The Adventures of Tin-Tin

Happy V-Day!

 

 

Ebelskiver

I made ebelskiver today after buying an ebelskiver pan at Tyler Florence's kitchen supply store in Mill Valley yesterday. I'm not sure what possessed me to buy it. And I'm not sure what possessed me to make ebelskiver either considering that I have no energy and I am sick with a sore throat. The tummy wants what the tummy wants, I guess. 

Photo courtesy of Williams-Sonoma.com 

What are ebelskiver? The easiest way to describe ebelskiver is a small Danish pancake puff that is sometimes filled with jam, chocolate or whatever. I put bits of banana in mine. They were wonderful. I think next time I will try making it with rice flour so it has more resistance. If you know what takoyaki are, then picture a sweet dessert takoyaki and you get ebelskiver. I'm too lazy to take pictures so check out a fellow bay area blogger's post on making ebeskiver. The recipe I used was from Williams-Sonoma. I did some searching and found that you can either make dense ebelskiver using any pancake recipe or you can make them lighter by folding whipped egg whites into the batter.

Iphone test post

Homemade Ricotta

As a lover of all things dairy, few things are more inspiring to me than whole milk. It's so creamy and pure. I rarely buy it since I am almost always on some sort of diet that regulates fat, but I couldn't help myself from buying a gallon when I saw the latest issue of Bon Appetit Magazine containing a recipe for fresh homemade ricotta. Who knew it could be so simple? I will probably never go back to store-bought-white-opaque-container ricotta again.

After heating a mixture of whole milk and salt, lemon juice is added. The acid causes the milk to curdle. After about two minutes, the curds are easily skimmed using a slotted spoon.

Here's what the curds look like all clumpy and mooshy as they are draining in cheesecloth.
It's such a wonderful treat. If you don't want to bother, Whole Foods sells homemade ricotta cheese that is almost just as good as making it yourself. Next time, I will try making ricotta using vinegar since this recipe left the ricotta with a hint of lemon.

Aside from serving it warm on flatbread with a little salt, my favorite way to enjoy ricotta is with creamy scrambled eggs.

Soft Scrambled Eggs with Fresh Ricotta and Chives courtesy of Bon Appetit.

• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
• 1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel or coarse kosher salt plus more for sprinkling
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup fresh ricotta cheese
• 4 1/3- to 1/2-inch-thick slices whole grain bread or 8 whole grain baguette slices, lightly toasted and buttered
• Whole chives (optional)

Whisk eggs, chopped chives, and 1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel in medium bowl until well blended. Melt butter in heavy medium nonstick skillet over medium heat. When foam subsides, add eggs and stir with heatproof silicone spatula until eggs are almost cooked but still runny in parts, tilting skillet and stirring with spatula to allow uncooked portion to flow underneath, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Add ricotta and stir just until incorporated but clumps of cheese are still visible.

Arrange 2 toasts or 4 baguette slices on each of 2 plates. Spoon scrambled eggs atop toasts. Sprinkle with more fleur de sel and pepper. Garnish with whole chives, if desired.

From Epicurious.com

Salsa La Gloria

 

I'm not a big fan of spicy or hot food. I order everything mild and I pick out all the peppers from my vietnamese sandwichess. My brother and sister are the same way. So for us to shovel in chips and hot salsa nonstop for half an hour is rare. Oooooh but this is no ordinary salsa! I was fanning my mouth (yeah like that helps) and each scoop felt like hot lava burning my taste buds. But I couldn't stop.

Salsa La Gloria is made by Bay Area-based Fernandez Specialty Foods. We got our Salsa La Gloria experience from the Santana Row Farmers Market in San Jose. It's nice because you get to try the salsas before you buy them. I love farmers markets. :)

My favorite one is the one with tomatillo, avocado, lime and garlic. I'm sure there was something else in there because my mouth was on fire, but it was soooo tasty. With every bite, you'd get a kick of salt, lime, creamy avocado and molten hot lava. So many layers! Then I would alternate with the salsa made with cucumbers. It was a very refreshing experience. For luxurious breakfasts, I like to put the cucumber salsa on creamy scrambled eggs and eat it with hot buttered tortillas and super sweet little grape tomatoes. If you've never had homemade salsa before, and even if you have, you should get your hands on Salsa La Gloria.

Herve Mons Camembert

Photo courtesy of the SFGate.com

J would not touch this stuff because he said it smelled rotten. I thought it smelled mushroomy and there was no ammonia smell at all. Someone on some cooking show said the best cheeses smell like the feet of angels. The special camembert cheese made by award-winning cheesemaker Herve Mons especially for Whole Foods is one of those delicate stinkers. On election night/J's birthday, I was at the Cupertino Whole Foods (or as I like to call it, the center of all things liberal, expensive and good) searching for this cheese. I was informed that it sold out on the day the San Francisco Chronicle ran the article and would not be in for a few weeks. The night before Thanksgiving--there it was! I tried it and it was good. Very good.

Heirloom Beans--Eye of the Goat

Today I made a pot of beans using one of the methods suggested by Steve Sando in his book "Heirloom Beans." 

Last weekend, we bought heirloom beans at Whole Foods. They are called "eye of the goat" and are known for their meaty taste and rich texture. I was very excited to try them since I looooove beans. I've been seeing special gourmet beans at the Ferry Building Farmers' Market on Saturdays, but I have always just kinda put my hands in the touching beans and left without buying anything. Beans can be intimidating. Most of the time I just open up a can of beans and they are ready to go. But I wanted to try something new and J just bought me this wonderful book. Anyway, I just soaked them in some water overnight and boiled them in their beany liquid along with some garlic and celery for 2 hours. The results looked like kidney beans but they tasted more like boiled peanuts. Maybe they need to be cooked more? The broth was meaty even though there was no meat. Although it is a good pot of beans, I don't know what to do with them now. They are good enough to eat by themselves with a little of the broth, but I'm not sure if mashing them up would hide their beany wonder-goodness. The cookbook says I could make chilaquiles with them but I'm not in the mood to cook. Oh well. Sometimes things are just better left alone. Or eaten like boiled peanuts.

The Omnivore's Hundred

The Omnivore's Hundred is a list of 100 items that Andrew Wheeler from Very Good Taste, thinks every omnivore should try at least once in his or her life.

Here are the rules:
1. Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2. Bold all the items you’ve eaten (I've used icons instead, and added an asterisk for the items I'm particularly fond of).
3. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4. Optional extra: post a comment on Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

Tin-Tin's Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47.Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carobchips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Molepoblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

oatmeal

I am moving in a few weeks and so the process has gotten me sorting through places and things that normally don't see much action. Today, I examined the back of the pantry. I found LOTS of oatmeal, grits, rancid nuts and beef jerky that might be acceptable during an emergency. Why do I have 8 packages of oatmeal? I was never a big fan, but I stocked up on it during hardcore early stages of dieting. If given the choice between oatmeal and anything else, I will likely choose anything else. Unless the oatmeal has brown sugar, butter and raisins. But that defeats the purpose of dieting. Oatmeal is just a means to an end. It is a vehicle for other things we'd rather be eating more of--like cream, berries, honey, brown sugar and nuts. In it's greatest form, it is the base for a wonderful cookie. I can't imagine any one liking oatmeal plain.

So now I have boxes and boxes of oatmeal to remind me of all the Phase 1's of my dieting lifespan. I don't want to throw out all this perfectly semi-edible food. After some  research I found that oatmeal never really goes bad. However there is a point when it probably starts to taste like wet sawdust. I guess the important factor is taste since palatability seems to disappear way before edibility.

Someone actually suggested tasting the oatmeal while it was raw. That way you can taste it to see if it's stale AND check for weevils. yay.

Just Married 07.25.2008