Happy Mother's Day!

Happy (somewhat belated) Mother's Day! Stay tuned for John's dad's recipe for Belgian Waffles... and some fun stories related to it.

One (more) local summer

Lemonade stands. Swim lessons. Backyard barbecue. Catching fireflies. Warm evenings out on the porch with grandpa listening to Harry Caray's seventh inning ode to America's game. These are the sense memories from the summers of my youth. Memories flavored with the sweet tang of my grandmother's bread and butter pickles atop a barbecued brat, the tart taste of my great-aunt's strawberry rhubarb pie smothered in sweet cream from Harry's dairy cow, a creamy potato salad studded with bright yolked hard boiled eggs from Julie's chickens. Several decades before I heard the word locavore I savored favorite summer flavors from local purveyors.

Fast forward to 2008. I'm not half the gardener my grandmothers were, but I'm fortunate to live in a land of year-round farmer's markets and CSA deliveries so a farm fresh local meal is never far away. For the last couple of summers I've been inspired by One Local Summer, and I was rather disappointed to learn that Liz had closed up shop; her Pocket Farm blog and the event I enjoyed so much were a part of the past. So I was delighted when Nicole over at Farm to Philly chose to take up the torch and host One Local Summer 2008. Beginning June 1, she's asking participants to make one meal per week using locally sourced ingredients, and she'll post a weekly roundup of the results.

In anticipation of good things to come I compiled this morning's pre-workout breakfast from a handful of local ingredients: 1/2 cup (give or take) of Redwood Hill Farm Plain Goat Yogurt, a handful of Capay Organic strawberries, a teaspoon of honey and a sprinkling of blueberries, the last of the bounty from last weekend's field trip to the farmer's market. Sweet, tangy, simple, nutrition-packed and satisfying. Move aside Mary Lou... *this* is a breakfast of champions!

Technorati Tags: Food | One Local Summer

TWD: Two great tastes...

Okay so perhaps I'm showing my age, but Dorie's taken one of my favorite kid candies and turned it into a grown up treat. And then Elizabeth at Ugg Smell Food chose it as this week's TWD assignment. A creamy, dreamy, chocolate and peanut buttery Peanut Butter Torte.

I could have subtitled this post "How to Torment your Personal Trainer." Because I didn't want the cream, cream cheese, peanut butter and chocolate in this one taking up permanent residence on my waistline, I chose to make it in "mini" heart shaped torte-letts. "Mini" torte-letts that would easily serve 3 people each. And I wasted NO time shuttling them out of my refrigerator and onto the dessert menus of friends and family everywhere.

The morning after I made them, John had a standing appointment with our trainer Lisette. Lisette is our personal antidote to all of the caloric wonderment you see on this blog; she is in our lives so that our mutual love of food doesn't turn us into middle aged diabetic heart attack candidates in the making. She provides both the trade-off to a weekend of indulgence and the voice of conscience that keeps us from sliding into OVERindulgence. And she apparently has a weakness for peanut butter. A weakness John chose to exploit...by taking her a torte all her own.

Like a lot of my friends and acquaintances at the other end of Generation X, Lisette's favorite form of communication is the cryptic text message. So I came out of my Wednesday morning staff meeting with my cell phone alerting me of a new message:

OMG! U R Fired! So good!

I guess she liked it. And I'll probably pay for that on Friday...

A peanut butter & chocolate care package to the first reader who identifies the actors in my classic commercial. No fair Googling it!

From the archives...
In 2006 I found a food blogging meme and shared some linky love.

Technorati Tags: Food | Baking | Tuesdays with Dorie | Key Ingredient: Peanut Butter

Dorie's going to be a few days late...

Sorry to disappoint you folks, but there's just not any room on my counter (or on my thighs) for another dessert just yet. So my homage to peanut butter and chocolate will wait until the weekend, when I can share it with friends. Until then, go check out the hundreds of others available at Tuesdays with Dorie. Or try it yourself... Elizabeth's posted the recipe at Ugg Smell Food.

From the archives...
In 2006 I followed the yellow brick road to Barbara's first annual Taste of Yellow.

Technorati Tags: Food | Baking | Tuesdays with Dorie

I picked the *right* month...

...to ditch the ATM card in favor of cash.

I shop at the Danville Lunardi's not Los Gatos, the culprits only tapped a single register's ATM, and the store and its owners have been wonderful with the affected customers, but it's good to know no one's wandering around Southern California partying with access to MY checking account...

From the archives...
In 2006 I went through the first of what's now four blog remodels. If you like my new look, go check out Shauna's other amazing work.

TWD - The one that almost wasn't: Ricotta Polenta Cake

I almost opted out of this week's Tuesday with Dorie assignment: a Fluted Polenta Ricotta Cake chosen by Caitlin the Engineer Baker.

It was nothing personal; it's just been a butter/flour/sugar heavy month. I'd just foisted the last of my Keller Cake onto a very willing group of house guests over the weekend. I still have a handful of marshmallows bouncing around the island. And Sunday's cheesecake pops were over the top indulgent.

I made a personal pact: this was going to be a week of fruit for dessert. Apples. Bananas. CSA fresh strawberries.

And then Tuesday came, and I opened my feed reader. And 100-some Doristas were more temptation than my resolve could withstand. I hadn't gotten to "D" and I started making a shopping list, knowing I had a date with the Kitchen Aid when I got home. Hey... fig's a fruit! And polenta's kind of a grain.

I decided to go small and pulled out my mini tart pans. I chopped the requisite 12 kadota figs and set them in a combination of chardonnay and warm water for a soak. And Inspired by Cheri at Adventures in the Kitchen, I chopped up a handful of organic rosemary from my CSA and tossed it with the dry ingredients.

The result? Probably not as healthy as an apple, but not devoid of nutritional value, and quite tasty. The ricotta added tang, the honey lends a fruity note, the polenta and figs contribute to a complex texture, and the rosemary brings it all together and gives it a real Mediterranean flair. Most excellent topped with a dollop of honey flavored Greek style yogurt.

From the archives...
In 2007 I failed at crepe cake 101.

Technorati Tags: Food | Dessert | Baking | Tuesdays with Dorie

Pop!

Subtitle: Playing with Food.

Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey? Yeah you got *that* right.

Brought to us by Elle of Feeding my Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell, his month's Daring Baker selection would be the *perfect* project for a tween/teen slumber party. Or a red hat girl's night in. Or any estrogen-heavy event in between.

Cheesecake Pops!

I procrastinated. Again. Started the cheesecakes yesterday, where cream cheese packaging and egg shells fought for space with crawdad shrapnel in the discard bin. And I think I've finally found a recipe that overwhelms Mo's trusty four quart Kitchen Aid. Five 8-ounce packages of cream cheese pushed the mixer bowl nearly to the brim.

I chilled the cheesecakes overnight as directed, and started forming cheesecake balls early Sunday morning. I had big plans: my 2 ounce cookie scoop would make the perfect cheesecake sphere. I abandonned that brilliant idea with pop number 3 (out of seventy-some... not the 30-40 the recipe promised) and resorted to my fingertips and the palms of my hands. Messy yes, but far more efficient.

Into the freezer for two hours while I tidy the kitchen and prepare the rest of the house for company; we were an hour away from hosting our dance group's monthly board meeting. And I discovered that dipping cheesecake in melted chocolate and and rolling them in graham cracker crumbs is a great way to diffuse the frustration these meetings often engender. When I was done with the pops, I was still in the mood to feed and socialize with the group.

After we cleaned up the barbecue fixings, we packed up the pops and toted them to the dance the group was hosting that afternoon for beginner dancers. And I'm proud to say my pops were the runaway hit of the buffet table.

Want to try cheesecake pops for yourself? Elle and Deborah both have it posted for you. Curious how the other 900-some Daring Bakers fared? Check out the blog roll. And while you're surfing, head on over to the brand new Daring Baker website and see what's happening in the public forums.

Technorati Tags: Food | Dessert | Baking | Daring Bakers | Key Ingredient: Cream Cheese

Mudbugs!

Lynn Swann: You gonna add another championship trophy to the old case downstairs?
Coach Red Beaulieu: That's kinda like my old man told me one time, Lynn. The only thing better than a crawfish dinner, is five crawfish dinners.

-The Waterboy (1998)

I'd have to agree with the coach's father.

Which is a very very *good* thing when one has fifteen pounds of them to dispatch, peel and employ in something tasty good.

How did this California girl happen upon fifteen pounds of Louisiana's beloved mudbugs?

It all started in email.

Joshua said he liked my blog (I'm still often surprised that a bunch of people I've never met *read* my blog) and he was wondering if I'd be willing to try out one of the products offered at Cajun Grocer and blog about the experience. He offered a choice of Crawfish or Turducken.

Um... TurDUCKen? What would I do with turducken?

Not wanting to embarrass myself in front of my aforementioned readership, I selected the crawfish. Nothing difficult about crawfish. Boil. Peel. Eat some. Search Google for a recipe for the rest. This isn't exactly rocket science...

'cept for the true crawfish enthusiast, I suspect it has its similarities. In hindsight, the boiling process might have been easier with this. Or one of these. Having neither at our disposal, we put my 18 quart stock pot to some heavy duty use.

The fish arrived on Friday evening. After spending the evening on my island (and freaking me out a bit when I walked through the kitchen and heard them milling about in their container... yeah, they're most definitely alive), we broke out the stockpot and broke open the packaging to see what lay in store for us.

My only previous experience with crawfish is at the Bay Area's nod to Cajun Country: New Orleans by the Bay. The contents of my carefully packaged styrofoam container were at least four times the size of anything I'd seen there... some of them small-lobster sized. And based on their fresh but slightly earthy scent, I don't doubt the claim that they were fished and shipped the same day.

We boiled the crawfish according to the instructions on the seasoning package and I'm proud that my little stockpot that could held up beautifully to the task. We rapidly realized that the boiling was the easy part... the challenge was going to be in the peeling.

And peeling...

And peeling...

John did his part almost entirely with his fingers, while I chose to employ a paring knife so my manicurist won't have a seizure when I see her next week. It took us the better part of the afternoon to get them all peeled. We snacked a bit along the way and decided that the seasoning packet permeated perfectly, and enhanced the natural sweetness of the meat.

Now, what to do with all of that crawfish meat?

We thought about beignets, but that felt like a lot *more* work. I'm not a huge fan of etouffee or jambalaya. After some amount of deliberation, I chose to make a riff on Emeril's Crawfish and Cream over Pasta, employing a bunch of asparagus from this week's CSA box in place of the green onions and parsley, both of which would have required a last minute grocery shopping expedition. I used a package of Pasta Etc.'s fresh Lemon Chive Linguine which played beautifully with the chardonnay cream sauce.

In the end, the coach's dad would be proud... It's a rich, indulgent dish, easily allowing for five to seven crawfish lunches and dinners.

Technorati Tags: Food | Cajun | Key Ingredients: Pasta, Crawfish

TWD - My cupcakes runeth over...

...and then they fell flat. The end result was pretty ugly, but they sure *tasted* good!

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie assignment was brought to us by Amanda at Slow Like Honey: Bill's Big Carrot Cake -- which I translated into Bill's lava-like Carrot Cupcakes. I wasn't sure about the whole carrot cake thing; like many other Dorista's out there I haven't historically been a big fan. But this is a Dorie challenge, I had a bunch of CSA carrots calling from the counter, and everyone loves cupcakes, right? So off I ventured.

I grated my carrots by hand, managing not to bleed in the process. My "mix-ins" included raisins and shredded coconut. And I seem to be out of cinnamon, so I tossed in nutmeg in its place. The batter came together quickly and easily, and before I knew it my cupcakes were expanding in the oven.

And expanding...

And expanding...

Then as they cooled on the counter, they caved. I noticed a lot of other cupcake-making Doristas had this problem (owing perhaps to the weight of the ingredients in proportion to the small amount of leavening in the recipe?) and chose to cover the flaws with frosting. In hindsight perhaps I should have tried that... but I figured there was no salvaging them physically and packaged them up for our dance group without frosting them.

And they were a hit. Even those of us who aren't crazy about carrot cake loved them. Without frosting, they pair beautifully with plain yogurt for an indulgent but quick breakfast.

Technorati Tags: From the archives...
In 2006 we took a field trip to the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market

Food | Tuesdays with Dorie | Key Ingredient: Carrot

Please pardon the interruption in our programming...

...but your heroine's laptop appears to have to have the stomach flu. So the only time she has access to the internets is from work. My version of Bill's Big Carrot Cake (and a handful of other goodies) will appear as quickly as possible... but probably without pictures, at least to start.

Donut Muffins. Because Butter makes everything Better

Paired with Katie of One Little Corner of the World for the April Edition of Taste and Create, I chose to replicate her Donut Muffins in my kitchen as an antidote to an hour in commute traffic for me and a tax day treat for my coworkers. Because as a dedicated Dorista, I'm no longer afraid of a pound of butter -- I just make sure the majority of it isn't headed for *my* thighs. The muffins came together quickly and easily; my only modifications to the published recipe were to add a cup and a half of dried blueberries for a little color and to fill the nutritional void, and to nix the cinnamon in the coating in favor of some lavender-vanilla infused sugar. They had a nice dense texture reminiscent of a cake donut and they were a hit among my colleagues: the serving plate was empty in under fifteen minutes.

From the archives...
In 2006 I found my comfort zone in my little corner of the Internets.

Technorati Tags: Food | Baking | Dessert | Taste & Create