sharks fin and szechuan pepper by fuschia dunlop
anyone else reading this? i finished it a few days ago. i couldn't put it down!
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The Ten Most Recent Posts By cybercita
Homemade yogurt -- my second attempt
yesterday i did this: heated a quart of lowfat goat milk until it foamed, let it sit until i could stick a finger in it for ten seconds, whisked in a tablespoon of fage 2%, then poured it into two pint mason jars {if you're a mountain gringo salsa user like me, their mason jars are perfect for yogurt making, except for an unfortunate tendency for the lids to continue to smell fire roasted despite numerous washings}.
i wrapped them in a towel and stuck them in the oven. when i got home at about 11:30 last night, i checked on them. they had cooled off completely and were still liquidy. i put them in a pan of water with the heat on low, then forgot about them for an hour or so. when i remembered them, they had completely separated -- what i had looked like gelatinous curds floating in a huge amount of whey. i left them on the counter to cool and forgot about them once again. this morning when i walked into the kitchen, i opened one and tasted it. it was actually pretty good. i drained off all the whey and froze it, thinking i could use it in bread making sometime. what's left is delicately flavored, just the right amount of tangy, and a little goaty.
i'm considering taking it a step further and draining it through some cheesecloth, but i'm feeling lazy this morning.
anyway, i may just break down and do what alton brown suggested with the heating pad. i had thought about tucking them among the layers of foam mattresses on my bed while they incubated, but that felt too silly.
cake angst
i'm just venting here... i spent this morning baking a cake for my neighbor across the hall, who has a birthday today. she's laid up with a broken leg and none of her friends would come uptown to see her. so i had a tiny little party with the neighbors in our building. as requested by the birthday girl, i made a beautiful yellow cake with swiss meringue buttercream. it contained six organic eggs, two tablespoons of penzey's vanilla, and five and a half sticks of butter, and i used my own homemade vanilla sugar in the cake and the frosting.
so... i'm just a wee bit put out, because one of the guests asked me if it was from a box!
Homemade yogurt -- my first attempt
i made my first batch of yogurt today out of a quart of organic valley 2% milk and a third of a cup of organic valley dried milk. i used a couple of tablespoons of fage yogurt for the starter.
i didn't have a heating pad or a probe thermometer, as suggested by alton, so i decided to try submerging the mason jars of hot milk into a preserving kettle of hot water, then setting the kettle in a cardboard box and insulating it with flannel sheets.
it absolutely turned into yogurt! mirabile dictu! nice and thick! the water was still warm when i took the jars out eight hours later. i took a taste, though, and unfortunately it tasted strongly of the powdered milk. i put it in the refrigerator to chill and i'm hoping that the sweet chalky taste will go away once it's nice and cold.
i remember reading that if you can smell powdered milk, it's too old. i don't know where i can buy fresher powdered milk, though, since i got it at whole foods.
anyway the process was super easy, and certainly a lot cheaper than buying siggi's.
banana cake
does anyone have a really good tried and true recipe {scratch only, please} for a moist, light banana layer cake to share? thanks!
yellow plaintains
i have a passion for fried ripe plaintains, and usually have a couple going in my fruit basket, but it's hit or miss as to whether they will ripen sufficiently into the mushy, golden, sweet and sour fruit of my dreams before getting moldy or dessiccated. or -- they'll sit there for weeks and still be hard and starchy and bland after they blacken. does anyone know how to pick them at the store and ripen them to a reliable sweetness?
A slice of 9th avenue
a couple of years ago, i attended a dance performance alvin ailey, which is located on 9th avenue and 55th street. on my way there, i stopped into a little hole in the wall pizza joint and had an astonishingly good slice of pizza. all i can remember is that it must be in the 50's on the west side of the street, and i think it's below 55th but above 50th. the place itself was small with nothing more than a counter and a few tables. i think it had white walls and a white tile floor. they were mildlyl surprised when i told them how great their pizza was.
does anyone here {hey adam, are you there?} know of this place and if it still exists?
Bittersweet chocolate vs. semisweet for Passover cake???
The recipe calls for semi sweet, but I bought bittersweet by mistake. Can I use it anyway?
smoked garlic at fairway
having read about the wonderful smoked garlic at fairway by a guest blogger on bitten, mark bittman's blog, i bought some. it smelled fantastic, i must say. i used it for the first time this evening. wanting to showcase the taste of the garlic, i used it to prepare a simple sauce. i poached four cloves of chopped garlic in unsalted butter and tossed it over some spaghetti.
i must say quite frankly that for such expensive garlic, i was really disappointed to see that quite a few of the cloves had sprouted and were so full of green germ that there wasn't much meat left. and i couldn't even taste a hint of smoke!
the verdict? don't waste your money.
baking challah
i've been baking challah for a few weeks after not having baked bread regularly for a couple of decades, and i have some questions. how do you get a chewy, pully texture, like the amy's bread challah? mine is very tender crumbed, which is ok, but i'm hoping to achieve the kind of bread that sort of bites back, and that you can pull apart in strands.
is all purpose better than bread flour to get that type of crumb? also, do people have any feelings about sugar versus honey? do you have a recipe you can share? and has anyone tried baking mimi sheraton's challah recipe from in my mother's kitchen? is an autolyse necessary?
hey, you bread bakers, come out and talk to me!
The Ten Most Recent Comments By cybercita
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
aside from the usual knives and pots and pans? i'm with you, kuromu, my flat wooden spatula is never far from my hand! i also adore my microplane zester. if i think about what i use most often, the salad spinner is also in constant use.
Foods We Loved as Kids, Maybe Not as Adults
froot loops. used to love them, but just the smell of them now makes me run from the room.
there's quite a long list but i'll leave it at that.
A Horse is a Horse, of Course of Course... How About Dinner?
i can remember my mother feeding cans of horsemeat cat food to our cats when i was very small. i wonder when it was discontinued?
Potatoes for a gratin
if you have jeffrey steingarten's the man who ate everything, he has a terrific chapter on making gratins.
If your metabolism went from Phelps to couch potato...
eatorama, LOL!
i AM one of those people. i am very careful about watching what i eat and i work out constantly. here's what i don't eat or drink, except as a very special treat, purely in order to stay out of the plus size section: meat, cheese, ice cream, potato chips, butter, mayonnaise, bagels, bread that's not whole grain, french fries, chocolate, alcohol or soda. and i rarely if ever eat out.
it's a full time job for me to not be obese.
Thoughts on Babbo?
good luck getting a reservation!
but everything we had there was just stellar. i loved the foie gras ravioli and the house cured meats.
Cheap, nonperishable, healthy snack recipes?
these are far from cheap, but i adore freeze dried fruits from this company:
especially their mango and apricot.
i try to keep some nuts and dried fruit with me so that i'm not tempted to eat pizza or bagels when i'm out. i keep them in my backpack in a ziploc and store it in little cosmetic case.
Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 30: 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Scale
my osteopath's office is a block from there, and i see her as often as she'll let me, just for yura's apricot walnut scones and sour cherry cobbler!
Responses to Comments by cybercita
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
Rubber Spatch has to be up there. It's good for so many things and I can toss it in the dishwasher when I'm done with it. I also love my lemon squeezer as I seem to get the most out of a lemon (juicewise) without seeds. (Knives are a given.)
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
Other than knives and pots and pans (this would be the post that never ends if I were to start listing them:-)): microplane, bamboo spatulas (all 5 of them) and silicone spatulas (all 3 of them), citrus juicer, citrus zester, silicone basting brush(es), mortar & pestle, kitchen scale, apple slicer (yes, I know, it's lazy of me but oh so convenient!), small whisk, milk frother, tin opener...ooh, I can't do that, it's like asking which one of your children is your favourite -- they all are! Seriously.
Reminds me of the time my little brother had a collection of sticks when he was 4 or 5, and whenever our father tried to throw one away, he would say, "But Daddy, this is the most important one!" Of course they all were the most important ones. That's how I feel about my kitchen tools!
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
My Kyocera ceramic knife is my favorite, close 2nd is a wood spoon/spatula that I picked up for a couple bucks. I use both almost every time I cook. 3rd is my Descoware Dutch oven, love that ceramic-coated cast iron.
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
My wostuf tomato knife... I actually have 2 and I use them ALLLLLLL the time. And I also love the English whisk, I even wrote something on it . And I use my blender almost everyday...
Madelyn
KarmaFreeCooking
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
++ on the salad spinner. It's one thing I always thought was silly but now that I have one it gets used at least three times a week and heavily on farmers' market days.
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
tongs...I always say I can never have enough tongs.
What Are Your Favorite Kitchen Tools?
My favorite tool? My J.A. Henckels Twin Four Star 10" High Carbon Stainless Steel Chef's Knife
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Location: new york, new york
About: i live in manhattan and my apartment has a real kitchen. how lucky am i? in life: occupational therapist in private practice. in my dreams: food writer, in the vein of nigel slater, or my hero, laurie colwin.
Favorite foods: too numerous to mention, but anything tastes great when you eat it in paris!
Last bite on earth: an entire pastrami sandwich and a bowl of half sours from katz's deli washed down with a liter of doctor brown's black cherry, no sharing. followed by a homemade cheesecake with raspberry sauce.