Waxing Poetic

I saw this little poem in some magazine while having some tea at Flying Star a while back.

In my kitchen
I preheat a memory
I fold in old friends with new
I bake a good laugh.

Although, I thought it was cute, Renee pointed out to me that it didn’t represent my outlook on life and in the kitchen. So it was remodeled as such.

In my kitchen
I preheat the oven
To bake a new friend
Which gives a good laugh.

I suppose that doesn’t have anything to do with food, but it is kind of connected to cooking…

Alright, alright. Food porn. I know. What’s food porn without pictures? We’re such a visually stimulated culture. Who wants to read about how delicious food is? No one. Just show me the graphic carrots, and luscious slabs of ribs already!

I admit, I don’t have any ribs for this post… but I do have some awesome grilled tofu. You’ll make due. It’s uber simple. Just firm tofu cut into slabs, brushed with oil and salt and pepper, and seared on a hot grill. The sauce is 1 part soy sauce, ½ part honey, ½ part wasabi powder.

Which by the way, isn’t really wasabi. It’s a mixture of mustard, horseradish, and green. Getting the whole root and grating it yourself is the only way to be sure you’re getting the real thing. But hey, I like the powder of it’s own accord.

Waiter, There's a Banana in my Soup

This soup has the most amazing smell. It was actually drawing people from outside my apartment who were just curious as too what I was making.

Don’t get me wrong it tastes great too! After all, isn’t that the reason why we’re eating it anyhow? This soup blends the delicious autumn flavors of pumpkin and root vegetables along with the richness of beef and strangely enough, the sweetness of bananas. The spices and herbs in this soup are warm and earthy as well. Tumeric takes charge, and gives the soup a beautiful yellow color that stains the sliced onions as well. Think curry. Only, it doesn’t really taste like curry. Think curry-ISH. This isn’t your mom’s chicken noodle soup. It’s got some esoteric flavors along with a quasi-exotic taste.

This soup is full of warm-curl-up-in-that-flannel-blanket-on-the-couch flavors. Perfect for the fall, and upcoming winter.

Remember to use green bananas, as cooking with even yellow (let alone brown) ones will turn to mush really fast in your soup. Even using green bananas, by the time I got to the bottom of my 2nd bowl, they were starting to mush up. Which doesn’t taste bad… just mushy.

Also, I’d recommend using fresh pumpkin chunks in this recipe. I used some frozen pumpkin that I had cut up a few months earlier and froze. The frozen pumpkin cooks really quickly in the soup, so if you’re hell bent on using frozen since there’s no fresh, then watch the soup really closely when you add the pumpkin, or else it will fall apart.

The black-eyed bean pureé gives the soup a little more heft, and could be left out entirely. But I like beans.

Who knew soup would be so finicky?

I had this with some slightly sweet light rye bread that I baked earlier today. But that’s another story…

Pumpkin Banana Beef Stew

2/3 cup Black-Eyed Beans, soaked overnight
1-1/2 lb Beef Stew meat
1 Tbsp Chopped Fresh Thyme
2 Bay Leaves
5 cups Beef Stock1 Onion, sliced
8 oz Pumpkin, cubed
1 tsp ground Cardamom
1-1/2 tsp ground Tumeric
1 tsp ground Coriander
1 tsp ground Cumin
a few shakes of cayenne pepper
handful of Parsley, chopped
2 Green Bananas
2 Carrots, sliced
Salt & Pepper

Drain the beans and place in a saucepot and cover with fresh water. Bring to a boil, and boil vigorously for 10 min. Reduce heat and simmer for 50 min. Remove from heat and let cool.

Quickly sear the beef in a stew pot and then add the stock along with the thyme and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer and cook for 1 hour.

Add the onions, pumpkin, cardamom, tumeric, coriander, cumin, cayenne, and parsley. Bring back to a simmer and cook for 15 min.

Pureé the cool beans with some of the cooking liquid until smooth.
Peel and slice the bananas. Add the bean puree, along with the bananas and carrots. Cook until the carrots have the desired tenderness (about 10 min). serve immediately.

Chop Chop!

Ok, I'm finally caught up, and seem to have at least some access to a camera that doesn't also double as a phone...

These were supposed to be stuffed pork chops, but the chops were a little thin, so I just served the stuffing on the side, and it seemed to work out fine.

I modified this recipe from Alton Brown's pork chops.

Brined Pork Chops & Cranberry Corn Stuffing

4-6 Pork Chops

Brine:
1/2 cup Salt
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 Tbsp Black Peppercorns
1 Tbsp Mustard Seeds, lightly crushed
1 Tbsp Cumin Seeds
1 Tbsp dried Thyme
shake of cayanne
1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1 cup cold water
1 lb ice cubes

Stuffing:
4 cups crumbled corn bread
3/4 cup crumbled walnuts
1 6 oz. package of Dried Cranberries
3/4 cup Buttermilk
1/4 cup Chicken Stock
1 tsp Ground Pepper
1 tsp Salt
1-2 Tbsp thinly sliced Sage

In a small sauce pan heat the salt, brown sugar, spices, and cider vinegar until the salt is mostly dissolved. Allow mixture to sit for 10 min to develop flavor.

Add the ice cubes, water, and brine to a ziplock bag and shake until cold. Add the pork chops and let brine for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

For the stuffing, mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and then put in a greased 8x8 pan. Bake for 30 min at 350 F. Then turn the oven up to 450 F to brown the top of the stuffing an extra 10 min or so.

Grill the porkchops over on a grill, or in a grill pan being sure to oil the pan with a high heat oil if using the pan instead of the grill. Grill only until just done, and you have good markings. Mine only took about 4-6 minutes total per chop.

Dinner for Breakfast?

Yet again, the deliciousness of pumpkin shows through...

I got the hankering for these a few weeks after trying my friend Erika's pumpkin waffles.

I don't have a waffle iron, so I think pancakes work just fine.

There's always a trick to pancakes at first. Getting the temperature right on the range, judging how long to flip, and actually getting the flip down.

Pumptykin Pannycakes

2 cups Flour
3 tsp Brown Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups Butter Milk (plus a little extra)
1 cup Pumpkin Puree
2 Egg
2 Tbsp Oil

In a separate bowl, mix together the butter milk, pumpkin, egg, oil. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spice and salt, stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine. (add a little extra buttermilk if necessary to get that pancake consistancy)

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot with maple syrup.

Spiced Blackberry Sweet Rolls

These rolls were the direct response to my Fundamentals of Engineering Test on October 27.

After 8 hours in a gym surrounded by answer bubble sheets, and only calculus problems to keep me company, I think I needed these rolls more than you know.

When I actually made these, I still didn't have a camera to take pictures. So I left a sign up that told my roomates they weren't allowed to eat them until I found a camera.

Andy tried to steal them...

I used the extra leftover blackberry jam from the thumprint cookies. I spiced up the jam, and then used in place of butter and brown sugar in a cinnamon roll dough recipe.

Spiced Blackberry Sweet Rolls

Bread:

1 cup lukewarm filtered water
3-1/2 Tbsp Active Dry Yeast
3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1/3 cup Powdered Milk
1-1/2 cup Bread Flour

3 Tbsp Butter

1 tsp Salt

1 cup Bread Flour
1/2-3/4 cup more flour for kneading

Filling:

1 Cup of Jam
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Ground Cardamom

1/2 tsp Ground cloves

Splash Lemon Juice

Icing:

1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
few Tbsp Cream
Lemon Juice

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, and then add the sugar, and let proof for about 10 min. Add the egg, powdered milk, and 1-1/2 cups of flour. Mix well, and then set in a warm place to sponge for 30 minutes or so.

Fold in the butter and salt, add the flour and mix until the dough comes together. Knead for 15 minutes, adding flour until a smooth but slightly wet dough comes together. It should still be minorly sticky...

Rise in a large oiled bowl until doubled in size.

Turn out the risen dough, and roll into a rectangular sheet about the size of a medium baking sheet.

Spread the blackberry mix onto the dough in a thin layer. Wrap the roll up starting at one end and then using a bit of water at the other side to seal the roll.

Cut the roll into 12 equal pieces, and place in a greased 9x13 glass pan. Let rise once more until the rolls fill the baking pan. Here's one of the few times that I don't use my baking stone. It over carmelizes the sugars into a burnt mess...

When the levening is complete, bake in a 350 F oven for about 30 min, until just browning ontop.

To make the icing, mix the cream with the powdered sugar until a slightly pourable icing comes together. Add lemon juice to taste, and then slowly ice the tops of the rolls.

Burritos!

Sorry for the bad photo. The camera I usually use for my foodie pictures was temorarily lost, so I used my camera phone instead. Turns out, phones don't even have macro modes... or at least, mine doesn't.

Shredded Beef Burritos

1-2 lb Arm Shoulder Roast
1 Onion, Sliced
1 Tbsp Ground Cumin

1 tsp Red Chile Powder

Salt
Pepper
1/2 Cup (or more) Green Chile, chopped
2 Tbsp Fresh Oregano, chopped

1 Tbsp Fresh Thyme, chopped

3 Cloves Garlic, Crushed
1/2 can Diced Tomatos, drained

Tortillas
Cheddar Cheese
Avocados
Sour Cream
Lettuce

Layer the onions, followed by the beef roast, spices, salt and pepper, green chile, herbs and garlic in a slow cooker and turn to high for 4 hours

After 4 hours, turn heat to low.

Remove the roast, and shred by pulling the meat apart with a knife and fork. Add all the shredded beef along with the tomatos back to the slow cooker, and continue cooking for another 3 hours on low.

Serve the shredded beef up in tortillas rolled with cheese, avacados, sour cream, lettuce and anything else you feel like adding!

Autumnal Thai

Have I told you all just how much I love pumpkins?

I LOVE pumptykins!

This south-east asian inspired pumpkin and coconut soup blends sharp and hot flavors with a sweet and rich mouthfeel. The end result is savoury yet not to the point of being cloying. And some recipes which include intense flavored ingredients like thai fish sauce, and shrimp paste can definately go overboard and make dishes so intense that only a bite or two will put you over the edge.

But not so with this soup! It's perfect for all that extra pumpkin you've began freezing. Well, at least I've been freezing every pumpkin I can get my hands on for the upcoming winter, spring, and summer without those delicious squashes.

The only drawback to this recipe is grinding the lemon grass, dried shrimp and a few other things into a paste. I either needed a much larger mortar and pestle or some other high tech means of turning all that tough cellulosic material into a paste. For the record, I don't own a liquid nitrogen hammer mill, so I guess that's out of the question.

The shrimp paste can be a little overwhelming straight out of the jar, but it's worth it in the end. Don't be put off by it's... intense odor. Shrimp paste, which is made from fermented ground shrimp in brine, is used to give foods a savoury flavour.

I threw this soup together with some simple flat rice noodles tossed with some sambal chile puree, sesame oil, and some sauteed mushrooms.

Pumpkin and Coconut Soup

2 Garlic cloves, crushed
4 Shallots, finely crushed
1/2 tsp Shrimp Paste
1 Tbsp Dried Shrimp, soaked for 10 min in hot water and drained
1 Lemon Grass Stalk, chopped
2 fresh Green Thai Chiles
2-1/2 Cups Chicken Stock
1 lb Pumpkin, skinned and cut into thick chunks
2-1/2 Cups Coconut Cream
2 Tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Sugar
4 oz. Peeled Prawns
Salt
Pepper
2 fresh Red Thai Chiles, seeded and thinly sliced
fresh Basil leaves

Using a mortar and pestle, grind the garlic, shallots, shrimp paste, dried shrimp, lemon grass, green chiles and a pinch of salt into a paste.

Bring the chicken stock to boil in a large pot. Add the paste and stir until dissolved.

Lower the heat, add the pumpkin, and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the pumpkin is tender.

Stir in the coconut cream, bring to a simmer. Add the fish sauce, sugar, ground pepper to taste.

Add the prawns and cook until they're heated through.

Serve garnished with the red chiles and basil leaves.