Food, and Fabric!

Summer is all about walking around and eating everything in sight. That, and window shopping! Some new food obsessions, as of late...

Picket Fence. Want some good old fashioned, American comfort food? Look no further! Off of the Cortelyou station on the Q train, only a 20 minute walk from my apartment. They have a lovely outdoor garden in the back, which is great for summer. Service is slow, but they are not in a rush to kick you out, unlike most Manhattan locales. Strongly recommend the mac and cheese and the apple turnover.

L&B Spumoni Gardens. For Sicilian style pizza lovers, this is your heaven. I prefer the regular pizza, with lots of sausage - it's always crowded with people coming in after their little league and not so little league games, but it adds to the character of the place - everybody there has a very thick Brooklyn accent. Different from your typical New York transplant crowd. Off of the Avenue U stop on the N Line. Very close to the Brooklyn Chinatown on 8th Avenue - strong recommendation to check out the Hong Kong Supermarket, and the fruit stands if you have a chance!

PinkBerry. Yes, they are taking over New York. Yes, it's overpriced. But, I love, love, love it! Similar frozen yogurt chains needs not apply. Pomegranate with double batch of fresh strawberries, all the way!

Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. I usually don't like fast food, but I have to admit that their steamed pork dumplings are pretty good. Never will be as good as Nice Green Bo's "tiny juicy buns with pork," but still acceptable, in a pinch...


Did you know that IKEA sells fabric?! I didn't, until last night when I was looking for a duvet cover for my bed. The fabrics are cute looking, and cheap! I don't know how sturdy they are, or if they are of good quality, but it looks promising.

Your Thoughts on Kombucha?

I was first introduced to this weirdness a couple of weeks ago by my boyfriend's sister. It is a fermented beverage that touts a laundry list of health properties including a boosted immune system and better circulation, among other virtues. And like most things, I will give anything a go at least once, so I tried it. For having zero expectations on what it was going to taste like, I was taken somewhat aback. It smelled and tasted what I imagine an unwashed foot would taste like. It was very acidic, tart, slightly carbonated, very much like vinegar. At the time I was not so cool with it and didn't have a second sip; less than a week later however, I found myself at the drink aisle of the grocery store picking up another bottle. I don't know really know why; I felt like it couldn't get the best of me, maybe. It also reminded me a bit of Natto, which I happen to love. (For people who don't know, Natto is a Japanese dish of fermented soybeans that is also supposed to be very good for you. Definitely an acquired taste - you have to be brain-washed into loving it from infancy, although there are some lovers of Natto who tried it in adulthood, but they tend to be kind of quirky to begin with.) I'm at my third bottle, and I still don't know if I hate it or slightly like it. The health benefits are also a bit hazy - it's either raved about as the next panacea, or it's a hazard that caused liver failure and deadly allergic reactions. Any thoughts?

Pad Thai

My love of Thai food started during my sophomore year in college, when I would eschew cafeteria food in favor of take-out pad thai. Little did I realize then that the dish I dearly loved was not an entirely authentic experience. When I went to Thailand a couple of years later, the first thing I did after checking into my hostel was stop at a street food vendor. Since then, I've been to a lot of restaurants in order to relive this street food experience - while New York is one of the best places to find a good plate of plate of pad thai, they haven't come close to what I got while I was there. It's hard to put a finger on what's different - the best way I can explain it is that the food is less intense here - the essence of what makes something pad thai as opposed to something else has been diluted somehow. Being DIY type of person, I started to look for my own recipes. I found a very good one here. Buying everything (ingredients, supplies) to make it was pretty cheap, given my proximity to Chinatown - Kam Man, Bangkok Center Grocery, and Hong Kong Supermarket come to mind. I even ended up investing in an iron wok, as well as a pair of tongs (makes serving much easier). While I've used oyster sauce before, I have never worked with fish or tamarind sauce. Let me just say that fish sauce lives up to its name. Actually, it's pretty unbearable, really. I almost lost my appetite while making the base sauce, but when you take the finished sauce and mix it in with the noodles and meat, it miraculously transforms into something magical and delicious. Hard to explain. I imagine it's like making cheese (not that I ever would in a million years, not in my Brooklyn apartment anyway) - very smelly in the making, but with addictive results. The picture above was my clumsy first attempt. I've done it at least 10 times since then - once you get the hang of it, it's really simple to do. Much recommended.

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

My favorite baked goods, if not doused in chocolate, are fruit or vegetable based - apple pie, banana bread and carrot cake to name just a few. Now I can add pumpkin cookies to the list - I made the following cookies for my office holiday party using a recipe I found here, and altered it a little by using this recipe for the frosting. My favorite part about it is the unusual texture - when done right, it's very moist and chewy, resembling the taste of a muffin top - the cream cheese frosting adds a rich sweetness that complements the spices in the cookie very well:

Pumpkin Cookie Recipe Adapted from AllRecipes
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven.

Cream Cheese Recipe Adapted from AllRecipes
Whip the following in a bowl:
1 (8 ounce) packages cream
cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Once whipped, add to the cookies that have been allowed to cool. Because the cookies are so moist, add the frosting right before you are about to serve and/or devour on the spot. The frosting can be covered and kept in the fridge. Enjoy~

Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Falafels

Consumerism pervades all the major holidays, but none other like Thanksgiving! I kept seeing news stories about people who braved the cold in anticipation for early bird specials, and people getting trampled to death from mobs of shoppers - scary! Since most of my gifts are handmade, I managed to avoid much of the madness - there were some items that I did order online, making my experience this season much better! I made a small dent in the laundry list of to-do items that I previously made - I ordered my cards from Snapfish, created a family calendar from Shutterfly, finished reading both Halfway House and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, made some more holiday cards with my newly acquired stamps from Yellow Owl Workshop and card stock - what has ended up on the back burner are my knitted gifts - perhaps I bit off more than I could chew in this department... eek! My days to get this done are numbered. What better way to avoid what needs to get done is to eat food - there was a sale on garbanzo beans, and I had a sudden inspiration to make falafel. Initially I used a recipe in Joy of Cooking but the results were disappointing - when I tried to fry them, they ended up being a mushy mess on the bottom of the fryer. I do like the crispy texture that comes from deep frying but since it's not so healthy, so I ended up searing them in high heat, then baking them in the oven. I adapted a recipe I found on AllRecipes:

Falafel (Adaptation from Sean's Falafel on AllRecipes)

1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
1 onion, chopped (I cooked them a bit - drizzled olive oil in a bowl with the onions and popped them in the microwave for 1.5 minutes, so the harsh onion taste doesn't overpower the falafel)
1/4 - 1/2 cup fresh parsley (or dried, if you don't have any)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of potato starch (I subsituted for an egg)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
salt and pepper
1 pinch cayenne pepper
juice from 1 lemon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup dry bread crumbs
oil for frying

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl mash up 1/2 of the chickpeas until thick and pasty; don't use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, the other half of the chickpeas, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into hand-mashed chickpeas. In a small bowl combine egg/egg substitute, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form into balls and then flatten into patties. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides. Place patties into a lightly greased baking dish and bake for 20-30 minutes.

It was kind of messy and time consuming to make, but the recipe makes quite a few patties, and you have enough leftovers for a quick lunch that you can take during the week, cutting down on the number of meals you have to prepare.

Next on the agenda - homemade vanilla extract, english muffins, and pad thai! As for non-food related items, I am assembling a knit party on Wednesday to solve my procrastination problem with my knitted gifts...

Homemade Granola

Granola is one of those food items that you take for granted - it's everywhere, so why would a person make it from scratch? The answer: because it's so f-ing good. That being said, it was a painstaking process, and it will probably be awhile before I do it again. The final product was best paired with some plain yogurt, with a drizzle of honey or maple syrup and some fresh berries if you have them. The original recipe can be found here. Below are my modifications to the recipe, because I couldn't find some of the ingredients listed in the original:

Granola Recipe Adapted from the Traveler's Lunchbox
Yield: about 8 cups
1 lb. quick oats
3 cups coarsely chopped unsalted almonds
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. In a food processor, coffee grinder or blender, grind half the oats to a fine powder. In a large bowl, combine the whole oats, ground oats, and nuts. In a microwave-safe bowl (or in a saucepan over medium heat), combine the brown sugar, butter and water and heat just until the butter has melted and the mixture is bubbly. Stir the mixture together until smooth, then stir in the salt and vanilla. Pour this mixture over the oats and nuts, stirring well to coat. Let stand for about ten minutes.

Spread the mixture out on a large baking sheet, separating it into irregular clumps with your fingers, and allowing space between the clumps for the hot air to circulate. Slide into the middle of the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and stir, gently breaking up the mixture into small-to-medium sized clumps. Return to the oven and bake another 15 minutes or so before stirring again. Repeat the bake-and-stir until the mixture is a uniform golden brown and completely dry; this usually takes 1-1 1/2 hours. (I did this about five times.)

The final product is crunchy goodness. It also makes your apartment/house smell awesome. Just beware that stirring the oats around every 15 minutes sucks up a lot of time - I figured I could finish many things in 15 minute intervals, but I was wrong. It was still worth it - I got a lot of good and healthy breakfast meals out of it!

Introduction to the Kati Roll

There is something so infinitely appealing about warm food wrapped up in greasy dough that almost every culture has it - I had a good helping of such food when meeting up with friends at the West Village. I never ventured around MacDougal Street much, because I always equated MacDougal with the bar scene, but I was pleasantly surprised by the eateries we went into last night. The first place we stopped at was the Kati Roll Company, which my friend lovingly calls his Indian-Burrito-Comfort Food-Place. For the untrained palate, the Kati Roll tasted like a mixture of meat and vegetables wrapped up in naan, which is a bit like pita bread. Other than the outward appearance, it's nothing at all like a burrito. As expected, it was very spicy - much spicier than I am used to, which my friend claims is a mark of its authenticity! The $5 price tag is icing on the cake. To cool our mouths off, we then stopped by the Crepe Cafe across the street and indulged in a strawberry and nutella crepe - yum! I don't keep nutella in my apartment anymore because it's too dangerous, so I was very happy with the reunion. Although I admit that it wasn't the healthiest of dinners (the vegetable-crazed part of me is crying), it was totally worth it.

Improvised Chili

The theme of the week (or my life in general?) has been about improvisation. After entertaining various friends and relatives from out of town on consecutive weekends, the food rations were running low, since grocery shopping using public transit ends up becoming an all-day affair. This is especially true for a crazy like me - we go to the Sunrise Mart in the East Village for Japanese ingredients, Kam Man for bulk noodles, rice and tea, the ghetto C-Town near the apartment for basics, Rossman Farms for produce and fruit, and Whole Foods for anything else I missed - yes, it's obsessive, but what can ya do when you are the offspring of two chefs? If you know any chefs, you know they all have very strong opinions about food, talk about food, think about, eat and buy food all the time. Although I am not a very good cook, I certainly got the good-eater gene. But I'm digressing...

Long story short - the weather was getting colder. I was hungry. I wanted to make something quick. Problem: I only had 3 sausages and a handful of vegetables in the fridge. Whipping out my trusty Joy of Cooking cookbook, I picked a chili recipe that had sausage in it, then disregarded it because the recipe freaked me out a little, then picked it back up again. What I ended up with was a hybrid of the Joy of Cooking recipe and an old Rachel Ray recipe that I had copied down from a former roommate's book. The result was a tangy, not very spicy chili that was loaded with different textures - I was a little weary adding celery to a chili but it wasn't bad! More healthy, although not as flavorful as others I have tried and made.

Ingredients:
Spiced Sausages (I used 3 medium links - about 1/2 lbs?) with skins taken off and the meat inside separated
28 ounce can of tomatoes
1 cup wine or beer
1 cup chicken broth, using water and a sliver of bouillon cube (sorry, I cheated)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced (a good excuse to use my microplane)
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp sage
Salt & Pepper
2 tbsp grade A maple syrup (bought from a wild-eyed farmer in Arcadia, ME)
1 14-16 ounce can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 14-16 ounce can of corn kernels, drained

I cooked the meat first, draining some of the fat out. Put meat aside, cooked the onions, garlic, and celery in my stockpot. Added everything except the beans and corn into the pot; let boil, then simmered for 30 minutes. Added beans and corn; cooked for 15 minutes more. A real chili would have taken all day, but I am a real crab cake when hungry so I devoured it soon after the beans and corn were added. As far as chilies go, it's not the best, but certainly not the worst. The best part were the leftovers - given the lack of any, much less healthy eating alternatives in the Bronx where I work, I was spared from buying yogurt cups at the grocery store and calling it a meal - yay.

Chocolate Craving

Although I am very veggie conscious and try to creatively cram as much vegetable matter in my food as possible, there are moments when broccoli is not simply not enough. I was desperately craving chocolate the other day, but the only chocolate I had was nestle cocoa powder, and all of the stores had closed in my desolate area of Brooklyn. Taking inspiration from a blog posting, I checked out their link to Epicurious and found that I had the ingredients they listed, although my chosen brand of cocoa powder was far from luxurious! The recipe is below:

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar (I used brown sugar - it was the only kind I had)
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process) (I don't know if Nestle Cocoa Powder is natural or dutch-process - probably neither!)
1/4 teaspoon salt (I didn't put in that much - just a couple turns on my salt mill)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cold large eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup walnut or pecan pieces (It's optional, and so I didn't use)
8-inch square baking pan

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom and sides of the baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.

Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot.

Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula.

Stir in the nuts, if using. Spread evenly in the lined pan.

Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack.

Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares.

The result? Very chocolate-y and dense! The batter before adding in the eggs smelled so so good - it was extremely tempting to scrap the whole project, add milk to the recipe and have hot chocolate instead. But then again, there's the guilt of knowing that you are drinking liquid butter and sugar. Mmm... something to consider when it gets colder out!

Sobacha, or Buckwheat Tea

Although I love coffee as much as the next person (especially Cafe Bustelo and Cafe Britt), I am a tea girl at heart. I have a tea stash that is equal to my yarn stash, so much so that I have one shelf in the kitchen that is exclusively dedicated to feeding this obsession. Darjeeling and hojicha (roasted green tea) are my two favorites, but I think I have to add sobacha, or buckwheat tea to the list, thanks in large part to my mother and her evil care packages! She is a self-confessed food and drink evangelist, and when it strikes her fancy, will send me 5 lbs worth of whatever she loves at that moment. This tea happens to be it for now, and as for the taste? It is reminiscent of genmaicha, which is a blend of green tea and roasted/puffed rice, minus the green tea... The most American comparison I can make is that it resembles the taste of popcorn, which I think puts off a lot of people who are used to drinking the "normal" teas, which are made of leaves and have more of an herbal flavor. I however, became an instant convert as it reminds me of all the rice crackers I ate with my grandmother at her house during the summers of my childhood. I tried looking for a bag of the tea in the city the other day - I don't think it has caught on as of yet, but if one ever finds some, it's worth a sip! Just be warned that this tea takes awhile to steep, and that it will always have a yellow to light amber color that will never turn dark like most teas. You know it's done when the smell infuses the entire kitchen!

Okonomiaki (a.k.a. the Japanese Pizza)

Living in such a culinary melting pot, I tend to tread uncharted food territories whenever I go out, gravitating away from the tried and true foods that have been staples in my Midwestern childhood (take-out Chinese, Japanese, pizza/Italian, and American come to mind). But lately I have been a bit nostalgic for my mom's cooking, and when my boyfriend came back from his home state of Maine bearing vegetables from his parent's garden, he suggested that I make Okonomiaki with his mother's head of cabbage (yes, he actually carried it on the bus - how sweet!). For those of you who don't know what Okonomiaki is, it resembles a scallion pancake (found in most Chinese restaurants), except instead of scallions, the main ingredient is very finely chopped up cabbage and a protein of some kind (I prefer pork.... mmm.... piggies...). When asking about the origins of the food, my mom says it was a Japanese post-war-I-have-no-food-so-I-am-going-to-make-the-best-of-it cuisine, which is a good an answer as any, although I am sure she made it up just to stop my incessant questioning. To make it, I used the following ingredients:

- All purpose flour
- Water
- One Egg
- One head of very small cabbage, finely, finely chopped (Japanese cabbage prefered)
- Lots of Katsuobushi (also known as shaved Bonito, which is a type of fish that has been dried and then shaved into small slivers, pictured left) - I used a big handful to put into the batter.
- Tonkatsu Sauce (a vegetable/fruit sauce - like Worcestershire, but thicker, on the right)

- Lean pork, sliced and chopped in tiny chunks

- A smidgen of potato starch

All of the ingredients are not measured, but thrown in randomly (with exception of the tonkatsu sauce) - if there is interest, I can definitely measure out the ingredients, although I think the ingredients and recipe should vary with each person, as the name Okonomiaki directly translates into the phrase "as you like it." The rule of thumb is to make sure the batter is thin, almost runny, and that the cabbage should overwhelm the rest of the ingredients. Once the batter is done, all you have to do is just cook it! Put some oil in a pan over medium heat, pour out a thin layer of batter, cover it, and flip it when the edges start to brown:

Then let the other side cook for the same amount of time - you'll know it's done when it doesn't fall apart, and the batter is not gooey. Once you are certain that the meat has cooked through and that the batter has browned to your satisfaction, transfer it back onto a plate, top with Tonkatsu sauce, and add some more shaved bonito for good measure!

Happy Eating!

Edit: For those of you who want to try the real thing before making it, a great place to go in NYC is Otafuku in the East Village. It's a bit of a dive, and it's for take-out only, but it's one of the best places for Okonomiaki that I've had in the city.

Borscht

I've been on a cooking kick as of late, trying to expand my cooking repertoire so as to go beyond the 10 things that I have grown accustomed to making. The inspiration came from my weekend excursion to the ever-appealing Coney Island (only 30 minutes from the apartment), which ended in a girl-scout expedition of sorts, as I impulsively decided to walk the subway route home instead of riding the subway back. Perhaps it was the guilt from eating a Nathan's hotdog that compelled me to walk. Nonetheless, my plan was to follow the tracks all the way home, as I had zero trust in my navigating abilities. The plan was quickly derailed, as I discovered that I had to cut through people's junk yards, circumvent major highways, and wade through large thickets of random itchy looking weeds. The ever trusty boyfriend, who has supreme confidence in his ability to find his way around, got us hopelessly lost (of course)! When we eventually found the subway station, we found that we only travelled about three stops in a span of an hour (see Sheepshead Bay Station, on your left). We got onto the train, resigning ourselves as directionally challenged, and after two stops, discovered there was a malfunction on a station further down, and thus we were going to be held in the station for an indeterminate amount of time. Having gotten some renewed energy from sitting around and waiting, we decided to give it another go at walking, and ended up going all the way home without getting lost again. On the way back from the station to home, we passed by a lot of Russian bakeries and grocery stores. We walked into one randomly (I was getting hungry from all of the walking), when I saw the huge pile of beets in the corner. For one reason or another (probably hunger), I was inspired to buy 5 lbs worth, to make what else: Borscht! The only time I ever had Borscht was in the Jewish part of our neighborhood, where I ate a lot of delicious things that I will never know the name or contents of, as no one there spoke English well enough to explain the food to me! With my trusty Joy of Cooking book bought from the great book store in NYC, I went about making my soup. By the end of it, my kitchen looked like a murder scene from all of the beet juice flying everywhere, but for a first attempt, it didn't taste as disasterous as I thought it might possiblity be. Not that I am an expert on Eastern European cooking by any stretch of the imagination... And although it looks a little gruesome to look at, it is full vegetable goodness and makes up for the fact that I have been eating nothing but Dove chocolate squares when I'm at work...

Stilton with Mango and Ginger & Vinho Verde!

I am always weary of avid wine and cheese connoisseurs for their excessive use of metaphors and obscure adjectives, but was inspired to be a cheese and wine evangelist for a brief moment when I had Stilton cheese with Mango and Ginger for the first time yesterday, as well as some Vinho Verde a.k.a. "green" wine at a Portuguese restaurant for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. Being the offspring of two chefs, I am admittedly somewhat of a food snob, but never really ventured into wine and cheese territory, as my real or imagined allergy to alcohol (chronicled here) has prevented me from drinking much, and my like for cheese has been limited to the very bland (pepperjack, mozzarella, cheddar, and brie come to mind, although I don't mind feta and Parmesan in small amounts). Therefore, I was surprised/horrified to learn that Stilton is well known for their blue cheeses, as that is one of few things that I am not jumping to stomach. Upon further reading, I learned that the mango and ginger cheese is a White Stilton, meaning that it doesn't have the blue mold that is characteristic of the blue cheeses, so I guess it doesn't really count as me eating blue cheese. Whew. Either way, I have to say that the Mango and Ginger is not anything I've ever tasted before - it was sweet, and really creamy - a bit like cream cheese but a hundred times better so I am not doing it justice. It also had big chunks of mango in it - yum! Not as exciting, but still good was the Vinho Verde; it was sweet, but also had a kick to it that was almost like carbonation. It reminded me a bit of Riesling, which most restaurants don't seem to carry very much. It didn't exactly go with my chicken gizzard appetizer, but that's a whole other story! Anyway, it's worth a try, even for the unadventurous palate.