charlotteann

Somewhat ironically, considering yesterday’s blog post written from my environmental soapbox, I had beef for dinner. It wasn’t grass-fed and I bought it from a major chain grocery store. I’m a hypocrite! I know! If it makes you (because it certainly makes me) feel better I eat beef maybe once a month. Having grown up in Montana this is a considerable change from my early years when we ate all kinds of cow on all kinds of days. I think cows are adorable and they taste great, so I have respect for the animal and try not to eat it unless it grew up eating grass like nature intended. Except last night. Last night I made an exception because I am poor and I wanted beef. Are you sick of me justifying my actions yet?

Tasty!

I lifted this recipe from several websites because a google search for “miso marinated steak” resulted in several hits for nearly identical miso-wasabi marinades. “How strange,” thought I, and wondered: Does this mean there is some kind of miso-wasabi standard out there, handed down from the Japanese god of all things that come in paste form? Decide for yourself if this recipe is divine:

Wasabi-Miso Marinated Steak with Soba and Green Onion
adapted from numerous websites/handed down from the paste gods

For the marinade:

Whisk together all of the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Place the mixture into a plastic bag with the steak and allow to marinate for two hours in the refrigerator, turning it over after an hour.

As it marinates, prepare the soba noodles according to package instructions. After rinsing the noodles in cold water, cover and place the colander over a bowl before placing in the refrigerator. This will allow the noodles to chill and drain further.

After two hours, remove the steak from the bag and save the marinade. Get your broiler going and adjust the rack according to your steak’s thickness. Actually, this is an area I know very little about, so hopefully you know your own broiler and where to put the rack. Technically speaking, I just wing it. I also prefer to use my cast iron skillet in lieu of the broiler pan because it’s about 80 million times easier to clean. As the broiler heats up (with your pan or skillet in place), slice the green onions and remove the soba noodles from the ol’ ice box.

When the broiler is ready and your cooking pan of choice is hot, place the steak on it. You can baste the steak with the reserved marinade if you like. I didn’t because I don’t have a baster. Cooking time will vary on steak thickness and your preference for rareness. I think my steak (about an 1 1/2 ” thick) cooked for about 10 minutes, with a quick flip after 7 minutes, and came out a little too medium for me but still juicy.

Slice the steak thin and place on top of soba noodles and garnish with green onions. I would suggest drizzling some pan juices, but I didn’t have any. Instead I used the juice that collected on the cutting board while I sliced the steak. I also added some soy sauce. Enjoy!

It’s true, I do. Paris was really awesome and I really enjoyed spending the 2006-2007 school year abroad there. I mean, it’s Paris. How can you not miss it? Well, not everyone loves it, and not everyone loves the French. Some of you out there hate the French, whether for a good or bad reason. Although I have to say, in my slightly biased opinion that most of the reasons are bad. And all of those reasons - good and bad - just seem like total clichés to me. I can’t even write about them without feeling like a tool, so I won’t. I will just talk about galettes.

Galette with ham and gruyère cheese

A galette, also known as a savory crêpe or a buckwheat crêpe, is really awesome like Paris but you can eat it. It’s like eating Paris. Actually, the galette originates in Bretagne (Brittany) where buckwheat was a cheap alternative to regular wheat, which was taxed. Buckwheat arrived via the crusaders from Asia. I guess religious wars can have their perks.

When we visited Bretagne and Normandy, we ate so many apples and apple-based dishes I can barely remember Mont St. Michel or the D-Day beaches. But when I was in Paris, I took a photography course near the Jussieu métro that serves the nearby Université Denis Diderot. Consequently, a crêpe-making superstar serves throngs of students across the street from the métro entrance. I unfortunately never learned this woman’s name, but she was incredibly kind and sold me several enormous, cheap galettes au jambon-fromage. The classic of course is the galette complète which contains cheese, ham, and an egg. I dislike eggs. My life is incomplete without them I know, so save your energy.

Following the recipe in Culinaria France by Andre Domine (recipe below) I whipped up a batch of galette batter substituting melted butter for lard. Moments later (like I was really going to let it sit overnight) I was enjoying the earthy flavor of buckwheat coupled with grated gruyère and Black Forest ham. Salty, gooey, good.

And now for the photos!

Butter on hand as the crêpe pan heats up

Sliced ham. Yum.

(more…)

For those of you unfamiliar with kimchi, you should stop being in the dark and go eat some. I don’t care if you go a Korean restaurant or buy a jar of it. Just eat it and feel magical. Here’s the wikipedia article: Kimchi. And here is my hero Anthony Bourdain experiencing it firsthand on one of my favorite episodes of No Reservations (in Korea, obviously).

The other night I was at a loss for ideas on what to cook and rather hungry. So I googled what was in my fridge (tofu, pork, and kimchi) remembering the steaming, spicy bowl of orange soup I had in Boston on a very cold night at a Korean BBQ restaurant that contained those very same ingredients. There were surprisingly many tasty-looking recipes for such a dish sans broth. It was delish and absurdly easy. And, considering how cheap tofu ($1.50 for a block of the organic stuff), kimchi (~$3.00 for two servings), and pre-sliced pork ($3.50 for 3 servings) at the local Japanese market is I’ll definitely be eating this more often.

Tofu, pork, and kimchi with rice

1/2 pound of thinly sliced pork
1/2 block of firm or extra firm tofu, sliced
1 cup of kimchi (I prefer the spicy stuff but it’s available mild as well)
2 tbsp peanut or vegetable oil
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
chopped green onions (for garnish)
steamed rice

In a wok or deep sautée pan, cook the pork in the oil until it is no longer pink. Add the vinegar and tofu and stir constantly for a couple minutes before adding the kimchi. Continue to stir until the kimchi is heated through. Serve over rice and garnish with green onions.

Closer to a “true American” breakfast, anyway. For those of you know my eating habits fairly well, you’ve probably heard of my aversion to eggs. Hate ‘em. I wish I didn’t because they seem so gosh darn versatile. But, they’re also the ova of another animal and that weirds me out. That and the smell, phew! Anyhoo. I make do for breakfast in America at diners and the like with either a collection of side orders or the homefries or some other starch. Like delicious, sizzling hash browns. Yum. I made my own scramble today that was sort of like homefries but not really? I don’t know what to call it. Home Sweet Potato Scramble Fries? Yeah, let’s go with that.

Home Sweet Potato Scramble Fries

This serves one person, ideally enjoying a leisurely rainy morning at home during the holiday vacation:

1 small red onion, chopped
1 medium sweet potato, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 green onion cut into sections
1/4 cup quartered mushrooms (I used shiitake)
2 small links sausage, casing removed
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt, pepper, dried herbs of your choosing

I recommend having everything chopped up and ready to go - this is a minor stir fry situation.

Heat the oil in a skillet, a cast iron skillet is excellent for this if you are awesome enough to have one, and add the sausage. Stir it around a bit until it’s mostly cooked, then add the sweet potatoes. When they start to soften and get crispy and browned on the outside, toss in the onions and mushrooms. Stir often but not constantly until the onions start to soften, adding a pinch of herbs if you’d like (I used Herbes de Provence) and some S&P. Add the whiter parts of the green onions in the last minute or so of cooking, use the rest for garnish.

My sincere apologies for my lack of eloquence in recipe-writing. It’s really hard and I’m not good at ordering people around. In addition to eggs I hate coffee. Or, I should say, I hated coffee (see, past tense). During finals I got turned onto the stuff and I currently have TWO DIFFERENT KINDS of coffee in my possession.

Caffeine

I don’t know coffee and I’m not about be a Blue Bottle snob. I’ve actually tried their coffee and you know what? It tasted like a lot like coffee. Between the two varieties in my kitchen, I think I like the Illy better. I bought the Roma stuff because it had a local address on it and it was cheap but not the cheapest at Safeway. Both contain adequate levels of caffeine. I can’t help but wonder - if I am now able to consume coffee, are eggs next on my list? Stay tuned. This is my birthday month and things are bound to get a little crazy.

Well hi! It’s been a very long time. The Fall Semester 2009 has finally destroyed itself and I finally have time to cook and photograph the foods of my labor. I can’t tell you how excited I was to go to the farmer’s market Sunday morning. Okay, more like Sunday afternoon but I still got some good stuff. In fact, my scallions and mustard greens were discounted to 75 cents each because Ms. $1 herb lady wanted to get rid of them so badly. Anyhoo. For this dish the only thing from said market was the onion, everything else came from Safeway and Bristol Farms, the bougie, ’spensive grocery store under the Westfield mall. Oh, and the sausage came from the little halal meat market on Geary at Jones, next to my all time favorite pizza joint Milan Pizza. I guess the apparent point to be made is that I buy my foodstuffs from all over. All of these ingredients could potentially come from the same place, however.

Sweet and spicy rigatoni (serves two)

1-2 small link(s) sweet chicken sausage
1 medium onion, chopped into smallish bits
1 clove garlic
1/3 cup spicy/zesty tomato pasta sauce
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 cups dry rigatoni
4-5 leaves fresh basil torn into small pieces
1 tablespoon grated Romano cheese
salt & pepper

In a small sauce pan, cook the onion, garlic, and sausage in the olive oil over medium heat until the chicken is cooked through and things start to brown slightly and/or start to leave little brown bits on the bottom of the pan. I was satisfied when it looked like this:

Add the sauce, stir, lower the heat and continue to stir occasionally. Season with salt and pepper as well as the basil, but make sure to keep some basil around for presentation value later on. Meanwhile, cook your rigatoni. When it’s al dente or otherwise to your liking, drain it and return it to the pan. Pour the sauce over the pasta and mix well. Garnish with the cheese and remaining basil and serve!

While this meal is decidedly Italian in nature, I used a sausage seasoned with Middle Eastern spices. And apples, I think. Part of me thinks that Italian and Middle Eastern food can totally get together and make something delicious. If I pursue this vein of cooking, it would be a somewhat poetic joining of my family history (Italian) and my neighborhood (San Francisco’s Tenderloin district). I can’t think of any Italian-fusion restaurants, only French. And most of those are fused with Asian cuisine. Gee whiz, California. Way to think outside the box.

Time is money, and I have a lot of the former. This can be frustrating because in these dwindling days of summer vacation I often have nothing better to do than cook stuff and eat it. I’ll get an idea, spend some dollars on the ingredients, and make it. My spice cupboard is what it is today thanks to these one hit wonders throughout the past two years. But in light of yesterday’s credit card bill I am making an effort to eat all the stuff I already have. This means a lot more pasta and rice. And I mean a lot. I’m allowing myself to get fruits’n'veggies at the farmers’ market however, because I simply can’t eat buttered noodles every day. And I don’t want scurvy.

For lunch today I made pizzas on English muffins. I saw the tomato and basil spaghetti sauce, mozzarella, and fresh basil wasting away in my fridge and thought they might like to get together on dough generally reserved for breakfast. In fact, I had an English muffin this morning. They turned as well as can be expected.

English muffin mini pizzas (serves 2)

• 2 English muffins (split or cut in half)
• 1/3 cup grated mozzarella
• 4 tbsp red sauce
• olive oil
• fresh basil

First give your muffins a light toasting in the toaster oven. Remove them to your food prep area and turn the toaster oven to broiler mode and set it to 350 degrees. Spread the red sauce onto each half, about a tablespoon each. Sprinkle on the mozzarella and one or two drops of olive oil. You can add other things at this point (I put some onion slivers on one) but make sure they are small enough to get properly cooked. Place your little pizzas back into the toaster oven and let them cook until the cheese bubbles and starts to brown. Garnish with the basil and serve. Aren’t they cute?

And they are delicious. Last night I went to a Portland Sea Dogs baseball game and ate a lot of crap. I had a hot dog, popcorn chicken, french fries, a fish sandwich, popcorn, and an ice cream sandwich. They were all satisfying in some way, but the disappointing fish sandwich was just a phallic, soggy piece of fried fish in a hot dog bun. While I was away enjoying the culinary delights of Portland’s Hadlock Field, my mom and her fiancé (the wedding is soon, that’s why I’m here) ended up with 5 free lobsters. They may be lucky ducks but they can’t eat that much lobster in one sitting.
Then there were three.

What to do with all that delicious lobster besides taking its picture? Well, I used some green things (excepting the rosemary) from the garden…

… and some whole wheat linguine, garlic, and olive oil to make lunch. It was good, but my mom and I agreed it could have used a little spice, like red chile flakes, freshly chopped chile, or chile oil. Basically, anything chile-related would have helped.

Lobster and Swiss chard linguine
• 1/3 cup roughly chopped lobster meat (chilled)
• 1 serving linguine
• 1 small bunch of Swiss chard
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp extra virginolive oil
• 1 tbsp sweet or Italian basil, torn into small pieces
• 1 tbsp Italian parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper

Boil water and cook linguine al dente. Drain and set aside. I made my pasta as I was cooking the chard, but if you lack my amazing sense of timing or only have one burner, cook the pasta first. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil and the garlic in medium flat-bottomed pan or wok over medium heat until fragrant. Add the Swiss chard and stir occasionally until tender. Add the linguine, basil, lobster, and the rest of the oil (if needed) and stir until heated through. Avoid overcooking, as the lobster will get all tough and less delicious. Turn off the heat, season with a little S&P, transfer to a bowl or plate and garnish with the parsley.

Scallops are really yummy. Although oysters are my favorite mollusk, the scallop is a very close second. I picked up three medium-sized sea scallops from the UN Plaza farmers’ market last week ($2.40) and had them for lunch, prepared according to a recipe from Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything. There’s a variation that calls for Thai basil with a few substitutions and additions (fish sauce for the salt, pinch of sugar, chili) that turns into a very pretty, very fragrant green paste. I cut my scallops and stuffed them while my little oven approached broiling temperature. I decided to cook some somen noodles at this point, but in retrospect they weren’t a great choice. In fact, I really can’t think of a good starch for scallops. Rice? Pasta? Biscotti?

Everything was going great. I placed the scallops in my small cast iron skillet and popped them into the oven with gusto. Really. I was stoked about these scallops. The first time I made scallops they turned out like, hella good. I amazed myself at how well I seared them. And let’s just take a moment and appreciate the fact that my food photography has seriously improved since then.

Anyway, back to this tragic meal. I let them cook for about 4 minutes before flipping them, drained my noodles, and had everything on the plate 3 minutes later. I drizzled a little chili oil on the whole thing to add some heat and color (you know, for the photograph). Then I took a bite and was sorely disappointed to find that it tasted like a scallop with Thai basil paste. Ok, that wasn’t disappointing, just obvious. And absolutely boring. It looked so good on paper but in my mouth it was a disappointment. I have no idea if it was my fault or the recipe’s, which I followed closely.

I was supposed to take the party cat to the vet this morning but had to cancel when I awoke at 7:00 AM and realized my driver’s license is still missing. Dilemma: risk it and go back to sleep or wake up, cancel your ZipCar reservation, call the vet’s office, and have to deal with breakfast. I imagined myself getting pulled over on the highway, sobbing as the officer asks for my license and registration while I blurt out some story that my poor kitten ingested a cup of rat poison and needed immediate medical attention. Of course that wouldn’t work because people without driver’s licenses get around just fine in such situations in taxis, a fact I’m sure this potential highway patrol man would have pointed out before cuffing me and ruining my impeccable driving record. Ok, I admit, this is a little dramatic. And I think I have a speeding ticket on my record anyway. Point is, my imagination runs wild in the morning and I decided to cancel the appointment.

After getting off the phone with the vet’s office, I felt hungry. I also felt relieved because the assistant told me Ellie doesn’t need her shots until August, something we both appreciate I’m sure. A few days ago I bought two baguettes from Lee’s Sandwiches on Larkin and Eddy. I wanted just one, but it was two for $1.50! What a steal. So, there I was, hungry and stuck with one and half very dry baguettes. The obvious solution: French toast! The French call it pain perdu which literally means “lost bread.” To be perfectly honest, those baguettes were pretty lost to begin with. I love Vietnamese sandwiches, but the bread on its own doesn’t really hold up. At least not the Lee’s baguettes. A quick trip to the corner store for some milk and about 30 minutes later I had my breakfast.

I made this according to a loose interpretation of how my mother and her mother have made French toast for me in the past. Being young, lazy, and not much of a sugar fiend I didn’t include any of the powdered stuff that makes a nice addition. You might also look into adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I totally did after taking the picture.

French Toast
• some kind of aging bread
• 2 cups of milk
• 1 egg
• cinnamon (to taste)
• 1 peach
• maple syrup
• real butter (unsalted and lots of it)

First, cut the bread into slices if someone has not already done so for you. Then whisk together the milk, egg, and cinnamon in a bowl. I usually whisk until it’s a little frothy (no reason). Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat and add one to two tablespoons of butter. While it melts, soak the pieces of bread - about 10 seconds each side depending on thickness - in the batter. Make sure they pick up some of the cinnamon because it will be delicious later on. After the butter has melted, lower the heat slightly and add the pieces of bread to the pan. Cook until the first side is browned and then turn over. I, after forgetting to do this earlier and now forgot to mention it earlier in the post, will now suggest you preheat your oven or toaster oven to 200 degrees. When the pieces are browned on both sides, transfer them to the oven to keep warm. This will also ensure you get the inside of your toast cooked if you happen to slice the bread thick and then cook it too fast. Slice your peach and get out the maple syrup and butter. Remove the pieces from the oven, smother them in butter and syrup, and enjoy!

Typically, I follow a recipe when I make something other than ramen, spaghetti, or a grilled cheese. But yesterday I decided to wing it with a boneless pork chop I purchased from my new buddy at the meat counter at Golden Natural Foods. I know I said it was pricey, but it’s also really convenient. I knew I wanted to use some sage and rosemary from my little garden. Dressing the linguine was proving quite difficult until I came upon some ricotta left over from lasagna I made last week. This recipe isn’t exactly fancy. I was even too lazy to mince garlic, but it tasted pretty good so… No whining!

Pork chop 
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 or 3 sprigs of rosemary
• 5 or 6 leaves of sage
• 1 boneless pork chop on the small side

In a cast iron skillet add the olive oil, rosemary, and sage and let cook over medium heat until fragrant. Add the pork chop, cook about 15-20 minutes on each side (depending on thickness). I was having trouble gauging the cooking time for this because I can get impatient and my meat thermometer is not very accurate. So you should probably rely on your own pig-cooking skills before sticking to my suggested 15-20 minutes.

Linguine 
• single serving of whole wheat linguine
• 2 tbsp fresh ricotta cheese
• 1 or 2 tbsp dried cranberries
• salt and pepper

Cook the pasta to that lovely point of al dente, drain, and return to the pan to keep warm. Toss with ricotta and pinches of salt and pepper or according to taste.