist. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong with it. Texturally it worked out well - but spice-wise, it was lack luster. I needed something more. I nearly doubled all of the spices and flavors in the first place. Okay, it was unintentional. I halved the recipe, halved the rice and such, but forgot to half the spices. But even then, it was still sort of flavorless and mild. I wanted more--something. The coconut flavor - I even added coconut extract -- wasn't particularly strong either. Maybe if I'd had raisins, it would have been better or at least added an additional flavor in the mix.

I think that in the future, I will be able to enhance this recipe more to my taste. But in the first go around, it only look cute and was only mildly comforting comfort food.

March 31st, 2011

Making Cocktails

Later in the day I began my quest to make fancy cocktails. With the intention of having a "Floridian Vacation At Home" which involved, turning up the heater, lounging in my bathing suit and listening to Bob Marley with a fruity cocktail in hand, I had originally purchased some Malibu Rum Pre-Mixed Rum Punch in a bag. I was really just drawn in by booze-in-a-bag with a spout. Like box wine. But booze. How could I resist? Well, I certainly would have if someone had told me how gross it was. The punch was grimace-inducing strong with the out of place coconut aftertaste. I know its Malibu, but I just expect it to work. It didn't.

So I was left to my own devices with my fancy Absolut bottle, fresh fruit and herbs. I'd gone a bit crazy and purchased large bunches of mint, basil and dill for my cooking and salads this week. A bit more than necessary. But the mint and basil were perfect for my favorite cocktails! So I muddled up some fresh herbs, limes, berries and mixed them in various ways with (diet!) tonic water and vodka. They were divine. Mmm..

March 31st, 2011

Perfectly poached in water and vinegar

On a roll with my cooking, I was inspired by The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry this week and immediately felt the need to conquer the perfect poached egg. There is a lot to know about poaching an egg that I never dreamed possible. Or rather, cooking eggs in general. The egg has rapidly become the most important part of my cooking and baking over the past few months. You can do everything and anything with it. It's like butter. It's special. The magic ingredient.

So I pulled out The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters and turned to page 142 for her instructions on poaching an egg. Water, vinegar and understanding of when to remove the egg. The thing about the egg is that it continues to cook even after you remove it from the heat. For example, the key to scrambled eggs is to gently and patiently whisk/stir until its nearly opaque, but not cooked through. As in, you wouldn't want to eat it just yet as parts are a bit slippery, but given another couple of minutes, it will be moist, fluffy and perfect. So you take it off, and those last couple of minutes are done away from the heat.

The poached eggs seems to be similar. The fresher the egg, the easier the poaching, the more snug the egg ball. The water is kept at a quiet rolling boil. As it cooks you roll the egg with a slotted spoon to center the yolk, while also preventing it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. By the time the egg whites have all turned opaque, the yolk is still soft and runny - which in my opinion is perfect. The result is a delicious flavorful poached egg - the vinegar drawing out the hint of flavor without being vinegary.

March 30th, 2011

Bookmooch Books

I had some rather unpleasant experiences with Bookmooch in the past, but I recently bought a bazillion novels that I had to give a new, beloved home. So I signed back up and started shipping out my books to fellow romance novel readers. I love wrapping them up in scrapbooking paper and packing tape. It's about $2.50/book to send first class, which is totally worth it when I can mooch books back. And eventually, I hope, a book I want will become moochable soon! Haha.

March 29th, 2011

The Farmer's Dip
Dough
East Boston, MA

The second day of my vacation began with a return visit to the doctor's office for x-rays of my foot. Yes, I'm finally having someone look at it. Afterwards I did a bit of wandering and then came back around for lunch at Dough, which is a yuppified pizza and sandwich shop couple of blocks from Maverick Square in Jeffrie's Point. The owners are local with actual culinary degrees. It's very laid back, small, and clean.

I placed my order and rather than paying, he just took off to make up the sandwich. I got to sit and read while I waited. The owner's wife and infant son were there having a late lunch themselves, but he managed to balance customers, take out orders and whipping up something for his family quite easily. It was a quiet afternoon. A local police officer came by to take his lunch there as well. The latest copy of the Boston Herald was sitting on the counter by the windows that I flipped through while I waited.

When my lunch arrived, he still waved off my attempt to pay until after I was done. I order The Farmer's Dip, which is a toasted panini sandwich containing tons of yummy roasted veggies and mozzarella, along with a light herbal dip. Officially: "Fresh spinach, carrot, red onion, cucumber, mushrooms, roasted red pepper and tomato, topped with sliced mozzarella and pressed on fresh roll served with a side rosemary au jus."

It was amazing and rich with flavor. I grabbed a homemade chocolate chip cookie and some Italian soda as well. It was a pleasant lunch with some cool radio on in the background - a laidback rock of some kind, nothing mainstream. It reminded me of Vermont. Or maybe that was the owner's t-shirt-over-long-sleeve-shirt-and-5 o'clock-shadow. Either way, great atmosphere.

I've also learned my lesson about just stopping by for food rather than calling. I've tried to call them four times in the past for delivery, but no one ever picks up the phone. Not for like 20 rings. But he did pick up the phone while I was at the shop, so I know it works. I figure it's probably best to just swing by in the future and bring a book while I wait for them to cook things up.

After my trip to Dough I also swung by La Sultana which is a Columbian bakery right in Maverick Square. The place is awash with yummy fried treats, that I'm suspicious all contain meat. The menu is entirely in Spanish, and I'm a little rusty, so I'd be hazarding a guess on the contents - and Id just eaten, so maybe next time I'll make the effort to ask about the savory treats. I did, however, pick up a delicious flan. I love the texture of flan, its like gelatin, but buttery and milky sweet all at once. That's going on my list of things to make.

With flan in hand, I jumped on one of the buses heading back towards Chelsea only to realize that (a) the bus was late so it was twice as full as usual and (b) school just let out. It was the most squished busride I've ever taken. The kids were all in good humor, decked on in uniforms, so I assume its a local Catholic school rather than the public one up by Eagle Hill. In any case, I got off early because every stop tried to cram on more people like sardines.

It was a lovely day though of visiting local food places I'd had on my list for months. Yum!